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Published: August 6th 2007
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LA CARTE POSTALE
Le Japon: un pays magnifique! Les temples, les jardins, les arts… Tout est dans la finesse. Même chose concernant ses habitants. Les Japonais sont plein d’égard, de gentillesse et de politesse. Le respect des autres avant tout. Serait-ce la société idéale? Aux yeux de la touriste que je suis, oui… mais la perfection existe-t-elle vraiment?
Notre avons partagé notre séjour entre Tokyo et Kyoto, avec un saut jusqu'à Nara et Osaka. Seule critique: c'était trop court…
THE DISCUSSION
All night Manga cafes, fish markets with huge frozen tuna carcasses, public baths with electrified waters, kilometres of Shinto worship gates... Japan seemed a world unto itself.
Tokyo was all we might have expected and more. We arrived at Tokyo Narita airport (where Ice Cube and the late Eazy-E have an airline) and sat gazing in wonder at the Kanji signs on the metro and in our guide book while listening intently to the station announcements trying to avoid getting lost with a translation.
Looking over the map of Tokyo doesn't give you the right impression. We discovered in a few days that it's really a city made up of a whole heap of cities. As you
On arrival at Tokyo Narita...
..we found that Eazy E is back from the dead and is running an airline with Dre and Ice Cube exit the subway, from Asakusa to Shinjuka, to Ueno, to Roppongi, to Harajuka, to Ebisu you're greeted by yet another mass of department stores, or parks or markets for food or clothes or bars, clubs, temples and restaurants.
The parts of town we did take in availed us of Japanese paintings featuring Koi carp, dragons, Samurai and Mount Fuji, pickled vegetables of every colour for every palette, imposing buildings of Japanese high finance, the latest Sony technology (with musical stairs), errant cyclists young and old, vending machines selling beer, wine or a quick divorce and the universal devotion of people to mobile phone games.
Strangely, even though in certain parts of town the popular images of Japan are brought to life (think thousands of shoppers and workers criss-crossing neon-lit intersections and free for alls when people board the subway where the usual Japanese reserve is forgotten), there is still a sense of calm and relaxation amongst the merry-go-round. Perhaps it was that even in the middle of the flashiest neon-lit bar streets and biggest malls, you can walk around the corner and find a shrine, where you need to take your shoes off. There's order in the chaos...
All the room in the world
Notre chambre double de 1 mètre x 2 mètres. More than once we saw people whose makeshift homes were cardboard boxes, with their shoes neatly lined up outside of their makeshift shelters. Order among chaos but we were only there for 10 days... Maybe the disorder was just around a corner we didn't turn?
The bright lights of the city of cities were dazzling: the hostess bars, the Japanese only bars, the Irish bars. The pop star looky-likey guys, the chic as hell working women, the school kids dressed as sailors, the plastic models of every conceivable dish in restaurant windows, the fruits presented with obsessive precision, the cakes and sweets with the fanciest packaging, the warm toilet seats with sound-masking and jet wash and dry functions.
After only 3 days we took the Shinkansen (bullet) train to Kyoto to get a glimpse of old Japan (and to make sure we got our money's worth from our Rail Passes). It's fast and clean and train food Japanese style is more than a soggy egg mayonnaise triangle.
In Kyoto, to celebrate the coming of spring, signalled by the blossoming of cherry and plum trees, the parks are inundated with revellers armed with beer, wine and sake for
day long hanami (cherry blossom) parties. This revellery is aided by jokers in crocodile or flower costumes, sometimes with their asses out and entertainers juggling knives and balancing crockery on their heads.
In the same park in Kyoto, we also found a load of temples (Buddist or Shinto? We can't remember) and backing on to that, a cluster of streets with buildings constructed in old Japanese style: all wood panels, bamboo and paper walls etc... a fireman's worst nightmare. Inside these fire flower buildings, as they were known, you could find the odd restaurant that catered for us, the great unwashed, but we understood they were mainly for the use of the Geisha (or Geikos) and their patrons. Not straight up ladies of ill repute, you understand, but women trained in the art of entertaining: tea making, dance, games etc... All the things a man likes to do with a woman for the price of a new kimono now and again.
Kyoto (like Tokyo) also boasted untold shopping opportunities: more Japanese pickles, fresh fish, expensive hand made cakes and sweets, hand woven rugs, curtains, hand painted scrolls for hanging, semi-precious stones, comics, Hello Kitty stuff and all sorts
of Japan-centric odds and sods. More shopping than you could feasibly do in a lifetime, never mind a few days. There was also night time temple viewing, all you can drink karaoke with fully texted Doggpound cussing and fancy local eateries.
The sentos (public baths) we'd read so much about are scattered all over Kyoto, and there were at least six within 5-10 minutes of our hostel. Soaking up the Japan thing, as well as fatigue from walking around town for hours, meant we had to try it at least once, but Nathalie decided at the last minute that there was a perfectly good shower at the hostel that would do the job. So there I was looking at the two unrecognisable signs denoting men or women, not knowing which was which, knowing behind either door might be naked men or naked women. In a sense choosing wrong would‘ve been a good tale to tell the grand-kids and I chose well: I saved myself the embarrassment and time in a Japanese police cell. Inside was a communal changing area where you dump your clothes into a basket and where a woman gives you a bowl and a bar of
soap. Through some steamed up sliding glass door was a wet area with a dozen knee high taps (for washing) before you get in a series of hot water pools: one pink and fragrant, one bubbling with jets for your feet and lower back, one ice cold (for clearing the lightheadness created when you've par-boiled yourself) and one electrified, which I could not get into completely as my arms began spasming if I tried to submerge myself above my chest: scary really, as getting out of the pool would have been impossible with arms as well as legs immobilised.
After about 40 minutes I'd washed thoroughly 3 times and dunked myself several times in each pool, observed by an inquisitive 8 year old, who talked to me in Japanese for the duration, some old men, the lady with the bowls and soap and a couple of yakusa with their tattoo body suits. I was relaxed but the overriding feeling was of having soaked, scrubbed and rinsed every ounce of dirt, grime and dust into oblivion. I was literally squeaking. It was a publicly accessible therapy for men, women, children and obsessives alike.
The Shinto shrine of Fushimi-inari is
made of untold shrines that punctuate a 3km path up a hill. The "way" is denoted by hundreds if not thousands of Shinto Torii (orange gate things). These were originally installed by monks and inscribed with prayers but are now sponsored by any “Hiroko” public as a tribute. The good walk up the hill was made interesting, if not actually spiritual, by the weirdness of the millions of orange gates and statues of foxes. Also you get a good view of Kyoto from a mirador near the top.
As part of our plan to rinse our Shinkansen rail pass fully, we made a day trip to Nara to see some of the “best temples in the Kansai region”. Here there were temples just off the main road, more at the end and even more spread around a huge park. With untold kids on school trips, we wandered through giant ceremonial gates, to temples with giant Buddahs. The number, scale and majesty of the series is impressive and we learned a little about the history, though after around 3 hours tramping around the temple fatigue was back again and we called it a day... Almost. As we were near-ish Osaka
we jumped on the bullet to check out the nightlife there, but when we arrived it was pissing down and we didn't get any further than wandering the so-called Bladerunner-like neon lit streets of Osaka before Japan Railing our tired asses back to Kyoto.
One more night in Tokyo found us half sleeping in a manga internet cafe (it's for the neo-homeless or urban ravers who've missed the last train) in preparation for our flight to the P.R. of C. We'll have to come back... Konichiwa!
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Siddle
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great stuff
Onsen's are weird...but you're right, i've never felt so clean after being at one! always good to hear about your travels, hope China is treating you well!