It’s somewhere I’ve never been and was sort of on the way home so I decided to have a couple of days to explore Singapore. I’d been given tips by my neighbour Claudette who is a frequent visitor to a friend who lives there and by son and daughter-in-law who have been several times from Hong Kong.

I just missed the hotels shuttle service and was advised that there would be a 35 minute wait so I got a cab into town. As we drove along the incredibly straight coast road into the downtown area the driver had to flick his wipers a few times. ‘Is it going to rain all weekend?’ I asked, having only seen 10 minutes and a few spots in the last two weeks. ‘No rain,’ he replied ‘not the rainy season. He dropped me as requested at the Fullerton Bay Hotel which I’d reserved with Claudette’s guidance several weeks ago. A bell cap took my bags and escorted me to reception. There was a function of some kind in the main lobby with lots of elegant ladies in slinky dresses and guys looking more smart than casual. Very, no extremely, loud disco music belted forth from the other side of a temporary screen. Time to party! But not for me. I was told that I was going to the Fullerton Hotel just up the road instead but at the same rate that I’d obtained on booking,com. The bell cap whisked me back to the entrance, jumped the taxi line and thrust S$10 into the driver’s hand and said Fullerton Hotel. Which is about 200 metres away but I did have two cases and it was still raining, quite hard now.

The Fullerton is converted out of one of Singapore’s historic buildings the Post Office which also at times housed the Ministry of Finance. It’s a fabulous neo-classical structure with extensive lounges and eateries on the lobby floor. It was again stressed to me that I’d be paying the rate agreed which when I reached my room looked like a real bargain. I’ve been fortunate enough to stay in some very good hotels over the years but this room was amazing. OK the view was down into the internal courtyard not out over the Singapore River but it probably had the same floor area as my house. A bathroom with a massive bath and a separate drench shower were to my left, fitted wardrobes to the right and then in the main room a massive bed, easy seating area and a desk. The yukata I’d become accustomed to was replaced by a long towelling robe and a fully-stocked minbar and snack counter completed the picture. As it was late and wet I decided to grab food in the hotel and to make a swift move as everything closed at 10 pm. The fifth floor bar with a view stayed open longer and to look out over Marina Bay with its manic lighting displays. We’d seen the Hong Kong waterfront light show but this goes on all the time.

Next morning I headed for the Botanical Gardens after buying a two-day subway pass. Nice clear indications of line, direction and station again and I was soon having a pre-walk coffee right opposite one of the garden entrances. It’s a very pleasant garden for a stroll and plants are all labelled which is good. There was a reflexology path with assorted cobble and pebble patterns which I trod to liven up the legs for the trek ahead. There was no cherry blossom but hanami style picnics were evident all over. There was also a reminder of where our ancestor monkeys have led us.

I followed signs to the National Orchid Collection and have never seen so many outside of a greenhouse before and then probably not in this variety. Of course it is now 29 degrees so no hothouse required. They are very impressive and many of them very beautiful.

 

I wound my way back past a lawn with a concert stand and a lake spotting my first birds despite the constant squawking, chirrupping and fluting coming from the canapoy, Not some exotic sunbird but a hen foraging for her chicks for grubs in the leaves. I took the subway back a few stops to another of the recommendations Little India. The Tekka Centre has a massive food court with food of every (Indian) description on offer which are enjoyed at communal tables. I was very pleased to see that the goat meat had not walked here and was excited by the noise and savoury odours. A beer, samosas and curry puffs made for a good light lunch during which I was admonished by one diner for mixing beer with oil. It would make me burp he said as the two gas and oil don’t mix. He was not wrong.

I then went to look around the rest of the streets in the area when another Indian characteristic arrived. It may not be the rainy season but Little India was having it;s own monsoon.

I went upstairs to the sari floor dazzling in the colour arrayed in stall after stall with people ready to run you up a sari or jacket on the spot.

