Eric's Wacky Japan Tales

Running around Tokyo again!

Ok, welp, Myong made it safe and sound into the hotel Wednesday night. Aside from grabbing a quick, cheap snack and maybe a few beers not much else.

Thursday we were out the door at 5:30 to visit the Tsukiji fish market (again, having a little sushi, this time slightly cheaper version, but still excellent). From then, we went to Hibiya park, the Edo-Tokyo musem (which looks somewhat like a space invader but was otherwise a great museum on the history of Tokyo), Shinjuku where we got a nice, free tour of the Tokyo Government building, Shibuya for some ramen and to oggle at the hordes at the Hachiko intersection, Harajuku to check out the odder side of tokyo, then back to the hotel for a short rest. After a 2 hr break, we went back out to Roppongi to see the hills and club area...I think i might have overdone it as by the end of the day, myong was complaining of stomach aches, being sleepy as hell (i woke him up at 9PM from his nap...), and having bloodshot eyes.

Ok, today after a nice long slumber, we headed out to Kappabashi dori which is the plastic food/restaurant supply district. That stuff is super expensive! The quality of the sutff was good enough to make us hungry enough to skip Akihabara (electronic district) and head straight fo rGinza to find some nice cheap tempura soba...

From there, we took a gander at the sony building, the international forum, and now im here typign this message. Still have to go through the imperial gardens and Akihabara..

tonight we'll check out the Tokyo Halloween scene....

E!

Yokohama

Spent my first day in a week out of Tokyo by going out to Yokohama which is less than 30 mins from the west end of Tokyo.

I dunno why, but my first impressions of Yokohama are pretty good. Maybe because its not Tokyo, and probably because i spent most of my time visiting the sites around the harbor which are away from the city centre. Maybe its cuz its a weekday. For whatever reason, the yokohama harbor was a pretty pleasant place with hardly any crowds. Great for a stroll around some modern buildings, amusement parks, historic buildings, and gardens. Amazing considering that Yokohama is supposed to be Japans 2nd largest city nad also one of its busiest ports. Headed through Chinatown which was rather bland though, and also extremely expensive! I think they were chargin like 4 bucks for 1 (albeit large) pork bun. Passed by the Yokohama stadium, then hopped on the rather expensive subway to Shin-yokohama station which is where the instant ramen museum is.

My feelings on the Instant ramen museum are rather mixed cuz half of it is stores and restaurants, but they charge you 300 yen to get in! But i guess people go for it because they have little line number holders when the museum gets full! People apparently go to the museum JUST to eat in the ramen restaurant there which were picked out by the museum staff as the best reprsentatives from the various "ramen regions". I guess these regullars get the 1000 yen monthly pass..

So i chose the ramen from the Kumamoto region, which i missed (well, i had store bought instant curry ramen when i way there...). They describe it as "another white soup ramen with a mild salty flavor, the stock is made from pork and chiken bones. The relish is a delicious combination of char-shu jelly like kikurage mushrooms, bean sprouts, menma, and garlic chips."
I dont know what menma is. Overall it was OK. Still not better than my benchmark 500 yen ramen place in Shibuya. I think that place is the best cuz theyre the only ones which allow you to add unlimited condiments (amazingly ive acquired a taste for pickled ginger...go figure).
The museum was OK. It has plenty of good displays, but hardly any English so all i could do was look and try to guess what the things meant. One nice picture i got that i hope turns out was of an old cup-o-noodle container with none other than our new governor on the cover.
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Myong should juuuuust about be landing about now...hope he make it through the rush hour OK.

Tour of Tokyo

So i found out that i was spending almost 700+ yen on subway trips per day, i figured what they hell and got a 710 yen all day pass. There's actually a variety of passes you can buy here in tokyo, but the simple ones are 710 for a subway pass: but not for all the lines! If you want all the subway lines, it costs something like 1000 yen, and if you want to include JR (they have 1 useful line that runs in a loop, and there are a few spots that only have JR stations near them), it costs 1580 Yen.

Anyway, I got the 710 pass yesterday, and used it to do a tour of Harajuku (again), Shibuya (again), Ginza (again), Akihabara (the electronics district), and Roppongi (the gaijin entertainment district).

Harajuku had its famous tenny bopper goth turnout on Sunday which was a bit smaller than i expected. Yoyogi park was apparently the former olympic village, so overall its pretty nice. I was originally going to go to the a particular sword museum, but after re-verifying its locationk as being in BFE, i aborted and just toured the yoyogi gymnasium area (former olympic gymnasium) where there were a wad of people doing Tai-chi and wu-Shu. There was also the stage area where there was a market and various food stands throughout selling takoyaki (octopus balls), yakisoba, and okonomiyaki. I held out on getting opn any food till Shibuya...

Shibuya was just a short stop mainly to get food at my favorite ramen shop. I also made a visit to Tower records to pickup a copy of Metropolis, a weekly english event guide. I happend to run into a signing session for an apparently famous piano player (classical). I didnt recognize the name, but ive been out of the classical loop for a while....

Ginza was mainly to visit the Rice Gallery which turned out to be more of one big Rice Store selling various products (lotions, cremes, snacks, powders, and even crepes!) made out of rice. The had a few free recipe cards i snagged (in japanese though...). Next door was the Yamaha Hall where they had a pianist playing. Not bad and a nice 15 minute of chill time. Along the street, their "Ginza Accuille" (something like that) was still going on; they closed the street and were performing tea ceremonies. I dont think i mentioned yesterday how they also had a parade which was quite nice. The first part was boring as hell as was a ppretty standard parade with high school marching bands, cars and hte like. The last part was pretty interesting, having people walking and dancing in traditional garb from various regions around japan.

Akihabara was relatively dispappointing as i didnt catch anything really cool (i have no idea what the aussies were talking about). It all seemed like pretty normal stuff at normal to expensive prices! I think electronic-wise, the coolest thing ive seen in japan has actually been the little hot water pots which keep track of temperature electronically and automatically pump for you with the touch of a button. Of course, with electronics its difficult to dicern the finer features, so they could have had the latest and gretest things that i just couldnt appreciate. Ill have to do some research...

