More Kodak classics

It's been five months since my last Kodak-era update. Regular blog readers will recall my long-term project to retrospectively publish posts on travel adventures enjoyed before this blog began. Since the last update, I've been hard at work capturing the following memories for posterity.

• Exploring Japan during the height of the Sakura season.
  
  
• A day trip to Kamakura, one of Japan's ancient capitals.
  
  
• My first road trip through the Outback, including time on the Murray River.
  
  
• A spontaneous vacation in Perth, my first visit to West Australia.

• Finally, I’ve added a new post about our first time in Boston in 2005.

Next on my shortlist are posts about my first time in Seattle and San Francisco, along with more about the round-the-world ticket booked to attend my brother's wedding in 1996. The image opening this post was taken during this trip. I've already captured my initial stopover in Southern Africa. In the months ahead, watch for posts exploring Prague and Berlin with my parents, followed by a wild time with friends in Hawaii. 

The Great Buddha of Kamakura

Time for another retrospective post from the Kodak era. This time we’re off to Kamakura, a historic coastal city on the Miura peninsula south of Tokyo. The city is renowned for Kamakura Daibutsu, otherwise known as The Great Buddha of Kamakura, at Kotoku-in temple.

Kamakura is one of Japan's ancient capitals, alongside Kyoto and Nara. It served as the seat of the Kamakura shogunate for almost 150 years from 1185 to 1333. This was also Japan’s first military government. As a result, the city is filled with many ancient and note-worthy temples and shrines.

Kamakura Daibutsu is a large bronze statue of a seated Buddha. It sits on a low-profile stone podium. Including the base, it measures 13.35 metres high and weighs about 93 tonnes. According to temple records, the statue dates from around 1252 and thus was cast at the height of the Kamakura shogunate.

It was created to replace an earlier giant wooden statue destroyed by a storm in 1248. The bronze replacement was originally enclosed in a temple hall. However, this building was swept away by a tsunami in 1498. Since then, the Great Buddha has stood in the open air.

I visited Kamakura and spent the day exploring its many hillside temples and shrines during a business trip to Japan. My company’s Tokyo office was a bit of a problem child at the time. As a result, I made many trips to Japan to support the team, usually staying at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku.

My first business trip to Tokyo was a three-week secondment in August 2001. At the time, I was the Managing Director of our Australian office and was asked to spend time in the office training the executive team on improving their business management skills.

Following this trip, I returned regularly between 2002 and 2005 after becoming Regional Director for Asia Pacific. At the time, we'd lost our local managing director and had an expat in place acting in a temporary capacity. The situation's complexity meant that I stayed often for several weeks and thus regularly found myself with a weekend to fill.

To be brutally honest, I’m not sure exactly when I visited Kamakura. I never dated the photos I took. At a guess, it was sometime in 2002. It takes about 90 minutes to reach the city by train from Shinjuku. Most visitors disembark at Hase Station, then make their way uphill to the Kamakura Daibutsu tracing a popular tourist route past several Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.

However, I decided to get off the train at Kita Kamakura station. From here I walked down the tree-lined streets of old Kamajura toward Hase Station. Along the way, I passed numerous immaculate shrines, including Engakuji, one of Japan's leading Zen temples, before finally finishing up at Great Buddha. Thanks to regular tourist stops, it took me several hours to complete the walk.  You can see a photo above of the wonderful Zen garden at Engakuji.  It was undergoing a little maintenance the day I visited.

Kenchoji, Kamakura’s oldest Zen temple, was also memorable. I was captivated by the defensive demon statues guarding the steps leading up to Hansōbō, the temple's large Shinto shrine. Known as Tengu, these mythical creatures are similar to goblins. Some of the statues had wings and a beak, a tengu genre known as Karasu-tengu (crow tengu) because of their avarian appearance.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura an impressive sight. As it comes into view beyond the ticket gate its size and scale is immediately clear. You instantly appreciate why it’s designated as a national treasure of Japan and is considered one of the nation’s most famous icons. Where else can you gaze upon a pair of one-metre wide eyes resting in eternal contemplation?

