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.

Half Time

So, pretty much half the year down, at least, academically speaking. From this point on it's all holiday for about two months, then back to the whole studenting business, though this time completely changed, as each semester has different courses and different mixes of people. Unfortunately that does involve losing people, and we've already lost a few good ones, but hopefully they'll be well replaced.

I guess maybe this is time for some sort of reflection and comment on the whole year abroad experience so far. Trouble is, it hasn't all been gladness and light, which is quite extraordinarily in contrast to some Japanophiles I've met that tried making Japan out to be some sort of terrestrial paradise. I've had a pretty good time so far - see all the past blogging for details of most of it - but there's annoyingly been times I've also been pretty unhappy here, for a number of reasons which I think are important to mention if not only to give dispute to the strange army of blind (anime)Japan-lovers.

Nagoya is a fairly rigid place, in a variety of ways. I once had the thought that it lacks inspiration - the buildings and the streets all look the same, much to my annoyance when I take the subway to a new stop only to pop my head up and find it looks identical to all the others. Every street has at least a four-lane road in the middle, giving the whole place a very wide and spaced feeling, like you're not really a part of any of it. There are a couple of interesting narrower places, but they're at least a half hour subway ride away, while the local neighborhood is a little monotonous with a lot of rich private residences and the usual enormous roads everywhere. The more I travel elsewhere the more I realise just how strangely barren Nagoya seems in terms of visible life, expression and involvement. In other cities people even talk to each other on the trains. Although Tokyo is a strangely terrible place, it's still alive in one form or other. I'd hazard that Nagoya is actually pretty dead.

Regardless of the current locale, Japan is actually a pretty amazing place to be in, and I haven't a single regret about being in the country. It's still just as wacky, interesting and beautiful a place as you can imagine. So, there must be something up with what I've been doing in it - which is correct. The year abroad in Japan is meant to be the real boost for the language, the pressure, inspiration and kick to get you from the classroom second year to the advanced level you apparently need to pass the fourth year. So needless to say, I was looking for some sort of challenge and looking forward to really getting stuck into things.

Unfortunately I underestimated the Japanese teaching system. Having read (coincidently) a lot about it even in my first few weeks at Sheffield, I knew that university level is typically a lot more relaxed. Everything educational up to that point is intense pressure to try and get students through the difficult university entrance exams to a prestigious university, to the extent that Japanese people are much more impressed by where you are studying rather than what. Also, being foreign also places you well within the "foreign student" bubble which unfortunately effectively isolates you from any real sort of academic challenge, since of course we're all here to have a good time, not really caring about the work. The plus side to this is plenty of time to do what you want, but this doesn't always work, since as I mention below, so long as you look as if you're working then you're considered working, no matter of the utility of what you're actually doing.

The other main downfall is textbooks - while the course in Sheffield is wonderfully flexible and can turn on a sixpence, having been hand-forged by the teachers themselves, Japanese courses tend to rely on a single textbook, and the lessons closely involve moving at whatever pace through it. This has been carried out to extremes - one whole chapter was dedicated to a relatively simple grammar point, which was covered ad nauseam for several lessons while other more challenging parts of the language were either ignored or skimmed over. For example, the textbook gave good examples of discussions or presentations about certain topics, which if we recreated would have been not half-bad practice of the language, but which were instead on the whole ignored in favour of some trifling structural point found midway through.

I understand that this is largely a problem of balancing - some classmates were of higher levels, and some were of lower, and some teaching points would be useful to different parts of the class. I would say it shows well the excellent standard of teaching we have in Sheffield that the vast majority of the "Upper Intensive Intermediate Course" had already been covered. But the fact there were several fluent students in the same class (Chinese and Korean, so a small head start perhaps) makes me wonder how they coped without going completely bonkers. The main disadvantage is not that the utility of the content varied wildly, more that the time spent on it (3 hours every morning, followed by copy-from-the-textbook homework, organising simple group presentations etc) meant that by the time you were finished with the necessary bits you had no real enthusiasm to try and work with something useful by yourself, eventually killing off most self-study I had told myself I would do, including the other half of this blog (in Japanese).

