third day of herding

May 15th, 2007, cloudy

3rd day of herding.... I think I am getting used to it. Guess being driven around, and have everything planned for you can grow on you eh?

Anyways, so, today's schedule also looked very fun, but is it really? keep reading

In the morning, the tour bus took us up to the mountains again. This mountain called Kamikouchi 上高地 ; it is still considered part of the Alps of Japan, but all the routes leading up are the resort of an volcano eruption in the beginning of 20th century. It also has a nickname the hometown of the gods. I quite like this place, because it has not been exploited too much by people; the air is fresh and so are the trails.

Our bitchy tour guide reminded us that it can get quite cold going up the mountains, but yesterday was not too bad, so some people in the group complained about bringing and wearing too much. We asked her again if we would need as much for today, and she told us it would be about the same so it was up to us what to wear. Yeah, the bitchy guide won again. It was freezing up on the mountains today, very windy and it even hailed a little. Luckily, I had my ultimate ski jacket (for I don't even ski) with me, so I didn't have to take out more clothes to wear from my luggage. Nobody really enjoyed the scenery, everyone was in the luggage compartment digging out more things to wear. The worst thing was that when they finally got their coats and jackets, they were all sweating and we were ready to head over to our next stop.


Because we were rushed again and the wind was so strong, we could not really pose for the camera. I think this picture of us in front of the Kappa Bridge 河童橋 is really nice though. I am not sure what Kappa mean in Japanese, but in Chinese it is a kind of mystical creature that lives in the rivier. They are considered naughty and cunning. They are believed to have a turtle shell on their back, and a mirror on the top of their head. To kill them, one simply needs to dry up or break the mirror!

Our next stop that day was Ramen factory. As soon as we went into the factory, everyone was served with a bowl of their ramen sample. I don't know maybe it was close to noon or what, nobody was interested in how ramen is made; everyone just devoured the sample like beasts, and literally looked for more. I think I was the only one that did not crowd around the ramen shops and actually walked around the place for information on that. Unfortunately, I think we were fooled again. The factory was in fact a series of ramen and souvenir shops to lure tourists to spend more money......

The last stop of today was quite nice though. Even though after travelling in Japan for a few months, you find that traditional gardens and castles are all similar, this last stop was one of Tokunaga's trusted daimyo base in Gifu Takayama jinya 高山陣屋. Tokugawa set up this base in the mountain to avoid warfare so he could store documents and hold consults. Because this place is so hidden, the area still looks much like it used to be decades ago. We could finally enjoy a relaxing afternoon.

Time especially flies when you are being herded. After Takayama Jinya, we had a free evening at the hotel and areas around it. Bitchy tour guide made everyone wear Jinbei 甚平, a traditional Japanese casual wear, to dinner, so we could all take pictures... maybe she meant taking pictures with her?! This is a picture of me and Annie in Jinbei holding 2 utensils to the food we like the most. In my case, it is steamed eggs and hotpot!

I just found out the difference between Yukata 浴衣 and Jinbei. Yukata is what we know as light, comfortable kimono. It is generally worn by young ladies after baths or at fireworks. Jinbei on the other hand is usually worn by men or children. The biggest difference is that there is a waist band for yukata, but not for jinbei. Also, Jinbei comes in 2 pieces- top and pants.

second day of herding

May 14th, 2007, sunny

After 1.5 days of stressful herding, today's pace was considerably slower. By slower, I mean we could stay 15 minutes longer at each tourist spot! yay!

We headed towards Tate Mountain, 立山, in Toyama Prefecture right after breakfast. Tate Mountain is also known as the Alps of Japan. I have no idea why Mount Fuji is not called Alps of Japan, seemingly it is the tallest mountain in Japan. Oh, well, Japanese have their way of promoting a place I guess.

We reached the foot of the moutain around late morning. The tour guide told us the day before that today we would be take 8 different transportation tools to reach the top of the mountain, so we must follow her promptly as we change from one tool to another. As much as I hated the tour guide, I was more worried that I would get lost and be eaten by some bears or be frozen to death, so, I was good for once. The first transportation was supposed to be some kind of rope bus that would carry us to about 1/3 the way to the top. However, the rope bus was under construction, we took regular shuttle bus instead.

I was a little upset about the fact that we came all the way here and lined up for 40 minutes to find that the rope bus was not working. But then I was also not upset because I have discovered that is how Japanese do their business. They would still advertize the products even if they do not have them. So, often times, I would get all psyched about something and later find out it is actually false advertisement.....So, the whole thing about six different transportation means were actually 3 kinds, excluding the broken one.....

