Holiday in Japan (Day 3)

We rose at 5.34 and showered. James’ shoes were still wet from yesterday’s downpour so he put them in the tumble drier downstairs. When we went down to checkout, one of the staff had taken them out (presumably, because they were clanking around too much) and had placed them on a radiator. Another guest came over and began discussing drying techniques with James, even offering to take his shoes to her room and turn the air-conditioning up for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, we only had 15 minutes before our train, so we quickly checked our emails again and rushed to the station.

We were in time to catch the train to Toyama, from which we took a small two-carriage train, with doors you had to open yourself, to Inotani. I noticed a young couple, noticeably dressed in the latest Japanese fashion also on the train. We all got off together at a snow-covered station. We boarded a bus to Tsunogawa, which wound slowly along the snowy roads. The bus was half-full; nobody got off. At each stop, a figure emerged from behind a building where they were sheltering from the snow.

Tsunogawa was the cutest station I have ever seen. It had a tiny waiting room with rugs on benches and a warm heater awaiting those travelling on one of the eight trains leaving the station each day. Trains used to go back to Inotani, but now it is a bus route, though they still print a blank timetable.

The couple stayed with us all the way to Takayama, our destination: almost three hours of travelling. Once there, we followed the walking tour around many temples and a couple of shrines. Most had lovely gardens, which the snow made even better, though it twice fell on me. We had lunch in a nice little place: I had katsu-don that came with miso soup, and James had seiwan soba – local mountain vegetables with noodles. It was tasty and the free tea went down well.

After lunch, I bought a sarubobo, an odd monkey-like doll with no face, that is passed down the female family line in local families. We visited an old Tokugawa government palace, the only one of its type still standing in Japan. There were no free guided English tours today, although there were signs around advertising there existence. Interestingly, it turns out, Tesshu, a famous samurai and poet, used to live in Takayama. He is the “hero” of the writer of “Angry White Pyjamas” that I had just finished reading.

We caught the Wide View scenic train to Nagoya. The snow was lovely and I enjoyed some of the babbling rivers. I managed to get some sleep in, also.

Nagoya was big, but did not have much to do. We caught the underground to Atsuta-jingū (熱田神宮), the home of the kusanagi-no-tsurugi (草薙の剣 – grass cutting sword), one of the three parts forming the Imperial regalia. Unfortunately, nobody ever gets to see it, bar the emperor and a few head priests. The grounds were large and had huge wooden torii, but the shrine itself was unimpressive. We did notice a whole collection of some kind of alcohol containers.

We took the subway back to Ōsu-kannon (大須観音), a huge, “vermillion” coloured shrine. It sounded interesting to us, like the colour was special, but it turned out it was the same shade of red as every other shrine in Japan. One of the priests there was “singing,” though, which was cool.

We walked back to the station and on the way stopped for some food. We both had 五目チャーハン (gomoku chaahan), mixed fried rice. It was like a Chinese takeaway’s special fried rice, but with the addition of a few scallops. It came with a bowl of egg soup, and we drank about a litre of water between us.

We returned to the station in time to catch a Shinkansen to Tokyo, and then straight onto Ueno without leaving the station. Once in Ueno we hopped onto the overnight Akebono to Akita. This consisted of carriages containing bunk beds, four to a compartment. We could not reserve seats (beds) together but James and I were in the same carriage. I was with an unknown man who was already asleep when I arrived and a mother and daughter. We did not talk. I went to bed, drawing the curtain around my bottom bunk. My compartment talked in hushed tones, but a man down the corridor carried on talking late into the night.