Tokyo, Japan

We loved Tokyo.  It’s enormous, modern, clean and interesting.  It’s actually several cities fused into one giant metropolis, home to 36 million people within its 35,000 square kilometres of urban conurbation.

We arrived Sunday on a bullet train from Hiroshima and checked into the Gracery in the heart of Ginza, one of Tokyo’s quieter and more sedate districts.  Nearby Chuo Dori was wall to wall designer stores with more Tiffanies and Hermes than you could poke a credit card at.  Not that we did – window shopping was strictly the order of the day here with women’s dresses on sale for a heart-stopping $5,000 each, and more.       

The excellent Tokyo subway with a dozen or so intersecting lines is the best means of getting around (under) the city quickly and inexpensively.  We spent a week crisscrossing the city to enjoy a few of Tokyo’s sights and experiences. 

The controversial Yasakuni war shrine was more interesting than we expected.  A memorial to the country’s 2.5 million war dead, including, unfortunately, several nasty war criminals, the shrine grounds also contain a war museum that gives a surprising perspective on Japan’s military battles of the 20th century.  It was fascinating but shocking to see the degree to which the museum downplays and misrepresents Japan’s actions in China and South-East Asia before and during World War II. 

More uplifting was the Tokyo National Museum, housing the largest collection of Japanese art in the world, including paintings, potteries, ceramics and textiles.  From there we moved on to the Ota Museum at Harajuku to see its stunning collection of exquisite ukiyo-e (wood-block prints), including works by masters of the art such as Hiroshige.  Considering how these are made, the fine detail in the images was amazing.  

Not far from our hotel, on the edge of Tokyo Bay, is the famous Tsukiji Fish Market, the world’s largest.  The wholesale tuna auction begins each morning at an ungodly hour, so we were happy to stroll around the giant complex, dodging the swarms of whizzing forklifts, at around 9 by which time the last of the day’s tuna was being cut up or loaded whole in ice boxes onto trucks.  But there’s much more here than just tuna.  If it lives in the sea, it’s here for sale.

Shibuya Crossing, a wide-open five road intersection surrounded by blazing high-rise neon similar to New York’s Times Square, is one of Tokyo’s more popular and stunning night views.  So we made time to be here after dusk and join the surge of humanity crossing the road when the lights turned green.  Shibuya was the setting for the excellent movie Lost in Translation.

And we saw a lot more besides.  What a great city.   

Mt Fuji, Japan

A good place in Autumn to view Mt Fuji is the colourful, mountainous Hakone area 80 km west of Tokyo.  We took a bullet train out of Tokyo to Odawara, then a mountain train up into the foothills.  There we changed again to a smaller train that slowly zigzagged its way up the mountainside, eventually reaching Gora where we made another transfer; to a funicular that climbed even more steeply to Soun-zan.  Yet another change of vehicle was required at this point; the Hakone ropeway (gondola) across a steep valley and on up to Owakudani where we disembarked, intending to stop for an hour before taking another gondola ride, followed by a boat ride on Togendai Lake and then a bus trip back to Odawara.

The day started well; the Tokyo morning sky was sunny with plenty of blue when we streaked out of town on the shinkansen. But as we ascended the mountain, the weather deteriorated rapidly and shortly after reaching Owakudani a storm swept in, blanketing the view in all directions with thick cloud, and dumping sleet and snow to the accompaniment of loud thunder claps.  Needless to say there was no sight of Mt Fuji.  Owakudani is a geothermal area with steam and sulphurous gases seeping from the ground and the occasional boiling water pool.  A signboard warns visitors not to tarry near the poisonous gas oozing pools, and another notes that this area “was once covered with tall trees, but now you can find only the species which have been able to survive such things as Volcanic eruption.”  Indeed.

Then lightning struck the gondola line.                 

Unfortunately this disabled the system making forward, or backward, travel impossible.  The only way off the mountain was a long winding bus ride but with so many marooned visitors and so few buses, a long wait in a cold, snowy queue was a prerequisite to even getting on a bus.  We eventually made our way to lower altitudes where another two trips on the slow mountain train were needed before we finally arrived back at the shinkansen station in Odawara; cold, damp and frustrated at not getting even a glimpse of Mt Fuji.    

We sank back into the comfortable chairs of the bullet train and a minute later we were launched into our return streak to Tokyo.  As we sped away from Odawara I glanced out the window and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Rising majestically from the plain was the unmistakable profile of . . . . snow-covered Mt Fuji.

YES, MOUNT F. . . . . .  FUJI !!!     

