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.

Whirlwind Day

This past weekend was a three day weekend for us here in Japan, which was a pleasant relief after our school's busy, busy, busy sports festival which we did on the Friday before the weekend started.  And before I say much more, it was also Thanksgiving in Canada -- so Happy Thanksgiving!!

So this time, I'm going to talk about one day only out of my weekend.  My whirlwind day. 

I'm calling it a whirlwind because it was a ridiculously long day.  I started by getting up super early (and if I'm saying it was early, you all know it was REALLY early!)  Anyway, the reason for that was because I went to go catch the 6:30 bus to Kobe (and it takes me about 30 minutes to get to the place where I can catch the bus).  So anyway, yes, early bus.  Ah, I suppose you're wondering why I went, right? Well, I went to go to the Radio Kansai Music Festival in Kobe, because I had such a fun time last year when I went.  The festival didn't start until 10, so I had time to wander around for a little bit and make my way down from Sannomiya to Harborland -- it takes about 30 minutes to walk there.  So, I took a walk...oh...and I also had wanted to do some shopping while I was there, but the stores also don't open until 10am, so all I could do was look at what shops there were.

By the time I got down to Harborland, the festival was just getting started, and they kicked it off with some really energetic rock music this year.  Nice!  So I listened to a couple different groups do their sets (they only got about 30 minutes to perform each...) Then I took a walk down the area where the festival was to check out what else was going on, and if there was any interesting music on any of the other stages (there were 3 of them).  One thing I noticed was it seemed a lot smaller this year.  Which is kind of strange because it was in the exact same space as last year.  Maybe it just seemed bigger last year because it was my first time there, and also my first time in Kobe. Hmmm....

Kobe Harborland...Radio Kansai Music Festival

Band called "The Best Time" that kicked off the festival



信政誠 (Nobumasa Makoto)

Anyway, after taking a look at the schedule, there weren't any bands playing for a while (they had other 'entertainment' going on in between the music) so I took a stroll through the Umie mall and Mosaic -- a shopping and restaurant area in Harborland.  While I wasn't actually able to find any of the things that I was shopping for, I did take the chance to get something to eat...since my breakfast was so early, an early lunch was a good idea.

After that, it was back to the festival to take in some more music.  I stayed there until early afternoon, and then I headed into Osaka, to do some more shopping (well... that was the plan anyway, although it didn't work out that way...although the shops are basically the same, so I don't know what I expected anyway).  Now, what I mean by it didn't work out that way is that I got distracted by some street lives that were going on.  The first ones that I stopped to listen to were some people that I've heard their music before, but it's been a while, so it was quite nice...although it was cloudy and rather windy, so it was a little cool sitting there...

馬道まさたか (Umamichi Masataka)

Tyotti

After those street lives, I got myself some dinner, and picked up some special snacks that I like to get after visiting Osaka, and then settled down for one more street live (this one was completely new to me) before I headed back to Kobe.

オカダユータ　(Okada Yuta)

By the time I got back to Kobe I had about 15-20 minutes before my bus (the last one of the evening) left. I think that by the time I finally got home and got myself to bed, I'd been awake for about 21 hours.  So as I said, a very long day.  But definitely worth it! Although I failed at my shopping mission (not that I was particularly excited for that anyway), I got to listen to some great music, and found some new bands/singers whose music I enjoy!!  Yay, music!!

Silver Week 2015

This year, Silver Week turned out to be a five day weekend.

As it was in the second half of September, the weather was absolutely lovely! Sunny, high 20s and not humid at all! Perfect!

Keeping that in mind I spent my Saturday and Sunday morning out at the beach!

Sunday evening I attended ヨシダヒロキ's live-- he came to Takamatsu again!  It was as usual really nice and he had a number of new songs to perform and he used his new loop machine for some of his older songs as well, so it gave them kind of a new feeling. Unfortunately, he had caught a little bit of a cold, and so some things were a little difficult for him to sing that night.  Also, being Silver Week, there weren't so many people who attended.  A total of 3 of us came.  Aww!! But that gave us more time to talk together.  After the live he sat down with me and the other woman who came and we all had a nice chat together.  Also, he had been asking what we were doing with the rest of our Silver Week and when he found out that I was heading out to Kansai the next day, he suggested that I come to his live the next night as well if I had time, and he'd send me a message the next day to check if I could come or not.

The next day, as I said, I headed out to Kansai, although I wasn't able to leave quite as early as I hoped to because the buses were all full up.  Then, it took an extra hour to get there due to all the traffic.  Ah...wasted half of my day.  By the time I finally got there, I had time to check into my hotel and grab something to eat.  Then since there wasn't much time to do any of the other things that I had planned, I headed out to Sannomiya to go to the live.  It was a really nice live...this time it wasn't just ヨシダさん, but he was also with 2 other people, both of which I have seen before.  One was クボタアツシ, who I met for the first time last month -- he's a solo guitarist and he doesn't really sing at all...but his guitar style kind of reminds me of the guitar style in "August Rush".  When I said that to him, he said that he was really happy that he reminded me of that because it's a good movie.  The other person they did the live with was FASE. I haven't seen him since spring vacation, so it was definitely nice to listen to his music again after a long time.  After the live I had a short little talk with ヨシダさん and some nice conversation with FASE (he told me about how he was heading out to Tokyo the next day to do some street lives) and with クボタくん as well...his personality kind of reminds me of a little kid..in a cute/adorable kind of way.  It was also nice because they both remembered me and started the conversations with 久しぶり！which basically translates to long time, no see....or that kind of feeling anyway...makes a person feel good!

