Well, a couple of days on and “Lyle” has now been officially downgraded from initial status of ‘complete and utter fuckwit’ to more of an ‘all-round general tosspot’. I was really taken aback to find out the guy had never actually been to Morocco before, and (wholly unsurprisingly at this point) displayed a jarring lack of planning, forethought, or any kind of apparent effort to attain any prior local knowledge whatsoever beforehand, such as bothering to learn even the barest of bones in French or Arabic before coming out. I even had to fill him in on the whole Carrefour / alcohol situation myself – much to the group’s collective gratitude and delight, it has to be said though! The words “blind leading the blind” clearly apply here, sauf que je voix évidemment mieux que lui.
Still, he managed to acquit himself acceptably over the course of the day, I suppose – he’s just, charitably speaking, not my personal cup of tea, shall we say. He clearly subscribes to the current TOWIE idyll of masculinity (i.e. bulging pecks, groomed to within an inch of his life, no stranger to the sunbed, a dazzling set of “Turkish teeth”, not much going on between the ears, etc.); is prone to flagrant preening, peacocking and man spreading; and displays a very much “in-your-face” penchant for sporting overly revealing shorts. In short, a guy much more suited to the role of Ibiza holiday rep than cultural coordinator (as evidenced by his quite literally painful attempts at minibus karaoke on the way to Agafay*), and with that kind of overly confident, self-aggrandising, cock-of-the-walk personality type, quite frankly I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he pops up on Love Island or some such one of these days soon either…
You could have someone’s eye out here….
As for the rest of the group, they’ve been pretty cool so far – everyone getting on well and no complaints, so all good on that front!
As of now, we’re just getting ourselves up after an overnight stay at the Emeraude Luxury Camp in the Agafay desert – a place that was decidedly less luxury than the website suggests (e.g. shitty wifi, very mediocre service, no hot water, etc.), but did have lovely glamping style tents and a beautiful desert swimming pool, which was just what the doctor ordered by the time we rocked up at about 4pm yesterday. I’d only actually managed to sleep two hours the night before (mainly due to being hyped up to start the trip, the hotel being really noisy, and my overactive brain feverishly plotting vengeance on Lyle in the form of a visceral yet icily professional complaint letter to the tour provider^), so chose to chill by the pool for a bit here, while others in the group went camel riding (been there down that on previous trips) or quad biking (probably fun, but I was just too knackered, sweaty and heat exhausted by this point to bother (it’s been 38° today, and the minibus getting here had literally zero aircon to boot…).
A cold dip, a beer and some good food (a truly delicious beef tagine) soon had me to rights again though, meaning I could go on to spend an evening round the campfire with the group, before finally hitting the hay for a much-needed night’s sleep.
And that’s it till next time…
* Video evidence available for anyone who would like to privately die a little bit inside.
^ In the cold light of day, I figured venting my spleen about him on here would suffice.
So, a very quick one from me today, before embarking on this morning’s final walking tour of Marrakesh (admittedly retracing my steps in part), before setting off into the desert of Agafay this afternoon…
In short, I have officially met up with the most of the group as of this evening, though “unofficially” a bunch of us found each other (and also managed to locate one of the few Ville Nouvelle drinking establishments for a pre-dinner tipple), before assembling at the meet-up “proper” site – a restaurant in the Medina for a delicious tagine meal later on that evening.
The group as it stands consists of mainly Brits, one Italian, one Indian, one Yank and a couple of latecomers as yet undetermined and, yes, as suspected, I am probably the oldest by a good decade or so. I’m not sure whether it was my great age, or the fact that I am so far the only French speaker of the group, or simply my innate instinct to bring order to chaos in each and every situation, but – in the absence of any group guide (a highly conspicuous no-show till the very last minute, more on which below…) – I currently find myself in definite in danger of unwittingly falling into the de facto mother hen role here.
That, or in-house drug dealer, given that fair to say pretty much everyone else in the group did not seem to get the memo on the alcohol (or rather lack thereof) front. Given I’m now in a very real position to supply that demand over the next few days, there is at present every possibility that I may end up divvying up and distributing my two bottles of wine and small bottle of duty-free rum at a tidy profit, in the process elevating myself to the temporary status of North African equivalent of Pablo Escobar here…
Still, the group so far (there a couple more still to join) has definitely proven a cool bunch, with ones to watch from the ten so far being:
1. Carmen^ – A very cool former travel coordinator turned HNW PA, who (like me) finds herself unexpectedly single and in despair at the sordid world that is online dating.
2. Joss – A very switched-on digital marketer with a shared penchant for early bedtimes.
3. Bryan – The one American of the group, so naturally friendly, exuberant and like me also into the whole health and fitness.
4. Ricky – Black Country lad who also aims at 10,000 steps a day (with me, him and Bryan being the big walkers of the group as a result).
As for the guide, who we’ll call, “Lyle”, the groupwide current consensus is that he is, in short, something of a bellend. Quite unbelievably, this numpty turned up several hours too late to his own tour – not because of any flight delays or anything – just because he chose for whatever reason to book a flight that would get him in hours behind the rest of us, the actual paying customers. To make matters worse, to this point he also hadn’t shared any actual information beforehand on things like timings etc. for the next day (we eventually got these through coming up to midnight, so talk about last minute dot com). Putting it politely, as a result the whole group was raising a massive collective eyebrow at the serious lack of professionalism here.
An impression which was confirmed ten times over when the cocky bastard just strode nonchalantly in just as we were all leaving, just giving it the big “I am” and practically slapping his dick on the table on arrival – no context, explanation, apology or any kind of humility at all. Well, all I can say is that I expected a knobber or two in the mix, but certainly didn’t expect it to be the lead… Either way, fair to say that insouciant approach went down like a cup of cold sick with the group – not a great look if you’re guide is already a laughing stock before he even turns up, and is actually deemed even more so of one after the fact…
The group has agreed to give the guy the benefit of the doubt for now, and there is the chance he may yet redeem himself over the next few days. I for one, however, inwardly subscribe to the school of “no mercy, no forgiveness” once crossed, and have been known to hold persistent decades-long grudges for less. So in short, watch out for now motherfucker – I’m officially on to you, bitch.
^ Names changed to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent.
Well, a couple of days in and here are my early observations on Morocco so far:
1. Thank Christ for my schoolgirl (albeit to GCSE A* and one of the highest A Level grades in the country standard – just sayin’) French. C’est absolument nécessaire ici, and particularly so when negotiating prices with the, let’s say, “over-optimistic” taxi drivers, when it comes to number of Dirham payable per mile.
2. It certainly ain’t easy to get a drink! I knew that to a degree coming in of course, but had understood that all the local Carrefours (a very welcome legacy of French colonialism*) here did sell alcohol at the very least. Not so, as it turns out – as I found out to my cost this morning after walking a mile to the nearest one, only to learn from the staff there (again thanks to long latent French-speaking abilities) that this only actually applies to a select few larger Carrefours after all – cue a not insubstantial taxi journey out of my way to finally successfully stock up on wine at the super-modern Menara Mall. I realise that the level of time and effort I was willing to put in on this front probably says far more about me than it does the Moroccans, but fuck it! I’m on holiday and a sundowner or two is practically obligatory, at least for us debauched, decadent Westerners at any rate…
3. It turns out that the Moroccans are also cat people! There are a lot of street cats here, particularly in the Medina area, which local people collectively feed and look after, so much kudos there. In fact, speaking of felines, I had a truly horrendous dream last night that I had given away my own much beloved cat (the aptly named Princess Kim Chi, the Official Goddess of Sapphire-eyed Floofiness), due to her somewhat “demanding” nature at times, and then later regretted it horribly. I woke up in a massive panic, only after long sleep-addled contemplation finally coming to the conclusion that this wasn’t actually the case, then fell back asleep only to repeat the very same traumatic dream all over again…
This is what you get for leaving me, bitch…
Anyhoo, moving on…. Over the course of the last two days, I’ve been mainly exploring the historic Medina area, including morning visits to the Bahia Palace, Koutoubia Mosque and the Ben Youssef Medersa. As you’d expect from this North African neck of the woods, there were a lot of traditional mosaics and ornate wood carvings involved here – pretty snazzy, I think you’ll all agree.
From there it was onto the souks, which were mercifully far less hassly than I’d been previously led to believe. As all of you know by now, I loves me a market at the best of times, and the below constitutes just the teensiest tiny fraction of all photos taken here as a result…
By far the most interesting thing about the souks, however, was the myriad of miniature one-man hole-in-the-wall type businesses, which included: old-school blacksmiths, iron-mongers, tailors, booksellers, leather workers, haberdashers, shoemakers, carpenters, butchers (each with some decidedly unhygienic looking wares on offer…) and probably many more I just didn’t manage to get to. How these people ever make any kind of living in this age of mass production I really don’t know, but it was really quite incredible to see close-up – almost like taking a step back in time a century or two. I didn’t take any pictures of my own (just felt too intrusive to do so), but here are some I’ve unashamedly stolen off t’interweb, which will hopefully give you some sense of the place instead…
And that’s it for the minute, bar a few final random pics I took along the way…
As for now, I’m just taking a chance to catch my breath before joining up with the group later this evening and officially embark on this next segment of my trip. Sorry Tara and Stuart once again for the distinct lack of sex, drugs and rock n roll so far here, but – given it took me best part of a morning just to source a semi-decent looking merlot here – I think you may well need to lower your expectations on this front…. 😉
Until next time then, à bientôt!
* Technically Morocco was “just” a French protectorate rather than full-blown colony, but close enough.
Well, back by popular demand (meaning basically Tara and Stuart…), I’m officially resurrecting my travel blog from Japan fame – though this time with a name change in the mix and from my current location of Morocco, where I’ll be bouncing about from Marrakesh to Arafay to Essaouria and back over the course of the next week.
I’ll be doing a couple of days solo either side of a 5 day small group trip. Not my normal style by any means, given that I generally prefer to fly solo for the most part, but in the case of Morocco (with all the hassle of various forms travel here inevitably entails…), I felt that safety in numbers probably couldn’t hurt on this occasion. And it’s only 5 days after all, so if it turns out not to be my thing, or there are some raging cockwombles in the group, I can hopefully still grin and bear it for that short amount of time…
After all, it couldn’t possibly turn out like my one unforgettable (in every which way!) 8 week group trip from Kenya down to Cape Town aboard the infamous Big Brother truck back in the day, which notoriously involved: a situationship with the group leader*; a glovebox stashed with Class A drugs^; and a truly horrendous thermonuclear meltdown in inter-group dynamics about 5 weeks in… Right…? Oh well, if it does all go horribly tits up, you will all be the beneficiaries, dear reader, as I promise to vent my spleen no hold barred accordingly on here… 😉
Ahhh happy days……till shit got real.
* I say “situationship”. I actually went on to officially meet the parents in Pretoria after the trip, and they frikkin’ loved me. One of those sliding door moments in life, had I stuck around… ^ To be clear, I only found this out after the fact, and was – and remain – genuinely horrified.
