May 2017 Back in Japan

September 12 Tokyo to Karuizawa

My poor toe.

We did a day-trip to Karuizawa. What a lovely day!

We took the Shinkansen to the town of Karuizawa, which is a resort town in the mountains an hour bullet train ride from Tokyo. The crown prince met his wife in Karuizawa and it is very fashioable with this weird outlet mall on one side of the tracks and this quaint town on the other. 

We picked up this hiking trail on the other side of the small town. It roughly follows a toll road into the mountains up to these falls. Toll road is a odd term, if I said toll road in Boston I would think the Mass Pike and 8 lanes of traffic. This toll road is barely wide enough for two cars. Anyhow the hiking trail also follows this stream up the mountain so it is gorgeous. 

We hit a minor waterfall Ryengengi and finally this bigger waterfall which is this horseshoe falls with a lake at the bottom. Luckily we caught a bus back (we had been hiking for over four hours and another hour walking around the town. My blister was really hurting by the time we got back to Tokyo.

September 9, 2014 Bunny Island

 

 

This morning when I woke up, I was sure we had overslept and were going to miss Okunoshima, aka Bunny Island. The trip from Osaka I researched thoroughly and new the clockwork of connections required to catch the ferry. We also had to check out of the hotel, get our luggage over to the new hotel and  make it through the maze around the station all by 9:02.  When J was still asleep at 7:30, I had given up. However, we woke up about 7:55 and said let's try. We frantically showered packed the room and we're out of the hotel by 8:30. Somehow we managed to get to Osaka station by 8:45 and had time to reserve our seats and get Starbucks for the ride. We grabbed the yogurt we bought the night before and had breakfast on the train.

The shinkansen ride was about an hour and a half until we had to change to the poky little local train from Mihara to Tandanoumi where we caught the ferry. This little line called the Kure line hugs the coastline with fantastic views of the bays dotted with islands. This is an area I want to return to just for the scenic beauty. I think most tourists play connect the dots across the famous landmarks in Japan (including myself) and forget that along the coastline are magnificent vistas even if the work-a-day towns are not precious.

Arriving in Tandanoumi presented a slightly industrial village,  with a short walk to the ferry.  We had about twenty minutes and quickly grabbed a bowl of soba, from a little Shop. The woman at the shop even ran out to hold the ferry while we finished our noodles.

 

 

 

        

 

 

The small boat to Okunoshima was packed. We met two nice guys from Austria and chatted a bit. Arriving at the quiet dock most people hopped on a bus,  but we walked to a covered picnic area for our first encounter with the bunnies. Sitting in the shade of the warm afternoon,  when you approach they come to you begging for food. We bought rabbit food pellets from the soba lady and I rewarded our firs tbunnies with a snack.

Walking along the road we casually encountered one or two bunnies cooling themselves under a bush. In larger groups they would fight over food and there were definitely alpha bunnies.

  

Around the bend along a beach was a nice visitor center/nature center. From the outside it was a non-descript but nice building but inside was a very expressive wood framed structure with hints of Frank Lloyd Wright.

 

After many more pictures of bunnies we walked to the only semblance of civilization on the island, which is a bland institutional hotel that had the islands only restaurant. Thankfully we ate in Tandanoumi. There also a gift shop that didn't understand the branding potential of the island. Gifts with both a bunny on them and the name of the island were hard to find, besides a t-shirt with highly stylized kanji but no bunny.

After a brief bio-break, we continued to walk around the island enjoying fantastic views of the ocean, and other mountainous islands around. The shady Hills were welcome on the warm day for us and the overheated bunnies.

The trip back was relaxing on the shinkansen arriving back in Osaka at 6:45. I did some research on Aomori and what we could do if we took the train there.

September 11, 2014 Arashiyama

 

 

Returning to Arashiyama was like returning to an old friend. Just outside the city limits of Kyoto, it is a leafy suburb ringed with Temples. All of my criticisms of Kyoto melt away when I arrive in Arashiyama. Granted the main street feel like a tourist trap, but there is an elegant charm about it, that reminds me of other cities that originally served as escapes from the city before being absorbed as a suburb of the larger city. In some ways Arashiyama reminds me of Bath England. It has the quality of being precious and yet real, because people actually live here and the preserved quality of its architectural attraction fits seamlessly into the everyday rather than some hyper preserved moment in time.

We grabbed lunch at the train station. Like most Japanese Cities there is a maze of shoppinag and food under the train station and we found a really nice Korean place that had a lunch set for 910 yen (basically $8.00) The set consisted of a salad, cold noodles (oishi) and a small bi bim bap.

I wanted to take the bus from Kyoto station. Mostly because on my other trips I took the train and it felt disconnected. Stopping at all the spots along the way in Kyoto made it seem much more connected to the city than I previously thought, but the trip took nearly 35 minutes and was not as comfortable as the train.

That being said you are dropped right in the middle of town into the bussle of the area. We wandered into a little shop mostly because the advertised restrooms, but it actually turned out to be a little community center that included a photo gallery and shop that sold stuff for Disabled Adults. J bought some mugs and I bought some fabric tea cup holders that were folded like origami. These might come in handy when holding a hot little tea cup!

 

The first stop was the bamboo grove. It is in the back of Tennoji Temple that I visited the last time. Although the Temple has a nice garden and is a world heritage site, I felt like this trip it was the bamboo grove I was after. This is another of those times that memory elevates thing. The grove felt smaller and less sublime than my last visit. Regardless it is still impressive! I was not able to replicate the impressive picture I took five years ago (see the J4 09 blog). It was nice to be back and be able to share this place with J. The filtered light through the bamboo danced in the warm day. As the breeze picked up the bamboo clicked against each other creating a hollow rhythmic cadence for us to wander through.

Today was about wandering. On my last visit I stopped in at a bunch of Temples, but this time it was about walking through the city and enjoying a quiet day. Arashiyama is perfect for that and the day was cooler than we have had in a while. Given that when we boarded the bus from Kyoto station it was raining, the perfectly clear sunny day was a special treat.