Ok, enough complaining. It took us about 2 hours all together to get to the top of the mountain. As you can see in the picture below, I was quite satisfied to have reached the top. Even though I have seen snow before, and hate shavelling the drive way on early cold winter mornings in order to pull the car out of the garage, I was truly impressed by how much snow has accumulated over the years on Tate Mountain. On the mountain top, here is a road leading to the mountain observatory cleared for cars and people; while the rest is just left as is. So, on both sides of the road, the snow was about 15-20 metres high. I attempted to make snowballs out of the snow walls, but they were so thickly layered, it was impossible to carve out some for personal leisure. However, I saw many people leaving their names or funny messages on the snow walls. (I wonder if anyone ever peed to make their mark?)

Like I said, there were only actually 4 different kinds of transportation tools. One was just shuttle bus, another was rope bus (for some strange reason, the rope bus going back down to the mountain foot was not broken/under construction). The third kind was tunnel bus, but it was too dark for me to get any decent shot of the bus, so I only managed to get this one last one below- underground electric bus. In fact, this was my favourite kind! I just think it is amazing how the bus operated inside the mountain and can hold itself in such a deep slope while carrying about 50 passengers!

Today we also visited a dam that is built in the same area as Tate Mountain, but we did not get to see water being released. So, I did not put any pictures up here.

I need to say this again, even though this entire trip was pretty much just herding and listening to unfriendly tour guide talk about herself, the food was fabulous. I say fabulous in a sense everything we had was considered high class in Japan. I personally don't like it very much. As you can see here and in the pictures from other days, it is just a lot of pickles, raw food, and cold food. I also find the food too sweet and salty. Nevertheless, the presentation was simply beautiful.

First day of herding

May 13th, 2007, sunny

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOMS!!

Our first stop today is Tojinbo 東尋坊. It is a tourist trap along the coast of Japan Sea. There you can see many strange rocks fused together due to the ever changing climate along the coast. I took many pictures of my aunt and cousin, and they did of me, but cuz of the sea wind, none turned out too well. (well, theirs did, not mine, so not putting any up here)

Even though the entire trip we were herded a lot, and could only visit every spot no more than an hour, one thing that was totally worth it on this trip besides meeting aunt and Christina after 10 years was the food! Food! Here is a picture of me enjoying lunch at Tojinbo. I had 5 fresh sweet shrimps! (Ama Ebi). A set like this in Japan we normall cost about 15-20 Canadian dollars, so I thoroughly enjoyed every single meal on this trip.

Our next stop was　Nata Temple なた寺. Nata Temple is considered one of the seven National architecture. Established in 700AC by a monk who dreamed of the coming of the thousand-handed Bodhissatva. A lot of history sites in Japan have been partially or entirely destoryed by earthquakes or fires, so, a lot of the architectures we see now are replica or restored. This is why I quite like this place, because the architecture's original condition is still mostly preserved.
Another feature which makes historical sites in Japan so attractive is the fact that they always come with a beautiful garden. These gardens are often original with their layout, plants, and the mood they create. For example, the one at Nata Temple is tranquil yet friendly.

With all that said, the above is a picture of me and my roommate for this trip- Annie. She is a very easy going girl. I had a great time getting to know her.

Usually when I go on a trip by myself in Japan, I plan to visit no more than 2 places a day so I can spend enough getting to know the places and would have time to take in the scenery. Joining a tour is then of course the opposite of this. 　　Our third stop today was Kenroku Garden 兼六園. Kenroku Garden is considered the top 3 most beautiful gardens in Japan. It had been passed down by generations of daimyos so the layout was changed and refined many times. The garden was finally open to public in late 19th century and has not only plants but also foutains, waterfalls, bridges and etc.....

I particuarly like this picture because of how the wooden supports blend into the scenery. Clever eh?

Finally our last stop of the day-Gasho Village 合掌村. This village has at least 300 years of history behind it. The roof of these houses are made of thatch and are placed at an sharp angle so that snow in the winter would not accumulate on the roof and crash down on the houses. Yeah, Gifu prefecture can get pretty cold during the winter too!!

This concluds the first day of herding. I guess I shouldn't complian because if I were to plan a trip in central part of main island of Japan, I would not be able to go so far up into the moutains or so far out to the sea.

Where am I?

May 12th, 2007, sunny

Wait, where am I? I took an 5-hour bullet train to Nagoya to meet up with Takako and Satoshi. But why is aunt and cousin Christina there?

Ok, enough cheesy intro. Cousin Christina decided to take aunt to Japan for Mother's Day this year. I, being in Japan, had to meet up with them.