As for now, I landed late yesterday evening at the brand-spanking new (but for all that not particularly efficient) Menara Airport, so all I have seen of the country so far is the night-time drive from airport to hotel. First impressions of Morocco based on this very small glimpse? More “modern” looking than I was expecting (though the airport strip is always like that, I suppose, whichever the country…); an abundance of interesting-looking little cafés (but filled almost exclusively with men); and a hotel that was unexpectedly dry despite overtly advertising itself as one of of the few places in Morocco with an alcohol licence, which was the only reason I chose it in the first place (grrr…). Fortunately, I’d erred on the side of caution and stocked up at duty-free, so could toast to my arrival with a much-needed glass of wine after a long trip still!!
Only other downside so far is persistent mummy guilts as a result of leaving this widdy widdy woo widdle gorgeous face, but hopefully she won’t be too furious with me when I get back (and yes, there are times when I do seriously wonder whether I might be in an emotionally abusive relationship with this cat… She’s worth it though, the narcissistic little diva that she is… Bless.)
Yes, I’m well aware sanity has long since left the building on this front…
Anyway, that’s it for now – stand by for another update in a couple of days!
Well, I’m officially waiting to board a bullet train back from Hiroshima to Tokyo Haneda airport as I type here, so I guess the trip is now officially drawing to an end at this point. It’s been everything I hoped for and more (bar cheap – ouch!) and I’ve had an absolute blast as I’ve travelled across Tokyo, Kyoto, Koyasan, Nara and Hiroshima over the last 3 weeks. I originally thought this would be absolutely loads of time to see and do everything, but in fact I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of this in equal parts beautiful, fascinating and quite frankly often completely and utterly bonkers country… Either way, I will need to come back at some point soon again – if only for the ramen alone!
In the meantime, it has come to my attention in recent days that there are some of you out there who haven’t been following this blog as avidly as you should have been doing over the course of the last month, or had not – in fact – clocked until now that there was even a blog to follow. If you are one of these people, truly epic fail on your part… 😉
I’d definitely recommend reading from the beginning, as this blog genuinely constitutes a true work of creative genius (my Mum said so and everything…). But failing that (and presuming busy lives, pushed for time, CBA, etc…), here’s a handy rundown of my personal Japan top 20 – it’s been such a truly great trip, I genuinely couldn’t get it down any lower that that!! And for those of you who have been diligently reading and commenting from the outset, thanks a million – and please do feel free to share in the below retrospective across an epic last 3 weeks…
So, in no particular order – here is the highly abridged, drastically abbreviated, and completely non-exhaustive version of my Japan top 20…
1. Cat Café
One of my early highlights of Japan was hitting up the Cat Café Mocha Lounge in Shinjuku, where a much needed matcha tea and a bit of cat love from the various residents lifted my flagging spirits on day 1 in Tokyo on an initial rainy and sleep-deprived afternoon.
2. Toilets
This would not be a complete top 20 of Japan without toilets featuring on here in some way shape or form. Toilets in Japan are both futuristic (love lovelove that hot seat function) and omni-present – a relief for us poor tiny-bladdered types at the best of times, not to mention a quite literal god-send when the infamous ‘Osaka incident’ struck….
This being said, there’s also a clear obsession here with using them correctly, whether Western bowl shape or Eastern hole-in-the-ground (I’ve used both – it’s really not that hard…). Just don’t forget the toi-re slippers!
3. Capsule hotel
My trip to Japan was actually first inspired by watching John Leslie (long before later fall from grace) visit a Tokyo capsule hotel on a Blue Peter special. Suffice to say, my tiny little mind was blown – and it just had to be done while I was here.
I’d feared it would be like sleeping in a coffin or MRI scanner, with lots of noise from adjacent neighbours, etc. – but actually at 10+ hours, I had one of the best night’s sleep of my trip here. I know this latter point for a fact, as my sleep quality in the pod was (really rather obtrusively, when you think about it…) tracked and monitored throughout the night here, and I even got a little sleep report to this effect after the fact too:
You can read more about my stay in said capsule hotel here.
4. The Japanese transport network
Putting it bluntly, the Tokyo transport system makes the London Underground look like it’s built for absolute squealing wussies. Think endless flowing hordes of determined commuters, about a thousand and one different transportation lines, a veritable maze of multi-floor entrances and exits, various jaunty musical interludes and repeat announcements ringing out from the tannoys in that very typically Japanese high-pitched teenage-girl type staccato, all to the power of about a million.
Here’s a map of Tokyo’s transport network for sense of scale:
I feel vaguely sick even looking at it.
That said, there is all the fun of traveling via bullet train / shinkansen! Is it me, or does it look a bit like a duck billed platypus here…? I think so at any rate.
5. Sakura Sakura
(I like to sing this in my head Wycliffe style…) Sakura means cherry blossom in Japanese, and the season is a major deal here, with countless young girls and couples taking the opportunity to get their kimono / traditional togs on and have their photographs professionally taken against various scenic backdrops.
As it happened, the season came early this year, and I was really incredibly lucky to catch it at all – albeit by the skin of my teeth, and with some mad dashes around both Tokyo and Kyoto’s various hanami (viewing spots) in the process. Still, ‘my sakura is not sufficiently in bloom!’ is truly the ultimate in first world problems (I can hear the tiny violins playing as I type…) and I do genuinely count myself as extremely fortunate to have been in a position to even travel here and see them at all.
You can read more about my various sakura chases round Tokyo and Kyoto here and here.
6. Kyoto
It really is impossible to adequately sum up Kyoto in a few lines here, and I’d definitely recommend having a look at my adventures in the city here, here and here.
