I am an owner within the Wyndham Resorts empire & to use some of my pending overdue holiday credits I became very lucky to engage a 2-bed apartment at the Wyndham Port Douglas Resort 1hour drive north of the North Queensland town of Cairns around my birthday timing. To gain such bookings in Australia since COVID is like winning a lottery, so one must take these opportunities when they show as some bookings become available 13months in advance or when a rare cancellation appears. The 2-bed apartment was also in the hope I could share it with someone or my family but as you will read on, sadly this wasn’t to be.
I spent the early time after my booking confirmation for the best available flights, hiring a car which was a nightmare, costly & full of ‘traps’ from supplier contracts & some adventure tours, etc.
I left my hometown, Yamba, NSW at 4.15am to leave my car at my son’s place at Banora Point (2hrs away) for him to wake early & drive me to Varsity Lakes Train Station (Gold Coast) to board the Airport train at 6.40am (train goes directly to the Brisbane Airport Terminals) @ $23 one way. After 90mins I arrived with plenty of time to handle the terminal construction redevelopment changes now in play. No problem through security & found my favourite eatery from last time .. The Aviary. It is so much nicer than the communal fast food outlet area. Table service too, great food & coffee.
2hr 10mins flight time to Cairns Airport via Boeing 737-800. Flew over the coastline going North & seeing a volume of popcorn looking clouds which I’ve never seen before. Saw the magic sea colours of The Whitsundays (mineral sands floating through the sea water gives out the glowing colours). Unfortunately, the photos are not doing it justice through the airplane’s porthole windows & at 36,000ft. I did the Airlie Beach/ Whitsunday stay in 2023 & the sands & water were beyond amazing. Reaching Mackay I counted 26 container & bulk ships anchored off the coast & there must be more, as the coastline was now on my western side. Must be a massive wait time to get into the port.
Brisbane Airport
Whitsundays
Whitsundays
Whitsundays
Whitsundays
Not long after this I arrived at Cairns & was picked up by East Coast Car Hire shuttle bus for my MG car hire for 6days. They had the best deal & a breeze of a contract. From there I did the grocery shopping at Cairns Central (main shopping centre) but bought my fruit & vegies at nearby Ridleys (so cheap & fresh) & travelled further north (55mins) to my Ramada Wyndham Resort at Port Douglas where I settled into my apartment with great ease & had a well-earned sleep that night in of my upgraded apartment (2 Bed) of the Ramada Resort nestled in a melaleuca rainforest. Such a shame I couldn’t get anyone to come with me, so the 2nd bedroom & bathroom wasted, I guess.
The resort has a great nature looking Central Pool off the large timber boardwalks & the restaurant/ bar is adjacent to the unique ‘nature’ pool & within the structure they have kept the natural strangling figs taking over the host trees & these puncture through the dining roof. Quite huge specimens & creates a great atmosphere. The pool area is perfect for families. From the pool there are separate lounge areas, perfect for chatting, reading or card games, etc.
By mid-morning I had a Wyndham ownership update meeting, then headed 2klms down the road to the Port Douglas CBD (Macrosson St is the main street full of all types of pubs, eateries & boutique shops). Being Sunday, the huge markets are on in the park at the end of Macrosson St, along Wharf St.
From the markets I walked through the large park sighting the ANZAC Memorial full of wreaths from our annual commemoration of the landing of our ANZACs on 25th April 1915 which is heavily placed in our history where our veterans went fay & beyond and gave us our lives we enjoy now. Next to the memorial is the restored Court House of yesteryear & now a museum, such a presentation of old building construction & techniques. On the southern side of the park, I came along a restored and relocated St Mary’s By the Sea Church. Again, beautifully restored but it wasn’t open this day. A cousin of mine lived her for some 30+ years & was heavily involved in raising funds to restore & relocate this wonderful community building. Next door to this church is the famous Tin Shed … a seaside tavern of sorts linked to the fishing community. They have a large deck overlooking the bay.
Leaving the Tin Shed I walked back up Wharf St to spend a bit of time at The Central Hotel for a beer or two & listening to a great guitar/ singer performer & as Aussie as they come. Great music!! After the pub I walked right along the nature thick shoreline on a nature path at the northern end of Wharf St until I took a shortcut to get me back onto the sealed road of Island Point Rd which eventually leads you to the end for the Trinity Bay Lookout. This is the highest point of Port Douglas so there is the restored signal mast for old shipping lines & the radio/ telecommunications tower.
I met a large travelling family from India looking out over the bay & then trying to get a family photo, so I jumped in to take the photo for them & not missing any family members. They were so surprised an old Aussie guy would do that for them. Surely, I can’t be the only one to do these simple but very important gestures? When I started to look out over the bay, I could see the ‘surf club’ far below with their structured swim pool area boarded off to the remaining sea & quickly spotted a large saltwater crocodile (4m, my guess) lying still just outside the border. The Indians were amazed they had not seen it & were thrilled to be shown how these crocodiles are so free & brazen. With a cheery good-bye I walked slowly back to my hire car & then headed back to my resort, now it’s quite late & time for a beer next to the pool.
Port Douglas was established in 1877 when gold was discovered & then forest logging took place. Back then, the population was around 27,000 & with 27 hotels. The population is now around 3,700 & expands to almost triple in the peak tourist season (Winter migration from southerners). This region cops the cyclones & a couple of nasty ones have devastated the region & some of the buildings in my photos took major restoration & relocating.
Pt Douglas is 1hr drive from Cairns & both these locations are the stepping areas for The Great Barrier Reef (largest coral reef in the world) & The Daintree Rainforest (oldest rainforest in the world). Tomorrow is my birthday & I have to get up at 5.15am to meet my pre-booked Waterfall Tour in Cairns towards Karanda & South, expecting it to be an extra special day so I’ll end my 1st blog here & many thanks for reading them. Pls stay happy, healthy & safe.
Woke up around 7.30am a little bit dusty & a very croaky voice from last night’s mini-binge outing but knowing I would be a lot better than some of my fellow drinkers (32 beers in total for us all). Sorted out my backpack & after a wake-up shower in the hope of repacking at the airport for when we leave at 6°C Max Seoul to 29°C for Sydney & Brisbane.
I sat with my favourite travellers, Maria & Ted (78 & 80) for brekky & I will truly miss them. They live in Sydney, Manly. Our check out was set for 10am so we had to log our suitcases into Reception until our bus arrives for the 5pm departure. I somehow missed the bus group after reception, so I didn’t know if anyone had something planned for their day.
Really, today is another wasted day with nothing to shop for or to really see without too much complication & walking so another wandering around to find a great cafe where I can add to my travel blog & watch the rain for 5mins. This is the only rain (drizzle) we have seen on our entire 16day trip to Japan & Korea, so we were truly blessed. Yay!!! However, Korea has been mostly freezing for me.
I walked down a few different streets but nothing to take a photo of and eventually found my way back to my normal main street & the Cheonggyecheon Stream Bridge where again, I found this area rather surprising & unique. This good stream of water ran through the city & for some reason in the 1950s, the city covered it over & built a major elevated highway over it.
Over time, the stream became a cesspit & an unsafe area, then a decision was made some decades later to demolish this highway & return the stream to some beauty for the city in a hard landscaping, construction theme (not natural edges of flora but stones, pavers, etc) & now it provides a great attraction for passive walking, city lunch gatherings & festive celebrations. At its western end is a constructed weir & waterfall that provides a good constant flow. Such imagination and ingenuity for this landmark.
Top End of Cheonggyecheon Stream
With more meandering undertaken I eventually returned to the reception of AMID Hotel where everyone was securing their luggage & in doing so, no-one had any good stories to tell of their day. Mostly just window shopping & a couple of markets. Come 5pm we are all loaded on the bus & finally EVERYONE is on board on time & not lost. First time EVER!!! Looking at my phone I had undertaken 7.61klms of walking.
The traffic to Incheon Airport (2nd largest port & 3rd largest city) which services Seoul was insane directly from leaving the hotel being end of work time & with 4hwy lanes each way mostly choked will be a very slow 90klm trip & it was. The airport is massive & amazing & basically taking up the whole island off the coast of Incheon city & even with us reaching the airport at dark, it certainly became obvious when the skyline opened like the full sun just appeared with the airport’s lighting. What a light show!!!
Getting off the bus & saying goodbye to our driver, the airport is so large we had trouble finding the Qantas check-in counter. We eventually found it on Aisle H .. & trust me, there were a lot more letters following beyond your line of sight with such a large airport. With the check-in counter closed for another hour, it gave me time to exchange currency & sort out my duty-free Scotch shopping. I allowed myself to get 2 bottles of my fav scotches (Aberlour & Balvenie). Yummo & Cheers!!! Going through the security was OK however, one of our couples found quite a security emergency where the wife wore new sneakers she bought yesterday & the shoes tested positive for drugs & eventually was cleared with the new shoes intact. Her husband bought his new shoes at another store & those were OK after showing both purchase receipts. Whew!!
There is still enough time to review a good coffee outlet & notice a popular one down further with people lining up, but as it turned out, only 1 employee is taking the order & making the product. You’re kidding!!! Back to the start of my search & took the chance of the first option & was pleasantly surprised. A good coffee before I start the boarding circus.
Sitting at Gate 9, I was thankful for my bus friend, Ed (same age as my daughter), found me & we had our last catchup before he went to his gate to Melbourne. I’ll miss him & his humour, but he promised to call into my new hometown of Yamba when he comes up north next year. Looking at the boarding lines of both gates there were several people I will truly miss & a couple I certainly will NOT!!! Not group friendly or considerate the entire trip.
My QF88 flight is boarding 10pm, the same time as Ed’s & with a quick wave to him from a far I start to think being in a single seat, dreading sitting next to the bus horror passenger, DS from the G/Coast where I am also heading to .. I can’t print what this man did on the trip. Such disgusting, self-serving behaviour & I called him out on it the other day. He was horrid. With such relief, I had two spare seats between my other young Korean lady passenger (centre aisle of 4 seats). She was happy to take up these 3 seats & had a sleep for 95% of the 10hr flight. The flight gave us our dinner meal at 10.45pm & then lights out of course. The Korean lady had no dinner, nor breakfast & arose of course quite refreshed upon landing, but with bed hair extreme to which she was quickly rectifying.
22/11/24
No sleep, basically for me on the plane (10hrs is a long time) & was awake when the brekky trolley was pushed out around 6am. This was the time I could get to my backpack above to retrieve my pen to fill in the Australian Immigration & Customs Card provided to me when boarding.
