Travel Day. Nagano to Sendai.

 Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Travel Day. Nagano to Sendai.
Nov 062007
 

Today was a travel day from Nagano to Sendai for the most part, just like the headline says. I sent a third package home, and my luggage is still heavy. I still don’t get it. Maybe the junk in my bags is breeding?

The shinkansen is no longer exciting for me. Instead it makes me sleepy. I guess I’m finally used to that bit about being here. The ride from Nagano to Omiya on the Asami was nice, albeit a bit foggy. One really nice part– the Asami cars have a baggage nook I can stick my Big American Suitcase into.

From Omiya to Sendai, I rode on the Max Yamabiko, which is a double-decker shinkansen . It’s pretty cool, except the bit where I had to lug my suitcase upstairs, because there are no baggage nooks. I had to resort to the usual “tuck it behind the back row” trick.

The Max cars are also nice because each car has a little built-in store, so there’s no waiting for the carts to come down the middle of the train cars. They even sell beer, to make the trip a little more relaxing. But, I wasn’t in the mood for beer at 1 in the afternoon. It’s just too early for me.

Finding a Hotel in Tokyo

One thing that really gave me some peace of mind was finally finding a hotel for my 6 days in Tokyo. I was up until 4 a.m. last night trying to find a hotel free for all 6 days, and coming up with nothing. I don’t mind smoking rooms for a night, but for 6? No thanks. So I kept at it. Then I had a brainstorm in the shower this morning, and hit Travelocity. I had tried Expedia, Rakuten, and hotels.co.jp, and had no luck.

Travelocity had a nice hotel in Shinjuku, which is where I wanted to be in the first place. Shinjuku is a great location because it’s where every line runs, so you can pretty much go anywhere from there.

Having the hotel straightened out took a huge weight off my shoulders. I’m sure I could have found something when I got there, but I might not have found something nice. For most of my trip, I haven’t been too obsessed with getting hotels, because it hasn’t been too hard. But certain cities can be a pain to find rooms in. Tokyo and Kyoto come to mind. Osaka and Nara were mildly irritating, but not impossible. Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Nagano, and Sendai were pretty easy.

My advice is plain common sense– if you’re going to a big tourist destination, try to nail down a room a bit sooner than you think you’ll need it.

Arrival in Sendai

I have arrived in Sendai, which is on the northeast coast of Honshu, the main island. It’s about 2 hours north of Tokyo by shinkansen. When I got here, I did my usual “Find the information booth” dance, and got some pamphlets, but they were all in Japanese only. It’s a bit frustrating. I wanted some good info on seeing Matsushima in English, but no luck.

I also wanted to see if I could make a short trip to Mt. Zao before heading to Tokyo on Thursday, but that’s going to be a bust. From what I gathered, the buses don’t run all the way to the crater, and only stop at the hot spring. To get to the crater, you have to rent a car in Sendai, and I’m not doing that. Drive on the left? No thanks.

After getting info, I checked in at another Comfort Inn. Another nice room for 6,250 yen a night (go AAA discount). Then some time to play with the TV– very nice. It’s HD, and I think if I feed it money, I can see the HD cable channels. I’m not too sure about that yet. For some reason, someone’s ad text is all over my CNN-J channel, and I can’t get rid of it.

It reminds me of the guy in The Diamond Age who got infected by a virus that made him see Indian TV ads in the corner of his eyes 24/7, and he eventually went insane and killed himself.

But it’s not that bad. It’s more background noise than anything else.

Wandering in Sendai

I did some strolling around Sendai. It’s a very lively city, and a very cold one, too. There are some nice shopping arcades as well. I found some department stores and raided their basements for dinner. I scored some chicken-katsu, a potato croquette, and a sandwich with a chocolate croissant.

On the way back, I saw a very busy taiyaki vendor, and I would have stopped if I didn’t already have food… and hunger. Taiyaki is a fish-shaped pastry filled with sweet red bean paste, and in this shop’s case, white pastry cream. I will go back there tomorrow to sample some of their taiyaki. The line was huge, so it must be good.

The rest of the evening will be spent resting, doing laundry, and puttering around. Matsushima will take a lot out of me tomorrow, so I need to rest up for it.

The longer I’m in Japan, the more I’m loving it here. For a while, I was really wanting to go home. Now I really want to explore more here, but that’s not in the cards for now.

I’ll worry about that when I get home, I guess.

