Autumn in Japan

To date I have taken nine intercity trains in Japan (excluding the many commuter trains in Tokyo). Here are a few things that have struck me, although they don’t surprise me given all I had heard and read over the years. I guess they just prove the facts and further show how engrained respect for people and property is in this beautiful country. 1) The Shinkansen that I rode on from Tokyo to Nagoya pulled in from some other part of Japan at my platform about 15 minutes before the scheduled 12:33 departure - although right on time for its arrival from wherever it was arriving from. It emptied itself of its passengers and the ladies clad in pink took over. They boarded, closed the doors of the cars and got to work. We were lined up outside and watched the show through the windows. Here is what they accomplished in 15 minutes in a train that was 12 cars long. -turned all the chairs around to face in the other direction (our train was going to head back the way it came) -removed th...

I spent a day and a half in Nikko October 28 and 29th.  It is a village of 95,000 people north of Tokyo.  To get here I took the bullet train from Ueon Station in Tokyo to Utsunomiya Station.  There I switched to a local train line called the Nikko Line.  In all it took about an hour and forty minutes of travel time. Nikko is situated in a valley with a river called the Daiya-gawa running through it.  It really is a rushing stream.  In fact, every where in Nikko you here rushing water.  Whether it is the Daiya itself or the numerous other streams that are all rushing rapidly down to meet the Daiya.  Most streets have narrow stone culverts on either side and you can see the rushing water (or hear it when they are covered).  It is a nice sound that drowns out other man-made ones. Forests.  The valley that Nikko is built in has some fantastic forests.  The trees are immense.  They look like cedars to me based on the stringy bark.  One thing for sure is that they are in fact big.  Many of ...

Kamakura is a small town of 170,000 people that was capital of Japan from 1185 to 1333.  It is a town of temples in beautiful, hilly, forested landscapes.  The trees are tall evergreens like we have in British Columbia.  The difference between B.C. and this place is that there are 750 year-old temples scattered within the forested lands. To get to Kamakura I took the JR Yamanote Line from Ueno Station to Shinagawa Station.  From there I switched to the JR Yokosuka Line and got off at Kita-Kamakura Station.  The train ride took about an hour. You can see the path I followed on the map below.  In all I walked about 9 kilometres or so. My first stop was Engaku-ji.  I found a couple of paths that nobody seemed to follow.  One on the left side led up the side of the hill and offered great views of the temple.  The other, on the right, led up to a cemetery.  They are not marked on the maps and so they are not visited by the hordes.  Nice! After visiting the Engaku-ji I paid a visit to Tokei-...

8:46am, Monday, 27 October 2008.  Riding the Yamanote Line between Ueno and Tokyo Stations.   OK.  Today, at this time, Tokyo felt like a city with a population of 38 million in its metro area.  Yes.  No questions. The first hint was when I headed to the Yamanote Line's platform at Ueno.  I couldn't go up the escalator as it was cordoned off on one side.  This was to force people to line up on the other.  I looked left and saw the lineup - all the way down the hall and another set of stairs! The train was definitely a sardine can on wheels.  I was squeezed to, and touching, all the people around me.  All I had was the volume my body takes up standing in the middle of the car.   In Canada I would have been accused of groping multiple times. If I scratched I rubbed my hand against the person next to me. I wanted to take a picture but couldn't get to my backpack. When people got on or off they elbowed - no, that is too rough - they confidently pushed the people around them w...

Tokyo is a city of contrasts.   From 1603 until 1868 it was called Edo and served as the Tokugawa shogunate centre of power (de-facto capital) of Japan.  In 1869 it officially became capital when Emperor Meiji moved there form Kyoto.  Tokyo surfaced.  It has since survived two major disasters, one natural (an earthquake in 1923) and one unnatural (the World War II bombings in 1945).   Today, it is a modern metropolis where, at times, you still feel like you are walking around in Edo. Tokyo is said to be very homogeneous - very Japanese.  That could not be further from the truth.  It is city with influences from the entire world.  Where design, art, music, food and architecture is taken from all over the world, adopted with open arms and then created into something new. A great example of this is the music I heard on the south side of Yoyogi-koen.  If you walk along the street that borders this park (which by the way is the same green space where a beautiful Shinto shrine stands in hono...

I spent the afternoon of my second day, the 24th of October in the Ueno area...about 1.5 to 2 km to the west of Asakusa and my ryokan - a nice walk.   I had lunch at an Udon place just south of the Ueno Station, under the tracks.  To order my meal I had to go to a vending machine that had the pictures of meals and their respective prices.  I inserted my 390 yen, pushed the button, brought my ticket to the kitchen and about five minutes later I was slurping (noisily as one is supposed to do) my noodles. I then headed through Ueno Park to Tokyo National Museum.  It was just pouring rain...in fact it poured all day.  Torrential rain...all day.  I had never experienced that before, not for that length of time.  I got soaked and parts of the park were saturated.  The museum would be a good place to spend a few hours.   I did three of the multiple buildings of the museum.  The one that impressed me most was the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, mostly because I really liked the modern architectu...

I have spent the majority of my 24 hours in Tokyo in Asakusa.  This is a part of Tokyo that, while damaged by bombing in World War II has retained, and has been rebuilt in the style of, the old Edo days.  It is unlike any other city I have been to and it is likely the nicest city I have seen in my life.  Japanese traditional architecture, their gardens, temples and shrines have always had this strong attraction on me.....and now I have seen them and they have not disappointed.  Have a look at some of the pictures below.  The rainy night and day just added to the feel of the place.  The night was quiet.  The streets were dimly lit, the light reflected off the wet stones.  You also have to imagine that that many of the streets are the width of alleyways back home in Canada.  I felt safe, I felt at home, comfortable.  Like I belonged.  I did not have the uneasy feeling of being in a new city after a long flight.  Check it out. View Larger Map Let me know what you think about what you have...

Thursday, 23 October 2008, 4:11pm Japan time - Seat 18A, Air Canada 3, approaching Narita. My entire 10.5 hour trip was over cloud cover.  Quite something considering that we flew up the North American coast, towards Alaska, along Alaska, and down to Japan via the Russian coast.  Clouds, clouds.  But at 4:11pm we broke through endless layers of clouds and I finally saw those islands I have been dreaming of seeing for all these years. Narrow fields, roads...no different than any other place I have been to....from the air.  From the air. Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!

At this time in two weeks I will be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, flying westbound, two hours and forty minutes out of Narita Airport near Tokyo, Japan.  Local Tokyo time will be 13:10 in the afternoon Thursday. The day is nearing!!  When I think about my upcoming adventure I feel jet-lagged.  It doesn't seem real.  Am I really going?  How will it go?  Nervous.  Curious.  Excited.  Anxious.  Happy.  Proud.  Uneasy.

I have always liked maps and geography.  As a kid I used to flip through atlases looking at all the various countries, cities, mountain ranges.  Imagining myself flying to and from foreign places.  For this reason I am a huge fan of Google Earth and Google Maps.  Amazing technology. As my departure date gets a little closer (20 days away!) more and more people are starting to know that I will be going to Japan.  A work colleague of mine who lived in Tokyo for two years told me that what might strike me the most of Tokyo is the number of people.  What did he mean? Japan is divided into prefectures.  The Greater Tokyo Area is generally agreed upon to mean an amalgamation of four different prefectures - Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Tokyo.  The total urbanized land area covered by these four prefectures is about 8014 square kilometres.  This is a square that has sides that are approximately 90km long.  In this square live about 34 million people.  The population density per square kilometr...