Yikes!!!!! While sitting down to start writing, my pen leaked a ‘ton’ of blue ink out everywhere, narrowly missing my open passport, clothes & seats. Blue ink all over my hands. My opposite aisle passenger saw this & gave me a couple of fresh wipes & they were definitely blue when I finished but couldn’t get all the ink removed. That’s going to look suspect to Customs, I’m sure. Lol! I was so thankful for the young couple but now I have no pen.
Alighting from the plane & heading towards Customs/ Immigration, my favourite traveller, Maria was already waiting in line & I explained the pen ink situation & she instantly gave me her pen. Here I am trying to write, move my bag in the cattle grid line & keeping composed. Lol!! Suddenly, a line opens up & Maria & Ted were off like a shot!! I now have inherited her pen. Getting through Sydney Customs was a breeze, despite my fluoro blue hands & straight onto Gate 15, after another security check onto the Qantas inter-airport bus to the domestic terminal for Brisbane. Again, I’m dreading the thought of sitting next to DS & again the universe looked after me. Whew!!!
I again enjoyed the inter-bus trip across the airport adjacent to a taxiway I was heavily involved with in construction back in 1986 & to provide the beauty of Sydney I have uploaded some of my flight photos over the Sydney Domestic Airport, CBD & Harbour Bridge areas. The taxiway I spoke of is basically the centre of the below left photo.
Before long I was landing in Brisbane & was very thankful for my son in law, Jason to pick me up at Brisbane Domestic after his 14hr night work shift & drove me to their home in Canungra for a 2-night stay. The weather & traffic was so bad it took us 2hrs to do the drive. Jason was totally stuffed & went straight to bed after his shower & didn’t see him till later the next morning.
Such a relief to see my family & to chat about the trip & to chill out before heading home although I will spend one night with son, Matthew & his wife Ashlee at Banora Point before heading on a 2hr drive South to Yamba to review their large landscaping project they want me to undertake very soon. Reality starting to hit already.
Cheers to a great trip .. & my next one is Cairns/ Port Douglas (Nthrn Queensland, Australia) in late April. My next big trip will be Europe to catch up with some great friends in October 2025 for about 43days. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. By scrolling down to other posts you can review my entire Japan & Sth Korea trip plus keep scrolling to see my numerous other travel blogs. Happy reading … or sleeping? LOL!!!
Brekky early & time to chill before the 9.30 bus start for the pre-paid $150AUD Seoul City Sightseeing Tour that was rescheduled due to the Gyeongbokgung Palace opening times, changed earlier in the week.
From my previous planned daily walks alone to the South, we head off from our AMID Hotel in the opposite direction (North) by bus, for our first stop just 10mins away where we view the Heungnyemun Gate (centre) from the side entry to the Gyeongbokgung Palace & the 15min rendition to the changing of the Royal Guards Ceremony. There is no royal family existing here in Sth Korea now so with tradition dating back through the last 500years the guard ceremony has been resurrected to keep their culture & history relevant. As per common practice, the young locals all get dressed in traditional costumes for free entry plus it really makes everything wonderful to enjoy. To hear the big drum over the other drums was amazing & strong & be good in a rock band. Lol. I had great difficulty in getting a good photo, such was the volume of onlookers. It was difficult to understand the ceremony of the procedure however, it was done in such precision you could only admire the exhibition & the participant’s dedication.
Photos of the middle right & lower right is the Heungnyemun Gate (Central to the palace grounds) & the lower left & middle bottom is the Gwanghwamun Gate (front street entrance).
The construction of the Royal Palace was completed in 1395 however all buildings in this estate were completely destroyed by fire from the invading Japanese in 1592-98. A secondary, or say a temporary palace was built after the invasion in 1610 not far away from these grounds but these palace grounds were left derelict for some 270yrs. Finally, restoration took place in 1867 to resurrect this amazing monument to past Korean Governance & this continued to again in 1990. This vast walled ‘fortress’ of some 692,000m2 also housed about 500 tiny homes of essential governing people but these were never restored.
Where the guard ceremony (parade) was carried out was the foundation for the Japanese to erect their own government headquarters during their invasion of governance & the Gwanghwamun Gate (rear of the photos) was removed. A concerted effort to restore the main factor buildings have been ongoing since 1990. The Japanese Govt building was removed in 1997 & the Heungnyemun Gate (middle gate of palace grounds) was restored to its original state too. You will note in some of the photos, the buildings & shrines are also protected by a group of baboon looking monkeys on each roof hip line.
The Gwanghwamun Gate (main front gate) was restored in 2010 along with the King’s & Queen’s separate living quarters. You can see in one of the photos, the King’s sleeping quarters has numerous hanging panels from the ceiling that can be drawn down to segment of different room designs and to provide further privacy, as the King had many maidens as well. The Shrine in the King’s Palace area is an amazing work of features, etc all under the 25m ceiling. The bottom right photo shows our travelling group with our guide, Jade in her full voice of commentary & some of the group showing readiness for more viewing.
The actual King’s Palace restoration even retained the original large mote which looks fantastic in the photo and unfortunately is not open to the public. Surely, it would be as magnificent as its outside aesthetics.
King’s Palace with Mote
A short walk away was the National Folk Museum of Korea to learn more history & culture by being directed into the Permanent Exhibition #3 (Korean Life Passages) however upon entering, Jade, our guide, was in fine voice with no evidence of stopping & one could envisage this might take hours to get through this one floor of the museum so I headed off alone with the plan to meet up with the rest of the group who wanted respite & coffee in the foyer Cafe. Some of our travellers were limited in their walk lengths & stamina, so each to their own management. Exhibition #3 presents everyday items and culture from past to present and the growing education from child to adult & was quite detailed & well presented.
There were plenty of displays showing the various historical way of Korean life and how things progressively changed, and I was comfortable in studying these without the volume of speech from Jade. She was truly full on!! The last sight that really took my eye was the extremely colourful bier (Korean Hearse) which is carried by 12-24 pallbearers. This large bier is called a Daeyeo & a smaller one, Soyeo. This Daeyeo is in original condition & built for the funeral of Choi Pilju (1796-1856) making this bier constructed in 1856 & was a great donation to the museum from the family. One traveller who caught up with me said it was like a Noah’s Ark due to the shape & the 4 levels of animals on it with sculptures of human beasts, 12 zodiac animals on each level signifying the deceased to the afterlife.
The next & last exhibit was an interaction of photos projected onto a very large wall. One was a saying I aspire my later life to from my attendance in Landmark Forum, 2017 & a few books I read from Ekhart Tolle (The Power of Now & A New Earth). The saying here was “When I was young there were many tomorrows, but as I get older there are many yesterdays. As tomorrows must all become yesterdays, today is only a moment” by Han Jang-sok 1832-94. Landmark Forum is where I saw over 150 people change their outlook on life after the 3day forum & the outcome was “Stay in The Present” so you can understand “today is only a moment”. Turning left in the semi-darkness hallway was the Café where onlookers were smiling at me thinking the group was finally coming out. Sorry people, for it took another 30mins+ before Jade & the group resurfaced.
Next, we were to stop for a 10min quick photo of the ‘Blue House’, I believe is the President’s House which left me at the back of the bus out of the view from the side window. The bus only stopped for a mere 2 seconds then takes off leaving me with a partial blurred photo. Arghh!!! I was able to take a rapid shot of a similarly constructed neighbouring residence, obviously a Government Building also.
From there, we venture to the other side of the city (South) to view the Bukchon Hanok Village, a traditional housing estate dating back 600 or so years & still a private residential community. Today, there is only boundary access due to arriving here at the closing 5pm timeframe, so that’s disappointing. 15mins was our viewing time of basically nothingness, apart from some of the external building styles and some young Koreans in traditional costumes who have come to visit also.
We depart past the neo-fururism architecture styled monolith Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) designed by Zaha Hadid & Sameo & completed in 2011. Haha passed away during COVID. This building won the SEGD Merit Award in 2015 @ a construction cost of $451Million AUD. It resembles a large stainless-steel submarine at first glance & apologies in trying to get a good photo which really is a miracle to do so. The was no information to confirm what this building housed or was used for. Look hard into the RH photo below.
Bukchon Hanok Village
Dongdaemun Design Plaza
We were later granted 90mins of free time shopping at the large outlet store opposite but after scouring 6 levels of a Myer type store with same Australian prices I was back on the bus with no purchases worth getting. What a waste of time & others thought so too. One lady traveller bought a very expensive coat & that was all the bus purchases that happened.
Back at the hotel a few of us ‘lively’ ones decided on a group Korean bbq dinner for our last night out. Sally had found the other day an out of the way Korean bbq restaurant, but upon first glance, it was not inspiring. I was glad it was nearby to our AMID Hotel & surprisingly sat all 11 of us at the one table with 3 bbq plates (gas fired) along its centre. The staff were excited & very keen to see us, although taken aback first at us ‘barging in’ being an out of the busy shopping zone. They quickly arranged the pork, beef, brisket & vegetables & we started ordering the extra-large stubbie Cass beers prior to starting our own cooking.
We all did a bit of our own cooking (once I saw how it was meant to be done) & by the time the eating was done we had clocked up 23bottles & a $550 bill & that was well priced & worth it. Some of our ‘lively’ group went back to the hotel however, some of us (4) weren’t yet done so we went off searching for a bar or similar. We looked up at a 2nd floor neon sign that indicated was a ‘party-type’ bar & ventured in. It was almost deserted, but we did a group order & found to have been ripped off at $70AUD for 4 beers!!! Marching out in disgust we found another place for 4 beers at $28, which by then left a couple walking back to the hotel a bit strange & wobbly however I managed to do the Qantas online checkin, pre-packing, Polarsteps journal, etc before falling into bed. Young people are so soft now!!!
Beers All Round
Tomorrow is basically another free day (without Jade) & to finish brekky by 10am & checkout at 12noon. The bus picks us up at 5pm for Incheon Airport back to Sydney for the 10pm flight of 10hrs.
My day has ended with a walking trek of just 8.51klms which is a lot less than expected & yesterday’s walk. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos.
Being in Jeonju with a brisk (near freezing) 0°C to 3°C for our first stop at Gyeonggijeon Shrine, Jeonji some 10mins from our hotel where we reluctantly exited the bus & for a very long time stood in the shade (sun was very weak with the cloud cover, but it was something) & felt the brisk 10klm/hr breeze cutting through us. Most of us were shivering even though we had layers of clothing. Today had a feeling it was going to be slower than normal where Jade (our guide) kept stopping at weird areas & talking for ridiculous amount of time of some details of history that no-one could even get their head around. When a few of us walked away we gained more information that gave our location more relevance & at the same time Jade got the message we wanted more movement plus the other Trip A Deal bus group was now ahead of us which then complicates things more.
Our group hoping to get warm
These ancient village areas were always set up as forts to keep out the undesirables & enemies. This village dates back to 1410 where it was posthumously dedicated to King Taejo, where he reigned 1392 – 1398 & being the founder of the Josean Dynasty, 1392 – 1910.
