Roving Japan

Day 41 Photoset

I made good on my promise and jumped in the cold stream this morning. As I suspected, it was freaking cold. But the best part about jumping in a cold stream is that when you get out, you feel warm really fast since the air temperature is way warmer than the water.

We went for a quick hike up the river after I was done playing in the water. The views were great and well worth the trip. The water is a cool blue color that I haven’t seen before. If I remember correctly, the mountain streams in Oregon are more green.

Our plan for the day was to have fun up in the mountain, then drive to an old copper mine that is supposed to be one of the best sights in Shikoku. So when we were done with the mountain stream, we packed up and started driving through the mountains to the city of Saijo.

The drive was great. I really like the Shikoku mountains since there isn’t much logging almost all the views are of pristine forested mountain tops. The roads are a little scary since they are all single lane with two-way traffic, but Japanese cars are small, and if there was a car going to other direction, it wasn’t too hard to squeeze around each other.

It took a couple of hours, but we eventually made it out of the mountains and into Saijo. A quick bite to eat and we were heading back into the mountains to find the copper mine.

Looking at the guide book, we probably should have known better. The mine area actually has 3 zones. The first zone is called “Mine-topia”. I should have been able to guess that this is just a massive tourist trap designed to sell omiyage (souvenirs). They do offer a 30min train ride that passes by little “what-it-might-have-been-like” scenes with miners made of wax in authentic poses. We considered going on the ride, but it was $12/person so we decided to skip ahead to Zone 2 which is free and has actual ruins of the old copper mine.

The ruins were interesting, but there was so little left standing, it was kind of hard to picture what the place used to look like. They had some little displays, and a small museum with old photos of the mine. We were especially surprised to see that at one time this mine was a booming village of 3,000 people and EVERYONE worked in the mine. We saw photos of little kids as young as 10 carrying supplies in and out of the mine, and images of men and women working in the mine and in the village. This mine produced 30% of Japans copper between the 1600’s and 1900’s.

We left the mine around 3:30 so we could get back to Takamatsu by 6 to return the car. The drive was easy in the mountain, but when we hit the city we were caught in stop and go traffic that was going to make our arrival time in Takamatsu more like 9pm instead of 6. So, with that in mind, we jumped on the freeway, which is actually NOT free. All freeways in Japan are toll roads. You get a card when you get on, and you pay when you get off. The speed limit is vague… We saw a sign for 80kph, but I was going 115kph and getting passed like I was standing still. Regardless, we made it back to Takamatsu in time, and all I can say is that cars are amazing. Our 3 day road trip would have taken us 2 weeks or more by foot!

We are going to Naoshima island tomorrow, then Shodoshima after that. My foot is almost healed, although we seemed to visit a lot of places with stairs during the last 3 days. I really want my foot to be 100% by the time we hit Kyoto!

Day 18 Photoset

Mt. Aso is a 2.5 hr drive from Yufuin, but the drive is very pretty and the time flys by. On our way we stopped at Yumeooturi bridge that is supposed to be pretty famous. Its a pedestrian suspension bridge that crosses a deep ravine. From the bridge you have a good view of a couple of famous waterfalls. Now, you may or may not known this about me, but heights kindda freak me out. I can handle rock climbing and roller coasters because I feel safe since I am strapped in… but I’m not very comfortable leaning over the side of the golden gate bridge, or in this case, a very narrow foot bridge crossing a deep ravine. The bridge has no vertical support structures, it is purely held up by suspension cables. It’s cool to look at, but I just wanted to get to the other side as fast as possible. The worst part was once you made it to the other side, you knew that you eventually had to cross the thing AGAIN to get back to the car! Risa is much stronger than me when it comes to this stuff. She was calmly walking across and taking lots of pictures. Thankfully we weren’t at the bridge too long, and we were soon back on the road and heading to Aso.

Mt. Aso is a very cool volcano. There is a deep pool of green liquid in at the top of the mountain that produces a toxic gas. We were lucky today because there was a nice breeze keeping the gas from floating over the observation area. Since there was no gas, we could walk all the way to the top and look down at the green water. The view of the Aso caldera is also quite impressive. It’s pretty cool to see the massive crater and how the caldera floor is now all farms and city.

On our way back from Aso, we stopped at the onsen resort town of Kurokawa. We didn’t have a lot of time there since we had to return the car, but we got to go into one onsen that is famous for the green water. So far this has been my favorite onsen. I like the onsens that feel like you’re out in the middle of nature. This onsen is surrounded by trees and a garden with little or no sign of modern civilization. As a bonus, I was the only one in the water!

We are now back in Beppu. Tomorrow is our last day, then we head to Shikoku!

Day 5 Photoset

The rental car place picked us up at 8am sharp, and by 8:30 we were on the road and heading to our first destination of the day, Udo Jinja.

