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Herewith (yet) another trip report, about using an XJS for what she's designed for....
(And as usual, lots of photos, so avoid if you have to pay extra for every byte....)
Autumn is a good time to tour Japan. But you need to be aware that it’s usually later than it is in places like New England. Late November is basically peak time on the lowlands, which is why I decided to make our autumn road trip down to Lake Biwa rather than up to the Nasu Highlands as originally planned.
Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan, and is one of the oldest lakes in the world—geologically, it’s classified as a Ancient Lake. It has been around for about four million years. That’s pretty ancient. It also sits in the middle of Shiga Prefecture, the area once known as Omi Province. Omi was a strategic crossroads in feudal Japan, connecting the imperial capital of Kyoto with the regions to the east and north. In fact, one saying was that “He who controls Omi, controls the realm.” During the 16th century Warring States period in particular, Omi was a major centre of power, and both Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi had castles here on the lakeshore. The province also borders the old imperial capital of Kyoto, and Lake Biwa has featured in art and literature basically ever since the Japanese learned to write. In short, it’s a historically and culturally significant area that is usually almost completely (and unfairly) overlooked by tourists hurrying to get to Kyoto.
And, more to the point, it’s south enough and warm enough that in late November it’s reaching its peak for autumn beauty. So on this trip, we focused on visiting temples to admire their gardens.
I’d been having problems with the Check Engine warning, code FF44, as detailed on another thread, but got the starboard oxygen sensor replaced just before heading out, and all seemed well. It was an easy cruise down the expressway, if somewhat dull, so we got off a little early to take the scenic surface route over the hills that separate the Hokuriku, or North Land, from the central Kansai region. Some good driving here, if you're not stuck behind too many trucks. Which is usually the case--there's plenty of companies too stingy to pay expressway tolls, it seems....
Our first destination was the famous avenue of metasequoias, dawn redwoods, in northern Shiga. About 500 trees along a straight road form a dramatic tunnel of red. Or at least that’s the idea. We were there too early in the season I guess, as they were a fairly dull orange-brown, and a far cry from the brilliant crimson they are in photos. While there were a fair few people there getting photos, we didn’t even stop.
So we carried on, up onto the plateau and along Route 367, one of the best driving roads in Japan—that I’ve found, at least. Wide, sweeping curves, little traffic, fewer traffic lights, and you can cruise smoothly along between the hills, following the river, passing small villages filled with old thatched houses—or what were thatched but are now covered in tin as thatch is damnably expensive to replace. But it’s still a great road for a cruise in a smoothly-humming Jaguar XJS V12.
Crossed over the Lake Biwa Toll Bridge—a whopping 150 yen, or about US$1.30—and followed the lakeshore down as dusk settled over the water. Quite pleasant.
We stayed for two nights at the Lake Biwa Otsu Prince Hotel, the tallest building in the city of Otsu, which is actually only two stops from Kyoto Station on the Tokaido Line. Otsu itself is a fairly historic city, dating back to the 7th century, so has some famous old temples. In autumn, many temples are open at night, their grounds lit up, for visitors to enjoy the leaves. The Ishiyama Temple in southern Otsu is one of the most famous temples in the region—both for its thousand years of history (it's said to be where Lady Murasaki first started to write the Tale of Genji), and its autumn leaves. So we headed out there after dinner.
It was fairly busy, as expected, but I wasn’t really all that impressed with the leaves. They tended towards orange, and brownish-orange at that, rather than red, although that might have been the lighting—orange floods illuminating them. Still, the lanterns were nice, and the pagoda with its light beam looked cool, and the whole atmosphere of the place, with its secondary buildings dotted around the hillside and connected with paths, was very pleasant. And the parking lot attendant recognized my car as an old Jaguar, and was suitably impressed. As my wife says, though, pretty much the only people who notice it are the older generation.
The next day, we went out driving. It wasn’t ideal weather, being variously overcast and drizzling, with the odd patch of proper rain, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d researched the best temples for autumn leaves in the region, and they mostly congregated in the foothills along the prefecture’s southern border. So our first stop was at the Daichiji temple, with its famous garden of the Seven Gods of Fortune and their Treasure Boat sailing the seas (second photo down in this next lot).
From there, we headed to the Eigenji temple along some very nice rural roads indeed—some that were definitely good to drive along in an XJS, as opposed to an MR2 or other lightweight sports car. The Eigenji is an important Zen temple, located in the hills beside the Echi River, and dates back to 1361. Though the present buildings are only a few centuries old. It’s also basically the most famous place for autumn leaves in Shiga.
The temple's hidden in the trees on the hill over the river. The second photo shows a small cafe by the entrance, which is up those steep steps at the top left.
Parking here wasn’t free, at 500 yen or about US$4.40, but at least it was available—the place wasn’t too packed. Being a wet Thursday before a long weekend helped there, I’m sure. And the leaves truly were impressive. My wife was very happy.
Our next stop wasn’t too far away at all: the Hyakusaiji temple. Considered one of the oldest temples in Japan, dating back to 606 and founded by the famous Prince Shotoku himself. Although again, like most temples, the buildings here date to the Edo period, a couple of hundred years ago. I mentioned earlier how important the Omi region was during the Warring States period—violence and warfare isn’t good for wooden buildings. And while there’s doubt over how old the temple really is, its name, Hyakusai [百済], is also read Kudara, the Japanese terms for the ancient Korean kingdom of Baekje, from where Buddhism had been introduced to Japan just a few decades earlier.
