Tokako Onsen Photographs

The film crew, and us, the foreign tourists. See - we have photographic evidence of this strange encounter! In the background you can make out the lovely lake Toya, and its volcanic island.

Our traditional Japanese room at the plush spa onsen hotel in Toyako Onsen. Low table, tatami floor, and no bed. But you do get traditional Japanese green tea making facilities tucked away in the orange / brown box on the table. Oh, and a nice red bean paste glutenous bun each. Sweet.
We seem to have mastered the art of the camera timer! Lake Toya and volcanoes, and a passing raven. There are lots of them out here...

Showa Shinzan, a new, miniature volcano. With lots of steam issuing from its peak.

Fireworks over lake Toya. You`ve no idea how many photos Gary took to get the perfect shot with lovely water reflections. This wasn`t easy, as the fireworks were started from boats that kept on moving!

The very lovely volcanic island of lake Toya - revieled in all its glory the morning we left Toyako Onsen. Until this point it had been partially shrouded in clouds.

Sapporo

Well, we fled India early because 41 degrees Celsius was a bit warm. And I think we my have overcompensated.

We spent about 10 hours on various trains travelling north from Tokyo – 1050 miles north to be precise. And ended up in the region called Hokkaido - in the capital city, Sapporo. Which in a way is nice. Sapporo is a very vibrant, lively place. Nice to wander around. There are lots of tasty restaurants to choose from, and interesting department stores to get completely lost in. The basements of these are the best – they have delicatessent counters which hand out free tasters from time to time, so you can get delicious samples of dumplings, gyoza, and various scary Japanese foods. And the servers are so polite when you pass these food counters – they all call out ‘sumasen’ or something, smile and bow. When we left one department store yesterday at closing time we were virtually bowed to by 20 odd people at the same time. Very disconcertingly polite!

Sapporo is famous for its beer. According to Gary it has very good draught beer – ‘Sapporo’ brand of course. Unfortunately, as Gary has discovered by experimenting since we’ve arrived, not all canned beers you buy in Sapporo are safe. Ones with green in the label, or claiming to be ‘original’ are bad news. Those ‘brewed for your pleasure’ or ‘good times’ are worse! Apparently they tend to taste completely flavourless alcoholic water – a bit like dilute vodka. Nice.

Hokkaido does have a disadvantage however. It’s a bit like Scotland: renowned for its beautiful scenery and cold weather! It’s freezing here – and I thought Tokyo was cold. Ah well, bring back Delhi! Tomorrow we’re going to a national park of volcanoes, hot-springs and scenic mountains. I wonder how Scottish the weather will be.

Sapporo Pictures

A very picturesque garden by the old government building in Sapporo. The blossom was out in abundance when we visited, but I think I was a bit more impressed by this than Gary!

We keep on meeting mini red and white copies of the Eiffel tower out here in Japan. Near this one was a silly long garden with some fountains (whose spray soaked me while Gary was very slowly taking this photo). Nice day though, with lovely clear blue skies!

Tokyo

Japan. This is perhaps not the first place that springs to mind for a backpacking trip around the world as it’s so expensive. In fact, we originally didn’t plan to come here as we thought it would cost too much. But unfortunately, when we were buying the flight tickets we just couldn’t resist…

Ah well, staying in Tokyo is at least much cheaper than London. And for us, much more unfamiliar and fun! We came to Japan once before, about 5 years ago, for a conference. That time we caught the Shinkansen along the western part of the Islands and back, visiting Hiroshima, Kyoto, Himeji, Fukawaka, and of course Tokyo. And, as most of you know, we loved it! Japan is just such an amazing place to explore – very alive, very different from the west, very beautiful. And also very different from anywhere else we’ve been in Asia.

This time in Tokyo we’ve only stopped off for two nights, before departing on the Shinkansen to North Japan – the island Hokkaido. Two nights amounts to only a day wandering around, but even so it’s been great fun. We’ve been staying in Roppongi, a recently developed modern area, complete with the highest building in the city and a replica of the Eiffel Tower painted red and white! What more could you ask for? Yesterday we walked all the way from here north west to Shinjuku – one of the best known lively areas in Tokyo, full of restaurants, bars, shops, and Japan’s Times Square (really a huge department store block). Wandering between areas is great in terms of seeing lovely shrines, gardens and other random things (including dragish, gothic, punky teenage Japanese girls/boys/others). The only drawback is the weather – rainy, wet, cold and miserable – just like home! The first thing we bought (other than a train ticket and subway fare to get to our hotel) was an umbrella – one of those clear plastic ones that you only really get in Japan. Ah well, at least it’s more comfortable than Delhi’s heat.

