JAPAN (part 2)
Oct. 19th, 2008 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fluffymarkWednesday morning and we were up early yet again, as we had a long long way to travel. The Ninja Hostel was nice and let us leave bags there, as we were returning later in the week, so we could dump heavy items and stuff we thought we wouldn’t need, like sun cream. At least, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Also seeming a good idea at first was a nice morning resevation on the Shinkansen leaving Tokyo station at about 9am. Of course, this meant getting to Tokyo station at 9am on a weekday, experiencing the full fury of the Tokyo morning rush hour. One good thing that can be said, is that the Japanese are obsessed with queueing for trains. The platforms have marking to tell you exactly where each numbered carriage will be, and where the doors are, and what sort of carriage it is. At every marking on the platform, an orderly queue forms away from the platform edge. It’s quite surreal to see it in action. The train arrives bang on the second, and people get off, then people get on. It all out fab in the end, and the rush hour isn’t so bad, and we find our seats on the Shinkansen ... and zoom, we’re off. The Bullet train is a joy to ride - lots of speed, lots of tilting, oodles of leg-room, polite train staff who bow everytime they enter and leave a carriage and who didn’t throw me off when I’d found out I’d lost my seat reservation (ooops!). Breakfast for me was a nice healthy packet of chocolate Pocky. Yum! The view is nice, the pacific ocean on the left, mountains on the right (sadly Mount Fuji was well hidden by clouds), and it was a joy just to gaze out of the window, watching the all the strange buildings go past at super fast high speed. We had fun counting ferris wheels - I don’t know, but the Japanese seem obsessed with Ferris wheels, and there were lots of them visible from the train. We were travelling at light-speed (Hikari Shinkansen) as our magic rail pases wouldn’t let us travel at wish-speed (Nozomi Shinkansen). Wishes are faster than light, apparently (and also faster than echo-speed). As we passed Kyoto, the clouds started giving way to blue sky. Arrived bang on time at Shin-Osaka station, where I had fun ordering lunch in Japanese from numbered menu in a kiosk (Gojuichi got me a very delicious sandwich!). By now, the sky was clear and it was turning out to be a hot day. We still had a long way to go - a subway line across Osaka to Namba, a 2 hour train ride on a private line into the mountains, and then a fun little funicular railway up the mountain to Koya-san. On the way, a friendly Japanese lady from Osaka started talking to me about all sorts of things, asking me where I’d been and suchlike, and she gave us a warning that a typhoon was about to hit Japan tomorrow. Interesting. We eventually arrived at Koya-san, hopped on a bus, which took us to Shojoshinin Temple, where we were staying for the night.
Koya-san (Mount Koya) is a mountain-top monastic retreat for buddhist monks, with dozens of ancient buddhist temples, many of which will put up pilgrims and other travellers for the night. Staying at a temple was the quintessential Japanese experience, and really quite culturally daunting, which made it a bit scary! We wandered into the grounds of Shojoshinin and through some arches and found the box we had to put our outdoor shoes in. Slid open the door and found indoor slippers, put those on. We were spotted by one of the ladies managing the place, who ushered us into a room to check-in, only we had to take the slippers off again. Shoe-etiquette rules supreme here. Slippers were only for the corridors, not the rooms, so confusing, and very hard to walk in too! There were other different shoes to use for toilet cubicles which does makes sense in a way (and they even had special urinal shoes in the gents). Inside the rooms no shoes, just socks allowed on tatami mats. It did mean one has to change shoes twice just to go to the toilet (and twice again on the way back). The room was nice and sizable, covered with several tatami mats. All the doors were sliding screens - no hinges, no locks - and had to be slid to just the right positions to close otherwise there would be a gap. Beds are made up on the floor. There was a window (with sliding covers - everything slides here!). Also a low table with cushions around, green tea with a kettle and teapot, unidentified sweets, and a box full of strange items of clothing, we worked it out to be some kind of yukata (traditional bath-robe), with an additional wool jacket for warmth. It all seemed very alien, but very lovely. :)
