Roving Japan

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.

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 40 Photoset

This morning we went to Kochi castle, one of the few castles in Japan that is not a concrete replica. The castle is also unique in that it was made during the Tokugawa shogunate, and therefore its main purpose was to house the local lord, and not defend against attack. This castle was actually lived in, which gave it a really nice vibe. Since all the wood is original, the castle creeks and pops as people walk through. The smell of the wood is in the air, and the entire experience is much more authentic than most of the other castles we’ve been in.

As we looked around the bottom level of the tower, we walked in on a TV show recording session. There were a couple of pretty girls sitting in a room of the castle while a guide told them something interesting. Then the producer lady would tell them what to say and any questions they should ask. The girls would do as they were told, acting like they had come up with the questions. It was pretty funny to see them bossed around by the producer.
Producer:“Go in here.”
Actress: “But could I go…”
Producer: “NO, just GO IN HERE and say [blah blah blah]”
Actress: “Ok”

The producer didn’t take any lip and was pretty bossy. Highly entertaining to those of us watching, but I sure wouldn’t want to be one of the actors.

I emailed my friend Stefan who used to live in Kochi about the local sights, and he mentioned Godaisan temple, so that was our next stop. Godaisan is part of the Ohenro trail, so we weren’t surprised to see some pilgrims when we got there. What we WERE surpised to see was the tour bus that was driving them to each temple. All the pilgrims had walking sticks, but they only used them from the bus to the temple and back. The driver would collect everyones walking stick and stow it away until the next stop. After meeting Nakata san and the bicycle Ohenro, these people seemed pretty weak. But I suppose you do what you gotta do. Maybe one of them recently strained his Planar Fascia and can’t walk very well for a while.

Our next destination for the day was Ishizuchi-san. The map to the mountain shows a couple of windy highways, but nothing too bad. However, once we hit route 426 the “highway” quickly became a single lane two-way traffic paved road carved into a cliff side. While occasionally nerve wracking, this road was really awesome. The views of the valley were fantastic, and Risa and I thoroughly enjoyed the drive.

I have to make one more comment about the wilderness in Japan. For some reason, the Japanese feel the need to give all their rivers tall cement walls. I don’t understand why they need to turn a pristine mountain river into a concrete channel. They sometimes even pave the river bed! I read in the Lonely Planet guide book that the government employs a lot of the people who live in the mountains. They used to be farmers, but now they work on government subsidized river paving. (Interesting reading about Japanese concrete addiction here, here, and here)

This evening we finally got to the Omogoke wilderness area and it didn’t disappoint. The river up here is free of concrete walls, and the water is crystal clear. When we first arrived we came across a man fishing for bait fish. Tomorrow he is going to use the small fish to help him catch eels.

We are here in the off-season, so the campground is closed (free). We are the only people camping, and its absolutely beautiful. We are just a few meters from an awesome looking stream that I plan to jump in tomorrow.

Day 39 Photoset

Our first day with the car was pretty fun! It’s amazing how far you can go when you’re traveling at 60kph instead of 4kph.

We got a bit of a late start, not leaving Takamatsu until around 11am, but it only took an hour to get to the first stop of the day, Konpirasan. The Konpirasan shrine is famous for the 1,367 stairs it takes to get to the top. When I first read about that, I pictured one of those famous temples with the single, super long staircase that goes straight up. This temple is not like that at all. The first few hundred stairs take you through a shopping mall area. The rest of the stairs go up in chunks of about 50-100 steps, but are broken up by long stretches of flat walkways. The temple itself has several levels with the main temple buildings about 75% of the way up. The top shrine, which was quite a ways up and took a lot of effort getting too… was under construction. Thanks guys! Way to make my climb to the top worth it!

My foot felt pretty good today, somehow going up stairs doesn’t flex the foot as painfully as walking on flat ground. However, heading DOWN the 1367 steps was a bit painful.

When we reached the mall area, a couple of guys carrying an old women in a palaquin stopped to talk to me when I told them, “Ganbatte!” One of the guys was impressed that I could speak any Japanese at all. After a bit, they asked me if I wanted to try to carry the palaquin! OF COURSE! They wouldn’t let me actually walk with it, but I got to pick it up. It was kind of heavy, but the main discomfort was the bamboo pole digging into my shoulder. Those guys are pretty tough. The one who stopped to talk to me is 75 years old! If you’re interested in having a couple guys carry you up the stairs, it only costs $68.

After the temple, we drove south to Oboke gorge. The gorge is actually broken into 2 parts, the north part is called ‘Koboke’ and the south part is called ‘Oboke’. It’s hard to translate, but basically the names imply that whether you use little steps or big steps, its still dangerous to walk here.

