Tag Archives: Japan

Hiking up Mount Fuji, Japan

Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan, its near-perfect conical shape is iconic the world over, and its image can be seen in art, jewellery, clothing, sweets, cakes, posters and even toilet paper.

Mount Fuji-san, beautiful

The Hike

5th Station, aka the Circus 2305m: The starting point of the popular Yoshida Trail – Yoshida-guchi 5th Station (of 10). We weren’t expecting it to be so busy with day-trippers who had arrived by coach to shop and eat ice-cream!

2305m: Us at the 5th Station, we joined in with the day-trippers and had our photo taken, but we didn’t stop for ice-cream, we’ve got a mountain to climb!

The start of the Yabashi Trail, from 5th Station to 6th. There's still snow on the ground at the end of June 2305m: The Yoshida Trail really starts just around the corner from the souvenir shops. Less than 5 minutes in we find that there’s still snow on the ground at the end of June and hardly another person in sight

The alien landscape of the volcanic Mount Fuji 2390m: Just past Station 6 the ascent begins up the gravelly alien landscape of volcanic Mount Fuji. These large barriers are to prevent and protect against landslides

2672m: Snow blocks the trail just before the 7th Station. We’re still two weeks from the start of the official hiking season when the trails are cleared and the first-aid huts are manned

2673m: Undeterred, we carefully make our way through the snow by kicking in footholds

2700m: Stopped for lunch at one of the many huts on the Yoshida Trail. They’ll all be open in a couple of weeks time but for now they’ll do as wind-breaks!

If it weren't for these chains, we'd have no idea this was the trail! Especially as the cloud keeps rolling in 2800m: If it weren’t for these ropes, we’d have no idea where to go

2820m: We decided to stop at the torii we spotted off in the distance, can you see it?

As at Torii-no, which marks half-way between Stations 7 and 8 - it's as far as we can go otherwise we'd miss our bus home 2850m: Us at Torii-no, which is roughly half-way between Stations 7 and 8. It’s as far as we can go this time otherwise we’ll miss our bus home!

2850m: This is the view as we start our descent, that cloud can roll in quickly!

The 5th Station - just as busy as when we left it 5 hours ago! 2305m: The Yoshida 5th Station – just as busy as when we left it 5 hours ago!

Just before we get on the bus, Mount Fuji-san appears to say farewell. We'll be back and next time we'll make it to the top! 2305m: As we were about to get on the bus, Mount Fuji-san appeared in a break of cloud to say farewell. We’ll be back and next time we’ll make it to the top!

We rested our tired feet by filling our bellies with the local delicacy of Hoto - beef stew with noodles, yum! We rested our tired feet and filled our bellies with the local Fuji delicacy of Hōtō – vegetable stew with noodles (and beef in this case), yum!

Cycling around 4 of the Fuji 5 lakes

There are 5 lakes to the north of Mt Fuji, and as our guesthouse offered free bicycle rental, we decided to see if we could visit them all, except Lake Yamanakako because it’s a bit too far away.

We started at Lake Kawaguchiko, the largest of the 5 and the most commercially developed. We saw a waterskier, lots of little row-boats for hire along the southern bank and two small islands at the western-end

Cycling around the lakes seemed like a good idea – there are paths or roads around them, and these kinds of roads are usually pretty flat. However, we hadn’t considered the connecting roads given that this is a pretty mountainous region. All this to say that the road joining Lake Kawaguchiko to Lake Saiko was steep. After a long climb and a short tunnel the road descended to the next lake, but all we could think about was having to do it all again in reverse! Compared to Lake Kawaguchiko, Lake Saiko looks like it is set up for quiet fishing, and surrounded by steep hills it felt very tranquil

Lake Shojiko is the smallest of the Fuji Five Lakes, and also looks set up for quiet fishing. It seemed to be very popular with the locals as it’s further from the beaten track

Us at Mt Shiroyama
We took a break from the saddle and walked up a short hiking trail to Mt Shiroyama for a spot of lunch. The view of Mt Fuji would have been great except for the clouds…

The westernmost Lake Motosuko looks to be the most water sports-friendly. There were windsurfers out when we got there, and there were plenty of campsites, hotels and picnic areas just a stone’s throw from the shoreline. The main reason we wanted to visit this lake is because of the famous view of Mt Fuji that can be seen on the lowest denomination bank note – ¥1,000 – is from Lake Motosuko

Lake Motosuko and Mt Fuji as shown on the ¥1,000 bank note
As we reached the viewpoint, the clouds cleared a little and Mt Fuji appeared once more to remind us it’ll still be here when we return to Japan.

