Back at the shrine on Saturday morning things were a bit wet.  Not everyone's enthusiasm was dented though.  People queued up for merch, that's what グッズ means in the picture below.

Drummers lost none of their energy.

Ceremonial continued

Even from the youngest.

And no-one stopped eating

Saturday also includes a parade through some other districts.  Not only was I unsure about the timing and the geography of this but it was also uninviting weather so I didn't try to get to it.

Sunday was a much brighter day weatherwise and from dawn to dusk was devoted to the return to the shrine of numerous mikoshi (portable shrines carried on palanquins with much ceremony).  I didn't spend all day watching them but I was there from around 9am for a couple of hours and when I passed the same spot at 4.30pm there was still a group arriving at the shrine.

The process involved a front party of half a dozen proceeding slowly with a series of steps that took them from side to side as well as forward, then a group of musicians in a tumbril (the wrong word but describes the vehicle) and finally a great swell of singing and cheering palanquin bearers who almost danced along.

When they got towards the entrance there was much whistling and clapping of hands as they turned the palanquin through 90 degrees.  Then someone ahead of it was raised up, banged sticks together and motioned the crowd first to stop their advance and then to continue. 

I've got a bit of video but it's too big for blogger so when I get home I'll try to edit it down.  In the meantime here are a couple of pics.

 

In the afternoon I went to the East gardens of the Imperial Palace which had been closed (because it was a Friday!) when I tried to go two years ago.  There was a lovely section of proper garden with a pool and so forth in which I was able to sit in the shade and relax for a while.  It was bliss. One picture to set the lotus eating mood.

This is the Kanda Myojin shrine courtyard looking towards the inside of the entrance gate.  The shrine is the nerve centre as it were of the Kanda Matsuri which is said to be one of the three most important shinto festivals and takes place in May every second year.  It runs for a week but the events I came to see happen at the weekend.

My hotel was within spitting distance so on the Friday I was able to watch preparations being made including the all important setting up of food and drink stalls without which no celebration ever takes place in Japan.

 

A while ago I bought a book that describes 40 odd walks around Tokyo and later in the day I followed a couple of them.  One handily started at Kanda Myojin shrine, passed through another couple of nearby shrine/temples and over a bridge on which rail enthusiasts hang out to watch trains whizzing by

then past the orthodox cathedral of St Nicolai (sorry about the tree) and on to the district of

Jimbocho famous for its multitude of (mostly second-hand) bookshops.

Then I moved on to a neighbouring walk that took in the Tokyo Dome (sports and concert venue ably supported in my picture by a train that goes through a buiding), an amusement park and one of Tokyo's many green spaces.

After Kanazawa the next objective was to follow what's called the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route illustrated above.  I pretty much looked forward to it as the centrepiece of my trip but I was disappointed.

First of all I had to get into the right place and get things organised.  The weather was poor so I took a slow train to Toyama and as I've done before had trouble locating my hotel thanks to its sign being invisible from the direction from which I approached it.  Only when I decided to retrace my steps and walked towards it from the opposite direction did the sign jump out and hit me.  There's a moral there somewhere.

I had decided to buy a ticket online in advance to minimise queuing, not to eliminate it because I knew I'd get a QR code that would have to be exchanged subsequently for a paper ticket.  I had to create an account with a password, no surprise there.  No surprise either about the amount of detail required but I was a little taken aback by having to select three secret questions.  I'd have thought that for close to 100% of people buying a ticket this way it will be a once in a lifetime action so the whole thing is overkill in spades.

Anyway that was sorted and getting the paper ticket proved easy because I did it from a machine at an unsocial hour when there was no queue.  The same, except it was via a human not a machine, was true of forwarding my suitcase to the other side.  Absolutely essential should you try this trip reader.

I had some very tasty dumplings at dinner the night before the trip though I accidentally ordered some chicken nuggets as well that I didn't much like.  I'm not a fan of Japanese breakfasts either but it was included in my hotel rate and I felt I needed fortification for the mountains so I entered the breakfast room.  Happily I found some yogourt and fruit which is much more my thing than soup and rice.

The train to Tateyama moved through some lovely countryside getting slower and slower as it wound its way though I found when I got there that I had to pay extra because it had been an express of some sort.  

After that was the funicular (Tateyama Cable Car) into which were squeezed a large number.  It ran mostly inside a tunnel.  The combination of those facts gave poor pictures.

Then we got onto buses.  This was not too bad.  I had a reasonably clear view through the front window of the bus and until it got too misty had some decent views of trees and snow.  No mountain vistas though.

 

When I got off the bus prior to the next stage I climbed up a great many steps in the spirit of this notice and with noticeable effects on my need for breath but with no noticeable views through the mist and cloud.

The next stage was in a bus proudly declared electric but it ran entirely through a tunnel so I didn't even attempt a picture.

After that tunnel was the section I'd looked forward to most, the cablecar (ropeway in the Japanese parlance) swinging freely over nothingness with forests below and mountains either side.  Judge from the pictures

Here it comes

The view from inside

Not such a bad view as we prepared to dock 

After that excitement there was another funicular that took us to the Kurobe Dam which is why a lot of the infrastructure is here.  We were able to walk across that and there were views of a sort.

