京都 - Kyoto

Wow. Where do I begin? Since I last posted, my Mum has come and gone, I have ridden the Shinkansen ('Bullet Train') across Japan and I have seen Kyoto, Hiroshima and Miyajima. Well, let's do things in chronological order, shall we?

So, my Mum came to visit me in Nagasaki. I went to meet her at Nagasaki airport (the runway of which stretches out into Ōmura Bay) on Sunday 3rd February. We then spent the next six days in Nagasaki shopping, eating, sightseeing and socialising with some of my friends here. Her and May got on really well and everyone I introduced her to loved her. I took her to the hospital to meet some of the people I work with and about 75% tried to speak in English for her sake, even though only about 25% actually speak in English. There was a bit of laughing about the lack of a common language but that made everyone smile that little bit more to compensate.

It was nice showing my Mother my home turf here in Japan, but we had previously decided that we would travel a bit together too. On Sunday 10th February we woke up bright and early, said sayonara ('goodbye') to May and headed for Nagasaki Station. We got on a train to Fukuoka/Hakata (which took 2 hours) and there hopped onto an Hikari Shinkansen bound for Tokyo. We got off at Shin-Ōsaka Station and changed for a Shinkansen going through Kyoto. In a total of five hours travelling time we had travelled 854km, and the first 174 took two hours on the regular train. It was very impressive but a little weird travelling on the Shinkansen. If you imagine a film clip taken from a moving train and then imagine speeding it up and watching it in fast-forward, that was what it was like. Anyway, here's the Shinkansen we caught Hakata to Ōsaka:
After navigating Kyoto Station (which is the train station equivalent of a mystical labyrinth by the way) I managed to book us two nights in a traditional Japanese Ryokan (Inn).

It was a lovely little hotel. It was quite expensive but there was no arguing that we were travelling the Japanese way now. Plus, a large and delicious breakfast was thrown in. Can't argue with that. Aaaand do you see that table in the second photo... well, it has a heater built into it. You slide your legs under and it keeps your feet toasty while you enjoy a cup of ocha (tea) and an okashi (cake). Bliss.

The following day I headed out to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine in the South-east outskirts of Kyoto. Although many of you might not recognise the name, some of you might recognise the place:


The shrine is dedicated to the Gods of rice and sake (Japanese rice wine) and is the main Inari shrine out of the 30,000 dotted across Japan. Needless to say, it is very popular with tourists and when I arrived there at around 10:30am it was packed. Even so, the beauty of this famous shrine was undeniable. The torii-lined pathway extends 4km up the mountain, Inari-yama. I didn't walk the entire 4km. As much as I was enjoying the stroll under the torii, the prospect of an 8km trek in the middle of February didn't appeal. Besides, I would be leaving Kyoto the next day and I still had some more sightseeing to do.

Next I went to Gion, the traditional entertainment district of Kyoto. It was here that I stood my best chance of seeing a real-life Geisha, as they still wander the streets here on their way to and from appointments. In a stroke of pure luck, I stumbled upon a Geisha posing for some photographers after being in Gion for only five minutes. Jackpot:
I stopped on the walk back to the Ryokan at the Kamo river. It was turning into a beautiful evening and what with the distant mountains and the river birds and the buildings of Kyoto on all sides of me, I decided to sit on the bank for a while and read some of my book.

After another night in the Ryokan, Mum and I went back to Kyoto Station. There we said goodbye. She got on a Shinkansen for Tokyo and I got on a local train to Shin-Ōsaka, and from there took a Shinkansen to Hiroshima. Mum is flying back to England from Tokyo Narita Airport today. I have been in Hiroshima for the past three days so I don't know what she got up to in Tokyo, but if her time in Nagasaki is anything to go by, it probably involved a lot of shopping :-)

Stay tuned for the next instalment, where Lily Goes To Hiroshima.

No Beanstalk Though

Ha! I successfully made my own red bean sweet paste this morning, without a recipe I might add. Now I can conquer the world!