Hajimete no Nihon

I spent two years learning Japanese and studying Japanese business culture at Waikato University in New Zealand’s North Island. By the time I finished my final language course, I could speak, read and write basic conversational Japanese. Sadly, I never maintained the discipline and my language skills slowly waned. Almost 40 years later, I can only recall a few passing phrases.

At the time, I was motivated to learn the language thanks to Japan’s ascendency as New Zealand’s largest trading partner. Japanese technology, lean manufacturing and Kaizen business practices were also globally revered market-leading innovations. However, despite my studies, more than a decade passed before I finally visited Japan.

I spent a week in Honshu in April 1998. I flew into Osaka in the early evening of 6 April and departed again seven days later on Easter Sunday, 12 April. I booked the trip as a short break between jobs. I’d just resigned as a senior consultant at Recognition Public Relations to take on a role at Text 100, a global public relations company.

My trip coincided with the spectacular Sakura season. Sakura translates simply as Cherry. Every year in Spring, the island nation’s cherry trees burst into a riot of white and pink-hued blossom. It’s a magnificent spectacle. Everywhere you look, parks, roadsides and hills are cloaked in pastel hues. Then, as the blossom fades, paths and parks are carpeted in a sea of fallen petals.

The emerging blossoms are eagerly anticipated. Every year, the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the general public track the sakura zensen ("cherry blossom front") as it moves northward up the archipelago. As the warmer weather approaches, daily blossom forecasts close off the weather segment on the evening news. Many popular events and activities are also staged to commemorate the season. I experienced a few of these during some unscripted moments.

I chose to base myself in Osaka as it was centrally located for exploring southern Honshu’s most iconic destinations. I made full use of my Japan Rail Pass, scheduling daily day trips that took me as far south as Hiroshima and Iwakuni, and as far north as Hakone. In between I visited classic tourist hotspots in Himeji, Nara and Kyoto. In fact, the only place I didn’t spend time in was Osaka itself. I eventually returned 15 years later to explore the city with my mother.

As part of my retrospective blogging project, I’ve prepared a series of posts covering my most memorable day trips in Japan. Read and enjoy the links below. 

• Geeking out over the brand-new Akashi Kaikyo Bridge
• Seeing Mt Fuji for the first time on the Hakone Circuit 
• Reliving the horror of atomic warfare in Hiroshima 
• Exploring Japan’s most famous Samurai castle in Himeji 
• Seeking enlightenment in the temples and shrines of Nara and Kyoto.

One final memory before you go. My flight home was an unexpected highlight. The Qantas flight was packed with only a handful of seats to spare. Shortly after boarding, the cabin crew approached me and asked if I’d yield my economy class bulkhead seat with its extra legroom to accommodate a passenger flying home with an injured leg. The crew wouldn’t (or couldn’t) upgrade me. Out of the kindness of my heart, I agreed to take the passenger’s middle-row seat further down the cabin.

The crew reappeared as we were preparing to push back. They’d found me a “better seat”. The captain had invited me to join him in the cockpit for take-off. I accepted his offer without a moment's hesitation. For the next hour, I sat in the cockpit jump seat enjoying a spectacular nighttime departure from Kansai airport. 

We took off down the runway lined by symmetrical ribbons of light and flew out over an inky black Inland Sea. As we slowly climbed, the jaw-dropping lights of Kobe and the Asahi Kaikyo Bridge punctuated the darkness. Above is an image I ripped from the Internet that captures this view.

As the aircraft turned south towards Australia, the captain took a moment to properly introduce himself. When he heard that I worked in the IT industry, he proceeded to take me on a tour of the aircraft’s avionics. For almost an hour he systematically took me through the cockpit controls flicking one switch after another as we settled for an overnight flight. As a child, I’d always dreamed of being an airline pilot, so his unexpected tutorial was a dream come true.

The following morning, I was invited back to the cockpit to enjoy a stunning early morning landing at Sydney Airport. The dawn sky was bright and clear as we flew in from the north, made a scenic loop around the city, landed on the main runway from the south and taxied to the terminal. Sadly, the events of 9/11 have put an end to these cockpit encounters. I count myself lucky to have experienced an opportunity long since consigned to the annals of history.

