Day 34

The main reason I came all the way to Nagasaki was for Gunkanjima, so went on a guided trip in the morning. There are only guided trips for it and it's illegal to visit it alone. Gunkanjima means "battle ship island" and the name comes from that the island looks like a battleship. It's located about an hour by ferry from Nagasaki.

It's all fallen apart and that's why they won't allow people in on their own. They recently restored it and now you can only walk on a very short route on the south side of the island, which was dissapointing.

There was some guy fishing there. Looked like he had been dropped off by boat as it seems impossible to get there any other way unless you're a ninja.

Was done around noon so went to check out the "Hollander slopes" which is a pretty steep slope with lots of western style buildings where people from Holland often walked/worked in the past.

After lunch at Gusto I made my way for the second point of Nagasaki - the Peace Memorial Park and the a-bomb ground zero.

After all that I had got enough of history and on impulse bought a ticket at Toho Cinemas for the new movie Inception, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page. Pretty good in my opinion. If a movie isn't good nowadays, at least the visual effects are often really cool. But cinemas at Japan are crazy expensive. I got the half price after talking them into that I'm a student but has no student ID card. The service, comfort, and cleanliness, however, is just outstanding at Japanese cinemas.

By the way, Nagasaki had alot of Sakamoto Ryoma advertisings and sightseeing spots. Next time I'd like to check those out.

Day 33

Started the day with a breakfast buffet at the hotel. Biggest breakfast I had so far, and it was about time I had something decent. Bread and onigiri from the convenience store gets pretty awful after awhile.

With my stomach full, I went to the Hiroshima Castle just for a quick view of it, then walked all the way to this empty tree I don't know the name of, and finally arriving at the A-Bomb Dome. I think I was six days early for the yearly anniversary. People tie origami (folded paper) in a long knot to remember the people who died.

Took the tram back to Hiroshima station to get some local speciality, Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, before getting on the train to Nagasaki. The resturant floor had only teppan food resturants like this one, and they all went crazy when a customer walked by, doing anything to make them choose their resturant. The one I chose was cool, and I could finally conversate in Japanese without them acting like I'm stupid. The chef was pretty skilled with the tools, and I mentioned Teppan Shoujo Akane (drama with Horikita Maki), but they didn't know about it. Obviously they knew AKB, but they seemed to be more proud of Perfume, who are from Hiroshima.

The train to Nagasaki was called Sonic, and both exterior design and interior looked nice with leather seats. Seats were more comfortable, but overall more inconvenient than the regular Shinkansen.

I headed straight for the hotel to get some rest. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima were hotter than Tokyo. In the evening I went up the ropeway to Mt. Inasa. Didn't get too good pictures.

At the ground station there was a small temple with this cool dragon named Shenlong (Shinryu in Japanese). It's a spiritual dragon from Chinese mythology that controls wind and rain.

Day 32

Time to head out to west Japan. First stop is Hiroshima for more regular sightseeing. Something that puzzles me, is that Japan is so famous for having such good service, but the the way I experience it is that the service is extremely bad at famous tourist spots. I just wanna punch them in the face when I ask or say something in Japanese and get a reply in English like I'm stupid. Anyway, what I especially wanted to see was Miyajima, one of the Three Wonders in Japan. I only knew about a red shrine on water, and the large torii gate.

After seeing those, which went on pretty quickly, I walked around the town a little bit and noticed that there's alot to see on the island's biggest mountain, Mt Misen. There was a ropeway but I decided to walk the 2.2km trail up the mountain since it would feel more of an achievement. Was pretty much alone on the trail all of the time except for two or three groups of gaijins.

Up at the summit there was some big rocks and an obstacle-free 360 panoramic view.

Walked another path down which was longer, and stopped by a complete empty sky shrine.

Finally back down at the big gate I wanted to wait abit for the low tide so I could get closer.

On Miyajima there are alot of wild deers going around trying to snatch food from tourists.

Then back to Hiroshima to try to find the hotel. Spent another 2 hours walking in the dark trying to find it. When I asked for directions at one of the bigger train stations, they told me there are no stations, and that I had to walk or take a cab, but there's a big fucking monorail-type station right there. There was very little light, almost none at all, along the sidewalks. And they were very narrow and dangerous. When I finally found the hotel, there was a group of school students sitting in the lounge room who said I was looking cool. I answered that it was hot, haha.

