Since I Walked Away: March 2013

Friday 29 March 2013

Toyohashi, Japan

Welcome to my latest EXTREME TOURISM entry, this is one day in Toyohashi, Japan!

Toyohashi is an interesting city really, I was only there for a few days and didn't really have a local guide or much to go on, aside from the fact that there was a castle to be seen!

So I set off towards Toyohashi City Park where the castle could be found.

Along the way to the castle there was a series of really quite disturbing statues, each had a plaque which contained a story, if only I knew how to read kanji...

These most excellent statues of a phoenix are outside the Toyohashi City Public Hall, there are additional phoenixes! (note: in mythology there was only ever one phoenix, so plural phoenixes is just an estimation)

Upon arriving at the park, we read the noticeboard to find out where the castle was and were directed along a path....

Eventually we found the castle! This is actually a modern reconstruction of only one tiny part of what the castle had originally looked like. Here is some history from Wikipedia -

A castle was built on the banks of the Toyokawa River in 1505 by Makino Kohaku, a retainer of Imagawa Ujichika to secure his foothold on eastern Mikawa Province against the growing power of the Matsudaira clan in western Mikawa Province.
Due to its strategic location on a river crossing, the castle was involved in numerous battles during the Sengoku period, changing hands several times and was destroyed and rebuilt on several occasions.
From 1565, the castle came under the control of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who named Sakai Tadatsugu as castellan.
Following the Battle of Odawara in 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered the Tokugawa clan to relocate to the Kanto region and assigned the castle to Ikeda Terumasa.
Ikeda developed the surrounding castle town and embarked on a massive and ambitious plan to rebuild Yoshida Castle.
However, following the Battle of Sekigahara, he was relocated to Himeji Castle, with the central keep not completed.

After the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, Yoshida Castle became the center of Yoshida Domain, a feudal domain, which occupied a strategic position on the Tokaido between Edo and Nagoya.
The domain was assigned to several different fudai daimyo clans until coming into the possession of the Matsudaira (Nagasawa-Okochi) clan in 1752, which remained in residence at Yoshida until the Meiji Restoration.
The final daimyo of Yoshida, Matsudaira Nobuhisa, surrendered the castle without resistance to the Meiji government in 1868.
The castle was turned over to the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army in 1871, but largely was destroyed in a fire in 1873.
Much of the castle grounds remained in the hands of the military until the end of World War II.

Following the end of the war, a portion of the Third Bailey was transformed into Toyohashi Park, and the modern Toyohashi City Hall was constructed on another portion.
In 1954, a three-story yagura, the Kurogane Yagura was reconstructed out of reinforced concrete. An art museum and sports facilities were later erected on the site of the Inner Baileys.

The previously mentioned art museum we did not venture inside, but outside was a fairly brazen statue of some naked ladies... saucy! The photo I have of the front was way too hot for this humble blog.

Here is a random man hole cover.... most excellent!

And the obligatory temple, which we also did not go inside... I may actually post some of my older photos of Japan sometime soon since I actually visited some really quite cool places in Tokyo last time.

Next time: Paris, France (FINALLY!)

References:
Toyohashi Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohashi,_Aichi
Yoshida Castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshida_Castle
Siege of Yoshida Castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yoshida_Castle
Toyohashi City Museum - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohashi_City_Museum_Art_and_History

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

Stonehenge and Bournemouth, England

During one of the weekends that I had free on my visit to the UK, I decided that since I had a rental car and it was one of the few times it would make a lot of sense, and so with myself and a friend, we targeted Stonehenge as the travel destination.

Hours: Spring (1 Apr to 31 May) 09.30 - 18.00, Summer (1 Jun to 31 Aug) 09.00 - 19.00,
Autumn (1 Sept to 15 Oct) 09.30 - 18.00, Winter (16 Oct to 15 Mar) 09.30 - 16.00 (16Mar to 31Mar) 09.30 to 18.00
Boxing Day and New Year's Day 10.00 - 16.00
Admission: Adult - £7.80, Child (5 - 15) - £4.70, Child (Under 5) - Free, Concession (student, over 60) - £7, Family Ticket (2 adults + up to 3 children) - £20.30, English Heritage and National Trust Members - Free

Without a car it can be a little challenging to get there, you would need to catch one of the various tour buses from a nearby village or from London directly. These tend to be crowded and you lack the convenience of being able to take your time along the way and to arrive when you please. Some information about alternative transportation methods can be found in my references section at the bottom of this entry.

Located in Wiltshire, England and surrounded by beautiful farmland Stonehenge is still a place where you can almost feel history. There are a considerable number of theories about how Stonehenge was built, for what purpose and I honestly don't want to get into too much scholarly debate about that in a blog which is mostly about the beauty of travel. So let me just say this, of all of the destinations I have visited so far, this one really felt important for some reason I couldn't define. It is after all just a collection of rocks in a field.

Ok they are really quite huge rocks...