Should you ever want to retrace my steps yourself, here's a summary of my Japanese itinerary. As my retrospective posts reveal, each excursion is a viable day trip from Osaka.  If you have the time, I'd add a few days to include Tokyo, Nikko and sights further north. To facilitate this, I'd simply transfer to Toyko after spending the day in Hakone. Alternatively, I'd drop Hakone and spend a day in the Five Lakes district before venturing to Tokyo the following morning.

DAY	DATE	ITINERARY
1	6 April	Arrive in Osaka
2	7 April	Nara
3	8 April	Hiroshima, Miyajima & Iwakuni.
4	9 April	Asahi Kaikyo Bridge. Himeji.
5	10 April	Kyoto
6	11 April	Hakone Free Pass Circuit
7	12 April	Half Day Kyoto. Depart Japan.
8	13 April	Arrive in Sydney on Easter Monday

Oh yes, the title of this post?  Translated it simply means "My first time in Japan". Enjoy!

Nara in the Spring

I flew into Kansai Airport on the evening of 6 April. The airport sits on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, about an hour by train from the central city. By the time I'd made it through immigration, collected my bag, transferred to the train and finally reached the hotel, it was bedtime. 

The following morning, I caught a train to Nara for the day. The forecast was for mainly overcast conditions with the chance of a late passing shower. I'd decided that exploring temples and shrines was a smarter bet in these conditions rather than the more outdoor-oriented Hakone day trip I'd originally scheduled. 

The gamble certainly paid off. I enjoyed mainly dry conditions until a brief, and rather light, shower passed through while exploring Ukimido Pavilion on the southern boundary of Nara Park. The umbrellas you can see in the opening image above captured this short lived shower. I later found a dry spot under a tree and enjoyed a picnic lunch overlooking the pavilion’s cherry blossom-rimmed pond (complete with a curious deer as you can see above).

Nara is Japan’s ancient capital. Established in 710 A.D., it became the nation’s first permanent capital. Prior to that, the capital moved to a new location as a new emperor ascended to the throne. Most of its sights are concentrated around Nara Park, wooded parklands on the modern city’s eastern fringe. 

I spent half a day exploring the park and its surroundings while dodging hundreds of curious deer roaming freely through the grounds. The deer are fearless. Park visitors can purchase dried food pallets to feed them. As a result, you’re continually harassed by animals frisking you for a treat. I bought one of these small packets, set up my camera, activated its timer, and secured myself a memorable selfie.

The park is home to Tōdai-ji temple. Until recently, the temple's main hall, the Daibutsuden (Big Buddha Hall), held the record as the world's largest wooden building. Interestingly, the present building reconstructed in 1692, is only two-thirds of the original temple hall's size. Inside sits Daibutsu, Tōdai-ji's 15m-high bronze Buddha. It’s an impressive sight.

Off to one side of the hall is a quirky path to enlightenment. One of its massive timber columns has a narrow archway carved through it. Tradition has it that if you can crawl through the gap you’re well on your way to true enlightenment. Sadly, I was far too large to enjoy this niffy shortcut to eternal bliss.

Nearby Shin-Yakushiji Temple was home to another quirky tradition. It's devoted to Yakushi Buddha, the patron of medicine in Japanese Buddhism. Inside the main hall, there are life-size statues of 12 guardian deities, Baraza Wind Gods, surrounding a two-meter-tall statue of a seated Yakushi Buddha. The Yakushi statue is made of wood while the guardians, dating back to 700AD, are made of clay.

The Yakushi Buddha, or Healing Buddha as he's also known, is said to possess healing powers. Visitors seeking good health and healing line up to rub its surface and pray. As a result, years of rubbing have rendered its surface smooth and shiny, while the natural oils from all these hands have stained the timber in a rather eerie way.

 

On the park's east side is the Shinto shrine Kasuga Taisha. This compact complex dates back to 768 A.D. It’s considered Nara’s most sacred shrine as it’s dedicated to a deity responsible for the city's protection. It’s filled with more than 3000 lanterns of all types donated by dedicated worshippers.

