Wednesday (3/19)

Well, I'm at the airport. I've got one more hour before my flight leaves. I had a bit of a scare this morning. I had reserved a seat on the shuttle bus at 6:10am, but when I woke up and looked at the clock, it was 7am. Needless to say .. up until now I was pretty stressed this morning. I was able to use the same ticket for the bus leaving at 8:10, and I got here with an hour and a half to spare. I'm just paranoid.

Anyway, its 10:30am here, which is 6:30pm (Tues) pacific time, or 8:30pm central time. My flight (AA 176) gets to DFW around 9:30am (Wed), if I remember correctly, and then my connecting flight (AA 1119) goes from there to Sacramento at around 11:30am, and gets there just after 1pm.

I'm sad that my trip is over, but I'll be glad to be able to talk to people and read things again =)

Tuesday (3/18)

Today was my last full day in Japan, and I didn't do a whole lot. I had to do some laundry this morning, and after a late start, that kept me from leaving the hotel until well after noon. I spent the time waiting on my laundry to talk over Skype with Erina and Tina, trying really hard to keep up, but they talk really fast =)

When I finally got out, I wanted to try to see Sekakuji in Shinagawa, but by the time I got over there and found it, it was already closed. I could still walk around the temple grounds, but I couldn't get to the burial grounds for the 47 ronins. The story goes that a few hundred years ago, a master with 47 samurai was being antagonized by another feudal lord, and so his temper finally got the better of him, and he drew his sword on him in the imperial grounds at Edo (now called Tokyo). The guy was sentenced to commit seppuku, and his family was banished, leaving the 47 samurai to be masterless ronin. Over the next few years they met in secret, and tried to appear normal while they planned to avenge their master's honor. Finally, they stormed the house of the other guy, chopped off his head, and brought it to Sengakuji where their master was buried. They knew from the beginning that they would be sentenced to seppuku, but they considered it an honor rather than the price of revenge. All 47 ronin are buried there with their master, and every year on the anniversary of the raid, people come to honor the ronin and their tremendous loyalty, and steadfastness.

One of these is the place they washed the head when they brought it to the temple.





Anyway, I headed back to the Shinagawa station, and came back to Shinjuku. I had sushi for dinner (only the second time since I got here), and kinda splurged. It was really good. Then I wandered around, listened to a couple of bands that were playing on the sidewalk, and made my way back to the coffee shop across the street from the hotel, and sat there reading for a while.

Since I got back to the hotel, I've been geotagging my photos. That's where you add longitude and latitude data to your photos so that they can be placed on a map (like Google maps, or whatever). I've finished all the latest pictures back to just before I went to Nara.

Tomorrow, I get up bright and early (my bus is at 6:10am) and fly back to California .. after a few hours in Texas .. so weird.

Until the next chance I get to come back, sayonara.

Monday (3/17)

This morning I went over to Asakusa to see the famous Kaminarimon (lightning gate) and Sensoji (the temple that's there). There were more foreigners (like me) there than I've seen most other places since I've gotten here. And yes, I do like it better when I'm the only foreigner around. When I'm around other Americans, I feel a small need to apologize for when they act rude, or stupid. Like when a guy is taking a picture of a band while they have a giant sign next to them that has a picture of a camera with an X across it, and it says No Pictures! Anyway, I got some pictures, and walked around the shopping area.









A picture from the bottom looking up at the giant lantern that hangs in Kaminarimon



I found a stand that was selling amazake (sweet sake), but it wasn't close to being as good as what I had at that tea room in Nara. Regardless, I had a couple of cups =)

Then I started to notice a bunch of monjyayaki places around. It's a Tokyo variant of okonomiyaki where the mixture is much more watery, and they carefully mix it together on the range by making a pool out of the more solid bits, and poring the liquid part in the middle. Then once it gets pretty thin, you spread a bit across the grill and then scrape it up with the metal spatula. It was pretty good, but I'd put it below both Hiroshima style okonomiyaki and regular, Osaka style okonomiyaki.

I found a place that was up a flight of stairs (and if you want there to be fewer foreigners, all you have to do is find a place that's not on the ground floor). I think we Americans like to be able to see the inside of a place before we want to go in. So I had the waiter make it for me, since I had no idea what to do, and then I had some Cream Mitsu Mame, which is ice cream, little cubes of a pretty solid gelatine-like substance, and sweet red beans. And now I know the kanji for beans : 豆 (mahmey).

