Day 2

It’s 03:00 and I’m awake. Hardly surprising, of course. Whatever you’ve heard about jet lag before is absolutely true – it does mess you up. Nothing to worry about if you have good reading material with you (my thanks to Maria for the tip!), but even reading feels a bit unnatural at that time of the day. A couple of hours later a sharp metallic sound slowly starts building up from the street below. Later on I’d realise that this continuous buzz is nothing else than the singing of endless swarms of Japanese cicadas, called semi in Japanese, which you can find nestled on every tree out there. Especially in the months of July and August there is hardly any place where you can’t hear them. And apparently they are very short-lived, so for the time they are alive they really have a good go with their almost deafening singing.

At around 06:00 I decided that it’s time to plan the day ahead. There are quite a few places to see in Kyoto and it would be an idea to get as many of them in a day as possible in order to allow more time for our excursions outside Kyoto in the days that we’d spend there. No better place to start for this kind of planning than with the excellent Dorling Kindersley Guide to Japan, which proved to be a most valuable companion for the duration of the trip.

After having breakfast, we started our way from the hotel towards Nijo Castle, our first sightseeing spot for the day. The time was just before 09:00 when we started our 15-minute walk towards the castle and it was already feeling like it was 35oC out there! It was going to take some time to get used to this heat... Nijo Castle was originally built as the official Kyoto residence of the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu, in 1603, and its construction was completed in 1626 by the third Tokugawa Shogun, Iemitsu. Today it is one of the 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Kyoto. Apart from the impressive Ninomaru Palace, which is also designated as a National Treasure in Japan, on the east of the compound and the various imposing structures around the inner Honmaru Palace, one can just enjoy a walk in the many gardens interspersed between the buildings. Despite the intense heat that had already emerged by 10:00, the gardens and the moat surrounding the walls of Honmaru were a nice cool interlude.

Inside the Ninomaru Palace we had the chance to see a number of exquisite wall paintings as we walked along the various inner rooms. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this building, apart from the extremely old and remarkably well-preserved paintings (many of which date back to the 17th century), is the famous Nightingale Floor (Uguisu-Bari). The concept of a floor squeaking like a singing bird when someone steps on it sounds (and feels) quite amazing. And to think that this was set up so that the residents of the palace would be able to hear intruders!

For some photos from Nijo Castle, please click here.

Our next intended stop was the Imperial Palace which, although it looked to be pretty close to Nijo on the map, was nearly a good 10-minute taxi ride away, at least to get to the main gate on the north-west corner of the compound. Before a visitor can enter the grounds of the palace, one needs to have a permit from the Imperial Household Agency, which you obtain in advance of your visit. The guidelines for this are very specific, so we thought we should do that first and maybe get a slot for an afternoon tour. Luckily, there were available spaces for the English tour at 14:00 that afternoon – we heard later from other people who only came in the afternoon to get their permit, that they would have to come back tomorrow.

Having got our permits, we then headed off to our next stop for the day, the Shimogamo Shrine, in the north outskirts of the city.

This is one of the oldest shinto shrines in the city, and in fact it’s a whole complex of little temples, storage buildings and lots of other structures. The grounds are located in a very old forest which is considered almost sacred, and to be honest, having sat on one of the benches in the park on the south side of the shrine, I can’t blame them. The thick patches of leaves allow just enough sunlight through to create a bright green backdrop for streams of running water, huge crows, joggers and, of course, weary tourists.

However, it is also here that we had our first surreal experience in Japan. As per usual, I thought it would be wise to take the tour of the main shrine, which is normally not open to visitors. So, having paid a very modest entrance fee, we entered an ante-room where our tour guide asked us to take a seat. It was me and my fellow gaijin and a young Japanese couple with their little baby. The guide took a little folder with plastic pockets showing some words and phrases in kanji and he unleashed a detailed account of the history of the shrine in excellent... Japanese. After a minute or two, when we realised that the tour was only available in Japanese, it did feel a little awkward. But we waited patiently until our guide finished his speech and then followed him out of the ante-room. Still, there was more; he then led the way to the inner garden of the shrine, so we all followed him there. The garden was beautiful and the shrine looked terribly old but extremely well-maintained.

