Travelling: Sapporo, Tokyo and Hiroshima

EDIT: Photo captions now working, sorry bout that

Sapporo and the Snow Festival

One short plane hop from Nagoya airport found us from a mild grey kind of daytime to a dark, cold and misty train heading to the main city of Hokkaido (the northernmost isle of Japan), Sapporo. Emerging from the enormous train station, it was already snowing with huge piles of snow everywhere. Two things soon became apparent - that they do not believe in salting the roads or pavements, meaning people were falling and slipping all over the place, and also that the small hole in my shoe was fantastically conductive to snow, a problem I should have really anticipated. Ah well.

The reason for heading up to the north in this kind of season was for Sapporo's famous Snow Festival, this year being the 60th. As far as I knew it just involved ice sculptures, and was fairly popular, so I figured it would be a good thing to see in my time in Japan. I wasn't wrong.

Even just looking for the hotel so we could dump the luggage, we passed by the main street and were already awed by the falling snow, icy streets and large numbers of ice sculptures we passed. Once we were rid of the bags, we went out again and scouted around. There was one huge main street, with around 12 sections, starting with 1 underneath the TV tower (very similar to Nagoya's) each with a different theme or dominating sculpture. Between the main street and the hotel there was another festival street which was entirely closed off with long rows of ice sculptures in the road. There was also another site a small train journey away which we didn't manage to go to, but apparently it was more of the same. After a brief scouting around we decided to head back to the hotel and make out early again the next day.

The hotel itself deserves mention. It was a capsule hotel, which means very cheap lodging in relative comfort, only this one was attached to an onsen (hot springs) and spa. So, for the price of around 4000 yen a night you could arrive, change to the loose sack-cloth kind of clothes, then have a sauna, cold bath, jacuzzi, scented bath (lemongrass and pineapple?), steam sauna and the best being the open air outdoor onsen, sitting outside in a steaming bath with snow falling on your head. Very cultural, and a great way of finishing the day.

The next day was again full of snow, sculptures and this time trying to get pictures of it all. In fairness there wasn't much else to do - just taking in the artwork and engineering spectacle of the sculptures. Some of them doubled up as stages with various artists performing at various times during the day, the most impressive being a programmable keyboard in a bubble which was electronically transformed into a whole orchestra.

These pictures aren't really enough to give a full picture of what was available, but they're the best that my camera managed when faced with mostly a wall of different shades of white.

Sapporo is also famous for its ramen, and even has a whole alleyway devoted to restaurants for the things. T'was very tasty, and very befitting.

The other thing to point out is when it gets dark, the whole place is retransformed into an entirely different experience, and it's well worth going around the whole site again just to see it all illuminated, especially since there were better performers on the stages at those times. There was even a television crew at one, and a Japanese guy behind me was watching their broadcast on his mobile phone. It's good to know that sometimes when they save "Live" they actually mean it.

For the third day we decided to head to Otaru, a small town only an hour or so train journey from Sapporo, which we'd heard also celebrated the Snow Festival. When we got there, it was the beginnings of a real blizzard and the snow here was even higher than the snow in Sapporo. This meant that by now the small hole in the shoe had already soaked the shoe entirely, and now was just making it colder. So, I came up with the only obvious solution. If there's no way of waterproofing the shoe, water proof the sock. Although, walking around with obvious plastic bags on your feet is a little bit off, so I ended up with Wet Shoe -> Wet Sock -> Plastic Bag -> Dry Sock -> Happy Foot. Relief at last.

The blizzard was already pretty bad when we left the cafe where I'd borrowed the radiator for some footwear reconstruction. When it got even worse we adopted a stategy of choosing a shop further up the road then hiding in that for a while, then carrying on. There weren't any snow sculptures around in particular, just a ridiculous amount of snow everywhere. It was at this point I realised I'd had my fill of snow for quite a while.

Another honorable mention is the Otaru Steam Clock, a clock that, instead of bells, has steam whistles which play the changing of the hours. I said honorable - on this day it was so full of fallen snow it really tried its best but just ended up as an impressive series of fffing rather than tooting. Bless.

In the same way as Sapporo, though a lot more blizzardy, Otaru was also an entirely different place after nightfall. This time the theme seemed to be candles, and plenty of them. Otaru was also much quiter than Sapporo, and I think I liked it more. It seemed much more hidden, a bit magical almost, with intense weather but still light and warmth coming from the same.

The next day we had some time to spare in Sapporo before heading off for Tokyo, so we went ice skating underneath the TV tower, and had a final look around.

Tokyo

Being my second visit to Tokyo and being much more wise as to what to expect I was fairly certain of what I fancied going to see, namely a couple of places I'd missed the first time. The hotel wouldn't accept us since I'd must have missed the fact it was men only (despite calling them earlier and asking), so we were considering what could be done. Tokyo is a great place for staying the night at - companies have realised that since pretty much all the trains stop at around 1am, there will be a vast number of drunk salarymen who didn't make it or forgot to get back to the station and therefore home. However, starting up hotels would incur all sorts of strange costs and health and safety measures, which most shops in Tokyo just don't have space for. So, the most common places to spend the night are DVD parlours or Internet Cafes, since you get a big ish room with a very comfortable adjustable seat, all you can drink tea and coffee, and you can rent blankets, cushions, and even a towel for the shower in the back. But it's not a hotel. Just so that's clear - the all night price has nothing to do with people sleeping over. Ahem.

