Photos for Day 15 and Epilogue

Finally, I've posted Japan Day 15 photos. Just a couple from the day we flew back.

As an epilogue, I don't think I was hit with jet lag too bad. I managed to be up and about on Monday morning for work without much issue even though I hadn't gotten to bed on Sunday night until 11:00pm or so. I think I was fortunate enough to have slept on the flight from Narita to Chicago for about 5 or 6 of the 11 hours and that may have helped me greatly.

As things go I loved Japan and from the comments I've received I think most people got the impression that I had fun, which I really did. I want to go back because there's still a ton of things to do there and I met some really great people while I was there.

That's all for this trip. When I am in mode for the next one I'll start posting again.

Photos for Day 14

The photos for Japan Day 14 have been posted.

Photos for Day 13

I've posted Japan Day 13 photos.

Photos for Day 12

Japan Day 12 photos have been posted.

Photos for Day 11

The photos for Japan Day 11 are now posted.

Photos for Day 10

I have posted Japan Day 10 photos.

Photos for Day 9

I have also posted Japan Day 9 photos.

Hula Hoop Girl

This is a very short clip of a girl in a park in Tokyo. I was running out of camera memory or I would have gotten more.

Video of the White Heron Dance

I have posted a video of the White Heron Dance on youtube. I also have made two unsuccessful attempts to post the barrel of eels. When it is successful I will link to it. Not sure what's going on with it.

Photos for Day 8

The photos for Japan Day 8 are also posted now.

Photos for Day 7

The Japan Day 7 photos are posted.

Photos for Day 6

I have posted photos for Japan Day 6 as well.

Photos for Day 5

I have posted photos for Japan Day 5 for your enjoyment.

Photos for Day 4

I have also added Japan Day 4 and am slowly getting more up there. Hopefully they'll all be up by the end of the week.

Photos for Day 3

The photos for Japan Day 3 have also been posted. Please take a look.

Photos for Day 2

I have posted Japan Day 2 on KodakGallery. Feel free to check them out at your leisure.

The Costs of the Trains

Ok, so I will admit that we lost a teeny bit of money because we didn't recognize Hamamatsucho Station as an option until too late so we should have used our rail pass to get there from Tokyo Station and walked 2 blocks to the hotel instead of taking cabs from Tokyo Station. Live and learn. All the same I did some quick calculations to figure out how much money we saved by purchasing our rail passes. I have the cost of the pass as being $347 USD based on my bank statement.

For Scott who only used the pass for the Ride to Himeji and the ride to Kanazawa I found that the total cost of the train rides would have been $713.30.

For the remainder who also used the pass to go to Nagoya and back and took the shinkansen back from Odawara after the Fuji/Hakone tour the total cost of train rides would have been $984.90. This is as of November 13 conversion rate, however it will not be that very far off.

So Scott saved $366. We saved $638 on our usage. This all counts one way fares purchased from location to location. There is going to be some variance in that I some fares were different based on the course but I tried to find the ones that matched our courses best. There was an additional charged incurred traveling to Kanazawa as we had to switch off the JR line to complete the journey.

To me it appears the passes, especially the green car/no smoking passes were worth it.

Photos for Day 1

Ok, I am starting to post photos. Japan Day 1 can be seen here. I will be posting more as I get them loaded.

Welcome to Boston

So after we got to Boston we immediately gathered our luggage and went outside to wait for the Flightline airport limo. It was very cold out comparitively, say 40F. I was in short sleeves of course.

So, while we are waiting outside in the shared van area when this BMW or equivalent German car pulls into the shared van lane. The statie on duty directing traffic walks over to where we're standing and tells the lady driving in an awesome Boston accent, "You're not supposed to pull in there," and her husband walks up to it at almost the same moment. "Next time you come here don't pull in that lane again," he continues. The guy starts trying to get into the trunk and wife looked like she was going to put the car in reverse and the statie said something towards the effect of, "Ma'am I think you're going to run him over." So she opens the trunk and he puts his luggage in it and he starts to walk to the passenger door but his wife puts the car in park and opens up the door. I wish I remember exactly what the statie said at this point about her nearly running him over then making him drive but in any event when they started pulling away he looked at us and said, "That was fun," and then walked back to his directing traffic post.

From there we knew we were home.

Japan Day 15

We started off with a latish breakfast and then headed out to do some last minute shopping. We managed to get what we needed then headed back and packed up quickly and checked out of the hotel. We waited until the bus arrived to take us to the airport and took the two hour ride back to Narita. From there we ran through the shops in the airport, ran through security, had a quick lunch and then waited for the flight.

We took off on time and the flight was shorter than the one to Japan by about an hour and 40 minutes plus I managed to sleep through a lot of it, so it really didn't seem as bad as the flight there. We reached Chicago at 2:30 local time but our flight to Boston was supposed to depart at 3:45. It was not remotely enough time to get through customs, recheck baggage and rescan at security. We ended up having to switch to a 5pm flight back to Boston. That got us home at about 8:15pm.

Japan Day 14

We started off relatively early for our last full day in Japan and headed to Kamakura which I am not really sure what direction away from Japan it is. It is along the coast and I believe that it is to the east but I could be wrong. We spent a few yen on train tickets today because our JR passes had long ago expired on Tuesday.

In the Kamakura area there was a large temple that we visited that had a lot of neat little things about it. There was a landscape garden that rode up the side of a steep hill which was impressive and you could see the shoreline beautifully from some of the high points. Apparently Kamakura is a very popular spot in the summer and good weather but since it was rainy and mainly cooler it was not so crowded. There was obviously a pleasant looking beach off in the distance. There were several temple buildings, some of which had museum style exhibits and all of the buildings were extremely beautiful. There was a cemetery up on the hill as well. I don’t think we were supposed to take pictures of it but we did anyway because we weren’t sure. There is a large golden Buddha statue in one of the temple buildings but there was definitely a no photograph rule there. It was fairly impressive to look at. There was also a small cave that at times had very low ceilings and had several carved idols inside it as well. The temple area was very impressive and I enjoyed it a lot.