The summary of the summary of the summary is that Kyoto (as you’d expect) was duly stunning, and more than lived up to its reputation as one of the most beautiful cities of the East. I won’t wax lyrical on this – suffice to say the place was pretty amazeballs, and I’ll otherwise let the pics (a very, very tiny fraction of the whole…) do the talking here.
7. The Tokyo Poop Museum
I’d expected ‘bonkers’ here, and the Poop Museum (PooMoo? – I seriously think that moniker could catch on) certainly did not disappoint on this front. The PooMoo turned out to be a true embodiment of psychedelic insanity, constituting a veritable assault on the senses (bar – ironically enough – smell…) from the moment you walked through the door here. If you read any of my blog posts in full at all, best make sure it’s this one!
8. Tokyo night life
One of my most fun evenings in Japan was parking myself at one of the many teeny tiny little ‘hole-in-the-wall’ bars and restaurants that collectively make up Tokyo’s Golden Gai district. With room for only about 8 people along the counter, I soon got chatting to fellow guests, and even took turns singing a bit of karaoke with them too….
Tragically, there was no Eminem on the song list (only about 30 songs worth) this time round – so had to make do with Yesterday by The Beatles. Which is likely why I look just about as pained here singing it as others must have been listening!).
9. Tokyo cityscapes
When in Tokyo, one has to seek out the famous Shibuya Crossing – that iconic cityscape scene of multiple pedestrian crossings all in play at once.
I ended up getting hopelessly lost on the way there though – Google was completely confused at the sheer multitude of floors, muddle of entrances and maze of exits at Shibuya station – and quite frankly I don’t bloody blame it! Finally though, I made it there (if more by accident than design in the end), to some great views from on high:
10. Learning about Japanese tradition
While in Kyoto, I visited the Gion-kōbu Kaburenjo Theater in Kyoto to see some geisha and maiko (apprentice geisha) up close, attend a (highly abridged) formal tea ceremony and watch the Miyako Odori theatrical / musical performance.
Of the performance itself, I suppose all I can say on this front is that geisha performance represents something of an acquired taste…? But hey, at least I’ve done something vaguely cultural / artistic while I’m here (unless you count the Poo Museum, which quite frankly I absolutely do, by the way…).
If anyone tells you I dressed up as geisha in the process, they’re lying. However, you can read more about my various experiences learning about ancient Japanese traditions here.
11. Akihabara
Akihabara is Tokyo’s famous manga, anime, gaming and electronics area – as well as purported red light district of the city. None of the above are in any way really my bag, but several million Japanese, not to mention legions of devoted fans worldwide, can’t all be wrong – and the place (chockful of various arcades, pachinko, manga stores, adult shops and somewhat dubitable ‘maid cafés’) was certainly popular at any rate!!
You can read more about my madcap experiences in Akihabara here.
12. Harajuku
I ummed and ahhed as to whether or not to put Harajuku on the list here, but I don’t think you can come to Tokyo and not at least mention the place. I’d always understood Harajuku to be a kind of underground, counter culture type neighbourhood, with a something of an edgy / alternative vibe. What I instead found was a true orgasm of rainbows, kawaii and cotton candy (with barely any Harajuku girls in sight either…). Honestly, it was like a unicorn had projectile vomited pink and glitter all down the street… I have to say, I can’t really see where Gwen Stefani was coming from on this one, but one thing’s for sure: my 4-year old niece would absolutely bloody love the place!
You can read my full entry on Harajuku and other Tokyo neighbourhoods here.
13. Getting spiritual in Koyasan
A definite highlight for me was staying in a shukubo in spiritual Koyasan, a secluded mountain town of 117 monasteries and birthplace of Shingon Buddhism. A shukobo basically constitutes simple temple lodgings, where you have the option to eat the same vegetarian meals (known as shojin-ryori) as the resident monks here, and also to join in on meditation / morning prayers etc. with them as well. I’ve no pics from the latter obviously, given this was a site of active worship, but here are some examples I found on t’interweb to give you a bit of a sense of it all. Really something special to observe quite this up close and personal, it has to be said.
A definite highlight for me (albeit somewhat of a highly idiosyncratic one) was staying in a traditional Japanese ryokan in Kyoto, which is a traditional Japanese inn (think tatami mat / sliding door / futon bed style, plus communal bathrooms). In my case, this felt very much like going to stay with your (theoretical) little old eccentric Japanese grandparents, who are very much looking forward to your visit, but at the same time seem vaguely surprised by the fact you’ve actually turned up at all and aren’t exactly sure what to do with you now you’re here… Just don’t get me started on the raging slipper obsession at play here!
You can read more about my stay at Kyoto’s most endearingly bonkers ryokan going here…
15. Hiroshima
Of course, there was also visiting the haunting Peace Memorial Park and harrowing Peace Museum in rainy Hiroshima (which you can read more about in detail here).
Without wanting to be flippant here, is it me, or does the place also kinda put you in mind of Milton Keynes…? I’m not suggesting for a second that Milton Keynes resembles a bombsite (perish the thought…), but there are some definite parallels here in terms of the liberal use of concrete, incorporation of wide open space and overall new town / urban planning feel, not to mention all the underpasses (albeit less so the roundabouts) too…
16. Markets (Tsujiki and Nishiki)
Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely bloody love me a food market at the best of times – but Japanese food markets on top of that…?!? My cup well and truly runneth over.
As such, the below represents only a teeny tiny fraction of the several hundred pics I took in the process of visitation (when I said I liked markets, I seriously meant it…).
Fellow market aficionados can read my accounts of market visits here and here.
