The old slow boat to China cliché

Sometimes it is very hard to escape the old clichés about the countries you travel through. And we’re sitting on one now, steadily swaying about in the indigo waters of the East China Sea, as our ferry ploughs a slow path between Japan and China.

There’s no doubt about it: the MS Su Zhou Hao is definitely a slow boat to China.

It’s hardly the image I had in my mind of course, you know the romantic one of am old-style Chinese junk, all rigging and multiple different decks, laden with manufactured goods and opium, and calling in at various exotic ports on a mission to discover the secrets of silk.

But it is certainly slow and, I would imagine rather more comfortable than some rickety old wooden tub.

I rather like leaving a country by ship, indeed I prefer it to leaving by plane. The pace of travel gives you time to relax and reflect on your time in the country you have just left and to anticipate what lies ahead in that to which you are headed.

Rather than zoom into the clouds in burst of kerosene, on a ship you can slip gracefully away, giving you chance to bid a long farewell to the country you’re leaving .

It allows you to appreciate the physical space between countries - so important in determining the character of a nation such as Japan - as you watch the land slip slowly out of sight and you enter the embrace of the open sea.

Time to digest your adventures in one country before scanning the horizon for the first sight of the next.

I found this a particularly pleasurable experience doing this from the luxury of my own large, albeit slightly grubby Japanese-style communal bath. As the sun set and I sloshed about in the warm water, I could gaze out the window across the island-strewn Inland Sea towards the lights twinkling on the shore and reflect on a month in Japan.

We had spent the previous day in the somewhat down-at-heel port city of Osaka.

Perhaps it should be expected, typical of port cities the world over, or perhaps it was just our chosen part of town, but after clean, tidy, well-behaved Japan, Osaka was a rude dose of reality.

The city seemed populated entirely by gaunt, middle-aged men in grimy vests, its streets lined with cheap hotels, gaudy pachinko parlours and discount manual clothing outlets for manual workers.

It felt like a great receptacle for all Japan’s unwanteds: down-and-outs; drunks; and disabled people, airbrushed out of the tourist sites and dumped here like some embarrassing mad Aunt locked away in the attic.

Osaka is looked down on by citizens of some other cities, seen as less glamorous than Tokyo, less refined than Kyoto. It proudly boasts of its status as ‘Japan’s kitchen’ (well it sounds better than ‘Japan’s answer to Southampton’) and seemed stuffed with cheap, slightly grubby eateries where you could enjoy the pleasures of battered octopus balls and other such greasy delicacies.

Indeed the food seemed to lean more towards China rather than Japan, drenched in oil and served up with little of the excessive finesse we found elsewhere.

It wasn’t just the food either which came with a distinct Chinese flavour. We the influence of Japan’s largest neighbour in the Mahjong parlours in the scruffy arcades, where old men gathered to smoke rollups, and amongst the people, where Chinese and Korean immigrants remind you of Osaka’s role as Japan‘s gateway to the world.

Raffish, bawdy, lively, exuberant; was Osaka a harbinger of what was to come for us in China?
Leaving Japan for China, I anticipate some clear similarities but perhaps many more differences.
Certainly the Japanese I encountered have always stressed that, though echoes of their Chinese-influenced past resonate throughout many aspects of modern Japan, theirs was a very different path towards the 21st century, and one which has made them very distinct from their continental neighbours.

I don’t expect to make many of the same wonderful discoveries in China as I did across the Sea of Japan: the Shinkansen bullet trains; excessive politeness and incessant bowing; Salaryman and Visor Woman; ’washlet’ space-age toilets with built-in bidets and fart-disguising fake flush sounds; not even Blueberry yoghurt drink.

And in China I hope not to encounter some of Japan’s other excesses: the emphasis on ’saving face’ which compels hotel receptionists to hang up on me rather than risk embarrassing themselves by attempting to speak English; the ridiculously over-packaging of food; the frankly-annoying and pointless us of multiple slippers; the utterly irritating emphasis on the supposedly ‘cute’ and kitsch.

I will miss this - the wonderful, whacky, eccentric Japan, seedbed for a million mad inventions, home to a million crazes.

It is a country you enjoy on the surface, but one that takes years to fathom its depths. Still insular, comfortable being isolated Japan does not seem to absorb its immigrants like Britain has - as Will Ferguson notes in his excellent book ‘Hokkaido Highway Blues, like it or not, in Japan you will always be a gaijin - a ‘foreigner’.

I can’t imagine we’ll blend in that well upon making landfall in Shanghai either. Another country, another language to decode, another whole set of cultural mores to understand.

We’re entering a world of superlatives: the largest population on earth; one of the largest countries on earth; a booming economy; an emerging superpower that is making the rest of the world a little nervous.

A Japanese friend told me that the US is seen as ten years ahead of Japan, Japan as ten years ahead of Korea and Korea ten years ahead of China.

Does this mean that two days on a boat will take us back to the 1980s? Or was Japan a vision of the future?

I thought that China was now being looked to as a vision of the future.