Not too far away was another Buddhist temple that had the second largest Buddha statue in Japan. It was a large bronze statue that was pretty much the only feature of the area but it was impressive. I think George said it was made of bronze and what was really cool is that we were allowed to enter it for a fee of 20 yen each, or about 20 cents. Inside the statue was interesting but the had roped off the stairway to get up near the head. I was disappointed with that but since it was all rain slick inside it was probably for the best.

The area was very nice. I think I would have enjoyed it even more in good weather but I liked it even with the cold and the rain. I was only wearing a short sleeve shirt over a tee shirt and I could tell a lot of the locals thought I was insane for that when all of them were bundled in winter gear. I was not really that cold but I had bought an umbrella early in the day which paid off in spades as I never got drenched wet like I could have if I had no jacket and no umbrella. We ate a few of the local snack foods which apparently are plentiful in the area as we got around and most of them were sweets type things. One seemed like a bagel filled with raisin goo that was pretty good. There was a sweet bean paste candy that was also tasty and a small dumpling type thing that was dipped in caramel sauce as well. Over all the treats were good and apparently people get a lot in the area. We also ate at a small maritime themed restaurant that served mainly Japanese style curries. I had a pork curry and enjoyed it greatly. They also had a neat Pyrex contraption to make the coffee in front of us and I liked the coffee as much as the presentation of it being made.

From there we traveled to an island a few train stops further away from Tokyo. We had to get off before the island and walk onto it first though an underground then over a bridge over the bay. The island has a popular onsen but we really on visited to see the area and warmed up with a cup of coffee or cocoa. It was pretty much already dark by the time we got there and the weather was still mainly cold and rainy so I can’t say we were able to give it as good a run through as I would have liked but we got a small taste of it anyway.

From there we took the train back to Shimbashi and I managed to buy a second suitcase because I had too much junk to take home in the one bag. This includes some stuff I had to buy for other people because they forgot to buy them before the left Japan… In any event the suitcase was sort of expensive but it hopefully will be worth it. After buying the suitcase we went to a Korean barbeque restaurant which was enjoyable. It was the first place we had to cook any of our own food at the table while we were here. The dishes were all interesting and we got a bunch of things to try which I liked most all of. It was better in general than some of the Hokkaido foods if only for the fact that they were more normal than, say, male fish sauce… From there we returned the hotel moderately late after the full day of running around in the weather and I started my initial packing to make sure I could now fit everything I brought and bought. It looks like I should be ok. Then bed and a bit of a day of sundries and minor purchases to stuff in the remaining holes in the luggage and then a return trip to the airport at 1pm. I will not be posting again until I am back home and have had at least a night’s sleep. I will have come in at around 3400 pictures taken give or take a few and I am sure it will take a bit for me to get them all posted but I promise I will as soon as I can. I will post links to each gallery by day as I get them on Kodak Gallery. I thank you for the patience in waiting for the pictures and hope you enjoy them when you can finally see them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Anyway, that’s all until I am stateside.

Thanks
Tom

Guest Post From Brien Regarding the Fugu Incident

I am prefacing this by stating there are some references that only some of my friends will understand, however this is Brien's take on our dining experience with Fugu: p.s. I have to fix up a bunch of links for him but I don't have the time right now. I will add them later today.

One Fish. Two Fish. Blowfish...

Where to start? That's always the question. Quickie Mart – where did the start of that happen? Who was responsible? Jim (either one), Mark, Tara, John, George?

This is the same. As you go back to find the trigger for an event things get muddled. The blame here lies with Scott because he's the one that picked the joint out. The blame lies with George as he asked Scott to pick a place. The blame lies with me because I was silent. The blame lies with Tom for setting a 4am start time on this particular day. Any of these could be considered the start or the cause of the following event or you could go back even further to look for the event that started this. I like to blame Scott, everyone needs a patsy and he makes a perfect one.I could start "in medias res" like a good story writer, but I'm not one of those so the best I can do you is this:

As Egg Shen said: [Shen raises his hands, and a small bolt of lightning jumps between his palms.]"See? That was nothing. But that's how it always begins. Very small." After getting up at 4am for our day starts off with the "Tsukiji Fish Market" and, as fate would have it, our day ends something like 17 hours later in the Ginza district - on a suitably fishy note. Exhausted, hungry and delirious we make a mistake, exhaustion does that to you. We let Scott pick where we eat. He points to the first joint he sees and says "We'll eat there." In we go. Nice little place, the waitresses are dressed in kimono's they sit us down and we get sake, she offers us 'sweet' or 'dry', George and Tom ask for dry. 4 bottle of sake it is. Scott is handed the menu and he flips through it and starts to grouse. He's not a big fish fan, neither am I to be honest, but what can we do - we're in Japan. Everything here in Japan is fish related. Food, candy, drinks, everything has a fish option. Most places have a non fish option, this place doesn't. This place is special. Not only is it a 100% fish joint, it appears to be a place that specializes in Fugu. About 90% of the menu is made up of Fugu dishes. Fried, boiled, raw, you name they had an option for it. Fugu for those that don't know is puffer fish (a.k.a. blowfish.) – as you can see by its name it's what you might call a "fish" and (by the way) poisonous. Not only "poisonous" but lethal poisonous (Did I mention there's no known cure for the toxin?) depending on the stats you read on average 10 people die from eating this stuff every year. And after ingesting improperly prepared Fugu you've got 4-24 hours before you suffocate to death from paralysis. The folks that prepare Fugu have to be licensed Federally (for lack of a better word) to be able to work in a restaurant and make this stuff. Not only has Scott picked a fish joint, but, it appears, one that specializes in uber-poisonous fish dishes. Thanks Scott. Scott cowboys up and orders the only thing he can after picking the restaurant of doom – flounder, practically the only non-Fugu dish on the menu. Tom and George are starving and order heaps and heaps of food – stuff with tentacles and suckers and fins and, oh yeah, poison. Tom is the one that actually grabs the bull by the horns and orders the poison fish – George gets a bunch of other stuff and I, looking for a hot meal and not hot death, order noodles. Now I know that I am not what you'd call world traveled. To quote James Caan (can't find a link to the quote. Movie was Alien Nation): "I like my horizons nice and narrow." I like steak and potatoes, Coca Cola and Cheez-its and M&Ms – end of list. Ordering the noodles was a stretch for me. So now there's this giant pause while we are served our Sake and wait for the Fugu. I started laughing and I laughed for 10 solid minutes, and I think the staff thought I was drunk as they didn't offer us any more sake after the first round, which is unusual. Just one of those things where I just started giggling and finally had tears running out of my eyes. I couldn't tell you what I thought was so funny, but I couldn't stop. Perhaps it was being suddenly faced with death – that might've been it. So we're all busting Scott's chops about picking the one joint in all of Tokyo that's got nothing on the menu but killer fish. Scott finally breaks down and says something along the lines of "I was tired and my knees hurt and I just wanted to sit down and it was the first place I saw." There's the reason we've been handed a fishy death sentence, he wanted to sit down. The wait staff brings out plate after plate of food for the guys. We had a hard time fitting it all on the table. Finally after a bit they bring out the Fugu. Thin sliced, white and a lot of it. After a little bit of mental debate Tom eats his Fugu, and George and I not wanting Tom to suffer a toxin related death alone, and perhaps a small perverse desire to possibly raise the Fugu death rate in Japan by 33% - each have a piece. Having burned mouths from previous meals none of us could tell if the tingling in our mouths was just from previous hot food injuries or perhaps now it was poison coursing through our veins. I'm sure dropping poisonous fish on a cut helps speed the process along. Needless to say the story ends kinda with a whimper and not a bang as, I regret to inform you after all this buildup, none of us died. It could have ended with some kind of strangled gurgle but it didn't and there you have it: Baby's First Fugu.

