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In a temple garden

My first impressions of Japan were: incomprehensible (Tokyo); and green and serene (Kyoto). I was about 14 years old at the time, and I was travelling with my family on a roundabout route to visit my dad’s family in New Zealand. I also remember not caring much for the food. So much has changed since then!

During my recent visit to Japan, I was curious whether my initial “green and serene” impression of Kyoto would match my perception as an adult, more than 40 years later. We arrived in Kyoto a couple of days after our visit with the monkeys in the snowy mountains and it was definitely a lot greener and warmer. Kyoto is quite different than Tokyo – it is more spacious, more relaxed, and there is a height restriction on buildings so the sky is much more open as well. It feels like a garden city. So green, yes.

And I found serene as well. We visited a couple of temple areas early in the morning and the calm was everywhere.

First we headed to the Bamboo Grove in Arashiyama, which borders on the grounds of the Tenryu-ji Temple. We arrived in time to see the tall bamboo trees lit by the warm rays of the rising sun as we walked the winding pathway. Even though other tourists had arrived by the time we were leaving, the bamboo forest felt lovely and quiet, and people spoke quietly as if they were in a cathedral.

Here is a gallery of images from Arashiyama:

Next, after taking a train and taxis, we arrived at the Ryoan-ji Temple just after it opened for visitors. We were early enough to see groundskeepers at work, clearing debris from the gravel paths and weeding the garden.

I walked slowly along the paths, drinking in the beauty of the pond and green spaces, and I even found a few flowers blooming! Then I walked up the wide steps to one of the temple buildings, removed my shoes (plastic clogs were provided) and found the courtyard which framed a different kind of garden.

The dry or empty landscape garden (karesansui) is a traditional formal style developed in the buddhist temples. Dry landscape gardens lack one elements that ties together all other styles of Japanese garden: water. Water is replaced by gravel, which represents an ocean or river, the stone groups are islands and also represent the deity. The space between the stone groups is called yohaku no bi – the beauty of empty space.

I remember being fascinated by these zen gardens when I was young, and I am still drawn to them. I sat in the courtyard for a long while, my eyes following the pattern of the raked stones, and let the calm wash over me. It was such a beautiful morning!

Here is a gallery of images from the Ryoan-ji Temple:

I will wrap up my “Japan journal” in one more post later this week as I try to sum up my experience. Here is a list of my posts to date:

Visiting the snow monkeys

While I love and enjoy nature, and make quite a few nature and landscape images, I am not particularly a “nature photographer”. I don’t have a super-long telephoto to take pictures of wildlife, or a macro lens so I can get close to insects or flowers. So I will admit that snow monkeys were not on my top 10 list of things I wanted to see in Japan. But they won me over anyway!

It helped that the mountain scenery was so beautiful, the snow was falling so softly (and sometimes thickly), the trail we followed was so quiet in the early morning. We headed to the Jigokudani Monkey Park at 8:30 am so we could get there before the crowds (of humans, that is), and I’m glad we did!

And the monkeys – oh, they were everywhere! They completely ignored us, the gawking bipeds, and carried on with their own business. Their main activity was bathing in the hot springs pool that was built especially for them, and digging in the snow for seeds, which park staff had scattered for them in the area. And there was some squabbling, some racing around the mountainside, some more personal moments as they groomed each other.

The monkeys – Japanese macaques – may have accepted food supplements from the humans, but they were not at all tame. Lots of signs warned us of the danger of trying to interact with the monkeys. But they didn’t seem to mind when humans were quite close and sometimes they ran right through the midst of a crowd of people. I really enjoyed watching them – and taking lots of photos, as you can see!

We spent a couple of hours enjoying the monkeys, and the beautiful mountain air. Although we were all quite chilled by the time we were ready to leave, we warmed up quickly on the walk back, and even more so with a bowl of delicious udon at Enza’s Café. So I was really glad that the snow monkeys were on our itinerary!

I have an especially large gallery of photos today for you to enjoy. Remember to click on a thumbnail to see it larger. More Japan to come!

Shibu Onsen: a hot-spring getaway

The ryokan that inspired the anime classic “Spirited Away”.
A warmly garbed guardian, and a hot springs stream coming down from the mountain.