I’m sure we’ll find out. But first we’ve got to dodge this typhoon, brooding somewhat uncomfortably close on the horizon…

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Trainspotter's paradise

As I write this we are screeching along the Pacific coast, hurtling like an exocet through the endless huge grey cities, their low roofs, driving ranges, skyscrapers and orange and white chimneys a blur.

We glimpse the occasional flash of green paddy fields before another city hoves into view, then its suburbs, before they seem to merge into the next and the next…

No this isn’t my driving. Nor are not strapped into a space rocket. This is the shinkansen, the fabled bullet train.

Japan is rightly famous for this rail network, for it is surely like no other on earth. Linking most of Japan‘s major cities it reduces journey times so much that it rivals, if not surpasses the aeroplane for getting passengers from A to B.

And unlike the plane, the shinkansen offers maximum comfort and convenience.

Huge, sleek, 16-car trains glide into stations, their elongated engines looking more like spaceships than trains. Surely it is no coincidence that my word proceesor keeps automatically changing ‘shinkansen’ to ‘slinkiness’.

A brief stop at the platform and they are off once more, accelerating at a pace that would leave Lewis Hamilton for dust.

On board it’s comfortable and spacious, with acres of legroom and plenty of seats for passengers and space for their luggage. The staff are unstintingly polite (plenty of bowing and cap-doffing), and the ride remarkably smooth given the speeds you are travelling at.

Oh and they are always on time.

At the other end, upon reaching your destination an array of transport options for your onward journey are waiting for you. A range of local trains, local and rapid, are quick and simple to catch, the larger cities boost metros, and most stations have bus stops and secure cycle parking right outside their entrance.

In short Japan Rail (JR) offers passengers everything they need and more. Japan is a trainspotter's paradise. Gordon Brown should dispatch his Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, here without delay, for a spot of work experience.

Many of the stations themselves are sights to behold: Kyoto station is an immense cathedral of lights, its many levels home to hundreds of shops, hotels and even an anime museum; Tokyo station felt like a sprawling mini-city, populated by thousands of scurrying worker ants, factory of a million bento lunchboxes.

Although often big, even bewildering, JR stations are not unpleasant. This being Japan everything is ordered and well-signposted, passengers rigorously observe the queuing systems and delicious soba noodles are only a stall away.

Thev are bright and airy, pleasant places to spend the few minutes you‘ll need to wait for your carriage to arrive. In Himeji station they even play bird calls across the platform, soothing the nerves of even the most stressed-out salaryman.

All this doesn’t come at too high a price for the savvy traveller either. You don’t need the equivalent of a down payment on a family house in order to board the shinkansen. Read our ‘how to…travel around Japan' hints and tips piece to find out how to do this.

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How to…travel around Japan

Japan is easy to travel around, thanks to its excellent public transport networks.

Many signs are in English, as well as one of the three Japanese scripts, and staff usually speak some English once they’ve got over their initial shyness.

Still, we found it helpful to get hints and tips from fellow travellers, both before we left and when we were travelling around, which helped us to make the most of it.

The following are a few tips we thought you might find of use. Do let us know if you think we should add any more.

JR Pass

William Morris would approve of the Japan Railways (JR) pass: it is both aesthetically pleasing, with a nice shiny rendition of Hokusai's famous The Great Wave off Kanagawa on the front, and remarkably useful, giving you the freedom to travel Japan’s extensive, efficient rail network at your leisure.

Only available to purchase outside of Japan, the pass is regarded with considerable envy by some Japanese, for the fantastic rail services they enjoy come at quite a high financial cost.

So if you plan to travel around Japan do yourself and your wallet a favour and buy a JR Pass before you leave home. Although it costs a weighty 350 Euros or so the pass is more than likely to pay for itself in just a few journeys.

Armed with one of these beauties you can use local trains, Shinkansen bullet trains (only the super, super fast Nozomi service is out of bounds) and even some ferries.

In addition, with a JR Pass you can cunningly negotiate your way around cities by using their local train services - given the size of a city such as Tokyo this helps you save a tidy sum.

Try and purchase your JR pass in your home country. If you run out of time before you leave , and you are visiting other countries before you reach Japan, then you should be able to purchase a JR Pass in that country. Certainly this should be possible in Europe (we bought ours in Finland).

Full details about the JR Pass are available on the Japan Rail website here.

Train ticket reservations

Trains are rarely completely full. Outside of the big cities in the rush hour, we never encountered trains that were fit to bursting with hundreds of weary passengers hanging onto the handrails.

Still it pays to get to train stations early and reserve seats. Do it ahead of the day you travel and you won’t to arrive early, plus you’ll be able to pick seats with a good view.

For example, on the Shinkansen heading south out of Tokyo try and get a seat on the right hand side - you should get a view of Mount Fuji (cloud / smog permitting).

If you haven’t reserved a ticket, consumed one too many earthenware bowls of sake the night before and overslept don’t fret. There are several carriages on each train for passengers without reservations.

Simply study the map of the train (found on the platform or the entrance to the platform) for the location of unreserved carriages.

