JVlog #21: Mount Fuji & Lake Kawaguchiko Day 1 Part 2 - The Chureito Pagoda

Good Day Everyone,

I'm continuing today with the second part of our first day at Lake Kawaguchiko. If you missed part 1 then you can watch/read it here. After checking into our hotel and resting my joints, we headed back out in the afternoon to visit one of Japan's most famous pagodas. 

The Chureito Pagoda with Mount Fuji in the background

We caught a local train from Kawaguchiko station to Shimoyoshida station, and from Shimoyoshida station there are signs that direct you towards the mountain where the pagoda is situated. It is just a short 10mins walk to the foot of the mountain. You can see our journey up the mountain to the famous Chureito Pagoda in the video below, as well as the rest of our day :o).

Tourist sgns leading the way to the pagoda

Whilst it was still very warm and muggy the sky had become a lot more overcast and cloudy which was a shame but at least it wasn't raining. The walk from Shimoyoshida station to the foot of the mountain was very pleasant and tranquil as it took us past traditional Japanese houses and gardens. We love the rural landscape in Japan and with the soil being so rich and fertile, it was no surprise to see so many people growing their own vegetables.  

Once we reached the foot of the mountain we were greeted by over 400 steps that we needed to climb in order to get to the pagoda. I found the first 100 or so steps challenging as they were quite high and uneven with no handrail. I've never been the most stable of individuals on my feet but since developing an arthritic knee and feet, I do have difficulties walking and climbing stairs especially if I'm tired, like I was on this particular day. However, I was determined to persevere in order to capture an image that I had in my mind that I knew would make this climb so worth it. That image is the photo that you see at the start of this blog post. Whilst I was gutted that the weather had turned hazy and there was no bright blue sky in the background, I was still over the moon to capture it.

The first set of steps leading up the mountain

Things got a bit easier after the first 100 or so steps because the steps then changed. All of a sudden there was a handrail and the steps became less uneven and not so high. We also noticed a road that seemed to be winding its way up the mountain with people walking along it. That road was definitely going to be our route back down this mountain!

Mount Fuji and Fujiyoshida city

It took us quite a while to climb the mountain as every so often we would stop and look back to admire the views of Mount Fuji and Fujiyoushida city beneath it. However, once we eventually made it to the top, it was simply amazing!

The Chureito Pagoda

The pagoda was built as a peace memorial in the 1960s and forms part of the Arakura Sengen Shrine. The Chureito Pagoda is primarily famous because of it's unique location. It truly is a photographers dream and people flock to it for that reason. The view of the vibrant red five tiered pagoda in the foreground with Mount Fuji in the background is simply stunning. There is a postcard in Japan of the pagoda in spring with beautiful pink cherry blossoms to the left, the pagoda to the right and a snow capped Mount Fuji in the distance. It is one of my most favourite postcards EVER! And the closest I could get to that image was the very first photo you see in this blog post. However, in order to get that shot we had to climb further up the mountain and stray of the path to some seriously uneven terrain with a very high drop that had no barriers... risking our necks all for that one photo ;o).

After getting the photo we started to make our way down the mountain because the mosquitoes had started to come out as the afternoon turned into evening and these pesky little things seem to love me a bit too much for my liking! Going down the mountain proved to be much easier and we came across the Arakura Sengen Shrine along the way. As is typical of the shrines and temples in Japan, there was an area for cleansing at the entrance but instead of the water flowing out of the usual bamboo pipe, this one had a rather ornate dragon from which the water flowed.

Arakura Sengen Shrine

As we made our way back to Kawaguchiko Station, hubby and I discussed our dinner options and decided to go back to Lake Kawaguchiko where we had spotted an Indian restaurant called Alladin, earlier in the day. To our amusement the restaurant was actually a halal restaurant. This was the last place we ever imagined finding halal food, but hey, I wasn't going to turn down the rare opportunity to have meat in Japan. I opted for a set menu that came with a lentil curry, rice, freshly made naan, mutton curry, salad and a yoghurt dessert whilst hubby opted for a vegetable pizza. Yes, it was an Indian restaurant that also served freshly made pizza!

The restaurant was a small place, as is often the case in Japan, and the staff spoke good English as well as Urdu/Hindi, and Japanese of course, so communication was easy for once ;o). The Indian food was hands down the best Indian food I've had in Japan. The curries were so authentic that I could easily have mistaken them as my mum's curries in a blind taste test, and the portions were deceptively large. Those little silver bowls hold a lot more than you think. Hubby's vegetable pizza was.... well... a vegetable pizza but the first pizza he's ever had with cauliflower and carrots ;o).

After dinner we walked down to the lake just to see the lights reflecting of the water before walking back to our hotel. Whilst the streets were very quiet with little traffic on the roads, we felt perfectly safe walking back in the darkness. We noticed that most coffee shops/cafes and stores close around 5-6pm and most restaurants close by 10pm so it's not really the sort of place where you're going to be having a particularly late night. We didn't mind this at all as our partying days are well and truly behind us, plus we were planning on an early start the next day.

