Belinda's Travel Blog

A glance into the past

2009-02-19T03:23:00.000-08:00

One thing I was most excited about, whilst planning my travels, was the idea of visiting Ginzan Onsen. My main objective for this trip was to visit places off the beaten track and I remember feeling giddy and extremely lucky to have stumbled across this small village, in my search for unique destinations to visit.

Ginzan Onsen is a hot spring village located in Obanazawa, Yamagata prefecture and was made famous as the setting of the television drama, Oshin. The spring was first discovered by a group of miners searching for silver, hence the name Ginzan, meaning silver mountain.

I got up early and caught the train to Oishida, a half hour ride from Yamagata. I remember being entranced by the passing landscape, as we fled by field after field of white- occassionally broken by the odd house and the scatter of crows; and the mountains in the distance, snow capped and barely moving. As I got off the train it started to rain, but it didn't dampen my spirits in the slightest. The bus that ran between Ginzan Onsen and the train station ran at irregular intervals, but as scheduled, it was sitting there quietly waiting for me- the first and only passenger.

The secluded village is nestled amongst the rolling hills of Obanazawa, and for the whole forty minute journey, the road leading towards it showed no indication that there might be such a magical little place hidden in the midst. Even upon arriving at the bus terminus, I was still slightly dubious as to whether I'd reached my anticipated destination. It wasn't a bad sight though, there was a small river, some fairly regular houses and some atmospheric hills in the background. It just wasn't quite what I was expecting... and it was raining fairly heavily by this point.

Nevertheless, it was the meander in the distance, and the faint, but distinct, smell of sulphur in the air that reassured me.

Two, three hundred metres down the road, with stolen umbrella in hand, I found what I was looking for:

Past the first footbridge and the first thing I see is the public footbath.
Tinged yellow by the sulphur and steaming hot- the water is pumped
directly from the source to the surface.

...and as i continue down along the river, the time warp begins. Here are the highlights:

As I reach the end of the street, I realise that the path towards the mine is closed due to heavy snow.The path on the far right, in the photo below, leads to the mine, where the metal barrier is.
Time to turn back.

The covered area to the right are the only public onsens available in Ginzan. However, almost every other building in the village is a Ryokan (traditional Japanese guesthouse) and they all have their own onsens for guests.

If you're wondering what I was listening to, it was the Ghost in the Shell, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke soundtracks. It set the mood perfectly.

All in all, it took me less than half an hour to walk through the whole village- including the time I took to take photos. But, even with the adverse weather, the feeling of being there (and being the only tourist in sight) was so comfortable that I loitered around for nearly two hours, walking up and down the street in a trance. Perhaps it was the time of day, or the time of year, but the stillness of my surroundings further exaggerated the sensation of being locked in time- a feeling exuded in abundance by the architecture and layout.

The visual icing to the whole experience was the detail scattered across the ground. Every few steps or so, there would be coloured, patterned tiles embedded amongst the pebbles, giving the grey a dash of colour and deepening the nostalgic atmosphere.

So, after two hours of walking around in circles, what better way to soothe tired feet?

As I was trudging around in the blisteringly hot water, grinning to myself like a little child, I had a few people laugh and point at me. It must have been even funnier when I was holding my stolen umbrella. One old man said to me: "sabishi desu ne" (Lonely, aren't you). But no. I wasn't.

Warm and happy from my foot soak, it was time to return to modern day... but I had one more nostalgic suprise waiting for me, which I didn't experience on the way here:

Natsukashi desu ne!

On the road again... (just can't wait to get on the road again)

2009-01-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

Tsugi wa, Yamagata!

The views from the train towards Yamagata were amazing and even though the shinkansen was going pretty fast, the mountain ranges in the distance completely blew me away.

I arrived in Yamagata just after midday. So, with map in hand and a bus schedule from the hotel, i headed over to Zao Mountains to see the famous Juhyos. These snow monsters did not disappoint, and my only regret was that I couldn't stay to see them being lit-up in the evening. The last bus back to Yamagata left at five, so I only had a couple of hours to absorb the sites. I took as many photos as I could (which, for me, was somewhere in the hundreds... though not all of them came out as well as I'd hoped) but it was just too cold to stay outside for long.

