Cecily's February Winter Wonderland

 
When you put on wellingtons in order to reach the mail box nice and dry and you still get snow in your boots, then you know it's a lot of snow... 

 

Snow vs. Wellingtons

It started snowing before I went to Bergen for a couple of days, and it started snowing in Bergen before I returned home as well. Along the railway to Bergen there was one beautiful snowscape after another, and although it is quite a challenge to take nice pictures from a moving train with a lot of trees close along the railway, I got quite a collection of nice pictures. 

  

Prepared for travel

 

View: Snowscape 1

View: Snowscape 2

 

In Bergen I was lucky enough to only get snow during my last day, the first days being nice and dry. I enjoy seeing the gradual tranformation of 'Bustling Bubbling City' into 'Busy Snow-Clean City', but I don't like the opposite transformation of 'clean snow city' into 'grey sludge city', and I'm glad I left before the reversed transformation kicked in. (I had a blast in Bergen, loved being back, and for social reasons not that happy to leave so soon...)

I like snow, I really do, but it can be... inconvenient... at times...

Here at home again I find myself partially snowed in; there's a lot of snow making it difficult (though not impossible) to get out of the house, the household's car is out of town with my mother this weekend, and since it is weekend public transport is only accessible enough to make people exercice extreme patience in extremely boring places or cause immense frustration, or both, due to the extreme lack of correspondance between the different bus lines etc (it's so bad it feels like it has to be planned by somebody). Just as well I don't have any reason to leave the house until tomorrow.

"Snowed in"

 

For the record, it's four steps in the stairs to our front door, and the footprints/tracks to the mail box was largely snowed away 10 minutes after I took the picture.

Catching up on writing!

Way to long too long without writing; it’s getting hard to catch up. I decided to leave the last parts, of the stories from Hagi and Yamaguchi with Obaasan, just as the keywords I wrote down. Writing all that would take too much time when I have newer memories to write down while they are, at least seemingly, fresh.

Since I wrote last I’ve had a daytrip from Yamaguchi to Akiyashi-dai, left Yamaguchi, visited Tsuwano, spent a night in Masuda, travelled to Ooda and seen the sights of Iwami-Ginza and Nima before picking up my luggage back in Ooda and then continued on to Matsue; from where I had a daytrip to Izumo-taishi today. There are plenty of reasons for not having time or energy to write, but they can be summed up to “I’ve been busy”.

2008-02-15: Akiyoshi-do
Getting to Akiyoshi-dai from Yamaguchi was no problem, there’s a direct bus from Yamaguchi station to Akiyoshi-do – the great limestone cave at the plateau Akiyoshi-dai. (To avoid confusion: I visited the cave Akiyoshi-do, which is at the Akiyashi-dai plateau.) Going up the hills and into the mountains seemed like a bad idea considering the cold and my not-so-warm clothes, but I’d made up my mind, and had nothing better to do.

The bus-ride up to Akiyoshi-dai showed me a hilly Japanese countryside with scattered hamlets here and there in the valleys. As the bus-ride took us higher up there were snow-clad villages and rice-terraces, but up on the plateau by Akiyoshi-do the snow was gone, and it was slightly warmer than down in Yamaguchi.

Akiyoshi-do is obviously a season attraction. The cave is open year-round, but the town around it had gone into hibernation, and was little more than a ghost-town. There were some souvenir shops and restaurants open; but only some of the small places along the road leading to the cave.

There’s not really any point in describing the cave itself, it’s a cave with interesting colours and stone formations, but describing it won’t count for much unless you can see it, so I’ll post some pictures from the cave at some later point. I had a blast walking through the cave and play with camera angles and light challenges. Being in a cave it was (of course) dimly lit, so I had quite a challenge figuring out how to take the best possible pictures. I also made a game out of trying to see figures in the stone formations, and then photograph them. The question I whether I will be able to recognise the same shapes and figures when I see just the picture of them…

2008-02-16 Tsuwano
Scribbles in Traveller's Notebook, and pictures online.

