Monday 2nd July - Go South Part Two: Iwakuni

The short dash from Mr Hayashi's place to Yanai Station was accomplished with minimal additional dampness and despite the fact that I had been caught in the light rain in Yanai, my weather-luck in general seemed to be holding out. I can say this with confidence since quite literally within two minutes of my stepping into the train station, the heavens opened for real and a proper downpour started, which I attempted to take pictures of but largely failed.

It had almost become amusing at this point, that the rain seemed to disappear when I arrived somewhere, then start again as I left (this even applied to Tokyo the first time, really, despite my early soaking there). At any rate, I had my fingers crossed that the same would apply to Iwakuni, as I waited for the train back in the direction I had come.

This time it was a bit busier than it had been late morning - I'd ended up staying in Yanai longer than I anticipated, what with the Tourist Information Hunt and the pause at Hayashi's Coffee. As a result, I caught the same train as a whole bunch of high school kids dispersing from Yanai to the smaller towns on the way to Iwakuni, which livened up the trip no end. My observation is that high school kids, when not constrained by adults (and obviously as a tourist I didn't count) are much the same everywhere. That was certainly true of these kids, and of the boys I observed outside Kagaonsen station, lurking about on their bikes and probably, for Japan, looking fairly intimidating... or at least I think that was what they were trying for.

At any rate, it was an interesting half an hour of covert people-watching as the kids dwindled with every stop   and we rolled into Iwakuni. My luck held - no rain to be seen, and none threatening either. It was a bit warmer than Yanai, but nothing like as bad as Hiroshima, and since it was already four in the afternoon, even that heat was starting to fade.

I didn't even bother attempting to walk to Kintai Bridge - apart from the fact that it was getting late and I had ice-cream I wanted to buy (I'll tell you later) - I had also read somewhere that the tourist maps in Iwakuni are exceptionally deceptive in how far/how complex the walk is from the station. Fortunately, Iwakuni being a city with a US military base, most everything is marked in English as well as Japanese, so catching a bus was a breeze.

I didn't see a great deal of Iwakuni from the bus, due to having a seat which was inexplicably lower than the windows for most of the journey (I eventually moved out of paranoia I would miss my stop). And what I did see suffered rather unfortunately by comparison to my earlier impressions of Yanai. Where Yanai was a nice blend of old and modern, with clean streets and public art, Iwakuni was a lot less polished, more neon and generally more what I expect from any given military base town anywhere.

Not so say that it was necessarily bad - I have seen a lot of nice things written about Iwakuni - I think it was just unfortunate that I had been elsewhere first and so it was difficult not to make the comparisons about the journey from the train station to the historic area. And anyway, none of that really mattered since I hadn't come to look at the town - it was the bridge that had caught my eye on the Internet and that was really what I wanted to see.

The bus stops right next to it, and for a couple of hundred yen you can walk across and back again - if the booths are closed there's an honesty box, since the place never closes. It's not the original bridge - despite lasting for centuries, that one washed away in 1950 after a particularly bad typhoon - but it is a faithful reconstruction, and not a style of bridge that I had yet encountered firsthand anywhere else, so well worth the visit in my book.

After paying my fee I took a leisurely walk across with plenty of pauses for photos and admiring the views. There was a nice gusting breeze once you hit the middle of the river, and that was quite welcome on what was still a pretty warm evening. It's a pretty amazing structure if you're a fan of functional yet attractive architecture, If you read the linked Wikipedia article above, there's a brief discussion of the various ways it's designed to withstand flood damage - and you can also marvel at the fact that until the latest rebuild, it existed without any use of nails or screws.

At the far side of the bridge is Iwakuni's historic area, with the reconstructed castle (reachable by a ropeway), various museums, Nikko Park, and a small square that earlier in the day is a popular spot for food and souvenir shopping. Most of the shops were closed by the time I got there, but that was okay, since all I really wanted to try was one of the 100 flavours of ice-cream that Iwakuni has become moderately famous for. Luckily for me, one of the ice-cream stands was still open, and what's more, it was right on the small square which is additionally famous for its population of stay cats who like to hang out there and be petted by visitors.

There were two cats in residence when I arrived, both some kind of Siamese cross going by their eyes, and both lounging on the wooden benches in the last of the sun. They both posed very prettily for me when I sat down to take their photos, and one of them followed me with some curiosity when I went to buy my ice-cream. There were indeed a whole raft of flavours, though this particular guy only sold about 30, and after passing over a variety of more peculiar choices, I settled on orange as being a flavour I had not tried before but not too alarming to the palate either.

Stray Cat agreed that my ice-cream was indeed quite delicious and took up a seat next to me on the bench near the shop, offering me a paw and a mewl from time to time to remind me that he was there. After some negotiation he deemed my fingers to be an acceptable alternative to an ice-cream spoon, after which we sat there and shared the sun, the lack of people, and the ice cream for a few minutes. I had forgotten how much like sandpaper cats' tongues are, but to his credit he was quite delicate about it all. If you're wondering about his friend, well she didn't seem to care about the ice-cream at all and was much more determined to continue lying in the sun undisturbed.

Ice-cream done and my farewells said to Stray Cat, I decided to take a walk around the general area of Nikko Park - there were still a few locals around kicking footballs about with their kids and walking their dogs, but otherwise it was mostly deserted. It's probably a pretty nice park when it's at its best, but there's clearly maintenance going on with the water features (the main fountain was switched off), and it could generally do with some maintenance work to tidy it up. It was pleasant enough though, and being able to watch turtles and koi swimming in the castle moat more than made of for the lack of frills.

The few folks I did run into in Iwakuni were uniformly cheerful and friendly, especially the two guys out walking some kind of dachshund - one of them decided to walk up to the top of a viewing point, only to find that the poor dachs couldn't get up the first few steps due to legs that were somewhat deficient in length. The second guy started laughing, looked over at me (I was sitting on a bench taking a picture of the view) then laughed even harder at his friend who was looking somewhat sheepish. To their credit, they didn't pick the dog up - the second guy bent down to make a great show of helping the dog get up the steps, while still laughing like a drain.

All in all I spent about an hour wandering around, just looking at the various statues, fountains, old houses and bits of gardens that were visible from the Park. I'm sure that I could have spent longer if I had arrived earlier in the day when the museums were open, but I was quite content with the evening stroll after having visited a metric ton of museums and the like over the preceding ten days.

Eventually I turned back towards Kintai Bridge, only to be pulled up by the sight of an American guy, his wife and two kids all watching a snake that had come down from one of the trees by the river and was attempting to wrap itself around a street sign. It was easily one of the longest snakes I have ever seen, and while I'm pretty sure it was harmless, I didn't get close enough to find out but instead used full zoom on the iPhone to get a picture. Rather spookily, once it had given up on its exertions and returned to its tree, I noticed that despite its size it was extremely hard to spot. Then I started wondering how many snakes in trees I might have stood under unwittingly while roaming around the likes of Hida Folk Village.

The American guy turned out to be from the base (of course) and his wife was from Yokohama, where I was intending to visit on the 4th. They were just out for an evening stroll and to pick up some on-sale tickets for a sento/onsen nearby, so I ended up walking back with them over the bridge, as we talked about Yokohama, Yokosuka, and the places I had been. Turned out the guy was a bit of a foodie, so we was interested in what I had to tell him about Kanazawa's Omi-Cho market and the food I had eaten in Koyasan.  he seemed quite surprised I had been to Yanai earlier in the day, confirming my suspicion that it's not really a destination for Western visitors, though he had obviously been there a few times himself.

At the other side of the bridge we said our goodbyes - they told me where to catch the bus, but also where to get a good dinner if I wanted one, and where the sento/onsen with the sale was in case I fancied a leisurely soak before I went back to Hiroshima.  In fact I did neither of those things - I had actually intended to stay later in Iwakuni to watch the cormoramt fishing that goes on there most nights, but by this time it was about 7pm and I was completely knackered.

 I did consider staying, but the idea of waiting another hour for fishing that may or may not happen on a Monday was not particularly appealing given that I knew it would take about two hours to get back to my hotel in Hiroshima where I still had to pack for the next day's journey to Tokyo.  And once again I could tell that rain was threatening, which added to the negatives. It was a shame, because I would have loved to watch the cormorant and the fishermen at work, but In the end I just waited for the next bus to come around, then got started on the first leg of the bus-train-tram journey.