I get the feeling you are not going to let me away with so little information, so fine... one of the more interesting stories is that Arthurian legend (you know Arthur and Merlin, swords in rocks, etc) version of how Stonehenge was formed, basically the English heard about these amazing healing rocks which had been placed in Ireland by some giants, and they were quite famous for their healing powers.

Being a right English bastard the king at the time Aurelius Ambrosius wanted to create a monument to a bunch of soldiers who had died for him, so naturally the English go to Ireland and kill an awful lot of Irishmen only to discover that these giant rocks are actually a bit of a pain to move!

I laugh at the foolish Englishmen attempting to move such enormous things, so of course Merlin being the slippery wizard that he is devises a method to transport the rocks, and then convinces the giants to help him put it all together where it stands today.

This rock also comes with a fairly entertaining story, this is the Friar's Stone, or Heel Stone.

Basically if you are standing in the middle of Stonehenge and look at this stone, AND it is summer solstice, the sun rises over this stone.... but that is not the interesting part... how did it get there?

Well rumour has it that originally the Devil bought all the stones from an old Irish woman, while he was transporting them all to England and one of the stones dropped into the Avon river.

An elderly friar laughed and said "Nobody will ever know how these stones got here!"

The Devil being in no way a man for shenanigans yelled "That's what you think!" and hurled one of the stones at the Friar which caught him in the heel and has remained there ever since.

And so with my visit to Stonehenge concluded and some daylight left still, it was decided to take a bonus adventure to the seaside! So we set off for Bournemouth with absolutely know idea what such a place would be like, only that it would have a beach and it was NOT Brighton.

Looking every bit the seaside town, Bournemouth was a really pleasant surprise location, to the left of this street was a most excellent pub serving steak style meals, and traditional pub offerings such as Bangers and Mash! (this is one of my favourite meals of all time, there is no accounting for taste)

The pier is also a ferry terminal I believe, so you could theoretically travel from here to Brighton or other such places, but we had arrived quite late and only really had time for a quite brief stroll along the beach after dinner, and a quick few photos of the sun set.

The beach at Bournemouth I suspect during summer would be really quite nice, and was significantly less pebbley than I had been led to believe all English beaches were. Worth noting as well for anyone familiar with really old English comedy, Bournemouth is part of Dorset! If you haven't ever seen the film "Five Go Mad in Dorset" by Comic Strip, you owe it to yourself to find it!

Next time: Toyohashi, Japan! And then Paris, France!

References:
The Stonehenge Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge
Stonehenge Visitors Information Site - http://www.stonehenge.co.uk
Bournemouth Wikipedia Entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournemouth
Five Go Mad In Dorset - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_go_mad_in_dorset

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

Thursday 14 March 2013

Cambridge, England

I will be very honest, I was only in Cambridge for an hour after a work meeting so I really didn't get time for proper tourism or to absorb the local history.

As such I am simply throwing some photos in at random, with no real explanations, these are all just beautiful things I saw on my brief walk to get a coffee before heading back to my hotel.

Most famously this is the home of Cambridge University, and the whole town does have an excellent student vibe to it, as well as a very village atmosphere... its a really welcoming combination to be honest.

Of all of the places I visited in the UK this was the only one I could see myself ever really living long term.

Pink Floyd were from Cambridge....

As was Olivia Newton-John.....

People have been living in the area for the last 3,500 years at least, this information has nothing to do with the photograph above it... I am not implying that Jesus lived here during his O.E

Next Blogs: Stonehenge, Bournemouth Beach, Toyohashi, Paris!
(Quality control be damned! I need to get current!)

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge - Cambridge Wikipedia page

Sherlock Holmes Museum, London, England

'Having gathered these facts, Watson, I smoked several pipes over them, trying to separate those which were crucial from others which were merely incidental.'
- Sherlock Holmes, in 'The Crooked Man'

Hours: Open every day of the year (except Christmas Day) from 9.30am - 6pm
Admission: Adult £6 Child £4 (under 16yrs)

While visiting London during a work trip I was fortunate enough to find myself with some spare time, and since my offices there were located in Baker St I thought it was a good time to take a stroll to the offices of Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.

As you will know if you read my post about Edinburgh, I have been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for quite some time, and more specifically a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes has long since been held as the standard for a detective who employed science, logic and reasoning to almost any crime. He is one of the oldest examples of a true forensic detective, and of course he was entirely fictional.

Arthur Conan Doyle drew on several people who he worked closely with during his time at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, the notable Dr Bell who I mentioned in my previous entry, as well as Sir Henry Littlejohn who was a police surgeon in Edinburgh before becoming a lecturer on Forensic Medicine and Public Health. These men were really at the cutting edge of their fields and were fantastic inspirations since they demonstrated what could be learned with just a small amount of observation, understanding and science.

What appealed most about Sherlock Holmes was that for all of his astonishing intellect and ability, he was also a drug addict (cocaine, and occasional morphine, administered intravenously), his apartment was quite disorderly with papers and mysterious items strewn about which nobody was ever allowed to touch.
All of this was a great concern to Dr Watson, his friend, colleague and the narrator of most Holmes stories.

