Japan 18 : Secret Garden

After a long snooze I awoke with sand in every crevice I could think of. A shower the previous night would have been a good idea but I had just flopped onto the bed and spent quality time watching crazy people do stupid stunts on giant greased logs for no discernible prize on the telly. After a good wash and some time hitting the hell out of my shoes to rid them of the last of the sand, I went downstairs and checked out.

Strictly speaking, I should have woken up in Osaka rather than Himeji, and given the size of the former it would have warranted the two day stopover I had originally allocated. However, things being as they were I found myself caught short when booking time in Osaka (there were no available rooms in any hotels near the station) and the best I could get was one day in each. First impressions were not great; Himeji was awash with last nights rain and it hadn't stopped there, it was still going: Sometimes you can go out in the rain and barely feel as if you're getting wet. This was the other kind, the kind that made you very, very wet as soon as you stepped out into it.

Despite this, I had decided not to spend the first half of the day travelling to Osaka in the hope that by the time I stepped out at the other side it had stopped. My interests had been piqued by Himeji Castle and surrounding Koko-en gardens, and thus thought it was only fair to split things 50:50. I went to the train station and stuck my bags in a locker there, and then got some brekky. I then in a succession of mad dashes between covered markets, overhanging roofs and whatever else I could find to shelter under, approached the castle entrance.

Himeji castle was easily spotted through the dark clouds, rising up from the flat expanse of the terrain the city had used as its foundation. I bought a dual ticket (one for the castle, one for the gardens, which were on separate land to the side), and figured inside might be the best idea first to give the rain chance to stop.

Across a square and then a busy road, the bustle of modern-day Japan was left immediately behind and was replaced by the relative quiet of the entrance; a beautiful Japanese moat bridge - the Sakuramon bridge (a good panoramic pic is here) - spanning the wide outer moat followed by the large Otemon - the main gateway - beyond which the huge outer courtyard began.
Himeji Castle is one of the largest and the most visited of all the castles in Japan, and despite the foul weather, the crowds had not abated today. I dread to think what it would be like in May at the height of the tourist season.

I started in a general direction towards the castle, perched high up on its walls as many of Japan's castles are. In fact, it was very reminiscent of Matsuyama a couple of nights before in its size and shape and the iconic curved supporting walls that made up its base, although Himeji had definitely turned the opulence meter up another crank; here were people who wanted to flaunt their wealth and power so much more - and they were good at it too.

Sensing an opportunity to get away from the crowds a bit, I hooked a left up the side to see some of the gardens in the courtyard. Though the Sakura was well and truly out now, there was very little else other than some scraggy grass that was still recovering from the previous summer, so I brushed my way past the empty branches and onwards, rejoining the crowds around the corner. There followed a series of increasingly more internal alleyways and openings, where I could get a few good pictures of the castle looming large in front of me, all well signposted with some nice external 'exhibits' and commendable English support.

The insides of Matsuyama Castle were also quieter and less prone to death by slipping down steps. As I entered the castle I had to do the now familiar switcharoo with a set of (outsize) flip-flops, only this time I had to do it in a steadily moving and pulsating queue, where I had to make my own seating arrangements. Fortunately they provided plastic bags or else I'd have never seen my shoes again. Unfortunately, these flip-flops were more like slippers that had no backs on them and so threatened to fall off at the raise of either foot from the ground.

The innards of the castle lead the tourists on a winding path, splitting the already narrow stairways in half for the steady and continuous up and down flows of feet. On each floor, there were a selection of artefacts from the various periods of the castle's history, the original structure dating back to the 14th century and the castle as it is now from the 17th Century. On the compact top floor (there were 5, and this one was about as big as a large attic) the crowds became queues, forming to pay their respects to the shrine located in the centre of the room and taking up a good portion of it. Once through the shrine and having taken some pictures of the fantastic views I made my way carefully back down the stairs (the flip-flops were doing a lot of flopping. Mostly off.) through the exhibits of scale models and structure of the castle, and out into the courtyard again. It was nice to get my now freezing feet back into some relatively warm shoes and I half walked, half hopped out as I tried to stuff my ice cube toes back into them without anything snapping off.

After a little more ambling around the courtyards, I decided it was time for the gardens. It hadn't stopped raining much but the skies were pretty universally grey so they wouldn't be doing any time soon anyway. Unlike the castle, the gardens were almost empty, although that could have been because most of the plants were still asleep and a bit grumpy when you tried to look at them. Some of the larger trees were still bound up in their protective winter sheaths and many hadn't burst from bud yet. I was feeling like there was going to be little to see until I crossed a gently curving wooden bridge and emerged into the central area - a quad of walled-off sections of garden with a central pond and streams shared between them, absolutely full of multicoloured Koi. The first - and most beautiful - section contained the largest pond, complete with waterfalls, weeping willows, firs of all shapes and sizes, and even a bit of Sakura for good measure. There was also a covered viewing platform for just such a day, and I happily spent time watching the writhing of fish under the water as they revelled in the constant spit-spotting of the raindrops on the water.