Getting back to Hiroshima was easy enough, but I was increasingly tired and hungry, so it felt longer than it actually was. I was so tired and hungry, in fact, that I ended up just buying convenience store food by the tram stop and taking it back to the hotel to eat while I packed. There was more Wimbledon on the TV, and so that was my entertainment between folding, rolling and bagging up all the clothes that I had been hanging the creases out of before the last leg of my trip.

It was kind of sad to be leaving Hiroshima, much as I was looking forward to Tokyo and to the Buck-Tick shows. But at the same time I was aware that I was more than halfway through my trip and that a week from now I'd be packing to go home, which made it a sadder affair than it probably should have been. Though really, when I reflected back on how much I had done, seen and achieved in my time travelling around, it was hard to be down for too long. Honestly, I was surprised myself at how well everything had gone and how little I had been either lost, confused or unable to communicate.

I finished off the night by popping downstairs for more of the hotel's bath salts so that I could have a long soak to wash away the travel grit. I also ordered a taxi for the following morning  I had already booked my bullet train seats to Shin-Osaka, then from Shin-Osaka to Shinagawa before I'd hopped on the train to Iwakuni and Yanai that morning, so all I had to do was get up and check out. But after tackling the trams with only one bag I had no real desire to try it with two, especially during the rush hour period. And I had not spent anywhere near my budget for Hiroshima, so I figured I could treat myself to one more taxi ride.

• More pictures of  Iwakuni and the trip out are on my Flickr here
• I took a break from Buck-Tick when I got back to the hotel, and instead had an evening of Brit oldies, including this one by Tones on Tail.

Monday 2nd July - Go South Part One: Yanai

Monday was another steamy day in Hiroshima, and after initially venturing out to have a look around the shopping and commercial district first thing, I decided that the day would be far better spent somewhere considerably more air-conditioned... like, say, on a train.

Luckily, I had planned a possible excursion from Hiroshima down to a city called Iwakuni and beyond there, to Yanai, so it seemed like the time to pull out that card and use it, despite my slight nervousness about using local train lines to more obscure destinations considering my lack of Japanese.

Iwakuni is a well-travelled destination - there's a US military base there as well as the famous bridge that was the main reason I wanted to go, but Yanai... that's another story. I had found snippets on Wikitravel to attract me to it in the first place, but no-one else on any forum I looked or asked could give me any more info. Consequently it was little more than the sketchiest of destinations in terms of knowing what to expect or how to get there.

But fortune favours the bold, right? Or at least that's what i told myself. Along with the reminder that on a day that's hotter and more humid than a sweaty dog's left bollock, sitting on clean, air-conditioned trains and riding around the countryside admiring the views was probably a more sensible use of my time than slogging around a city centre.

So it was that I ended up catching the streetcar back down to the station in the late morning, then getting back on the same train which the day before I had taken to at Miyajimaguchi. This time though, I kept on going through to the terminus at Iwakuni, before changing there for an onward train to Yanai. I could have explored Iwakuni first, but it made more sense to me to go to the furthest destination first (and also I knew that the bridge at Iwakuni - my main interest there - stayed open all night ]with an honesty box], whereas I had no idea about Yanai).

Yanai and getting to it was the part I was mostly nervous about, since I was aware that beyond Iwakuni I was getting into less travelled by Western tourists territory, just like I did when I was visiting Natadera, and I have an irrational paranoia about getting on the wrong train (even if really, it doesn't matter much since I had a JR Pass and could just get off and change again for no cost if I had to). But fortunately my shorthand Japanese was sufficient to ascertain that the train waiting on the opposite side of the platform to the one I exited at Iwakuni was indeed the onward train that passed through Yanai, and I am very grateful to the two train drivers/conductors in peaked caps and white gloves who efficiently and cheerfully answered my query, especially since they were clearly off-duty.

Up until Iwakuni, and even just beyond it, things were fairly built-up, since the stretch between Hiroshima and Iwakuni is urbanised, but as the train passed into less metropolitan areas the view opened up accordingly; clearer views of the sea interspersed with rural fields of green and the hard industrial architecture of power stations and factories. It's a contrast I am particularly fond of, having grown up in a Yorkshire that was still a giant among the coal-mining counties of the '70s. I never tire of that kind of aesthetic and greatly regret that tendency these days to try and separate the two as if modern life cannot tolerate the (apparently) unholy bond of industry and agriculture (or indeed to try and pretend that in many ways they're not entirely alike at this point in time - hello battery farming). The effect was especialy heightened by the fact that the further I got from Hiroshima the more ominous the skies became, and it was pretty obvious that at some point the rain was coming - I just hoped that given my lack of an umbrella, my luck on the weather front held up long enough to get me back to Hiroshima without a soaking.

I took far more pictures than are on display on my Flickr feed as a result (most of them didn't make the cut later due to bad lighting - I had to be harsh to make sure I had enough room on my phone to take more), and no doubt was an object of curiosity to the locals for my interest in the kind of view most tourists pass through with their eyes closed. But hey, I stood out like a sore thumb at this point anyway, so what do. I think all in all the journey took the best part of two hours, but I did manage to establish that I was on the right train, and I did manage to get off at Yanai just fine - into what was possibly the smallest station I passed through on the entire trip. It even had less platforms than Kagaonsen, due to the fact that the fast trains all take a different route along the (further inland) shinkansen route, and none stop in the city itself.

I had established enough from the info on Wikitravel to know that I had to head directly away from the station to the historic part of Yanai, the so-called "street with white walls". But to my surprise, as soon as I stepped onto what was clearly the main road through town, I found signage for the cultural sights in both Japanese and English. Granted, they were just general direction signs with distances against them, and they would serve to confuse me further within 30 minutes but HEY, the point is that even in a city (and honestly it's pretty small for a city) off the normal western tourist track, there was English signage. Which I think is pretty impressive compared to what you might expect in reverse in a smaller town in the UK.

The first thing that struck me about Yanai was how clean it was - and generally how well-kept, from the public buildings to the road construction and maintenance. Everything looked either new or well looked after, and in the public toilets outside the library (which were Western style, by the way) there was a vase of fresh flowers next to the wash basins. The symbol of Yanai is a goldfish, and specifically a goldfish lantern - they were in several of the souvenir shops, but also had been hung in covered public rest areas and rendered in mosaics by the road as public art. I have no idea what he story is behind it, but it was a cheerful enough symbol and I ended up buying a little handmade coin purse and some origami make-it-yourself goldfsih, since I knew a lantern would get destroyed if I tried to pack one. But at any rate, I had only walked around for half an hour or so in Yanai before I decided that actually, small as it was, I really liked the place.

I liked their roadside maps less, since I wasted another half an hour trying to find a Tourist Information Centre which it later transpired I had passed several times.... because it was closed and had no outside signage *gnashes teeth*. This had completely messed up my direction-finding because it had deprived me of something to anchor my landmarking on (TICs are great fpr this purpose, and I often use them in my head as map-centres). So we will gloss over the amount of additonal walking and swearing that occurred during that portion of my visit and until I accidentally stumbled on a second Tourist Information Centre, which explained some of the confusion surrounding my attempt to find the first one (I think I got some of the signs for the one confused with signs for the other, and thus was going round in a circle).

However, YAY, TIC - and that means I managed to acquire a map which had English information on it, even if the person staffing the TIC did not speak any herself. Yes, it was one of those "artists impression" maps that were the bane of my life while I was in Japan, but at least it gave me a vague notion of what I was looking at as I retraced my steps through the historic "Street with White Walls". Yanai really is very pretty, despite the gloomy weather and the lack of people (Mondays in early July are obviously not a busy day for tourism of any kind), so I ambled around the streets and alleys just enjoying the Edo era ambience and architecture and being greeted cheerfully by locals. There were quite a lot of them about, occupied with cutting up tree branches, decorating them with paper goldfish and placing them randomly about the town. I assume, though I didn't have the Japanese to ask, that this activity was related to the upcoming Tanabata but either way, it stopped the streets from being completely empty, which was nice.

I didn't go into any of the designated museums while I was in Yanai, mostly because I was conscious of time (the afternoon was ticking away and I still had Iwakuni to visit) and because I had a sneaking feeling that they didn't cater to the English visitor save for the one that was a long way from the centre of town. But I did decide that I had to go and see the willow tree that is said to be the origin of the name of the town - and this was where I found out just how helpful the people of Yanai really are...

