Update without pictures. Haven't updated for a few days, so I'm going to break this post up into a couple of backdated posts - one per day. By the way, these posts will have to be pictureless until I'm able to upload my pictures.
Saturday
Last night, I went with a coworker from NYC and one here out for dinner. Went to another restaurant in Shibuya, just various Japanese foods. On the recommendation of a friend, I tried out I guess what can be called a Japanese omelette. i can't remember the name for it, but it was pretty good. The rest of the night was unexciting, as I was getting a cold and just stayed in the rest of the night, planning out the next day, which would be a trip to Kyoto.
Met up with my dad's high school friend today, whom I will heretofore refer to as my uncle for the sake of simplicity. We met at Shinagawa, which is a major train station in Tokyo to hop onto the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) for Kyoto. Kyoto, of course, is the ancient capital of Japan, having been its capital for just over one millenium before the capital was moved to Tokyo. There are tons of trains - I figured the shinkansen would only be scheduled for like once an hour, but there are like 4-5 per hour, just in the direction we were going. So, scheduling one was no problem.
We got unreserved seats, which means we were confined to only 3 cars of the train. The first one we walked into, we didn't realized, was the smoking car. Well, I mean, we realized once we walked in and saw that the entire car was just covered in this haze. I immediately thought - "crap... the unreserved seats are smoking cars...". Luckily, I was wrong. The other two were non-smoking.
As we sat down, I noticed that, despite their politeness (or at least show of politeness), the Japanese are no different when it comes to riding public transportation. Preferably - you don't sit next to them. So, before the Shinogawa stop, this train starts off at Tokyo Station, so this is where most people get on, meaning there were already lots of people on the train. Many people had a bag in the empty seat next to them, and would give that reluctant look when someone would ask to sit down in that seat. You know the look - you've given it. Well, at least, I have.
So the train didn't SEEM that fast. That is, when looking out the window, it didn't seem like we were whizzing by everything ridiculously fast. It took us 2.5 hours or so to go from Tokyo to Kyoto, so, whatever distance between the two divide by 2.5 - yep, that's how fast we were going. I have no idea what the distance is. I did, however, notice a pressure change when the train was moving - I had to continuously keep popping my ears - perhaps pressure change due to the speed?
Interesting cultural note on the train. Whenever a train employee enters or leaves a car on on the train, he/she bows to the passengers. So when a conductor comes in to check tickets, or just to walk through the cabin, or when a snack salesperson pushes in a snack cart, they have to stop and bow, and then continue. When leaving, they turn around, so that they're facing the passengers and bow. This is despite the fact that, likely, no one is looking at them.
Upon arrival in Kyoto, it's already past 2, so we grab city bus passes. Now, I'd heard about the one-day city bus pass as well as the bus + subway pass. I asked to buy the bus+subway one, but the information agent told me that, with what I can get done before the end of the day, it's simply not worth the extra money. How nice of her.
We take the bus and head over to Ryoan Temple, home of a rock garden. The lands are really nicely kept, and the building itself is nice, but the rock garden. I mean, it's actually just a rock garden. Call me uncultured, but it was like 4 large rocks sitting in a raked garden of pebbles.
Not re
ally that exciting. There were like 30 tourists sitting on the ledge staring out at it 
though. Maybe they were wondering what it was all about, too. Next came Kinkakujin (Gold Temple). I think I mispelled the name, but I'm too tired to check right now. Anyway, the grounds here were nice, as well, and the temple had gold leaves on its top two floors. The temple is on the lake and inaccesible to visitors, so viewing it from the shore had to do. It was really nice though.
Next came a really long bus ride to the other end of town as we tried to make one more temple before it closed. In the end, we were going to miss it, so we decided to wander around the main shopping and eating area of town.
But, the bus ride was rather entertaining as well. What I have noticed here in Japan, is that people don't actually give up their seats to the elderly any more than we do back home. So, as I was sitting on the bus, an old (~70s) lady got on the full bus, so I offered her my seat. She was profusely thanking me, I think. She said a lot of stuff and all I could pull out of it was "arigato". Later on during the ride, when a seat in front of her opened up, she started telling me something, and pointing at the seat, which was a single seat perched on top of the wheel well, which I interpreted to mean, take that seat. I didn't really have a problem standing up, but I sat down anyway. Then, the seat next to her opened up, and she started saying something to me again, motioning at the newly vacant seat. I, of course, can't say anything close to, "no thanks" in Japanese, so, to avoid being rude, I take the seat next to her. She starts talking to me, so I finally get my chance to say my favorite Japanese phrase "Nihongo go wakurmasen" -- "I don't understand Japanese", at which point she stops talking to me. Sure, I feel a little bad, but, if she kept on going all I would be able to do is nod. So when we get to her stop, she thanks me again and gets off the bus. I think she was actually a crazy lady. She kind of shoved her way through to the front of the bus (in Kyoto, you board in the back and pay and exit in the front) with people kind of looking at her weird.
