Japan all the way down and back up (not quite to the top)

Phew - well we've covered a lot of ground before finishing in Tokyo - here's what we've been up to...

After being a bit templed-out from Kyoto and Nara, we headed for Himeji-Jo, allegedly Japan's most beautiful castle. It was pretty nice and there were some lovely gardens next door, you'll see the pictures, but there's nothing much else to see in Himeji, so we hopped back to Osaka for a final night before leaving our Kansai hub that we'd come to call home...

Our next two stops made pretty harrowing viewing (you have been warned), comparable to when we went to the Killing Fields or Auschwitz: Nagasaki and Hiroshima. First up was Nagasaki, the furthest south we'd come. Now don't get me wrong, the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima couldn't be cooler - they're not all 'oh poor us', they've sprung up two vibrant cities since being flattened by atomic bombs and it kind of serves as a big **** you. But it's the museums, the pictures, the proof, that is just so awful. There's only so many pictures you can see of melted skin and dead babies and... anyway, I'll move on. Nagasaki has made the Hypocentre Park out of what was directly below the bomb (it went off about 500m above the ground). It's very peaceful, as is nearby Peace Park, full of memorials, stuff sent from other countries and things like that. When the sun is shining it's hard to believe what happened here. Hiroshima was very similar, but it has the A-Bomb Dome, the closest building to the bomb that remained standing as it was blasted almost directly from above. It's pretty creepy at night. It also has a Peace Memorial Park and depressing museum, but to top it all off is the Children's Peace Memorial. Sadako (not the creepy girl that crawls out of the well in Ring, J-horror fans) was two when the bomb went off. She seemed unharmed and was athletic, popular, smart - until she was 12 and developed leukaemia as a result of the bomb radiation. She was hospitalised and wished she could be better again. An old Japanese tradition is to fold 1000 origami paper cranes and your wish will come true (like Hiro did for Charlie in Heroes). She folded well over 1000 but died anyway. The Children's Peace Memorial has a statue of Sadako to represent all the children who died and is full of thousands of paper cranes sent from all over the world.

***End of depressing part!***

To relieve our depression, we took a day trip from Hiroshima to the island of Miyajima, which has one of the famous (in Japan anyway) Nihon San-Kei - the Japan Three Great Sights. Itsukushima-jinja, a Shinto shrine, was built on the edge of the island, as Miyajima was considered too holy to even walk on for hundreds of years. Worshippers would approach the shrine by boat, passing through a torii (shrine gate) that was out in the water. It is this torii that covers the postcards in the souvenir shops and has tourists there from sunrise to sunset, trying to get the perfect picture. While we were there, we were lucky enough to witness a Shinto wedding, although it was a Saturday, and everyone gets married on a Saturday, so it's not that much of a coincidence Ant says. For lunch we had yummy oysters, a Miyajima must (I don't think the restaurants actually serve anything else) and afterwards saw the biggest rice scoop in the world! Wow-wee!

Takayama was our next stop on the way up Japan, at the foot of the Japan Alps. Yes, Japan has alps. I was not previously aware of this. The place to go in Takayama is San-machi (three streets), which are stuffed with sake breweries, Hida beef (the local beef, highly recommended!), and sarubobo dolls. These are scary-looking faceless red dolls, that are supposedly monkey babies. They do not look like monkeys. Or babies. In old Takayama, mums and grandmas used to make them as dolls for their kids and they have now become a symbol of the town. We also had a sniff at the pickles (the Japanese love their pickles) at the morning markets and had some lovely light cheesecake at La Viennoiserie de Nicolas near the train station. Unexpected, but very nice!

We shinkansen-ed it up to the Tohoku region to Sendai, home of the legendary Masamune Date. He has a Nike swoosh on his helmet and ruled the area for a good many years back in the day. They called him the One-Eyed Dragon. Cool. The people loved him (still do) and still visit his mausoleum (he is not on show like Chairman Mao, he died in like the 1600s or something!). Nightlife in Sendai is limited to Club Shaft that has Manchester nights (!!!) and Bar Isn't It?, whose logo is 'cheap and more fun'. Needless to say, we didn't go to either.

The main reason we stayed in Sendai was to visit the nearby Matsushima - Nihon San-Kei number 2. It's about 250 or so islands, which we saw quite a few of on a boat trip - they all have a little story attached to them - this one's where they send horses to die (?!), this one looks like a man sitting in the water with a cap on and smoking a cigarette (quite a stretch of the imagination) and so on. There was a very small cute one that had a single pine tree growing on it. Apparently Date (Nike guy) was so taken with it, he offered a huge reward to anybody who could bring it back to Sendai! Anyway, we had more oysters, got bitten by lots of mosquitoes and then went back to Sendai...

We hopped back on the shinkansen back to Nikko, just north of Tokyo. Nikko is Nippon. That's what all the posters say. Come here for the temples and the serene beauty, blah blah. It was pretty, up by the temples (they're all in the National Park so lovely surroundings). The decorations of the temples are all pretty gaudy, such was the style, but it makes them more interesting I guess... Some of them looked pretty Chinesey, lots of detail and dragons and stuff.

One evening we ordered the Zen dinner at the ryokan - it was totally vegan (something not to be sniffed at in Japan, where most meals include pork - or if it's "vegetarian" only pork broth!) The Zen dinner was lovely - mushroom hotpot (and I don't even LIKE mushrooms), fried tofu (nice - and I HATE tofu!), salad, pickles and fruit for dessert. It felt like a detox. Like Gillian McKeith was saying 'you go girl!'. Ant will have something to say about that when he reads this...

After Nikko, we went to Kawaguchi-ko (Kawaguchi Lake - one of the Fuji Go-ko - Fuji Five Lakes). It's a beautiful spot to view Fuji-san (as the Japanese call Mount Fuji), but unfortunately we didn't see it for over a day! Too cloudy. But then it suddenly appeared, looming over us as the clouds parted, just before Ant set off to climb it. Oh yes - Ant went and climbed up Mount Fuji didn't he? Trying to make me look bad... Argh. I went over it in my mind.... (now let's see, uphill- don't like it, walking- not a big fan, effort- not if I can help it!) so I did at least think about it. He did it at night too, leaving me at the hotel at about 6:30pm, he got a bus up to the 5th Station (on the mountain itself - where everyone starts from unless they're a pilgrim... or a mad tourist) then climbed all night, sat freezing at the top for two hours before the sun rose, then took the most amazing photos I have ever seen. I'm not jealous though. See, he got me a tea towel from the top. If you ever come to our new house (and I hope you do), I will probably make a point of showing it to you! How sad, I know, but I'm very proud of him. Oh, for the record, he said I would have totally hated it. He knows me so well.

RANDOM OBSERVATION: For some reason, smoking is banned on the streets in most big cities (unless in designated areas) - if you need a fag and want to sit down, you have to go into a restaurant!! Twisted logic...

Until next time, my pretties xxx