Anyway, this is only our first, and shortest, visit to Tokyo on this trip now we are on the Shinkansen whizzing 1050 miles north to Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido. This seems to be the part of Japan most like Scotland. Probably nice and warm then!

Tokyo Pictures

A modern entrance to a very modern shrine in Tokyo. This hill had a lovely cluster of temples on top, but best of all, around the side there was a series of escalators to take you up in case you felt a little tired!
Another lovely shrine (this one a little more traditional). The Japanese make great use of wood and lanterns in these things. Which can be a drawback too. Most of the temples and castles in Japan are actually reconstructed having burnt down 4 or 5 times!

Hong Kong

This place is great. Hong Kong has to be one of my favourite cities. It’s just so alive.

We’ve been here over a week now, staying in Kowloon (on the mainland directly opposite Hong Kong Island). And strangely enough, even though Hong Kong is a lively bustling city, we’ve found it really quite relaxing. Strange. Maybe its partly because the temperatures are much lower than in Delhi (nice and comfortable at around 29 Celsius rather than 41!).

Anyway, we’ve wandered around the town as we usually do, visiting Victoria Peak on a beautiful clear day (see the pictures below). We’ve taken lots of ferries to get from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island and back – which was incredibly scenic tonight as we managed to skilfully (by accident) time our crossing so that it coincided with the nightly light show. This is when the major skyscrapers in Hong Kong’s waterfront show off, competing to light up and flash, all coordinated to a cheesy music soundtrack which you can listen to on the waterfront of Kowloon. It sounds incredibly tacky – and I suppose it is – but it also looks pretty good as you’ve got some fairly impressive buildings with neon and laser displays!

We’ve also wandered through loads of the parks around here. Hong Kong has in retaliation to its urbanisation developed some of the most spectacular parks I’ve ever seen. They are beautifully artificially sculptured to look natural (lots of waterfalls, ponds, exotic trees), but also include animals - pretty impressive ones. The Kowloon Park for instance has a massive pond enclosure, complete with a flock of flamingos. The Hong Kong garden competes with a gigantic aviary. But the clear winner of the animal stakes is the Botanical and Zoological gardens, which has huge, well-maintained enclosures of limas, orang-utans, sloths, flamingos, cranes, ibises, parrots, and loads of other birds and animals. And a jaguar! Sadly, when we visited the jaguar was not too well (a notice said it was ‘on medication’), and seemed to be sleeping at the back of the enclosure. On the other hand the orang-utans were definitely having fun, and there were three really sweet baby ring tailed lemurs climbing around or clinging to their Mums.

Another great thing about this part of the world is the food. Chinese food is for the most part really nice – and best of all, varied. Dim Sum, sea food, rice and noodley things, Peking Duck… lovely. We were also lucky to meet up with TJ briefly (one of our friends in Newbury for those of you that don’t know him), and we had some lovely Chinese foods we hadn’t come across before. There are a few scary ‘foods’ in this part of the world that we haven’t summoned up the courage to try yet: including chicken-feet, insectoid things, and plenty of restaurants that smell odd! Saying that, one of the nice things about Hong Kong is that you can very easily get good food from other countries than China: Italian, Japanese, Thai, or just a good sandwich! At least this stops you getting too saturated with East Asian cuisine! Unfortunately this wasn’t the case in India, where you try Indian interpretations of dishes from anywhere but India at your peril!

Anyway, on to Tokyo next – tomorrow. That should be fun! We’ll post some more pictures and notes soon. All the best.

Hong Kong Photos

Gary at the harbour of Hong Kong. This was taken from the Kowloon (mainland side) towards Hong Kong Island. Not exaclty what you'd call a bad view!
On top of Hong Kong's Victria Peak at sunset. This is facing North Westish, towards China where the islands and mountains fade into the clouds.

Looking towards Kowloon from the Peak over Hong Kong at night. Again, another OKish view don't you think?


Us with TJ on his visit! Nice view from our hotel window over Kowloon too.

Hong Kong and Kowloon from the peak by daytime.

One of the very lively Markets in Kowloon. This one is in Mongkok, right next to two really incredible specialist markets: the goldfish market (where beautiful tropical fish hang in plastic bags awaiting new owners) and the bird market (the same idea but for birds in delicate wooden cages).