Travel Journal 2010

The group visited Nikko today, but we had our own plans.

We took the train to the suburb of Mitaka and visited the Ghibli Museum of the animation studio of the same name. For a ticket, you get a short strip of film from an anime (that’s what Japanese animated films are called). Unfortunately, taking photos wasn’t allowed inside the museum, except on the green roof terrace, where a huge robot from the anime Laputa stands.

Afterwards, we travelled to the district of Odaiba, an artificial island in the south of Tōkyō. Here you can take a rather special photo, namely of the Statue of Liberty, the Rainbow Bridge and the Tōkyō Tower, which looks like the Eiffel Tower.

It was pretty exciting to be out on our own for the first time, but it worked out surprisingly well. Tomorrow we’re heading out with the group again, specifically to the Fuji National Park.

It was a long day today. We were travelling by bus and only arrived at the hotel in the Fuji National Park late in the evening. So late that we almost missed dinner.

In Kamakura we saw a huge bronze Buddha sitting outdoors. You could even go inside the statue. The next stop was the Hasedera temple. Then we headed to Lake Ashi, where we took a boat trip on a pirate ship.

The final stop was Ōwakudani with its sulphur springs. There they have kuro tamago. These are chicken eggs that are boiled in the hot sulphur water and get a black shell as a result. Eating one of these eggs promises seven extra years of life. The view from up there was breathtaking, but so was the stench of sulphur.

After breakfast, we hopped straight back on the bus to the train station. But we took a quick break to check out Fuji-san (that’s the proper name for “Fujiyama”), which shed its cloak of clouds for us for a few minutes.

We took the Shinkansen bullet train down to Hiroshima. The journey was amazing. The trains are super spacious inside and absolutely tear through the countryside at 300 km/h. They’re also famous for their Bentō, a lunchbox that we obviously had to try while we were at it.

We stopped off in Okayama to check out the Kōrakuen landscape garden. It’s one of the three most beautiful in Japan. We wanted to chuck our luggage in a locker at the station, but they were all full. We’d pretty much resigned ourselves to lugging our bags around, but a young man offered to help and showed us some more lockers in a hidden-away part of the station. It’s unbelievable how helpful the people are here.

For dinner, we had Okonomiyaki. It’s real home-style comfort food made of cabbage, noodles, egg, and bonito flakes. In Okonomimura there are dozens of these little places where Japanese pizza is whipped up just like your mum makes it.

After an early breakfast, we used the time to check out Hiroshima Castle. Unfortunately, we only had time for a quick visit before meeting up with the group and taking the tram to Miyajima.

On the island of Miyajima is the Itsukushima-Shrine with its torii gate standing in the water - a world-famous postcard motif. The shrine complex stands on stilts and is also in the water at high tide. The building is a wonderful backdrop for traditional weddings.

Finally, we headed back to Hiroshima by tram, where we had a look at the Peace Park. It’s located right beneath the spot where the atomic bomb exploded in 1945. It’s an interesting, but also a depressing place.

Late in the afternoon, we tried to reach the Shukkeien-Garden on our own, but we had double bad luck: it was already closed, and on top of that, it started to rain.

Today we took the bus to our final stop, Kyōtō. But first we made a pit stop in Nara. There’s a massive park there with several temples and shrines. And here too, there’s a whole bunch of tame deer roaming around freely, eating biscuits right out of the tourists’ hands.

The main temple is the Tōdai-ji, which at nearly 49 metres tall is the biggest wooden building in the world. Inside sits a giant 15-metre bronze Buddha. The most important shrine is the Kasuga Taisha, a gorgeous complex with thousands of stone and metal lanterns.

In the evening we arrived at our hotel in Kyōtō. Our non-smoking room reeked of stale cigarette smoke so badly it took our breath away. Luckily we got to move to another room, even with a better view! There we ate some sushi we’d grabbed from a supermarket after a bit of shopping.