Made in Japan

A photo blog from Yamashina-ku, Kyôto. All pictures made and owned by me.

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It’s been more than a year now since I last went to Japan. Due to some changes at work and university, we haven’t been able to come back in 2015. However, this will change in 2016, a few days before I found an unbelievably cheap direct flight from Munich to Japan and we just booked it. So we are coming back to Japan in March 2016.

However, browsing through my pictures from previous year’s, I feel that there are still things left unsaid. We traveled so far in Japan but I am too lazy, so I never really talked about all the things we saw. One of those places is Kobe. I’ve been to Kobe in 2012 and 2013 and back then I went to Suma Beach 須磨海水浴所, the Herb garden　神戸布引ハーブ園 in the Rokko Mountains, the Northern district with all the houses of former foreign residents   神戸北野異人館街, the harbor and it’s tower and of course the earthquake memorial museum 阪神・淡路大震災記念.

Still, some things escaped my attention back then. First of all we saved a bit of money to try the world famous Kobe beef. Moreover there is a really beautiful place just north of Shin-Kobe station　新神戸駅. After a 15min hike through the mountains we arrived at Nunobiki falls 布引の滝. It was extremely easy to get there and it is really worth taking a look if you are in Kobe anyway and an hour to spare. I honestly think that it is really hard to find another place so close to an urban center and yet so beautiful in Japan.

After going further into the mountains we saw a sign that promised something interesting: the ruins of Takiyama castle 滝山城跡. Well, ruins they were. There is basically nothing to see up there except for some stones and a specatular looking bridge on the way to those stones. It was an interesting hike though, with some good looks at Kobe mid-way. The site itself was not so fancy. Well, if you look closely it was my own mistake. I expected to see some 遺跡 iseki, remains or ruins. But the word they actually used is 史跡shiseki which just means “historical site” so I got fooled by my overconfidence in my kanji reading abilities.

On our way back we got lost and felt like we were intruding into somebody’s backyard. It was the proper way though.

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Lake Biwa Cycling on Mamachari

I’ve been trying to write this blog for years now. The pictures weren’t so great because priority was given to the act of cycling so I somehow never finished the entry. In fact, it’s been almost three years now since I’ve undertaken the bizarre adventure of cycling around lake Biwa on my mamachari bycicle　ママチャリ. A mamachari is quite unsuited for traveling long distances. In fact, it’s designed for short distances inside urban areas, equiped with a basket to store groceries or stuff like that. It has no gear-shift either. That’s why japanese friends are always a bit astonished when I tell the story of how I went around Japans biggest lake in one day on such a bycicle. The whole trip from my apartment in Yamashina 山科区 is about 190km. Three years ago I made the following map after finishing the cruise on July 22nd 2012 :

As always when cycling in Japan, I prepared next to nothing. I originally planned to do the trip in two days, with an overnight-stay at an internet café in or around Nagahama 長浜市 at the eastern shore. I printed some maps at a local convienience store roughly marking the course suggested by google maps, because back then I did not have a smartphone. I took off at exactly 4:00am at my dorm room.

There was one thing I made sure of buying before departure: a battery backlight. There is no legal need to have one in Japan, but I won’t go on a longer trip on not illuminated roads without such a light. It’s just too dangerous. The first thing I did was getting something to eat at Nakau なか卯, so I munched a beef bowl 牛丼　and some nice Karaage 唐揚げ. After that I left Kyôto prefecture 京都府 heading for the neighbouring Shiga prefecture 滋賀県. That’s 10 minutes by bycicle so nothing too exciting yet, but once you cross the border to Shiga you have to climb some mountains to get to Ôtsu 大津市, the capital city of Shiga prefecture and the point where I started my round trip. Around 4:45am I arrived at the lake.

Because I used to live in Yamashina, a rather detached district of Kyôto that is as close to lake Biwa as to the center of Kyôto itself, I’ve been to the lake and to Ôtsu quite a few times. I left Ôtsu as dawn was breaking, wondering how far I may get today.

