A worthy 2000km trip (Muroran - Yamaguchi) - Part 1

Assalamualaikum w.b.t (Peace be upon you)

26th December 2010

Welcome back again on English side! yeah! It's been awhile since I'm writing in English. Well, this time it's about my trip to Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is a province, in a southern tip of Honshu, the biggest island of Japan. The reason I went here was to visit my old friend who is now studying in Yamaguchi University. Another reason is, (well it's quite embarassing though), I've never went onboard a Shinkansen. Yeah, I'm in my second year in Japan, yet never been on a Shinkansen. haha...

The trip began from Muroran, my temporary hometown in Japan. I was with my senior. We took a train to Shin-Chitose airport. It was snowing so badly, we were worried the flight may delayed. Nothings happened luckily. The first flight of Skymark from Hokkaido to Tokyo. ahh, by the way Skymark is a low-cost airline serving limited routes in Japan. Skymark served under JAL (Japan Airlines) while another low-cost airlines, AirDo serves under All Nippon Airways (ANA). The flight took an hour and a half. Touched down at Haneda airport and went directly to Shinagawa-eki (Shinagawa station) for my maiden shinkansen ride. The shinkansen model is Nozomi (33). I'm quite excited actually. Going inside the shinkansen, nothing's different from a normal train. It's just the seat area is spacy and of course, the speed is really fast. So, the journey was a 4-hour journey to our destination, Shin-Yamaguchi. Still there's another train to take until the final destination Higashi-Shinkawa (東新川). Another 40 minutes to spend on train. It's a good thing every train in Japan are provided with heater, be it an Inter-city shinkansen or a suburb one-man-train.

That's our ride!!

Arrived at my friend's house. Had a great dinner with them. Rice with a keropok ikan from Malaysia, my all-time-favourite hot sambal and meat curry. Simple yet enough to make us full. Thanks guys! It makes the total of almost 2000km today worthy.

That's it for today. Damn tired. Need to take a rest for tomorrow's journeys are still long.

27th December 2010

Second Day. We started getting around late actually. Went around Yamaguchi city famous spot, Shimonoseki (下関). The place is the tip of Honshu, where you can clearly see the Kyuushu on the other side. We make our first stop at Karato ichiba, a famous fish market in Shimonoseki. Unfortunately, the market was closed, so we just went killing our time at the bay. Before we left, we bought some souvenirs from shops nearby. Yamaguchi is really famous with blowfish. Blowfish, pufferfish, balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, toadies, honey toads, or sea squab are all the same fish with different name. Here in Japan we called it fugu. Read more about fugu from wikipedia, here.

So, what did I bought? It was a fugu-pie, a sweet butter cookie look alike (not really a pie actually, but Japanese tends to call it a pie. Don't know why..). And a Kyushu limited edition of Country Ma'am (yam flavor). Also not to forget is fugu burger. Not in a shape of burger actually. It's more to hotdog. Huh! whatever......as long it tastes good. Really good actually, you won't know it's a fish actually.

Fugu burger

Country Ma'am - Kyushu limited edition

From the bay area, you can watch a massive structure, the Kanmonkyo bridge that connects Honshu island and Kyushu island. While you enjoy the breathtaking view, feel the light breeze slaps your face and watch ships passing the straits. There's an observation deck on top a hill. I forgot the hill's name, sorry. The night view was superb! And, we found something really interesting. We found an ad at in the observation deck. "Run across the strait through an undersea tunnel". Yet, when we tried to look for the entrance, found nothing. Got no clue where's the entrance really located.

Kanmonkyo bridge across the Shimonoseki straits

Dinner time. We were brought to a restaurant specialized in kujira menu. Kujira is a Japanese word for whale. Yeah, never really thought I would've a chance to taste the biggest mammal's meat. Taste like.........undiscribable. What? You wanna say I support whaling? (despite of International condemn over Japan whaling activity) Go on. As long as it tastes good!

See that red-tipped onion (??). I was told by my friend, if you feel nausea when eating whale's meat, suck the tip of it. A bit sour actually.

That's it for Yamaguchi. Tomorrow will be Hiroshima. Really wanted to explore Yamaguchi more but, a lot of problems occurred and we got a very tight schedule to follow. I guess I should visit there another time. Maybe.