We walked through a bunch of shops in the main shopping district there. It had a lot of stores featuring traditional Japanese crafts and snacks. I think other Japanese come to visit Kyoto for its historical value, so the local trade is built aroundn that. We ended up at the basement floor of a mall. Most malls here have a food court of sorts in their basement. The term "food court" is misleading, because it really looks more like the fragrance or watch section of an American mall, but instead, people are selling food. This is anything from high priced cookies and neat looking snacks, to sushi, tempura, fresh fish, Chinese food, etc.
My uncle is apparently aware of the fact that, at the end of the day, the sushi sellers will enact deep price cuts to sell off any remaining sushi by the end of the day, as it doesn't keep for the next day. We happened to be there at around 7, just when they started going around and adding "50%" stickers on the sushi boxes. We fought through the crowds and grabbed a few boxes to eat on the train. I'll add some pictures here for sure. More sushi than I could eat!
Tired from the day, I pretty much went straight to the hotel I would be staying at that night. Of course, I only had shoddy cartoon maps of the area that I found on the hotel's website. It didn't have the names of the street in Japanese, so I couldn't really match it against the street signs. Which, by the way, I still can't find. i don't know if not all streets are marked, or if I just can't find where they put them. Anyway, after just one stop into a convenience store to check the street I was on, I made it to the hotel, where I was told I had been upgraded to a larger room. I'll add the video here so you can see what the "larger" room looks like.
I kept thinking about heading over to a bar in "nearby" Roppongi (probably 15-20 minute walk) to see if this one sports bar I found listed would be showing the Cal/Oregon game. Considering it was going to start at 4am local time, and I was already tired by 2am, I decided against it. I did however, have several dreams about the game. The first dream had Oregon winning; the second dream had Cal winning but Justin Forsett got injured. And, I think, in dream number 3, Cal won. I'm glad dream #3 was the one that came true!
Coming soon - pictures to match the descriptions, as well as an account of the next day (more sushi) and a night in a capsule hotel...
Saturday
Last night, I went with a coworker from NYC and one here out for dinner. Went to another restaurant in Shibuya, just various Japanese foods. On the recommendation of a friend, I tried out I guess what can be called a Japanese omelette. i can't remember the name for it, but it was pretty good. The rest of the night was unexciting, as I was getting a cold and just stayed in the rest of the night, planning out the next day, which would be a trip to Kyoto.
Met up with my dad's high school friend today, whom I will heretofore refer to as my uncle for the sake of simplicity. We met at Shinagawa, which is a major train station in Tokyo to hop onto the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) for Kyoto. Kyoto, of course, is the ancient capital of Japan, having been its capital for just over one millenium before the capital was moved to Tokyo. There are tons of trains - I figured the shinkansen would only be scheduled for like once an hour, but there are like 4-5 per hour, just in the direction we were going. So, scheduling one was no problem.
We got unreserved seats, which means we were confined to only 3 cars of the train. The first one we walked into, we didn't realized, was the smoking car. Well, I mean, we realized once we walked in and saw that the entire car was just covered in this haze. I immediately thought - "crap... the unreserved seats are smoking cars...". Luckily, I was wrong. The other two were non-smoking.
As we sat down, I noticed that, despite their politeness (or at least show of politeness), the Japanese are no different when it comes to riding public transportation. Preferably - you don't sit next to them. So, before the Shinogawa stop, this train starts off at Tokyo Station, so this is where most people get on, meaning there were already lots of people on the train. Many people had a bag in the empty seat next to them, and would give that reluctant look when someone would ask to sit down in that seat. You know the look - you've given it. Well, at least, I have.
So the train didn't SEEM that fast. That is, when looking out the window, it didn't seem like we were whizzing by everything ridiculously fast. It took us 2.5 hours or so to go from Tokyo to Kyoto, so, whatever distance between the two divide by 2.5 - yep, that's how fast we were going. I have no idea what the distance is. I did, however, notice a pressure change when the train was moving - I had to continuously keep popping my ears - perhaps pressure change due to the speed?