There was no sign of let up so I eventually made a dash for the station and went back to the hotel where my thoughtfully packed and as yet unused umbrella was waiting. I had’n’t taken it out with me on the cab driver’s advice. I took a chance on getting off at Esplanade which if the rain had stopped would give me a pleasant walk round Marina Bay. I had walked through the Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands (sic) where there’s a boating lake inside the mall in Singapore’s most distinctive hotel, For the brave there’s a roof terrace linking all three towers. It had slowed to a drizzle by now and at least it’s warm rain. I saw a building called the Red Dot Design Museum and decided it would be worth a look.

It’s full of mostly photographic panels about innovative design approaches with an emphasis on ecology and sustainability. It was interesting to note how few of the exhibits were from Europe to the US but I guess its location would lead one to expect an emphasis on work from China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan. There were wearable items that turned into tents, chairs made form recycled paper and a host of energy saving efficient devices. It also had a bar to provide respite during another downpour where I was able to pour a Foxes Rock IPA brewed in Northern Ireland – proper craft beer at last. 

It cleared up a bit in the evening and I walked down one side of the river passing the stately buildings of the Victoria Theatre, Parliament and the Old Hill Street (Yes) Police Station with its mult-coloured windows and on to Clarke Quay.

I then crossed the rainbow Bridge and back up Boat Quay which has a fine array of eateries although many were closed on Sunday. Surprise, surprise I ended up in a Japanese restaurant which fed me tempura oysters and blackened cod in soy and yuzu sauce and miso soup with clams to end a real fishy delight.

My Monday plan started in the Gardens By The Bay a must on everyone’s lists. I did take my umbrella this time and while juggling it and the camera to document the garden I discovered the the lens had completely steamed up and I had a blank white canvas in the viewfinder, I somehow managed to deploy a lens cloth and images started to appear. Much of the early part of my route was out of bounds for remodelling and I wasn’t allowed to feed or add to the livestock of the lake but I did manage to make my way to the massive artificial sky trees (high level walkway closed for maintenance), well they have to get it ready for the high season and apparently they close it if there’s a chance of a thunderstorm which we had had and more were to follow.

The big attractions you have to pay for are a Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest. The flower bit was devoted almost entirely to a display of tulips sponsored by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. There were some other nice areas: a Mediterranean Garden, South African and South American Gardens with some interesting plants but I was soon heading through the Gift Shop to the Cloud Forest. This has a stunning waterfall against a towering green cliff of plants. You then take a series of steps and elevators to get to the top and walk down a slope admiring lots of tropical plants on the way. It was fun and had good views over the bay. Oh and following Osaka’s Lego giraffe here we had Lego pitcher plants among the real ones.

Gardened out I took the subway to Dhoby Ghaut passing the fine sculpture of the Jelly Baby family to walk along the retail paradise of Orchard Road the central shopping street with umpteen malls. There’s a lovely white picket fence on the right which looks like the entrance to a park so I head towards it only to be assailed by shrill blown whistles and waving batons indicating I should go away. I persevered close enough to confirm what I was coming to realise was the Presidential Palace. No entry for me.

There were some good colonial and vernacular buildings hidden among the glass palaces of commercialism with all the usual suspect brand names abounding – I think there were three Lois Vuitton and four Chanel shops in a mile. One outlet that did take me by surprise was a Crate and Barrel an old Heal’s style favourite from Boston that I’ve not seen overseas before.

 

I popped into Takashimaya to see if the Japanese department store food hall translated to Singapore, Nothing like as impressive and with the food court an upmarket take on Little India yesterday. there had been intermittent big showers and warm drizzle for much of my walk so I dived back underground and emerged at a dry Raffles Station and went to admire the Merlion, a small replica of which you put on your bed at the Fullerton if you want to be eco-friendly and not have your sheets and towels laundered every day. Merlion Park is at the end of a strip of bars called One Fullerton which afford good views over Marina Bay and seemed very popular for late afternoon drinking. With One, the Hotel and The Bay Hotel the whole area seems owned by the Fullerton clan.

