Whale Whatching in Japan

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Japan is very very cool even without having the contrast of China, so for us, it is paradise. We got off the plane, sailed through customs, and just as planned Beth's friend Tandy was there to meet us. She is a pilot so can get all sorts of free flights so she came out to come travel with us for a week. We easily caught our train into town and then when we were dropped into the tangled web they call a subway system and we were looking really lost within 5 minutes two different people came up to us offering help. That is when Beth and I knew finally we were safely outside of the red monster. We got to our hotel, I bought a beer from a vending machine, and then we basically crashed. It was late and we had a long day ahead of us. We actually had a busy two weeks planned. Below is the intinerary we actually followed.

Jan 16 Arrive Tokyo

Jan 18 Train to Takayama

Jan 19 Train to Kyoto

Jan 22 Train to Nara

Jan 23 Tandy Headed back to the States and trained to Hiroshima

Jan 24 Day trip to Miyajima then late night train to Osaka

Jan 25 Day trip to Himeji Castle and the day we bought the PSP

Jan 26 Back to Tokyo

Jan 27 All day at Disney Sea

Jan 28 Day trip to Nikko

Jan 29 All day at Tokyo Disneyland

Jan 29 - Feb 1 Staying at the super posh Westin (thanks Angella and Todd)

Jan 30 - Spent the day with a portion of the Bilodeau clan

Feb 1 - Caught our flight to Delhi

Our first full day in Tokyo was spent wandering around Shibuya. I think my favorite moment during our wanderings around this shopping distric in the rain and cold was the moment I found the vending machine that sold Dr. Pepper. It may have been freezing but I'll be damned if I was going to let that get in the way of enjoying my favorite ice cold soda out of a can. I never dreamed I would have Dr. Pepper until I got back to the States but Japan came through for me repeatedly. That day, we also hit up the major art museum which had loads of cool stuff. They had a wide variety of samuri swords dating back to something like the 9th century. There were kimonos of all different colors and designs, paintings, samuri gear, sculpture and whatever other piece of Japanese art you can think of. It was all well and good but really the whole day was just a dull prelude to main event, the meet up with the one the only, the Whale.

For those of you that don't know, Patou has been a friend of mine since we cheated on spelling tests together in 1st grade. Since then he has learned to spell (those of you reading the blog surely reelise I haven't), and among other things become famos in Thailand and now works on the Tokyo stock exchange. We all knew he would end up in Japan eventually. We met up at some super nice bar on the 33rd floor of a hotel and after drinks headed over to a tiny yet apparently laudable sumo food restraunt in Ginza. There we stuffed our faces with delicious sushi and a bunch of other stuff cooked in a big pot that is supposed to help sumo wrestlers gain weight. I have to say though that the snail appetizer tasted like what I would imagine cat food tastes like. Dinner was followed by a couple more beers in Roppongi, near our hotel, and around 1am we parted ways with Patou looking forward to a very solid 3 hours of sleep. It was wednesday night after all. That wasn't the last we would see of him though.

The next day we were off to Takayama on the suggestion of a very nice, I believe French, couple I met on Khao San Road in Bangkok as things were going crazy on New Years. They wrote a whole list of places for us to go see. Nikko was another one that we made it to. Takayama is a small town up in the mountains and there was snow everywhere. We stayed in a ryokan which is a more traditional Japanese accomodation. You take your shoes off at the entrace in exchange for slippers. The slippers, you remove when you enter your room that is just tatami mats with small futons on the ground. These are the places with the sliding paper doors. It was so cool. Oh, and when you go to the bathroom you switch your slippers for the bathroom slippers. So there is a lot of shoe changing but you get used to it. The main sight in Takayama was a collection of old houses, more like cabins, from the 16th cent to 18th cent I think, taken from around Japan and set up in a little village to illustrate different styles of architecture. The snow covering gave the place a magical feel. Oh and I can't forget to metion that Takayama was also the place the I introduced Tandy and Beth to shabu shabu. I love sushi but shabu shabu makes sushi look like mcdonalds. They bring out insanely thinly sliced high quality beef and you cook it briefly in the boiling water with the vegtable and noodles then dip it in the sesame sauce. Oh man my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

We only spent one night in Takayama and then we headed on to Kyoto. I should mention that we were taking the Shinkansen bullet train between the main towns. It was so fast, so smooth, and so quiet. So different from trains in China. We bought Japan Rail Passes before we got to Japan which allow for unlimited travel on the main train system for 7, 14, or 21 days. The 14 day passes cost $450 which is a lot but that is the same cost a train to and from Osaka from Tokyo and we did a lot more than that. Plus it makes buying tickets and getting through the train stations a breeze. I highly reccomend it for anyone going to Japan.

