Forbes Family Blog: March 2014

January 2014 Letter No. 214

Dear all,

OUR JAPANESE TOUR Day 4 – Osaka to Kyoto

On the morning of New Year’s Eve we took the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Kyoto. There is so much to see in Kyoto; it is so full of historical sights and traditional culture. It is a special place for Japanese people to visit at New Year, so we were looking forward to a very traditional experience. Katie had booked us into a Japanese-style guesthouse. Our room had no furniture, just four fold-out futons with bedding and the tiniest en-suite bathroom I have ever seen. We went for lunch at a local restaurant. The menu outside had pictures of food and we thought we could just point to the meals we wanted, but inside there was no attendant. You had to put money in a vending machine and order on a computer screen, with all the instructions in Japanese. After lots of fiddling around and some help from other customers, we managed to produce a set of tickets, hoping that they were for our meals! Amazingly this worked quite well and our delicious hot noodle dishes appeared in seconds. Most of them were even the ones that we had ordered!

Our first stop in Kyoto was the Kyoto Tower. It is only 100m tall but has uninterrupted views all around the city. It was a little disconcerting as you could feel the building moving quite significantly. There was a traditional Geisha in the tower at the same time. Apparently there are only 1000 geisha left in Japan and 186 of these are in Kyoto which is a centre of excellence for Geisha! This lady had the full costume and ornaments in her hair. In the afternoon we visited a couple of temples. The Higashi Hongan-ji temple complex was very grand and gaudy. Originally constructed in 1602, it is one of the largest timber buildings in the world. There is a massive rope on display made of human hair used in the reconstruction, which had been donated by female devotees in the 1890s. Quite bizarre! Afterwards we saw the nearby Nishi Hongan-ji temple, which looked pretty similar to the previous temple but was still quite impressive. The timber columns were about 800mm in diameter and about 15m tall to the ceiling.

Happily we located a Delifrance Café for tea, pastries and hot chocolates, and then we went to a nearby Onsen. This is a traditional Japanese bathhouse. Jessica almost refused to go in when we told her she had to be naked in the bathhouse with everyone else. She decided to be brave and we set off into the male and female sections. You had to strip off and then wash yourself within an inch of your life before you got into any of the spa baths. We washed ourselves with soap and rinsed off three times as we had been instructed. We then spent half an hour trying all the different temperature spas, sauna and even the electric pool (which gave mild electric shocks to contract your muscles). Matthew and I were the youngest people in the sauna by quite a long way and most of the men seemed to be in their 60s or 70s! We had quite a fun time and could have stayed longer but had arranged what time to meet the girls outside. Their experience was quite similar to ours and we all agreed it was an interesting and cleansing way to spend the afternoon. We went back to the guesthouse for a bit of down time before heading out for the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

In the evening, we caught a taxi out to Gion which is Kyoto’s famous entertainment and Geisha district. It is a long street with contemporary nightlife, restaurants and shops. We decided to have an Indian dinner for a change of cuisine and then followed the crowds up to the Maruyama-keon temple complex at the end of the main street in Gion. It was so busy with thousands of people there to worship at the temples to bring them luck for the New Year. There were hundreds of street stalls selling food and temple offerings. Many people were dressed in traditional Japanese costumes and whenever they met anyone else in traditional dress they would bow deeply. It was really very charming. We wandered around looking at all the sights for ages, then went to the temple and made a donation and rang the temple bell for long life and prosperity. Afterwards we walked back down to Gion and found an Irish Bar where we had a few drinks and played cards to celebrate the New Year. After our long day we didn’t make it to midnight, but went back to our guesthouse to sleep on our futons, all laid out on the floor in a row like sardines in a tin.

Day 5 - Kyoto

Today we did a self-guided Walking Tour of Southern Higashiyama. It took us most of the day. It was a short train ride from our hotel. The first stop on the walk was a temple, Shoren-in. It had giant camphor trees growing outside the wall. The main hall dates from 1895 but the sliding screens within the temple date from the 16^th and 17^th centuries. We went and sat in the temple and contemplated the beautiful gardens. The next temple was Chion-in which was established in 1234 AD but the oldest surviving buildings were from the 17^th century. We decided that it was just too cold to keep taking our shoes off and walking around on cold wooden temple floors in our socks so we just wandered around the grounds. There is a giant bell in the grounds which was cast in 1633 and weighs 70 tonnes. It is the largest bell in Japan and is traditionally rung 108 times every New Year’s Eve.