28 December 2010

Hiroshima here I come! All this time I heard about Hiroshima, i can't help to think, "Are there still remaining of radioactive residue"or you know...something "atomic". Actually no, and Hiroshima is on par with other modern cities in Japan, maybe better I think. Speaking of Hiroshima, one cannot miss the chance to visit Itsukushima Island (厳島) or famously known as Miyajima Island (宮島). Almost anything on that island can be considered UNESCO world heritage site (excluding all the souvenir's shop or restaurant). The Miyajima island is only accessible by boat operating from the mainland. There are two companies operating the boat service. I advise you to buy a One-Day-Pass (840 yen), which include return ticket to and from Miyajima and one-day-pass for tram which runs from Miyajima station all the way to Hiroshima station (64 minutes). Why? because the tram (Green Mover) will make a stop at genbaku do-mu (原爆ドーム) station, or the atomic memorial dome (48 minutes from Miyajima). Or if you prefer, drop by at any station you like and go explore Hiroshima. Be sure to bring your own umbrella if you don't have one... Or, simply watch the weather forecast on the morning. It's winter season and it rains sometimes. Fortunately, when we took our group pictures with the background of Torii, the weather was clear. Read more about torii here. It's optional to enter the Itsukushima shrine but I bet you'll surely regret as hell if you don't enter this magnificent orange-coloured shrine. The hallways and the praying area is a must see. Also, inside the shrine you can buy an o-mamori　(御守り), some kind of good luck amulets.

The one-day-pass (840 yen). Available at the jetty counter.

Getting out from the shrine, you may explore other part of the island. As for us, it was raining lightly so, another time perhaps. That's the price you have to pay for a vacation in winter. Duh....

Extra information: Retaining the purity of the shrine is so important that since 1878, no deaths or births have been permitted near the shrine. To this day, pregnant women are supposed to retreat to the mainland as the day of delivery approaches, as are terminally ill or the very elderly whose passing has become imminent. Burials on the island are still forbidden.

After several 'photo sessions' around the island, it's time to go back to mainland. Before that, don't forget to grab some souvenirs. Well, Miyajima is famous with it's momiji manjuu, a traditional Japanese confectionery made from flour, rice powder and buckwheat and a filling of an (red bean paste), made from boiled azuki beans and sugar. Aside from the momiji manjuu, visitors can also buy a shakushi (wooden rice scoop) for souvenirs. Miyajima Shakushi are still handmade today as they used to be in ancient times, displaying the impressive beauty of their curves.

This is how momiji manjuu looks alike.

Watch the process of making momiji manjuu from shops nearby

The world's largest spatula (guess everyone are so keen about world's largest......)  　

Speaking of Miyajima, there are deers living freely on the island, cageless. They are tame and do not attack visitors. Just be careful as they might eat any paper or cloth you have with you. Not sure whether you can feed them or not but you may get close enough to them to take photos or something. They won't run. Got used to people already.

Deers around the island

The torii itself makes a good background

Back on mainland and heading next to Hiroshima's must-see attraction, the atomic dome memorial. Got onboard the green tram for 48 minutes. To get to the memorial, just walk across the road. You should be able to see it from the station. Luckily the rain had stopped, yet it was still cold outside. Frankly speaking, I found nothing interesting there. Well, if you look around, locals lead a normal life, as if nothing happened to this place that once experienced the first atomic blast on the planet. Not far from the historic dome memorial, there's Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Again nothing interesting here except the Peace Flame. The Peace Flame is another monument to the victims of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, but it has an additional symbolic purpose. The flame has burned continuously since it was lit in 1964, and will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the planet is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation. Will it be a reality? I don't think so.

Night view of the A-dome (looks SCARY huh)

p/s: I salute Jan Letzel, a designer who designed the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition (before the atomic blast). Why? because the bomb blasted almost directly above the dome at that time. If that guy still alive, I would ask him, "Could you build more buildings like that. Nuclear war seems imminent dude! pleaaaaase!"

In front of the first building ever experience the atomic blast 

The trip in Hiroshima is incomplete without Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. What's the difference of Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and other places in Japan? To make it easier to differentiate, Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is served baked, readily eaten, while other okonomiyaki, you only get served the ingredients for the okonomiyaki. In other words, you make your own okonomiyaki on a hot-plate in front of you.

Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (costs around JPY1200). I could say half of it are veggies. We bought it for three of us but still unable to finish it. Really different from pizza. 

That concludes our one-day-excursion in Hiroshima. Tomorrow will be the climax of this trip, once the capital of this Land of the Rising Sun, Kyoto. That night we rushed to Hiroshima Station to catch an overnight bus to Kyoto. Took the cheapest bus which cost us JPY3000 each.  The journey took about 8 hours with few stops. Traveling by bus in Japan definitely saves a lot of money, if you don't mind to hump your ass for over than 8 hours in the bus (Depends on the destination).

See ya on Part 2