Sayonara Japan!

It seems like a long time ago that we stepped off the plane here, but the last few weeks have gone pretty fast and now it`s time to pack the backpacks and dust off the passports in preparation for China. While here weve made the most of the local nightlife, made heaps of friends and visited a fair number of cultural sights in the local area. We`ve used and abused NOVA Corporation for jobs, but for a company that made a net loss last year of 30 billion yen, they probably have bigger problems to worry about than us passing through!

Since the last blog we`ve done some more travel and sightseeing....

Mie/Iga

The other weekend our good friend Danny invited us to stay at his school in Iga, Mie prefecture. Danny lives at the school seeing as its about 2 hours outa town in the middle of no-where. We had to catch about 3 different trains to get out there but it was well worth the trip. Once out of the city the train went through some awesome countryside, hills and forest until we got to Iga. Iga is a really small, quiet town surrounded by rice paddies, everything is an awesome shade of green, you can even smell the difference from the city, the air was so much cleaner. Danny took us back to the school, the guest room where we stayed was the nicest accommodation we`ve had here yet, the highlights being real beds (not futons), room to swing a cat or three and one of those japanese toilets with more functions than a swiss army knife! A word of warning if you ever use one of these things, before you press the button that shoots the high powered jet of water at your backside, make sure you know which button turns it off! Wayhaaaay!

So after our experiments with Japan`s hi-tech plumbing equipment Danny took us for a walk around the area. We visited a neat little shrine next to the school before wandering down the road through the rice paddy fields. Danny took us into the forest to see an abandoned hotel that is rumoured to be haunted. It felt like I was in that movie `Stand by me`,　three friends wandering off into the forest to see a dead body and poke it with a stick or something! The hotel was cool, it was nestled in the forest over a creek, we had to go past the `WARNING DANGER` sign and cross a half rotten bridge to get to it, good adventuring! It was like the owners just upped and left around 20 years ago. There is still furniture, whiteware and the like but all the floorboards were starting to rot and the forest was beginning to grow through. Rumour has it that someone committed suicide there and there`s a ghost about, didnt see him though. The strangest thing was some brochures we found from when the hotel was operating. It was weird to stand in a rotten, run-down room looking at a picture of the same place in brand new condition. Judging from the clothes of the people in the brochure the place must have been pretty popular in the 80`s.




After our sojourn to the haunted hotel we went back to the school and were joined by Rebecca (Dannys girlfriend). We cooked a meal for about 15 people in the school cafeteria, ate it all, got drunk and played cards for the rest of the night. The next day we got a train even further into the country to visit the ninja museum. The ninja originated in the Iga area so they have this really cool museum with all the gizmos and gadgets. They had some cool stuff like fake walls that were actually revolving doors and swords hidden in the floor boards. This one unassuming looking girl who was doing the demonstrations could whack a floor board in the secret spot with her foot and have a sword in her hand in literally the blink of the eye! After the museum displays of swords, throwing stars etc... we saw a live show with these guys demonstrating all the weapons with some pretty impressive skills. They even fought each other with real swords and kusarigama (axe with a long chain mace on the end), felt bad for one guy who was always the `loser` although he made a good job of dying dramatically each time! We capped the weekend off with a visit to yet another beer garden in Osaka. Big ups Danny and Rebecca for an awesome weekend!

Kyoto and Hasedera

A couple of weeks back, we realised that we really hadn't crossed enough off our to-do list so we planned a big weekend of sightseeing. We decided to head out to the popular tourist destination of Kyoto on Saturday, with fellow Nova faithful, Melinda (she's an Aussie but we forgive her for that). Kyoto was once the capital of Japan and is renowned for its many temples and shrines. We began our tour in the Gion area of Kyoto, which is home to several quite similar temples, all easily within walking distance. These were probably some of the less impressive temples Kyoto has to offer but they were still well worth a look and there was a wedding in full swing at one, which was cool to see.

