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....

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. 😅

Random side notes

Couple of weeks left in Japan, and I'm still waiting for the culture shock to happen. I wonder if I'll have reverse culture shock when I return to Finland? xD

Funny thing, I've actually had my worst "culture shock" in Finland. This was back when I studied in Jyväskylä, a little town a few hundred km from Helsinki. We went to movies one day, hadn't yet decided what to see but met at the movie theater and checked what they were showing. There wasn't really anything I'd have been too keen to see, so when my friends asked my opinion, I said, I don't know, maybe we could check what other theaters are showing? They gave me a long look and told me there were no other theaters.

No. Other. Movie theaters. That was definitely a shock. And culture related.

Thinking about Jyväskylä (please, don't pronounce it "zaivaskaila". It's closer to "yuvaskula"), I really liked that place, and remember thinking that if it were a bit closer to Helsinki I could even live there. And now, here in Kyoto, I find myself saying stuff like, if Kyoto were a bit closer to Finland.... 😄 Same thing, different scale.

At least there are more movie theaters here.

Okinawa part I: Motobu

Came back from Okinawa last week's Wednesday. This was an amazing trip, one week, first four nights in Motobu and then three in Naha. I was at first wondering if a week was a bit too long, but nope, it was perfect for this. Though I was quite happy to return when I did, it was a pretty tiring trip, too...

A few practical notes, in the case you're considering a trip to Okinawa:

1) I flew there with Peach. a Japanese LCC. It was the cheapest option, though Jetstar came close. Peach was fine. The flight to Naha was 50 min late, but these things happen with all airlines, and the one from there was perfectly on schedule. In Naha, Peach arrives (and leaves from) to the cargo part of the airport, so you need to take shuttle bus to the main terminal. In that sense Jetstar would have a been a bit handier as it uses the main domestic terminal. Peach's terminal does have a small souvenir shop and a little cafe where you can get food too (and not too expensive), so it was ok too.

2) When I was talking about going to Okinawa, people kept on telling me to rent a car. Apparently Japanese people always do when they go there - and I can understand why. I didn't, as although I've got driver's license I drive really seldom, and didn't want to be practicing driving on my own on strange roads in left-hand traffic...

So I took a bus from the airport to Motobu, and in Motobu I either walked or used buses.... but the thing is, the buses don't run too often, there might be one bus every one or two hours. The result is that I ended up walking an awful lot... rough estimate is that I walked 10km every day in Motobu just going from one place to another (and add to that the walking I did when I reached my destination.) It honestly didn't feel like that much, though, and I enjoyed walking there. You can see much more when you walk. The best part was when I took taxi up to Mt Yae and then walked down to Motobu. I'd actually recommend doing it that way and not going there with your own car. Best walk ever, and not too bad, going downhill. (Uphill would have been a different story.... xD)

I stayed in Motobu in Guesthouse Pole Pole and in Naha at an airbnb that goes by ゆめの家. Both were great, but especially the latter one. Really nice place with great location.

The main reason I went to Okinawa now was that I wanted to see sakura. I'm leaving home on March 10, and sakura will bloom in Kyoto in late March/April. In Okinawa the full bloom's in the recent years been on the second week of February, and so it was now too. The mot common cherry variety on Okinawa is called kanhizakura. Its flowers are deeper pink, and a bit bell-like.

I had one goal in Motobu: to get a good photo of メジロ, the Japanese white eye. I think this remains as the best shot I managed to take:
  

But just because, a couple of more. The first one's an accident. I was photographing the spider, after nearly walking into its web.

But, yes. Obviously I saw some sakura. 😄 They were amazing.

And next follows... well, what else? An overdose of photos. (I took way too many. How did I take so many photos. It's amazing in itself. Nearly a thousand.......)

Setting off!

On the first day in Motobu I went to Nakijin castle ruins, a Ryukyuan gusuku (castle), the construction of which was began in the 13th century. It was destroyed in 1609 when the Japanese domain of Satsuma invaded the Ryukyu Kingdom.

 

 Little birds, big butterflies. It's the same butterfly in both pics, the first one's just a bit dark photo. I'm still not quite sure what it is. Found some photos online that claimed its Papilio bianor okinawensis, the Okinawa peacock, but I don't think it's that. The peacock one should have blue/green tinge in the wings and black body. This looks more like Pachliopta aristolochiae, the common rose, but doesn't have those white spots in the wings. (Common rose? Why is a black butterfly called common rose?)

After returning to Motobu, I went to Bise no Fukugi tree road, rented a bike there cause I'd walked enough for that day. It is a just a nice trail to walk/bike among fukugi trees, leading to the Cape Bizezaki. That's a nice place to watch the sun setting behind Iejima island, though on the day I was there it was a bit cloudy, and I didn't wait for the sunset at the cape as I was there early.

You can see I've refound the panorama function in my phone.... ^_^

Nice sceneries, but one problem.... :/

But this fellow's still happy.

I ate at Bise and headed then to the bus stop, only to see that the next bus would come over an hour later. Started walking home. No problem otherwise, but they don't really believe in streetlights in Motobu.(Of course it wasn't as dark as it looks like in the photo, but still.)