I spent a little while strolling through the various areas, I was quite surprised at the amount of recognisable plants around, although the general not-quite-woken-up look of the rain-soaked twigs and buds could only be interesting for so long, there was little beyond some spring bulbs and some unknown but very delicate flowers actually putting on a show. Heading back to the entrance, the heavens opened once more, so I sat for a while next to the ticket office. An elderly guy named Charlie from London appeared and sat down wearily next to me. He decided to wait for his wife and her Japanese guide to finish going round the gardens with him. They had just come over from Aukland on a round the world trip, and were in the country for a few days. We sat and chatted for a while about where we had both travelled and where to go next (I recommended Hiroshima to them for the impact of the area and its history, and Kyoto for its temples) until his wife picked him up and they went on their way. By this point it had stopped raining, so I made my way quickly back through the market areas. After yet more Italian food (a nice lasagne with 'pizza toast' and some more proper tea!) in a very pleasant and cosy little restaurant tucked away in the corner of one of the covered arcades, I headed to the station to get my bags.

Osaka station was pretty close, so the intervening trip was short and largely devoid of sights. I arrived about 4pm in Osaka with the intention of doing a couple of things before nightfall. First thing was to find the hotel, which was no mean feat as the station was massive, and when I exited it was into a solid flow of people going about their business with robotic efficiency. After negotiating some underpasses and over busy streets with only my watch-compass and an increasingly damp map to work with (fortunately there were some walkways to get through the worst of the traffic) I finally got on the correct street and arrived at the hotel Hokke, situated on the back streets amongst ..ahem.. businesses of liberal repute - offering professional massage services. The hotel was perfectly respectable (with a.. lovely view) but it felt a little seedy being in the district even so.

No matter, I ditched the bags in the room and headed out. As I retraced my steps through the city, I tried not to gape too much at the enormity of everything around me for fear of ending up under a bus or slipping over and giving a poor native some unwanted personal contact. One attraction I did know about in Osaka before starting out was the Umeda Sky Building, an enormous glass structure in the shape of an inverted 'U' that contained a circular viewing platform at its height. Once on the other side of the station it was easy to spot, but getting there would be more difficult. I passed a post office just as it shut - too late to get any cash out, then headed past a shy Big Issue seller, under the train tracks and out the other side where things looked very much more industrial. Following the road down with grand buildings to the left and empty trainyards to the right, I was on a heading 90 degrees to the sky building and it was getting increasingly dark. A good 5 minute walk allowed me to cross at a level crossing and backtrack to the sky plaza, located in the Umeda district - a large coming together of business and retail blocks. The commercial structure is home to several banks and on the lower floors were several ATMs, though again none would take my dirty foreign card. I would have to wait until the next day it seemed, but I had enough cash to be going on with for now so it was OK.

Relieved that the building wasn't closed, I reached the entrance as the day was turning to night. The layout of the building was a bit stuffy to just have a single lift to the top, so partway up you transfer from the lift to an enormous escalator which straddles the two sides of the building, with a smaller escalator that takes you into the top dome on the 40th floor. Lit up at night it was something special to go in, not overly flashy, just enough to give a quiet sense of awe as you were taken into it. Between escalators was - predictably - a souvenir shop, which I largely ignored as I was light on cash, there were some nice trinkets but I ignored them on the basis of cash shortage and the lack of packing room.


Alighting at the top, there was a fantastic panoramic view of the city at night, and the inner wall of the dome was decorated with tall photographs of other notable buildings from around the world - although I was most interested in the views out of the window. The pictures were going to be difficult - the lack of ambient light meant my little camera would need a long exposure time per photo, and from experience I knew I wouldn't be able to hold myself still enough to take anything that didn't look like an earthquake was happening. I solved the problem by standing the camera on a windowsill, slightly angled downwards with whatever papers I could stuff under it without falling over. I then set a 5 second timer so I could press and not be part of the vibration when the picture was taken. My fleece was used as a cover to minimise the reflection of the light from the inside of the room. A bit make-do-and-mend I'll grant you but I got some cracking pictures through the rain-dashed windows.

I spent a while at the dome, it was very relaxing watching the city come alive with light and movement, yet be so far away from it in complete peace. I finally left about 8pm. Leaving the building and looking up, the circular dome had a beautiful flickering green-blue glow to it, making it look like a landing UFO and lighting up the rest of the building in with metallic blue hues. It's definitely one of the most striking buildings I've seen and better still for visiting at night. As I headed back I passed the post office again, and inside through a door I could shout through was a guy sorting some mail. I took a chance and asked about the ATMs I could see in the barricaded off area, and after what I thought was a shooing off, I realised he was telling me to go round the outside to another bank of machines - which had been available all the time - doh!

