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Japan 2023
  • Alan Chapman
  • Alan Chapman

Japan 2023

A 60-day adventure by Alan Read more
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  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Tokyo

    October 22, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    I took the metro and then the monorail across the Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba which was on the other side of Tokyo Bay. I walked along the promenade past beach volleyball courts, views of the two-tier Rainbow Bridge, and the Statue of Liberty
    Inside the Diver City Mall, there were lots of shops, eateries and games such as tenpin bowling, with a 20m high statue of Uniform Gundam outside.
    Besides being a leisure district of Tokyo, it was also being developed as a technology district. I went inside the excellent Miraikan, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation which had opened in 2001. It had lots of exhibits, some hands-on, and sections dealing with robots, AI, climate change, earthquakes and other disasters, the brain, etc. You could spend all day there. There was also a cafe overlooking Odaiba where I had a snack lunch.
    I stood in the front carriage of the Yurikamone monorail on the way back across Tokyo Bay, and then took the metro back to Shinjuku.
    For dinner, I went to Omoide Yokocho, a famous alley behind Shinjuku Station, which had lots of small booths with stalls at the bar. The one I went in could sit eight. I had chicken and asparagus wrapped in bacon on skewers plus a draft beer.
    In the evening on TV, there was a concert with a suite from Gotterdammerung. At the end, there was the same ritual as at the Suntory Hall concert with the head of each section rising before the whole section, and then the whole woodwind section rising. The conductor departed leaving the Leader to rise to take the applause before leading off the whole orchestra. The audience then departed, another example of the Japanese following the rules in a well-ordered society.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Tokyo

    October 23, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    The final buffet breakfast at the Blossom Hotel where Elgar's Salut D' Amour was one of the violin duets played as background music.
    I checked out of the hotel and took the JR Yamamote to Ueno, and then the Ginza Line to Asakusa Station from where it was a short walk to the Gracery Hotel to leave my bags.
    I took the metro back to Ueno Park and started the walk outlined in the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately, the museums were closed on Mondays so I walked past the former sake warehouse and bath-house to the enormous cemetery at Yanaka-rein where there were lots of crows.
    I had a snack at a cafe before proceeding to the Tennoji Temple which had a large seated Buddha. There were lots of shrines and temples in this district.
    Yanaka Ginza was an old-style shopping street where I stopped for a small pastry before continuing to the Sudo-koen, a small garden near Sendagi which was a busy district with cafes and quiet side-streets. Nearby was Nezu-jinga, a shrine with a corridor of red Torri gates and small children being photographed in their traditional Japanese costumes; maybe a birthday?
    I walked back past the zoo entrance into Ueno Park to Ueno Tosho-gu, a shrine dedicated to the Tokugawa who unified Japan. Nearby was the Autumn Dahlia Garden.
    I had an ice-cream dessert at a cafe in the Park before returning to Ueno Station to take the Ginza line back to Asakusa and the Gracery Hotel where I checked in.
    The joining meeting for Inside Japan's Northern Soul tour was at 19.00, followed by dinner at a local restaurant. The leader was Steve Parker, an Englishman who lived on the outskirts of Tokyo. Forming the group were Steve and Kim from Connecticut; Nick and Chrissy from Malta; Pat and Maggie from Yorkshire; Pete and Jenny from Truro; Judith and Keith from Edinburgh; Kevin from Leeds; Catherine from Newcastle, and Vera from London.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Tokyo

    October 24, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, we went to the 8th floor of the Tourist Information Office in Asakusa to take photos of the Sky Tree and the Senso-ji Temple. Then we took the metro to Shinbashi and, on the way to the Hamarikyu Garden, we saw an amazing clock. We went to the tea-house in the Garden for a matcha tea and a small sweet to take away the bitter taste.
    There were some lovely flower beds in the Garden besides the landscaped gardens.
    We took the metro to Akihabara to visit one of the shops with different computer games and electrical goods., and then dispersed to have lunch in one of the local cafes.
    We took the metro to Harajuku to visit the Meiji Shrine but I'd been there in September so I left the group and followed a walk outlined in Lonely Planet down the posh shopping street called Omote Sando. with its distinctive architecture of the last 20 years. I had a coffee on the 7th floor roof garden of Starbucks in Tokyo Plaza, and then continued down the street passing upmarket shops such as Boss and Prada.
    I took the metro back to Asakusa and had a haircut before returning to the hotel. I had dinner at Dennys with two sisters in the group.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Return to Nikko