クボタアツシ, ヨシダヒロキ, FASE

The next morning started out really interesting.  While I was waiting for the elevator, there was small family who was also waiting...a mom, her daughter and son (who were both elementary students...grade 6 and 3 respectively).  At that point the boy had been looking in the other other direction, but he turned around and saw me and then multiple "wows" just fell compulsively out of him. After 4 or 5 he bowed and said こんにちは and ASKED me if I'm a foreigner (do you know how rare that is??? Most people would just straight out state that there's a foreigner) and then followed that up with more "wows".  I have to say, it was really difficult not to laugh, but it definitely put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

After filling up on breakfast, I decided to head out to Himeji, as I've never been there before and I wanted to check it out.  From Osaka, it takes about an hour to get there by train. There is a really famous castle there and it's a World Heritage site, and it has been closed for renovations the past couple years, and only re-opened this spring.  However, they also only let a certain amount of people in every day, so it's kind of an exclusive thing.  Unfortunately for me, when I got there, the line to merely get to the ticket office was a 2.5hour wait! Crazy! But I guess that's what happens when you go during national holidays. 

Himeji Castle

Since that day was rather hot, and there were other things I wanted to see and do, I decided it wasn't really worth the wait to try to get in, but I'll try again some other time.  So, one of those other things was going up to a mountain where there are supposedly some nice temples and things and I guess they also did some filming for "The Last Samurai" up there as well.  However, to get there you have to go up a ropeway, and the lines were equally as long.  Ahh....another time.  It's difficult to enjoy with so many people around anyway.  So, I decided to walk around the Himeji Station area for a little bit, and I happened across a street live.  This time it was two separate groups who were all singing and dancing and talking together for that day only.  There was a pair of guys who called themselves 'No Limit' and another guy who just goes by 'Tatsuya'.  Their dancing was really amusing, and apparently the one dance they did is a really famous one.  They also interacted with the people watching them a lot, which is also really nice to see.

After that I took the train back as far as Kobe, and then I took a stroll from the Harborland down to Sannomiya, wandered through a few shops, then hopped back on the train to Osaka.  Once I got to Osaka, I got a few more street lives at Grand Front, and then headed out to pick up some food and my luggage for the trip back that evening.

I ended my long weeked with one final day out at the beach...again beautiful weather, and because it's September now, the beach has become basically a private beach.

Pretty good long weekend, even if it didn't go exactly as planned.

Japanese Cooking Session 日本料理セッション

This past weekend, I spent a couple of hours learning a tiny little bit about Japanese cooking from the experts...some older Japanese women!

This session was set up through work connections -- one of my co-workers happened to ask about a certain Japanese vegetable, and what you can do with it, and it turned into our boss asking her mom to hold a cooking instruction session for some foreigners.  Apparently, her mom is one of the leaders of the women's group at JA, an agricultural place (sorry, I don't really know how to describe it well...).  Anyway, a total of three of us from my workplace came as well as four other foreigners who knew the girl who originally asked about it.  A nice size, I think.

Anyway, while we were there we learned how to make kinpira gobo -- a kind of salad with carrot and gobo (a long root vegetable), some special rice with mushrooms, carrots and konyaku, tempura (actually SOOOO much tempura...that probably took about half of our time...we made so much!!) and such things.

So while they told us many things (and not going to lie...I probably can't remember them all...and the recipes we made were for more people than I'll ever be cooking for), I'll let you in on one interesting secret....there is sugar in almost everything!! Surprise! Also, when making the tempura batter, after mixing it up, we added ice so that it would get really cold. Apparently, doing this makes the tempura taste even better.

It was timed so that we finished everything around lunch time, so that we could eat when we were finished (and we also got to take home some of the rice we made as omiyage...they made about 20 servings worth)!

The finished product...plated nicely and ready to eat!

So in the above picture, we have... (from far left bottom corner, around the outside into the middle...) the rice I was talking about (I seriously love this kind of rice!), kinpira gobo, pumpkin (really simple -- just mixed with some soy sauce and sugar and a touch of salt, then boiled), Japanese potato salad (sweet potatoes, cucumber and ham), cucumber dish, miso soup, and in the center: shredded cabbage and pumpkin, gobo, chikuwa and sweet potato tempura. Everything was delicious!

It was really nice to learn about it (and they offered to teach us sushi next time if we want).  However, they refused to take any money even though we had agreed to split the cost of the ingredients amongst us prior to the event.

Also after this session...I want Japanese knives for cooking!! The way they cut is amazing!!

**UPDATE** We ended up having an article written about us and a photo published in their (JA) newspaper. Here it is: