back to japan 6 - kanazawa

NEXT DAY it's off to the north coast past the wide grey expanse of Lake Biwa; past snow dusted mountains under mists that make them look like a traditional scroll painting. First impressions of Kanazawa are of a very modern, but quiet town, with wide boulevards. A bit like North Korea, says Ian. Unfair, because we soon find the more interesting parts of town, despite some wildly changeable weather – snow heavy skies, depositing drizzle, sleet and ice pellets, then bright sunshine, then back again.

     Another spectacular castle leads us to Kanazawa's treasure – Kenroku-en Garden, reckoned to be one of the three best in Japan. In the Edo era style, it has a huge waterfall and many lakes and watercourses, tea houses, and ancient trees lopped and pruned and propped to great effect. It is all immaculately kept and even in terrible weather looks like a dream. 

     From there we pass to an old quarter of tea merchants' houses, very pretty but now given over to tourists. But then we're tourists too! We come across a large family group of all ages in traditional dress, revelling in their history as bright sunshine bursts through for a few minutes. A very modern craft beer microbrewery nearby proves a welcome respite when the snow pellets return and a pleasant way to round off the day.

back to japan 5 - kyoto

    

At the other end of the megalopolis lies Kyoto, the capital of Japan for a thousand years. Surrounded by hills, it is self contained and full of history. This was a revisit as we liked it so much last year, and once again we stayed in the hotel in the amazing station building. Although we revisited a few places, mostly we were able to seek out new experiences – there certainly is plenty to see here. 

     We started off with a long walk along the river and through Gion to the far north east where the city meets the hills. Here there is a footpath that follows a canal for several kilometres, known as the Philosopher's Path: a very pleasant walk though an area of expensive looking houses and small temples. 

     We stopped for coffee and a sandwich at a little local cafe, run by a very old couple: – the lady of the house, who obviously took great pride in her appearance, smartly dressed and with full make-up, seemed delighted to have us there, and insisted we try her delightfully light cheesecake.

     Next day we got an all day bus pass and travelled around, first to the end of the line in the far north west. We walked through a small village with its temple and many allotments, then out to Otagi-Nenbutsiji temple in another wooded valley, with thousands of whimsical chubby, moss covered figures. The Shinto temple celebrates the spirit of the place, and protects the route to a hidden waterfall. We carried on to the huge complex of zen temples – Tenryuji – with gardens that date back seven centuries, set against the wooded hills. They are immaculate and beautifully arranged to rpvide views from the temple buildings. 

     Another Zen temple is perhaps even more impressive, with some of the most famous dry sand gardens for contemplation and an older garden around a ravine, with spectacular covered bridges, as well as an ancient gatehouse. This is Tofuko-ji, which was almost empty when we were there, despite being very close to the Shinto Fushimi Inari shrine, the place of a thousand brightly painted and very photogenic torii gates leading up to the top of the mountain, which was bustling with school parties and coach tours. The contrast between the silent contemplation of one and the good luck charming of the other is plain to see.

    

From Kyoto we also took a side trip to Nara, another ex capital of Japan, way back in the eighth century. It was old and a tourist attraction even back in the Edo era and still retains many delights.

Quiet back streets of the old merchant quarter, with many craft shops. The huge park with a mature landscape, and deer begging for food – famously they bow to encourage you. The ancient forests on the hills above. 

     Best of all is the 5 storey pagoda and the massive Todaiji temple, with its 15m high bronze Buddha. On our visit it was filled with school parties and many other tourists. It dates back to the eighth century but the present building is about four hundred years old, and still one of the largest wooden structures on earth. It really is on a scale that's hard to take in.

     While in Kyoto we expanded our food options, taking in yakiniku the Japanese take on table top barbecue in a tiny resturant in a Gion back street; and next day an authentic many coursed Korean dinner on the eleventh floor of the amazing station building.

 

back to japan 4 - osaka

(or as I occasionally called it, Ocado!)

     This is the heart of a megalopolis of 19 million people, taking in Kyoto and about twenty other cities of the coastal plain, and it shows: huge retail and entertainment areas crammed with    people.     

    On our first night we were overwhelmed by the area known as Minami, where thousands of restaurants and bars cluster around a canal and the street Dontonburi. Huge electronic signboards blare out their wares, and waiters try to drag you into their competing establishments. The area where we stayed, Shinsaibashi, is scarcely less busy, a grid of narrow lanes. On this weekend, families were roaming the streets, apparently looking for something to do. Our very trendy hotel, all polished concrete and eco options, had great public areas, but minuscule rooms, seemingly built for crabs as you had to go sideways to get anywhere.

     To escape the madness we walked through some of the leafier quarters to the relatively wide open spaces around the castle. This is largely a reconstruction but still impressive – the largest in Japan – moats within moats formed of giant granite blocks, with the many tiered castle at its  centre.   

     We also caught a local train out to Minoo park, a calm and heavily wooded deep valley gouged out of the surrounding hills. Deep into the gorge, where we caught a glimpse of the local monkeys, is a waterfall, a favourite spot for local walkers. Definitely the highlight of our stay here.

     We took a chance one evening on a yakitori restaurant, which offered the chef's choice of assorted skewers. Most were delicious but one comprised barbecued chicken cartilage!

back to japan 3 - fukuoka

    

LEAVING the north behind we boarded a plane with about 200 school students, all in that formal midshipman's uniform, and obediently lining up in columns, boys to the left, girls to the right. At our destination they formed up in regimental lines, and the head boy stepped forward and delivered a report to the headmaster. A far cry from a British school party on tour. We had arrived in the southern city of Fukuoka, as our bag tags, displaying the first three letters, boldly proclaimed: an attractive city, with many waterways and parks.