In all this time, our guide was firing his detailed descriptions without being deterred at all by the fact that two gaijins, who obviously could not understand a word he was saying, were still tagging along. At the time I think our curiosity about the inside of the shrine was greater than our embarrassment – well, this whole situation would certainly seem embarrassingly amusing to an outside observer! In any case, shortly afterwards we moved further out to another part of the garden where we saw an open gate leading to the entrance of the grounds, so that’s where we took the opportunity and made a discrete exit.

After a brief but most welcome rest at the park I mentioned earlier, we decided it was time to leave this place as well and move on to our next destination.

For some photos from Shimogamo Shrine, please click here.

Our next stop was in the north-northwest outskirts of the city, at the beautiful Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji). Situated in the middle of a gorgeous strolling-garden and sitting on the edge of a pond known as the Mirror Pond, the building was erected in 1397, three years after Ashikaga Yoshimitsu abdicated his throne and decided to retire in this area, enjoying the peace and quiet of priesthood.
The original building was destroyed in fires, for the last time in 1950, so the pavilion currently in place is a reconstruction, with all original aspects of the building (gold-leaf gilding, paintings etc.) faithfully restored.
A stroll around the gardens revealed some glorious views of the surroundings:
For some more photos from Kinkaku-ji, please click here.

The time now was around two in the afternoon and the heat was really getting unbearable. One thing you get to appreciate in Japan, especially in areas with a lot of visitors and tourists, are the soft drinks dispensers, which are literally everywhere. If they were allowed to install these vending machines inside temples, I’m sure they would have done that too! And despite some brand names which may not read or sound very appealing to your taste, like Pocari Sweat (which happens to be one of the most popular brands in Japan), you get pretty much anything you may look for in a drinks vending machine. In fact, sometimes you also get things that as a Westerner you wouldn’t expect to find in a vending machine – like beer! Not that you’d want to be drinking beer in this heat, mind you…
So, today’s tip is: don’t worry too much about having 2-litre bottles of water with you, the water gets warm very quickly and the bottle is a burden to carry around. Just make sure you budget your water and soft drinks while on the go. On average we’d drink something around 4 litres of water a day when we were out and about, so this can become quite expensive after a while. Obviously, another option is to not visit Japan in August! (Have I said this before? Don’t worry, you’ll read this again and again!)

It was now time to get back to the Imperial Palace for the afternoon tour.

The Kyoto Imperial Palace is most certainly an impressive structure. As the Emperor of Japan resided in these premises until 1869 (when he moved to Tokyo, after the Meiji Restoration), and as Kyoto was the capital of Japan for a bit more than 1,000 years, it makes sense that this building complex will have features characteristic to the art and architecture of many centuries. About 120 people who joined the English tour that afternoon got out of the waiting room just before Gishumon Gate and we started walking south along the west wall of the 27-acre compound.

Like with many settings in Japan where one might expect the utmost luxury, one gets exactly the opposite. The design of most buildings is plain and seemingly ordinary and the overall impression you get from the kind of lifestyle the inhabitants of this place must have led is that of austerity and moderation. Interior decorations are practically non-existent and at most you get century-old paintings, either black ink on white rice-paper and silk or colour pigments on wooden panels, like this one below:
As with the Kinkaku-ji, perhaps the most impressive feature of the complex was the wonderful (Oikeniwa) Garden, on the east side of the palace complex. An extensive canal system drains into a pond which, among other, features the beautiful Keyakibashi Bridge:
A most refreshing sight in the blistering afternoon heat!

For some more photos from the Kyoto Imperial Palace, please click here.

Looking at our watches, weary and tired after a day that started at 03:00 in the morning, we decided that at 16:00 it was about time to return to our hotel and get some rest – and maybe also try to bring our sleeping routine into some sort of order. So we headed back having thoroughly enjoyed a full day of sightseeing in Kyoto. Tomorrow would take us to Nara, the ancient capital of Japan.

To be continued...

Day 1

Time to set off. Flight confirmed for 13:00 on 5 August, headed for Narita Airport, a few dozen miles east-northeast of Tokyo. This is going to be a long journey…

There are many options to fly from the UK to Japan. Having asked around, Virgin Atlantic seemed to be the best in this kind of business. However, for a 6’ 4’’ guy like myself, economy class is still tight. The legroom is little and the seat has just enough width to accommodate the body size that comes with a guy of this size. The flipside of the coin is that you get an amazing entertainment system with more films, TV shows, games and what-have-you than you could possibly indulge in during the 12-hour flight, you get excellent in-flight service, great food and a never-ending supply of bottled water, which is really a blessing for trips like this. So, overall, although my legs and my back complained during the flight, I have nothing to complain about.

