SketchTravel Japan 2012

November 13, 2013

Yokohama and south
A few years back I flew to Tokyo and met up with my partner (now wife) Michan. She had just finished some contract work there, so we hit the trains. We went to Shizuoka, a Pacific coast city a few hours south of Tokyo. She grew up there, and showed me the sights. I was fascinated by the Toro Site and museum there, re-creations of a 2,000 year old rice settlement. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to these primitive pit-house kind of structures.

Shizuoka

Shizuoka is famous for its exceptionally good green tea, and its strawberries. Once I got my bearings a little, I took a bus out to the Toro site. After sketching there I wandered back through the neighborhoods. It seemed like someone had just come through and tidied everything up for me. Not even a leaf in the gutters.

Beer at 200 mph

Traveling by train was so fun. Grab a couple bento boxes and Sapporo beers and just kick back as the Shinkansen (bullet train) shoots through the countryside at around 200 miles per hour. We transferred to an older train in Nagoya that took us up beautiful canyons to the old mountain town of Takayama. So many traditional old houses are now shops. They had a cool farmers market. After dark one night we couldn’t find an open restaurant anywhere until Michan saw a hint of a red lantern way down a dark street. There we had some steaming hot ramen in this tiny place with just three sunken tables. Then getting back to our hotel we soaked in the hot springs spa on the hotel top floor, with big snowflakes slowly falling
(separate pools for men and women).

Next day we took a bus to the village of Shirakawa Go, a UNESCO World Heritage Site made up of these very steep-pitched, thick roof houses. The upper level floors were open-planked to allow the heat to rise, which kept their silk worms cozy through the cold winters.

It was my desire to visit as many shrines and temples as we could. These places are very popular and very crowded, so I didn’t try to sketch there, sorry. I even saw a sign outside one temple reading No Sketching. What?

Stubborn deer on miyajima

Our trip took us to Kyoto, Osaka, and down to Hiroshima. There we visited the Hirojima Peace Memorial Museum, and then took the train and ferryboat out to Miyajima where the most famous torii in Japan stands on sand at low tide and floats in the water at high tide. 
I did do a sketch here of a temple and trees. The island has many deer, who intentionally get in the way of people trying to take photos. We saw one large group of people trying to physically push the deer from their rear out of the way, but the deer were having nothing to do with that, holding out to be fed first. There are lots of tiny shops serving very tasty fresh and cooked oysters.

The sketches here don’t really follow a timeline. They are just for fun and when the opportunity arises and there is something that wants to be drawn. I found Japan fun, safe, clean and full of fascinating places very worthy of exploring. I am looking forward to more travels there, hopefully soon. Plus I have a built-in tour guide!