Like the civilised people they are, the Japanese rigorously observe the queuing system. These are denoted by tramlines marked on the platform with people standing between them, whilst the smug passengers with reserved seats lean nonchalantly against the counter of the noodle bar, catching up on last night’s baseball match.

One final thing - when on the train, if people suddenly get up and start swinging their seats around 180 degrees don’t call for the authorities, this isn’t a spontaneous act of mass vandalism.

Rather this is another one of these clever Japanese technical gizmos. The train has come to the end of a single-track line and passengers can swivel their seats on an axis in order to allow them to continue facing in the direction of travel.

Be sure to remove your belongings from the pocket in front of your seat if you don’t wish to see it ending up halfway down the carriage.


Train timetable and prices

It helps to go the train station pre-armed with information about train times and prices. This is easy to do thanks to some new-fangled thing called the internet. The JR website’s ‘Hyperdia’ search engine gives you up-to-date train times and prices.

Bicycles

Don’t forget the jolly old two wheelers! Bikes are often a great way to get around cities such as Kyoto, where the sights are quite spread out.

Japan is a comfortable place for cyclists. You see little road rage and many locals use them for zipping down to the shops or speeding up the commute.

Most train stations have secure bike parking facilities and many locals use them. A day’s parking should set you back 200 yen at the most.

Hotels and hostels often lend them to their guests free or for a small charge. Don’t forget to ask when you book a room.


Buses

Where the train line stops, the bus route starts.

These proved slightly tricky to understand at first so the following should help:

1) Enter at the back of the bus and exit at the front

2) Take a ticket when you board from the funny little machine at the top of the steps. You pay your fare when you get off

3) Fares are shown on the rather whizzy laser display board-type arrangement at the front above the driver. The number printed on your ticket correlates with that you on the board, with your fare displayed beneath it.

Budget on about 200 yen for a journey across town. There is a change machine incorporated into the ticket machine, located by the driver at the front of the bus. This comes in handy when you only have a 1000 yen note rather than the exact fare you need.

Drivers seem to be incredibly docile, slurring their words over the tannoy, leaving you bewildered about quite where you get off for that temple.

Don’t fret: buses seem to be populated entirely by old people, garbed in sun visors, white gloves and sensible shoes. They are invariably kind and helped us out of several pickles when we hadn’t the foggiest where to get off.

Oh and one more thing regarding buses: this is Japan and people are small. It helps to be the size of an oomph-loompa and carry nothing bigger than a pencil case on these buses.

Or you could measure six foot, and sway about with massive bags the size of sumos thwacking all in your path like us. Your choice.

Trams

Some cities, such as Hiroshima have trams or ‘streetcars’. These are a great way of pootling through a city and, from our experience, were easy to use.

Fares are usually clearly displayed and paid on leaving the tram to a nice chap at the door, who has a ticket machine similar to the one on buses.

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Britons! Take a bow...

We have been in Japan for almost a month now. The food is no longer an adventure into the unknown, we can speak a few words of the lingo, we can even navigate our way through the spaghetti-soup map of Tokyo’s metro system.

But there is one thing that I still haven’t got used to: bowing.

It didn’t take long to make this serendipitous discovery. In Japan, they do it everywhere: in shops; in the street; on public transport, people get on down and bow.

Sometimes you feel as if you’re in a Monty Python sketch. Enter a shop, a hotel or a restaurant and you risk being attacked by profuse bowing that’ll leave you blushing and bewildered. Have I inadvertently been mistaken for a Knight of the Realm? Has Queen Victoria suddenly popped up behind me?

Japan must be a chiropractor’s dream, for bowing is the norm and indeed it forms an essential feature of one's social interaction people with others, be it friends, colleagues or complete strangers.

Children are taught at home how to show respect and bow, job seekers are shown the exact angle their bow should take, and workers are expected to bow as part of their daily work

In the land of the ‘salaryman’ white-collar worker, bowing helps show respect to colleagues and acknowledges the rigid hierarchy which structures the company.

Like many other aspects of Japanese society there are strong norms that define how one behaves towards friends and colleagues and different degrees of bowing to follow according to one’s place in this hierarchy.

The more important the person, the deeper the bow, and more outwardly fawning you must be. A kind of replacement for the days of the shogun when one prostrated oneself before the ruler.

Hence you witness a frenetic outbreak of bowing amongst work colleagues, at train stations and other public places, when they go their separate ways at the end of the working day.

In the company of those higher up the work hierarchy poor salaryman doesn’t dare turn his back and show disrespect to his seniors, rather he must shuffle backwards, through the crowds, bowing and scraping as he goes.

This isn’t just restricted to salaryman. It is rife across all workplaces. I have seen train drivers bowing away, performing a strict ritual before changing shifts.

Bowing is not restricted to the workplace but is commonplace throughout peoples social lives as well. You often seen friends leaving each other at the end of the night with a bow, as we might a hug or a handshake.

I’ve even seen two friends bowing to each other after a baseball game, on one the station platform, the other inside the train.

Surely all this back-bothering can’t be good for the old lumbago.

