Weekend for Walking!

Alright, so before I get into this walking blog post, I just want to make a quick mention of last weekend.  Last Sunday, ヨシダヒロキ had another live here in Takamatsu.  This time, it was at a different location than he usually sings at, but it was actually a really pretty place.  It was in this little cafe that's a 3-story shop...the main floor being a flower shop, the second kind of a continuation of flower/gift shop and the top floor being the cafe, where he sang.  That night, I went together a friend, and there were 3 other musicians that were singing as well -- one I'd actually heard at another live here in Takamatsu, and the others were new to me.  Most of them were good.  About three-quarters of the way through, one of the musicians passed out mandarin oranges to everyone (because it had started at 5:30, and at 8:00, no one had eaten yet, so...) After everyone had finished singing, we all had the opportunity to sit down and join the musicians for a kind of group dinner.  It was fun!  Although also kind of amusing, because everyone automatically assumed that my friend, being the Japanese person, had brought me along, when in fact it was her first time hearing any of them sing.  When they found out it was the other way around, there was definite surprise there.

The musicians (and cafe owner) from this live

Right, so onto this past weekend!  Walking.  Yep, lots of walking. Lots and lots and lots of walking.  Probably close to 52km, if not even a little bit more.  Go ahead.  Call me insane.  I don't mind.  It was fun, not to mention I got to see some really pretty places.

This Saturday, I really wanted to go hiking (and maybe see some fall colors), and so, Friday night I was looking into a mountain that I'd heard about from a friend, but as I was looking into, I remembered about another place I'd heard/read about before.  The Iya Valley.  So, I changed my research and looked into that location instead, and ultimately decided that that was where I would try to head out to.

So, first thing in the morning, I headed out to the station to catch the train to Oboke.  Actually before my trip even started I had an interesting experience.  I had gone to the washroom and was washing my hands, and the lady at the sink next to me suddenly belted out, "Good morning!" in English, and then followed it up with a giant smile, and an exclamation of "Shake hands!!"  And so, a wet hand shaking ensued.  Ah, the things that happen.  Anyway, this particular time, I did something I don't usually do -- I took a limited express because I wanted to maximize the time I had out there. (Limited express trains are a little bit more expensive because they have an extra fee attached, but they will get you where you're going a little bit faster).  Anyway, this train took about 80 minutes to get from Takamatsu to Oboke.  The train ride there was quite pretty -- it starts out going through some smaller towns and you see some of the farming that is typical of this area, but then, it gets out of the farming area into the mountains, and the views are spectacular!  You can see drop down gorges, with really nice rock structures and amazingly clear water.  Unfortunately for me, it was really green (still pretty though, of course).  I'm not sure if that's because I missed the colorfulness because of all the rain we've been having recently or if they just haven't changed yet.

Anyway, once I got to the train station where I was getting off, the first thing I did was step into the tiny little tourist information office that is basically the train station office, to pick up a map.  I was then promptly informed by the older woman who was in charge, that there was a bus that would take me out to the places that were worth seeing.  To which I told her, I wanted to walk.  Enter the shocked expression, and the protests that it would take me at least 2 hours one-way.  To that, I told her it was fine, I wanted to walk.  And then came the "are you crazy?" facial expression.  She also gave me the up-and-down look, and followed that with a statement about how 'slim' I was.  So, what exactly are you trying to say? Skinny people can't walk?  Only fat people can?  Or really muscled people?  What's wrong with slim people?  She also point-blank asked me, in an almost accusatory tone, "Your Japanese is so good. Why? Why?"  So sorry about that.  Did you want to practice your English?  I was really amused with her.

Once I finally procured my map, which she kindly highlighted the main routes on, I set off on my way.  For this particular walk, I walked the majority of the way along a road that headed out to the main sites.  Less than 15 minutes into my walk, a car or two had already stopped to ask me if I was headed off to one of the main locations (which I was), and offered to give me a lift.  I politely refused, because the whole purpose of going out there was to WALK!!  I also got a lot of friendly waves from people driving by, and lots of double takes as well as waves and points from people riding giant tour buses.  Yep, that's me, the unusual wildlife you see walking on the side of the road.

 

 

 

 

The most colorful view of the day

 

Ultimately it was a really nice walk, and the slope wasn't so bad either way (because there were a lot of...what do you call it...switchbacks?).  I think the worst part of the walk was the tunnels.  I had to go through 3 of them.  2 weren't so bad, they were only about 200 m long and the sidewalk was relatively wide.  However, then there was the first one.  This one was close to a kilometer long and had a really skinny sidewalk that had some rather large mud sections and dripped from the walls.  And the noise.  Oh my.  My poor ears.  It was kind of brutal.  Althought admittedly, the way there was worse than the way back.  Maybe because I knew what to expect?