We walked on through Maruyama-koen park and had a street stall lunch while watching the rickshaws pulling people through the park. We saw another two Geishas out in the park in full costume with white painted faces. Everyone gets very excited to see them and lots of people, including local Japanese, stop and take photos of them as they pass. We went on to Ishibei-koji, well-known as Kyoto’s most beautiful street. It is filled with old wooden houses, traditional shops, restaurants and tea houses. We stopped in a tiny tea house for green tea and traditional Japanese sweets which consisted mainly of sweet red bean paste and no one liked but me!

We went on to Tainai-meguri which is a set of stone steps descending into the earth below the Jishu-jinga temple. Our guidebook describes this as “symbolically entering the womb of the female bodhisattva”. The passage is pitch black and it twists and turns underground; you can only find your way by holding a rope that runs along the walls. Katie absolutely hated this experience and had a total panic attack half way through, clinging on to Matt and I, while Jessica simply refused to go in at all. Eventually you emerge at the other end to a large spinning stone under a spotlight. You have to give the stone a few pushes to keep it turning before emerging into the temple complex again. It was alarmingly busy with all the worshippers as it was New Year’s Day and we were all very nervous in the crushing crowds and were glad to be out the other side. We went on to the waterfall where we queued to drink the water from a special waterfall, believed to bestow health and longevity.

After a long day of walking we were happy to take a cab back to the guesthouse for a slump in front of the TV watching weird Japanese games shows and lovely hot baths. We found a British pub only a block from the guesthouse serving Japanezed versions of British pub favourites which was quite funny.

Day 6 - Kyoto

First stop this morning was Kyoto train station to book our tickets to Tokyo the next day. Unfortunately the only available seats on the train were unreserved seats so we decided to risk it and just hope we find seats the next day. We went on to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a massive shrine complex, dedicated to the gods of rice and sake and other deities which ensure prosperity in business. The complex sprawls across the wooded slopes of the mountain, with a 4km pathway lined with thousands of bright red torii. A torii is two posts and a cross beam painted red with black pedestals and Japanese characters on the posts in black. The line the entire pathway, positioned really close together, often only a few centimetres apart. There were also hundreds of statues of foxes. The fox is seen as a sacred mysterious figure, capable of possessing humans but also the messenger of the god of the rice harvest. There were dozens of shrines dotted along the paths. It was again very crowded for the holiday season. It was really very spectacular walking along the path with the bright red torii along the pathways, and we took lots of great photos.

We walked back to the train station and then caught a train to Arashiyama. We stopped for lunch in a restaurant with an excellent view over the Arashiyama mountains and the river. We all had delicious tempura for lunch. It was warm and filling and a welcome respite from the cold.

We walked through the village and out to the Arashiyama Monkey Park, which is home to over 200 Japanese monkeys of all shapes and sizes. It is a steep walk up the mountain to a feeding station at the top. There was a lovely warm fire inside. The feeding station is basically a cage for the humans and the monkeys roam around free outside and come over to the human “cage” to be fed peanuts and apple. There were lots of really cute baby monkeys there too.

We walked on to the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, a spectacular bamboo forest. The bamboo stalks seem to continue on forever in all directions, creating cool green tunnels and pathways. It was quite mysterious and lovely. We caught the train back to our guesthouse and grabbed some sushi on the way home for a night in at the communal kitchen and living room.