Japan Day 13

While we started early it was still a relatively easy day. We had breakfast at 7 then reassembled and got out of the hotel before 8:30 I think. In any event we headed out to the O-Daiba and Daiba areas early. This is the waterfront area of Tokyo. We walked around a lot but the shopping malls and whatnots all didn’t open until 11am. We waited around and had the worst coffee that wasn’t instant that we’ve had since being in Japan at a place called Tully’s. This was basically filter coffee like the serve in the UK but it had been collected into a large pot and was dispensed from there. The end result was a chalky bitter coffee that wasn’t all that pleasant to drink. After that we searched the malls and the area for a bit before returning briefly to the hotel.

From there we set out to truly find the statue of Godzilla that was between Ginza and Hibiya right in front of the Toho building. We were successful in finding it and took a few pictures. From there we managed to march through Ginza for a bit before getting on a fairly well crowded subway to return to the hotel so we could get ready for the evening.

We later met up with Jun, one of George’s former coworkers. He took us to a Hokkaido style restaurant which had some fairly unusual things to eat. There was squid liver sashimi which was frozen. Also salmon sashimi which was frozen. A whole fried fish which was challenging to eat with the chopsticks. I have a hard time mentioning the next one. It was the, ummm, special leavings, of a male fish… if that makes sense, both raw and cooked. Neither proved to be to my taste but George pretended he liked it even when Jun said most Japanese people don’t like it. In any event there were a few other dishes, like a very good fried chicken thing and we had beer and sake, three types of sake in a sampler set actually which were very good, and some ice cream. Mine was lamb raison, whatever that means but it was good. Jun had to go back to the office to prepare for his week coming up so we let him go and returned to the hotel. He was very nice just as Hans and Adam were from the night before and I had a lot of fun there even if some of the foods were a bit iffy. I was full by the time we left anyway so I guess that counts for something.

Japan Day 12

We started off our latest ever by meeting with Marina for breakfast. We ate at the hotel coffee shop like we had been for our stay but Marina joined us. Since she starts at 9 we met downstairs then. From there she gave us some ideas of some things we could do in our last couple days here. We ended up chatting with her for a while so we got out for a late start out of the hotel.
We visited Asakusa one more time to do some of the touristy shopping we had to do before we leave. This took up the earlier part of the afternoon. We found a restaurant to eat there and Brien and I had a dish made up of beef cheek. We asked if that literally was what it was and the waitress said yes. She called it beef choke but she pointed to her cheek. In any event it was not fully what I was expected. It was a stew where the meat was cooked for a while so even though it was probably tougher meat it was fairly tender. There were large streaks of fat in it which were interesting to contend with as I am not the biggest fan of fat when eating. In any event the taste was good but the sauce from the nabe, which is a stew, was very spicy for Brien. It had a reasonable amount of lingering pepper that I sort of liked but Brien was a trooper and made his way through it. Fortunately the rice was bowled separately as they normally do so he had something not spicy to eat as well.

After Asakusa we returned to the hotel and regrouped for a while to wait for George’s coworker Hans to show up. He showed up in the early evening and we took a cab to Shibuya where we went to a restaurant that Hans really liked. He ordered us a bunch of dishes and we liked them. Amongst them was horse meat sashimi, which was literally raw horse meat. It was very good and surprisingly tender. It tasted a lot like beef. In any event I would eat horse again. The food was coming out fast and furious and there was a lot of it. I missed taking pictures of most of it unfortunately. We stayed there and had a few drinks, the most we have had since we’ve been here and then returned to the hotel to get some sleep.

Japan Day 11

Ok, so today was sort of a non-day for various reasons. We started late and Brien ended up being sick not long after breakfast so he couldn’t go out for the earlier part. George was still having breathing troubles and I had a cold. The first part of the day after breakfast was spent visiting George’s GN office for a few minutes. They were all very nice people but we weren’t there for very long. They gave us some instant coffee which was so far the worst coffee I’ve had in Japan.

After the GN office we went not too far away to Akihibara which is the main electronics retail area of the city. This had been an area where all the nerds and otaku (who would dress up in costumes from their favorite Japanese animation shows) would all hang out but the major commercial people saw the yen value in the area and it has become very commercialized. When that happened a lot of the kids moved on to other areas to hang out and be geeks. As it is there was a lot of stuff to look at and we ran through a few stores.

