J³ (James, Joel, Japan)

Before I start, a letter to my mother: The fact that you’re reading this post means I survived to write it. I didn’t get hurt, or break a leg, or even skin my knees. Please keep that in mind as you read, and especially as you look at the pictures. =)

I got my current camera for Christmas last year. According to the manual, it’s capable of taking about three hundred photos on a single battery charge, and it came with… a single battery (unlike my prior camera, which used regular AAs). In real life, it surprisingly seems to actually get better performance than that, but just to be on the safe side, I bought an extra two batteries. On this trip, I’ve frequently had to use all three batteries every day. Whew.

So, today, I headed out to do the thing I specifically came to Yamagata in order to do: visit Yama-dera. But first, it turned out there was something else in the area I wanted to do. I watched an anime called “Tetsuko no Tabi”, based on a manga of the same name, which is about a manga writer being taken around the country to document (as a manga) the travels of a Japanese travel writer who literally does nothing but travel on trains – in fact, he’s visited every single JR station in the country. It’s non-fiction – which is to say, the travel writer is real, and the manga writer in the manga is the one who’s writing the manga. Or rather, wrote, because the manga “Tetsuko no Tabi” is the manga that she’s writing.

But anyway, the point is, in this anime, they visit a very nice looking waterfall near a station called Omoshiroyamakogen Station. I’d slapped it on my map of stuff I’d like to do in Japan as a “could be interesting, but a little pointless to travel there just to do that”. It wasn’t until late in my planning stages that I realised it was literally the next station down the train line from Yama-dera, which was firmly on my list of stuff I absolutely had to do. After a bit more research, I discovered there’s actually a walking track connecting the two stations, down the extremely picturesque Momiji River Gorge. So, that’s what I did first. (To be more precise, the gorge reaches about a third of the way – the rest of the way is along a quiet country road, almost as picturesque.)

So, I got up a bit earlier, had breakfast, and headed out, because I needed to be on the train at a bit after 8:50, since the next one wouldn’t be for another two hours. I was catching the Senzan Line, which connects Yamagata and Sendai – the train’s name is a combination of both names; “sen” from “Sendai” and “zan” from “Yamagata”, because the “yama” in “Yamagata” can also be read as “san” or “zan”. It means “mountain” (hence “Fujisan” and “Fujiyama”).

It was… quite chilly. Today’s the only day on my trip so far that was forecast as being rainy before I arrived in Japan, and it certainly dawned plenty cloudy, and was even raining when I left the hotel – very gently, though, so it could have even been just heavy fog. According to Wikipedia, Yamagata averages eighteen days of snow in December, so I figured I had better than even odds of seeing snow here (assuming the snow days are randomly distributed across the month, which is probably a bad assumption). The weather app was telling me 3°, though depending on when I looked at it, the stated maximum for the day was 0°, so I’m not really sure where it was 3°. The Senzan trains have manual open/close buttons on the doors rather than opening them all automatically, and the locals clearly had the habit of pushing open, then pushing close again before stepping out, so that the door would close right behind them.

Once we left Yamagata, I started seeing snow all around the tracks. By the time we arrived in Omoshiroyamakogen, there was snow everywhere, all over the ground. Much happy. I had a brief moment of concern when it took a worryingly long time for the door buttons to light up after pulling into the station, but fortunately they lit up before the train left again, so I hopped off. Carefully – not really planning to slip over first thing. According to a sign on the platform, the station has an elevation of 440 metres above sea level.

I had a bit of fun crunching around for a bit, then headed off to do some sightseeing. There was a flight of stairs just behind the platform with an arrow saying “Arare Falls” so I popped down to take a look. Pretty nice, lots of snow, and I’m about 90% sure there were animal tracks in the snow. Also, there was a bridge down the bottom with a perfect fresh covering of snow – which, on the downside, obscured the gaps between the bridge slats. I carefully made my way across, took some photos, and headed back up to the platform.

Then I headed up the stairs. At the top was a chairlift that looks creepily overgrown. I couldn’t quite tell if they haven’t opened in years, or if they just haven’t opened for this season yet, but honestly, my gut says the former. A little bit creepy – I was half expecting Jason to jump out an murder me.

Headed over the overpass to reach the start of my planned walk. When I got to the top, I may or may not have discovered a sign saying the path was closed for the winter. But the next train back wouldn’t be coming for another two hours, so that’s all we’ll say about that.

It was, I’ve gotta say, a spectacular walk. Snow all the way through. Water falls here and there. Even animal tracks in the snow (and at one point I saw some yellow snow – but don’t worry, I didn’t eat it). At one point, the path was completely hidden by fallen snow, and I only found it again by following the animal tracks. Icicles aaaaall over the place. For much of the way along, the walking path was little more than a ledge cut into the side of the gorge, but every now and then, the path would cross over the river on a bridge – and the bridge supports and various stairways looked very worryingly like temporary scaffold supports. At one point, I passed a bunch of curved scaffold poles just lying on the ground, but when I walked a little further, I found a bridge that was literally bent in the middle, with the same curve as those discarded poles. Makes me wonder what’s been standing on that bridge.

Some of the later bridges were suspension bridges instead, and they had signs posted on them saying “It’s dangerous, so please cross quietly”, which was very reassuring. The bridge approach paths were basically boards with cross pieces nailed on to prevent slippage, and I worked out the knack of sliding my toe or heel into the crosspiece before putting my weight on it – which was lucky, because on one of them, the collected snow turned out to be a bit more solid than most, and my foot slid clean off. One later bridge, the snow was so deeply piled that I had to sweep it off the bridge with my foot to get a sure footing.

Ah, the joys of someone from a temperate climate having to individually re-derive all the habits that people who live in the snow are taught from birth.

The train line actually runs along the lip of the gorge pretty much the entire way, but I didn’t notice when I was on the train because I was looking out the front windows at the time. While I was in the gorge, one of the trains sounded its horn as it passed over my head, which gave me an absolute heart attack, because for a moment it sounded like the noise of some kind of large animal.