     The best of them is Ohori, with its huge lake. We crossed the lake via a series of wooded islands, with many wild birds in evidence. There is a beautifully maintained Japanese traditional garden, a miniature landscape of rocks, watefalls and pines. Just by the park are the extensive ruins of the old Edo castle, vast walls within walls, but the castle itself was detroyed as a symbol of the brutal feudal regime, at the start of the Meiji era. The courtyards are full of cherry trees, and at the time of our visit, hundreds of giant eggs that are illuminated at night.

     Here's a very romantic, very Japanese approach to town planning: in the 1960s the local authority planned to cut down a line of cherry trees to widen the road beside the castle. The locals fixed a series of poems to the trees lamenting their loss. In response, the mayor wrote his own poem, regretting the decision – and the trees were kept and thrive to this day.

     We continued to the beach at Momochi, a bit disappointing as you have to go through an uninspiring business district to get there, and it is dominated by a fake Spanish wedding chapel. But it was nice to see the sea!

     We stayed in Hakata, once a separate city. Beside our hotel is the island of Nakasu, separated from the rest of the city by canals, and the focus of nightlife, from the sophisticated to the downright steamy. Along the canal there are also a series of food stalls (yatai), for which Fukuoka is famous, seating about 8 or 10 and offering mostly ramen and and hot pot dishes.

back to japan 2 - hokkaido

SO IT'S OFF to the snowy north. The shinkansen whisks us via a long tunnel to the island of Hokkaido. First stop Hakodate, once the main port linking the north to the main island of Honshu. It feels very much like an old American port town, down on its luck – vacant plots, attempts to turn it into a tourist destination on the lines of Cannery Row in California, some interesting old frontier style buildings, but mostly banal modern.

     This was the first port where outside trading contacts were allowed in the 1850s after many years of isolation. The Russians, Americans and British rapidly established commercial bases and consulates. Some of that history is still visible: Russian style architecture including an onion domed orthodox church, a classical house for the Japanese colonial Governor.

     There are huge brick warehouses, now providing an opportunity for Chinese duty free shopping, and a morning market selling a vast array of fish products including gigantic live king crabs.

     Next day we continued along the coast by the narrow gauge railway to Noborobetsu. This is a complete contrast, a spa town in a deep wooded valley, spoilt a little by large ugly hotels for tour groups. However, we stayed in a lovely ryokan (Kashotei Hanaya) – immaculate rooms, tatami mat floors, sliding screens, and its own homely onsen, where you bathe naked in the water from local hot springs. But living on the floor is hard for these old western bones.

The water comes at 80C and high pressure from further into the hills, an area known locally as Hell's valley, all fumaroles and steam and sulphorous smells. The contrast of the soft calm snow and the violent outpourings from the earth were stunning. In the town there's a geyser that boils angrily every three hours.

     Back at the hotel we were served an elaborate kaiseki dinner in our room – multiple courses, each with many elements of contrasting taste and textures, each served on carefully chosen crockery. I have come to realise that modern western chefs have taken all their cues from Japan. The bento breakfast was almost as good.

     So on to Sapporo. We made a short tour of Noborobetsu until our train arrived. The town features a weird 'European' theme park, and little else, although I manged a spectacular cartoon style fall on the ice – without much damage!

Sapporo was colder than the east coast and we tramped the streets despite persistent snow showers delivered on a keen wind. We saw preparations already udner way for the ice sculpture festival.

     The second day was a big improvement – bright and sunny. We went out east of the city and walked through the forest park to visit the Hokkaido building museum, which holds lots of fascinating mostly nineteenth century buildings brought from all over the island. In thick new snow and with few other visitors, it was spectacular. Nearby is the Hokkaido museum; its huge imposing modern building houses an interesting display on the geography and history of the island, emphssiisng that it is at the crossroads between north and south Asia. Prehistoric cultures came here during the ice age and continued as a separate ethnic group – the Ainu – more akin to Siberian peoples than to the mainland Japanese, who colonised and brutally 'assimilated' them during the shogun era. Eventually the island was incorporated into Japan in the late ninteenth century. It all felt disconcertingly like the history of Ireland.

     We returned to the hotel via the Sapporo beer museum – a bit of a tourist trap and the free samples were off limits on the day of our visit. The brewery is a series of interesting nineteenth century buildings (part of that colonisation!)

     We finished the day with tonkatsu comfort food and a few pints in an Irish pub.

back to japan 1 - tokyo

    

FLYING IN EARLY we hit the rush hour on the metro to Ginza and it seems very familiar: jammed in tight, silent, eyes locked on phones where space permits: but different too: uniformity of black suits and black hair create a monocultural image very different from our dear old lumbering Underground.

     Dumping our bags at the hotel, with six hours to kill we wander the streets of Ginza and find our way to the forecourt of the Imperial Palace. School trips all around. Here a party of white track suited kids run riot; while a boys' school in smart midshipman style uniforms stand stiffly as they listen to their teacher: the class system as strong here as back home. The eastern gardens of the palace are open to the public (though partly cut off as the remnants of the recent enthronement of the new emperor are dismantled). Built within the massive stone walls of the old Edo castle, they are a good introduction to the Japanese love of landscape gardening, miniature visions of wild nature.

     It's testimony to how much we loved our first visit to Japan that we are back so soon. We grab some lunch in a traditional tonkatsu restaurant embedded in a department store; luscious fried pork and giant prawn in breadcrumbs, with lots of accompaniments: the local comfort food.

     Next day, with weather much better than predicted, we visit Asakusa, a very grand palace built at the turn of the 20^th century in French Empire style for the crown prince, and now a government guest house, all enormous gilded halls and crystal chandeliers. From there we walked through the Aoyama district, with its huge cemetery: the granite grave markers stand stark in the winter sunlight, rhyming with the narrow square tower blocks of the city beyond. This brings us to the jewel-like Nezu museum, a light and airy modernist building, designed by Kenzo Kuma and completed in 2009 set in a steeply sloping strolling garden featuring those same eight views and a very modern tea house where we had lunch. The museum houses a collection of oriental statues and scroll paintings, the best of them inspirationally spare in technique – a few deft brush strokes and a whole bamboo plant appears. 