From there we returned to the hotel and took it easy for a while. We then found Brien who was having hot chocolate with Marina the hotel manager. She gave us some more places to have dinner and a few other places in Tokyo we should visit. Then we went to the Dream Factory, an Italian restaurant which is owned by the chef who actually went to Italy to study. His main two menu elements are lasagna and pizza. We each ordered a various lasagna sort, I had the lasagna verde and it all was very good. For dessert I had vanilla ice cream drowned in espresso which they hadn’t sweetened. It was very good. The owner even gave us a free appetizer of cheese that had been broiled which we dipped bread sticks into because Marina called ahead to tell him we were coming there.

After dinner it was pretty much head back to the hotel and go to bed because the cold was really killing me pretty badly and George was shot from not being able to breathe. I am not sure if either of them went out again but the 12 hours of sleep really helped me.

Japan Day 10

Today was dedicated to a tour of Mount Fuji, or Fujiyama or Fuji-sam if you wish, and Hakone along with Owakudani Bari. This was a package tour served from the hotel where we were picked up by the tour bus directly. It started with a bus ride to Mt. Fuji which took about 2 hours. While getting there we actually passed a US Marines base that I had no idea was there. From there we drove up the mountain to the 5th station. The highest station you can reach before the top is station 9. The 5th station is the last station open at this time of year, climbing to the top can only be done during July and August as it is too snowy and dangerous at any other time of the year. The mountain is about 12,385 feet high at the precipice and we only went up about 6000 feet or so if I understood the tour guide correctly. The drive up had some really scary hairpin turns and frightening overlook drops which I am generally not comfortable with and I figured the drive down would be even scarier but it actually was less scary for some reason. I am fine with heights as long as my feet are firmly planted on solid ground, in a car and such, well, not so much. We’ll get to more of that later. In any event I did take a piece of the volcanic rock from the mountain while we were up there.

The trip down brought us to Hakone for lunch. The drive was not so bad and it was about an hour from the 5th station of Fuji. There we had dinner. Most of the crowd bought the set course western lunch but George had a tempura course and I had some buckwheat noodles that were very good. The waitress saw my ghetto chopstick holder I made out of the wrapper and made me one that looks like a swan. I kept it.

From the restaurant we traveled down to the lake Ashi (I think) where we took a ride on a motorized bought that was built to look like a pirate ship. It was a very similar tour for me as the ride I took on Windermere in England. The run lasted about a half an hour and there were commentaries on the loudspeaker but we sat on the right side of the boat and it seemed that most of the stuff that it explained was on the left. Also by the time she was done with the Japanese explanation there was a good chance the item was out of site when she gave it in English. All in all it was very pretty and it was peaceful so I was happy with it. I was surprised at how fast they turned around launching the boat after we exited though. Hakone in general is a summer resort area for the wealth of Tokyo and it seemed a lot like the lakes region of England in general. A lot of it felt very much the same as the lakes region and there is apparently even a lot of hiking involved. There was a lot of golden topped grass on some of the mountain sides but as we didn’t stop the bus I wasn’t confident I could get a good picture of it and did not try. I apologize for that because it was very beautiful.

From there we drove a bit and got to a gondola ride that would take us up to Owakudani Bari which is a sulfuric hot steam vent coming up from the volcanoes in the area. Did I point out that Fuji is still considered an active volcano? I stood on an active volcano and it didn’t erupt. I was quite surprised by that fact… In any event if we remember the bit about me not liking heights when the ground is say more than 5 feet below me feet then it should be no surprise that the seven minute ride on a double cable gondola was a pleasantly unpleasant experience for me. There were points where we were over 150 feet above the ground and especially so after we crested the first climb and had to hang over the sulfuric vents area for the remainder of the ride. I managed it without screaming, crying or blubbering but I certainly was happy to place my feet on solid ground again when we got out. Fortunately for me the bus met us at the top and I didn’t have to go through it all again in reverse. The views were spectacular on it and I managed to take a couple of pictures but it was not something that was easy because I was nervous plus it was cold up there and my hands were shaking a bit. They are probably all blurry.

At the top we saw the volcanic stuff and it started to get dark. I spent most of my time up there in the gift shops because it was rather windy and cold and it was more pleasant to be inside. I didn’t bring a jacket to Japan let alone to Owakudani Bari. The sulfur in the air was also something to contend with. It was all encompassing and it definitely stifled breathing a bit. The thin air on Fuji was easier on me by far. I seem to have either an allergy attack or a cold right now so my nose just started flooding as soon as I got there and didn’t really stop until we were very far away. It was interesting to see it all, though none of us tried the sulfuric water cooked eggs which were totally black from all the stuff going on. Supposedly they add seven years to your life but I think it was an easy skip anyway.

From there the bus drove us to Odawara station where we were able to catch a shinkansen back to Tokyo. This turned out to be an unexpected bonus from our rail passes because it we weren’t expected to be able to use it today and it cut our return trip home from 2 hours to just an hour including the cab ride back to the hotel and since it only cost us the cab ride it was very much worth it. On the tour there was a group of three who were in Japan for one week from Chicago. We tried to give them some pointers on what to do and trade a couple notes. They are doing Himeji after Tokyo but will be staying in Kyoto for a couple days as well. I advised them to try Kaji, the kobe beef place we went to and also we explained to them a little bit about the shinkansen and JR lines as well. They were nice and also staying at the Shiba Park. We managed to get out of the train and to the taxi line before they did by a fair clip so we only saw them way behind us at the taxi stand when we arrived back in Tokyo.

From there we decided to regroup before getting dinner. But since for the record I have a cold and George was negatively affected by the sulfur we were all pretty much shot to the point where our best choice was to make it a simple smoke-free dinner and then call it a night. We went to Mosburger because we knew it was a non-smoking place and there aren’t many of them around here and ate quickly. From there we returned to the hotel, I did laundry by doing the wash part then switching them then putting them in the dryer and setting my alarm for the time it was going to take and then went to bed until the alarm went off and fetched my laundry. From there it was bedtime where we intentionally set up a late start of 8:30 for recovery purposes.

Japan Day 9

This day was a train run to Nagoya which was along the same line as we took to get to Himeji. We really weren’t certain what there was to do there but the tourist webpage suggested that they had a lot back when I looked it all up. The train ride was a bit less than 2 hours which was the easiest we’d done to point so at least it had that going for it. We took the 7:36 again and got there by 9:25 or so which gave us a lot of time to see what was there.

