You may have noticed that the first two days here (in Japan) I wrote some paragraphs on my posts which probably read like insights from an outsider — mind you, they’re probably not completely accurate and shouldn’t be taken as gospel. Since I spent most of Monday on a train to Nikkō, and most of Tuesday and Wednesday trekking the scenic areas around the town, I thought it might be more interesting to jot down some of my observations here as a foreigner first, rather than attempt to write a holiday journal of what I’ve done over the past few days.

Japan is a land of islands — an archipelago of stratovolcanoes comprising of 6,852 separate islands. The four largest that make up the “mainland” Japan that people usually refer to are called Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku. Eighty percent of the population live on Honshu.

When people think of Japan, they probably think of it as a religious, green country — rice paddies and shrines are usually descriptions given. Rice farming techniques, including use of the paddy field, were brought into Japan about 500 BC by the Yayoi people. Japanese rice has apparently been cultivated to be typhoon-resistant, and some types can even grow in the colder climates found in Hokkaido. Japanese people are religious; however the count is indecisive — Wikipedia quotes some sources saying 84-96 percent follow either Buddhism or Shintō, and other sources stating only 30 percent are religious. Buddhism was brought into Japan from mainland Korea in the first century and has remained as a major religion since then, pulling influences from China. The Shintō religion has a much harder to pin down start date, and unlike many other religions you do not need to publically profess your belief.

Shintō involves worship and protection of spirits in physical entities and places, i.e. rocks, trees, rivers, animals. Shrines are erected to interface with these spirits, but natural places can also be very spiritual and even contain deities. Mount Fuji, for example, is said to contain a deity, and the earliest people to climb the mountain were probably worshippers on a pilgrimage to pay their respects. Indeed, a Shintō shrine sits atop Mount Fuji — and all modern climbers must pass through one of its gates in order to reach the summit. Shrine gates are said to purify those who pass through them, so anyone entering a shrine through its gate will be purified. There's some etiquette you need to follow in order to pay your respects properly; I’ll talk about those later on in this post.

Despite being seen as a highly technologically advanced society, credit cards are generally not accepted outside of the major cities. Foreign debit cards may also be refused — especially at banks and ATMs — so the easiest way to pay for things in the country is by cash.

Japan is the only nation I've been to where the money doesn't have fractional denominations — that is to say, all prices are rounded to the nearest whole number. The coin denominations are 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500; notes go from 1000 to 5000 and upwards from there. Prices are usually rounded to the nearest ten, unless you’re shopping in a western-style shop where prices end in the typical 1 or 9, leaving you with loads of small change.

I’ll make a few notes here about what I’ve done in Nikkō as reference for the curious amongst you — and to also use as a reference if I ever want to remember what I did on these days in the future.

Nikkō is a mountain town in the Tochigi prefecture about 140km north of Tōkyō. It is famous for its shrines, hot springs and local wood craftsmanship. Interestingly enough, the Three Wise Monkeys (“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”) originated in a shrine in this city, which I visited on Wednesday morning. The Nikkō National Park is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to a combination of these attractions.

On Monday morning my parents and I boarded a local commuter train that took us from Tōkyō to Utsunomiya, and then the JR Nikkō Line from there to Nikkō station. From there, a hotel bus took us to our ryokan. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn, the idea of which originated in the Edo period as a sort of traveller’s inn. The rooms consist of Tatami (straw) mats, shōji doors and windows, and a small table used for eating meals which is cleared away nightly to place futons (mattresses).

The inns generally have communal facilities and may even lend you traditional Japanese attire which you can use during your stay there — for example yukatas, which are used as casual wear and even pyjamas.

On Tuesday, we took a bus up into the mountains to visit the Kegon-no-taki falls, and the Chuzenji-ko lake. The road to the falls splits into two as you go up the mountain – one road is solely for traffic going upwards, and one solely for traffic going down. This is probably to allow faster traffic, such as cars, to be able to pass slower traffic, such as buses, without doing dangerous overtaking manoeuvres on the winding roads.