The entire complex was totally destroyed, except the Main Hall during the Japanese invasion, 1597-98. The shrine was rebuilt in 1614. All other ancillary buildings & archives were rebuilt 1991 & 2004.
Jade then hurried us through this open area & then took the exit gate & walked around the boundary wall to the attached Hanok Village, a historical village with some very tiny houses originally set at 900 of them, but with renovations, etc, the quantity has been significantly reduced.
Entering from the other side of the village we enter a house & small garden dedicated to the making of the historical Korean Paper which is the traditional Mulberry mulch paper by Hanji Industry Centre. It is Korea’s first centre specialising in paper & an extensive collection of artifacts & database of the very long history. Korean paper is superior & stronger. The mulberry mixture is much like a fluid milky porridge and is easy to use the sifting process.
When the workers had everything set up they showed how each of us have a turn of using the timber tray sifting pan through the mulberry liquid in a sideways & back & forth motion for about 15seconds like a gentle sieving action. Then the lady & man take out the wet white sheet & place it on the table where we each decorate our own paper with fine leaves, & miniature cut out art pieces as we see fit. The man then uses a paint roller to remove (force) the excess liquid out. Another man picks up the smooth page sheet & puts it through a slot fan dryer for 2 seconds & then places it on a long, heated steel tabletop for final drying. It was special seeing how everyone had different ideas of decorating their paper.
Later, we were all given our respective art sheets to take home but it will take a slight miracle to get it home undamaged or crimped in our luggage for there were no protective tubes for each of them (later, I spent hours in Seoul looking for such tubes with no luck). Each of us were very impressed with our free gift & was well worth the time & to get out of the chilled weather!! Just when we were almost all receiving our paper the other Trip A Deal bus travellers turned up & the melee started trying to exit peacefully & with decorum. Lol!!!
Walking back to our starting point and given a further 15mins of free time which was a waste for most of us but understood Jade was setting up a Korean lunch for the group. It was too cold to sit around really, but I found the steel park bench seats in the open spaces delightfully heated.
At our starting point adjacent to the Shrine, Jade has organised a group meal of a traditional Korean buffet. There were so many varieties & typical me, could not figure out what was what but there was so much food & it kept coming!!! I did wonders using stainless chop sticks for a change.
Back on the bus with everyone full we took to Hwy 25 again @ 100klms/hr for another 15mins till Jade announced we should be ready for another pit stop. At this transit stop I encountered my first squat toilet. Yikes!!! Not impressed!! Luckily, I had Googled in how best to use them. Not my favourite toilet .. LOL!!!
Hwy25 evolves into Hwy1 at some point & this takes us all the way into Insadong (centre Seoul CBD) for our 3night stay at the Amid Hotel. Location was excellent.
Seoul has 31 bridge crossings of its rivers & has 10Million people living directly in Seoul with another 3million in the outer fringes. When you include the outer Seoul region the population increases to 25Million, just short of the entire Australian population of 27Million. Korea has 25million cars too & it seems buses have the highest priority on the road network going by the access provided by other motorists.
Settling into our Amid Hotel, the room isn’t as good as the last lot of rooms we have had & that’s disappointing due to staying 3 nights but certainly comfortable & a decent standard.
Tomorrow, I have a Seoul Free Day as most of the bus are going to do the optional DMZ Day tour (1hr drive away) & I have seen enough of DMZs in these recent years. Also, I get an overdue sleep in and an easy, lazy breakfast too before I seek out the immediate city area around my hotel. My walk muscles will enjoy the added peace too seeing I walked 5.33klms today.
Day 13 19/10/24
Yay!! No alarm!!! Finally got a decent sleep-in but I’m talking in total hrs, bed @ 10.15pm & awake @ 7am. Sorted out my stuff as hotel staff come in while you’re at brekky & do up your room whether you like it or not or have the Do Not Disturb sign up. Most hotels do it, so be aware this does happen.
Was able to catchup with my favourite couple Maria & Ted & eventually Ed turns up too, so it was great to see them off to the DMZ tour leaving me & a few others do some city roaming. With none of the stayers coming up with a group plan I made sure I went to the areas we won’t see tomorrow on the city tour & obviously, found myself alone to explore. Our guide, Jade said the hotel rooms will be without power from 10am – 4pm for a scheduled electrical check so that reconfirms my full adventure day out.
Walking the city streets, I wanted to find a small cylinder storage tube, as discussed, the day before so I don’t damage the Korean paper design I did yesterday in my backpack. I was going to get more for the group, too, but wasted so many hours with no luck. For something so normal is weird that I had no result.
Leaving my AMID Hotel I wandered along Ujeongguk-ro (street) to the Lotte Hotel where at street level & below is the very upmarket Lotte Department Store which is like no other I have seen. Another 100 or so metres further there is another Lotte shop dedicated to young children, if kids aren’t expensive enough. LOL!!! With constant, yet free flowing traffic I had to work out the underground street crossings on my way up to the area of the Hoelyeon Underground Markets (little subway-type mini shops under the main roadway), Namdeamun 24hr Market, The Sungnyemun Gate which is Korea’s first national treasure & is one of eight boundary gates to the original city size of Seoul & is the largest gate, The Korean Post Office (who even they could not help me with small tubes for my Korean paper & Level 5 of The National Museum of Korean History.
Lotte Dept Store
Sungnyemun Gate
Just outside the museum there was a full block along the extra wide footpath of war photos displayed on about 50 easels for public viewing on this wide Sejong Daero street with about 30 country allied flags behind them. It was a great presentation and obviously well respected by everyone. These photos gave you a clear insight of accurate portrayals of the war & well worth taking your time to peruse. One surprising aspect was that Seoul is only 45mins drive from the North Korea border, so that explains how quickly Seoul collapsed when the war started. A very quick invasion.
This Sejong-daero street had many important buildings, such as the Seoul City Council & City Hall, US Embassy, banks, museums, etc & obviously a very political area where across the street was a loudspeaker of an obvious protest but unclear to what purpose, however the police were around in very large numbers attending through volumes of police buses parked in special locations.
A number of streets had rows of concertina barriers locked into permanent storage positions that could be expanded in seconds. Police are very well prepared. The location of this protest was at the Gwanghwamun Square with the statue of King Sejong, The Great. Certainly, it is an important place in the city. By 2pm I had chalked up 12.27klms & was in need of body fuel.
From those easel photo displays there were a group of Korean men standing under a banner they erected. The banner had “Evil HAMAS release hostages now’. Such a great thing to see for the humanely release of the Israeli hostages from the vile attack on Oct 7th, 2023, unlike we see in our Socialist Australia under our worst ever Labor Government where antisemitism is escalating in trying to appease local Muslim votes.
Getting famished, I found a great Cafe to catchup on my notes, have coffee & a roll with sweet pastries after. The Cafe was Queens Bakery & after I sat down the whole bakery had about 60 tables occupied by about 98% women to men. Go figure!!! I had to check to see if it was a women’s only café. LOL! On the way out, I bought Maria (a fav older couple on tour) her fav custard tart for when she gets back from the DMZ tour.
With an extra long walk back to the AMID Hotel, my left calf muscle was tightening up & feeling a limp coming on which I can’t remember ever experiencing that before. Must be getting low on my Magnesium levels. Tomorrow is also a big walk day, so that’s not going to be fun. I walked across the Cheonggyecheon Stream Bridge & found this area rather surprising & unique. This stream of water ran through the city & for some reason in the 1950s, the city covered it over & built an elevated major highway over it.
Cheonggyecheon Stream
Over time, the stream became a cesspit & an unsafe area, then a decision was made some decades later to demolish this highway & return the stream to some beauty for the city in a hard landscaping, construction theme (not natural edges of flora but stones, pavers, etc) & now it provides a great attraction for passive walking, city lunch gatherings & festive celebrations. At its western end is a constructed weir & waterfall that provides a good constant flow. Such imagination and ingenuity for this landmark.
Upon returning to my hotel there was still no power to my room so I sat at the Level 1 (Ground floor in Japan & Korea) Cafe for a Hazelnut Latte (most cafe’s call that normal coffee) & watched my tired bus troops saunter in looking for a most needed respite.
Not a chance I’m going out tonight. The weather has been cloudy all day with temps 0°C to 6°C & with me wearing 4layers above waist & my jeans, cold & damp from the breezes I’ll use my time to do my own respite for the bus departs 9.30am tomorrow for the last day of our guided tour with Jade so we also must get our required tips ready for her & the driver. Our bus driver will take us to the airport when we are due without Jade, so tips have to be ready.
My day has ended with a walking trek of 14.66klms .. no wonder I have muscle stiffness in my calf. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos.
Checking out at 8.30am to leave Busan (Korea’s 2nd largest city & #1 seaport) on the Southern coast for our journey north to Seoul (near the North Korea border) with an overall total of 400klms the trip is broken into 2 parts, hence 2or 3 blogs considering the number of photos included in each blog (trying to cut down the size & length of these blogs with the appreciation of you guys reading them). Hope you enjoy the photos & understand a few are through the bus window at 100+klms/hr.
Our bus heads towards Gyeongju as our first stop & looking out the bus we see every available valley & flat land into farming, hot houses & rice paddocks as far as you can see. The infrastructure continues as we are on Hwy 25 for most of our trip & there is a 3lane south & 3lanes north & that includes tunnels too & we are motoring along at speed. Coming out of a tunnel & out of the blue when we get to a mini city (unknown) you can see about 20-30 massive 20storey apartment buildings both sides of the hwy. Just too many to count & remembering 65% of Koreans now live in apartment units.
The road infrastructure is amazing & lots more tunnels. We come across some cities with hideous wind turbines on top of mountain ridges. These are vile in so many ways & my hatred of them is boiling over. Heading further north the winter colours of trees are not as vivid now due to winter being well on the way with daily temps 0°C – 8°C.
The bus stops just 75klms out of Busan to reach Gyeongju Bulguksa Temple constructed in the 1st stage by Prime Minister Gim-Dae-Seong in 751AD & completed in 774AD. This temple was a religious sanctuary for protection from foreign invaders. This entire temple was burnt down by Japanese invaders in 1593. Some buildings were rebuilt after & until 1969-73 when full restoration was completed. The rock walls, stone stairs (2) & the stone pegodas (Seokgatap & Dabotap), 2 x bridges & gate are of the original construction. In 1995 the temple was registered under World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. We do not have the time to venture the entire temple estate, and some areas are cordoned off as well.
Again, the entrance is guarded by the 4 fierce warriors. I was able to get some great photos and to take in the amazing construction techniques, remembering the stone stairs & rock walls were constructed before the Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia (900AD). The photos show more than my words can described so I hope you like them.
