Tuesday November 3, UNESCO sites! (Nara, Horyuji)

9 C Blue sky, later clouded and still chilly with 14C orso.

We have seen so many UNESCO selected treasures of Japan as part of the World Heritage, today we even go to two major important sites. Nara with the tallest wooden building and a Budha of 16 meters and Horyuji, with the oldest surviving wooden structures in the world and the first Buddhist structures of the year 670.

Nara

After a small 1 hour train ride we arrive at Nara. A very friendly and informative lady gives us a free map and plenty of information to have a 3-5 hours walk in the area. Its about 20 minutes walk to the first sightseeing spot just outside the center of the little town Nara. A large 5-story and a 3-story Pagoda next to the Kofukuji-temple from the 14th century. Surprising enough more a pentagon shape than a square building. Near the Nara museum its enormously crowded. We read about special treasures being showed in the museum, but apparently we were not the only ones knowing this. We skip the enormously large cues and go to the Nandaimon Gate(from the year 1203) towards the Todaiji Temple (500Yen fee). This is the largest wooden structure in the world, and indeed, its huge! The Buddha inside building is more than 16 meters high! All people here look like dwarfs compared with these large structures. Walking between all the deer (there are many of them here and have a special purpose to keep the gods in a good mood) we pass the enormous large “Great Bell”. The Nigatsu-do Hall we climb the stairs, with it reaching the highest point where you can enjoy the view over the sites and Nara. We walk towards the other important site in Japan, the Kasuga Grand Shrine, with the largest (3000) stone lanterns. And these lanterns are bigger than a human, so 3000 of them is quite an impressive sight. It all takes about 4-5 hours to see and walk all of this. We walk back to the station to try to be in time for the next important site in Japan, Horyuji Temple.

Horyuji

The 3th station we get out the train and an unmanned information spot in the station has some free maps. On the map is a pink path marked towards the Temples, indicating its 20 minutes walk. Next to the counter is a sign, stating the temples close at 17:00. Our books indicated an earlier time, so we are lucky. Later at the temple we notice we are even more lucky today, as these closing times are until November 3(today). From November 4th they close earlier. Lucky us. The walk is not complex, nor hard so we arrive within the 20 minutes. The fee is 1000 per person, but you get 3 tickets to visit the different sites (Saiin Garan, Daihozoin and Toin Garan). The contain the world's oldest wooden surviving (earthquakes, fires etc) structures on earth. Together with other cultural treasures convey images of Japan from over 1300 years ago. Therefor this group of architectural monuments are the first of any kind in Japan selected by UNESCO as part of World Heritage. The structures are indeed in excellent shape and great to watch. The cold weather is now showing some sunlight, so this gives great light for the photographs. Inside are great looking Buddhas, although not as big as Nara, they are big. There is a nice garden and temples with very old treasures, although sometimes very dark and hard to see. The museum (rather new building from 1998) has some very old and great artifacts, even from the 6th, 7th centuries. Just before they close and before darkness sets in, we complete the trip on this impressive site.

We go back to the train and on the way back we see a Japanese restaurant where we order some nice dinners with rice, dumplings, noodles, fried beef and fried shrimps. At the way back we pass a large supermarket where we find ourselves buys very delicious chocolate, filled with cream and cooled deserts. A long but very impressive day ends at our home, err.. hotel again.

Tuesday October 20 Takayama, traveling to Kanazawa

Tuesday October 20 Takayama, traveling to Kanazawa Partly cloudy, 18C. In the morning we pack our stuff as we will catch at 11am the train again. We check out and do mention we will contact HostelWorld, where we booked our reservation, to file a complaint that breakfast was at the last moment not included. She starts to phone and apologies follow. Also 2000 Yen for the mist breakfasts. We go to the supermarket and buy sandwiches, yoghurts and drinks Reservation for the first train fails as its already full, the second is no problem and we have our first reserved seats. When we enter the train in the non reserved seats section, its almost empty and we have excellent seats. If I check out the reserved seats section of the train, its completely full and even smells a bit because of the large crowd. I guess reservations are not always a benefit. ;-) We arrive in Kanazawa, where we enter a large train station with lots of modern and high glass structures, but the entrance is linked to a wooden traditional style torri-like poort. Rather nice. The Hotel is only 5 minutes walk along the main street, so we find it very fast. We can drop our bags. Check in of 16:00 is rather late, but we wanted to go sightseeing anyway. We go first to the Omi-chio market. A large hall with fresh fish, fruit and other products. We cross some other streets to enter the Kanazawa-Castle-Park. On the trip we pass in the middle of the city many temples and Shrines. Some seem to be used for offices now, but we are not sure. The larger ones are still temples. The long train trip and the many kilometers we walked today made us tired and we decide to move slowly back West towards the Naga-machi Buke Yashiki Ditrict, a place where the kept the old houses. Along our way we pass the High School and see a Star Bucks. We check out if they have hot chocolate, something we haven't seen before in our holiday. They do have it, even one chocolate with truffles and cream. We order it and go and sit in the back of the place in nice comfortable chairs. The chocolate tastes real good. Next to us are two high school girls having a break too. One of them turns and asks us where we are from, which country. So we tell her where we come from and that we are on a holiday in Japan for 4 weeks. The conversation lasts for about 30 minutes, but we had a very nice chat. About culture differences, our holiday plans, their school and future plans. Also about why Japanese show the peace / V sign when they go on a photo. Not clear yet, she will try to find out. We exchanged email to keep in contact. I also made a picture of the 2 ladies with Sheila, of course with the peace signs too :-) The old houses we wanted to see, were very nice, but it was already dark outside so called it a day. Near the hotel was a restaurant where we had a nice dinner together. I forgot to mention, that during the day, some people from Australia we met in the morning on the train station we kept seeing during the day. They took the same train, and afterwards the next train too, met them in the same hotel and even in the same restaurant. It was so funny and also interesting, because we had some nice conversations too with them. They were on a 10 day trip in Japan. Friendly folks.