The falls themselves were as you'd expect — foaming and rumbly. There seems to be an abundance of dragonflies in Nikkō, and these swarmed around the viewing platforms – both at the top and bottom of the falls.

The Chuzenji-ko lake feeds the little stream that produces the falls, however as far as lakes go, there wasn’t much unique to it. Since it began raining quite hard at this point, we decided to retreat to the small woodwork shops along the waterfront and then make our way back down to Nikkō in a bus.

Upon returning to the main town, the rain had eased up a bit and we trekked along the Kanmangafuchi Abyss — a gorge with a fast moving river running along the bottom. A small mountain trail runs along one of the edges that brings you past the Bake Jizo (ghost jizo), a set of stone statues said to care for the deceased. They look out over the abyss into the botanical gardens over the river.

On Wednesday, we explored the shrines in the area, in particular the Tōshō-gū shrine with the 17th-century carving of the Three Wise Monkeys over a door. There is a small mountainous area containing many shrines and temples — some being restored — which can all be comfortably explored by foot. That said, if you’re planning to visit all the shrines, be prepared to climb up several steep flights of steps.

The bigger shrines (which contain the remains of several important people) require tickets to be purchased in order to visit, however there are a few which you can walk into ticketless as well.

The main Tōshō-gū shrine has three distinct areas which require separate tickets, or a single combined ticket purchased outside.

Tōshō-gū shrine is where the three wise monkeys come from — “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” — and this carving can be found on a small wooden building just within the front entrance. It isn’t the biggest carving and might be missed on first sight, but the crowds of tourists taking photos of it will probably get your attention.

On the right side of the entrance, and in a separately ticketed area, there is a route up to Tokugawa Ieyasu’s mausoleum. This part of the shrine lies atop the mountain and has approximately 200-or-so steps to reach it. The gate to the steps is guarded by a small carving of a sleeping cat, which is said to have rid the area of all evil mice.

On the left side of the entrance, also in a separately ticketed area, lies the Honjido Hall, featuring a huge painting of a dragon on the ceiling. The dragon is nicknamed the “Crying Dragon” due to the way a “water droplet” sound can be heard when two pieces of wood are clapped directly under its head.

Tōshō-gū shrine stands proudly in the centre of the shrine area, and can also be visited. You must take your shoes off in order to get into the main building, but once inside you can admire the architecture and craftsmanship, as well as lots of small dragon paintings on the ceiling.

There are several other shrines in the area; some are being renovated and you can go in to see this process, others stand tall and proud welcoming visitors and followers alike.

Any person is welcome to visit a Shintō shrine; doing so is called Omairi. If you want to pay your respects, there are a few steps to follow:

• When at an entrance gate, bow respectfully before going through.
• Perform Temizu (outlined below) if there is a provided water basin.
• If there’s a donation box, you can drop a small donation in the box. If there’s a bell, you might be able to ring it gently to notify the spirits of your presence.
• At the shrine (or after donating or ringing the bell) bow, clap your hands twice, keep them in a prayer gesture while saying a prayer and finally bow again.

As per Wikipedia, Temizu is as follows:

Take the dipper in your right hand and scoop up water. Pour some onto your left hand, then transfer the dipper to your left hand and pour some onto your right hand. Transfer the dipper to your right hand again, cup your left palm, and pour water into it, from which you will take the water into your mouth (never drink directly from the dipper), silently swish it around in your mouth (do not drink), then quietly spit it out into your cupped left hand (not into the reservoir). Then, holding the handle of the dipper in both hands, turn it vertically so that the remaining water washes over the handle. Then replace it where you found it.

On Thursday, my parents and I will be taking a bullet train to Kyoto, where we will be staying for a few days. I’ll have a better connection there, in the evenings at least, so I should be able to keep everyone more up-to-date.

I may not have a steady internet connection over the next few days, so I’ve decided to bundle these two days together in a post and upload what I can before I disappear to Nikkō. After all, my weekend here with my parents was quite unstructured and involved a lot of walking and visiting several small places which are better to visit in person, rather than read about. That, and I'm exhausted after these two days of being on my feet all the time.

Since the weather became considerably wetter on Saturday morning, we decided to visit the Edo-Tōkyō museum. It portrays the history of Edo and the way it has transformed into modern Tōkyō. The museum building is a fascinating structure — a sort-of trapezium suspended upon four pillars. It reminded me of a SNES console raised above the ground on four fat legs.

There’s really not much else to say about this museum. It’s a fascinating place, filled with multiple-language exhibits that are carefully crafted and interactive. If you’re ever in Tōkyō and interested in its rich heritage and history, it’s well worth a visit.

The rain didn’t get much better after lunch; we wanted to visit the Tōkyō Skytree only a stone’s throw from the museum, but it was unrelenting and from the heavy cloud cover it was obvious the view would be obstructed. Indeed, getting closer to the tower revealed that the top half pierced into the rain clouds and out of sight making the Skytree appear as if it were an apparition. We decided to give it a miss this time.

Instead, we headed across the river to Asakusa to visit the Senso-ji temple. This area of town was packed with an obscene amount of people — some of which were taking part in a samba and float carnival, yet another surreal sight in the pouring rain.

Further in towards Senso-ji, there was a huge shopping district packed with people — and a surprising amount of young ladies wearing kimonos. The shrine itself seemed peaceful, if you ignored the heaving seas of people flowing through its doors. I dropped a hundred yen coin into the coin box and paid my respects to the central shrine.

A few steps away from the bustle, however, there lies a small stream full of koi carp beside a pagoda. I spent a small amount of time there and had a photo taken with a group of kimono girls — who giggled a lot and spoke a little English. They appeared to be there of their own accord, laughing and snapping selfies of each other, so we left them to their own devices and made our way back to our hotel.

On Sunday morning, we once again chanced the Skytree, as the weather appeared to have cleared up a bit. However, on emerging from the Tōkyō metro, the rain had started up again.

That didn't stop us going up, though.

Tōkyō Skytree stands at an impressive 634 metres and dominates the skyline of the north-eastern side of the city. We spent more time queuing for the ticket than up in the first observation deck, which is a little more than half-way up the tower at 350 metres. There is a second observation deck at 450 metres, but it requires an additional ticket to enter that can only be purchased from within the first observation deck. The clouds slowly rolled in around the observation decks as we were up there, so it was decided not to spend more money going up to the higher one — at least I'll still have something exciting to see if I ever return!

After lunch, we took the metro all the way across Tōkyō to the Meiji-jingu shrine, a shrine dedicated to Emperor Meji and his consort, Empress Shoken. It was a truly beautiful little shrine in the middle of a forest park, offering respite from the ever-moving hustle and bustle of Tōkyō city. I learnt how to pay my respects to the spirits of the shrine properly, and admired the craftsmanship of the buildings that it was comprised of.

As the rain was obviously not going to stop, we decided to call it a weekend and return to the hotel. Tomorrow, at lunch time, we will be travelling north out of Tōkyō to the smaller mountain town of Nikkō, famed for its hot springs and beautiful views (if it isn't raining). I’ll also be staying in a traditional Japanese Ryokan inn so there's going to be a lot to talk about there; however, no guarantee of internet outside of the lobby. Further journal posts may be uploaded in batches at specific dates.

The Japanese language is rather pleasant to listen to when people are speaking it around Tōkyō. The language is calm and almost “bubbles” over you as people around you speak it or when it comes through the PA systems in public places, such as airports or train stations. According to the 2007 Insight Guides guidebook of Japan, both genders generally tend to skew their voices to be deliberately appealing to the other sex; men pushing their voices theatrically low, and women using a high pitch which is supposed to come across as attractive. It's not entirely obvious as a westerner, but it can be interesting listening to the Japanese speaking to each other in Japanese and then switching to English to speak to a foreigner. The change in pitch is subtle, but can be apparent.