Roppongi...The roppongi hills is a pretty nice area. Reminded me a little of Canal City in Fukuoka, but was large and a little bit nicer. Roppongi Hills is quite the shi-shi area of Tokyo (I formerly thought this was supposed to be Ginza....) as many people here are dressed one notch up from all the rest (they already dress pretty nice most of the time) and the cars are also pretty nice (i saw at least 2 ferraris, plenty of high end mercedes). It all reminded me a little of LA westwood area (i dont recall the venue i visited) with the posh restaurants, valet parking, and nice cars zooming all around.

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A group of 3 guys i coulda sworn were maffia just left my hotel, thank god. Theywere staying right across from me, VERY loud speaking an odd dialect of italian (it was germanic sounding at times...) and always packing boxes and speaking very loudly, and always with a "do not disturb" sign on their door when they werent there. I heard them on the phone speaking english once the conversation went..."Well be there tomorrow to pickup the merchandise....25 boxes".

Also a little twist to the murder story is that now the guy who was killed was supposedly a Yakusa guy who thought he could cut in line because of his status...

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One of the internet places i frequent for some reason refuses to work with the blog software correctly. Thus every now an then 2-3 new entries will appear because the entries get saved, however the blog doesnt get updated until i visit one of the other cafes that works correctly.

Missing the train

Decided to go out Sat night to check out the night life scene. I think it will be the last night of partying for a while..(till Myong gets here!)

Went to a place out in Shinjuku called the Dubliners. Not a bad place, exspensive though at (hmm, theres a chick in front of me kissing the webcam and talking on the internet phone....) 800 yen a pint. I wasnt planning on staying too long but ran into a Chinese-American from Hawaii (who thought i was from hawaii too!). So we chatted away and i left at 11:40 to catch the last subway home...welp...i caught the last subway, but forgot that i needed to transfer.. By the time i got to the transfer station, the other lines had closed! That sucked. Lucky thing is that they have the Yamanoted, a train line that runs around the city. So i run to the train station (i wasnt the only one) and caught the last train. Unfortunately, the train doesnt go all the way up to my hotel which is 3 subways stops from the main station. 45 minutes later, i managed to walk home. All in all, it took me about 2 hours to get back!

Had an interesting group from america come in yesterday. The girl was talking on the phone, calling up a whole slew of people saying "Im in Japan now"...What got everyones heads turned around was a little part in the conversation that went like "Its so expensive, but ive alread found a job" (Wow, i thought, thats pretty damn good for just arriving) "I tried out this strip club..." (ah....i see) "and this hostess club...and i can get 7000 yen per lap dance".

A Night Out in Ginza

Quick little entry. Went out in Ginza last night to a place that was literally called "300 yen bar". As cheap as it sounds, it really isnt too cheap as i spent 1260 yen there (they charge tax!).
Went out with a huge group from from New Koyo... Its such a different crowd here then im used to.
Of the interesting people, the Aussie Taiwanese dude was funny as hell at times but then also annoying as hell at others. Hes one of those types that simply cant stop talking.
There was an american chick who was originally from Boston who is planning on staying in Japan till the money runs out; this is the first time ive met a girl doing this. There was also an american guy from San Diego who was born in Cambodia and speaks Cambodian.
Anyhow, a pretty uneventful night although i won some karma points i think: i was talking to the american cambodian dude..typical deal about being an Engineer, and too shy and whatever. So i gave him a little advice, and go to the bathroom, ready to leave the place (i didnt want to stay out all night...it had already cost too much with the sushi earlier in the day...). So when i get out, i see him talking with this pretty good looking chick that JUST walked into the bar.
Back at New Koyo, i ran into a guy who was there and also left early, albeit after me. He said "Yeah, it was all pretty dull, the only guy who probably got 'lucky' was that asian guy".

Wow, im good. Either that or he was faking.

Tsukiji Fish Market

Yay! Im back in business and got the blog publishing again!

Last night was another wacky night where a whole bunch of the New Koyo folks hung out. The Singaporeans are an awful friendly bunch and were dishing out the free liquor like madmen. Oh, in fact i did verify, someone was killed right by the hotel. Apparently there was some sort of queue for something and an argument erupted over some line jumping. It was between 2 homeless guys and apparently one stabbed the other in the neck. Yes, must remember not to mess with the homeless guys (aside from being awful dirty, and drunk theyre actually pretty harmless and even friendly at times).
Singaporean brought up a story of how he was once in South Africa (i guess his family moved around a lot) and got mugged twice in one night...the second was more of a nuissance than anything because he had no money to steal, but the 3 black guys had pulled him into a car and when they dropped him off (laughing as they did so at his already being mugged), he had no idea where he was and was in a completely drunken stupor to boot.

Ok, back to Tokyo. Umm...woke up at 4:30 this morning to attempt the fish market AGAIN. Timed it pretty well this time and managed to get on the very first subway train out. Arrived in time to see the rows upon rows of flash frozen tuna. Its almost unfathomable that they bring this much tuna into Japan every day! Its sort of interesting that as far as the large fish go, i couldnt find anything else other than tuna! Just warehouse after warehouse of tuna.

Things are organized into processing sorts of rows where ya got the dock, Tuna warehouses where they hold the wholesale auctions, and then the retail markets with some pre-processing facilities (band saws) in between.

Its pretty interesting to observe the wholesale guys inspect the tuna; they look at the flesh at the tail which has been cut off. Within the retail space is a frenzy of hand cart pullers, motorized pullers, shoppers, and workmen. Its amazing to see them filet a giant tuna. Other than tuna, theres also the whole slew of assorted fish ranging from halibut to lobsters to blowfish and prawns. Most of it was already dead, with some freshly so...others were perhaps packaged already. The heaps of styrofoam standing at the side of the market were also quite impressive.