However I had work to do in sorting out packing for tomorrow’s trip home for which I need to leave the hotel a 06:30. So I pop into 7Eleven for a couple of cans to ease the sorting of clean and dirty clothes and cramming them into suitcases. Mission complete I set off for Duxton Hill an area of eateries recommended by my son. It’s pleasant area with about twenty eating options in a short space. Seduced by a real Spanish leg of bellota ham on the counter I entered a tapas bar and my first glass of wine for ages = it’s been beer and sake all the way.

As my taxi took me to Changi Airport in fifteen of the thirty minutes I’d been advised to allow, dawn broke and by the time we took off at nine fifteen the skies were clear and blue. I’ll try to lose my role as rainmaker.of Singapour.

Saturday dawned bright and warm and I set off to find a post office as I had bought some postcards to send to my grandchildren. I usually do when travelling and thought I would do so now they were back in the UK. The front desk handed me a map with three post offices circled so I chose the one nearest to the subway station I planned to use for my trip to the waterfront. Cards successfully posted, I headed for the nearby Namba Ninja shrine. We remarked before and with the family how it was always something of a surprise to find shrines down side streets in the midst of normal city life. This one was no exception and in Kyoto I’d looked out of my bedroom window onto this bijou rooftop shrine.

 

As with many, the Namba Ninja would be home to a flea market from 11 am, but I didn’t wait for that. I purified, donated and had my hon stamped and signed and then went for a coffee to start the day proper. Osaka subway is classified just like Tokyo’s with colour-coded lines and numbered stations so it was easy to get to Harborland where I wanted to see Tadao Ando’s Suntory Building. We’d admired his work on Naoshima Art Island and elsewhere on the previous trip.

 

It’s an impressive piece with great reflective curves and a calm contrast to the rest of the area which houses Osaka Aquarium and Legoland in a series of rather more garish edifices. I’m just sorry the grandchildren missed the giant Lego giraffe! The Suntory building itself has an auditorium with an IMAX cinema, a gallery and eating area and of course a museum shop. The exhibition was of the work of an artist I confess I’d never heard of but who is apparently big in publishing and film in Japan Kiyoshi Nakashima. My one-day subway pass gave me a discount so why not? The first part was filled with increasingly fey and whimsical pieces obviously drawn with great skill and speed, given the vast number of works on display. It was always windy in his pictures and thet feature bears and other cuddly toys along with slogans such as ‘Cheer Up Japan’ and other encouragements for optimism.
Then suddenly in another room were grotesque succumbs-like figures engaged in scenes of bloody torture and horror such that I even checked with an attendant that they were by the same artist.

I think even Bosch and Brueghel would have been shocked. I guess too many pretty children with their favourite toys can only go so far and your inner vision of hell needs an outlet. I can’t say I was moved to bring any prints home but I was glad I’d been. As I left a large school party was being lined up to enter the aquarium. Health and safety here has kids wearing hard hats.

Next on the culture trail was a subway ride back to  the centre and a walk through the Nakano Rose Garden beside the canal we’d visited before – again not in flowering season – to the Museum of Oriental Ceramics. Sadly this had a special exhibition of Sevres of which I’ve seen a bit and am not a huge fan. However I had to agree that the modern factory is turning out some exciting pieces. My real delight was in the elegance and subtlety of some of the earliest oriental pieces from China, Korea and Japan. Sinuous shapes and simple glazes on some of the pots did make me want to open a case and secrete the odd one in my camera bag.

Just nearby overlooking the gardens was a restaurant that looked like it had beer and food so a brief stop had me engaging in diversionary hide and seek and silly face games with a ten-month old baby at the next table where mother and her friends thanked me effusively for entertaining him so that they could catch up. I then walked along to the National Art Museum and Science Museum, the amazing structure of which we’d admired before at a time when it was closed. What I hadn’t realised is that the steel carapace is the only part of the museum at street level, the actual galleries are in three basements.