We stayed three nights in Kyoto at another ryokan. Kyoto was terrific. We spent two full days going all over to the myriad temples and shrines, walking various districts, and just trying to soak it all in. One minute you are walking around in the relative quiet of a Buddhist shrine with 1000 life size wooden Buddhas and then next you are in the bustling downtown of yet another Japanese metropolis. We spent one evening, after gorging ourselves on sushi, wandering around Gion trying to spot a geisha. Our search was in vane and eventually we gave up and went for frozen yogurt. After dessert we decided to walk home. I bought a beer at 7-11 and drank it as we walked home just cause I could. As we were walking we finally came upon a geisha. She was proably in her forties although with asian women you never know, she could have been 70. She was execptionally made up, her kimono was made of a silk that glowed, her hair was perfect, and her movements lithe.

We saw so many temples it is hard to even remember them all and we only scratched the surface. The Golden Palace was an obvious highlight, as was the rock garden place. The Shogun Palace in the center of town was really cool. The rooms were massive with high cielings and the coolest feature of all, nightengale floors. What is that you ask? Well since the shogun can't have anyone sneaking up on him all the floors make noise when you walk on them. Squeaking is the wrong word to describe the sound. It is more like a bird's song, hence the name. And try as we might we couldn't get more than three steps or so without making them sound. I couldn't even go one but of course I weight twice as much as the average citizen there.

Our next stop after Kyoto was Nara, home of the famous (or infamos if you ask Beth's brother) bowing deer of Nara. When we were there none of the deer had antlers and maybe it was just the season or maybe they were clipped, not sure. Either way they were ferocious none the less. Actually ravenous is probably the better term. As soon as Beth and Tandy bought the deer snacks they were surrounded. Oh and these deer are not the patient animals one would expect from Zen nation. No they were biting and crowding and chasing. It was hilarious to watch two grown women run away from a bunch of harmless deer. After playing with the deer we headed over to the largest wooden structure in the world. It houses an enormous Buddha statue. Enough said. Nara was a pretty low key place. Our ryokan was super nice but we had to be out of the room from 10 till 4 and curfew was midnight. Just like being in elementary school again. We pushed the curfew to the limit though like good teenagers by staying out at a place that advertised "Black Music and Bourbon". We were the only ones in the mildew smelling place but it's amazing how a few rounds of sake will clear up just about any stench. So no bourbon for us but Tandy made sure we got our black music by first asking the japanese bartender who his favorite artist was. Upon hearing Otis Redding, I believe, as the response she instead opted for Mariah Carey, the Butterfly cd. I think I was the only person more thrilled than the bartender.


The next day Beth and I parted ways from our temporary travel partner as she escaped to the paradise on the other side of the big blue sea, home. Alone once again, Beth and headed off to Hiroshima. We arrived in the afternoon with just enough time to grab some Mexican food (I had excellent enchilladas and Beth's nachos with avocado were terrific) and then head over to the Memorial Museum, very near ground zero. I had no idea going in what a powerful exhibit this was. It costs $1 to get in and it is by far the most moving thing I have seen on this entire trip. I wish everyone could go. The writing throughout the museum in never in a blaming tone. It is just there to show the reality of what the bomb did and thereby clearly demonstrate that it should never be used again. There is a portion of the museum that gets quite graphic but it is done in a way not just to arose shock factor but to illustrate just how terrible it really was. You just don't think about all the effects after the initial 400,000 dying. There are then all the people exposed to the radiation who live the rest of their lives diseased. Then there were all the children still in their mothers wombs that were seriously effected. Many of these people are alive and still suffering today. The effects are just beyond comprehension. I admit that I was never aware or never really thought about just how bad it was. If you go to Japan this is the one thing you must see.


On a more postive note we did finally get to use some real computer with some real internet connections. Actually the connections as the internet cafe/ comic book reading place put our cable modems back home to shame. I uploaded so many pictures so fast. It was awesome. It was also hilarious that for the entire couple hours we were there, the japanese teen next to Beth was looking at images of anime girls peeing. I'm not joking. I couldn't make something like that up. Oh, I just remember that after that slightly disgusting but mostly hilarious encounter we had one of the best meals of my life, all you can eat shabu shabu. The only thing was we got there kind of late so we only had an hour till last order. We put it away quick though and definitly got our money's worth. We didn't however get to opt for the all you can drink option.

