Japan Day four

Day 4 (August 14, 2010)

Having only a half day left to hang out with Dave in Tokyo, we got going fairly early and were out of our hotel by 9:30 (early!). After another little run-in with subway confusion, we eventually found Dave at the subway stop at our first activity for the day, a visit to the Mori Modern Art Museum. The exhibit included three installations by three artists around the theme of nature and how Japanese interact with their natural surroundings. The exhibit had English audio guides available so we enjoyed listening to the descriptions of each exhibit (you know modern art, it often requires a little explanation). I was very impressed with this exhibit, though. Shannon and Dave took some pictures (which I don’t think we were supposed to be doing, no one told anyone to stop taking them) so you’ll have to take a look, the most jarring one being the bleeding mountain. Another hit was the 4 walled clear plastic piece, filled with hundreds of pounds of feathers with a fan that turns on every minute or so to simulate snow. Very neat! The museum was located on the 50^th or so floor of a skyscraper, so admission came with free access to the observation areas, so we got a daytime look at the Tokyo skyline. It’s very beautiful!

After the art museum we rushed over to our second museum of the day, the beer museum! This was perhaps the smallest museum I’ve ever seen, and the exhibit took us all of 15 minutes to walk through. Its for the Yebisu brand of beer, one of the first in Japan and its now owned by the Sapporo company. We sampled a beer afterwards (NOT free *sadface*). Nearby was a second beer restaurant so we sampled a couple more offerings and enjoyed some nice german style sausage (also popular in Korea).

After our midday drinks and snacks, we had to say goodbye to Dave in order to catch our train out to Kyoto. We made it over to Tokyo station with little problem and proceeded to board one of the fastest trains in the world, the Shinkasken, AKA the bullet train. It took us from Tokyo to Kyoto in a little over 2 hours, very impressive.

At Kyoto station we found Miho, a woman that we’ve hosted back in the states on a few different occasions. She is super nice and friendly and has given us a splendid room in her lovely house to stay in for a few days. She is also taking us around and coming up with a lot of different things for us to do (which is great, we came with literally a blank agenda). This week is a special holiday in traditional Japanese culture- the O-bon Festival. Families remember their ancestors and it is said that in these few days their spirits can come back into this world. One of the neat things they do on the last day to say goodbye is to create a sort of light house effect for the spirits, by making many large controlled fires on the side of a mountain in the shape of a symbol. We’re really looking forward to seeing that tomorrow.

Anyways, Miho made us dinner and it was delicious – raw fish, rice, meat dumplings and regular dumplings (sort of like fried mandoo from Korea). We chatted and watched “National Treasure” which happened to be on TV. We’re really glad to be here!’

That being said we have a long day tomorrow so its off to bed again! Day 4? ANOTHER SUCCESS!

Japan Day Three, more Awesomeness in Tokyo

Day 3 (August 13)

OK, had a bit too much whiskey the night before so we were a bit sluggish and vampirish when it came to the sunshine, but we managed to get up and out the of the hotel by about 11 after enjoying the hotel’s breakfast (well, its just toast and coffee). Our first destination was to a water taxi stand in Asakusa area (North and east). We had our first view of the soon-to-be tallest structure in Japan, the Tokyo Sky Tree. It will almost double the current tallest, the Tokyo Tower – I believe it will be over 600 meters tall. The picture is pretty neat, as the cranes sitting atop it give you a sense of the scale of the project.

The water taxi was an OK ride, I can’t honestly say the canals we took were breathtaking, although the bridges offered some variety in their color and structure. Once we hit the financial/ government area though, the scenery changed a lot for the better! The cityscape changed from the Seoul-like ubiquitous 15-20 story apartment buildings to a gorgeous variety of skyscrapers mixed with carefully tended greenspaces. The green space we jumped off at was a wonderful garden called Hama rykou (spelling?)(south and east), which used to be a falconry/ falconry hunting ground for royalty several hundred years ago. Very, very beautiful, well kept, and not very busy. An interesting part of it was an explanation of how they would hunt for wild ducks, using domesticated ducks as “lures” and then unleashing their deadly falcons upon them! Viscous, I know, using birds against their own cousins…but come on, it would be a pretty neat way to hunt. Imagine if bird warfare were used to settle disputes instead of guns today!

After the gardens, we hopped on another subway and traveled over to the “Electric Town, ” Akihabara (slightly north and eastern). OK, so up to this point, Tokyo has been really really chill, well kept, and all-in all, not that busy. Nothing like Seoul, where there are a million people, every where, all the time. But you are now saying to yourself, “But Jamie, I thought it was totally different. I thought Japan is absolutely CRAZY!!”. Well, you are RIGHT! This area is what sort of defines the image that I had of Japan before coming, bright lights, people in ridiculous costumes, anime characters just draping buildings, throngs of people, crazy sex shops, cracked out arcades. Oh man, it was kind of awesome. We only could handle an hour or so of the madness, but we got our fill!