From this site we go over to the other side of Gyeongju town to Daereungwon (known as Tumuli Park) which has more than 20 large & small ground mounds (tombs) from the Silla Period.
There is a double mound (tomb) of a King & Queen (King dying a short while before the Queen) & it was listed as the major one to be excavated for confirmed history but first, the powers to be, settled on doing a trial excavation so they chose the smaller one close by of King Michu 262-284AD (13th ruler) which took a thousand workers & many hundreds of trucks to take away the soil & rocks that covered the timber tomb & to reconstruct it in its present museum & media mound. The trial decision was made, based upon not knowing the construction details of these mounds.
In this tomb they found an enormous collection of gold artifacts resembling the Egyptian mummies to a degree. Some of these artifacts are beyond comprehension, for they are intricate & the sheer volume of gold and of many centuries ago. In addition, this mound construction process was an amazing series of engineering as shown by the media section of this tomb just inside the entrance remembering these mounds are about 20m in diameter & some 6m high to fully encapsulate the timber tomb with all sizes of rock & place soil on top accordingly.
Jade, our guide, gave instructions to do a quick walk around the crowded side streets of cafes & pop-up stalls for a ‘rushed’ lunch to head off to Jeonju (255klms). The same scenery continues with more mini cities of huge apartment blocks, agriculture & massive road networks. On the way we have another pitstop of course for 15mins then back on to complete our journey to our hotel at dark & a limited time to get dinner before restaurants start to close.
With a quick evacuation of our bus, finding our rooms & evacuating again, a small group of us (5) found a beef bbq restaurant with mini gas stoves on each table. Thankfully we had a passenger that is Korean & she sorted everything out for us. The food was awesome & very filling, where you place the cooked food onto a lettuce leaf & a larger leaf vegetable (unknown, like Kale), fold it up with some salad & try & place the whole lot into your mouth. That really takes some doing. Lol! The meal only cost us $12AUD ea & well worth it & very timely in getting a proper meal.
Today I took 10,940 steps or 8.14klms so it was a quick shower (room ensuite), bleary eyed & finished my journal & then off to bed asap for a 9am start continuing towards Seoul.
Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.
There’s a few photos here to hopefully admire. Enjoy. After ‘surviving’ my full day canvassing Busan, Sth Korea yesterday, 15/11/24 I was gearing up for another full Busan day undertaking the optional sightseeing tour $150AUD I paid for back in Australia at the time of booking this trip. Brekky was again superb on the sky floor, 21st floor where the city & harbour views are worthwhile & not many of our Japan stays had such views. Our bus started at 9.30am for 20 passengers, not the full bus of 30people with the 1st stop the UN Memorial Cemetery, crossing over the amazing 7.42klm bi-level Gwangandaegyo Bridge (Diamond Bridge) again from yesterday. What a structure!!
On the roadway underneath the overhead road network, we came across a roundabout which identified the UN Forces in a memorial not far from the cemetery. I hastened a bus window photo as it was such an amazing memorial with soldiers around the upper rim, surrounded by country flags.
The United Nations Memorial Cemetery is an absolute peaceful & pristine landscape memorial to the UN aligned soldiers from 22 countries incl Australia. There are 2,328 graves here but growing due to the approval of allowing family loved ones to be buried together (by cremation ashes).
It is mandatory to enter the Memorial Hall (Chapel) before walking the grounds to see an excellent heart-warming film of the war history, the dedication ceremony & the making of this cemetery. If you weren’t moved by this, you have no soul. Many of us had tears & not ashamed to do so.
There were 41,000 UN troops killed in this war from 22 countries & all but the 2,328 soldiers were returned to their respective countries. Australia has 281 graves here, with the youngest just 18yrs of age. On the walls of the chapel are numerous displays, with the prominent one for me was to see the actual faces (photos) of the soldiers per country buried here.
All country flags are flown here & the grounds, layout are exceptional. Emotions really get to you to see the love & dedication of care for these troops. Such a moving tribute and quite some time can be spent here. Spending time here is certainly respectful and never a rush to get through it.
From this great memorial place we are diverted to more amazing elevated roadways, Diamond Bridge (Gwanga for short), high rises & stop on the Dongback Island headland near the Haeundae Beach where the impressive concrete & glass building was built for the 2005 APEC Summit involving 22 top countries, incl our Prime Minister, John Howard attended (far left in the photo).
Immediately at the entrance you cannot miss the incredible 6mx2.2m laquerwork inlaid with Mother of Pearl created by Kim Gyu-Jang, a master craftsman of Korea showing the 12 peaceful elements of longevity which includes the sun, cloud, mountain, rock, water, crane, deer, turtle, pine tree, herb of eternal youth, bamboo & the mythical peach. Such intense detail.
The circular conference meeting room is super impressive & below an equally impressive dome ceiling. Just below this ceiling line you can see the dark windows where the interpreters were doing their communication from. The work alone in the ceiling had me mesmerized no end. Incredible workmanship & design.
Scouring the walkway of the headland you can look back at the Apec Building and see this great structure, surrounding gardens & the 7.42klm bi-level Diamond Bridge and more of Busan in the distance. Sth Korea certainly excelled in presenting this area & view for the world leaders.
We were directed by our guide, Jade to walk further downhill, away from the APEC building to enjoy one of Busan’s selected & elite area’s Haeundae Beach as part of our free time before alighting onto the bus. Again, we had to be extra careful not to return to the bus with wet or sandy feet .. or else!!!!
Back on the bus, we head near our hotel area for the walk through of the Busan International Film Festival precinct where the celebration is held annually. Korean stars place their handprints in metal trays, much like in Hollywood & then set into the pavement. Jade pushed us towards the adjacent markets of Bupyeong, Khangtong & the largest Nampodong Int Market but most of us skipped these to sample the fun street stalls for pleasant food tasting. I had a meat pancake (crepe), followed by an apple & cream waffle with a Starbucks coffee. Very healthy, I’m sure!!
From there, we went West on a short bus ride to the cable car at Songdo Beach built in 2015. It is 365m long & each car holds 8 people & has a glass bottom floor (didn’t worry me, but others did). I sat opposite my favourite bus couple Ted & Maria who are absolutely wonderful to travel with. Reaching the top is a weird ‘theme’ of anything for children & family photo ops, much like a miniature Disney theme area. Most of us didn’t take to this poorer attempt of a tourist attraction, as it was purely for young families & headed down to the walkway bridge having open grilles walking over the ocean below for a photo opportunity too.
Glad to be back on the bus for our last stop & the late afternoon creeping in for the ‘ancient’ village of Huinnyeol Cultural Village built along the cliff face of Yeongdo. From Dec 2011 the houses were reborn for culture & art with the pathway of cafes & cultural places. The pathway is labelled A-L, so you know your place points & the view back towards the cable car. Jade said we have just enough time to do half the walk but 6 of us proved her wrong by doing the entire walk & return, right on sunset. The last 50m was a bit of a run, but I won. LOL!!
Today took 15,157 steps or 11.17klms so it was a bit of a day for us all. Being quite dark now with our bus returning to the hotel, most of us went in search for a late dinner & to be ready for our 8.30am departure towards Seoul in the morning which didn’t give me much time for this blog.
Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.
Before I jump into our first day in Sth Korea, I wish to somehow portray how magnificent Japan was for most of us on the tour the previous week on Blogs 1 – 4 (7 – 14/11/24). We were blessed with I’d say perfect Autumn weather over the 7 days with no rain & as much sun Autumn could provide. We received the best guide in Trend & certainly, the bus driver, Takanashi-son .. (spelling?) with their attention to detail, full professionalism & overall skill in dealing with so many personalities and safe driving.
Trend & Me
Japan is a country that prides itself on the above personal traits without question as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs. Their culture is wonderful & most pleasing where we are warmly embraced. Criminal actions, like theft is extremely rare and the consequences of monumental shame, etc would be very harsh for the offender plus their family. As I walked the streets of Tokyo & Osaka, etc hundreds of bicycles are stored along the footpaths overnight & not one was locked. Going to a phone shop & the phones on display are not cabled locked like in Australia. Some of our passengers accidentally left their phones on tables & park benches & were still there when we searched for them quite some time after. Travellers were quickly advised at the checkout if they left money in machines or forgot their change. So honest.
The townships & cities are so clean, and every vehicle we saw was spotless to a fault and there are so many other examples that reflect the examples of the world’s crown jewel of Japan. I found Tokyo slightly cleaner than Osaka for some reason. I dread, the tourists & the increasing world influences might divert the teaching of their youth and their culture, professional & morals become compromised. P.s. Upon my return to Australia Japan had released a bulletin stating they are concerned now of the massive increase of say, Australian visitors, breaking records. So that confirmed my original thoughts when arriving in Busan, Sth Korea.
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From the horrors of the day prior in Japan from my last blog I hardly slept and constantly thought how I would confront our passenger from hell, .. DS that morning, for his actions and behaviours to date were beyond belief. I was happy we are staying in the Asti Hotel in Busan for a few nights, so I had no push to repack my bags, etc & get somewhat more settled.
The next day, a big touring day was planned with a bus departure for 9.30am but brekky first. Being somewhat early I found myself the only person in the brekky room apart from another couple on our tour, but I respected their privacy as they had paperwork on their table, etc & eating their breakfast & found another table some distance away.
Some minutes later, DS came from behind & put his hand on my shoulder & makes a joke “have you got my brekky ready”? I immediately stood up & faced him & said “you’re fkn kidding, unacceptable & inexcusable DS. Very poor form” in reference to his selfish stupidity act of yesterday & possibly I’m still venting from his past demeanours. Before I could say another word to continue my venting, he responded “I wanted to do it & I did it”!!! & he immediately walked away & forced a seat at the other couple’s table which again confirms his arrogance. What a vile piece he is!! I made sure he never entered my circle again or even sat in the bus seat next to me from that moment on. I later found a great seat at the rear left of the bus, close to my favourite travellers Ted & Maria & that’s where I stayed the entire Sth Korea bus journeys. From my last blog, DS had left the hotel in Osaka after breakfast on his own accord, flew to Busan, Sth Korea & checked into our nominated hotel without notifying anyone or Trend, our guide which enforced a formal missing person police report. A despicable act & not his first on this tour that involved the police & severe stress to us all on our bus.
Back to the tour @ 9.30am, where we headed off to the East, to Yongdusan Dragonhead Park but first we are in awe of Busan’s infrastructure for 3mil people, such as the elevated road highway network over a very large port moving 20+mil containers/ year & the sheer volume of residential apartment skyscrapers. 65% of residents of Busan live in these apartment setups. We pass over the amazing 7.2klm Gwangandaegyo Bridge (Diamond Bridge) which is the longest bi-level Bridge in Korea. What a structure!! Traffic flows one way South under & North on top. To get to the bridge from the North the traffic spirals up a corkscrew of elevated roadway. I can’t type what one traveller said when he noticed the window view .. & the height we were to travel. LOL!!! Much of the seaport, etc is on reclaimed land. We are so far behind in Australia regarding infrastructure. Obviously, these photos below were taken from the side bus windows.