Eating at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant

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Having visited Yo! Sushi in the UK and seen pictures of conveyor belt sushi restaurants in Japan, we were curious about how the two would compare, so when the lovely Rio at our hostel in Kobe recommended a branch of the Kura Sushi chain we decided to take a break from the beef and give it a go.

On arrival we were given a small board with a diagram of the restaurant and arrows showing us how to get to the table. OK, they don’t even show you to your table, this is definitely going to involve less human contact than we are used to in restaurants… Our table was a small booth with the conveyor belt moving along beside it.

Can you tell how excited I am?!

We soon spotted the screen above the conveyor. Aha we thought, we know what’s going on here, we’d heard that you can order extra items using the touch screen so we settled into our seats secure in the knowledge of what we were doing… That all changed pretty quickly when we spotted a plate that we fancied moving past. We tried to lift it off, but we couldn’t detach it from the little train of two or three plates all with plastic domed lids. We looked around to see if we could take a cue from a nearby table. Nope, everyone was either eating or ordering from the screen. OK, we’ll try that then, why don’t we order a beer? So we scrolled through the menus until we found the drinks. Hit the picture of a glass of beer and sat back to wait. After about 5 minutes and another attempt, nothing had appeared so we collared a passing woman who was wiping down tables. “Biiru?” we enquired (yes, that really is the Japanese word). She motioned to the back of the restaurant and when Andrew went to investigate this is what he found:

A draught beer vending machine!. Insert a ¥500 coin, take a cold glass from the fridge, place it on the stand and press start. The machine tilts the glass, pours the beer with a perfect head and away you go!

In the meantime we’d figured out how to get plates off the conveyor, you just need to grip the edge and lift slightly to trigger the release for the lid. We’d got through a few dishes that way, it’s pretty compulsive choosing things from a constant parade, but we still wanted to order from the menu screen and have something delivered, this is how it works…

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QzsdGAu8I]

By this point we were accumulating quite a stack of plates, but we could see that the nearby tables were empty apart from plates with food on. What were they doing with their empties? We’d already noticed a kind of plate shaped post box at the side of the booth, maybe we put them in there? In Yo Sushi! the plates are different colours which signifies different prices but here they’re all the same ¥100 (about £0.60) or some dishes are double and come on two plates held together with a clamp so it made sense.

Disposing of dirty plates – I bet you wish you had a slot like this at home!

As we fed the plates into the slot we noticed a counter in the corner of our display incrementing. When it got to 5, there was a loud trumpeting sound from the screen and it started to play a little cartoon of a contest. We had no idea what was going on but it must have been a success because the hitherto unnoticed vending machine above the screen clanked into action and delivered us a prize in a plastic ball! It was a rubbishy plastic mobile phone charm, but still, we wanted another… The cartoon was activated on multiples of 5, but despite feeding in 10 and then 15 plates we didn’t see the winning version again.

Cartoon ‘contest’, you can just see the prize balls in the dispenser above the screen

And if you’re wondering what we had for dessert, here it is – banana toffee sushi :-)

We figured that the bill probably wouldn’t be brought to the table and that, with our little table number board that we received at the start, the cashier would just be able to pull up what we owed from how many plates we’d posted. But we missed out a step, at the till we handed over our table number which generated a little flurry of activity as the cashier called across to one of the cleaning ladies who bustled off in the direction of our table. I think we were supposed to press a button to let them know that we’d finished so that someone could check that the table was clear and all plates counted. We apologised for holding up the payment and in typical Japanese fashion, he brushed aside our apology and apologised to us that everything was only in Japanese – not many places in the UK would apologise for having inadequate translation into foreign languages.

Yum!

It was fun to see how mechanised the restaurant experience could be and at an incredibly low price too – we greedily ate until we were almost ready to burst but still spent less than £5 each (not including drinks). We enjoyed the experience so much that we sought out another branch of the restaurant in Tokyo, it was just as yummy but not quite the same without the adrenaline rush of trying to figure out how everything worked!