Shortly after leaving Ôtsu, one encounters a rather strange village. It’s called Ogoto Onsen おごと温泉 and apparently it has been some kind of paradise for dirty business in the 80s. I just leave you with the impressions from the outside, for I did not dare to enter it, concerning the security guys walking around everywhere.

The area has some nice nature, too. However, in general the west side of lake Biwa is a terrible place to cycle. There is just one main road between the lake and the mountains and it tends to get terribly crowded and noisy in some areas. And bycicles are still a rare sight on roads in Japan. Especially if it’s a mamachari.

As i made my way up north I decided to have breakfast at one of lake Biwas more known beaches. Yes, there are actually quite a few nice places where you can go swimming. I arrived at Ômi-Maiko 近江舞子around 6:50am, ready to eat all my choclate pains au chocolat I bought the day before. As there are plenty of vending machines 自動販売機 on the way I did not even bother go bring water or juice. You never really leave civilization around lake Biwa except for a tiny part on the northern tip. More and more clouds appeared and I was just waiting for the rain to pour down on me.

Fortunately, that did not happen. The further I cycled, the more sun I got and when I passed Shirahige shrine 白髭神社, a shrine with a gate 鳥居 in the water similar to Itsukushima shrine 厳島神社 in Hiroshima prefecture (yet much smaller), the clouds were almost gone.

I was on the road for 3,5 hours now. Clouds reappeared and I arrived at Makino area. Around 9am I made another brief break at Makino beach. Before my departure I checked out a camping place there on the web for a possible sleepover but I was way faster than expected. I was now approaching the nothern part of the lake, one that according to experiences on the web was the hardest part of the whole tour.

Just had to include the Obama joke!

Well, the web was right. I had to climb some minor mountains - something that is not as easy as it sounds without a gear shift - and go through some nasty, noise and stinking tunnels that were clearly not built for bycicles to pass through. Before the tunnels I bought some ice cream at the Makino Ossakatôge service area 道の駅マキノ追坂峠 and in between the valleys I had some great views of the very rural northern part of lake Biwa.

The view from the service area is great, by the way. The tunnels aren’t.

If this isn’t feeling like Satoyama 里山, nothing is.

This part was rather pleasent.

The “house-tunnel” was especially weired. Anyway, after passing Shiotsu 塩津I arrived on the northeastern shore of the lake that has some nice swamp-like areas and a lot of birds and other animals to see. It was now around 11:30 and the weather got really good. It was also the end of July, so it got hot, too.

I arrived at Nagahama 長浜市 eat 12:30pm not really knowing what to do now. I originally planned to stay the night at an internet café at Nagahama but I arrived way before schedule. Additionally, I’ve already been to Nagahama two times and knew all the sights. So I decided to have lunch at the rebuilt castle 長浜城 and... to go on and see how far I can get.

The next few hours passed quickly. I left Nagahama behind me, went through Hikone 彦根市 (once again I’ve already been there and seen the sights, so I just went through) and somehow got a bit lost in the rice fields of Moriyama 守山市. I was so focused on cycling, that I took almost no pictures.

Around 16:00 I arrived in Kusatsu 草津市 and I now realized that I could already see Ôtsu on the other shore. The familiar shape of Mt. Hiei 比叡山 appeared and the Great Biwa Bridge 琵琶湖大橋was not far away. That was when I decided to give it a go and make the return trip to Kyôto on the same day. No way I would pay for an overnight stay with home in sight.

This is the Biwako Ôhashi and the creepy ferris wheel I featured in an earlier entry.

The prince hotel of Ôtsu (the big tower in the middle) was now in full sight. Oh yeah and I got burned a bit. The weather was going full-summer. I still liked it, although I had to stop more often at the occasional convinience store to buy ice-cream. I was on the road for 12 hours now, but with the sillhouette of Ôtsu in plain sight, I could not stop anymore. But let me show you a selfie of the sun-burned sweat-drenched but extremely happy foreigner that hit the road in Kusatsu that day.

