Osaka [大阪]

After spending most of the morning in the shinkansen, we got to Osaka in the early afternoon and after dropping our bags at the hotel we popped off the Osaka castle. Sadly like most Japanese castles the original castle was destroyed quite a while ago but this replica was built in its place, from the inside it basically functions as a very large themed museum to the castle (personally I thought Himeji was a nicer place to visit, mainly on account that it has original castle left to walk around in - giving it a more authentic feel)

Osaka Castle


Moinet's


The Osaka speciality of things on sticks covered in breadcrumbs and deep fried - along with the grimicing mascot.

The famous Glico illumiated advert by the river...

Yanaka [谷中]

A very large cemetry in Tokyo, North of Ueno park [上野公園]. A beautiful sunny day, and whilst Greg took his dad to Harajuku and Meji-jingu shrine my parents and I spent the morning cycling around Tokyo, first going to Koishikawa Korakuen gardens [小石川後楽園] just to the west of Tokyo Dome...

Asakusa [浅草]

I spent the morning with my parents cycling down to Bunkyo-ku civic center where we went up to the veiwing platform to have a look about town. We then went to meet Greg and his dad then headed to Asakusa...

There happened to be a cosplay convention just outside the Asakusa temple...

Post 'Final Defense' Wind Down....

To celebrate the passing of the 'Final Defense' on friday last week we planned a lovely (Greg-funded *THANK YOU GREG*) trip to the beach, so that 1. we could both relax, and 2. i could finally get to use the body board that I bought in Malaysia (dammit its been too long since I've had a holiday)

We ended up getting the Odoriko Minami-Izu free kippu* [踊り子・南伊豆・フリー切符] which, at 11400yen each turned out cheaper than buying our return tickets with the student discount.

We got to Izukyu Shimoda [伊豆急下田] just in time for lunch. MMmmmmmmm unagi, yumyum. while Greg had sanma [さんま](i have no idea what fish it is in English) and what looked like an enormous cockle which aso appeared to be a speciality of the region.

Then took the hotel shuttle bus to the hotel to drop our bags then BEACH TIME!

Look! Palm trees!

The sea was a bit nippy, but a nice escape from the ridicuously hot sun...we eventually wondered back to the hotel as the sun started to set and had a pleasently surprising dinner at the hotel restaurant. The desserts sounded a bit strange (pineapple canole with rosmary sorbet) but they were absolutely fantastic. The pineapple canole turned out to be some rosmary sorbet wrapped in a thin layer of pineapple flesh, lying beside tubes of meringue and some more sorbet in a heap on top.

The next day was spent taking a little wander around the coast line and playing with hermit crabs (there were millions).

*the Odoriko Minami-Izu free kippu is valid for 3 days valid on the JR Odoriko limited express which takes 2hrs 40mins from Tokyo. more info here

[N.B. all photos are property of Greg, because it was his camera and he's also much better at taking photos than me]

Road Trip 2008 - Intro

Right. so. We didn't make it back to Europe for holidays this Christmas because;
1. When we were planning the winter holidays back in Sept, the plane ticket prices were a little too high for my liking,
2. We thought that we had better make the best use of our time in Japan by seeing a bit of the country while we were here,
3. We also thought we could do our bit in boosting the Japanese economy.

So, we've ended up spending what we would have spent on just an air ticket to Paris or London on a 10day road trip around Nagano [長野県] and Gifu [岐阜県] Prefectures (which are North and North-Westy of Tokyo).

As Greg has a French driving licence - he could do a direct transfer to a Japanese drivers licence (unlike my British one which involves another test...hmmm...no thanks) so we rented a car from Nissan via ToCoo!.

The plan was too drive along the Chuo Highway [中央道] out of Tokyo towards Tsumago [妻籠] and Magome [馬籠], stop there in a minshuku [民宿] for a night and do a bit of sightseeing before heading off to Shirakawago [白川郷].

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Tsumago [妻籠] and Magome [馬籠] - Designated a site of National Architectural Preservation where you can still find an Edo-style post town in its entirety.


Minshuku [民宿] - A guest house run by the family which live inside the house itself, usually offering dinner and breakfast.

Shirakawago [白川郷] - A village in Gifu Prefecture famous for it's traditional farm houses with steep-sided thatched roofs.

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After Shirakawago [白川郷] we would head up to Kanazawa [金沢] and try to see a bit of the Noto-Peninsula [能登半島]. Then we head East wards and then South towards Hakuba [白馬] in Nagano [長野] for a bit of snowboarding.