17. Ramen
I bloody love ramen – usually purchased at various little hole-in-the wall type places, similar to as pictured below. It’s quick, affordable (as far as Japan goes!) and is one of my all-time favourite meals at the best of times, so has been a default ‘go to’ most evenings for me. The ones I’ve had to date have varied from the mediocre to the sublime, with some so bloody good they almost count as near transcendental – truly like achieving noodly inspired nirvana at times. Eat your heart out Wagamama.
You can read more about my culinary adventures in Japan here (incidentally by far my most popular post of all time from the blog, by the way – people just love food…).
18. Food! (Other than ramen…)
While most of the trip I’ve been living off ramen, I’ve also gone off piste and pushed the boat out too, on the odd occasion. This includes a kaiseki (multi-course) dinner in Kyoto:
Various sushi and seafood market dinners:
One time having Japanese tapas in a sake bar:
Various ebiken (train lunch boxes – which come lovingly gift wrapped for that extra special sense of locomotive occasion):
And of course, much much more! As above, fellow foodies can read more about my culinary adventures in Japan here.
19. Matcha tea
Drinks-wise, the overarching theme of trip has not been sake or asahi (I’ve actually been incredibly sparing all trip), but matcha tea – my new potable equivalent of crack cocaine.
I’ve had the ‘real deal’ in matcha a couple of times at traditional tea houses or even at a (much abbreviated) tea ceremony, but the one I’m really obsessed with is from Doutor, which is basically the Japanese equivalent to Costa or Starbucks – i.e. the completely bastardised version! No one day in Japan has yet passed without a Doutor visit – often two, once even three. Clearly I’m going to have to find myself a good connect once back in the UK – that or found the first official Matcha Anonymous here…
20. The Weird and the Wonderful
And of course there’s all the weird and wonderful shizz that simply makes Japan Japan.
There are bonkers statues and monuments, often seemingly plonked down in the middle of anonymous suburbia somewhere:
Plus, there’s the plastic models of food outside practically every restaurant here (which invariably looks disgusting, btw):
There’s a souvenir market that quite frankly consists of kawaii on steroids:
There is the insanely wonderful (or wonderfully insane?) Gotokuji cat temple, which for reasons unknown features multiple cat statues at the gates of an otherwise non-descript cemetery in a totally random residential district of Tokyo (side note: please please please please bury me here).
There is a street in Kyoto dedicated to monsters in paper-maché form:
There are also these horrific effed-up bibbed dudes from Okunoin Cemetery in Koyasan, Japan’s largest graveyard (and, yes, I’m officially freaked out too on this one).
And let’s not forget the joys of manga photo booths! I’m not on drugs here by the way – the photo machine just manga’d up my eyes. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Plus there’s all the other random stuff that I encountered over my 3 week stay, from smoking pods, to vending machines everywhere you look, to alarmist public information posters on the Tokyo underground, to Totoru (yeah, I didn’t know who he was either…) and just everything else… And, yes, your guess is as good as mine on some of these too!
21. This blog
And a bonus one here is this blog. It’s been truly great to get in touch with my long dormant travel writing side once again – and to get your comments and feedback about how much you enjoyed reading. I read and appreciated every one!
Anyway, that’s officially it for now – sayonara and arigatō till the next time!
Well, I finally made to Hiroshima – better late than never, I suppose. By which I mean all of eight minutes late, thanks to a short mystery delay on the shinkansen. I know, I was a little bit put out here myself – to the point I even took a photo as evidence (five minutes in) that even the stereotypically punctual and punctilious Japanese are not always quite as on the dot as they’d ideally like to be. Though in fairness, they did spend the rest of the journey putting out various self-flagellating announcements to this effect, apologising both profusely and repeatedly (at intervals of every 15 minutes) for any inconvenience caused.
Hiroshima (pronounced here as Hir-oh–shee-ma rather than the UK Hir-ohsh-ima) is of course primarily known for one thing – which is being blasted to hell on 6th August 1945 by the world’s first “officially” detonated nuclear bomb. As I’m sure you’re all well aware, it was on this date that the bomb Little Boy – as dropped by pilots of the Enola Gay B-29 bomber – effectively razed the city of Hiroshima to the ground in an instant, killing up to around 200,000 people (mainly civilians) in the process, both in the immediate blast and through the effects of radiation sickness in the short- and longer-term aftermath.
I spent my first afternoon mainly walking round the Peace Memorial Park, which (as the name implies) features a number of monuments and memorials to the victims of the bombing – including the Peace Museum itself and also that now iconic bombed-out building most people associate with the city (officially known as the A-Bomb Dome).
I sensibly decided to tackle the Peace Museum itself the next day, figuring that I’d need a fair chunk of mental energy in reserve for this one – which turned out to be a very good call. As a bit of a 20th century history buff, with something of a – shall we say – ‘specialist interest’ in nuclear warfare / annihilation (they are in effect synonymous) at the best of times (‘Threads’ anyone…?!?), I already knew quite a bit about the Hiroshima bombing at an intellectual level, but fair to say the museum here certainly hammered it home at an emotional one. I mean, fuck me, there really are no words at times…
Arrgghhh. The best you can say for it all really is that The Bomb has kept the peace (just about…) for 78 years now – but at what cost…? And – more pertinently – for how much longer…? All I can say is that if the bomb drops in my near vicinity, I’m stripping naked and running towards it as bloody fast as I can. Failing that, my stock of iodine tablets and tinned goods should help me survive – hmm – a good month or so more after everyone else has either died or society had broken down irrevocably. So, there’s that, I suppose…
Anyway, this is all getting horribly dark and depressing – so let’s switch the tone up a little bit here.