A lot of things in Tōkyō (and the rest of Japan, it seems looking back at the end of the holiday) are “enhanced” with sound. Many items are personified and will talk to you: buses will announce their arrival and departure in the same way that lifts will back in the UK; escalators will politely tell you you’re reaching the top. If you’ve (accidentally) pressed the “elderly or disabled” button on road crossing signals, the lights will tell you when to start walking. Trains will apologise to you for being late, tell you the next station and which side the doors will open on. These prompts may be backed up with quick audio jingles or music. JR stations in Tōkyō all seem to have a unique few seconds of music they play when a train pulls in — so if you missed the announcement in the train, just listen for the two-or-so seconds of music that play as the doors open. If it sounds like your station, you probably ought to start making your way off the train.

Quite a few places and companies also employ visual mascots on their signs and packaging that is also personified. You’ll notice cartoon cars with smiley faces in adverts, or winking trains on station signs, little firemen on a fire hydrant — and, with the manga and anime culture over here, if a company has enough money, you might see the season’s latest and most popular animated characters holding up the product on a poster. A ringing endorsement from everyone's favourite animated schoolkid-warrior-space pirate.

Just a few minor things I’ve noticed while over here, anyway.

After the unstructured hubbub of yesterday, my parents and I decided to go on a day tour of the volcanoes of Mount Fuji and Hakone. We all bundled onto a coach at 9:07am — a slightly less-than-punctual start for a tour scheduled for 9am sharp — and rumbled off down the Chūō expressway inland towards Mount Fuji. The weather didn’t start off very promising with a low, thick cloud cover, and it only seemed to get worse during our journey westwards. There was a point where it was bucketing down with rain, but the tour guide optimistically maintained that there was a 50% chance that we would still be able to see the peak of Mount Fuji, due to the way mountainous areas can have different micro-climates.

As we turned off the expressway and onto a smaller road at the town of Fujiyoshida, the clouds did begin to clear and sunlight shone through. However, the mountain was shrouded in a deep set of clouds which offered us only a glimpse of the base of it. As the bus ascended upwards to Fuji station 5, we entered the clouds and there was a brief moment of hope that we’d come out above them; sadly, this was not the case and we were left only with photos of clouds shrouding the summit, and blanketing the lands below. While disappointing, it was still quite the experience and the cloud blanket was definitely a spectacular sight.

Mount Fuji is an interesting volcano, and is relatively “new” in relation to others. The volcano has consumed other mountains during its time — a point the tour guide helped explain with her beautifully hand-drawn illustrations and hand-crafted paper models, which delighted the entire tour. Fuji itself is an almost perfect cone — the only major irregularities are caused by the edges of the other mountains sticking out of it — and this is one of the reasons why it is so famous.

Station 5 is about half-way up Fuji and sits atop one of the mountains which was consumed. It has a small but well-maintained Shintō shrine there, along with a set of tourist shops, and is generally where most climbers start their Fuji climbing experience. While I didn’t climb this time round, perhaps I will during my next visit.

After the brief stop upon Fuji, the coach rattled its way back down the winding Fuji road and off towards the Mount Hakone caldera — which, explained with the help of the fun illustrations and explanation given by the tour guide, had been created by a series of huge eruptions many years ago, that caused the majority of the top of the volcano to collapse. Mount Hakone is made of two huge calderas, and is still active — evidenced by the ongoing eruption and evacuation orders for parts of the caldera.

