Slow boat to China

If you enjoy romantic tales of adventure on the high seas, this is not the blog for you. If however you enjoying laughing at people who have vomit in their hair, read on.

Our time in Japan has been incredible. For the last eight years I have listened (mostly) to Matt continuously talk about Japan and yet it was still amazing, unexpected and far beyond any ideas I had about the country. We have been fortunate enough to visit nine wonderful countries on our trip, but I think that Japan has been the most unique and enjoyable of them all, Matt’s ramblings were certainly justified, I cannot wait until we return.

But for now China is calling. So on Friday we said our sad ‘See You Laters’ to Japan and boarded the Su Zhou Hao ferry. A two-day cruise from Osaka to Shanghai. I use the term cruise loosely, The ferry’s main job is a container vessel but the top three levels are for passengers. We had no problems with immigration and were shown straight to our room. We were sailing second class, which means a room designed for 4 people with two bunks and a small sitting area. We were lucky that we were sharing with one other guy, he was quiet and tidy so this worked out nicely! We did not spend much time in the room however as there was a nice reading area upstairs were we got chatting to some of the other passengers. It was strange to talk to people who were just on the beginning of their trips but nice to be able to exchange stories and tips.

On board the boat I was able to read (the hunger games trilogy, I really wouldn’t bother) and relax watching the world go by. On board was a Japanese restaurant and we had our last Japanese meal. However, it would not be it’s only appearance on this trip!

At 11 pm the announcement played out wishing everybody a good nights sleep, so off to bed we went. The gentle rocking of the waves meant that I had one of the best nights sleep for a while.

At 7 am I was awoken by the announcement ding dong, welcoming us into the new day and declaring that breakfast is now being served. Great I thought, just brush my teeth and have a wash then breakfast. I made it to the bathroom, laughing to myself at how drunk I felt, funny, I did not join in with the sake and karaoke last night, kind of wishing I did now however I can see why the rum is always gone on a pirate ship.

The whole world was rocking side to side, it felt like being in the walking dead with zombie like creatures, tinged green hobbling along with vomit down their shirts. Bing bong apparently we are encountering some rough tides today. You don’t say! So for the remainder of the day I lay horizontal in my bunk trying unsuccessfully to keep last nights dinner down. I kept telling myself only another 24 hours and we will be on solid ground, although after NZ and Japan, this is no comfort as solid ground has a tendency to shake in this part of the world.

I must say though Matt was the perfect companion on the trip, he was absolutely fine, he reported back that there was only him and a handful of children up and about, the kids were playing Mario cart and running up and down playing hide and seek. Even the normally cheerful staff were feeling the effects. Matt was able to carry on as normal enjoying his cruise and looking after me. Thank you Matt.

Sumo times

On our penultimate day in Japan, we were back in Osaka as this was where we would be catching the ferry to China. As luck would have it there was a Sumo tournament on, this only happens once a year in Osaka. Matt had wanted to go to a competition for ages but I knew very little about it and didn't really know what to expect. 

The tournament started in the morning with the lower ranking wrestlers or ionokuchi and ended with the last bout at 6 pm with the highest ranking competitors. As the higher ranking bouts started the atmosphere in the arena was electric, like nothing I have experienced before. 

The pre match rituals were as important as the actual wrestling. At the start of each match ancient Shinto traditions such as purifying the ring with salt were carried out. If you watched closely enough you could foresee who would win the match before it even started by the body language of the Sumo or rikishi to give the proper name.

The rikishi themselves are fascinating, their lives are dominated by the sport and thus live highly regimented lives. The rikishi live in their own community and follow strict diets and routines. The rickishi are so important they are not even allowed to drive incase they have an accident. When not wearing the rather fetching mawahi (read: man nappy) they also have a strict dress code to adhere to. 

Needless to say we both had a fantastic time, the bouts were mesmerising and fascinating in equal measure. Another bonus was it took our minds off the fact that this was to be our last day in Japan.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Thanks to China's Great Firewall, we were unable to post our blogs from the last few weeks so...lets do a little time warp.

Friday 27th March

One week ago (really, It feels like one month ago) we were back on the Shinkansen and 4 hours later we arrived in Hiroshima. We arrived quite late in the day which meant we were both hungry, luckily for us the local dish in Hiroshima is Okonomiyaki, the giant, thick, savoury pancakes we first tried in Nara. They are fast becoming one of our favourite dishes. We had heard rumours, that we suspected might be urban legend, of a 5-storey building housing 26 okonomiyaki restaurants. But it actually exists, so we enjoyed an evening of pancakes and conversation with the locals. 

