Trip to Japan: Day 3 - Completing the Holy Trinity ５月２６日

First it was Haguro-san 羽黒山 in Yamagata-ken 山形県. Then came Omine-san 大峰山 in Nara-ken 奈良県. This day would be Hiko-san's 英彦山 turn, the third in a trinity of mountains linked to Shugendō 修験道. I left my hotel around 6:30 in the morning (let myself out would be more accurate - there was no one at the front desk and the automatic door was turned off at that hour), and approximately two hours and three train transfers later, I arrived at the unmanned Hikosan Station 彦山駅, and waited about 15 minutes for the bus that would take me to the start of the hike.

 

A self-portrait taken on the last leg to Hikosan Station

While waiting for the bus, a taxi pulled up to the stand. If this was Taiwan, the driver would probably have told me a B.S. story about how the bus service had been suspended, or of the bus breaking down, or maybe that the road had been washed away in a typhoon - anything to get me to jump in the back of the cab. This taxi driver, however, just handed me a map of the hiking trail and drove away, and a couple of minutes later, the bus arrived on time. Ain't Japan great?

Armed with the Lonely Planet Hiking in Japan guide , I set out up the trail, which like many others in Japan, was marked by a torii 鳥居. A short climb up the stairs led to the lower shrine of Hiko-san-jinja 英彦山神社.

From the lower shrine, more stairs continued up the mountain to the upper shrine at the top, but I took a right turn instead, walking along a gentle path 1.9 kilometers (1.18 miles) to Tamaya-jinja 玉屋神社, located in a picturesque setting at the base of a cliff:

From here on, though, things would get a lot harder. The next stretch of trail was a 1.4 kilometer (0.87 mile) uphill walk, with the last section involving the use of chains to get over and down a ridge. The attraction here was the Oni-sugi 鬼スギ, a 1200 year-old tree. After checking out the ancient cedar, I took a side trail up to another Shintō 神道 shrine built under a cliff. This one was called Daiminami-jinja 大南神社, and it was possible to open the door and go inside. It was a peaceful moment, communing with the 神...and the giant Japanese hornet スズメバチ I inadvertently let inside when I entered.

The fun really started after leaving the shrine. It was 1.1 kilometers (0.7 miles) of strait uphill climbing, much of it over boulders and tree roots, and requiring the use of chains, before reaching Minami-dake 南岳. From there, it was 200 meters (660 feet) to the next peak, which happened to be the upper shrine of Hiko-san-jinja. By this point, my Portland Trail Blazers T-shirt was so soaked with my sweat, and creating such a stench, that I was walking shirtless (though I donned more respectful attire again before reaching the shrine structure).

The buildings of the upper shrine weren't particularly attractive, no doubt due to the fact that the structure is regularly rebuilt and the materials have to brought in by helicopter. Following a conversation about the geography of the state of California with two men taking a break behind the jinja, I continued on to Kita-dake 北岳, but not before taking a self-portrait in front of a marker indicating the 1200-meter (3937-foot) altitude:

By this point, the sun had disappeared, and ominous-looking dark clouds were drifting over the mountain. I could have chosen to walk down the main trail leading back to the lower shrine, but I decided to press on, walking 800 meters (0.5 miles) along a thankfully easier path to Kita-dake. From there on, however, the descent would become very steep. The overcast weather limited the views of the nearby mountains, but it was still pretty scenic:

It took a long time to get down to Takasumi-jinja 高住神社. The path was almost entirely made up of stones (not stone steps), and in some places, it was necessary to keep an eye out for the red ribbons tied to trees denoting the proper route to take. The forest scenery, however, more than made up for the difficulties:

Takasumi-jinja was yet another scenic shrine located in front of a cliff-face, and there were several tourists checking out the beautiful buildings and towering cedars:

It was getting late, however, my leg muscles were feeling the strain and I wanted to get back to the bus stop before the rain started to pour, for the sounds of thunder in the mountain above were becoming louder and more frequent. It was more than 2.5 kilometers (1.55 miles) from the shrine back to the bus stop, but the route was mostly on a level path through a lovely stretch of forest. Before setting off, I used the bathroom at the shrine parking lot, where there was an interesting looking insect crawling around the inside of the wash basin.

In the end, the threatened downpour only amounted to a few drops, and I only had to wait a couple of minutes for the next-to-last bus of the day to take me back to the train station, and the long train ride back to Fukuoka 福岡. Considerate person that I am, I had brought along a change of shirt and shorts to spare my fellow passengers the sweet aroma of my hiking-induced sweat. According to the Lonely Planet guide, I had covered 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). However, the supposed 4-hour duration of the hike turned out to be more like 6.5 hours in my case. Now I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most in-shape of hikers, but I'm no ton o'lard either (and I'm definitely a lot faster than a certain well-known Taiwan-based blogger who has recently caught the cycling bug). Having done several hikes in the LP book, I think I have enough first-hand experience to say their times are overly optimistic. Seeing as the Japan hiking guide is in need of an update anyway, I'd like to throw my two cents in and ask that the next edition not assume that everyone who intends on using the book will be a professional mountaineer.