There are two types of pedestrian crossing in Japan, you see - one kind operates automatically with no required input from those waiting to cross UNLESS you are blind/partially sighted and wish to press a button for audible alerts. The other kind is much like pelican crossings in the UK, in that you have to press a button to get the lights to change. I know this. I knew this in Yanai. I had run into both kinds early on in Kanazawa and noted the difference in regard to the buttons you need to press and the signage that marked them. Also, if in doubt in Japan, you NEVER cross unless the light is green and invites you to. It's a bit like Germany in that regard, though not quite as strict. Generally though it's best not to risk jaywalking - apart from anything else, having observed this from inside taxis as well as from the roadside, Japanese drivers don't respond quickly or well to it if you misjudge your crossing. Anyway - despite my familiarity with pedestrian crossings by this point of my trip, on this afternoon in Yanai I was preoccupied with a map and the fact that it was just starting to rain, after hours of grey skies. I'm not sure how long I had been waiting, in the rain, peering at a map - but long enough I guess that a car unexpectedly pulled up across the road (which was practically empty) so that the driver could get out, walk across to my side of the street, press the button on the crossing and bow/smile at me. Hahaha, well, that was probably about as stupid as I felt the entire holiday. It was kind of worse in that this wasn't something I didn't know, just a lack of observational skills. Ah well.

Another local pointed in the appropriate direction when he saw me pause and consult the map for specific directions to the willow tree and so I found it with minimal fuss but moderate embarrassment. I really want to go back to Yanai again one day, preferably armed with a bit more time and Japanese knowledge so that I could tackle the museums with more confidence. It was one of those towns that you can't help but feel affectionate towards.

Oh - and I forgot to mention that there is a building on the main road that essentially is a giant, working musical box. It plays tunes every fifteen minutes or so and you can sit about on benches and enjoy it. How random is that? I didn't stop to enjoy either that or the public art on display I am afraid, as the rain was really starting to set in, and I was racing the downpour back to the station. Unfortunately the rain was faster than I was, but luckily I spotted a small shop that called itself Hayashi's Coffee and ducked inside there, more in hope than conviction that it not only sold coffee to take home and make into drinks, but also sold ACTUAL hot drinks made by a proprietor (it really wasn't obvious or not from the outside, despite the lovely aroma of ground coffee that wafted out).

In general, good coffee is hard to find in Japan (though goodness knows, Kanazawa seems determined to crack this problem, what with its proliferation of coffee shops on every corner). Not to say you can't buy coffee pretty much everywhere, it's just usually pretty awful. And I say this as a Brit, whose nation's coffee culture and quality standards aren't exactly fantastic either, let's face it. Like Japan, we're also largely a tea culture, and no amount of Costas, Starbucks or Neros are ever going to change that, or the fact that instant coffee sells like gangbusters in supermarkets over the real stuff, while instant tea fell into relative obscurity before the first adverts were even fading on the billboards.

Personally I am an equal opportunity hot drink fancier, and while I can tolerate a fair degree of mediocrity in all directions (just no sugar in my tea thanks, you heathens), it is a distinct pleasure to actually have something that tastes decent now and then. I had little expectation of Hayashi's Coffee, especially given the evident surprise and moderate uncertainty on (presumably) Mr Hayashi's face when confronted by a slightly damp Western woman clutching a wilting map and with only just enough Japanese to wish him a good afternoon and indicate an interest in purchasing hot beverages. To his credit, he got over it fast, gesturing to me to sit down and bringing over a menu (all in Japanese of course, but it didn't really matter since all I wanted was coffee and cake, which was pretty simple to work out). And once I had picked out a cake I liked the look of and asked for a coffee with milk, I sat back to watch Mr  Hayashi at work and check out the shop.

Basically the cafe bit is just a couple of tables and a bar at the back, the tables having rather incongrously been dressed with what looked like tartan travel rugs in blue and green. There are signs up indicating that mobile telephones are not allowed (I can't remember about smoking) and there were a couple of shelves of art books (in Japanese) over on one side - presumably intended for patrons to browse while they drink their coffee. All in all, I suspect that Hayashi's Coffee is probably the Japanese equivalent of independent coffee shop heaven.

I have no idea how Mr Hayashi came to be the owner of that shop, given that the old guys who were lounging at the bar indulging in his coffee while I was there looked more like farmers on a day off than anything else - between the three of them (including Mr Hayashi) it could have passed for a scene from the Japanese equivalent of Last of the Summer Wine. Maybe this is a retirement gig for Mr Hayashi? Maybe it's a late midlife crisis? Who knows. I speculated on it quite a bit, but didn't draw any conclusion, except that Mr Hayashi might be something to do with the city council or trade association, since he seemed to be in charge of some kind of calendar depicting the area, which he was showing to his cronies. They seemed to find this quite funny, but there were no nudes, so I detected old-friend-ribbing at work.

At any rate, Mr Hayashi took his time with that coffee, making it from scratch just in the same way that the lady in Kanazawa's Yamada tea shop had with my pot of assam. It's the longest I have waited for a cup of coffee in a long time, but it was also the best cup of coffee I had the entire time I was in Japan, and his cake wasn't half bad either. I would have taken a picture of the shop, had I not had to make a dash to the station after I left in order to avoid the rain. Oh - and before I left Mr Hayashi offered me a plastic bag for my sunhat too, bless him, although I declined with many thanks. So if you're ever in Yanai, stop by Mr Hayashi's place and give him some business - he totally deserves it, and there are worse places to spend an afternoon than Yanai in general, really. It ended up being one of the highlights of my trip, which just shows that getting off the well worn track can be well worth the time and effort.

• More pictures of  Yanai and the trip out are on my Flickr here
• I was warming up for the upcoming BUCK-TICK gigs when I went to Yanai, and when I walked through the Street of White Walls, it was Solaris that was playing in my head.

Sunday 1st July Part Two - Miyajima

After lunch and a change of clothes at the hotel (did I mention that Hiroshima was a SWEATBATH? Oh I did? Well it WAS) I hopped on the tram again, this time back towards the station. There are two ways to get to Miyajima by public transport - tram all the way or tram to the station and then catch a train. Since the latter option afforded a marginal cost-saving and a bigger time-saving, I took it.  The whole trip only cost me a return tram fare to the station since my JR Pass covered both the train trip and the ferry ride - score!

Miyajima is the popular name for Itsukushima island, which is just down the coast from Hiroshima - less than an hour away by train. It's the location of one of those famous Japanese landscapes that you see all the time online - in this case the torii gate rising out of the sea - the idea being that anyone wishing to approach the shrine on Itsukushima must pass through the gate by boat on the way. These days it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of Japan's most popular tourist spots - but it's both those things for good reason, and so I wasn't about to miss it while I was in the vicinity.

I knew the tide times were not ideal for seeing the torii gate in water, but hoped that by leaving it till the late afternoon it would not, at least, be completely dry. And also that the crowds would have thinned out somewhat by the time I got there.

It seemed like I guessed right, because there were more people disembarking from the ferry than queuing to get on it, by the time I arrived at the terminal around 3.30pm. I passed the time waiting to board by watching hordes of dragonflies darting around the water, though sadly they were all too fast for me to capture them on camera.

I stayed on the deck of the boat for the short ferry trip - on the water the oppressive heat of the day was reduced somewhat, and I didn't want to miss the views across the water to the shrine, the torii gate and Mount Misen rising up on the island in the background. It was all suitably spectacular, and as pleasant a way to pass fifteen minutes or so as I could think of on such a warm day.

Once over the other side I headed first for Miyajima's main drag, Ometosando. It's a quaint old shopping street that makes up for the fact that it's almost completely tourist-oriented by remaining unmarred by modern buildings and by the sensible and traditional use of fabric coverings above the walkway to provide shelter from the sun.

Miyajima, like Nara, is also home to a lot of deer, and as at Nara, they are allowed to wander freely. Unlike Nara however, these deer are subject to a feeding ban from tourists, so while there are less of them, they are pretty cheeky about trying to shove their noses in your bags and pockets. They also like to harass shopkeepers and stallholders for handouts, even if they don't get any. It's as amusing to observe as it is at Nara, but with less chaos involved.

Luckily there weren't any deer roaming Ometosando when I stopped there to buy a couple of moniji manju - a local delicacy that is basically a small cake in the shape of a maple leaf that contains some kind of filling, either sweet or savoury. I went for the traditional adzuki jam, and can confirm that they are very tasty indeed. I toyed with trying one fried, but in the end I just settled for the regular baked versions.