Eventually, I reached the end of the gorge. The path out was up a fairly steep flight of steps, then through a culvert under the railway lines, which I shared with none-too-small tributary of the Momiji River. I was raised up a bit on a metal platform, but luckily the water wasn’t too much deeper, or I would have been sharing the platform as well as the culvert. Actually, many blogs I found of other people doing this walk mentioned that water frequently crossed the path, requiring wading. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, since it’s winter, and decided the first place that I couldn’t easily pass through, I’d turn back to the station. Fortunately, any water crossing the path was never deep enough to even come close to the tops of the soles of my shoes.

It’s amazing what a difference seasons make, though. In peoples’ photos from spring and summer, it’s an incredibly vivid green. In autumn, it’s burning reds and yellows. For me, though, in winter, it was a very stark contrast of white and browns and greys.

But anyway, after passing through the culvert, I was back on the road, with about four and a half kilometres to stroll back to the town of Yamadera. And yes, like I said before, that’s two thirds of the distance between Omoshiroyama and Yamadera. Yes, the gorge was about two kilometres long – it sure didn’t feel like that. It was, I confess, quite nice to finally be away from the sounds of the water that had been my constant companion since I started about two and a half hours previously.

It was quite a nice stroll back, though, sometimes through dark copses of pines, and sometimes through bare patches of deciduous trees sans leaves (given the name of the river I’d been walking along, quite possibly they were momiji, Japanese maple). When I reached the halfway mark back to town, it started to actually snow. Good thing I brought my new puffy jacket. I did, however, have to remember to suppress the urge to blow fallen snow off my camera, because blowing on it makes it melt.

I’d also bought a CalorieMate block at the supermarket last night to have as snacks during the walk, so I had one as a snack during the walk. CalorieMate is a Japanese brand of energy bar, basically, with a texture something like a piece of dense shortbread. They also sell varieties in jelly and drink form. One thing that I find interesting is that the block form was first introduced in cheese flavour in 1983, but it took them until 2014 to release a “plain” flavour.

Interestingly, at no point on this walk did I lose mobile reception. Ah, the wonders of modern technology.

Finally reached Yamadera town a bit under four hours after I’d started walking. Guess I can blame that rather long time on stopping to take photos. Discovered shortly before entering town that the road I was on was actually closed to traffic, which I suppose explains the lack of any.

I had a look around for somewhere to have lunch, but many places seemed to be closed, so I pulled out Google and searched for the local Yamadera specialties. Google suggested soba – noodles made from buckwheat – and also suggested one particular place which also sold kaimochiage, a kind of fried buckwheat dough dumpling. I headed there and found it open, so I got me some chicken soba, and a kaimochiage. Most tasty. Very warming. I was the only customer there, though.

Then it was at last time to head for Yama-dera. Founded in 860 AD is a branch temple of Enryaku-ji in Kyoto, its official name is actually Risshaku-ji – Yama-dera is a nickname meaning “mountain temple”, because it’s quite literally built up the side of a mountain. There’s precisely a thousand stairs from the street to the innermost sanctuary, though to be honest, I didn’t count them to check. On the way up, there’s a whole bunch of other things to see, perhaps most interestingly Godai Hall, an open sided hall right up near the top with a spectacular view over the town.

I hung around up there taking photos of the view for a bit… until suddenly nature started calling. There was a toilet near the bottom with a sign saying “no toilets past this point”, but as always seems to happen, I didn’t need to go then. Against my better judgement, I decided to climb the remaining steps to the top, and I got within sight of it before my need became too urgent, and I wound up rushing down the steps at a breakneck pace.

I’m not sure how much detail I can get into without losing the G-rating on my blog, or my ability to show my face in public back home – I rather suspect I’ve said too much already. I’m just gonna say I didn’t actually break my neck, and leave it at that.

And by that time the sun had well and truly set – for that matter, it was already getting pretty dark on my way down – so I headed back to the train station, and back to the hotel.

Decided to reward myself for having two early nights in a row by going to see a movie in the cinema near my hotel – specifically, the new Fullmetal Alchemist live-action movie (or, as it’s called here, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, which just means “Alchemist of Steel”). Though I guess seeing a movie makes it a late night after all. It was a pretty good movie. Managed to follow the plot largely because I knew it already – it’s a slightly modified version of the first part of the manga’s story. Had dinner from the cinema concession stand – a rice burger (which is to say, it’s a chicken burger, but with rice in place of the bun). And a Twix I’d brought from Australia for dessert.

It’s my holiday and I’ll have a late night if I want to…

Weather outside is currently -1°. Rather glad I’m in here.

Today’s photo count: One thousand, one hundred and sixty-nine. And a video. Like the other day, that wasn’t even difficult. I’m starting to wonder if I really never have broken the three-digit mark before.

Today’s step count: 17,727 steps, or 11.9km.

Today’s goshiun count: Just the one, from Yama-dera

Today’s stamp count: Nil. I couldn’t find the one at Omoshiroyamakogen, and there was no attendant there to ask about it. I would have expected there to be one at Yamadera, though, but again I couldn’t find it, and the station ticket office had already closed. Sad face.

Once more, with feeling: Yesterday’s post now has photos.

There are several restaurants near my hotel in Uguisudani, and every day I tended to think “well, if I can’t find anywhere I want to eat, I can always go back to the hotel”. I never did, in the end…

Today’s probably going to be a fairly short post. I rode a train. The end.

But seriously though, today I checked out of my hotel in Uguisudani and headed for my next hotel in Yamagata. Yamagata City is the capital and largest city in Yamagata Prefecture, a part of the Tohoku Region (the north-eastern part of Honshu). Tohoku is best known in Australia these days for being the site of the Great East Japan Earthquake, though that affected only the eastern prefectures in the region, whereas Yamagata is in the west. With a population of about 250,000, the city just a little bit more populous than Taito Ward, the ward of Toyko containing Uguisudani, but those people are spread over an area thirty-eight times larger, so it sure ain’t nearly as packed here.

But first, had breakfast and cleaned out my room. Remembered on the way out to take a photo of the view from my window. Here it is – spectacular, innit?

On the way to the station, I took another photo of the tree in the park near my hotel. Here’s a comparison of all four photos I took, one from each of my mornings in Uguisudani. You can see how close I came to missing the autumn colours. At least for this tree, in any case.

