Wednesday

Wednesday we took a series of trains up to Nikko, a small town with a series of famous temples and shrines nearby.


We stayed at the Narusawa Lodge, which is run by a really nice woman who came to the station to pick us up. After dropping off our bags, we headed to the temple complex, because we only had one day in Nikko.


There are about five major temples in Nikko, and they are the most ornate that I have ever seen in Japan.


This is the walkway between two of the temples.


Here is Victoria leaving one of the shrines.


Here we are in front of a shrine.


The best thing about Narusawa Lodge was the dog there, Beata.


However, Beata came with a warning which seemed to be mostly true.


Even the toilet came with instructions in the Narusawa Lodge.


Nikko was great, and the Narusawa Lodge was nice, but we could only stay one day. We went for a walk in the woods near the lodge after seeing the temples. It was very beautiful.

The next morning we started a long train journey to Toyama, and our host kindly gave us sandwiches for the train.

Here's some comments from the Japan trip:

Our trip officially started with going to Manchester on the Saturday night, because there are no trains to Manchester on early Sunday morning. We spend the night in a town not too far from Manchester, where Jane lives. Jane is Victoria's friend from university, and she lived in Sendai in Japan while we were there. Jane's boyfriend John was really nice, and he took us to a curry restaurant. We went to bed early because we had to wake up early, but they stayed out later.

Sunday morning we flew out from Manchester airport on Air France, via Paris. Charles de Gaulle has to be one of the worst laid out airports I have ever seen. In order to change between the five terminals, you need to take a shuttle bus, which seem to run every 10-20 minutes. Then you have to reenter security in order to enter the new terminal, for seemingly no reason at all. This process took over an hour in total, meaning we just made it to our connecting flight to Tokyo. The flight to Tokyo was not too bad, but both of our video consoles were not working, which meant it was a little boring. Neither of us could sleep much on the plane. When we arrived in Tokyo, there was another surprise: my bag was still in Paris. This turned out to be a bit of a blessing, as it was sent directly to the hotel rather than me having to lug it around or store it in a locker.

Being in Japan seemed great, but the problem was that it was early Monday morning and we were exhausted. We couldn't check into the hotel until about 3. We traded in our rail pass vouchers for the actual passes, then took the first train into Tokyo.


In Tokyo we found a nearby Wendy's where we got some food. Then we wandered around Ginza area, looking at the department stores. (pictured here)

After awhile we took a train to Ikebukuro, where our ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) was. Unfortunately we could not check in for a couple hours, so we ended up in a Starbucks nearby. We pretty much fell asleep there waiting. Eventually we could check in, so we went back to Kimi Ryokan. It was a really nice traditional ryokan in the middle of Tokyo. It was a good deal too. We really liked it. We just took a nap so as to not get totally off track. We got up for dinner, and found out my bag was going to arrive late at night rather than early as expected. For dinner we found a nice place to eat nearby. Unfortunately I misinterpreted a picture and ordered fried chicken cartiledge instead of fried chicken strips. We also had some ramen, so it wasn't a total loss. After dinner we went to bed pretty early, but I still didn't have any clothes or toiletries.


By Tuesday morning my bag had arrived, thankfully. After breakfast at Denny's (during which Victoria ate natto bravely), we took a train to Nippori station on the circle Yamanote line. From Nippori, we walked through a pretty graveyard (pictured here) and older part of Tokyo.


It started raining a lot during our walk and we had to buy some umbrellas. We decided not to go to Tokyo University which was the original plan. Instead we walked through Ueno park. In Ueno park we found some late blooming cherry blossoms, so we stopped to take this picture under them.


I was exhausted, so I sat in a phone booth, and Victoria took pictures of me.


Next we went to the famous crossing at Shibuya, the Times Square of Tokyo. It was raining, so we tried to get a seat in Starbucks to watch people cross. It was really crowded though, and we had to stand instead. Next door we found a live J-pop band playing in the middle of a record store. However, the security guards didn't seem to want people to stay and watch them and kept asking everyone to move away. It was a bit weird.

We went shopping in Shibuya and found a Uniqlo to buy some clothes at. I think Victoria bought two shirts there. For dinner, we went to a chain restaurant called Italian Saizeriya, which we used to go to a lot in Toyama. I think we had an early night because we were still exhausted.

The next morning we left Tokyo for Nikko, which I will write about in another post.

One interesting piece of trivia about Sheffield is that the world's oldest football (soccer) club was started here. Sheffield FC turns 150 next year, so there will be big celebrations in the city. Vernon tells us the chamber of commerce is also turning 150 next year, so they will try to do some joint celebrations. Sheffield FC is a very small football club, not one of the major professional ones here now. Vernon hopes to bring Barcelona's football team here to play Sheffield United in celebration of the 150 year anniversary. Should be interesting. Strangely, the world's oldest football pitch is at the rival of Sheffield FC, the Hallam FC. I wonder where the Sheffield FC club practiced originally...

Winter seems to be here in Sheffield again. It has been 10-15 degrees celsius and rainy almost every day since we got back from Spain. It's a bit depressing really.

Today there was a big celebration in the center of town. Last week all the hype was around the World Snooker Championship, which is always hosted in Sheffield. It attracts a lot of people from out of town, and there was also a continential European fair, with various things for sale.

Today's celebration was all about football (soccer of course). Sheffield has two teams, and one of them, Sheffield United, has been promoted to the premier league, Britain's top league for football teams. The system for football is different than any system we have in the U.S., so I'll explain it as best I can. There are about 3 or 4 football leagues, with the premier league being the highest, and the championship league being the second highest. Each year the worst 3 teams in a league drops to the league below the one they are currently in. The top three teams from each league get promoted to the next higher league, and the bottom three demoted to the league below. It would be as if minor league baseball teams could become major league teams if they did well enough.

It's big news for Sheffield as it means ticket sales will go up, and the team gets a large pool of money as well (76 million pounds) to buy players with. Hopefully it means I can go see a great team like Arsenal, Chelsea, or Manchester United play in Sheffield next year.