After crazy electric town, we headed back to our first hotel, as we had only booked two nights. We moved out to the Ikebura area (North and west), and Dave moved to a place in the government area (West and central). Well, we had our first travel woes of the trip, as the map we had for the hotel (on the back of a business card) led us very astray! After a 45 minute parlay into an area that looked mysteriously like Newton, MA, we eventually had some help from a nice police officer and a sushi delivery person who directed us in the right direction. We’ll stay just tonight and head out to Kyoto in the morning!

After a little break, we headed out once more to one of the government buildings in the middle of the city (very close to Dave’s new hotel), which happens to be a skyscraper! They offer a free observation deck from the 52^nd floor which was quite beautiful, and the rain held off for us to get a clear view.

We said goodbye to Dave after he gave us a quick tour of his new digs (very nice find Dave, very nice indeed!), and we headed back to our area. Being a little hungry from our activities, we found a cute little Hong Kong restaurant (they had cheap drinks…), but what a find it turned out to be! Some of the best fried rice I’ve ever had, a delicious sweet and sour fried cucumber dish, and a super black-pepper chicken dish. Unbelievable. Food for day 3? 100% success (I’m discounting breakfast, it doesn’t really count).

So here we are, a little after midnight. We’re doing laundry right now (yeah yeah, I know its only day 3, but its just so hot and humid that we’ve been changing during the days so we already have a full load). Our new hotel (which is the same company as our first one, by the way, but we got a really rotten deal on a price this night because we hadn’t booked in advance), has a nice little outdoor eating/drinking area. Very relaxed.

Overall impression so far of Tokyo? It’s just all around great. Language barrier really hasn’t been so much of a problem (hell, we’re kind of used to it), and while the transportation system had us initially flabbergasted, it is a model of efficiency and it’s just super easy to get to all of these places. The food as I mentioned has been great, and all the Japanese people we’ve encountered have just been super nice. The city is super clean (well every part we’ve seen) and just all around nice to walk around in. I’m just really happy with it. We’re also really excited to stay in Kyoto with our Japanese friend and her family for the next few days, we’re heading out on the bullet train tomorrow afternoon. Until then, good night!

Japan Day Two More Tokyo Fun

Day 2 (August 12)

We had decided the previous night to wake up around 8:30 and we almost did it! We woke Dave up (we only have 1 alarm between the three of us), showered up and enjoyed the 315 yen breakfast (it was really just toast and coffee – maybe we’ll just hit up the Family Mart down the road tomorrow morning instead). We chatted with the guys who run the place and they gave us some suggestions of things to do, very nice of them.

Well we started off at the subway, which are pretty similar to those of Seoul in terms of the stations, but maybe they are a little older. The system seems really confusing at first as there are separate companies that run the different lines, although they often share the same station-or stations with the same name but DIFFERENT exit numbers. We ended up just buying a day pass that works for about 60% of all the lines in the city. The man at the info booth was extremely nice and helpful and took us into the operation center to call a translation service to help us figure out our best option. Once we sort of figured out (kind of )how the system works, the trains seem to be a model of efficiency. They come every couple of minutes and the stops are really well labeled within the city.

Anyways, our first stop was the Imperial palace, which is a really beautifully maintained park type place (People aren't allowed to visit the actual Palace) lots of open space , trees, and beautiful stone walls. And! it is surrounded by a moat! We had a good hour and a half walk in the area and we took many pictures. The structures are relatively simple but seem to be very finely crafted, and I especially loved the gates at the entrance. The beams are MASSIVE and each made from a solid piece of wood (and a fragrant variety at that).

We walked across the street afterwards and found a little fountain area with some neat fountain structures, or rather they would have been neat had they been fountaining. It was to windy. If was like standing in a horizontal waterfall before they turned the last one off.

We then went for our first Japanese meal. Since we weren’t really in the mood to hunt down a side-street treasure, we just opted for the first thing we found which happened to be an upscale department store/mall building with a floor filled with nice restaurants. Luckily one of the cheapest ones really piqued our fancy. I particularly loved the pork ribs dish, it fell right off the bone. The bitter cucumber tasted about as good as it sounds though, so unless you have a thing for bitterness (or maybe even resentment, perhaps) I’d stay away from dishes focusing on that. Shannon and Dave had some sort of papaya and chicken dish that was also delightful. Really looking forward to eating here for the next week!