So i followed an article written in the tourist paper about a place called Sushibun located just next to the market. There were fewer sushi places than i had expected..i suspect they cater to the market workers more so than to tourists. The places hours are 5:30AM to 2:30PM but when i walked in at 6:30 it looked like i was the first customer of the day as they were still setting up (a couple other guys trickled in after me).
The article said htis place had "the best sushi, at the price, or even any price" so i picked this as my opportunity to sample Japans best sushi. It cost 3675 yen for an omakase, top of the line tasting platter. It came with mostly tuna, maguro and a and a couple different types of toro. There was also uni, ika, tamago, what i think was hamachi, ebi, and mackerel. There was also maguro maki and some miso soup. Overall pretty damn good, except that i still cant stomach raw squid.
Afterwares, i returned to the market where the retail section had picked up a bit as many shoppers (from restuarants perhaps) where rushing through the aisles with their giant baskets doing their daily seafood shopping. Lots of the tuna had also been processed and there were now huge slabs of tuna for sale. There were even some unattended tuna (frozen and thawed) lying around. Hard to imagine these things going, at times, for over a million bucks. Back at the wholesale area, most of the tuna not destined for the retail area was being boxed up for shipment to other parts of japan.
Just next to the fish market is the wholesale produce market which is relatively dull.

Im now at yet another internet cafe in central tokyo waiting for things to open up.

The local tourist mag has a listing for the "Ninja cafe" where waiters dressed in Ninja costumes serve you coffee.....

Oh yeah, and i met my first Aussie-Taiwanese guy last night. From Melbourne. Actually, there were lots of Aussies last night.

Tokyo Revisited!

Actually, i arrived in Tokyo 2 days ago, but didnt get internet access till now. Its really amazing being all over the rest of japan then coming back because it's allowed me to realize that Tokyo really IS expensive. First of all, internet access which ive found for free in many places, runs for about 10 yen per minute. Thats twice the price Jhoppers was charging! Thus the 2 day delay whilst i searched out free internet.

The other expense is the subway, which at first glance, is rather cheap at an average of 190 yen per trip (Kyoto was about 230). The big difference is that in Tokyo, you need to take the subway to go just about anywhere vs being able to walk. Thus im now spending about 600 yen per day just to get around!

The hotel/guest house is also a lot dirtier/noisier than all the rest with the exception of the Uno house. I really miss JHoppers now...Though i DO get my own room, the walls are paper thin and i can hear people constantly walking around, openning and closing doors, and dragging their stuff around.

So, the bus trip was pretty uneventful other than being rather uncomfortable. For 8000 yen i expected a little more (The 1st class busses through SE asia were all way better). But it got me to Tokyo in 1 piece at 6:30 in the morning, so i cant complain.

1st day back in tokyo, i decided to try out the epitome of modern tokyo, Shinjuku. An estimated 2 million people go through Shinjuku station every day which is a lotta friggin people! The Tokyo Municipal building is pretty cool with a FREE observation lounge to peer over tokyo. The Pentax Forum is also in one of the nearby buildings which showcases many of PEntaxes products (even the huge telephoto lenses, and medium format cameras). Their OptiaS digital camera is pretty darn cool (3.2 MPixel, TINY, 3x optical zoom}). Canon has a showroom of its digital products in a nearby room, but, lacking the traditional film products, its not nearly as impressive. On the East side of Shiunjuku station is the entertainment district with a slew of Shopping malls, bars, and strip clubs.

From shinjuku, i went to central tokyo to go to the Tourist office and pick up some info. central tokyo contains an amazing labrynth of halls connecting various subway stations.

1st night in Hotel New Koyo, i met 2 other americans and 2 singaporeans, and 1 IRish guy. Also bumped into a German guy i had met at Uno house in Kyoto. The 2 singaporeans were dishing out free JD, as well as smirnoff and absolut. 1 american is from Nashville, TN, the other from Minneapolis, MN. We went out later that night to a bar i had gone to before. The American chick from MN was annoying as hell and had to stop a couple times to eat on top whining half the time and trying to trip me another. Needless to say, many of the hotel guests are now avoiding her..

Next day, i visited Harajuku to check out the free internet cafe where i am now. Unforutnately, they require ID which i normally dont carry around with me. Soooo, i took a stroll through yoyogi park, famous for its weekend visitors, and also through the Meijijingu shrine. Afterwards, I took the JR to the british Council which had free internet in Kyoto, so i figured id give it a try.

Welp, they DO have free internet in Tokyo, BUT they dont allow you to do email. Nevertheless, i did some browsing and at least was able to get some useful information before leaving to go to the nearby Tokyodome. It looked like horse racing day at the Tokyodome which i whizzed past on into tokyodome city which is an amusement park with shopping and restaurants. They have one pretty good looking roller coaster along with a few other regular rides. The roller coaster cost 1000 yen, or you could get a pass valid for all the rides for 4000 yen.

Back at the hotel, i ran into a few of the same folks, going out for another night (I declined) and the American chick going out to the White Stripes concert. At 6000 yen and being out in Shibuya (clear across Tokyo from Ueno), i declined.
Actually, i went to bed REALLY early to make it to the famous Tsukiji Fish market....

I woke up several times in the night from all the normal ruckus that goes on (and some really loud spanish guys). One interesting incicent (aside from someone mistaking my room for theirs...good thing i locked the door) was when this guys was talking to a girl in the hall. I was half asleep but i coulda sworn i heard: "Hey, did you see all the people hanging out down there?" "Yeah, whats going on?" "Somebody was killed, murdered out in front there!" "What, really?" "Yeah, it just happend, right in front there"..

Hmm...i have yet to verify, but it sounded pretty freaky. One thing about the area the hotel's in is that there are lots of homeless people who are drunk half the time. Though they arent violent, they do make for a grubby type of atmosphere. The other difference i notice about tokyo is that people spit here...a lot and in the street! bleh.

So today i woke up at 4AM to go out to the fish market. The wholesale auction suppsoedly ends at 5:30 however, the subway doesnt open till just after 5. And it takes about 30 mins for the subway plus walking. doh. On top of that, today was a frickin holiday so there were about a total of 10 people in the market, 5 of which were tourists! On top of THAT, it was windy and rainy! Tomorrow...