I do think I’m going to get serious about looking for work here when I can get my Japanese to an acceptable level. Japan is fascinating, mystifying, and a hell of a lot of fun all at once, but I need to seriously level up my language skills.

Nagano: Zenkoji and Togakushi: Part Two: Togakushi and Notes

 Japan, Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Nagano: Zenkoji and Togakushi: Part Two: Togakushi and Notes
Nov 052007
 

Togakushi. Tooi.

After some false starts, I finally got communications with the travel and tourism office people to work. I decided to head to Togakushi. It’s a close-ish town with mountains, trees, not many people, and a famous cedar-lined path that leads to a famous local shrine. I know I’m burned out on shrines, but this one is at least out of the way and scenic. I’m game. Maybe I won’t have to fight more groups for photos.

A one-hour-plus bus ride later, I’m at Togakushi Chuu, which is the shrine in the middle of the town. It has a massive set of stairs you have to climb to enter the shrine. After wheezing up the stairs, I made it to the shrine itself. It was nice. Nothing too fancy.

Photos:

From the window of my bus:

On the bus to Togakushi

Togakushi Chuu Shrine:

Togakushi Chuu

This is actually Togakushi Houkou:

Togakushi Houkou

The stairs to Togakushi Chuu (foreshadowing!):

Togakushi Chuu

The honden at Togakushi Chuu:

Togakushi Chuu: Honden

Something I should mention first– Nagano claims to be an international city, but I hadn’t seen one English-language sign at any of the temples I’ve been at so far. Not even one telling me to stay off of something, or take off my shoes. Fortunately, I know enough Japanese to find my way, but I don’t know enough to know much about what I’m seeing, which is a little frustrating.

But I like pretty things, so I can deal with it.

Off to the main shrine. The sign points to the trail, and says it’s 1.4 Km away. Better get hiking!

I started heading down this path to Togakushi Oku Shrine:

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

I think this sign means it’s 1.4 Km to the shrine:

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

Okay, now it’s in English. 1.3 Km to the entrance. Well, that can’t be too far from the shrine, right? (It’s also 18.3 Km to Zenkoji, if I feel like a nice long stroll!)

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

It’s a beautiful hike nonetheless:

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

1.1 Km…:

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

Still beautiful:

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine

This map gives you a bit of an idea of where I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m headed. In a way.

Path to Togakushi Oku Shrine: Map

I need to point something else out here first. The buses to Togakushi run every hour or so. The last bus leaves at 8-something p.m., but the bus I need to ride back leaves at 5:10 p.m. That’s because the sun sets around that time, and I don’t want to wander in the Japanese countryside in the dark without a flashlight.

There isn’t another bus until 6:00 p.m., and we’re at altitude. (About 4,500 ft or so?) I set out from the first shrine at 3:00 p.m., and I knew it was going to be close to make it back by 5. So I had to move quickly.

The 1.4 Km hike was very pretty and very strenuous. Lots of uphill climbs, lots of uneven terrain, but lots of gorgeous mountains. Also lots of power lines getting in the way of my pictures. That’s one irritating thing about Japan– power lines and poles everywhere. They seem to just jump into my pictures as if taunting me.

So after 20-30 minutes of hiking, I made it to the entrance to the main shrine. Yay! Finally! (Well, I see the souvenir shop!)

Togakushi Oku Shrine

It’s really pretty.

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Really pretty!

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Then I see the sign.

“Main shrine -> 1900 Meters”

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Ah, crap.

I’m already sore, and now I find out I’m not even halfway there. And I still have to go back at some point! I’m not even 1/4 done with walking for the day!

Ah well. Let’s get moving!

Gorgeous Cedar Trees

The path to the mountain shrine is stunning. It’s lined with trees and is straight as an arrow. Lots of views. Also, along both sides of the path are little gutters, or streams, with water flowing down making a lovely gurgling noise. Very nice.

The nicest part? The sparse number of people. It feels like you’re more alone than ever, and it’s good. Nobody is crowding you, elbowing you, out-camping you for things… it’s just a walk down a tree-lined lane in fall. Everyone there feels that same vibe, too, and they actually nod and smile at you as you walk by. They don’t just bulldoze by you like you’re another obstacle.

Starting down the straight-as-an-arrow path:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

The Outer Gate to the Inner Shrine, guarded by komainu:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Then I reached the highlight of the day so far– a 500 meter long path with a straight row of giant cedar trees lining each side. It’s another travel magic moment. As I said in my Nara post, this is why I love to travel.