After lunch we found Tokyo station (its under construction so it really held no splendor at all) and bought our tickets in advance for the bullet train to Kyoto, we’ll be heading over there on Saturday. We then took a quick trip to an area called Ginza which has the Sony building. We were a little skeptical at first, as we really aren’t too much in the way of gadget heads, (that's a lie, Jamie LOVES gadgets) but we were all really happy we made the trip! The building houses the Sony showrooms which span a good number of mini floors each showcasing new and upcoming products. You may have heard of recent advances in 3D technology and it appears that Sony is pushing for it big time. They had a whole bunch of neat little 3D TV set-ups that you could play with. Another really neat gadget was a mike for a video camera that zooms in on sound while you zoom in with your lense. A SOUND zoom. Wow. Very neat.

We then tried to check out the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, but unfortunately it is changing exhibits as we speak. We also tried the science museum, but alas, they closed at 5! By now, of course, there's a downpour to go along with the wind.

After a quick dinner at a ramyeon place (think “ramen” noodles, but at a restaurant, served in a super thick broth with green onion and a slice of pork loin – its pretty good! Ramyeon is served often at restaurants in Korea too, but usually it is much spicier), we went to a little joint called the Cavern Club in the hip little neighborhood of Roppongi. The club has a resident Beatles cover band that plays 30 minutes on and then has 30 minutes off (but they only play Beatles in between sets). It was pretty awesome! The group didn’t dress up like the members to a T (although I suspect a couple of them were in character to some degree), each one did take particular member (i.e. that particular person would sing their personas songs (i.e. “Paul” sang “Lullaby”). The drinks at the place were pretty expensive so it seemed economical for us to just buy a bottle of whiskey, which none of us had ever done in a bar before (you can do this in Korea, but the cost is absurd). However, we were overcharged 40 dollars in the end, so who knows if there is some kind of membership fee for ordering a bottle or what – they did bring out this special bottle necklace with Dave’s name on it… Anyways, we drank quite a bit, stayed for 3 sets, and got a couple pictures with the band in the end, so it was well worth it! We managed to catch the 2^nd to last subway train back to the hotel and made it back safe and sound!

A note: there are LOTS of photos, most of witch are of green things at the palace (jamie loves

green things.) However, if you stick it out to the end you will see the Beatles Cover band. And

some ridiculous pictures of shannon trying to touch the fish. If you want explanations, you can

visit flickr as each picture has and explanation.

Japan Day One

Before you start reading, i'd like to tell you that we are back in Korea. Jamie wrote these updates every night of our trip. Super dedicated! Anyway, I'm going to post one a day so that all of you avid readers won't get overwhelmed with 12 days all in one post. I'll try to post the pictures for each day with the post as well. Just comment if you want more detail or explanation and I'll try to answer promptly and quickly. (more quickly than normal)

Day 1 (August 11)

So here we are in Japan on the first day of our journey. Well, evening, as we left Seoul around 7:30PM and just arrived in Tokyo at about 9:45PM, a pretty quick and painless flight! We used a smaller airport (think Bradley International or TF Green for all of the folks out in the MA area), and came into a nice little (not so little) airport to the south of Tokyo called Haneda. Getting to our hostel/motel (Sakura hotel) wasn’t too difficult but a little bit nerve-wracking in the moment, as we found the train system is quite a bit more complex than the one in Seoul and there is not nearly as much English (at least on the lines on the outskirts of the city). Anyways, there was actually no problem whatsoever and we made it to our first stop in one piece no problem! Yay! And when we got to our guesthouse, who do we see right in front of the door but our friend Dave! What a small world! OK OK, it was not a coincidence at all, we planned to meet up with him the whole time! We’ll be spending about 3 days with him in Tokyo before we split off and go to Kyoto to stay with a friend and see what that area has to offer. The man who is running the guesthouse is super friendly and pointed out that the Japanese coinage, while almost identical to that of Korea, is about 11-12 X more valuable so don’t mix them up! They seem to use coins much more here instead of small bills – one of them is 500 yen which is more than 5 dollars and I think more than 6000 Korean won. The Japanese had to change their coinage, actually, because Koreans would come over here and use their 500 won coins instead of the 500 yen coins in the vending machines.

Which leads to interesting Japanese things of the day. OK not much to comment on yet as we’ve only been in the country for a couple hours, but one thing we’ve heard about and already noticed is the vending machine culture. There are over 5 million vending machines in Japan, which is about 1 vending machine for every 24-25 people. They bring in over 50 billion USD in revenue a year (or 5 trillion yen), and folks can find anything from soda to fresh vegetables to a wide variety adult oriented offerings ranging from strange to downright creepy.

Anyways, we’ll have much to comment on tomorrow and its approaching 1AM now so we will enjoy sleeping in our tiny cubicle (its like half a dorm room, but its cozy – I love the wallpaper, its textured!). I tried to take some pictures but its too small to take good photos in. Good night!