Yongdusan means Dragon head emerging from the sea which is the shape of the peninsula. The temple is China influenced so you are met with 12 stone statues of the year you were born. My year was of the monkey. Haedong Yonggungsa Temple on the coastline. Most temples are in the mountain areas where in historical times was far safer from intruders & foes. The bell is used here for special occasions, like ringing in the new year. There is not much to write about this location so it really is basically a viewing one.
On the bus we head to the 120m high Busan Tower for a 360° view of the vast city but not the rest of the city hidden behind the mountains. I took the photos in a clockwise sequence hoping you will get some idea of the city layout that is in view. The last photo is from the ground looking up to the tower.
From there we venture into Korea’s largest fish market. From the photos off the tower, you can see a roof line like the Sydney Opera House (white shells). That is the fish market & is full of tanks with all kinds of fish & sea creatures and a massive market to scale. Only 1 couple stayed for a fish lunch where you can arrange for the vendor to organise the cooking of your purchase, the rest of us found cafes, etc for our hour break. No-one seemed keen to do the fish cuisine today.
Busan Fish Market
One aisle of fish vendors
Back on the bus, we headed towards the ancient village of Gamcheon Cultural Village set into a mountain face. This area was formed straight after the Korean War ending in 1953 by shanties (poor people, refugees, etc) being a safer place to be, away from the open plains. Over the years, the shanties were replaced by brick & concrete & then painted in whatever colour was available. This new area is nicknamed ‘Machu Picchu of Busan’. You can get lost in the mazes of alleys in this precinct & Ed (a favourite traveller) almost did. I would love to provide a photo of the site map but unfortunately, it is copyright, therefore I can’t. The site map was purchased for around $2AUD at the Village Information Centre & was a real help & if you do the designated safer circuits (to prevent getting lost) you can apply certain location stickers. The full circuit can take around 2hrs. We are constantly reminded we are entering private areas, therefore to be extra quiet & respectful of their privacy when taking photos, etc. Looking from the Little Prince viewpoint you get the best view of the village like my photo looking south. There is so much art & photo zones to enjoy. Of course, when we are all done & on the bus, the same lady I spoke about in previous blogs was again very late or lost finally came to the bus escorted by fellow searchers, making us very late to our hotel, arriving quite late in the afternoon. Arghh!!!
The below photos are more of Gamcheon Cultural Village looking firstly, South & the North showing the expansive size & vibrant colours.
Looking South
Looking North
Chinatown St
Today I encountered 10,577 steps or 7.61klms so I was keen for some energy food … & a beer or two but first I took a photo of the Busan Main Railway Station adjacent to our Asti Hotel & the street of Chinatown for the best takes on a good meal. Several streets have different themes, like Texas Street, etc.
Happy birthday to my son-in law, Jason back home in Australia!!!
Day 7 13/11/24
The day I had been expecting so much on this tour has finally arrived, and it is the full day optional tour to Hiroshima via the famous bullet train, well worth the 550,000yen price ($550AUD/ person) but in saying that I’m feeling so many emotions with the tragedy of Hiroshima to be so called ‘excited’. I hope my 32 or so photos show you the day I experienced. My Polarsteps app map shows the journey as a plane flight, but it was the bullet train & I can’t change it .. probably this operator’s error. The group partaking this optional journey was told well in advance the night prior to be in full timing mode, for the timeframes are really tight.
Of course, the best of plans fail with our booked 7am brekky in true bedlam with another bus tour cramming in & we had to fight to get anything or to get some respectable order in play. Most of us even gave up on getting to the coffee due to the timing & congestion. A complete shamble.
Secondly, our bus departure was set at 7.30am sharp & low & behold, the same married couple as previously described in my last blog were extremely late & with no apologies. They have been consistently late or lost nearly every day!! Trend, our diligent guide is now stressed, so in conjunction with our bus driver it was now absolute we must now go straight to the bullet train station on the other side of Osaka & not take the standard connecting train close by to our hotel to that station. Trend had made all the booking & payments the other day in advance as part of the requirements so there can’t be any changes.
With our new peak hour road trip, the traffic was horrendous and lots of alternate side streets were used to get around these bottlenecks. You could tell our bus driver was in a race. Japan’s trains are precisely on time so there will be no waiting for our arrival. Trend repeatedly warns us that there is no time to dawdle off the bus & we must almost run to the #3 platform to meet the bullet train. Trend is very direct with this instruction & now it is every ‘man for himself’ in making it to Platform #3 & seek out carriage 15. Trend provides our tickets just when the bus pulls into the kerb. We are off!!!!!
Somehow, we successfully crossed the road in the one group & most of the travellers scrambled up the 2 floors of escalators, whilst I shot up the stairs adjacent which made me one of the first onto the platform. Most train stations in the cities are well above the street line of shops below. Now I am behind Trend & she darts off along the platform bearing in mind ‘every man for himself’ plus the train has already stopped on the platform. By this the train signals were sounding (escalating beeps) for doors closing & finally Carriage 15 appeared & when I ‘jumped’ in after checking on the group I believe the doors brushed behind me. We are in!!! Can’t believe everyone got on in time but quite a few minutes later Nicole & Anne finally appeared. They had to enter the nearest carriage & walk through seeing they were so far behind us. Now we are all together. Whew!!! Insane timing.
The inside of the bullet train is so similar to that of an aircraft & I guess we are travelling in considerable speed. You can get a plane from Osaka to Hiroshima, but the airport is considerably east of the city and more road transport needed upon arrival. By plane is a much slower process & cheaper than the train but certainly not convenient. We are on the fastest bullet train @ 300klms/hr & it’s so smooth & fast!!!
We had 2 very quick stops, Yokohama & then Fukujima then all the way to Hiroshima. Alighting from the train I looked at the Platform #12 indicator board out of curiosity & it said Hakata which is the next major stop beyond Hiroshima. I was pleased I quickly understood this indicator board & wasn’t challenged like I was in Blog 1. With everyone abuzz from our most unusual & exciting train travel (no bullet trains in Australia) we quickly escorted ourselves down the escalators to our new awaiting bus & driver for the day. You have no idea how clean these buses are (inside & out). Immaculate. From my previous blogs we still haven’t found a dirty vehicle of any description in Japan. No kidding!!
Hiroshima is blessed with many river tributories and many bridges to cross making this a very attractive city with transport options like water cruising. Trend provides us with some handouts showing where we are headed to next. We first visited the Miyajimaguchi Ferry Terminal to take a toilet break & a 15mins cruise directly across to a nearby island (Itsukushima Is) to see World Cultural Heritage of Miyajima Island, also known as Itsukushima Is & Itsukushima Shrines plus the 16th century replica of the O-Torii Gate set in the ocean waters.
Miyajimaguchi Ferry Terminal
This massive O-Torii Gate, the ninth since the Heian Period was built in 1875 of some 16.6m high & weighing close to 60 tons is exposed to the elements and even withstood the atomic blast being possibly just outside the 2 or so klms blast range. Pls note in the photo the size of the people at low tide nearing the gate to see its enormous size. The gate’s roof structure is 24.2m in length of Japanese Cypress. The post structures are formed to accommodate approx. 4tons of fist sized stones for its own weight bearing.
After taking the range of photos of this magnificent gate we strolled over to the shrine location, again dodging the free roaming deer & avoiding the deer shit of course for the ferry & bus entry.
We went through the ancient shrines, market stalls & stood around for ages eating what food we could buy until the required time set by Trend to return to the ferry terminal. This time lapse proved most wasteful when we got to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park & Museum. We were all glad to be back on the ferry & ultimately the bus where it kindly let us off at the bridge road entry near the Atomic Bomb Dome building eastern location & will meet us at the far western end of the Peace Park after. For those visiting Hiroshima you can get a ferry cruise from the Peace Park to Itsukushima Is & visa versa as the best way to travel to these major locations.
The Peace Park has on its eastern boundary a very large T shaped traffic bridge that replicated the original T shaped bridge. This Aioi Bridge was originally built in 1932 (the same year as our famous Sydney Harbour Bridge & my hometown heritage listed bascule truss Grafton Bridge). The original Aioi Bridge was pressurised by the atomic blast at 7tons per m2, 15 times more than normal. Under this sudden pressure the bridge thrashed like a leaf spring being snapped back & forth with the bridge platform up in the air. Fortunately, the bridge remained intact & was used for a further 35yrs until the age & damage took its toll. The current replica bridge was commissioned in October 1983 & still forms an integral part of the city’s transport system.
This unique T shaped bridge obviously provided an accurate landmark for the US B29 bombers of the morning of August 6th, 1945, at 8.15am, as there were no other existing prominent landmarks. Hiroshima was bombed primarily due to its extensive gunpowder industry & not say, Tokyo (major populated city). Next to the bridge is the 1964 Red Bird Monument from the novelist Miekichi Suzuki (1882 -1936) who with his famous children’s books, etc was dedicated to recognising Hiroshima’s recovery & to seek for world peace again.
Adjacent to the monument you are left daunted by the only remaining building structure (Atomic Bomb Dome) left from the atomic blast & it requires constant engineering to keep it safe. It was built in 1915 & to be demolished like all the other structures but there was a public outcry due to its unique design & domed roof & that proved significant for Hiroshima’s future. The bomb blasted very close to this bridge & building some 600m above ground & some 160m S/East of the building where there was a circular catastrophic effect of more than 2.5klms away. Being almost below the bomb detonation a lot of the building structure survived but all occupants obviously didn’t.
We then crossed the smaller river bridge to the Children’s Peace Monument which the community petitioned the government to construct a memorial to the children lost, still suffering & for future generations all from the starting wishes of a young dying 12yr old girl victim, Sadako Sasaki who was 2yrs old at the time of the blast & later died of Leukemia. This monument evolved through some 3,200 schools in Japan and other countries who contributed for its commissioning on 5th May 1958.
Most of our group singularly & respectably bowed silently at the monument & rang the bell hanging down from within. On top of the monument there is a young girl holding a steel art form of a bird Crane of Peace & from each side of the structure is a young boy & a young girl statue.
Turning around we walked past the eternal flame at one end of the Pond of Peace where it symbolically held by ‘hands of concrete’. At the other end of the pond an arch monument stands where dignitaries from around the world come & place wreaths here.