We only spent one night in Hiroshima and then it was off to Osaka. We arrived late the first night so the first thing we really did was our day trip to Himeji castle. It was wooden. It was the biggest castle still standing in Japan. It was cool. My only problem with it and every other Japanese historical site that you have to take your shoes off in (all of them) is that they get some larger slippers. Just one or two pair please. I don't even have that big of feet and these things only reach to my arch. I mean come on. After we got back from the castle though was when one of the greatest things of our entire trip happened. We had been talking about it a little now and then but it was in Hiroshima that Beth finally came through with the flawless argument that allowed us to go through with it in Osaka. The argument is as follows: I love playing video games so when else in my life am I going to be able to spend a lot of time playing them besides this trip? You know probably even less than I did when I was working at Hitco which was practically never. So what did we do? We bought a PSP of course and oh my god it is so awesome. We got Tony Hawk Project 8 (the one Beth's bro did level design for) and Tomb Raider. We still haven't played Tomb Raider at all. THP8 is soooo good.

Before heading back to Tokyo, Beth and I took the opportunity to check out the Osaka Aquarium. It has the largest saltwater tank in the world or something. It was really cool. My favorite display was the deep sea crabs. My pictures of them didn't turn out so well but they look so alien. It is hard to believe they are from this planet. The same goes for the jellyfish. They had a ton of them, including the ones with the bioluminecence. By far the ugliest fish I have ever seen was the sun fish. Sorry the picture is blurry but we weren't allowed to use the flash and I had to free hand it. You can't see the face well but if you can imagine what a sad and dejected fish face would look like you've got it. The main attraction was a whale shark but the one they had was puney and not the 15 meter giant I was expecting. After the aquarium we once again hopped on the Shinkansen and we wisked away to Tokyo.

You can split our last few days in Tokyo into three catagories: Disney visits, Nikko, and family visit. There was of course also a peppering of outings with Patou in there. Disney was awesome. We meant to spend one day there but there are two parks and once we were in DisneySea we realized it deserved a full day unto itself. There were so many rides there I had never been on. Journey to the Center of the Earth was the best but the crazy rollercoast with a flip was pretty good too. The big surprise though were the live shows. They did one called Mystic Rhythms that had tons of crazy dancing, singing, and music as well as a high dollar ever changing set. The other one we saw was a big band jazz song and dance spectacular. The white male vocal nailed the Frank Sinatra voice and the band was great. Disneyland was far less entertaining. First off, it was freezing cold and like always we were just not prepared for it. Then second, and far worse, was that both Pirates of the Carribean and Space Mountain were closed. How weak is that? Before I move on I can't forget to mention one detail about the snackcarts. As in Disneyland back home there are popcorn carts. The difference there is that they don't do buttered and salted popcorn. Nope, instead they have coconut popcorn which we tried and it was delicious. They also have chocolate which we didn't get to try unfortunatly. Those flavors seem normal enough but then they venture into the bizzare. For example, soda flavor (I don't even know what that means), black pepper, and yes curry.

On Sunday we took our day trip to Nikko. It was just about two hours of trains north of Tokyo which puts you more up toward the mountains and into oh yes, a colder environment. It wasn't that bad though. There they have a whole slew of temples built back in the day by the most powerful family just to show how wealthy and powerful they were. A lot of people consider the decoration of the structures gaudy and basically just overdone but howelse to better show just how much excess money you have. The location however was the real stunning part of the whole setup. All the structures are nestled up in the hills amongst giant cedar trees. Besides just seeing some more cool Japanese temples we did have the unique experience of getting to hear a dragon's roar. In one of the rooms of one of the shrines there is a giant dragon painted on the ceiling and as a monk demonstrated, when you hit two clave type sticks together, the sharp piercing sound creates a strange echo that seems to reverberate through your skull. That is supposed to be the sound of a dragon's roar.

We met up with Patou one night with the intention of taking him out for his first shabu shabu meal. We were happy that we could expose him to a bit a Japanese culture backpacker style finding the restraunt with our Lonely Planet. Of course, as happens quite often the restraunt listed in the book has since gone out of business. So there we were hungry wandering around crazy Shinjuku trying to find a place to eat. If you don't know about Shinjuku it is basically just an enormous shopping mecca with more lights and people than you can imagine. After a bit of wandering we found ourselves in a grungier area with plenty of umm we'll just call them dvd stores with pink neon lights everywhere. It was here that we passed the korean bbq place and we figured hey whatever let's do it. Of course it wasn't until after we ordered beers that we realized that they didn't serve any normal meat. Nope, instead they offered such enticing choices a rectum and uterus sashimi. I'm not joking. I took a picture of the menu. We bailed immediatly. Soon after we found a high class shabu shabu place and although it wasn't all you can eat it was still incredible and I can proudly say I think we got Patou hooked.

