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.

The Building Got Me

My office building in Tokyo is sort of crazy. First of all, it is impossible to get into the building at off peak hours as a first time visitor. Also, all the doors are push doors when I am expecting pull doors and vice versa. Even the door to my bathroom in my hotel room opens outwards, which is a little weird.

At about 6 pm or so, I learned not to take the stairs the hard way. I went into the stair well to get one of the other floors of the Google office and realized that the doors are all lock behind you and nobody comes into the stair well to let you out. I figured that I would just go to the bottom floor and take the elevator but the bottom floor just led to some emergency shelter or something of that sort and then I had to climb back up to the 6th floor and start knocking on the door to our office. Luckily, it wasn't too long before some nice person let me in again.

The last thing that got me was that you need a visitor card to get into the building on the first day and then you need to give that visitor card up to a machine when you leave the office. My main visitor card would not start working until the second day and I didn't quite realize this until I left for dinner but left my stuff in the office on the first night. Consequently, there was no way for me to get back into the building even with another Googler (because of this machine) to get my stuff. I did manage to sneak in though so all was not lost.

Meeting new people

Today was the first day at the office. I usually try not to talk about work in my travel blogs but I might stray from that a bit during this trip. Since I have been in Tokyo, I haven't heard my morning alarm clock go off. I am usually up and out the door before the time that I set my alarm because I wake up way too early due to jet lag. I got to the office at 7 am and realized that I couldn't get into the building without going through a lot of bureaucracy, and that the office wouldn't officially open for another 2 hours. So, I managed to find a nice little cafe with some eggs for breakfast and some wifi and camped out there.

It was pretty cool to come into the office and actually see a familiar face from Mountain View. I had expected to see noone I knew here, but perhaps make some friends in the office. Little did I know that I would already have a connection to hang out with.

After work today I went out with some coworkers for dinner at a ramen restaurant nearby. It was pretty good.... spicy soup with ramen and pork. Later, we went out for drinks at a couple of the local bars. One of the bars we went to was a funny little place, and I mean that pretty literally. This place was a very tiny bar restaurant with about 3 seats on the bottom floor and then you can climb some steep steps to get to about 3 tables on the second floor. The guy working there will bring drinks and food at request. It's a very rustic wooden shack with low ceilings and dismal incandescent lighting. I felt like I was really experiencing Japan though.

Experience Japan

Today started off with me waking up just a half hour later than yesterday. It gave me an early start to go and see the imperial palace gardens. This was an amazing garden area and park area inside the imperial grounds. The garden is the only place that is open to the public right now, but it is well worth the stroll around the area. It's extremely hard not to take amazing pictures with such nice scenery. I spent a few hours walking around and taking in the scenery and also made it to Yasakuni Shrine which is nearby.

After a quick lunch, I went to my first Sumo Wrestling Tournament event. Today is the first day of a 15 day long May tournament, and I got tickets to see it. The event starts early in the morning and fights happen all day long. The inexperienced wrestlers are usually in the morning and the main attraction is in the afternoon. I got there at about 1 pm so I saw a little bit of the morning event. People really got excited at around 4 when the larger and more experienced fighters came in. After watching 5 hours of match after match, I think I finally figured out the Sumo Wrestler's 5 minute ritual performance before actually starting the 10 second bought. There are 3 times that a wrestler enters the ring before the fight actually starts and each time includes throwing white chalk into the ring, slapping himself in various places multiple times, stomping the ground, squatting, practicing the initiating ground touch, and in general synchronizing his movements so that he looks good. But really, how good can you look when your 500 lb body falls 3 feet off the ring mound and onto some poor guy sitting ringside in the audience.

Adventures

Today was awesome. I think I figured out this place.... yeah right. Here are some of the main visits:

Tsukiji Fish Market:

Since I was jet lagged I got up at the crack of dawn without an alarm clock (which is quite an unusual experience for me). I decided that it was a good day to see the fish market since all my reading suggested going very early in the morning. Unfortunately, figuring out the subway was a little slower than I expected and I learned that a lot of people here don't speak English well at all and aren't that helpful in Japanese. But I made it to the fish market early enough to see lots of crazy things happening. There are huge warehouses which enclose numerous shops of merchants selling fresh seafood out of styrofoam boxes. The isles are narrow and tourists abound with cameras in hand. Me too! It was impressive to see so many fish all in one place. Work was being done to kill and prepare the fish and cut the meat. The stench was strong and the ground was covered in water, some areas with fish parts and blood. In larger isles, small electric vehicles with beds carrying crates, meat, and other goods zoomed around. You have to be careful to avoid them as they transport items to the larger trucks that wait outside the warehouses getting ready to make deliveries.

Edo-Tokyo Museum:

This museum tells the story of old Tokyo from 16th century onwards, when it was still named Edo. The capital of Japan was previously Kyoto but was moved to Edo and that city was renamed to To-kyo (New Kyoto). This museum was nice because it had an English guide that took me around for about and hour and a half and explained everything. The signage was decent in English, but I am pretty sure I got more out of the place with the guide and it was nice to have someone who spoke English. One of my favorite things was the life sized Kabuki theater that was built inside.

Senso-ji Shrine:

This is a magnificent Buddist temple, and it was so magnificent that they had to cover it up during my visit. Well, it's under reconstruction so it is covered with scaffolding and a nice mural. The surrounding area is very pretty though and has a 5 story pagoda, a few shrines, and some nice gardens. It is very crowded so there are a lot of shops and restaurants in the area. Also, I walked to Sunshine City, which is nearby and has a with gambling establishments all along the way. I went into a Pachinko room to experience Pachinko up close and personal. It is extremely loud inside the place. Think Vegas slot machine noise times 10. There was this one guy really winning a lot of ball bearings so I was pretty excited for him and took some video.

Ginza and the Sony Building:

Ginza reminds me of Manhattan's Times Square. There are tall buildings with large screens on them and the whole place is really brightly lit. One of the main buildings is the Sony building which has a expo with their latest and greatest gadgets. I tried out viewing a 3d TV for the first time ever and it's pretty frickin cool. I wonder if, when I read this in 30 years, I'll have some kind of nostalgic moment about way back when we had to watch TV in 2d.... gosh.

Making it to Tokyo

The trip to Tokyo was pretty smooth. I got out of the airplane got my bag and got on the train to Tokyo all within like 30 minutes which I thought was pretty impressive.

The train ride provided a really nice view of the countryside and got me psyched for visiting Tokyo. The view of the landscape was very picturesque with many flooded crop fields with small sprouts emerging from the water. Everything was very green.

My train took me to Shibuya station and the next task was to find my hotel, which proved quite difficult. Although it was in the same building as the train station (practically) I couldn't find the place. Also, without internet access, and not having written the hotel name down, I was stressing a bit, but luckily I found a sign with what I thought was my hotel and by golly, they had my reservation. I have a nice view of Shibuya from my hotel room on the 12th floor.

Tonight, the weather was a little rainy, but I wanted to venture out and figure things out. One thing I learned was that cash is king and finding the Citibank was also quite hard. Without cash, you are pretty much screwed. After getting quite soaked, I found the bank, and great things started to happen. I got water, an umbrella (since I forgot to bring one) and some food. Shibuya is really really crowded and walking around is quite crazy.