First we got to the tourist information center and spoke to a nice lady and picked up a map. Unfortunately a lot of the museum attractions are closed on Monday but at least Nagoya castle was open. She suggested we bus or subway to it but it didn’t look like that bad of a walk, about a half an hour or so, so we chose to walk instead. The first thing you would notice about Nagoya is that it is fairly run down looking. It is clean but the buildings are not new and shiny. I would say it is more of a residential and industrial city than it is the fashion city that is Tokyo. This leads me to finally point out something that disturbs me to no end. There is no trash on the streets in Tokyo all the same as Nagoya. I think in all the cities we’ve visited there have been about 3 pieces of paper on the ground. This is all good and fine, but there are also no trash barrels anywhere. I don’t understand how they manage to do it. I understand that culturally they do not walk around and eat at the same time as an American would, but still people must manufacture trash during the course of the day and then need to throw it out yet it seems like the trash barrels are miles apart.

The walk to Nagoya Castle was around a half an hour and we passed the Nagoya Noh theater which was unfortunately closed. It looked like a nice building though. The castle was not far beyond it. This castle was built by order of Tokugawa Ieyasu who was the fist of the Shogunate. About 20 families put resources into building it. It was established at about 1602. The dominant feature of the castle was the gold dolphin statues at the top of the roof. There are two that are not exact copies. One is male and one is female and the female is a bit smaller than the other. Unfortunately the actual castle and the dolphins were destroyed in 1945 by a bombing raid in World War II. The castle was rebuilt in the 50s or so and due to the style of the day they built the outside to look correct and the inside is more of a museum. The dolphins were reconstructed but I do not believe they are using the same quality of gold. The palace outside the main castle was also destroyed but they haven’t gathered enough money to rebuild that yet. They intend to reconstruct the palace as it stood in the days of Tokugawa Ieyasu. It would like nicer than the imperial palace as far as I can tell.

After the castle we drove to Nagoya Port. There again a lot of the various attractions were closed but not so the Villagio Italia. This was a reconstruction of Venice in Nagoya, complete with a canal and gondolas. Brien didn’t want to ride on the gondolas so we didn’t do that, but we did have a nice pasta dinner and the walked around for a while. It was rather comical to see and I think people will get a kick out of the pictures of it. George and I even posed for a picture with a local to add authenticity to his visiting Italy trip.

From there we since everything was closed and it began to rain we took their subway back to a spot relatively close to the train station and walked the rest of the way back where we headed back to Tokyo. With the rain we took a few less pictures than we would have liked to because we put away the cameras. We walked through an underground mall that was very big to get to the train station and it and the station were very crowded. I assume there is a lot of actual business that goes on in Nagoya so it was busy with regular commuters. The city is gigantic. It took us a half hour cab ride to get from the castle to the port and the subway ride was nearly as long.

All in all it would be better to visit Nagoya on a day other than Monday but I am not sure I would have to go back to see it again. I could easily say I would go back to Kanazawa or Himeji. I am sure I am not being fair to Nagoya but its sheer size is daunting. It was safe and clean but just not so picturesque as Tokyo. It was a good day however and I’m glad we went.

Japan Day 8

We started the day off sort of late but headed over the Zojoji Temple not very far from the hotel and then found the Tokugawa graveyard behind the temple. There was a man there who was tending a grave and he told us his friend had bought 4 plots in there at a cost of 5 million yen per plot. This is just the space and does not include any of the stonework which would likely also fall into the millions of yen because there appears to be a high end requirement there. For the sake of mentioning it that would be over $45000 US dollars per plot. So he spent somewhere near $190000 USD and still has to spend a ton more per plot to get the stonework in. The man said it is the most expensive cemetery in all of Tokyo. I believe him based on what we saw there.

From the graveyard we went to the Tokyo Tower and apparently just before the rush started to arrive we bought tickets to the main observatory which is something towards the effect of 150 meters up. Because Scott had to take his bus out at 11:40am we couldn’t wait through the line to go to the upstairs observatory which another 50 meters or so up I think. In any event the view is gorgeous up there and we may go back during a different time of day so we can take some pictures of the area with different sun as the coastal area was all drowned in rising daylight. After that we sort of ducked through the shops in the Tokyo Tower City underneath the tower and then headed back to the hotel to send Scott off. When there we made reservations for the rest of us to take the Mt. Fuji and Hakone tour on Tuesday.

When Scott was properly sent off we headed to Tokyo Station and purchased tickets to Nagoya for Monday. The added benefit of the rail pass is we can return from the Fuji Tour quicker at no extra cost. By the time we had our tickets purchased we had lunch then headed to Ginza to do a teeny bit of shopping. We found some book stores and a music store amongst others. From there we headed back to the hotel to regroup for a bit before going out at night.

I decided to check and to point I have taken almost 2300 pictures. I promise not all of them are good but many are.

We pretty much took it easy for the rest of the night going up the street to a restaurant that we have no idea the name of. It is only listed in Japanese even with the business card. There were a lot of interesting things on the menu and I think we all liked it. When we came in the girl that greeted us was practically shouting at us to come with her and seated us in a closed off booth area with two tables. In the other table was a group of three, two guys and a girl. The girl was completely drunk out of her mind. At one point she had to go to the bathroom and when she got out of the booth area she went the wrong way. Moments later one of the guys with her was steering her towards the bathroom across the opening. It was very comical to see. She could stand and walk but there was no doubt that she was going to feel it the next morning. Somehow though the place was a smoking place they had very good ventilation so that when we stayed for a couple extra drinks it wasn’t a cloud of nicotine. We all appreciated that. By the way, they shouted at everyone that came in.

That was pretty much the end of our night and we decided to get in early so we could be rested for our Nagoya trip.

Japan Day 7

Today we started late to give everyone a chance to sleep a little bit from the rough few days. We had breakfast then headed back to Asakusa. The temple was going to have a couple events for Culture Day. We wandered around and it got very crowded very quickly. We saw some of the White Heron Dance. I filmed a little bit with the camera. It came out decent. Some various things were bought while we were there then we headed out to Shibuya via the Ginza line.