     This spareness is reflected in the building and in Japanese interiors generally, which of course has a huge influence on interior design around the world today, but here is in a tradition going way back to the simple timber houses and tatami rooms across the country. Our hotel room at the Millennium Mitsui also reflected this. A compact but perfectly formed room where every detail had been worked out, down to the smallest. (There was also a toilet that opened up and whined every time you went past, like an eager puppy that wants to play, and which had 12 buttons to operate and an A4 size list of instructions!)

     We continued to the National Garden at Shinjuku, Japan's Kew, another beautiful example of the tradition recently feautured in Monty Don's series on Japanese landscape design. By then we had had enough (walking over ten miles in the day) and finished the day with a siesta and a visit to the Belgian beer bar near the hotel that we had found the previous day. A late middle aged man sat at the bar with a plate of salad and three small glasses of different Belgian beers, which he porceed to sniff and sample like a wine connoisseur. Slowly, slowly, sip after sip, for a full two hours before the salad and the drinks were gone. Not a word to anyone: absolute focus on the task in hand. Then a quick phone call – to the wife saying he'd been held up to at the office? – and he was off.

     The third day was all drizzle and sleet, but we still managed some major walking starting at Ueno Park, where we visited the le Corbusier designed Museum of Western Art. This has a very comprehensive collection from the early Renaissance through to modernists. Then through the park to the Yanaka district: small streets and houses, many temples, and the main shopping street, Yanaka Ginza, where we had lunch in a local cafe. Then we hopped on the tram that runs through the northern suburbs to Shinjuku, people watching as the locals came and went, mostly on local journeys of a few stops. Old ladies bent double with shopping trolleys; Saturday dads with lively nippers that smiled shyly at us foreigners; track suited youths sharing an instagram video.

     An early morning vignette. A very old security guard, well into his seventies, in hi-vis uniform with a red baton (a common phenomenon here) stands outside the entrance to a car park. It's a job creation kind of job: he just waits until a car emerges from the garage and waves the baton around ineffectually to stop the traffic. A young girl, in a smart school uniform, probably no more than eight and on her own, approaches: a secret smile on her face as she sees the guard. She catches his eye and stops facing him. He smiles and bows very respectfully to her. She bows even more deeply, then is on her way. A little ritual that has perhaps developed over many weeks as she walks to school, a little moment to brighten the day for both of them.

japan - conclusions

So what will we remember about this whistlestop tour of Japan?  Admittedly we only skimmed the surface but we saw a lot in two sun-filled weeks, in which we travelled 1600 miles by train, over 100 miles on foot, and visited any number of shrines, castles and gardens, including parts of six world heritage sites.  Ian and I sat down and listed the things we will likely remember about this trip.

[there are more pictures via this link]

• the sheer number of biscuit shops
• boxy cars
• extreme politeness: the world's most orderly queues, no talking in cinemas (and no leaving until the very end of the credits)
• the vast city stations
• the fantastic shinkansen - spacious, smooth, comfortable and on time - and easy reservation system
• signs, signs, signs, on every surface - but making it very easy to get around
• complete lack of planning controls
• the narrow backstreets full of electric wires and tiny businesses and houses
• great food (Isetan food hall makes Harrods' look like a 7-11)
• bento boxes
• sushi made before your eyes
• good pillows, good baths, bizarre toilets
• the onsen and lobby (with 3 hour free drinks) at the Hyatt Regency, Hakone
• elaborate wrapping of everything you buy
• people doing jobs with no apparent function
• cleanliness (street sweepers actually scrubbing the road)
• small businesses that don't seem to make economic sense (restaurants and bars that seat 10 people)

kyoto

      So from the farthest point on our trip we retraced our route as far as Kyoto. The station features a vast concourse matching Grand Central or Milan in scale, a futurist edifice designed by Hiroshi Mara and opened in 1997 with a 15 storey high barrel vault, and escalators going up and up to the sky. Like most of these Japanese rail hubs, the building incorporates a department store, shopping mall, restuarants and much more. We stayed in the 500 room Granvia Hotel there (we also stayed in station hotels in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, much the best way as these are also subway/tram/bus hubs so easy on arrival and for getting around the city). The hotel has all the self-confidcne and busy-ness of the best city hotels, with bellhops buzzing around, endless bowing functionaries (although their only function seemed to be bowing) and visitors from around the world coming and going.

     Kyoto was a city that grew on us over the days we spent there. There are wide boulevards but also a grid of narrow lanes, full of overhead wires and tiny businesses, and even tinier houses, all individual in design (you never see a terrace of identical units) and crammed in cheek by jowl, often with another house built on the land behind and accessed by a tiny passage. You could call it ugly, but it felt lived-in and even cute. The tiny houses mostly have a tiny car space with a tiny boxy car. These almost cartoonish vehicles are unique to Japan and very popular. The Nissan N-box is the country's best selling car. To the east of the city, particularly the Gion district, the houses are older, traditional timber stuctures. We wandered around after dark and although it's now rather touristy, its narrow dimly lit lanes, busy, gleaming Shinto shrines, and Japanese visitors in hired kimonos made gave a flavour of old Kyoto.

     As the former capital, until the 1860s, Kyoto has plenty of historic sites and we visited some of the most famous. The Higashi (eastern) Hongan-ji temple of a Buddhist sect is one of the world's biggest timber buildings and really is on a massive scale, with a calm, hushed interior that contrasts to the hubbub of Shinto shrines. The Imperial palace gardens are also huge, with wide gravel walkways, friendly herons and the forbidding walls of the palace itself. It contrasts with Nijo-jo, the double moated castle of the Shoguns. Here we visited the lavish audience chambers, splendid but fragile, all wood and paper sliding screens with wonderful wall paintings of tigers and wild landscapes; and numbing to our bare feet on this brilliantly sunny but chilly day.