Lake Kawaguchiko at night

I hope you enjoyed this video and blog post concluding our first day at Lake Kawaguchiko. Day two will be coming soon.

Love Sheen xxx

JVlog #15: Tokyo Dining - Gyumon (Yakiniku aka Japanese BBQ)

Good Day Everyone,

Hubby and I recently headed out for dinner in the Shibuya area of Tokyo to a yakiniku restaurant. Yakiniku literally means grilled meat in Japanese and is the term used to describe a Japanese BBQ where you grill bite sized pieces of meat at the table - a kind of do it yourself concept.

We had read really positive reviews on TripAdvisor about a restaurant called Gyumon which uses halal certified meat and given that halal meat is quite difficult to come across in Japan, we were super excited to try this place out :o).

Gyumon is a good 10mins walk from Shibuya station. To get to the restaurant you head towards the Shibuya Police Station and walk along the main road that runs parallel to the Tokyu Toyoko train line on the map. Once you pass the Police Station, after about 5mins of walking there is a 7-Eleven convenience store on the left, and just after that there is a narrow little side street, still on the left, that you turn into and Gyumon is on the right, just before a shoe store. If you walk past the 7-Eleven and come to a large cross road junction then it means you've passed the little side street that you needed to turn into. Here is a Google map link, in case you ever wish to find it.

Gyumon is a tiny little place which you can easily miss if you blink. As you can see from the photo above, it has no obvious name on the front in English, but there is a little board with newspaper/magazine cuttings and the halal sign in front of the restaurant.

 

The restaurant is spread over two floors but despite this there is limited seating. I'd recommend making a reservation if you can or getting there when it first opens, which is what we did, otherwise you will have to queue outside.

The interior of the restaurant is kind of basic and sparse with posters and drawings on the walls, but don't let that put you off because what it lacks in visual aesthetics, it more than makes up for in it's food :o).

Above each table is a long silver extraction flute and underneath that is where the BBQ grill containing the charcoal is placed.

 Like the interior, the menu itself is also pretty simple.

We opted for the set menu which comes with three different types of beef (beef shoulder, beef round meat and beef rib loin), a bowl of rice, a bowl of salad and a drink, all for ¥4,000 plus tax. We then supplemented this with a second bowl of rice as we were unsure of the portion size. We also added a portion of vegetables for the grill because my hubby isn't much of a meat eater.

The meat portions were quite generous as was the portion of rice and in hindsight we could easily have done without that second bowl of rice. The meat comes lightly seasoned and with two different types of sauces; chilli and BBQ.

Now hubby and I are no meat experts, but I can honestly tell you that this was some of the best meat we've ever tasted. It was very tender and juicy but also very flavoursome without the chilli and BBQ sauce. It was great fun cooking the meat ourselves, as and when we wanted to eat it, thus ensuring it was always nice and hot. You can see us in action in the short video below.

We thoroughly enjoyed our first experience of a yakiniku restaurant and would highly recommend Gyumon. Although the food is very simple, it is extremely tasty and satisfying with generous portion sizes. Plus the staff are really friendly too.

Have you ever tried a yakiniku restaurant? Are there any restaurants in Tokyo that you would recommend? I'd love to hear your suggestions :o).

Love Sheen xxx

JVlog #12: Ueno Park, Tokyo - Sakura/Cherry Blossom Festival

Good Day Everyone,

On the weekend, Hubby & I headed out to one of Tokyo's most famous parks, Ueno Park, to see the cherry blossom trees, known as sakura in Japanese. The sakura/cherry blossom festival marks the arrival of spring and is celebrated by having picnics in the parks/gardens with family, friends and work colleagues.

There are often traditional tea ceremonies and it is quite common to see Japanese women in traditional dress. Viewing cherry blossoms is like a national event in Japan and the more well known parks get incredibly crowded, especially on the weekends, as we found out. The queues at the barriers just to get out of Ueno station at the park exit were 30+ people deep! Whilst on the lookout for somewhere to have lunch we ended up wandering through Ameyoko, a shopping bazaar to the south of Ueno station that had stores selling anything and everything, with vendors shouting over one another, vying for people's attention. It was then that we spotted a halal Turkish kebab shop, in fact there were several in the bazaar. Seeing some empty benches we took advantage of being able to have a quick sit down. The kebab was better than I expected and not like the processed donner meat where you can't actually tell what's in it. This was more like a shawarma with chunks of real meat and a generous layer of cabbage salad stuffed into a pitta bread.

We then followed the crowds into the park, which was opened to the public in 1873 and is free to enter. Ueno Park is very popular for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) parties as it has more than 1,000 cherry trees lining its central pathway. Many people bring their own picnics but there are also numerous food stalls in specific parts of the park selling a wide variety of snacks.

As you will see in the video below, this particular part of the park was unbelievably crowded, so much so that we couldn't bring ourselves to walk the length of the central pathway. We decided to explore the periphery of the park instead.