We then walked down the long path to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum & Trend tried hard to get us into the packed museum. Once in, you were almost trapped by the sheer volume of people & most were not continually moving forward as they should. Far too many people & by the time I squeezed through I had missed about 50% of the museum & almost the last person to meet the group ready for the bus. After another 15mins of frustratingly waiting the same lady of the couple was late again & Trend had to go back in to find her. No apologies again forthcoming. The museum had so many tragic photos, fils and synchronised AI video of how the blast took place over the city & the blast circumference detailed. There was just too much to see & very little time and ‘seeing’ through the walls of people. I felt like I was being relieved in not seeing all the horrors on show as it is always difficult when you see what humans do to other humans, particularly in war. When I visited the Killing Fields in Cambodia it took me some 3 days before I could see the world better again.
Based upon the debacle of meeting the bullet train this morning, Trend allowed more time to arrive at the station where we had some 15mins to spare before the bullet train came in which allowed myself a quick video of its arrival.
For some reason it seemed an even quicker return back to Osaka, but I think the darkness of night helped & we reached our hotel at 7.45pm. The only food outlet area was back into Dontobori precinct, another 15min walk & quite a few of the travellers couldn’t be bothered, so I headed off alone … again. I found a nice little restaurant filled with young people, great music & was given an English menu.
I picked the Pork Stew viewed by the picture & bamb!!! It came out in a very hot cast iron bowl filled with enough food for 3men. Yikes!!! It had a lot of chilli in it & the extra-large beer stubbie clearly wasn’t enough to douse the invisible flame of the chilli!! I was starting to cry with the chilli .. & sweating .. Lol!! I translated (text) to the young waiter why I couldn’t finish it & expressed I didn’t want to offend, as it is unJapanese to withdraw early from your meal. He took it well, smiled, almost laughed really & bowed graciously, as did I.
Walking back to the hotel my stomach was gaining more inner warmth, so I found a Lawson convenience store & bought a ‘cornetto’ ice cream & that did the trick. Can’t remember when I last had a cornetto ice cream.
Tomorrow we all get a sleep-in, but checkout is 10am & the hotel will store our bags till the 2pm bus departure to Osaka airport (1hr 10mins bus) for our flight to Busan Sth Korea.
14/11/24 Day 8
I awoke the next morning fully refreshed & with all my washing dry & plenty of time to properly pack my backpacks for flying and a casual trip in the elevator for brekky & a 10am check out. Our bags were stored for our 2pm bus departure to Osaka airport making sure our bags didn’t mix with the other bus tour.
Trend (our amazing guide) directed me to a local park some 30mins walk away so I headed off there but didn’t see a great deal there or along the way, but on the park is The Museum of Fine Arts & this was now temporarily closed. I was hoping to see that for my daughter, Kate who is an artist & would love what I would find inside. Such a shame.
Upon my return to the hotel, I found my favourite older fun couple Ted & Maria sitting in the brekky area having a few beers so I joined them for 2 soothing beers ($5.50ea) of good value until everyone starting rolling in after 1pm in readiness for the 2pm pickup. Ted & Maria are a fantastic couple from Manly in Sydney & they certainly made my trip wonderful. I do truly miss them now.
Trend was of course early (Japanese professionalism) & sorting out our bags & the hotel & most of us had our tour survey paper & tip monies with envelopes provided ready to hand to Trend when she was free.
We are all on the bus prior to 2pm, Yay!!! … but wait!!!! DS (70 yr old painful passenger from my previous blogs) hasn’t showed & no-one had seen him or knew where he would have gone too. 20mins has gone & now Trend is reviewing hotel’s ctv footage & that showed DS at his bags at 8.20am that morning & nothing else.
Trend is severely stressed & passengers have become angry as DS has had previous bad form of this & put Trend in a previous disastrous position with her manager & the local police a couple of days prior. With no alternative the bus had to leave for the airport on a 1hr 15mins journey. At the airport, still no word from DS or him taking Trend’s repeated calls. We are now starting to worry, not anger as much & DS not within the airport as first thought.
Trend says a hurried good-bye to us all but graciously allows me a photo with her for now she will head off to another airport terminal in case DS arrived there by mistake. Deb, a fellow passenger will now be the sole contact with Trend to avoid more stress to Trend. Due to this extended time lapse Trend had to reluctantly inform her manager & the decision made to formally report a missing person to police. This is a very bad thing for a guide to report this in Japan. Heavily frowned upon if you read my 1st Japan blog & Day 4 blog.
Trend was booked to go home to Tokyo after us, relax for just one day & start another tour. She absolutely loves her job & in showing tourists her wonderful Japan but now that is all lost, plus her pending tour income. Time is now getting away & we even board our plane 20mins late & still no further news.
Our flight is more like a domestic flight of 90mins & once through customs & immigration we are met by our new Korean guide, Jade who does a quick roll call. Deb, being quite stressed notifies Jade of DS’s disappearance & not making the flight. Jade shows some confusion & states DS is at our hotel & waiting for us from arriving that morning. WOW!!! .. the tour people became instantly furious & vocal, but I was even angrier than that!!! Typical self-centred, obnoxious DS!!! He had taken a taxi to the airport, took a different flight, then another taxi. Massive unnecessary expenditure, so selfish & never told anyone what he was doing. Absolute contempt for anyone else.
We then found out Jade had not notified Trend or Trip a Deal either with her 30yrs experience, so it was left for Deb to notify Trend who was so relieved but still in trouble with her manager. Some of us travellers, including Deb will make our own independent report of DS’s antics on this trip to Trip a Deal directly in support of Trend for all his antics was never a failure of Trend. Post blog: I submitted my 3-page report of DS to Trip a Deal upon the 2nd day of my return to Australia as promised to the group& was well received. I later texted Trend to check on her & even at Christmas she sent me a Happy Christmas & some of her Tokyo Disneyland photos of her time away confirming she is doing fine & still smiling.
Before I finish this day’s blog, I wish to somehow portray how magnificent Japan was for most of us on the tour. We were blessed with I’d say perfect weather over the 7 days with no rain & as much sun Autumn could provide. We received the best guide in Trend & certainly, the bus driver, Takanashi-son .. (spelling?) with their attention to detail, full professionalism & overall skill in dealing with so many personalities and safe driving.
Japan is a country that prides itself on the above personal traits without question as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs. Their culture is wonderful & most pleasing where we are warmly embraced. Criminal actions, like theft is extremely rare and the consequences of monumental shame, etc would be very harsh for the offender plus their family. As I walked the streets of Tokyo, Osaka, etc hundreds of bicycles are stored along the footpaths & not one was locked. Going to a phone shop & the phones on display are not cabled locked like in Australia. Some of our passengers left their phones on tables & park benches & were still there when we searched for them. Travellers were quickly advised if they left money in machines or forgot their change. So honest. The townships & cities are so clean, and every vehicle we saw was spotless to a fault and there are so many other examples that reflect the examples of the world’s crown jewel of Japan. I hope you can understand the magnificance of Japan just through my few blogs?
I was far too angry to sleep that night, even though I was in the best hotel so far (Asti Hotel, next to Busan Railway Station). Today I walked 11,329 steps or 8.51klms. Tomorrow is set for 9.30am bus departure & to run into DS … Literally!!! .. Stay tuned for my next blog for this welcoming occasion (sarcasm).
Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.
Happiest of birthdays to my eldest son, Scott this 11th November & Remembrance Day for our WW1 veterans. “At the going down of the sun .. we will remember them” .. “Lest we forget”.
Lots of photos in this blog. Getting accustomed to brekky and sorting out everything, it is almost automatic with the only issue to mind is what clothes to wear to suit the perceived weather. The bus departed at 8.30am & on time. Go figure! We are heading South to Kyoto, some 184klms & 4hrs incl 1 toilet stop. We passed a lot of typical small villages surrounded by mountain ranges which is like a never-ending story travelling down the centre of Honshu Island including the very impressive infrastructure and the road network. Every now & then some landmarks or infrastructure stands out like in this photo. My working life included a lot of civil & engineering projects, so I am seeing far more than most of the passengers on the bus & when I point out a couple of things there seems to be elements of misunderstanding or a vacuum of real thought of what was involved. Anyway, I’m bloody impressed!!
You can see how vital these road tunnels are for getting to the other side of these mountain ranges & for villages to be connected. My last blog advised it would take about a week for someone to transverse between each village in past times. This bus journey had the least amount of places worthy of a photo being in a different region with more landscape of farming areas & extensive hot houses .
Today is an optional tour day in the afternoon but I won’t be partaking in it as per my Blog 1. Our first morning stop on the way is Kinkaku-ji Temple on the NW boundary of Kyoto encompassing some 132,000 square metres or 13.2hectares. This site would have to be one of the most recognisable landmarks in Japan & a must do visit. Entrance fee is just 500yen ($5AUD) & included in our tour. It’s a bit of a challenge to get an uninterrupted shot with the volume of people at the vantage spots so you must use a lot of patience … many travellers have none. This landmark is an absolute gem for your eyes
This is a Zen temple of Shokoku-ji School of Rinzai Buddhist Denomination. It was originally the home of the Saionji family. In 1397 Yoshimitsu, 3rd Shogun of Ashikaga Shogunate took it over & built the Kitayama Palace centring around the Golden Stupa, Kinkaku. This stupa has burnt down a few times (previous wars) with the latest fire being 1950 by a zealot monk but rebuilt & opened from 1955. It became the centrepiece of politics & culture for welcoming Emperors of Japan & trade with China (Ming period).
After Yoshimitsu passed away it became a temple & a very special religious place. It was ultimately registered as a World Cultural Herutafe site in 1994. It was a beautiful day to see this amazing place but a bit more sunshine would have seen the Kinkaku more glowing of gold. Notice the gold phoenix on its roof crest.
There are 3 floor levels in the Kinkaku & they are off limits to the public & all built of differing architecture. On the Ground floor (Japan always call this level, 1st floor) The Yoshimitsu statue. 2nd floor has the statue of Shitenno with its 4 protective warriors. The 3rd floor Chinese Zenshu butsudan style of cremation vault as per the below left photo.
The top centre Japanese sign was translated using my Google Translate app with a screenshot when entering the Tori gate. This vertical sign informs us of the 5 Precautions or Precepts (Title). First line #1 Do not deliberately kill anyone or anything #2 Do not take what is not given to you. #3 Do not engage in immoral desires. #4 Do not utter false words. #5 Do not become intoxicated with alcohol and neglect your daily activities. I pretty well align with the first 4 out of five with #5 not truly aligning myself with to be honest. How many do you align with? My life has always been centred around the Ten Commandments & that has kept me in good stead.
The gardens in Autumn are a mixture of colours & even with snow white cover in Winter the area is amazing when looking at the range of wall photos available. Unfortunately, our tour time does not allow for us to walk the loop pathway that extends up above the flat area of the Kinkaku. What a shame, for it would be worth the viewing even if one crawled up there.