Temples of Kyoto

Kinkakuji

The one with the glitz

Kinkakuji, or The Golden Pavilion, is an iconic image of Kyoto and it didn’t disappoint. It is hugely busy and because of the volume of tourists you are constrained to a one-way route around the grounds which means that you have to move with the herd and can’t enter any of the buildings. Even so, we’re really glad that we went, even when you’ve seen photos the real thing is still utterly breathtaking.

Tenryu-ji

The one near the bamboo grove

Another busy temple, Tenryu-ji is situated in Arashiyama in north-west Kyoto, right beside the famous Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. The temple’s Zen garden is one of the oldest in Japan and has the same form as when it was designed in the 14th century. It is lovely and we really appreciated the benches and area to sit on the terraces of the buildings around the pond although there were a few too many visiting tour groups to make it a really peaceful place to pause.

Just outside the grounds of Tenryu-ji, Arashiyama Bamboo Grove was beautiful but smaller than we’d expected

Otagi Nenbutsuji

The one with quirky statues

Hint: two of these are not permanent fixtures

This temple is also in Arashiyama, just outside the main tourist trail area. It’s not in the Lonely Planet, we found out about it on another travel blog. The temple originally dates to the 8th century although it was moved to its present location in 1922, and the grounds contain 1200 carved stone figures of Rakan (disciples of Shaka, the founder of Buddhism) which were made during the 1980s by visitors from across Japan for the reconstruction of the temple. We loved that enough time had elapsed to cover them with moss so that initially they looked very old but on closer inspection the variety of expressions and accessories (tennis racket, beer bottles, walkman!) gave them an air of modernity. It’s a lovely peaceful temple, but also feels a little like an art installation, and is definitely one of our favourites.

Kiyomizu-dera

The one with the view

It seems as if this temple is on everyone’s itinerary, it was full of school groups as well as scores of other tourists, including quite a few Japanese dressed up in kimonos for the day’s sightseeing. Even so the main hall of the temple perched on a hillside overlooking central Kyoto is an impressive sight.

If you go we’d recommend stopping at Tainai-meguri before entering the main temple (go through the gate and up the steps, it’s to the left before you get to the ticket booth). It’s an unusual sub temple which you enter through a curtain into a pitch black corridor, following a handrail of large wooden prayer beads leads you to the centre of the temple and symbolises rebirth. Even with a group of giggling schoolgirls following us and stepping on the backs of our shoes it was a mystical experience.

Chion-in

The one with grandeur

Clockwise from top left: Andrew in front of the temple gate, the main hall under wraps, a large Buddha head in a sub-temple in the cemetery, the ‘big bell’

From the beginning you know that this is going to be an impressive temple. It has the largest temple gate in Japan, a self proclaimed ‘big bell’, and when the main hall is uncovered and reopens (scheduled for sometime in 2019) it looks as if it will be an imposing structure. But, for all that, there’s nothing brash about this temple, it has a quiet dignity and we liked how it seemed to be a working temple, minding its own business and almost ignoring the few tourists who pass through.

Its seven ‘treasures’ are explained in a display case behind the temple hall and the corridors linking the three main structures are fitted with nightingale floors, so called because they ‘sing’ as you walk on them. It’s thought that they were used as a kind of security measure so that intruders couldn’t sneak in.

Shoren-in

The one that looks like a country retreat

I still can’t quite get my head around this one being a temple. There is a line of massive camphor trees along the front shielding it from the street and the buildings are an interconnected collection of rooms with beautifully painted screen doors and views out into a peaceful garden. You really have to look for the temple elements – the Buddha images are modestly sized, there’s no incense and even the temple bell is tucked away in a corner of the garden.

Fushimi Inari

The one with lots of red torii gates

OK, strictly speaking this is a shrine not a temple, but you know what I mean… It’s located about a 30 minute bike ride south-east of Kyoto centre and extends all the way up the side of Mt Inari. It’s quite a long and sweaty hike to the top along a path almost entirely covered with thousands of bright orange-red torii gates with various small shrines along the way dedicated to the gods of rice and sake. We found the view through the gates to be really photogenic and it was much easier to find empty stretches the higher up the mountain we climbed.