Next day it was time to get up on Yaedake. I left in the morning to check out Motobu town - well, not too much to be seen, really. But I found a really good cafe/lunch place, ｒａ・ｓｈｉ・ｓａ, where I had brunch. Very nice place, good food, and nice owners. I asked them if there really is no bus toward Mt. Yae, as I hadn't been able to find one, and then we concluded it's best to go there by taxi, which they kindly called for me. And as I said before, that was quite perfect. Of course taxi is hardly a cheap way to go places, but even so.

I simply loved Yaedake. Great sceneries, beautiful sakura, and other interesting things on the way.

Zooming from the highest point where the taxi took me: there is the town of Motobu, and Iejima island, where I went next day.

For a while I was quite confused on this mountain: it was full of what seemed to me like seashells. Turned out they were the shells of land snails. Kind of awesome.

Note also the ice cream add in this picture. They were advertising ice cream everywhere, but I had to walk a couple of hours before I found a place that sold them. (There was one stand that claimed to be open, but there was no one anywhere near....)

After walking a while I came to a sign that pointed toward the ruins of Yaedake Field Hospital, and headed that way. However, the area was closed, and based on the condition of this info sign, it probably hasn't been open for a while.

 But! There was this extremely tempting little path, and I simply cannot resist paths. Paths are made to be followed, right? This one wasn't (luckily, maybe) a long one. It led to a couple of holes in the ground, some kind of war time dugouts, maybe?

 Look at that path! How can you not follow?

 And how can you not go to check these lil caves.... 

(I'm so happy there's a torch on the cell phone, though.)

There was also this tree that had two (now) broken bottles (just the bottoms left, really) placed by it... difficult to see, but one's in the right bottom corer, the other on the left side in the middle.

And on I went! As I approached Sakura no mori, the forest of sakura (wouldn't really call it a sakura forest) which is the family park part of the place, I finally got my ice cream.

Sakura no mori has two pathways built in the hillside. They are supposedly for nice family strolls, based on this pic:

Well, the first one was quite nice. I was totally out of breath after it, though, but hey, I'm me, and not that fit. It was a lovely path, in case:

 See the building in the pic below? It's an observatory. A bit below it, on the left, you can see bit of the road. I started my way downward from there.

After a short break I headed for the other walk. And that one was hard! Not to mention a bit scary at times. Wouldn't really rec it for children. The stairway was really steep at times, and there were a couple of places where really had to take care how to proceed.

 A few photos from the walk to/in Motobu, after leaving the mountain behind:

And, on we go! God, this will be a huge post. Next, off to Iejima. Took the first ferry in the morning. The ferries don't go too often either, with 2-3 hours interval, and the last ferry from Iejima leaves at 4 pm, so better go there early.

I rented a bike there. By far the handiest way to move around that island, in my mind. It was a really hot day. I hadn't thought it'd be that sunny, so I hadn't prepared... burned my skin a bit biking there.

 The first stop (that I first drove by because it was too nice day for biking) was at the Nyatya cave. During the battle of Okinawa, this cave was used as an air-raid shelter. It is also called Sennin, thousand people, for it's said it sheltered that many people.

Wajee viewpoint! The sea was so beautiful.

There were many other places I could have went to, but I wasn't going to spend too much time there, so I just drove around a little, and headed then to Mt. Gusuku.

I'd been planning to go to see the ocean expo park in the afternoon, but didn't feel like it. Ended up walking some more, to Sesoko island, chasing after some delicacies.

And I'm happy I went there! The beach at the other end of the Sesoko bridge was amazing.

Having found the stuff I'd been looking for I returned to the beach, thinking I'd eat there, but 1) the water was wonderful, the beach not so (trash, trash everywhere), 2) the clouds seemed a bit worrisome. Figured I might not be wanting to cross that bridge in rain and wind. So I just gave my toes a quick dip and went on.

Just FYI, here's the bus timetable of Sesoko island. xD

The last ferry from Iejima returning to Motobu.

 

Couldn't resist pausing to eat on the other side, though. So good! Filled with whipped cream  and  strawberries and pineapple. (Btw.... at this point Iejima had mystically disappeared. You should be able to see it in the background of that photo below......)

And then it started raining, hard, and it was windy too, and of course I didn't have my rain coat with, just the umbrella. Luckily it didn't break. xD


Last day in Motobu. I was heading back to Naha in the afternoon, but there was still time to go to check that ocean expo park I'd skipped. The place has an aquarium, but I didn't go in there. Just saw manatees and sea turtles that weren't in the main aquarium (and didn't require any pay.) Then I walked through the native Okinawan village, and basically ran through the Oceanic Culture Museum and didn't have time at all for the Planetarium.... regretted a bit not waking up earlier and going there right when the place opened.

This fish was like glued to the turtle. I first saw them from behind and thought that I didn't know turtles had tails like that... xD

I wish I'd had more time to explore the museum...there were so many interesting things. Like this kula canoe and exchange objects.

 

But I had a bus to catch to Naha. Goodbye to Motobu, then. It was a wonderful place.