Shrined Out

Today was quite a packed day.  I started out the morning with an 8 am traditional Japanese breakfast at my Ryokan, then I hit the bus line for Higashiyama where I started on a walking tour layed out by the Lonely Planet and walked by a lot of tourists. Still, it was nice because it pointed out the best spots to  see along the way and definitely showed the highlights of the area in a small amount of time.  This ward of Kyoto borders mountains, so all the temples are right on the feet of the mountains.  Visiting one usually means climbing up a lot of steps. 


My feeling now, after seeing a few temples and shrines on Saturday is that they all are very similar... still pretty but if I try to remember the distinction between them in a year, I bet that I won't be able to remember which one was which.  This seems true in general except for Chion-Ji in temple, where everything was huge.  I saw this in the afternoon and had decided to make it my last temple in Kyoto because I was simply getting templed out.  My book told me of a bell at this place which was the biggest bell in all of Japan.  I was going to go in, look at the main hall and the bell, and then leave.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite happen that way.  The entrance was at the bottom of a hill (of course) and I must have done the stairs to the main temple looking for the bell about three times.  It was an hour of walking around before I found it.  But it was well worth the effort.

After a day of temples, I went for some food and watched the sumo wrestling tournament on TV at a bar I found.  I wandered around the Imperial Palace Park and then caught the shinkansen back to Tokyo. I took it easy at my hotel tonight and relaxed.

Shinkansen to Kyoto

Today, I discovered Kyoto.  It is a beautiful city with so much visual stimulation in terms of architecture and gardens that it would take a month or more of non-stop exploring before knowing every place here.

I was up at 6 am today, which was surprising considering I had been out really late last night with friends.  I got on the shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto and it took me less than 2.5 hours to gets there.  That's pretty impressive.

The first ward of Kyoto I checked out was a suburban area called Arashiyama, which I read was a great place to walk around.  It blew my expectations away, as I walked around for hours.  First, I wandered the streets looking at the shops and trying to find a restaurant with suitable plastic food displayed outside.  After eating an udon soup based meal, I walked over the famous Togrtsukyo bridge which was right outside the restaurant.  The I walked to the main temple in the area, Tenryo-Ji.  Though the temple was not the most extravagant, the gardens around it were very pristine.  There were little Japanese men were working on each tree and meticulously trimming the branches and sweeping the rubbish out from underneath.  I imagine that they rerake the rock gardens every day.  Near this temple, there is a bamboo forest, and you can sit on benches and contemplate your existence while staring into the trees.  When the wind rustles over the top of the bamboo, it sounds like a thunderstorm is approaching.

I ended up getting lost walking around to the north of the temple meandering through the various shrines and small streets, but I ended up at Daikaku-Ji Temple and checked that out.  It looked very similar to the other temple on the inside, but the grounds were quite a bit different.  It bordered a large and tranquil pond which I decided to walk around.

On my way to my Ryokan for the evening, Gion was my dinner destination.  It's really cool to walk around this part of town in the evening and see all the restaurants lit up and all the streets dimly but elegantly lit.  I think I spotted a geisha or two, but I probably didn't since I read there were only about 100 of them in Kyoto.  This is their hang out though, as they entertain their clients.

My Ryokan was quite simple and basic, but it gave me the taste of a traditional Japanese bed and breakfast.  I don't think I got the best night of sleep though.

Clubbing in Shibuya

After work, I met up with some coworkers for an extravagant dinner in Shibuya at a restaurant that they had picked out.  The food was interesting, fishy, and sometimes nasty.  The fish roe pizza grossed me out a lot, but it was probably the tastiest part of the meal.  Sake was the drink and it was a good time with the group.

Though I was planning to go home a bit early, I couldn't resist going out on the town after they suggested a couple of clubs in the area.  Clubbing in Japan is really weird.  There are drunk Japanese people everywhere, and nobody really touches anybody else unless they are falling all over that other person because they are drunk.  One of the places had everybody jumping up and down as high as they could and doing some sort of electric slide to the music.  As you walk along the streets, you see these salarymen in perfectly good suits bent over, using their briefcases to hold them up, swaying side to side, and ready to vomit all over the place... and of course, they are all alone.  I wanted to get a couple of pictures, but couldn't get my phone out in time.

Karaoke

I found some coworkers who wanted to do some karaoke, but they didn't quite know that when we all went to dinner.  They took me out to a restaurant where they serve chicken.  Sounds good right.  Well the catch is that it is every part of the chicken, and they started out by bringing out the hearts, then skewers of liver, then tail, then God knows what.  I was trying to get my fill of edamame most of the time.