Ginkakuji

The one with the amazing Zen garden (and not a glimmer of silver)

Ginkakuji means silver temple but, unlike at Kinkakuji, they never quite got around to applying the bling here. We arrived just after opening time to find the team of gardeners beginning a demolition job on the intricate raked sand Zen garden. Our next hour or so was spent sitting at the side and watching as with hosepipe, string line, special rake and a hefty boulder they reconstructed it. Even without the special experience of seeing how the Zen garden is engineered, the rest of the grounds are also beautifully kept (and busy) with mossy hillsides and glimpses into the temple buildings.

Honen-in

The one with the art

The Path of Philosophy

The Path of Philosophy is a canalside footpath which leads south from Ginkakuji. The next temple along it is Honen-in which the Lonely Planet highly recommended but which was nevertheless very quiet. There is a small garden surrounding the temple buildings as well as several pieces of art installed discreetly in the grounds. There’s also a dedicated exhibition room which hosts small temporary exhibitions. We enjoyed going in and speaking to the mother and daughter artists and an Australian artist who was also viewing, we even got a free cup of tea.

Honen-in (clockwise from top left): art exhibition hall, stupa in the grounds, raked sand, art work in a corner of the garden

Nanzenji

The one with the gate that you can go inside

Nanzenji also has an impressively large gate and it’s possible to enter this one. I found the ¥500 (£3) entry fee a little steep for the 20 minutes required to climb the steps and walk around but the view over the city is nice and the temple on the second floor is beautifully painted although unfortunately we could only peek through the windows and photos are not allowed. Afterwards we wandered through the grounds, past the brick built aqueduct and through a very quiet temple called Saisho-in to a shrine-temple in the forest built in front of a sacred waterfall.

Kurama-dera

The one on a forested hillside

The main reason we visited the small town of Kurama, 30 minutes north of Kyoto on the Eizan rail line was to visit the outdoor onsen, but an hour or so’s walk up the hillside through the various temple buildings and a picnic lunch with a view over the surrounding mountains turned it into a pleasant full day trip. The temple was pretty, but we highly recommend a soak in the hot spring waters as a way to relax your muscles after the hike up and back down the hill.

Kobe, Japan

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Julie and I were a bit skeptical about stopping off in Kobe for a couple of days, as we wondered what else there might be to do in this city famous the world over for the quality of its beef. Well, we couldn’t just eat steak all day now could we..

Teppanyaki Kobe Beef at Steakland

Steakland in Kobe, purveyors of the finest, most meltingly delicious beef we’ve ever had

We were all set to visit a restaurant called Mouriya which has fantastic reviews, until we got talking to the folks at our hostel who recommended the theme-park-named “Steakland“, which we were assured was as good if not better.

It was very easy to find, and when we arrived we found out the whole place is set up for teppanyaki – a cooking style where the chef cooks at the table on a large hot plate, which we later found out was invented in Kobe.

Our chef preparing the famous Kobe beef. Mouth watering level at the time this photo was taken: 11

We watched our chef carefully, masterfully prepare our Kobe steak, before he placed the bite-size morsels on our plate. The texture on the tongue was of lightly seared beef, which gave in to our bite with all the resistance of a marshmallow. Then the fattiness and flavour of the beef hit us. Mmmmmm.. bliss. It is, to my carnivorous brain, the final evolution of the art of consuming beef. Yep, even to my well-travelled tastebuds, this is the best steak I’ve ever had.

Kobe beef, in Kobe, cooked in the teppanyaki Kobe style

Kobe Earthquake Museum

The Kobe Earthquake Museum. Why did they surround it with glass?

The Kobe Earthquake Museum, or to give it its full title: “The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Memorial, Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution” (whew!) retells the story of the massive earthquake that occurred on the 17th of January 1995, measuring 6.8 on the Moment magnitude scale (the successor to the Richter magnitude scale).

The Museum starts abruptly with an immersive recreation of the earthquake which happened in the early hours of the morning. The theatre is dark. The scene is set with stills of Kobe’s streets, shops and offices before the video and deafening sounds of breaking civilisation completely disorientated us.