I idled along the rest of the street, looking in a few shops and stopping to buy a cold drink from an ever-present vending machine. There's a giant rice paddle rather incongruously sited at the side of the road, and I gather it's supposed to be the largest one in the world. I suspect it doesn't have much competition.

From the main street I headed directly to the shrine, since that was my main purpose for visiting. I had originally intended to walk through the forest at the foot of Mount Misen as well, but frankly the weather put me off that adventure - I am quite sure I would have dropped from heat exhaustion before I was halfway there. So straight to the shrine it was, though I did stop just before I got there so that I could try to get some shots of the famous torii gate that lies just offshore from the main temple buildings.

The tide was low, but there was enough water for it to look respectably as though it were floating. Unfortunately the sun was not cooperating and was both low and bright, which meant I had to play fast and loose with Instagram filters in order to compensate. Also unfortunately for me, I appeared to have chosen the hottest spot on Miyajima in terms of the exact location most people stop to take photographs of the gate. I'm not sure whether it's because I was alone or because I was female or both, but apparently despite being a foreigner, I look exactly like the kind of person who will take good photos of you and your wife/husband/child/dog standing RIGHT THERE in front of the gate. I must have, because for a while there was just one after the other person asking me (either in broken English or pantomime) to do so, or hovering about like they wanted to ask until I made the appropriate sign language to make the offer. Haha. It was actually quite sweet, and I hope I took decent photos for them all, even though it was difficult with the language barrier to give any directions (unfortunately necessary since the bloody sun was so low as to be  a hindrance).

Between these photos, I watched a professional photographer trying to take pictures of a school group while a deer-whisperer used a few treats in a bid to get deer into shot. Between the deer not playing the game and the kids squeeing in alarm every time a deer got near them, I'd be amazed if any of those pictures were usable. Never work with children and animals dude, have you not heard that rule?

My final photo of the day was of a German (I think) fella and his Japanese wife - she was taking a pic of him with their child on his shoulders and I offered to take one of them all together as my last hurrah before I moved from the Ideal Photography Spot lest it become a full time job. It wasn't until later that I realised it was probably the exact spot from which that ubiquitous childhood picture of Matsumoto Hideto with his family standing in front of the Miyajima torii gate was probably taken.

Anyway, from there it was only a few steps to the shrine itself, so I paid my fee and went to explore. There's not a lot to Itsukushima Shrine, but it really is pretty, and I took far too many photos, of which only a few passed muster when I sat down to check them out - again, the sun was a real problem at this time of day. if you ever go to Miyajima bear that in mind and maybe go at another time of day if you want the best chance of good photos.

I had some fun watching a couple of young women goofing off for photographs by posing like some of the fierce lion sculptures that dot the place, and before I left I made an offering at the Shrine, by way of a thank you for all the photographs.

After I exited the Shrine, I went looking for some alternative angles of the torii gate and finally found one that didn't cast it into silhouette. Sadly the same cannot be said of the nearby pagoda - I got a shot of it from the shore but close up it was impossible to photograph, which was a shame. Generally speaking Miyajima is a really lovely place, and improves exponentially as the crowds start to leave and the souvenir shops close up. I wish I had been able to afford to stay a night there, but unfortunately the accommodation is on the pricier side of "ouch".

I spent a little more time exploring the streets and having a brief amusing exchange with an older Japanese guy ambling after his tour group who were being hassled by their guide to hurry up. I caught his eye while he was being chivvied and he pulled a face that indicated  he wasn't going to hurry at all. I laughed, because he reminded me of the naughty kid hanging back on a school trip. It was pretty funny, since it didn't seem to be mean-spirited on his part, just a little knowingly mischievous. As I passed him I made shooing gestures and commented "HURRY  HURRY!", to which he laughed in return and made the wry face again.

I also had a brief chat with an (I presume) American sailor/soldier/marine (no clue which) who were on a day trip with his Japanese wife and child - he was laughing at me for talking to one of the deer, to which I told him that it was always best to be polite when dealing with messengers from God, because you never know.

The return trip on the ferry was as pleasant as the outward one, though this time I sat down undercover and rested, since my feet were starting to get tired at this point. This put me right in the spot to have a minor game of peekaboo with a little girl who was apparently on a day trip with her Dad and baby brother/sister. She seemed a bit alarmed by the foreigner, but got over it after I caught her looking at me a few times whenever I looked away,

In fact this afternoon just turned out to be one of those days with a lot of human encounters, much like my day in Nara. Once back at the station, I ended up running for a train (and failing to catch it) with a lovely lady from India who was there on holiday. Since we were both alone (she had left the rest of her tour group on Miyajima since they were all half her age and wanted to climb Mount Misen) we rode the train back to Hiroshima and talked about Japan, the UK, how we were both fans of gardens, and how difficult she had been finding it to be a vegan in Japan. I told her about Buddhist cuisine and suggested she check it out when she got to Kyoto, since I had read that it could be ordered in vegan versions as well as vegetarian.

By the time I got back to the hotel, it was late enough that I couldn't be bothered to go hunting for food, so made do with a salad and some kind of fairly bland fish/rice dish from the trusty Family Mart next to the hotel. The Daiwa Roynet had microwaves available for guest use in the vending machine rooms, one of which was on my floor, so eating from convenience stores was a snap if you wanted to (and cheap)!

After my daily call home and uploading of photographs I decided to call it a day. Between the heat and the fact that my feet were aching, all I could be bothered to do was have a long bath with more of the hotel's free bath salts and then crash into bed, to watch coverage of Wimbledon in Japanese before falling asleep with the television still on.

• More pictures of  Miyajima are on my Flickr here
• Change of pace this afternoon, as I made the journey to Miyajima to the accompaniment of music that was less meaningful and more fun, including this one by Jamiroquai.

Sunday 1st July Part One - Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

As promised, the next day dawned with more rain, so I took the opportunity to catch up with notes for my blog and social media while I breakfasted on the yoghurt and fruit I had picked up at the convenience store the night before.

Rather astonishingly, and completely unlike in the UK, the rain stopped at almost precisely the time that the weather report I found online said it would - around 10am - at which point I decided to brave the sweatbath outside and walk to the Peace Park, which was my first scheduled stop of the day.

Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park has been built on the area that used to be the city centre of  Hiroshima, and which was reduced to little more than a scorched piece of bare earth by the atom bomb. Today it houses a museum, many memorials and works of public art, and a number of other public buildings. There is also the remains of the old Industrial Promotion Hall - better known today as the A Bomb Dome - it is the building closest to the hypocentre of the blast that survived and has largely been left in its state from that day as a memorial to the victims.

Hiroshima Peace Park is not your average sightseeing day out - especially if you also go and look around the Museum, as I did. It is also not about blame - I found the Museum as it is today very even-handed in its discussion of WW2 and the events that led up to it. And to my mind it was a lot less graphic than it could have been about the aftermath of the atom bomb, although I know many people find it upsetting even as it is. But growing up as I did in the depth of the Cold War and surrounded by images of what would happen in the event of what felt then like an imminent nuclear war, my imagination is well able to conjure up more horrors than are on display here.  All that said, if you don't think you can face up to the results of the worst kind of violence mankind can perpetrate on itself in the name of victory, you might want to avoid the Museum entirely. On the other hand if you can steel yourself to look around, it might change your perspective on nuclear weaponry, war, and nuclear power in general. Or at the very least, it might make you think.

It felt especially meaningful to be visiting this year, a year after the Fukushima crisis laid to rest (again) the notion that nuclear power in its current form can ever be safe on a planet that is itself unpredictable, even apart from human intervention. The ghost of Fukushima and of the Tohoku 'quake/tsunami is everywhere in Japan - in the worries of people buying food to eat and wondering if it's safe; in the independent blogs of those who assiduously monitor the radiation levels in Tokyo; in reports from foreign journalists who talk to people displaced by the exclusion zone (or who remained behind to care for abandoned animals); in the promotional leaflets at the Tourist Information Centres encouraging visitors back to the Tohoku region; in every temple that has a display showing its relief work in the affected area; and in the protests that were going on in Hiroshima and elsewhere in Japan on the day I visited the Peace Park, in response to the switching on of one of Japan's nuclear reactors, closed down since 2011. This news, along with the flooding  (taking place in regions also housing nuclear reactors), was to dominate my days in Japan throughout, even if I could only understand a little of it on the TV, and even if the national broadcasting company NHK took care to avoid showing the extent of the actual protests.