Fuji Rock Festival 2008

Getting there...
We left Tokyo on the 19:05 Seibu express way bus [西武高速バス - せいぶ・こうそく・ばす] which cost a meagre* 5400yen return and took us just under 3 hours to get to the Yuzawa [湯沢] bus stop. Despite printing out the map of the bus stop location (in relation to Echigo-Yuzawa station [越後湯沢駅] where the free festival site shuttle bus ran from) from both Google maps and the Seibu bus website we felt a bit lost when we got to the bus stop. The bus stop was just off the highway and not particularly near the town. On the brightside there were 3 other pairs of people looking as bemused as we were when we reached the bus stop. We hung around for a couple of minutes searching for inspiration and possibly some leadership, and then all decided to wonder off in the direction of the signs to Yuzawa town. This involved, first of all, walking down a dark set of stairs to get us safely off the motorway. The maps around the bus stop weren't too bad...and after walking a while we just had to head for the huge, brightly-lit, concrete monstrosity which is the (Echigo) Yuzawa train station. Which all in all took us about 30mins. Even before getting to the front of the station we pasted several flags proclaiming the arrival of the Fuji Rock Festival. As we walked up to the front of the station we could clearly see two tents for the festival - an information point and a first aid tent (should you have been a little overexcited on the journey to Echigo-Yuzawa) and a queue for the free shuttle bus to the festival site. The queue wasn't too bad, and just after we arrived another train load of people arrived...we didn't have to wait long for another bus to turn up...they seemed pretty frequent...I'd say, less than 5mins between buses, but it was pretty packed when we did get on, so we stood, with our luggage, for the 40min bus ride, with someone's trolley bag ramming into my legs every time we turned left sharply.

The site was very lively when we arrived, and tents were already being pitched at very strange angles on the ski-resort slopes. After walking up the hill for 2minutes I was already grumbling to Greg that I didn't want to go much further, but he miraculously managed to find a free flat piece of land close to the pavement hiding in between some tents and just behind a little area someone had saved for their friends using some packaging tape on grass - a method which works surprisingly well. I should also mention, there was a special area cordoned off just for ladies, with a member of staff standing, well sitting, guard at the entrance.

*The price of a Shinkansen [新幹線] ticket is currently set at the hefty sum of 6980yen from Tokyo, Ueno [上野] station without a seat reservation ONEWAY (7490yen with a seat reservation). Double the one way ticket for the return price.

A clearing in the woods on the way to the white stage, with a disco ball....the light was reflecting beautifully off onto the surrounding trees. A big display of candles in a fabric covered dome at the end of the Organic hippy type stage...

Festival Etiquette...
AnyHoooo, the festival. yes. Fantastic stuff, lovely atmosphere, and all my belongings felt safe. No fear of having stuff in the tent, or the tent it's self, stolen. AND you can happily reserve your little spot in front of the stage by plonking down your folding chair or your nice plastic 'leisure sheet' in the desired location, in full knowledge that people will not 1. nick it, 2. move it or 3. trample all over it. I love Japan.
We also noticed it is perfectly acceptable to sleep on the huge grass field that was the green stage, even in the rain - we saw people in a full Gortex outfit, lying on their soaked mat, with some rudimentary plastic sheeting to protect the face trying to get shut eye. How they managed to get rest through the loud music, I don't know. They either couldn't be bothered to go to the tent or they didn't have one and didn't care. Amusing none the less.

Eco Festival...
The festival was also gloriously clean (and green). The portaloos were actually more pleasant than the permanent loos close to the camp site, ok a tiny bit muddy on the floor, but plenty of toilet paper (at least there was every time that I went) and even some places where there were specific urinals for men and women only toilets. Lots of collection points for rubbish and recycling, a system run by 'A Seed Japan'. We noticed that food was dispensed in very similar paper material from all vendors, and drinks all came in paper cups. These were all recycled, as were cigarette packets, PET bottles, plastic bottle tops and cans. Just after you enter the festival site, there were volunteers handing out large plastic bags with a variety of designs on them - they looked pretty good actually and described the recycling process...or where all the items you were going to be throwing away would be going... The bags were for your rubbish (but also doubled as rain jackets for some people during the festival or something to sit on or a rain cover for bags and belongings) happened to be made from recycled PET bottles, and were handed out so that you didn't litter everywhere, even though you never seemed to be more than a stones throw from a rubbish collection point.

Walking around the festival site: (left) big inflatable stars which flashed different colours at night, and (right) a river running through the site, where some people have placed brightly painted stones with eyes on them, you can see all the Japanese in their festival chic...crocs - sandal and wellie form seemed to dominate the footwear here.

Getting from stage to stage...

The Festival was quite spread out...a couple of minutes walk from the middle of the camp site to the camp site entrance where all the washing and toilet facilities were, along with two food stalls, which included a small convenience stand...like if you needed to buy a toothbrush or a crappy rain jacket or ladies sanitation items. The entrance to the festival site was another couple of minutes walk from the entrance of the camp site... then it takes you about 20mins to walk from end to end of the festival site. But to be honest, most of the main stages; Green stage, Red Marquee and White stage were the first three stages you come across anyway.

Queues for Merchandise...
While it was true that there were longer queues for the merchandise tents than the beer tents, this was only true at the beginning of the festival for the first thursday - at the official merchandise tent near the wristband exchange point and for the friday on the first festival day. There are several reasons for this, 1. The Japanese - especially the more experienced ones - are very organised and can often be seen wheeling in cold boxes with pre-prepared drinks and snacks into the festival sites (although cans and glass bottles were not allowed for safety reasons). 2. There were an ample amount of beer tents, so no shortage of supply - nearly every stall which sold food also sold alcohol. 3. The Official T-shirts for Fuji Rock had a huge range of designs, and some very nicely done so that you could happily wear it as a fashion item as opposed to just being another rough T-shirt. 4. There were only a limited number of T-shirts and popular designs sell out quickly (the main reason for there being nearly no queues for the merchandise stalls on the last two days.

