At Long Last, an Update of the Blog

Hello,

Well, been a while since our last post, and because we`ve now even recieved complainmail about our lack of updates, we think it`s definately time for a new post.

Anyhoo, quite a lot have happened since last, so this might be a rather long post, so be prepared.

I can start by telling what a complete and utter failure this latest period of our trip has been.
Yesterday we where in Hiroshima (more on that later) and quite late in the evening we took the train to Nara, the famous Temple area, which we had decided we`d see the next day. Well, we got to Nara after some 5 hours, and then the clock was just after 11 pm. We had read about a couple of business hotels in the area in our trusted Lonely Planet guidebook, so we thought acquiring rooms would be no more problem than it had been yet; simply go to a business hotel, and ask for a room. But no. After walking around all the hotels (with our frickin` heavy backpacks on) and enquiring about lodging available in the city, we realised that every single hotel was fully booked. Our biggest (only) hope was a really fancy, expensive hotel where one of the people who had reserved a room hadn`t showed up yet, and at this time it was half past midnight. They said that if they didn`t show up before 2 am we could get their room at a heavily reduced price, which was exceptionally nice of them by the way. Well, we thought we could just take some train to another city and search for hotels there, as we have our JR Rail Passes with which we travel freely however we want on any JR Train (and JR buses, ferries etc.). But as we made our way to the station, we heard a train leave the station just before we arrived, and of course that was the last train that night. That kind of sucked, to be frank for a bit.

So, then we went outside of the station and sat ourselves on a bench with a nice view over the drunkards strolling the streets (it was saturday night after all), the "cool" people with their "cool" cars and motorcykles driving by with max throttle yet still with the clutch down (sorry if my motor lingo ain`t up to scratch) which sounded like the motor could explode at any second, and the, in comparison actually quite nice view, of two "combinis" (convenience stores).
And to not make our parents too nervous; japanese drunks ar much like the drunks in Disney-movies (if there have ever been one, but you get the drift). and there was a policebox a stone`s throw away anyway. So the night passed on slowly whilst listening to old SModcasts and now and then going to Lawson or Sunkus (the two combinis) to buy something to drink or the like.
Well, after the first two hours we went back to the fancy hotel to check if the guy had shown up, and of course he had. So back to the marvellous bench for us for another 3 hours or so..

At about half past 5 the trains had started go again, so we walked to the station and took the first train that went to areas we had some experience of (meaning that we had passed them on a train). We stopped at Oji, the first major stop, and walked around town asking a couple of folks for hotels, and got some directions. The two (three? I forget) hotels we found where fully booked. So once again back to the train, and this time heading for Osaka, which took us an hour or so. Once in Osaka, of course all the hotels were fully booked.

Now, rather frustrated and very tired, we checked around in our guidebook to try and find a city with a Toyoko Inn (a good chain of hotels) in our vicinity (meaning some 100 km in any directions), and found Nagoya, which had two. So, we took the one and a half hour train there and walked from the station to the hotels in the ever-rising temperature and humidity as the sun began to rise more and more. At the first hotel, it was fully booked, now some anxiety was felt, but as we got to the other hotel across the street there was one twin room left, so we gratefully took it and booked it for two nights (really cheap too, just 8700 a pop).
But, as our luck couldn`t of course turn 180 at once, we weren`t allowed to check in until 4 pm, so we had another 5 hours to kill.. That`s why we are now in an internetcafe and writing this, with somewhat unlimited time, for once. Would be quite nice if I wasn`t almost falling asleep from fatique (so unbelievably hot here).

But as the saying goes: "from every bad comes a good", as you now have the opportunity to share in our temporary misery. Well, that`s stretching it a bit, we`re not in misery, just so sleepy.. Anyhow, this shan`t be a negative post, so from here on forth there shall be rejoice and jubilation. well, again, that`s stretching it a bit. It won`t be depressing at least.

Well, the picture at the top of the post is from Matsushima Bay, where we went for a day. The following three pictures are also from there. It`s a beautiful coastal town famous for its hundreds (if not thousands) of small rock-islands covered in pinetrees with clear blue water surrounding them. Two of the islands has bridges connecting them to the mainland (one some 272 meters, if I remember correctly). The first island was a buddhist seclusion where the monks spent their days carving out the the walls all over the island amongst other duties. Truly a magnificient sight. The picture directly beneath this is from that island, a small taste of the immense quantity (and quality) of the stonecarvings.

