Japan Part 2

The ride to Osaka took about 5 hours. I found it convenient that they served beer on the shinkansen. Japanese beer selection was strictly limited to Sapporo, Asahi, and Yebisu. I couldn’t really tell the difference between the three of them but they were refreshing. We arrived in Osaka late and checked in to a hotel. The next morning we went to see the Osaka Palace. This was where the guy in charge used to live. It has since been converted to a museum about the feudal history of Japan. It had two massive moats built from stone, each piece carved into shape and weighing a billion or so tons. The palace was originally built in 645 so I’m guessing the moats must have been built around that time. They were massive. The palace stood in the center.



It was an interesting experience waking up in a city and traveling directly to a building that has existed for over 1,300 years. I’d never been to a place that had a history of more than a few hundred years. There was a balcony around the top of the palace, five stories up. From there we could see the inner and outer moats and the circle of trees creating a park around the palace. Here within a modern industrial city there is a patch of their ancient history, preserved and converted to a museum. The view was amazing.



After visiting the museum we walked around the park and I continued to admire the moat. Then we did some shopping in a Korean market that was tucked away in some tight alleys. I ate a Korean omelet with tentacles in it and a pastry shaped like a fish and filled with red bean curd. I’m now a fan of red bean curd. Then we were off to Kyoto.
In Kyoto there were numerous shrines and temples for us to pick from. We decided on taking the philosopher’s path from our hotel to a nearby temple (the Silver Temple). The path went along a waterway which was very low but teeming with gigantic fish. At some point I realized that I’d noticed a number of cats and I started looking for them. I realized that there were cats swarming around this area. On a bench under a sunbeam there were cats piled on top of each other just lounging around. I didn’t try to frighten them away but I got pretty close to take pictures and they didn’t seem to care, although they kept an eye on me.





This was the time of year in Japan when schoolchildren are sent on extended field trips to explore Japan. There were children in uniforms swarming through the silver temple. They were lively but didn’t disrupt my experience, and they were extremely cute. The temple itself was a two story building set in the middle of a pond and we walked along a rail on the shore. There were rocks protruding from the water which were piled high with sunbathing turtles. We also visited the Golden Temple which was a similar design. The Golden Temple was about 700 years old but it had been burned to the ground in 1955 by an angry monk and was rebuilt precisely as it had been. This event was acknowledged but in every other way the temple was treated as if it were the original, as if the burning down of the structure did not constitute a need to start over. The complete destruction could be thought of in the way that a broken window or loose door hinge would be.
We also visited the Ryoanji rock garden which is the one which made rock gardens famous. The site had other rock gardens as well, meticulously groomed into elaborate patterns and shapes. The Ryoanji itself was a powerful experience. I felt like “garden” is a misnomer for these things because a garden is something from which lush diversity springs up and things grow in organic, ever changing patterns. The Ryoanji has been kept exactly the same for over 600 years. It was a completely different experience than that of a garden. It was calming and fulfilling. We stayed as long as we could.



After a rush to the train station we were headed for Fukuoka. There was a lot of traveling time on this vacation but the rides were smooth and comfortable and the distance we could cover was well worth it. We travelled the 400 miles from Kyoto to Fukuoka in less than four hours. We arrived in Fukuoka after midnight. I decided to stay in one of the capsule hotels I’d heard so much about. Jenn couldn’t join me (no girls allowed) so she checked in to a Comfort Inn. The capsule hotel was like an upscale hostel. I was issued a locker key to keep my things in. The capsule itself did not have a latching door, only a thin screen to pull down when I was ready to sleep. The capsules were stacked two high just like bunk beds with the difference being that in this case each resident had their own personal space. The capsule was spacious with plenty of head clearance. I imagine a claustrophobic might not like it but I found it very comfortable. It had its own climate control, television and radio. There were showers and sinks laundry service. And no shoes allowed anywhere, those were stored in lockers in the lobby.
I dropped my stuff off and met back up with Jenn and we went to find a late night dinner. We walked through a more red light type district ended up at a ramshackle ramen stall by the waterway. I ate a lot of food in Japan and it was an amazing experience, but this ramen was the single most delicious meal I had. The older, extremely intoxicated gentleman sitting to my left began pouring beer into my glass, which I quickly learned is commonly done between friends and friendly people. I thanked him energetically and he began speaking to me in semi-slurred Japanese. I kept smiling and telling him in Japanese that I could not understand him and that I did not speak Japanese. It didn’t even slow him down. He would laugh and then resume talking. Soon the two guys running the stall were also trying to explain to him that I couldn’t understand, to no avail. I did get a picture of him though, as well as a picture of him and me together.



We spent quite a while at that stand. The food was incredible and the atmosphere was something entirely new to me and I wanted to hold on to it for as long as I could. I had starting getting used to my surroundings. My brain had finally gotten used to the fact that nobody was speaking English. Eventually we headed back downtown and parted ways to our respective hotels. Our next destination was Kurokawa, which I’ll save for next time.