    October 25, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    We checked out of the Gracery Hotel, and walked the short distance to Asakusa Station to catch the Asakusa-Nikko Limited Express to Nikko Station. There was a luxury lounge carriage at the front of the train with a film crew which we saw later in the day at the shrine.
    There were no taxis at Nikko Station so we walked to the Kanaya Hotel which was celebrating its 150th anniversary. King George the 5th, Albert Einstein and Helen Keller had stayed there.
    We walked to the red Shinkyo Bridge and then to Tosho-gu and Taiyu-in the complex of shrines which I'd visited in September.
    We had an old-style French-cooking dinner at the hotel.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Nikko

    October 26, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    After a good traditional breakfast at the hotel, a private coach took us from 550m in Nikko up through Nikko national park with 48 hairpin bends, each number noted by a Japanese character. There was very heavy traffic due to the Japanese coming to see the autumn colours, some probably on day trips from Tokyo. There was over an hour's wait to be herded into a cable-car for a short ride up a mountain so we didn't bother but continued up to the area around Lake Chuzengi at 1300m
    We went to the Kegon Waterfall, descending 100m in a lift. Steve pointed out an optical illusion of concentrating on a point of the waterfall for a few minutes and then quickly looking at the cliff-face which appeared to be moving upwards like an elevator.
    I had lunch in two coffee-shops; one with a custard and banana crepe, and the second with a pork dumpling. In between, having walked past a smell of sulphur from the volcanic fumes, we took a boat ride for an hour on the volcanic lake,. We saw the surrounding mountains including Mt Nantai, an extinct volcano 8000m high; the autumn foliage on the trees. and the villas owned formerly by the British and other Embassies escaping the summer heat and humidity of Tokyo.
    Chuzenji was much busier than when I'd been there in September when it seemed out-of-season.
    In the afternoon, we took a short walk downhill to see the Ryuzu Falls before taking an hour to return to Nikko through heavy traffic.
    Dinner at the hotel was another seven-course French-style meal.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Hiraizumi

    October 27, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    After another excellent breakfast at the hotel, we took taxis to Nikko JR Station, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and took a local train to Utsonomiya and then a Shinkansen to Ichinoeski. A minibus took us to the Hotel Musashibo in Hiraizumi.
    Lunch was at a local restaurant, the only one open in this very quiet town, and I ordered buckwheat soba noodles with wild mountain vegetables.
    We walked to the Chusongi Buddhist temple with the wonderful 900-year-old Golden Hall inside a building for protection. No photos were permitted.
    We hiked back to the hotel through a forest.
    I went to the public onsen at the hotel before dressing in a yukata gown for the Japanese set dinner. The bedroom had a tatami floor and futon bedding, the first I'd had for about 10 days.
    Hiraizumi was the furthest north in Honshu and Japan which I visited on this trip. The town was in the Tohoku region, the Chusongi temples being an important part of its heritage.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Hiraizumi

    October 28, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    After a Japanese set breakfast, we took taxis to Hiraizumi Station to catch a local bus for the drive through the pleasant countryside to Geibikei.
    The first activity of the day was paper-making with a porridge liquid and then adding colours and leaves to make a pattern. The picture was labelled with me name and board-number and put outside to dry. They were forwarded to the Blossom Hotel in Tokyo in case we wanted to take them home but I'm unsure whether anyone did.
    We went to the Yugendo limestone cave which had been discovered in 1980. We alked through passageways and up and down stairs to see fossils and shrines.
    Taxis returned us to Geibikei where we ate our snack lunches besides the Satetsu River before boarding a punt to take us into the Geibikei Gorge There were beautiful autumn colours on the 120m cliffs. We saw a black kite, cormorants, and carp. The boatman sang a local song in the otherwise peaceful surroundings.
    Two local trains took us back to Hirazumi via Ichinoseki with a short walk from the station to the hotel in light rain.
    Dinner was another Japanese set meal dressed in our yukata gowns.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Naruko Onsen