Interesting cultural note on the train. Whenever a train employee enters or leaves a car on on the train, he/she bows to the passengers. So when a conductor comes in to check tickets, or just to walk through the cabin, or when a snack salesperson pushes in a snack cart, they have to stop and bow, and then continue. When leaving, they turn around, so that they're facing the passengers and bow. This is despite the fact that, likely, no one is looking at them.
Upon arrival in Kyoto, it's already past 2, so we grab city bus passes. Now, I'd heard about the one-day city bus pass as well as the bus + subway pass. I asked to buy the bus+subway one, but the information agent told me that, with what I can get done before the end of the day, it's simply not worth the extra money. How nice of her.
We take the bus and head over to Ryoan Temple, home of a rock garden. The lands are really nicely kept, and the building itself is nice, but the rock garden. I mean, it's actually just a rock garden. Call me uncultured, but it was like 4 large rocks sitting in a raked garden of pebbles.
Not re
ally that exciting. There were like 30 tourists sitting on the ledge staring out at it 
though. Maybe they were wondering what it was all about, too. Next came Kinkakujin (Gold Temple). I think I mispelled the name, but I'm too tired to check right now. Anyway, the grounds here were nice, as well, and the temple had gold leaves on its top two floors. The temple is on the lake and inaccesible to visitors, so viewing it from the shore had to do. It was really nice though.Next came a really long bus ride to the other end of town as we tried to make one more temple before it closed. In the end, we were going to miss it, so we decided to wander around the main shopping and eating area of town.
But, the bus ride was rather entertaining as well. What I have noticed here in Japan, is that people don't actually give up their seats to the elderly any more than we do back home. So, as I was sitting on the bus, an old (~70s) lady got on the full bus, so I offered her my seat. She was profusely thanking me, I think. She said a lot of stuff and all I could pull out of it was "arigato". Later on during the ride, when a seat in front of her opened up, she started telling me something, and pointing at the seat, which was a single seat perched on top of the wheel well, which I interpreted to mean, take that seat. I didn't really have a problem standing up, but I sat down anyway. Then, the seat next to her opened up, and she started saying something to me again, motioning at the newly vacant seat. I, of course, can't say anything close to, "no thanks" in Japanese, so, to avoid being rude, I take the seat next to her. She starts talking to me, so I finally get my chance to say my favorite Japanese phrase "Nihongo go wakurmasen" -- "I don't understand Japanese", at which point she stops talking to me. Sure, I feel a little bad, but, if she kept on going all I would be able to do is nod. So when we get to her stop, she thanks me again and gets off the bus. I think she was actually a crazy lady. She kind of shoved her way through to the front of the bus (in Kyoto, you board in the back and pay and exit in the front) with people kind of looking at her weird.
We walked through a bunch of shops in the main shopping district there. It had a lot of stores featuring traditional Japanese crafts and snacks. I think other Japanese come to visit Kyoto for its historical value, so the local trade is built aroundn that. We ended up at the basement floor of a mall. Most malls here have a food court of sorts in their basement. The term "food court" is misleading, because it really looks more like the fragrance or watch section of an American mall, but instead, people are selling food. This is anything from high priced cookies and neat looking snacks, to sushi, tempura, fresh fish, Chinese food, etc.
My uncle is apparently aware of the fact that, at the end of the day, the sushi sellers will enact deep price cuts to sell off any remaining sushi by the end of the day, as it doesn't keep for the next day. We happened to be there at around 7, just when they started going around and adding "50%" stickers on the sushi boxes. We fought through the crowds and grabbed a few boxes to eat on the train. I'll add some pictures here for sure. More sushi than I could eat!
Tired from the day, I pretty much went straight to the hotel I would be staying at that night. Of course, I only had shoddy cartoon maps of the area that I found on the hotel's website. It didn't have the names of the street in Japanese, so I couldn't really match it against the street signs. Which, by the way, I still can't find. i don't know if not all streets are marked, or if I just can't find where they put them. Anyway, after just one stop into a convenience store to check the street I was on, I made it to the hotel, where I was told I had been upgraded to a larger room. I'll add the video here so you can see what the "larger" room looks like.
I kept thinking about heading over to a bar in "nearby" Roppongi (probably 15-20 minute walk) to see if this one sports bar I found listed would be showing the Cal/Oregon game. Considering it was going to start at 4am local time, and I was already tired by 2am, I decided against it. I did however, have several dreams about the game. The first dream had Oregon winning; the second dream had Cal winning but Justin Forsett got injured. And, I think, in dream number 3, Cal won. I'm glad dream #3 was the one that came true!
Coming soon - pictures to match the descriptions, as well as an account of the next day (more sushi) and a night in a capsule hotel...
posted by Jon @ 11:00 PM
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