Japan: Wakayama City

My last weekend in Japan before returning home for the summer was a lot more low key than I’d hoped. I didn’t finish work until 7 on Saturday and the few drinking buddies I have here were either out of the city or busy, so I settled for a mammoth portion of fried chicken and a couple of beers at a local restaurant instead.

I headed to Wakayama on Sunday, which is about 2 hours away by car. It’s not one of the great cities of the Kansai area like Osaka, Kyoto and Kōbe, but it’s still worth a visit – mainly because the local tourism bureau is so desperate to bring in visitors that they let you try on samurai hats and handle a sword.

The main attraction in Wakayama City is its castle. Unfortunately, just like Osaka castle, this is not the original – it was firebombed by the Yanks during World War Two and rebuilt in concrete instead of wood after 1945. A man dressed as a ninja started talking to me in English when I arrived at the foot of the castle (in fact I think he was possibly flirting). I had to make a quick escape when he asked for my number and facebook, so I didn’t even get the chance to take a proper picture of the building, but this is the view from the top.

The view of the keep from the top of the castle.

Inside the castle grounds where I was safe from the ninja guy.

The adjoining museum had some interesting translations.

Be careful to Steps – it would be a tragedy if you hurt H.

The castle gardens.

After the castle and some much needed food, I checked out the beach with its pretty impressive bridge before making the long journey home – traffic turned a two hour journey into a four hour one. Wakayama City wasn’t all that bad, but there are far more interesting places to see closer by.

Japan: Shirahama

Shirahama is a seaside town about 2 and a half hours drive south of Sakai City (the place I’m living now). I was told before going to expect a Japanese version of Scarborough, but what I found couldn’t have been further from the truth. The original sand on Shirahama beach was swept away years ago, so they imported some from Australia to replace it, meaning that it’s one of the best beaches in the country. There’s a tonne to do and they even have pandas at the zoo!

Unfortunately I was too busy building sandcastles to take any pictures at the beach, but I found this gorgeous little harbour behind the place I had lunch.

My first stop after the beach was Adventure World – a poor man’s Universal Studios with a zoo and aquarium attached. It was almost empty – apparently despite the fact it’s been topping 30 degrees almost every day here the Japanese still don’t consider it summer.

These are the previously mentioned pandas. They had lions, tigers, elephants and everything. I even touched a zebra!

This little guy was posing for photos with his nappy on. I’m quite glad, because having a monkey crap on my head is not high on my bucket list.

The dolphin show was good. Not quite a spectacular as Discovery Cove in Florida, but still impressive. Before the show they were panning the crowd with a camera for images to put on the big screen and managed to display a picture of the back of my head for a good 20 seconds in between the happy Japanese families, much to everyone’s amusement.

Of course I couldn’t pass up the chance to beat Japanese children at go-karting.

Walking around the park had knackered me out, so I was glad of 5 minutes in a hammock out of the sun.

After leaving Adventure World I went to try my first Japanese onsen. It’s basically a hot spring where people go to relax – imagine a really big public Jacuzzi. The only strange thing was the mandatory nudity. At first I didn’t have that much of a problem with it, but after a while I realised I was basically having a hot bath with a bunch of old and soapy Japanese men, most of whom were staring in amazement at my non-Japanese genitalia. I was freaked out so I retreated to the games room where I played ping-pong (don’t worry; I did put my clothes back on for that), then headed for pizza before the long drive back to Osaka.

Japan: Omimaiko

Biwa-ko is Japan’s biggest lake and one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen here. I was lucky enough to spend all day Sunday there chilling out on the beach – the four trains I’d taken to get there were stressful enough to warrant a full day doing nothing.

We set up camp in Omimako on the west-side.

Even the view from the car park was amazing.

This was my view for the day, as well as a base for watching my friends unceremoniously tackle Japanese girls into the water.

Even the babies got in on the action… 

Japan: Kōbe

I had the luxury of a two day weekend last week (we usually only get Sunday off), so I fled the hustle and bustle of Osaka to visit Kōbe. The place was wrecked by an earthquake in the 1990s, but it’s been rebuilt and has a very different feel to it compared to Osaka – it feels more Western somehow.

My day got off to quite a bad start. I wanted to see the Kōbe City Museum but found only this sign telling me it was closed until further notice.