But most of all, I think, the shadow of the tsunami and the attendant nuclear crisis (which is still going on, by the way), is most notable as The Thing Which No-one Talks About Directly. Even in Hiroshima. And I can understand it too - apart from those who were direct victims in some way, there were many, many more who experienced the disaster and its aftermath without knowing whether they would survive it either. What can you say, when you've looked into the abyss and truly believed you were going to die?

Not to say that I never spoke about it to anyone at all while I was over there, because I did - but it wasn't a topic I was very keen to raise myself either, for the most part - it feels too much like being a voyeur into a collective grief that I can only empathise with to a certain point. After all, as horrific as the pictures that everyone in the UK saw on the BBC in the immediate wake of the disaster, and however much money we may have donated to the relief funds, none of us felt that quake or heard the tsunami alarms. And it's been a long time since Chernobyl - long enough that we've stopped being reminded  about the dangers of radiation in the wind and in the rain, and the fact that Britain is contaminated from that crisis, just as Japan is now contaminated in the wake of this one. (That knowledge, by the way, is partly why I didn't have any major concerns about travelling there - I was around when the rains from Chernobyl fell on the fields of England, and I've read enough about the Windscale Fire to be quite certain that for me that horse has already bolted, big style).

Anyway, I have strayed off the topic here somewhat - except not really, since the raison d'etre of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is not only to mark the death and destruction from the atom bomb that exploded in the air above the city in 1945, but also to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons from the world. And personally, I think it's a good place to sit and consider what mankind has done with this power they have harnessed, and how many more lives have been ruined by it because of money and power. It is not the fault of the technology - I do believe that  something radical will have to be done to deal with the increasing energy demand of modern life, and if that radical thing isn't to curb it, then it'll have to be to provide it in a way that does not destroy the planet. And it's possible that solution will be based on nuclear technology. But we will have to move beyond what we have now and the laurels and money that the current nuclear industry rests on and has done for decades, just as the oil industry did before it, and still tries to do, despite dwindling resources.

All in all it was a sombre morning, and a thoughtful one for me - both about the past and about the current state of the world - a morning that would in some ways linger throughout the rest of my trip in terms of how I viewed Japan and the people I met there.

I passed the protest that was happening in the streets of Hiroshima as I travelled on the tram back to my hotel, and whatever the wrongs and rights of the issue, I was glad to see that there were people willing to turn out and speak their minds in a country that up to this point has rarely been noted for public, anti-establishment protest. if there is any legacy from last year's disaster that is positive, I hope it's this one.

• Pictures of  Hiroshima are on my Flickr here
• This morning's music was Ryuichi Sakamoto's War and Peace, in honour of a great man who has spoken out many times on the subject of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. It seemed fitting for the soundtrack to a walk to the Peace Park.

Saturday 30th June - onward to Hiroshima... with a bullet!

I was up at the crack of dawn the next day at Henjoko-in... well 5am, anyway, because at Koyasan there are morning prayers at 6am which visitors are allowed to sit in on, and it wasn't something I was going to miss - unlike my neighbour who completely overslept and missed practically all of it. I chatted with her briefly later and was left wondering why she'd come to Koyasan at all, since she didn't seem to have liked the place or the food very much - and honestly, I didn't find anything that differed from what you should expect having read plenty of travel reviews, so... I suppose it takes all sorts.

Buddhist prayers take the form of a lot of chanting and a great deal of incense - personally I found it all pretty captivating. Not being a Buddhist myself, I didn't kneel on the tatami mats nearer the front, but instead sat cross-legged at the back throughout the half an hour or so the prayers lasted. Afterwards, the  more senior priest, who had a bit of English, took us on a tour of the room and explained some of the statuary and art. He was a complete sweetheart actually - in my head I wanted to nickname him Yoda, despite the eyeglasses.

By the time we got back to our rooms it was breakfast time - another way-too-large for me meal delivered to the room, though thankfully it was slightly lighter fare than the night before with a good amount of fresh fruit, so I managed to eat most of it. When the Black Coat came to take away my trays, I asked him if I could please see the Japanese Garden before I left, and he actually seemed very pleased I had asked, escorting me all the way there and leaving me to contemplate it in my own time while he went about his business. I didn't actually go out into the garden as I had no outdoor slippers with me, but I did sit on the steps down from the verandah and admire it for a good while. It's largely a courtyard water garden style, with many plants and rock features. But it's set off nicely by the mountain itself which rises up steeply behind it in a burst of greenery at this time of year, and there's the constant sound of water, frogs, dragonfly and carp to bring it all to life.

Unfortunately I had to keep my eye on my watch, since I had trains to catch, so I couldn't stay as long as I might have otherwise. Also, before I left Henjoko-in, I wanted to make a donation to their roof repair fund, which I had established they were collecting for from some information sheets they had handed out during my stay. I have NO IDEA if it is rare for foreign tourists to make donations, and it was only 1000 yen since I had no notes smaller than a 10,000 at that point, but had a couple of 500 yen coins put by (for B-T concert drink tokens actually but this seemed like a good cauise)!. Anyway, when I explained to the Black Coat as I was checking out that I wanted to donate, he led me back to the hallways just newar the entrance and ushered me into a room (luckily I remembered to step out of my slippers). Rather unexpectedly I was confronted by four of the priests sitting round a low table all smiling and nodding/waving at me to sit with them. Haha, talk about not knowing what to do or say - they clearly were minimal on the English and I was obviously EXTREMELY minimal on the Japanese. Anyway, I rather awkwardly assumed the best seiza kneeling position I could muster (not a very good one considering I had sprained my knee a little in Nara walking up that bloody mountain), put my donation in the provided envelope, filled in the information on it in as neat a hand as possible and then handed it over (with both hands - I remembered that bit of etiquette)! In return, they presented me with two pairs of chopsticks in a box, which I wasn't really expecting but accepted gracefully (I hope) all the same. They were all really nice guys, and I made them all laugh when I plainly had trouble getting up from kneeling and made a face indicating I was too unfit for this kind of thing.

Before I had the chance to embarrass myself further, I made a (hopefully) unhurried but efficient escape, then finished checking out. Since I had paid in advance before arriving in Japan, that basically just involved telling the Black Coats I was leaving now, then thanking them and saying goodbye. Then it was off for the bus and the long train journey back to the busier urban sprawls.

This time, I switched at Shin-imamiya to a train for Osaka, rather than Kyoto, which provided me with some great views of the Pacific side of the coast and of the ocean as the journey progressed. It was the first time I had actually seen the ocean from a train, since the train to Kagaonsen earlier in the week didn't offer those views due to the landscape (even though I know it's quite near the Sea of Japan). As on the previous day, the skies were amazingly blue as we left Koyasan, with cloud formations that were a dream to photograph. I don't know whether it's the high altitude or I just got lucky but it made looking out of the train window well worth it in both directions.

It was weird as hell being plunged into the chaos of Shin-Osaka station after Koyasan - it's a major bullet train hub and landing there was like going between a sleepy countryside station in rural England to Kings Cross. After reserving a seat on the train I wanted to catch later for Hiroshima, I went off and found a cafe that served half-decent coffee and better snacks so that I could kill time for an hour or so and get away from the milling crowds until I adjusted to them somewhat.

This was another time when I kind of wished I had been less strict about my travel timings - I had been half-inclined to add in some daytripping in Wakayama prefecture between Koyasan and Hiroshima, but concern over whether I would make the train times I had set myself had held me back. As it turned out, I had plenty of time, and was scheduled to arrive in Hiroshima way earlier than I needed to. Ah well.

I got my first sight of a bullet train - one of the superfast Nozomis (which the JR Pass does not cover) as I walked up the stairs to the platform I needed to catch my regular Sakura-style train. It was actually quite exciting, and I'm not even a railway buff. They really are an aesthetically pleasing design, and I had absolutely no shame about taking pics, just like everyone else.

Typically for Japan, the trains ran to almost perfect timings, and I didn't have to wait long before mine was ready for boarding (Shin-Osaka being a terminal, many journeys start and end there, so we all had to wait for the train to be cleaned and checked before we boarded). Only one and a half hours to Hiroshima, which if you look at the distance travelled on a map, is pretty bloody impressive.  And when I boarded I unexpectedly found that I had been upgraded to the Green Car (first class) despite not having a Green Car JR Pass. On the one hand it was nice because the car was only half full and the seats are exponentially bigger and have more leg room than the regular class, but on the other hand it reduced my people-watching opportunities immensely since the only other people in there were businessmen and fellow tourists. I bought a snack from Shin-Osaka to eat on the way - just some sandwiches from a small concession at the station, but they were tasty anyway - tuna and crab salad, I believe.