Nobel Peace Summit, Hiroshima, Japan

Few physical traces remain of the August 1945 destruction of Hiroshima by atomic bombing.  Apart from the bombed-out dome of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, deliberately left as a memorial, the city is totally rebuilt and looks as pleasant and prosperous as any other in Japan.  No doubt the mental scars are a different matter.

We arrived in Hiroshima on Friday after our first shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) trip, from Kyoto.  It was a pleasant two hour ride; smooth and fast in a clean, comfortable carriage.  Ours was a “silence” car, meaning that passengers were not supposed to speak, and certainly not use mobile phones, so as to provide a restful journey for all on board.  The train staff were immaculately attired in snappy uniforms and bowed respectfully to all passengers.  There wasn’t a speck of litter or scuff mark in the train or on the platforms, and signage inside was clear, and duplicated in Braille (not that we needed the latter although at times it was a case of the blind leading the blind).  We disembarked mightily impressed by the bullet train system, and the demonstration that public transport can be a refined, quality experience without trash, grime, graffiti or delay.

In Hiroshima we discovered that coincidentally the city was this weekend hosting the annual Nobel Peace Laureate Summit, the first time this annual Summit was being held outside Europe.  So we decided to reschedule our time in Hiroshima and stay for the closing ceremony on Sunday.  In the meantime we visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Peace Park just across the road from our hotel.  The museum provides a comprehensive, fairly balanced, and of course inevitably gut-wrenching account of the events leading up to, and the aftermath of the bombing on the morning of 6 August 1945.  We strolled around the Park to look at the various other memorials and gave the Peace Bell a good gong as we walked past.

We returned to the Park on Sunday morning for the Peace Summit closing ceremony, hoping to see and hear from some of the Laureates expected to attend, like Lech Walesa, FW De Klerk, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama.  It proved to be a “star-studded” cast and we heard from FW De Klerk and the Dalai, amongst others.  The speeches were a mix of idealism, inspiration and a call to action.  It’s a great pity that those who most need to heed what was said are those least likely to.

While in Hiroshima we also took a ferry to the nearby island of Miyajima, a popular destination with Japanese travellers.  It was a pleasant enough place with plenty of Autumn colour about, and wild deer from the nearby forests mingling with the large crowd, seeking, and snatching, morsels to eat. 

Kyoto, Japan

Kyoto was Japan’s capital for several hundred years, and while no longer so, it remains the country’s (and one of the world’s) most culturally rich cities, home to 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites and more than 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines.

After meeting up in Osaka with our friend Susan who had arrived from Hong Kong, we took a train to Kyoto where we spent the next three days crisscrossing the city to see as much as possible in the available time.  Kyoto is a modern, pleasant city but unlike some other repositories of historical and cultural treasures, its jewels are spread wide throughout the city and surrounds, not concentrated in the central core.  As a result it takes some effort to see a range of what Kyoto offers, but it’s worth every minute for Kyoto surely deserves its reputation as Japan’s top tourist destination, receiving a staggering 50 million visitors a year!

We crammed a lot into the three days, including:

* Nijo-jo, the castle built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the shogun Ieyasu;

* Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto’s famed “Golden Pavilion” built in 1397 as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and later converted by his son into a temple;

* An all-day walking tour through the Southern Higashiyama district that took us not only to some great sights, but also to the limits of our endurance.  We began after breakfast and it was dusk when we walked wearily from the giant orange gate of the Heian-Jingu shrine to look for a subway station to return to our hotel in north-west Kyoto.

* A picnic lunch followed by a long walk in Arashiyama at the base of Kyoto’s western mountains.  The highlights of this day were the beautiful temple of Tenryu-ji surrounded by its 14th century Zen garden, the nearby Arashiyama bamboo groves, and the stunning garden at Okochi Sanso, the former home of a famous Japanese actor of the silent movie era.  We all agreed that this was the most exquisite garden we’d seen in the whole of Kyoto, and quite possibly anywhere;

* The Geisha district of Gion, and restaurant strip of Pontocho where each small eatery has its own unique, minimalist but beautiful, Japanese-style entrance.

Most of these places are located in, or surrounded by, magnificent gardens now at their Autumn best.  And Kyoto is a shopper’s paradise too with all the brand-name boutiques as well as the large Department stores like Isetan, Daimaru and Takashimaya.  The basements of the latter three are packed with fresh, prepared food ready for eating, ideal for travellers on the move.  We made several excellent meals from the goodies we collected here on our way “home” after a busy day’s templing (is there such a word? – there is now!).

