Hokuriku: Day 3

I hate getting up early, and it's even worse when it's on vacation.  But today it was worth it.  Jigokudani Park (Hell's Valley) is so named because of its steep cliffs and natural hot springs, but the reason people go there is to see something much cuter:  bathing monkeys!

I woke up at 5 in order to catch the earliest train that would take me to Nagano. I was too tired to stay awake for the whole journey, but caught some of the breathtaking scenery from the window of the train.

From Nagano Station there's a 40-minute bus ride up into the mountains, and from the bus stop another 40-minute walk.  The Monkey Park is only accessible on foot, but at least the walk up the mountain is a pretty one:

Once inside the park, I'd imagined I would have to keep careful watch if I wanted to see any monkeys, but it turns out they were everywhere.  Take, for example, this photo.  Looks like just a regular old mountainside, right?  Nope!  Look carefully along the bottom.  All those tiny little brown spots are monkeys!

Can you see them here?

A little further up a path and you reach the main attraction: the natural hot springs where the snow monkeys (Japanese macaque) keep themselves warm in freezing temperatures.

I had expected they wouldn't allow visitors to get too close, or that I'd have to be careful not to let tiny little monkey fingers snatch away any of my belongings but, to my surprise, neither of those things were true.  You could get right in their faces with a camera and they would just go right on bathing/swimming/digging/grooming/pooping like you weren't even there...I think we weren't interesting enough for them.  There were also a lot of signs as you entered the park area warning you not to eat or offer any food to monkeys while inside, so fortunately they haven't learned to expect anything from you.

I stayed till I was too cold (and had snot running down my face...) then headed for the bus back to the city. After picking up a cup of coffee I made my way to the bullet train platform.  And without even planning it, I had chosen the very best time of day to go back: I got to watch the sunset from my nice comfy seat on the shinkansen.  And as I neared Tokyo, I even caught a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, silhouetted by the last rays of sunlight.

What a nice way to end a long weekend.  Back to work tomorrow...

Hokuriku: Day 2

Spent the day in Kanazawa.  Yesterday was a long day, so I decided to sleep in.  Once I was out and about I headed for Kenroku-en, known as one of the "Three Great Gardens of Japan" and also for the way the trees are tied with rope in winter, to help protect them from heavy snows.

In fact, trees and bushes are tied like this all around the city, but they are especially beautiful in this park.  I was a little sad I couldn't see them covered with snow, which is said to be the best time of year for viewing.

The garden is next to the castle grounds.  They have an awful lot of restoration work going on and some places were off-limits, but I took a walk around anyways and enjoyed the architecture of some of the warehouses, as well as a view of the mountains in the distance from a lookout point.

The side of the main warehouse

From an elevated spot within the castle grounds you can see the Japanese Alps

Next stop: the 'tea house' districts, which is actually just another name for the geisha entertainment areas.  I went in order to photograph the Edo-style exteriors of the buildings along the narrow streets, but didn't actually go inside any of them.

Higashi-chaya district

Supposedly you can still go there in the evenings for geisha performances but I have no doubt that it's all targeted at tourists.  Some of the remaining tea houses are like little cafes while the others tea houses have been converted into shops selling cosmetics, sweets or local handicrafts.

The exterior of one of the shops with traditional "kaga" latticework

From there I walked most of the way back to the station so that I could enjoy the scenery of the neighborhoods and the river.

The newly remodeled Kanazawa Station.  A bullet train track connecting this town with Tokyo has just been completed and trains begin running in March, shaving a couple of hours off travel time and bringing in a lot more tourism...

Exhausted after a day on my feet, it was nice to be back in my hotel room.  Now that I've had my dinner, I'm going to have a nice soak and then an early bed time.  (I've got to get up very early in the morning for an attempt at an adventure. Check in again tomorrow to see if I'm successful...)

Hokuriku: Day 1

"Welcome" posters at Toyama Station, featuring some of the local specialties or popular sightseeing spots.

My day started at 6am, which is when the overnight bus dropped me outside of Toyama Station.  Nothing--not even Starbucks--was open yet, so I spent a minute admiring their version of safety cones (see below) and then got on a train headed for the coast.

Toyama: home of the cutest safety cones you will ever see.
These were part of a construction area.  The scarves are real, by the way...

At 8:30 my train arrived at Amaharashi, overlooking Toyama Bay.  The name, I learned, translates as "rain or shine".  It's named after a local monument: a sort of stone shelter built on the beach more than a century ago which shields occupants from rain or intense sun.

It was raining, which made me feel right at home.  For Oregonians, a rainy day at the beach is pretty much an ordinary day at the beach.  Amaharashi also takes things a couple of steps further in its resemblance of Oregon beaches, with its pine trees and famous large rocks out in the water.  But one of the most-boasted-about qualities of this particular spot is that you can also admire the Hida Mountains in the distance.

Toyama Bay and waves waving.

The large-ish rock on the right is called the "mother" rock; the smaller rocks nearby represent her children.  There is a similarly-shaped "father" rock further down the coast, not visible in this shot. The Hida Mountains are in the distance.

Next, I made my way back to Takaoka where I stopped to see Zuiryu-ji, a zen temple designated as a National Treasure.  This temple is less particular than others about letting tourists wander around inside one of the main halls, and there were few places that were off limits.  I get a kick out of taking my shoes off, lining them up neatly at the bottom of the steps, and then wandering around a centuries-old cultural property in my socks...

