Our first destination in Kanazawa was Kenroku-en, which is a couple of kilometres from the centre of town where the train and bus stations are located. Our hotel was a 1 minute walk from the bus station and it was pretty simple to find the bus which would take us to the castle and gardens. Like most of the buses in Japan it was a flat rate fare so no worries about how much it was to a specific destination and also no worries about reaching the destination as announcements were made and a screen showed the name of the next stop. In the UK (and most of Europe) I hate buses because I don’t know where I am or where my stop is, whereas here it’s so simple and easy. The fare is paid when you get off and there is the change machine if you only have large notes. Kenroku-en are famous Japanese gardens and considered one of the top three gardens in Japan. The name means, six attributes garden. The attributes were described by a Chinese poet in a poem famous in both China and Japan. The attributes of a perfect landscape are: spaciousness, seclusion, artifice, antiquity, waterways, and panoramas. The garden is huge and really nice. There’s no flowers and very little colour, it’s all about the trees and bushes and water flowing through the garden. We wandered around the huge lake at the top of the garden first, then down past a large steam to another section of the garden. We ended by seeing the fountain, which is supposedly the oldest fountain in Japan. We walked for an hour around the garden and covered almost a mile. © OpenStreetMap contributors Download file: Kenrokuen_Garden.gpx Opposite the gardens is Kanazawa Castle. This is a reproduction of the castle, it burnt down for the final time in 1881 and wasn’t rebuilt until 2001. Before that fire, the castle had burnt down at least 5 times since it was originally built in 1583. I don’t know why the castles weren’t built of stone, but all Japanese castles were built of wood and almost all have burnt down a few times. The Chinese had the same problem with their city gates, built of wood and frequently burning down. Amusingly, the vast majority of the fires were internal, not enemies burning it to the ground but people working within the castle. Oops! And in battle I’d imagine that sitting near the top of a wooden castle is a frightening experience, all the enemy has to do is fire enough blazing arrows at the castle and one of them will probably...
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After visiting the Toyota factory the day before I decided that our hire car should be a Toyota Prius. I’ve never driven a hybrid car before and everything I’ve read about them has convinced me that while they are a good idea in practice they are not much more efficient than a new diesel engine car. Time to see if I was right… Picking up the car was easy but driving away wasn’t so easy. The woman showed a few buttons and pedals, assumed I knew what they meant and left me to drive off. I’ve only driven an automatic once before and never one with a park button or the handbrake as a pedal near the clutch rest. The gear stick selects which mode to go into then pops back into the middle and the park button is used to stick it into park once stopped. Figuring that out in the city centre at traffic lights was fun! Also it won’t go into drive unless the brake pedal is pressed, I found that out when revving the car to pull away from the lights and going nowhere… Our first destination was Inuyama Castle. This is on the outskirts of Nagoya and is one of the four castles that are classed as a national treasure. We parked in the castle car park and walked up the very slippery slope to the castle. We were offered an English speaking guide to show us around the castle, for free, obviously we said yes. Our guide offered to take a photo in what is supposed to be the best photo spot, but the trees covered most of this tiny castle. Inside, the bottom floor, which was used for storage, was tiny. Along its ceiling is a huge wooden beam supporting most of the next floor. It’s original and over 400 years old. Up the steep stairs was the first floor. This had the usual windows to fire arrows out of. There were also boards at the edge of the room to allow rocks to be thrown down onto enemies climbing the walls. We went up another floor and saw where the lord of the castle would sit, on a raised section in the middle of the room. Surrounding him would be his warriors. On display were a number of samurai suits of armour. They were brightly coloured and very decorated making suits of armour in Europe look very plain and boring. On the helmet of each warrior was the family crest. This could be a flower, or horns, etc. Our guide told us about the family crests and how everyone in Japan...
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We were staying in Nagoya for no other reason than to visit the Toyota factory in the nearby city of Toyota. Nagoya has a castle, but we’ve seen many more which are better, and that’s about it. There’s nothing else there of any real interest. We arrived by Shinkansen from Hikone, which we’d visited on the way from Kyoto to Nagoya and it was an easy subway ride to the hotel. Near the hotel therr was a restaurant chain which we have eaten at a few times since we discovered them in Kyoto, it’s called Curry House CoCo Ichibanya. The curry and rice with battered chicken is very filling and pretty good tasting, but best of all is the price. For two curries, a salad and chips we usually spend about £12, not bad in a country where food costs a fortune. And that was our evening, a trip to the curry house and then the convenience store to buy breakfast for the next morning. We were up rather early to go to the Toyota factory. Although it wasn’t far out of the city it would require taking the subway to Nagoya station, then getting on a local train for about half an hour, followed by changing to another local train to Toyota city, followed by a half hour walk to the head office. To get there for 10:30am meant leaving the hotel not long after 8am. We entered the subway and walked onto the platform to join the few people standing around waiting. It wasn’t long before the train pulled up. It was packed, absolutely packed to the brim! There was almost no space on it and this is by far the most crowded train we’d ever been on. We stood in a tiny gap by the door and hoped we’d be OK. Luckily it wasn’t too bad and after a few minutes the train pulled into a station and almost everyone got off. We had one more stop on a now nearly empty train. At the train station we had problems finding where the line we wanted was. It turns out Nagoya Station is one of the largest in the world (although the 55 story tower blocks which are considered part of the station are a bit of a cheat). We finally found where to buy the tickets and where the platforms were and went to wait for the train. We weren’t the only westerners on the platform, two Americans were also there and obviously going to the same place we were. The rest of the journey went without a hitch and we arrived in Toyota city....