I arrived Nagoya station around noon, and met up with my friends for lunch. The original plan was I meet up with them, then go to the hotel to wait for Christina and aunt to arrive from Taiwan. My friends would then take us around Nagoya for a half-day tour. Yet, when we arrived at the hotel, I got a phone call from their tour guide about a change in their schedule. Now they were visiting the temple that my friends were supposed to take us to. The tour guide was kind of rude and irresponsible. She was sure that I wouldn't be able to catch up with the tour so, just gave me the dinner restaurant number and asked me to get there myself then hung up. When my friend helped me call the number to ask for directions, we found out the restaurant was in another city! (about a 1.5 hour drive from Nagoya city). How the heck was I supposed to get there by myself without a car?! Luckily, my friends did have a car. But I didn't want to trouble to take me to another city, when they could spend a nice Saturday afternoon close to home right? So, I asked them to they rush to meet up with the tour while it was still in Nagoya. Thanks again to Takako and Satoshi. We were gonna have a fun afternoon together in Nagoya......Stupid tour guide.

We got there just in time for the tour to leave, so we only took a few pictures together, didn't even have time to walk around the area. The tour guide didn't even really say hi to me. I know she wanted to get rid of me in the first place.

Aunt and Christina didn't change one bit, both still graceful as before. But I almost couldn't recognize them at first. Gosh, I miss them!


Yup, my friends were right, the dinner place is in another city. We rode the shuttle bus for about 2 hours to finally get to this all you can eat barbeque restaurant. You know me, my bad mood was wiped away as soon as I saw various choices of food.... so full.

Hokkaido 3

After blow glass workshop, Matt and I took "rope bus" (yeah, literally bus on rope) up to Tengu moutain to see the Tengu shrine and play with chipmunks in the shrine garden. As you can see in the picture, there was still snow up on the moutain, so.... chipmunks were not out yet!!!!! Ah, again, we were greatly disappointed.

Tengu is a god-faced god with a very long nose. He is believed to bring good luck and drive away evil spirits. I don't care what them Japanese say about Tengu god though, he sure is some ugly creature. Doesn't the long nose remind you of something?....

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May 2nd, 2007, cloudy

The last night in a new place is usually the night for shopping souvenirs . While wondering along Tanuki street, I stumbled across a Ainu craft store. Ainu is the only Aboriginal tribe still in Japan. They mostly reside in Hokkaido. I really liked the things they sell at this store, reminded me of Aboriginal craft back home.

One extremely interesting thing I found while shopping was this thing in the picture. Can you guess what it is? If you have a good Japanese dictionary, you will see it just means a ball of algae. And yes, they are just balls of algae. I asked a friend why these are a tourist feature in Sapporo, she told because because they have lots of them.....But why? they are not really cute, and they don't move.....

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May 3rd, 2007, sunny

Our last meal before leaving Hokkaido was Sapporo's feature food- Genghis Kahn Grill. Genghis Kahn Grill is lamb barbeque on a dome shaped grill (thus the name). You can see in the picture all the vegetables are on the side absorbing the grease from the lamb. I think it is such a great idea to cook the vegetables and everything is so yum yum yum.

Overall, I would say I had a good trip, and am glad that we got to see a lot of other things we were not expecting to see. Goes to tell sometimes careful planning might not work out!

Here is a picture of my feeble attempt on my first blow glass!

Hokkaido 2

We got back to the city around dinner time. Man, hard to believe watching animals can make you so hungry! One fascinating thing about Japan is that it has unique or featured dishes for almost every prefecture.

One famous food in Sapporo is of course ramen. Even though I am not particularly big on ramen, mind you, my all time favourite Japanese food is udon noodles, I could not leave Sapporo without getting a taste of Sapporo Ramen! There were many different flavours, but I ordered the original Sapporo taste-miso soup base with roasted pork. If you have been to the ramen restaurant downtown Vancouver with me, you would konw what Sapporo ramen tastes like. So, in other words, it was no surprise.

Two major differences between Ramen in Hokkaido and Kyushyu are the soup base and the noodles. Sapporo ramen comes mainly with miso soup base and spagetti sized noodles; whereas Kyushyu ramen is main pork brooth based and you can choose thin and regular noodles. I like Sapporo ramen better because the pork brooth in Kyushyu one is too thick. Someone here once told me that ramen restaurants here boil their pork bones until everything melts into the soup! Most people here think that is some quality soup stock, but I think it is too greasy.....

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May 1st, 2007, rainy

Before we left Oita, Chie's parents told us that there are much more to see in Hokkaido than just Sapporo. So, we did more reseach and found that Otaru 小樽, a city northeast of Sapporo, has some interesting places to see.

One place I found from Otaru's city website is the first cave art discovered in Hokkaido. If my Japanese serves me right, it was discovered in the late 19th century, and has been preserved until today. From the photos on the website, the art is really quite primative, mostly handprints with natural colouring.