The other thing to try and drag the mood down is the complete change of lifestyle. In Sheffield I was an active member of multiple clubs and societies, always with something to do and with work and socialising on top came to a fairly decent way of going about things. In Japan, being refused entry into the two clubs I had been interested in joining kind of killed off hope for that aspect fairly quickly, giving a distinct lack of things to try and take my mind off the large amount of time I was spending on dubious language instruction and associated homework. Socialising of course carried on, though there's a limit to how happy you can be simply going out and drinking as opposed to the backstage, student journalism and Japan Soc treasuring I was busying myself with before.

Phew.

So, time for plan B. I'm off on a ten day holiday at the end of the week taking me all around Japan in quite a streched manner (Sapporo in the far north, then Tokyo centrally, then Hiroshima in the west) which will give another great break and fresh views into the country I'm staying in rather than the city/district/university bubble. When I get back, I have a couple of other excursions to plan, and a lot of free time entirely up to me to fill. So, some resolutions for next semester, and perhaps the holiday too:

1) Escape university. If the university can't offer me what I would like, then it's time to cut down to the bare necessities with that part of life and use the liberated time trying to make it by myself. That said, I'm still enthusiastic and optimistic about the different lessons and courses open to me next semester, so I will wait and see to what extent this becomes necessary.
2) Get a job. The exchange rate is terrible with the UK pound, around 130 when normally it's 200, meaning using money from UK bank accounts is almost a non-option. However, getting a medium to low paid job here means high earnings when I get back to the UK, and is also good experience and a way to accomplish number 1.
3) More self-study. Translation has always been a good hobby of mine, and I'm already racing through my second film. This is good language practice, and also a fair extra-curricular thing to be getting on with.
4) Write a Japanese sakubun at least once every two weeks. This is a biggie - with no writing or kanji learning encouraged at Nagoya, my whole writing skill has effectively gone down the drain. This is part of the self-learning effort I'm going to try and put in, the other being
5) Move to the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) Level 1 kanji. Level two isn't perfect for me just yet, but it's good enough that I need the next level to remind me I still know nothing about the things.
6) Take the JLPT Level 2 test this year in July. 2009 is the first year that they've started the level 1 and 2 tests twice a year rather than the previous once in December, and I think I can definitely get to that standard by that time. Maybe that will give me a year to improve by one level and take the next in July 2010, but that might be a bit too ambitious.
7) Try and join a theatre club. I've been pointed towards one, and will contact them and see where that goes. Having discovered that I can get to the main station by bike in under an hour (far far away on the other side of the city) transportation is no longer a real problem. Will be interesting how this one goes. Failing this I'll try again at the university clubs, since it's a new academic year for them and they might be more recipient to new people, though being foreign still counts horribly against you.

That's the plan. Now to see if I can keep to it.
Though for now, I'm off on holiday. At last.

A Korean Christmas

The Christmas holiday (or rather New Year's holiday due to general unobservance of Christmas as a day off and some schools still have classes) is usually fairly short, generally two weeks at the most, and is the first real opportunity for year abroad students to go travelling in a bigger way than the previous three-day weekends allowed. Some people went to one of the major cities for the large celebrations there; some people even went home to the UK, perhaps unable to bear the absence of gravy, proper bacon or cheese. I went to Korea.

In the UK at least, Christmas is very much a family time, where everybody gathers for lots of eating and reunion-ness, whereas New Year's is usually the time for friends, where you go out with a group of peers and go out drinking in a bar somewhere. In Japan the trend is ever so slightly reversed - New Year's, being the bigger of the two celebrations, is the family time, where everybody gathers at the family home then perhaps visits a temple for the New Year's celebrations there. Christmas is very much a couples' day - the more romantic parts of the Western tradition taken and turned into a sort of festive Valentines. Along these lines, I figured to turn up at my girlfriend's doorstep unannounced capable of cooking a British Christmas Dinner (or nearest equivalent, I can't really cook) could be a half-decent present. Lianne was only a short hop across the Sea of Japan teaching English in Korea, so the plan was set.