You could easily spend several weeks in Kyoto exploring its world-class sights, but visitor fatigue would set in long before the list were exhausted.  Much better to live here and slowly work your way through the offerings over months or years.

“It’s Saturday again – what World Heritage site should we visit this weekend?” might be a frequently asked question in Kyoto households.  What a great city.

View Full Album

Osaka, Japan

We steamed out of Busan (and Korea) on Thursday afternoon on the Panstar Dream, bound for Osaka, Japan.  The overnight crossing of the Korea Strait was smooth enough, and we berthed in Osaka Harbour at 10.30 am on Friday morning after steaming for several hours along the Japanese coast and passing under some long bridges, including the Akashi-Kaikyo suspension bridge near Kobe.

We had only two days available for Osaka which we spent wandering around the shopping and entertainment districts of Shinsaibashi, Dotombori and Namba.  The area is packed with shopping malls that stretch forever, and traditional small Japanese eateries, each with their own unique identity.  A novel sight for us was the numerous pachinko parlours; crowded and extremely noisy gaming arcades containing hundreds of machines that appeared to be a cross between a slot poker machine and video game.  It looked and sounded like pokies on LSD.  The combination of gambling, the incredible din and the flashing lights must be mesmerizing, and addictive.  At opening time early in the morning we saw long queues of people waiting to get in.  We couldn’t believe the noise level inside and we wondered how the patrons, many of them older people, could tolerate such a din for more than a minute or two.  But many seemed to be in there for hours.  Pachinko parlours must create a lot of work for Japanese audiologists and ENT doctors (and no doubt gambling therapists too).

On Sunday we took a subway to Yodoyabashi to see the fabulous Museum of Oriental Ceramics near the Osaka Central Public Hall, the latter a handsome building being sketched by numerous artists seated in the park across the road.  The oriental ceramics museum houses a large collection of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Persian ceramic objects varying in age between 300 and 2,000 years.  There were some fantastic pieces, including two small objects officially declared as National Treasures of Japan.  Unfortunately, by the time I came to these, I had seen a No photography sign and felt compelled to put the camera away.  So all I have to show you is an 11th century Song Dynasty celadon ewer.

Busan (Pusan), South Korea

Holy mackerel!  We’ve seen some big seafood markets before but never anything on the scale of the Jagalchi fish market in the harbour city of Busan on South Korea’s south-east coast.  Line after line of live, fresh, frozen and dried seafood of every description stretch to the limits of visibility down the gleaming market, and outside in the streets and alleyways the piscatorial extravaganza continues in every direction.  How can the people of Busan eat all this seafood? 

Mid afternoon yesterday we took a subway to Shinsegae Centum City, Busan’s (and the world’s) biggest shopping complex with nearly six million square feet of floor space.  Every brand name boutique is here, along with floor after floor of quality merchandise and entertainment options: cinemas, ice skating rink, spas, a golf driving range, gym, art gallery and restaurants.  We spent some time in the dazzling Food Hall bulging (the Hall, not us) with specialty products from the four corners of the globe (if a globe can have four corners).  There’s certainly an air of affluence in Busan and South Korea generally.

By sunset we were standing on the sand at Gwangan Beach, one of Busan’s pleasant seaside suburbs, and we watched the coloured lights on the bridge flicker into life as we ate our Australian beef burgers, a welcome change from kimchi.  From there it was a dozen or so stops on the subway back to our hotel in downtown Busan.  We’ve never seen cleaner subways – we couldn’t spot a speck of litter or scuff mark on the floors.

Down on the waterfront today a woman was hot smoking mackerel on a grill over smouldering charcoal.  We ordered two plump fish that melted in our mouths while we watched some older guys with extremely long, tapered, fishing rods flick their baits into the water off the pier just out from our table.  Behind them, Busan carried on with its eclectic business.

Hahoe Village, Andong, South Korea

We took a bus from Seoul to Busan on Korea’s south-east coast, breaking the journey for one night at Andong.  The main visitor attraction here is the historical village of Hahoe an hour to the west.  Originally established in the 15th century, it still has many remarkably preserved and renovated buildings dating from the Joseon Dynasty period.  We passed by the 600 year old zelkova tree and wandered along the paths winding between the residences, admiring the different perspectives, the structures complemented perfectly by the late autumn austerity of the persimmon, quince and pear.

Seoul, South Korea

Seoul was a pleasant surprise – we didn’t expect such a green, clean, stylish even, pedestrian-friendly city.  Sure, it’s a giant, modern metropolis of over 10 million people with high rise for kilometres in every direction, but it manages to make space, and pleasant space at that, for people making their way around the city on foot.    