    October 29, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    We left Hiraizumi in a large coach and stopped at a typical Japanese roadside supermarket which sold local produce amongst many other items, and at which there was an audience for a live monkey show which wouldn't be allowed in many other countries.
    We stopped at Naruko Onsen and went to Katanuma Crater Lake where there was the smell of sulphur emanating from small fissures. My trousers split as I bent down to test the warmth of the water in a stream. We walked around the lake and had lunch at a cafe.
    Then we went to a Kokeshi Dolls museum and workshop, one of many in this area, where we painted and kept our own doll after it had been machine-polished. I said that the design on mine was pre-Columbian from South America.
    We walked down the steps in the Naruko Gorge to see the lovely autumn colours. Being a Sunday, there were lots of Japanese there as well but noticeable few non-Japanese tourists who tended not to venture north of Tokyo.
    We went on a short walk along duckboards to to see steam and hot water exiting from volcanic vents. There were sieves for boiling eggs in the hot water.
    Finally, as the light was fading, we walked across the Naruko Dam. The scenery could have been in Scotland.
    There was an outdoor onsen at the Kameya Hotel, and dinner was another set Japanese meal    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Matsushima

    October 30, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    We left Naruko Onsen on a smaller but still roomy coach, eventually got on an Expressway, and stopped at a modern petrol station where petrol was about £1 per litre.
    We arrived on the coast at Matsushima, parked near a marina, and walked to the Godaido Temple, built on an island connected to the promenade by two short bridges, The Temple was built about 1600.
    Then we ate a variety of ice-creams, some fishy, at a cafe in a park before entering the Zen Garden, where we had a brief meditation in the rock garden, surrounding the Entsuin Temple.
    At a restaurant in the park, I had beef tongue, a local delicacy, for lunch before walking along the promenade to the 250m-long red Fukuurabashi Bridge which led to Fukuurajima Island Nature Park for a 30-minute walk and another ice-cream.
    Rejoining the group after a coffee-stop, we took a one-hour boat-ride around Matsushima Bay to see a few of the 200+ islands, the boat going around the oyster and kelp beds. The Bay and town had escaped the worst of the 2011 tsunami due to the contours of the coast and the many islands.
    The Bay is listed as one of the Three Great Sights of Japan.
    It was a short coach-ride to the Grand Hotel in Ishinomaki. We went to a chicken-and-vegetable skewer restaurant for dinner.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Matsushima

    October 30, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    At a restaurant in the park, I had beef tongue, a local delicacy, for lunch before walking along the promenade to the 250m-long red Fukuurabashi Bridge which led to Fukuurajima Island Nature Park for a 30-minute walk and another ice-cream.
    Rejoining the group after a coffee-stop, we took a one-hour boat-ride around Matsushima Bay to see a few of the 200+ islands, the boat going around the oyster and kelp beds. The Bay and town had escaped the worst of the 2011 tsunami due to the contours of the coast and the many islands.
    The Bay is listed as one of the Three Great Sights of Japan.
    It was a short coach-ride to the Grand Hotel in Ishinomaki. We went to a chicken-and-vegetable skewer restaurant for dinner.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Ishinomaki and Sendai

    October 31, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    We went to the Ishinomaki City Kadonowaki Elementary School Ruins to see the effect of the Great east Japan Earthquake which occurred at 14.46 on 11 March 2011 and created a tsunami which hit the 500km coastline about one hour later, the waves at Ishinomaki, opposite the epicentre of the quake, being 7m high. Japan has quakes every day, especially along the Pacific Coast, but this was one of the most powerful ever experienced in the world. The Richter Scale is exponential, not linear.
    The ground floor of the school was flooded but all three levels of the front of the building were damaged by fire. None of the staff or children died, having moved to higher ground when the warning was received.
    The English former lecturer in English Conversation at the University gave a very good explanation of the aftermath, including the flooding of the ground floor of the Grand Hotel where we were staying and which became an evacuation centre where he stayed. Staff from the British Embassy counselled him about the risk of a nuclear explosion at Fukushima further down the coast wiping out the town, but he decided to stay and undertook PR to get international aid .
    4000 were dead or missing after the tsunami, the highest % casualty rate of any town along the coast.
    We went to the Ishinomaki Minamihama Tsunami Memorial Park and the Miyagi 3.11 Tsunami Disaster Memorial Museum. In the Park, there was a memorial stone to an American woman who had been teaching English and who had died in the disaster.
    The whole coastal area of the town had been rebuilt by 2020, including a controversial sea-wall 7.2m high. Some residents thought it wasn't high enough whilst others wanted the money spent on other defences further inland as a neighbouring town had done.
    A few of us went for lunch at a cafe where you keyed your order into a vending machine and pre-paid.
    In the afternoon, we drove to Sendai and stayed at the Hotel Vista. We went to the 31st floor of an office building to get a view of the lively city of one million. Dinner was at a restaurant where we used a tablet to order tapas.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Niigata