I armed myself with a few bits and bobs that would come in handy. First was Hangul, the Korean alphabet. I reasoned that it doesn't matter if I can't speak any of the language, just so long as I could read, write and recognise place names and addresses. Google Earth doesn't work in that region of Korea for whatever reason, and the only alternative was an all-Korean map website, so this was pretty much necessary anyway. Hangul isn't that complicated, and this didn't take much time. Alongside this was taking the necessary spy satellites and making some sort of map of the city so I knew where I'd have to go, and learning one or two things about how to gesture to whichever poor taxi driver picked me up.

Next was how to cook the dinner. Subtly spying over Lianne's shoulder on the webcam to find out what equipment was available - two gas hobs, but notably without any oven. Thankfully Grandma provided a very good steamable Christmas pudding recipe, which I made a kind of strange amalgamation of with the two other recipes/bits of guidance I'd found online, cooked, then tested on people living in the dormitory. Nobody died, and setting it on fire was great fun in any case, so I assumed it would be fit for the task, then cooked another. The rest was simply vegetables - mashed potato instead of roast, boiled/fried vegetables are doable, and homemade chipolatas aren't so complicated either. Gravy and stuffing was kindly sent over for me from home, along with brilliant decorations and a CD of carols. All set.

Getting there wasn't much of a problem - I knew Nagoya Airport, and when I had arrived at Pusan's and dodged past the swarm of taxi drivers asking me where I was going I found the bus stop right outside, and was instantly glad I'd learnt Hangul, so I could quickly see the bus to Lianne's town was not too far away. Not that I really had to worry much - I got into a conversation on the bus with a half-Korean half-Japanese girl coming home for the holiday, which was joined by a Korean student coming home from Tokyo, giving me enough information about things I was curious about. On the other end, I caught a taxi with the girl, who kindly made sure we found the right address before letting me out onto the street again.

The rest, as they say, is history.

About the whole experiencing the different country of Korea bit - this was perhaps entirely opposite to the experience than those people who have been to Seoul only, since Seoul is entirely touristy and shiney, whereas the city I went to was a practically foreignerless industrial mess of broken roads, grey faceless buildings and tired, empty identical restaurants. Pollution everywhere, undrinkable tap water, and everybody's usual stares taking on a much more miserable, detestful look, as if asking why is a free-to-travel foreigner even here in the first place. Due to the exchange rates, everything was very cheap, and you sometimes got the feeling that that would be a suitable answer to the stares, if you didn't really care about where in the world you were. It seems to draw in the smoker crowds - not much tax to speak of, very cheap living costs and no laws against smoking in public places meant that almost every other foreigner I met was smoking like a cigarette factory on fire. Hm.

It wasn't all bad. The city had "The World's Largest Park", which was oddly just a fence and gate on the edge of the city leading out to the countryside. Shopping and taxis were incredibly cheap, so getting around was never a problem. We found bottles of Port being sold for the equivalent of 50p which tasted like undiluted Vimto. I managed to eat dog, which tasted like thin beef by itself, and with the soup tasted like everything else I ate at Korean restaurants - of vegetables and kimchi. I lost my hat (again). New Year's was marvellous with the enormous fireworks very close to the appartment window. And it was just the break I needed from Nagoya, and a great time spent with my girlfriend.

Tut tut

UPDATED 7/1/09
This entry has been commandeered to help me get this thing back on track. The oldness can remain down there as some sort of memento as I get round to things.
Overdue:
- Room and Nagoya update to 2008
- Christmas and New Years adventures in Korea

These will be written! Eventually...

EDIT: All now done. Phew.

PS. I don't know how many of you have worked this out yet, but if you hold your mouse cursor over the images on my blog for a short while, either a description or some short, potentially entertaining humour ensues. Have a go...


Oh dear, it's all going the shape of the pear. No entry in almost a whole month, small and limited contact with the outside world, and general disappearance into another continent.