So, here i am in the internet cafe (at least its free...) watching the rain....getting sleeeepy..

Last Day in Kyoto

Laid pretty low today and just did a little shopping and more browsing. Its amazing to revist some places and find out there are whole sections that i missed from before! On the whole, a pretty slow day.

Im pretty excited about going to Tokyo, even though ive been there before and even though others bag on Tokyo...ya really gotta be there to see how huge the place is. It's like 10 major cities slapped together...and then just next to it is Yokohama which is the 2nd largest city in japan!

Oh ya, also, visit Mr Aki's web site. Hes an avid motorcycle fan and has motorbiked through Europe, across Asia, and back to Japan:
Mr Aki's site

Coincidentally, there was a german couple in here a couple days ago who were also motorbiking...theyve already gone across europe and russian and are going to go through SE asia to Australia.

Night out

Went out last night with Yoshi to his favorite izakaya. These places are cool because theres nothing really like them in the states. They have basically all counter seats with the people taking orders and serving food from the center. We had to wait for about 5-10 minutes before we could sit down...with so many people, it was amazing to see all the different sorts of food ranging from tempura to sashimi, to both cooked and raw lobster. We had sashimi (not really, i forgot what its called but its very lightly cooked on the outside), vegetable tempura, and oysters. With a couple beers thrown in it cost 3200 yen total. not too bad, but a little high to do every night.

We hit a few bars afterwards....the Pig and Whistle, an Irish style pub. Hamad, the Pakistani guy is pretty funny cuz hes very aggresive when it comes to women. Yoshi explained that in muslim countries, you cant act that way around the local women so theyre a little suppressed. So in the end he ended up meeting one korean and oen taiwanese lady in the Pig and Whistle, both of whom have been in Japan for a while...apparently the Taiwanese lady married a Japanese guy, has a daughter, and is on the whole quite unhappy. This seems to be a common theme....

Oh yeah, we were also hanging out with yet another brit who works for BAE (apparently the 2nd largest defense contractor in the world after lockheed???) who was able to take a year off from work to go around the world. Lucky folks. Its amazing how few people from the states are here and how many Brits there are!

On the whole, a pretty decent abeit expensive night. In general, going out costs waaay too much! But i guess its that way in the states too....

Nabe

Last night was probably one of my better nights in Japan! The owner of the guest house invited me and a couple of other guests for a nabe style dinner. Its basically like Hot Pot, but they use a really big clay pot and a dashi based broth. There were all sorts of vegetables, chicken chunks as well as chicken meatballs, fish, and mushrooms. mmm mm. We started at 8 and ended eating at around 11.

Before that, Akisan also invited me to the sake store where we did a little sake tasting. He bought a pretty nice 1.8L bottle (standard size for sake!) and we finished it off pretty easily during dinner. Another guest brought some plum wine and we finished that off too! Overall it was a very nice dinner/social gathering with lotsa great food and sake.

Heres a picture of Mr Aki and me that his wife took on his phone:

Kibune

So, last i wrote i was supposed to go to sumo that evening.

I was in the process of asking Mr. Aki (the Jhoppers owner) which bus to take. "Isnt it at 6?" he asked. No, its at nine, as i showed him my ticket...."This is nine in the morning!"...."Crap!"

Talk about flashbacks. For those of you who havent heard of the story, a few eyars ago i got tickets for No Doubt/Black Eyed Peas...4. I got some other tickets to for another concert too (i cant recall) that were before that concert. In the end, i ended up remembering the days all wrong and missed the concert by a day. Blah.

Luckily, I bought the cheapest tickets. So ended up out 2500 yen for nothing.

On a brighter note, Mr Aki invited me to a nabe style dinner. I guess its basically dinner cooked in a big iron pot. Normally, its pretty expensive to eat this in the restaurants, but pretty cheap when you make it yourself (or have a friend make it for you!).

Also that night, Yoshi (i always thing of the Mario Carts character) came back from Nagasaki and we went to an Izakaya in Gion. He knew the waitress, so we got some free frozen sake (sorta of a new special sake which is kept very cold, and it sort of gelatinizes once it is poured into a decanter). It tasted more or less like regular sake...but i must confess, this is the first sake ive had in japan. We also had edamame, Sashimi, and a fish head. The Sashimi was pretty good. It included Uni which ive tried once in the States and was completely repulsed at the time. However this time, it tasted really good! I think the stuff they get in the states aint so fresh....
The fish head was OK...mostly tasting like Soy.

Afterwards, we headed to our favorite bar (Ing) which was uneventful except that the Owner was wearing a Joy Division (one of my old favorites) shirt. Apparently his wife made it for him (i didnt ask further) and he proceeded to put their Substance (not to be confused with the New Order albumn of the same name) album in. Unfortunately, Yoshi had to take off early to head to Nagoya so we werent there long enough for it to play. However, the owner promised a "Joy Division Party" the next time i go back. Cool.

So in the end, it turned out to be a pretty good night despite losing out entirely on the Sumo.

Today i went out to Kibune and id a litle hike through the mountains to Kurama. Its a pleasant hike through a shirne and Temple area. Its amazing how many of these types of trails there are so close to Kyoto. I finished it off with a jaunt to the Kurama Onsen which was a little expensive at 1100 yen for the outdoor bath which has a pretty good view of more mountains while so soak in the tub. Came back to central Kyoto and got on the wrong bus! Actually, it went to the right destination, but was a different company (how confusing..they have Kyoto City Bus, and the plain Kyoto Bus) so i couldnt use by pre-paid card (I spent a minute trying to get the machine to take my card...i think the driver got a little impatient). Ohwell, it was the same price so no big deal.