Then I decided to give my JRail pass a workout on one of its final days, and went to Ueno, sat in the park and had a Dr Pepper (and, of course, I had to get a some pictures of a Japanese Dr Pepper can)





The trees in Ueno are starting to blossom, and they were getting ready for the Hana Matsuri (flower festival) that happens in a few weeks.



Then I went to Akihabara and looked around the Yodobashi Camera, and finally came back to Shinjuku and had some ramen and gyoza for a late dinner. Finally, I went and had some coffee at a Mister Donut that stays open until 2 .. but I only stayed until midnight. Now I need to do laundry in the morning, and make a quick trip to Shinagawa to see Sengakuji before I repack all my stuff and get ready to go home =(

Sunday (3/16)

Today was another lazy day (they seem to be happening more frequently the later I get into this trip). I got up and got to the station around noon, and caught a train for Tokyo (and bought another bento box lunch to eat on the train). The train was nice and empty, and I got a whole row of three seats all to myself.

I got back to Shinjuku and checked into the Washington Hotel again around 4, and took a little rest (the metro train from Tokyo to Shinjuku had been really hot). Then I set out, and just wandered around some areas of Shinjuku that I hadn't explored yet. I found a place where they put a little grill on you table and you do it yourself.



It was pretty fun, but I couldn't read much of the menu, so I just asked the waiter to recommend something and I think what he recommended (that I ended up getting) was called buri kamo yaki (which I'm pretty sure is yellowtail meat from just behind its head, or its collar, or whatever). Well, that's not all I got, I also got maguro (tuna) and ika (cuttlefish), and a beer that looked like a locally brewed thing called Hoppy. It was all great, and I managed to not embarrass myself .. and another guy let some juice get down into the coals in his barbeque, and nearly smoked us all out of the restaurant. I was just glad it wasn't me =)

Then I walked back around the station, and there were a bunch of bands playing on the sidewalks, selling CDs. I stopped and listened to a few, and I'm realizing that girl drummers are hot .. at least Japanese girl drummers are =)

I should have gotten some pictures .. oh well.

Oh, and then I spotted a place that makes mochi ice cream just next to the south entrance to the train station, and I got a few: rum raisin (which was awesome), green tea, caramel pudding, and sakura. The sakura one was pink, and I can't think of any way to explain how it tasted, other than it tasted extremely pink as well.

Saturday (3/15)

Well, today my camera ran out of batteries pretty quickly, so I'm afraid I won't have many pictures.

This morning I headed over to Namba, where they're having a daily Sumo tournament this month. I was able to get a ticket, but the main event wasn't for a while, so I left to grab some takoyaki at a street vendor, then I got some coffee, and finally decided to just head on in. There were some matches taking place already, but they were kind-of junior league matches. It was still pretty interesting to watch.

Here's the few shots I was able to get. One of the sumo wrestlers' openning ceremony, where they introduce all the sumo that will be fighting from the east side, and then they do the same for all the fighters on the west side.





Here's a shot of the sumo doing their posturing toward their corners (where their attendants are)



When two guys come out into the ring, they have some motions they go through first toward their corner, and then toward each other. Then they go to their corner, rinse their mouth with water and grab a handful of salt. When they turn to go back into the circle, they throw the salt to cleanse the ground and to ward off injury. Then they face each other and do one squat with their feet close together. Then they stand back up and squat again with their feet further apart. At this point the match could start if both of them look at each other and place both of their fists on the ground. However, most of the time one of them will not look at the other (either to indicate that they're not ready, to irritate the other guy, etc), or they could just take too long, and so the other guy will stand back up and leave the ring. As soon as either one decides to leave, they both do. Then they wipe themselves off with a towel, grab some more salt and start it all over again. This process can repeat for up to 4 minutes (I think).

Once both of them are finally ready, as soon as all four fists are on the ground and they're making eye contact, they launch at each other slapping each other in the chest and around the face. They'll try various tricks that involve grabbing the waistband of the other guy, trying to trip him, etc. As soon as one of them steps out of the ring, or any of their body (besides their feet) touches the ground, they loose.