2008-02-17 Oda, Iwami-Ginzan (Omori), Nima, Arriving in Matsue
(Scribbles in the Traveller's Notebook too -I might post some excerpts later, I might forget it

completely.)

I was on my way from Masuda to Matsue, but stopped underway in Oda, Iwami-Ginzan and Nima to see the sights while I was in the area. Oda was nothing to me but a helpful tourist information clerk, a useful coin locker, and a bus stop.

Bus ride to Iwami-Ginzan; me worrying about having taken the wrong bus and what to do if I did etc, and calming myself down; nothing special.

I couldn’t go to the Iwami-Ginzan silver mine itself, so I wandered around Oomori and saw the sights there. There was no snow there when I came, but 15 min after I came snow fell heavily.

(Scribbles in the Traveller’s Notebook from the café).

After enjoying the café I had to hurry through the rest of my itinerary to be sure to reach my bus in time, but in the cold I was glad to keep moving. I had a wonderful time even though I was “surprised” by the snow; it was a beautiful sight, and it reminded me of winters back home (well, the good ones at least). I put ten-ten on the “surprised” because I didn’t see it coming, but it was cold and snowy further south as well, so I was dressed to stand the cold.

From Iwami-Ginzan (Omori) I took the bus to Nima where I wanted to see the sand museum. That’s right people; it is a museum for sand. I reached the museum just in time for the last admission, and walked around the exhibitions twice before closing time 30 min later. Not the biggest museum I’ve seen. Perhaps not so surprising that they had a lot of hour-glasses, and sand-art “paintings”, but there were some other paintings as well, some photographs from famous places in the prefecture, a video room and 2 educational rooms for the geology of Japan for those that are good enough in Japanese to understand it all. I wasn’t interested in the last parts. One of the interesting things they do have is the world’s largest hour-glass, which is turned at midnight every New Year’s Eve, and has enough grains of sand to last until the exact same time the next year.

Outside the museum, waiting for trains, and finally, finally arriving in Matsue – picked up by the ryokan-family, and treated to an obento while chattering with the family for a while before retreating to my room. (Freezing night, I tried sleeping without the heater (bad idea!); had to turn it on at 4:30 because my legs were cramped.)

2008-02-18 Izumo-taisha
I’ve walked at least 4km today, just in Izuma-taisha. More later. Oyasumi.

Yamaguchi - Obaasan and Me

A wonderful eventful day in Yamaguchi

Wow, I’m so tired I don’t know where to start writing. Well, top of the document, obviously, but… this has been my most eventful day so far, it even tops yesterday.

I planned to take the main sights of Yamaguchi by foot (or bus if necessary), so the first stop was the tourist office at Yamaguchi Station. I wasn’t able to figure out the bus routes from the nearby bust stop so I decided to walk from the hostel. It took me about 50 minutes. I was glad the weather was nice, though it was a bit on the cold side. (I’ve been told by several people that his is the coldest week, or the coldest part of winter. Not too happy about travelling towards the colder areas at this time… Think I’ll have to buy a new sweater at this pace.)

At the tourist office I had a nice conversation with the lady at the information desk and I got a big collection of tourist brochures and helpful info, and, to my surprise, a souvenir from the people at the office! They gave me a small Hagiyaki ceramic cup, a special Japanese ceramic style that Hagi is famous for. I don’t know exactly why they decided to give it to me, but I guess I was different from the usual tourists, and spoke a higher level of Japanese (or any Japanese at all) than they expected me to. I must have given a positive impression at least. :)

After sorting through all the brochures I decided to go to the nearest tourist attraction and start there, walking from one tourist attraction to the next until I’d have enough. I never got that far; as I walked up the Ekidori (Yamaguchi main street from the station) I accidentally fell into pace with an elderly lady walking beside her bicycle. She asked me (in Japanese, of course) if I was sightseeing, and when I replied yes (going to sightsee anyway) we soon had a (halting) conversation.

