Japan Travelogue - Fashion trends in Japan

I took some candid shots of the young ladies at airports and railway stations. The trend seemed to be short skirt or short pants with long boots, black tights, etc.
These pictures were taken in mid October. Black tights seem to be catching up in Singapore 2 months later.

Japan Travelogue - Seafood

I have been sharing my tales on my trip to Hokkaido. This time it is on seafood. Hokkaido is famous for hairy crab (kegani) and taraba crab. Hairy crab is native Japanese crab while taraba crab looks like Alaskan king crab, but I am not sure whether they are the same type of crabs. Taraba crabs are brought in by Russian fishing vessels. Taraba crabs are sold live ie swimming in a tank, raw chilled (half of the legs) or boiled and frozen. Just take a look at the prices of taraba crabs and hairy crabs shown in the images. I ate taraba crab at a buffet dinner and ordered a hairy crab at another ala carte dinner. A 400-gramme crab cost 6000 yen and I had to wait for more than 30 minutes for the crab to be boiled’.

Taraba legs
Hairy crabs
First time I saw ‘aburi sushi’ on the menu while I took sushi on the first day on my arrival in Fukuoka in Oct 09. ‘Aburi’ means burnt or treatment by fire in Japanese. The fish meat on an aburi sushi after fire treatment is still raw, except with the burnt smell.

Aburi sushi After making the sushi, the chef would burn the sushi with a can-gas torch. The thin edges of the small fish were burnt or charred a bit.
At a sushi shop in Sapporo 10 days later, I got the opportunity to see the process of making aburi sushi at the sushi counter.

Shishamon sushiI ordered shishamon sushi which I heard was only available in Hokkaido. Shishamon is a small fish of about 10 cm long with plenty of roe which is usually eaten grilled.

Ika chirimen - (literally means ‘squid noodles’).The chef took less than 2 minutes to dissect a live squid fished out from the tank and sliced the meat into thin strips which look like noodles. When the head with the legs of the squid is detached from the body, the legs could support the head and stand up on the chopping board. See image below.

Japan Travelogue - Nachi Falls, Kumano, Wakayama

Recently, I visited Kumano which is in Wakayama Prefecture.

There are 33 shrines and temples along the pilgrimage circuit in Kumano, Wakayama Prefecture of Japan, which was designated as a World's Heritage'. Many of the shrines are linked with stoned paved paths built over the centuries. The path is lined with cedar trees of of several hundred years old. It took me more than 30 minutes to tread the gradual uphill path to reach the first shrine -Nachi Daisha. The path may look monotonous in picture, but the feel of actually being in it, treading along the path among the old and huge trees, the scent and 'sound' of natural forest, the change of the sun's shade at every turn, the quiteness, tranquility, the feel was very therapeutic and soothing. I stopped every now than then to take in the views and photographing.
The path I took was not packed with visitors. I got to enjoy the undisturbed tranquility at the abode of the divine (霊場 in Japanese).

Below are are some the photos I took along the path.

Mioto trees (Husband and wife trees).
The tree on the right with a hole must be the 'wife tree'.
Stone paved path lined with cedar trees.
Flower among the rocks.While walking up the stoned paved pilgrimage path in Kumano (熊野古道), I was delighted to see a bloom among the pile of rocks. This was a refreshing sight of perseverance and strength, a life that popped out from the seemingly lifeless and barren pile of rocks.

Steps leading to Kumano-Nachi Taisha Grand Shrine.
A rock monument indicating that Nachi Daisha (Nachi Shrine)
is a World's Heritage site.
Kumano-Nachi Taisha Grand Shrine torii.
Seiganto-ji and Nachi-no Otaki One of the most famous waterfalls in Japan, with a height of 133m, 13m of width, and 10m of depth of fall basin. Nachi-no Otaki is actually a set of three waterfalls and here you can see the main falls.
The red vermilion three-storied pagoda is a part of the UNESCO-designated World Heritage Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range.

Close-up view of Nachi-no Otaki It has been said that one of the Japanese emperors visited this fall more than a 100 times.

Japan Travelogue - Nachi Zan, World Heritage Site

The Nachi Zan temple was built in 1590 and is the oldest among those designated as World Heritage in Kumano area. You can see the weathered timber structure which tells the age.

Japan Travelogue - 'HAINAN' in Japan

When the ‘Tokkyu’ (Special Express train) I was travelling from Shin Osaka to Kumano at Wakayama Prefecture had a brief stop at a station and I happened to look out of the window, I was pleasantly surprised to see the station name was ‘Hainan’ in Chinese (pronounced ‘Kainan’ in Japanese). Before the train pulled off, I flipped out my camera and took a shot of the sign of the station’s name.



I was heading for Kumano, at the Southern tip of Wakayama, which was designated by UN as a World Heritage site. Kumano is a ‘divine place’ (Reiba) of Japan, with many old shrines built several hundred years ago which are linked with stoned paved tracks and steps lined with cedar trees of several years old. For centuries the pilgrims make their rounds of shrine visits by treading the tracks.