    November 1, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    I received by email an invite to volunteer at the Paralympic Games in Paris in 2024. An invite to volunteer at the Olympic Games in Marseille came a few weeks later.
    Leaving Sendai and travelling west, the coach took us to a dairy farm in the hills near Zao where we made ice-cream. We put a small jar containing cream into a larger jar which was half-filled with ice. Salt was added to make it colder. We shook the large jar for 10 minutes using a hand-towel since it got colder. Both jars were opened and we ate the ice-cream which was stuck to the sides of the small jar.
    The next stop was at a viewpoint of a waterfall surrounded by the autumn foliage.
    We stopped by a small shrine and a hot-spring foot-bath in Zao.
    There were lots of ropeways since Zao is a ski resort. The coach climbed around many hairpin-bends to reach the summit and the Okama volcanic crater lake near Mt Kattadake.at 1720m. There was a little snow in some gullies, and the temperature had dropped. Steve ordered our lunches from a vending machine in the cafe at the summit.
    In the afternoon, continuing our coast-to-coast journey, there was a long drive to Niigata, the final 90 minutes in the dark through many tunnels and then rice paddies.
    We arrived at the Hotel Sunroute at 18.30.
    I had dinner with two others in a booth in a restaurant. I had a steak followed by ice-cream sprinkled with parmesan cheese plus a red-bean mochi.
    There was a thunderstorm during the night.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Niigata

    November 2, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Using our IC Cards, we took a local bus to a rare Catholic church, and then to the Saito summer villa and garden, an example of Meiji-era architecture with sliding doors and some wall paintings.
    We walked to the Art Museum to see an exhibition by the local photography club plus a gallery of paintings.
    At lunchtime, I walked to the Hakusan Park and Shrine where small children in national costume were being photographed.
    I walked along the embankment of the Shinano River, the longest in Japan, for a few kilometres and almost reached the Sea of Japan, passing a few signs in Russian. Retracing my steps back into town, I went to the 20th floor of the Media Ship building for an overview of the city, river and sea.
    I had an early dinner at a western-style restaurant, and then looked at the Paris 2024 information on my iPad.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Sado Island

    November 3, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    We took taxis to the Niigata Ferry Port for the 2.5 hour journey to Ryotsu, the port on Sado Island. We sat in a reserved 1st class lounge on the 5th floor of the ferry.
    A guide took us in a minibus to a large Japanese-style convenience store to buy a snack lunch which we consumed by the beach on the west coast.
    We drove to Shukunego to walk round an old fishing village. Some of the group went on coracles inside the harbour whilst some of us had ice-cream sandwiches.
    Then we drove to the OgiTaiko Centre to play and have a demonstration on the Kodo drums which was good fun. The drumming tradition came from China. I played a drum called Mister Potato made from a tree 600 years old, and Miss Piggy made from an inverted tree branch. The drummers have two years of daily practice and abstinence before being qualified to play publicly.
    We checked in at the Yoshida Ryokan with bedrooms with tatami floors and futons. Dinner was a Japanese set meal, and there was a performance of classical Japanese dancing afterwards.
    Sado had a lot of closed premises and is suffering from depopulation as the young move away, e.g. there is no university on the island.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Sado Island