After a couple of blocks the Obaasan (nickname for elderly women, meaning “Grandma”) asked if I wanted to join her for a cup of coffee at a nearby café. Seeing this unique opportunity to practice Japanese, and socializing with the locals at the same time, I was glad to accept; and ended up being treated to coffee and a piece of cake. Our conversation somehow absorbed the lady at the table next to us for a while, and a little later Obaasan’s friend came along too, an elderly lady named Nakamura-san. The original Lady-at-the-next-table changed to a younger woman, but she too was included momentarily before we left. “We” were: me, Obaasan and Nakamura-san.

They joined me for sightseeing, and then it gradually became them showing me the sights and paying all my entrance fees etc. I tried to protest, but Obaasan just smiled and pushed my hand away. When the ladies became tired Nakamura-san’s car magically appeared from somewhere and they drove me around to 2-3 other sights, treated me to Akizaki (or Akisaki) – a traditional Japanese winter drink; a hot, white, thick, sweet drink, complete with a dash of alcohol. And afterwards they insisted upon driving me back to the hostel.

Wow, and I haven’t even started on the sights! It was so amazing to experience the local attractions in the company of these local old women. Obaasan had adopted me quite quick, although I didn’t realise it until a long while afterwards. She kept saying I was like “mago”, but I didn’t know it meant “grandchild” until I looked it up. By that time Obaasan had used it several times. The ladies including the first “table-next-to-ours-lady” and the lady serving the Akasaki, kept saying I was beautiful. I do believe most of it is because I’m tall (compared to Japanese), blond (all the black-haired Asians want lighter hair), fair-skinned (which is the ideal) and blue-eyed (unusual & exotic). I think I halfway embarrassed the Akasaki-lady by saying “thank you”, she obviously didn’t expect me to understand a word. And then suddenly we had another conversation going (or perhaps the same one, just once more…).

Outside the Akasaki-shop (or shed with benches) we passed a small group of teenagers, and when one of the boys tripped while staring at me Obaasan snickered and said “He’s staring because you’re beautiful!” I had to contradict her; I think he stared because I’m a foreigner. It isn’t unusual that people stare at me, ant not that weird either, given that I’m tall and blond and wearing my strikingly bright red jacket –which is very at odds with the Japanese fashion.

I still haven’t described the sights, but if I don’t ever get to it I hope the pictures will say it all.

Now it’s time for bed, I’ve got a long day tomorrow as well, going to Akiyoshi, sightseeing and returning to Yamaguchi. Hope I’ll be able to realise this plan though. I have to get better at following my plans thorough to the end. Or in many cases; at least start them!

Oyasumi. Obaasan, arigatou!
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*omiyage postkort, Nakamura-san’s bil med barnesikring, vandring etter retur til hostellet.
Xavier Memorial Church, 5-etasjes Pagoda, Gammel restaurant nå museum (se etter utklipp blant brosjyrene),

The rail from Shimonoseki, with Kate in Hagi, and arrival Yamaguchi.

First when I checked out from my hotel this morning I looked out the window. Snow, not falling, but thrown violently around in the wind. I appreciated the short walk to the station, but not having to wait for my train in the cold. There were people shoving snow off the platforms as I got up there. (yes up! For those that haven’t seen a Japanese railway station I can tell you that most of them have ticket offices and ticket machines and timetables etc. on ground floor, and then the platforms and the rails themselves one floor up, or more, from there.)

I had decided to take the longer train ride to Hagi in favour of the view, rather than taking the (possibly) fastest route inland. After a while I managed to get a seat in the right direction to fully enjoy the view that was not completely obscured by heavy snow or sleet clouds and the amounts of such stuff in free falling towards the ground. It was cloudy ad snowy most of the way along the coast, with the occasional surprise of sun and blue sky shining through the clouds for a short while.

It was a very nice ride along a very, very, local line. When there was people on the train I was people-watching. I was able to observe the locals commuting; mostly high school kids half sleeping on the train on their way to school, and less sleepy-looking middle aged men going to work. The flow of people came and went like tidal waves, leaving the two carriages almost deserted in between the busier stations. I was the only one travelling as far as Hagi, but I was never completely alone in the train. ((picture!))