The cedar rows. Stunning:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Of course, it’s all uphill, the road is a little rough, and it’s tiring. It’s 48F (maybe), and I’m just wearing my long-sleeve T-shirt because I’m sweating up a storm. I have the voice of the Survivorman guy in my head, reminding me that if I sweat too much in cold weather, it could be dangerous, so I’ve already peeled off my jacket until I’m down to just the T-shirt, and I’m still all sweaty. Also, everything is cotton. I’m learning on this trip that cotton is evil. It does a really good job of trapping sweat and holding it against you.

It’s work, man.

But oh my God, it’s worth it. It’s gorgeous here.

Then the main path runs out:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

And then there are stairs. Lots of stone stairs that are uneven. Be careful!

We start climbing stairs:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Looking back down the stairs:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Now that I’m past the cedar rows and forest, I can start to see the mountains:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Made it to the shrine!

Togakushi Oku Shrine

I finally made it to the shrine a little after 4 p.m. For once, I did the whole purification ritual you’re supposed to do when you enter a shrine.

The water was freezing.

Purify Yourself!

So how does the basic purification ritual work? Simple. There’s a pool of water with dippers in it. You grab the dipper with your right hand, pour water over your left, then switch to the dipper to your left hand to wash your right, then switch again to fill your left hand with water so you can rinse out your mouth. Don’t spit the water back into the basin. Then fill the dipper again and let the water run down the handle to rinse off all of your cooties. Put the dipper back where you found it. If you don’t know what you’re doing, ask someone.

When you’re done, you shake your hands dry like everyone else who doesn’t have a towel. (Or just carry a towel or handkerchief with you, like most people do here.)

I probably could have used some extra purification after all of that sweating. Nevermind, I’m thinking of a shower.

The shrine I’ve been killing myself to get to is a lovely little shrine. It’s small, but the views are what make it impressive. The mountains were just gorgeous.

The views:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Togakushi Oku Shrine

And while small, the shrine has its own charm:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

The Honden:

Togakushi Oku Shrine: Honden

One of the other buildings at the shrine:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Some nice ladies offered to take my picture in front of the honden. I gladly accepted their offer.

Togakushi Oku Shrine: Honden + Dork

I spent a few minutes at the shrine, checked my watch, and started to get nervous. I had to go 3.3 Km in rough mountainous country to get to my bus stop by 5:10 p.m. It was ~4:15 p.m. already. I was pretty sure I could make it, but I had to hustle.

Race to the Bus!

To top it off, I was already sore, and getting more sore by the minute.

Down the mountain I went. It was rough going down. I learned a trick from the older ladies– skip the stairs, and go on the terrain on the side– you move faster.

Heading back through the cedars. Still amazing!:

Togakushi Oku Shrine

Racing to the exit!

Togakushi Oku Shrine

I was burning shoe leather pretty well, so I stopped next to the entrance 1.9 Km from the shrine to buy some postcards and a Sprite (which I had to carry home with me– not a recycling bin in sight), then resumed my forced march to the bus stop.

1.4 Km to go.

Everything hurts.

Toga-kurushii?

I decided to rename Togakushi as Togakurushii while I’m speed-hiking, because kurushii means “excruciatingly painful” in Japanese. It fits. I chuckled to myself, but I kept moving. Suddenly, I found myself going uphill. Huh? I didn’t remember this bit being downhill on the way.

Keep moving, I told myself. Finally, I made it back to the bus stop with 5 minutes to spare. Lucky!

I had time to eat the chocolate croissant I didn’t have time to eat this afternoon for dessert.

The bus came on time and I had another bumpy bus ride home, this time in the dark. The main reason I wanted to catch that bus was because after 4:30 p.m., the sun sets here, and you don’t want to go fumbling around the woods in the dark. That’s a really bad idea.

Another thing I noticed– in rural Japan, stuff closes even sooner. Stores were closed at 5 p.m. sharp here. Some even closed at 4:30 p.m.

Other stuff:

Japanese road construction: when I first saw these long ropes of red lights, I thought something festive was happening. Nope. It’s how they mark off dangerous areas. They use ropes of dirt cheap energy-saving LEDs. Smart. And festive!

Also, they’ve replaced the stop/slow sign guy with a robot of sorts. 2 stands are put up, each with a light, one on each end of the work zone. One light will show a blue arrow to the traffic that can go through, while the other end shows a red light with a countdown timer. Neat. (But it puts the Stop/Slow sign guys out of a job.)