Japan Part I

I spent the last sixteen hours of my time in Japan travelling to Haneda Airport in Tokyo to catch my flight home. Three trains and a plane and for the majority of that time I was by myself for the first time in ten days. As I was waiting at Kansai Airport awaiting my connecting flight, a wave of sadness washed over me. This didn’t surprise me as my adventure was coming to an end and I was all alone in a vast cavernous airport, but it was a frustrating and unpleasant way to be feeling when I hadn’t even left Japan yet. So to battle it I sat down and began writing down notes about my favorite moments from the week. Four pages later I had written about pretty much every moment of the entire week, and I no longer felt sad. I had just let the week wash over me and jotted it down as it went along. I’ve been wanting to post about my experiences but it’s been hard because it’s all so much and I haven’t known where or how to start. So I finally said screw it, I’m just going to start. I’ll try to keep things roughly chronological.

I’ll dive in with the food. I have always been a picky eater. For most of my life I was fine with that and deathly afraid of anything unfamiliar. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve embraced unfamiliar food, and even then I’ve been particular about WHICH food I embrace. When Jenn and I arrived at the airport at 2am (6pm our time) we immediately walked to a restaurant. As I looked over the menu I decided that while in Japan I would not shy away from any type of food, no matter what. The absolution was very important, as any exceptions could be a slippery slope right back to only eating rice. I normally practice vegetarianism but I put that on hold in the spirit of embracing the cuisine. I’m happy to say that I stuck to my decision and tried dozens of foods which just a few years ago would have left me politely requesting more bread. I even tried octopus and raw egg (not together). I didn’t love everything but there wasn’t a single thing that I didn’t enjoy. And I discovered that unfamiliar food tastes better when you try it with an open mind.

We ate at many different types of restaurants. Many of the “sit down” restaurants give you your own enclosed space rather than tables on an open floor. We were given a device that looked like a doorbell which was for summoning our server. These restaurants generally do not have entrees, instead you have many different dishes of smaller size. During a typical dinner we probably summoned our server seven or eight times to order the next round of food and drinks. The servers were always friendly and enthusiastic. In one establishment the entire serving and kitchen staff would monitor the door and whenever someone entered the staff loudly welcomed them in unison.

The positive atmosphere emanating from the staff was not unique to restaurants. Every time I entered a business of any kind, from hotels to convenience stores, I was cheerfully greeted by the staff. I couldn’t communicate verbally when Jenn wasn’t around to be my translator so shopping involved a lot of gesturing and smiling but I never felt like a pest. I felt like my business was being appreciated in a real and immediate sense. I was told that Japan has a very strong sense of loyalty and when it comes to employment and that all employees typically identify themselves by their job, regardless of what it is. This can have negative consequences as well. Apparently it is often difficult to change careers or even jobs in Japan due to the disloyalty it implies. In America people change jobs constantly and very rarely do they give a second thought to any sort of obligation unless they’ve signed a contract. For better or for worse though, the custom made for a pleasant experience every single time.

While in Tokyo we visited Akihabara, the famous “Electric Town,” which lived up to its name. Our mission was to find a special flash drive for my friend Scott (we never found it), but we also took time to check out the arcades and other types of stores. We looked at vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, rice cookers, televisions, back massagers, cameras, and pretty much anything that requires electricity. Many of the first floor establishments were selling models and figurines of anime characters, largely sexually themed. It was interesting to see how things America considers “adult” and “not for children” were not hidden from children in the way they are here (there were beer and cigarette vending machines too). The “adult” items were generally mixed in with everything else. One of the shops was a gun store which confused me until Jenn explained that they were all models, not real guns. They looked real to me. There were swords too, and I’m pretty sure those were real.

We stepped into a video game arcade that was four or five stories tall. I wasn’t interested in playing so much as just seeing what it was like in there. Every floor was unbelievably crowded. Smoking was allowed and the rooms had that haze in the air. Various ashtrays adorned the games with people staring at their screens with intense focus, pausing for the occasional puff. There was one floor entirely dedicated to a single game called Milky Blood. The room had easily forty units set up and every single one was taken. Many of them had lines of three or four people waiting. I watched over someone’s shoulder and decided I wasn’t going to bother trying. All of the machines were linked together and the players were fighting each other in a massive free for all battle royale involving samurai, kung-fu fighters and giant robots. And it was all in Japanese. I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

While I was in Tokyo I first experienced the thing I am most thankful for. I am a white guy from California and before Japan I had never experienced being a minority. Suddenly I was in a place where nobody looked like me or talked like me. I couldn’t read signs or newspapers or train maps. I wasn’t familiar with the customs and was constantly worried about acting inappropriately. I found myself closely observing other people doing things like making purchases or climbing steps so that I could copy their behavior. I was very aware of the fact that I was the anomaly. Even though I consider myself an open minded person, it was an incredibly humbling and sobering experience. I’m comfortable with the fact that the world is very large and I am very small but this experience gave me new perspective on just how big the world is and how miniscule I am. This is not a bad thing, quite the contrary. I want to have as clear a perspective as I can regarding the world and my place in it and I am grateful for the chance to briefly see things through the eyes of the minority. And getting a glimpse of just how large the world is has made me want to see more of it.

We may have started in Tokyo but our vacation involved a lot of travel. We had purchased Japan Rail Passes for the week, meaning that we could ride any train that was part of the JR line, which includes the Shinkansen bullet trains. The Shinkansen reaches speeds of 150mph and it’s smoother than a BART train. Being inside didn’t feel odd, it just felt like a smooth train, but looking out the window was disorienting at first because my body didn’t feel like it was going as fast as my eyes told me it was. I spent hours staring out the windows at the endless scenery. The three things that I remember most were houses, power stations, and rice paddies. Our destination was Osaka and I’ll save that for next time.