When there weren’t any people on board I observed (what was visible of) the view. I saw the smallest train station I’ve ever seen; it had a short stretch of cement platform, a unisex toilet with 3 walls and no door, and a 3-walled waiting hall big enough only to squeeze in 3 people, with one of them standing in the doorway –which made out the 4th wall. There were miniature shrines accessible from no visible path, roadside Kannon (statue / goddess of mercy) and a surprising number of cemeteries in remote and inaccessible places. (In many cases I can see why they chose the place, but not how they use it; how do they get the heavy gravestones up there?)

I enjoyed most of the journey, with the exception of the 1hr 42 min waiting time at Nagatoshi station, where I had to change trains. The first thing I did was digging out a warmer sweater from my backpack, put on my beanie (hat/cap/lue/whatever) and gloves. This waiting hall had more than 3 walls, but one of them was still open directly to the platform area. At 11:11 I was glad to finally settle down in the warm and cosy 1-car train to Hagi.

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Hagi with Kate
Waiting, Kate’s apartment, food, wandering around Hagi, Hina doll exhibition, Hagiyaki (also mentioned in the Yamaguchi text), Hagi-latte w/mikan, purikura, bus terminal and bus ride to Yamaguchi.

Kate @ the 1# place to B!

Arrival Yamaguchi
Taxi-Youth hostel

Arriving in Shimonoseki

Backpaking day 4 – Arriving in Shimonoseki
+ Reflections on addiction to Internet (in Norwegian)

Travel day today, got up reasonably early, checked out from the Fukuryu Business Ryokan and took the 100yen-bus loop to Hakata station. I bought my ticket, and then ate my onigiri breakfast at the platform waiting for my train. My train was a ‘futsu’ train (local train) headed to Kokura where I had to change train to get to Shimonoseki. At Shimonoseki station I stopped to get the local tourist guide, and then I walked the 50 metres to my hotel, left my luggage and headed for the closest Internet Café while waiting for check in. After checking in at the hotel I decided to take a bath to wash of the travel dust – or train sweat* as I hereby rename it in the spirit of the modern age. (These words sound better in Norwegian; “reisestøv” & “togsvette”…)

Clean and clothed, planned what to do while in Shimonoseki, and where to go the next couple of days. I e-mailed with Kate and established that I’ll come and visit her in Hagi on Wednesday, and from there I’m taking the bus to Yamaguchi where I’d like to stay a couple of days –if there’s any available accommodation. From Yamaguchi I’d like to go back up to the north-western coast to the area around Oda (pronounced O-da / Åda) and then east to Matsue and Tottori before heading south to Okoyama. Hopefully I’ll be able to do this, and hopefully I’ll be able to do this at a more leisurely pace than I’ve had up to now.

Anyway, so far I have no idea if anything after Hagi will become more than thought, but I managed to decide how to spend my day in Shimonoseki. Tomorrow morning I’m getting up early and taking the first bus to Karato to see, explore and experience the famous (big, anyway) morning fish market, and then I’ll spend the day in Karato and Chofu to see all the touristy stuff.

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Edit: plans in Shimonoseki did not go as planned. Today (Tuesday) I didn’t manage to get up as planned due to exhaustion. The time is now 14:20, and I’ve yet to get out of the room. I needed a day to just let my body catch up, especially since I’ve planned a long day tomorrow. I’m a bit sad that I’ve been unable to do any of the Shimonoseki touristy stuff, but it might be a nice weekend trip saved for later, now that I know how to get here etc. My revised plans for today; buy train ticket for tomorrow, get food (also for tomorrow’s breakfast), and go to the post office to send the 2nd Traveller’s Notebook I’ve been carrying since Fukuoka. And after that, perhaps more food, and then I’ll return to the hotel to sleep.