It would be nice to say that savoury pancakes were the reason Hiroshima was so well known, but of course we live in an imperfect world and Hiroshima sadly has the label of the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon and now more than 60 years later, the citizens are still dealing with the aftereffects of the A-bomb. I lose track of how many cities we have visited on this trip that have left me dejected as to what our own race has done and continues to do to each other, yet like Nagasaki and Phenom Phen Hiroshima is a tranquil town, just getting on and trying to be better, proving that there is still hope and good in the world.  

In the Peace Memorial Park the A-Bomb dome is a startling reminder of the atrocity that happened here on August 6^th 1945. We made our way over to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum, which was no less saddening or shocking after the Nagasaki museum, if anything it made it worse knowing that this was allowed to happen twice. 

The museum was informative and at the same time fairly objective, reminding us that Japan too was an aggressor in the Second World War. What is impressive about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is how they have become places of hope rather than despair. The city continues to advocate the abolition of all nuclear weapons. When you are here, seeing the effects of nuclear weapons I whole-heartedly believe that the 2020 vision campaign will become a reality, I cant understand why it is not already and like Japan I have faith that the right decisions will be made. 

After the despair of the museum we decided to go and find the good in the world so on our last day in Hiroshima we caught the ferry over to the island of Itsukushima to visit the Itsukushima Shrine. The shrine is often referred to as the floating shrine due to its location off the bay of the island so at high tide it appears to be floating on the water. The island itself is beautiful with the standard prancing deers and small shrines dotted here and there. We spent the day walking through the forest and browsing in the shops (also standard the Hello Kitty shop) and admiring the world's largest spatula! 

Soaked in Tokyo

Tokyo let us down on the weather front yesterday, it rained all day so we still didn't get to any parks. We did however meet some amazing locals who helped us find our hotel.

We got off the train with very detailed directions to the hotel in hand, our still rather large bags, in the pouring rain. We were doing well and knew that we were within a block of our hotel when we made a wrong turn, just as the rain got a little heavier. We were stood at a road intersection doing that lost tourist thing of peering at a map then a road sign, then turning the map round and staring some more.

A young couple came over to us and asked where we were going, we told them the name of our hotel and they looked a bit puzzled, they whipped out an iPhone got up a map and started to lead us off in what I guessed was the wrong direction. I think the woman thought it was the wrong direction as well as she kept trying to show the phone to the guy but he dashed off and started speaking to an older lady who happened to be walking past. After 5 minutes of chatting and checking of the iPhone the older lady started to lead all of us along a side road back to an intersection that we had past 20 minutes earlier, at which point I realised where we had gone wrong and realised where the hotel was. I couldn't explain this in Japanese so we waved goodbye to the old lady and carried on following the young couple. 5 minutes later we found the back door to the hotel which had a handy map showing us the way to the front entrance, after a chorus of Arigato's we parted from our guides and were soon in the dry.

We spent the rest of the day running in and out of shops and coffee shops around Ueno, Shibuya and Harajuku.

In half an hour we are back on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.

Trains, Trains and Fuji San

We have so many things that we want to do in Japan that it is hard to choose what to do next, we have also slightly moved our date for coming home which gives us less time. We wanted to go and see the monkeys lazing about in the hot springs but just couldn't find any accommodation for the dates we were after so decided our next stop would be Fuji San. Here I made a slight calculation error on how long it would take us to get north from Nagasaki. We had 11 hours of train rides and 5 train connections to make, and make them we did.

It is very early

I could go into super detail about the trains but I think anymore train talk and I will lose a lot of readers so I will leave it at it was a long way and we never waited more than 20 minutes in between trains, I am amazed by that.

Fuji San (Mount Fuji) has a reputation for being a bit shy which is why we decided to say in the area for a couple of nights to give us more than one change to catch a glimpse. As it turns out we were really lucky, on the train from Osaka to Tokyo we got a perfect blue sky and a totally uninterrupted view of this beautiful peak. Fuji is so symmetrical that it looks like it has been sculpted by an artist, the snow white peak against a blue sky is one of my favourite views from the trip. We had this view off and on for over 2 hours as we traveled from the east, south of Fuji to Tokyo on the west and then from Tokyo to our hotel north of the mountain. Unfortunately my camera was too deeply packed away to get a good shot but my camera phone was on had to help out.

Fuji from the train

After all of that excitement we went straight to bed after tea ready for an early start.

