Inkie and Derpy's Excellent Japanese Adventure

[Inkie]

Miyajima

That evening, we had a long trip over to Hiroshima ahead of us, so we stocked up on edible/drinkable goodies in advance. We'd had our Mister Donut Nutritious Breakfast in Nagasaki, but seeing another store in Kagoshima, in the fashion of a true gringo Derpy made an oath to pay a visit to every single branch we encountered across the breadth of Japan. Unfortunately this would mean a lot of extra calories for him as the journey continued, for the doughy tendrils of that bearded monster and his staff harem reach far and wide indeed.


So after another enjoyably watchaholic train ride, we arrived at around dinner time in the cavernous Hiroshima station, and headed out into the streets immediately in the wrong direction. Through the gracious guidance of 7/11 we eventually got back on the right track (I kept on trying to get us to take shortcuts through sidestreets, but Derpy was wary of lurking fat rapists so my arguments fell short of the mark). Eventually we found the place – Aprecio Manga Café, a form of stay I had taken the liberty of deciding we had to try at least once during our trip. Essentially it was a large room full of cubicles in which you had a soft chair or floor area, a computer, desk and TV. There was a lot of manga around, cheap ramen and other food available, and free refills on drinks. We decided to skip dinner as we had in actual fact all but exhausted our appetites through piggery on the train, but we did manage to get some extra planning and hotel booking done. In my original version of the trip there was a big lump of time we were supposed to spend in Tokyo alone, but Derpy suggested something different. And so it was decided that we would go north for two days, something I would be glad we did. So yes, before long we were tired and tried to get some sleep despite the dim background noise of keyboard chatter from nocturnal student and geek denizens of Aprecio around us, and without much by way of comfort except the oblong 'pillows' provided by the café. I honestly ended up sleeping pretty well, but Derpy wasn't happy with it the next morning, and we were both a bit miffed when we were given the bill and it turned out to be more expensive than just about everything else we had booked. I'd consider spending a night in one next time I'm in Japan, but to be frank it doesn't really seem worth it compared to budget hotels or hostels unless it's cheap as dog , which this wasn't.


We were out early the next morning with luggage in tow to make a trip to the famous Miyajima, a shrine-island and historic site not far off from modern Hiroshima. After a short train ride we were on the ferry and soon afterwards the mob of other tourists we were lumped with poured out D-day style, heading towards the major sights along the shoreside road. The throng irked me, and the deer wandering around proved little consolation, seeing as I was more or less done with the beasts after Nara. We did manage to separate from the pack to go up a hill and check out the 'ruins' of Miyao fort, of which we did not know the significance at the time. Alas, these 'ruins' didn't help, which as we have already mentioned this word essentially means 'nothing left! U got screwd!' when used in a Japanese context.


After being herded down the one main street of the town and succumbing to some touristy shops, we got to finally check out a few of the sites. The first was an open temple built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, filled with cool scenes adorning the ceiling.















The next (and undoubtedly cooler) was Itsukushima, the floating shrine of Miyajima originally conceived in the Heian period by the badass Taira no Kiyomori. The temple complex is already splendid enough, and then you have the famous torii/gateway to just add to the epicness.














After this we had to prioritize things as we realized we wouldn't have time to do everything before the last ferry back at 5:30. I don't remember us having lunch so we may have skipped that because of the bloated pricing of the places in town. We paid a visit to the Miyajima history museum, a pretty quaint place that was basically a traditional household extending narrowly around a garden, converted into a museum...but it was a good place. In particular I enjoyed the information, model and artwork portraying the Battle of Miyajima, the conclusion of a power-struggle over the fate of the Ouchi clan in which Mori Motonari rose to prominence – his Okehazama if you will. I'd recommend reading about it if you haven't already, not only was it masterfully executed from an operational perspective, but Motonari's defeat of Sue Harukata also had an honourable aspect to it and included notable scenes, like how even during the fighting itself around Itsukushima, he made sure that no damage was inflicted on any of the holy sites and had his men laboriously wash the entire area clean of blood after the butchery was over.