So here I was in London, and able to go for a walk through a house designed to be similar to that which was described in the stories. In reality 221B Baker St did not even exist when Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the original stories... and if you follow the reference links at the bottom to the Wikipedia article about it, there have been some fairly large debates about the address itself.

However, the museum was really quite fantastic... it is filled with various props from the stories, wax figurines of some of the more interesting cases, and the various rooms of the apartment kept in much the same way you would expect them to be.

All in all it felt rather respectful, and I thought it was well worth the price of admission. Next door there is a small gift shop which sells various books and other merchandise (yes you can get a deerstalker hat, a magnifying glass and a pipe)

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes - Sherlock Holmes, in vastly more detail than you need
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/221B_Baker_Street - The address, and why people fight over it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_Museum - The Sherlock Holmes Museum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

Tuesday 12 March 2013

London, England

I must confess I have been entirely lazy in updating the blog, so the next several posts actually occurred a few months ago now, and therefore are going to be somewhat lacking in detail.
However, I will do my best to recall what I can about each location, and at least somewhat describe what each place was like.

So in late January I was sent to the United Kingdom for my job, and since I have friends in London it made sense to arrive with a weekend at the beginning of the trip so that I could spend some time with them. After a fairly large night out with the girls, my good friend Marie decided she would play tour guide around London, the following photos are the highlights of that stroll.

Firstly we got the tube to South Bank since that is a really good starting point for a loop of each iconic landmark.

With a nice view of the River Thames, and some great markets available, South Bank is a really easy beginning to the day, so we stroll through the various food stalls at the market and then decide to head to St Paul's Cathedral via Blackfriars Bridge.

Looking surprisingly sober and cheerful, but still I require a railing for support, and if you notice... we got incredibly lucky and there was sun in London!

Just a cute scene of the Thames washing up in South Bank before we headed over the Blackfriars Bridge..

I didn't remember to actually take any photos of the bridge itself, so the sign will have to suffice!

And here we finally made it to St Paul's Cathedral...the site of the cathedral has a fairly rich history, some people claiming that in AD 604 it was in fact a pagan temple to the goddess Diana, which was then destroyed and replaced by a smaller chapel, which was in turn destroyed during a fire in 962.
This was replaced by another cathedral, in which the bones of Ethelred the Unready (a particularly unlucky English king) were laid to rest, but sadly this next cathedral also burned down in 1087... not to give up easily, work begun immediately on yet another cathedral known as "Old St Paul's" which took 200 years to complete...it was completed in 1314... can you guess what happened to it?
To top the previous cathedrals this one was struck by lightning in 1561 which destroyed the spire... and then it was completely destroyed by... you guessed it... fire! The Great Fire of London in 1666 completely gutted the cathedral again.

In 1669 the task was given to Sir Christopher Wren to design a new cathedral, he drew from various architectural styles including Greek, Gothic and Renaissance and ultimately the cathedral as it stands today was completed on the 2nd December 1697.

Having finished at the cathedral we then walked over the Millennium Bridge, and we stopped past the Globe Theatre, home of Shakespeare's plays, and rather an interesting place.
The building as it stands today is actually a reconstructed building which stands near to the site of the original (200m away). The original Globe was destroyed by fire in 1613.
Once we had poked around the Globe we continued on our way, stopped for a spot of lunch at a nearby pub Founders which was really affordable and delicious, and then returned to South Bank.

This is a rather large Ferris Wheel, called the London Eye, it is 135 meters tall and offers some excellent views of most of the nearby landmarks. It opened to the public on the 9th of March 2000.
There is really not a lot else to say about it, if you like Ferris Wheels, enjoy this one!

Attached to Westminster Palace, Big Ben is one of the worlds most recognizable clocks I am sure, it has been destroyed in countless movies, and slapped on so many postcards and souvenirs it is really rather scary given that at the end of the day... it is a clock.

The tower was originally completed in 1858, it was designed by Augustus Pugin, who very shortly afterwards went mad and then died.
It is designed in the Gothic Revival style, and stands 96 meters tall.
The original bell weighed 16.3 tonnes, and the bell was dedicated to Sir Benjamin Hall (which could be why it was nicknamed Big Ben)

Onwards! Next we walked to Buckingham Palace, sadly there was no changing of the guards while we visited, so we settled for a few quick photos.

After this we walked to Trafalgar Square, another fairly recognizable area in film and television, but also quite the meeting spot for many people. It tends to be crowded with people, street performers, and is within easy walking distance to most other interesting sights.

Here is Nelson's Column, this monument was erected in 1843 to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson who died during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

And with that, we leapt on a tube, and returned home for some much needed sleep!

Next blogs: The Sherlock Holmes Museum, London - Cambridge, Stonehenge and Bournemouth (three for the price of one!) - Toyohashi, Japan - Paris/Versailles, France.... which will finally bring us up to date.