The next day we went up to Kawaguchi-ko to get a closer look at Fuji, the day started out very clear and we got some great views but by the time we were off the train Fuji decided that we had had too much luck and turned the sky grey. We could still see the mountain but it became impossible to get a good photo.

Fuji is hiding there in the middle

Aimee hiding from the wind and Fuji hiding from us

Fuji in a grey mood

We had a really fun time walking around the lake and eating oranges.

We have to count ourselves very lucky that we had two days with such great views as today it is drizzling and we can't see the next hill over let alone a glimpse of Fuji from the train. We are spending the night in Tokyo so we can try and get to the cat jazz bar that we have been aiming for then tomorrow we are off to Hiroshima.

It seems very real now that we have fixed our date home we will be back in sunny Brum before the post cards get home, lets see what else we can cram in before then. 

Nagasaki

As our JR pass that speeds us around Japan is quickly running out we decided to make our last stop on Kyushu island Nagasaki, a name I'm sure that everyone will know for all of the wrong reasons.

A goat in the city having a nap!

Nagasaki is chock full of history during Japan's period of isolation Nagasaki was one of the only areas in contact with the outside world, Nagasaki was one of the first areas of Japan to get Christian missionaries. Parts of Nagasaki are very pretty, there are hundreds of small temples, shrines and churches and dozens of small bridges that cross the numerous rivers and lots of interesting architecture. There are admittedly parts of Nagasaki that are not so easy on the eye (like the chemically factory thing behind the station) but just down the coast there are also some beautiful fishing villages.

The spectacles bridge, so named for its reflection

Nagasaki is tucked into the hills so there are lots of great views

Topiary like this appears frequently in peoples front gardens

We are still holding our for the blossom, things are starting to look good

So there is a lot more to Nagasaki than the Atomic Bomb but it is a huge part of its history so we spent our first day paying our respects at the Atomic bomb museum and Nagasaki Peace park. Having been to the museum at Hiroshima before I knew what to expect from the tales of devastation and suffering but watching and reading people tell their stories and seeing exhibits of what was left behind was still just as moving. There is a strong theme of promoting peace and nuclear disarmament at the museum and it is very hard to see how you could leave the museum and not sign the petition (we both did as the exhibits only reenforced our existing views but we still have the weapons so someone must disagree). We sat in the peace park and reflected while listening to the splashing of the fountain.

There are a number of sculptures in the peace park each with the idea of promoting peace

These origami cranes are so beautiful they make a brilliant counter to the sadness of the museum

After the peace park we spent the afternoon in Mister Donut eating sugary treats to renew our faith in mankind, how can a species that invented a strawberry flavoured Donut with strawberry cream in the middle be bad.

Fukuoka Ladies and Kagoshima Gentlemen

It is now my turn to attempt to write a blog post from aboard the Shinkansen or the bullet train and let me tell you- it is fast!! We are currently cruising along at 250mph through mountains; pine trees keep rushing past as we dart in and out of the tunnels. It feels like being part of an episode of the Jetsons. Our first stop was a town called Fukuoka (cue giggling at the funny name).  There wasn't that much ‘to do’ there, we mainly wandered around the streets, Matt enjoyed ogling the 'worlds most beautiful women' (they were very pretty) and we visited Japans biggest wooden Buddha (it was very big, and made of wood). Our hotel was located right next to a bar, shopping and restaurant complex called Canal City which was a nice place to just relax and walk along the canal. 

It was then time to jump back on the Shinkansen to our next destination Kagoshima. You can tell that Matt planned this part of the trip as when I opened the guide book on our way there the first thing written about it was the very much living volcano which causes residents to raise their umbrellas against the mountains recurrent ablutions. Sounds relaxing!

I wonder what is hiding behind that rather large boat?

That would be an actual live volcano! Not sure what Matt is up to though. 

Turns out Kagoshima is a very beautiful city, cosmopolitan with lots of shops and high rise buildings but then always as the backdrop the beautiful volcano. On our first day we did another first –a sightseeing bus. It was actually a great way to get around and we were able to get closer to the volcano (close enough for me, maybe not for Matt). We also stumbled upon an anti nuclear protest, which had a great atmosphere. We enjoyed talking to some of the people and listening to some live music.

Coffee stop!

Night time Kagoshima

Band warming up.

The next day Matt had arranged a train trip that sounded great for a lazy Sunday afternoon, for actual details about it checkout this link and here. I assumed it would be an old train that would take us up a mountain and through some beautiful scenery.