Parts of the town:





Inside the museum:




Anyway, after that we headed into the forest through a pleasant natural park and grabbed the gondola up to one of the island's summits. Though there was still a lot of climbing to do from there to the higher summit, it was a pretty breathtaking view of the Seto inland sea once we reached the top, with Hiroshima sprawling in the distance.

Natural park:










Going up:










The only temple in Japan dedicated to...ogres:


Taira no Derp:


We decided to go by foot back down through the forest to the shore (the lady selling gondola tickets had tried to scare us into believing it was a two hour walk. She should have been given a good spanking for such an outrageous scare tactic). Admittedly it did take about an hour, partially because most of the path was composed of crude, uneven steps from the middle-ages, as it was used by monks to reach the temples at the peak before the days of sacred gondola, and then Derpy was in no mood to charge around. About which, I decided to go off the path when we got to the bottom and saunter across the rocks of the natural park like an idiot, but noticed that this was a bad idea when I found myself narrowly missing big, creepy spiders in their webs and almost walked on a snake, so I decided I didn't feel like straying off the beaten track any more.

Going down:







Once we were back in the town, we didn't have much time as shops were closing, but we still managed to get a box of Miyajima maple leaf cakes each (I originally intended for mine to be gifts but the imminent 'best before' date gave me an excuse to eat them all. They were delicious). Then came the ferry ride back, the setting sun casting its golden pall across Itsukushima and the rest of the island.






Miyajima was great. Some fantastic religious edifices, a pleasant stroll in one of the rare cases we got to traipse around in a non-urban setting, lovely views, architecture and some cool history. Another night in Hiroshima awaited, and the day after that we'd be headed for Tokyo.

[Derpy Hooves]

​Inkie, we can't see most of the pictures. It seems the ones linked to dropbox are the ones affected.

[Derpy Hooves]

​IThat picture of my head in that picture frame, everytime we saw one, I had to get a picture of myself behind it.

[Veteraan]

By the looks of it, the harem does not eat much of their own product.

[Inkie]

The cult of slimness among women in Japan is a frightful thing, worse "worse" than in France. It is of my understanding that Mr. Donut enforces it with an iron fist within his empire.

[Hobbes]

That torii gate in the middle of the water is amazing. Can you take a boat there to see it up close?

[Inkie]

Yeah, you can and you can also walk up to it for a look when the tide's down. Sadly we didn't have time for either of those, but next time.

[Inkie]

Hiroshima

And so with Miyajima behind us we returned to Hiroshima as night gathered. It took us a long ramble through the streets to find our hotel, but eventually we tracked it down, a really nice backpacker's hostel called K's House, furnished with tatami mats and a profoundly inviting all-female staff. We led an excursion to the local supermarket, AEON, and stocked up on piles of trashy dinner and beers for the night's Hyouge Mono. Unfortunately though, our watching session was rudely interrupted when I went down for a couple of smoke breaks in which I unwittingly got dragged into long conversations with a Polish and two Norwegian guests. The Norwegians were two hulking guys who were on a trip around a couple of continents, and who despite looking thirty, turned out to be 19 (obviously). The Pole bummed some fags off me but I didn't mind listening to what he had to say - to my surprise he was a bit disappointed that Japan wasn't as exotic as he had hoped and that in many ways they live western lifestyles here. On my side I had felt the differences a lot more than I had the similarities, which goes to show on how much your experience of a country will be dictated by the conditions of your visit. I had the fortune to stay for months and meet a lot of Japanese people from the onset, he was just zipping through for a week and I found it a shame that he wouldn't get to live more of Japan the way he had wanted it to be.

