Northern Japan

Tohoku
Tohoku is the northern-most prefecture of Japan's main island Honshu - I stayed here for two days en route to Hokkaido. I took the shinkansen (bullet train) there from Tokyo to the end of the line - to a place called Hachinohe - 650kms in 3 hours. On arrival it turned out there was a kind of a hostel on a farm not far away, so I stayed there for a night. Cows, horses, sheep, grass, trees and a crummy French restaurant, that's about all there was.


The following day went to a rather exclusive onsen (hot spring). A hot outdoor bath surrounded by a pond, waterfall (I suspect it was man-made), lots of Japanese maple & pine trees - some of which had started to turn colour. I sat in the bath, watched the rain fall and the trees and listened to the breeze, the occasional train and the odd military plan overhead. It was nice.


Hokkaido
Hokkaido is Japan's northern-most island and from what I've heard is famous for its nature and food: seafood, beef and lamb. And, one day in, it's all ready delivered the goods. Today was a culinary treat.

Breakfast: Raw salmon & salmon roe on seaweed & rice.
Lunch: Soy ramen (noodle soup).
Afternoon tea: Mochi (sticky sweet) followed by beer.
Dinner: 'Jenghis Khan' Grilled lamb.

And in other news today I came across a store selling the latest in dog fashion.

Yoni does the Japanese Alps

After some initial indecision I decided to go a little bit out of my way to visit the Japanese Alps. The detour has certainly been worthwhile. After spending time in several big cities I wanted to go to a smaller, quieter place in nature, where I could unwind. I certainly found this here, but what I didn't anticipate was that because of the place's beauty, there's just too much to do: hiking, cycling and the sort, so I won't be putting my feet up and relaxing like I'd hoped. No matter.

Yesterday I thought I'd go walking. Unfortunately it was entirely overcast, and rather gloomy. The mountain tops were covered in clouds, which I knew meant I'd have no view from the top. I decided to walk up anyway, and as you can see already in the photos the clouds posed no problems for views from the top - in fact they added to the beauty. I was surprised and delighted to find towards the peak that in fact the mountain was above the clouds. It was only me up the top, I sat and ate some chips, drunk some water, ate some chocolate.

That's all from me for now.

Still alive in Japan

Hello. Right now I sit a net cafe called 'Rounge' - actually it's a 'manga cafe' - a place where people go to read comic books, but they also have internet. In fact, you even get a little room. So it's here that I decided to spend the night, for the sake of sheer Japanese-zaniness. It was great.



I have no idea where I'll go today...

My last few days was spent visiting friends - an Australian friend in some place called Gifu, and a Japanese friend & her family in a place called Seto. I stayed with the family, who needless to say were incredibly hospitable, they even got me dressed up in a summer kimono thing - which I'm told was ridiculously small for me.



...maybe I'll go to the mountains.

Kyoto

Word up from Kyoto. In short, Kyoto kicks ass. The city proper is a grid of roads and homes, there aren't many trees. Along the smaller roads are terrace-like homes, compact modern Japanese homes - new but often in a traditional style. There's plenty of wood, bamboo, slate but also concrete. Many homes have tiny box-shaped cars parked in front. Check out my photos of Kyoto.

Surrounding Kyoto, but also inside the city proper are countless temples. I hired a bicyle and rode around from temple to temple. Many of these are Zen temples, also famous for their rock gardens - let me just say that rock gardens rock. No trees, just rocks, several large ones laid out by some master gardener (or was that master monk?), pebbles make up the majority and are expertly raked. Many temples also feature beautiful plant gardens, Japanese maple, pine, flowers, moss.

I also got myself into an el cheapo tea ceremony. Had to kneel on my shins for an hour. It was very painful. The Tea Master sat out the back room, he wore black robes. Everyone had to bow to him. I think that's cool.

Japanese food continues to be a delight - I get giddy with excitement at every meal. In fact, I might go get some now.

Japan

Hello from Japan. Today I am lucky enough to be staying at the home of the family of a friend I met while in Korea. The home is on the island of Kyushuu (in the West of Japan) and is in the outskirts of Kumamoto city. The house is smack in the middle of rice-farming countryside, I see nothing but green rice fields, some farmhouses and large volcanos in the distance. His family's home is modern but traditional, with tatami mats, rice-paper walls, but also high-tech toilet & high-speed internet. It's great. Japanese style.

My culinary adventures also continue, and I have been travelling long in anticipation of Japanese food. The food is fantastic, and so far, 2 nights into Japan I've eaten raw octopus, raw horse (which I'd tried once before, but this time I had a new cut - it was white and taken from directly underneath the mane), horse intestine, pig's foot, and a host of other things. All delicious. The only possible exception is nato (fermented soya bean) - which was edible but a little difficult.

Japan promises to be a bit more varied than Korea - in landscape, food and culture. But I was a little sad on my overnight ferry leaving Korea, I had a great time there, eating great food meeting great people. ;p