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Day 4 Today, we were going to visit at least 3 world heritage sites. First we needed to change hotels again, back to the original hotel. This was because we were unsure how much there was to see in Kyoto before we got bored and when we found out there was a lot more the original hotel we’d booked was quite s lot cheaper than the one we were staying in. So back to the original hotel we went. After we swapped hotels, it was another late start of around 11am. This was a common theme throughout our time in Kyoto. We were always tired, Andrew more so than me, we never made the 9am starts that I had hoped for! We bought a bus pass from the hotel, a single ride costs ¥230 or ¥500 for a day pass. The bus stop was right outside the hotel so we didn’t need to wait long, which was good as it was very hot again with a real feel around 40’c. Our destination was Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Pavilion. I knew this place was actually gold unlike the Silver Pavilion. The bus ride took around 35minutes and the lady I was sat next to was going for lunch. We chatted a bit, I say chatted but I speak no Japanese and her English was similar to my French, very basic. Nonetheless, another friendly Japanese person. Kinkakuju is a small compact temple complex, officially known as Rokuon-ji Temple. There is a beautiful golden Buddhist hall sat on the shores of a lake, meaning on a sunny day you get glistening photos of the temple and its reflection in the pond. It used to be the site of a villa owned by the local Shogun before becoming a temple on his death. This complex is again based on the ‘Pure Land Buddhism’. For me it shows the wealth and power of the Shoguns of the 14th century as the pavilion is covered with gold foil on the upper two levels. On top of the pavilion sits a golden phoenix. We were then asked for an interview by the local school children, who seem to be at every temple complex we went to. It wasn’t really an interview as the questions consisted of ‘do you like Japan’ and ‘ what food have you eaten here’. I received a thank-you card anyhow. Then further along was a small wooden teahouse, we haven’t taken part in a tea ceremony as yet. Most places offer this for ¥500 but we are always so hot it doesn’t seem appealing. Teahouses were very popular with the...
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10 days ago Annemarie wrote about our first impressions of Japan. Now we’ve been here a little longer I can write in more detail about why we still love Japan. I suppose I have to start by saying that my impressions of the country are somewhat altered by our experiences across the rest of Asia. Had we flown here directly from Europe we might have thought a little differently, but probably not much. Japan reminds me of Germany. In fact, it is the Asian equivalent of Germany. Everything is clean, tidy and well organised. Nothing is out of place and everything has a purpose and works exactly as expected. Things are efficient and well thought out and everything has been considered. In everything we touch, everywhere we go and everything we buy we get the impression that someone has thought long and hard about the end user and their needs and requirements. In short, most things are easy to understand, work as expected and are clean. It’s almost perfect. In China everywhere was crowded. Every street wound be filled with people and every tourist attraction ruined by huge crowds. I guess in peak season Japan will be far busier but so far everywhere is very quiet. The Chinese also talk loudly. Well, that’s an understatement, they shout. In Japan people talk at a normal volume making the streets and tourist places so much more pleasant. The Chinese, and most other Asian nations, walk around with no awareness of the space immediately around them. When the Chinese walk they don’t care and other people near them, for example people walking four abreast and clearly blocking the path for others. That’s the norm in China. They don’t care! But in Japan the people are incredibly polite and do their best to ensure the minimum impact on other people. They look behind themselves and consider others before taking an action. That may seem normal for most of the world, but coming from a month and a half in China, it’s brilliant. The politeness doesn’t stop there. Everyone is helpful and polite in Japan. From the greeting when entering a store to the thanks when exiting. The same happens in restaurants. If the kitchen is open the chefs will also welcome new arrivals. Traffic wardens will bow a little and greet you as they stop the traffic to ensure a safe crossing of the road. We’ve even had people stop and put down all their bags to come over and ask take a photo of the two of us in front of a building. Getting around is usually pretty simple. We walk into...
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The castle at Hikone is a considered by Japan to be a national treasure. It is one of 4 castles designated as a national treasure and one of 12 original castle keeps remaining in Japan. Japan castles regularly burnt down, having the design flaw of being made of wood. Stone castles wouldn’t have survived the earthquakes here, so the Japanese shoguns kept rebuilding in wood after the previous fire had destroyed their castle! The town itself is located on the shores of Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. We took a full tour of the lake on the train as a result of me getting on the wrong train. Two hours later we made it to the small town of Hikone. Have a look at the video from the Shinkansen: The castle was built in 1603 and completed in 1622. It managed to survive the Meji period when the Feudal system was dismantled because the Emperor visited and decided to keep it intact. Many of the other castles were destroyed as they were symbols of the Feudal system. The castle is very small and is perched on a large wall about 20m above the surrounding plateau. There was limited information in the castle, a couple of signs so we finished our tour quickly. Inside the castle keep you could climb to the top, up a ladder-like stair case. Definitely not suitable for anyone with frail legs. There wasn’t much to see from the top as chicken wire covered the slit holes previously used for firing arrows. However, it was nice to look at and there was a small garden nearby called Genkyu-en garden. Then we left for Nagoya. This place is fine for a side visit or better still on the way to somewhere else as including the 15 minute walk from the train station you’ll only need around an hour to see it. Posted from Hikone, Shiga Prefecture,...
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