Japan 2010 -

Our two week family trip to Japan was awesome!

My brother David, who owns a business arranging tours to and from Japan, arranged everything for us. Part of the time we were travelling with him and his family – it was great to spend time with them since we are usually 1000s of miles apart.

I’m glad I made an effort to learn basic Japanese before we went. I didn’t manage to learn enough to understand or speak at all well but it made the trip more fun to know a little.

My Crohn’s was doing relatively well leading up to the trip and I was pleased that it wasn’t too bad on the trip.

Where we went: Tokyo, Arashiyama, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Koya-San, Kotohira, Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, the Izu Pensinsula, then back to Tokyo.

Where we stayed: the Tokyo Conrad Hilton Hotel, Hoshinoya, Hotel Granvia, Hongaku-In, Osaka New Otani Hotel, Kotohira-Kadan, Watanabe Inn, Yamasakura and the Tokyo Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The places without ‘hotel’ in the name were Ryokans i.e. traditional Japanese accommodation. Except Hongaku-In which was a temple!

Photos –

As well as the slideshow above, you can look at my photos on flickr in sets by location. Or click the photos in the sidebar here to get to them. You’ll see the titles and descriptions if you go to flickr. With the family tag you can pull up just the ones with us and/or David’s family in. (Double-click any photo or video in this post to see a larger version)

My husband’s artsy photos are here.

The weather was unseasonably cold when we arrived but warmed up a few days into the trip. Except Koya-San was cold because of the altitude.

The train system in Japan is amazing – the network is extensive and 99.9% of trains are on time to the minute (one of ours was late which David said was very unusual). We travelled by train, boat and taxi except for a 24 hour car rental on the Izu Peninsula where our Ryokan was rather remote.

Most of our Ryokans included breakfast and dinner. These were multi-course set meals with beautiful presentation. The meals had lots of variety and the parts we could appreciate were delicious. Who knew Japan had the best oranges? Even the Ryokan with more modest facilities served amazing food – that was a delightful surprise. The meals at Hongaku-In were smaller and all vegetarian (since monks live there). Those were more challenging. It was strange at first eating ood like fish, soup and rice for breakfast but after a couple of days I found myself looking forward to it. David took us for specific types of Japanese food for lunch and for dinner on hotel nights so we could try his favorites. Like Donburi and Sukiyaki and of course sushi. I wish I could have brought the kaiten-zushi (sushi) bar home with us!

We went to lots of temples/shrines (I’m not sure what the correct name is). Their visitors included tourists and people coming for spiritual reasons. Japanese visitors observed the customs even if they seemed to be tourists, like handwashing, praying and offering incense. I enjoyed the temples/shrines and their grounds which were like parks. We opted for the science/natural museum and the zoo in Ueno Park in Tokyo at the end of the trip because everyone else had seen enough temples – which was fine – but I would also have been happy to go see some Tokyo ones too. Kyoto station was the most striking modern architecture we saw on our trip – it’s an amazing structure.

Most curious sight: small rocks/statues with bibs on (and woolly hats in Koya-San). Apparently these are statues of Ojizo-sama who protects children after they die. Parents of children who’ve died give them various offerings including bibs. These statues are everywhere.

The Japanese people are very polite and friendly. One lady went out of her way to help us use an ATM that had no English on it. It rejected our card anyway – after that we learned to go to Post Office ATMs for cash because they recognize international ATM cards – the bank ATMs we tried didn’t. Another time in a mausoleum a lady grabbed my arm and led me to something you touch for good luck, and put my hand on it, putting some money in the offering box at the same time. When we had to wait all of 30 seconds the person interacting with us followed that with “Thank you for waiting!” Japanese signs that say “Do not…” all end in “please”. So – “DON’T GO THIS WAY…please!” The owner of Yamasakura (the most modest Ryokan we stayed in) was amazing. She not only told David where he could find an Internet connection but got in her little white van and drove ahead of him to show him the way. She went out of her way to make our stay the best possible.

The English translations we saw varied from excellent to, well…here’s an example

We were there in the middle of cherry blossom season in many places – one of David’s goals – and saw it everywhere. We were in Osaka Castle park briefly on a sunny warm Sunday morning at the height of Osaka’s cherry blossom season: we saw crowds of people streaming in for hanami (cherry blossom) parties that would last all day.

We were there over Easter but there was no evidence of it. I quite liked having a total break from Easter this year. Except that we did hide Easter eggs for Marielle and Amelia so they could do an Easter Egg hunt. That was very important to Marielle.

All our Ryokans had hot baths. some private, some shared. I went in the shared hot bath at Yamasakura. Relaxing in a hot bath is a very enjoyable Japanese custom! We went to Yamasakura partly because in good weather it has a great view of Mount Fuji. It was totally hidden in the cloud when we arrived but appeared for a few hours the next morning – we were very pleased!

We saw a Maiko Odori (Maiko are called Geisha in some places) and a Kabuki performance. The Maiko Odori performance was a very precise sort of dance to music, quite slow, very synchronized with beautiful costumes. The Kabuki performance was an exciting play, with heads cut off and rolling along the stage.

. We went to two tea ceremonies. I enjoyed seeing the ceremonies but green tea was a shock – I do NOT like it! Strong and bitter compared to black tea and not clear – you stir in the tea powder rather than soaking leaves and removing them. The Ryokans welcomed us with tea which I sometimes liked depending on the type. There was a sweet with it (also at the tea ceremonies where that’s traditional to offset the bitterness of the tea). I didn’t much like the Japanese sweets. On our second night in Japan we were offered icecream which sounded helpfully accessible. Then they told us the flavors: blackcurrant, plum, milk and chestnut. Hopelessly tired from jetlag (the time difference is 14 hours) we all started laughing at the flavors, especially milk?! Well, Ben had some and apparently it’s like vanilla without the vanilla. Of course!

My favorite place was Miyajima Island and the Ryokan we stayed in there (Watanabe Inn). The huge Otorii gate out in the water (except at low tide) and Itsukushima Shrine on stilts on the sand were very striking. I enjoyed wandering along the paths by the sea and by the cherry blossom lined streams and the small streets with deer wandering around. The views from the top of Mount Misen were great (some of us walked and some took the cable car up) and the forest walk back down was pretty. Watanabe Inn was wonderful – the rooms, the food, the friendliness and helpfulness of the owners – everything.

I enjoyed the other places we went too – I’m so glad we were able to travel around. We probably would have enjoyed Arashiyama more had it not been so cold there. It was also a pretty little town and the temple grounds were lovely. Our Ryokan there, Hoshinoya, was in a special location, up a secluded river valley a short way from Arashiyama. There’s only a gravel track to it and visitors are usually taken there in the Hoshinoya boat from Arashiyama. The snow did make it beautiful the next morning when we woke up and the hillside trees were dusted with snow, glistening in the morning sun.

I liked the evening walk up to Kiyomizu (in Kyoto) and the daytime cherry blossom covered walk to Kotohira-gu in Kotohira.

Koya-San was a bit cold too – but I was fascinated to see this mountaintop place of spiritual pilgrimage with temples everywhere and otherwise just a few restaurants and shops. In contrast to the other popular places where souvenir shops abounded.