     Further afield we visited the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine – at the foot of the mountain, it features thousands of torii gates framing the paths up the hillside and through bamboo forests. We were also lucky enough to visit the Katsura imperial villa, a modest retreat designed for moon-viewing, with elaborate gardens and tea houses for each season.

     Finally, we went to the railway museum. Although not train buffs we found this fascinating. Early steam trains through to the first shinkansen are on display, and it has what must be the world's biggest model train set.

hiroshima and nagasaki

    

Now a prosperous modern city resting on the ashes of the fallen, Hiroshima carefully reminds us of the horrors of war, and stands as a champion for peace. The memorial museum lets the personal testimonies of survivors stand for themselves when describing the sudden erasure of an entire civilian population one sunny August day in 1945. The familiar shell of the 'A-bomb building' stands as a gaunt reminder. The museum at Nagasaki is perhaps even more impressive. It stands on a rise overlooking the bomb's ground zero. We are told that no-one survived within 1 km of this spot, and there are stories of the creeping radiation sickness that followed, spreading wider and wider each day. Some even more harrowing stories are told here.

     Hiroshima has since rebuilt and is now a prosperous city, established 500 years ago in a river delta as a defensive stronghold. The branches of the river, now concreted in place, provide an attractive relief from the urban sprawl. There is a shogun's castle (a reconstruction of the buildings destroyed in 1945) with massive defences and a five storey wooden keep. We preferred Nagasaki, set on either side of a steep sided valley, with mountains visible beyond. In the days of isolationist Japan, this was the only place that Europeans were allowed to stay. A small artificial island was a trading base for the Portuguese – until they were thrown out for attempting to convert the locals to Christianity – and then the Dutch. The site has now been reconstructed to show the strange mix of Japanese and western design that resulted. 

    By the mid 19^th century the Americans and British arrived and pretty soon Japan was open to free trade and an industrial revolution. Nagasaki became the first centre of shipbuilding and manufacturing. The houses of Dutch and British merchant colonies are preserved on hillsides above the port, deveoped as Japan opened up to free trade. The view from the Glover House is said to have inspired Puccini's Madame Butterfly.     
     There were some extraordinary chancers who fetched up here and made a fortune at the start of Japan's opening up. What's curious is how quickly Japan's psyche moved from complete isolation to wanting to control half of Asia.

    

     There was also a Chinese community here, with its own isolated walled compound, and the temples, streets and restaurants in this part of the city still have a Chinese flavour. Lots of scurrying about with loaded hand trolleys, and mysterious shops selling very little. Preparations were being made for the elaborate annual lantern festival. We did the other big tourist thing here, a trip by cable car (Ian managed to brave it) to a high western lookout with an eagle's eye view of the entire city.

     The last part of the rail journey to get to Nagasaki was spectacular. We transferred from a shinkansen to a limited express train. The route has to fight its way through difficult terrain, with dozens of tunnels and sharp bends, and viaducts across sea facing gorges, to the terminus at the far south eastern end of Japan's main islands.

     Close to Hiroshima is the island known as Miyajima, one of Japan's most famous shrines. We took the tram and ferry there. This is a very old sacred location, dedicated to the sea-god patrons of a local war lord. Though rebuilt many times, the form is supposed to be as it was in the 12^th century – a series of walkways and inner shrines over water, with a huge torii gate indicating the entrance, out to sea – one of Japan's most celebrated views.

hakone

     Time to move on to experience a little of rural Japan. Cloase to Tokyo is the hot-springs area of Hakone. We arrived there via the high speed Shinkansen and then two little local trains, taking us up into the mountains on 8% grades to 700m, to Gora. This little village sits high on the side of a gorge and is a popular weekend resort. We stayed in the very stylish Hyatt Regency with a huge lobby providing a generous happy hour round the wood burning stove. We also tried the onsen, the Japanese style hot soaking bath fed by natural hot spring waters, and ate at the sushi restaurant, where the food was even better than the posh Tokyo place, prepared by two jolly old cooks with great skill and showmanship.

     

Nearby is a world class sculpture park, on an extensive wooded hillside, and filled with work by the famous and not so famous. Several Moores, a Hepworth, and some interesting kinetic pieces. There is also a pavilion dedicated to Picasso with work in every possible medium. The classic thing to do is a round trip to Lake Ashinoko. We did this, first going by bus to Choan-ji temple at Sengokuhara, a charming local shrine with hundreds of quirky little statues of Buddha disciples all over the wooded hillside, and a cemetery behind: the wind catches wooden grave markers and makes them clatter eerily. From there to the lake where you cruise around on ferries disguised (who knows why?) as pirate ships. Then back, up and over the mountains by cable car across a hellish volcanic landscape of sulphurous rocks and steam vents, wailing like a possessed kettle; and finally deescending by stately funicular to Gora.

tokyo - january 2019

      Japan in winter. This is a long anticipated trip, a rail tour starting in Tokyo and then south and east. The depth of winter seems like an odd time to choose, but the weather then is supposed to be cool, dry and often sunny. So it proved, with mostly clear blue skies throughout our first week – in fact, exceptionally good for the great amount of walking we hoped to do in the capital. First task after the train from Narita airport was to find our way out of the sprawling Tokyo station. I had done my homework though, and soon we were on the streets of Ginza, a hotel and business district just by the station. First impressions were of a prosperous working environment. Tall modern blocks shaded the narrow streets, lined with many small bars and restaurants. Our hotel was well located and the staff helpfully gave us a local map highlighting good local places to eat.

      We really did walk, encouraged by that brilliantly clear weather – 58km in our four days there – and walking is always the best way to get a feel for a city. And it's easy there. Good pavements, clear crossings (pedestrian lights strictly obeyed) and no mad cyclists, with clear maps and signs everywhere. The subway is also easy to navigate and we used this to go between districts. Signs in fact are almost the dominant feature of Tokyo. Every building seems to be covered in them, and at night they glow and trhob with life. This is perhaps the biggest surprise to me about Japan. In the west we regarded Japan as the source of good modernist taste: clean lines, minimalist, restrained design. And you can still find some of that, but for the most part the buildings are banal and plastered with ugly advertising. Hardly any old buildings survive (except the few set piece palaces and shrines), but that can largely be blamed on the war, earthquakes and fires.