The next picture, the one below, is of a small temple located on the last of a chain of three islands connected by bridges. It contains an artefact very holy to the buddhist religion (or at least some sect of it), but I can`t remember what it was as we didn`t see it; it only opens to the public once every 33rd year. Pretty island though.

This next picture is from the second bridge-connected island, which is larger than the other and acts as a nature-preservatory. It had a lot of beaches which we noticed had a lot of tiny holes in it, and sometimes larger. So as we suspected we knew what it was, we took my digitalcamera and used it`s "rope" to lure the creature out of it`s nest. The result is as follows:

Well, enough about Matsushima, after some days we went to Yamadera, which is known for it`s mountain containing a lot of temples. It was truly spectacular to walk up it`s 1100 stonesteps though tall cedars probably a hundred years old at least and past stonelanterns and statues. Up at "the top" was the templecomplex, which except for the gorgeous temples had amazing views over the city down below. This, if I have to name one, is probably one of my favorite places in Japan to this point (although it`s very hard to `review` one place from another, as it`s the whole picture that makes this trip what it is).

One thing I especially liked about this place was that it didn`t feel so "touristy", as for example Nikko does (more on that later). And the town below felt as a genuine town, instead of, once again, Nikko, whose town feels like it exists solely as a tourist-trap.

Well, anyhow, I highly recomend the place, as does Jonas.

The picture below is one of my favorites I`ve snapped so far; the many-layered mountains as a backdrop to the small temple perched on the cliff makes quite a picturesque photo, don`t you think?

Next, Nikko, the famed templecomplex.

As you`ve maybe guessed from the above written comments about Nikko, this place wasn`t so compelling. But to give it a fair judgement, my opinion is heavily based on the fact that Nikko is so ridiculously visited by tourists. It`s one of the few places in Japan where you can walk a street and meet more gaijin (foreigners, like us) than japanese. And as said, the town of Nikko has no charm whatsoever. But then again, even though the temple area is packed with people, it is really quite beutiful. Intricate details on every corner of every temple and astonishing paintings completed with magnifique statues everywhere almost makes up for the massive crowds.

Well, anyhow, we took an immense amount of photos there, and have now added a select few here. If you`d like to see more from Nikko (or anywhere else, for that matter) you can comment and we`ll possibly put it in the next post, or we`ll just continue as usual and post with the new stuff instead of the old.

On with the pictures then, you`re probably thinking, so I`ll adhere with your request.

This cool statue marked the entrance to the temple-area. Lots of details.

A five-storied pagoda which, amazingly and ingenially enough, has no foundation. Instead it has a large pole through it that acts as a pendulum that absorbs the effects would an earthquake hit.

Some of the many temples.

The next picture has a rather fun story, as it truly shows how anything can be hugely popular in Japan, no matter how inane (especially if it has a cat in there somehow. I mean, Hello Kitty, come on). Anyhow this woodcarving is called Nemuri-Neko (Sleeping Cat) and is located in front of a former emperors tomb (Ieyasu`s tomb). It is famous all over Japan for it`s lifelike appearance, so people stand in queues to take it`s photo (including me, yes). I think it`s a marvellous story and I think one of my close friends will like it too (you know who you are).

This is more photos of us, to follow our parents never-ending requests for it (no hard feelings I hope, just a little joke). So here we are. (We actually don`t look like the sun-starved sociopaths in the picture, we`ve actually both got somewhat of a tan, it`s just the light of the day that makes us look like that).