Anyway, I had left Derpy waiting upstairs all this time and he was understandably a little chagrined by that when I got back with no excuse. But from my own selfish viewpoint it was a good night in - I got a bit merry by myself to some good animé, five or six beers and large quantities of food (The Derp doesn't drink much and also distrusted some of the food we had ended up with, which meant more for me!). The next day we left our stuff at reception and headed out for a walk through downtown Hiroshima. Alongside some baumkuchen from the shop, Derps obligatorily broke his fast at the first Mister Donut we came across while as mentioned I had the maple leaf cakes we had picked up on Miyajima (having resisted the temptation of doing so for a full evening which allowed me to feel no dishonour in consuming them). After a trek through an underground shopping mall we found our first objective, Hiroshima castle.

Random scene from Hiroshima (not the prettiest place for obvious reasons):


Castle pics:





Random cupboard staircase inside:


Hiroshima from the citadel:




What was nice was how we got to explore the battlements before visiting the museum inside the citadel, which had plenty of information about the Mori clan's history and lots of weapons and sets of armour.
Derpy: "The museum inside the battlements had cool dioramas which recreated the development of fortifications around Hiroshima, which made up for the little information available in English."
Unfortunately no pictures of the armours allowed, so these will have to do as a substitute:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I think we were really convincing.

After that we decided to simultaneously look for lunch and explore town a bit. Aside from an interesting antique shop the market street we followed was altogether similar to those in other cities. We were pretty relieved when we found our lunch (thanks to a helpful chap who asked for directions for us). Our gastronomic objective that day was something I had been pushing for quite stubbornly since before we arrived - Hiroshimayaki. I wanted to see how it compared to Osaka's delicious Okonomiyaki, both being variations of a grilled, savoury pancake including cabbage, noodles, pork/seafood, batter, egg and sauce aplenty comprising the Japanese versions of Worcester and mayonnaise. And here we had arrived at the 'food theme park' of Okonomi-mura, a floor of no less than 26 open restaurants all specialized in the stuff, so I was pretty ecstatic. Unfortunately the one picture I took got corrupted, but Derpy got one more in.



Okonomi-mura itself:




It's hard to say whether I preferred Hiroshima or Osaka's dish, both being the food of the gods as far as I'm concerned. Derpy, you really missed out by only picking at yours and giving the rest to me, not that I would very ardently protest such a turn of events
Derpy: "To be fair, I am a picky eater; I wanted to try it, and was willing to risk not liking it."

After that fantastic (imo) lunch we did some more exploring, having a brief stroll into Hiroshima's natural park and trying to break into a manga library which was closed. We then nabbed some beers and bentos for the 5 hour ride to Tokyo we'd be catching that evening and bid farewell to the place.

I'm not sure if the fault lies more with us or with Hiroshima itself, but in hindsight I'm a little unsatisfied with our trip there, even though the hotel, the castle and the lunch we had were all stellar. Neither of us were particularly up for visiting a museum about the bombing, so I guess you can say we skirted around the elephant in the room
Derpy: "I guess I was more satisfied with our stay in Hiroshima than Inkie, although the first night was atrocious for the price we paid."
This all being said, I knew that our next destination - Tokyo - was bound to be more exciting.

[Veteraan]

So you skirted around the elephant in the room in Nagasaki and Hiroshima (unless I missed something). That amazes me to be honest, but it was your trip of course.

Well, on to Tokyo then.

[AqD]

Nobody cares about our trip, Derps

On the side though, no matter how I look at it the pics are too damn big, yo.

I didn't know the thread until today! After I came back.


Why your photos look very different from ours (Osaka and Rokkosan)? Nothing is familiar! We didn't have time for travel spots though, half of our travel are spent in shopping because there are far too many things to buy!

You forgot to mention they have great heaters everywhere! No need of coat or any clothing!

[Diglytron]

Then we went to a district of Osaka filled with stores selling anime merchandise, which was where we spent the rest of the day.

mfw the autism. People actually watch anime. mfw mfw.



I like the thread, some nice traveling tips. Personally I have little with Japan, although the countryside looks interesting. And apparently its very expensive too. I won't comment on Inkie's clothing either, but you sir (Char Aznable ) have very fancy hair. I would love to have that, no joke. its so hipster, in a good way. What I wonder about Japan is how the Japanese look at you, as definitely foreign looking guys. Did you meet a lot of other tourists?