While in Japan I discovered that the sakura season isn't the only festive occasion in Spring. My trip also coincided with Ohakamairi, the traditional visit to one's ancestral graves. Every year family members, usually led by the eldest son, visit their family graves in the first two weeks of April. The grave and surrounding area are scrubbed and cleaned and weeds and debris removed. A series of five offerings are then made including flowers, incense, candles, water and food.

The family will often cloak the grave in a red bib. I encountered these bibs everywhere I went including my first day in Nara. This tradition dates back to Japanese folklore which holds that the colour red can expel demons and disease. However, there’s also a deeper, difficult story behind many of the baby bibs you’ll see on statues. Those bibs have likely been placed there by somebody with a child who died very young or is sick. It’s an offering of protective armour to that deity, fighting to protect their child from demons in the spirit world.

Oh yes, one find note. The artist in the opening image is painting the facade of Nara's National Museum.
 

Hiroshima in the rain

My first visit to the infamous city of Hiroshima occurred on 8 April 1998. It was a day trip from Osaka on the second day of my first trip to Japan. I’d originally scheduled a day trip to Hakone to see Mount Fiji. However, the weather forecast wasn't ideal for viewing the mountain. 

As a result, I made a last-minute decision to shuffle my plans and head south instead. In some small way, it seemed more appropriate to experience a poignant location like Hiroshima in the wet. I also knew I’d spend time indoors at the Peace Museum, plus another 1.5 hours each way on the Shinkansen.

I arrived in Hiroshima mid-morning and caught a local tram towards the Peace Memorial Park. I followed a recommendation in my Lonely Planet guide and disembarked at Kamiyacho-nishi. From here I walked a block down a narrow, quiet side lane to view the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Monument. This modest pink marble plinth marks the exact spot where, approximately 600 metres above, the world’s first atomic weapon exploded in anger.

I’ve visited this monument three times. On each occasion I’ve been awe-struck by the simple thought that had I stood here in this modest laneway, on the morning of 6 August 1945, it would have resulted in instant annihilation. It’s an unfathomable thought and brings into stark focus the inane brutality of war.

My next stop was the iconic Atomic Bomb Dome. These are the carefully preserved remains of the Industrial Promotion Hall which stood 100 metres west of the bomb’s epicenter. It was a moving moment viewing this skeletal complex as misting rain squalls passed through. All around me, colourful bunches of origami cranes lay on marble platforms. They were placed there as part of a nearby memorial tower erected in memory of children who perished in support of the nation's war efforts.

In August 1944, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act to fill a growing labour shortage. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labour service in munitions factories and the like. Then, in November, mobilised students were roped into demolishing homes and other buildings to create fire breaks to stop the spread of fire in the event of air attacks. In Hiroshima, of the roughly 8,400 students in upper-level schools, about 6,300 died on the day of the bombing.

Sadly, after the war, the government only permitted mobilised students killed in the atomic bombing or in air strikes whose names and dates of death were known to be enshrined in the national Yasukuni Shrine. In response to this, bereaved families began a movement to create a list of the dead who'd been ignored and donated funds to build the memorial tower that stands today.  The photo of the tower above was taken on my last visit to Hiroshima in 2013, while the paper cranes are from my visit in 1998.

The paper crane symbolises hope and peace in Japan thanks to the heartbreaking story of a little Japanese girl called Sadako Sasaki. She was exposed to radiation as an infant when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Although she survived the bomb, she was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 12. Sadako believed that if she folded 1,000 cranes, she’d be cured. Sadly, she never reached her goal and passed away later that year.

A second peace memorial, capped by a girl with a symbolic crane crown, can be found in the nearby Peace Park.  This soaring monument commemorates all children, of all ages, killed in the atomic blast, and reflects a call for world peace by children everywhere. It's always surrounded by heaving displays of colourful paper cranes. 

Every year school children come from around the country to present these paper creations crafted carefully during history lessons. These colourful bundles were piled high on the ground during my first visit. However, in the years since glass cabinets have been installed to protect them from the weather. I've read that the memorial received up to 10 million paper cranes annually from children in Japan and overseas.

