sunnuntai 23. elokuuta 2015

Exploring Fukushima prefecture

After night of fun talking with friends we slept as we would have very early start around 5am. Long car drive toward north of Japan beckoned! 

 Day started up as gloomy and cloudy. Not optimal weather but at least it wasn't raining.
 But as we drove north it cleared up. Nice!
 We even stopped on route to scretch legs and look at rice crops close up. I have seen them in planting stage but not like this near done.

 First order of business was this old fashioned village being preserved. Reminded me a bit of Shiragago that I visited on my first trip to Japan.

 It was hot hot day. Japan summer is indeed quite hot. Though really it's the humidity that's the killer most of the time. Sometimes feel like I'm breathing water!
 The roofs aren't QUITE as steep as the Shiragawago.

 I was crazy enough to climb these stairs on my own. Friends had more sense in this heath and stayed down :D
 But at least got good view. Though this was also dangerous. I was about to head down when this man there called out to me asking from which country I was from. Hearing Finland he then started discussion about relative taxes of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Japan. (interesting subject) along with some other things. Since that's not subject I'm that familiar or interested in chatting that deeply I asked in return what was he doing. Turns out he was painting picture of this village(pretty) and had copies of his previous works. He had one of Tsuruga castle which happens to be where we would be going and which was pretty sweet so I ended up buying that too. Dammit. Didn't look like place where I might end up buying something!

We stopped for lunch. Some tempura we shared.
And this was my cold soba. With onion. And you eat the soba WITH onion. Yet another way to eat in Japan. Usually you use the chopsticks to eat soba but not this time. You use the onion. Chopsticks tricky but onion is even harder to eat with!

 Pretty sky, old buildings and mountains in back. Combines my favourite things in Japanese land scapes(that tower on right should be out though...)

Wonder what kind of fruit this was?
 Stunning lake on the way to the next target.
 Tsuruga castle's moat was all greenery. This is actually fairly common in Japan. Last time I went to Ueno I was wondering where did lake go? Turns out it had plants all over it thick enough to hide all the water...Pity.
 Tsuruga castle is nice looking though reconstruction. Former one got ravaged by last civil war here in the 1800-century when some Samurai's rebelled against the new government(this is where Last Samurai movie is VERY loosely based on. Incidentally it was the mountain scenes of that film that first attracted me to Japan)





These stairs were used by soldiers defending castle to run quickly to the walls. Must have been tough to run those fast in all the armour. Not exactly smooth, even flat steps...
 Most of the inside of castle(which was basically museum describing this castle's history and especially the civil war) was no-photograph zone but at least from up you had splendid view(and the history of that civil war was interesting. Need to read more of that later).


 On the way down there was area where you could pose with old gun and sword. Gun was the more interesting though this should have been next to shooting hole(string kept from moving it far). One is like few meter away so why not have it there! Would be more authentic to aim from that rather than at the floor!
 Less interesting picture since you can't pull sword out and string reduces poses quite a bit.

 There was also smallish garden where you could eat rice cake and drink matcha(the tea served in tea ceremonies).
 Second time drinking matcha. Quite good. More "solid" than regular tea.

Nearby was Sake(Japanese rice wine) brewing. This area is known for good water resulting in good rice and with that also good sake.

Funny thing. I hadn't been mentioned of THIS trip so I was thinking we were heading car but didn't recognize path. I was thinking "gee. My friend's pretty good navigator finding short cuts like it's nothing". Well seems we weren't taking short cut to car after all :D

He did navigate well though.
 
 On first time in Japan I wasn't quite sure what those kind of clothing at the front of door meant. So I skipped quite a few restaurants probably either not recognizing it as restaurant or thinking it's closed.

We got thorough explanation of sake brewing process. I had some trouble keeping up due to more specializes vocabularity, 100% authentic speed and there was so much explanation I had trouble remembering what had been said few minutes ago!

Then we went to museum related to sake brewing.
 Old tubes where to brew sake.


Overall it had been fun day but eventually we had to head back to their home. Would still be quite a long drive back.
On the route this nice scene came up though camera doesn't make full justice. Sky had been leaden coloured and quite dull. Suddenly huge beam of light seemed to come from hole in the clouds turning everything quite pretty.

Was over pretty quickly though but for a moment sky was very pretty.

 For dinner we dropped by restaurant that seems to be serving quite large rice partions. What I had(normal) seems to be more like large partion in other restaurant. For main dish chicken meat. Salad was particularly tasty here.


Some nightviews from friends apartments top floor. Pretty!

Had been fun 16 hours together but eventually I had to head back to hotel. Only one more day was left. I had another meeting arranged and had plans to visit Yoyogi park again(and more than in the first day) and then on Roppongi there would be Bon dances. And then final packing. Holiday was fast gearing toward the end.

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