Arriving back at Hakata Station 博多駅 after 7pm, it was time for a well-deserved, and long-anticipated, dinner of tonkatsu 豚カツ and draft beer 生ビール.

Trip to Japan: Day 2 - Pounding the Pavement ５月２５日

On my first full day in Fukuoka 福岡, I did a lot of walking. In fact, every day of my trip involved a lot of footwork, so much so that the bottoms of my soles are still feeling the effects. Nevertheless, walking around allows you to get a good idea of the layout of a city, and it didn't take long for me to get a good grasp on where things were, especially in relation to my hotel.

I started out after breakfast on Monday by walking from the Hakata Riverside Hotel to Hakata Station 博多駅, the transportation center for Fukuoka. On the way, I poked my head into the Tōchō-ji 東長寺 temple to take a look at the largest wooden Buddha in Japan. It was big, but photos weren't allowed, and I continued down the road to the station. After buying a copy of the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ from a kiosk inside, I walked back towards the area where my hotel was located, using small streets and getting a little lost before I found my way to the Kami-Kawabata-dōri shopping arcade and the back entrance to Kushida-jinja 櫛田神社, Hakata's principal Shintō 神道 shrine. Although the shrine dates back to 757, the halls are rebuilt every 25 years, so instead I concentrated on the large float, the biggest of 12 that are taken out during the annual Gion Yamakasa festival 博多祇園山笠 the first two weeks of every July. Another point of interest in the shrine grounds was a thousand-year-old gingko イチョウ tree and two stone anchor weights, left behind by the Mongol invasion fleet 元寇.

Leaving the shrine, I crossed the street to the Hakata Machiya Furusato-kan 博多町家ふるさと館, a complex of three buildings. First was a museum with displays devoted to Hakata's popular culture. I couldn't make out what was said on the recordings of the local dialect, but I had no problem donning the headgear of a traditional improvisational comedy known as "Hakata-Niwaka" 博多にわか. The second building contained a weaver's workshop, where one old gentleman was demonstrating traditional silk weaving. The last building was primarily a gift shop, so I got an early start on my souvenir shopping.

Next stop was Canal City キャナルシティ, an urban renewal project that opened in 1996. There are five floors of shops and restaurants, plus two hotels and a movie theater. The color scheme was weird, but somehow beautiful at the same time:

but the real highlight was the canal and, in particular, the water jets show which took place on the hour. The jets reached the fifth-floor, but that didn't seem to faze the window washer in the background:

Canal City

Following lunch at Canal City, I crossed over to Nakasu 中洲, a sandbank in the middle of the Naka-gawa River 那珂川. Fukuoka's notorious entertainment district is noted for the number of bars and restaurants crammed into the small island, as well as its "special" businesses. I inadvertently walked down the worst of the red light district where, even in the middle of a Monday afternoon, gangster-looking touts lined the doorways, looking for customers. Needless to say, I refrained from taking photos and quickly made my way over the river and into Tenjin 天神, Fukuoka's main shopping district. Once safely away from the yakuza ヤクザ, I found my way to ACROS ("Asian Crosslands Over the Sea") Fukuoka アクロス福岡, a combination symphony hall/exhibition space/shopping center. The most interesting feature of this building was its southern exterior, which had been built as a terraced "step garden". Though the top floor observatory was closed, the views on the walk up to the 10th story were good, and all the vegetation gave the structure a Babylonian kind of feel.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Tenjin, checking my email at the Fukuoka International Association's Rainbow Plaza (8F, IMS Building) and seeing what was on offer in the various department stores and shopping complexes both above and below ground. By the time I walked back to my hotel, my legs were tired but I was starting to understand why an old girlfriend liked Fukuoka so match. The weather forecast on the evening news predicted that Tuesday was going to be the sunniest day of the week, so I decided to get to bed early in preparation for some hiking the next day.

Trip to Japan: Day 1 ５月２４日

I'm back from a one-week stay in the city of Fukuoka 福岡. And while I missed my family, and my feet are sore from all the walking I did, I had a great time in Kyūshū's 九州 largest city, with a population of 1.4 million. Like most Japanese urban centers, Fukuoka isn't a particularly beautiful city, but it's certainly better looking (not to mention cleaner and safer) than any metropolitan area here in Taiwan, including Taipei (Taihoku) 台北. If circumstances were different, Fukuoka would make a nice place to live and work.

