Japan
(Japan April, 2025)
“It’s a fabulous place to ride a motorcycle, you’re going to love it”
With Jerry’s words still resonating in my ears I gritted my teeth and clicked “Book Now” on a 15 days all singing, all dancing…there is no easy way to say this…bus trip around southern Japan. Yes you read that correctly, not one single motorcycle will be mounted in the telling of this tale. Now don’t get us wrong, we haven’t gone all old and soft, big things are just around the corner in the motorcycling department. We just wanted to see the visual splendour of Japan in spring and this was the simplest way to do that in a reasonable time frame. We also thought the tour looked like good value for our Yen.
Shrines and Temples are everywhere, even in the ocean!
The overwhelming first impression of Japan is the sheer size of the cities. We land first at Osaka international airport and decide that as our tour didn’t include airport to hotel transfer we would get a taxi, after all it can’t be that far to the centre of the city. WRONG!! Over an hour and $200AUD in taxi fares later we are still hurtling down a freeway, still in the same city, still marvelling at the scale of the place when finally we are deposited at the entrance to our rather nice hotel. The hotel itself is sat atop a multistory retail complex with entire floors dedicated to fashion, electrical goods, food and high end accessories such as a shop full of Rolex and Bulgari bling. The entire layout is constructed in such a way as to confuse you into walking aimlessly in circles until you relent and buy something. At least that’s how it feels to me.
The endless city
After a day of retail therapy for Sally where she only once manages to get the exchange rate wrong by a factor of ten, we meet up with our tour leader Fuki and the rest of our group consisting of about 20 Aussies and a Ukrainian American couple. Ages range from early twenties to shall we say mature. There is thankfully an instant rapport within the group as we all appear to be on a similar wave length. Fuki is a great guide with a wonderful knowledge and pride in her country tempered by a marvellous sense of humour. We quickly develop a strong bond with this unflappable pocket dynamo as she leads us about her beautiful country.
It is early spring when we arrive in Osaka and the fabled cherry blossoms are just beginning to burst forth.
Chelly Brossoms!
As we board our bus and make our way first to Kyoto via a visit to the stunning Osaka Castle and the Fushimi Shrine I am still in awe of the scale of the cities. In fact I struggle to find anything I would call countryside. It’s all built out.
The next thing that strikes me is the crowds. Of course we are visiting all the tourist hot spots so crowds are to be expected, but as a simple country boy from Australia it is a little overwhelming. At places I would expect to be serene and zen like my senses are assaulted from every angle by a mind numbing rabble of people, noise, movement and cheesy souvenir shops. Sally is marginally better equipped to deal with it as she has lived for many years in Sydney and Brisbane.
From Kyoto we head south via Takamatsu and Beppu to Nagasaki. The city now is a bustle of industrial and harbour side activity and shows no outward sign of the horror that was visited upon it some eighty years ago. When America dropped it’s second nuclear bomb here it effectively brought World War Two to it’s conclusion but at what cost. Over eighty thousand people were killed instantly by the blast which levelled much of the town, and they were the lucky ones. At least another one hundred thousand died slowly and indescribably painfully in the weeks and months that followed. Subsequent generations of survivors are living, and dying with radiation related illness and disfigurement. A visit to the memorial museum is heart wrenching but should be mandatory for all world leaders. This madness must never happen again. Disturbingly there are still many thousands of these MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) devices in the the world with some fairly unpredictable people in charge of the keys.
This is evil objectified, a life size cutaway model of the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. Look closely and you will see the plutonium core no bigger than a football that forever changed humanity.
Outside the misery of the museum we find much beauty and serenity at the many spectacular gardens, shrines and temples. The cherry blossoms get more and more blossomy each day and the air is filled with their subtle fragrance. And they are not just in the lovingly tended gardens but growing wild on the mountains and road sides everywhere we look.
We make our way north again through Hiroshima and the obligatory stop at the site of the first atomic bomb explosion. After the horror depicted in the Nagasaki museum I thought I might be hardened to it but I find myself needing to step outside for air about half way through the display. Here I find Sally sitting alone, visibly upset. It truly is that powerful.
Back on the road again we make our way to Himeji and the truly spectacular Himeji Castle which is even more beautiful at night with the greatly reduced crowds.
The castle by night.
From here we catch the Shinkansen, or the Bullet Train to you and I. If you are used to the rattly, wonky old things that pass for trains in Australia then boy have you got a shock coming. As we step onto the platform at the station there is the sound of distant thunder which almost instantaneously materialises as a white blur as the express hurtles through the station at around 250 kph. Then just as quickly it is gone and all is quiet again except for the audible buzz of excited children (by children I mean us). Once on our train the landscape slides by our windows in a 271 kph whirl of sensory disorientation until suddenly we are in Osaka again where we catch our breath for a night.
We could get a speeding ticket!
From Osaka we make our way north to Kanazawa and the beautifully serene Kenrokuen Garden which is mercifully devoid of the tourist masses we have come to expect. Then it’s up and over the mountainous backbone of the country via snow covered peaks near Matsumoto to Japan’s ultimate snow capped attraction, Mt Fuji. We are told that Fuji is only visible through the clouds about 80 days per year but our irrepressible guide Fuki has made a small idol she calls Sunny Boy and hangs him on the bus mirror. She must have some powerful magic as we get two consecutive days of spectacular weather and capture some fabulous images of the mountain.
A short bus ride later we are in Tokyo, the largest city in the world with something like a gazillion residents and the end of the line for us. After exchanging contact details and leaving open invitations to visit each other, slowly the group disperses. Some head home immediately, some stay on in Japan for a few days, others board a cruise liner for a trip around the islands of Japan and still others make there way to various parts of the world. Sally and I elect to spend a couple of extra days in Tokyo to try to get a feel for the place.
Tokyo Sky Tree, the tallest structure in Japan.
We also take a walk to the nearby, world famous Tokyo Zoo and we are appalled. How animals can be treated this way in a civilised society is beyond our comprehension. The cages are small, dilapidated and dirty and the animals are clearly traumatised as they pace endlessly to and fro in torment. Sally has sent emails to various animal welfare groups.
We also spend a day at Disneyland which, as you might expect combines all that is cheap and cheesy about both Japanese and American culture. Don’t misunderstand, the execution of the displays is absolutely brilliant. It’s just all a bit plastic.
Minnie Mouse
The levels of mechanisation and automation are mind boggling and the costumes of the actors are brilliant. The place is absolutely spotless and the multitudes of staff are, without exception happy and helpful as are all Japanese citizens it seems.
And that is the overwhelming impression of Japan. It’s not the landscape or the buildings, beautiful though they may be, but the ever smiling, always helpful and inscrutably respectful Japanese people that really are the essence of the place. The rest of the world could really learn something here.