Zuiryu-ji's San-mon (main gate)

One of my favorite shots from today: a view of the Butsuden ("Buddha hall")
from a window in the Hattou (a hall for ceremonies, lectures, and daily services).

After the temple I was off to the other side of the town to see their "Great Buddha" statue.  I liked his mustache, but that's really all I have to say about that.

From there, off to the hotel.  Spent the afternoon kind of lazing around and then took a walk to find dinner.  I bought new rain boots when I was Stateside over Christmas and have been waiting to try them out, so I was very pleased to see that if things go as planned, I will get to wear them in both rain and snow this weekend.

A "boot selfie" in the hotel elevator.  This one's for you, Wendy. ;)

More tomorrow...

Japanese people know everything they need to know about Oregon.

As I left the ticket gate at the train station on my way to work this morning, I accidentally kicked something on the ground that make a little "clink" sound. Looking down to make sure I hadn't dropped anything, I thought I saw a bottle cap. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be something far more spectacular: a little pin-back button. But this isn't any ordinary button; it is a concisely-worded treasure map. If you know what I mean.

I'm bragging about my dinner

Last Friday I held my annual Thanksgiving dinner party with a couple of my housemates.  I think this is the one tradition that I've done every year that I've been in Japan- it's my favorite holiday, so I like to share it.

We don't always have an easy time procuring all of the ingredients we need to make the "real" Thanksgiving dishes, but we do a pretty good job of improvising.  And this year there were new recipes!  My housemate Eli made his family recipe for cranberry-citrus compote (which we used as cranberry sauce and was also delightful when added to our pre-dinner gin and tonics) and also made poached pears in spiced red wine.

Pre-funking with Eli's "holiday" gin and tonics

Yummy poached pears

Full disclosure: we cheated with the gravy (it came from a packet), the chicken (cooked by Costco) and the dessert (also courtesy of Costco...), but everything else was prepared in our own kitchen.  By the time we were all ready to go, we had quite a spread!

Our Thanksgiving meal was complimented by sour cream and onion chips, courtesy of Jay...

 
This was, in fact, the most "American" Thanksgiving I've celebrated in Japan, meaning that I had a record three Americans in attendance, along with one of our Japanese roommates who happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. :)

My plate. Wasn't it beautiful?

The biggest short-coming of our authentic American meal was the lack of pumpkin pie.  In Japan, Costco usually carries it around this time of year, so I was feeling optimistic when I went to pick one up.  But when I finally made it to the bakery section...much to my surprise, no pie!

Hoping that I'd overlooked it, I asked one of the staff.  She took a few moments to think about it before finally suggesting that they might have had it, but had sold out.  By that time I had realized that she probably didn't know what pumpkin pie was, but she had to tell me something and "sold out" was the safest answer.

I begrudgingly settled on a cake that would have to serve as a shoddy substitute (pumpkin pie is irreplaceable...), but things turned out not to be quite as disappointing as I'd prepared myself for.  We repurposed some of the spiced wine from Eli's poached pears as a sauce, and drizzled it over the top of our slices of ricotta cheese and apple cake and it was delightful!  The spices from the wine made it taste very much like we thought a holiday cake should.  (Yay for cinnamon!)

In the end, I think we had a meal that pretty much any American expat would have been proud (read: jealous) of.  My guests have already tried reserving their places for next year. :)

I dilly-dally during lunch

The vegetable peeler has gone missing in our kitchen.

For the past couple of months I've done without, but had to resign myself to using one of the two chef's knives we've got.  (We don't have a paring knife either...ah! the joys of a communal kitchen.)

When it comes to replacing things or adding to our (disappointingly small) repertory, I have to pay for it myself and then I'm usually left with two options: 1) leave it in the kitchen for others to use, with fingers crossed that it gets washed every time and doesn't have the same fate as the peeler, or 2) keep it in my own cabinet or room, but who likes having to keep kitchen equipment in their Japanese-sized bedroom?

But I finally broke down and bought one yesterday because I anticipate needing one tomorrow night.  I walked over to Flying Tiger (America, you have no idea what you're missing...) to pick one up on my lunch break.  It was raining, and since that store is usually craaaazy busy, I was hoping that the weather would chase away a few customers and help me get through the line more quickly.

My pretty, new purple potato peeler (bonus points to myself for alliteration), however, is not really the topic of this post.  It's merely the premise.  The walk over is the best part.

The rain had blackened the bark on the zelkova trees lining Omotesando-dori, complementing the reds and oranges of their turning leaves.

The steeple of my church

A woman in one of my classes told me that she's got the same kind of tree near her house, but they never look as nice as these do in the fall.

A little something extra to appreciate on Thanksgiving.

(And I wish a happy Thanksgiving holiday to all my friends in America!)

3D-Art at Shibuya Hikarie

A couple of pieces of 3D floor-/street-art are on display in a highrise near the train station I use for work.  Stopped by to get a couple of pictures today.

I was surprised by how many people didn't even notice that it was there. The guy in the yellow jacket who looks like he's walking across the stone steps?  He didn't even realize he was doing that.

I wish I could tell you why they went with the sweets theme.  Reminded me a little bit of playing a game of Candy Land.  Also, a giant diamond ring, a bear with wings, and an upside-down wine glass?  Beats me...

You'd actually have to be a bit taller than I am to have the right viewing angle, but it's still a pretty good optical illusion.

And here's another detail of what the image looks like from a different direction.  You can see the "stand here" spot near the blue cone at the top left.  I feel like it must have taken equal parts creativity and technical skill to put this together...