We visited two of Seoul’s old palaces, watching the changing of the guard at one of them, before strolling for an hour in beautiful Secret Garden behind Changdeokgung Palace, now in its full autumn glory.  From there we took a subway and bus to Seoul Tower to see millions of twinkling electric lights slowly take over from the sun the task of illuminating the city.  

Seoulites have discovered coffee and pastries in a big way – we’ve never seen so many nice coffee shops in a city, and it surely must have more patisseries than Paris.  We stayed at a guesthouse in the Hongik University District and ate at Korean cafes in the surrounding streets.  But it wasn’t all beef and kimchi -  we patronized a nearby bakery more times than we should have, leaving each night with assorted pastries (for tomorrow’s breakfast we told ourselves with little conviction).  Hongik has become trendy, particularly with young people, and on weekends it throngs with visitors and reverberates to the sounds of excellent street bands and performers, several of whom we saw oozing X-Factor for the enthusiastic crowds watching.  Everyone seemed to be having a great time – Seoulites have obviously reached their own personal accommodations with the craziness and dangers from across the border 60 km to the north, and that was great to see too.   

Demilitarized Zone, North/South Korea

We flew from Beijing to Seoul, South Korea, from where I travelled north to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to brief the Generals.  The DMZ is only 60 km north of Seoul and the highway is lined all the way with multiple coils of razor wire and crossed at several points with mined tank traps that can be detonated at very short notice to block the road to impede an attack from the north.  There are also regularly spaced military lookouts and several lines of control on the way; the first is the civilian line of control that marks the end point for free travel by the South Korean general public.  Further north the 4 km wide DMZ begins, down the centre of which runs the military demarcation line (MDL) approximately following the 38th parallel and effectively the current border between North and South Korea.

After passing through several security checkpoints manned by South Korean soldiers, we reached Camp Bonifas in the UN Joint Security Area to hear a rapid-fire briefing on the history of the DMZ from a US soldier, before proceeding to the United Nations Military Armistice Commission conference building within the DMZ for a sticky beak around.  This room is used for meetings of representatives of North and South Korea, and/or the UN.  It was a strange and slightly eerie place.  The MDL runs through the middle of the meeting room, bisecting the large polished wooden conference table.  Outside, ever since the notorious 1976 axe murder incident, each side must stay on its respective side of the MDL, marked by a concrete strip on the ground.  But inside, while the room was “ours”, we were free to move around as we pleased, crossing at will between South Korean and North Korean territory.  This was achieved simply by walking around to the other side of the conference table – in this way I made three or four short visits into North Korea.  Armed South Korean soldiers manned the doors to prevent anyone defecting to the North (nobody seemed to be contemplating this – most of the group I was with were US ex-army guys) and to prevent anyone entering from the North’s side.  We were under strict instructions not to stand too close to the South Korean soldiers in the room who, we were twice warned, were martial arts experts under orders to lash out without warning at anyone approaching too closely.  But we were allowed to photograph them.

Outside the room, blue-uniformed South Korean soldiers and brown-uniformed North Korean soldiers stared impassively at each other from their respective sides of the MDL, only a few metres apart.  We were permitted to photograph the North side but again were under strict instructions not to stare, gesture, speak or interact in any way with the North Korean soldiers.  And of course, definitely not to step across the MDL.  A Soviet defector from the North side did just that some time ago and the North Korean soldiers opened fire on him.  Several soldiers from both sides were killed in the ensuing fire fight but the defector miraculously survived and eventually found refuge in a third country.

We then moved on to inspect the actual site of the axe murder incident and the Bridge of No Return.  The latter was used following the 1953 ceasefire agreement for repatriating prisoners of both sides.  Each prisoner was given the choice of crossing the bridge to return to his homeland or to remain where he was.  Once made, the decision was irreversible – if he crossed the bridge he could never return.

Our final stop for the day was at Imjingak near the civilian line of control just south of the DMZ.  Here, elderly citizens of both the North and South, separated for decades from their relatives on the other side, only recently began to have short reunification meetings with each other.  A fence at the nearby Bridge of Freedom is covered with ribbons and messages expressing the pain, hopes and solidarity of people from around the world at the tragedy of separation endured by the people of Korea for the past 60 years, and still with no resolution in sight.      

A slightly bizarre day’s experience for a visitor - a lifetime of heartbreak for many Koreans.  With that thought in mind I made my own irreversible decision, heading back south to be reunited with my own Dear Leader who had preferred to spend the day shopping in downtown Seoul.