So hopped onto the train to Ueno Station, where I got a ticket for the shinkansen to Yamagata. The shinkansen lines in Ueno are underground, and boy are they a loooong way underground.

Specifically, my train is the Tsubasa, the only train that runs on the Yamagata Shinkansen. Strictly speaking, the Yamagata Shinkansen is a mini-shinkansen. It runs from Tokyo Station attached to a Tohoku Shinkansen Yamabiko train bound for Sendai. At Fukushima Station, the two trains part ways, and the Tsubasa continues on the regular Ou Main Line tracks to Yamagata, sharing the tracks with the regular service trains (which is what makes it a mini-shinkansen). It’s my first ride on a shinkansen heading north instead of west, but it’s just as comfy. Not quite so fast, averaging a “mere” 150km/hr over the whole trip.

Sat enjoying the view and attempting to take the occasional photo. After we left Fukushima and passed through a tunnel, snow appeared by the side of the tracks. Snow! Like, carpeting the whole ground – though only in the shade, and a little too close to the train to photograph clearly. Still, it does mean that just maybe I might see some snow up close here in Yamagata.

I also had lunch on the train, an ekiben from the trolley lady. An ekiben is a bento box bought at a station (“eki” means “station”), and the station in this case is Yonezawa, a city famous in Japan for its beef (along with Matsuzaka, and of course Kobe) – and please note I’m not trying to say that the trolley lady got off the train in Yonezawa as we passed through and bought it for me, but rather that’s where they were brought onto the train. I got a beef bento, naturally, and one of those magical self-heating ones. You pull a string, and some magical chemicals under the food get mixed, and make everything nice and hot. Nice and tasty, too.

One more thing, it kinda says something about the ubiquity of Toyoko Inns that pretty much every time we pulled into a station, I saw one out of my window. That’s one reason I like them so much. =)

Arrived in Yamagata bang on time, as expected. It’s cold here – we’re up in the mountains, and further north, so while I was getting temperatures in the five-to-twelve range in Tokyo (and am expecting to get for the rest of the trip), here we’re talking more like minus five,  to about eight. This is where I brought all the layers for.

I am, of course, staying in a Toyoko Inn here again, and again just a short walk from the staion. I was a little early to check in, so I left my luggage at the hotel and went for a stroll to the nearest Seven-Eleven to get me some more cash – it’s about a kilometre away, so by the time I got back, it was the perfect time to check in. Had a bit of a conversation with the staff – they were astonished that Santa Claus is basically the same in Australia even though we have no snow at Christmas time.

Everything at this hotel is pretty much the same as all of them, but there are some small differences. Firstly, my hotel at Uguisudani used my Toyoko Inn Member card as both the room key and the light-turning-on thing, but this hotel has a physical key to open the room, and the keyring turns on the lights – that’s also how it was for all of our hotels on our last trip, but I think they’re hoping to change them all over to the member card system instead. Also, it’s more of a typical room arrangement with the door opening to a straight hall with the bathroom on the side. I’m also on the seventh floor here (as opposed to the second in Uguisudani), so there’s a little bit more of a view.

Sat in the room for a while going through yesterday’s photos (with the TV turned to the kids’ programming for a bit of passive Japanese practice), then I went out to get some dinner. I intending to go find a restaurant somewhere, but I got distracted by checking out the supermarket across the road, and wound up buying some instant yakisoba instead. It’s a pretty impressive supermarket there’s even a relaxation space. Sadly, I seem to have neglected to take a photo of the yakisoba before I took the wrapper off. The kettle provided is a little anaemic, so it took a while to boil. It was most tasty, though – along with a can of hot chocolate from the vending machines in the hotel. One thing I’ve noticed is that at least the hot cans here have some very thick walls – it takes a lot of strength just to bend the walls a bit. Haven’t tried a cold can to compare.

Flicked on the TV over dinner, and just caught the end of an episode of VS Arashi. Bit of a shame I missed the rest of it, I would have liked to watch. I’ll have to see what I’m doing at 7pm next Thursday. It used to air subtitled in Australia on SBS, but I haven’t seen it in a while.

In any case, time for bed now. Early night for a change. =)

Today’s photo count: Three-oh-three.

Today’s pedometer count: 8566 steps, or 5.8km.

Today’s goshuin count: Not a one

Today’s stamp count: Four – for some reason, Ueno had another three stamps inside the gate, which I’d not noticed before (though the ink pad was getting a bit old, so they’re rather faint). Also, Yamagata Station.

Continuing my trend of alternating late nights with less-late nights, it was 10pm before I even arrived back at the hotel…

Pokémon Go is still reasonably popular over here. At least in the city, if I go to a raid, I can usually find others fighting it, and today I found a Pokémon Go walking map published by an official city tourism department, complete with Pokestops and gyms marked.

So, today dawned absolutely bright and sunny, so after breakfast, I hastily enacted my “absolutely bright and sunny” contingency plans… no wait, no I didn’t. I continued with the plans that had been displaced from yesterday: Visiting Kamakura. I dropped by the park near the hotel again on the way to the station, and was amused to discover even fewer leaves on the tree, and more collected in bags on the ground.

My first trip outside of Tokyo Prefecture since I arrived (though still within the Greater Tokyo Area), Kamakura is a part of the neighbouring Kanagawa Prefecture. Kamakura became the de facto capital of Japan for about a hundred and fifty years (from 1185 until the Kenmu Restoration in 1333, when the Emperor took back control of the country) when the very first Shogun, Minamoto no Yorimoto, chose the city as his base of operations – partly because his ancestral land was here, and partly because it’s surrounded on three sides by mountains (and the sea on the fourth) and therefore effectively impregnable. (Fun fact, though the government run by the Shogun is called “shogunate” in English, the word in Japanese is “bakufu” meaning “tent government”, both because the tent is the symbol of a military commander, and because it was intended to be temporary.)

Headed there via Tokyo Station – my first visit to the station since my arrival in Japan. I thought I’d just pop outside the gates and grab the station stamp, but I wound up checking literally every single one of the stations six main gates before I found the one that had the stamp. Fun stuff. (Incidentally, it’s possible that the Metro stations I visited the other day all had stamps as well, though looking for them would have probably taken me all day, considering how spread out some of those stations are.) I did get a look at the historic Marunouchi entrances, though – last time we were here, they were in the middle of being refurbished, and covered in scaffolding.

