tbaroundtheworld

We caught the train at the Nagoya Marriott, heading down the tracks to the Central Japan Airport located on an island a few kilometers off the coast. One last experience with the ticket choices this time facilitated by a helpful gate agent guarding the machine. The ride was a local for a couple of stops and then shifted to an express. I waited patiently for the giant Buddha I had seen on the way in, hoping to get a photograph. And I did, but not a good one, with Buddha serenely looking down upon the corner of a car dealership. We arrived and checked in and went up the escalator to the food court and Starbucks. Looking around I noticed that no one had luggage and it finally dawned on me, not only was this an airport, but it was a regional mall. Suddenly I had an explanation for all the people on the train without bags - they were heading out to the mall for some shopping and lunch. The crowds made it very difficult to move around with a carry on bag, and every time I ran over someone...

We pre-shopped our tickets to Kyoto last night in order to avoid a mad rush at this station this morning. There was an interesting discrepancy between the two machines we tried – one allowed you to reserve a seat in a smoking, non-smoking or “green” car and the other basically just gave you a fare with electives. Both though allowed you to pick the time so when we hit the station this morning we felt well versed enough to just buy the tickets. The only problem was it was not clear which was the proper side of the station to catch the train so we asked an agent who was pretty much unable to help us other than to say that the tickets were wrong and that we’d have to change them. Why the machine did this, was unclear and he could not explain it aside from pointing in the direction of the ticket office and saying, “Go there.” Again, no English but we were more or less able to muddle our way through the process with the next agent who understood about 7 words “Express, Reservation, Kyoto, S...

Today was a travel day so we planned to take a quick trip down the city of Toba to find some pearl earrings. Toba has grown up around the Mikimoto pearl empire, created by Kochichi Mikimoto who perfected the process for culturing pearls. There is a square island in Toba harbor that houses the Pearl Museum as well as the personal estate of Mikimoto-san. Most of the web guides call the place out as a tourist trap to be avoided ($19 to walk across the bridge to Pearl Island) and it pretty much turned out to be that way, but there we were and there is (perhaps) nothing like a famous pair of pearl earrings and so off we went. The weather in Ise was threatening, it had rained earlier and while the sky was still gray, it was clear it wasn’t going to come down in buckets any time soon. We caught a local train and headed out of the station towards the south. The land was a bit different along this route. It was mountainous and we passed through several tunnels as we gained ran along. For the fi...

We had a couple of hours to kill this afternoon so we decided to visit the famous Ise temple complex, the most famous in all of Japan and the spiritual home for those Japanese who follow the way of Shinto. The native and most ancient religion of Japan, Shinto is a polytheistic practice that believes in spirits residing in the natural world. Because of this basic tenet, the Shinto shrines are very, very beautiful in their construction and landscaping. Entering the grounds immediately imparts a sense of inner peace, which is the intention of the creators of the sites. Kami , the powerful spirits, are enshrined all across the island in consecrated rocks and evergreens, and in sanctuaries called jinja . The word Shinto literally translates as “the way of the kami.” There are more than 100,000 sanctuaries across Japan and Jingu is the most sacred of all. Like Mecca for those who follow Islam, all Shinto are expected to make a pilgrimage to Jingu and to that end it hosts almost a million vis...