Japan, Part 1

Do a trip report here....go to another city and want to relate it to what KC is doing right or could do better? Give us a summary in here.
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phuqueue
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Japan, Part 1

Post by phuqueue »

A bunch of pics from around Japan. I'm not much of a photographer but I'll give it my best shot anyway. Got a mix here of pics that came out well enough and pics that didn't necessarily, but are of pretty big landmarks and so are included anyway. I've included tons of wiki links for further reading about various places/things/etc, mostly because I loved this country so much that I just want everybody to know everything about it. I already spent all the time to include the links, I don't really feel like going back through again to make sure every last one works, so if anything is broken let me know. This is the first part, part two is here. Anyway, enjoy.

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Asakusa Shrine in Tokyo. The weather was really terrible (cold, wet, snowy), so I didn't get any great pictures of it, this is probably the best one I got. Photos are prohibited in virtually every Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine, so I went into Asakusa and various others (provided they were open to visitors), but didn't get any pictures of the interior.

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Entrance to Ueno Station, one of Tokyo's primary transportation hubs

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Yasukuni Shrine, where Japanese politicians go whenever they feel like making other Asian countries furious

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Shiodome

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Ginza Wako

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Around Ginza

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Tokyo Skytree, the tallest tower in the world (second tallest structure, after Burj Dubai). It just opened about a week ago, so I wasn't able to actually go inside it (and they weren't yet lighting it up at night, either).

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Chiyoda skyline from the East Gardens of the Tokyo Imperial Palace

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Tokyo Tower; I went up, but only got a few not great pics of the view before my camera battery died.

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Looking across Tokyo Bay from Odaiba. Rainbow Bridge is visible on the far right.

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Fuji Television headquarters on Odaiba

Moving out of Tokyo...

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Matsumoto Castle in Matsumoto. This is one of four castles listed as a National Treasure of Japan, and one of relatively few castles that is still original (ie, not a postwar reconstruction). I visited two other castles (two of the remaining three National Treasure castles), but this one was my favorite, both for the structure itself and for the setting. The surrounding town isn't that much to look at (although it seemed like a really pleasant, livable place), but the moat and the castle grounds and all that, with the mountains rising in the distance, were perfect.

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Zenko-ji Temple in Nagano. This is just the main hall building, the full temple comprises several buildings; the main hall is another National Treasure. Inside you can follow this path through a pitch black passageway underneath the building, where you grope in the dark to find the "key to paradise." Touching it supposedly grants you enlightenment, but I guess either I was already enlightened or the onset of enlightenment is significantly delayed (or maybe Buddha just denies enlightenment to those who take a snarky attitude about it)

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Inuyama Castle in Inuyama, near Nagoya. This is another National Treasure and another original construction. I didn't like it quite as much as Matsumoto, through no real fault of the castle itself, but the setting wasn't as impressive. The castle is atop a hill, and the view from the top would be great if there were anything to look at, but Inuyama's not a terribly pretty town. Still a cool sight to see, though. A local volunteer gave me a free guided tour of the castle, offering extra background info whenever relevant.

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Kyoto Tower in (you guessed it!) Kyoto. I didn't actually go up the tower, because Kyoto is a very low city and it doesn't seem like there'd be much to see from the top; my buddy who lives in Japan corroborated this.

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Nijo Castle in Kyoto, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kyoto was basically spared WW2 bombing (it was originally on the list of potential nuclear targets, but was removed early on), so it has a lot of original structures, including Njio. Knowing that Kyoto had been spared, plus my friend listing Kyoto as his favorite city in the country, plus Lonely Planet putting it on the same level as London, Paris, and Rome as a city everyone should visit at least once, had me expecting something decidedly different; on any random street, the city is basically indistinguishable from any other. The old city has basically all been bulldozed and rebuilt since the 50s, so it doesn't have any particularly special or historic character. But it does have a wealth of original historic sites that most of the rest of the country doesn't (partly because it wasn't bombed, partly because it spent hundreds of years as the national capital). It may just be semantics but I'd probably change the LP line to say that Kyoto has a lot of sights that everyone should visit at least once, although the city itself that surrounds those sights is, unfortunately, nothing special (in contrast I would say Paris is worth seeing even if you never visit any of the landmarks, but I digress).

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Kinkaku-ji, Golden Pavilion. As the name suggests and the photo confirms, the outside of the building is coated in gold leaf. The setting, as you can see, is really serene, and here the bad weather was actually sort of a godsend, because the huge crowds that usually throng it were somewhat thinned out. Visitors can't go inside, you can only walk around the pond. Also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Sanjuusangen-do, a major Buddhist temple in Kyoto full of statues, including a National Treasure. Like I said at the beginning, no pics of the inside.