So this being the tactic, we'd found a suitable place and were just dumping stuff in the station lockers in Shinjuku when I bump into Lisa. We then spend the evening making valentines chocolates and general catching up before then running for the last train, and Lisa's floor.

The next day was some more general wondering around Tokyo, before having a much bigger meet up with the Sheffield peeps for a very good Izakaya deal and bowling, before another run for the last train, this time without the luggage since it was in the most remote part of the station, me having forgotten that Shinjuku is effectively three or four different stations simply dumped on top of one another.

The next day was very grey, and going to visit very grey parts of the city didn't really help I suppose. This time though I wanted to see the Imperial palace, which was in the distance over some trees next to a park of very dead grass and boring trees, and I wanted to see the Diet, which was surrounded by a multitude of government offices, and was entirely deserted. I didn't know whether that was because they were all busy inside or all on holiday, but I didn't much care either way. I did get another taste of Japanese politics; I guess you can't get that close to the (seemingly empty) government building without someone trying to protest against it. This time was 4-5 black vans bearing flags and incredibly noisy loudspeakers playing some sort of nationalistic music, presumably to get people to vote.

I then went looking for Yasukuni Shrine - the one that's causing all the international headaches because it has war criminals enshrined there. Personally I don't see the problem - any country has so-called "heroes" who committed atrocities in the name of king/emperor/country, and it's up to each country to choose which ones they want to respect and which they would prefer to forget.

From Tokyo, we were taking a nightbus to Hiroshima. I figured this couldn't be so bad - I'd never had any problems sleeping on moving things before, and a dark bus mostly full of the easiest sleepers in the world (Japanese) would be fine. What I wasn't prepared for was the bus stopping every couple of hours, the driver throwing the lights on and announcing to everybody it was time for another toilet break. Grr.

Hiroshima

Arrived very early in the morning, but it soon warmed up and we got our bearings. Hiroshima has its old tram network still up and running rather than an underground, meaning for once you actually get to see the city you're meant to be travelling around. The hostel we were staying at was fantastic - we arrived to drop bags, but they offered us the room immediately, which was ideal, Japanese-styled and had extra futon blankets etc in the cupboard for making it even more comfortable. They even allowed bike rental for even easier cruising around the city, and Hiroshima is much much flatter than Nagoya, making getting round a lot more enjoyable. We decided the first day would just be cruising around and getting bearings, to get a feel for the city. Picture taking for later.

Next day was again spent around the city, visiting my now favourite garden in Japan, taking a quick look at the castle, doing some shopping, and enjoying being there. Hiroshima is a lot more relaxed than any other place I've been so far here, and it was just nice to be in compared to Nagoya. People were living here, you could see signs of life, whether that was people talking in public (even on the trams!), people skateboarding next to the rivers, or just the couple playing frisbee in the peace park. It's also a good size for a city - not huge or crowded with enormous roads like Nagoya, but perfectly doable entirely by bike. We also had luck with the weather, almost always gloriously sunny. Hiroshima is at this point my favourite city in Japan, and actually makes living in Nagoya much more bearable.

Of course, Hiroshima was the site of the first atomic bombing in history, a fact which is now enshrined in the ruins of the Commerce Building (covered in scaffolding while we were there, time doing what the bomb failed to) , the Peace Park and museum. You might be wandering about the cranes - the origami cranes have become a symbol of Hiroshima, ever since one small girl dying of radiation sickness after the bombing decided to fold 1,000 of them in the hope of being granted a wish. One thing I was happy to see was that the people of Hiroshima treat it as any other park, and it is being used perfectly normally, somehow I think keeping to the real intention of preserving it as such in the first place.

Anyway, the next day was a small trip over to the nearby island of Miyajima, home to one of the famous symbols of Japan, the enormous wooden tori (gate) out at sea. The day was glorious, and the island even more so, it was practically a different country again. It was a strange mix of everything - firstly it was Valentine's Day, secondly it was the island's 25th annual festival, gorgeous weather, inquisitive deer hoping to eat your bag, the place had it all. It was even more relaxed than the mainland, if that was even possible.

Unfortunately my camera died at that point, both in terms of memory and battery, else I'd have taken a few more pictures of everything. There are some photos on the internal memory, and as soon as I get a chance to work out how to drag them out of there I'll put them up. Done!

Anyway, from the lovely old-towny feel town at the base of the hills, we figured we should get to the top of the local mountain, Mt Misen, accessible by cable car. At the top we found excellent views that I'd expect in a travel brochure somewhere, more deer and unexpectedly a whole pile of monkeys. They were quite happy to gawp at the tourists just as much as vice-versa, inbetween either grooming or hitching rides on the deer. Further up the mountain there was the Shrine of the Eternal Flame, in which was a smoldering log or two, apparently home to a flame that has been burning for over a thousand years and that had lit the fire of Hiroshima's peace garden and all the subsequent fires. I figured they should throw some more wood on pretty soonish. At the very top was a viewing platform which gave more pretty breathtaking views.

On the way down the mountain (having missed the last cablecar, it's possible to walk down in around an hour) if we ever stopped, deer would come out of the trees and sniff you for food, before walking off in a sulk. Aww.

Back at the small town, the sea was out, and I was able to recussitate the camera for one last picture of the tori before walking through it myself. People had tried their best to leave coins embedded into the sealife living on the legs, and either taller or good climbers had scaled it and left small rocks on the horizontal struts.

Back at Hiroshima for one last night in the hostel, then a final day enjoying more sun (and a very strange modern art gallery) and a good final wander around the city before another nightbus back to Nagoya.

Ahh, that felt good. Holidays are certainly the way to go.