JIJ Vol 003 - in Sapporo (Hokkaido)

Hey Everyone!

I just spend the entire day taking different trains out to Sapporo (on the island of Hokkaido). The weather is definately a lot less humid and I have managed to avoid the Typhoon that is occuring in Kyushu and Okinawa (and heading towards Tokyo!). Tomorrow I will be heading towards Kushiro, and then to Akan Ko (north east of Sapporo).

So... I actually have some internet time right now over at Doutor Coffee (a coffee chain just like starbucks. So I will catch everyone up with the past week or so of travelling.

August 27th me and my friends went up to Nikko. Nikko is somewhat close to Tokyo, better to do in an overnight trip rather than in a day. It is about 2 and a half hours away from Tokyo. We took one of the JR lines out there early in the morning and it is definately a lot cooler than Tokyo. Taking the train to Nikko you could definately see the change in landscape - the mountains, and the huge trees. Once we got to Nikko station we bought a bus pass that took us up to Nikko National Park.

The bus goes up this huge mountain side going from side to side. The name of the mountain road (which i forgot - i will find out later) is based on the ancient japanese syllable sounds marking each turn on the roadside. We arrived around civilization again and we walked to Kegon falls - it is a HUGE waterfall. We paid 500 yen and took the elevator down 100m or so to get closer to the base of the waterfall. It was really misty out there! It was beautiful.

Afterwards we headed back up and started walking to Lake Chuzenji. This lake is actually what comes before the waterfall. It is a huge lake, nice, placid, and full of fish and dragonflies! After resting our feet a bit at Lake Chuzenji - we walked down a few blocks and headed towards a hotel with an onsen. An onsen is basically a hot spring caused by natural volcanic occurances causing hot water and sulfer to come up to the earths surface. we spent quite sometime at the onsen, relaxing and having a good time. Afterwards we got softcream (ice cream? frozen yougurt? its softcream!) and then took the bus back down to Nikko Station. From there we also visited Nikkozan Rinnoji temple - which is also very beautiful and large, and then walked by this huge red bridge (which i cannot remember the name at the moment). Afterwards we took the train and spent the night over at Taka's (my japanese friend) parents house.

The next few days we spent in Tokyo again, doing a lot of shopping. There are tons of great places to go shopping and its definately nothing compared to shopping in the US. There are HUGE buildings and many multifloored stores and sometimes you can't even find the entrance to the elevator to get to those other floors. We spend a few days shopping in Harajuku, Ebisu, Shinjuku, etc.

August 30th we went to Yokohama - the Chinatown of Japan. Its huge and glitzy but definately not cheap compared to San Francisco's Chinatown. It is more like... a tourist trap really. All the Chinese food was so expensive (we didn't eat there). After that we went to see Zozoji Temple, it is very nice and very close to Tokyo Tower. We went to Tokyo Tower and it was definately expensive there too. it was about 840 yen up to the first platform and then another 600 yen to the 250m platform. We didnt go up to the other platform because the sky was a bit too hazy to see much.

August 31st First we went to a huge park in Shinjukku, afterwards we went to the Ghibli museum - the museum of the creators of the classic anime movies Princess Mononoke, My Neighboor Totoro, Spirited Away and a bunch of others. It was definately a place worth going to in terms of the place being amazing and also - it was hard getting tickets. Afterwards we went to Asakusa to visit the temple at night (which uses lighting to an awsome effect) and sushi.

Sept 2nd I spent most of the day in Ueno - famous for Ueno park and the Tokyo National Museum. Definately something to go visit if you want an all around glimpse of Japanese Culture. I also managed to go see the Tang Dynasty Exhibit (Chinese artifcats and such) and an exhibit on Copying, Pasting, and creating artwork and using original paintings and japanese calligraphy to focus on techniques and learning what techniques the original masters had.

Since then I took a break from running around Tokyo and now I am in Hokkaido - ready to embark on another journey. It will probably be a while till i get around to the internet again. I hope everyone is doing great! I shall post again perhaps after I return from Hokkaido.