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Kiyomizu-dera, another Buddhist temple. It's a really impressive structure, but a combination of weather and not any particularly good vantage point from which to take a picture conspired to make this the best shot I got of it. It's built into the side of a hill that overlooks the city (it was so overcast that you couldn't see much, but on a clear day the view is supposed to be really impressive) and supported by the network of wooden pillars underneath. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Heian Shrine, and you can see the mist on the hills behind the building, which sort of show just how hard it was to see much from Kiyomizu.

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Ginkaku-ji, Silver Pavilion. Unlike Golden Pavilion, this one is not actually covered in silver, although during construction it was meant to be. Also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And now, leaving Kyoto...

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Hiroshima

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A plaque explains that this tree survived the atomic bombing (ground zero was about two km away)

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Genbaku Dome, the A-Bomb Dome.

The next few pics are from around the Peace Memorial Park

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Memorial to student volunteers, many of whom were out creating fire breaks and so were completely exposed when the bomb exploded

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Children's Peace Monument, built for the child victims, and in particular for Sadako Sasaki

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Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, a mass grave with the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims

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Monument to Korean victims; the atomic bomb museums are surprisingly forthright about Japanese war crimes and flatly describe the treatment of Koreans as "slavery." Thousands of Korean slaves were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there are memorials to them in both cities.

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Genbaku Dome from across the river.

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The Memorial Cenotaph, which is aligned on an axis with the Peace Flame (which didn't photograph well) and the Genbaku Dome. The cenotaph contains the names of everyone who died in the bombing.

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Nagasaki Peace Park; on the left is a black monolith marking the hypocenter of the bombing, and on the right is a brick column, the last remaining piece of Urakami Cathedral, the largest Christian church in East Asia at the time, which (as you can see) was basically directly beneath the bomb.

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One-Legged Torii Gate, which had its other leg blown out by the bombing but remained standing.

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Memorial to the 26 Martyrs of Japan, Christians (mostly Japanese, plus a few western missionaries) who were executed in the 16th century

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Megane ("Spectacles") Bridge, so named because the bridge plus its reflection in the river resemble glasses. Supposedly the oldest stone arch bridge in the country.

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Himeji Castle in Himeji. Unfortunately it was only about halfway through a five year renovation, so most of the main keep was draped in a protective covering, with scaffolding behind. I didn't actually realize this until I got there, so it was pretty disappointing, since the castle looks really impressive. Had it been open for a full tour, I think it would have been cooler than Matsumoto Castle, but as it stands right now Matsumoto was my favorite of the three castles I saw. Like the others, this one is a National Treasure (actually several different parts of the castle and grounds are separately labeled as individual National Treasurs) and an original construction.

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Part of the western bailey

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While you can't tour the castle itself during the renovation, you can go up inside the scaffolding to see the work they're doing; this is the view out toward the western bailey and the city beyond from the top level.

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Nagoya

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Osu Kannon, a big Buddhist temple in Nagoya

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Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya; the grounds are actually considerably larger, but you can see it was getting dark, so this is about the best picture I got. Atsuta is a Shinto shrine where Kusanagi, one of the Imperial Regalia of Japan, is supposedly kept. Kusanagi is a legendary sword given to the Emperor by the sun goddess Amaterasu. Only the Emperor and a few of the highest priests are allowed to see it, so it's an open question whether there's actually any sword at all back there. It was last on public display (wrapped up, so the sword itself couldn't be seen) when the current emperor ascended to the throne in 1989.

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Sakae, a major commercial district.

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You can still get Zima in Japan, although I didn't.

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More around Sakae. Nagoya TV Tower is kind of the main landmark here, but none of my pictures of it came out particularly well.

From here, I went south to visit my friend, who lives in the small town of Kihoku

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This is a tsunami barrier; you can see the cars and the staircase for a sense of scale. This is not the only barrier, this one is basically the last line of defense. There's another one actually out in the middle of the harbor as well.

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Looking down on the tsunami barrier from a bridge above it, you can get a sense of how thick it is.

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Standing on the barrier out in the harbor, looking out to sea

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There were guys hanging out on the barrier, fishing. The harbor barrier is fronted by these gigantic concrete jacks that act as shock absorbers.

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This is how thick the harbor barrier was.

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From the harbor barrier, back toward the town.

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Back on land, that's what the harbor barrier looks like (the shock absorbers are all on the sea side, obviously, so you can't really see them here but they run the entire length)

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We went hiking up in the hills, where you hit a series of signs telling you how far in tsunamis of various heights will reach. This is the last sign we saw, marking the level of a 48 meter (if anyone is metric-challenged, that's about 150 feet) tsunami.

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This is how far that 48 meter sign is from the sea.

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More hiking in the mountains.

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My first-ever attempt to take a panorama shot with my camera.

On to Part 2
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