Hopped onto the Tokaido Main Line train to Fujisawa. There, I transferred to the Enoshima Dentetsu line, or Enoden for short. A lovely little train line that runs from Fujisawa to Kamakura, it’s officially designated a tramline, as the part of the line from Enoshima Station to Koshigoe Station runs down the middle of a road (making the whole line, legally speaking, one of the three tramlines remaining in Greater Tokyo). I bought me a day pass for the line, as I intended to visit a whole bunch of different stations. There’s a whole lot of very nice stations on this line, including Kamakura Koko-Mae Station, which is almost right on the seashore, and Gokurakuji Station, a little station in the hills.

I also found a special stamp inside the station intended to advertise a new movie coming out soon called “Destiny” – it looks like it’s got a whole bunch of different stamps of different colours, which together combine to make a pretty coloured image. Trouble is, that was the only stamp I saw all day, so I’ve no idea what it’s supposed to look like…

But anyway, after riding most of the way along the line, I hopped off at Hase Station to start my first main activity for the day: the Kamakura Shichifukujin Meguri. Mostly I decided on doing this (despite my aborted attempt in Yanaka the other day) because most of the temples on the pilgrimage were on my list of temples I’d like to see anyway, and/or they were on the way.

First stop, backtrack up the tracks a little bit to Goryo Jinja, a lovely little shrine in the trees… with the Enoden running literally across its doorstep. As in, right outside the tori gate marking the entrance, there’s a level crossing. Anyway, the shrine enshrines Fukurokuju, the god of wealth, happiness and longevity (which is actually his name, too – fuku=wealth, roku=happiness, ju=longevity).

Left the shrine via the back stairs, and walked through the quiet little streets to the next temple, on the way buying a nice hot can of corn potage from a handy vending machine – with actual corn. Very nice to hold.

In any case, the next temple was Hase-dera, which enshrines Daikokuten, the god of agriculture, farming, wealth, and commerce. Or supposedly so, anyway – I never saw his statue, but maybe I was looking in the wrong place. I did certainly notice a cave devoted to Benzaiten, goddess of beauty and music (and the only female member of the Seven Lucky Gods).

In contrast to Goryo Jinja, Hase-dera is a huge place, with buildings everywhere, built up the side of a mountain which gave it a spectacular view over Kamakura. Also a restaurant. And wi-fi. And it cost money to enter – and they had Suica-enabled ticket machines. And also a rinzo, a huge rotating pillar thing full of written Buddhist sutras – according to a sign, turning the rinzo is supposed to give you the same spiritual benefit as actually reading all the sutras, which seems heaps convenient, but you can only turn it on the eighteenth of the month. Anyway, I bought some dango (sweet rice dumplings) as a snack – most tasty.

Headed off to my next temple, buying a huge nikuman (Chinese meat bun) as a further snack-slash-lunch. While the next temple, Kotoku-in, is not part of the Shichifukushin Meguri, you may have heard of it for a different reason: it’s the location of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, one of the most famous icons of Japan. It was built in maybe 1252, which for someone who lives in a country where the oldest building is no more than 200 years old, is unimaginably old. It used to be housed in a building, but the most recent one washed away in a tsunami in 1498, so it’s now exposed to the air. Also, it’s hollow, and you can go inside.

Once done there, I headed back on the road. It was quite a nice little back street, but at one point it crossed a major road, which disappeared into tunnels after about a hundred metres in either direction, which I found interesting – just goes to show how mountainous Kamakura is. Kept following my little street until it turned into a hiking path, which climbed up the side of another mountain and went right over the top, descending down into a little hidden valley on the other side, which contained my next destination: Sasuke Inari Shrine.

Again, this one’s not on the Shichifukujin Meguri, but I’m sure I’ve mentioned in the past how much I luuuurve Inari shrines. This one was particularly nice. Considering the path I walked in on, I completely felt I’d discovered a completely hidden shrine – that feeling was dissipated a little when I discovered it’s accessible by a paved path on the other side, but it was still a very nice little place. When I went to get a goshuin, though, the priest literally just took a pre-written one and glued it into my book.

Headed out of there by the road, and walked towards my next stop, Zeniarai Benzaiten Shrine. Despite enshrining Benzaiten, this one’s also not on the Shichifukujin Meguri (Benzaiten’s temple comes later). Walking the back streets as is my wont, I managed to reach this one by the back entrance as well – the shrine is completely surrounded by high rock walls, making it invisible from the outside, and while the back entrance is a flight of stairs up and over (meaning for the second time I wound up clambering up and over a mountain… ish), the main entrance is a tunnel straight through (though historically, the stairs were the main entrance).

Zeniarai Benzaiten is unusual in that it contains features of both Buddhist temples (the incense, for example) and Shinto shrines (the tori gates) – one of the few survivors of the forced separation of Buddhism and Shinto during the Meiji restoration. The shrine’s main tradition is washing money (that is, in fact, what “zeniarai” means) – supposedly, any coins washed in the shrine’s stream will double. I bought a money basket and washed my own coins – I’m gonna need more hundred-yen coins when it comes time to start paying for coin laundries or coin lockers – before heading out, by the tunnel this time.

Hiked up the steeply sloped street, and found myself clambering up and over another mountain. Crossed the valley on the other side – this one full of houses. So absolutely serene and remote, yet still pretty close to a main JR railway line. Coming to the next mountain, Google maps was telling me there was no path over the top so I’d have to go around, but Pokémon Go was showing me a continuous route. Didn’t want to have to backtrack, so I went with the latter. Turns out that PoGo is correct, but only in the sense that part of the route was literally someone’s private side path. Whoops. Didn’t realise I’d entered private property until I was leaving it.

Anyway, after clambering over my… fourth mountain (?) for the day, I finally reached my next stop on the Shichifukujin Meguri. Stop number three, in fact, once again approaching from behind. Jochi-ji enshrines Hotei, the god of “contentment, happiness, bartenders, and all classes of people” (is how it’s phrased on the website I’ve been using for reference, which is an interesting combination), and is also the fourth-ranked of Kamakura’s Five Great Zen Temples. It was built in this absolutely spectacular cedar forest. Very lovely.