Lake Ashi (also known as Ashino-ko) is a commercially-exploited tourist destination which the tour went to once within the caldera. A company provides “pirate ship sightseeing tours” from the northern edge of the lake to the south-eastern edge and points out one or two major points of interest along the way. I wasn’t very impressed by this portion of the tour, especially as every one of the “major sightseeing points” was on the left-hand side of the boat, and that there were only three of these points brought up over the PA system in a ridiculously slow and drawn-out American voice, but I guess they were trying and I give them credit for that.

The boats themselves were horrible caricatures of pirate ships, with full masts and rigging, blackening paint on their sides, ends of cannons sticking out of red wooden walls and a complete plastic crew on the upper deck. Additionally, a small Japanese man with a fake beard and belly who claimed to be the “captain” tried to sell people photo opportunities with a real “pirate” as the actual crew slaved away on the bridge down below, skilfully keeping the diesel engine quiet as we avoided fishing boats and Shintō shrine gates upon the smooth lake waters.

There was a chance to ascend to one of the tops of the interior volcanic domes on the Hakone-en cable car, so the tour guide led us there. We ascended into the clouds in the small and exceedingly crowded gondola. The clouds decided not to clear — this seems to have been the order of the day — and we couldn’t see anything at all, so the group decided to return to the base of the mountain to browse the heinously overpriced gift shop before boarding the coach for the last time that day.

From there, the coach shuddered down the outer edges of the caldera towards Odawara train station, where the majority of the group boarded a Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tōkyō. And so ended our whistle-stop cloudy tour of the Mount Fuji national park which, while in some cases disappointing due to clouds, was a decent tour and definitely set up the groundwork for future visits to Japan. I’ve now got it set in my mind to climb Mount Fuji and watch the sun rise, as well as investigating the more interesting areas of the Mount Hakone caldera, which were off-limits due to the volcanic activity currently taking place.

There’s a weird, quite skewed way of viewing Japan and Japanese culture from our position in the “west” of the world. We see it as being far out and eccentric, maybe even quite strange with its over-the-top game shows and crazy obsession for tentacles doing obscene things in cartoons.

In reality, though, these are really edge cases which do not manifest themselves in the every day Japanese life. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the western portrayal of Japan is so whimsically skewed that you can probably arrive in the country and be completely and utterly shocked by how normal it is.

I arrived into Narita Airport in the evening, walked through the immigration, got my bag and was suddenly outside the airport where I had to do a double take as there wasn’t a single duty free shop that I had been forced to walk through (Heathrow has a lot to learn here). My parents and I got into a hyper efficient bus queue and we were on the way to our hotel all within fifteen minutes.

Even the motorway from the airport to our hotel could be called boring. The road was smooth and flat and everyone drove so politely - the amount of people using the thank you indicator gesture was really quite refreshing after a few days in Singapore.

Japan just seems astonishingly normal compared to the stuff shown on TV in the west. K-On!! might seem a dull and boring anime, but even that seems more exciting than the first few hours I spent in this country. And this seriously isn't a bad thing.

The Japanese at first glance are calm and quiet, and unbelievably professional. The woman at the airport who helped us to the buses and the man who checked us into the hotel were courteous and polite, bowing and nodding with their “Hai”s (yesses) and “arigatou”s (thank you’s) — even while talking on the phone to a colleague, which seemed almost comical when booking a tour with the hotel concierge.

The first night at Dai-ichi Hotel was comfortable and relatively relaxing, save for my father's nocturnal tree cutting that woke me several times. Our hotel room overlooks the main Yamanote line and a branch of the bullet train line to Tōkyō station. Since Japanese trains are so punctual, there's usually a low rumble every few minutes as a pair of commuter trains roll by, packed to the brim with passengers. Funnily enough, the bullet trains don't make as much noise as the commuter trains so I had a hard time trying to capture them on camera.

In the morning, we set out for the presidential palace gardens, a picturesque but monotonous green set of parks around the Emperor’s palace in the heart of Tōkyō’s Chinoda district. The sun was beaming down and the clouds were gloriously few and far between as we trekked around the gardens, sweating. The public gardens are located around the location of the original Edo castle grounds, however the castle burnt down many years ago leaving only the defensive walls standing.

