Japan 2009

Japan Trip - September 2009

Introduction

This was my fourth trip to Japan and my wife's third. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to go again, on seeing Jetstar offering a two-for-one deal to Osaka. At around $950 all up for the both of us, it was too good to turn down. My first trip to Tokyo in 1993 cost me over $1300 just for myself!

This time we stayed in Osaka for eight days and made a number of day trips to Kyoto and one to Kobe. We arrived late on a Sunday and departed late on Monday of the following week. Except for a few spots of rain one morning, the day we went to Kobe, it was nice and sunny the whole time.

We stayed at the Hotel Granvia right on top of the JR Osaka railway station. Not the cheapest place around, but extremely convenient. It's much cheaper if booked online. Be aware though that their "free Internet" in standard double rooms just means an Ethernet cable. You either need your own laptop or can rent one from the hotel.

Our itinerary for the week ended up as follows:

Day 1: Jingo-ji and Kozan-ji temples in Kyoto's Takao area.
Day 2: Kobe's Nunobiki herb garden, Harborland, and Chinatown.
Day 3: Day in Osaka, mostly visiting 100 Yen shops.
Day 4: Fushimi-Inari-Taisha shrine in Inari and Kyoto's Tenryu-ji temple.
Day 5: Kyoto's Nishiki Market and Shimogamo shrine.
Day 6: Kyoto's Botanic Garden and Imperial Palace Park.
Day 7: Kishiwada festival (southern suburb of Osaka).
Day 8: Kyoto's To-ji temple and monthly market.

Photographs

This blog is divided into four sections, so there won't be too many photos on each page, covering two days each. There are 349 photos in total, giving around 48MB.

The photos were mostly taken with a Nikon D90 DSLR using a Nikkor 16-85mm zoom lens, although a few used a 70-300mm lens. Some photos were also taken with a Nikon Coolpix P1 point-and-shoot. Any with flash just used the camera's built-in flash. Most shots were hand-held, but a few (notably at the Fushimi-Inari-Taisha shrine and in the bamboo forest near the Tenryu-ji temple) used a small tripod.

With the D90, most were taken using neutral picture control (low contrast and saturation). All photos were then processed using Nikon's Capture NX2 software. To reduce the amount of data here, all photos are compressed somewhat, using a 75% compression setting in Capture NX2 (zero is maximum compression).

Day 1

The Takao area of Kyoto is in the hills to the Northwest of the city. It takes about 50 minutes by bus from JR Kyoto station.

Jingo-ji Temple

Getting to the Jingo-ji temple requires a few minutes walking down some stone steps to a river, then another 10 minutes or so climbing more steps to the temple.

The bridge over the river. The steps heading up to the temple can be seen in the background.

Heading up the steps.

Refreshments about half way up.

These Tanuki (raccoon dog) statues are all over the place, particularly outside temples. See the Wikipedia article for more information about them.

Details of the entrance gate at the top of the steps.

The entrance gate from the inside.

Off to one side of the entrance courtyard.

One of the main temple buildings.

And from the other end.

A feature to one side of these buildings.

Looking up the next set of steps.

And back down from the top of the those steps.

The building seen at the top of the steps.

Another building up another side set of steps. It wasn't possible to enter this building.

Information about the Jingo-ji Temple.

A feature in the area.

A lookout over the valley. The thing to do here is buy some small clay discs and throw them out over the valley. It's supposed to rid you of your bad karma. At ¥100 for two discs, it will certainly help rid you of some of your spare change. These are some people who were here when we arrived. You can just see the disc off the tip of her fingers.

Where the discs hopefully end up, although it looked like many never made it more than a few inches over the railing.

What the discs look like.

My wife ridding herself of some bad karma. The disc is visible in the middle of the bush about another arm's length in front of her outstretched hand.

On the path back down, approaching another refreshment stop (or possibly the same one - I can't remember now if there were two or just one).

Once you can see over the edge.

Kozan-ji Temple

After descending back to the bridge, we followed the road along the river, past the Saimyo-ji Temple, and on to the Kozan-ji Temple. Due to the way we approached, we entered via what seemed to be a back entrance. However, entry was free, so it didn't matter.

Just off the road, heading into the temple grounds.

The view along the path as we walked.

More steps up to the temple.

One of the temple buildings.

Not sure whose feet made these impressions in the stone.

Another temple building.

More directly in front of the building.

Along another path.

The tea garden. The Kozan-ji temple is partly known for the Japanese tea they grow there, and this man, who spoke very good English, told us a bit about it. The bushes to the right are tea plants.

The seed pod and the flower of the tea plants.

More steps through the forest.

Information about the Kozan-ji Temple.

On the bus back into the city. These indicator boards up the front of the bus show the current value of your fare if you get off at the next stop. The white numbers are printed on the ticket you take as you enter the back door. When you get off, you pay the amount shown under that number. There's a change machine beside the driver, so you always pay the exact fare, dropping the money into the top of the machine as you get off (via the front door). It involves a fair amount of honesty, as the driver barely even looks at what you put in the machine.

Downtown Kyoto

The Kamo river in Central Kyoto at dusk.

A restaurant in the main shopping area.

Pontocho street. This narrow street runs near the river and is something of a tourist attraction.

A small temple in the Shinkyogoku arcade in central Kyoto.

Another feature of interest in the arcade.

Day 2

Day two was spent in Kobe, firstly visiting the Nunobiki herb garden at Shin-Kobe, then Harborland near Kobe station, then Chinatown in the evening.

Shin-Kobe

We started off by taking a couple of trains to get to Shin-Kobe and then hunting around for the cable car (or ropeway as they call them) up to the Nunobiki herb garden. After a couple of false starts we finally found the way (from the local train platforms, go upstairs to the shinkansen area). Before taking the cable car though, we found something to eat.

Breakfast is served.

The food.

Nunobiki Herb Garden

The herb garden is up the side of the hill. You can walk all the way to the top, or you can take the cable car up, walk down through the garden, and then get the cable car again for the rest of the way down, which is what we did. The return cable car trip plus garden entry costs ¥1200, or garden entry alone costs ¥200.

The view back down from inside our gondola.

And over one part of the garden.

At the top of the ropeway.

The display and information building.

Inside the display centre. The still was for extracting oils from the herbs, with the display cases containing other related paraphenalia.

Around the walls there are small bottles with a variety of oils to smell.

A few of the larger bottles.

Outside the display centre.

A bicycle built for... well, pot plants actually.

One of the locals hard at work.

And another.

Heading down the hill through the garden.

Some topiary.

Just outside the conservatory.

Two hearts, beating as one...

Inside the conservatory.

And back outside the conservatory, heading on down the hill. This is red okra.

Chillies.

Not sure what this is.

Probably the same thing as this.

Further down the hill again.

A hummingbird hawk moth. It's a moth, not a bird.

A lobster lunch. My wife was looking forward to getting stuck into that lobster tail, but it turned out the tail shell was just for decoration! The lobster was (allegedly) in the croquettes. No wonder it was so cheap.