And in any case, you also get views like this:

About five or six hours away from Japan, while flying over Siberia, we could see the sun setting over the North Pole, as we were headed south-east. Quite an amazing sight…

We landed at Narita promptly at 9:00 the next day. I have to admit I didn’t manage, nor did I try, to get much sleep on the plane. I don’t know if it was the lack of space, my own excitement or just the temptation of the in-flight entertainment system – probably a good mix of all the above. Our journey was not nearly finished yet, as the plan was to go straight to Kyoto on that day, around 475km west of Tokyo by rail, as we would spend there the first six days of our stay and use it as a base for all sorts of shorter trips in the western part of Honshu island, which is the middle and biggest of the islands that comprise Japan.

So, after going through Immigration Control and the huge luggage collection hall, we headed straight for the underground Japan Railways ticket offices to exchange our pre-bought Rail Pass vouchers. Anyone who is going to stay in Japan for more than a week and is planning to use the train for sightseeing trips or use the infamous Shinkansen bullet train to cover long distances should have one of these magic pieces of paper.
You can get a pass valid for a week, two weeks or more and use it instead of a ticket for most of the trains you’ll ever get to use while there. The exceptions, where different rates and/or extra charges apply, are the ultra fast Nozomi service of the bullet train and the local train services which are offered by local operators and not JR. And trust me, the train gets you literally everywhere in Japan. A bit like in the UK, but with a much much more reliable service thrown in for good measure. I know fellow residents in the UK (and elsewhere!) will find the following funny, but I have to quote it (slightly altered) just to give you an idea of what I mean by ‘reliable service’. From Wikipedia: The average delay on the Tokaido Shinkansen [one of the main rail routes in Japan] in the year 2006 was only 0.3 minutes. When trains are delayed for as little as five minutes, the conductor makes an announcement apologizing for the delay and the railway company provides a "delay certificate". Japanese passengers rely heavily on rail transit and take it for granted that trains operate on time. When trains are delayed for an hour or more, it may even appear in the newspaper. In other words, do use the train when in Japan, and if you intend to use it a lot, plan ahead and get a Rail Pass before you travel, because you can only get it as a visitor in the country of origin – Rail Passes are not sold anywhere in Japan.

And now follows an account of my first encounter with Japanese culture. I and my friend walk into the ticket office, dragging our luggage and probably looking slightly worried as to whether we’re in the right place. A rather energetic man, probably in his early 60s, jumps off his chair and welcomes us in perfect English. We take a seat in front of his desk, he takes our vouchers and starts preparing the Rail Passes for us. In the meantime, his supervisor, a young lady in her early 30s, who happens to be not busy with another customer, comes over to our desk and when the chap tells her that we intend to use our one-week passes on this day, she asks politely where we are intending to travel. She then immediately offers to reserve seats and tickets for us, both for the service from Narita to Shinagawa station in Tokyo (better to change there for the Shinkansen rather than in Central Tokyo, because ‘you’ll find it easier to find your way around the station’) and then for the Hikari bullet train, the second fastest service after the Nozomi, from Shinagawa to Kyoto. Before we had the chance to realise that in less than two minutes what we initially thought was going to be a long and tedious procedure was almost complete and that two people were working in tandem for us, the lady provides us with the tickets and checks with us that we have understood clearly the times that the trains will be departing and arriving. And as we lift our heads from the desk where we were examining the tickets, the man literally shoots off from his chair across the room and picks up a tourist map and a brochure listing all the sights of Kyoto, both in English, and hands them over to us, as before with the Rail Passes, with both hands and with a little bow to thank us for being there and giving him the chance to serve us (which is the etiquette with customers in any shop or restaurant in Japan!). We exit the ticket office, with all documents in hand and with time to spare before catching the Narita Express train to Tokyo. That’s when I realised that I had probably just arrived at the most hospitable country in the world…

One could easily say at this point that it’s too soon to make such a judgement and that there are plenty of other countries in the world with polite and hospitable people, in fact I know for sure that a lot of my Greek readers will say that about Greece (although, deep inside they know that this is not generally true anymore…). I also know how famous England and the UK are around the world for the politeness and the manners of their people. Well, none of them and of the many other peoples and cultures I’ve seen and interacted with in my lifetime come even close to my experience in Japan. I say that not just because of the incident I just described, of course. Retrospectively, and having spent almost two full weeks there, in terms of professionalism, politeness, good manners, willingness to help and plain and simple efficiency, the Japanese people are right up there, on the top of my list. And they have my total respect for that.