I arrived at Ôtsus “Würzburg-Haus” at 17:30 and this was the last picture I took that day. Ôtsu and the german city of Würzburg are sister-cities, so they built a german restaurant on the lakeside. I never went in there, but it is quite a sight from the outside. I arrived at my dormitory around 18:00 and don’t remember anything from there on.

All in all it took me around 14 hours to cover roughly 190km. Looking back at it today, I still can’t believe I did this with a mamachari. It sounds like such an awful idea to me now. But it surely was on of the trips in Japan that left the biggest impression on me. I still love lake Biwa and Shiga prefecture in general and I want to redo the tour with my girl one day. Maybe on better bycicles and with more stops, but anyway.

That’s the story of how I did the famous 琵琶湖一周 in one day. On a Mamachari.

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When i first went to Amanohashidate 天橋立, the famous pine-covered sandbank in northern Kyôto prefecture, it was, well, pretty rainy. But since Kyôto University spent a lot of money to get us in a pretty nice Ryôkan 旅館 and arranged some pretty interesting meetings with people protecting the pines and the sandbank from general erosion, there was nothing to complain and a lot to learn.

This time we were more lucky. Since for the first time I traveled with the Japan Rail Pass, we took the Limited Express Hashidate from Kyôto. It does not cover the part between Fukuchiyama and Amanohashidate, but you can obtain a supplementary ticket in the train. We opted for the Amanohashidate Pass. It was 1600 Yen per person and offers some interesting features beside the train ticket: 2 hours bycicle renting, a boat tour across the bay and a free ride on the lift. All in all it is a really great deal.

There are also some shrines and temples among the way that are worth a visit. And of course the famous matanozoki 股のぞき, looking through your own feet upside down to make the sandbank look like a bridge to heaven. You need a surprising amount of imagination to see it, however.

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Some of my most remarkable experiences in Japan came from cycling around. I was so shocked by the public transportation costs from my dormitory to Kyôto University (around 900 Yen a day) that I bought a mamachari ママチャリ, one of those cheap gearless city-bikes with a basket in front, just two days after arriving at Japan. It did wonders for my health, but apart from that, cycling enables you to experience your neighbourhood from a different perspective. On a sunny day, I sometimes took big detours through the suburbs of Kyôto, sometimes passing by Uji 宇治市 on my way home from Kyôto University back to Yamashina 山科区. It was the same mamachari that took me approx. 200km around lake Biwa 琵琶湖 in a crazy "just do it" mood in less then one day.

I am thus confident expressing the following: Japan surely is no place for cyclists. The infrastructure mostly does not exist and where it does, it is poorly maintained or just ignored by the Japanese. Bycicles in Kyôto are everywhere, but it is generally a huge mess. And don't mention the feeble attempts at gojô 五条 or higashi-ôji 大路 streets, it just does not work.

However, there is one big exception: the Shimanami Kaidô しまなみ海道, basically a toll road for cars connecting the main islands of Honshû 本州 and Shikoku 四国. It covers a distance of approx. 70km over 6 small islands connected through 6 huge bridges and one ferry-ride. Except for the bridges the bycicle lane is often far away from the toll road, sometimes leading through rather rural and extremely scenic places. There is a generous bycicle lane on every street along the way and the bridges offer seperate lanes for cyclist, making it safe and enjoyable to ride along.

We rented our bycicles at Onomichi 尾道市 and returned them at the city hall of Imabari 今治市役所. They were essentially mamachari like the one I rode in Kyôto, but they all offered a gear switch for climbing up the sometimes challenging inclines leading to the bridges. For just 800 Yen a day and a deposit of 1000 Yen (that you won't get back if you return it at a different station then you lent the bike from) it was extremely cheap.