The Music...
The Music did actually play...but we didn't see them. In fact we were rather lazy and didn't see most of the things on offer from Fuji Rock past 11pm...like the DJ events in 'late night fuji' or 'Rookie-a-go-go'. Anyway, here is a quick run down of the major bands that we did see (along with some random photos):

Gossip - Despite being on at 1520 in the red marquee there was a crazy crowd who went absolutely mad for Beth Ditto.

Album recordings do not do Beth Ditto's voice justice, the woman has incredible power and tune. She did complain about being hot and stripped off to her underwear at the beginning of the show and at some point wore a towel round her head. But despite the heat she still gave a stunning performance. The atmosphere in the small stage was great, just like a small gig. They mixed in a bit of Pixies - monkey gone to heaven and even Madonna - like a virgin very smoothly during the intro to their other songs.

(Left) Hard-Fi and (Right) Asian Dub Foundation

The Zutons on White stage

A tree with eyes!!! and Benfolds in the rain.

Benfolds was great, but we did manage to get caught in a thunderous downpour which completely soaked every one...we decided to give up on that sunday and go back to the tent to dry off...

Mitsu-toge yama [三つ峠山] - day 2

Day TWO!!! - and after a nice little sleep on the most plastic version of tatami [畳] I have ever come across. I woke up to be able to see a crystal clear sky and Mount Fuji [富士山] out of the window.

After a quick brekkie of rice, we headed out and turned left out of the hut to get to Mitsu-touge peak...the route passed by the climbing area (which looked fantastic!) and took us past some very strange, plastic-looking ice which covered the ground. The path was heavily eroded, which was rather sad, and some of the wooden steps which had been placed to stop soil from transporting itself down hill had been eroded soo much that they had been completely dug out of the ground.

<- The strange ice, which probably developed during the windy cold night.... The peak itself had a beautiful view of Fuji [富士山] and stood at 1786m (just next to a very unattractive television antenna).

So we started our decent into the valley...and on our way, we took lots of photos with mount Fuji...but they weren't as nice as the ones we took near the top, on the account of clouds gathering during the day...and the nice lady at the mountain hut had told us the night before the weather outlook. she turned out to be right. We didn't come across too many people on our way up or down (although a mountain biker did whizz past us at one point) apparently (again according to the nice mountain hut lady) people train on this and other similar small mountains on normal weekends, when they are short of time, making only a 2day hike possible. Then on Golden week swarm to more challenging hikes which are longer. So, it was a nice and quiet hike.

On the way down, we followed all the little signs to Kachi-Kachi Ropeway [カチカチ・ロープウェイ], passing a small shrine, Tenjou-yama [天上山], on the way (quite close to the ropeway entrance).

Tenjo yama [天上山]

The ropeway terminal looked a bit like a theme park in itself and had a platform for viewing the valley and lakes below. We got a good view of FujiQ highland (the amusement park we went to last summer, link here). There were also several statues of a raccoon and a rabbit (Tanuki and usagi, [狸と兔、たぬき・うさぎ]) which we didn't understand at all, but were obviously the theme of the ropeway...

Apparently, there is a folk tale about these two animals, hence the name Kachi-Kachi for the ropeway, the story of the raccoon and rabbit here. There was even a statue on each of the cable cars, one rabbit and one raccoon. We took the raccoon down. Then had a nice rest during lunch...then another rest by the lake side, watching swan-shaped pedal boats being thrown about by the wake if huge motor boats vying for the same space...

After a nice rest in the warmth of the sun, and the company of ants, we decided to try and catch one of the trains to Shinjuku [新宿], preferably a nice express train. On the way to the station we passed a small temple on the way, which had a beautiful stone carving of a Daruma at the door, and a huge daruma as an offering at one of the shrines. Greg was approached by a lady with her family, who was trying to lead him towards the door. I eventually followed over to find that the lady was trying to show him what we probably should have done when we entered the temple gates. At the gates there was a small granite box, with some pebbles in a tray at the bottom. I thought it was for donations, but apparently you are just meant to pick up one of the round pebbles from the tray and pop it into the hole near the top, which then causes the box to make a nice ringing sound.

We had a bit of an argument, well confusion - which was all my fault really for not understanding a very very simple ticket pricing system, at the train station. Where I thought you could do the thing you can usually do in Tokyo; buy the cheapest ticket and then do a 'fare adjustment' at the other (terminating) station. The guard, however, disagreed. So, we were very good and bought the correct ticket. Ending up on the fastest scheduled train to Shinjuku for less than we were expecting; on account of Greg's guide book telling us that the fastest trains to Kawaguchiko [河口湖] on the Fuji-kyukou line [富士急行], where we were at the time, close to double of trains just taking 20 or so mins longer. But apparently from Kawaguchiko the type of train it ended up being on the Chuo Line [中央線] didn't matter. The long train ride was quite nice, especially as we didn't have to change trains, and resulted in a nice nap.

The End.