The train ride on the Narita Express wasn’t generally as fast as the name might suggest. Quite a few stops had to be made in various stations at the outskirts of Tokyo, so the journey to Shinagawa Station took us about 80 minutes. From there, we headed straight to the Shinkansen platforms, following clearly signposted routes in the busy station. This is the first time I noticed that every single sign in a train station is clearly labelled in both Japanese and English. In the days that followed I realised that this is true even in the most remote local station. This is of significant importance for someone like me who has no clue of kanji, hiragana or katakana, in other words the various forms of writing in Japanese.

Now it was time to meet the Shinkansen. For a train to be called a “bullet train”, it’d better have the looks of one too! Here is one of my snaps of the Nozomi N700 series:

But as we couldn’t ride the Nozomi with our Rail Passes, without paying extra charges, we had to wait a few more minutes for this Hikari 300 series:

The time when we boarded was 12:08. The time when we left was 12:10, as advertised. The time when we arrived at Kyoto was 14:48, again as advertised. For the first 20-30 minutes of this journey, my friend and I hardly exchanged any words, I seem to remember. I don’t think, in fact I know, this was because we were just getting too tired at that stage. It was because this was the most unbelievable feeling of a train ride! As the train left Shinagawa station and slowly started accelerating, we could already see that trees and houses and other objects out of the window were moving faster and faster. And then at some point, maybe a couple of miles down the track, while the train was already speeding, we felt a sudden jolt, and then it really started to accelerate! From a train moving at that speed, I’d have expected a lot more noise in the carriage. However, the outside noise was completely dampened, I could hardly feel the wheels spinning on the tracks and the whole ride felt like a smooth slide. I really can’t imagine how a proper maglev train would feel! The only other super-fast train I’ve been on before is the Eurostar, which is also particularly fast when it crosses the north-western plains of France on its way to Paris. Compared to the Shinkansen experience, it still feels like a pretty ordinary train.

Enjoying the train ride in relative silence for a while also gave me the opportunity to appreciate something else: the landscape. Where there is no town or city, there is by default a forest-covered hill or mountain. Everything is covered in thick patches of tropical green – quite a different sight in my eyes, comparing it to the green grassy hills of the southern counties in England.

We arrived in Kyoto and after getting a bite in one of the many restaurants of the main station, we headed to our hotel, relieved that we were about to get some rest. The whole journey, door-to-door, took a good 23 hours. With hardly any sleep in between but with plenty of excitement about the days that would follow, I settled in my room and closed my eyes at 17:00.

The best was yet to come...

An introduction...

So, here we are. This is indeed a very new venture for me and quite frankly it will probably take me a while to get used to the idea of me blogging. However, I recently had the good fortune of visiting Japan for two weeks. There is too much to say and to show, e-mailing wouldn't do it justice.

People who know me a bit will know that I'm a keen traveller and photographer. When I say that this has been the best trip I've ever been on, I mean that quite literally. Japan has been on my "to-visit" list for a great number of years now. I can't even remember when was the first time that I really felt fascinated by the exotic history and culture of this distant country. I blame it on the samurais... And Akira Kurosawa - he was very big in Greece when I was young and I started getting my teeth into world cinema. When I saw Himeji Castle towering in front of my own eyes, I felt once more a bit of that tingle that Ran first caused on the back of my neck, with the huge battle scenes and the drama of a story equivalent to King Lear.

In the following days (I should say weeks, because realistically that's how long it's going to take) I'll be detailing here the sights I visited and the experiences I collected, along with another girisha-no gaijin who was brave enough to join me for these two weeks in August of 2008. (Mental note and advice to readers: avoid Japan in August!) There will be things interesting, bewildering, awesome, puzzling, beautiful and comical. For a westerner like myself, this was an experience to cherish. I hope I'll be able to share some of this with you.