Japan and China

Early on in the days of planning our world trip, we decided that Japan was a country that would definitely feature. Whilst perhaps being a place that not too many 'backpackers' are drawn to, we have long been fascinated by Japanese culture, its futuristic cities and ancient temples, not to mention its highly sophisticated toilets, some of the finest cuisine on the planet and its economic miracle of recent times. With all the first world countries we have visited in our lives having being Western, Japan offers the opportunity to visit an alternative culture that effectively got it better than we did in Great Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. From a nation in ruins after the second world war, Japan grew to become the world's second largest economy by as early as the 70s, startling when you consider its almost total lack of any major natural resources. After the bubble era of the 80s when Japan had an incredible 60% of the world's real estate value on only 0.3% of its land mass, along came the extended recession and relatively high unemployment of the 90s. In spite of that Japan remains number two on the world rich list.

A couple of days before arriving in Japan, we learned that the period in which we would be visiting coincided with O-Bon (the Festival of the Dead holidays) when most of its 127 million inhabitants would be on the move. Whilst this meant that we would see many beautiful lanterns lit and floated on rivers and lakes all over the country, we were told it would be very difficult to travel or find accommodation. A government sponsored English speaking tourist desk at Tokyo airport came to the rescue and after a couple of hours, they had helped us to secure train tickets and ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) reservations at all the places we planned to visit. We only hope that the same kind of incredibly helpful service is offered to tourists arriving in London.

Tokyo was every bit the metropolis that we had imagined; contemporary culture, neon light filled streets, six-way pedestrian crossings, retro chic fashion, vending machines at every corner and manga cafes where an entire cross section of the population seem to spend hours browsing through huge libraries of the famous Japanese comics. Our first dinner took us to a sushi restaurant called Kyubei recommended by a friend of fine taste back home. Sat on a tatami mat behind the counter, a chef in front of us simply asked 'sushi or sashimi' and started preparing piece after piece of the finest raw fish we have ever tasted. Not knowing the etiquette of whether we needed to say when we had eaten enough or whether the chef would stop at the end of his recommended selection, we continued to enjoy the fruits of his work. After multiple dishes including the highlight live prawn which simply had its head and shell removed in front of us and presented whilst still showing some signs of life, we managed to communicate to our chef that we were full. After the customary thank yous, we were shown downstairs and given a scrap piece of paper with a hand written number on it and left an eye-watering US$560 poorer than when we walked in. Thank you Alan.

The next morning we were up at 4.30am in order to visit the Tsukiji fish market and in particular the 5am auctioning of the huge deep frozen tuna fish brought in from the seas a few hours prior. After auction, the tuna are whisked off to stalls nearby to be prepared ahead of the arrival of the day's traders at 7am. It was fascinating to see the frozen tuna, often worth thousands of US dollars, initially being cut up using a band saw as if they were blocks of wood, before being delicately sliced and ending up in the restaurants around Tokyo by mid-morning.

The season to climb Mount Fuji only lasts for eight weeks each year and we happened to be there in the middle of it. We decided that taking part in the annual pilgrimage to the top of Japan's most sacred and highest mountain was an opportunity we could not miss. Furthermore it was about time we had another summit under our belts. After a morning train from Tokyo, we began walking on the ancient Yoshidaguchi trail through the lush forests at the base of the mountain. After five hours on the quiet and relatively gentle slopes, we reached our mountain hut for a quick bento box dinner and a few hours of sleep before rising at midnight for the five hour push up the steep scree covered slopes for sunrise at the summit. As we set off, we could see the head torches of the thousands of others in the distance who had taken the bus half way up the mountain the night before and started walking from higher up. We soon caught them and began to understand why the Japanese are the masters of shut eye with so many of them taking standing power naps along the way. As we neared the top, we became part of a human traffic jam making very slow progress to the summit at 3776m with magnificent views over the clouds and lakes below. Despite trekking and hordes of people not usually going well together, the experience of climbing amidst so many Japanese people vying to get to the summit was one truly worth having.

After a long nights rest back in Tokyo, we took the train to the charming little town of Takayama in Japan's Northern Alps. Not just any train though. This was our first ride on the Shinkansen (bullet train). Not only was its speed incredibly impressive at around 200mph, the entire service was unbelievably efficient from the platform telling you exactly where to stand for the door closest to your reserved seat, to the train pulling in at the station, departing and arriving at precisely the scheduled minute. In fact every single train we took in Japan departed and arrived exactly on time. Takayama was like stepping back into old Japan with its traditional architecture, streets lined with old inns and sake breweries, hillside shrines and temples, and shops and restaurants offering all manner of foods to entice passers by inside, from grilled rice balls to the sweetest of wagashi (Japanese sweets). For those familiar with the Peak District, Susie described Takayama as Japan's version of Bakewell. Dinner gave us our first taste of authentic wagyu (Japanese beef) from the Hida valley. The simple formula of buying the beef directly from the butcher and cooking it ourselves on the charcoal grill at our table was magnificent. Whilst the intense richness of the marbled beef may not have done much for our cholesterol, the taste was divine. As much as we like to believe in the UK that wagyu comes from happy cows that spend their days drinking beer and receiving massages, it is apparently not true.