Shibuya has a large park that apparently two-thirds of the city visits on the weekends. I could not believe how many people were there at all. There was all sort of stuff going on from people practicing playing instruments to walking dogs to riding bikes to practicing dancing. There was a girl doing hula hoop stuff to some drummers which was pretty neat. They had a little free dog pen that had all sorts of dogs running around. Basically the area looks like the place to hang out on Saturday or Sunday during the nicer weather.

Getting to the weather, I am not sure if I mentioned it already and if I did I am sorry, but everyone around here seems to think that temperatures in the 60s F are full on winter clothing weather. Everyone that was obviously from Tokyo was dressed in warm clothing as a New Englander might dress in December yet the weather feels like September at worst. I find it very strange but I guess they do get super hot summers and there is some sort of fashion thing dictating how people dress. Everyone around here seems to be very fashion conscious and it is likely that the fashion industry has dictated that fall gear is what you wear now. Not being one for fashion I cannot say that I would be able to handle it. I suppose on workdays that men just wear their suits so it is a bit easier for them to avoid fashion issues, but the women seem to have to dress up every day no matter what. But I guess it’s all city culture one way or the other.

We wandered for some time then headed back to the hotel to regroup in the early afternoon. I chose to get some laundry done quickly. After the short rest we went back out for dinner. Brien wanted to go back to Kirin City so we did. I tried to order a noodle dish however when all the food arrived mine never showed up. Fortunately we had three appetizers to choose from so I ate a bit of those along with having a couple beers. However when we finally left I was still hungry and I had grown stubborn about ordering the dish from them so I instead bought another Mosburger on the way back to the room where I wolfed it down quickly.

We had decided we would try to go out for drinks for Scott’s last night here. There was an article about a bar in Roppongi in the back of an English language tourist newspaper about a bar that seemed kind of cool. We decided we would try to find this place and have a drink there. I figured out the location from the article and a tourist map and realized that Roppongi Crossing is pretty much a straight line past the Tokyo Tower and along the same street. From there all we would have to do is turn right at the crossing and we should be able to find the place on the second and third floor of a building about two blocks up. It was all very simple looking and because we were going to a bar we didn’t bring a map or our cameras and we certainly weren’t dragging the newspaper along. We walked up the street past the Tower and continued straight on down the road and within a few minutes we indeed did find the Roppongi area of the city. It was incredibly packed. There were literally thousands of people at this specific crossing area. Roppongi is the foreign district of Tokyo so there were all sorts of non-Japanese people there and as we got further into the thick of the zone we started to get accosted by all sorts of men trying to give us “free entrance” and “free drink” tickets to entertainment clubs, by which I mean mainly strip clubs. These men were all black and spoke English as a second language and all of them were very persistent in getting people to try to take up their offer for a good club to visit. I am sure that even if we had not chosen a place to visit before getting there I would never choose to give patronage to a place with people like that desperately trying to get me in there and we warded them all off no matter how persistent they were. In a few minutes we were at the crossing and turned up the street to where the bar was supposed to be. The name of the place was supposed to be Kai-pu but when we got to the location that the map pointed to the best that I could tell we found a Japanese language sign only. We tried to go up the stairs because it did appear to be the same place on the second and third floor like the article wrote but when we got there we found that the place had to be closed it was dark and the elevators to get there weren’t working either.

We scanned around for a few more minutes but were none the wiser as to if the article was someone’s idea of a joke or what and decided to turn back into the horde and maybe see what we could find. Since we really didn’t know the area and couldn’t tell which places were safe on our own we decided to try to return to the area near our hotel and see if anyplace that was obviously safe was still open for drinks. As we wound back through the crowds we were accosted again by the various pitchmen and even by some Chinese women offering massages but again made it to the end of the area intact and still with all our money and passports. By the time we got back to the hotel’s zone it was probably a bit after midnight and everything was already closed up except the 7-11 so we bought some water and called it a night by 12:30am. At the very least it was an adventure to see Roppongi and how overwhelming it all was. I would have liked to get pictures but I fear my camera would have gotten stolen. The Japanese crime rate is very low but as this area was not so much populated by the indigenous it had a lot less safer feel and I assume it is one of the higher crime rate areas in the city, if not the country. Marina had already warned us of a bar that a lot of her customers had come back from without money or anything else in that area which was why we didn’t really try to randomly pick a place. It was cool to see the sights of the zone but I am not sure I would again go unless I had another specific bar to try to find that was considered safe by someone from Tokyo, expat or Japanese alike.

Japan Day 6

Today was another rail day but we didn’t start quite as early as last time. This trip took us to Himeji. We had advice to go to other places besides but instead of programming anything beyond Himeji we decided to play it by ear. We left Tokyo Station at 7:36am and arrived on a direct train at Himeji at 11:16am. From there we immediately left the station and headed up the main road towards Himeji castle. On the way up we found a small roadside coffee shop that had a band of three girls playing music on keyboards, flute and a funky drum box thing. We bought some coffees and/or pastries and watched them until they took their break. They spoke to us because we were obviously gaijin but they didn’t speak English well.

After that we headed straight up for Himeji castle. On the big green below the castle they were setting up for a J-pop concert of some sort that was going to start at 8pm or so. We would have liked to see it but it was happening far too late for us to get back to Tokyo. The stage did sort of damage the view a little bit but there are so many good views of the castle I am not sure it made that much of a difference.

Where Marina told us it would probably be an hour and a half to get though the castle we were easily there for at least 4 hours. We scoured the place all over and I am sure there were still parts of the grounds we missed. I think the Japanese concept of visiting a site or museum is a bit more hurried than mine as their recommendations were also for a 90 minute tour. The castle was absolutely gorgeous and there was tons to see. There were views both inside and outside that were incredible. I loved every second of being there and would definitely go back again. There were a couple other attractions listed in Himeji but we really didn’t get a good chance to find or visit them. After we finished with the castle we pretty much walked around the town for a while, sort of in search of something to eat that was quick and snacky but that everyone would like. We found a place that was called Lotteria which was a kind of old school McDonald’s rip off but a bit better. I had a cheeseburger. They also had the deep fried apple pies that McDonald’s use to make. The kind that has molten apple lava inside them. We had some of those and burned our lips pretty well but it was worth it. As it goes the place stacked up favorably to American burger joints but we still liked Freshness Burger much more.

From there we headed back to the train station and got tickets back to Tokyo. We decided that a 9:30pm arrival to Tokyo would be better than trying anything else. They could not get us on a direct train to Tokyo that was green car and non-smoking all the way so they put us on a Kodama train to Shin-osaka where we joined an entire trainload of schoolchildren. The train sounded like it had a flock of chickens running around all over the place from all the chattering and running about of the kids. The poor teachers that were keeping handle of them looked like they were at the end of their patience but that ride for us was only 30 minutes long and then everyone had to offload. I am sure the teachers had more herding to go but we at least changed to our green car where we road much more quietly to Tokyo from Shin-osaka.

We returned to the hotel and it was about 9:30. The train rides seem to zonk you a bit plus we really haven’t been sleeping a full night’s sleep at all so we were sort of tired. We debated going out for real but only ended up going to a 7-11 and then running to a Mosburger which gave us the chance to compare it against the Freshness Burger and Lotteria. I didn’t have my camera with me so no pictures of the Mosburger from there. It’s right around the corner from our hotel so I will try to get another meal there so I can take a picture of one. I had a Spicy Cheesburger especially as a comprarison against Freshness Burger’s Salsa Burger and found the Freshness Burger to be superior. Their fries as well. We all agreed the Freshness Burger was the best choice. We were there right at closing time and just returned to the room to drink the can of beer we bought from the 7-11 and watch a teeny bit of Japanese TV. I will do some info about their TV later in the blog. I haven’t consumed enough yet. I will state directly that is very different from US TV though.

I should also add at some point that the blogspot website I'm posting from has magically changed to all Japanese characters for the icons and texts throughout it. Nowhere on it do I see a button to switch it English. I am very fortunate to have remembered which buttons to use when I started doing this or I would not have been able to post very easily.

Japan Day 5

We got to start this day later than the previous because we really didn’t have anything planned. We did the western breakfast when it opened at 7am and waded through the screaming vultures that poured into the restaurant at that time. I had a French child headbutt my elbow several times while getting through the lines. It was certainly a wonderful experience.

From there we traveled back to the temple at Asakusa by subway and toured the area again. I took another run at the fortune sticks and this time came up with only a bad fortune rather than the lowest fortune. I again tied it off to let the spirits take care of it. If you wonder why I didn’t finish the fugu or don’t gamble, that’s why… From there we did some quick tourist shopping at the temple area. My brother will love the model I bought for him to build. Then we headed back by subway to the hotel to regroup and drop off everything we bought.

From there we took the subway back out to Ueno and took a quick look at Ueno park and then visited the Tokyo National Museum to see the Tokugawa Special Exhibit. We spent a couple hours in the tour. It was very very crowded and Japanese people can be a bit pushy in crowds so we found it better to hang behind them and look over them. I feel like a giant over here and I’m not really all that tall. In any event the exhibit was series of pieces chronicling the rise and end of the Tokugawa Shoganate. There were several armor and sword pieces, a lot of art and calligraphy, some kimonos and other articles of clothing, some noh theater masks, some various tools and other miscellaneous pieces from the era which stretched around 200 years. They did not allow pictures at the exhibit unfortunately so I didn’t get to take any. I did enjoy it once we broke past the initial room because though it remained crowded it thinned out a bit and we were able to see either.

After the exhibit we took the subway into Tokyo station and arranged our tickets to Himeji.

I need to point out a small anecdote here. On Monday we saw a woman at a desk with a placard that had the title Guest Relations Manager. We thought that perhaps she was the information person so we asked her a question about what we were going to do and she explained that she was actually the hotel manager. She was very nice and her name is Marina. She actually if from England but Japanese so she speaks English with more of a British accent. In any event when we told her we were going to Himeji she said that there would not be enough there besides the castle to see. She said that we should also go to Okayama which has a castle and garden and we could probably also reach Hiroshima and see that and that would get us through the day. Either Okayama or Hiroshima are apparently about a half an hour from Himeji and we could return from Hiroshima very late. Apparently there is a ferry to an island outside of Himeji that would be nice to visit as well. We are going to play it mildly by ear. She wasn’t fond of Himeji because she said that there were a lot of steep stairs and such. We may like it a bit better than her. If we find that it is a quick visit we’ll decide where to go from there.

To continue on with the Marina saga, when we got back from Ueno and Tokyo Station she was there and we asked her where a good place to get Kobe beef was. She told us there was a place not far from the hotel called Kaji that doesn't have it's name in English on the sign that does Teppan-yaki that is really good and he does Kobe beef. She said we needed reservations for it. We ended up talking to her for a while because he was not yet open and we couldn't make reservations. She talked to us some more about getting out to Okayama and Hiroshima. We did a bit of a bounce around then went upstairs to rest for a bit. When we came back down we tried to use the information desk to make the reservations but she caught us and we started talking again. She called and told the guy to be good to us apparently. She then offered us tea and coffee, and in Brien's case koko (hot chocolate) on the house and we went into the coffee shop and talked to her for the entire time that everyone wanted to get cleaned up. We made reservations for 6:30pm and she had to call him and tell him we'd be late by the time we left.

Kaji is a tiny little place in a back alley that if you weren't told to go to you would never find. It is a teppan-yaki style restaurant which means the chef cooks on a grill right in front of you and serves you from there. We all order the "Kaji Special Kobe Beef Course" which was really expensive but by the end I don't think any of us cared. There were a series of vegetable courses including radishes, onions, pumpkin and potatoes. From there it was on to the Kobe beef which was the best beef I have ever had in my life. He cooked mine rare like I asked and I think their mediums were more like medium rare but they didn't seem to complain. The marbling on the beef was incredible and it felt like butter in the mouth. He really didn't do a lot of seasoning, just some garlic fried underneath it which was browned and served alongside it. The large fat bits he saved for later. When we were done with the main beef course he fried the fat into cracklings, I don't know what else to call them, and we ate those too. It was absolutely delicious. From there he fried up to brown some minced garlic and mixed that into some fried rice which was also incredible. I ate the seconds on the rice. We also got a a soup but I didn't eat mine because I was basically stuffed by then. He also served us a coffee which was really flavorful. I was impressed with the entire meal beginning to end. We drank two bottles of cold sake with it. I would highly recommend Kaji to anyone who visits Tokyo.