      We visited some of Tokyo's other well known centres (like London, it has developed from a series of separate villages and some of them retain their own character. Shibuya and Shinjuku are major hubs with vast crowds thronging the pavements at all hours. We saw the famous Shibuya crossing and the louche back lanes of Shinjuku's nightlife areas. Other highlights:

      Asakusa and the Senso-ji shrine. This is Tokyo's oldest and most revered temple. But little sign of reverence here. It is surrounded by curio shops and markets and thronged with giggling school parties, as well as family groups in traditional dress taking selfies. A spectator's dream: theatre of the street. There are lucky charm stalls and methods of establishing whether you are in for good or bad luck – and you can leave the bad luck behind (for a fee). The temple itself, its pagoda and entrance gate, are impressive, with vast paper lanterns and swirling clouds of incense, and a lot of enjoyment: a far cry from the dour restraint of other religions.

      A very different experience, and spectacular building, is to be found at the Tsukiji Hongwanji temple in Ginza. Built of stone, in ancient Indian style, it is much more church-like and belongs to a Buddhist sect, Jodoshinshu, whose view of a redemptive Buddha seems to chime with Christian thought. Nearby is the sprawling fish market, which is gradually moving over into tourism but still retains a feeling of a living market, with every kind of seafood and little stalls and snack bars selling steaming skewers of fish or, of course, sushi and sashimi.

      The National Garden at Shinjuku, Tokyo's Kew, was originally a private garden of the Emperor and features tradiitonal Japanese style sections with tea houses and shady rest areas, as well as English and French landscapes and a big glasshouse with tropical displays. It has many beautiful prospects across water, and although largely muted winter sienna shades after a prologed dry spell, there were harbingers of spring with daffodils, camelias and even some early blossom. We also visited the Hama-Rikyu gardens, formerly the site of an Edo stronghold by the waterfront looking over (now largely reclaimed with massive tower blocks) Tokyo Bay*. Ueno's park was disappointing, poorly maintained and overbuilt with museums and a Starbuck's, though there is a good shrine.

      As a special treat we had dinner in a 10 seat, highly rated restaurant where we could watch the young chef prepare our 11 course tasting menu, Ian bravely sampling the many fish dishes, including potentially poisonous blowfish. The accompanying sake pairings to each course – a real education this – perhaps made it easier. Many restaurants and bars here are tiny, seating no more than about 10, who normally squeeze in to sit at the bar to drink and eat. Most specialise in one particular type of food or drink. The economics of this is mystifying. A far cry from London's stultifying takeover by bland chains.

*Footnote for birders: In Hama-Rikyu garden we found a gaggle of excited bird fanciers focusing their huge camouflaged cameras on a particular tree.  There was what we later found out was a Blakiston's fish owl (Bubo blakistoni), of which only a few hundred pairs survive in Hokkaido, Japan's remote norhtern island.  This is a type of eagle owl, and the largest owl in the world.  It sat on a low branch over the ornamental pond, well stocked with carp too big even for its big talons, staring back at us, in a rather cross eyed fashion, and occasionally preening itself.  What it was doing hundreds of miles south in a busy urban park in one of the world's busiest cities was anyone's guess.

2018 08 berlin and points north

      At the end of a long, hot summer, we were off to middle Europe. As is usual with our holiday plans, 'scope creep' led us from an initial few days in Berlin for the European athletics championships in Berlin, into a royal progress overland northwards by train, ferry and car to the northenmost point of Denmark.

      We have always had a fondness for Berlin, going way back to partition days, and today it’s a comfortable, prosperous city. Now it’s knitted back together, but still the scars of the Wall are visible here and there. As we walked the streets, memories of the cold war scenes we saw in the early 80s played like a faded black and white movie superimposed on this shiny new city.

      Scars too of earlier conflict: the plaques on the streets showing where people were dragged away to oblivion; the rubble site of Gestapo HQ, the old Soviet war memorial … But for all that, Berlin today is a buzzing, lively and very green city. We hit the tail end of Europe's long hot summer there, but temperatures started to fall away after the first day.

      The games were held in the stadium built for the 1936 Olympics, an exercise in stripped down classicism recently modernised and a fine setting on a summer's evening (despite its history) for some thrilling events. Memorable were a record breaking high jump contest and the men's and women's 100m relays, which were both won by the UK. I must admit to a slight chill when Germany won a gold medal and 60,000 people stood for their national anthem. Surrounded by those shaved-sides-and quiff hairstyles that seem to be compulsory for youths these days, warmly lit by the setting sun, it felt like we were in a Leni Riefenstahl movie.

      But the feeling soon passed. Wandering through the Tiergarten and the city's spacious boulevards and squares – filled with leisurely families on bikes, groups enjoying a beer in shady pavement cafes, and lovers just taking in the sun – all seemed right with this city.

      We also went to the Konzerthaus for a performance and a fine hall it is: its gorgeous interior has been beautifully reconstructed since reunification, like many a building here. And we walked for miles, through areas rich and poor – along the canal and to Charlottenburg, and to Kreuzberg, and the museum district. I was reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, and many familiar streets and names provided another layer of history to overlay the present.

      Next, we followed Christopher and went north, passing close to the Polish border, through an endless vista of flat arable land. Each village has neat red and white gabled houses, a couple of abandoned factories by the station, an area of allotments filled with ramshackle dachas, a water tower, a steepled church and a wind farm. Proceeding by smaller and smaller, more and more local trains we finally reached our destination: Ruegen Island. Isherwood stayed here in the early 30s, and his description of Sellin, “almost entirely of boarding-houses, in various styles of seaside architecture – sham Moorish, old Bavarian, Taj Mahal, and the rococo doll's house, with white fretwork balconies” is just as true today. The woods are still there, too, and we had a lovely walk through pine trees and beech hangers, from Binz, where we were staying. We even encountered the “little train” that took Otto back to Berlin, a narrow gauge steam train that still threads its way through the woods.

