Hiroshima & the Inland Sea

Heading next day to Hiroshima, we decided to take a bit of a side trip to the small fishing port of Tomo-no-ura, just to experience a bit more of the Inland Sea and some more of the different aspects of Japan. We appreciated it more later on, as we didn`t have very good weather in Miya-jima.

The lighthouse at Tomo-no-ura

 

View over Tomo-no-ura and the Inland Sea

Hiroshima city was quite vibrant and pretty but the Peace Museum was rather gruesome and distressing. We really hope that atomic bombs are never used again (which I guess is the whole point of the exhibits). The Peace Park itself was very interesting and the A-Bomb dome is well worth seeing as a poignant reminder.

Looking through the Cenotaph to the Peace Flame and the A-Bomb Dome

The A-Bomb Dome at night

 

A-Bomb Dome and Aioi Bridge (the intended bomb target)

Next morning we headed out for the day to Miya-jima. Unfortunately the weather had packed in overnight even though the forcast had said it was going to be sunny! It was still a really great day out and we went up the ropeway to the top of Mt Misen and walked back down. Unfortunately the famous monkeys are in the forest eating this time of year so we didn't see them, but there were heaps of sika deer everywhere and we could still make out many of the island in the Inland Sea and see all the way back to Hiroshima. We stayed on the island for dinner and caught a late ferry back so we could see the famous red torii gate lit up at night. Miyajima was super packed with people despite the weather! Early the next morning we had a really nice stroll through the riverside gardens of Shukkei-en in Hiroshima. This is a "shrink scenery garden" - depicting landscapes in minature, and apparently modelled on a lake in China. We enjoyed this garden a lot and preferred it to the wide open more famous gardens. Shukkei-en was completely destroyed in the atomic bomb and re-opened 6 years later.

Ropeway up Mt Misen

 

Itsukushima shrine torii gate, Miya-jima

 

Shukkei-en

Himeji &Kurashiki

Travelling back through Osaka and now heading into Western Honshu, our first stop was the smallish city of Himeji and it`s impressive castle, Himeji-jo. Himeji-jo is the number 1 castle in Japan and is a very impressive complex, much larger than other castles we`ve seen. Although Matsumoto-jo was more photogenic, we are glad we saw Himeji-jo after it, as we might not have been so enthusiastic about Matsumoto-jo!

Himeji-jo from the main entrance

 

Himeji-jo and blossoms in autumn!

 

The beautiful view over Himeji from the 6th floor

The next morning we got on a bus and travelled up through Himeji to the Shosa-zan ropeway and the mountain temple complex of Engyo-ji. This was well worth the visit and much better than we expected, not least becasue it was very quiet (although it did get busier later) and it was a really beautiful sunny day. The sun through the autumn leaves up here was stunning and the location of all the wooden temples in amongst the mountain top forest was really gorgeous.

 

Engyo-ji complex on Shosa-zan

 
Priest and Samurai training facility featured in the "Last Samurai"

Statues of Jizo - protector of children, travellers and the dead

Later that afternoon we headed west again to Kurashiki for the night. Kurashiki is one of our hometown Christchurch`s sister cities - chosen, I believe, because of the canals here. They were really beautiful in the evening light anyway and we enjoyed a nice stroll around the kura (japanese store houses, now converted into shops and galleries).

Kurashiki canals

Japanese food

Thought I would just post a few pictures of some of the different kinds of food we've been having here! Half the time we're not entirely sure what we are eating but since most of it's vegetarian, it doesn't worry us that much! We've had very few things we didn't really like - it's all perfectly edible, just some of it tastes better than others :)
What we have noticed is that it's very different from the "Japanese" food we get in NZ. Lots more pickles and vegetables and we haven't been eating much sushi at all.

Soba noodle soup with rice and pickles

Kate with yaki-soba in Nikko

Dave with dinner in Takayama

The meal we had in Takayama. Hida beef pieces in local miso paste with a selection of wild vegetables.

Markets - lots of fresh (still moving) seafood and vegetables. Very hard to find actual meat and is quite expensive.