Day 26

Morning train to Hakodate for more regular sightseeing. It was foggy and occasionally raining heavily the whole day. First, I went up the Goryokaku Tower to see the star fort island, built by the Tokugawa shogunate 1857-1866. It is most famous for being the last battle site of the Boshin civil war. Today, it's a park filled with cherry blossoms in the spring.



Then check in at the hotel, and walk around Motomachi while waiting for it to get dark. Motomachi is similiar to "old town", and you're guaranteed to spot many old buildings. This building is of western style and precisely symmetrical.



Had dinner at some weird but famous hamburger resturant which has been on TV with some comedians. When their resaurant have been on TV, they love to print out screencaps of the show and put up outside as promoting.





Finally, I took the ropeway up to Hakodateyama for night shots. Was still foggy and cloudy but it let up close to 9pm. Huge amount of Chinese tourists, and also Japanese ones. Had someone beside me when I took shots who said "kirei~" like a hundred times within a few minutes.

Day 25

Halway there! I've never been able to keep up with a blog for this long. I guess it's different with a traveler's blog. Anyway, I took the 9:06 Furano Express train from Sapporo, which was nice with seats higher up near the roof and large windows. Also a few TV screens showing live feed from the front car.

Furano is famous for their colorful flower beds. I was about a week late, and most colors had faded. Still tons of tourists, especially from Korea and China. Saw some school girls on the local train, and I must say it can not be that fun living there during the peak season. That goes for any big tourist attraction, really. Below is one of the flower beds. During peak, you can't see any greens - just flowers.

I finally got a good shot of a (small) sunflower bed - something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

I tried the lavender flavoured soft cream. It tasted, well, flowers.

Made a brief stop at Biei for lunch - Biei soy-flavoured ramen. Hokkaido ramen is supposed to taste a little different from normal ramen, but I couldn't feel much difference. Biei got some gorgeous views as well, but it's too far to walk, and I didn't have too much time. Next time I'll rent a car.

Train back to Sapporo from Asahikawa. First stopped by at Naebo for an AKBINGO shot.

AKBINGO Episode #34 (090520)

Then off to Hitsujigaoka for another shot. It actually got chilly and I didn't bring any extra layers of clothing at all. Bought a t-shirt for myself as a souvenir, and put it on immediately. Hitsujigaoka means "The sheep's hill" and there were a few sheep still around when I got there. The statue is of William S. Clark, with the words "Boys Be Ambitious". He was hired by the Japanese government to establish the Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University), and succeeded in making a lasting imprint on Japanese culture. His parting words to his students is a nationally-known motto in Japan today.

AKBINGO Episode #34 (090520)

On the way back to Sapporo I wanted to check out Sapporo Dome closer, but it wasn't lit up at all, so instead I took some night traffic shots.

Finished the day with dinner, Una-don, at Sapporo station and night shots of the old government building and the famous clock tower.

Day 22

Plan was to get out early, but was still tired and wanted to sleep one more hour. Got out around noon to go to Choshi for some more AKB sightseeing. There are no Shinkansens going to Chiba, so it took almost 2 hours with express. For the journey back I would have to use local since the express trains would have stopped running. Still alot more fun than going to Kyoto for instance. Also, I got lots of shows to catch up to and some planning to do so it's not like I don't have anything to do on the train.

Got to the first location 4pm which was really late. Looks like they built a small JR gate between the stations.

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (03:08)

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (00:01)

The temple they were restoring/building was obviously finished by now.

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (04:34)

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (05:38)

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (05:38)

Walked past the place where they were hitchhiking, but didn't have screen of it with me. Kinda silly that they spent so much time on hitchhiking when the next station is only a few hundred meters away.

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (16:35)

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (16:38)

When I got to Inuboh, the temperature was really cool, and upong getting closer to the lighthouse it was all foggy and almost abit chilly. Really nice since it's been 35 Celsius + humidity lately. Just like the girls, I was late and the gates were already closed.

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (17:08)

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (17:58)

The dentetsu train only run twice an hour, so I could either make a run for it back to the station, or take it easy and wait for the next one/walk to Tokawa. Wanted to get home early to prepare for the next day so made a run for it. Had som local speciality called "Russian Katsu" (at least they said it was) at first best resturant I could find in Tokawa. It was pretty nice, and I got free drink and medame just because I'm so awesome. I guess they seldom get foreigners out there.

I could not wait for it to get dark, but better than nothing.

Nemousu TV - Episode 1-4 (20:14)