This week sees us hit the road (or more accurately rail and road and rail again) as we explore Osaka, the mountains of the west and then head to Himeji and Hiroshima. Where Tokyo was open and relaxed Osaka is fun, funky and cosmopolitan. Osaka has really shown us the Japanese at play. Osaka, at least the bits we have frequented so far, is for shopping, eating, dressing as stylishly as possible, having fun with friends and family and generally having a good time.
We travel to Osaka from Tokyo on the Shinkansen train which (when you have found the right platform in Tokyo station!!) is very easy. However, we arrive at Tokyo station on a very very rare day – our train is 30 minutes late due to ‘High Winds’!! The annual variance to schedule for Japanese Rail is under 5 minutes – so they had all their late for the entire year on the day we got a train! Again we have luckily picked a great area of the city. On the edge of the shopping district and surrounded by a bewildering array of café’s, bars and restaurants.
Our first full day we head for the famous Osaka Castle – the place is beautiful but with a bloody and very turbulent history. However, this is cherry blossom peak time in Osaka. Osaka is out to play in the gardens around the castle. Every inch of grass under the thousands of cherry trees has people sitting in groups barbequing, eating picnics, drinking, playing musical instruments, chatting, relaxing or even sleeping. There are many more taking pictures of the blossom with or without a loved one in the frame.
There are people everywhere – and they have even brought their dogs with them – dressing in your most stylish outfit also includes your canine best friend – see the pics.
Osaka also presents us with a different level of linguistic challenge. Everywhere we went in Tokyo there was some English either spoken or on menu’s etc – not so here. Picking somewhere to eat has come down to the quality and understandability of the pictures of food outside! And even then your might be on an adventure. So far we have been to an Italian restaurant – all in Japanese, A Korean Restaurant – all in Japanese and a Japanese Sushi restaurant – all in Japanese. Where anyone speaks any words of English they want to use them and we have made many new friends so far.
If you say ‘Ver-ri-dirishuush’ out loud you know the dietary advise we get in restaurants – so much so we are using it as a question (‘ver-ri-dirishuush??’).
We have liked Osaka so much we decide to change our plans a bit and come back here to use it as a base for further exploration. So watch for more Osaka news later.
Osaka offers a mix of the modern and the traditional.
Kanasawa
Kanasawa, and our first Ryokan!! A Ryokan is a traditional Japanese hotel with many features that are uniquely Japanese. We wanted to stay in a few Ryokan, even though they are more expensive than standard hotels, for the experience of the culture you get. Some simple features include:-
- Most have a communal bath for each sex, though you can have en-suite too (we opt for the en-suite with a maybe, if we are feeling brave on the shared experience!)
- There are no shoes allowed – you leave your shoes at the door and use the supplied slippers – and the loo has a special pair just to wear in there.
- There are no beds as such – your room has mats of tatami on the floor and a futon is layed-out once you have finished your evening meal
- If you opt to have dinner it is fixed, set, decided by the chef!!! And served in your room
- You are supplied Kimono’s, slippers, towels and lots of other civilised accoutrements to make your stay comfortable.
We walk around the town to explore and find the castle and gardens. The castle is a vast wooden building that has been recently rebuilt as the corner stone of a restoration project. The project is impressive and we spend a few hours wandering through the castle and gardens before heading to town to see what else there is on offer. 
However, the real highlight of our first Ryokan stay is our evening meal. The amount of food, the number of complex dishes, the diversity of items is all absolutely incredible. Whilst our budget may or may not stand too many Ryokan stays our waistlines won’t allow too much of this.
Shirakawa-go
Shirakawa-go, mountain living Japanese Style. This once extremely isolated village is a world heritage site and full of examples of how people lived with the harsh mountain environment up until the 1950s when they built the first real road in. Getting here now is easy, a road trip of an hour from Kanasawa through tunnels mined deep through the mountains. Before the tunnels the journey must have taken days. The houses themselves are built exclusively from wood with steeply sloping thatch roofs. They count snow in meters up here and when we arrive there is still plenty on the ground with the river running fast with melt water from further up the mountains. The area is very picturesque and bus loads of visitors are the proof. But once you’ve understood how people lived, how wooden houses are built to withstand everything the weather and geology of the area can throw at them, then your done and it’s time to move on. So we hop on our bus on to Takayama.
Takayama, more of the mountains.