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Åh, avhengigheten av internett! Det merkes ekstra godt når en reiser utenfor en daglig tilgangs avstand. Det hjelper til en viss grad å ha med seg pc’n, selv om den ikke har internettilgang, så kan man ”blogge” i Word, mens man av en eller annen merkelig grunn lengter etter å taste kombinasjonene Ctrl+C og Ctrl+V til et nytt vindu. Og mens man først er i gang kan man jo laste opp noen bilder til bloggen – og så husker en at man er visst ikke online likevel… PC uten nettilgang er i bunn og grunn er det bare selvbedrag (men som til en viss grad tilfredsstiller skrivekløen). Man er like avhengig, man bare utsetter neste dose litt lenger, mens man venter på neste internettkafe.

Det er ikke lett å bære tanken på en viktig e-post i innboksen – som man ikke får sjekket før man kommer til neste by – hvis man i det hele tatt finner et sted med tilgjengelig internettilgang der. Det er heller ikke lett å vite at folk faktisk er aktive på Facebook igjen, og ikke bare spammer hverandre med diverse applikasjoner. Jeg blir sittende igjen med ett ubesvart spørsmål. Hva tenker man mest på? E-posten, bloggen, eller kommentarene på Facebook?

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Backpacking, Day 1 – Kumamoto

After a week of unstable sleeping patterns, getting up at 7 wasn’t easy. I still managed to get up after 4 hrs of sleep (unstable sleeping patterns etc.), eat breakfast, and clean up the last remaining mess in my room, “checked out” from APH and asked them to fix my broken light while I was away. I was 10 min early for the bus and just in time for the train to Oita, and having planned enough time to be certain to reach the bus to Kumamoto I had to wait 45 min for it. Weather was nice so I sat waiting outdoors – became a bit cold after 40 min… The bus to Kumamoto took about 4 hrs so I caught up on some sleep, waking up at random moment during the bus ride trying to figure out what place we were at or had just passed. Got shocked when I woke up and there was snow outside the bus, but then I remembered that we were crossing a mountain…

In Kumamoto I walked around, trying to orient myself and get a feel of the place, and finally decided to go to a youth hostel some way outside the city centre. Finding the right tram stop was easy, but finding the hostel from there would have been a major pain if I hadn’t looked foreign and confused. Me being tall (in Japan at least), blond and fair-skinned, dressed in a bright red all-weather-jacket, carrying a big backpack and a copy of Lonely Planet Japan; makes me easily recognised as a tourist. A lady came up to me and said “yuusu hosuteru?” and kindly pointed me in a direction I’d never choose on my own. When I finally reached the hostel I came from the back side of it, passing it without realising until a purple haired lady came after med and asked “yuusu hosuteru?” She turned out to be the owner of the youth hostel, and seeing the obvious confused tourist from the window she came out to fetch me.

The hostel is nice, tatami rooms 2nd floor, and a recreation room right inside the entrance, next to the front desk. It’s nothing special, but there is a dining table and a small TV, and a water heater with tea and coffee. Had I planned to stay here longer I would have used it, but I was so tired today that I slept for two hours after checking in, and only went out to get dinner. Found a small local place just 2 blocks from the hostel and had Unagi Donburi – Eel and rice.

I’m staying here for a night, doing the touristy things tomorrow before moving on to Fukuoka. I was thinking of spending two nights here, but I understood that the youth hostel couldn’t house me tomorrow, so I decided to move on tomorrow after seeing the sights. Hopefully I can stay in Fukuoka for a couple of days or more.

Today’s received comments:
Youth Hostel Lady:
1) “You look very much like a tourist” (Freely translated from the memory of a half-understood sentence)
2) “You are good at speaking Japanese; I was surprised that you understood so much!” (But they don’t expect much of us westerners though..)
At the Unagi restaurant:
“You are very good at using chop sticks.” (But again, they don’t expect much of Westerners…)

Now it’s time for bed. Perhaps I’ll be able to turn my sleeping pattern around to normal. Oyasumi.