Getting out 40,000yen (about £200) I immediately spent some in the adjacent Italian (yes, again) which was very busy but expensive. I had myself a sausage pizza with mango juice and a choc and banana sundae which was yum. At about 9pm I went back to the hotel and spent a little time uploading things on the free internet downstairs, which made me completely lose track of time and I went to bed around midnight.

Japan 17 : Threesome

Things were going well since Kyoto. Every day I was feeling stronger and was able to achieve more. Though my time on Shikoku island was rapidly coming to a close I was feeling positive.

I had made another change to my schedule. Originally, my plan was to head directly from Takamatsu to Osaka via Awaji Island, a small elongated stretch of land tethered to both Shikoku and Honshu by long road bridges. The original route would mean traversing this route, and it would require most of the day, most of it involving buses, and possibly another expensive ferry.
I still had a day in hand, and I had not yet set up my accommodation for the next stop of the journey, so I made a choice. Instead of the Awaji island route, I decided to head back to the Great Seto Bridge and cross there to Okayama. From there, strike a blow in the face of my prior invalided state and go north to Tottori and pay a visit to its famous beach, before finally taking the train back south-east to Himeji where I would stop for the night.

The JTB I had passed the previous evening would be the first stop, and after mooching around one of the less glamorous inner city blocks at 7.30 on a cold foggy morning, I decided to swing by. Unfortunately it was still closed and wouldn't open until ten, so I headed over the road to Chuo Park, a small open area accessible via an underpass bisecting a busy crossroads. (The underpass, like many others in Japan was beautifully decorated and spotless, this one containing expansive murals made from stone and glass with miniature spotlights giving them an eerie glow. The pictures I took don't do them justice.)

There was little in the park worth looking at, and because there was only an hour to spare and I had no guide book with me, there was little point in venturing further into the city, so I perused the statues to baseball heroes and the stone Tanuki who was clearly enjoying the airy feeling a life devoid of underwear would provide. I ended up sat with a rabble of scraggy pigeons on the steps of a small amphitheatre until the target hour came around.
However, it was so unremarkable and nothing was happening that I got bored and nipped into a Lawsons and grabbed some breakfast (sarnies and choccy) and then went back to the hotel to check out, using their internet to check the various train connections I would need to make later on in the day.

When JTB finally opened, I had been sat for a while shivering in the cold morning, munching away on the last of the choccy, and was glad to sit down and parlez with someone in a relatively warm room, although it was a bit of a struggle as the woman behind the counter knew little to no Japanese. However after a lot of diagram drawing and flipping backward and forward in my now pretty dog-eared phrase book, I managed to get booked into Himeji, Osaka, Hammamatsu and Shinjuku, which meant no more advance booking was required. The original plan was to spend 2 nights in Osaka, but it was clear by this point that the 300-mile journey to the next destination (Mt. Fuji) was going to be too long for one day, so by spending one of them in Hammamatsu midway between, the pressure would be lessened somewhat. Shinjuku was the most expensive so far, as it was right in the middle of a fashionable, bustling city, weighing in at 9300yen (about £47 - although that is still miles less than a night in London).

Pleased that I had no more of that to do, I retraced my steps back to the station and bought a ticket for Okayama. There was a little time before it went, so I took the opportunity to at least get an arial view of the city I was largely ignoring. I went to the Symbol Tower, placed right next to the train station, which has a viewing platform. Floor 30, where the main views are taken from, was closed for some reason, but the one below still had some reasonable views of Shikoku's most populated city, particularly those looking out to Takamatsu Port and the Inland Sea. Shikoku Island has much more going for it than I had given credit for, and now I was leaving, but I will be back one day and will spend some time exploring in more detail.

I headed back to the station avoiding some sort of publicity event going on in the concourse, and was intrigued to find myself booked on a double-decker train. Any hopes of decent views were dashed when it became apparent that I was on the bottom bunk and my journey would be made up of the views of ankles and train wheels. Not wanting to put up with the situation for long, I waited in my seat until the ticket inspector had done his rounds and then sneaked onto the upper floor, where I met an American couple who were clicking away happily with their perfect view. The chain of bridges that spanned the Inland Sea seemed to go on for ages, and there was no land left undeveloped on the small islands that marked the end of one bridge and the start of the next.

