Tuesday 27 March 2018

Okinawa part II: Naha

First night in Naha.

After Motobu, I returned to Naha. I had only two full days there, which is way too little, but then again, wouldn't be able to see everything in a full week either, so.

First things first, so I started by going to see the Shuri castle. It was the palace of the Ryukyu kingdom between 1429 and 1879. In the battle of Okinawa (1945) it was destroyed almost completely. This, in fact, struck me quite hard in Naha. Not just the damage to the castle, but so many other places and things lost in the war... so utterly depressing.

Starting with this tree:










You could stop for some tea and traditional Okinawan cookies in the castle.


The only room inside where you were allowed to take photos:






After visiting the castle I ate at a place called Ryukyu Sabo Ashibiuna - very popular place close to the castle, so prepare to queue. It was worth the wait, though. Okinawan food, reasonably priced and quite tasty:

Then I spent a while walking all over in the area. Walked first down and then back up the Shurikinjocho stone path road that leads to the castle. It was nice... but based on the comments I'd read I was kind of expecting more about it. Half the time I wondered  if I'm on the right path. xD Especially as there were comments claiming it'd be somehow  a hard climb. Not. At all. But nice.





Visited also the Tamaudun mausoleum. It's one of the three royal mausoleums of the Ryukyu Kingdom, built in 1501. The last burial there was that of Shō Ten, son of the last king of Ryukyu, in 1920. This place too was badly damaged during the Battle of Okinawa, but it has been partly restored.



Also visited the Kannondo temple... and realized I'd left my goshuin book in Kyoto. Typical.

In the evening I ate in an izakaya called Masara, having read good reviews of it online. And I agree with them, excellent place! Near Miebashi station. Also, the review I read mentioned they have no English menu, but this has changed since then.

 Next day I headed first to Yogi park, which would in one week host the Naha Sakura Festival. It was a bit... well, after places like Mt. Yaedake, not that special. (Sorry.)


 

Then I, half-accidentally, ended up exploring the pottery district of Naha. I'd somewhere seen the add of Tsuboya pottery museum, and as it was kind of on the way when I walked back from Yogi park, I thought I'd stop there. I enjoyed the museum too, but also walking down the Yachimun street, that has dozens and dozens of pottery shops. Dangerous place, though. I'd have wanted to buy so many things... A little tip: if you see something you like, you might want to check the other stores first. They might also have it, but the prices were varying quite a lot. A cup I bought for about 900 costed 1200 and 1600 (!!!) at other places.



And! If you go to Naha, do not miss the cafe called Ball Donut Park. Best doughnuts I've eaten ever anywhere. The coffee was good too.

In the evening I ended up spending some more money, and went to this restaurant where you can follow Okinawan dances as you eat. It was fun enough, and the food was good, but given that I'd eaten my share of Okinawan food by then (though I love it, btw) and that the dances weren't that different from things I've seen before, I think I might have spared that money... Though there I tasted for the first time mimigaa, shredded pig's ear, and to my surprise loved it. The stuff on the right in the pic below:





And then it was the day I was leaving Okinawa. I'd planned in the morning to take a walk in the Fukushūen garden, which was next door to my airbnb... arrived there a few minutes past 9 (when it was supposed to open), saw some people opening the gate... and then they told me the place was closed on that day. :/ So I just had to peek through the little windows...




I'd walked by here many times, thinking how tempting it'd be to climb up here in to the park. Now even more so.... xD


Oh well. Took the Yui rail to airport, Peach carried me back home (eh, to Kyoto), and that was it.





Quite fittingly, the Aqua fantasy thing at Kyoto station was playing Sakura, Sakura when I walked by it.

Saturday 17 March 2018

Back home

So I've returned to Finland. Exactly a week ago, on Saturday, together with father who came to Kyoto with a big, empty suitcase. It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in half a year. I even imagined I'd not been buying that many things.... 😄 Now I'm home with all that stuff and half of it is still lying in the suitcases/is spread all around the apartment. I'll get to it, one of these days...

Funny thing: I don't normally have much trouble with time zones. Going to Japan I was ok in a day or so. Now it's taken me whole week to get over the jet lag. At least I'm not anymore getting totally sleepy around 4/5 pm. I do wake early, though. Usually before 7 am (and for me that's absolutely abnormal)... not that I'd get up yet at that time.

That culture shock I talked about never happened. The reverse one hasn't really happened here, either, though (probably partly because I'm so tired) for a while I was getting all confused with my cards. I kept on looking for the big student card we had in Kyoto when I needed my student card here, and similarly wondered where on earth had I put the icoca card when they were checking tickets on train.... >_>

It's fun to be home and see people and places (and go to sauna and eat salmiakki.... ^^) but I still miss Kyoto. Loved that city, I will go there again some day, somehow. Half a year was such a short time... if you are planning an exchange period and wondering whether to do full year or just half, go for the full, if you just can. Time passes incredibly fast there, months just fly by.

I'll still have a few updates coming for this blog, stuff I've been planning to write for a month or so now.... Still have that unfinished Naha post waiting, for one thing. Also, stuff about the classes & some recs etc I've on my mind. I'll get to that, too, one of these days....


Thursday 1 March 2018

Hiking on Mt. Hiei

All this time, living here in Shugakuin basically nextdoor to Hieizan, I've been thinking that I just have to climb there some day. By now I had already figured that it's not going to happen on this trip, but yesterday night I decided that after all I would do it today. Anyway, the weather forecast was nice and I had nothing else planned for today.

Maybe because of that I didn't prepare quite as thoroughly as I normally would, just checked very quickly where the trail starts from and approximately how it'll proceed. Things went fine enough, but got a bit exciting in the end... ^^;

Setting off. As I said, Hieizan is nextdoor, pretty much.