It wasn't long into the journey before I realised that the rainy season had finally caught up with me, despite my charmed life with it up to this point. After the glorious sunshine for the past few days, I had barely seen any rain since the day I left Tokyo, except for a few drizzly evenings that never turned into anything much. But the coastline to Hiroshima was as grey and rainy as you could imagine, and I was slightly regretting that I didn't have an umbrella , especially considering that I had a tram-trip and a walk ahead of me.

But, as luck would have it (and my luck on this trip for the most part was pretty amazing, weather-wise), the rain had stopped by the time we actually arrived in Hiroshima. Apart from the morning I left Tokyo,  my entire holiday had been pretty dry, and I'm grateful for it. It made sightseeing much easier and less hassle not to be grappling with a brolly and wet shoes while trying to take photos and travel around the place. I would have managed fine I am sure (I went mentally prepared for rain) but I wasn't complaining about the fact that I didn't have to deal with it after all.

Public transport in Hiroshima is by streetcar/tram, and while it's very comfortable and frequent, it's certainly not the fastest or most efficient. You pay as you get off, so everyone has to walk up from the back of the tram (they can be four or so carriages long) to get off by the driver at each stop and drop the required money into the machine. You have to give the correct change too - there's a conductor on board whose sole job is to give change. Go figure. The system is fine if it's not crowded, but a bit of a pain if it is. Also a pain if you have too much stuff to carry, I noted, as everyone squished up to get off at the busier stops. Still, it was pretty cheap at 100-200 yen or so a ride in the city limits, and I quite enjoyed the times I used them while I was there - just be aware that it's all a bit confusing when you first get on, though at least the stops are announced in English as well as Japanese and Chinese/Korean.

My hotel, the Daiwa Roynet, was out by the Peace Park, which is about 20 mins. by tram from the station. However, the journey took in the shopping/city centre areas of Hiroshima on the way so I got to see plenty of it from a comfy seat.

It was only around 4pm by the time I arrived - though the rain was threatening to return. Given that and the fact that I really, really wanted to use Hiroshima as a staging point to catch up on laundry, email and other personal admin. before hitting Tokyo in three days time, I decided to spend the afternoon making good on that intent. Luckily the Daiwa Roynet had one of the biggest rooms of my trip (barring the tatami rooms) and lots of hanging space, so laundry was a breeze (just as well since as I was about to find, the heat in Hiroshima meant that laundry-time was not going to be a one-time thing as I had hoped).

The other nice thing about the Daiwa Roynet was that I was offered a selection of toiletries from a basket at reception when I checked in - among which were some bath fizzer/bath salts things. One of those was the only thing I took, since for the most part I was self-sufficient with toiletries plus there was always a set of basics in every hotel room anyway (shampoo, body soap, toothbrush etc.). It turned out that the Daiwa bathrooms (and so, the baths) were bigger than most and perfectly ample for a decent soak - hence the bath salts, no doubt. I still have no clue what the scent of mine was supposed to be (mint or herbs, perhaps?), but it was pretty nice and turned the water a very satisfying marine green. If you ever stay there, give them a try! The other smart thing that the Daiwa provided against other places was a multi-adaptor for charging mobile phones and Apples devices, which was in the same drawer as the Internet cable. If I'd been staying there after I lost my iPhone cable there would have been no worries at all!

Anyway, apart from doing laundry, having a long soak in the bath and catching up on a ton of email, photo downloads, blog updates, direct Twitter messages and Facebook stuff, I deliberately did absolutely nothing else of any moment - not even dinner. And while I planned out a sightseeing schedule for the next day, I also knew from the fairly reliable weather report online that it wasn't due to stop raining until mid-morning. So, since I'd had a large breakfast, sarnies on the train, plus relatively little exercise, I settled for just having a quick snack then taking to my bed at a pretty early hour, and for once on this trip I didn't even set my alarm.

• Pictures of Koyasan and Hiroshima are on my Flickr here
• Today's choon is of course, Ride a Rocket by Lithium and Sonya Madan, in honour of my first trip by bullet train!

Friday 29th June - another day, another mountain

The next day dawned pretty hot and humid in Nara, so I wasn't entirely sorry to be leaving for higher altitudes. Fortified by a Comfort Hotel continental breakfast (not bad considering they were free), and with one bag safely on its way to Hiroshima ahead of me, I was at the station and waiting for a train by 8.30am.

A quick big-up for the Comfort Hotel in Nara here by the way - it was one of the nicest rooms I had through the trip, the included continental breakfast was decent and varied on the two days I stayed (Cocopops, oh yeah baby!), there was free wifi and also free coffee in the lobby (or to take to your room) from 3pm to midnight. The staff had mixed English skills but we managed to get by between us and they forwarded my luggage with no issues whatever. Also it's literally just across the road from the JR station. If you go to Nara and you don't mind chain hotels, you could certainly do worse - I filled in the comment card that was left in my room and told them their staff were  both efficient and lovely, which was absolutely true.

Anyway, advert break over.... the trip to Koyasan from... well most anywhere actually, is a little convoluted and also a little long, due to the fact that you have to switch from the national JR line railways to a private line, which means changing stations and buying an extra ticket or two day rail pass since you can't use your JR Pass on the private lines. But, I knew this in advance and had decided that it was also totally worth it ifor the prospect of staying in a Buddhist monastery and trying some of their unique vegetarian cuisine - shojin ryori. This was the single most expensive night of my trip in terms of accommodation bill, but since it came with a full dinner and breakfast, actually worked out very reasonably.

First leg of the trip was to Kyoto (on which ride I saw my first and only dude of my trip going about his business in a yukata and geta - women in kimonos I had encountered a few of in Kanazawa, and a Buddhist monk/priest sat next to me on the train to Nara, but regular dudes in traditional clothing as an everyday outfit seem rare). There wasn't much else notable about the trip since I was covering similar ground to the day I arrived in Nara, and so most of the time I spent listening to music and checking my itinerary.

After we arrived at Kyoto,  I was double-checking my train  to make sure it was the one I wanted for my next leg - Shin-imamiya - when a youngish Japanese guy (totally looked like a "works in the media" type) came up to me to ask if I was lost (I wasn't) and remarked that he had seen me get on the train at Nara and hoped that I was enjoying Japan. His English was pretty near excellent - I have no idea why he didn't speak to me at Nara or on the train since it wasn't crowded, but maybe he was shy of approaching me till the last moment. Who knows. Anyway, it was only a quick chat since he was catching a train himself, but he did confirm to me that I was on the right platform for the train to Shin-imamiya, which saved me some kanji-comparisons and mucking about with notes, so I am grateful to him for that.

Shin-imamiya is where the JR Pass reaches its limit. You can buy a "World Heritage Pass" at one of several stations - that one included - which gets you train trips to Koyasan and back, plus discounts to some of the attractions and free bus travsl in the town for two days, so that's exactly what I did. I actually upgraded to the Express version while I was about it because that shaved a good chunk of time off the trip for the sake of under a tenner.

Pass duly bought and paid for, I had a bit of a wait at Shin-imamiya, since I had overestimated the time it would take to sort my tickets and so forth. But unexpectedly, there was free wifi there (this seemed to be a random but surprisingly common thing at some of the more rural stations I passed through - go figure). If you happen to find it while travelling in Japan, it'll show as the network "wifine" and you need to open your browser and say yes to it before it works on all apps - took me a couple of goes to realise that. Anyway,  while I was mucking with my iPhone, a Japanese businessman came and sat next to me and asked if he could make conversation to me, which was quite sweet. His English was very limited, but in the short time before his train arrived he managed to ask me about my trip a little and ask where I was from. Clearly this day was the day for random encounters!

The trip from Shin-imamiya is to Koyasan is a fairly unremarkable trip to start with, but once you get to the mountainous parts, t's quite lovely - Wakayama seems like an interesting area and it was a shame I didn't get to explore it more. The train line is single track up the mountain so trains have to wait and pass each other, but there are beautiful views on the off-side which I was, luckily, sitting on.