With that as our introduction to the city, we decided it was time to go and see the big daddies. So we jumped on a subway and headed for Kyoto's (and possibly Japan's) best known temple, Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). Set amongst a series of gardens and built out over a lake, it is quite a sight to behold, as the throngs of tourists from all over the country (and the world of course) will no doubt attest to. The masses of people are to be expected but of course detract from the experience somewhat. They also make it a pain in the arse to get a good photo. Luckily, I had the Kev Annoying People Mover (KAPM, patent pending) as part of my photographic equipment arsenal. Whenever a group of people was in my way, I simply had to deploy the KAPM and within seconds I had a clear shot. We're not sure if it was his impressive BO on this particular day (it was rather hot and humid and a hangover was in full effect) or just the fact that he was a big, white gaijin but all he had to do was walk towards a group of people and they would magically disperse. Brilliant.

Our final stop for the day were the Kyoto Botanical Gardens. These were a nice mixture of vastly different garden styles, with everything from traditional Japanese gardens to massive groves of blossom trees (unfortunately we were a few weeks late for the blossoms to be out) to rose gardens. It was a nice way to end the day, especially since the subway station was right next to the gardens and we'd had enough of walking by this stage.

Day two of our sightseeing extravaganza began with several long train journeys to get us to Sakurai City, in the back blocks of the Nara prefecture. A decent crew of us Kiwis (the usual suspects, plus Tao and Michelle) jumped off the train with Miwako (Jamie’s friend) as our guide. Straight away this was clearly at the other end of the scale to yesterday's destination. There was hardly anyone around and the town, which was nestled in a lush, green valley, was quite small.

After a short walk through the town we made it to the Hasedera Temple. The beginnings of this structure date back to 686AD, with parts being modified and added to over the years. It made for a nice change after the previous day's hustle and bustle. The actual temple was not as impressive as the best that Kyoto had to offer but the views from the temple and the tranquility of the place were amazing.

After visiting the temple, we jumped back on the train and headed to Miwako's apartment in Osaka. For dinner, she taught us how to make takoyaki (fried dough balls with octopus in the middle). Not all the team were too keen on octopus though, so to mix it up we also made them with a whole bunch of different fillings and proceeded to stuff our faces and wash it all down with a few Japanese brews. A fantastic end to a fantastic weekend.

The China Challenge

One last bit of info for you... we will not be shaving for the duration of our stay in China! I don't mean we'll be growing some well-trimmed, nicely maintained beards either. I mean the shavers will stay in their cases until we get to Europe. Niiiiiiice.

The Marcus and Kev Travel Awards - Japan

Best Beer Category - 1. Yebisu, 2. Asahi Super Dry, 3. Kirin Hoposhu (cos it`s cheap!)



Best Food Catgory - 1. Okonomiyaki, 2. Fresh Sushi, 3. Ramen



Most Impressive Category - 1. Himeji Castle and Gardens, 2. Hasedera Temple, Iga Ninja Museum



Most Fun Category - 1. Beer Gardens, 2. Weekend at Danny`s, 3. KRAC and Sports



Worst Experience Category - 1. Working/Coming out of retirement, 2. McGregor Dead Legs, 3. Playing Rugby/Touch/AFL on sand/concerete (but good times).



Best Value Category - 1. Spirits (1 x bottle of Canadian Club = $NZ 10), 2. Rent (3 people living in a 1 bedroom apartment), 3. The 100 yen shop.



Best Local Innovation Category - 1. Indentation below the tab on drink cans, 2. The rail ticketing system (email Marcus for a more detailed accolade), 3. Taxis (GPS Navigation and automatic doors).





The Stats



Days:58

Money Spent: Dont want to know.... lots

Money Earnt: Hopefully enough to cover the above

Beer Consumed: See `Money Spent`

Nights we got home after the sun was up: 12

Midweek benders: 9

Hours worked: 332 (Combined)

Verbal Warnings about length of hair: 3

Hours spent on trains: 62

Kilograms of rice consumed: 22.15kg