      Both resorts are surprisingly calm and upmarket. Binz has a long, carless promenade and an established clientele. The resorts here front the gentle arc of sandy beaches facing the “tepid shallow Baltic” of the Ostsee, where people came for a sea-bathing cure.      There is a fine Kurhaus and many villas from the turn of the 19^th century. We saw a surprising number of grandparents with young children: we speculated that this was a favoured spot for the East Berlin elite in the soviet era. Just out of town is an extraordinary 4.5km long hulk, Prora, built in the 1930s as holiday apartments for workers, but never completed due to the war. It just goes on and on: the nearer end is now being modernised, though the grounds are still almost derelict. We couldn't imagine who would want to live there.

      Continuing our northward journey we took the ferry to Trelleborg in Sweden, and then to Malmö, where we found ourselves in the middle of a huge street festival, the squares filled with stages, loud music and fast food stalls: quite a shock after the peaceful days on Ruegen Island. But we immediately moved on, crossing The Bridge (no dead bodies spotted!) to København and our train further north: a very comfortable, spacious train (and cheap) sped us across Denmark's islands and up the Jutland peninsular.

Aarhus is a big (by Danish standards) port city, and still very active, with an attractive centre. There is a brick cathedral, part romanesque, part gothic, with a huge tower, and a school that has operated continuously since at least 1195. Aarhus also has perhaps the most amazing modern public library anywhere, Dokk 1, by the harbour. We stayed a bit out of town in a classic 60s Nordic brick modernist hotel across the bay. Unfortunately, the management have filled it with bog-standard hotel furniture, ghastly carpets and crude paintings of pirates rather than mid-century classics. But it was still great to sit on the terrace watching the evenings draw in; the food was excellent (the Danes are particularly good at breakfasts); and there were lovely walks through the woods and along the beaches nearby.

     Next day we drove out to the gently rolling countryside of Mols Bjerge National Park and to Ebeltoft, a very pretty little fishing village of single storey half-timber houses with hollyhocks round the door. Later we were joined by Marc and Nigel, who joined us for the final part of the trip. We undertook our final northward stage, by car to the farthest point of Jutland, where we were to stay for a week in Skagen.

Pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithuk/albums/

 

2018 08 skagen, denmark

      Where the Skagerrak ('Skagen-reach') meets the Kattegat, an expanding sand bar juts out into the sea, extending Denmark to the north and east. This is the site of Skagen (skèy-un). The quality of light and its remoteness led to this becoming a popular area for artists and, after the railway arrived as late as 1890, for tourism. It is now very much a tourist town, with a museum filled with the works of the Skagen Painters, a group that emulated the French impressionists, centred around Anna and Michael Ancher, and also, at the end of his life, Denmark's favourite writer, Holger Drachmann. The houses of the artists and the poet are preserved here as they were, as is the Brøndums Hotel, the social heart of their little society.

      We stayed in a very modern house out by the dunes on the Skagerrak side. We picked up the keys from the lovely people at the tourist office, Toppen af Danmark, and drove out to the house. There it was, like the pictures on the website, all black on the outside, all white and light and warm on the inside with huge windows framing the setting sun as we sat down to dinner. Peter and Mel joined us, having flown in to Aalborg and driven up separately.

      Over the next few days we explored the town and its surroundings. We walked along the beaches near the house, and the heathland further down the coast, where there is a quirky little natural history museum, run by an old couple, filled with stuffed animals and archaeological remains from the area. We went to the lighthouse at Grenen, from where you can walk out to the very tip where the waves of the two seas clash together. Out here is where they celebrate Midsummer's eve with a huge bonfire, and as all over Denmark, they sing Midsommervisen, the song written by Drachmann, who is buried right there out on the dunes. It was surprisingly busy on the Sunday we went, with people keen to stand right out on the final few metres of land with the waves lapping their feet. In the museum, among the many scenes of family life, is a huge painting of one such occasion, with portraits of all the Skagen set standing around the blaze, including the Anchers, and Drachmann himself playing the part of the great literary figure, complete with cloak and wide brimmed hat.

      The town itself is smart, with lots of expensive clothes and craft shops, and a splendid brew house where we spent a couple of boozy afternoons (because, inexplicably, it closes at 7pm): some very good beer and a pleasant stagger home afterwards. On another day, we drove along the north Jutland coast to Hirtshals, turning out to the beach itself where we drove for miles on the hard sand between Skiveren and Tversted.

      Peter, who had seemed rather ill when we arrived, and mostly stayed in the house, started to get worse and after visiting the local doctor, was told to go straight to the hospital, where he stayed for several nights. Luckily, he was well enough to leave the hospital for the last day and, not wanting to miss out, Mel and he drove on the same beach and got stuck in the sand, where friendly locals rallied round and helped to get them out. The hospital at Hjørring was immaculate, newly fitted out, all white surfaces and spotless, and he had a private en suite room with amazing facilities, in the corridor a fridge where patients could help themselves to snacks all day. The staff were friendly and unhurried. This is what the NHS could be like if it wasn't constantly underfunded (the Danish pay 25% more per head than in the UK).

      We finished up with a couple of hygge nights, long lazy home cooked meals with lots of candles and friendly chats. We all took turns cooking during the week and ate splendidly, the local supermarkets being very well provisioned.

So, back home, via Aalborg and Ryanair. On reaching the house, for the first time in months we actually felt cold: it felt good to wear a sweater again. Our slow traverse of central Europe was a great success, and I can imagine revisiting some of these places, particularly northern Denmark, some day.

Pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithuk/albums/

italy

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borneo (and thailand)

   More pictures here.  Time for another trip out east, and we decided to focus this time on Malaysian Borneo - the rainforests and the wildlife, bookended by some relaxing beach visits.  Flying into KL then immediately on to Borneo, we had a few days relaxation at Kota Kinabalu, followed by the jungle in Mulu, the interesting history of Sarawak’s capital, Kuching, and the orang utan sanctuary at Sepilok.  Then a great couple of beaches on Thailand’s Andaman coast, before returning via a stopover in Kuala Lumpur. 


Kota Kinabalu:
     We stayed at the Shangri-La resort hotel, north of Kota Kinabalu.  The city itself, capital of the province of Sabah, is mostly very modern — so we spent all week around the hotel, which has a huge sandy beach next to a wooded headland. 
     This chain of hotels is renowned for its food and there are several excellent restaurants here, including a Malaysian open air terrace, serving hawker centre style food, and one of the best Indian restaurants we have visited.
     At the daily cocktail hour, we chatted to hotel staff and other guests as the sun set over the sea.  A large proportion of the staff are local, and very friendly.
     We also went on a nature trail over the headland, led by a very knowledgable guide from the hill tribe not far away, formerly headhunters.  From here there are great views across the plain to Mount Kinabalu itself, the highest in Malaysia.
Its brooding blue profile, which features on Sabah’s flag, is often lost in clouds.

Mulu:
     Via two small planes we flew deep into the Malaysian jungle, inland of Brunei.  This area is famous for its bats, millions of which roost in nearby caves and swarm out at dusk.  We saw hundreds of them around the lights of the hotel at night, catching insects with incredible feats of acrobatics.
     Our hotel, and nearby jungle walks, are set on high walkways to protect from regular flooding during the rainy season.  But the weather was fine for us.

Kuching:
     Capital of Sarawak and home of the Rajah Brooks, who ran it as a private fiefdom for three generations.  They seem to be well regarded today by many of the locals, as their rule was, by the standards of the time, benign.   Local tribes and the large Chinese population were involved in the administration, and local customs respected.  Certainly it was better than their experience as a Crown colony after the Japanese occupation, or its forced marriage with Malaysia later. 
     The locals resent the way the KL government has exploited Sarawak’s natural resources while giving very little back.
     Kuching is a pleasant city, its languid river edged with parks and terraces, and there is a large area of Chinese shop houses.  The old colonial buildings survive and there is an interesting and very old fashioned museum explaining the history.
     The new provincial parliament building is rather over the top, but all in all, a good city to visit.

Sepilok:
     Back to Sabah, where we stayed at the Sepilok nature resort, near Sandakan, next to the famous orangutan sanctuary.  Here, they take orphan orangutans (often captured by hunters after killing their mothers) and gradually encourage them back into the wild.  The young ones are cared for by the keepers and bit by bit they move out into the jungle, returning to the feeding stations where visitors can watch them.  There is also a sanctuary for the very rare Bornean sun bears, and we heard pygmy elephants.
     On our first morning, we saw several of them moving freely through the tree canopy above our villa.  Later, at the feeding station, one came arm over arm down a rope then quite deliberately peed on the visitors below.  Quite a joker. 
     The resort itself is simple but very pleasant, set around a lagoon with an open restaurant and bar to while away the evenings.  We were taken on a night walk around the grounds, where the experienced guides showed us hornbills, kingfishers, a catfish in a tiny stream, and some weird and wonderful insects.  We also saw troupes of two species of Macaques, wandering freely.

Thailand:

     So, we completed our trip with a little R+R in Thailand.  First, to Ko Lanta on the Andaman coast, where we stayed in the delightful Pimalai Hotel, arriving via the hotel’s speedboat through the dramatic limestone archipelago.  The resort itself stretches from the beach right up the hillside, with great views from the top. 
     Then finally a few days at our favourite beach anywhere, Bang Sak, north of Khao Lak.  The hotel staff put on a delightful homespun concert to mark Loi Khrathong and otherwise we wandered up and down this beautiful bay and enjoyed the sunsets.

urban green walk - new river and regent's canal

     We never finished the Capital Ring (maybe soon) but we had another good walk in central London, finding plenty of green spaces on the way. Joined by good local friends Lyn, Judy, Jeremy and Gabi, we set off on another sparklingly clear day (with just enough of a cool breeze to make it ideal for walking). 

     First through Finsbury Park to the wide open skies of Woodberry Wetlands: such a good local asset now, and this time of year full of interest, with nesting swans and ducklings and goslings galore. Here we picked up the line of the New River ('neither new nor a river') built in the 17^th century to bring fresh water from Hertfordshire to the City. The line continues through Canonbury past allotments and grand tree lined terraces. Further on it has been converted to shady gardens with an ornamental stream (more ducklings and coot chicks - cootlings?) that take you all the way to Islington, where we stopped for a drink in a nice hipsterish place in Camden Passage with a cool (both senses) garden. 

     Then on through old haunts in Barnsbury, to pick up the Regents Canal just west of the Islington tunnel, passing many canal boat homes, through Kings Cross and eventually to Regents Park, where we sunned ourselves in the Rose Graden to the spectacular sights and sounds of a huge Ethiopian wedding.

     Good company and the feeling of summer in the air, all the trees suddenly new and fresh leafed, the grass brilliantly green, the sky a clear, deep blue, the splashes of colour and the smells of blossom and flowers: that May feeling when suddenly all seems right with the world.  

sussex and essex forays

     A couple of day trips out of London recently, and quite a contrast.

     First, to Camber Sands and Rye in East Sussex, on one of the first hot days of the year in late April. The Sands are a wide, gently sloping swathe, stretching for miles, fronting the sheep-filled salt marshes towards Dungeness. This is probably the best beach easily reachable from London. Camber barely exists, a number of rather ramshackle single storey wooden houses and a couple of fish and chip shops, with a Pontins just down the road. The beach is backed by dunes in one direction, and a vast new sea wall in the other that cuts off a line of houses from their former view. The sea was sparkly and calm and the sky a solid china blue, as Ian, Gail and I wandered along and made the most of this rare day. Very few people there on a week day, once you got away from the car park.

