GOLDEN WEEK!!!!!

Ok so Once a year in May there is a collection of a couple holidays arranged just so that often times you could get (including the weekend) nearly a full week off of work!

Sadly this year was situated so that we only had a 4 day weekend. Oh well. It was 4 days of fun!!!


The trip started off months in planning. You need to plan golden week FAR in advance. Kyoto has around 600 hotels and all of them were FULL, just to give an example. Its a big time of the year. It was originally Take, Janet, Claire and I going to Mie prefecture. Soon Janet and Claire dropped out in the interest of money. So Take and I just went.

We started in Osaka and took a 1.5 hour train to the different prefecture. This was a super express train and cost about $30 one way. Yikes. The great news is there is a lot to do in Mie prefecture. The bad news was that the three things we wanted to do the most were on opposite ends of it. Think of Mie Prefecture as New York State. Our three destinations were Ise Shrine, Nagashima Spa Land, and the Ninja Museum. To mentally transplant these destinations on a map of new york it would be to say for instance that Mie Shrine was in Albany, Nagashima Spa Land was in Buffalo, and Ninja Museum was in Rochester. I'm probably exaggerating a little bit as our destinations were only 1.5 hours apart, but you get the picture.

Anyway. We got to Ise shrine midday on Sunday. Its crowded, but we knew it would be. The estimated travel time by bus from the train station to the entrance of the shrine was written as 15 minutes. It took us 40 in all the traffic from visitors. That aside, the shrine itself was beautiful. We wandered about in the enchanted forests, carved through with beautiful holy buildings. I'm not just being poetic when I say enchanted forest. There was a strong feeling of spirits in the forests of that place. Ise shrine is built to one of Japan's most celebrated goddesses, Amaterasu. She is the sun goddess, according to Shinto belief. In everything, the trees, the river, the rocks, I felt a feeling of aliveness. I will HAVE to return again. We wandered about the shrine for a while, then joined the line of people waiting to pray. After tossing some money in and clapping in prayer, we walked around some more and then left.

There were roosters and chickens wandering about. It was odd to see them, kind of cute. The buildings were phenomenal, the weather was great, and the experience was other-worldly. After exiting the shrine I went to the Ise town next to it and bought Akafuku mochi. It is a type of sweet with mochi inside, and red bean paste covering the outside. Pretty good. It is one of the top three gifts of Japan. The triumvirate include Tokyo Banana from Tokyo, Akafuku Mochi from Mie, and Shiroi Koibito cookies from Hokkaido. I've had two of the three. Off to Hokkaido! :P We slipped into a sake shop quickly for a cup of their finest sake, and then ran to catch a bus, which we missed. But luckily we worked out another way home. Our hotel was up in Kuwana by Nagashima Spa Land, so we had a 1.5 hour train ride yet to look forward to. We got into the hotel around 10, had dinner at a fast food beef-bowl shop, and slept soundly from all the exercise.

The next morning we woke for Mr. Donuts breakfast and scurried off to the bus toward Nagashima Spa Land!!! Now. Here's a little bit about Nagashima Spa Land. It is an amusement park attached to an onsen (outdoor bathing springs). The amusement park end of this boasts the tallest wooden and steel roller coasters in Japan the White Cyclone and the Steel Dragon. I'll leave you to your own intelligence to decipher which one is wooden and which one is steel. Apart from these two there is 8 more roller coasters and tons tons tons of other rides. Bigger than Knobles in Pennsylvania, but smaller than 6flags. Either way, its bigger (in terms of attractions) than Universal Studios and Tokyo Disney, so I was SO excited.

but it was raining.

Oh the horror. The one day we reserved for an amusement park, it was raining. Such is our fate. (Remember when it was snowing at Universal Studios?) We got there to find that only 8 rides were open. No!!! Instead we went to Jazz Dream (one of the few outlet shopping malls in Japan, with discount clothing and goods... standard mall fare by American standards but pretty uncommon here in Japan.) We wandered about the clothing shops, and the bath and body shops, melancholy as usual. But the rain was letting up. We got there at 9am and had our spirits crushed. After lunch at 12, we returned and found that most of the rides were opened up again! Ok. We missed 3 hours of what would be a great day if it were sunny, but at least we were in there and enjoying the park. We rode both of the big ones, and almost every high speed thrill ride there. We decided to leave the calmer boring ones for a time when we didn't lose 3 hours. There were times when the rides were temporarily shut because of the intermittent rain and we had to leave the line, but it was never that great a loss and they were back and running later on. Rides that were AMAZING were of course the two big ones. The free fall was a lot of fun. Space Shooters (where they rocketed you directly upwards like a shuttle lunch) was our first and last ride of the park because it filled us with glee. We enjoyed some tasty corn dogs and fried noodles and made it out of the park exactly at closing time, 5o'clock. (A bit early for a park to close, in my opinion, but what can you do?...)

