Koya is a mountaintop town a few hours away (by train) from Osaka. Founded in 819 by a Buddhist monk, the town has dozens of temples and monasteries. At one end of town is Okunoin, a vast cemetery with more than 200,000 monuments erected over the last thousand or so years. The monuments line a pilgrimage route that winds up through a soaring forest of Japanese cedar trees. It’s all very atmospheric, with a bit of an Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider feel.
The toilets are really fancy. Heated seats, background music, built-in bum washing. Going to the loo is a dream.
View from our window: New Osaka Hotel, Osaka. 8:15 am, 18 October 2013. As a public service announcement to readers, there are in fact two New Osaka Hotels, about 7 km apart. Care should be taken to arrive at the correct one, especially when travelling late at night.
The ascent to Mt. Misen on foot and cable car, with views out over Hiroshima and the Inland Sea.
World’s largest rice scoop!! According to the interpretative panel mounted next to it: This is the biggest rice scoop in the world, and was made by Miyajima Town as a symbol of Miyajima, birthplace of the rice scoop, and to hand down the traditional handicraft of wood carving to future generations…Today, it is regarded as a lucky ornament which scoops up happiness, good fortune, and victory, as well as being practically useful. Unclear on where the practically useful part comes in.
Hiroshima is famous for its oysters, but here’s a pro tip: If you have ¥15000, and you spend ¥3800 on ferry rides and another ¥3800 on cable car fares, you shouldn’t *also* splurge on an ¥8000 oysters-and-champagne lunch at a cash-only restaurant. This is especially true if you have taken the ferry to a small island without ATMs. (But the oysters were totally worth it, and we managed to scare up enough loose coins to not be completely embarrassed.)
The Great Gate (O-Torii) of the Itsukushima-Jinja, a shrine complex on the island of Miyajima, half an hour’s ferry-ride from Hiroshima. It floats in the bay in front of the shrine, until low tide comes along and somewhat ruins the illusion.
Hiroshima is a very beautiful city, with multiple rivers running through it down to the Inland Sea. So even when you know what’s coming, it is something of a shock to stroll down to the riverbank and see the A-Bomb dome, preserved exactly as it looked in the aftermath of the bombing on August 6th, 1945. In the neighbouring Peace Park is the Children’s Peace Monument, inspired by a young girl, Sadako Sasaki, who died of leukaemia 10 years after the blast. Also in the park is the Peace Bell, and a Cenotaph with an eternal flame. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial
View from our window: ANA Crowne Plaza, Hiroshima. 9:10 am, 17 October 2013
All of the convenience stores in Japan have English names: Seven-Eleven, Lawson, and Family Mart. They are ubiquitous – 50,000 stores in Japan as of 2012, and thousands more set to open this year.