Well, here we are once more, returned from another adventure. We've had two journeys in the last month, and it has left me very, very broke. I have done a lot of things that I thought I would never get the chance to do, and I've had some really good experiences, but at the end of it all, I don't feel like we got to do much resting or relaxing in these holidays, so I'm looking forward to devoting myself to a bit of doing nothing for the next couple of days.
So, when did this flurry of activity start...
Let's see, Monday, 20th of July was Marine Day holiday, which we traded in for some overtime, and then on our usual weekend we went to Koya-san Mountain in Wakayama Prefecture. Koya-san was founded by the monk Kukai, known posthumously as Kobo-Daishi (774-835), who is the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism. Kukai went to China to study Buddhism, and was the first to import the esoteric or tantric style of Buddhist worship to Japan. Koya-san is not just one mountain, but is actually 8 mountains in a ring, selected to resemble the shape of a lotus, with Koya-san village nestled between these mountains. Kukai intended Koya-san to be like a Japanese equivalent to Mount Wu Dang in China. The town is home to approximately 2000 people, 120 temples, many of which offer temple lodgings. The most impressive of these temples is the Okunoin. It is believed by the Shingon school that Kobo-Daishi is in "eternal meditation" in the Okunoin rather than being dead, and that he will re-awaken on the arrival of "The Future Buddha." Now, I think Kobo-Daishi did a marvelous job of selecting a home for his Buddhist school. The forests are misty, mysterious, evocative, spiritual places, and Tom and I really enjoyed wandering around the enormous cemetery that surrounds the Okunoin, and enjoying the fresh air, and cooler temperatures.
The first day that we were there it was so lovely. We arrived at the shukubo (temple that offers lodgings) and one of the monks gave us simple directions to the Okunoin. It was drizzling, which seemed to add to the magical feeling. At the centre of this enormous grave yard, full of vines, moss, cedars, and sculptures, there was a beautiful temple (the one where Kobo-Daishi is meditating still) and an accompanying lantern hall that was possibly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen yet. We enjoyed beautiful sounds of the forest in the evening, the light of the disappearing sun, the sparkle of stars and the moon, and the wonderful Shojin-ryori (Koya-san's local vegetarian cuisine) prepared by our hosts. The Japanese style garden was full of frogs and dragonflies, and we spent quite a while sitting there listening to it all, watching the light fade. Soon we were tired, so we bedded down. We were awoken bright and early for our Buddhist morning service, where we were shown the "Goma" fire meditation. Upon leaving the sukubo, we began looking around at the town for our second day. The weather was less rainy, but no less grey, and it really didn't seem half as magical... it was funny to think that the rain was what made it all seem so etherial. Either way, we made it around most of the sights, unwound and made it back. I took some nice photos. Tom did too.
After Koya-san, we got to have two more weeks of work, I went off and got my Japanese drivers licence on the weekend in the middle there, followed by the Obon holiday period. Obon is the longest break for us in our line of work, so we used this opportunity to go to the far end of Japan - Hokkaido.
As we flew in, the mountains seemed to melt through the clouds toward us. Navy blues, greys, and whites, separating into green pastures that looked so similar to the descent into Hobart, I kept pinching myself to see if I was dreaming. Nope. Hokkaido looks a lot like Tassie - I mean, sure, it's not exactly the same, but it has a lot in common with Tasmania. It's famous for lavender farms, potatoes, onions, agriculture, mountains, cooler temperatures in Summer, lakes, seafood... does any of this sound familiar?
We had booked the tickets to Hokkaido under the impression that it would be noticeably cooler. After our weekend at Koya-san, I was filled with hope - there are parts of Japan that aren't completely sweltering. Alas, Hokkaido's cities are not one of these non-sweltering parts, and we had inadvertently spent a hell of a lot of money on coming to somewhere that wasn't actually noticeably cooler than Osaka - it was still above 30ºC and 90% humidity! We were, to put it mildly, annoyed.
We flew into Chitose, and took the train straight down to Hakodate (pop. 290,000), the Southern-most city of Hokkaido. Hakodate is a gorgeous little fishing city, famous for it's delicious squid, nighttime views, and a laid back environment. We found it to be rather similar to Hobart. We stayed in a nice hotel, went to the Ainu Museum, ate some delicious Italian food and a lot of squid, and plenty of local brews. We drank a beer at the top of Mount Hakodate, watched the sunset... just beautiful. Had a great day in Hakodate. I don't think you'd need much more time there... it's a pretty sleepy little town.
