Tuesday 4^th April 2017

On our way out of Kyoto we stopped at the Higashi Honganji Buddhist temple. The tourist guides say that this is grand and gaudy but we didn’t think so. It was rebuilt in 1895 and there is a display of a large coil of rope (made of human hair and you got Brownie points if you contributed) used to haul the large timber beams. We sat on the tatami mats and listened to the monks chanting.

On returning to the car we found two parking attendants looking at the car with puzzled expressions. We had read the parking sign to be free parking for 60 minutes (free parking in Japan, what were we thinking!). Not so, we were supposed to have purchased a ticket (the machine blended in with the green hedge and we didn’t notice it). We were not handed a ticket so presume we were not booked but the parking officers stood behind the hedge until we departed.

On automatic machines, we’ve had problems with a couple of toll booths. The machine swallows our ticket and then doesn’t do anything. It could be that the machine tries to read our number plate and can’t. When attendants come scurrying from nowhere, their first action is to bend down to look at the front number plate. Or it could be that the Morgan is so low slung that the machine can’t tell whether it is a small or standard car (different prices for these categories). We’ll see as we progress on other toll roads.

The next stop was the To-ji temple. The five storied pagoda is the highest pagoda in Japan measuring 55 metres. Whilst the pagoda has burned down four times, usually by lightning strike, it has never been damaged by earthquake. Apparently each level moves independently of the others in a motion known as the “snake dance”.

There is a very large cherry tree in the grounds and as it is a designated historical site the earth could not be excavated to plant the tree so the tree was planted by building up a large mound of earth. It is a serene and peaceful place with ponds and beautifully kept gardens. The ponds have huge carp swimming around as well as small turtles which were sunning themselves on the rocks.

We got our parking right for this one as there was a smiling attendant who asked could he take a photograph (most people do ask- so polite).

Heading to Nara we kept to the local non-toll roads. It seemed that apart from one very small area, Nara was a continuation of Kyoto. We passed by what we thought were tea plantations. This was confirmed noticing the Uji Green Tea processing factory.

As we drove through the park heading to our ryokan there were people everywhere. Not only people but very tame deer following them looking for food.

Arriving at our ryokan we were given a demonstration on how to wear a yukata – the gown you wear around (to your onsen as well as to dinner).  The left side goes over the right side. Hope we wore it properly at the last places as to put right over left is how the dead are dressed.

This ryokan is up in a forest a little way out of town so dinner and breakfast are included. Dinner is a ten course meal over two hours. It sounds a lot but it is more like tasting plates, all beautifully presented and served. The courses are quite small but very tasty. A few of the unusual items were firefly squid, mugwort with miso, conger eel with burdock, boiled octopus head, and grilled greenling.

The news of the area is that glass shrimp have been caught for the first time this season. They are the “Jewels of Toyama Bay” due to their transparent pale pink bodies. At a few places we have been served miniscule white fish, like whitebait but much, much smaller.

Several locals have noticed that we have Yokohama tyres on the car and asked us whether we bought them in Japan. They express surprise when we tell them we bought them in Australia.

At the Toyota Museum in Nagoya there was an information board advising that Japan takes 5 million cars off the road every year. No wonder we have not seen any older cars on any of the roads.