Aaaand… that’s all I had time for. By this point, it was 4:30, and all the temples were closing for their evening prayers. Also, it was time for the monthly SpockSoc book club meeting, which I’d be taking part in via FaceTime. I bought a can of hot red bean soup (very warm, but quite curious flavour) to warm up again, then popped into a temple car park so I could hear people talk without traffic noises. Quite by pure coincidence, it happened to be the car park of Kencho-ji, the number one temple of Kamakura’s Five Great Zen Temples. I could probably have snuck into the evening service – the attendant was still there letting people in – but I’m not sure they’d have appreciated me chattering on FaceTime up the back.

Once traffic died down a bit, I headed on down the road, still chattering with SpockSoc. Walked through what appeared to be a tunnel, but which was open at the top – very curious – and eventually reached the next stop on the Shichifukujin Meguri, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu.

Enshrining Benzaiten, this is like the major shrine in Kamakura. Like, town’s main road points at it in the same way the Champs-Élysées points at the Arc de Triomphe. And I once again came in through the back door. I elected to do this pilgrimage in clockwise geographic order so that I’d finish at Kamakura Station (there’s a numerical order, but it’s not very ordered geographically), but it kinda seems like the temples are oriented to be approached from the other direction. That said, I managed to get all the best temples before running out of light, so I guess clockwise works – near as I can tell, most of the ones remaining were smaller and less spectacular.

In any case, Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu was well and truly shut up for the night, though I could at least wander the grounds. I could see people moving around behind the windows, but they were probably counting takings, or something – I’m sure if I’d knocked and asked, they would have done a goshuin for me in the name of service, but they wouldn’t have been happy about it. Took a few photos, then headed back to Kamakura Station down the aforementioned main road, Wakamiya Oji, which a raised approach road lined with stone lanterns running right down the median strip.

Back at the station, still chattering with SpockSoc, I hopped back onto the Enoden. I was intending to head all the way to Enoshima, but instead I got off at Hase again, partly so that I could take part in the next phase of the book club meeting (can’t speak on the train, it’s bad manners), and partly to take photos of the Christmas lights I’d noticed earlier and which were now lit up. With Enoden trains running every twelve minutes, randomly disembarking is not a huge issue, and, in fact, had originally been my plan had I not ran out of time.

I also got off at the next station, Gokurakuji, and took some more photos, but it was just too dark to do anything much. So yeah. I think if I wanted to get everything done that I’d planned, I either needed less sleep (i.e. start earlier), less travel time (i.e. start closer), more daylight (i.e. finish later), or more focus on what I was doing (i.e. stop getting distracted by stuff). Or some combination of all four. Or fewer plans (i.e. don’t bite off more than I can chew). As it were, I only managed three of the seven, though if I can count Zeniarai Benzaiten as Benzaiten, I guess I did four. Didn’t manage anything related to Ebisu, Bishamonten or Jurojin.

Finally, headed back to Enoshima Station to continue my original plan: ride the Shonan Monorail back to Ofuna, where I could catch the Tokaido Line, though I did rather want to do that in daylight. See, the Shonan Monorail is a suspended monorail, with the cars riding under the track. I’d never done that before, and it looks quite impressive, with nothing between you and the cars on the road below except for the floor of the carriage. The monorail even runs through tunnels. Spent the whole trip with my face pressed to the front window, but it was just too reflective to take photos.

In Ofuna, I tried to find the station stamp, which turned out to be a bit of an adventure. Usually they’re set up by one of the ticket gates, basically just sitting there all the time, but sometimes the worker at the manned gate has it behind his desk. In Ofuna, it’s kept in the station’s lost-and-found office, this tiny room hidden under the stairs right down the far end of platform six. As in, it’s actually on the platform. Probably a nice view during the day, I’d imagine.

Once again, same as the other day, even thought it was already getting late, I went to see a couple more sights, both adjacent to Kanazawa Station. First: the world’s shortest escalator. As in, it’s officially recognised by the Guinness Book of Records. It’s about five steps high, but you need to walk up another five steps just to get to it, which is a bit weird. Internet research indicates that more fuss used to be made about it there, with posters and whatnot, but currently it’s basically just sitting there unremarked. Maybe it was getting too much attention. Also, it used to run down instead of up.

Anyway, next activity was Anata no Warehouse. It’s a five-storey arcade building, but it’s done up to look like a dilapidated, cyberpunk version of a Kowloon walled city. Very ratty-looking, very nice. The entrance from the car park involves walking on stepping stones over “toxic waste”, so I’m not sure I’d want to do that while drunk. I took a bunch of photos before noticing the sign saying “no photos”, so I quietly snuck out before anyone noticed me.

I had dinner at the shopping arcade attached to Kawasaki Station – Japanese-style curry – before heading back to my hotel. Finally managed to confirm something that I’ve vaguely been suspecting for a while: the trains have heated seats. Quite nice.

But yes. Getting pretty late now, so it’s time for bed. Tomorrow I’m checking out of my hotel in Tokyo and heading to my next destination. It’s only a three hour trip, so I shouldn’t need to be up too late. Touch wood.

Today’s photo count:  One thousand and forty-three. Cracked the three-digit mark for what I’m pretty sure is the first time ever. Don’t ask me how that happened.

Today’s pedometer count: 26,592 steps, or 19.4km. Whew, we have a new record here as well.

Today’s goshiun count: Six, a pretty impressive haul. From right to left as usual, Goryo Jinja, Hase-dera, Kotoku-ji, Sasuke Inari Shrine, Zeniarai Benzaiten Shrine, Jochi-ji

Today’s stamp count: Lucky thirteen, another big take. Tokyo Station, Fujisawa Tourism Information Centre (cause I found it while looking for the Fujisawa Station stamp), Fujisawa Station, Kamakura JR Station, Kamakura Enoden Station, Hase Station, Gokurakuji Station, Enoshima Station, Shonan-Enoshima Station, Ofuna Monorail Station (two different ones, for some reason), Ofuna JR Station, Kawasaki Station. Also, one part of a multi-colour Destiny stamped image, so I guess that counts as fourteen? =)

Yesterday’s post now has photos.