From Hakodate we jumped on the train to Toya-ko (Lake Toya). Toya-ko is surrounded by active volcanoes, which give it a myriad of onsens around the rim of the lake. The only problem is, occasionally the mountain likes to erupt, or just excavate the roads a bit haphazardly, or cause mudslides, so there are eerie segments of the town that are half-buried in mud, and filled with wildflowers and insects that have reclaimed the disused buildings. I really liked Toya-ko Onsen, the major town on the lakeside. Next to the lake there is a wide boulevard, where there is a little public onsen for your feet. Every night in summer they put on a little festival, some old ladies in yukatas come out and do a little dance for about half an hour, and then there's a 20 minute fireworks display that would put Hobart's New Years Eve to shame. The town itself is so sleepy it may well be in a coma, but that said, it's a very pleasant place to spend a few days. We found a really good little cheap place in Toya-ko Onsen called The Green Hotel, and it put on a massive feast for breakfast and dinner of local seafoods and vegetables. I got a bit excited and hired a row boat and rowed to the island in the middle of the lake. It took 45 minutes to get there and about 50 to get back because the wind got up and we were a little tired. It was so wonderful being at the island, we jumped in the water. There were lots of little fish and iridescent shrimp in the water who were not afraid of us at all. They walked all over our feet and legs and tickled like mad! The local tourists don't seem to go in for swimming in the lake, so we were the only bodies in the water. It was wonderful.
We left Toya-ko Onsen for Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, via bus. As we went around the hills toward Sapporo we saw many crops, almost every bit of flat land was being farmed quite intensively. We arrived in Sapporo - the town is also the name sake of one of my favourite Japanese beers. I was hoping to get myself a Sapporo Beer poster at the beer museum, so we dumped our bags at the hotel and went to the Sapporo Beer-en (Beer Garden). They specialise in "Jingis Khan" (Mongolian Lamb barbecue) which we indulged in. And boy, we over indulged. It was 100 minutes of all you can eat, all you can drink MADNESS. After that we went back to the hotel. We were really tired, and kinda crabby. I've decided I'm not too keen on being close to cooking lamb. The lamb fat just gets into all your clothes and makes everything smell awful. Yetch! The next day we decided to go to Moerenuma Park. Moerenuma park was designed by Isamu Noguchi as an architectural sculpture. It's massive. It's also two trains and a bus away from where we were staying in Sapporo. It was annoying to get to, but nice once we were there - very inspiring spaces. We then went to Sapporo Art Garden to see their exhibition of paintings and prints from the Wein Museum (including works by Klimt, Scheille, and Kokoshka), which was also really good, but it took the rest of the day for us to get there because it was on the complete opposite end of the city, two train rides and a long bus ride away. Sapporo is a car town. What an annoyance - I could have driven, had we enough money to hire a car, but hire car prices in Hokkaido are almost 50% more expensive than they are in Osaka. Ridiculous. And all the while it was so hot, we were just sweating and sweating, just like we had been in Osaka. We were really hoping to come North and be comfortable for a while, but it just didn't work out. We were a little disappointed with Hokkaido, even though it was lovely. We so wanted it to be colder... oh well, you live and learn. This was a particularly expensive lesson, but I think I've actually figured a few things out about traveling just generally - we got really tired of moving around so much. I think it's better to just find one good place and stay there until you unwind than to try and travel around too much on your holiday.
Finally, I did get to have an excellent scallop ramen from the Sapporo ramen alley on the last night, and I've been fantasising about it ever since it was so good. Hokkaido was really nice, and the food was great!
We then flew into Tokyo for a bit of madness. We stayed in Shinjuku, went to the Mori Art Muesum in Roppongi, we went to Tokyo Opera Building to see Tomoko Konoike's first solo exhibition, we went to Iron Chef Chen Kenichi's restaurant for lunch, I did a little reckless shopping in Ginza (new shoes, new wallet, new neck scarf), we saw the giant Gandam in Odaiba, we went to meet up with Luke Ray in Shinjuku and had yakitori in the famous "Memory Lane" (but all the locals call it "Piss Alley" - how stylish!) and the heavy metal bar in Kabuki-cho (that I may never find again - it was very well hidden!). At the end of it all, we were quite exhausted from our holiday!
Either way, now we're back in Osaka, and we've been trying to make reparations for the over-indulging and over-exertion holiday we just survived. I'll be tight with the cash again this month (what's new?) but I really do feel like this time I got to have a bit more of my fill of Tokyo. I think this will change our next move as to what we will do when we finish up here in Japan.
Either way, my lovelies, this was a very long post, and now I'm very tired, so I'm going to watch some Iron Chef and then go to sleep. Hope you're all keeping well.