As part of our tour in Japan, we travelled to Nagano Prefecture to visit the traditional hot-spring town of Shibu Onsen. The historic section of this town features picturesque narrow streets, a series of nine public hot-spring baths (onsen) and traditional inns (ryokan), some of which date back 400 years. The town is located in the mountains, so there was snow and the weather was chilly!

The narrow main street in the historic part of town.

When we arrived in mid-afternoon, it was too early to check-in at our ryokan (the friendly Sakaeya Inn), so we left our bags and wandered the town, marvelling at all the architectural and cultural details.

And when we did return to find our rooms, I set down my bags and immediately lay down on the tatami mat and had a much-needed nap before supper. Supper was a traditional Japanese meal – featuring lots of little tasting dishes and local specialities – see more about food in my previous post.

My room, all ready for sleep. Note my small suitcase to the side.

During supper, the futon was set up for sleep, but before I laid my head on the buckwheat pillow, I went for a walk and did some shopping. Evening is when all the stores and bars are open, and guests of the different ryokan wander the streets wearing traditional yukata as they visit the onsen. I admit I didn’t try the onsen experience. First of all, I was reticent to spend time with strangers wearing only my birthday suit (no clothing allowed). Also I had been told that the water is extremely hot which I didn’t think I could bear.

Shibu Onsen at night. Lots of inviting spaces!

However, I did manage to take a whole lot of photographs, which is the experience I had signed up for, and I really enjoyed my stay. And I found the futon and buckwheat pillow combo to be very comfortable!

I took more than 900 photos on this day, so it has taken me quite a while to sort through them – that is why this post is so late! So I hope you enjoy this photo gallery. My next post will be about our adventure the following day to see the snow monkeys!

A taste of Japan

Diner on the inside, me on the outside.
Sushi chef at work. Looks like a fun job!
Octopus & friends.

When I travelled in to Japan, one thing that totally surprised me was the food. When it comes to food, and so much else, Japan seems to have taken the best of what the world offers and improved on it. Do you like milkshakes? Then you will enjoy the heavenly Sakura shake, a cherry-flavoured frozen custard delight. Do you like pancakes? Then you might completely bliss out when you try Okonomiyaki, which can have many different ingredients. Do you like street food? How about battered octopus with veggies and pickled ginger on a stick, hot from the vendor? Yum!

Matcha ice cream!

I was in Japan for 10 days, but I would have needed at least double that to try every kind of food. On tour, we had a chance to eat traditional Japanese meals, which included a lot of fish dishes, as well as more modern foods, like Teriyaki chicken pizza. I tried as many foods as I could, and with one or two small exceptions, I loved it all!

Too many treats, not enough time!

And I could have eaten constantly because there was food everywhere we went. Street food in the markets, small 6-stool restaurants in every neighbourhood, vending machines with every kind of drink and snack, and the 7-Eleven stores are a revelation, you can buy almost any kind of food there, and many instant suppers. And desserts – oh my – the Japanese have a sweet tooth! On my last day I walked through the Tokyo train station and I counted at least 12 stores selling only sweets. In fact, I had to circle the station twice to find a place that wasn’t specializing in dessert, because I needed some lunch.

So, as hard it was to choose, here are some of my favourite Japanese foods:

  • Sushi
  • Okonomiyaki
  • Hot pot for one
  • Udon noodles
  • Jelly coffee
  • Sushi – when in Japan, sushi is a must. This was my meal on the first night, and every morsel was delish! I washed it down with Asahi beer, which was also very tasty.
  • Udon noodle bowl – The ramen was delicious, the locally made buckwheat soba noodles were also lovely, but the homey bowl of udon noodles with meat and veg was just so good, I could eat it every day.
  • Hot pot – with globefish and snow crabs and vegetables. Amazing.
  • Shinshu (Wagyu) beef – I didn’t want to like it, because I try to avoid red meat and we could use less cattle on the planet. But, wow, I have never had beef so tender, it melts like butter in the mouth.
  • Okonomiyaki – take some leftovers from the fridge, mix them into pancake batter, top with whatever you have on hand, drizzle with barbecue sauce (optional). No? Really, you have to try it!
  • Pickles – not one food, but many, and all amazing. Pickled turnip, pickled eggplant, even pickled fish, and of course the famous pickled plums (umeboshi) – I am not normally a pickle person, but these were all bursting with flavour.
  • Apricot liqueur (Nigori Anzunshu) – like biting into a fresh apricot. Just wow.
  • Yuzu sorbet – Yuzu is a Japanese fruit similar to lime. Other dessert highlights include matcha ice cream, and dorayaki – sweet red bean paste with whipped cream sandwiched between pancakes.
  • Jelly coffee – only the Japanese would take cold coffee, make it into a jelly dessert, and top it with ice cream. It sounds weird but it tastes wonderful!
I didn’t stop to try these crepes, but don’t they look amazing?!