 

We took advantage of some steps that we noticed and climbed to the top to get a better view of the cherry tree lined central pathway and the endless stream of crowds trying to make their way along it. At the bottom of the stairs is a large bibbed Jizo Bodhisattva statue. Jizo is known as the protector of children, women and travelers.

A bibbed Jizo Bodhisattava statue

At the top of this somewhat hidden hill, known as Daibutsu yama or Great Buddha Hill, is a Chedi which is a symbol of Buddhism. We saw people offering prayers at the Chedi. Next to the Chedi is The Ueno Daibutsu which was a huge seated bronze buddha statue that stood in what is now known as Ueno Park from 1623-1923. The statue was destroyed in the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. The remains of the statue were left in the park for many years before the body was melted down for metal in WWII. As you can see in the photo below, the great buddha's face is all that remains now.

The face of Ueno Daibutsu

We then headed towards the Toshogu Shrine and along the way saw what little is left of Kaneiji Temple. Kaneiji Temple once occupied all of Ueno Park. It was built to protect Edo Castle from the northeast which is considered to be an unlucky direction. The temple was huge and consisted of numerous buildings, but the whole complex was destroyed during the Battle of Ueno, which was a battle of the Boshin War in 1868-1869. What remains today is the five storey pagoda which actually sits inside Ueno Zoo, in the middle of Ueno Park.

5 storey pagoda

Toshogu Shrine is one of Tokyo's most tastefully preserved shrines having miraculously escaped the disasters of the Battle of Ueno in 1868, the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, and the wartime bombings of Tokyo in 1945. There are large copper lanterns on the grounds leading to the shrine that have been donated by various warlords. In addition to the lanterns, there are several other interesting structures along the way to the shrine.

There is a place for visitors to cleanse and purify themselves using traditional ladles and water that flows out through a bamboo pipe. There is a plaque on a wall detailing the specific steps of the cleansing ritual.

Water and ladles for cleansing and purification

Next to the cleansing site and in front of the large lanterns is a display of ema. Ema are small wooden plaques upon which visitors/worshipers write their wishes/prayers. These are then left hanging at the shrines where gods/spirits receive them. As expected, most were written in Japanese but there were some written in English, as well as several other language. It was really lovely just to take some time out and read these. I captured a few close ups in the vlog including one that really touched my heart so you can read those by watching the above video :o).

Lots of ema plaques

Ema plaques with wishes and prayers

Across from the ema display is a very poignant display of The Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The flame burns in the centre of the wing of the bird monument below as a peaceful protest against the use of nuclear weapons. We spent quite a few minutes reading the accompanying plaque and thinking about the harrowing devastation that the dropping of the world's first two atomic bombs, by US forces in August 1945, must have had... it truly is heart breaking and a moment that will stay with me forever.

The Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

We then walked further along to take a look at the Karamon, a Chinese style gate built in 1651 at the front of the Toshogu Shrine. The gate is very ornate with two dragons carved on pillars at either side of the gate. The dragons are known as Noboriryu and Kudariryu which means Ascending Dragon and Descending Dragon. In the video you can see the praying ritual made by lots of people at the gate.

Karamon - a Chinese style gate

Ueno Park is huge! As well as Ueno Zoo, there are numerous museums including Tokyo National Museum, National Science Museum, and National Museum of Western Art, to name a few. We didn't visit any of the museums as we wanted to enjoy the wonderfully warm spring weather. As well as admiring the beautiful cherry blossom trees, we also enjoyed looking at the wonderful bamboo fences and gates. I love Japanese gardens!

Bamboo fencing

After several hours of walking, we were in need of liquid refueling and so we headed out of the park back to the main road to look for somewhere to rest our sore feet and grab a drink. After a short rest we headed to the southern end of Ueno Park to the Shinobazu Pond. There were little independent stalls surrounding the pond at one end selling all sorts of bits and bobs. I think most were selling second hand/used items, but there was everything from wooden cutlery and ornaments to old camera lenses and musical instruments, as well as jewellery and clothes.

Bentendo Temple Hall in Shinobazu Pond

The pond is split into three parts and at it's centre is Bentendo, an octagonal shaped temple hall. This particular part of the pond is especially lively during cherry blossom season with numerous food stalls. At one part of the pond you can hire paddle boats but I warn you, the queues are extremely long at this time of the year.

 
As the sun began to set, the night time cherry blossom illuminations were switched on. We took one final partial (it was still ridiculously busy lol) stroll down the central pathway of Ueno Park. The lanterns looked beautiful and their projecting light made it possible to still view the cherry blossoms.

Night time illuminations

And then we headed home feeling exhausted but incredibly blessed to have been able to enjoy the sakura festival for a second time.... remember we came to Japan on holiday this time last year, before we found out that we would be moving here :o)

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and do watch the embedded YouTube video as I think that will give a better feel for this amazing time of year in Japan.

Love Sheen xxx