It took us 8 hours to get from Onomichi to Imabari, but we made a lot of stops along the way, including around 2 hours at a pictoresque temple called Kôsan-ji 耕三寺, a temple founded for exclusively personal reason by a businessman to honor his mother shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Today it features smaller duplicates of Nikko's famous entry gate  Yômeimon 陽明門, the Phoenix Hall from the Byôdô-in 平等院 of Uji, a cave with depictions of the buddhist hell, a very interesting mix of Japanese and Western architecture in the old living quarter of the owner's mother and a rather obscure hill called Miraishin no Oka 未来心の丘, a monument for the future in shiny white marble.

Anyway: the Shimanami Kaidô is an extremely nice place to go cycling in Japan, and the easy renting system makes it a good opportunity for foreign tourists, too. The nice infrastructure also means that you never cycle alone. At countless stops at Convenience Stores along the way we always met the same people and sometimes local people joined the conversation to recommend the fantastic soba noodles of the neighbouring island.

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According to a local man who offered us a ride to the ferry station back to Kagoshima 鹿児島 at the very southern tip of Kyûshû 九州, this is an almost daily sight. For us it was a massive volcanic outbreak that would certainly scare us without all the soothing voices from the locals. Well, we came for the volcano, we got the volcano. Sakurajima 桜島 was an island until the last big eruption in 1914 built a bridge to the mainland. Apparently it spits ash almost daily, which is a big annoyance depending on the wind direction. When we arrived at Kagoshima and left the train station, we immediately felt like marching through a huge swarm of insects. Tickeling and itching eveywhere. It took us some time to realize, it was just the ash. And yes, you get used to it.

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Nagasaki 長崎

I really don't like to brag about it, but I've seen an awful lot of Japan. However, there are still big empty spots on the map and I will try to fill them one by one. Kyûshû was one of them. I've been to Fukuoka and surroundings because a friend studied at Kyûshû university, but that's about it. Despite those empty spots, is pretty unusual that a city completely catches me by surprise. Nagasaki is such a place. As for me, I would call it Japans most beautiful major city. Surrounded by mountains and opening up to a long bay, the natural environment is astonishing. With it's 433.000 inhabitants it is big enough to offer everything you need, but it is certainly small enough to prevent the hustle and bustle of about every city the shinkansen-kraken reached by now. While Kagoshima for example is now part of the bullet train network. Nagasaki still needs a transfer at Fukuoka to a local line.

However, it is worth the trip. There is just so much to see and do there. You can get involved with the history of Christians in Japan, visiting a ton of churches, among them Ôura Church 大浦天主堂, as far as i know the only western-style building that is designated a national treasure.

Or you can visit Dejima 出島, the former Dutch trading post that was once an artificial island. One third of the original buildings have been rebuilt until now and they still working on rebuilding more.

Foreign influence can be traced everywhere in Nagasaki. Whether you visit Glover Garden クラバー園 with it's old european-styled housings or just searching for a snack. The portuguese cake called castella カステラ　and Nagasakis signature food, champon ちゃんぽん, first made by chinese immigrants, are tasty references to the cosmopolitan nature of the city.

Of course in the west Nagasaki is primarily known for the dropping of the second atomic bomb. Just like Hiroshima, Nagasaki has a museum dedicated to it, a peace park and a monument to the ground zero, where groups of school children occasionally recite peace declarations. But let's be honest: while the museum in Nagasaki is very pleasent concerning architecture and location, it does not offer all those personal stories that make the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum so unique. Hiroshima tries to touch your soul, while Nagasaki feels more like a historical approach.

And yes, there is this thing called battleship island 軍艦島.　(you may guess why by looking at the picture) The real name of this small island is Hashima 端島　and the whole thing was basically huge coal mine. During it's active time until 1974, the island boasted the world's highest population density and Japan's first high-rise concrete apartement buildings. However, after the mine went out of business, people had to leave and so today it's an uninhabited island with decaying concrete buildings.

