日曜日, 10月 30, 2005

Enchanting Lake Chuzenji


I'm standing (actually freezing!) in front of lake Chuzenji, found in one of the mountains of Nikko. Tosho-gu Shrine lost its main patron after the Shogunate collapsed, but Nikko soon became a favored summer retreat for Western envoys and merchants living in Japan. After members of the Imperial Family and aristocrats began building summer houses here, Nikko became a center for cross-cultural socializing during the hot summer months. Nikko Kanaya Hotel, which once catered to foreign guests, is legendary for its rainbow trout cuisine. This dish, flavored with soy sauce and mirin (sweet cooking sake), was popular at the time and is still available today. According to Mr. Karube of the hotel, visitors from abroad were very fond of this variety of Japanese cuisine.
Ken and I took a quick plunge into an onsen here. We both agreed to meet up at 5.30pm to catch our 6.45PM train back to Asakusa. Onsen (Hot spring) is what I was really looking forward to this trip. I just wanted to emerse into a soothing and relaxing natural hot bath. It was an hour of peaceful retreat. I reluctantly headed my way back to the hotel reception. When we finished Ken all of a sudden said what if we missed the last bus already? I remember we didn't check the bus schedule. We just assumed that like in Tokyo, buses come and go every 5 to 10 minutes.
We headed back to the bus station and we found out that we missed the bus by a couple of minutes. The next bus won't come until 6.48! Our train was 6.45. We decided to walk over to another station to see if we could hail a taxi.


The walk was so soothing. We could hear the soft brushes of the lakes waves against its bank as it was being swayed gently by the crisp autumn air. Maybe it was getting dark, or Chuzenji was so enchanting but we weren't able to find the other bus station. So we decided to take a quick dinner and just wait for the 6.48 bus ~ the safest option at the moment. We found this small udon (fat noodles) restaurant and ordered quickly. Shortly we found ourselves inside the bus for another 45 minutes and back to the Tobu Nikko station. When we asked if our ticket was still valid for the next train, it turned out that it wasn't and we had to buy again. At around 9.30 we were back at Asakusa. We split afterwards to go back to our own homes.

Overall Nikko was a fun excursion especially since I had a chance to revisit a special place from my memory box. I vaguely remembered the shrines and temples details from my first visit but yesterday I was able to take a closer look (a real look) at what was once a highly restricted part of the Samuarai era. Japan indeed has a long standing and rich history. Although Chinese would contest that these artifacts were looted from them I'm still awed by the robustness of these infrastructure, by their grandeur and by the stories I heard from the tour guides. Philippines didn't have a written history until 1521, compared to Japan's history, as a Filipino I felt like a baby.

Anyway, this unplanned spur of the moment road trip taught me several lessons:

  1. Dont buy return ticket if you're not absolutely sure that you have a concrete itinerary, otherwise you might end up wasting it.
  2. Check your transportation schedule and adjust from it.
  3. If you can, reserve in advance! Most reservations can be done via internet or phone.

# posted by Unknown : 1:10 午前


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