Throughout most of Japan, they walk on the left, same as they drive – the main exception being Osaka, but Osaka likes to be obtuse like that. For some inexplicable reason, though they walk on the right on the overpass from Uguisudani Station, and the stairs leading down to street level on the other side. I’ve not the foggiest idea why.

On a side note, there is a scheme to my post titles. And a logical one. Props if you can figure it out. =)

So, today dawned absolutely bright and sunny, so after breakfast, I hastily enacted my “absolutely bright and sunny” contingency plans: I went to the Tokyo Skytree.

Plus, a bonus advantage in going today is that I could still use the pass from yesterday’s escape game until about noon, and I’d need to take a Metro train to get to the Skytree. Actually, I took trains from three different companies: JR from Uguisudani to Ueno, Metro from Ueno to Asakusa, then Tobu from Asakusa to Tokyo Skytree Station. The pass only covers me for the Metro trains, so I had to use my Suica card for the Tobu line. (Actually, I could have gotten to the Skytree using Metro lines only, but that would have doubled the travel time, which is a bit daft.)

Tokyo Skytree is Tokyo’s newest broadcasting tower, intended to replace the Tokyo Tower, as the latter is surrounded by too many buildings almost as tall as itself. At 634 metres tall, it’s the tallest structure in Japan, the tallest tower in the world, and the second tallest structure in the world (after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai). There was also some claim about having the fastest elevators, but I don’t recall precisely what the claim was, and doing internet research now, the numbers they gave don’t really match up to the current fastest elevators in even Japan, much less the whole world. The tower opened to the public in May 2012 – it was still under construction when James and I were here last, but even so, it was already the tallest structure in Japan by that point.

Actually, the 634 metre height of the building is a kind of linguistic pun called “goroawase” in Japanese – since numbers have a bunch of different pronunciations, it’s possible to form words out of them. For example, the English “thank you” is pronounced “san kyuu” in Japanese, which just so happens to be a homophone for 3-9, so in Japanese text speech, “39” is the equivalent of using “tnx” in English (or whatever it is the cool kids are using these days). But by the same token, it’s also possible to form numbers out of words. It’s useful for mnemonics and just for making jokes. For example, the word for dentist is “haisha” (literally “tooth doctor”), but using goroawase, it’s possible to write it as 813, so it’s quite popular for dentists’ offices to have “813” in their phone numbers. In the case of the Skytree, though, it was built in an area formerly named “Musashi”, and Musashi in goroawase is, you guessed it, 634.

But anyway. Sadly, when I arrived at the main observation deck at 350 metres above sea level, I discovered it was not quite so blindingly bright and sunny as I’d originally thought – there was a fair bit of haze, and Mount Fuji was completely invisible. So far I’m zero for three on Mount Fuji sightings, which is a bit sad. Still hoping for a glimpse when I go past on the shinkansen. In any case, there was still quite a spectacular view, though the haze was increasing a bit – when I arrived, Yokohama was visible, but it disappeared while I was there. I made an attempt to do a panorama, but since the cafe was in front of some of the windows, I had to go in a buy something so I wouldn’t have too big a gap. Thought I’d get something new, so I bought something called… dessert vinegar. It’s basically fruit fermented into vinegar but somehow without the sour taste of actual vinegar. I got blueberry with milk – it wasn’t too bad, kinda like tangy blueberry.

Panorama turned out pretty nice, too. Spent some time after that taking some closeup shots of things that looked interesting. Even got a shot of my hotel, just; in the last photo, down and to the right of the big brown Candeo sign in the middle is another sign in blue and white saying “toyoko-inn.com” – that’s the roof of my hotel. The Uguisudani platforms just visible on the left side too.

After a while pottering around there, I decided to pay the extra charge to head to the upper observation deck, at 450 metres. It was quite a nice view, but the windows were not really conducive to taking another panorama, so I mostly just enjoyed it. Rather than the open-floor-with-windows layout typical of observation decks, the upper deck is kind of a spiral tunnel wrapped around the outside of the building, so you get off the lifts at 450 metres, but then walk up a ramp for another five or so metres of elevation.

Spent some more time up there taking photos of interesting stuff. Even spotted Bentendo, which I visited yesterday.

Soon, I decided it was time to head out, so I went back down to the lower deck, played for a bit on the obligatory glass floor on the lowest storey there, then headed back to the ground for lunch.

Found a food court in the attached shopping centre, where I bought Chinese-style meat sauce, miso flavoured, with noodles. Quite tasty.

Head back to the train station and caught the train back to Asakusa, because in Asakusa is Senso-ji, and its attached Kaminarimon, which is another thing that’s in pretty much all the Japan tourism posters. Extremely popular, lots of people there. I browsed my way up the shopping street leading to the temple, then ran around for a bit taking photos. I also bought another omikuji, and got exactly the same fortune as last time – delayed good luck.  Though I did notice one difference – as well as the big fortune, they also give pointers in specific areas. For travel, the one from Nezu said something like “don’t travel, because something’s going to catch fire at your destination”, but this one says “it’s alright to start a trip”.

Also in the area is Hanayashiki, Japan’s oldest amusement park – and my Tokyo Skytree ticket would give me free entry (though I’d still have to pay for rides). Buuuut… it’s closed today. And tomorrow. And also next Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s open every other day this month, but I just had to come on their rest day, lucky me. Guess if I have the time later I can go have another shot, see if my Skytree ticket is still useable on a different day.

So instead I went for a bit of a wander. Found a very old-style shopping street nearby, and bought a melon bread from a bakery. Like, fresh melon bread, still hot. Most tasty. I was quite amused, though, by the way the obligatory vending machines had a fancy wooden signboard over them, like all the other shops in the street. Also found a tiny shrine on a side street. That’s one of the things I like about Japan – tiny shrines and tiny temples everywhere.

After that, I decided to go for a wander up the Sumida River to wait for sunset, because I could get a really good view of the Skytree as it lit up at night. Wound up walking to the bridge after the next one up river, crossing over, and then walking back. Quite a long walk. Some nice shots, though.