The last part of the trip starts when you get almost to the top - the train terminates and the summit can be reached only by ropeway - cable car - only this one travels on the ground. Anyone who has been to Scarborough has probably travelled in mini versions of these going up and down between the harbour and the Grand Hotel. They're quite common in Japan in all forms, but this is the only one I got to travel on since I have a phobia of the actual dangling-from-the-sky versions. After THAT you have to catch a bus into Koyasan town itself from the ropeway station at the top, because walking between the ropeway station and the town is banned due to the potential for accidents. Now you can see why I only wanted to be carrying one bag for this excursion! All in all I think the trip took me just over three hours from Nara, but it honestly felt shorter, and I could have saved time if I had known more about Shin-imamiya in advance, but oh well.

Koyasan itself is a thriving town with schools, hospitals and shops, despite also being home to around 50 monasteries and temples, plus a few world heritage sites. There were of course coin lockers in the town centre where I dumped my bag for 300 yen (yay, it fitted into one of the small ones - I was so relieved) and that gave me most of the morning and afternoon to check out the sights I wanted to see before early check-in and dinner at Henjoko-in - my monastery for the night.

I had the free bus pass as part of my train ticket, but actually for the most part, Koyasan is pretty walkable and relatively flat. I used the buses there mainly just to save time, as opposed to effort - they're all clearly marked with destinations and if in doubt, there's an excellent tourist information centre right at the crossroads in the middle of town, near one of the main bus stops.

First stop of the day was the Danjo Garan, a temple complex that contains the Konpon Daito pagoda, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was an absolutely beautiful day - hot sun and blue skies but little to no humidity at the higher altitude, so I took my time wandering the area and taking a lot of pictures. It's hard to convey the scale of some of these building in photographs, especially when it's not crowded with people, but the Konpon Daito is truly magnificent in size and beauty, and I can see why it's so highly regarded both within Buddhism and culturally.

From there (with the assistance of a passing local lady and no thanks to another artist-impression type tourist map) I muddled my way over to Kongobu-ji, the head temple of the Koyasan Buddhism sect, for a look at their collection of beautifully painted door screens and their extensive rock garden. I took no pictures of the former (not allowed) but some of the latter - it's the largest rock garden in Japan, and it's very impressive. I debated walking up to the Daimon - the gate that guards the entrance to Koyasan - from there, but in the end my stomach was reminding me that I had not eaten since 7am, so instead I walked the short distance back into town for sandwiches and coffee.

By this time it was about 2pm, and I was keenly aware that I needed to be checking into my temple between 4 and 5, so I wasted no time in hopping on a bus to the main reason I had come to Koyasan in the first place - Okunoin. Okunoin is the largest cemetery in Japan, and probably one of the most beautiful - the pictures of it online were what initially caught my eye about Koyasan, before I ever knew you could stay in temples there or how easy it was to visit. It also contains the mausoleum of the founder of the Koyasan Buddhist colony, but I was honestly less interested in that (not being a Buddhist) and far more interested in the cemetery itself, with its moss-covered rocks and wood and incredibly tall and ancient trees. I feel like I am getting a bit boring describing things as beautiful, but what else can you say about a place like that? For the most part, due to the high tree cover, it's cool and damp, and slightly dark in places - very atmospheric. And the graves range from the very old to the very new (I have no idea whose the grave is with the silver rocketship on it, but wow, it was impressive). In a lot of cases there is no trace that I can see of who was buried there, but I do know that the place is full of famous, historic people, and that corporations buy graves there for their workers or, in one notable case - an extermination company has a memorial there to the insects it has destroyed. There are also a few darker sides to Okonuin, like the stairs that you'd better not stmble on if you want a long and happy life, or the well of which it is said if you can't see your reflection in the water, you'll be dead within 3 years (here's a tip, don't look into it on the closest side to the path because you'll block the light).

I could have stayed there for hours, but I only had two, so I wandered it from end to end with occasional forays off the main path into the woods, where there are yet more memorials, in nooks and crannies between trees and rocks. By the time I emerged at the far end, it was past time for me to be getting to the temple to check-in, so instead of walking back to town as planned, I ended up getting another bus back to the place where I had stored my bags before walking to Henjoko-in.

Finding it was a little tricksy, since I had already established that my ability to identify kanji from print against kanji carved in wood is a little limited. Also, there was nothing in particular in the photo I had to distinguish it from other temples nearby, but with the assistance of a kindly monk who jovially offered basic directions to my query (pointing to the left and holding up two fingers - so two temples along to the left, then) I rolled up to find I was still in time to check in and indulge in a long bath before dinner, which was a relief.

The monks who took care of the tourists (there were a handful of us there overnight) seemed to be quite junior, but all had sufficient English to deal with most questions, if you didn't ask them in a complicated fashion. Throughout my stay, they were completely pleasant to me, and very unobtrusive beyond the fact that they did have a tendency to open your door after knocking if they wanted to get your attention to I learned to keep the intermediary screen door shut if I was changing clothes. I'm not especially easily embarrassed,  but I really don't think a poor Buddhist monk needs to see that sort of horror before dinner. My room by the way was huge - two rooms and a private toilet, in fact, plus a covered verandah that looked out over a wild corner of the grounds. It was in the newer block of the temple, so sadly didn't overlook the Japanese garden, but I had no complaints regardless.

After taking a bath in the communal ladies bathing area (which I had to myself since there was one person leaving as I arrived, and one arriving as I left - a  non-Japanese Asian lady who I actually had to explain the routine for the communal bathing to - I suppose I was approaching "experienced" on the subject by then) I returned to be told that dinner was imminent. Sure enough it was brought to my room shortly after by one of the guys I mentally dubbed Black Coats, with apologies to Butlins, since they all wore black samue and seemed to be solely in charge of the visitors' wellbeing.

The food was indeed amazing - tofu in an astonishing number of forms, plus rice, noodles, broths, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. There was absolutely no way I could manage it all, but I did attempt to try everything on the three trays it arrived on, until I couldn't eat another morsel. The tempura vegetables were particularly delicious, as was what I believe to have been freeze-dried tofu.

It was so filling that I went for a brief walk afterwards back towards town, because I was worried I would get indigestion if I just sat around doing nothing. I had to be quick though as the temple closes its doors at 8pm, so there was just time to walk off a few calories and buy a couple of cold drinks from a vending machine to last me the evening, then back to watch my futon bed being put together expertly by the youngest of the Black Coats. I complimented him on his speed at the task, even if I cheated a bit once he was gone and rolled out the second base-mat from the cupboard as extra padding due to the stiff back and shoulder that had been bothering me on and off since Kanazawa. And by 9 o'clock I was tucked in with alarm set for 5am and the screen doors to the verandah open so that I could sleep in fresh air for once (sleeping in air conditioned rooms inevitably either makes me cough or sneeze at some point). But thanks to the protection of the mosquito nets on the verandah I could get a night's sleep without worrying about being bitten to death if I kept the window open.

• Pictures of Okonuin and other sights in Koyasan are over on Flickr in relatively correct order
• Music for the day was David Sylvian's Red Guitar, among others.

Thursday 28th June - Oh deer

The first order of business when I woke up in Nara was to enquire about sending one of my bags ahead to Hiroshima, to save me having to take both up a mountain the next day. In Japan there are many luggage/parcel delivery services called "takyubin" that can get pretty much anything to anywhere within one or two days for minimal cost - this cost me just over a tenner and I was told to drop my bag at reception the following morning just before checking out. If you're in Japan and want to use a takyubin service, it's probably best to have the details of the hotel you want to forward luggage on to available in Japanese as well as English - it makes life a bit easier.

That sorted out with no issues at all, it was time to hit the sights of Nara. I didn't have a particular plan for today, but hoped to at least see Todaiji, Kofukuji and the Kasuga Taisha with its nearby primeval forest. I also wanted to try a local sushi delicacy - kaki-no-hazushi - which is sushi wrapped in persimmon leaves.

I set out via the nearest back-alley to the hotel, and zig-zagged in the direction of the main drag - it's nice to see the quieter side of towns and since I am not on a shopping trip I've taken this approach with most of the places I have been to, pretty much avoiding the main commercial districts entirely save for checking them out in passing. Luckily for me, my route brought me on to the main road just before the Tourist Information centre (quite by chance) so I called in to get a map, and had a brief chat with the very nice man there. I mentioned to him that I had seen a video of Tomayasu Hotei playing guitar in front of Todaiji and he told me that there were sometimes concerts there, and also did I know that Van Halen had announced a tour in Japan? I think he was a fan, and since I had mentioned music, clearly he could share this exciting tidbit without seeming odd, heh.