Here are some of the highlights:

Nikko Day 2 - part 3

2009-01-25T04:56:00.000-08:00

After Chuzenji Lake, it was starting to get dark so I rushed to Narabi-jizo, just outside of the National Park.

The area has rows and rows of Jizo 地藏 statues. According to wikipedia:

"Jizō, or Ojizō-sama as he is respectfully known, is one of the most loved of all Japanese divinities. His statues are a common sight, especially by roadsides and in graveyards. Traditionally, he is seen as the guardian of children, particularly children who died before their parents. Since the 1980s, the tendency developed in which he was worshipped as the guardian of the souls of mizuko, the souls of stillborn, miscarried or aborted fetuses. In Japanese mythology, it is said that the souls of children who die before their parents are unable to cross the mythical Sanzu River on their way to the afterlife because they have not had the chance to accumulate enough good deeds and because they have made the parents suffer. It is believed that Jizō saves these souls from having to pile stones eternally on the bank of the river as penance, by hiding them from demons in his robe, and letting them hear mantras.

Jizō statues are sometimes accompanied by a little pile of stones and pebbles, put there by people in the hope that it would shorten the time children have to suffer in the underworld (the act is derived from the tradition of building stupas as an act of merit-making). The statues can sometimes be seen wearing tiny children's clothing or bibs, or with toys, put there by grieving parents to help their lost ones and hoping that Jizō would specially protect them. Sometimes the offerings are put there by parents to thank Jizō for saving their children from a serious illness. Jizō's features are also commonly made more babylike in order to resemble the children he protects."

Sorry about the wall-of-text, I just thought I'd put it in context!

Behind the rows of Jizos (up the stairs behind the jizo in the foreground) is Bake-jizo, the so-called scariest place in Nikko, which is in fact a Monk graveyard. It was pretty spooky, but not enough to stop me from using some of the graves as tripods, lol. Nighttime in that graveyard would be a different story though...

To finish the day, I returned to the onsen for a soak and had an awesome vegetarian dinner prepared for me by a monk that lived/worked at the hostel I was staying in. It was definitely a great day! Tomorrow, Yamagata!

Nikko Day 2 - part 2

2009-01-25T04:08:00.001-08:00

Sooooo.... From the temples, I got the bus to Chuzenji Lake. It took about 40mins and we travelled up one of the curviest roads I've ever been on. Literally hair-pin turns every 50 metres - the yellow road surrounding Kegon Falls in the pic below.

Chuzenji Lake was awesome, but very cold and extremely windy. It's a good thing I put on a pair of leggings under my trousers. It was also the first snow I'd seen so far on my trip.

Next stop was Kegon Falls, where I witnessed my first bit of hentai Japanese male behaviour...

It was very windy on one of the viewing platforms and I was by myself until a couple showed up - the girl wearing a pleated mini skirt and the guy dressed in almost school uniform attire. As I turned to face them, their backs were turned towards me and the girl's skirt was being blown upwards by the wind without her realising. The guy then reaches round, cameraphone in hand and starts taking sneak photos of his girlfriends underwear, admiring them too whilst she's still staring at the waterfall! When he realised I was watching him do it I gave him a dispicable look and shook my head, hahaha. I almost wanted to tell the girl but there would have been too much of a language barrier: "um... ano... boyfriendo wa hentai desu...?"

Anyway, I hope she dumps him when she accidentally stumbles across the photos.
Here's Kegon Falls:

Nikko Day 2 - part 1

2009-01-25T00:11:00.000-08:00

So, on my first night at the hostel I had Japanese curry for dinner and spent a good hour soaking in an outdoor onsen just around the corner. It was wonderfully relaxing bathing outdoors and to top it off I had a beer afterwards, with a nice Panamanian guy from San Fransisco that I'd met at the hostel.

I snuck in with a camera and took a photo of the place, kekeke, though the picture doesn't quite do it justice.

The following morning's breakfast was toast and coffee and then I set off to explore Nikko properly. I spent 2000yen on a bus pass which would take me to Chuzenji Lake in the mountains and all the major tourist sites in the area. The following pictures are from the Futarasan and Toshogu Shrines and the Rinnoji Temple. The shrine are is also famous as the home of the monkey carvings in "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" poses (which I failed to take a good photo of).

Oh no! You can see up my noes and all of my 5 chins!

People bowing as a priest chants scripture

Behold! Three different types of Japanese lantern! Wah, sugoi!!

The coolest old-man ever, sat at the exit to the temples with a cat on his knee, blowing on a bird whistle.

On the Road - Nikko he Ikou!

2009-01-24T00:15:00.001-08:00

Rail pass: Check!
Passport: Check!
Money: Check!
Too much luggage: Check!

Wahoo! My first shinkansen ride to Utsunomiya

The Nikko train!

Nikko train station. The weather remained this awesome for my whole stay.

Check-in time wasn't until 3 so I stuffed my luggage into a locker and went for a wander around town...

A grey, japanese, tail-less version of Ginger?

One of my favourite pics from Nikko

Shinkyo - Sacred Bridge of Nikko. Considered a National Treasure.

An awesome cast iron dragon water feature

One of the entrances to the Futurasan Shrine

Path of lanterns leading up to the entrance pictured above

Awesome icicles extending from a frozen water dripping feature

Before hitting the road

2009-01-23T23:43:00.000-08:00

So, after two nights on my own in Tokyo and one night with family, I'm ready to head out to Nikko, my first destination.
Just to sum up the three days, here are a couple of photos from Ueno and the Setagaya Boroichi fair respectively. The fair mainly sold old fabrics, antiques and food. It was pretty interesting at first, until it became extremely busy, and possibly the most packed place I've ever experienced... and I've lived in Hong Kong! I never thought old fabric scraps and antiques could be so popular!

I also went to a peculiar ramen restaurant where you order your food from the machine, then sit in individual booths with walls on either side and get served through a hole in the wall in front of you. Apparently it's to prevent people from seeing your eating expressions, hahaha. God forbid anyone sees what you look like when you're eating! Grounds for dumping someone, for sure.

Sorry about the bad photo!

Ohitori-sama desu ka?

2009-01-23T23:24:00.000-08:00

Trendy Japanese according to ALC press
"Ohitori-sama"

""Ohitori" is a polite way to say "one person," and "sama" is a honorific added at the end of a word, usually the name of the addressee. And the word "ohitori-sama" was originally used as "Ohitori-sama desuka? (Are you by yourself?) when a waiter/waitress, hotel clerk, or whoever the person in charge of welcoming customers, asks if a customer needs a table/room for only one.

But these days, a new meaning has been added to the word "ohitori-sama" --- it now indicates a woman, whether single or married, who enjoys spending her leisure time by herself. She goes to a restaurant or a bar by herself to enjoy whatever food she feels like having at whenever time she wants. She also goes to hot springs and stays at hotels without company, and might even buy a spacious condominium where she can release her stress and feel relaxed!"

Hahahaha! Something I've been called a lot so far - and I think it's suited me quite well so far on my trip.

Day 3 and 4

2009-01-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

We spent the morning of day 3 in Asakusa, visiting the Kaminarimon Gate, Nakamise and Sensoji Temple - Tokyo's oldest temple. Again, probably due to the time of year, it was extremely busy. There were new years decorations hung up over Nakamise (a shopping street with a long history) and masses of people queuing to worship and receive their blessings from the bodhisattva Kannon - Guanyin.

We spent the rest of the day visiting our Aunty out in the Tokyo suburbs. It was quite refreshing being out of the city and walking down the little residential streets often seen in animes. I ended up spending a night at her house after mum, dad and ant returned to HK. It was much nicer than the hostel I was staying out, which was essentially a capsule hotel - as you'll see a little further down.

The next day, we headed over to Asakusabashi to check into said hostel and I was pretty shocked at the sight of my "single room".

There were about 16 compartments in one giant room, and since it was still early, the whole place stank of beo and general morning staleness. I was not looking forward to spending the night there... although it was quite comfortable when I eventually did even if you couldn't stay in there for long periods besides sleeping.

We quickly headed back out towards Ginza for lunch, where, to make up for our previous meal in Roppongi, we had awesome Sumibi Yakiniku with Kobe beef and other lovely meats. No intestines this time!