As a gaijin you don’t escape this curious social proceedure. Every time I enter a shop or ask a stranger for directions I get a bow. And actually purchasing something can spark a frenzy of spine-stretching, accompanied by an effusive flurry of thank yous and please come agains.

In a hundred yen shop in Nara today the young cashier bowed so deeply and so vigorously to me I was worried he’d knock himself out on the counter.

My surreal encounters with this odd social ritual haven't been limited to shops either. I've been bowed at by ticket inspectors on the train (one of them even doffing his cap as well), by the little lightsabre men who control the traffic at roadworks, by post office clerks and waitresses, theatre ushers and even a policeman.

Blimey, a policeman! Imagine such a thing in Blighty - that would knock the stuffing out of even the most hardened criminal.

Shortly after arriving and getting my first bow, I began to learn to steel myself before attempting to speak to a local, suppressing the urge to giggle and returning them the level of respect they accorded me.

After a week, the bowing, like so many of the other bizarre things I have encountered in Japan started to become normal, then even tiresome.

By the third week I had started to find this excessive politeness unnerving. When even hotel cleaners bowed to me (surely it should have been the other way round, considering they were about to muck out my stables) I felt uncomfortable, as if I was some colonialist oppressor, baying at my coolies for shaking my sedan chair.

But perhaps all this bowing has a purpose other than acting as some quaint, albeit rather odd, courtly hangover from days long gone.

Maybe bowing plays a key role in helping to maintain social harmony in what is a densely populated nation, the well-ordered and disciplined society we witnessed where good, upstanding citizens abide the law and respect each other.

In this way it could even make a vital contribution to Japan’s economic prowess, instilling in its citizens the values of good, honest hard work, self-discipline and respect for authority.

Without wishing to go all Daily Mail how has Japan held on to many social values which Britain appears to have lost? Perhaps bowing is their secret.

So why not give it a go back home? After all, ASBOs have failed, and if we can try them we can try anything.

Of course, any politician would be laughed out the House if they tried to introduce this. No, this has to be more organic, to come from the people themselves. This demands popular action!

So go on, give it a go. Next time you’re at work, down the pub or at the football, face your boss, your friend or your colleague, bend down and give them a good 90 degrees. Trust me; it'll catch on in no time...
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Sumo wrestler vs karaoke star

It has been a very Japanese 24 hours. This time last night I was doing ninth floor karaoke. Then I slept in a capsule bed (aka a wooden box) and was woken to go to a sumo match. Two classic forms of Japanese entertainment back to back. Both delightful and different in their own peculiar ways...

The karaoke took place in a skyscraper with a golden castle on the roof. Ten floors and over 100 rooms devoted entirely to singing along to music videos. Claustrophobic, smokey, poky rooms with sticky tables and chairs and flashing lights. Sumo on the other hand takes place in a dedicated stadium with a single spotlit ring in the centre. A ring with a sand surface encircled by sandbags. A ring that is raked and watered with care and attention. Both venues sacred and carefully attuned to their purpose.

Similar attention is paid to dress in sumo. Or lack of it. A padded girdle with dangly sticks does the job along with a decorated jewel encrusted sponsorship apron for show at the beginning of the match. Waxed topknots are carefully chosen and maintained to suit the hair of each sumo wrestler. Whereas for karaoke, you just go as you are. Jeans and baseball caps are popular. A similar gulf is apparent in the preparation required for both sports. Sumo wrestlers have stable masters and live a life of strict diet, ritual and practice to achieve the best on the big day. The only preparation that karaoke stars make is to down a few beers to loosen the vocal chords. In spite of the huge quantities of food that sumos are allowed to eat, I still prefer the karaoke regime.

Drinking is an important part of karaoke. Beer helps the karaoke star build strength and confidence. Sumo wrestlers prefer to sip water before a game, to purify the body, and draw on the audience for their inner strength. The sumo crowds are only too willing to help, bellowing the name of their favourite wrestler loudly from the rafters. In karaoke your companions also egg you on, swaying along when you sing and clapping politely even when your rendition of Lionel Ritchie`s "All Night Long" is wildly off key. To accompany the drinks, karaoke stars order salty snacks. Sumo wrestlers use salt to throw on the floor and purify the ring.

The music is, of course, different. Karaoke is the predictable mix of eighties, nineties and noughties hits with a good mix of Japanese and Korean favourites, and I was delighted to see that the Forest of Dean's own EMF still make the karaoke hit parade in Tokyo. The only music in sumo is a chanted verse sung by the referee as he waves his fan accompanied by the banging together of two sticks and the sound of wrestlers slapping their thighs.

A risk assessment of both pastimes would favour karaoke. After singing solidly for a whole hour (my Japanese friends were so impressed by my skills that I wasn't allowed to put the microphone down) I only came away with a sore throat and husky voice (or is it a cold?). The sumo wrestlers however were covered in support bandages, especially on their knees. I suppose carrying 100kg of blubber on a delicate ball and socket joint does take its toll. Spectators are also at risk, as wrestlers are regularly thrown out of the ring into the seated crowd below.