I don’t have room to talk about the fresh steamed buns, the octopus-on-a-stick with their heads stuffed with quail eggs (wish I had tried that one), the bespoke hand-drip coffee, the little cookies (or were they rice cakes?) in the shape of panda heads, and that plain bowl of brown rice topped with bonito flakes that tasted so good when I had been walking for hours. I got to be pretty good at saying “Arigato gozaimasu” (Thank you very much)!

So here are a few photos to give you a taste of Japan (click on the thumbnails for larger images). Enjoy!

Tokyo on the move

Tokyo is a big city. In fact, it’s the largest city in the world, although Delhi is expected to surpass it over the next decade. The city is so spread out that it has 18 subway/train lines, plus the famous Shinkansen, linking the cities at super-fast speeds. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe the complexity and chaos of this crowded city.

The first thing I need to say is that there rarely seems to be chaos. As you can imagine, it can be quite overwhelming for first-time visitors, as we stumble our way way through the maze of streets and railway platforms. Yet the city is relatively clean and well-organized, the people are exceedingly polite and helpful, and the trains run precisely on time (unless there is a delay, in which case there is communication about which lines are affected and the cause). By the way, I was able to observe this because all signs and announcements over public transit are in Japanese and English.

As part of the photo tour group, I spent two nights in the busy Shinjuku neighbourhood of Tokyo when I first arrived in Japan. I would not have found my way out of a paper bag those first couple of days, so I’m thankful we had a guide!

Following the end of our tour, I stayed on in Tokyo for three nights by myself, this time in Ueno, a much quieter neighbourhood. This was quite a risk on my part, because I had no idea how I would do in the big city, but I really wanted a few more days before returning home – it is such a long way to go! As I had hoped, by the time I returned to Tokyo, I had a really good sense about how to get around.

The key for me was two apps on my phone – an interactive, searchable map of Tokyo (I have the Ulmon CityMaps2Go app), and the Japan Travel app, which helps you map your route via transit. And I also had a Passmo card which you can load with money and tap to spend – very convenient!

Once I got used to how things work – for example, remembering to always walk on the left instead of the right as Japan is a left-side-of-the-road country – I was good to go. In the end, Tokyo didn’t feel a lot different than Toronto or New York or London in terms of finding my way around. Traffic and transit and interactions with other people seemed pretty similar to other big cities.

So today’s post is my attempt to let you see what “getting around” looks like. And sure, all the visual inputs – not to mention the walking involved – were exhausting. But taking in the sights and moving with the crowds was exhilarating! I hope you enjoy the vicarious thrill of travel in Tokyo.

Impressions of Japan

My photo tour finished up yesterday, and I have thousands and photos and memories and things I could say about this fascinating country. In the past week, I have seen a tiny bit of Tokyo, stayed in two traditional Ryokan (inns), walked an icy mountain path to see snow monkeys, and travelled on numerous trains through cities and countryside. And I’ve eaten — oh I could do a whole post on the food alone, what a dining experience this has been!

At the moment, I am staying in Tokyo for an additional three nights so I can explore some more of the city on my own, so the adventure continues. But now that I’m not on a tour itinerary, I wanted to take a few moments to share some of my photos. This is just a taste, a glimpse into the amazing country of Japan.

In the meantime, I have more photos to take, more walking (oh so much walking!!) to do, and sights to see. Onward!

Preparing for Japan

Trying out my travel ensemble, including my new camera daypack. Savvy, our cuddle corgi, is not going to Japan.