I had read of it excellent permanent collection of world and Japanese art and was eagerly looking forward to it. Damn and blast though. It’s forty years since it was established and they have a special anniversary exhibition of curators’ picks. Some were impressive, others less so. For my taste and time available there were far too many installations that involve 11 hours of video or a 90 minuets silent film that suddenly erupted into wails and screams. There were also lots of photo series many of which were well shot and framed but had whinge-inducing titles attached – too clever by three-quarters for me. However there was a nice Calder mobile and a fine Henry Moore. Am I turning patriotic?

We didn’t make Osaka Castle last time so I headed off there on the subway and was not disappointed. It had the Hokoku Jinja which provided me with my second hon stamp of the day before I walked up to the castle itself.

  

The first thing you see is a massive shopping mall in red brick in a strange warehouse building style.Sadly I was too late in the day to walk up to the top and I’m not sure the legs would have made it. There are lifts actually it seems and it’s a good museum I’m told later. This didn’t start out as a walking holiday but soon turned into one. For once I was able to leave the castle by a different route – not through the gift shop either. Instead I was able to walk down and cross the Okawa River and head for the subway at Temmabashi just as everyone was heading home from offices and shopping sprees. Complete chaos and very full trains but not quite needing pushers to get us all in. 

Back at the hotel to put my feet up and plan the journey to Osaka’s Kansai Airport tomorrow morning, I idly turned on the TV to find the Hanshin Tigers playing the Yakult Swallows in Nishonomiya only 20 minutes away. If only I’d prepared better! But then there would be the dilemma of who to support. The Tigers are from this area where Murakami grew up but the Swallows’ home is the JIngu Stadium in Tokyo where he had his lightbulb moment about becoming a writer and where Dee and I attended a very cold game. I chickened out at 2-2 at the bottom of the ninth (Swallows nicked it 2-3 in the tenth) as hunger called and there are some good restaurants in Shinsaibashi where I was staying and there was another of those long malls with lots of competing choices. Given the memory of our successful night in Asakusa, teppanyaki won out and more fine Kobe beef was enjoyed.

It transpired that the best way to Kansai International was from Namba Station a short cab ride away. I could have caught a train but opted for the Airport Coach service which resulted in a fascinating journey through Osaka’s docks and harbour area most of it on reclaimed land and the airport itself on a specially built island in the bay. The industrial landscape fascinated me with old fashioned looking factories, a highly modern cruise terminal and massive distribution warehouses among the oil refineries. Great journey concluding with a massive bridge across to airport island.

I had changed my name with JetStar for my flight to Singapore via Taipei so boarded fine and because of delays at take off with air traffic control in Taipei, had to scuttle through security to get back on the same speed-cleaned aircraft. So although I’ve technically been to Taiwan, I can’t tell you much about it except that as we came in to land there appeared to be many communist era China style buildings – maybe ideological differences don’t affect intrinsic architecture using available resources.

With apologies to Jonathan Raban, but I am also going from one side of the country to the other, just not quite as far as across the States. Check out from the New Otani in Tottori was routine and I set up satnav for the day ahead. Adachi Art Museum and Garden has been voted Japan’s No 1 garden for 15 consecutive years since 2003 so given our enjoyment of Kenrokuen and Korakuen on our last trip this seemed an essential visit. Tottori’s sprawling suburbs, strip malls and industry behind me, I was again on Route 9 which hugged the still beautiful coast.

I stopped for a coffee and croissant at a Lawson Station along the way and sat with my breakfast looking at this beach.

  

I was quite glad I hadn’t elected to stay at the Camel Hotel – wonder if they paid to rip off the cigarette logo – it might be OK in the season but it looked rather down at heel now.

 

The route soon branched off onto Route 432 to Hirose where the garden is situated. On the way we climbed again away from the coast but not for long without being up among the mountains still holding snow at their peaks despite a very dry and snow-light winter. The fact that the mountains often run right to the coast leads to some of the dramatic scenery of Japan’s coasts.