Day 7 – Kyoto to Tokyo

We had a 2½ hour bullet train ride to Tokyo in the morning. We arrived at the station at 8:30am and were surprised to discover that the 8am train had not left. The Japanese Shinkansen always runs to time and the Japanese people are among the most regimented in the world, so this seemed very unusual. We went up to the platform and realised that there was a major problem with the trains. We had unreserved seats for this journey and just had to hop on and grab a seat. Luckily the train pulled out of the station and we quickly hopped onto the next one and got seats. We were really lucky as many people couldn’t find seats and had to stand in the aisles all the way to Tokyo. The train then sat at the platform for another 2½ hours! Eventually we learned that there had been a building fire next to the tracks just outside Tokyo, so all trains on the line were stopped. We eventually set off at midday but the train kept stopping all the way to Tokyo, due to the trains bunched up ahead of us waiting to get to the platforms. We eventually arrived four hours later than planned. Tokyo station was bedlam with passengers everywhere queuing to get refunds, and crowds much worse than we ever experienced in Hong Kong.

We took the subway and then a taxi to our hotel. Every taxi journey we had in Japan was difficult. The drivers all seem to be well into their seventies and blind as bats. Even when you have your destination written in Japanese and you know it is less than 1km from the station, the drivers are still completely baffled. Much head scratching, mobile phone calls, consultation of the street directory and the sat nav will ensue before setting off.

Our Ryoken (Japanese style guest house) was beautiful though. It was about 4:30pm by the time we arrived so we abandoned our plans for the afternoon and just explored the beautiful hotel with its tea ceremony room, calligraphy room etc, had showers and headed out for dinner. We went to a local Sushi restaurant where we sat at a counter and the food was prepared right in front of us. The sushi chefs spoke very little English, but were very nice and teased the kids about putting extra wasabi on their sushi. All the fish was so beautiful and fresh and the plates were so beautifully presented. Some other people in the restaurant shared their food with us and chatted in broken English. At the end of the meal the head chef “Boss” came out and posed for a photo with us all. A really fun evening.

Day 8 – Tokyo

We had lost the previous afternoon, so we only had one full day in Tokyo now. We caught the subway straight to the Hama-Rikyu gardens. These were once horse stables and hunting grounds for Japanese nobility, but are now beautifully manicured gardens with lakes, islands, tea houses and flower beds. There is a free audio guide which uses satellite technology to detect your location, guiding you through the gardens and providing an audio commentary. A very impressive system. We also went to the Imperial Palace gardens, a short subway ride away. In its heyday the Japanese Imperial Palace was the largest palace in the world but little remains now except the moat and the walls. We would have liked to tour the palace but it is only open on two days a year and you have to book months in advance.

We took the subway to the Edo-Tokyo museum but had to stop for tea and chocolate cake before going in. It was a very cold day. The museum is an impressive building with five-storey legs at three of the corners and totally open space beneath. It looks like a futuristic giant metal bug out of Star Wars. The museum explains the history of Tokyo and its development as a city from the Middle Ages to the present day. There are dozens of large, intricately-detailed models of the city in various stages through history. There was a dancing display similar to a Chinese Lion dance during the afternoon as well. The most interesting section to us was the part about the Second World War. During the last months of the war the Americans bombed civilian areas of Tokyo. Most of the houses were wooden so there were terrible fires following the bombing raids. The fires were so intense that American bomber pilots were said to be able to read their watches in a blacked-out plane at 20,000 feet from the glow from the fires. In one air raid in March 1945, 100,000 people were killed in a single night raid. There were some very disturbing photos of the destruction and piles of dead bodies in the street. The Japanese Surrender Document was also on display.

When we came out of the museum it was 5:30pm and dark. Matthew wanted to go to Shibuya Crossing, a road crossing at Shibuya in front of the metro station, which is said to be the world’s busiest. It is known as “The Shibuya Scramble”. There was an awesome display of giant video screens on buildings up to ten storeys high with flashing neon lights and masses of people. There is a five-way road intersection and when the lights change people can cross in every direction. There are sometimes up to 2500 people on the pedestrian crossing. We found a vantage point and just watched the mad rush of people underneath the neon lights for a while. This really felt like the “real” Tokyo. We wandered around the shops for a while and then found an Italian Restaurant for dinner before catching the subway back to our Ryoken at the end of a very long day. Tomorrow we head off to the Japan Alps for skiing; more on that in our next letter.

Cheers, Derek, Katie, Matthew and Jessica.