Sadly, the commercial side is now partaking these sacred grounds up near the Observatory Platform with street stalls & vending machines along the pathways, but I hope it contributes to keeping the landmark’s operational & entry costs to a minimum.
Boarding the bus we quickly arrive at another great hotel, La’gent Hotel Kyoto – Nijo with another superb room but as usual we can only store our bags there till the 3pm check-in time however we managed a 2pm entry while the other half of the bus was on the optional tour. DS (another sole traveller from Blog 1 & 2) & I bought a beer or 2 at the 7/11 shop opposite & wandered around a few streets till we found a planter box to sit on. There are virtually no bench seats along the streets in Japan. Seems people are always moving, never sitting. The hotel would not allow us to drink in their waiting area & foyer. Japan has rules that must be followed.
We walked a few streets & found a quiet laneway & just as we sat down & took a few tastes of beer we heard police sirens & DS started panicking thinking a resident has seen some strange men sitting on a pathway drinking in the open. LOL!! The sirens were getting louder and even I started thinking that may be the case. We had better hide the drinking a bit more. Haha!
Come 5.30pm DS (getting increasingly frustrated in finding a good food place) & I finally found a place to eat & low & behold my favourite bus couple, Ted & Maria had a booth & so did Fay & Dean. It was such a relief to have a conversation with others besides DS’s constant verbal most of the time on the bus & being by my side like a clinging twin. Really enjoyed having dinner respectfully in a restaurant & with great people, unlike eating consumables from our pit stops in my room alone. Today I did 6,623 steps or 4.97klms so it’s helping my fitness & my daily eating of processed foods I usually don’t consume like sweets & pastries.
Time for an early bed for a 6am brekky & another timely checkout & bus adventure. Seeing I stuffed up on Day 3 departure I am quite diligent now in handing in my room key into reception. Don’t wish to be another passenger failure. Once is enough; however, my failure was only a 5mins delay after much banter from fellow travellers.
Day 6 12/11
Out the front of the La’gent Hotel Kyoto – Nijo we are pressed to load & board the bus, for the bus driver can be fined taking up the outer lane of a busy road. With that in mind, we speed packed within the required 20mins allowance much to my amazement. We then headed further into Kyoto due to the time mix up from yesterday to visit the Fushimi Inari Shrine not far from the Golden temple of Kinkaku-ji of yesterday.
This Shrine has a thousand plus vermilion painted Torii gates which straddle a network of trails in this vast park. I would have loved to do the full loop trail but again, frustratingly not enough time (2hrs). Apart from the vermillion gates we could not help but see the volume of schoolchildren at this temple on school outings. The youngest were by far the cutest & followed a strict 2lane walking & holding hands, boys to girls. So different than what you see now in Australia. Even the older students were impeccably dressed in high quality school clothing and displaying good manners & respect.
This temple has a religious activity and first, you must wash your hands in a bamboo stream trough for cleansing, then line up in turn & do a respectful bow & lift one of the 2 round stones. The scripture says if the stone is too heavy the person has a lot of burden & if you lift easy then you are unburdened & happy in life. I was thankful the stone was quite light for me. Some of our passengers couldn’t lift them & said they were heavy, so that confirms a few things for me. Now our hands are cleansed we can then enter the Shrine from the left (leave by the right). One MUST NEVER enter via the middle as this is for religious elders, etc but unfortunately, a lot of tourists have never been advised of this type of respect. Trend, our guide, is very conscious of many religious procedures & etiquettes & she explains it very well & we all feel better knowing we are doing the respectful etiquette.
With a quick walk through the ‘tunnels’ of the Torii gates (left photo above), basically doing a U turn at the end Y junction back to the exit gate for the bus after we are recommended to buy food in these street stalls with a bit of free time. I had a noodle dish of sorts & it filled the stomach gap.
We left the Kyoto region & drove for about 1hr southwards to Nara Park where there are about a thousand roaming deer (Japan refers to deers as Messengers of Gods) all looking for anyone with food .. they can smell it & will follow you until they get their reward. Most of the deer have even learnt to bow for food from the volume of Japanese & tourists that bow to them out of respect. You can buy the crackers feed for 200yen ($2AUD).
Within Nara Park is the Todaiji Temple, one of Japan’s most famous & historically significant temples built in various stages since 752AD. The photo above is the Shrine Entry Gate & even that is huge!!! I asked Trend & others how such an enormous structure could be built back then, plus do more extensions & enhancements to it, but no answer was forthcoming. I can’t get my head around how this building could be constructed back in those ages. This building still reigns as the largest timber building structure in the world, thereby giving you some idea of the size including the size of the people in the photos.
Lantern & Todaiji Temple
When walking up to this huge structure you encounter a very large Chinese bronze octagonal lantern (one of two ever built, but only one here at this temple & can be seen in centre of top right photo in front of the temple). On very special religious events this lantern is lit and would be done a few times in a year especially in their religious lantern festival.
This structure is amazing with a 25m high ceiling & yet to get the giant 15m high Buddha transported through the back elevation at a later date is still doing my head in. The entrance is guarded as usual by fierce warriors & again, never walk through the middle.
The 15m high Buddha (left above photo) takes centre stage but the photo doesn’t show the clear larger scale to the smaller idol on the right, accompanied by other large religious beings & they appear to be some 8-9m high under this 25m ceiling. To see the structural engineering of this building it is best to look at the corners of the ceiling and see how there are no mechanical fixings in the beams & columns. A truly amazing structure.
The temple entrance has enormous lockable doors that can be closed & about 4m high x 1.8m wide each with huge hinges that are surprisingly from ancient times. Everything here is massive in scale but again, I feel like I’m the only one seeing this side of the landmark. Most people are viewing the Buddha.
Behind the large Buddha there are scaled models of some stages of construction to the temple of 300 & 800 yrs ago. Also at the rear is a large cedar tree structural column with a small square hole chamber cut through it near the floor & children are encouraged to crawl through it as a test of courage & belief & a sign for a good future & education. It was fun to watch & see their happiness & thankful I could get a couple of photos in between their teacher taking the prime spot for photos & to see the children so happy when they completed this test.
Monk’s & Elder’s Education Building
Walking back from temple to Gate
It was a 15mins walk back to the bus & had a great chat with Trend after I bought her a sweet snack to which she was extremely thankful & surprised by my offering. She enjoyed the company and to talk about other things other than tourist stuff. Off on the bus again eventually, when everyone arrived (very late as usual for the main offenders) for an hour’s drive to Osaka & our Hotel Crystal where we stored our bags till the 4pm check-in. Our hotel location wasn’t too bad considering it is heavily recommended for tourists & tours to do the walk through to Dotonbori & Shinzabashi where there must be over a thousand of shops, stalls, etc you can imagine. Of course, every tourist in Osaka must be here. So many people.
Our bus group had the option to wander around as free time to shop & eat or follow Trend as she had kindly donated her free time to take anyone or all to visit the Osaka Castle for the sunset & night viewing in the opposite direction well past our hotel, but I chose to eat & shop & return on my own to the hotel, knowing I cannot get lost & also more free time from DS who appeared to be walking straight back to the hotel (more on this in my next blog). Quickly, everyone scattered so I found myself absolutely on my own but with about 5.000 people around me, if that makes sense. I had a great Tapanyaki dinner for $22AUD (my first opportunity in Japan to date) & lucky there was a table for 2 ready. Some places you must book or arrive extra early due to the volume of people here. In the above photos can you pick me out in the crowd. Hint … I’m on the big screen from a wall way above the street. I’m the old guy in the blue jacket.
I wandered around for ages, bought a few small gifts for my 3 grandchildren that would fit in my backpack. In my 2nd store of purchasing, I was helped by a young lady with a strange accent unbeknown to me. She was my first Ukrainian I had met & when I asked about her family (Russia/ Ukraine War), she became quite reserved & troubled, so I quickly offered my prayers, and she began to smile again. She was a most beautiful caring person & so helpful.
I easily found my way back to the hotel for check-in & to my Room 1312 & what a room!! Ultra-modern & new with even its own laundry & clothes drying fan room built into the ensuite. King bed, refrigerator, gas stove & room electronics everywhere. I’m very comfortable for this 2-night stay. I’ll get the 200yen laundry detergent tomorrow from reception for my well-needed laundry of clothes.
Today took 15,801 steps or 11.83klms & with my room being so comfortable I will no doubt recover quickly. Early to bed for 7am brekky & a big optional day touring Hiroshima via the much-awaited bullet train (55,000yen or $550AUD) for the full day tour. Bullet train is expensive to use & will form the bulk of the money involved.
Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.
Highlights of Japan & Sth Korea – 16day Tour 2024 Days 3 & 4
From my last blog of doing some 13.72klms of walking the day prior I truly slept well and was up @ 5.30am for brekky & bus departure for 8am on our first out of city tour to Mt Fuji. DS (a tagged passenger) from my last blog showed up for breakfast if nothing had happened from the night before … never crossed his mind that I was concerned for his safety of not knowing if he had returned to our hotel. I certainly wasn’t pleased with his lack of understanding on being part of a team tour and to add to that a couple of passengers had delayed our departure by 20mins. So frustrating when people show how selfish they are & still never an apology forthcoming.
Suffice to say, I was back in my bus seat with DS again sitting next to me & with his constant negative talking was a strain on myself & other passengers, but I knew I had to keep DS in some form of control as I felt I was the best person that could handle him. My hardest duty was to stop DS from talking when Trend (our guide) was talking to us via a microphone. So disrespectful.
Traffic congestion was insane & took about 1hr just to get to Tokyo city outskirts & it continued all the way to Mt Fuji much to the frustration of DS. Unfortunately, the tour timing didn’t help with us travelling on a Saturday morning when a lot of local citizens travel to Mt Fuji for a common getaway. Mt Fuji is only about 150klms from our hotel but felt a lot longer. The highway was 2 lanes all the way but full & we travelled through about 20+ tunnels & some were obscenely long. I could not help admiring the road network infrastructure (bridges & tunnels) which are beyond belief. Just amazing! We were advised many of these tunnels were constructed using the old mining methods and mass manual labour & when technology chimed in there were proper mining equipment utilised, such as vehicular jackhammer machines, box rail carts, conveyor belt extraction, etc and much later massive drilling machines.
I hope you can appreciate my ‘skill’ .. LOL!! … in taking some photos via the bus travelling above 100klms/ hr. There were no other opportunities given. Once you consider the extreme mountainous ranges you can understand how important these road tunnels are in linking the various villages along the way. In older times, it would take over a week for villagers to connect with another village scaling over these mountains. They had to be self-supporting for centuries & at times be their own ‘government’. The villages would also, be very cold in winter, nestled amongst these giant ranges.