On our second to last day we got to meet up with a portion the Bilodeau clan. Todd and Angella (Angella being Beth's Dad's brother Dave's daugther) got us the lovely wedding gift of a couple nights at the very nice Tokyo Westin. It was an excellent change from the standard hostelling that we had been doing up to that point. It is just hard to beat room service and no curfew. Anyway, while we were staying there Todd and Angella were actually visiting Tokyo with the rest of the family for a prior family arragement and it just happened that we were in town at the same time so they put together a surprise meeting where the rest of the Bilodeau's thought they missed us but instead there we were. We mostly spent the day just wandering around Tokyo, buying some clothes here and some noodles there. It was a really nice change for Beth and I to not have to organize anything and to just be lead around at the whims of others. As always it was nice to see some familiar faces and get to interact with some other people. That always gives us a real recharge.

Our final full day in Tokyo was basically spent doing nothing. We had a hotel room in super nice hotel so why go anywhere else. I did make an extended trip to Tower Record to buy some cds because I finally found a way to put songs on my ipod (and be able to listen to them) from any computer, not just one with my Itunes. For those of you that understand my love of music you can understand how it is quite possibly the best thing that has happened to me since we left. That night Patou joined us once again and the three of us had drinks at the super nice bar full of businessmen and their escorts (remarkably nothing sexual, just there for conversation) on the top floor of our hotel. As we recieved our first round of beers I commented on the size of the head on my beer. This was not the first time that I had recieved a beer (standard pilsner) with a head that at least a quarter of the glass. To me that not only seems like an awful pour but also, since I am paying ten buck a beer, like a big rip off. Patou settled me down though and explained to me that is how they do it. They actually have a special head maker because you can't get head that big just with bad pouring. Even after being there for two weeks, I was only beginning to understand just how different the "J's" do things. Everyday I was there I would see a little bit more past what seems so similar to home at first to see just how weird and crazy they are. But, don't get me wrong. I loved my time there. I can't wait to go back and it is a place I can imagine going to many time throughout my life. The highlight of our time there really was getting to spend time with friend and family. It is just something we haven't gotten to do much of lately and won't get to do again for a while.

As always, more photos available at PairedHearts.com

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Photos

Check out those reflective shoes
Beth and I in front of the national museum in Tokyo. Photographer credit: Tandy

Whale Spotting
Eating sumo food with the million dollar a day stock superstar

Snowy Village
Takayama, the amazing suggestion we got on Khao San Road at New Years

Cute Couple
Xmas card for ya'll

Kyoto Temple
Thank goodness we at least left one city unbombed. The cultural relics are astounding.

Drinkin in the street
Gotta love beer vending machines

First flea market of the year
This is what it looks like to be in a Japanese crowd at a height of 6'2''

Finish Him!!!
They have statues of Raiden all over the place. He was always my favorite.

Reflections on Loving Gold
Golden Palace, Kyoto. That's real gold leaf.

The original rock garden
Not quite as exciting as watching grass grow

What a player
Francisquito and a couple hot geisha he picked up.

Zen Elephant
Francisquito contemplates "the geologic millisecond that is [his] ephemeral existence". -quote by Jahknowah

Tandy found a friend
The bowing deer of Nara are far less interested in bowing than in eating.

Largest Wooden Structure in the World
It's sole purpose is to, you guessed it, house one more giant Buddha

Zen Garden
The exceptional garden at our ryokan in Nara

Powerful Objects and Images
This bike was being ridden by a little kid when the bomb hit Hiroshima

Floating Shrine in Miyajima
It really is not connected into the ground. It just rests on the bottom under its own weight and is replaced as necessary. This is #8.

Osaka Bridge
Longest suspension bridge in the world

Himeji Castle
Is it really a castle if it's all wood?

Sun Fish
How ugly is this fish. It's wingspan is about 4 feet, maybe more.

Disney Sea
Night shot

Tokyo Fish Market
One of the less disgusting displays at this madhouse

Beth
Todd, me, Mark, Dave, Beth, Angella, Koko, and the two cousins whose names I am terrible for not remembering. Please forgive my incompetence.

Comments

[NVP]

your hair is sweet