天橋立

Amanohashidate, or, the Bridge to Heaven, is another place I visited during my West coast of Japan adventure in the spring of 2007.  To get there, we took a bus from Kyoto Station. It took about 3 hours and we went through about 18 tunnels.

Here’s the Chirimen silk factory, with its sign welcoming visitors to Amanohashidate. The Tango peninsula is famous for its production of this type of crepe silk, which is used for fine kimono and other items.

In the Edo period, Shunsai Hayashi traveled the length of the country and considered Amanohashidate to be one of the three most beautiful views of Japan, otherwise known as 日本三景 (nihon sankei). The other two, in case you’re wondering, are Miyajima and Matsushima. Since then, they’ve been considered to be places that people should go and see at least once in their lifetime.

Massive pine trees, twisted by the wind, line the isthmus. Some of them are very old and have been given names. like the one pictured above.

There’s a neat rotating bridge on the southern end, here it is opened to let a barge pass through the tiny outlet.

 

You can take cable cars up either side of the bay to get both views of the bridge to heaven.

Looking toward the interior of the bay from the Northern side.

The view of Amanohashidate from the northern side, closest to our hostel (Amanohashidate Youth Hostel). Which I and my travelling partner highly recommend, with their fantastic western-style breakfast (they alternated between western-style and Japanese while we were there… the Japanese breakfast was OK, but we really REALLY liked the heart-shaped eggs).

 

Heart-shaped eggs!! And not-so-heart-shaped eggs… but still good.

♪～(´ε｀ )

People say that if you look at Amanohashidate upside-down, you will see a bridge to heaven. So, I tried it.

Hmm. maybe not from this side.

I still don’t know... what do you think?

長瀞

Nagatoro is a little off the beaten track in Saitama prefecture. I went there this weekend on Kazu’s suggestion, and I was not disappointed!! There are beautiful mountains and rock formations with a river running through them. The weather was perfect and my only regret is that I went alone. It’s actually not far away, but since I don’t have a car, it took a little over an hour to get there by train. There are 21 stations between Hanyu and Nagatoro! Once I got there I had a climb around on the rocks, made a new friend, took a nap. It was a really nice day.

This dude had the right idea!!

       This is my new friend. His name is Syun. He is 3 years old and likes trains and the color blue. I was just sitting around enjoying the scenery when he came over and said コンニチワ (hello) and did this funky dance for me. He said 目がきれいだよ (you have pretty eyes) and 好きだよ (I like you), and I pretty much was smitten. Yep. Why can’t all guys stay this sweet when they grow up? His parents were also sweet and demanded that photos be taken.

SO CUTE!!

wild wisteria （藤の花）

Three stars, don’t you think?

★ ★ ★

お台場

Odaiba is so freaking cool!! I want to go back!! ASAP!! I went on a little adventure there with my nametwin last weekend. The weather was absolutely GORGEOUS. A perfect azure sky!! Did some shopping, some hanging around, rode the little train around, checked out the Fuji Terebi building. We also went to Harajuku and went to a fantastic Thai restaurant there that I have a feeling I’ll be heading back to at some point in the future. Here’s some photos from our adventure!!

I really wanted to see the Fuji Television building up-close and personal after having seen it on ‘Mezamashi Terebi’ about a billion times… and I know Mezamashii TV isn’t a real news show… but it’s cute and I like it. SO THERE. Anyhow, the building was designed by one of my absolute favorites, Tange Kenzo. The architect of both the Tokyo Metropolitan Government office buildings (the Tocho, where I went last year) and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (where I went 4 years ago).
Fuji Terebi is also the station that broadcasted the のだめカンタービレdrama, which I also love to pieces (I saw the finale this past weekend!). So, while I was there, I bought Nodame’s bag!!! How cool is that?! Yaaay Nodame bag!!

The rainbow bridge makes for a really spectacular view. I guess I just never realized how big it actually was until going to Odaiba. I want to go back and see it at night!!
This photograph is just a jumble of icons… in the background you can see Tokyo tower… then the rainbow bridge.. and then a miniature… Statue of Liberty?!!?!?!?! I just don’t understand Japan’s fascination with that statue. It’s great and everything…. but like... did they really NEED a minature replica in Odaiba? I personally don’t think so.
 
I’ll be back, Odaiba!!

伊香保

Ikaho is a little village in Gunma, the next prefecture over from where I live. It’s about an hour’s drive from here and up in the mountains!! I went there this past Wednesday with Kazu and Miki on a little road trip to see the mountains (duh) the Takehisa Yumeji museum, the Chin-po-kan (which was unfortunately closed) and the Venus museum (which was kind of entertaining, but unfortunately there was a creepy dude there…)
 
So, to get to this little lake, we drove up these super narrow and windy roads up these huuuge mountains. The best part was the melody road, when we drove over the bumps on the pavement, the vibrations made a song!! So cool! On our way back, Miki swerved into the opposite lane to see if it worked the same backwards, but it didn’t. I wish they would have had the melody road both ways!! So cool!!