So... it was time for mum, dad and ant to depart. We returned back to the hostel to pick up their luggage and I said my teary-eyed goodbyes. It was really sad to see them go! The road ahead and the prospect of hauling my luggage around in the snow seemed so daunting. Little did I know that after a few days of staying in Tokyo on my own, I'd feel entirely different.

Tokyo is great and all, but it gets a little tiring after a while. The lights, sounds and nearly all the girls looking identical (no offense to them!) gets a bit much. Or perhaps I found it too similar to Hong Kong to keep me interested. I was pretty much itching to leave by the end of the week and fortunately so, my rail trip was about to start...

Day 2

2009-01-23T01:52:00.001-08:00

Day 2:
We visited the Meiji Jingu Shrine in time for the coming-of-age festival so there were groups of girls dressed in kimonos, and with it being so near new years there was a massive procession of people visiting the shrine to read their new years' fortune. There were ice sculptures lining the roads and massive sake barrel displays everywhere - it was quite impressive!

When we arrived there was also a traditional Japanese wedding taking place and I managed to snap a few shots of the gathering crowd and the bride in her simple but beautifully elegant attire.

Afterwards, we moved onto Harajuku, which was just around the corner. There wasn't quite as large a group of cosplayers as I'd hoped, but they were funny looking enough to take a photo of.

After a stroll down Takeshita Dori, a 400m long street of boutiques and cafes, which was obscenely crowded, we headed over to Roppongi hills. Since it was getting late, we decided to skip the gallery and look for some food instead. We settled on a seemingly innocent looking sumiba yakiniku place (teppanyaki where you cook your own meat over coals or a burner), which boasted an "english" menu... only to find that their so-called english was just romaji japanese; and that they were an offal specialist!! (the latter, we only found out the next day -_-) What we thought was going to be a platter of 4 (or 6) different types of meat was actually 4 (or 6) different types of pig intestine and cartilage! Fail!

mm, looks good so far!
but then..

What we also read as "Wagyu beef tan set" was actually "Wagyu beef tongue set" (top pic)!! Double fail- though this wasn't quite as bad as the intestines, aka Horumon in Japanese. Naturally we clocked onto what we'd ordered and sent for some real meat...

First stop, Tokyo!

2009-01-19T03:11:00.000-08:00

At last, after so much planning and preparing, it's time to start my adventure around Japan. Nihon he ikou!!

We landed in Tokyo on the 9th of January and spent four days sightseeing and eating great food together before Mum, Dad and Ant abandoned me in my hostel.

Briefings of our fours days of fun to come!

Day 1

2009-01-19T01:02:00.000-08:00

The first destination of our family trip was Tsukiji Market, where we got up at half 4 in the morning to catch the early market bustle. We arrived just before 6, but by then the tuna auctioning had finished and people were busy carting away their trophies - Even so, we weren't allowed to set foot in the area, nor were we allowed any flash-photography.

We spent an hour, or so, wandering through the market, getting in peoples' way, absorbing the sights and smells of hundreds of fresh fish vendors and scanning for potential bargains. Dad spotted a large box of tuna belly off-cuts being sold for ¥500 and we quickly snapped it up, lest someone else got there first. Man, did it taste good!... but even so, the thought of eating a whole box of raw tuna without anything to dip it in made me (and probably the rest of us) a little queasy. We couldn't find anywhere that sold small packets of soy sauce or wasabi, so when we sat down for breakfast, I covered the waitress' line of site whilst dad tipped the whole box out onto our plate of nicely prepared sushi! It was literally a massive pile of fish! Not suspicious looking at all! (But it did save us thousands of yen if we had originally wanted to eat that much tuna sashimi!)

After two breakfasts and more shopping in the outdoor section of Tsukiji market we set off towards Akihabara, where I bought myself some handy pepper spray; we observed Final Fantasy Dissidia brand soft drinks; ate a beef (omg!!) doner kebab; and shook hands with a guy dressed as a mobile phone...

We then went to Ikebukuro and fried our own okonomiyaki and yakisoba; watched mum buy boots; laughed at the stupid toys in Tokyu hands; and rode an extremely fast lift in Sunshine City!...

Much fun was had by all, but man were we tired...