Koyasan

Here's a quick, long overdue entry for our trip to Koya-san. In a nutshell, this place is ace. A two hour train ride south of Osaka takes you into one of the most sacred places in Japan. Nestled in the Kii Mountain range, this town is one of three sites included in the World Heritage listing.

Its a fantastic place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. We had arranged overnight accommodation with one of the 60 (i think) temple lodgings (Shukubo). The stay included authentic vegetarian cooking (Shojin-ryori) and a 6am prayer session.

Its great to come here to see temples and shrines intertwined with the natural beauty of Japan. A fantastic contrast to the bleakness of the city, and without the hordes of tourists in Kyoto. We want to come back here to attempt more hiking. We did try some on this trip, but failed in a way we are not proud of!

Upon deciding that we should attempt some hiking in the afternoon of the second day, we conveniently forget our maps and proper attire before we leave our lodging. We then purchase fragile paper products to take with us on our hike through the forest. The afternoon arrives, and we decide to start our hike at a halfway point, going in the opposite direction suggested on the maps. We take an hour to find the "entrance" to the hike, conveniently placed behind a two storey carpark next to a toilet block. Yay! We start our fantastic hike. Ange is already tired and is showing signs of annoyance, which I should have taken as a sign and abandoned the whole thing. We walk for 40 minutes and come to a fork in the road. Using our newly acquired maps in Japanese, we try to decipher the signpost. To cut an already long story short, we end up taking a wrong turn, which lead us to a road off the map, in the middle of nowhere. After a lot of swearing and cursing, we find it takes us back to the place where we started our hike. Great times.

We find later that the main tourist office has hiking maps in English, and they also advise people how to navigate "tricky" parts of the walk! However, we are still determined to take this pilgrimage track, this time going the way suggested.

In all, it was an ace adventure. We know what we want to do next time!

Rich







Unesco link

Bike ride around Osaka

Ange and I had a little 30km bike ride today. Although it doesn't sound like much, keep in mind we were on our one speed granny bikes (complete with baskets). Fortunately for us, 99.8% of the city is flat as a tack. We now have arses of steel.

Highlights of todays tour of this city include:

• Our first adventure further than 5km from our place on our bikes
• Riding like madmen/women
• Having lunch with friends at a cosy Malaysian restaurant in Umeda
• Avoiding stepping foot in Yodobashi Camera store
• Taking an impromptu trip through the longest undercover shopping strip in Japan, comprising of 2.6km of shopping heaven hell.
• Taking another impromptu trip along the banks of Okawa River, and actually seeing more green than grey in Osaka
• Enjoying the wide footpaths of the business district
• Worried that we would be arrested for riding like monkeys as we rode through 30-40 uniformed police (it looked like a head of state visit)
• Having weird sweets on the steps of the deserted National Museum of Art
• Riding through Utsubo park while roses were in full bloom
• Actually getting home in one piece

Here's a map of our travels today. I'll post some reference pictures on the map soon

Cheers.

R

View Larger Map

"What else has been happening in randa world?"

Let's see...

1. Went to the sumo tournament.
2. We went to a house/apartment party.
3. We moved upstairs to our new abode
4. Took Steve's new bbq out for a spin
5. Went to Kobe, ran into some crazy guy in the middle of the mountain, had yummy gyoza in Chinatown and had Campari and soda in a really cool European cafe (Alliance Graphique).
5. Now on holiday - Golden week - and drinking loads of Campari and soda and soaking up the lovely warm spring days....

Osaka Castle

What's that I hear?

The sound of music?

Yes!!

We now have a digital piano and also a second-hand digital drumkit. Rich had been eyeing the drumkit for a couple of weeks now, so he as quite excited when I suggested I'd get it for him. It's so much fun.

The piano is quite good and although it doesn't compare to my baby grand (being looked after by the Thia's - thanks! I hope you're enjoying playing on it, Elaine.), it definitely does bring home how much I miss playing. Aah...music is here at last!

Kobe Trip #1

We arrived at 12.30pm in Sannomiya, Kobe. It looked like we had picked another gorgeous day for a day trip.
We went to the Shin-kobe ropeway (cablecar) up to Nunobiki Park. (440yen each, one-way) Beautiful views of the port area and city. Clear blue skies.


Then walked around the large park and then started our descent down the mountain through the Herb Park - admission at 200yen each. We tried to get out of paying as we'd thought there was no one at the booth, but the attendant magically appeared to take our monies! A well-maintained garden, neatly grouped in categories from cooking herbs to medicinal herbs. The herb 'garden' was really just a small paved area arranged in a grid, amidst a larger park.














As it was closing time, we walked out of the park and then began our journey downwards on a hiking trail. On the way, we passed a really nice waterfall and sat there for a bit while we munched on some snacks. It was quite peaceful, just hearing the sound of gushing water and birds chirping. We also stopped at a reservoir; it holds Kobe's supply of water. Very clean and refreshing!
Part of the way was a little tedious to do in our non-hiking boots. This is quite a popular route for keen hikers all geared up. We even saw a team of young base ballers training. They would run up the steep and narrow track and run just as fast down!
We also ran into a crazy man in the middle of the mountain. We had turned up a narrow path and had thought this would lead to another waterfall. Then we started hearing strange noises and saw this skinny guy with a hat up ahead. He was kind of groaning and grunting to himself. I think he saw us and then started pointing his water bottle at us. I got a little worried as the path was really narrow and we couldn't avoid him even if we wanted to. Suddenly the groaning stopped, and he was nowhere to be seen. So, relieved, we continued up this path.
All of a sudden, Crazy Man jumped out of the bushes to our left! I nearly screamed in fright. Bloody hell! We'd thought he'd gone away! He didn't do anything more other than continue his grunting to himself as we hurried past him.
Unfortunately, the path looked like it would lead back up the mountain, so we had to reluctantly turn back and head down towards Crazy Man again. We kept our eyes down as we walked past him, still grunting and all. Strange! We could still hear the grunting as we walked away from him.
The sun had already set by the time we reached the city centre. I had heard of Kobe's chinatown and wanted to sample its food. It was situated nearer the port area, so was quite a walk to find it. And you wouldn't guess who we saw again. Yup, Crazy Man! I swear he was stalking us. Luckily, we were walking behind him at this pedestrian crossing.
We literally fell upon Nankin Machi (Kobe's answer to Chinatown) and it was surprisingly quiet. It was distinctly 'chinese' with heaps of red pillars and Chinese lanterns adorning restaurants. There were Chinese waitresses calling out to potential patrons, beckoning them to try their fare. Chinese food is a little more expensive in Japan.








Except for this little gyoza eatery we found. This dodgy place had pretty decent gyozas (fried dumplings, 6 for 380yen) and udon with meat sauce (600yen). We even had seconds of the gyozas.


Quite happily full after, we headed towards the port area to walk off our gyozas. It was quite a pleasant stroll, through an area which was reminiscent of Melbourne's Docklands, though not as many restaurants.
We discovered a European style cafe (in the middle of nowhere) on the way to the port, and returned here for a drink. It really reminded us of the cafes we'd been to in Europe, with its decor and lights. We had to order a very distinctly European drink of Campari and soda. Yum! Mental note to return here in the near future.