After sweltering in the heat for several hours, we made our way out and searched for food. Which, seemed to be quite difficult around the gardens. We chanced upon a charming little Chinese restaurant with a waiter who spoke almost perfect English. I’ll give them a recommendation, but I can’t find them on Google Maps (they’re located next to the 7-11 at 2 Chome-6-2 Hitotsubashi though).

After lunch, we browsed the National Museum of Modern Art. It’s a small museum with only the upper floor dedicated to displaying items. There was an exhibition going on showcasing a small selection of handcrafted items — mainly bowls, boxes and kimonos — so we had a quick browse around before moving on.

There is one thing I had to do during this holiday, though. Japan is famous for its comics and cartoons, known in the west as manga (visual novels) and anime (animated versions of manga). It’s the only obviously out-of-the-ordinary (to westerners anyway) thing I’ve noticed so far during my time here — convenience stores such as Family Mart, Seven Eleven and Lawsons tend to have a magazine rack which attracts the attention of adults which, if you have a peek, are reading the latest issue of their favourite visual novels. Tōkyō has a district called Akihabara (also known as the “Electric City”). As soon as you enter this district, you’ll notice it’s different. The walls are lined with posters, adverts and massive screen TVs. Within this district, you can find electronics stores selling basically every gadget you can think of, as well as towering department stores dedicated to manga, anime and everything related to those two.

As you've seen from my gallery, you can probably tell I’m a bit of an electronics nerd, and that I happen to enjoy the odd bit of manga and anime too. Well, probably more than most of the other people in my immediate circle of friends. When I told my dad of this district before the holiday, he said if I didn't go then he’d take me there. So we went.

I really didn't know much about the location, other than that Akihabara was the center for otaku but as we sat in the taxi from the museum, I could instantly tell when we were there. Bright lights, shops emblazoned and sponsored by super-sized anime characters, women dressed as maids handing out flyers… it was a sight to behold. This is popular culture over here, and the way people go about it it really seems like it’s an ordinary thing (which it is. Everyone has hobbies and there’s nothing wrong with this why am I even trying to justify it). I picked up two new family members and got into the general vicinity of the GoodSmile Café — but shied away from it, as I got too embarrassed by being addressed in Japanese by the man at the door and instead managed to stumble into a female cosplay shop. I won't go into detail on that one, but I did escape pretty sharpish.

Off to Fuji-San (Mt Fuji) tomorrow, hopefully the weather holds out to get a glimpse of the summit.

I’m currently in the air above Taiwan, on my way to Tōkyō Narita Airport (in the Kantō region of Japan), where I’ll catch a shinkansen to the somewhat-central Tōkyō rail station. (For those Pokémon-obsessed amongst you, I’ll be landing in Kanto approximately in the vicinity of Vermilion city. From there I’ll defeat Lt Surge and get my Thunder Badge).

Japan’s one of the few Asian countries I haven’t visited before, so this should be a fun new experience. We’re visiting during the typhoon season — just after a typhoon has visited, actually — and we’ll be touring Tōkyō, Nikkō, Kyōto and the surrounding areas. It’s going to be a bit of a whistle-stop tour, but at least it’ll give me a grounding for what to look out for if I return. Which I probably will, knowing me.

How we’re going to survive (or get around in general) is going to be interesting; none of us can speak the language — save for “wakarimasen” (literally, “I don't understand”) — and we can’t read it at either, so that’s going to make getting to places — especially on the trains — very difficult. Hotels have been booked, but whether or not we get to them is another question entirely. Language barriers in past family holidays has not usually been such a problem; most countries we’ve been to use the Latin alphabet and we can at least read the signs in order to get about. This time, it's all different.

Anyhow. So begins my family holiday to Japan. More photos and journal entries to come 🙂