The port was quite interesting – there was a loud crowd watching this ship.

The port tower is pretty impressive too.

I stumbled across a great football shop too – I was very glad I’d not brought a lot of money with me; I would have been tempted to blow my budget on MLS shirts.

They also have a statue of Elvis, because what could be more relevant in a famous Japanese port city?

I didn’t think much to the place to be honest - maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places. I guess anything would struggle in comparison with nearby Kyoto with its hundreds of temples, or Osaka with its big city feel.

Japan: May Food Blog

I’ve gotten over the habit of taking photos of every meal I eat now – I’ve started to get used to the food and some of it is actually really good. I still haven’t been brave enough to eat much raw fish though.

Yakiniku continues to be a favourite of mine. I thought of opening a restaurant up in Hull, but realised pretty quickly that giving a chav beer and allowing him control of an open flame probably wasn’t ideal.

Lunch is usually something with rice. I’m so good with chopsticks now – I can’t wait to beat everyone at Operation when I get home.

Seen in the bakery near my school. Safe to say I didn’t bother.

Korea’s answer to an omelette apparently.

I actually had no idea what this was when I was eating it. For all I know I ate a big heap of foreskins. It was decent though!

When I’ve had enough of rice and foreskins, I head to McDonalds for a good old fashioned artery-clogging burger.  

Japan: Tennō-ji

Tennō-ji is one of the more dated areas of central Osaka. It’s where you go to see the weirder people of Japan’s second city apparently, although there didn’t seem to be many of them hanging around on Sunday afternoon.

The main attraction is quite hard to miss - Osaka’s answer to the Eiffel Tower: Tsūten-kaku.

It was built in 1912, then rebuilt in 1969. This was once the heart of the city, but now it’s surrounded by seedy Pachinko (gambling) parlours and the like.

There was one shop that caught my eye though. They offered to buy my muscles from me, but then realised that their storage area wasn’t big enough. 

Japan: Viva Cerezo!

I was lucky enough to get to see a top-flight Japanese football game at the weekend: Cerezo Osaka v Nagoya (Gary Lineker’s old team). It was actually a really entertaining game and the atmosphere was way better that I’d anticipated.

The match was played in the 20,000 seater stadium on the left, right next to the ground where England played Nigeria in the 2002 World Cup.

Osaka ended up winning 2-1, but the Nagoya striker hit the bar from about ten yards out with pretty much the last kick of the game.

The only downside is that they play in pink…

This was the atmosphere as I walked in about 20 minutes before kick-off. I had to laugh during the first few minutes when the Osaka fans started singing “here we go, here we go, here we go.”

One of the best tackles I saw all night, glad I got it on video!

Japan: Nara

Nara is the site of Japan’s first permanent capital, and also the place where I got incredibly wet. The skies opened at about lunch-time and, being English, I was the only person there without an umbrella, so I got stared at even more than usual. My sunglasses have never been more redundant.

This photo was taken just before the rain started – Nara’s main attractions are all located in the middle of a huge park.

The place is infested with deer too – fearless deer. This one was obviously waiting for the department store to open.

Archery – I don’t know why.

After a while I realised it was pretty much impossible to stay even a little bit dry, so I embraced the damp clothes, and the chafing that came with them and went to see one of the biggest Buddhas in the world inside Tōdai-ji. This is the temple itself.

My heart sank when I saw this sign, but thankfully some careful repositioning meant the guards let me straight through.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but the Buddha is huge. It’s flanked by two smaller, golden statues. There’s a hole carved into one of the wooden pillars nearby that is supposedly the same size as one of the statue’s nostrils - if you climb through it it’s meant to be good luck. I had no chance.

Japan: Well's Café

I came across something very interesting and unexpected today about 15 minutes walk away from where I’m staying – a British café.

It’s part of a garage just off the road which specialises in Minis and other British cars and it’s run by a couple who are in love with all things England. Unfortunately they don’t speak a word of the Queen’s.

The café itself is in this small wooden hut…

It’s quite surreal inside. Everything has a British theme, but there’s no consistency at all. For example, they had a wartime propaganda poster next to empty Tesco egg boxes from their 2011 visit to London.

I soon forgave them though when they gave me the best pot of tea I’ve tasted since leaving home over a month ago. I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve forgotten what good tea tastes like or what.