Roving Japan

07-05-09 Note: Someone figured out the hack to softbanks carrier file for my phone, so I am now rocking a laptop with a tethered iphone in the tent. I can continue to play catch up with the next several posts, or I can post placeholders and start posting current stuff each day. Right now I am going to keep playing catch up, but if you have an opinion, let me know.

Day 46 Photoset

We purposely booked a hotel in Takamatsu next to the main ferry ports so that this morning would be relaxing. Just head outside and jump on the boat. Too bad for us, we didn’t realize that the ferry to Kobe departs from a port several kilometers to the East! After a bit of panicking, Risa spotted a bus stop that takes people to the port for free! Whew!

The ferry was comfortable, and we had some time to do photo selecting which was nice. The highlight was passing under the “Pearl Bridge”, the largest suspension bridge in the world. I think most of the people on the boat are regulars, so Risa and I were the only ones outside on the bow taking tons of pictures.

Kobe is a cool city. There is a lively china town, lots of foreign inspired food (yay!), shopping districts, and a cool marina area, with lots of restaurants, shops, a marine museum, and Kobe tower.

On our way to the marina, we walked through the Kobe china town. It was a fun, since Japanese people don’t buy cheap trinkets, they buy sweets. This made for a china town focused on food, drinks and sweets. There were still lame t-shirts and little trinkets if you’re looking for that, but not nearly as much as in America. We did walk into one little trinket store and it was as if we had been transported back to clement street in SF. They sold all the same crap, and no one was buying anything. Just like SF!

From china town we walked to the the marina area and explored for a while. There was a ton of food, but we needed a more affordable dinner option (read: cheap). We settled on an “Italian” family restaurant which was basically identical to Joyfull, but with a few more Italian inspired dishes like spaghetti and pizza. The main reason we ate there, however, was the $3.49 “4-glass” decanter of wine. 4 glasses of wine for $3.50? Sold!

They served the red wine chilled, with frosty glasses… but it was $3.50!

Walking home was fun, I took a bunch of pictures of the signs. China town was also pretty cool at night when no one was around.

Note: Sorry for being so far behind on the updates. It takes a long time for each one, and we don’t always have the time to write/select photos/upload. I’m trying to catch up!

Day 42 Photoset

This morning we went to Ritsurin park before catching the ferry to Shodoshima island.

Ritsurin is a cool park, made even more interesting by our volunteer guide who led us around explaining all the little details we would have otherwise missed. He explained that much of Ritsurin is about interpretation and imagination. The trees, rocks, and landscaping are designed to trigger your imagination. “This tree growing on the rock is a representation of a crane spreading its wings on a turtles back.” … For the record, I didn’t quite see that one. But I did manage to see a few of the animals in the rocks.

The park is divided into two half, which I will call the good side, and the “meh” side. The good side is the old park. It was designed and built back when the feudal lords used to visit here. All the tress have been groomed with a 50-year foresight by the gardeners. The landscaping is designed intelligently to evoke emotion and a sense of place. It’s actually pretty cool.

Rockin’ Kobayashi’s Green T-Shirts!

The “meh” half is more recent, and you can tell. Its basically a more modern layout with trees planted in little groves and open space of grass. Its nice, but it doesn’t have any of the dedication that the old garden had.

One of the unique highlights from the garden was the Coi fish. There was a pond where we could actually PET the coi fish when they came to eat the food pellets we dropped in the water. It was neat, although a bit gross when you think about it. Petting a fish? By the way, coi fish are very pretty in small numbers and in the right environment. But get about 100 of them in one place, swimming over themselves trying to eat a few pellets of food? Disgusting.

One more interesting feature of the park was the waterfall. It was fake. Back in the day, some poor guys were forced to carry buckets of water halfway up the hill side and dump them so the lord could enjoy tea in the garden with the sound of a pleasant waterfall in the distance. Today there is a pump that supplies the water, but it’s only turned on during the day.

When we were finished at the park, we left to catch our ferry to Shodoshima island.