I took the Kirara-oka trail. Luckily I'd read online that the first part of it is the hardest, or I might have been quite discouraged...


Wasn't quite sure if I was walking on the trail or just in a tiny dry riverbed (probably both). It was pretty difficult terrain, and steeper than it seems in the photos. At  times the path divided and there were no signs, but I always headed upwards which turned out to be the correct way. (Kind of obvious, I guess.)


The way got easier after a while, though there were at times some little obstacles.

  

Funny cuts in the tree. To make it easier to get over?
 



It was quite a windy day, and the trees made a lot of creaking noises. At first I wondered if there were some animals up there. Apparently you can sometimes see wild monkeys on the mountain. I didn't see any... which might just be a good thing.



Had some nice views on the way. When I was at the summit, it had got pretty cloudy so you couldn't see much.



 I don't know who or what this is, but I liked the statue. Asked for a safe hike, and got what I asked for (with some good luck toward the end).


I had planned to go first to the summit, then check how to get back down, and then head to the temples, but although I headed to the direction of the peak I somehow ended up going to the temples first. Not sure how that happened...


 Paused to have an onigiri on these stairs. They seemed never-ending...


And... snow! There was some snow up there! (Yes, I'm suffering of chronic snow deficiency....)


Snow up there too! Not sure what peak that is, though.


Random old stone pillars with stones piled on them on the way...


 

Alright. Coming to the temples. Hieizan Enryakuji is one of UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage sites. There is no temple by that name, but the mountain itself represents Enryakuji, and it includes all of it: the nature and all the temples there are. It's divided into three stupa areas, of which I visited two. The third one was too far away.

Coming there my first problem was to decided whether to head to the To-do or Sai-to area. Decided on the first, which was the main area as it is, but it would have worked better to go first to Sai-to. Ended up walking back and forth quite a lot.

Entrance to To-do (and snow):


I can't get over how cute these hand-knit things are. That hat too!


Close-up, just because:


Kaidan-in. My favorite of the temple buildings over there. Originally built in 822. It was in this temple that Mahayana Buddhism officially declared its independence from Nara and Hinayana Buddhism in Japan.


With my luck, of course the main temple of the area, Konpon Chu-do, was undergoing renovation, all covered up and you couldn't even get near to it. So, here is Amida-do instead, the training hall of Tendai Tantric Buddhism, which was destroyed in an attack by Oda Nobunaga and restored in 1987.


I was going to head to Sai-to next, when right after exiting the To-do area I noticed a sign pointing upward, 30 min to the summit. So I went there instead. (Again, should have went to Sai-to first, but whatever...) It was actually a nice walk up there, but at times a bit tricky, especially as there was some ice on the path. Also tricky for foreigners, all the signs were only in Japanese, "山頂".


But what do you know, I found the summit. xD Almost went by it, that random little hill among the trees, but there was this tempting path up there, and you know me and little paths....



Up there I considered a moment which way to go, but as I wasn't quite sure of the other directions, I decided to trace my steps back and go to Sai-to. (Wish I'd have taken a better look at the map I got at To-do and headed to check out the bus stop instead...)

Anyway, Sai-to. More stairs to climb. Going there, downward, and I was really hoping I wouldn't need to get them up again. Well, of course I had to do that, in the end.

  

Jodo-in, the mausoleum of Dengyo Daishi, who died in 822 and was entombed at this location. The priest protecting this mausoleum is referred to as Jishin, and he makes a pledge to stay 12 years on the mountain. 



Something going on there:



Shaka-do, which as well was burned down during Oda Nobunaga's attack on Hieizan. The current building was relocated from Enjo-ji, and is the oldest building on the mountain.


 And had this beautiful bell, in which I think must be the oldest bell tower on the mountain.... <3



Okay... and then it was time to try  to figure out how to get back. Checked the Sai-to bus stop, as I now was there, but there weren't anymore any buses coming. (mind you, it wasn't late. Just after 4 pm.) Decided to follow my original plan, which was to take the cable car on the way down. Made my way there, hiking up and down for a few kilometers, only to find out that the cable car doesn't operate during winter. (There could have been some mention of this on the signs pointing toward it, if you ask me....)

Went to the next bus stop, but nope, no more buses after 4:30 pm. I was now again close to the summit (if I'd went there straight from the summit to check the buses - I had been thinking to do that at some point - I'd have been able to catch one.) Also, I now found this place with great views, but it was getting all cloudy....


There's lake Biwa in the pic below! See? Eh... me neither, really. At least I could see it in reality. You can sort of figure out its coastline there.....



Alright. So there I am, at the top of Mt. Hiei with no transport down, and it'd start getting dark within one hour. I figured I could get back to the temples and ask people there how to get down (or, if there'd be a place for the night for a tired pilgrim... xD) but there were a few cars on the parking lot up there, and I noticed someone sitting in one. Went to ask him, and he confirmed it, yep, no buses or anything this "late" during winter. And then offered me a ride (which I had kind of been hoping). I had to wait a short while, as he was someone working in the area and was waiting for his coworkers to come to give them some stuff.

What was incredibly lucky here, I think, was that of all possible places, he actually lived in Shugakuin, quite close to my dorm. So, all went quite fine in the end. He was a really nice guy, and I got a chance to (try to) talk some Japanese. Would have been nicer if I hadn't felt like a baka gaijin, but whatever. 😅

Shiisaa yaibiimi?

Going through my photos, I realized I'd really taken an awful lot of pics of the different shisa statues in Okinawa. Shisa are a variati...