Nikko

This past Sunday we took a trip to Nikko. This is a nice side trip away from Tokyo. It's amazing what a difference two hours from Tokyo makes. Tokyo is a real hustle and bustle kind of place and two hours in any direction leaves one in the rural beauty of Japan. This trip to Nikko was spent looking at the Tshogu shrine. The Toshogu is the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, which ruled Japan for over 250 years until 1868. The shrine is dedicated to the spirits of Ieyasu and two other of Japan's most influential historical personalities, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Minamoto Yoritomo. The lavishly decorated shrine complex consists of more than a dozen Shinto and Buddhist buildings set in a beautiful forest. Initially a relatively simple mausoleum, Toshogu was enlarged into the spectacular complex seen today by Ieyasu's grandson Iemitsu during the first half of the 17th century. The wood relief of the monkeys symbolizes the saying "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil." The shrines were pretty spectacular. But we'll have to go back. We did not get a chance to visit the famous onsen (hot spring) or the lake that is supposed to have exceptional senic views.

Hokkaido: the Northern Island of Japan

Two weekends ago I had the chance to experience Japan's most prized mountain area, Hokkaido. Hokkaido is known for some of the lightest powder snow on the planet and phenomenal tree runs. It is also home to Sapporo, the capital and fourth largest city in Japan. We took a plane from Tokyo's Heneda airport (the intra-Japan airport) to Sapporo. On our walk to the hotel in Sapporo, I was taken by how much snow was around. The streets are literally lined with snow, the sides of the road have 8-12 foot snow drifts that have been pushed to the side of the road to clear the road ways. In fact, on the streets the city places boxes with salt bags that the public is free to spread around if a spot is too icy. But the snow does not phase the locals: everyone goes out like it's 65 degrees and sunny; women are walking on 3in of snow and ice with heels and think nothing of it. I guess when people live in an area that gets pounded with snow for six months of the year they tend to adapt. Sapporo is known for it's beer, snow, and ramen noodles - they invented ramen in Sapporo and even have a place called "Ramen Alley" where one can get ramen cooked just about any way possible. This isn't your standard Cup-o-Noodle soup. Ramen (or chashumen as they call it here) is pretty much a staple food in Japan. One can find a Ramen restaurant pretty much anywhere in Japan. The hotel here was not quite as fancy as the one we stayed at in Nigata, but it was still quite nice and had a sento (faux hot spring - more like a massive hot tub). The first day of our trip was spent at Teine, a local mountain in Sapporo. This mountain was pretty small but it did have a ferris wheel on it, and we could see the ocean from the peaks. The tree runs here were nice and filled with about 2 ft of powder, but the trees were pretty close together and there was quite a bit of underbrush making for slow tree riding. It's pretty interesting how foreigner's go skiing here. We bought a package from the train company, which included our train ticket, ski bus ticket, lift ticket, and a discount ticket for renting equipment. People here buy an entire package here from the train company that can include hotels, rental cars, and pretty much anything else one might need. The second day in Hokkaido was spent at Rusutsu, which is touted (rightfully so) as the best lift-served mountain resort in all of Japan. This resort did not let us down. The tree runs were wide open and the snow was light enough to blow right out of my hands. The views from the top were breath taking and riding around on this mountain was incredible. We did not see another American on the mountain and only saw two Austrailians who were in the "semi-backcountry" with us. Semi-backcountry is how the mountain refers to it's non-groomed runs that are still in bounds. Traditional backcountry skiing is prohibited. Finally, before leaving Sapporo, I was able to see most of the ice sculptures that were erected for the 59th annual snow festival.

Pictures from Tiene:



Pictures from Rusutsu:



Pictures from the Sapporo Snow Festival:

Kamakura and the big Buddha

Recently, we took a day trip to Kamakura to see the temples and the biggest Buddha in Japan. When visiting a temple it is proper to cleanse one's hands and and mouth by washing and drinking from the washing stand (not a technical term). Also at the temple is a giant incense burner that always has incense burning. The smoke from the incense is to be taken in by waving the smoke into one's face - this is meant to ward off sickness. Other than that, the pictures really say it all.

Want to get away?

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog...we've been heading out for many trips. Recently we went to the Nigata Prefecture, which is in Northern Japan. The trip was meant to be an overnight ski trip. But it turned out to be an amazing experience. We started out on the Shinkansen (Bullet Train), which traveled over 200mph. We arrived in Nigata about two hours after departing Tokyo and found ourselves in a winter wonderland. The area was covered in snow and the snow was still coming down. Our ryokan (Japanese-style hotel) was located a short walk from the train station. We were greeted at the ryokan by a person asking us to remove our shoes and to put on the hotel-provided slippers. The hotel did not have size 12, but I managed squeeze into what felt like a size 7. Because check-in wasn't available till much later, we quickly put on our ski clothes, tagged our luggage to be placed in our room when it became available, and headed off to Kondatsu (Pine Ridge ski resort). Kondatsu is pretty small by Northwest standards, but the knee-to-chest-deep powder made up for anything the mountain lacked in elevation. We found a tree run that continued to provide Evan (fellow student) and me with fresh, untouched lines to run all day. Most Japanese skiers and riders do not veer off of the groomed runs and almost never enter the tree runs, bonus in our favor. We took a short break for a crepe on the mountain and then headed out for more snow. After a full day of riding, we headed back to the ryokan. The hotel staff had placed our bags in our room, which was spectacular. The room was complete with tatami mats (straw mats) and a back massaging chair (the massage chair is probably not a traditional item). Our hotel even had an onsen (natural hot spring) for us to soak in after the long day of riding. The hotel also provided special robes for us to wear before and after enjoying the onsen. This onsen was not as hot as I had heard most onsens are in Japan (scalding hot); fortunately we were able to spend about a half hour in the onsen before heading to our room for dinner. A really nice woman came to our room and prepared it for dinner. She spent about a half hour setting up our dinner for us and another twenty minutes explaining what each of the dishes were. As you can see from the pictures the dinner was nothing short of elaborate. Notably we had fugu, which is Japanese blowfish. If the fugu is prepared improperly, the poisons in the fish's organs can be fatal to humans: thankfully we had capable hands preparing our fugu. In the morning we were served another elaborate meal in the room. But for some reason, fish just doesn't seem too appetizing in the morning. This was my first ski trip in Japan, and I was definitely not disappointed.