We boarded the train and even for a non-train-geek it was a pretty train, with wooden seating and floors it felt very grand. Adjacent to our seats a group of 5, shall we say, older gentlemen with glints in their eyes had already settled in and had the beer flowing. As Matt stood up to put away our luggage he was Konnichiwaed and asked his name, the men were overjoyed that we had decided to join them on the trip and proceeded to hand us a glass of beer. Not bad for Sunday morning.

Our new friends

They then continued to banter with us as the train started to leave the station, giving Matt a suspiciously official looking hat to wear, that we later discovered they had stolen from the attendant. One of the men then offered us a large sandwich, we explained that we were vegetarian but we were reassured that it was a potato and vegetable sandwich, so we gratefully accepted it (I’m sure my mom once mentioned something about not accepting food from drunken people on trains, but I digress).

Cant take him anywhere. 

The sandwich actually contained everything but potato and vegetables, but was nice all the same. The hatless attendant then presented us with two bottles of beer, courtesy of the men behind us, who were by now very, very merry and enjoying quite loudly their train trip, along with Matt! I wondered if their wives knew this is how they spent every Sunday? So our sophisticated train journey had turned into a booze cruise- insert comment about how you can take the girl out of Birmingham….

The ladies in pink are giving out free food. Just because. 

I look out the window and this is what I see...

Ringing the bell for true happiness. As you do. 

By now we were 10 minutes into our journey, I had a beer drinking Matt complete with conductors hat sitting to my left just as the men’s dinner arrived, they had ordered bento boxes and a vegetarian one for us, I could not believe their kindness and hospitality. The bento box was made of bamboo and full of unidentifiable but delicious foods that had clearly been expertly prepared and yes they did appear to be vegetarian! Half an hour into the journey we were full and onto our 3rd beer. The men had all fallen asleep, missing the beautiful scenery going past outside. It reminded me of Christmas day after the Queen’s speech. It was after all an amazing way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Parties over!

That hat was pretty nice!

Nara

Nearly up-to-date now, after modern Osaka we decided to get a bit more history in Nara. Nara was the Japanese Capital for 74 years from 710 and a large portion of the city is covered by a Unesco World Heritage site. It is also a rather pretty city that is easy to walk around with lots of nice food. Win, win, win. Oh and it is only 45 minutes from Osaka.

It is hard to miss the history in Nara, it is everywhere

There are so many parks and open spaces that we spent the afternoon just walking around, enjoying the landscaping.

It is easy to find the tourist information offices, most of them have sculptures outside.

Although it was very over cast we had a nice sun set

The blossom is still trying to come out but it is just not time yet

The other thing that is hard to miss about Nara are the Deer, thousands of them.

Aimee should have been watching this one closer

The guy in the picture below is laughing so hard because I am laughing really hard, just before this picture Aimee was getting bitten on the bum by a very persistent Deer that wanted the Deer cookies that she had just bought. And no I didn't help her because I was laughing too hard.

We made him smile anyway

We were really lucky to arrive in Nara when we did because we were able to go and experience the Omizutori ceremony. The ceremony seems to last for several days but the part we witnessed involved carry burning bundles around the balcony of one of the temples. It is very hard to explain and was equally hard to photograph but it was spectacular and the crowd had the sort of energy you normally get at live music, there was a lot of noise as people reacted to the falling embers, which are supposed to keep away evil.

Waiting

The ball of fire is on the end of a long pole waved by a monk.

We were rather hungry after all the walking so we decided to try a Kansai speciality Okonomiyaki. This is basically a massive pancake/omelette with cabbage in it and other stuff on top (the other stuff is up to you that is what the name means). This batter is then cooked on a Japanese hot plate at your table, it was delicious and incredibly filling.

Okonomiyaki - Whatever you like, fried

The perfect accompaniment was a nice hot bottle of Sake which left Aimee a little.. shall we say drowsy on the walk home!

The next day we went to see Nara's main claim to fame Tōdai-ji the worlds largest wooden building and the Nara Daibutsu (large Buddha image).

This building just feels massive

This Buddha image is big, the expression of peace on the face is very beautiful.

Neither disappointed; the building was just monumental, because it is in a large open space it is difficult to take in the scale at first but it finally hits you when you come back out again and you realise it is all wood! The Nara Daibutsu is big but it is the pose and the style of the carving that are most striking, the expression on the face is so peaceful that we found ourselves just stood there looking at it for ages.

We came out feeling very zen and spent the rest of the day walking around the parks taking pictures of Deer.