Here in Japan, everything has this sweet bean paste in it. You bite into a cake or pastry and expect it to be filled with jam or cream or something, but nine times out of ten it is filled with this paste. At first that bothered me but now I love it. I have no idea what it is called but it sure is yummy. I think I'm going to take some of the dry beans back to England with me so I can make some for my family.

Woo. Feeling productive.

Hamanosan, my supervisor on Friday afternoons, just handed me and May tickets to see Madame Butterfly tomorrow night. Awesome. I am going to the opera tomorrow, woo! And where better to see Madame Butterfly than in Nagasaki?

We love Hamanosan. She`s become like a mother to us. If we ever have a problem she will be the first person we go to.

おみやげ - Omiyage

There is a tradition in Japan that if you go away on a trip somewhere, you are expected to bring back gifts for all of your family, friends and co-workers. This had led to the development of many regional omiyage (souvenirs) which usually come in the form of food. I think this is because food items can be bought cheaply and in bulk. I saw, for instance, many of the Japanese passengers on the flight from Heathrow to Tokyo carrying boxes and boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, presumably for this purpose.

In some of the departments that May and I work in during the course of a week we are given a tea break, and along with ocha we are also offered various omiyage that people have brought back from their domestic travels. We've tried omiyage from Nagoya, Tokyo and a bunch of other places that I now forget. Nagasaki's omiyage is the castella cake, which was originally brought over by the Dutch. It is basically a plain sponge cake, something not all that impressive to a European but to a Japanese person it is quite unusual. When I went to Glover Garden a few weeks ago and they had scores of castella shops lining the sloped streets. Fortunately for May and me, they had plenty of samples on offer of all the different flavours, including chocolate, banana, green tea and cheese. Yum.

Here's the cake that May and I bought from the Fukusaya Castella shop, which is famous in Japan for having the best castella's money can buy. It has been going for nearly 400 years, so I guess they have had plenty of practice. It just happens to be in Hamanomachi, the main shopping district here in Nagasaki. We couldn't resist trying one.

This is a fairly common type of omiyage, a manju. They are cakey on the outside and have a chestnut or sweet soy bean paste or something similar inside. Nagoya is meant to have the best manju, but this I bought from the hospital shop for ¥55.

グラバー - Glover Garden

A few weeks ago May and I ventured down to the southern end of Nagasaki to visit the Glover Garden, named after Thomas Glover (1838-1911), who is famed for building the first train line in Japan and establishing the first modern shipyard. The former homes of some of the other pioneering European residents of Nagasaki have also been reassembled in this hillside garden. Well, that's enough of re-wording my travel guide. It was essentially a pretty garden, interspersed with a collection of European-style houses – not very interesting to a European – some ponds filled with carp, and a great view of the harbour. It was nice and all – pleasant, perhaps is a better word – but not all that interesting to me from a historical perspective, which I think was it's aim.

Oh yeah, Madame Butterfly was there too, see:

There was also a room dedicated to her in one of the houses, which had on display her kimono, elaborate hair pieces, fan and bamboo umbrella. Very pretty. I thought it was a nice touch that they had a recording of Madame Butterfly playing in the background.

Check out these guys:

Now what I want to know is did the sculptor see the turtles sitting like this before he made his turtle statue, or did the turtles see the statue in their pond and say to each other, “hey, you know what would be funny...”

You exit the garden via a museum displaying floats from the Kunchi Matsuri, which are even more magnificent close up. After that you have to go down a little sloped street lined with omiyage (souvenir) shops to get to the main road again. Among the castella's (I'll talk more about those later) and your average Japanese souvenirs (fans, chopsticks, pottery) there was also... Scottish shortbread. And to think, I was going to bring that from England as a gift for my Japanese friends here.

*

May spotted some kind of fair from the viewing platform at the top of the garden and it still being early in the day, we decided to go down and take a look after we had finished with Glover. (We were hoping there might be some interesting food opportunities). You'll never guess what it turned out to be... a motorbike rally.

There's a lesson to be learned here: You never know what you might stumble upon while you are out and about in Japan.