After the park we went straight to the onsen. I had done the onsen experience when I lived in Tokyo but I didn't quite remember it, and again with my neighbors in Hiwasa but it was empty in a small town. This place was jam packed.

You took your shoes off, then you got a key for your shoes, which you brought with you to your clothes locker. You put the key to your shoes inside the locker for your clothes, took off your clothes, locked the clothes locker and carried your key to your clothes locker. Wearing a yukata (lightweight robe) you head over to get your towels. Then you take off your robe, put your robe, your big towel, and your key to your clothes locker inside the yukata locker, and then carry your yukata locker key with you, stark naked carrying a tiny towel. It all seemed so... key heavy...


Inside the room, you wash at little shower stalls to make sure you're clean. Then you enter the baths. Some indoor some outdoor. We went to the outdoor ones first. The hot water was INCREDIBLE after a day of thrill rides. It melted my muscles and soreness away. We spent two hours alternating between the various indoor and outdoor baths. The scenery was gorgeous. A flowing river through big black rocks, and more greenery than could have possibly been natural. Actually, judging from where this onsen was located, it could have been that the entire thing, river, rocks, and all had been man-made. But it was beautiful nonetheless. If the hot water wasn't enough to turn you into a lovely puddle of relax, there were indoor baths with high-powered jets. A round of different cubicles to sit designed to aim the jets at different parts of your body. First you started in shallow water which jetted your lower back, behind and legs. Then you went to deeper water for mid back, deeper water still for your upper back, and the deepest water for your neck, where you lay back and just relaxed. I felt like a million dollars. My back is starting to get sore thinking about it, and wishing I could be back there.... Two hours was the perfect amount of time. I felt more refreshed than I can express, and the whole experience cost only $5. Incredible. (After the park costing $40, the $5 was a welcome relief).

The day turned out to be a marvelous success despite the melancholy rainy start. We went back to the outlet mall to a restaurant and ordered Miso-katsu, A fried pork cutlet with a miso cause on top. It is one of my favorite Japanese foods. They serve it there because Nagashima is really close to Nagano, and Nagano is famous for its Miso-katsu. That with a beer, some ramen, and a coffee to finish made for one of the more perfect days during my time at Japan. We went back to the hotel and slept really well again.

The end of my vacation approached with the next morning. After another Mr. Donuts breakfast it was time to check out. Our train ride home involved a stop at Iga so we could quickly see the ninja museum so we could not take the express train. On the local train it was 1.5 hours from Kuwana to Iga. At Iga we had to transfer to a different train which took us deep into the country side. It was more country than Hiwasa, which surprised me! Apparently Ninjas had to live secluded from the rest of the world, in hiding. This train took near 40 minutes. Finally we got to the station. You could call it a station. It was just a building surrounded by closed nothing-shops in a really nothing town. Barely any restaurants, nothing worthwhile, not even a convenience store. Truly desolate. The only thing that put a smile on the face of the town was the trains painted like Ninjas, with the conductors dressed the part. A 10 minute hike up into the hills and you find yourself at the residence of ancient ninjas. For an overpriced $7 you are allowed entry. The tour is in Japanese unfortunately but its so visual, that its easy to understand.

They showed us revolving doors where the ninjas used to swivel through to quickly hide from people entering their homes. Shelves which transformed into staircases, intricate push-and-pull systems for doors which only let them open on a particular way, notches and slides in wood to have the same effect, loose floorboards to hide weapons even hidden door jambs. The tour itself took 10 minutes. Then you were left to peruse the museum. They had weapons, tools, costumes.. everything ninja! It was rather interesting. At the exit of the museum you found yourself with the option of watching a ninja demonstration for an additional $2. (Rip off...) We decided to go. They opened the show with a talk about ninjas which I didn't completely understand, and then proceeded with demonstrations of different weapons, from just sword sharpness to throwing stars, and throwing hooks, to using the cover of the sword to guide you through the dark and trick your enemies. (The sword would be held out and the sword holder extended to almost the end of the sword. There would be a rope from the holder that you held in your teeth and you walked around with it extended to guide you. If you bumped into an enemy and it wanted to grab your sword, it would instead grab the sword holder and you would be holding the sword still. Stab. Dead enemy. The whole thing was pretty cool, and kind of exciting. I would have gotten a lot more out of it if I were obsessed with ninjas and wasn't dead tired from the already long weekend. I think Kori would really enjoy it a lot! We started the long long long 3.5 hour trip back to Wakayama.

Wakayama was dinner, and then boarding a ferry for Tokushima (two hours), and then a 1.5 hour drive home. I considered sleeping in my car that night but I thought a bed would be nicer. Either way Tuesday was ALL travel. So many hours, I was exhausted and a cold was coming on. But at least I had an incredible time during my holiday, and I took Wednesday off to recover!


PICTURES!!!

posted by Living and Teaching in Tokushima @ 11:25 AM Comments: 0