Back at the rental car place, we found a magazine that showed some good routes through Shikoku. The book mentioned this gorge, and how for $10 you can take a boat ride down the river. So we decided to splurge and ride down the river for the 30minute tour.

The gorge was pretty, but unfortunately, like most rivers in Japan, it had tall cement walls on one side. For some reason, Japan feels the need to turn all its rivers into concrete channels. I’m happy the water level was so low today, it let us have about 20 meters of rock before the concrete walls begin. If you didn’t look up too far, you almost didn’t notice it. We tried to photograph only the pretty parts!

The book also had a picture of a cool vine bridge crossing a pretty mountain river, so we figured we might as well drive the 15minutes to see that as well. When we arrived, we immediately started feeling like something was amiss. This is a single vine bridge, yet the tiny town nearby had enough parking to handle hundreds of people. We started thinking, “Man, this bridge better be AWESOME if this many people come here.” Guess what? This bridge ranks right up there with “The World Largest Ball Of Twine” It’s a total tourist trap. They charge $5 to walk across it, and you can only walk across once. Also, the “vines” are hiding steel cables. Nice. We took some pictures and left as fast as possible. Glad we parked in the free parking and no, we didn’t pay the $5 to walk across. We walked across better bridges on the mountain trail in Yakushima.

With the bridge out of the way, we were done for the day. The only thing left was to find a place to sleep. We started driving down the highway, looking for a place to eat and then camp. An hour and a half later we were in Kochi. We drove all the way through the mountains and couldn’t find a single place to eat or camp! In Kochi we found a 24hr Joyfull and made plans for tomorrow. Joyfull is like IHOP or Sherry’s. One of those 24hr family style restaurants. A real life saver when you want to spend time looking at maps and reading books.

Tonight we are camping next to a river about 20km outside of Kochi. We are going to head back to town tomorrow to check out the castle, then go back to the mountains to see Ishizuchi-san, the tallest peak in western Japan. There are several campgrounds near the mountain, so we are looking forward to that!

(Photo of the camp from the next morning)

Photoset, Day 31

I like to experience as much as I can, so why not a hospital as well? Today I got a taste of the Japanese health care system. We didn’t need an appointment, we just walked in and gave them my insurance card. A couple of nurses came over and took a look at my foot while we sat in the hallway. They decided that I should have an x-ray so we went over to the x-ray room where a technician snapped two quick shots of my foot. A couple of minutes later, the x-rays were whisked over to another room where a doctor examined them for any broken bones. After just a minute or so, they called us into the room where the doctor poked and prodded my foot asking if this hurt, or that hurt. In the end he said, “Tendon” and a bunch of Japanese to Risa which included “rest for 3 – 4 days”. He prescribed some pain relief/anti-inflammatory cream and we were on our way. Total price at the hospital, $16. The medicine was another $6.

With the doctor ordering a few days of rest, our next task was to figure out where we would ride this out. There are a couple campgrounds just a few stations south of Imabari, so we considered camping out for the next 3 days. But then Risa remembered that her dad had talked about some family that lives in the small city of Mitsugi which is right across the bridges from Imabari!

A long series of phone calls later, and we were on a bus across the Seto inland sea with a bottle of sake in hand for Risa extended family. With very little warning, they were willing to let us stay at their house while my foot heals up. We can’t thank them enough!

So here we are, staying with the Kanou family in the countryside of Hiroshima prefecture. They have one of the biggest houses I have seen in Japan, so we are tucked away nicely in an upstairs room. The Kanou household includes Mr. and Mrs. Kanou and their daughter Izumi. Mr. Kanou is a retired professor of agriculture as well as an active rice farmer. The women of the family are very musical. Mrs Kanou is part farmer, part piano teacher and Izumi is a professional piano player who has spent the last few years working on cruise ships. The whole family is also very international. Izumi has traveled all over Europe, the Caribbean and America. She also speaks fluent English and Italian. Her sisters who live in Nagoya and Tokyo have also traveled all over the world. One sister lived in Nepal with her husband who gives tours in Nepal and Pakistan. Last year Mr. Kanou spent a couple of weeks in the mountains of Nepal with his son-in-law as his guide.

We are incredibly happy to be staying with such kind and interesting people for the next couple of days. We are doing our best to avoid becoming a burden. I have already explained to Mrs. Kanou that I am an expert at cutting vegetables so she should use me in the kitchen whenever she cooks something. Izumi is temporarily teaching English at a cram school, so I offered to help out if she wants a native speaker to come to her class. I hope she takes me up on the offer, but it seems like the cram school curriculum is more about passing a technical test rather than conversation skills. Oh well.

Tomorrow we have no plans other than heal! I hope we can head back to Shikoku by the weekend.

Oh, between the phone calls and the bus, we had a couple of hours to burn. We spent the time at Imabari Castle. Here are a couple photos.