What a fantastic trip. And to think that people thought we were crazy for not flying, as if 40 hours and 4,000km of train over 4 days was a lot or something. I’ve included a map that shows where we went to help your orientation. We started catching a Shinensen over the Alps and through a number of annoying ear popping tunnels until we reached Niigata. From there to Akita is probably the best train trip in Japan. The whole coast was sprinkled with little shrines perched up on the rocks and cliffs that paved the northwest coast. From there it was a short trip to the worlds longest tunnel, which as interesting as it sounds, is just like spending time in the Metro. It was dark by the time we got out of the tunnel, so I’ll just skip to tomorrow.
Waking up in an empty Youth Hostel in Toya-ko we opened our blinds to revile one of Japan’s newest Volcanos, steaming and hissing to it’s hearts content. The entire mountain started out as a bump in a rice field and in less than two years grew to a height of over 400m. We caught a bus to the Volcano and saw a road dip into a lake caused by the flash volcano, the tops of street sign and power lines poking out of the water, then the road coming out on the other side to where a bunch of crumpled houses. Serves them right for building on a volcano in the first place. We walked up an adjacent road that had cracked up Hollywood volcano style until we reached the summit and although it was raining, we were quite warm when we stood in front of the massive steaming vents.
From Toya we caught a train to Chitose and rushed around the mega factory outlet stores trying to find gloves and hats before out next train to Kushiro. The further we got from Tokyo, the smaller our trains got until out train out of Kurshiro was only one car long. We had travelled near many national parks, but this train led us straight through the middle of Akan NP, one of Hokkaido’s best to Mashu-ko, where again, we were the only occupants at our youth hostel.
The morning had us up at the crack of dawn and raceing over to the most beautiful lake in Japan, Lake Mashu. It was an absolutely stunning sight. The lake it’s self has a transparency of over 45m, once a world record. We managed to get there just before the fog set in and covered over the beauty. Running back to our car we speed down the mountain just in time for our train to Abashiri. It was a quick trip to Asahigawa where we transferred onto a bus that would lead us up into the Daisetsuzan National Park.
We arrived at the most beautiful youth hostel you’ve ever seen and then found out that we were actually paying hotel rates because we booked a family room, not dormitory rooms. But it was beautiful; the highlight must have been the outdoor onsen. While we were lazing about in the hot spa, snow started to trickle from the heavens. What an experience, hot hot hot body, freezing cold head. It was one the most magical and sensational onsen we’ve ever been to.
The night had been friendly to us, leaving a good few centimetres of fresh snow as we headed up the mountain. We caught a rope way and the terrain transformed from a heavily tree covered mountain to a scantly covered mountain with at least 30cm of fresh snow. We weren’t the first ones to makes tracks though, there were some suspicious bear type looking tracks, we decided to plough through them anyway. I would have liked to walk to the summit, but we didn’t have enough time, so instead we just walked around and saw the hinterlands and the beautiful snow covered foliage. In the distance on another peak, we could see steam pouring out of the mountain and we caught a glimpse of some cold loving crazy birds before we made out decent.
After a short bus and train trip we arrived in Sapporo and with six or seven hours to kill we headed straight for the sight of the 1972 Sapporo Winter Olympics Ski Jump where there was a great Winter Olympics museum. I wonder who first thought “If I go really fast over this cliff I bet I could fly 144m in the air before I hit the ground?” The museum was fairly empty so we had most of the Japanese staff to ourselves. There was a small museum on the top floor, but the real fun was on the bottom floor where they had a number of interactive sports. Results were:
John Emily Alexander
Ski Jump Simulator 8m 87m 120m
Ski Jump 115m 120m 140m
Cross Country Skiing 34sec 26sec 20sec
Biathlon N/A 2 target, 1 board 1 target, 1 board
Speed Skating N/A 23/50 50/50
Hockey N/A 75% 100%
And the winners are……
Bronze: Scotland – John Edward Bradley
Silver: Australia – Emily Meadows
Gold: Australia – Alexander James Edward Bradley
In Emily’s defence, Alexander did have more tries at things to get him better than Emily. But in Alexander’s defence, his cross-country score was a second faster than the staff’s.
From Sapporo it was a beautiful sleeping train to Aomori, a short trip to Hachinohe where we caught a Shinkensen back to Tokyo. Dad and I spend an afternoon “Lost in Translation” as we attended a Japan Rail East Union rally accompanied by our own translator, before being treated to a private tour of a local railway workshop. Dad became such good friends with his union comrades that he scored a ride in the driver’s cab of a Shinkensen, (he still had to pay the basic fare though) and from the grinning expression adorning is face upon arriving home, I think he enjoyed himself.
As his days were coming to an end we tied off the end of the holiday with a trip Asakusa Buddhist temple. It’s very different to the Shinto shrine across the road at Meiji, but equally as impressive. We caught a suspended driverless guided bus way to the Mega Web at Odiba, a giant Ferris Wheel that was the highest in the world in 1999. I must admit it made me a little shaky when it reached the top, any movements had to be very slow as not to rock the cabin too much. God knows how we would have managed if Heather was onboard with us as well, but the views of Tokyo made up for any nervousness.
Lastly we made our way over to our old stomping ground at Monzen-Nakacho. A quick walk around the area where we spent the first frightening weeks of our time in Japan brought back many memories for me. We’ve come a long way since we moved to Japan and I must admit that as much as this country can shit me to tears, I’ll miss it when I leave. We dinned at the restaurant where we had become good friends with the owners when we lived there and they were glad to see us again and glad that we’d brought someone who actually ate fish to their fish restaurant. I thought it appropriate to spend the last night having a conversation that requires more hand gestures and drawings than words because that’s how we live our lives here.
Had a fantastic time Dad and I couldn’t have done it without you and even if I could, it just wouldn’t have been the same. Love you lots.
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