After checking out the absolutely SPECTACULAR view, we went back down into the little town and had some udon & soba before going to the Takehisa Yumeji museum. I don’t know if the guys enjoyed the museum as much as I did. I first found out about Takehisa when I was studying at Kansai Gaidai. I saw some of his prints at a shop in Kyoto and I ended up getting postcards to send back home. He was kind of a painting renegade, as he basically did his own thing, yet still incorporated some traditional techniques. He also was a printmaker (he designed some really fantastic prints for yukata fabric) and commercial artist (like.. newspaper illustrations) as well. In any case, I like his style, despite the fact that most of the women he paints all have really sad looks on their faces. Sad, but beautiful.
  
Woman w/ black cat  © Takehisa Yumeji

So after that, we tried to go to the chin-po-kan… but it was closed !! >.< We drove down the hill for a while, and we came across a similar (but definitely not the same) kind of museum… and we ended up going in. It was interesting, but I guess the chin-po-kan would have involved more laughing. We came back to town after that and went to see the cherry blossoms (photos from which are in my previous entry), got some foods, and then hit up an izakaya to end the day.
Anyway. I had a great time. Great views, gorgeous art, and with good people. As per the usual, more photos are on the Facebook!

富士宮

Fujinomiya is a little town at the base of Mt. Fuji. I happen to be lucky enough to have a friend who lives there, so I went out for a nice little visit this past weekend. You see, I was pretty excited, #1, because I hadn’t seen my friend since I’d left Kansai Gaidai, and #2, you can get a spectacular view of Mt. Fuji from his apartment!! Well…

Nevertheless, Fujinomiya has other things to offer besides ample cloud cover for the biggest mountain in Japan. Like what, you ask? Fujinomiya is actually famous for Yakisoba. You can even take a bus there from Tokyo called the “Yakisoba Express.” We went to a place in the middle of town that had a yakisoba shrine (so cute) in front of it. Then you can drink Fuji water to wash it all down. The water in this area around Fuji is super clean, so you can drink it straight from the springs. There was a little fountain of it right in front of the yakisoba joint. Needless to say, the yakisoba was fantastic.

After yakisoba, we walked across the street to check out the big shrine… but it unfortunately started to rain a cold, cold, rain.

Oh nooo. So we decided to head back to the apartment, since walking around in the cold rain is no fun. After a couple of hours, the rain had subsided and we decided to venture out again. This time, we went to Shiraito Falls (白糸滝, literally, “white thread” falls).  After being so disappointed by that stupid volcano, I really enjoyed the waterfalls. It was absolutely beautiful. Despite the absence of Fuji, I had a great time. I’ll be back. I don’t think that Mt. Fuji is going anywhere anytime soon. In addition to the Shiraito Falls, we also saw the legendary Otodome Falls (音止滝, the story of which I’ll save for another post) and had wasabi-flavored ice cream (!!!).  I’ll end the written portion of this post here, so you can enjoy the photos.

ココ・ファーム・ワイナリー

I am going to have to quote one of my elementary school English lessons for this post. “Ashikaga is famous for Coco Winery!” I went this past weekend for the yearly harvest festival. For 2000 yen you get a bottle of red or white wine (or grape juice), a lovely goblet, a corkscrew, and a nice little yellow badge to let everyone know you are a part of the festival. The wine was fantastic, as was the food! We lucked out on the weather, too! It was such a lovely day to sit on a sunny hillside and drink wine.

 

Coco Winery produces some of the finest wine made in Japan, a country whose wine is better suited for a sweet tooth than a sophisticated palate. Coco Winery’s vintages are apparently so good, in fact, that it was served at the G8 conference when it was held in Japan.

What makes Coco Winery so special, however is not only its fantastic wine, but the people who work there. The staff of the winery is made up of over a hundred autistic and developmentally disabled men and women. Most of them live at the winery year-round, and they all tend to the grapes that grow on the steep hill (as shown above. Believe me, I was on this hill… it is REALLY steep!!) completely by hand. In addition to the vineyard, Coco Winery is also a school, which retains the philosophy that one’s life can change with hard work and diligence.

Coco Winery is special to me because some of the students that I teach are developmentally disabled. Some of them may live and work at Coco Winery one day. As for my students, I can say this about them: they are quite possibly the brightest, and most cheerful kids that I have had the pleasure of teaching. Their English pronunciation and rhythm is fantastic and I truly look forward to having my weekly class with them. I mean these kids just absolutely sparkle with intelligence, life, and energy, despite whatever disability they may have. Actually, most of the time you’d never know there was anything different about these kids. The other thing that I think is so great is that the other kids at school treat them as equals. You never hear anyone teasing or making fun. I swear. If anything, the other kids are helping them get their lunch or explaining something to them. It’s fantastic. It makes the whole school such a nice place to be in. No wonder these kids are so happy.

In conclusion, Coco Winery is the kind of place I want to support. Especially if the people there are anything like my students, I’m sure that the feeling of having a place to belong and do something really cool like make wine is really awesome.
I’ve already posted a lovely little piece about the vineyard by CNN in a previous post, so please check it out!