We headed out to Okunoin, which turned out to be right on the doorstep of Shojoshinin Temple. Okunoin is the temple where Kobo Daishi (Kukai), the founder of Shingon Buddhism and one of the most revered persons in the religious history of Japan, rests in eternal meditation in his grave, apparently. It is considered one of the most sacred places in Japan and is surrounded by Japan’s largest graveyard, which is why we were there. How Goth are we? The graveyard is simply huge and over 2km across, set in an attractive forest, full of millions of ancient and more modern gravestones, shrines, monuments, statues of Buddha and other obscure alien monuments. We got almost lost wandering up and down forest pathways between gravestones, taking way too many photos. We hurried back to our temple in time for the set dinnertime, where we were called into a large room full of small tables with the food all set out. So we knelt down by our table, picked up the chopsticks and examined our dinner. Buddhist monks are all vegetarian and also don’t eat garlic or onions (to avoid any lustful thoughts, apparently), and the food all obeyed this restriction, which pleased Jodi especially. There was hot soup and green tea and the food was yummy (although I was craving proper sushi, it must be said). After dinner, we felt adventurous enough to change into the yukata and try out the temple onsen (hot bath). Sadly, these were separated by gender (due to nakedness!) but were very relaxing and very hot! It was cold now, being dark outside and on top of a mountain, so the hot bath was especially nice. We then ventured outside again in the cold back to the Okunoin graveyard. This was very different by night, the lanterns along the pathways were lit, and it was much more spooky and enchanting and very pretty indeed. We found a wishing tree there, with lots of yen coins driven into the wood! We then headed back for an early night, as we had to be up for prayers the next morning.
Thursday started with Buddhist prayers at 6:30am, although we were up before then, waiting for the prayer bell. We shuffled (it was impossible to walk in those slippers) into the prayer room, where we sat at the back and watched the monks perform the ceremony. The room was very highly decorated with ... er ... buddhist stuff. Well, I’m not sure what it was, but it was very beautiful. There was nice smelling incence in the air. The monks knelt on cushions in front of tables with books on. The monks spent the next 45 minutes chanting, praying and banging gongs. Which was a very mesmerising experience, although that was probably due to the time of day than anything else. Eventually they finished, and it was breakfast time, more vegetarian goodness. We then had a wander around the rest of Koyasan (wanting to see more than just the graveyard!) which was awfully pretty, although stangely lacking in postcards at any of the shops. We then hopped on the funicular down the mountain, and back on a train to Kyoto.
In Kyoto we were staying at a ryokan. A strangely Japanese varient of the bed & breakfast (although this one had no breakfast, but many do), it was a traditional japanese home where the owner lived but let out the guest-rooms. By now we had shoe-etiquette sorted and other likewise customs, and in many ways it was like the temple, but minus the monks and the vegetarian food and hot baths, instead there were fluffy and hot toilet seats (!) and incomprehensible showers. It was in a lovely area of suburban Kyoto and very much like the Japan you see in anime but I can’t exactly say why - maybe the low traditional buildings, maybe the narrow streets and alleyways, maybe high school kids on bicycles riding up and down the hills, maybe the level-crossings going ding-ding-ding (there were 3 we had to cross between the station and the ryokan!). Typhoon-lady was very wrong, and it was a very sunny boiling hot day despite being October, and we finally hunted down sun-cream (causing much hilarity for the staff when a sock fell out of my bag in the supermarket). We went to the pretty bamboo grove which looked straight out of a film or something, probably one with lots of ninjas. I loved the area around the Bamboo grove, lots of pretty buildings, lots of awesome shops selling all sorts of strange stuff, it was very exciting, but all we wanted by then was ice-cream as it was so hot. Kyoto is most famous for its many temples, and we miscalulated on time and they’d all shut that day before we’d got to any of them, which was sad. So we hit downtown Kyoto, found the Daimaru department store and got enthralled by the food section there. So much insane food! We were hoping to find square watermelons, but couldn’t find any, but we did find melons that cost 22,000 yen (about £120!!) each and boggled. How can a melon possibly cost so much? Tell me now, I need to know. Hitting the streets, we found some pretty covered markets, again selling everything strange and wonderful, accidentally found the red light district and got out of there as quickly as we could, before reaching Pontocho, a lovely narrow but very long traditional alleyway. Along Pontocho were lots of very traditional bars, tea-rooms, ryokans and resturants, and it was all lit up with lanterns and very nice. Here we spotted a few geisha, usually busy carrying stuff into one of the tea-rooms from the alleyway. It was very exciting! Another early night, for an early start on Friday so we could actually see one of Kyoto’s temples before we had to leave. We only had time for one, and chose Ginkaku-ji, supposedly one of the best. After getting squashed in the Kyoto rush-hour, and navigating the bus system in Kyoto, we finally got to Ginkaku-ji, only to find that the main building was under renovation. Argh! Still they had exciting zen gardens with strangely raked sand, and the traditional Japanese gardens were very pretty indeed and well worth the visit. They also had a wishing pond full of yen, and lots of VIP moss (maybe it was called Kate?). Sadly that was all we had time for in Kyoto, I have to go back there and see the place properly, but we had to zoom to hop on a Bullet Train back to Tokyo for a very important appointment with the cat-bus. :)