Saturday October 17 2009, Nikko World Heritage

Saturday October 17 2009 Nikko during the day, World Heritage and traveling to Matsumoto in the evening. Sunny to the right of the Hotel, Clouded to the left(in the mountains) 15C (later in the evening in Tokyo it was 22C)

2009-10-17

(Click here for a picture of the oldest train station in Japan and the bags we have during traveling) We wake up by the alarm at 7am in the Japanese beds and room. The white paper walls, that can move on rails, give a special light in the room. We can see the mountains clearly now, as it seems less clouds/rain is in the air. We get a very nice breakfast in the lobby, restaurant, internet room. Eggs with vegetables, potatoes, butterbread and some other bread. The ranking of the hotel got higher ;-). We buy a 2-way bus ticket for the lake. 2000Yen per person, for a 45 minutes bus drive. The bus drive is cool, as we climb in the mountains and rise to a 2500 meters above sea level. You can see its colder here, as the trees have much more color on them already. The road is one way and two lanes, so the return path will go over different mountains. We stop in the village and walk to the biggest waterfalls of Japan. And its indeed a beauty, number one in the top 3 of Japans waterfalls, so says the information sign. We take pictures in different modes and out of different angles and walk to the shops and food market. They have a lot of sweets from the region here and are happy to share little samples with anyone. So I taste a lot of Japanese specialties :-) And almost all of them I like very much. The pickles I leave alone, they are not my favorites in general. We walk to the lake, about 20 minutes walk. And sit down and relax a bit. Its rather chilly, thus wearing sweaters and a jacket for the first time in the holiday. In front of a Japanese restaurant we stare at the plastic food samples outside. The ones we think “look” good, we choose and eat. We happen to have ordered a bowl of rice with pork and a big bowl of thick noodles (I rather would call it thick pasta) in soup with chicken. Both are very nice. Despite the small look it gives you soon a “full”feeling. Its 1850 Yen all together, which is relative inexpensive for such meals compared to a Dutch lunch. The bus back to Nikko we cue up for and in 10 minutes we are going downhill the otherside of the mountains. Some spectacular views on the colored leaves and after 45 minutes we are back. The train we need to take leaves at 16:00. We have 1.5 hour to relax in the sun, Apparently Nikko has more sun than the mountain tops. The luggage, we were allowed to leave in the hotel (we got numbered tokens on the bags from the desk), we picked up again and set off to the train rides. From Nikko we take the JR line to Utsunomiya(45 mins). There we take, after a 45 minute wait, the Shinkansen to Omiya(30 mins). The Shinkansen Asama 539 will take us to Nagano (arrival at 19:29). The last train we need is the ltd. Express (wideview Shimano 26) to Matsumoto (19:40-20:30). From there we will walk to and check in the hotel. Update: In 10 minutes we walk from the station to the Hotel. At check in Sheila gets to choose a little gift from the Hotel for herself. The room is nice and has internet so we update the blog and check out a lot of info on the next days. We doubt about getting to Kyoto to watch the firefestival, but it seems it will cost us about 2 days and a lot of hassle, and the chance that you are pushed around and do not see much is high (according to some of the web blogs we just read). And we are not the types that like big crowds, that push you around and try to protect your photo and film gear, so we call it off. We used Skype to phone with Sheila's dad. Greetings Marcel San PhotoKingh... or in Japanese 写真王 (写真 is Photo and 王 is King)

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