Two very enjoyable and very Japanese pastimes. I may not have the belly for sumo wrestling, but I was a hit with the karaoke. My Japanese friends enjoyed my soulful rendition of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It" so much that they requested, and were rewarded with, an encore. Japan is such fun!

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Plenty more fish in the sea?

The alarm sounded at 5.30am. Within the hour our sleepy heads were leaping over saline puddles and dodging mini pick-ups laden with treasures from the sea. This was Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. Every day over two thousand tonnes of fish and seafood pass from auction to wholesaler to restaurateur to sashimi platters and seafood soup. The Japanese consume a whopping thirty per cent of the world’s fresh fish. The market is a testament to this fact and a poignant reminder of the ruthless plundering of our marine resources. In an attempt to curb over fishing Japan’s quota has been slashed, but the market is still buzzing with increasing amounts of imported fish.

Given my time as a fish geek I can’t resist the opportunity to plug the work of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). Both working to reduce over fishing, promote sustainable fisheries and make sure that there is enough fish for us to enjoy for centuries to come. The MSC eco-label indicates fish that have come from well managed stocks, and the MCS Good Fish Guide is a useful guide to choosing good fish in a shop or restaurant.

In Japan, there is little evidence that the consumer gives a monkey’s about sustainable fisheries. One evocative example is bluefin tuna. This Japanese favourite, auctioned at the market as frozen torpedoes, is on the verge of extinction yet is still on sale across the country. However, alternatives are available. So when breaking my fast at 7am in a sushi shack in the market, I opted for king mackerel instead. Those few mouthfuls were the most succulent, soft and delicious morsels of fish that my mouth has ever experienced. For the delight of moments such as that, I sincerely hope that we all start to manage and consume fish more sustainably.

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Zen gardening

There’s not a lot of Zen in a Zen garden. At least not when you are surrounded by hordes of snap happy tourists, fresh off the coach armed with sun visors and umbrellas. All noisily pondering the meaning of the carefully placed rocks in the carefully raked sand pit, or perhaps just noisily discussing how the noodles were at lunch. Either way, noisily.

Then there is the wildlife: Large flying wind-up beetles revving and squawking away like canaries on motorbikes, butterflies that look like flying ewoks and mosquitoes. You can’t get any peace anywhere when there is a mosquito around, and during the humid days we were in Kyoto there were mosquitoes. Lots of them.

It is also difficult to gaze at the sand and rock scenes long enough to clear the mind or solve the riddle without getting photo guilt. The guilt you get when you know that you are spoiling other people’s photos by standing in the background, or next to them, or directly in front of the temple. But in a Zen garden in Kyoto in summer you simply can’t get out of the way. Instead, you quickly shuffle along the carefully trimmed path hemmed in by bamboo fences. Stunning as the temples and picturesque as the gardens may be, a stroll through a Zen garden isn’t quite the same meditative experience as it was for the masters of old.

But, there are those who appear to be having a Zen time of it. The Zen gardeners. This dedicated fleet of workers pimp and preen the gardens to perfection: Sweeping up fallen leaves, pulling out individual blades of grass and washing stones. Wearing long protective clothing, bonnets and mosquito coils, they are protected from the tourists and insects alike. Through such meticulous gardening practices they must surely be on their way to enlightenment.

For me, I didn’t get any closer to Buddha, nor did I solve the mystery of the sand patterns. However, I did write my first haiku:

In a Zen garden
Glow the first leaves of autumn.
Quickly, fetch the brush!

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Kyoto's legacy

In the sweltering late summer heat of Kyoto, I was most grateful I had the company of Captain Stag.

But this was no pith-helmeted adventurer, bristling moustache and pink gin at the ready. Rather my companion was a small, zippy Japanese bicycle, and jolly useful he was in covering the city‘s streets in the soup-like heat.

I wasn’t alone in choosing this eco-friendly form of transport to pootle through the little streets, as elderly housewives and smart young businessman whizzed by on their own little two wheelers.

This got me thinking about this great city, its green credentials and those of Japan.

The former imperial capital of Japan and justly famous for its splendid temples (a mere 2,000 or so), Kyoto has more recently become closely associated with a more contemporary issue, namely the global fight against climate change.

Finally waking up to the warnings of climate scientists, in 1997 the world’s leading polluters gathered here, seeking to secure a binding agreement to reduce their emissions of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.

The resulting agreement, commonly referred to as the Kyoto Protocol has since then been ratified by over 180 countries, including all developed nations (with the very notable exception of the United States) and Kyoto became a byword for progressive action towards a cleaner, greener future.

A decade on from Kyoto and progress towards the targets set is still painfully slow. Once more Japan is in the lime (or green?) light, having just hosted the annual G8 nations summit, placing climate change high on the agenda.

At the Hokkaido summit the Japanese proudly showed off their spectacular volcanic surroundings to their guests, but what impression did their own record in preserving their natural environment and tackling climate change leave?

Is this crowded country of 120 million leading the world towards an environmentally sustainable future?