Konnichi wa! For the past six months, I have been thinking about my upcoming trip to Japan. And I have been shopping, so this post is as much about stuff as sights. I leave in three days and I am ready!

One of the first things I wanted to do was learn a few words of Japanese, so I could say hello and thank you. Before we went to Cuba last spring, I studied Spanish and discovered that having a teeny tiny grasp of the language was really helpful! But Japanese is a different fish entirely. After months faithfully studying via the Duolingo app, I could recognize the sounds of some of the Hiragana characters, but I was hopeless on more than the simplest of words. When the app required me to download the Japanese keyboard, I gave up. So, now I’m taking a small phrase book and hoping I will understand more when I get there.

Stuff

I have also been obsessing about what to take with me. My first find was a North Face rain jacket, which (bonus!) comes with a zip-in lining which doubles as a light jacket. And then I picked up a pair of Blundstones so I would have comfortable and sturdy all-weather walking shoes. To be honest, the Blunnies I’m taking are the second pair I bought — the first never stretched enough to be comfortable, a reminder that I should always follow my own instinct and not the clerk’s advice.

Easy access to the camera – check!

Then came the question of bags. We were told to pack light, which means a carry-on suitcase plus a backpack. I have a small rolling carry-on, but I knew that my knapsack wouldn’t have enough room for all my camera and daily carry items, so I spent a lot of time researching camera bags (as Janet wrote on her blog yesterday). I finally found a lightweight bag that features easy access to my camera gear, has room for a jacket, iPad and other small items, and fits under an airplane seat: the Mindshift Ultralight Dual 25L Photo Daypack. Even though I haven’t been able to test it out properly — due to nasty ice on all the walking trails — I’m sure it will be the perfect travel companion.

In terms of what to pack, I want to leave a little room in my little suitcase for souvenirs so space is at a premium! I am relying on quick-drying synthetics, along with a half-bar of castile soap and a folding hanger, so I can handwash and hang most of my clothing to dry overnight. And I am also taking a merino pullover and wool socks, because wool is warm and breathable and doesn’t get all smelly from sweat (I love SmartWool and Darn Tough for their gorgeous washable wool socks). The temperatures will likely vary between 15 degrees celsius in the cities to near zero in the mountains, so I will be multi-layering on cold days.

Sights

Here is the outline of my Japan Adventure:

  • Feb 10 – Departure – Flying to Toronto, then direct flight to Tokyo.
  • Feb 11-12 – TOKYO – Photo tour begins: lots of walking, seeing sights, and street photography.
  • Feb 13-14 – NAGANO – staying at a traditional inn, seeing snow monkeys and mountains! Next stop is Matsumoto to visit the castle.
  • Feb 15-16 – KYOTO – geisha, bamboo forest, market, shrines and more.
  • Feb 17-20 – TOKYO – time to explore on my own… woot!
  • Feb 20 – Return home – Feb 20 x 2. Can you say jet lag?

The photo tour is organized by Mark Hemmings, a photographer from my hometown who also loves shooting with Fujifilm cameras. I chose his tour because of his itinerary, which includes the sights that I most wanted to see; his familiarity with the culture (he lived in Japan for a while); and the small size of the group – he limits the tour to seven people.

Following the photo tour, I will be staying in Tokyo for an additional three nights. This will be a challenge for me, as I am not used to travelling alone (Janet doesn’t want to travel so far, so she is staying home with the furkids). I have booked my hotel and flight, but I haven’t booked any tours or activities – I just want to get a feel for the city by walking and looking and taking photos. I have a map on my phone so hopefully I won’t get lost!

And what do I most want to see? The street life and vending machines of Tokyo, gardens (and hopefully a zen or “dry landscape” garden) and shrines and architecture both old and new, plum blossoms and snow-covered mountains – we will see Mount Fuji from the bullet train – and monkeys and geishas and a bamboo forest. And, oh yes, there will be some amazing food, I will be taking pictures of that too!

I will only have enough time on this trip to see some of the highlights near Tokyo, but I have already started thinking about what I would like to see on my next visit…! Here is a map of my trip so you can follow along:

p.s. I am not affiliated with any of the people or companies I have mentioned, and I have not been paid or otherwise compensated for mentioning their products. I am just writing about what works for me. Your mileage may vary.