However, despite its venerable history, my wife didn’t much like this place at all. The first and most important reason was that it was built on the side of a hill (like many temples in Japan; quite aside from early Shinto-inspired mountain worship, hillsides have a sort of spiritual aspect to them in being neither up nor down, neither that world nor this). That meant lots of steps, and she’s very lazy. The second reason was that the autumn leaves, while impressive in scale, were mainly growing semi-wild on the slopes. She likes them in carefully manicured gardens, small and intimate in scale. Nature filtered through human intervention, in other words.
This meant she was rather grumpy by the time we finished seeing this temple, and decided that was it for the day. So we headed up towards the town of Nagahama via Hikone—Hikone, with its exquisite castle and garden, is perhaps the jewel in the crown of Shiga tourism, but we’d both been there before, me several times, so we skipped it this time. But the road from Hikone up to Nagahama following the lakeshore is a very pleasant drive indeed. For most people—one van driver was having a bad day….
Nagahama has a small but nice old central area, so we parked the car at a convenient pay parking lot, and went wandering. It was a pleasant place for a stroll, though a little cold, wet, and windy today. My wife’s main goal was this glass shop in an old building that used to be a bank. She selected several things to put on my credit card, and then we ambled back to the car. Parking here was 200 yen (US$1.75) an hour—much cheaper than Tokyo, as you can imagine. And I was glad I had exact change—the machine didn’t give change, and only accepted cash. Mind you, with all these coin parking lots which use a steel barrier that rises up under your car to stop you driving off without paying, I have to wonder if a Landcruiser could defeat them….
Then we had to get right to the other end of the lake to get back to our hotel. This was not as easy as I had hoped. The first part, to Hikone along the lakeshore road, was a nice easy drive, and we got some great views of the lake in the setting sun. But after that, it got slower and slower as we struck rush hour. While the rural roads in Shiga are great for driving, the urban roads suck extremely hard. Especially in the sprawling concrete jungle from Omi-Hachiman down to Otsu. Urgh. Slow, tedious, wet, dark. It took nearly two hours to travel just over 50 km…. And that was with a decent first half before we hit the traffic.
The following day, my wife just wanted to get home, and I admit I wasn’t happy about the frequent Check Engine warnings being thrown up. All the same warning, and almost always shortly after setting off, and then staying off if the car was restarted while the engine was still hot. Nevertheless, getting her back safely was becoming a slight concern. Another issue was that while there were still a few places I wanted to check out, today was public holiday, and I didn’t really want to face too many crowds, or worry about parking.
Dawn from our hotel room
After a short stop by the lake to give the Check Engine a chance to reset as much as anything, we cruised up the lakeshore road as far as Hikone, and then jumped on the expressway. Of the 697.5 km travelled (trip computer reset before heading out), I've used Google Maps to calculate 258 km of that was on expressways. Roughly a third. Our average speed was 44.7 km, and the total fuel consumed was 111.3 litres, for an average of 6.2 km/l or 16.13 L/100km, or 14.7 mpg (US).
You can just make out our tall hotel at the far right, on the other side of the lake behind the trees. I should note that this end of the lake is its narrowest--"Biwa" means "lute" and this is the neck of the lute.
Quick snap of Hikone Castle as we drove past. You can just see the keep between the trees.
Rather gloomy weather on the drive back, too.
But it did give us this:
The Check Engine/FF44 issue is still there, and seems to come on at the lights—the revs will wobble, the engine seem to stumble a bit, and then it comes on. So she’s back at the garage, and they have now measured the left (port) O2 sensor as reading too low and not fluctuating as it should. Odd that there were no FF45 codes, but we’ll see what happens.
At least I got some nice photos out of the trip….
Hi OB. Glad you liked the pics and account. As to your question, three main reasons:
1. To try to prevent catching other people's germs when it's cold and flu season.
2. To try to prevent others from catching your germs when you have a cold.
3. To try to prevent allergies, especially hayfever.
My wife likes them because they keep her face warm, and a bit moisturised I guess. Some people just like trying to hide their faces a bit too, I guess.
Beautiful photos! In my part of the world, we only get yellow leaves, nothing red. So it's nice to see all those bright red trees. Looks like a nice trip.
No red leaves in Canada? Then your flag is a lie! You've lied to all of us!
But fear not! I can fix that for you--here's the True North, Strong and Free (of Red)....
Eastern Canada gets the red maples, but here on the prairies we we have mainly poplar trees. They just go yellow. Alas, none of the nice hardwoods here, the winters are too harsh for them to grow. It doesn't get as cold in southern Ontario and Quebec, they grow fine there.
Hi OB. Glad you liked the pics and account. As to your question, three main reasons:
1. To try to prevent catching other people's germs when it's cold and flu season.
2. To try to prevent others from catching your germs when you have a cold.
3. To try to prevent allergies, especially hayfever.
My wife likes them because they keep her face warm, and a bit moisturised I guess. Some people just like trying to hide their faces a bit too, I guess.
Great story and beautiful pictures!
Funny to read about the face mask thing now, what with all that's going on at the moment.
Did the Japanese market XJS have a higher ride height at the front (perhaps for bumper or headlight height regulations) or is it my imagination?
Glad you like the story and pics!
As to your question about the ride height, no, not as far as I know. I hope it's your imagination. The shocks and springs should be in very good condition (all four rear shocks have been replaced recently), and she stands level. If anything, she might be mite lower at the front. But nothing serious.
Some nice strong horizontals here that might make it more clear.
11-30-2018, 06:56 AM
Ancient Lake Autumn