Kinkakuji Temple

Ok, sorta running outta stuff to see in Kyoto so i finally broke down and went to the Kinkakuji temple. This is one of the most popular temples in kyoto because of its famous golden temple which is 3 stories high, the top 2 of which are layered with gold foil. I took the opportunity to bike there rather than take the bus, and also visited the neighboring ryonji and ninaji temples but both cost yen so i decided not to go in.
Despite the hordes of crowds, kinkakuji temple turned out to be better than i thought and as added bonus, there was a geisha strolling through the temple path too.
Theyre sorta cool cuz they actually pose for the pictures and they also have their own unique way of posing. It really is rather doll like. Sorta like the japanese dolls you see in the glass cases.

Also visited the Kyoto Botanical gardens which are pretty huge consisting of the usual japanese garden stuff, but also including a european garden, a little vegetable/practical plants garden, and a couple forested areas. A pretty good deal for 200 yen.

I can say for sure that i dont like riding a bike in japan. at least in the cities. Back in Okayama, it wasnt too bad cuz it was in the country side sorta, but out here in kyoto its pretty darn nerve racking weaving through pedestrian traffic and oncoming bikers. I think i will exchange my free 1 day bike ticket for some laundry detergent.

Had a couple Singaporean girls check in to jhoppers last night. 1 actually works for HP. Pretty interesting cuz one of them got a a huge argument with a Brit who just checked in (teaching english, been here for like 3 years, 25 yrs old) about various japanese topics. People need to chill.

Takao

Only 1 hr away (by bus) is the Takao area of Kyoto through which the Kyotaki river runs. It consists of several temples, a small little town (Kyotaki) and a nice gorge. Overall, despite that there was a constant downpour, this was a great getaway from the hub-bub of Central Kyoto. I think i maybe saw about 6 tourists during my 2.5 hr hike. Dunno if its cuz the place was far out from Kyoto or because it was raining but whatever the case, it was another good shift in pace. It reminded me a little of the Iya valley with deep river gorges with mists rising and some spindly looking bridges crossing the river at various points.
I also visited the Jingo temple which has a nice view of the valley beneath. Youre supposed to be able to buy these disks that you can throw down into the valley to help rid yourself of bad karma but the vendors were apparently on vacation...

Went out last night with a Pakistani, Malaysian, a Brit and a Japanese native who apparently used to work in San Jose for KLA/Tencor. Had a pretty nice night out on the town and the Japanese dude gave me a bottle of Sochu! Score! Only prob is that its a glass bottle...gonna have to drink it before i leave Kyoto methinks..

Kyogen and The Otsu Matsuri

So yesterday i decided to take a little stroll around the Mibu temple to see if i could get a glimpse of the Kyogen performances they were supposed to have there. I got word of it mostly from the little whiteboard JHoppers has that has upcoming events. So i walk about 30 mins and get to the temple area and see a sign in Japanese. Thinking "oh, this must be it" i went turned in to see a little table and people paying for entrace. So i paid 1000 yen (the bulletin board said 800...i figured maybe the price went up?) and went in...hmm. So theres this tour guide talking away in japanese in a room with about 20 people and i dont have a clue what hes saying, we take a stroll around this small building (i think it was a house)　and exit. What?!??! THAT was 1000 yen?!?! yup. My disappointment was somewhat quelled by the matcha and mochi they served in a tea room connected to a souvenir shop.

So I look at the kanji character of the place i went to, and indeed it said Mibu something or other....all i know is that it had the right name, but wrong type of place. So i went a little further down (maybe 50m) and sure enough, the real temple entrace was there. I took a stroll around and it was pretty nice, having a few features that were unique to it like this mound (sorry, dont know the correct term for it) made outta concrete with a bzillion tiny buddhas in concentric circles around the mound...reminiscient of a temple is SE Asia. So theres this line emerging from part of the temple, getting longer and longer. At first i was just gonna say "screw it!" and save my yen. But i asked a guy about it and he said it started at 1 (it was about 11:40) with the doors opening at 12:30. 800 yen. I bit the bullet and lucky i did it at that time cuz the line was about twice the size by the time the doors opened.
So Kyogen used to be little tiny skits they did in between Noh acts as sort of an intermission. Theyre often commical and are apparently pretty popular. So it turns out that 5 skits were sceduled, for a total of 4.5 hours! The skits were all pretty cool with the added coolness being that in kyogen, they dont speak so im on somewhat even ground with the other japanese folk. Lotsa the Japanese folk left after 3-4 skits, but i stayed till the end (determined to make the most outta my money) and in retrospect, this has been one of the better deals of my trip. Unfortunately, they didnt allow cameras during the performance, but the constumes were all cool and the masks they use are also really neat. They more or less have standardized masks for stereotypical rols...the daemon, the fool, the priest, the lord, samurai, etc..The masks only cover the first part of the face however the rest of the face is covered with white cloth so you never see any part of the actors real face/hair. They also interact a little with the audience, at one time flinging saucer cookies into the audience in one instance and sending streamers (representing spider webs) on another.
In the end, its tough to explain....every now and then these things come to our area (they had a performance in Wheeler last year by a famous Noh actor). Highly recommended!

Today was the 2nd day of the Otsu festival. Not sure what they did on the 1st day, but today they paraded tall, hand drawn floats around the streets of Otsu, playing music (flute, drums, gong thingy) and tossing "YakeYuke"(?) which are these things made out of dried rice stalks/leaves which are like good luck charms. The float guys get really into it (so much so i didnt realize they also had animatronics within the floats), cheering the crowds on while tossying the YakeYuke things out. At times it got pretty squishy as people lunged and toppled other people to get one of these things. I saw some people with like 5 (greedy bastids!). Overall, pretty cool and surprisingly un-commercial...there werent really any special vendors along the route.

Also went out last night with 2 brits that came in. Theyre actually brothers, the older one named James living in Australia (near Melbourne i think) the other, Mike, in South London somewhere. Anywho, cool chaps. Went out for some beer. Ran into a few folks from the Uno house, then we went down to this other place to watch the England vs Turkey soccer match. The game was tied 0-0. I cant seem to get into soccer...i think there were a total of 2 exciting moments during the game.

Gimmee back my dollars!

Slow day today as i just did a small walk around a bunch of free temples and gardens and the food market area.