The Ghibli Museum was one of the highlights of the trip, and not to be missed. Apparently tickets for the museum are like gold-dust in Japan and it’s sold out many months in advance, but they very kindly make it easier for us foreigners to get tickets, although they still need to be reserved in advance. We were running late, but fortunately they run a bus service to the museum, which is inevitably named the cat-bus. Which actually didn’t look much like a cat at all, but at least I can now say I’ve had a ride on the cat-bus. The Ghibli Museum itself is simply awesome - it’s theme is “Let’s lose our way, together” and you are truly spirited away in a fairy-tale like building to a different place. Admittedly, if you’ve not watched any Studio Ghibli films, it wouldn’t make any sense at all, but to an addict like me it was a delight to see all the sketches, drawings, design plans, story boards and script notes and all the other random stuff there. There was a Giant Totoro meeting you at the entrance, a large cuddly cat-bus inside (but they’d only let children on it sadly!) and a giant robot from Laputa was lurking in the roof-garden. The museum shop was full of Ghibli goodness, and I think I may have spent a little too much in there. Ooops. They even had a cinema in there, although it was only in Japanese, we went to see Kujiratori which was simple enough to make sense (or no sense!) anyway. They had tempting trailers for the new anime Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea which is not released outside Japan yet, which looks like a continuation of Ghibli goodness. Yay! We stayed until closing time, and then dragged ourselves back into the real world with a nice 3 course vegetatian dinner with wine at the Pure Cafe in Harajuku.
Saturday was my final day in Tokyo, and it was again a hot day. So the obvious thing to do was to hunt down ice-cream. But not just any ice-cream. We headed for Ice-cream city in Ikebukuro. This is inside a very strange theme park called Namjatown, in a shopping complex called Sunshine City. Ice-cream city is a collection of Ice-cream shops selling all sorts of delicious ice-cream in all sorts of styles, but we were there for the more eccentric ice-cream. This was made harder to find by very few of the labels being in English, but we could have a good guess at contents by pictures. I eventually settled for Shark-fin soup ice-cream and Garlic ice-cream (or at least, this is what I think they were!). And very strange they were to eat too, but still ice-cream and very lovely. We then explored the rest of Namjatown, find it a crazed theme-park full of eccentric food places, bizarre gaming arcades, and odd zones, like a ballroom, a jungle, an ancient temple and a haunted house, and also strange shops. Not sure anywhere like this could possibly exist outside Japan. After nice healthy donuts for lunch, and a Macha Latte (like an iced frappuccino but with green tea instead of coffee) from Starbucks we finally braved the Tokyo metro for the first time to get to the Tokyo Tower. It was a clear day, the views from the observation deck are stunning. Lots of skyscrapers visible, but you could easily make out bridges, temples and even a ferris wheel. It was very exciting. Quite by chance we arrived shortly before sunset. So we grabbed some wine, watched the sunset, and all the pretty lights come out, and it’s even better viewed at night. A landscape of lights, all twinkling in the darkness, and the ferris wheel made pretty coloured swirling patterns. The tower made fitting climax to my time in Japan, for I now had to get back to Nagoya for the night as I had a morning flight back to London. So I said sad farewells to
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squirmelia, and hopped on the Shinkansen to Nagoya, trying to cheer myself up with orange-flavoured pocky and lots of beer.I arrived very late in Nagoya, and got to my ryokan at about 11pm. I was staying at Ichi-fuji, an absolutely gorgeous ryokan in Nagoya, even if their use of English is very, um, colourful. That website is a lot of fun. After removing shoes and sliding open the door, I found a note for me from the owner telling me he wasn’t in right now, but told me which room was mine. It felt really odd just making myself at home there without having met the owner or having paid yet, or anything. The next morning I needed to get to the airport early, but the owner had different plans. He was a very lovely and friendly old man, and insisted (in colourful English) that I only pay at check-out, but would only let me check-out after breakfast, and breakfast was being served after I’d intended to leave! In the end, I decided a yummy breakfast is what I needed, and it turned out to be a very gorgeous breakfast indeed, and it was disappointing to have to rush it and not go back for a second helping. I then paid and left for the airport (the owner waving me off, how sweet!) and the frantic rush to the airport involved such problems as how to operate the crazy ticket barrier when changing lines (it wants both tickets at once!) and accidentally boarding a reservation-only train without a reservation. Ooops. But I made it there on time, just, and waved byebye to Japan.