Decided to stop for an early dinner – mainly to give some time for the sky to get darker. I thought I’d give Mos Burger another shot, so I googled for the closest one, and it turned out to be just a hundred metres away. Turned my head to the left to see if I could spot it, and instead my eyes landed on a Yoshinoya just across the road. Yoshinoya is a chain of restaurants that specialise in gyudon, or beef on rice, and it’s one I’ve been wanting to try, so I went there.

I got gyunegitamadon – to break that down a bit, that’s beef (gyu), spring onions (negi), a raw egg (tama) on rice (don). Japanese food rules are quite strict, so it’s perfectly ok to eat raw eggs here – as I understand it, they give them a good wash to clean off all the nasties, but since the process also washes off a protective coating, it also shortens their shelf life. In any case, it was extremely tasty. Quite warming, too.

Dinner done, I went back out for a few more snaps of the tower, then headed back to the hotel. And I’m certain that some of the passageways in Ueno Metro station have changed since I walked down them yesterday – I’m sure that yesterday, the walls were covered over by boards, since they’re in the middle of refurbishing, but today those boards are gone. (Actually, a lot of the stations I passed through yesterday were in the middle of being refurbished.) I’m also pretty sure that the platform safety barriers on the JR station platform weren’t there yesterday either. Maybe I’m just unobservant. Also rode a fun escalator which has a flat bit in the middle.

And now it’s time for… well, not an early night, but at least not a stupidly late night.

Today’s photo count: Five hundred and eighty.

Today’s pedometer count: 15,304 steps, or 10.2km. Pff, easy day.

Today’s goshuin count: Two – Senso-ji and the adjacent Asakusa Shrine.

Today’s stamp count: The Skytree had three mini ones, so I put them all on the same page in my little book. Kinda less ornate than I was hoping – think they’re intended more as something fun for the kids.

Each room in this hotel gets its own SSID for the wi-fi, and a (presumably) randomly generated password. My password could well be a phone number in Woollahra. I’m just kinda glad it’s not my grandparents’ old phone number, or I’d be worried that Zaphod Beeblebrox would drop by a kidnap me.

It is waaay too late right now to be starting on a blog post, but if I don’t do it now, it’s going to be a few days before I had the chance to get caught up. I’d intended this trip to be jam packed for most days, then have a rest day in the middle to revitalise, but when blogging is starting to cut into sleep, that could be an issue. Wanna blog while it’s still fresh. In any case, just be warned that if this post decays into indecipherable rambling in the middle, that’s because I’ve fallen asleep while still typing.

First thing after breakfast at the hotel, I decided to try giving the final temple from yesterday’s Yanaka Shichifukujin Meguri another shot, mostly because it’s in the middle of Ueno Park, an fairly scenic area. Especially in spring when the cherry blossoms bloom. More than just a bit of grass and a few trees, it’s actually quite a large area, and contains Ueno Zoo (closed Mondays, though), a number of museums, and a bunch of temples and shrines.

Started off by heading up to the top floor of the hotel to see what I could see from the emergency staircase. Turns out there’s a fairly good view of the station.

Then I left my hotel and headed into the park. The park is large enough that there was no traffic noises to be heard at all from inside, but oh, the constant cawing of crows. Anyway, I wandered around taking a few photos, then came across Ueno Tosho-gu. As with all shrines named Tosho-gu, it enshrines the first Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugama Iemitsu. This one is quite lavishly decorated, all covered in gold leaf, which is what caught my eye. Also, the long stone-lantern-lined approach road.

After leaving there, I wandered around a bit more and found a small Inari shrine, before finally reaching Shinobazunoike Bentendo (basically means “the Benten temple in Shinobazu Pond”). As you might be able to tell, it enshrines Benzaiten, or Benten, goddess of wealth, happiness, wisdom and music. Happily, they were open for business, so I got my goshuin.

Strolled around Shinobazu Pond until I reached Ueno Station (passing Ameya Yokocho on the way, a little later in the day, so it was much more bustling than yesterday). I was here to start my main activity from the Ueno Metro station: the Tokyo Metro Escape Game.

At least, it’s called an escape game, but it’s more of a clue-based rally than an actual escape game. Basically you buy a pack which includes a guide book, some puzzles and clues, a “pegcil” (= combination pencil and peg, basically a bit of graphite in a plastic handle), and a ticket to ride any Tokyo Metro train for free for twenty-four hours (Tokyo Metro being one of the nine major private rail companies in Tokyo, though is the only one explicitly classified as a subway).

Since I don’t want to give any spoilers, I won’t talk about it too much (which should maybe help to keep my blogging time down), but I found it quite clever. It basically starts with three puzzles that each yield two stations, and you’re supposed to pick only one from each and ignore the other, which I found quite curious. Admittedly, one or two were too clever for me. One thing I didn’t like was that some of the later puzzles gave transit instructions in the form of “go to X platform, catch a train from there, and then get off when some specific condition is met” rather than “now go to Y station”. Trouble is, if you don’t recognise or don’t understand the condition, you could wind up somewhere else altogether.

This event was one of the main reasons I wanted to come now and not next year, as it’s only run from the start of October to the end of January, though this is the third year in a row it’s been run. They sell packs in both English and Japanese. (Incidentally, further to the aid of avoiding spoilers, most of these images are just here for the visual enjoyment rather than because they’re illustrating the paragraph they accompany.)

But I swear, though, some of these Metro stations have the lines incredibly far apart. Like, you go out the ticket gates, walk through underground passageways for literally half a kilometre or more, then back in some more ticket gates, but you’re still in the same station. Though one thing I am intrigued by is the way some stations have the platforms serving as concourses as well. So, getting to the surface from a particular platform at some station may involve walking through one of the other platforms.

I wound up bumping into the same few people a number of times today, even hanging out with a few for a while. I worked on one clue with a pair of guys, and then we travelled together for a while, until we disagreed on the meaning of one clue, and we parted ways. Turns out they were right and I was wrong, which meant I completely wasted about half an hour. On the plus side, my mistake did give me a chance to visit Shibuya and get some photos of the scramble crossing. Weirdly, the Ginza subway line in Shibuya is actually three storeys above ground, as Shibuya stands in a depression (the “ya” in “Shibuya” means “valley”). The flight of stairs I wound up climbing from the ground to get back to the platform had a sign at the bottom saying (in Japanese) “77 steps to the top”, then one in the middle saying “only 36 steps to go!”