Looking to change more money soon..however im holding out cuz the dollar is at 3 yr lows vs the Yen! ARRGG! why couldnt it wait!! Just one month! Weird, cuz the Japanese on the whole dont want a stronger yen in order to help facilitate exports. Traditionally, the government usually intervenes to prevent the yen from getting too high. However, they have a horrendous track record of actually accomplishing anything. The US, at least as stated by the George W a few months back has a strong dollar policy...however who knows whats going on there.

Ohwell..more ramen and instant noodles for me i guess....

On a related note, I hear that Argentina is the place to go these days. Nice, modern, latin american coutry whos economy went to hell..makes for a cheap getaway.

Argentina Travel Guide

Arashiyama

Today, i moved back to my original guest house, jhoppers which is located 10 min south of the station. Hopefully,ill get a little more sleep...

Arashiyama is an area in west Kyoto that is a little north of the Katsura Imperial Villa. You have to make prior reservations for the villa, so i had to make mine at 3 today cuz everything else was full. So i took the time to explore Arashiyama a little, checking out the Tenryuji temple which is known for its nice zen garden. Ran into a whole lotta Taiwanese tourists there (cuz i could partly understand what they were saying). The garden was fairly nice, although i didnt quite understand the zen aspect of it (i always thing of sand gardens for somereason), but it was a nice and big garden. 1 pictures worth.

Slightly more interesting (and free) was the area surrounding the temple. There were trails winding throughout the area through bamboo forests, past traditional buildings, and then finally along the Hozu river. They actually have a train line that runs along the river called the "romatic train sagano line". So i hiked along the river for some time and then realized a little late that the villa was a train ride +20 min walk away! So i booked it to the train station, and arrove at the station, 10 min before the tour started (ie still needing the 20 min walk...) So i took a cab for 640 yen who got me there in time. Taking a cab was sorta interesting; it being my first time. They control the passenger side door by remote control so you neither need to open nor close the door (i still tried to out of habit). The cab driver also spoke and read no english, so even when i pointed to the destination on my map given to me by the imperial villa people, he still had no clue where i wanted to go! Luckily, the taxi stand operator dude knew what i was saying.

Katsura Villa was contructed by the son of the emperor of the time and unlike the imperial palace which had burned down 8 times(!), the villa is nearly in its original form.
The villa consists of a garden (naturally), many tea pavillions, and the main residence. Overall pretty nice, especially considering the admission price: free!

On my way back via bus, i met a Danish lady in her 60s who was also trying to get back. Amazingly (cuz shes danish!) she was sort of lost and almost waited at the wrong bus stop (the one coming from the station....). So, from her i learned that she is a Danish teacher to foreign immigrants into Denmark, mostly from Pakistan. Apparently Denmark has had quite a few immigration problems with refugees and is now tightening the borders a bit.

...
So last night i got the brunt of the "hey, you got a new governor" blab. There were 2 newly arrived Germans, a Scotsman and a new Canadian that arrived the night before. So this was my first experience with the whole America bashing by the Canadians. The guy was relatively young at 21 yrs old but surprisingly, he was from Vancouver. Anywho, he was actually quite level headed and did concede that the canadians were basically totally reliant on the US...then he want onto bashing the Quebec province (French elitests apparently). Overall, pretty entertaining. I learned that ontop of the US being the target of so many jokes/critisicms (cuz theyre such a huge target in general, not cuz of Bush or now, Gropinator), Californians are thought of as being rather 'special'. I helped clarify, at least, the difference between Los Angeles and the rest of Calfiornia...
...

Data point in the log:

So the 2 germans, the scotsman, the canadian and i were drinking beer. I had 1.5L (500ml cans), the Canadian had about the same, the Germans had 2.5-3L and the Scotsman had 3L....though the Scotsman started a lot later (he bought 2.5 to start!).

...

I still cant get over how soo many people in the Uno house are either 1) going to work in Japan or 2) transiting to other countries for severl months more of travel.

I found out the American girl from Boston U, whose traveling by herself btw, is only 19. And people were worried about me...

...
Nother tidbit about Denmark. They give graduating high school student cheap travel loans (just like student loans) which is why you find so many young danes traveling around...
In the end, i think they maybe travel TOO much...either that or they get high TOO much. Christiana (sp?) is the name of an island in the middle of Copenhagen where its implicitly allowed to buy and smoke. Reclaimed from the Navy, apparently the older folk want to make it into a golf course, but the younger folk are holding out.

Geishas and Sumo

Sooo, hows that election going? I hope Californians show the world that they are a little more sensible than the rest of the country in electing their leaders....(lots of talk about this in the hostels...internationally, arnie as governor is quite a joke) They had an article out here about last minute mudslinging and in big headlines, they called him the "Gropinator" and had this enlarged picture with the text wrapped around it of him sticking his hand out reaching (actually just to shake someones hand it looks like, but who knows?)

Did another little walk today from the Heian Shrine (one HUGE shrine) through a small little mall along the canal (kyoto has lots of canals and 1 river) where i ate some cheap octopus balls (not those kind) and okonomiyaki, then all the way down to the train station to get some info, then down on to Gion where i saw some Geishas/Maiko skittering across the streets. They looked amazingly busy. I also was lucky enough to see a little advertisement in the tourist magazine for a sumo match that is coming up on the 15th. Cheapest tickets are 2500 yen for unreserved 2nd floor seats but all in all not too bad.

Oh yeah, almost forgot that i toured the former Imperial palace yesterady! It was the first tour ive had and it was pretty good, describing the 3 different forms of architecture used (The oldest form had no tatami and the doors opened vertically and were held by hooks, the latest form uses tatami and sliding doors). There were also some nice gardens and they had the special chairs in which the emperor sits for his coronation. Turns out that the last emperor coronated in the Imperal palace was Showa (?) (his name now that hes dead) or Hirohito. The current one was coronated in Tokyo and had the special chairs airlifted there.