When the match is over, they both go back to their sides of the circle, bow toward each other and the loser leaves the ring. The winnder squats, and the referee declares them the winner by gesturing to them with a fan-looking thing. The sumo wrestler makes a gesture. Then, if there is a cash award for the match, the referee walks up to the winner and offers him the prize. The wrestler then has one final gesture they use to take the prize, and then they finally leave the ring. The winner then stays to offer the mouth-rinsing water to the next wrestler on their side of the ring.

It was really interesting, and I ended up sitting right next to some people from Los Angeles, and they were pretty fun, so I got another dose of anti-lonely medicine. Then once it was over, I headed into Namba's shopping area, and I found a restaurant that serves fugu in _everything_. I went in, ordered some fugu nigiri (just a couple of slices of raw fugu on rice), tried it, and left. Then I found an okonomiyaki place, and had the rest of my meal =) The fugu was okay, but nothing spectacular .. the okonomiyaki, however, was superb. Then on my way back to the JR station, I saw a street vendor selling sesame seed balls with sweet red bean paste in the middle. They were also selling these little chunks of potato covered in a sugary glaze and then carmelized so that the glaze became a hard candy shell. I got some of both, and it was great.

Well, that's about it. I came back to the hotel and wrote this. And now I'm gonna get some sleep. I head back to Tokyo tomorrow, and if I make it in time, I might head over to Harajuku. That place is awesome on Sundays.

Friday (3/14) .. White Day

Today I decided to head over to the Osaka castle or 大阪城 (Osakajou). On the train on the way there, an old guy tapped me on the shoulder as he left the train and said something I didn't understand, and a girl just behind him told me (in English) that this was the last stop. I found out she was going to the same stop I was, and I just had to wait for the next train. I found out she was going to work at a restaurant in Osakajou park, so I walked her there, and then headed for the castle.





On my way there it started to rain. By the time I got to the entrance it was coming down pretty hard, so I gladly went inside, hoping that it would let up while I looked around. It was really pretty, the golden details really stood out, but I guess they had help from the really gloomy sky behind them.



Here's a few pictures from the top







And here's a closeup of some of the golden decorations they had on display inside.



After I saw enough of the castle, I was getting pretty hungry. I walked around and saw a bunch of stands, but the only enclosed restaurant I had seen was the one where that girl (whose name is Tomo) had gone to work, so I headed back over there.

Here's a little Engrish at one of the stands



I had some unagi, and as I was leaving she was standing by the counter so I asked if she wanted to meet up after work (the trip has been pretty lonely, and I was really wanting some company). She said sure, and I came back around 4 to meet with her again.

We went back to the station, and headed back to Umeda. We walked around a mall for a while and talked a little bit. Then she had an idea for something I hadn't done that is distinctly Japanese. It's called プリクラ (purikura) which is short for プリント倶楽部 (print club), and it's like a photo booth, but more like a game. It tells you to pose, and you take a bunch of pictures. You choose which ones you like, and then you're given a few minutes to decorate your photos. She got the pictures on her phone, so once she sends them to me, I'll post them. It was kinda weird; I was having a hard time decorating them, but it was fun to watch her do it. It's a very Japanese thing, I think, to cute-ify things. I was just making things look weird =)











Then she had to go, so I went over to a nearby Yodobashi camera, and found another decidedly Japanese thing, ガシャポン(gashapon) machines. They're machines with plastic capsules in them with random toys inside. I know we have the same type of thing in America, but we don't have entire sections of stores devoted to them, and they don't have so much licensed stuff, so I decided on an Evangelion one and a Mario one.

Here's a picture of the Yodobashi camera store. From two basement floors up through the restaurants on the 8th floor, and then apparently parking on the 9-11th floors (I'm not quite sure how that works).



And here's the toys I got from the Gashapon machines



The evangelion one says, in various voices, "AT フィールド全開" or "AT field maximum power" (literally "AT field fully open"), and the Mario one plays the sound of getting hit and dying in the original Mario Bros.

Then I found an okonomiyaki place and had their "Mixed yaki" which had shrimp, octopus and cuttlefish / squid. It was really tasty. And finally, I headed back to my hotel to get out of the rain and rest a little. I found out that there is a sumo tournament right now in Osaka, so I'm going to get up early tomorrow and see if I can get a ticket for tomorrow's events.

Thursday (3/13)

I got up, checked out of my hotel in Hiroshima, ate a bento box lunch while I waited for my train to Osaka. I got to my hotel around 2.