The garden was a work of art. Incredibly beautiful areas with different classical elements. The problem is you view it through glass like a work of art. I wanted to walk among the stones, feel the moss and hear the water but apart from a tiny area you are inside the museum. So I’m glad I went but it will never replace the gardens we saw last time as my favourites.

The art on display was interesting a mixture of imitation of the traditional woodblock and scroll images we know so well and rather fey children who’d be fine on Hallmark greetings cards – that’s probably me being highly unfair but it wasn’t the exciting start to the day I’d hoped for. However the drive back to Kyoto more than made up for it. Routes 432 and then 314 to Tojo are highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a mountain drive. It delivered delights like this weir with a convenient lay-by for me to jump out and photograph it.

In the valleys there were also some great patches of cherry blossom, later here because of the height above sea level – I thought we were quite high yesterday but the Makijotao Pass (?) was 727 metres up.

A little further on I saw this massive red suspension bridge and was shocked to glance at the satnav and see that we were going over it via the Mina Bridge Loop which was like going up in circles into a very lofty car park. (Sorry for pic quality – trying to drive as well).

The descent was also quite a fun drive through Okuizumo City down to Tojo at which point, given the need to return the car and get to Osaka, I took the Chugoku Expressway back to Kyoto. I was expertly guided to a petrol station so as to return the car full. I decide to walk to Kyoto Station to catch my Shinkansen to Osaka – they are so close the train hardly got up to speed. A taxi to the hotel and a local okonomiaki restaurant provided a proper Kansai version which I order entirely from an iPad and which offers regular, lots and lashings of mayo and brown sauce – well that’s my translation.

We decided to have breakfast outside the hotel and just along from it was a Denny’s a restaurant/cafe chain frequently mentioned in Murakami’s books so that was a obvious choice and offered a good mixture of Japanese and western fare. The most stunning thing was that seven-eighths of the space was smoking and we were bundled into the remaining eighth. It’s really a shock to find that in many places people are allowed to smoke freely. Offices, hotels and the trains haven’t been able to ban it completely but all have special smoking rooms where the afflicted/addicted can go.

It’s also odd to see how little obvious recycling there is. I did find this splendid facility in Ueno Park but in general trash seems to be collected unsorted, packing in plastic is extreme and there is certainly no hint of a charge for plastic bags.

After our outing to the north on Wednesday with all the peace and quiet of the countryside we spent Thursday back in the maelstrom that is the Ginza. There’s been a long-standing love of stationery in this family which has been inherited by the younger generation. So first stop was Itoya – 8 floors of amazing craft materials, pens, notebooks and other desirable items where new pens were purchased along with a number of other delightful objects. We had been joined by an old university friend of Chris’s, Will, who lives in Japan and had made the four-hour bus journey from his home to meet up. He’s a great guy and gave us some interesting insights into the life of an expat married to a Japanese wife with young children to bring up bilingually. We all met up in Itoya and then visited Mitsukoshi for an okonomiyaki lunch in the tenth floor food court. We then just had to take the children in particular to see a department store food hall. These are astonishing places with fantastic displays of delicious foods and ingredients. At one of the bakery stalls there were cronuts, that recently invented hybrid of the croissant and the doughnut, so we took some of those for later consumption. While in the centre of the city it would be wrong not to visit the Imperial Palace so we set off there and found Tokyo’s last good cherry blossom for our own hanami picnic in the grand plaza outside the palace where it transpired Chris’s friend had been married. Do they plant a special long-flowering strain especially for the emperor’s benefit?

It was a slight disappointment last time that you really can’t go into the palace grounds as the gardens are said to be spectacular. So we just have to do with pictures by the moat and the iron bridge. A mild amusement though was seeing someone of clear importance being admitted to the palace after repeated checking of permits.