Interesting fellow popped into the Uno House yesterday from Denmark. Hes like 60+ years old and is a writer. Apparently he writes travel books and has been almost everywhere! Hes doing Japan, China, and Korea for 3 months. Has some pretty funky stories about Pot in Copenhagen (its everywhere), pot in columbia (police bribery), getting held up in Uruguay and taking a run for it, being a bartender in Israel, and multitudes of other things i forgot. Hearing about all these places makes the list of places I want to go to longer and longer and longer (except for uruguay)...aigh..

On my way to yet another walking trail and stumbled across Kyoto University which is where i am now. Looks pretty nice so far albeit a little tiny.

philosophers trail

The philosophers trail is supposed to be one of the better mainstream walks in kyoto. A famed philosopher (sorry, cant remember the name!) used to walk this path all the time while he was 'philosphizing'. On the whole, i wasnt too impressed by the cars/bikes/mopeds zooming by. It did however, run by a series of temples and shrines. I went into the first big temple (ive restricted myself to paying for at most 1 temple a day to help both reduce costs and prevent temple overload) Ginkaku-ji which had a nice zen garden. Visited a few other free temples and shrines but on the whole there isnt very much else along this trail. There was an interesting portion which was part of an extended hike which followed an aqueduct from nearby lake Biwa. The path the goes up to a little shrine which miraculously had only 2 other tourists. The shrine itself was ok, but the surrounding area, being pretty far up into the mountain, was very nice.
I then took this little trail along the mountain to what i thought would take me back down to the bottom of the shrine trail.

Well...i was mistaken about that, ending up in the back of a cemetary (with a locked gate)...i then went back up the mountain, and kept proceeding along it and miraculously ended up at a pretty neat subtemplate with a monk chanting sutras and a thin waterfall flowing by the alter. From there, the trail ended up above the aqueduct where i was earlier in the day. Phew! Had me a little nervous, but this was the first time ive been in japan with neither
buildigs nor people around me (didnt run into a single person till the monk).

Today was a little less exciting, rainig for the first half then remaining gloomy the rest. I visited higshi hongan-ji temple which i belive is reputed to have the largest wooden structures in the world...and it looks like it. They mustuve torn down an entire forest to build it! They also have a sample of a rope they used to hoist the beams up which was made of human hair. Oh, one other nice thing was that this temple was FREE. There were also some nice galleries further in and even a very nice auditorium where a monk was giving lectures...on what, i had no clue, but he had a fair sized audience.

Thats about all for today, ive also finallized my schedule deciding to return to Tokyo on the 20th, leavining me with 13 more days here in kyoto and 2 weeks in Tokyo before i come back home.
.........
More interesting tidbits. So i was reading some japanese news. In osaka, apparently theyve been having problems with people jumping off bridges into the river! This has become a ritual that fans of the Hanshin Tigershave been doing more frequently on their road to the championships (i think theyre still going through the playoffs now). Police are having problems preventing people from doing it cuz its not really a crime...but 1 dude apparently died so theyve setup cameras to try and discourage people from continuing.

Another interesting tidbit...Japan is trying to get Mt Fuji registered as a UN World Heritage site, however its been rejected so far because of the environment problems its caused. Apparently lots of people climb Mt fuji every year..enough to make it a stinky trip up due to the fecal matter these avid climbers release on the way up! The volume is so great that theyve devised a new contraption to deal witht he problem..toilets with built in incinerators!
......

The place im staying at keeps getting more and more backpackers coming through. It was fun to start (backpackers love to party), but i think ill be returning back to my old place for the remainder of my stay in Kyoto.

Kyoto madness

Phew, I finally found an Internet cafe and am now munching on my 500 yen cheescake as i type this.

So, last i left things, i was in Oosaka. I still had 2 days left on my rail pass, so i went off to Hikone on a whim cuz the guide didnt say to much about it. There isnt too much out in Hikone, however the guide lady was pretty friendly and the castle here wasnt too bad either. It was another "original" and also included some nice garden within the castle walls. There was also a spiffy Okinawan dance even some school kids were putting on that made for some nice afternoon entertainment. Otherwise, not too much else except another one of those Traditional quarters, however now that ive been through Kyotos Gion district im not sure why people would go to all these other place to see "traditional" neighborhoods. After Hikone, i stoped in Otsu which is about 10 min. outside of Kyoto. Again, not too much here although i may return as theyre supposed to have a festival on the 7th and 8th. Otsu bascially offers some pretty good views of Lake Biwa which is Japans largest freshwater body of water. There also sport the worlds longest fountain which is built out in the lake and turns on in the evening. Its computer controlled, changing everyso often together with different lighting effects. I also tried a Japanese omlet (I dont know what these things are called in Japanese) which ive seen everywhere. Its basically just an omlet with mostly rice and a little meat inside, and them a dollop of souce on the outside. Not bad, but not worth the 900 yen it cost!

Oh yeah, dont think i mentioned this yet, but for the first 4 days in Kyoto ive been staying in this place called Jhoppers which is pretty cheap at 2500/yen per night. I met a few other travlers there, a couple of them being from Utah. It turned out the guy (they were husband and wife) was from Walnut Creek...weird how i keep running into these folks.

More interesting, I move to this other place called "Uno House" part because jhoppers was booked out for a couple days and part because this place is dirt cheap at 1650 yen/night. Well....the place definitely looks what its worth. Even compred to the drty place in Hiroshima (that place however was a pricey 3500 yen), this place is TINY and dirty. Its a HUGE backpacker place too. None of the other places ive stayed at even compares. I guess its a combination of being the first entry in the guide, the cheapest place, and also being located in Kyoto. So the first night i was there, I met a Canadian whose been in Seoul for a year and now wants to teach in Japan, a girl from SF who is doing a 6 month jaunt through asia (but seemed a little clueless about asian culture...claiming to have had the best Gyoza in Japan because the guide said it was, and that the chinese got potstickers from the japanese), a Swiss guy who likes to drink, a Japanese couple who are part of a japanese language club (and who ever knew a few words of Taiwanese), and 3 kiwis (New Zealanders) two of which are teaching english in yamaguchi and the 3rd of which plays bass and drums (who unfortunately drank a bit one night and ended up losing his passport and everything else important....somewhere IN the hostel. yikes!)
So on top of the interesting people, the place itself is a little interesting having signs like "No roasting cockroaches, 5000 yen fine", and "No peeking in shower, 5000 yen fine" scattered around.

