Tripping around Japan with Stuart in March - Nagoya

After a successful cooking class and kushikatsu / karaoke party on Saturday we headed off to Nagoya on Sunday morning. Unfortunately we missed the main festivities at Oogata Shrine for the Hime-no-miya festival but still savoured the free beer, relaxed among the plum blossoms, got some pink and white mochi and enjoyed some local foods (tebasaki and misokatsu) for dinner at a local izakaya 

Monday was a chilled day in Nagoya inbetween the two festivals. Stuart remembered it was White Day so I got some marshmellows and chocolates in return for my Valentines day gifts. We trained out to visit Nittai-ji, did a spot of shopping around Sakae, relaxed in Central Park and at the Oasis 21 Bus Terminal. We didn’t visit the one touristy thing Nagoya is really known for (its castle) but we enjoyed just having a chilled day exploring the city. It’s very easy to navigate and reminded me a bit of Sapporo with a big park in the centre and felt quite western. Had the famed miso-nikomi-udon for dinner at a local well-known restaurant and enjoyed staying at a ryokan with a nice Japanese garden and bath for a change of pace

The Hounen Matsuri is held at Tagata Jinja in Komaki, Nagoya every year on the 15^th of March. If you have a chance I would definitely recommend going. We had the whole day to spend at the festival as our night bus wasn’t until about 11pm so it was nice to relax and enjoy it fully. There were heaps of festival yatai stalls which provided all our snacks for the day (yakitori, crepes, choco banana etc) and we got to get close to the omikoshi at Shinmei-sha and see the blessing before the parade started. The free sake flowed and we followed the omikoshi down the hill to Tagata Jinja.

Once it was carefully placed in the shrine, the hype continued building up to the mochi throwing at 4pm. There were a number of announcements and signs discouraging young children and elderly people from participating and as soon as it started you could see why. Imagine being surrounded on two sides by raised platforms with about 50 people on each all throwing mochi into the crowd. If you’ve eaten mochi it may have been in a soup or nabe, or been cooked so that the insides are soft and sticky however these were anything but. With a number of these rock hard mochi flying through the air towards you from all angles and people desperate to catch them (it is said to bring good health and fertility if you eat them) the crowd got crazy. see this video (pardon the screams) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLNRTT2-brw&feature=related We even saw a guy with a crash helmet diving across the ground to get the ones that had fallen between people (taking a few out as he left) and a few people being attended to in ambulances for black eyes and what looked like broken noses – Intense but a very exciting and interesting festival if you have the chance. 

 

Tripping around Japan with Stuart in March - Kobe, Miyajima and Hiroshima

I took Friday off work and we went on a long weekend trip away. Using the seishunn-18-kippu the local train ride to Hiroshima is quite nice and we stopped at Kobe on the way out there to check out the Hakatsuru Sake Brewery/Museum (was closed last time Stuart was here as it was a Monday) and have Kobe beef for lunch. Of course once we arrived at our hostel at Miyajimaguchi we went out for Hiroshimayaki for dinner

 

Saturday on Miyajima was perfect and the weather was stunning. We saw Itsukushima’s torii floating at high tide, took a cable car ride up Mt. Misen where we made our own momiji and climbed to the very top and then down again in time for low tide to walk all the way out and (minding the barnacles) gave the torii a big hug. Hiroshimayaki for dinner before heading back to the mainland

The next day, in the way weather often reflects emotion, it was raining as we headed into Hiroshima and spent some time at the Peace Park and Museum. One last Hiroshimayaki at Okonomi-mura and then on the train back to Osaka ready for a busy 6 day week of work.