The video includes CCTV footage of shops and offices, and the devastation wrought was unbelievable. As we have travelled for the past 15 months we’ve recognised places and names, mostly because we’ve seen or heard about them on the news, but neither of us recalled anything of this disaster which took 6,434 lives.

Collapsed sections of the Hanshin Expressway caused by the Kobe Earthquake. Source: My photo of a photo on display in the museum

The museum goes on to describe the immediate aftermath, which was explained to us by very friendly English speaking members of staff who added their own stories of the tragedy. It was fascinating to hear that so many rules and procedures have been introduced as a result of the Kobe disaster. Some examples we were told about were that relief efforts were delayed because of hierarchical authorisation which has been changed in the event of earthquakes, and that fires were caused by the electricity being reconnected – now they inspect the power lines and restore it in stages.

Demonstration area in the Kobe Earthquake Museum. Clockwise from the top: Staff teach schoolchildren (and us!) about liquefaction; Liquefaction demonstration – only one house remains standing because it has deep foundations, the coloured balls represent underground services such as water, gas and sewerage; Map of the world showing the tectonic plates and locations of volcanoes, earthquakes, impact craters and plate tectonics

Engineers and support staff from Kobe have provided assistance at subsequent earthquake relief efforts not just in Japan, but around the world. We thought the interactive visual displays were excellent; a simple bucket of sand demonstrated liquefaction, and a vibrating table demonstrated seismic base isolation.

Kawasaki Good Times World

Me having a Good Times™, marvelling at all the machinery Kawasaki have built through the years

With the delightfully translated name of “Good Times World”, the history and accomplishments of the Kawasaki company was pleasantly impressive – for being more interesting than we had hoped, the amount of information on show, and for the breadth of industries Kawasaki has been involved in.

Julie and I take turns sitting on the Kawasaki Ninja 400 Special Edition

We learnt a lot about the company and its creations that we had no idea about before, like they build the Shinkansen bullet trains and the tracks, they still make huge container and transport ships which is how the company started, they own the trade mark “Jet Ski” and they built the machines that dug the Eurotunnel!

The museum has examples of almost everything they make, which we had fun climbing into and playing with.

Good Times. Clockwise from top left: First generation Shinkansen; Me at the controls; Julie taking charge of a much more modern tram; Me on the Shinkansen arcade game / simulator (which I was rubbish at – sorry Uncle Ken!); Julie on the Jet Ski arcade; Me on the Jet Ski arcade

Kawasaki Good Times World – Good Times indeed!

Nunobiki Waterfall, Herb Gardens and Ropeway

Just 5 minutes north of the Kobe Shinkansen bullet train station is a narrow valley between Mt Futatabi and Mt Maya that leads up to the Nunobiki waterfall.

The Nunobiki waterfall, a serene place so close to the bustle of Kobe

A little further up the trail we passed a reservoir which would have been a welcome stop were it not for the annoying public announcement being looped through loudpseakers!

A Kobe reservoir. It holds water. We didn’t stop for long. What more can I say?

We pressed on, and made it to the Nunobiki Herb Gardens and Ropeway, which can also be reached by said ropeway from the lowest cablecar station near the Shinkansen train terminal.

The Herb Gardens purport to be Japan’s largest herb and flower garden, with some 200 species blooming throughout the year. We really enjoyed the variety of the gardens, and as we’ve come to expect in Japan it’s very well laid out too, although as we started at the bottom some of the hills were quite steep to walk up!

Kobe Nunobiki Herb and Flower Gardens, which also have a great view over downtown Kobe

Herbs and flowers at the Kobe Herb and Flower Garden. Clockwise from top-left: Honey bee collecting lavender pollen, round yellow flower (Allium); pretty blue flower (Cornflower); pointy yellow flower (Lupin)

As well as the herbs and flowers, the gardens have a number of art installations, and a lovely greenhouse complete with a herbal foot-bath that Julie couldn’t resist after all the walking we’d done!

Complimentary herbal foot-bath

While she soaked her weary feet, we ate the various flavours of bagel we’d carried from the bakery next-door to our hostel, and admired the view over Kobe.

It was a nice, peaceful end to our couple of days in this fascinating stopover, and a great way to make room for more delicious Kobe beef!

two year trip

Andrew and Julie's Travelling Adventures