    November 4, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    On a rare wet morning, we went to the Sado Gold and Silver Mine Museum which explained the history of mining on the island via four videos. Then we went to the Gold Mine, walking down passageways on duckboards and seeing working models of the activities in the Mine. It was well-presented.
    We also saw ruins of the Mitshubishi mining facility.
    We went to the reconstructed Office of the Magistrate with its many rooms of tatami flooring and sliding doors. Next door was the reconstructed Seriba where separation of the gold and the silver was done by crushing, milling and sluicing.
    We went to Konpan-ji which had a 5-step pagoda, shrine and peaceful garden with few visitors.
    After a visit to a sake distillery and shop, we went to Tokinomori Park to see the Toki-crested ibises. There is a breeding programme and release into the wild. The ibises turn pink in the breeding season. We saw a few in the fields.
    Back at the ryokan, I went to the rooftop onsen before going out for a sushi dinner.
    Lunch was in a building in a conservation area with a sea-view.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Back to Tokyo

    November 5, 2023 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    After having my last Japanese set breakfast, we returned by ferry in a 1st class lounge rather than by hydrofoil to Niigata, and then by my final Shinkansen to a station on the outskirts of Tokyo, and then by a local train to Shinjuku Station from where we walked to the JR Blossom Hotel.
    I went to Hands, a large department store, to buy thirty Japanese Christmas cards, Y440 each (about £2.50), which had been made in China. Returning with my passport, I was able to purchase them duty-free and save 10%. Some of my friends and relatives thanked me for the cards although I think few used Google Translate to read the greetings in English.
    On the journey, I had my final dorayaki, a red bean, cream and sponge tart,
    The final group dinner was upstairs in an izakaya in Omoide Yokocho where there was lots of food. Afterwards, we walked the streets in Shinjuku seeing the neon lights and especially the 3-D cat.
    Back at the hotel, I said farewell to the group since I'd be having an early start in the morning.    Read more

  • Alan ChapmanJapan 2023Traveler

    Return to London

    November 6, 2023 in Japan ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    There was a spectacular sunrise over Tokyo as Vera and myself left the hotel at 6am in a Green Onions taxi bound for Haneda Airport.
    Having said goodbye to Vera who was on a BA flight, I checked my bag in for the coach-share Japan Airlines flight although booked through BA. There was a long queue at the security gate, but it kept moving and I was through everything in an hour.
    The reason I'd booked this flight was because it was leaving at a reasonable time, 11,30, and would be a daytime flight flying from east to west with the clock.. However, I'd received an email some months before saying that the flight had been brought forward 100 minutes, presumably due to the inability to fly over Russia and the Ukraine.
    The Boeing 777 took off 30 minutes late at 10.20 and flew east before reaching the International Date Lane when it was 22.00 on both sides although one day apart. The plane turned north and flew through the Bering Straits before turning east over North Alaska and Canada, reaching 80 degrees north and maybe even further north at one stage. The daytime flight had turned into a night-time flight. After overflying Greenland, the flight continued south-east, reaching London Heathrow after 14 hours at 15.30 still on the 6th, 9 hours behind the time in Tokyo. The flight had covered 7000 miles at c500 miles-per-hour, and covered 225 degrees of longitude which, together with 135 degrees on the outward flight, meant that I had circumnavigated the world.
    On the flight, I'd listened to Rubinstein play Chopin, and Klemperer conduct Schumann's Rhenish Symphony. The silver service and food was very good.
    The temperature at Heathrow was 11C, about 10C cooler than Tokyo.
    I took the Elizabeth Line for the first time from Heathrow and then the Northern Line to Waterloo, arriving home soon after 17.00, 58 days after leaving the flat on this great journey.

    Approximate distances covered: 1st Part - Intrepid - 1660 km
    2nd Part - Intrepid - 2660km
    3rd Part - On my own - 830km
    4th Part - Inside Japan - 1250 km
    Total Journey - 6400 km = 4000 miles.
    Nights in 19 hotels: 38.
    Nights in 11 ryokans and minshukus: 17
    Nights in temple inn: 1
    Total nights in Japan: 56.

    Japanese set breakfasts; 11
    Japanese set dinners: 14    Read more

    Trip end
    November 7, 2023
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