In Takayama we stay in another Ryokan. Larger this time and a little less intimate but still innately Japanese. Again we have dinner and breakfast, but no English Breakfast option for Jem this time! Feeling less than 100% (Phil has pulled his back, Jem her shoulder – we must learn to pack lighter/smarter) we go for a walk around town looking for coffee and chocolate croissant, medicinal!! We walk around Takayama which is half tourist support town, half normal Japanese town, take in the sights, book our transport out and alight on a cute coffee shop – sigh. For a Japanese hill town we don’t expect surprises, and the surprise is unexpected to say the least. Most people will know of Japanese heated loo seats and bidet functions of all kinds; we have seen many kinds of technology in the loos here. Takayama café ‘If’ has the last word. On opening the toilet door the light comes on and the loo seat lifts without you touching anything. The seat has 20 heat settings and the other instructions are too complex to fathom by diagram alone, this is not mere plumbing. Whilst sunny Takayama is cold. The temperature during the day is 8 or 9 degrees C and it’s windy. This evening we have exclusive use of the private open-air bath!
Matsumoto
We arrive in Matsumoto by bus in the early afternoon. The drive through the mountains has been very pleasant. The weather perfect wall-to-wall sunshine which gleamed of the snow covered alpine landscape. Most of the journey follows a series of valley’s that are part of an impressive hydro-electric programme – we pass three huge dams/power stations within 40 kilometers as we descend. Matsumoto itself is a small city. Hemmed in on all sides by mountains and with a strangely eclectically European feel it feels different as soon as you step off the bus. As per usual we dump our stuff at the hotel and head off on foot to see the sights. Matsumoto has one of the oldest intact castles in Japan and we wend our way there through the neat shopping streets. The castle is beautiful and the cherry blossom is in full swing. Another very different city and a great place to visit, totally underplayed by the guide books!
Himeji
The next day we hop on a train and head for Himeji. The main reason we planned visiting Himeji was to break the journey between Matsumoto and Hiroshima but again we are pleasantly surprised. We wander through shopping malls, have lunch in a noodle restaurant and head for the next castle. Whilst we have been lucky so far with the cherry blossom display, the cold weather earlier this year meaning we get the best of it, we didn’t anticipate what we found in Himeji. The blossom absolutely at it’s height and being photographed by the world, well the Japanese part of the world anyway. Himeji feels like the slightly less glamorous cousin of Osaka but it is easy to like the place. Walking round the gardens drenched in cherry blossom is truly uplifting and we are both surprised what a positive impact the beautiful gardens had on us. We are now honorary Japanese by dint of the number of blossom pictures we have taken.
Hiroshima
Visiting Hiroshima is always going to have a serious aspect to it; the city famous for all the wrong reasons. This place has an identity all its own due to its unique past, which is obvious as soon as you arrive. First on our agenda is the peace park, the A-bomb dome and the museum.
The park and the dome are peaceful and reflective – the place is very dignified. Part memorial part example it does not prepare you for the experience of the museum. Inside the museum you are confronted with the bombing of Hiroshima and the utter destruction of the city in a few seconds. Then you are taken on a journey through the military exploits of Japan and particularly Hiroshima from the 16th Century with a lot of detail given to the period 1870 to 1946. The Japanese of the museum would be the first to admit their aggression and warlike behaviour for this period of history. There are multiple models of the city before and after the bomb. Before, a modestly sized city of houses, military installations and factories; after, a burned, crushed and barren wasteland that was the almost instant graveyard of 140,000 people. There were only a couple of concrete buildings left standing in the whole city. Then the detail moves to the politics of 1937-1946 with the USA, UK and Russia holding the decisive cards following the surrender of Germany. The detail of the politics of the day and the lead up to the bombing of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki is truly amazing and should be required reading for schools the world over. The museum then centres on the human suffering inflicted as well as the damage wrought. You would have to be made of stone not to be emotional moved by the details – and after 1.5 hours Jemima and I can handle no more and escape back to the sunshine outside. That place is tough but a great museum and somewhere we’re very pleased to have visited. Unsurprisingly the overall thrust of the museum is peace and the global abolition of nuclear weapons. It is difficult to convey the emotional impact of this place and the events of 08:15 on 6th August 1945 as portrayed by the whole place. It’s impact and message stretches around the world, as demonstrated by the thousands of paper cranes sent by well-wishers and the letters written by the Hiroshima mayor to global leaders everytime there is a nuclear bomb test.
Japan – a few things we’d like to say (generalisations round 1)
- It’s very clean – very very clean; there isn’t even litter on the train tracks
- Everything works – roads, trains, crossings, everything
- People are polite and respectful, not in a kooky way, just in a nice way
- Japan is highly developed, the infrastructure is very impressive
- Everything is detailed and thought through
- People are friendly and helpful
- Food is delicious, and fresh, everywhere and we’re getting very fat as a result
- There is a real and honest pride in the place – there are 127million people taking care of this country!!
- Conclusion – god only knows what the Japanese think when they visit the UK.
- Oh…and just in case you couldn’t tell…we absolutely adore this place.