I crossed the Aioi Bridge, once used as an alignment target by American atomic bombers, and spent several hours exploring the Peace Memorial Park. This included several hours taking stock of exhibits and artefacts at the Peace Museum. The museum, located on the park’s southern boundary, tells the story of the atomic bombing and its aftermath. It’s a truly sobering experience. You can learn more about the park and its museum in posts I've previously published here and here.

From Hiroshima, I caught the local tram south towards Miyajima. There are few sights more iconic in Japan than the vermillion Tori gate that stands offshore of the Itsukushima Shinto shrine. Miyajima is one of Japan’s most sacred places. Its name literally translates as "shrine island". Its history is intimately tied to the nation’s two dominant religions; Shintoism and Buddhism.

The island is considered so sacred that for much of its history commoners weren’t allowed to set foot on it to maintain its purity. As a result, the Itsukushima shrine is built over the water and connected to the island by three single-arch vermillion bridges. Its dramatic entrance gate was also installed offshore to ensure visitors could only come by boat and thus never touch the island. Retaining the purity of the shrine is so important that since 1878, no deaths or births have been permitted near it.

Unfortunately, my visit coincided with low tide. As a result, I never saw the Tori Gate “floating” in the sea. However, this did allow me to walk out across the mud flaps and view the gate up close, something you’re unable to do when the tide is in. I have been fortunate to see the gate immersed on subsequent visits.

I finished my southern day trip with a bus ride to Iwakuni to see the Kintai Bridge. Catching the bus was an experience in itself.  I amused the driver with my clumsy efforts to pay the correct fare, communicate in pidgin Japanese and disembark at the correct stop. I then repeated a similar pantomime for the toll booth attendant staffing the entrance to the bridge.

This iconic five-arch wooden bridge spans the Nishiki River. Historically it acted as a gateway to a feudal palace and Samurai castle on the hill overlooking the river. Unfortunately, during my visit low clouds shrouded the surrounding hills and thus I never saw the castle. However, I finally saw it up close during a visit with Mum more than 15 years later - and the weather was decidedly better!

Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge

My third day in Japan was devoted to iconic structures old and new.  My first stop for the day was Maiko, south of Kobe. This is the nearest train station to the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge. Until recently, this was the world’s longest single-span suspension bridge. Its main span stretches a mind-boggling 1,991 metres. As a dedicated infrastructure geek, I was keen to see the bridge. It had been opened just five days earlier to great fanfare by the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan.

The bridge’s southern anchor block houses an informative visitor’s centre. Here you can take an elevator up to an impressive indoor observation deck built underneath the road deck. This includes an enclosed walkway that extends over the water for more than 150 metres giving visitors a close-up view of the bridge’s superstructure. 

A cross-section of its main cable in the park below was equally impressive. 290 parallel wire strands make up each of the final 1.12-meter-diameter cables swooping in the distance. It's hard to believe they're continually transferring 181,400 metric tons of vertical force onto the tower-pier foundations and down into bedrock, approximately 60 meters below the water surface.

To complete my bridge visit I took an elevator to the road deck to view the traffic and witness the bridge from above. I discovered a small bus stop nearby where you can catch a bus across the 4km wide Akashi Strait. I was tempted to give it a try. However, with limited time on the ground, I decided there were better ways to fill my time.  Instead, I caught the train an hour south to visit Himeji, home to one of Japan's most iconic Samauri castles.

I ended my day with an evening meal at my hotel’s Okonomiyaki restaurant. Madonna Okonomiyaki was a tiny hole-in-the-wall affair tucked in a corner of the hotel’s basement. I’d never heard of this popular local dish before arriving in Japan. However, after an evening sampling the menu I was hooked and have been ever since.

In essence, Okonomiyaki is best described as a cross between a savoury crepe and a pizza pancake. The name literally translates to “as you like it on the grill”. You first mix a yam-infused batter, then add all manner of stir-fry style vegetables, shrimp, pork, bacon (basically whatever you like), cook it on a large flat grill plate and top the finished dish with diced spring onions, bonito flakes, mayonnaise and Otofuku sauce, a Japanese-style BBQ sauce. Delicious!