For example, is it wrong of me to say Hiroshima – in particular Memorial Square – puts me really quite strongly in mind of Milton Keynes here….? It’s all that concrete, wide open space and new town / urban planning feel, I think, plus lots of underpasses (albeit not the excess roundabouts) too. Key difference being that Milton Keynes – unlike Hiroshima – has no excuse… (That’s a joke btw! And I’m just playing MK, you know I love you…. 😉 ).
Also, I was being a little unfair earlier in saying that Hiroshima is only known for once having had the shit nuked out of it. The Mazda factory is also based here, apparently, and the city is also known for its okonomiyaki, which are basically a type of savoury Japanese half-omelette, half-pancake dish. It’s so popular here that there is one part of town set aside as an Okonomiyaki Village, called the Okonomimura, which I visited as well today (that’s my okonomiyaki below bottom left by the way – it was pretty nice!):
And finally, I don’t want to end this entry while still on a downer, so here some vids and pics of me at a Micropig Café to help lift the mood (it was a genuine Sophie’s Choice between that and the neighbouring Puppy Café, but I’m at peace with my decision here).
And that’s it for what is likely to be my penultimate post on the blog – stand by for final one to follow shortly and goodbye for the moment…
Well, my last full day in Kyoto turned out to be a scorcher, so I thought I’d better use it to maximum effect! With this in mind, I headed over to Nara late morning, which is a nearby town famous for its temples, big Buddha statues and very friendly local deer population.
Never ones to miss a merchandising opportunity, the Nara prefecture powers-that-be have duly set about kawaii’ing the ever-loving shit out of the local deer populace. Notably, this includes a) the presence of a somewhat effete faun type creature as official city mascot (a highly flamboyant Mr Tumnus comes to mind here…) and b) the more recent creation of some sort of part-deer, part-Pikachu marketing monstrosity. In fairness, said deer-cum-Pokémon abomination does at least have the grace to look thoroughly embarrassed at having been conceptualised into existence in the first place here…
Back in Kyoto later that afternoon, I also passed by Yokai Street, which translates as ‘Monster Street’ in Japanese. As the legend goes, thousands of years ago, yokai or ‘monsters’ invaded the northernmost street of the old capital of Kyoto – and for that reason the owners of shops on this street now construct paper-maché monsters as a celebration of the legends (and definitely not as a cynical tourist draw on the cheap, which is otherwise what you might be forgiven for thinking here…). Here are some of the ones I met on my travels at any rate:
And finally, I had the ramen to beat all ramenyesterday evening as well – definitely the best I’ve had in Japan so far, and that’s saying a lot! That said, when they asked if I wanted garlic, I was expecting maybe half a clove, rather than best part of half a bulb here – I don’t know if Japan has vampires, but if they do, they’d better steer clear for the foreseeable!*
And that’s it from me for today – I’ll be sure to check in again from Hiroshima in a bit!
* PS: They kinda do, though not in any kind of sense we would recognise in the West – and certainly no evidence of any allergies / aversions to garlic that I can find. Which, in essence, means that there is still a fair to middling theoretical chance that Japanese vampires may well still club together with the Yokai Street monsters and those scary graveyard bibbed dudes from the cemetery the other day to come and kill me horrifically in my sleep… If this proves my last entry, you know why…
So, for anyone out there still on tenterhooks off the back of my last post, please rest assured that I did in fact make it back to Kyoto with sphincter intact in the end. With that most pressing of updates (as it were) now officially out of the way, I’d instead like to run with a different theme from the last entry – which is the humble Japanese ryokan.
I alluded to ryokan in my last post, as shukubo share some of the features of this type of quintessentially Japanese accommodation. Essentially, a ryokan is a traditional, family-run inn, which typically features tatami-matted rooms, roll-out futon beds, sliding doors and communal baths (often based on hot springs, if any are nearby) – oh, and they typically give you a yukata to wear for the duration of your stay as well. To date, I’ve been staying mainly in hostels (mainly so I can chat to people of an evening in the bar), but I wanted to make sure I stayed in a ryokan proper at least once during my stay in Japan – so booked myself into one for my second interim stint in Kyoto, after getting back from Koyasan.
My conclusions…? Staying in a ryokan (at least one on the ‘cheap and cheerful’ end of the spectrum, like I did) was in my case very much like going to stay with your little old eccentric Japanese grandparents, who are very much looking forward to your visit, but at the same time seem vaguely surprised by the fact you’ve actually turned up at all and aren’t exactly sure what to do with you now you’re here…
Now, said grandparents are absolutely, unfailingly lovely – but equally do also have their idiosyncratic ‘little ways’, such as having the heating on full blast all of the time and wanting to know the exact timings for your next shower, not to mention demonstrating a curiosity (bordering on intrusiveness / obsession at times…) as to where you’re going, who you’re seeing and when you’ll be back again whenever you leave the building. They may similarly have a penchant for hot water in thermos flasks and/or hot water bottles, have built a slightly bonkers shrine to tat in the reception area, and overall seem somewhat distrustful of and/or bemused by t’internet – having gone so far as to install wifi at some point in the not-too-distant past, but preferring themselves to check guests in and out via the trusty offline medium of a big fat hardback ledger instead (in the most beautiful kanji calligraphy, it must be said though….). Finally they may or may not have the Japanese equivalent of garden gnomes in the garden (those big balled tanuki things again…).