Once I finally got to one of the main points (it was about 12km from the station), I found that there was a big area with all kinds of souvenirs and food. I really wanted one of the persimmons, but since they were only selling them in giant bags, I had to settle for some other things to supplement the food I'd brought.  So I bought some sweet potatoes that had been cooked over fire and sprinkled with sugar (yummy!) and some soft cream (I wanted white peach but they were sold out T_T), so I settled for strawberry-vanilla after the woman tried suggesting all the other flavors they had available which included some more unusual flavors such as purple sweet potato.  I mean yes, it's good, but as an ice-cream flavor?

Once I ate my lunch, I took a quick little walk from that area to the Biwa waterfall, and checked out the vine bridge (which would cost a small fee if you wanted to try to cross it.)

 

 

 

Such clearwater at the Biwa waterfall!

The vine bridge

After wandering around this area, I decided I should proably start heading back in the direction I'd started from, and I figured I'd decide along the way if I wanted to try for another one of the locations on the way (as it was supposed to be about another hour walk ...one-way...from a location that was about half way between the location I was at and the station where I'd started.  Ultimately I decided just to go back to the station because if I didn't there would've been a strong possiblity that I'd have to walk back in the dark, which wasn't really something I wanted to do as it was my first time in the area.

Some very pretty and bright berries along the way

Maybe you can't see it...but ladybug cars!

Stop and check. Is it real? Nope. Ok, keep going.

When I got back to the station, I had about 40 minutes to spare before my train arrived, and so the station master and the older woman who I'd talked to before that morning, came out to chat with me.  They both shook their heads about the fact that I'd walked as much as I did, and then we had a kind of normal converstation.  I guess I'd given them something to talk about because they seemed to have discussed or tried to guess my age, and they had the typical reaction that I'm older than I look and were surprised that I'm a teacher not a student.  The woman especially kept commenting on how good my Japanese was, and she figures that I should get a boyfriend soon because I'm cute and slim.  I think I kind of like her.  She was definitely amusing.  She was also surprised that I haven't been back to Canada yet and wanted to know how my parents felt about that.  Then I got talking with another girl and her mom who were also waiting for a train, and it turned out that they'd been to Canada 3 times, to the Banff/Canmore area twice and to Vancouver once.  Small world.

When I finally got back to Takamatsu, I'd just missed the bus by about 5 minutes, and so I decided to walk the hour and half home instead of waiting around for an hour for the bus.  Because clearly, I hadn't walked enough already that day.  So I think my total km for that day was over 32km!!  Impressive, even for me.

For more photos from my Saturday hike, click here.

The next day, I decided I wanted to do some more hiking, but this time I decided to stick a little closer to home, and just headed out to Yashima. I forgot however, how short that hike was.  It only took 40 minutes to get from the station to the top of the mountain.  The slope was much more intense, but after the length of the previousday's hike, it was kind of disappointing and anti-climactic.  Actually, small world again, I ran into one of my co-workers and her friends up there.  Anyway, that day I also wandered around downtown a little bit, and ended up at Takamatsu station again, and walked all the way home from there. Again.  So Sunday's walking km was around 20 km.

Later that evening, a friend of mine, texted me, asking me to come out downtown that night, but the last bus had already left and there was NO WAY I wanted to do any more walking, let alone go out! 
Monday, which was also a holiday, I just stayed home, but surprisingly I wasn't really tired at all.  If anything, I was really charged up and energetic!!

A Day in Okayama (岡山)

Well, I finally did it! I made it out to Okayama -- something that I've been meaning to do since...hmm....well maybe August or September.  Actually, it might be a little surprising that I haven't been there yet as it is an easy just-under-an-hour train ride away.  But anyway, now I have, and I have lots of things to talk about!

When I first got there, I knew that there were definitely a couple of things that I should really see -- the main attractions being the castle and gardens, and there was another location as well recommended by some friends, but I'll get into that a little bit later.  So, after getting off the train, I did the typical tourist thing, and made a quick stop at the tourist information center to see what else the city/surrounding area might have to see.  In this particular case, they weren't overly helpful -- they seemed a little bit too shy to talk with me (in both English and Japanese) and basically just handed me a map and sent me on my way.  That is a rather unusual experience for Japan...but no matter, I'm perfectly able to figure things out on my own, and I was just checking for any extra info they may have had to offer.