From there it was another busride through a tunnel to Ogizawa which is the endpoint of the Alpine Route though it's just a bus station from which you need to move on but you need to buy or have bought another ticket.  I got there about ten to two and the timetable said there would be a bus at half past.  There was actually a bus without any markings (like destination) standing there which I assumed must be a tour bus waiting for one of the large groups who'd been on the route.  In fact when I asked it turned out to be the two thirty bus and I was happy to climb aboard and rest.

The bus took us through very pleasant countryside with vistas to Shinano Omachi where I was to pick up my suitcase and spend the night,

The baggage collection point was opposite the pretty little station.

I'd had nothing to eat since seven in the morning and it was now mid-afternoon so before getting my luggage I settled down at this table and devoured a curry and a coffe bought from a nearby foodtruck.  The curry claimed to be beef but I'd have said it was rice and beef gravy but whatever it was tasty and most welcome.

Before heading for my guesthouse I went to buy my ticket to Tokyo for the next day.

There was already a lady at the ticket machine.  You'll notice a telephone handset on the left.  The machine was making telephone like noises and the screen you see above the handset said there were nine people waiting.  Eventually a person appeared on the screen and the lady waiting engaged her in discussion of whatever problem she had.  Part of the discussion involved the lady putting a document in one of the slots you see on the right.

My ticket purchase involving a couple of changes of train was simplicity itself.  The guesthouse was pretty simple too although adequate and it took me several attempts to get the door to open.  It had one of those old combination lock things with big buttons with letters aad numbers.  I didn't fancy it in the dark so once in I stayed.

The journey next day provided more than enough mountain vistas as we travelled through the valley to Matsumoto.  It would be a lovely area to visit again. 

I got to my station in Tokyo and as soon as I surfaced from the platform and stood wodering which exit to take some well meaning Japanese chap asked me where I was going.  Instead of having the presence of mind to say I was waiting for a Japanese friend or going to the toilet or some other diversion strategy I told him what hotel I was looking for.

Now he had no more idea than I did where it was.  Probably less idea since I'd looked it up earlier on Google.  So he started mucking about with his phone as I tried to walk away.  What's the address?  There's a police box over the road they'll know, blah blah.  Eventually I got rid of him and followed Google. One spanner cropped up in the works when it told me to turn left.  Had I been on the other side of the road that would have been no problem.  It was a busy road and lined by barriers to prevent foolhardy souls from trying to jump the traffic.  I ended up going the long way round a rectangle and dragging my case up a hill but I got there. 

 A 24 hour stopover in Kanazawa reinforced my belief that I absolutely lucked out on my choice of the town as my first place to stay in Japan two years ago.  It's a great spot with Kenrokuen garden, the castle and its extensive grounds (not forgetting the smaller but delightful garden within the grounds), other open spaces, its historical areas, its museums, its modern facilities and its surrounding countryside and closeness to the sea.  

I had lunch with Keira and friends.  This is my lunch.  The main item (top left) is like beef olives except that the beef was pork and the filling was avocado.  Delicious and tempting to try it at home.

I then spent the afternoon in the gardens and the castle grounds.  It was Children's Day, almost the end of the Golden Week holidays and everything was very busy.  In the castle grounds there were various stalls and a number of entertainers.  A group of girls were doing a fast song and dance routine that I quite failed to get an action shot of and my attempts to photograph kids flying kites on one of the large lawns were equally underwhelming so they won't grace a calendar or even a blogpost any time soon.  My excuse is that I'd dumped my luggage, including my camera, at my hotel before lunch so had only my phone to use.

I'll leave you instead with another shot from Kenrokuen which the phone has captured very well.

 

Osaka castle is probably the most impressive castle I've seen in Japan.  It's absolutely gorgeous, is set in beautiful grounds and has the most imposing double moat arrangement and enormous walls.

I spent a lot of time walking around taking pictures, enjoying the sunshine and enjoying the huge variety of people.

I'm pretty allergic to queues so I didn't bother joining this one to get into the castle.

I got to the castle by taking a subway from near my hotel to the main station and then taking a mainline train to a stop called Osaka Castle Park.  That seemed to be an optimum route though I discovered later on my way back to town that there is a service bus that would have done the job for me more effectively.  It doesn't seem terribly well publicised and I wondered given the enormous number of taxis at the main entry point to the castle whether this is an arrangement that suits the cabs nicely.

I got that bus back and it turned out to be a bonus bus because it dropped me more or less in the middle of a holiday weekend junket in Nakanoshima Park.  This is a relatively small area between two rivers that was covered in food stalls, amusement stalls, second-hand book stalls and the like.  It was teeming with people and music and general liveliness.  I lingered here and there, had a snack, watched some frenzied dancing, found a restaurant by a rose garden and scoffed some deep-fried shrimps screaming of garlic lying on a bowl of rice with salad trimmings.  It was all a very pleasant experience.

 

Tiny dogs in silly outfits being wheeled around in pushchairs I found verging on the repulsive though.