There will almost certainly be a decided preoccupation with house slippers in their various different guises – and woe betide you should you forget these rules for a second! Let’s pause for a moment on slipper logic in Japan, which – I have to say – strikes me as just a teensy tiny bit OTT, if my recent ryokan experience is anything to go by at least…
Firstly, you have to take off your outdoor shoes off at the threshold – which I totally get and am down with (don’t want to bring outside dirt into the home and all that). Then secondly, you have to put on indoor slippers (of which there are a vast array to choose from at the door), but – and this is important – these are for the halls only. You will need to take off said hall slippers again after just a few feet (or even just a few steps), before you enter your actual ryokan room – and this apparently serves as a key indicator to your hosts as to whether you’re in or out at any one time, as I later found out to my cost (fortunately not while in any compromising position at the time though!). Then thirdly there are the bathroom slippers, which you have to change into from your hall slippers (which, remember, must be donned at the threshold of your room, but absolutely not inside it) and same again in the other direction. The absolute worst thing you can do in a ryokan (also garnered from first-hand recent experience) is to momentarily forget that you are in bathroom slippers and not hall slippers and wander off innocently back to your room again – this faux pas will be greeted with scarcely concealed horror by your hosts, to whom this is akin to stepping directly in a dirty great bathroom turd* and trailing it all along the whole ryokan corridor… Well, far be it from me to criticise another culture in any way here, but I do feel I have to let you know, Japan, that we have these little things in the West called socks, which cover literally all of the above scenarios interchangeably without issue or drama. We use them in living room, kitchen, hall, bathroom and even (shock horror) the toilet, and to my knowledge no one has died yet… 😉
But, of course, all of the above is conducted with such endearing charm and graciousness that you can’t help but smile and do as you’re told asked here… Plus, they do offer a mean and most beautifully presented breakfast (as pictured below).
(This is where the grandparent analogy ends for me, by the way. Back in the day at my grandma’s, it was always Kelloggs cornflakes topped off with a mountain of sugar, plus all the cream off the top of the milk (as delivered by the milkman that morning) and possibly followed by a chaser of party ring biscuits – a meal which made up in calorie communicated love what it lacked in any form of basic sophistication, and actually makes me feel all a bit teary-eyed and nostalgic, now I think about it…)
Now, I am quite sure there are many other ryokan out there in Japan that are, shall we say, less homely and more sophisticated this one, just like in the UK our B&Bs run the full gauntlet from bad to basic to bijoux (as ‘Four in a Bed’ on 4oD will amply demonstrate). All I can do is speak my truth in respect of this particular stay – which for our purposes I think we’ll class under the category of ‘charmingly bonkers’ for now.
Anyhoo… I’ll be posting shortly in bit about my last full day in Kyoto (or thereabouts, at any rate…), so watch this space for the moment!
* I just don’t get why though. Surely the very point of being in a bathroom is not to deposit your excreta all over the floor….? And, statistically speaking, your average bathroom surface is usually cleaner than kitchen surface, after all (not mine, I hasten to add – my kitchen’s bloody spotless…).
Well, four separate subway lines, 1 intercity train, 2 funiculars and a cable car later (and same again in reverse to come later this morning), I’m posting from lovely Koyasan, where there is wifi (to a degree) – though decidedly temperamental to say the least…
Despite the complexity of the journey and volume of changes en route, the journey itself went pretty smoothly – with the one notable exception of the shits hitting suddenly, epically and lavishly at Osaka station (twice) and then again at the nearby Shin-Imamiya station, where I was in the process of changing for another line. At one point, I was literally having visions of remaining forever trapped in limbo somewhere on the map of greater Osaka, having to spend the rest of my days locked in a random metropolitan interchange station bathroom, staring at the same four toilet stall doors, whilst intermittently shitting water. Fortunately for me though, there was finally a break in proceedings (as it were) just long enough for me to harness the power of Google (both Maps and Translate) to find a pharmacist just around the corner from the station and communicate my immediate predicament to the lady at the counter (which in case you ever need is ge-ri (下痢)), whose pills prescribed mercifully soon did the job. Thank God for the Japanese custom of building in a pristine set of toilets in every conceivable spot, is all I can say, though I don’t think the ‘privacy button’ really quite served its purpose in full on this occasion… Perhaps this was all that eel from the other day coming back to haunt me!
Anyway, moving swiftly on from what I will hitherto term ‘The Osaka Incident’ (which we’ll agree to never mention again), and on to Koyasan – which, thank Christ, I finally (if very gingerly) managed to reach with buttocks and bowels, if not perhaps soul, intact. Koyasan is basically a small, secluded mountain town that is also a World Heritage Site and the birthplace of Shingon Buddhism, being primarily made up of various living, breathing temples and monasteries (all of 117 of them in about a square mile radius).
By this point in the trip, I had seen more temples (Buddhist and Shinto) than you could likely shake a stick at – but the difference here is that you actually got to stay in one! Most of the monasteries in Koyasan offer what’s called shukubo, which is basically simple temple lodging – usually Japanese wooden / sliding door / futon bed ryokan style and shared bathrooms, and with the option to join in on various meditation sessions / morning prayers, alongside the resident monks etc.
This was my room (before futon bed was rolled out) at the Saizen-in temple:
Another super interesting (and delicious) feature of a shukobo stay is getting to partake of the monks’ meals as well, which are called shojin-ryori. Shojin-ryori basically constitutes Japanese vegetarian Buddhist cuisine, being made up of vegetables, tofu in various guises and edible wild plants (many of which I couldn’t even recognise, let alone name…). The sharp-eyed among you will have obviously spotted that some sashimi seems to made it into the mix here too – not to mention (even more surprisingly) some sake! I’m guessing these items are sops for the paying guests, rather than something the resident monks get to partake in as well, but who knows…? 😉
Plus the Saizen-in had its own onsen (hot springs) – which were definitely what the doctor ordered (over and above loperamide) after a long day’s travel and temple visitation.