February Weekend Trips

11-13 February - Sapporo Snow Festival
 

It was a bit of a crazy mission to get flights (I still dont understand a lot about how booking travel works here) but managed to make it up to the Sapporo Snow Festival with Mindy (from San Francisco now living in Kishiwada, Osaka) and meet a bunch of other JETs up there too. It was a pretty packed weekend leaving here at 4pm on Friday night and arriving back at 2pm on Sunday afternoon. With our two nights there we managed to go to an all you can eat genghis khan (lamb BBQ) dinner and drinks at the Kirin Beer Hall and celebrate Eve's birthday at karaoke on Friday night and all you can eat crab on Saturday night. Inbetween we enjoyed some other local specialties and chowed down on corn, yakimo and raamen!

In between all the delicious food we saw the Ice Sculptures in Susukino, Snow Scultpures in Odori Park and the Shiroi Koibito Factory and Park and enjoyed the city of Sapporo for a weekend

19-20 February - Kyoto, Okayama and Strawberry Picking

A conference in Shiga Prefecture on Friday afternoon was the perfect invitation to make the most of the rest of the weekend away from home. Booked into a youth hostel in Kyoto with my supervisor and her husband drove up to meet us after work (they have become like a big sister and brother to me) and spent Saturday morning exploring Ginkakuji, had lunch in Nishiki Market, walked around Fushimi-Inari-taisha and were lucky enough to catch the Kyoto Station Stair Climbing Challenge too.

 

Missioned out to Okayama to meet a few of the other Osaka-fu JETs and support Donald and Carl who were taking part in the (nearly) Naked Man Festival where the men wear fundoshi (loincloth) and fight at Saidaiji Temple to get some blessed sticks (there is also a monetary prize). Enjoyed keeping warm while trying to keep an eye on what was going on with the festival through the zoom lens of my camera and managed to capture Donald in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJnhkQ6XR1g at 25seconds (although I can't see him...) We regrouped after the festival and spent the night at Big Echo Karaoke boarding the first train home (6am) and getting back to Osaka at 9am-ish.

 









Went straight off the train to Harvest Hill, where we had a work event based around strawberry picking (thank god it wasnt anything any more strenuous) and had a great time and then crashed out that afternoon.

26 Feb - 1 March - Stuart, Skiing and Snow Monkeys in Nagano
 

Taking the night bus from Osaka on Friday night after work on the 25th I arrived in the wee hours of the next day and had a day to wait for Stuart to arrive. It took him two flights, a bus ride and a taxi but he finally got to Nozawa Onsen at 2:30am on Sunday morning and it was great to see him for the first time in four months. We had a minshuku booked for 3 nights that included traditional Japanese breakfast and dinner, and the deal we had included ski hire, lift passes, lunch coupons and a night bus home so we set about making the most of our next three days in Nagano.

 

 









I had tried going up the slopes myself on Saturday but Hikage was a little bit steep for me seeing as it was only my second time on skis, so heading up with Stuart on Sunday was much better. I spent most of my time on Uenotaira but also went down Paradise and the 5km forest path after lunch which was challenging but pretty. Wound up the day with a dip in the most famous onsen in the village - Oyu.

Monday it was raining in the village so took us a bit to get up and going, took the Nagasaka gondola today and it was snowing once we got up there so kind of surreal being all bundled up (very happy Stuart bought over goggles for me) and skiing down when the slopes were pretty quiet (partly because of the weather and partly because it was a Monday) the weather cleared in the late afternoon. That night we ate lots of oyaki (I particularly liked the less traditional apple and cinnamon ones), tried out another onsen and the foot bath (way too hot for my liking) and picked up a few souviners and some shinshuu apples to take home

We made the most of Tuesday before boarding the night bus. Stuart really wanted to see the snow monkeys that swim in onsen that I had visited in January and its a bit of a mission by public transport in winter so we booked a day tour with a local guy (from Slovakia married to a Japanese lady) and got to cover Zenkoji Temple in Nagano, Obuse town (known for chestnuts and Hokusai), Shinshuu Soba for lunch, Snow Monkeys and even got to dress up in kimono in Shibu-Onsen. It was a great day but tiring, which definitely helped us sleep on the night bus home