After gorging we returned to the hotel and played Pokemon (it was a joke thing) for a bit then retired for the evening.

Japan Day 4

Today was the first of our day excursions out of Tokyo. In doing a bunch of research over the course of several months’ preparation for this trip I found a city named Kanazawa which had several key interest points that seemed different from Tokyo. It is a city but not remotely the size of Tokyo. There is a reconstructed castle as well as a very large landscape garden. In any event, the place seemed interesting to me so when I presented it to everyone else they said sure.

I personally am glad they did. I liked Kanazawa a lot. The day started early with a trip to Tokyo Station by cab where we tried to get on the 6:32am train to Echigo-Yuzawa. Actually we had initially reserved seats for the 7:00am run but the ticket person said we could take the 6:33 instead. Since we were worried about how difficult it would be to get to the changeover train at Echigo-Yuzawa we thought it would be better to take the earlier train. The girl told us the train was at track 20 and we didn’t have a ton of time to get there but if we had any idea where it was it would have been enough. After circling the JR station about 3 or 4 times Brien spotted track 20. It was 6:33am. After this we ran back down to a ticket window and were able to exchange our reservations back to 7:00am with little issue. It moved over a couple tracks to number 22 but since we knew where to go we were able to get on the train with no issue. From there we reached Echigo-Yuzawa at 8:12am and had to get to our exchange train at 8:20. Fortunately their train station was very tiny and it was literally run upstairs and get on the train that was just arriving. It took us 3 minutes to achieve this task and we had 5 to spare before it departed. The JR system is very much on time. The remaining train ride was long but we saw a lot of spectacular scenery that doesn’t particularly photograph well from a moving train but we tried some anyway. There were a lot of underground stretches but it was basically a fun ride minus the spots of heat when the sun was pouring into the windows.

Let me preface the bit about Kanazawa with one short bit. Not long after we got off the train and started walking our way towards the main area we noticed on the sides of the roads in the bushes that were used for decoration that there were some giant spider webs hanging amongst the branches and sometimes attached also to structures in the area. On these webs were giant yellow or green and black spiders that were basically big enough to take a small child without a fight and could probably win against a prize fighter all the same. They were all over Kanazawa and I can only assume that they exude some sort of chemical that keeps the locals from seeing them. We obviously weren’t there long enough so they were in plain sight to us. In telling the story Scott had nightmares about spiders when we got back.

We arrived at Kanazawa at 10:53 and immediately went to the ticket office and purchased our return tickets. We then explored the mall-like train station for a few minutes and then exited to look for some food and the touristy spots in the city. It is not a particularly large city and it doesn’t appear to be geared towards night life but it is a cultural city so there was a lot to see. We walked up the main way and found the local market which was like a miniature version of the Tsukiji Fish Market. This market was called the Omi-cho Market. In there we found a yaki-tori stand and we all bought a stick and enjoyed them very much. Brien even went back and bought seconds. I am pretty sure Brien was thinking something along the lines of, “Oh no, not the fish market again,” but we didn’t stay long so it wasn’t so bad for him.

From there we found Kanazawa Castle which is a reconstruction of a castle that has burned down 4 times. It was really interesting to go through it. They had little informational stalls that spoke in English if you pressed the right button. We spent a fair amount of time navigating the inside of the castle and we even had a Japanese woman suggest someone should kick Scott down the treacherously steep stairs of the tower turrets.

After the Castle we headed for the Kenrokuen Garden and spent the better part of our time in the city there. It was a Japanese landscape garden that had a ton of beautiful little scenes as well as a tea house where we tried our hands at a tea ceremony. There was a pond with giant coy fish as well as a waterfall and there was a small temple and samurai house which appeared to be closed for some sort of renovations. In any event to make sure we could make it back to the train station in time we headed back after finding the samurai house and got back to the main strip with a fair amount of time to spare. Our path did give us a view of several really neat houses though and I got pictures of a bunch of them.

Since we had time I suggested we try to grab dinner from the Freshness Burger near the market and everyone agreed to try it. It’s sort of like a McDonald’s but not so gross. They had a bunch of versions of burgers and I tried the salsa burger which was mildly spicy. I enjoyed it a lot thought they put a ton of lettuce on it. I removed some but ate it with lettuce though I usually don’t. It was very good and their fries were like steak fries which also were very good. The cashier and the cook were both dressed in costume for Halloween and the place was also decorated for said reason. I got a picture of the two workers before we left.

After Freshness Burger we walked back to the train station where we ran around the mall for a while and bought some knickknacks and four of something that was like a Twinky with chilled flavored creams from a specialty shop. They were really good. I had a café latte version. Two had chocolate and one had vanilla. I forgot to take a pic before I ate it but perhaps the half eaten shot will give a better idea of what it was like. We ate them on the train back. We again had little trouble with the connection even though there was only an 8 minute window to switch at Echigo-yuzawa. I fell asleep for a few minutes on the first train even though I had my contacts in. Fortunately they rehydrated by the time we got back to Tokyo. It was a long day for us as we weren’t back to the Hotel until basically 11:20pm or so. All the same though I would definitely visit Kanazawa again even in a single day trip though when I come back to Japan in the future I would like to dedicate a couple days to it.

A short note on the train system. The shinkansen were very clean and since we bought green car rail passes we are using first class seats which are big even by gaijin standards. They are bigger than business class seats on the Acela in the states. While some of the trains were obviously older they still had marquees that had English every so often so we could tell what stop we were at even if I couldn’t pick out the information from the announcements and the Tokyo run train also had English loudspeaker announcements as well. The Echigo-yuzawa to Kanazawa trip unfortunately had smoking cars. Though the green car was non-smoking there were times when someone opened the doors and it would cycle into our car for a few minutes from the other cars since the air seems to be recycled within sort of like an airplane. Our other trips should not include any sort of train exchanges though and hopefully will be fully smoke free trains.