     Then we took the bus back to Rye, one of the ancient Cinque Ports but now almost cut off from the sea. Its steep streets are full of vernacular houses, warm red brick and flint walls, with some half timbered inns. O yes, full of twee tea shops too, and we had lunch in one of them just by the magnificent church. The house had once been the vicarage, and the home of Shakespeare's collaborator, John Fletcher. Here we had the best rarebit I've ever had.

     A week later we were off to Colchester, 'England's first town', to see a new musical, Pieces of String, which turned out to be very good and will I'm sure turn up in London pretty soon. Colchester itself has a fascinating history, being the original Roman capital until it was burnt down by Boudicca. There is a vast Norman keep built on the vaults of the Roman temple that was dedicated to Claudius, the English conqueror. It is now a museum with many well preserved Roman artefacts, but full to the battlements on this day with primary school kids, apparently re-enacting the slaughter of the Roman garrison by the Britons, judging by the noise levels. 

     The town itself is a big contrast from the well polished cottages of Rye's Mapp and Lucia style bourgeoisie. The centre, though it has many good features – including the Roman walls, a Saxon church tower and a proud Victorian park – is crammed with the worst kind of fast food outlets, betting shops and a young population all in regulation skin tight jeans, the boys all with Hitler youth haircuts and the girls all with bobs and made up like an Egyptian sarcophagus; and all shovelling down those chicken wings and chips. Bieber and Kardashian have a lot to answer for.

new york

     So finally to New York and our friend Kathleen's apartment in Chelsea. As always we were able to spend a lot of time with her and she treated it like a vacation in her own city.

     We walked the High Line down to the new Whitney, by Renzo Piano, on the west side waterfront. The building interiors are excellent, and we saw there an exhibition of work by Grant Wood, known for the painting American Gothic (disturbing resemblance to radicals Bernie Sanders and Cynthia Nixon?) but who produced deco and realist influenced landscapes and figure studies that are beautiful but somehow disturbing. We also saw the museum's impressive collection of American art.    

     Later we walked right down the much extended Hudson river walkway. The walkways (also on the east side) are giving the city some much needed additional open space.

     We travelled farther afield on this trip than previously:

• to St John's cathedral (magnificent interior and, strangely, peacocks in the grounds!) and down through the further reaches of Central Park;
• to the Brooklyn Museum (another good collection of mostly American art) and Prospect Park (rather sombre on a grey day);
• to Williamsburg (a nice trip on the new ferries), NY's new vibrant (=hipsters and graffiti) hub, where we found a nice pub for an afternoon drink;
• and to the Bowery for a tour of the fascinating Tenement Museum, where an excellent guide explained the history of this part of NY, with its history of welcoming and supporting waves of immigrants through the years.

     We also took a ride on the Hudson Railroad, which travels right up that wide river, with sparkling views all the way, to Beacon, a very picturesque old industrial town, its mills now converted to lofts for prosperous commuters. There are also good walks along the river. All things we would recommend to visitors.

     New York is changing, as it always has, with lots of new very tall, and controversial, apartment buildings going up, and obviously a lot of money about. Yet there is still a lot of grime, old fashioned and abandoned buildings, and poverty, even in the better areas. Not to mention a dysfunctional transport system and poor quality public realm spaces. We have very mixed feelings about NY, but I am sure we will be back to enjoy the good things, the culture and the constant reinvention.

     Andrew and Angelo invited us and Kathleen over for an Italian dinner one foggy evening in their 23^rd floor apartment. With the windows open (due to an overachieving steam heating system), the sounds of sirens and car horns, and the vague impression of 1920s apartment blocks with windows aglow in the gloaming, it was a quintessential NY experience.

     For a finale we and Kathleen met up with dear old friends Joel and Paula to see Macy's spring flower festival and to have lunch in the new Italian restaurant on the top floor, light, spacious, quiet and good food too, and of course good company as always. 

     We're lucky to have so many good friends in the US and this trip was all the better and more memorable for them.

MD and DC: a tale of two lincolns

     

     Next, Lincoln kindly drove us all the way down to their other home Maryland. Frederick is another colonial town, that grew at an important crossroads: the main roads still lined with 18^th century houses, mostly in a rich deep red brick, which gives the centre a very attractive feel. It acts as a focus for a wide area and is busy in the evenings, with many bars and restaurants, which we sampled. There is also a well maintained linear park running through the town alongside its river, Carroll Creek.

      Lincoln and James' townhouse has been carefully restored and once again we had a comfortable stay. They have only been here a few years but seem to be well in with the local scene. On the Sunday they took us to their friends' 'Dark and Stormy' party centred around Stormy Daniels' interview on CNN, the latest episode in the soap opera that is Donald Trump. Some very friendly people there welcomed us into their home and circle.

      On a glorious, sunny day in Washington DC we walked for miles around the Mall, taking in the ceremonial heart of the nation: Congress, the Smithsonian museums, the White House and the Lincoln memorial. It was poignant to think about the high principles of the great founders of the nation, and compare them with what goes on in these buildings today.

Lincoln also took us to the battlefield site at Antietam, which gave us a good insight into the events of the Civil War. Beautiful countryside now on another brilliantly sunny day, but it suffered the worst loss of any US battle in a single day – over 22,000 dead on both sides – in a crude, bloody and brutal fight, which was ultimately indecisive in the war. Nearby is the Gettysburg field where Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, on the verge of victory, praised those who fought so that his nation “shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” A pity that so many politicians today – and not only in the US – offer hatred and fear of the other, rather than inclusiveness and hope.

      Our great thanks to our Lincoln for ferrying us around and to him and James for their continual hospitality.