After Nikko came Yokohama, Japan`s next biggest city (which we think is somewhat false information as Yokohama is so close to Tokyo that the two should count as one). Anyhow, this city is much more logically built than Tokyo (with a working address-system no less!) and has the nice feel of a city built by the ocean. Blue sky connecting with the ever-blue ocean and even palmtrees. Anyhow, we stayed here a couple of days, enjoying the view from Japan`s tallest building (70 stories, 296 meters, if I remember correctly). The elevator takes you up to the 69th floor at a whooping 750 meters/minutes (45km/h), which is one of the fastest elevators in the world. From there, the view is extraordinary, of course. On clear days you see Mt Fuji, Tokyo and Izu-Hanto (which we visited after Yokohama). As it was a few clouds on the day we were there, we didn`t see any of that, but that didn`t matter the least. The view from so up high is nothing you can experience in our homecountry, the Aland Islands (Finland), where there are no mountains and the tallest building is 4 stories. And even though we`ve been higher up than that (we did after all climb that length, plus 2000 meters last month), but then we didn`t see directly down upon a city that time.

Well, enough height-of-buildings-galore, and let`s focus more on the pictures. The first pic is a panorama of the citycentre (more or less). The second building from the left is Japan`s tallest. The two following are a few of the many views one had from up high.

The picture below I took down on ground level. It shows some from of Dragonfly eating some sort of fly. Quite cool.

After Yokohama we went, as said, to Izu-Hanto, a large peninsula south of Tokyo known for its onsens and beaches. As the main thing we did there was to swim in the ocean, we didn`t take a lot of photos, so you`ll have to live with just the one below.

To swim in the ocean was really nice. Large, high waves hit hard on the beach and was rather fun to dive through. It was maybe a bit cold, but none the less really nice in the hot weather. Really high levels of salt though, as expected, but still, annoying.

A rather unusual thing happened on the beach by the way, which I don`t think happens to a lot of foreigners. But it was somewhat logic that it happened to us, which I`ll soon explain. Anyhow, as we made our way from the ocean up the beach, we noticed a group of people sitting on the beach gesturing towards us and smiling. Upon closer look, it was the Yakuza, the japanese maffia, which was quite obvious considering their huge tattoos covering their torsos. We made our way towards them, as the leader of the gang (I presume, he had the biggest, most expensive-looking tattoos) held up a small glassbottle and offered us a drink from it. I took the bottle and noticed it was London Dry Gin (40%). It was as though he dared us to drink from it, as I guessed they thought it too strong to just drink as is (they had it mixed in a big drink). So to prove my nordic roots (and who wants to refuse an offer from the Yakuza?) I took a swig from the bottle and handed it to Jonas, who also took a swig and then handed it back to the guy. To us it was no big deal, it was on the contrary quite good and warmed us up from the cold ocean. They on the other hand seemed impressed and laughed aprovingly. We then thanked them and walked on, thinking about the oddity that had just happened. Quite awesome, I must say.

Well, the reason it happened to us is because of me, we presumed, since I myself have quite a lot of tattoos. They must have seen some bond between us I guess. Well, it`s not as I`m complaining, it`s a great story. And who says tattoos have no use? (Although I was almost kicked out from a luxurious onsen because of them... I just said okay when they asked me to leave, and obeyed to their request one and a half hours later).

Well, this post became really long, but it`s almost finished. The only thing left to write about is Hiroshima, where we were yesterday. I didn`t take so many photos there, as you`re not really in such a good mood there. The reason we went was, of course, because of "Little Boy", the Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945. We went to two museums; one more promoting peace on earth, whilst the other was more focused on "just" the bomb. It was very interesting, but at the same time you almost felt sick walking there, watching all the pictures of victims from the blast and reading horrifying stories from the aftermath. And it didn`t help that there were a lot of americans and french there that didn`t seem to sad about it (and this is not an attack on either country, just those people). One kliche-southern-looking american (thought they ony existed in movies, sadly I was wrong) went around speaking to his family about how it had been America that had masterminded the A-Bomb, and not the Germans. His daughter (maybe, a younger girl with him) had asked if it wasn`t Germany that invented it, she mentioned Oppenheimer, but the man said strongly that it was Americas provess. It was as though he was in the museum to see the greatness that was the A-Bomb. It made us sick, to say the least.

The french couple was just inappropriate and laughed about stuff all the time.

Well, anyhow, enough about that. I think everyone should visit that museum to view what horrors atomic war brings. The picture below is the memorial of the people lost by the A-bomb, with the A-Bomb Dome in the background (a cathedral which was almost directly under the hypocenter of the bomb, and therefore could still stand after it).

Well, I hope you liked the post, albeit the rather depressing ending, and please comment!