The organization of the walks was made easy by the use of the services of Chris Rowthorn. He is an American married to a Japanese woman and lives permanently in Kyoto. Some readers may have come across his name before as he writes for Lonely Planet and is one of the authors for the Lonely Planet books “Japan Travel Guide”, “Kyoto City Guides”, “Borneo Travel Guide” and “South East Asia on a Shoestring”. In addition to his Lonely Planet work he runs a guiding service in Japan. The bi-lingual Japanese guides that he provided were a delight and extremely efficient. The cost of his services was very reasonable and well worth the money.
Walking in Japan — you must be joking! It is so crowded that there are no decent walking areas. Travelling in Japan – it is so expensive. Hotels cost an arm and a leg and as for food — mortgage your house before you leave home. No-one speaks English and it is so hard to get around. All of these statements were made before we left for Japan and all are false.
In October 2009 I took 21 members of Skyline Walkers on a walking trip to Japan — it was a highly successful trip. Some said that they would not have considered Japan as a walking destination if I had not been there before and loved the country. Some of the group are already making plans to return. All left with a respect and affection for the country which, as recently as 65 years ago, was our bitter enemy.
The 14 day trip was on the main island of Honshu, where the major cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Yokohama are located. However many used the opportunity to go further a field to the northern island of Hokkaido where there are still wild bears and to the southern island of Kyushu where the historic city of Nagasaki and the active volcano, Mt. Aso, are located.
Firstly let me deal with the cost issue. Japan has had difficult economic times in the last 15 years and rather than inflation they have had deflation. In the major cities we paid between A$70 and A$170 per night for a twin share room. The rooms were in general small but clean, modern and comfortable. They even had heated toilet seats! Food in the average family frequented restaurants cost about the same or a little less than in Adelaide. The food was different and, well, rather Japanese in style (surprise, surprise) but very tasty. We only had one bad food experience – the less said about that the better.
Travel is expensive but if you use the Japanese Rail Passes (rather like the Eurail pass) the cost is halved. The speed of the Shinkansen trains is legendary. The accuracy of the arrival and departures is such that if you want to get off at a particular station you can look at your watch rather than the station name. If you should be at a certain station at say 3 minutes past 6 and that is the time, then you must be at the desired station. It is rather like a high speed version of the old travel saying from the 1969 film, “If it’s Tuesday this must be Belgium”. Admissions to shrines and museums is similar to Australian costs.
Well that disposes of the myth of cost. What about the language? Most Japanese people under 40 will speak some English. In tourist service areas such as hotel receptions, railway booking offices and tourism offices there is always someone who speaks English. In the cities the railway station signs are always in English as well as Japanese. However in the rural areas and on the mountain tracks there is a lot less English signage. If you are lost in a city, get out a map, look puzzled and someone will help you within a minute (this is absolutely true). The Japanese are justifiably proud of their country and keen to show it off to visitors and are very welcoming and hospitable.
Now for the walking as this is the main point of this article! We elected to do a series of day walks in the hills around Kyoto and also to spend several days in the Central Japanese Alps doing a longer walk. Japan is a mountainous country with 73% of the country rated as mountainous. This means that there are large areas where there are few people resident in the area but many visitors. The major cities are located in the valleys or coastal areas. Kyoto is one such city located in a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains rising to 1000 metres above sea level. These mountains are densely forested with evergreen trees and (yes, you guessed it) Japanese maple trees. The forests and river valleys are absolutely gorgeous making ideal shaded walking areas. On one day we arranged for a bus to take us into the mountains and we walked back to a railway station to catch the train back to central Kyoto. On other days we used local transport to get to the foothills and used cable cars to get into the mountains for the walks. One feature of the walking in Japan is that there are many interesting and beautiful Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in the mountains so it was not uncommon to find the group spending 30 minutes looking at the cultural history of Japan whilst enjoying the walking.
The highlight for most of the group was the 2 days that we spent at Kamikochi which is in the Hida Mountains in the Northern Alps at an altitude of 1500 metres. It is surrounded by mountains as high as 3,200 metres. The walks were varied — some walkers simply went up the valley of the Azusa River, the more energetic climbed out of the valley floor to a vantage point for a view and others simply walked to the lunch kiosk and back to the lovely hotel which was our home for the two days. We stayed at Shimizuya Hotel in Kamikochi where all of the rooms had a view of the mountains and the river. This was an exception to the hotel price that I mentioned earlier. This was our luxury stay – it cost us about $350 per person per day but this included superb silver service meals of extremely high quality. Although this seems a lot it is on a par with what one would pay in Australia at a 5 star resort.
Some of the group also went onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both these cities are for ever linked to the events of August 1945 when the world entered the nuclear age. Both are impressive rebuilt cities on great natural locations. Hiroshima is on a series of islands in the delta of the Ota River which means that it is a city of bridges and waterways. A short distance from the port of Hiroshima, set in the Seto Inland Sea is the island of Miyajima. This island is easily reached by tram and ferry and has excellent walking trails in sub-tropical forests and amidst monkeys (watch your belongings!). A group of 8 walkers extended their trip to experience Hiroshima and surrounds and some even ventured to Nagasaki and Mt. Aso.
The organization of the walks was made easy by the use of the services of Chris Rowthorn. He is an American married to a Japanese woman and lives permanently in Kyoto. Some readers may have come across his name before as he writes for Lonely Planet and is one of the authors for the Lonely Planet books “Japan Travel Guide”, “Kyoto City Guides”, “Borneo Travel Guide” and “South East Asia on a Shoestring”. In addition to his Lonely Planet work he runs a guiding service in Japan. The bi-lingual Japanese guides that he provided were a delight and extremely efficient. The cost of his services was very reasonable and well worth the money.
So to summarize — Japan is a great walking destination, not expensive, closer than Europe and a great cultural experience.
Glenn McCulloch
Skyline Walkers