Their ambitions are impressive, with (now ex-) Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announcing before the summit a new target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% by 2050,
though of course in practice they have a long way to go.

In Kyoto’s famous Ryoan-ji temple I came across a sign which I though rather neatly reflected the Japanese attitude towards the natural world:

“[Ryoan-ji is] renowned throughout the world as the ultimate example of kare sansi, or ‘my landscape’ style rock garden, in which nature is compressed and given abstract expression within the confines of a very narrow space“.

Can extend this to Japan as a whole?

Japan often seems a country at war with, or at least under siege from, the natural world and its more violent manifestations: typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis. And their response, in this mountainous country, appears to build, build, build, on the flat coastal plains they are squeezed into.

To the visitor it can seem like the entire country is made of concrete, passing through gigantic urban centres, like the south of Honshu, where one city seems to merge into another. Here, in the land of ‘salary man’, business is the new emperor and profit is the new creed. Heavy industry scars the coastline and naked development runs riot.

But outside of here, up in the ‘Japanese Alps’ or in the wilds of Hokkaido, it is still possible to lose yourself in the wild. Many Japanese revere these places and great efforts are made to protect them. Here the Shinto emphasis on working harmoniously with nature remains.

When it comes to their relationship with the natural world, perhaps for many Japanese the religious, or spiritual, influences still run deep.

In the zen gardens of Kyoto, the urban dwellers are given an idealised impression, an artificial world where nature is scrubbed-up nature and every blade of grass, every piece of gravel is placed according to how it should be.

Maybe this explains the extraordinary number of zoos and aquariums. Every town, every city we’ve visited seems to proudly boast at least one caged animal-related theme park.

Animals and birds are seen as cute and cuddly, but to be kept at a safe distance, preferably behind bars.

The Japanese are meticulously clean; in the hot summer heat everyone seems to have their own little towels to mop their brows and regularly wipe their hands, and throughout the year people often venture outside wearing surgical masks to prevent infection.

Where foreigners are sometimes feared for their supposedly lax approach towards hygiene, goodness knows what they think of animals.

Their love of nature, their shy curiosity, their tendency towards the artificial, the cellophane-wrapped, the air-conditioned - this all helps to explain the phenomenon of the Japanese tourist.

Left unbounded mass tourism is strangling the very places they love - visitors often complain about the tendency here to build ugly hotels and shops next to beauty spots.

We witnessed this in Toya Ko, with hideous hotels despoiling the natural beauty of Lake Toya and, more recently, at the famous Miyajima, where the Itsukashima temple's famous O-Tori gate, ‘one of the three best views of Japan’ ™, seemingly rises out of the sea - an extraordinary sight.

Were it not for the monumentally ugly line of hotels scarring the hillside directly behind it.

But perhaps the most apparent manifestation of excessive consumption, and the damage this causes, is the incredible amount of waste this country appears to generate.

After a day strolling through a Japanese city, I find myself weighed down with a huge mountain of packaging, simply from visiting a few food outlets.

Everything is sealed in packaging. Often you find yourself struggling with an item of food, from sushi to bananas which, to the Western mind at least seems over-elaborately and excessively wrapped.

It becomes fiendishly difficult to penetrate some wrappers; for example I defy anyone to successively unwrap a triangular rice ball in the manner in which it was designed.

For the budget-restricted traveller you can’t escape the world of 7/11s; individual grocers or other small food shops are scare, and hence you become part of the problem, adding yet more to the 25 billion disposable chopsticks the Japanese throw away every year.

So a lot of work to do then.

But it’s not all green gloom. I’d rather be optimistic about this astonishing nation. The Japanese may do many things to excess but this can bring advantages as well. Take their fantastic public transport system, fully integrated and boasting superfast Shinkansen trains that negate the need to fly.

And consider their incredible postwar economic recovery, which has allowed them to sit firmly amongst the leading industrial nations in the world. Time and again Japan has been looked to be its peers for technological innovations and solutions to the problems posed by a burgeoning world population.

Witness their many inventive answers to the considerable problems posed by dense urban living. Thanks to these their cities, with their huge populations, are civilised, clean and ordered. They work; something we can all learn from.

Japan has woken up to climate change. Like a salaryman after too much Suntory Whisky and Okonomi-Yaki pizza this country is already witnessing the terrible effects of their over-consumption, be it more and devastating extreme weather, the effects of over-fishing or rising oil prices.

They are beginning to realise they have to live within their means. And if any country can do this, Japan can

Rightly or not, our great leaders are pinning their hopes on technology as a way out of climate catastrophe, and we they are going down this route we need Japan, with its wonderful capacity for innovation and resourcefulness at the forefront.

So here’s to future Captain Stags…

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We are WWOOFing

Today we picked sweet corn at dawn. 6am found us carting 32 crates of 25 cobs through rain sodden crops, the mist and sun rising over tree covered slopes. When it did eventually rise it revealed beautiful arborous mountains and neat rows of soya beans, red beans, carrots and onions.