Typical mountain scenery
Typical village surrounded by mountains
Getting closer to Mt Fuji the road became narrower & steeper with constant winding of tight corners and occasionally another bus would come into view & we all breathed in, with bus mirrors just missing each other & with little reduced speed. Our bus driver, Takanashi-son .. (spelling?) was clearly showing his driving skills and it wasn’t long before I realised, he was the best bus driver I have ever experienced and knew we were going to be safe on this tour.
Finally arrived at Mt Fuji 2300m elevation @ 12.20pm, some 4hrs of bus travel & one 15mins relief stop (remember, just 150klms travelled). Temp 4°C but felt like 2°C without the brisk wind factor. We can’t complain by having a great ‘sunny’ day greeting us. The car & bus parking was at the highest elevation of the road system at the main 5th Station, but for trekkers you can venture up to 7th Station & with strict approval & conditions go to the top. Sadly, today & at certain previous times Mt Fuji didn’t have its usual snow-covered top which didn’t help with the aesthetics and photos. Based upon the upcoming weather, we may have missed the snow by just a few days.
A naked Mt Fuji
Proof I was @ Mt Fuji
Mt Fuji from carpark
Kofu (Left) .. Lake Kawaguchiko (right)
Mt Fuji Complex
Mt Fuji Shrine & Shop
There is a short walk from the bus up to the central 5th Station complex where your first photos can be taken of Mt Fuji, then viewing the location shrine and the rear viewing platform overlooking the village of Kofu (left) & Lake Kawaguchiko to the right. Once everyone had done the full viewing of Mt Fuji, we were back onto the bus heading for Kofu & Lake Kawaguchiko (2nd largest of the Fuji Five Lakes) to undertake a 20mins lake cruise in a traditional boat to see another angle of Mt Fuji. Cruising on the lake was quite brisk to say the least but it was well worth it & the price included in our tour. DS decided to be the only one to stay on the bus for he said it wasn’t worth his time of 20mins. Looking out from the boat & at the wharf we all really appreciated the strength of the glowing colours of Autumn through the trees & foliage these past 2 days. You can’t but help noticing this beautiful scenery.
Top left photo – Brilliant Autumn Foliage. Top Right – Lake Kawaguchiko with road highway bridge in background. Middle right – Traditional Japanese Boat. Bottom photo – Mt Fuji from centre of lake using the cloud as artificial snow effect.
Back on the bus for about 3hrs (130klms) to Saku on the way to the Nagano region (centre of the Japan, Honshu Island). We arrived quite late again at Saku, but the brand-new Hotel Route-Inn was superb with my top floor room, 603 amazing. In the coming days we will be heading to Hiroshima, so those undertaking this optional tour must pay their 550,000yen ($550AUD) per person today so Trend can book & pay for all the bullet train travel & tickets involved. Luckily, or good management, I had thought of potential forthcoming issues & had the required cash on me as my debit card wouldn’t work on Trend’s device. Whew!
Today, was a lot easier on my feet with only 2.71klms of walking. Tomorrow, we head NW to Nagano.
Day 4 10/11
Just an overnight stay, so it was easy packing and in readiness for an early brekky at 6.30am for 8am bus departure. When I awoke, I looked out from my 6th floor window to see a large, ploughed field and looking like a nice day unfolding. By the time I left my room some 10mins later and found my brekky table the outside area was full of fog. I was advised it was 0°C @ 6am then heavy frost eventuated. No doubt the weather changes rapidly leading into winter. The breakfast buffets have all been well serviced to date and with a mixture of Japanese & western food, so it was bonus to sample a few different things & making up for the limited dinner options, if any, once our bus arrived late at night. Obviously, I didn’t like some of the Japanese food offerings and some I didn’t even know their names so I confided in myself that I at least tried a good range but be more wary next breakfast.
Again, the usual suspects were late getting to the bus .. but with no pushback from others was surprising, seeing how frustrating this is becoming. I guess, with 30 travellers we all can’t be friends so I will surmise there will be pushback forthcoming surely. One later comer (Indian couple from Melbourne) frequently arrives late, takes off his coat, folds it neatly & places it on his above rack, then inspects his backpack before placing it next to his coat & this delays the driver from departing. When we have a stop, he is the first up, slowly puts on his coat & checks his carry bag thereby delaying most of the bus from alighting. He & his wife will evidently feature in my future blogs.
Our first stop will be at Takayama (Taka=tall, Yama=Mountain) some 3.5hrs away of the most winding of roads & amazing infrastructure, sheer cliff faces netted, pinned & steel cables used for kilometres. The hwy follows the rapids of the Ryuo River mostly & then the Shio River that shows off their various hydro schemes, for there is plenty of water streaming down. Some boulders in these streams are massive, so lots of water pushed them there. The extra-long road tunnels (2 lanes wide one way) where some start at 800m in length up to 4.7klms long through mountains so high & coated fiercely with pine, cypress & cedar trees somehow growing vertical off the steep slopes. At times you can see a few areas where ‘tree avalanche’ damage has occurred, much like in New Zealand, Sth Island.
Again, lots of small villages located in isolated valleys where all available useable land is fully utilised. The road travels this time of the year (Nov, Autumn) is awesome of colour, ultra clear water & some dam water with glacial type colour bringing so much pleasure to one’s eyes. I would dread travelling here in winter with snow chains, etc on the terrain encountered today.
To get to Takayama we traversed about 30+ road tunnels & arrived at 11.40am where Trend took us down the normal ‘main street’ (I detest walking close by Trend’s Trip a Deal blue flag like the thousands of pampered tourists on bus tours, so I hang back whenever possible, same for my new friend Ed from Melbourne). You can see the flag waving in the rear of one of the photos. Trend showed us the narrow alley ‘streets’ of the Ebisutaigumi Preservation Area then we had our own free time wandering until 1.45pm through this ancient part of the township where we were advised the tourists outnumber the citizens here. Above two shops you can see two large saki balls suspended from the roof. The largest one confirms the oldest Saki brewery. The rickshaws were there for the obvious tourists and due to the crowding in the alleyways I could not help but wonder in amazement on how they avoided the people & still not allow a wheel to enter dangerously into the water gutters on each side of the alley.
Takayama – Shrine Bell
Cute Bonsai with winter colour
Takayama Shrine Entry
Seeing a honey ice cream outlet next to the Saki brewery, I was easily conned to see what this delight would be like. I chose a Bee Pollen & Manuka Honey Ice Cream tub … & an absolute woo hoo!!!! Another bus traveller saw my delight & she was easily persuaded too. After nearing bus departure time I met some young workers at their new coffee nook store in the main street for a well-earned coffee .. they had limited English, but we ‘communicated’ well, and they waved to me a few times as I walked by. They were so friendly & respectful & I made sure I returned the same. Back on the bus, but again we are missing someone. Yes, it was DS. The bus parking was just a street away from our tour walk so how did he get lost? Well over 20mins had passed & then Trend received 2 phone calls. One from her Tokyo manager & the other one from the local police. DS had entered the police station he found where it rained into utter confusion. They looked at his passport, searched his backpack, for he was being erratic, etc which police would not appreciate. Typical DS.
In Japan, it must be life or death to involve the police & heavily ‘punished’ for the tour guide losing a passenger. DS was lost & he expected the police to simply drive him to the bus stop which they eventually did when the TAD manager confirmed who he was. Again, the matter became much worse when DS exiting the police car yelling to Trend “it’s her fault”! What a piece of work!!! The police then went further on Trend. When DS sat next to me, I gave it to him of his poor form. He said it to Trend as a joke & didn’t accept any fault or later even apologised. Other passengers agreed with me, but DS remained his usual self-serving self. Trend was very hurt but repeatedly stated she was happy DS was safe. Two years ago, one of her passengers died from a heart attack at Mt Fuji & it took her a long time before she continued as a guide.
Back on the bus for more dreaded DS hours & about another 30+ tunnels, with one being an amazing 11klms long we finally arrived at Shirakawa, near Gifu, another UNESCO site. After Trend’s bus intro we were allowed free walking of the site & if enough time to see the village from the observatory hill. The first task was to walk across the heavily constructed suspension bridge linking the only way to the historical site.
Shirakawa Suspension Bridge
The first thing I noticed was the very thick rice stems thatched for the roof coverings of dwellings and secondly, the warning signs for snow falling from the roofs in Winter. Yikes!! After seeing the miniature water wheel still working, I visited the museum house of the original Wada family, who lived in the largest Gassho-Zukuri style house in Shirakawa-go. Paid my 400yen entry fee & mandatorily took off my shoes to wander through this very unusual house & see how it operated with a central internal hearth bowl kitchen & open floor immediately above for heating & drying of clothes & obviously sleeping warmth. The roof & walls are all tied with thick rope bonds & lined with small diameter bamboo reeds after scaling the incredibly steep timber stairs (limited floor wastage).
Top Left photo – Wada Family workers & storage building. Top right – Wada House (rear of photo) & worker’s building on right. Middle right – Centre kitchen stove & hearth. Bottom right – Various carry wreaths. Bottom Left – Top floor showing house roof & wall structure & floor.
Along the walls are carry wreathes to enable the wearer to carry heavier weights for long journeys and to take the stress off their backs. The main income for the Wada family back then was silkworms to make silk & surprisingly, gunpowder. Now that is a unique diversity of business.
Not sure of timing but headed for the steep walkway up to the observatory platform to look over the village. Other passengers coming down said I’ll be too late for the bus; well, I certainly proved them wrong much to their amazement & in beating some of the other passengers as well. Below right photo shows Wada House on the left foreground with the trees around it. The suspension bridge is out of view on far right background.
View from Top Floor of Wada House
View of historical village from Observatory Hill
Back on the bus on time (go figure), we stopped after an hour to refuel the bus & then our guide, Trend confirmed our scheduled hotel couldn’t accommodate us tonight as we were running a little late and another bus tour was now arriving there. Within a very short while we were provided another hotel but not in Gifu as arranged. The hotel was another Hotel Route-Inn @ Nishihongodori & that again was superb.
Later, I checked with Trend & asked if she had sent her daily report to her manager where she confirmed she had already done so. After explaining to Trend how the bus passengers saw the DS/ Police incident I insisted she use my name as a reference & submit another report to her manager using my summary of words before her head hits the pillow. She finally promised she would & was so grateful, and she again confirmed that to me the next morning the manager received her 2nd report & was more relieved on the expected outcome. Trend was totally innocent of the DS/ Police debacle.
A very long day & walking 7.51klms & lucky (again, good management) we all bought some light food for dinner at the pit stop as restaurants were already closed in small villages. Brekky set for 6.30am & 8.30am bus departure.
Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.
BH Life Travels 