By Okayama - home of Peach Boy - I had made the decision that I was going to go to Tottori, as up until then I could make a guess by the hours remaining in the day. Entering the ticket office, I managed to get a ticket after some confusion with the times (my initial one set off a minute from when I was given it, but luckily a fellow ticket buyer helped me out to get it exchanged for a ticket for the next train instead). Since there was another half hour to wait before the train departed, I went over the pedestrian bridge from the station to the Okayama Digital Museum (situated next to an NHK building, complete with furry Domo representative to greet me!). It was dead inside, and there was no English on the signs, but it was quite interesting to mooch around for a while, studying the gorgeous hi-res digital pictures and restored early art prints. There was even an exhibit where you played virtual tram tours around Okayama on little pushcarts, although it would have benefited from more than just me beeping and screeching around.

The Okayama-Tottori journey came around and seemed to take forever, heading from the southern to the northern coast, although the scenery was nicer here, with less of the typical defacing of the natural surroundings with buildings and roads and industry, this section of track conveyed a feeling more of a symbiotic relationship between man and nature. It was all very nice to look at, although I was clock-watching - I could make Tottori and back again, but there wasn't much wiggle room to use if things went wrong. (I was told that the JR train went over a private line, much like at Ise, and so there would be a surcharge, although no-one ever asked for one on the journey.)

When I arrived at Tottori Station, it was still quite some way from the beach; I had been expecting to step out of the carriage and see something akin to Blackpool Front, but there was no immediate sign that this was a coastal town at all. In fact, it was a sizeable city I had just arrived at, and one that for the first time, seemed genuinely and completely foreign. I have mentioned a general lack of English signs before now, and Shikoku was quite bad for it, but Tottori was worse. As if shunned by the tourists who head straight for the more interesting parts on the south coast (or perhaps they had all skipped to Hiroshima like I had due to dikky tummies and awful hotels), Tottori made no attempt to welcome the foreign tourist whatsoever. After much symbolism at the ticket office, I got myself a ticket for the last train to Himeji which left at 6.40pm. I left my larger backpack in a locker in the station and went to the bus park across the road, spending a little time searching fruitlessly for signs for the beach. The people behind the desk were not very useful either, they spoke no English at all and had no translations of the timetables. Typically, my phrasebook also decided that there was no need to include the translation of the word 'beach' either.

Not having much of a clue, I headed outside to the bus terminus and was relieved to see a cartoon drawing of a beach with a bucket and spade over the #0 bus. I got on and 20 minutes and 360yen later, after climbing a small hill to a parking area, departed. Out beyond the buildings surrounding me was the distant sound of waves and the salty smell of sea air. There was a ropeway down to the beach, but the guy seemingly in charge of it was babbling at me and I wasn't too keen on the swaying seats in the sea breeze, so I headed down a sandy track containing what I hoped were camel tracks (they are available as rides, it said in the book), then crossed a main road and started to hit dunes.

Tottori beach is very large, consisting of an inital flat-ish area that leads down into a valley, on the other side of which is a huge dune, which I had now challenged myself to climb. The sun was becoming ever lower in the sky by this point so I had to hurry if I was going to experience a Japanese beach. By the time I was in the valley it was clear this was a popular spot; there were dozens of people clomping about in the sand, writing rude words and generally expelling energy. I worked my way through the streams of manic children and started the ascent up the steep dune, each step in the sand sank down half of what I had reached, but I eventually made it to the top.

The sun was getting low on the horizon and the sight of the sea opened up in front of me. The tide was just on the turn and the sunlight shimmered over it as my eyes tracked the beach from the west as far as I could see, rounding a cape to the east. It had taken two attempts to get here, and it was worth it. I stumbled down the other side towards the sea and dipped a hand into the water to symbolise my journey from south to north sides of the country. After days and days of towns and cities and rails, it was nice to experience a completely natural sight for once and stroll along the shoreline.

After a while though, I became a little bored and more than a bit hungry, so I started to make my way back. It was only 5pm, so I had plenty of time. I was just about to cross the road for a shop that might have sold much-needed tasty treats, when a bus appeared at a stop that was different to the one I had come in on, but was heading in the right direction. Figuring I might be best getting back to the station earlier rather than later, I checked it went to the station and got on.

What followed was one of the most worrying trips I have taken. Leaving at 5.15, I thought I was going to be fine, but an hour later, the driver was still happily pootling around Tottori, stopping at every place imaginable on his route. I was getting very fidgety when at long last we arrived at the station at 6.35 - 5 minutes before the train left - and sped quickly to the train, only just remembering to retrieve my backpack from the lockers.

The train to Himeji was bathed in darkness, and I finally arrived at the station just past 8pm in the pouring rain. After winding through the covered shopping arcades and finally finding my hotel, I checked in and then headed back to an Italian Tomato and had yet another bolognaise. There was an Internet Cafe on the ground floor of the hotel which I checked into and the computer I landed with accepted my SDHC card, which many of them by this point of the journey hadn't, so I posted loads of pictures and caught up with my emails. I went to bed about 11:30 after emptying my shoes of sand (and keeping it for a Tottori souvenir).