I emailed a writer of blog I read that lives in Osaka, and got a response. He suggested a few places to visit, and mentioned a place called 新世界 (Shinsekai), and said that it was probably the worst neighborhood in Japan, but it has the best kushikatsu.

The rest of the day was pretty laid back (aka boring). I went to Den Den Town (kinda like Akihabara), and walked up and down the streets a few times. Then on the south end, I noticed a sign for Shinsekai, so I figured I was getting hungry, I should try out this kushikatsu. I found a little hole in the wall place with plastic sheets for doors, and gave it a shot. The guy looked a little nervous when I walked in, and made a little gesture that I took to mean "Can you understand?", and I responded that I could understand a little, so he tested me by asking what I wanted to drink. When I answered in Japanese, he finally looked a little relieved.

They gave me a little sheet, asked if I could read it, and most of it was hiragana or katakana, so I said it was fine .. I think that would have been the hard part .. if I didn't know how to speak Japanese and they had to explain the menu to me. I ended up getting a few skewers of kushikatsu (which I believe is beef .. not sure), some tamanegi (literally ball onion), ebi (shrimp) and anago (sea eel). It was all really good.

Then it was getting dark, and I was a little lost, so I started to find my way back to the JR station. I ended up taking the train back during rush hour, but fortunately, I get off at a popular stop, so I didn't have to push through people to get to the door.

Well, tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Probably just wander around some more. I'll probably go to Amemura (America town) to check that out.

Added videos

I've added video to some of the older posts

Saturday (3/8)

I added a couple of videos from the shinkansen train I took from Tokyo to Kyoto, as well as a video walkthrough of my Kyoto hotel room.

Sunday (3/9)

Added some videos of monkeys playing at Iwatayama park.

Tuesday (3/11)

I added a video of the Otaimatsu ceremony in Nara

Wednesday (3/12)

Today I caught a fairly early start, and rode a couple of bullet trains to Hiroshima. I had to change trains at Okayama, which was a little frantic. I had 5 minutes to change, and I couldn't see the postings for which platform I needed, but fortunately it was the other side of the same platform.

Then I got to the hotel, and checked in. This was the hotel I kinda splurged on (since I'm only staying for one night). It was kinda weird, they grabbed my bags on the way in, they were overly polite (even for Japanese customer service), and the room is pretty decent (not much bigger than the Palace Side Hotel in Kyoto, but I've got a blazingly fast internet connection here).

Here's a quick video walkthrough of the hotel room



Then I went out to see the Peace Memorial Park just down the street from the hotel, built just next to the center of the bomb's explosion. First I went to the Peace Memorial Museum. Sorry, I didn't really feel like taking pictures .. it was pretty somber and often disturbing. I did get a couple of pictures of scale models of the city before and after.





And here's an even smaller scale model showing you where the bomb exploded mid-air. The card on the left marks the domed building that has been left just as it was. The card on the right marks where the museums current location is.



From one of the windows in the museum, you can see the Memorial Cenotaph, and the A-Bomb Dome in the background, just across the river







The eternal flame : Flame of Peace (can't see the flame too well in the picture)



And here's the Children's Peace Monument, which had it's beginnings in the story of a little girl born just before the bombing, who developed lukemia, and thought that, according to tradition, if she folded 1000 paper cranes then her wish to get better would come true. She died before she finished all 1000 cranes, but it sparked a worldwide movement of children folding paper cranes and sending them to the memorial. And it's made the paper crane a symbol for peace.







There was a bell dedicated with an inscription encouraging people to ring the bell for peace. I gave it a ring, and I could hear it being rung over and over as I walked around the memorial park.



This is the Aioi bridge, which was the T-shaped bridge that was the target of the bombing.



And the view of the A-Bomb Dome from the Aioi bridge



Some more pictures of the dome





Then, I was starting to get hungry (and depressed), so I figured I'd cheer myself up with some Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. I'd heard of a place called okonomimura (okonomiyaki village), and I was finally able to find it.



The second floor is where all the okonomiyaki places are, and each place is just a single 3-sided counter with a bunch of seats. So I walked all the way to the back where an old couple had a place called 新ちゃん (Shinchan), and the old guy waved me over, so I couldn't resist.



As I was getting close to finishing, I kinda felt like people were looking at me (a bit more than usual .. it's weird being the foreigner). The old lady refilled my water, and complimented me on how well I use chopsticks, to which one of the three guys sitting a few seats from me said, "yeah". So now I've been complimented on my Japanese twice, and my chopstick usage twice. The first time was in Tsukiji, when I had the only sushi I've had in my entire trip to Japan (weird, huh).