Udo Jinja is built inside a shallow cave on the coast, and like most shrines in Japan, is famous for having some kind of specific blessing. In this case, it is the power to bless women with easy child birth. The old folk story of this shrine is that the rocks represent the breasts of Emperor Jimmu’s mother. The water that gets collected from the cave is called Ochichi-mizu or “Breast Water.” Drinking it will bestow upon you the blessings of the shrine.

If drinking rock boob water isn’t your thing, there are other options. You can pay a dollar to get 5 little clay balls which you throw off a cliff and into a small pool of water. If you can get all 5 into the pool, your wish will come true. I tried, and I only managed 2.5 out of 5.

When we were done at Udo Jinja we decided to go check out the castle ruins in the town of Obi. On paper this was supposed to be a simple case of, “there used to be a castle here, now its a small museum and some old walls. Spend 30minutes and continue on your way.” We didn’t get out of there for 4 hours. Obi is a wonderful little city!

Like Chiran, Obi has a well preserved Samurai neighborhood. Several of the houses are open for viewing, but unlike in Chiran, you can actually go inside these houses. It was really fun wandering the old traditional Japanese houses and trying to picture what each room might have looked like when people lived there. It’s a little hard to guess what a room was used for, since in many cases the rooms are almost all the same size. Was this room a living room or a bedroom? Where did the master sleep? What’s the bathroom like?!

Obi is particularly proud of their most famous resident, Jutaro Komura. I had never heard of him before today, but he was a major player in the rise of Japan on the world stage of politics. He successfully negotiated an end to the Russia-Japanese war, and helped increase ties with America and Great Britain in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. We learned about all of this while wandering around the Komura Memorial Hall. The lady who worked there thought that Risa and I were an interesting couple, so she came over and asked if she could take our picture to put on the Memorial Hall’s website. So without further adieu, I give you our first taste of celebrity! It’s not quite a newspaper article, but its getting closer!

Walking around Obi was a lot of fun, and we were seeing lots of cool Japanese history, but we eventually had to leave. That is, until Risa found out that for $3 we could shoot a traditional Japanese bow and arrow. We couldn’t leave without trying THAT!

We each paid our $3, and the helpful man showed us how to fire this particular bow. The bow we were going to shoot required us to be sitting, and the target was going to be about 30ft away. It sounded easy, but it was actually pretty hard!

The arrows are super long, and when you first load them, the front point bounces around everywhere. You have to be very still, and then just sort of aim with the tip of the arrow and hope you have the right angle. We also weren’t given any arm guards, so the first couple of shots resulted in some nice bruises on the inside of our left forearms as the bow string snapped forward. But once we learned the proper wrist rotation to get the arm out of harms way, the target practice was really fun and much less painful.

In case you are wondering, more of my arrows hit the target, but Risa was the only one to get a bull’s-eye!

Aoshima Jinja was our next stop. Not too much to talk about with this one. Its a pretty shrine that is built on an island next to the town of Aoshima. I guess the Tokyo Giants baseball team visits this shrine before every baseball season to pray for victory.

We are now back in the hotel and doing our laundry. We want to start walking up the coastline tomorrow, but we might end up staying one more day here. I guess we will figure it out in the morning.

Day 4 Photoset

I felt a little guilty about taking a train today. But the blister on my left foot reminded me that we had always intended to occasionally take a bus or train. We are going to spend at least 2 days in Miyazaki, then we intend to start walking up the cost towards Beppu. So the walking will continue!

However, before we start the next walking segment, we need to rest up and enjoy this new area of Kyushu. Rest comes first, so we didn’t do too much today. We checked in to a hotel (another awesome bargain discovered by Risa!), then went to the grocery store across the street where we bought a ton of really awesome food at rock bottom prices.

It’s really hot here, so we sat in the hotel room for a few hours while we waited for the sun to go down a bit. Then we left the hotel and started to explore our new city.

The first things we noticed was all the great little restaurants around our hotel. Besides the amazing grocery store, there were tons of cheap little places with delicious looking local specialties like Chicken Namban, Mehikari, and Reijiru. Our first impression is that we love Miyazaki!

After being impressed by the food selection, we walked down to the river and followed the shore for a while. The river that bisects Miyazaki is huge, and has an amazing path along the shore that includes a mini river, and large open grassy areas. The river seems to be the main place to walk your dog, or go for a run. I can’t say that I blame them. The temperature was perfect, warm but with a cool breeze. We love Miyazaki!

Our dinner tonight was at one of the local places we past by earlier. We ordered the local specialties and were not disappointed. Everything was fantastic! Did I mention that we love Miyazaki?

Tomorrow we are going to rent a car. There are several major attractions south of the city that are considered a “must see” so we are going to see them all! Oh, and I know that there are a couple of you who hear, “rent a car in Japan” and you think of THIS. But in reality, we are getting one of THESE. Sorry to disappoint!