Next was a visit to Hibiya Park where the young ones had fun climbing up to the Liberty Bell and exercising on monkey bars and assorted playground equipment. They so enjoyed themselves it was soon time to walk to the subway at Toranomon which I remembered as my regular starting point back in 1979 when we set off for our lectures and school visits from our base in the nearby Okura Hotel. Back in Asakusa we had a farewell drink with Will before he had to set off for Shinjuku to get his bus home. One of the difficulties we’d encountered had been finding restaurants able to accommodate all seven of us so Jo and Chris took the children for pizza – they had been very tolerant of Japanese food – and Tom, Caroline and I went to a local sashimi, sushi and tempura place that served its tempura with hot dipping sauce – a first for all of us.

We decided to stay local on Friday and visit Kappabashi Street, the one and a half kilometres of food related shops. They sell everything from industrial scale ovens and fridges to chopsticks and rice bowls. And of course the great attraction – the plastic food plates that adorn the windows of so many establishments and give you a hope of knowing what to order. Plastic food key rings, new chopsticks and a brilliant set of trainer chopsticks with rubber guides for finger position and a hinged top help young people master the art of eating with chopsticks.

The guides can be adjusted or removed as chopstick proficiency badges are gained. Tom and Caroline had spotted some dishes they wanted to take back home so they went back to buy those and check out of the hotel before returning to Hong Kong that afternoon.

The rest of us went to a drum museum which was superb. There’s a collection of representative drums from all continents and many cultures with good explanations in English. Best aspect however was that there were thirty or more drums and percussive instruments you could bash yourselves, although the signs did say ‘Please play gently’. We spent a happy hour there and then went to meet up to take our farewells from Tom and Caroline.

With our hotel overlooking the Senso-ji Shrine we couldn’t leave Tokyo without its stamp in our hons. So we went there and achieved that and a walk round the grounds before tackling Nakamichi Street the road that leads to the shrine from the Karinomon Gate and is often given the soubriquet ‘Tat Street’ but which does in fact have an amazing variety of goods on sale and we managed to find a gorgeous kimono for my granddaughter and an elegant yukata for her brother.

The tick list was gradually showing a positive reduction but the scramble crossing at Shibuya was next on the list. It still feels pretty mad at ground level but there’s no match for the aerial views on the web. We just couldn’t find a good vantage point in the air that was obvious. A little light store perusal brought a few fashion purchases and then we moved back to the subway Shinjuku bound.

Another of the must see Tokyo phenomenon is the Shinjuku neon and it didn’t disappoint. Even though Dee and I had stayed in Shinjuku five years ago, the advances in animation and displays were staggering and the extent is mind blowing. We were hungry by now and entered Bar Mouton on the fourth floor of a restaurant stack and I suppose should have deduced from its name that it featured lamb, not that common in Japan except in Hokkaido. We all had very tasty and different dishes and a first taste of craft beer from the growing Japanese scene. Looking out of the restaurant window the neon  was so bright you thought it was daylight outside. Bar Mouton featured a pianist who regaled us with all the standards that seem to be the repertoire of lounge pianists the world over. A stroll around the mad streets of Shinjuku and it was time to head on back and get packed for our next phase of the journey.

When I was first here in 1979 as part of a training delegation from the Inner London Education Authority, apart from workshops at Tokyo University, we were guests at a school in Maebashi for a day of workshops with teachers and classroom observation. Very formal and quite unlike London schools in the 70s. We stayed overnight in teachers’ ryokan style accommodation with futons on tatami floors and a six o’clock rise to salute the flag and greet the day. Mid morning our hosts decided we had earned our supper and drove us to Nikko and Lake Chuzenji. Both made a striking impression on me and I wanted to go back with Dee but time would not allow us to make that trip with everything else we wanted to do and there’s no big Murakami connection. So with the willing (I think) indulgence of all the family we set off for Nikko on Wednesday morning in a Toyota Hi-Ace 9 seater minibus. Our driver Ikeda san was waiting for us promptly at 08:30 and confessed that despite being a professional driver for 35 years he’d never actually driven this particular job before. He seemed pleasant enough, had little English but we got by just fine. The first part of the drive out of Tokyo was quicker than I expected but then was quite dull across the flat Saitama plain with suburbs and occasional rice fields, until after about an hour we started to climb and tree clad hills with good patches of cherry blossom appeared.