I ended up going back to the same area for dinner, and ate at ちいちゃん(Chiichan), and had their special. It was pretty good, but the Shinchan special I had for lunch was better =)

Tuesday (3/11)

Today was fantastic. I headed out somewhat early for Nara, and anyone out there that knows about Nara knows that they're about to see a bunch of pictures of deer =)

What you probably expect a little less is hinted at by the fact that I went in early March, when their Omizutori festival is going on.

So, I got there around 10:30 this morning after about a 70 to 80 minute train ride. When I got off the bus at Nara park, I was dumbfounded, there are deer literally everywhere. The traffic has to just wing it at intersections, because the deer don't know when to wait .. they just go ahead and cross. They sell little crackers to feed them for 150 yen, and if you ever come here, buy it, and then quickly and stealthily put it in your pocket, or the greedy deer that hang out next to the souvenir shops will start head-butting you for them.





So freakin' cute



Yes, those are my feet .. and yes, this was adorable



The first thing I did was go see 東大寺 (todaiji) which was enormous. There's a huge statue of Buddha in the middle, and other statues surrounding it.

Here's the gate leading to Todaiji



And the reception committee



This statue is just in the gateway .. I'm not even up to the actual temple yet









One of the "small" statues next to the middle giant one





(There are plenty more pictures from Todaiji, but you'll have to click through one of these and just browse my collection on Flickr)

Oh, and after I left Todaiji, I had some dango (this one was a skewer with balls of mochi on it dipped in a teriyaki-ish sauce). The sauce immediately dripped onto my shoes, but not more than 5 seconds passed before a deer was there licking it off my feet. Again, customer service in Japan is awesome =)

For the rest of the day I just wandered around. I found a quaint little tea house in the middle of the park with big back yard with tables. I had some 甘酒 (amazake .. or sweet sake), which was a bowl of sweet rice gruel, and if there was any alcohol in there, I couldn't taste it.

I found a somewhat secluded area where a bunch of deer were taking a break, and I decided to join in. They welcomed me by not running away, and I noticed there were a couple of bucks mixed in (with antlers about a foot long or so). I felt like a little kid doing it, but asked someone passing by "What are those things on it's head called?", and apparently the Japanese word for antlers is つの or tsuno. A little later, the deer closest to me got up and came up to me, sniffed the book I was reading, tried to take a bite of it, and then let me scratch around his neck and ears. It was really sweet.





A little later, it was getting close to time for them to start part of the Omizutori that they do every evening starting at the beginning of March called お松明(otaimatsu .. which means (pine) torch), so I headed over to the building called 二月堂 (nigatsudo, or the place of the second moon / month), and there's a little restaurant there. I went inside, and everybody just sits at long tables, so I ended up sitting amongst a bunch of Japanese people and having a dish they call 木の葉 (which I guessed correctly as being kinoba .. or leaf of tree). Then I had a new food I'd never had before called 白玉ざんぜい (shirotama zanzei, or white ball zanzei), which was just a bowl of sweet red beans made into a kind of soup with three balls of what I'm pretty sure were mochi. Really delicious.

Oh, and while I was in there, the waitress said that my Japanese was really good =)

Then it was about 2 and a half hours before Otaimatsu, so I went out and grabbed a spot on the lawn in front of Nigatsudo. I ended up sitting next to this really nice Japanese couple. The lady offered me a piece of paper to sit on (so that my pants didn't get dirty). She said "It's a little small" not expecting me to understand, but I responded, "It's perfect, thanks" (all in Japanese, of course). So we actually had a really simple (and slow) conversation for the next couple of hours while we waited. It was soooooo awesome. Seeing Otaimatsu was a first for both of us. She said she had seen it on TV, but never actually come before. I told them about my trip, and found out that they're from a place south of Osaka that starts with a "W" .. I can't believe I forgot it already .. I'll look into it a little later.

It started to get really crowded. Good thing I showed up a couple of hours early





Then, it got dark and they started. They have 10 long poles with big hunks of pine or cedar needles attached to the end.





They light them and carry them up onto the balcony and shake them to drop the ashes on to the ground. The people in the front row get showered with ash and embers .. it's crazy.





And here's a video of the first torch coming out and getting run across the balcony