Many resturants have these plastic replicas of their dishes - makes choosing food very easy!

Desserts - the Japanese seem to love desserts and french bakeries. They are everywhere! We never would have guessed how good the bread and pastries are here. They are all french boulangeries or patisseries and quite expensive - seems to be a bit of a delicacy.

Our huge dinner meal in Koya-san. Traditional vegetarian/vegan monk food.

Nara & Koya-san

Heading south from Kyoto, we arrived in Nara to a cold and very rainy day but we still decided to head out and look around Nara-koen (koen = park) and visit Todai-ji and the Daibutsu-den (Buddha hall). Many hundreds of umbrellas actually made it very colourful in the end! Lots of school groups were also out for the afternoon and eager to stop foreign tourists (like us) to ask us questions in english. We were also given many little origami shapes as gifts. There are tame deer wandering around Nara-koen that are rather eager for food - you can buy special deer biscuits at some stalls to feed them, but be warned! As soon as you buy them the deer are ready for them and think nothing of butting you :) The park staff round them up every year to saw back their antlers so they don't hurt people. We saw one young one with antlers - they are two very sharp prongs!

Dave and a Shika (deer)

Todai-ji is very impressive. The Daibutsu-den is the largest wooden building in the world and it's not even the original, which was nearly twice as big! As the name suggests, it was built to house an enourmous statue of Buddha (amongst 3 other statues). This Buddha, unlike the Daibutsu in Kamakura has had a rough time and lost it's head quite a few times. The latest head still dates back a couple of hundred years. Most of the Japanese temples and buildingss etc we have visited are not not originals but their replacements still date back a lot further than anything in NZ's history!

Todai-ji's Daibutsu-den

After Nara, we headed south again up into the Kii Mountains. It was an impressive train ride through some very beautiful orchard growing regions and forested mountain valleys. The final leg up to the mountain-top World Heritage buddist complex of Koya-san is up a ropeway. Koya-san is very pretty nestled in amongst very tall pines with quaint traditional buildings and temples. There are currently about 4000 inhabitants and over one hundred temples for the monks but this is just a fraction of what used to be here. We spent the evening wandering through the massive Oku-no-in cemetary, ending in the sacred Torodo building with hundreds of lanterns, including 2 that have remained lit for over 200 years. Through the back of the building you can see the roof of the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi (also Kukai), the buddist monk who set up this complex and many others around Japan. He was an amazing person - has been compared to Leonardo Da Vinci in the many talents and great work he did.

Oku-no-in

Statues of Jizo

Jizo

Buddist graves and monuments

Our stay in Koya-san was with some monks living in the temple of Shojoshin-in. This was really fantastic as the temple was beautiful, the monks were so friendly and the food was amazing (traditional vegetarian shojin-ryori). We really enjoyed this and was well worth it! We also got up early for the morning prayer ceremony which was a great experience. The monks have beautiful voices.

Shosjoshin-in

The garden at Shojoshin-in

Kyoto

Kyoto was amazing and well worth the visit! We split our sightseeing up into 3 full days, also spending the first evening wandering around the very impressive Kyoto Railway Station. Not going to say much about Kyoto here as not sure where to start, but hopefully some of our photographs speak for themselves.

First day we went to Arashiyama district and visited Tenru-ji and the famous bamboo groves, then on to the gorgeous Gio-ji (a small forest temple with lots of moss and momiji - we highly recommend this and was one of our favourites), Ryoan-ji and it's zen garden and also some rather amazing rainbow coloured momiji trees, then finally Kinkaku-ji (the golden pavillion), which was also one of our favourites.

Kyoto Station

The bamboo groves of Arashiyama

Gio-ji

Ryoan-ji zen garden

Rainbow coloured momiji

Kinkaku-ji

The 2nd day we headed northeast to the Path of Philosophy and gthe many temples and shrines along it's route. We started at Nanzen-ji at the southern end, then did a small detour up into the hills to visit a little forest shrine behind Nanzen-ji - Nanzen-ji Oku-no-in, the path which also led us into an old cemetary hidden in the forest. We emerged on the path again just north of Eikan-do. We wandered along the Path of Philosophy to Honen-in with it's lovely moss covered gate, sand garden and a local photographers gallery. Finally we reached Ginkaku-ji (the silver paviillion). We also stopped at the local monthly market held at Chion-ji but didn't stay long as we could hardly move for the crowds!