I’ve been seeing more and more countdown timers on crosswalks. It’s sort of an inverted pyramid with red bars. One red bar disappears every 5-10 seconds, then you get to go.

Oh, and crosswalk music. Dammit, I can’t get one of the little songs out of my head. Do-do-do do doo do-do-do do-do-do-do-do. I was even humming it to myself while hiking today. Mom informs me that the song is “When a Body Sees a Body Comin’ Through the Rye…” I still can’t get it out of my head.

Speaking of weird music. At 5 p.m. in Togakushi, I heard mysterious organ music, with no discernible source. It was some sort of church music, too, which is really odd for rural Japan, but I suppose there’s a perfectly good Japanese Reason for it.

EDIT: I found out the reason for the music: it has to do with synchronizing government time, so that everyone knows that it’s 5 p.m. It has something to do with disaster planning and preparedness. It also serves as a “gentle reminder” to the kids out playing that, “Now would be a really good time to go home.” Gotta love NHK.

Oh, and my theory of why is there so much weird and random English? Simple. Nobody over here cares if it’s grammatically correct, because it’s not aimed at us foreigners. It’s aimed at the locals, and they don’t think spelling “Lodge” as “Rodge” is that bad. (I did see a Rodge today.)

I have a new theory of why people avoid me. It’s because they think, “Ah, crap. A foreigner. I bet he’s going to start babbling to me in English any second now, and the only English I remember from High School is ‘Hello. Where is John? Are you John? No, I am Peggy.'”

At least that’s what I figure. Can you remember any of your compulsory high school foreign language? I know if I saw a desperate Frenchman asking for help, part of me would want to just keep walking and feign ignorance, too.

The only French I remember is “Ou est la toilette?” and “Je m’appelle Richard,” so I totally understand.

Total kilometers walked today… uh… 1.4+1.4+1.9+1.9+1.4+.5… that’s 8, right? I’m too tired to do the math.

Tomorrow is travel to Sendai, and not much else. I’m not going to be up for much more than that.

Nov 052007
 

Another day in Nagano. Lots of walking.

LOTS of it.

I got up late. I slept in until 9:30 a.m. because I was tired.

I’m sure Nagano has a lot of great Olympic-related sights, but I decided to skip those. It just didn’t do anything for me, and if I can’t ride the bobsled, what’s the point? (Also, I didn’t want to risk injury on the skating rink at M-Wave.)

Zenkoji

First off was Zenkoji Temple. It’s famous. Or at least the mobs and mobs of people there led me to believe that. It was pretty, but I didn’t get much more out of it than that. Maybe I’m suffering from temple burnout. It was just a huge crush of middle-aged and elderly people shuffling around in tour groups having their pictures taken in staged settings. The photographer would have bleachers set up in the standard “Here’s where I take the group picture” place, and they all lined up and dutifully went through with it.

Definitely not my cup of tea.

I did take a few pictures of it:

Heading to the temple:

Outside Zenkoji Temple

Looking back in the direction I just came:

Heading to Zenkoji Temple

The outer gate is impressive:

Zenkoji Temple, Outer Gate

You can see the inner gate in the distance. Here’s a shopping street full of restaurants and souvenir shops:

Zenkoji Temple, Shopping Area

Getting closer to the inner gate, but there’s nothing to see–it’s closed for renovation.

Zenkoji Temple, Inner Gate

Entering the temple (more shichi-go-san, but no children present today, just tour groups of seniors):

Zenkoji Temple, going in.

Turtles Chillin’ Out:

Zenkoji Temple, Turtles Relaxing.

Shots of Various Temple Buildings:

This is a backlit shot of the inner gate, if I remember correctly.

Zenkoji Temple

Zenkoji Temple

Zenkoji Temple

Zenkoji Temple

Heading out to JR Nagano:

Passing down the souvenir shop street again:

Zenkoji Temple, Heading Out.

Zenkoji Temple, Shopping Area.

After the 1.4 Km hike there, I took the bus to the station to get lunch and get some ideas for seeing mountains and scenic stuff. Something that didn’t involve mobs of tourists and bleachers. Since it was noon, the department store was open, so I bought some sandwiches and a chocolate croissant.

I took a few photos of the area around JR Nagano:

Downtown Nagano

Downtown Nagano

Downtown Nagano

Downtown Nagano

Okay, this post is getting long. Time to break it into two parts. Togakushi is in Part Two!