There's a lot of history related to Fukuoka. It was the gateway to the Asian mainland in the early years of Japan's history. The Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281 元寇 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Invasions_of_Japan) took place close to the modern day borders of the city. During the Edo period 江戸時代 there were two towns, Fukuoka (home of the feudal lord and his castle) and Hakata 博多 (where the ordinary people lived and worked). Today's Fukuoka is once again acting as Japan's channel to the rest of Asia, at least judging from all the Korean writing seen around the city.

I spent my seven nights in Fukuoka staying at the Hakata Riverside Hotel. Despite its status as a budget hotel (only ￥3900 a night - $41 or NT1330), my room wasn't as small as I'd imagined it to be, plus it came with its own shower and bath. And I certainly couldn't complain about the location, as the hotel was a short walk down the Kami-Kawabata shopping arcade 川端通商店街 from the Nakasu-Kawabata subway station 中洲川端駅 . The Canal City shopping center キャナルシティ博多 and Nakasu 中洲 nightlife district were nearby, and the Tenjin 天神 area was a short subway ride (or walk, in my case) away.

One other great thing about Fukuoka is the close proximity of its airport 福岡空港 to the central part of the city. Hakata Station 博多駅, the main train station in Fukuoka, is only two stops from the airport on the subway, while Nakasu-Kawabata and the Tenjin shopping district are only four and six stops away, respectively. My flight didn't get in until just before 9pm on Sunday night, but I was checked-in and in my room before 10:30. You can't do that coming from Narita 成田国際空港 or Kansai 関西国際空港!

For the next week I'll be posting descriptions and photographs of my trip. The first day was a short one, however, so I'll leave you with this picture of a float from the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival 博多祇園山笠, taken inside the international terminal just after clearing immigration and customs.

Later!

My flight to Fukuoka on Cathay Pacific is scheduled to depart an hour from now, so I'm killing time by taking advantage of the free internet access on offer at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (you have to pay NT100 for 30 minutes at the terminals located before the immigration counters). I'll be spending a week in Fukuoka and its surroundings, and will post descriptions and pictures after I return next Sunday.

See ya!

Not enough monkey business

This sign, placed at the start of the No. 4 hiking trail in Dakeng, warns you to be careful of macaques 台灣獼猴. Perhaps it should also include snakes and giant wasps, because I saw more of those on Tuesday afternoon than I did monkeys.

Family Ties

Sometimes, it's your fellow countrymen you need to be most careful of when you are abroad:

"Two male Taiwan nationals of Toshima Ward 豊島区, Tōkyō 東京, were rearrested May 8 for allegedly lending money to compatriots at illegally high interest rates, with the borrowers' passports taken as collateral, it has been learned. The suspects were identified as 48-year-old Xie Chang-min, a company executive, and his unemployed 46-year-old brother, Xie Chang-guo. They were rearrested for violating the Investment Deposit and Interest Rate Law. The Metropolitan Police Department 警視庁 believes the siblings loaned about 670 million yen ($7 million/NT232 million) to about 290 Taiwan nationals living in the Kantō region 関東地方 and received about 300 million yen ($3.1 million/NT104 million) in illegal profits. According to an investigative source, the siblings have been operating their moneylending business illegally since 2003. Between February 2007 to February this year, the suspects allegedly lent money to five Taiwan nationals at interest rates exceeding the legal limit."

("Taiwan siblings held over illegal moneylending", Daily Yomiuri ザ・デイリー読売)

Friendly Skies

In yet another sign of the increasing importance of Taiwanese visitors for the Japanese tourism industry, Japan Focus has this Kyōdō News 共同通信社 article ("ANA to deploy onboard interpreters for Narita-Taipei flights"):

"All Nippon Airways 全日本空輸 will begin deploying on board interpreters to better serve passengers next Monday, starting with its Narita 成田-Taipei 台北 flights twice a week, ANA officials said Wednesday. Six female Taiwanese interpreters in their 20s, who can speak Taiwanese, Mandarin and English, were selected from 700 candidates for the new posts. Two of them can also speak Japanese, they added. At present, only Japanese flight attendants who can speak Japanese and English serve customers aboard the Narita-Taipei flights. ANA decided to deploy an interpreter for each flight on top of those attendants because the number of Taiwanese passengers on the flights has recently increased, the officials said. Wu Yi-fan, 24, one of the six interpreters, who formerly worked as a clerk at the airline, said in Japanese she will not only translate but also try to kindly attend to passengers."

Coming on the heels of the recent decision by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs 中華民國外交部 to open a representative office in Sapporo 札幌 this summer, it just goes to show that most Taiwanese don't seem to care that Japan is holding on to the Senkakus 尖閣諸島, or that it considers the question of Taiwan's sovereignty to be still undetermined.