Otaru is more in the suburbs, so I could not find a lot of travel information online. Because of this, I was a little worried about getting to the preserved site. Also, as an art major, I was very anxious to see the cave art. Luckily, Otaru is very welcoming to tourists; it was very easy to get to the cave art museum. When Matt and I finally got there, guess what happened? Yeah, you can see from the photo above, IT WAS CLOSED!!!!!!

I had a hunch that it might be closed, but I figured it was Golden Week and everywhere else was open, it's gotta be open! I read the hours of operation by the admission; it said it would be open. So, I was so upset, I decided to finger the 'closed' sign......

Thanks to Matt, he found a brochure at the train station on touring Otaru, so our trip to Otaru was not wasted. One famous tourist trap in Otaru is the Tengu mountain 天狗山. According to the brochure, at the foot of the mountain, there is a blow glass factory, and a rope bus to take people up to the mountain. Up on the mountains, there is a temple, a chipmunk park, a ski resort, and a laser archery training ground!

Since I did not get to see the cave art, I had to try out blow glass. Blow glass is so much fun. I started out by designing my own glass using the samples the factory provided. I chose a tall glass with cracked pattern and deep blue and pink dye as colour.

At first, the artist assistant took a blob of melted glass from a contantly firing kiln onto a long metal pole. He then slid the glass ever so slightly over a plate of prepared dye. Next, he put the glass into another kiln (my guess is that this kiln has lower heat) and smoothed the glass and shaped it into a cylinder. After repeating the smoothing process several times, he took out the glass and asked me to blow it to the right length and width (as seen in the photo above). I think blowing and shaping is the most difficult process. The artist was back forth a few times between my blowing and the kiln to get the glass the right form. After 10 minutes of hard work (well, he did most of it), the artist finally pressed the glass against the ground to shape a bottom while I blew!! So cool!! Before he detached the glass, he told me to quickly submerge the glass into a bucket of cold water and take it out to create the cracked pattern. I could here the glass cracking so loud as if it is in 三温暖！

Now came the second difficult process-shaping the mouth of the glass. The artist detached the glass from the pole to create an opening and then transferred the glass onto another pole by attaching a pole to the bottom of the glass. I was asked to sit down and hold a pair of tongs (much like a music fork). Then I had to roll the pole against a rack while inserting the tongs into the glass to shape the mouth. Gosh! It was so hard! The artist kept stopping me and correcting me so I would not turn my glass into a wide opening vase or a distorted ugly display art.

Last, when all was finished, the glass was transferred to a small cabinet for cooling. Horray! I managed to make my first glass without burning myself or others. Seriously though, the artist assistants did most of the work. I mainly stood around looking stupid. I will take a picture of my finshed work and put it up here to show it what it looks like!

Hokkaido 1

April 30th, 2007, sunny

Yeah, you guessed it! I went the mostnorthernly island of Japan-Hokkaido!

Initially, I heard it on the news that cherry blosoms in Hokkaido would bloom around Golden Week, which is the first week of May, so Matt and I decided to go to Hokkaido during Golden Week. According to my Japanese friend, the meaning of Golden Week is that almost everyday of the first week of May happens to be a national holiday. Since Japanese people do not seem to have a lot of time off, the first week of May to them is GOLDEN!

The capital of Hokkaido is Sapporo. Maybe it is the time we went, but I think Sapporo is a very commercial and industrial city.

About 5ーminute walk from hotel, there is this long street called Tanukikoji 狸小路．It is divided into 7 blocks. Each block has many restaurants and small shops! Matt and I went there all the nights we were in Sapporo for food and souvenirs.

Like I said above, Sapporo is a modern city, so one interesting tourist trap is Hokkaido's chocolate factory. I don't know if you have ever had Sapporo's chocolate sandwich cookies, but those are made here! Sapporo's chocolate sandwich cookies are made of a two thin layers of baked milk cookies with a thin layer of chocolate or milk cream sandwiched in between. Yum yum!!

Here is a picture of me drinking the factory's special cocoa! (Does anyone here know what does Cacao mean? Is it just a mis-spelling for cocoa? The entire place has cocoa spelt this way.....)

Anyways, Rice, is this what having afternoon high tea feels like?

As cool as watching how those sandwich cookies are made is, I think the factory would be much more fun if it had more interactive parts for tourists to get their hands dirty and make their own cookies!!

After the chocolate factory, we had planned to go to a flower garden to see Cherry blosoms. But it was way too cold that day, so we decided to go to a local zoo instead.

I can't even remember when was the last time I went to a zoo. So, even though I was irriated by the changes in our plans, I had great fun looking at cute animals!

See, here is a picture of me and a cute, chubby seal lying in the background sleeping. I tried to wake it, but it was too lazy to even repond! So funny.