Shodoshima was first brought to my attention by my uncle who saw a special about it on the travel channel. The island is unique in Japan because it is the only place in the county that grows olives. Since we are pretty close, Risa and I figured we would go see what it’s all about.

Once on the island we followed google maps to a “campground” that no longer exists. There is a field full of chopped up trees, that looks like it was a campground at one time, but no longer. Since it was after dark when we arrived, we set up the tent anyway. I hope no one minds.

Photoset, Day 27

Risa has been pretty sore recently. Today was a tough day for her knee and foot, so we only walked about 10 miles to the small island of Kashima. The island is just a 3minute ferry ride from the shore, with service every 20minutes. Risa almost missed our boat when the captain started to pull away while she was taking a picture. The ferry captain was in a big hurry to get back to the island because he was in the middle of watching a drama on TV. He didn’t have time to wait for some chick to take pictures! The island has a nice little campground with fresh water and bathrooms. It’s the off-season so the showers aren’t open, but at least we have a nice place to camp.

While setting up the tent, a man walked over and started making conversation. His name is Nakata-san and he is currently walking the 88 temple pilgrimage trail… for the 58th time. Fifty-Eight. He has made it his life goal to walk the trail 100 times. So far he has spent about 10 years, walking the trail 4 times/year. The trail is about 1400km long, so he has walked about 81,200km! He said to us, “I probably haven’t even walked around the earth once yet.” Of course, since I had the iPhone I had to find out. He was quite surprised to learn that he has in fact walked around the earth TWICE.

He was really nice, and he gave us some advice for our remaining travels in Shikoku. He doesn’t camp in big cities, instead he gets a business hotel or walks through to the countryside to camp. He also recommended that we stay on the pilgrim trail so we can take advantage of the rest stops. He showed us some campgrounds on the map that he recommends using, so our next target is a campground about 12miles away from here.

Tonight it seems like Risa is also coming down with a cold, so we might just stay on the island again tomorrow, then head out again on Saturday.

Day 20 Photoset

We are done with Kyushu and have started the next leg of our journey on the island of Shikoku!

We took the 2pm ferry to the city of Yawarahama and then started walking towards the town of Ozu.

The first thing we noticed was that Shikoku felt different somehow. We can’t put our finger on it, but we can definitely tell that we aren’t in Kyushu anymore. I think the buildings here are a little older, the streets a little smaller… and I also think that people in Shikoku build on the mountain sides a lot more. As we followed the 197 along the river, we saw many houses and farms built on the steep slopes of the mountains. I think the folks in Shikoku are part mountain goat, because some of these roads are incredibly steep and quite narrow.

Our planning for the first leg of Shikoku told us that the 197 has a very long tunnel before Ozu. We don’t really like walking through tunnels so our plan is to tackle one of those steep mountain roads and go over the mountain instead of through it. However, since the ferry got us to Shikoku so late in the day, we are going to head over the mountain tomorrow morning rather than tonight.

As we walked the 197 we were constantly on the lookout for a suitable shrine to use as our camp. The first shrine on the map turned out to be a small building practically in the parking lot of an apartment building. The second Shrine was really cool and high on a hill side, but there was no place to camp. Finally, the 3rd shrine we visited was tucked away behind an elementary school, has a nice big field, running water, and a toilet. Perfect!

Tomorrow we head over the mountain!

Photoset Coming - Stay Tuned

We are back at the Little Asia Guesthouse. This time we got a private room, so Risa isn’t forced to sleep on the floor again.

We spent the morning combing the rocky beach near our campsite for a nice piece of coral to take with us. After finding about 5 good candidates, Risa finally settled on taking 3 pieces with us. My only requirement is that I don’t have to carry it.

Tomorrow we are going to do our final tourist thing. We are catching a train to Ibusuki so we can take a sand bath. I’m happy that we can do an Onsen that doesn’t require full nudity, as the sand bath involves being buried in sand while you wear a yukatta.