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A Japanese Holiday

July 9, 2015 by AggieB 16 Comments

A few years ago I was living in Obihiro, a city that is in the middle of Hokkaido.  I was in Japan at the time for motorsports purposes.  Mum and Dad and Aunty Jenny came to visit me in Japan in the autumn, when the leaves change colour.

They are all good travellers, despite their well documented struggles with luggage (Eleven Luggage Lessons).

Heading west over the mountains, our first stop is Asahikawa, next to Asahidake.  The leaves are vibrant but the fields are browning off.  Local people are bracing themselves for the extraordinarily cold and long winded winter.  So much snow fell one weekend in winter that my car disappeared.

2015 Hokkaido Col

Asahikawa is on the edge of Daisetsuzan National Park. There are six national parks in Hokkaido and one UNESCO Heritage listed park – Shiretoko. It gives you the unexpected feeling as you drive around that it is a bit of a wilderness.

One of my favourite things in Japan, and something that I missed after I left is the onsen, and the ganbanyoku. ‘Onsen’ being the public baths where the water comes from hot springs; and ‘ganbanyoku’  is where you lie on a heated stone bed in a steam room until you can’t stand it any more. In fact you are told to leave the steam room every 15 minutes and take a drink of water and the time limit is normally about one and half hours.

GanbanyokuI should add a note here that if you havn’t already and you want to try the onsen or the ganbanyoku, there are rules that you must follow, like having a shower before you start.   It is pretty clear once you are there,  but do take it seriously.

We’re quite a conservative family and even in adulthood I’m not comfortable sitting around naked with my Mum and Aunt but in Sapporo I did convince both Mum & Dad to try ‘ganbanyoku’ where you get to keep your pyjamas on. Dad did the forbidden thing and fell asleep in the men’s side, risking dehydration. Being an ex-farmer, his only comment when he was woken up and retrieved by the attendant was ‘it’s a bit like driving the harvester, you sweat like a pig’.

The main office for Rally Japan was in Sapporo and my boss kindly invited us to dinner at the Sapporo Beer Garden, in the ‘Jingisukan’ or Genghis Khan Hall. This is not so much about the beer, more about the Mongolian barbecue. We wear bibs and cook lamb and other meat, along with Hokkaido vegetables on shared hotplates that are built into the tabletop.  Amid much laughter – always laughter.

Hakodate is a port city, still in Hokkaido, where the Americans originally arrived in 1854 (landing in 1859). Before that there was more than 200 years between when the Japanese kicked all the foreigners out and when they came back.  Up until about 1650 Japan had been interacting with the Europeans and other traders and missionaries but from then until 1859 they became isolationist, killing foreigners or deporting them (simplified version of history). Very interesting and worth knowing more about, but not today’s subject!

There is a rail link between Hakodate and the main island of Honshu, the Seikan Tunnel and as the name suggests excitingly it goes under the sea. I read recently that the authorities intend to upgrade the tunnel to allow for the Bullet Train, the Shinkansen (or the ‘shink’ as groovy people call it). This creates all sort of engineering challenges, not the least of which is that the shink would do well over 200km/h through the tunnel and create a shockwave of air powerful enough to derail a freight train coming in the opposite direction. Watch this tunnel shaped space!

2015 Japan temples

At Sendai* we changed onto the Bullet Train (2nd class), and traveled through Tokyo and to Osaka. We had a great hotel with a handy mall underneath linking it to the train station, full with restaurants. Down in the mall we had dinner at a random place, and Dad was delighted. It was a kind of yakiniku combined with teppanyaki. We were fed many unidentifiable and delicious skewers of food until we couldn’t eat anymore and rolled out.

In Osaka we visited the Castle and enjoyed the Chrysanthemum Show in its grounds, and also did a tour of the Kirin beer factory. More relevant for me than the others as they don’t drink alcohol.

We jumped on a bus tour to go to Kyoto for a day. Kyoto is one of the places that you must see, but because of this is packed with tourists. We got some good photos but didn’t love it as much as Osaka and Hokkaido.

2015 Tokyo collage

Then back on the train the Tokyo. Not many people know that Tokyo also has an Eiffel Tower, only red and taller … by about ten metres. We visited the Emperors Gardens, looked at the Ginza.  One of my Rally Japan colleagues was based in Tokyo, and she booked dinner for us one evening. It was the Akasaka Ninja Restaurant.

The night began with us waiting outside a nondescript door in a wall. At the appointed time the door opened and we were let in to a pitch black corridor!  We followed our host ninja over bridges, through holes it the wall, we looked through passing windows at pockets of guests sitting in the semi dark eating dinner. Finally we were led into a dark room that we had to ourselves and sat on the floor around a table. The ninja wait-person came in and took our orders and then set fire to the menu and somersaulted out. At odd times we would realise that we were not alone in the room and that a waitperson had appeared from the black and was waiting to take our plates. Some of our food burst into flames. But the food that didn’t catch on fire was sensational – as always in Japan.