There’s so much I still want to see and do in Japan, and someday I’ll go back there again for a much longer stay. Until then, I’ll miss Japan horribly.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 07:12 pm (UTC)It's socially obligatory to bring gifts in some occasions in Japan, like if you visit someone's house, or many other things.
The gifts should, for social correctness, be of a value appropriate to the occasion (this explains the many, many Y500/Y1000/Y1500/etc presents pre-wrapped in railway stations and other shops). It doesn't usually matter what they are; it's the act of giving a certain value that counts. Recipients Will Know how much the item cost you and They Will Notice.
Japanese people don't have much space for stuff, so consumable items are a good gift (hence the many Y500/Y1000/Y1500/etc boxes of local foodstuffs packaged up in every railway station).
If you owe someone bigtime, this all comes together into giving them a melon costing Y22000. It's entirely there so someone can buy it as a very expensive present to someone else because they are socially required to give that person a very expensive present and everyone (including the recipient) knows how expensive the melon is.
If a gaijin tries to buy one, I believe it will be made clear to them that this is a very special melon and they should be quite sure that is what they want to buy. You can still buy one if you really want.
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Date: 2008-10-20 05:58 pm (UTC)The only thing that doesn't make sense is it being melons. I didn't see expensive strawberries, or expensive sushi, or anything else. Just melons. Why melons and not these? Or maybe they do exist and I just didn't find them.
As a way of buying gifts it almost backfires - I was sorely tempted to tell everyone "sorry, I was going to buy you all gifts from Japan, but instead I spent all my money on a melon".
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Date: 2008-10-19 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 06:00 pm (UTC)Still nothing beats my homemade strange ice-cream made by pouring balsamic vinegar over strawberry ice-cream. :)
Ghibli museum is the best. You should go there someday! :)
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Date: 2008-10-21 02:47 pm (UTC)I'd a feeling those Japanese islands were a little small, and getting there isn't easy at normal times, and was guessing getting there for the eclipse would be nigh-on impossible. Alternatively, Shanghai would be trivial to get to, but smoggy? I want to see an eclipse - why are they so hard to find? :( Patagonia is actually high up on my places-I-must-visit already, eclipse or not, so that would make thigns interesting. Although doesn't the 2010 eclipse hit Easter Island, which also sounds tempting? Hey, I could waffle all day about eclipses too, but I've never actually got around to travelling out to see one properly!
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Date: 2008-10-21 03:41 pm (UTC)The Google Maps functionality is genius. 2015 in the Faroe Islands is definitely the next vaguely accessible one!
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Date: 2008-10-21 05:28 pm (UTC)2015 one does look convenient, but thats a long time to wait. I'll consider it a long-term plan to get to the Faroes for 2015. :)
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Date: 2008-10-21 06:30 am (UTC)I'm so completely jealous!
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Date: 2008-10-21 02:47 pm (UTC)Go to Japan. You'll love it there! :)
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Date: 2008-10-21 11:09 am (UTC)Sounds like you had an amazing time. I love your photos - the one of the graveyard at night looks so spooky, and the bamboo forest reminds me of House of Flying Daggers (which is a film and does have ninja in it!)
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Date: 2008-10-21 02:49 pm (UTC)I've seen that film, yes, and that must be the film I'm thinking of! :) The bamboo makes those wonderful creaking noises as the wind blows it and bends the bamboo.
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