Cool thread anyway. +rep to both of you

[Derpy Hooves]

mfw the autism. People actually watch anime. mfw mfw.



I like the thread, some nice traveling tips. Personally I have little with Japan, although the countryside looks interesting. And apparently its very expensive too. I won't comment on Inkie's clothing either, but you sir (Char Aznable ) have very fancy hair. I would love to have that, no joke. its so hipster, in a good way. What I wonder about Japan is how the Japanese look at you, as definitely foreign looking guys. Did you meet a lot of other tourists?

Cool thread anyway. +rep to both of you

We met numerous tourists. And I'm honored that you call my hair very fancy, however, I hate to disappoint you, but I don't style my hair. I leave it alone.

[AqD]

mfw the autism. People actually watch anime. mfw mfw.

In Osaka a shop staff of my age asked me about some huge Totoro in Taipei and I felt like WTF......

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Since when did anime become part of childhood worldwide? I only remember Picard the Bald.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

Sorry to drag this up, I only just got around to reading it fully. I just got back from travelling in Japan on Sunday, although I seem to have had a bit of a different experience. I was centered around Mount Fuji, namely in Shizuoka (it was the cheapest flight) and travelled to the local port of Shimizu, the rather more famous Odawara and finally Tokyo for a day trip. Apart from the delicious pastries and admittedly beautiful scenery, I didn't find much to like in Japan. Me and the missus tried to eat somewhere new everyday (although we ended up at the 'fast food' chain Yoshinori? 吉野家 a lot for convenience sake - actually ended up with food poisoning too!), but the food was quite samey and it didn't feel like Japan had much in the way of variety. We also felt that the atmosphere was very depressing; very quiet, very law-abiding, very tense. The people were nice enough when you actually spoke with them, but this was contained mainly to shopkeeps and waiters - many of whom actually turned out to be foreign and not even Japanese. As a smoker, the public ban was particularly irksome, especially in Tokyo.

I think had I come from England to Japan, I might have had a different experience, since the culture and atmosphere is kind of similar, but coming from the bustling and lively Chinese mainland, the culture shock was huge. Also staying in relatively rural Japan might have played a part, and Tokyo was a little different (but not that much) to where I was staying - more enjoyable for sure, even without smoking areas. Seeing Akiba (even though I'm not a huge anime guy) and then going up the Tokyo Tower were definitely highlights of the trip.

[Inkie]

Np dude, glad to hear about your experiences. Too bad we never finished writing this.

Anyway, what a shame that you and your ladyfriend were let down, I actually returned to Japan in Spring last year, and have been having a pretty awesome time.

My advice for if you come again - try Kansai! Or Kyushu. Kanto is known here for being a generally less friendly, less scenic/cultural area and the food is better in the west. During our trip we did manage to go to Odawara too though. I think I can hear Hojo Ujinao rolling in his grave.



Yoshinoya you mean? Lol, yeah that's Japan's leading homegrown fast food chain. Not great stuff. Can't blame you for not enjoying the come-down from what I imagine to be a very lively, active atmosphere in Chinese cities. Some people I know who have lived there also negatively contrast the current vibes and outlooks in Japan with those in the middle kingdom (though you'd never hear that from the vast majority of Japanese). Either way, in Osaka people are pretty lively, relaxed, open, talkative and curious about foreigners, they like to joke and you get a nice variety of bars and restaurants with great food. Smoking bans on the streets can be a bit annoying, but that's not true of everywhere, usually just main streets (I carry a nifty sealable ashtray around anyway). Didn't you enjoy being able to smoke indoors though? Definitely a good trade-off vis a vis Europe as far as I'm concerned.

Either way, sounds like you could have benefitted from choosing different locations. Also, having some people you know in the area would probably have been good to help you get the most out of where you went.