Ok, so back to events. The next day was the last day my rail pass was valid, i so decided to give my feet a little rest and took a little day trip to Shinagawa shich is the first new Shinkansen station Japan has opened in many years. I didnt quite realize how close it was to Tokyo. In fact, its basically a district of Tokyo. So 2.5 hours out there, i looked around Shinagawa station (yup, its pretty brand spanking new!) and the city area (some canals..lots of office buildings, some shopping), and then went to Shibuya to have some Ramen (My first and favorite ramen place). After that, I took hopped on the non-reserved Shinkansen line thinking "how full could it be, being only 1 station away from the starting point". Well, it was PACKED. Luckily, i only ended up standing for 30 min, before i deftly dove for a seat before a high schooler could reach it.

That night i went out to dinner with the kiwis. We spun around in circles a few times, but ended up making it to this Lebanese place. It was more or less Meditteranean food, not bad, but a bit pricey. 800 yen, the cheapest on the menu , got me this small pita thing stuffed with chicken, a drink, and some potato chips.

That night, a huge gang went out to go drinking (amamzingly, i declined) and i hung out with the Japanese couple and 2 new French dudes. The Japanese crew were itneresting as they told me more about their language club..basically, they get native speakers to read a story and the club members listen to it all the time and even memorize it. Its a fixed story so they know basically whats going on, but they dont stuffy the grammar and dont stufy individual words, the threory being that just by listening to it and having some sort of context, you'll learn it through osmosis or something. So i sat there listening as the Japanese guy went off in reciting the passages in Chinese, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Korean, Russian and arabic! Its made a little funny cuz the name of heir club is called hippo. and the passage dos something like "Im a hippo. Youre a hippo. Were ALL hippos!".

Didnt speak much much to the french people but they seemed nice enough. One of them was actually Haitian, but was adopted at an early age and grew up in Lyon and now wants to become a Japanese teacher (to other French).

Ok, gotta run and see if i can squeeze a shower in. The showers at this place are setup really weird (not so much privacy...i was half expecting one of the new french guys to walk in on the chick taking a shower). And people also all seem to want to take a shower at the same time. I pre-paid for a week (I thought it was suspicious when the receptionist asked "are you sure you want to do that? If you leave early we no refund...", but i think after that ill return to Jhoppers. 850 more yen, but way cleaner and cosier and overall still cheap!

Oh yeah, forgot todays events. Went to Nijo castles which was unique because it's keep is gone, however it stil has its palace (none of the other castles still had theirs) which was the palace of the former shogun so it makes it a litle extra special. Afterwards, i wanderd through the downtown area to Gion which is the traditional ward and where Geishas are reputed to be walking around. I think i saw 2 Maikos(?), geishas in training. There was also 1 big shrine, multiple temples which i didnt bother going in (maybe later....), and many gardens. Very nice. Lots and lots of shrines, some right smack in the middle of the shopping districts.

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Oh, response to liz:
okokok, not all the guys are UGLY. I think they just stick out more...ever see an asian guy with a 6 inch afro?? The things they go through...the school guys are going through the baggy pants phase. Actually, now that i think about it, there were some rickshaw pullers who seemed to be doing pretty good with the female clientele....

Oosaka!

Did Osaka for the whole day today. Nice city except that their signs for the tourist information center in the train station are WRONG! The guide didnt heelp much either saying that "people seem to have a hard time finding the information center" and "its in the SE corner of the station". Oh course, when ya get off the train and your underground in the station, its a little difficult to figure your bearings...

So i eventually found the office and got a nice English map of the city. First visited the Umeda Sky building which is one of the newest architecturally interesting buildings in Osaka. Basically its two buildings connected with a funky donut at the top with some misplaced escalators that are glass so you can look down as you ascend to the rooftop.
It DID offer some pretty spectacular views of Osaka. The weather was very clear with just a little bit of smog on the horizon. Oh yeah, i also saw a guy peeing in he park on my way up (Surprisingly, this is only the 3rd time ive seen this)!
I also got perhaps the best deal so fars of the trip, a nice Tonkatsu bento for only 400 yen. It had a small chunk of fish, 2 types of pickles, a small bit of string beans, spaghetti, half a hard boiled egg, and some onions in some sweet sauce, and a hunk of rice. mmm...mmmm..

Afterwards, I paid a visit to the castle, Osaka-jo. Its a reconstruction, so i didnt bother to go in. The surrounding area however were quite nice, being a park with some benches and with a few of the other castle structures (like the gates and walls) open for free viewing.

Next stop was the Aquarium. Im a sucker for aquariums and despite the steep cost of 2000 yen, I couldnt pass the Osaka aquarium which boasts having the former largest tank in the world (I think the new tank in Monterey is now the largest...). I dont know if it was quite worht 2000 yen, but it wasnt bad. It basically had a funky spiral layout so you end up seeing the SAME tanks 3-4 times, each at a different depth. But the tanks were pretty large and the humungous tank they have is at the center containing a spiffy manta ray (which loved feeding on the divers bubbles...more on this later), and a whale shark, along with a few other open water fish (tuna and some other large fish). They also had tanks with penguins, dolphins, sea lions/harbor seals, coral, etc...
As an added bonus....there were divers in the tanks apparently scrubbing the rocks and i swear it looked like one of them was manually vacuuming the rocks with a suction tube and a shovel! The japanese sense of cleanliness is apparently quite pervasive. Following the Monterey Bay aquariums lead (or maybe the other way around?), there was a jellyfish exhibit at the end. Overall, not bad and again, a good change of pace from the typical temples/castles.

To end it off, i went through the entertainment/night time district which. There was the Ebisu-bashi bridge where all the young-uns hang out to look cool, and the numerous blinking lights of pachinko parlors as well as restaurants, eateries, etc, etc. mostly reminding me of Shibuya in Tokyo.