Our next adventure took us to Okayama, the birthplace of Momotaro the Peach Boy. Born of a peach to an elderly couple, Momotaro had magical rice balls (kibidango) and magical animal friends (a dog, a pheasant, and… a monkey? I forget) and he fought demons and had adventures. James was here to collect pin badges, and I was here to collect stamps and annoy James.
You get around Okayama via a set of tram lines, which go “ding-ding” and clatter and rattle along and have that great olde-timey trolley feeling (apparently a trolley in Britain is a little cart you use for shopping, so James kept saying “tram” so I had to say “tram” so we could be talking about the same thing. But you know, a “pram” is a little cart you use for small children, so Tram for big people, Pram for small people. But “P” doesn’t sound like a “bigger” letter than “T”, I think… pronouncing them both, the “P” actually sounds more powerful. I think “pram” is short for “perambulator”, a “walking about with your baby machine”… what is “tram” short for?)
Anyway…
Okayama also has a lovely castle a short tram-ride from the main station. My first castle in Japan! Well, my first castle with more than one storey (Tokushima castle is a museum, and only has one storey so it doesn’t count). Inside Okayama castle, it was also a museum, which was a little boring, but you could go all the way to the top and see the lovely view of the famous giant garden and surrounding moat.
From on high we also spotted these swan boats. More on that later…
After stepping from the nice air-conditioned castle into the roasting heat and entered the garden. It was massive. Absolutely gigantic. And the extensive grass you weren’t supposed to walk on was immaculately trimmed. It must have taken a small army to do the upkeep.
We wandered for ages. They had little wooded walks, giant lily pad grotto, lovely lily flower pond, and a sort of out-cropping rocky hill like the fake romantic wild areas that British people used to make on their properties in the 1700s (1800s? What do you call those things anyway? Not hermitages, but something else…). There were lovely places to buy a shaved ice and relax on a shady bench, and lots of small old-fashioned buildings. It was the kind of place where the aristocracy strolled (and currently, wedding photos are taken).
The best part was behind the rocky hill: a foot-bathing stream!
Under an open roof ran a stream, with wooden platforms on either side. Leaving our shoes out on the pavement, we splashed in the shade.
Let’s return to those swan boats.
After getting all nice and relaxed, we went and rented a swan boat. The old man at the boat shack told us not to go in a certain part of the river because the current was strong. Then he drew a chalk map, which was two slightly curved lines which had no relation to the actual river whatsoever. Trusting to fate, we hopped in a boat. James took the wheel and I took the swan butt.
Paddling a swan boat is about a zillion times more work than those stupid swans make it seem like. I recall seeing a video once where they had a camera under the water and you could see a duck’s feet trucking along as fast as could be while above the water, the duck is just sitting there looking serene.
And yes, the current was strong. We paddled and paddled and James steered us around quite perfectly. Oh, and our swan had a little bowtie.
Here is an amusing post box.
We rode the tram out to our hotel, which was quite nice for a business hotel. James will attest that I forced him into some guide-book restaurant. This is true, however, it came after me thumbing through everything in the local eatery guide and him shooting down everything that came up (How can you say no to a Magic Bar? HOW? HOW??) and me getting very hungry and time getting late and both of us getting a bit grouchy. I was forcing us to eat at all.
I’m just kidding. We STARTED the trip being rather grouchy, or at least I did, and I don’t think that made James very happy either but it never (quite) came to shouting.
Anyway, we ate in this Italian (?) fusion-y type place (fused with what, it was hard to tell). I had a pizza and a Kir (because I read about it in my book about French people), and it was a nice restaurant and not far from the hotel and nice walk and exhausted sleep The End.
The End of Okayama, that is…
The next day, we took the shinkansen (my first shinkansen ride!) to Hiroshima. It wasn’t the fastest version, but it was very speedy. We rode the Kodama, and it took an hour.
In Hiroshima, we rode their tram lines (more numerous and modern) to old baseball stadium and the Peace Park. I didn’t take any photos. Adrianne and I pretty much Peace-Parked ourselves out last year. I was still touched – it’s very difficult not to be touched by the Dome – so I just admired with my eyes and my memory.
To be perfectly honest, this is the part of the trip where I complained the most. It was very hot, and my bag was at that awful just-heavy-enough to make you hate carrying it, just-heavy-enough that the extra weight makes you very unhappy, but NOT-heavy-enough that you have any excuse to complain excessively about it. Like I did.
Like I did until James took my bag by force. Possibly to be a gentleman. More likely to make me shut up.
I let him have it up to Hiroshima castle (across the road, a block, another road, and a medium-sized park) and then happily checked it with the castle attendant. Hiroshima castle was also lovely, also a museum, and also air-conditioned. And a good portion of the signs had English versions, so it was interesting as well.
After Hiroshima castle, we rode the tram down to Miyajima port. MISTAKE. Should have taken the train, it would have been at least 4 times faster. Miyajima had our hostel, where we dropped our gear, and a ferry port, where we boarded for Miyajima (Ok, the ISLAND is called Miyajima, and I’m sure the mainland place has an equally nice name, but really… Miyajima port, and Miyajima (island)).
Anyway, we went to Miyajima by ferry, and admired the Tori gate in the water and the lovely back market road. At one of the only non-fish establishments, we got nikuman (steamed pork bun) :
and ate them as best we could… being that there were hungry deer about. I don’t know why deer would want to eat meat, but they sure as heck tried to eat mine.
Like I wrote last time I went to Miyajima, the deer make me horribly sad and I want to give them all lots of food and hugs but that wouldn’t solve the problem.
We bathed our feet in another stream and tried to finish our pork buns unmolested. Ha! Ha! Yeah right!
You can’t see it because I am busy being silly instead of taking proper story-telling photos, but there is a deer lurking around on the other side of the stream.
More Miyajima, at sun set…
That night, we rode the train and tram (and walked a lot, because our directions were not so good) to a movie theater to see Inception. Did you like Inception? I did. I like the bit where gravity goes all wonky in the hotel. Fantastic image.
The next day…
We went back to Miyajima! To climb the mountain. What is it with mountains in Japan? Oh well…
In the sweltering heat, we took a bus then cable car then another cable car up to a nice summit. Then we walked DOWN a few hundred meters, then up a few MORE hundred meters to a higher summit. (the proper summit). It was very nice. Lots of giant rocks and a beautiful view.
Many people climbing; monks, children, old people, girls in wildly inappropriate shoes. There were rumors of monkeys, but no monkeys appeared to steal our stuff.
No snakes either.
Noted.
We took the speediest shinkansen back to Okayama (only 30-odd minutes!!), then a local train to a lovely smaller town with a preserved “old” part of town (1800s?). We could only enjoy it for 15 minutes or so before trucking back to the train station to catch our train to catch our bus to Tokushima. But a glimpse was pleasant enough.