After I got back to where I ought to be, I re-encountered a couple who I’d seen a few times around the place too, and we struck up an actual conversation, in Japanese. He told me my Japanese was pretty good. –) He also gave me his business card. We worked together on what seemed to be the last puzzle, only to discover we were still a ways from finishing, so we continued to work together, only parting ways just a short distance from the end for reasons I didn’t quite catch.

In any case, I managed to finish, with only one or two glances at the clues – it took me about seven hours, and if I’d known it’d take that long, I might have tried to start a bit sooner. It was a heap of fun, in any case, and I got to see a whole lot of Tokyo. Crossed the city centre about three times. I was getting extremely turned around by the end of it, though.

Rewinding time a little bit, doing this event allowed me to visit a whole bunch of other places in Tokyo that have been on my “to visit” list, though there’s a whole lot more nearby that I didn’t have the time for. I grabbed some lunch soon after starting at a restaurant specialising in katsu (= port cutlet = what they call something that’s basically like pork schnitzel). Found it by applying the old “when in Rome” adage and looking for a place with a queue outside, which’d mean that it would be good. But not too big a queue – I didn’t have all day. I had menchi katsu, which had minced pork rather than a straight slab of meat. (Fun fact, katsu is frequently eaten as a good luck food, as it’s a homophone for the verb “to win”.)

Later, I found myself standing next to the Bunkyo Civic Centre, and I remembered that it has a free observation deck on one of the uppermost floors, so I headed up to have a look. Quite scenic. There’s a whole lot of Tokyo. If today’s weather had been as nice and sunny as yesterday’s, I’d intended in the morning to cancel my plans and go to the Skytree today instead, but it was a bit cloudy, so I didn’t. That was a good call in the end, because couldn’t see Mount Fuji at all. It even rained for a bit when we reached our final stop. I’ve included an image below of where it ought to have been visible – readers of my blog may recognise the twin-towered Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on the right.

Even more later, I found myself standing next to the Toden Arawakawa line, one of the two remaining streetcars in Tokyo, which I’d have really liked to have taken a trip on. Sadly, I didn’t have the time to ride it by this point.

After we finished the event, and despite the lateness of the hour, I decided to hop onto the JR Yamanote line to Shinjuku to knock off one or two more things I wanted to see off my list – specifically the old shopping streets of Omoide Yokocho and Shinjuku Golden Gai. And see them I did. Both of them are older style shopping streets, dating back to post-WWI, both filled to the brim with teeny tiny shops, though it’s mostly eateries (primarily kushiyaki (= grilled stuff on sticks) places) at Omoide and mostly bars at Golden Gai. (Omoide Yokocho means “memory alley”, but it’s got a more colloquial name from all the drunk businessmen who used to urinate on the walls. I ain’t gonna post exactly what that name is – this is a high-class establishment, after all – but save to say that it’s not “Hobo Alley”.) I thought of having dinner in Omoide Yokocho, but none of the places really caught my eye, and I wasn’t sure I wanted my clothes to smell of cooking meat (as most of the shops were making chicken skewers over open burners, and there was cooking smoke everywhere). Lots of foreigners, mind. Also, four-storey McDonalds.

Instead, I stopped at a place for dinner on the way back to the station from Golden Gai – I had oyakodon, or chicken and egg on rice (the name means “mother and child”). This one did catch my eye, a lovely old-ish looking place in the middle of Yasukuni Dori, the big street in Japan with all the fluoro signs that they use in all the advertising to show how shiny Japan is – quite a contrast.

Back at the station, I decided to go see a winter illumination show nearby, despite the increasing lateness of the hour. Incidentally, Shinjuku is the world’s busiest train station, with over three and a half million passengers passing through every day. If you can imagine the entire population of Sydney passing through Central Station daily (or perhaps more accurately, half the population twice a day) then you’ll have something of an idea of what it’s like. I was hoping the few hours between my first and second visits would thin out the crowd a bit, but there didn’t seem to be any noticeable difference.

Hopped on to the Yamanote Line again for the trip back to the hotel… only to get stuck on the train for literally half an hour when the entire Yamanote Line outer loop was closed down for “door inspections”. Actually it seemed like one particular train was out of operation, but we were the very next train in line, leaving us stuck just outside the station. If we’d been able to pull into the station, I could have easily gotten back to the hotel by another route in that time. When we did manage to get into the station, we found the platform packed by the entire contents of the previous train, so we wound up extremely crowded. Not quite so much as to need the services of the professional pushers-on, but not too far off it either.

Eventually made it back to Uguisu Station. Fun fact, the green colour used to identify the Yamanote Line is called “uguisu green” in Japanese, after the colour of the bird. Anyway, I took a bit of nice night time photography on the way back to the hotel – it was somewhat later tonight than last night, so a few more late-night places were open, including a kushiyaki place which was somewhat cheaper than the places at Omoide Yokocho.

Time for bed now – it’s 1am. Photos to come later.

Today’s photo count: Five hundred and sixty-four

Today’s step count: 24,648 steps, or 17.6km, whew. I decided to wear my thermals today, and while they certainly kept me all toasty warm, they made my knees almost too stiff to walk up stairs, and there were a lot of stairs today.

Today’s goshuin count: Two – Ueno Tosho-gu and Bentendo. I was a little bit bemused that at Tosho-gu, they appear to have written it in texta rather than calligraphy. I’ve also folded out the covers of the book so you can see what they look like. (Though before you freak out at what I’ve done to the spine, I call it a “book” but it’s actually one long concertina-folded paper between two covers.)

Today’s stamp count: Four – found a regular stamp at Bentendo as well, and one at the Bunkyo Civic Centre observation deck, plus Shinjuku and Ikebukuro stations. Actually, I think a brushed past a few JR stations during my Metro line travels, but I wasn’t able to find any of their stamp pads. Here’s a sample of what they look like.