My own morning in Kayosan started bright and early in joining the monks for prayers at 7am. This was the whole, real-deal shebang of chanting, gongs, incense, etc. – all of which I’ve observed before to varying degrees in various countries around Asia (most notably Tibet), but never at such close quarters, nor from within the ‘inner sanctum’ itself, as it were. In short, something really quite special to observe close up and personal.
This was a site of active worship, of course, so I couldn’t take any photos or video, but here are some examples I found on t’interweb to give you a bit of a sense of it all (the photos are from Saizen-in, and the vid from a temple round the corner – but a very similar vibe).
After this, it was across town to visit Okunoin Cemetery, Japan’s largest cemetery and site of the mausoleum for one Kōbō Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, who is said to have been in a state of meditative trance there since about the 1st century. He’s apparently even still served two ritualistic meals by the monks each day (left outside the mausoleum door) – though no one has thought to actually check in on the poor bugger in two thousand years – so best hope he doesn’t want out at this point! Still, kudos to the fella – I can’t even meditate for 5 minutes at a time (if that…), so best part of two millennia is pretty good going on that front!
Okunoin turned out to be really interesting, as graveyards go. As you enter the cemetery, you first encounter several of the large-scale ‘prestige’ headstones, which typically fall into two camps. Firstly, there are the ones that reflect notable features of the life of the deceased – I’m guessing chess player, rocket engineer, pet lover and jaunty wearer of scarves (and possible hipster) here. Secondly there are the ones that seemingly come with their own corporate sponsorship (note Nissan, Sanki and Aderans), which are presumably built for the former big wigs of those respective organisations. This in itself is pretty telling in terms of the relationship of the typical Japanese salaryman with both their employment and employer. I mean, I like my job and everything too – but not to a point I’d want it emblazoned on my tombstone for ever more…
As you get further in, however, things start getting both more forested and decidedly more creepy, with the graves (all of 200,000 in total*) becoming ever more tumbledown, moss covered and neglected. And then these horrific fucked-up bibbed dudes (pictured below) start turning up more and more. I don’t know quite what the deal is with these nightmarish little creatures**, but all the same I’m officially freaked out – and also very I’m glad I didn’t do the night time tour of the place in the end either!
Aside from that the rest of day was spent generally pootling around, looking in at various temples. I didn’t visit all 117 of the temples in Koyasan, of course, but there was a bloody great massive orange one you really couldn’t miss (coincidentally enough called the Orange Temple – or Konpon Daito), that certainly stuck out…
Anyway, that’s it for another exciting adventure! Tune in next time for a re-cap of my last day or two in Kyoto, before moving onto Hiroshima as my fourth and final leg of the journey later this week.
As for now, I’ll be sending up a silent prayer at services this morning for a less ‘disrupted’ journey back again… 😉 Forewarned is forearmed this time though!
* “They’re dead Dave, everybody’s dead…”
** PS: Just looked it up. These are jizo bosatsu, which are spiritual beings who strive for the enlightenment of all creatures and (in the case of the small ones) protect the souls of children. Sounds benign enough, I suppose, but am personally not convinced – they still look creepy AF in my book…
Well, spring has officially re-sprung here in Kyoto, so I was up bright and early to visit Arashiyama, a district to the east of the city that I’d not yet reached in my travels to date.
Arashiyama is most known for it’s forest of soaring bamboo trees, which gives off a quite ethereal light when the sun’s at the right angle (which it was), but doesn’t lend itself particularly well to capturing on film. I suppose Arashiyama’s bamboo grove must just be one of those places that looks really awesome in real-life 3D, but – at least in my case – all you end up having to show for it afterwards is about 300 pictures in isolation of random sodding trees… These were some of my best efforts, at any rate:
From here, it was a hop skip and a jump to the neighbouring Tenryu-ji Temple, which had some really lovely, peaceful gardens, with a smattering of cherry blossom still in evidence here (oh Christ, there I go again with the garden love, Dad and Lorraine – this is getting seriously worrying now…).
I can’t be turning into too much of a closeted horticulturalist quite yet though, as I didn’t stick around particularly long here fawning over flora (geddit?), but instead headed over the nearby wooden Togetsu-kyo Bridge and up to the Arashiyama Monkey Park, situated at the top of a very steep nearby hill – but with good views out over Kyoto, and with a giant novelty banana to boot… Not to mention some very contemplative looking monkeys too…
After a spot of light lunch (sushi followed by a matcha ice cream – bliss!), it was then up the Sagano Railway, a narrow gauge train that runs along the Hozugawa River gorge, with scenic views out over Arashiyama’s pleasant array of forests and mountains.
Oh, and I don’t know who these little guys are (are they bears…? Some form of rodent…? I really couldn’t say…), but they were bloody everywhere in Arashiyama:
So all in all, a pretty chilled, low-key, pleasant, springtime kind of a day really – and I do apologise for the ongoing lack of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll on this front (my most hedonistic point of the day being the ice cream, I think… 😀 !).
I thought it would still be worth a quick check in on here though, as I’m off to the (comparatively at least) more remote Koya-San tomorrow on something of a mini monastic retreat, and I’m not sure what the deal is with wifi – both in terms of availability while I’m there, or my own potential ability to sufficiently zen out to a point I could actually make it a day or two without (hah!).
Either way, have a great Easter all and I’ll check in when I can… Bye for now!
PS: I am reliably informed that those little guys are tankai, a Japanese racoon. Apparently you can tell by the giant scrotums.
Sarah Round The World 