Nazen-ji aqueduct

Nanzen-ji Oku-no-in

The Path of Philosophy

Ginkaku-ji

Our 3rd day saw us up early and on the train south a couple of stops to the business shrine of Fushimi Inari Taisha. The hundreds of red/orange torii gates that wind around this hilly shrine are amazing and were another highlight of our time in Kyoto. Was also wonderfully quiet on a monday morning after a rather crowded and busy weekend. We spent the rest of the day in Gion and the Southern Higashiyama district, wandering around some amazing craft shops and wonderful old streets.

Dave and Kate at Fushimi Inari Taisha

Torii gates at Fushimi Inari Taisha

Kamikochi to Kanazawa

Bit of a brief run through here as I'm falling behind on the blogs - we are already on our last night in Kyoto and heading to Nara tomorrow morning.

Entering the Japan Alps, we bused our way up into the mountains and autumn foliage, past numerous dams and through numerous tunnels. Kamikochi is a bit of a hidden valley high up on the crest of the Souther Japan Alps, and while the mounatins here are higher, there is less snow and they aren't as impressive as the Northern Japan Alps. We enjoyed Kamikochi for the fresh air and peace and quiet, but we were probably expecting something more dramatic from what all the guidebooks etc tell you. I think perhaps also we are spoilt living in the South Island of NZ! We had a really nice wander around the valley for about 3 hours anyway and were fortunate enough to see a whole troup of snow monkeys, complete with young, wander along the river foraging for food and drinking water. The autumn colours had all but completely disappeared from up at these altitudes but the bamboo and silvery bark of the trees still looks very pretty.

Kamikochi Valley from Kappa-bashi

Clear water and wetlands, Kamikochi

Snow monkey (Japanese macaques) foraging for food

Carrying on through the alps to Takayama we passed lots and lots of skifields (without snow unfortunately). Think this would be a very busy area come winter! Takayama was utterly charming and we really loved our two nights here. The old part of town is really magic - like something out of an old Japanese film. Is like what you imagine the Edo era streets to look like. It absolutely poured down with rain during our stay so we were happy to be wandering the streets and spending ages looking at the many beautiful shops and sake breweries (Takayama has very clear water so brews good sake). We stayed at this rather funny temple hostel - Zenkoji - a sister temple to the more famous one in Nagano. Very nice spacious rooms, lovely old wooden temple and a beautiful garden but the host could have been a bit friendlier. I think he was sick of having to say the same things to new guests over and over again as it was a very busy/popular and cheap accomodation. He wasn't japanese either!

The streets of old Takayama - Sanmachi-suji

Sanmachi-suji, Takayama

Heading west again from Takayam towards Kanazawa on the coast, we took a bus through to the region of Shirakawa-go and the World Heritage village of Ogimachi, site of some famous gassho-zukuri houses with thatched roofs. We spent about 4 hours here, wandering around the village - which is a working one, by the way, quite a number of people live here. Lots of rice paddies, terraces, vegetables, trout and carp ponds.

Traditional thatched-roof gassho-zukuri houses at Ogimachi in Shirakawa-go

 Dave and Kate in Ogimachi

 Autumn along the river (Sho-kawa) in Shirakawa-go

Finally we reached the west coast and Kanazawa where we spent the morning visiting Kenroku-en, one of Japan's three most famous gardens. Personally, we liked the more intimate style of Kyoto's gardens that were to come a lot more, but the Japanese take more stock in panoramic views and wide, open gardens. The garden's design follows 6 desired attributes for perfection - seclusion, spaciousness, artificiality, antiquity, abundent water and broad views. Finally, we got back on the trains again and headed to Kyoto past Lake Biwa for 4 nights.

Kenroku-en