Japan Sectionof Year 2000 TripTravel and Tourism, Vacation Guide
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| From Vancouver, Canada I took a morning bus trip to the Seattle airport. I left Seattle, Washington on March 9th at 12:50 PM. Due to the International Date Line crossing, my 9 1/2 hour flight arrived at Narita Airport on March 10. After a couple nights in Tokyo - as seen on my Tokyo 2000 page -- I was off for some long-range train travel. I had forgotten just how many stairs there are in Japan! I got very good at attaching and un-attaching my bags together at each stairway. This usually happened more than once in each train transfer. In between stairways, I clipped everything back together and rely on my luggage wheels to get to the next obstacle. | |
| My previous Japanese travels were in the summer. I was
constantly impressed with the calm non-perspiring nature of the Japanese people. In the summer heat and humidity I would be bathed in moisture as I sat in a train car full of tie-wearing salary men. I seemed to be the only one bothered by the heat. During this March visit I continued my admiration. While the outside temperatures are late-winter mild, the trains and buildings are often heated to a higher than comfortable level. I again seemed to be the only person shedding coat and sweater as I struggled with my luggage. The local population was still calmly buttoned up in their winter clothing including scarves and gloves. They remain far cooler than I did. | |
| I travelled from March 12 to 18 on an unlimited travel
distance Japan Rail Pass. This is an excellent deal considering the very high
price of transportation in Japan. I did almost 5000 KM of railway travel in
Japan! I stayed in Youth Hostels, business hotels and a Japanese-style Minshuku. The secret seems to be ignoring the guide book information and instead relying on the always-helpful local tourist information office ladies. (Of course that also means arriving before the local office closes. This is sometimes difficult). | |
My Japan Rail experience started with a Sunday morning
Shinkansen train from Tokyo station to the south. Eight hours and more
than a thousand kilometres later I was in Kumamoto. It is the third largest
city on the southern island of Kyushu. There is a fine old castle. As in many
Japanese cities there are several arcade-style shopping streets.
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| I took a Limited Express train from Kumamoto to
Kagoshima. Kagoshima is famous for its Satsuma warriors who were largely responsible for the mid-19th century Meiji restoration that opened Japan to the West. It is also famous for its Sakurajima volcano that dominates its harbour. This volcano was active in the nineties and produced considerable death and destruction. Smoke could be seen and smelled during my brief ferryboat visit. 
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| In the late afternoon, I headed to the South-East Coast
of Kyushu to spend a night in Myazaki. It is a major beach destination but I
simply made an overnight stop and then moved on. I took another "Limited Express" for a lazy 4 1/2 hour trip 340 km to Kokura station. Then I hopped on the brand-new "Hikari RailStar" for the 623 km trip to Osaka in just 2 hours 20 min. This Shinkansen train reached speeds of nearly 300 km/hour. During my week of travel on 26 trains I took a lot of train and station photos. Here is a sample: 
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| The next night was in the city of Nara. Nara remains my favourite Japanese tourist destination. I stayed the night at the youth hostel and got out the door early. (I remain a big fan of the off-season and early-morning method of visiting tourist destinations). The first photo shows a peek through a gateway on my walk to the temple complex. I dragged my bags to the Todaiji Temple gates -- which are shown in the second photo. Inside the gates is the Todaiji Temple building. It is the world's largest wooden building. While the current building is several hundred years old an older version was 50% larger! The final photo in this group shows the great Buddha inside that is made from 437 tonnes of bronze. 
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| From Nara it was a long day taking five different trains to
the northern Honshu coastal city of Niigata. Pictures were taken through train
windows but it is hard to get a good photo at those speeds. The mountains were
beckoning for a return ski vacation. Thursday was spent travelling up the back coast of Japan. Many cute fishing villages amid some rain and cloud. After a change of trains and another short Shinkansen trip I was in Kakunodate for the afternoon and night. This was an excellent location choice. There are scenic modern and ancient Japanese homes. Add a couple feet of falling snow though and the scenery is especially photogenic. I spent an hour eating soba noodles and getting Japanese lessons and then another business hotel sleep. 
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| Next big stop was Nikko. It is the site of a major
temple complex dedicated to the Tokugawa family that ruled Japan for so many
years. The buildings are in brighter Shinto colours than the plainer -- but
just as beautiful -- Nara colours that I photographed earlier. Nikko is relatively close to Tokyo and therefore attracts more foreign tourists than my other stops. I arrived late in the afternoon and only had 90 minutes to see all the sights. You can see that this involved a lot of stair climbing. There are also some samples of my fellow Nikko tourists. 
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Some Nikko sights are more subtle.
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This final Nikko view is from my morning walk to the
train station. It looks back to the Temple complex in the hillside forest. |
| That was the start of my last Japan Rail Pass day. The
weather was clear and the trains were fast and on-time as always. So I passed
through Tokyo to Shin-Fuji station. On my third trip to Japan it was finally
time to see Mt. Fuji. After my station photography I turned around and headed back to Tokyo. (That part of the trip is on my Tokyo 2000 page).  |
| On March 23, I flew to Shanghai on Japan Airlines. I took
several good photos during the flight. The attendants were friendly and I got a great view of Mt. Fuji. 
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