Three of the guys from the office were up for karaoke later and knew of a nearby place to rent a singing room for an hour.  It was small, but they had a good selection of English songs.  One of the guys was really good (I think he had been in a band), but a good time was had by all.

From Japan2010

Sushi Lunch

Some friends took my out for sushi today for lunch.  It was my first sushi experience in Japan, and I thought it was pretty good, although, I heard later that it wasn't the best sushi out there.   Oh well, I am willing to try it again.

Shinjuku

Tonight, I went to Shinjuku with a couple of friends from work.  Shinjuku is about 2 train stops away from Shibuya, and it was quite an interesting train ride during rush hour.  If you think traffic gets bad on the free way after work in the US, pedestrian traffic gets really bad on the JR train in Tokyo.  Everyone is very orderly though, and they stand in line at the doors of the train prior to them opening.  People get off quickly, and then people cram on.  A hell of a lot of people cram on the train more specifically.  They jam the train so full that people are spilling out of it and then some random train station attendants with their white gloves help push people into the train cars just a little bit tighter.  Inside, you basically pray that the train doesn't make an abrupt stop or go because people just all shift inside and it's easy to get squished.

Also amazingly, nobody worries about pick pockets or anything sketchy around here.  The crime rate is really low and people walk around without worry.  They take money out of the ATMs and count the money even late at night and when all alone.  It's almost comforting to walk around as a tourist and know that people aren't going to target you.

In Shinjuku, we found a very nice restaurant where you cook your own meat.  It was the most upscale restaurant I have been to, and was a welcomed relief from the other restaurants that I had been previously trying to figure out.  Also, being there with friends made it fun.  The waiters tied bibs around our necks for the crab that we were going to eat as a harp player played Disney tunes, Phantom of the Opera, and Elvis music.  Though I know all the songs it was really hard to recognize them because the pacing was a bit different than normal:  slower for the fast songs, and faster for the slow songs.  It was elevator music for the dining room.

After dinner, we headed around town a bit.  There was a red-light district in Shinjuku that was sort of a spectacle, and a lot of people on the streets.  There were a lot of non Japanese people here that spoke English pretty well... I guess you get some positives with the negatives.  We also found a little pet shop that had practically new born puppies and kittens on sale for thousands of dollars.  I really couldn't believe how expensive they were.  I didn't know how much pure breading was worth.  We hung out for a bit at one bar and then called it a night.  It's always hard to figure out what to do when you don't really know what's going on.  Exploring is pretty overwhelming at times, but still fun.

Cell Phones, Electronics, Video Games, and Manga Cafes

Since I have been in Tokyo I have noticed that people seem to be alone a lot. At the cafe, everyone was sitting at their 2 person tables eating all alone. Even on the subway, everyone seems to be on it alone and noone seems to be talking to friends, coworkers, or anyone else. It's sort of strange. At best, I hope that they are being social on their cell phones since everyone has their cell phones out as well.

The cell phones here are pretty neat. Aside from a few iPhones that I have seen, the most popular device seems to be this very large flip phone with fairly large screens. I am pretty sure that people watch a lot of movies on their cell phones because they spend a lot of time staring at them without pushing any buttons, but I can't be too sure. The electronics stores have about 1 million different types of cell phones. In the US, we value consolidation of electronics choices, whereas in Japan, I think that they value the multitude of options. I also saw Android in various forms here, which shows that Android is alive and well.

Tonight, I went to Akihabara, which is famous for its electronics stores and it's manga maid cafes. Also, the video game buildings put anything that we have in the US to shame. There are some serious video games and some serious video gamers here. There was a 5 story building I went through with different kinds of video games on each floor. One of the interesting ones was a game with a table on it and controls on the side. It was like Fifa soccer but suped up to a brand new level. You have player cards that you put down on the table for each of position on the soccer field and then you can control the players individually from the side controls.... at least that's how I think it worked. I think it also may have been networkable so you could play other people in the room. Another game was a rythm game that people lined up for out the door of the place. It was not just your regular rock band, but something totally crazy fast. And the people playing it were really good.

The next thing that was more weird than interesting were these maid cafes. They seem to be shady cafes, but are really just gimmicky places where the waitresses dress up as silly anime inspired characters. That's about all I could glean out of the situation after being there for all of 5 minutes. Really, it didn't seem like anything interesting was going on and it was really hard to figure out what the point was without knowing Japanese.

Later, I went to dinner with someone from the office whom I had been palling around with that evening and headed home. The jet lag is getting better though, and I am not as tired in the evenings any more.