There's a lot more to see at Nagasaki, of course. They have Chinatown, some interesting temples, stone bridges, ropeways and more and we certainly did much more interesting stuff there, but I leave this to later entries. However, one thing is sure: I'll definitely need to return to Nagasaki in the near future.

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A folded paper crane I received from a group of grade-schoolers in front of the silver pavillon 銀閣寺 in Kyoto 京都. I usually detest getting caught by them, but this group was kind of nice, so I decided to answer them properly. If you have been around Japan, you may know those groups of grade-schoolers swarming major tourist destination with their teachers to get some hands-on experience with foreigners, usually by presenting you some kind of questionnaire with always the same questions. They usually get really confused when a foreign-looking person answers with a place name in Japan confronted with the question "where you are living". They took their usual "I'm with a gaijin"-photo and quickly dispersed, like they usually do after getting their desired answers. But hey, I got a crane.

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I did some previous blabla about the mingling of modernity and tradition in Japan, so here you go: Tokyo Skytree 東京スカイツリーand Sensoji　浅草寺 in Tokyo's Asakusa 浅草area, Taito ward 台東区. The whole area maintains a nice atmosphere of old edo Japan with it's temple, pagoda and shopping streets. However, as almost every building in Tokyo. the main hall 本堂 is a postwar structure dating back to 1956, the pagoda 五重塔 was finished not before 1973. Anyway, it's a pleasent area that recently got more attention because of the opening of the nearby Skytree with it's shopping center. You can combine some tradition and ultra-modernity in one trip, if you want to do so.

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Tamatorizaki observation point 玉取崎展望台is one of the major tourist attraction on Ishigaki island 石垣島. It is a free observation point at the northern part of the island, where the Hokubo peninsula 平久保半島starts. It took me more then 3 hours by mamachari bycicle to get there. The road along the coast is quite challenging with a bycicle without gears, because it has lots of small slopes. However, the view is very rewarding with a perfect emerald blue ocean on both sides of the island. And some cool trees. With cows.  Very beautiful, indeed!

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Kohama island 小浜島 is a small island between Ishigaki 石垣暇 and Iriomote 西表島. There is not much to see there except a great 360° view of the Yaeyama archipelago. Most other small islands there like Taketomi 竹富島　and Kurojima 黒島 are flat like a pancake, so the view is quite exceptionel. It also means that cycling is not as quite as pleaseant  as on those flat ones. Anyway, on the way to the top of the observation point you have to cross a small jungle-like forest which is inhabited by giant fruit bats. 大蝙蝠 Horses are just meandering around, too and the small shop at the beach facing Iriomote was quite unique.

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Last year I went to Ishinomaki 石巻, one of the cities that was hit hardest by the Tsunami auf March 2011. Though, or maybe because most of the debris has been carried away the scenery is still very depressing. The port area was devestated and we were told the story of two school buses. One brought the students directly to higher ground, the teachers of the second bus decided it would be best to bring them to their parents. From the second bus, only two adults survived, one of them later committed suicide out of remorse.

Although almost everyone in this city has some kind of tragic story to tell, people are carrying on. We visited a local NPO who tried to improve the situation through a special care-sharing service and a group of old women who creatively use old kimono fabric donated from all over Japan to create new goods. In short: we met lots of people who suffered, but who are still full of life, not thinking about giving up.

I think as long as people like that live there, the area will surely recover. At least I hope so, because they are great people.

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Ohara 大原 is a small village nestled between the mountains north of Kyoto 京都. Administratively it belongs to Kyotos Sakyo-ku 左京区but it cleary is no part of the capital. There is no train connection so you have to take a bus from Kyoto, which takes no longer then one hour from the city center. The villages main attractions are it's natural beauty consisting of charming farm houses and  diverese fields and rice paddies. There are two big temples that attract tourists, Sanzen-in 三千院 and Jakko-in 寂光院, a waterfall that is supposed to be "without sound" 音無し滝 but in reality is quite noisy, and a few smaller buddhist establishments.