We are on Takano Farm, a four hectare organic farm near Otaru on Hokkaido, Japan’s second largest island. This is our second stint of volunteering on this trip, staying put for a few days to try and get closer to the country we are visiting. WWOOFing (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) is an excellent way to see the more remote parts of a country. Accommodation and food is provided in exchange for six hours work a day, six days of the week.

The work is hard - picking and packing sweetcorn, moving and packing potatoes, clearing rocks from a field at the edge of bear infested woodland - but the food is delicious. Most is home grown or bartered with neighbours. Red beans, rice and miso soup for breakfast; soba noodles and salad for lunch; fish, potatoes and vegetables for dinner. Each meal being served with that day’s harvest of sweetcorn. Raw and milky in the morning, steamed and sweet at midday and in the evening. I have never eaten such fresh and delicious sweetcorn before, and probably never will again. Farmer’s perks. The work is also humbling. Hours of hand sorting spuds into ten kilogram boxes, for instance, makes you realise how much effort goes into getting food to the shops, especially of the organic kind.

Kenji and Miho, the newly weds we were staying with, kindly gave us a generous insight into a Japanese home: Shoes are left at the door; there are separate slippers for the bathroom (the first indoor compost loo I have ever witnessed); and decisions such as who does the washing up are decided by a game of paper, scissor, stone. Our sleeping quarters were separate. Outside. In a bus covered in hops and filled with insects. Tom sleeps on the backseat, I sleep in the aisle.

This is a very real contrast to the bright lights and sterile box buildings of Tokyo. We are now polishing potatoes for the organic food consumers of Japan’s big cities.

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Farmhand or stuntman?

Stooping down to pick up the thousandth stone on the muddy slope, I once more admired the large bear prints embedded in the soft ground all around me.

Again I wondered what was it one does when faced with a fullgrown, aggressive brown bear. I’d read somewhere that you should shout and bang your pots and pans loudly but I somehow seemed to have mislaid my IKEA kitchenware.

As we gingerly made our way across the field we were working in we felt like children acting out an imaginary game: don’t go over there - that’s where the bears are.

Except they WERE there. Only two days earlier, Kenji (Farmer-San and our temporary WWOOF boss) had told us they had been spotted - a mother and two cubs, ambling across his pumpkin field.

An hour earlier he had casually dropped us off, in this remote corner of his farm, with nothing but a few sacks and a few rocks as protection. And now we found ourselves in a field covered in bear tracks and nervously scanning the forest edge for any movements.

I breathed deeply and looked up to admire the beautiful scenery, the rolling and forested slopes building up to an impressive mountain range.

And pondered our possible mauling by wild beasts. I couldn’t help wondering: what was my role here on our WWOOF project at Takano Farm: was I a farmhand or a stuntman?

Yesterday it was daredevil tree-cutting, wielding a ancient and rusty yet lethal-looking saw, balanced precariously in a tractor bucket hosited some 40 foot in the air.

The day before it was extreme grass-cutting, using a strimmer of a questionable temperament, complete with a enormous and deadly-looking circular blade - the type that Ninja’s might seek to embed in some unfortunate shogun.

And now it was bear baiting. Wonderful.

Needless to say our survival skills saw us through this terrifying ordeal and Gentle Ben chose to keep their distance, but it didn't stop me admonishing our host. 　

Kenji just grinned at this me, a guillible and game Englishman who would foolishlessly follow his directions, stretching his puny muscles to the limit of their keyboard-oriented existence.

After my tree-lopping antics I had returned to planet earth a quivering wreck, my knees knocking, my back soaked in sweat. He slapped me on the back and cackled, “Welcome to Japan, Super Salaryman”. I only learnt later, soon after our stay at Takano Farm, that Kenji was scared of heights...

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First impressions of Japan

Neon rules. A man waters his bonsai trees on the pavement. Friends meet for lunch, a song and a dance in the street. A man collapses from exhaustion on the morning tube. A million lights adorn skyscrapers then dim grey and disappear as the sun rises. Business men in shirt sleeves slurp noodles. You never go thirsty with a green tea vending machine on every corner. No street names. Trains that look like rockets. A communal hot bath after every shower. Tatami mat floors. Sliding paper walls. Sore knees from kneeling. Pears that look like giant apples. Miso soup, salad and red bean rice for breakfast. Baby voices. Scuffing, shuffling feet. Every appliance has its own song. Manga cafes serve unlimited icecream. The toilet has a control pad. Small bowls and chopsticks. It`s not as expensive as you think. Paddy fields for village greens. Forested mountain slopes appear and disappear in swirling mist. Big flying insects. Paedophilic comics. The bows get bigger the more important the person you`re bidding farewell. Packaging, packaging, packaging. Generous gifts galore as we we`re packed on the train with almighty bags of snacks. People love umbrellas. Women only carriages on the tube. Apprentice gangsters. Frozen tuna look like torpedoes. Is this Japan?



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Into the rising sun

Japan, BONG (picture of strapping bare-chested chap striking a large gong).

We have culture shock. Two days sailing in a rusty tub over the Sea of Japan and we could be on another planet.