Another couple of hours on a local train followed by the Shinkansen took us to the culturally rich cities of Kyoto and Nara. Kyoto has 17 world heritage sites,1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 shrines of which we visited just a very small handful as well as several of its tea houses and serene zen gardens with raked pebble quarters, koi carp filled ponds and feng shui principles. As nightfall came, our attention turned to keeping an eye out for a glimpse of one of only an estimated hundred kimono clad Geishas on their way to or from appointments of which we were lucky to see two. Often misconstrued by the West as prostitutes, Geishas are in fact women of exquisite refinement versed in an array of visual and performing arts whose exclusive list of customers pay thousands of US dollars for an evening in their company. Nara was the first real capital of Japan and is home to countless ancient temples and shrines. The most worthy of note were Todai-ji which houses the largest wooden building in the world and an enormous bronze Buddha within, and also Kasuga Taisha set amidst the woods surrounded by hundreds of stone lanterns and herds of sacred deer.

We then travelled as far west as the Shinkansen would take us onto the island of Kyushu. After a night in the gateway port city of Fukuoka, we ventured to Aso-San at the island's centre, the largest active volcano caldera in the world with a circumference of 128km. At its heart lie the sleepy town and five volcanoes of Aso, one of which named Naka-dake has been very active in recent years. Often closed due the level of harmful gases bellowing out of Naka-dake, we were lucky to be able to take the cable car to the top for a walk around the rim of the smoke filled crater and its barren surroundings.

Our final destination before our departure from the city of Osaka was the onsen (hot spring) town of Beppu. Across Japan, there are over 3,000 natural onsen, more than Iceland and in fact more than anywhere else in the world. Relaxing in an onsen is a favoured pastime of the Japanese with most towns and also ryokans having tapped into one for people to have a communal bath at the end of the day. Beppu has a proportionately high concentration of onsen with millions of litres of hot water percolating from beneath the ground each day and visible plumes of steam being released from vents all around. A day of soaking was in order from giant mud baths to outdoor rock pools in the mist-shrouded hills nearby with cold water filled wooden plunge tubs on stand by.

The modern city of Osaka had the best nighttime atmosphere we experienced in Japan with bustling streets and narrow alleyways filled with countless restaurants and Japanese pubs, all lit up with multi-coloured flashing neon advertisements. It gave us a chance to sample some really traditional food at a specialised indoor market such as okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake using shredded cabbage as a base and cooked on a teppan grill) and tako-yaki (fried octopus balls). Osaka also has an impressive aquarium centred around the world's biggest tank which was home to two giant whale sharks, manta rays and numerous other smaller sharks.

Despite the obvious language barrier which sometimes drew complete blanks on both our faces and those we were trying to communicate with and also the extortionate expense of everything, travelling in Japan was relatively easy. This was in no small part down to the gracious hospitality of the Japanese people who would often go out of their way to help, particularly if they spoke even just a few words of English.

With Japan Airlines having kindly blocked out the entire economy cabin for us, we arrived in Beijing on the morning of the last day of the Olympics, instantly impressed by the airport terminal that had just been opened, the number of people on offer to help and the brand new airport express train. Whilst we unfortunately arrived too late to catch the men's marathon, it was clear that this was an Olympic city in action with enormous flags draped down tall buildings, every billboard having some association with the games, entire lanes devoted solely to Olympic traffic, the Olympic anthem being blasted out of every loudspeaker and Olympic volunteers everywhere. We made our way towards the Olympic village in the afternoon to try to get close to the action, but being the day of the closing ceremony it was impossible to get anywhere near. A glimpse of the Olympic flame and Birds Nest stadium in the distance was the best on offer. Our next plan was to watch the ceremony on one of the numerous big screens around the city centre, however disappointingly the authorities decided not to show it on any of them which was a great shame. Forced to watch it indoors, we did however get to see the firework display in Tiananmen Square at the end of the ceremony which needless to say was the most impressive we have ever seen.

Our picture of Beijing was no doubt slightly skewed by all the work done for the Olympics but what we saw was an incredibly impressive city of both modern and traditional architecture and was in fact generally quite clean. As well as visiting the enormous Forbidden City (home to 24 Chinese emperors in the last 600 years), strolling the hutongs (traditional alleyways) and sampling the city's finest Peking duck, we visited the out of town Factory 798 contemporary art district with its hundred or so galleries and studios all contained within gutted 1950s East German designed factories. An amazingly diverse collection of Chinese and international art was on offer, right at home in the giant industrial carcass. On our last day in Beijing we made the trip out to the Great Wall of China and walked along the lesser visited stretch from Jinshaling to Simatai, both in complete awe of its size and design over the mountains.

An overnight train to Xi'an was our only other stop in China for us to visit the Terracotta Army. Having seen the exhibition in London last year we were both very keen to see more and the journey proved well worth it. With around 2,000 warriors having been excavated so far and reassembled in their original underground pits, the museum believes it will take a further hundred years to unearth the remaining 6,000. Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who had 720,000 skilled craftsmen build the army over 2,000 years ago to be buried around his tomb and protect him in the afterlife, clearly managed to join the ranks of historic leaders with an eccentric vision and unquestionable power to execute.

Whilst our spell in China was very brief, we could not help but feel a slight animosity towards us as Westerners wherever we went, be it in restaurants, shops or even in talking with the general public. Perhaps it was just Chinese mannerisms or even just frustration with the language barrier. Perhaps it was evidence of their discontent with the criticisms of the West, or even an arrogant trait arising from their newly found place as a world superpower.

Next we travel to Lhasa in Tibet for the start of our epic cycle ride through the Himalayas. Wish us luck.

Sammy and Pete - congratulations on your engagement which we are so excited about!

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Japan and China

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx