Everyone (in Japan) knows about Sapporo's Snow Festival, but not as many people have been to Otaru's Lantern Festival. The city is located about 45 minutes by train outside of Sapporo and is worth the visit if you're there during Sapporo's festival. The city itself is known as the "Venice of Japan", because of a canal that runs along the coastline. At any rate, the city folk light up a bunch of candles to make their city oh-so-romantic. There are apparently two major sites, but I could not find the second one located in the area Temiyasen (apparently runs parallel to the Otaru Canal) which is a shame because I think that one was actually cooler. Instead I focused on the area right next to the canal known as the Unga Kaijo area. It's about a ten minute walk straight down the main street toward the ocean from the station.
The atmosphere from the candle lit frozen flowers, wax bowls with leaves, and snowball lanterns made for a very romantic setting. Just to drive home the point, many of their sculptures centered around hearts. If you were single, then you should probably leave this area feeling sad.
Sapporo Art Park is an outdoor modern art park that was created to allow enjoyment of art in an outdoor setting. The park is truly meant to be enjoyed during the summer and spring, but the Japanese know never to miss out on an opportunity so they temporarily open it in the winter. It's free (normally it costs 600 yen) but the trick is you have to wear snowshoes. Additionally the usual warning of "don't rise to the work" (AKA - don't touch the statues) is null and void during the winter time.
Luckily there was an English pamphlet that instructed me on the correct application of the snowshoes. I thought I had it all figured out, but it turns out that I had no clue and was literally soaked when I was done because the snowshoes either didn't work or I was wearing them wrong.
Seeing the statues in the snow was actually pretty awesome, my favorite part being all the naked people enjoying their time in frigid outdoors.
All right, so there is quite a bit to do in Sapporo beyond staring at snow and ice sculptures. For one thing, we ate a lot of awesome food -- chief among which was known as Genghis Khan. Why would a food be named Genghis Khan you ask? Well it's certainly not after the Star Trek movie.
It's that time of year when Kelli must venture out into lands covered with God's frozen tears, so profuse that it sometimes hides bikes from their owners...
... and is used to create giant ice and snow sculptures, just for fun (and maybe some tourism). That place was Sapporo during their 65th annual Snow Festival (site is here). To quote their brochure, "Welcome to a world plaza that evokes a pristine snow fantasy."
This past weekend, my brother and I made a trip to Kyoto. Along the way, I finally got to see the thousand torii gate place, otherwise known as Fushimi Inari Taisha, otherwise known as the Shrine to Rice, otherwise known as the place in Memoirs of a Geisha.
Rice is pretty important in Japan, so naturally there's going to be a pretty awesome shrine dedicated to it. Apparently the Emperor himself comes out for a little rice festival in June. I mean, that's a big deal.
The messenger of this particular deity is the fox, sometimes depicted holding a key in its mouth for the rice storehouse or a sacred jewel that represents the spirit of the gods. Apparently the fox became associated with the shrine for one of two reasons:
1. A really attractive fox couple visited the shrine so frequently that they HAD to be messengers of the gods
2. A fox gave birth to a healthy litter, making the farmers and everyone see that the shrine was associated with healthy offspring --> healthy rice production
Either way, they stand guard at the front of the various torii gate passenges and look like they might kill you before they ever let you give it the message you wanted passed along. In a creepy note, apparently the Japanese believe they can possess you; I guess a popular route of entry is underneath the fingernails. Ewww.
I was pretty excited when I came to the first grouping of torii gates... the iconic image of the two paths, complete with perplexed Japanese man staring at us.
Each torii gate was donated by a business, and they would inscribe their names on it.
On to the best part, where where Joel and I realized that the shrine is actually a shrine on top of a mountain (233 meters above sea level). Sherpas and oxygen bottles were purchased, and I wondered how much life would change for us if we made it back down alive.
It wasn't that bad, but I definitely wasn't expecting a crazy hike upwards for 2 hours.
It gets a little sad when you finally make it up a flight of stairs, and then you're greeted with this...
More stairs. :(
Eventually we did make it to the top to take our congratulations photos.
Successful in our quest to summit Mount Inari, we then returned to the safety and comfort of Kyoto.
How to get there:
From Kyoto Station, take the JR Nara line towards Joyo and get off at the Inari Station (should be two stops). From the train station, walk across the street and you'll see the large torii gate.
Ahh, this blog post represents probably the most effort I ever put toward seeing anything in Japan. Friends, I had to wake up at 3:30am just to catch Time Travel's #1 thing to do in Tokyo -- see the Tsukiji Fish Market. Well, specifically the tuna auction, which is the only reason you'd wake up at 3:30 to stand in line at 4am to wait until 5:30am and then be done with it all by 6am.
The tuna market is actually just a small piece of the entire wholesale market (the rest of which opens for non-fish-buying folk at 9am), but is the most iconic part of the market... and also the biggest pain in the ass.
The actual auction starts at two times, the first being at 5:25 and the second being around 5:55. BUT. Yes, there's a but. It's like one of those rap guy's girlfriends. BUT... You must be at the Fish Information Center (Kachidoki Gate) no later than 4am to get a spot as they only allow 120 people (60 each group) to go. Yeah...
The map below gives a rough idea of where the information center is, but I recommend getting there the night before to save yourself the possibility of getting lost, losing your spot, and making that sad discovery that you've been awake since 3:30 am for nothing. The red dot is the center, the purple one is part of the fish market.
Once we successfully grabbed our vests and sat around for 1.5 hours, we were ushered in a neat and orderly line to the center of the auction.