Additionally I am pretty sure that I saw Venetia from one of those NHK shows (猫のしっぽ　カエルの手)　who supposedly lives in Ohara, but I prefer not to annoy people during their daily-live activities in their hometown.

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Masugata shopping street 桝形商店街 (1) was made famous by Kyoto Animations Tamako Market. It is one of many shopping streets in Kyoto that preserved a unique atmosphere and a certain level of intimicy. It is conveniently located near Demachi Yanagi 出町柳 (2) and in walking distance of Kyoto University 京都大学. I grabbed some nice donuts there during the lunch break of a conference I attended there and got attacked again by the birds at the river. This time I successfully defended my bento box, though!

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A Tohoku-Hayabusa Shinkansen arriving at Sendai station 仙台駅. There are two free observation decks on the top floor of the AER building with quite a good view of the whole city. One is facing north, the other one south. The building is right next to Sendai station and provides a very good first orientation if you just arrived. It does not open before 10:30 though, so if you arrive early in the morning like me, you have to wait some time.

Sendai itself is a very attractive city with lots of green spaces and some cool places to see. Aobayama 青葉山 with its castle ruins and Date Masamunes mausoleum Zuihoden 瑞鳳殿 for example. The cities nickname is 杜の都, capital of trees.

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Hoshizuna no Hama 星砂の浜 or star-sand beach at Iriomote island 西表島. (1) The name derives from those unique sand grains, shaped in the form of little stars. Nearby Taketomi island 竹富島 is the most famous location for finding it, but the sand there has been filled into bottles ready to be bought by tourists, and it is very hard to find it there. (2)  Iriomote's star-sand beach on the other hand consist almost entirely of those grains. (3) Also, there is a facility for renting snorkeling sets which I would recommend without hestitating, because the shallow water and the coral reef you can literally walk into are fantastic spots for watching fishes in diverse color palettes.

By the way, the stars are not really "sand". They are the remains of Foraminifera, small organisms who develop a calcium carbonate hull around their monocellular structure. So you're kind of walking on corpses.

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Among the exchange students of Kyoto University 京都大学 there was always one big argument going on, when it came to popular tourist sights in the city. There where those who fancied Rokuon-ji 鹿苑寺, better known as Kinkaku-ji 金閣寺　or golden pavillon. No doubt, the thing is shiny and stuff... but yet another rebuilt. Burned down in 1950 by a buddhist monk (for those interested, see Mishima Yukio's 三島由紀夫 famous novel "Kinkakuji" 金閣寺) it has been rebuilt in 1955.

Most of us actually prefered Jisho-ji 慈照寺 which you may know under his nickname ginkaku-ji 銀閣寺 or silver pavillon. The white sand garden, meant to reflect the moonlight, and the overall artistic understatement of the whole complex was a lot more compelling to me than the shiny golden counterpart. On top, as far as I know, the silver pavillon underwent massive restoration, but still is somewhat the original thing.

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Karatsu 唐津　in Saga prefecture 佐賀県　on the island of Kyushu 九州　is just a one-hour train ride away from Fukuoka 福岡 and a nice day-trip. Karatsu is known for its fine pottery, karatsu-yaki 唐津焼 which is influenced by Korea. The city offers a splendid castle, overlooking the city and the karatsu bay. Karatsu castle 唐津城　dates back to 1608 but the current building is yet another concrete rebuild from 1966. It is a museum and for a small fee, you can enter and climb up to the top, enjoying a splendid view of the city and the ocean.

Another great spot is a place called Niji no Matsubara 虹ノ松原　(rainbow pinery), a long 　forest of pine trees next to a wonderful beach. There is a tourist information and omiyage shop near the karatsu train station where you can rent bycicles for free and I would strongly recommend doing that, because you can cycle around freely and see the whole town. It's perfect for swiming and sightseeing, so Karatsu is a full recommendation if you're staying at Fukuoka or nearby.