This is just a very quick note to say that I'm still alive, well and generally bumbling around Japan. And no, I haven't forgotten the blog and yes, I have been writing bits of it. Kind of. It's more like I go and do something worth writing about, and I never seem to finish writing about it and posting it up here. This behaviour will hopefully change next week as work curtails, people go home for the holidays and I find myself with more time to kill.

Travelling: Ise

A much shorter travelling this time, as it was a purely day trip affair. Also much fewer pictures this time, as I'd forgotten my camera, and Lena only uses good old fashioned film. Apologies about that, time to dust off that old imagination thing again.

This time around I went to Ise, a small city in the prefecture slightly southwest of Nagoya, famous for its mightily impressive wooden structures, preserved old-town, forests and the Ise Naiku, or the Inner Temple, dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu, thus making it one of the holiest spots for the Shinto religion.

Further on the Naiku: Amaterasu also happens to be the mother of the the Imperial line, and as such the Naiku houses one of the Imperial Regalia handed to the emperors by the gods - a Sacred Mirror (Yata Mirror), in which you are meant to be able to see the image of Amaterasu. It's not, and probably will never, be on display though - only emperors and certain priests are allowed to see it. The closest we even got was the outer wall of the area that contained the building, replete with another wall. It didn't seem the most secure of places to keep such an important object to the Imperial institution, but then again we could only just see the actual building itself, which for all we know could have been made of reinforced titanium.

Anyways, Ise is very reachable from Nagoya by a shortish hour-and-a-bit train journey, and then a quick bus journey from immediately outside the station. This lands you in front of the forest in which the Naiku resides, alongside the enormous wooden tori (those immediately recognisable gate like features you find all over East Asia) and the huge, ancient-seeming wooden bridge. Having said that, ever-faithful Wikipedia assures me that the entire complex is rebuilt every 20 years, Shrine, bridge, tori and all. Ah well. Still feels good to be walking over an almost purely wooden bridge in such beautiful woody surroundings.

Once over the bridge, it was a nice walk through the forest, taking in the fantastic amount of greenery (such a long time in a major city has that kind of starving effect), the peacefulness of it (no huge pushing crowds like at Tokyo/Kyoto this time) and just the general relaxed ambiance. The shrine itself was well enclosed, and visitors weren't even allowed photos, but it's certainly worth a visit if just for the area itself.

Having done the Naiku, we walked through the old-town area, full of curio shops with very low roof beams. Feeling happy at the traditional-seeming district, I managed to get a small bit of tourist shopping done, including some region-famous (meibutsu in Japanese) plum wine to send back to Blighty.

From the small town, the famous Wedded Rocks were only a short bus journey away, and while being accosted by a strange, very enthusiastic old man (he told us where the bus stop was, then even sprinted after us later to make sure we got the right one - said he was a bus driver on a day off) we made it to the stretch of coast where they could be found (right next to some enormous aquarium/prison for seals, in case anyone else gets a bit lost).

Now, just a short aside. I was fully expecting the sight from all the many pictures of Japanese touristyness - of two enormous rocks far out at sea, with a colossal rope stretched between them, a marvel of Ancient Japan and a stunning work of art. Got it? Ok. We rounded the corner of the cliff to this magnificent sight.

My word, look! There they are! But wait, is that sand?

Yep, they were a pesky few metres away from the beach, let alone a small number of metres tall. They'd even included a miniature tori to really throw people off the true scale. Here are a few more pictures just to show you what we're talking about.

Feeling cheated, we then walked further along the coast, before realising that actually it was quite dark now and we probably should head for a train station of some sort. The best strategy we reached was to simply head inland through whatever housing estates till we found a station or some tracks, which surprisingly worked, leading us exactly to a deserted station with a train back to Nagoya due within a quarter hour. Perfect.

Just a last note - Nagoya station does some great light displays over the Christmas period, and I really should have got a video, but this dodgy picture will have to do. All the lights were on/off, but there were such an incredible amount that the whole display was fully animated.