Being fearless, we rode the Tokyo Subway.  On one train we had had help from other passengers pulling Dad into the carriage and squeezing him in. But otherwise we were catching links that were not on the main commuting route and so not too crowded.

One of the links of course was out to Narita Airport on the way back to Australia. My boss was letting me escape the worst of the winter and I would spend two months working from Australia before returning to Obihiro.  Hooray!

*Sendai bore the brunt on the tsunami in 2011.

References: http://www.unmissablejapan.com/underground/seikan-tunnel.

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Filed Under: Asia, Japan

Comments

  1. Lolo says

    March 9, 2017 at 9:09 am

    Looks amazing! Would love to visit Japan one day! #FarawayFiles

    Reply
  2. Keri | Ladies What Travel says

    March 9, 2017 at 9:36 am

    Your dad cracked me up in this post! Sounds like an amazing trip, loved Japan when I visited. #FarawayFiles

    Reply
    • AggieB says

      March 9, 2017 at 10:51 am

      Hahaha. Dad is an amazing traveler and enthusiastic about everything. I found him once down an alley in Hanoi having a cup of tea with the local motorbike mechanic. Thanks for commenting #FarawayFiles

      Reply
  3. Phoebe | Lou Messugo says

    March 9, 2017 at 10:19 am

    Sounds like a typical family holiday to me…NOT! I love your dad’s comparison with the harvester!!! You are so lucky to have had that experience living in northern Japan, I still kick myself that we never got to visit you there. #farawayfiles

    Reply
    • Phoebe | Lou Messugo says

      March 9, 2017 at 10:26 am

      and I’m loving your abridged version of Japanese history!!!

      Reply
      • AggieB says

        March 9, 2017 at 10:56 am

        Hahaha. Yes, I’m not entirely sure it is factual but that is the gist of it. I couldn’t have thrown in ‘during the Edo period’, but then I really would have to brush up on the facts.

        Reply
    • AggieB says

      March 9, 2017 at 10:54 am

      The funny thing is that I think it is actually true – that level of being hot and sweating to the max probably was like the harvester, perhaps minus the dust. Yes, Hokkaido is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. I’m sure you will get there one day, and maybe with me – who knows? #farawayfiles

      Reply
  4. Tanja (the Red phone box travels) says

    March 9, 2017 at 10:19 am

    I’d love to visit it one day:) #farawayfiles

    Reply
    • AggieB says

      March 9, 2017 at 10:54 am

      Japan is a wonderful place to visit, I hope you can make it. #Farawayfiles

      Reply
  5. Erin Gustafson | Oregon Girl Around the World says

    March 9, 2017 at 1:44 pm

    Such a lovely area that I know little about. They take swimming prep very seriously in Scandinavia as well and also believe in the benefits of saunas. Gorgeous images. Thank you for sharing with #FarawayFiles,. Cheers from Copenhagen, Erin

    Reply
  6. Katy says

    March 9, 2017 at 8:51 pm

    I am just itching to go to Japan and I reckon I would try almost anything including nuding up for the baths! But I absolutely must go to the ninja restaurant. What a find! Love it #farawayfiles

    Reply
    • AggieB says

      March 10, 2017 at 3:14 am

      ha! yes – I’m happy to nude up with strangers, but not family. Probs just me. The Ninja restaurant was such a hoot. I may have possibly exaggerated a bit in my description, but there were definitely ninjas … Thanks once again for hosting #FarawayFiles.

      Reply
  7. Juliette | Snorkels to Snow says

    March 10, 2017 at 7:29 am

    I visited Japan for the first time last month and had the time of my life! I now have a total love affair with the country and can’t wait to go back again one day. The one thing I wanted to do but ran out of time, was to try onsen. We were there for a skiing holiday in Niseko but the onsen was a little further away from our accommodation with limited transport so it just didn’t happen. I’ll just have to go back!

    Reply
    • AggieB says

      March 11, 2017 at 4:07 am

      The snow is pretty amazing – and so is the onsen. Hopefully you make it back and get to try the onsen. Some have naturally heated spring water and some are artificially heated – both are good. Thanks for commenting. #FarawayFiles

      Reply
  8. Clare (suitcases and sandcastles) says

    March 10, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    Your father sounds exactly like mine (also a farmer!) I’m not sure I’d have got mine into a hot room though. I really enjoyed reading this. That ninja restaurant sounds incredible and well worth doing. thanks for sharing on #farawayfiles

    Reply
    • AggieB says

      March 11, 2017 at 4:12 am

      Really! Ex-farmers – very handy people to have around :). Dad loves travel and is willing to try anything, so makes a good traveling partner. Mum not so much, but she still travels which you have to admire her for as well. I can picture them when they visiting me in Vietnam and I convinced them to rent a motorbike and come with me on a self-guided tour among the rice fields around Hue. Dad riding, Mum pillion! And yes, the ninja restaurant was a hoot. Thanks for commenting and for hosting. #farawayfiles.

      Reply

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