Map in hand, I carried on up the hill to the other Nara train station - the Kintetsu - which is closer to the sights than the JR station, but provides a nice staging point to get out of the heat on the way. It has a pleasant covered shopping alley in which I spotted one of the recommended take-out sushi places I had read about online and noted its location for later.

Then it was on to Kofokuji, a Buddhist Temple and the closest of the sights on my hit list. And I had barely set foot inside the main courtyard when I was pounced by a Goodwill Guide offering me a tour in English. Goodwill Guides are ubiquitous in Japan, either stationed in tourist information offices, at some attractions on a first-come, first-served policy, or contactable in advance before you travel. They are essentially locals with skills in a particular language (most commonly English) who offer free tours to foreign travellers of their local sights/towns. The only thing you pay for is any tickets they need to get into things and/or their lunch and transport costs if that is part of the tour (for example, some guides will take you to try local foods). Many, though not all, of the guides are pensioners, and uniformly they seem lovely folks from what I observed and experienced.  I had not used one yet, since Matsumoto and Kanazawa castles had plenty of info in English, but as this gentleman was clearly at a loose end and keen to be employed, I took him up on his offer.

It turned out he had been to London some years ago, and we had a chat about London and about Nara, as we walked around the various Kofokuji buildings. I actually found out a lot about the architecture that I did not know before, and he showed me the proper way to do the ritual washing at shrines. We also laughed a little about how many times most of these buildings had burned down and been rebuilt - the pains of using wooden construction. And lastly he told me a little about Buddhism and Shinto, remarking on how it is perfectly fine in Japan to follow both. All in all it was a pleasant forty minutes or so and I'd recommend their services to anyone waning to find out a bit more than you can in a printed guide - this chap came armed with various illustrative sheets showing how things were built, for example. He also told me that these days, Japan buys most of its wood for reconstruction of traditional buildings from Africa. I am not sure if this is due to lack of resources of the right kind or whether they just prefer to deforest someone else's country and I didn't like to ask.

After the tour, I headed onwards, but mindful of tourist mapfuckery, asked a couple of people to check my route on the way to Kasuga Shrine. Nara is a very historic city, which was once (and I think the first) capital of Japan. New York may have been named twice, but Nara is so good it even has its own period of history named after it. It also is home to a cluster of Buddhist temples and shrines, and to many deer, who roam freely in the main temple area - Nara Park - since they are regarded by locals as messengers from god. If this is so, he's the hungriest and most indiscriminate god I have ever heard of, since the deer will follow you forever for the sniff of food or the chance to eat your map out of your hands. But it's funny to observe Japanese schoolkids and foreign tourists doing exactly the wrong things when confronted with largish hungry wild animals who have no fear of humans and can jump/rear quite high. Dealing with herds of greedy lurchers and greyhounds at a few dog rescue events has primed me for this kind of thing so I actually didn't get bothered all day, despite having a pocket full of deer biscuits (you can buy them in the park for 150 yen a pack) with which to reward the ones I took pictures of or petted on my way through. But it was amusing to watch other people holding biscuits up in the air and wondering why the deer were chasing them. Well, duh.


I did, however, get pounced by a Japanese primary school teacher and his herd of pupils, who he encouraged to speak to me in English, after establishing that I didn't mind. They were mostly too shy, but did ask me where I had been and what food I liked to eat in Japan. The teacher also directed me towards Kasuga Shrine so that was my next stop, after which I hoped to check out the primeval forest behind and take the nature walk to Todaiji.

All was well until I actually attempted to find the nature walk. Primeval forest? Check. Signs for Todaiji? Check. But somewhere between the first and second 500 metres I started to realise this was less a nature walk and more a spiralling uphill walk up a mountain. A nice one, I'll give it that - but a hike beyond what I had intended and completely empty of people, which was starting to get a bit creepy until I ran into another class of primary school kids coming down, and this time - thankfully - followed up by a young British guy (turned out to be a history teacher) who walked me back to the last set of signs and explained where I was (yes indeed, halfway up a mountain with lovely views from the top). I decided to carry on since what the hell, I was halfway there, but some way further on I encountered signs warning about snakes (they have cobras in Japan) which pretty much destroyed any enjoyment I had in the walk because I was extremely aware that there were hardly any other walkers heading that way. If I'd not been alone I'd have gone for it, because the views did sound amazing, but as it was I just hiked up to the last rest stop and then turned back, passing only one more person on my way down - an older Japanese guy who gave me a cheery nod and wave.

It wasn't far to Todaiji from the bottom, as I had memorised the kanji for it and identified the appropriate sign right away, so I just took the more conventional route through Nara Park. I never did find that nature walk, but given the apparent snake problem, it's probably just as well.

Todaiji is a Buddhist temple that houses the largest buddha statue in Japan (the second largest is at Kamakura, at the top of the Miura peninsula near Tokyo). It's pretty breathtaking in its size, and the grounds and associated other statues are also equally impressive. Amazingly, as I walked into the temple I ran into the same American family I had run into at Takayama - the guy from San Francisco with his wife, sister-in-law and daughter. What are the chances? So we had a quick chat and I recommended Natadera to them when they come back next to Japan (they were planning a return trip) before heading off to see the buddha.

Also in Todaiji is a wooden pillar with a hole at the foot, and it is said that if you can pass through it, you will gain enlightenment. You have to be pretty slim however, or preferably a kid, in order to do so. But while I was there a couple came in - probably around age 20 or so - and the boyfriend squeezed himself through before trying to encourage his (smaller) girlfriend to follow suit. She seemed convinced she would get stuck and there was much giggling and laughter from him, her, and the few of us who were watching until she finally braved it and we applauded quietly.

After Todaiji I was knackered, so took a looping walk back through the shade of Nara Park. It was approaching 6pm at this point but the busloads of schoolkids were still arriving - the place was literally packed all day, and probably was the busiest place I visited outside of Tokyo. Just as I was leaving the Park to head off towards Kintetsu station, I was hailed by one of the dudes who gives tourists rides in rickshaws - there are quite a few of them in Nara, mostly guys who look to me like they're in bands or similar (long hair, earrings, etc.) and thus don't have the time or appearance to hold down office jobs. Anyway, this guy switched to English to talk to me, even though I laughingly turned down the rickshaw offer, and seemed to want to have some practice at the language so I paused for a while to chat with him.

He immediately demonstrated himself a pretty good Anglophile when my "I live near Manchester" was met with "Oh ho! Manchester United or Manchester City?" I was forced to admit that I followed neither, since I didn't much like football, but undeterred he instead started asking me about where I had been and where I was going. Another question of "why would you want to spend a week in Tokyo???" (Obviously Tokyo is akin to London in this respect ). So, I told him that I was going to attend some rock concerts there, at which he was all ears and asked who I was going to see. "Baku-Chiku", I responded, and I honestly thought he was going to split his face grinning. "Baku-Chiku!! I am a fan too!! They are great!!!" We talked more about music  and it turned out he was also a fan of X-Japan, but I told him I preferred hide's solo work - this also seemed to surprise him (that I knew who hide was) and we talked about other music, like Hotei and SUGIZO before he remembered he was supposed to be trying to get me into his rickshaw. Steering the conversation back to that, he mimed pulling the rickshaw while singing a Buck-Tick song and I really did crack up laughing at that point, as did some of his watching rickshaw buddies. But I still turned him down - with apologies - and told him I needed to walk to lose weight, which made him laugh in turn. Before I walked away, he insisted we shake hands because we were "Baku-Chiku friends!". I have since been told that recognition of Buck-Tick in Japan is rare, since most people don't realise they're still in business after their brief flare of mainstream popularity in the '80s. So this was clearly some kind of Buck-Tick karma at work.

On the way back to the hotel I paused at Kintetsu station to buy some of the sushi I wanted to try (it was lovely, and beautifully wrapped) as well as a piece of heavenly green tea cake, both of which I ate for dinner in my hotel. I would have eaten out, but failed to find any recommendations other than takeaway for the speciality persimmon leaf sushi.

After that it was time to redistribute my packing so that I could send a bag on to Hiroshima and keep a bag with me for the next day's trip to Koyasan, then fall into bed ready for an early start in the morning.

• Pictures of Nara are in my Flickr stream here
• Music for the day was Hotei's version of The Model