Cool spiky water fountain outside of Okayama Station

So, my first stop was Okayama Castle.  This castle has the nickname of Ujo (or Crow Castle) due to its unusual black exterior.  The sign at the castle said that it's black because the wood had some kind of special storm treatment that causes it to turn black.

 

 

 

After taking a look at the castle, I wandered around the castle grounds for a while (and ironically there were quite a few crows around in the trees)

 

Wandering the grounds

As I was finishing up my wandering, I happened to hear some singing...there was a ground of gentlemen across the river on the bank doing some practicing or something...not really sure what it was, but they were a group with some rather nice harmony of their tenors.

 

A not particularly good photo of the singing gentlemen

Next, I headed across the river to the back entrance to Korakuen - Okayama's famous gardens.  These particular gardens are rather unusual compared to your typical Japanese gardens because they have so much open space and it has a lot of grass cover, which you really don't see so much of here in Japan.

 

 

 

 When I first came into the gardens, I was rather surprised because there seemed to be a lot of people considering it was still fairly early in the morning and it wasn't really prime viewing season (as it's not summer and the leaves haven't really even started changing that much yet.

In the grove of maple trees, only this one tree has changed color so far

As I was walking through the gardens, I found out the reason for all of the people being there.  The reason was these guys:

Crane!

So, on November 1st, they let 2 of the cranes they keep in the gardens out of the aviary to do a practice flight for the event that they hold on New Years.  So as I was walking along, suddenly, right over my head, two cranes were flying in tandem (and close enough to the ground that if I reached up I probably could've touched them) and then they landed on a grass field in front of the main house of the garden.  I wish I had pictures of them flying - it was really a sight to see, but since I was so surprised, and it all happened rather quickly, I didn't get a chance to pull out my camera.
Still, I feel really lucky to have be able to see that at all!

After that event I wandered through the gardens and saw what there was to see.  I *thought* I was ending my wanderings through the garden with some white peach soft ice-cream, but as I was eating it one of the volunteer guides came over (apparently I had been standing right ouside their "office"). Anyway, the guide offered to show me around the gardens and give me more information about them, and since I had time, I decided why not, might as well learn what I can.  But wow, talk about information overload.  I learned all sorts of things that I may or may not have been interested in learning!

Took this one in honor of the spooky weekend

Summer tea house

Harvested rice field in the gardens

They had a chrysanthemum display

Apparently it was a good time to see these because they were in their prime as it was judging day

They also had a display with many of these pretties! (see more in link to album at the end of this post)

After visiting the gardens I went to Kurashiki -- a kind of historical district along a canal with lots of little shops and such things.  When I first got there I saw a couple swans just hanging out!

Okayama is also famous for its denim, and so in this area they have a denim street where you can buy all kinds of products made with denim, clothes, bags, shoes, etc.  They even had denim food -- denim soft cream, denim man (steamed buns), and more. But I don't know how I feel about eating food that's bright blue. It's kind of strange.

It was a nice walk through that area anyway.

 

 

Not sure what this last one was about, but they were handing out flyers for it

 

Well, that's about it -- didn't do too much else, although I ate a lot for my combined late lunch/early supper -- yummy chicken followed with Blue Seal (Okinawan chain) strawberry cheesecake ice-cream!

Ah, one more story. This one's about the train ride home. So I took the marine liner which connects Shikoku to the mainland and although it wasn't so busy in the morning, it definitely was in the evening, which I had been expecting. Standing room only. I was in the very last car and was lucky enough to find a spot on the wall in front of the conductor's area - I could lean! Which I thought was a good deal since I was tired and half-asleep. Now if you've ever ridden a train standing you know to expect the kind of side to side motions, but this day I got something new. Before I keep going, let me remind you one more time-- I was not fully awake! Suddenly I had this strange sensation of my feet sliding backwards. I was understandably confused. Most of the motion before was either forward or side to side so why was I sliding back? Turns out the conductor inside had opened the door, which I was unwittingly leaning on and was trying to get out. Ah. I was surprised. I didn't realize I was on the door section. After the surprise, there was embarassment follows by hilarity which I tried really hard to suppress. Being on the train and all. But feel free to have a laugh at my expense. I don't mind. Much. It really is funny thinking back--I imagine my expression was amusing as well. The things that happen in my life. Lol. Now, I really am ending it here! Look forward to the next adventure!

For more pictures from this day, you can click here.