And this after all our fine words about how travelling slowly would cleverly allow us to bypass the sense of bewilderment brought on by sudden exposure to a new and very different place. You know, approaching a place slowly, witnessing the gradual changes as one travels through as one country or region gives way to another.

Sure, we experienced it in this manner all the way up to and into Russia. But not this time.

Rather, as we stepped onto the deck of the MV Rus and caught our first glimpse of the modest port of Fushiki we realised we had moored up in a place very different from that we had left.

The hot, humid air hit us in the face, torrential rain lashed down on the well-kept dockside. The streets were small, dark and empty except for the odd tiny van scuttling past.


And up above us, fluttering in the breeze, the flag of the rising sun, framed by a backdrop of blue, misty peaks.

Stepping off the boat, the people were immediately different. Gone is the pale and lardy Russian look; the 80-a-day, beer-swilling hubby and dyed-haired, micro-skirted wife. This skinny little Englishman is a giant in this land, squeezing my 10 ½s between train seats, cramming my enormous pack onto the luggage racks as immaculate businessmen and well-behaved school kids duck out the way.

And the service is different. In Vladivostok we spent a bewildering few hours trawling through customs and immigration, sucked into a scrum of liquored Russian tourists before being finally spewed out on the darkended dockside, apparently left to pick the guess the right ship to embark on.

A far cry from the hyper-efficient, ultra-polite world of Japanese officialdom we now find ourselves in, all laptops and bows. Blimey, even the newsreader on the television bows!

Perhaps this will be the only time we experience this culture shock, Japan is after all renowned as a rather insular and culturally isolated nation, happy to be adrift off the coast of Asia and its more boisterous neighbours.

Or perhaps we should steel ourselves for this every time we take a long boat trip, after all America should prove somewhat different from Hong Kong.



Either way, this is culture shock of a highly serendipitous nature. Lara couldn’t stop beeming, “at last - a civilised country!” Her Finnish genes were firing away and she danced for joy: goodbye Russia, hello nice neat, clean Japan.


But despite all these pleasant surprises I got the feeling that it wasn’t all going to be plain sailing. Lurking beneath the surface of this rigidly ordered and law-abiding society lies a complex web of manners and etiquette, a whole new protocol we have to fathom and follow.


Add to this of course a notoriously difficult language, particularly in its written form, which makes cyrillic seem a breeze.


As the monsoonal rains lashed across the harbous and we headed out into the streets we scanned the roadsigns for our next mode of transport.

The squiggles and squirls seemed all robots and rabbits to us. Anyone know the kanji for train station?
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How to…get from Russia to Japan by boat

Business Intour Service has the monopoly on ferry services from Vladivostok, Russia, to Fushiki, Japan.

Tickets for the 36-hour crossing start from $440 one-way ($600 return) in a 4-berth cabin in a lower deck.. All meals are included, although you’ll need to take some bottled water. For a fourth class cabin it was pretty good, with ensuite bathroom (including shower) and a television. Towels and sheets are provided.

To book a place on the boat you need to go to the Business Intour Service office (third floor of Vladivostok’s marine terminal) in person. Internet booking doesn’t seem to guarantee passage. It is worth arriving and booking a few days in advance as on-the-day sales are unpopular - the agency staff are unfriendly and declared the ferry full even though there was plenty of room and each four berth cabin only had two people in it.

Upon booking you are given a booking slip, but no ticket. You have to pay for the journey on board and you can only pay in U.S. dollars cash. In addition, the agency take 400 roubles for port tax, which you pay when making the booking.

Ferries ‘depart’ Vladivostok at about 10pm every Sunday and arrive in Fushiki, near Toyama, in Japan on the Tuesday at 10am (local time). However, the actual departure was closer to 1am as they only opened customs and immigration control at 9.30pm. This takes place in the basement of Vladivostok’s marine terminal. There is a bewildering lack of information in the ferry terminal. There are no signs or announcements telling you where boats are going or when and no one to ask. So just sit tight in the waiting room in the basement. Eventually we went through customs and then immigration control. Be prepared to have ready your migration card, visa registration forms and details of your route through Russia. Finding the actual ferry is amusing - after wandering passed darkened offices in the ferry terminal you find yourself on the dockside amongst Korean-imported vehicles. We just kept pointing and asking ’Nipponya?’

On board we were greeted by a line of smiling hostesses, who quickly whipped our passports off us, and showed us to our room. You then have 36 glorious hours to sit back and enjoy the ’80s ambience: Russian ladies in dressing gowns and stilettos adorn leather sofas, entertainers warm up their Casio keyboards and the fug of cigarette smoke is omnipresent.

Upon docking in Japan, customs officers come to your cabin to rifle through your luggage. Then you go to immigration control set up in the music saloon on the ferry where passports are returned. British citizens are given a 90-day tourist visa upon arrival in Japan in exchange for fingerprints.

Fushiki is a small port village, that has a post office with an ATM that accepts foreign bank cards and a train station that connects to the rest of Japan. There aren’t many people around to help so it is worth befriending a local on the boat.
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