A trip to Kofu: the end of seishun 18 kippu season. p.1

Tokyo's cherry blosssoms have mostly blown away, the seishun 18 kippu sesason has finished and classes for the new academic year have just begun.
With two uses left on the seishun juu hachi (18) kippu,  we decided on a Saturday trip to Kofu in Yamanshi prefecture, just west of Tokyo.  Sleep deprivation accumulated through the week meant a 7 am start was definitely preferable to a catching the first train of the day around 5am.
A train to Shinjuku, a rapid to Takao, and then a local train to Kofu had us there in about 3 hours.  I'd expected that an early morning trip out of Tokyo would have meant few passengers; between private school students who still have Saturday classes and retirees dressed in hiking gear, the train was more crowded than I imagined and we stood part of the way between Takao and Kofu. At Kofu station it was apparent that many passengers, including a group of Chinese students, were using seishun 18 kippu.
Kofu isn't really on the foreigners tourist circuit, though  with stunning views of Mt Fuji and Shosenkyo Gorge,  I'm surprised it's not better known. Hiro had already checked the bus times to Shosenkyo  and we had enough time to supplement the  ume boshi  onigiri I had made in the morning.

The bus went through Kofu and up a narrow winding mountain road and we got off at the terminal station where there was a ropeway.  I suspect Asia contains the vast majority of the world's ropeways... where there is a mountain there shalt be a ropeway. It puzzles me that Mt Fuji has remained ropway free - I guess it's too high and would only be accessible a couple of months of the year.   Against our better judgement we decided to see what there was to see at the top.  The view was pretty, though we couldn't see Mt Fuji.  The shrine and the like on top were a bit tired and tacky - toss some money into a collection box, beat the two sticks of the taiko drum at the same time and good luck would be yours for a long time.... A short wander from the ropeway up was a car road up to the summit... hmmmm...(something that always leave one feeling a bit duped) 

But the view from up top was pretty, and we didn't feel it a waste of time;  on a clearer day I imagine it would be spectacular.

View from the top

Looking down on the Arakawa dam

The shrine to the Taiko drum

The top of the ropeway

Bus times from Kofu to Shosengyo http://yamanashikotsu.co.jp/noriai/timetable01.htm

A bouquet for Japan Post

Twice this week I have had cause to be impressed with Japan Post.   Japan Post is a bit like a post office in the olden days... a post office where the primary businese is the post  (there are separate counteres for postal banking and insurance).  People aren't queuing for 30 mins to get served.  You don't go there to pay bills.  You can't even buy pens and notebooks let alone calendars, clock radios, i-tunes cards, stuffed toys and plethora of other things that you find in a post office in Autralia (and probably any other country where it has been fully corporatised).

On Monday I received a parcel from Mum and Dad.  The outside was paper wrapping.  It was a wet wet day and it arrived in the mailbox inside a plastic bag, courtesy of Japan Post.  (They didn't realise Mum and Dad are pretty switched on and had put the parcel in a plastic bag before wrapping it in paper).

And then today I was sending a very belated birthday parcel from the main post office in Shinjuku.  There was a German woman there who spoke no Japanese and middling English. (I don't think I have met a German before who did not have fluent English...)    She arrived at the PO to tell them that a parcel she had sent last week to Germany, by EMS, (express mail with a track and trace function) had not arrived.  But she didn't have the parcel number and she wasn't exactly sure if she had sent it Mon or Tues, but  she did know it was the morning...... The post office in Shinjuku would send  hundreds of EMS parcels a day....   I explained the situation to the PO staff and remarkably they got her to write the details of the parcel,  with the intention of looking through all the parcel slips.   I didn't stay long enough  to find out whether they found it but I was quite surprised that they would even try.   She didn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, and didn't really seem to get it that they were being exceptionally obliging...I hope they could find it quickly.....

Hanami II

After the throngs of Chidorigafuchi, we walked around the edge of  Kasumigaseki where the govt. buildings are located, to take the Marunouchi line to Shinjuku.  Shinjuku gyoen (garden) is another of Tokyo's famous cherry blossom sites.

I read somewhere once.. perhaps a lonely planet guide book, that Shinjuku gyoen's cherry trees escaped a campaign to cut down cherry trees during the struggle between the imperial forces and troops allied with the Shogun in the mid 1800s. The cherry blossoms were symbolic of the shogun (he imperial family is represented by the chrysanthemum). Whatever the reason, the trees in Shinjuku ARE older and bigger, truely magnificient. Though we arrived after 3pm, when it was cooling off and people were streaming out of the park, the inside was still busy. 
I often marvel at the Japanese ability to behave well in a crowd. (with the glaring exception of WW2 which I will put to once side and perhaps come back to in the future).  There must have been more than a hundred thousand people in Shinjuku gyoen yesterday - probably signifantly more, based on my Sydney festival concerts in the domain. In Tokyo it wouldn't surprise me if there had been more than a million people out and about picnicking and hanami-ing. And yet, it was all so civilised;  no abuse, no fights, not even pushing and shoving....  Even though there was a copious amount of alcohol being drunk, I saw no anti social behaviour other than a man peeing behind a tree outside Shinjuku gyoen... and given the length of loos for the queue, it didn't seem like much of a transgression, even in daylight.

Well done Tokyo!

Not cherries but flowers by the moat near the Imperial Palace

Flowers outside Shinjuku gyoen

Shinjuku gyoen

Cherry blossoms (not the regular kind)

Shinjukuu gyoen

Shinjuku gyoen

Shinjuku gyoen, a different type of cherry tree.

Hanami

Hanami, the venerable Japanese custom of picnicing under cherry blossoms  frequenly while consuming an excess of alcohol,   was in full swing in Tokyo on the weekend.  It was cool but the weather was kind to Japanese hoping for a hanami lead economic upturn for the new financial year. 

We neither picnicked nor consumed alcohol excessively, but we did enjoy the blossoms.  It's a great excuse for a picnic that gets people out into the sunshine and being sociable. 

Pictures below of some of Tokyo's more famous hanami places: Ueno, Yanaka, Asukayama, Zozoji, and  Chidorigafuchi - near the imperial palace. 

Yanaka Cemetery

Yanaka Cemetery

Ueno Park

Ueno Park

Efficient looking tables at Ueno

Minding seats days ahead... a practice that used to be frowned upon...

At least the tarpaulin is there for anyone else to use in the mean time.

Ueno Park

Asukayama Park Oji

Zozoji temple in Hamamatsucho - Tokyo Tower in the background

Zozoji temple in Hamamatsucho

Sakurazaka in Azabudai - Akasaka (behind the ANA)

Sakurazaka and the ANA

Kitanomaru

Kita no Maru Park - Chidorigafuchi