Slow Train to Nagano

 Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Slow Train to Nagano
Nov 042007
 

Today was another travel day. A very long one, at that. Sayonara, Osaka. It was fun. I have to come back sometime. I really loved it there.

Now off to Nagano, which takes a while to get to from Osaka.

Back in Nagoya

The Business Hotel Nissei was good to me. I got to sleep in until 8:30 a.m., because check-out wasn’t until 11 a.m. Then it was time to lug all my stuff all over Japan again.

I left Shin-Osaka at about 11:30 a.m., and got to Nagoya at around 1:00 p.m. It was time to spawn-camp the coin lockers. I managed to snag lockers for my backpack and day pack, but not for my big suitcase. I had to lug that thing around for a few hours. Note to self: how do you like that big bag now?

I wanted to take a break in Nagoya because I wanted to eat and just not think about riding on a train for a bit. Food eaten, shopping done, feeling refreshed, I went about looking for a train to Nagano.

There are 2 ways you can go from Nagoya to Nagano.

Route #1: the shinkansen. You ride for 1:45 to Tokyo, change to the Nagano shinkansen, then ride for another 1:45. You travel over 580 Km in 3:30. Roughly. If your trains connect nicely. If they don’t, it’s more like 4 hours. But traveling on the shinkansen implies a certain level of style and comfort that I have easily become accustomed to, and spoiled by.

Route #2: take the Shinano Limited Express from Nagoya to Nagano. It’s 250 Km, but it takes you 2:50 to get there. It’s called the “wide view” because the windows are, well, wide. It’s a limited express because while it doesn’t hit every stop, it hits about 10-15, and it doesn’t go that fast through the mountains.

I was going to go the shinkansen route, but I couldn’t get a non-smoking seat reservation for about 2 hours. So it was off to the Shinano.

Taking the Shinano turned out to be a good choice.

Shinano Wide View to Nagano

The Shinano isn’t a shinkansen, so it wasn’t going to race down the tracks, but I enjoyed the ride. Once we got out of the city and into the Japan Alps, the views were stunning, especially with all the fall foliage. And the way the train rode, it was very soothing and very sleep-inducing. I dozed off and on. Kachunk-kachunk, kachunk-kachunk…

I hate that we don’t have a rail network like this in the U.S. Amtrak is getting there, but it’s sloooow.

On this train, the shinkansen luggage trick doesn’t work very well. I had to strain to fit my luggage in behind the last seat, because it’s a much tighter fit. Then again, I had some massive bags with me. (Something I keenly regret over and over.)

The shinkansen Luggage Trick

The shinkansen luggage trick involves taking your bloated American luggage and sticking it behind the last row of seats in the car. There’s plenty of room to put it there. But it’s not always the case with other trains.

Only afterwards did I realize that I was a dummy– there is a baggage area in the front of the car on the Shinano that I just didn’t see.

D’oh.

Nagano

I arrived in Nagano, then had to camp the elevator to get to the taxi stand… seriously, sometimes Japan drives me nuts.

I got to my hotel, the JAL City Hotel, and got settled. I get American Airlines frequent flyer points for staying here- huzzah!

Naturally, the department stores had closed at 7 p.m., because Nagano is a small city, not a big one. I found a restaurant somewhere. I went with something safe tonight, because I was tired and not feeling 100%. You can always get decent pizza in Japan.

And Lawson always has something else food-wise. Japan’s conbinis have saved me on occasions so numerous, I’ve lost count.

Wash My Clothes.

I went back to the hotel. Now things got interesting. I found out my room didn’t have any Internet in it, so the guy at the desk switched me out. A bit of a hassle, but I need my Internet, because I have things to plan. It’s something that more and more hotels offer. (And the ones that don’t have Internet should get with the program!)

Then I asked the guy at the front desk where the nearest laundromat was. Well, he gave me directions, but I think he got confused, or maybe I got confused, because all I saw were strip clubs and those guys in shiny suits who ask you if you’re looking for fun.

Yeah… thanks, but no thanks. I just want my laundry done. Some woman who was dressed in some wild outfit approached me, and I asked her if she knew where the laundromat was. I don’t think she was expecting that.

I still have some Woolite with me, so at least I can have one set of not-too-fragrant clothes. Washing in the sink for the win.

Tomorrow is, uh… uh… I’ll have to get back to you tomorrow with that. I still don’t have a plan.

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