The main attractions of Nikko are the Shinkyo Bridge, a fine vermillion specimen at the top to the town and which is thought to be sacred as the entrance to the shrines, and the Toshogu Shrine complex which climbs through a hillside of massive cedars and has the world renowned monkey carving ‘hear no, see no, speak no evil’ and the most elaborate collection of buildings of any of Japan’s shrines.

Just outside the car park there’s a culvert in which water appears to flow uphill. It’s an optical illusions as two slightly downhill streams meet and form a whirlpool. My science fan grandson was intrigued by this and deduced a lucid explanation. We then moved on into the main shrine area where there is just so much to see and absorb that a few words from me can’t do it justice. Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu was credited with founding the first unified Japan in 1600 and his shogunate lasted until the Meiji dynasty started in 1868. So I guess it’s fair that this hillside has more elaborately decorated buildings and sacred places that any other. It’s a world heritage site of course. The atmosphere despite thousands of tourists is serene and stimulating, peaceful and provocative at the same time. Apart from noting that this is where the original wise monkeys originated and of course had to recreated by the family – monkey has been my grandson’s toy of choice since birth – and that there’s also the famous carving of a beautiful sleeping cat, I’ll report that we got two hons stamped, climbed 207 steps to the main shrine – carefully counted and checked by my granddaughter – I’ll let a few pictures convey a sense of the place. I’m so glad I went back as it is really special. We also took time to visit the museum which has lots of interesting artefacts and documents contemporary to Tokugawa’s time. The guidebook said lots of people don’t bother but it was well worth the half an hour to examine the contents portable shrines, swords, scrolls and books. By the way no photography permitted in the main shrine.

 

 

 

Tom’s brilliant IT geekery found a splendid restaurant, Hippari- Dako in Nikko Town which Ikeda San was able to put in his SatNav and get us there in no time. After a morning of walking, most of it up somehow, we needed food and drink. Then it was up to Lake Chuzenji of which I still have the sharpest memory of eating fresh trout from the lake and struggling as a chopstick novice to extract lumps of fish and leave the bones behind. It must just have been so fresh and tasty that it’s stayed with me for nearly 40 years. The lake is spectacular and 1270 metres above sea level. It was formed when Mount Nantai erupted and blocked the valley 20,000 years ago. The water today looks very black and volcanic. The area is not much more developed than when I was last here although I don’t remember swan boats.

The fun bit of the journey is the approach to Chuzenji up the one-way Iroha winding road. It has 48 hairpin bends which elicited a number of ‘Oh My Gods’ from the children as we powered our way up. We stretched our legs and had a photo call at the lake before moving on to see the Kegon Falls another of Japan’s ‘divine’ waterfalls. However, Ikeda San missed the turning and with great humility and apologies drove us back down and then up again. He did joke that we were likely to be unique in doing the Iroha road twice in one day. The falls were quite impressive but as my daughter ventured ‘It’s no Niagara’ and even Gulfoss which Dee and I visited in Iceland was more impressive in its scale. I did find the noise and apparent weight of water falling pretty impressive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We all had ice creams and then settled into the minibus for the trip back to Tokyo. There was some dozing off in the back, unsurprising after our day’s efforts and we hit bad traffic at the approaches to Tokyo so were an hour later than planned getting back to the hotel – only part of that due to Ikeda san’s mistake.

A tiring day, but one which everyone enjoyed and I was very pleased that my wonderful family indulged an old bloke’s desire to take another look at a place remembered more for it sense than it’s actuality during a business trip 40 years ago.