The magic, my friends, was not quite seen yours truly... we saw the huge tuna but we weren't allowed to get close to them. The buyers would taste the tuna flesh, jam it with their pointy sticks... there is no way to not make that last sentence weird.
I only saw one actual auction, but you can experience it yourself via this google translation from the very website itself:
At 5:30 a.m. the tuna auction
starts. “How much do you bid?” The auctioneer of a wholesale firm asks in a
loud voice. Answering this, a lot of middlemen and authorized buyers bid
against each other. The tuna received on the day sell out rapidly.
This stolen photo gives you an idea about the tuna set up, though there were not nearly that many when I was there.
After that, I tried some sushi at 6am... it was delicious. Apparently there are some awesome places actually inside the fish market but we never made it that far.
The rest of the market (or the "intermediate sellers market") was not open to visitors until 9am... and I made the unfortunate mistake of sleeping in until 10am and missed most of the action. From what I saw left over, there were quite a few interesting things... live octopus, squid, various fish. It was easily more entertaining than the tuna auction in my opinion. Another stolen photo gives you a good idea of that:
It was also a matter of life and death in there... if you weren't paying attention you could get run over by a death machine! I managed to escape with my life intact so that I could pass on this treasure to you.
How to Get There:
From Tokyo Station, take the Marunouchi Line toward Ogikubo and get off at Ginza Station (1 stop in between). At Ginza station, take the Hibiya Line towards Kitasenju and get off at Tsukiji Station. From there it's a 5 minute walk.
Ah, time to start up the blog… now that Christmas (ahem… "Holiday") break is over I will begin my weekly trek to find something new in Japan.
Today is all about a little island that is only a few miles away from me… its name? Look at the blog post.
Enoshima Island has a pretty complicated history with its many ex-girlfriend goddesses. Apparently, the Emperor Kinmei built a small shrine dedicated to three goddess (Tagitsuihime, Ichikishimahime, Tagirihime) in a small cave… the original shrine shown below:
You can tell it's legit because of that little placard I left in the picture. You're welcome.
At any rate, Yorimoto Minamoto came along and wanted to defeat this rival clan. To do so, he built a shrine to the goddess Benzaiten. I guess he chose the right deity because he ended up winning the battle.
Access to the island doesn't even require a ferry! Simply cross the Benten-bashi bridge and you're practically at your first temple named Hetsunomiya. This is one of three shrines on the island and this one is reserved for the god(dess?) of music.
We moved along, bypassing the escalators to the top of the mountain. Yes. There were escalators built in. Of course, you had to pay to use them, and since I'm feeling a little chubby from the binging of the holiday season we decided against them. My only regret is of not taking a photo… sigh.
The best part of the island were these little stands they had for people who wished to take THE PERFECT iPhone photo complete with posing ideas in case you weren't that creative, you see.
I used it for my mega camera and got a picture of the the Nakatsunomiya Shrine, of which contains the goddess Ichikishimahime. Shaun and I originally tried to use it to get a picture of ourselves, but some kid just walked right into the photo. Rude.
After that, we came across the Yama Futatsu, an area dividing the island in two. It's thought that the island was split in two by the waves constantly crashing into it… just like a miniature Grand Canyon.
There was another shrine dedicated to Tagarihime, and apparently I missed a creepy painting of a turtle who stares at you… wherever you are standing. Awww yeah. :(
But I did NOT miss this awesome little shrine, for which it belongs, I do not know. It did include an iPhone photo thingy though.
That's like straight out of The Hobbit!
We moved along to a cute couples area where single people will be shunned forever because they're so gross and pathetic (just kidding). It's a bell dedicated to "The Heavenly Maiden and the Five Headed Dragon"… I've taken the liberty of showing the story for you below:
Honestly, I'm a little surprised that the only reason she refused him was because of the bad things he did… because I would think the biggest reason would be because… ya know… dragon. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.
Since there was an iPhone station with an example picture of how to pose, I forced Shaun to pose (much to his chagrin).
Seconds later, Shaun rang the bell with the most force possible, scaring everyone around us with its loud clanging and forcing me to cover my ears in pain. True Love.
At any rate, the bell was surrounded by locks, which were supposed to be placed by a couple. The lock signifies the permanent love of the couple. I didn't know about that, and also due to the loud painful ring of the bell, I decided I didn't feel like putting a lock.
Moving away from the love shrine, we made it one of the coolest parts of the island - the Iwaya Caves and Chigogafuchi! Chigogafuchi is a place dedicated to a tragic love story. A young trainee named Jikyu was on his way from a hundred-day pilgrimage and met a young seducer named Shiragiku, a servant. Because their love was forbidden (I'm assuming because it was homosexual in nature), Shiragiku and Jikyu decided to kill themselves by jumping off the cliff. Incidentally, this is also where you can catch a beautiful shot of Mt. Fuji during sunset, or possible move to higher grounds because of a tsunami.
Next we found the caves. Apparently locals say they look like the inside of a woman's vagina. I'm not so sure, though we did have to crouch to get through a few parts.
As you can tell, the dragon plays a big part in Enoshima's history. The end of one cave had a cool dragon sculpture that allowed you one wish. You hit the drum next to it, and if you were able to create lightning twice your wish was granted! The neat thing about this was that the drum was hooked up to some sort of light switch so you almost always got the lightning. Aw yeah.
Lastly, there was a little stone called the Kameishi or "Turtle Stone." It's apparently a little carving engraved by a stonemason named Kametaro Nakamura, depicting a turtle making its way back to the palace of the Dragon God. Also, "I Like Turtles".
With our adventure completed, we were just about at sunset. Below are a few pictures that just didn't fit in elsewhere with the blog.
