The Studio Ghibli museum is incredible and a must-see if you are ever in Tokyo and happened to buy tickets three months in advance. It was completely packed with Japanese tourists. And i mean packed. Which is why you have to buy the tickets so early. And the tickets specify which time you are allowed to enter the museum at.
The building itself is probably my favorite part. It is done in a very Victorian, wood and metal style. Very evocative of the steampunk aesthetic Jenn and I like. An interesting fact is that all of the exhibits are build to child scale. Expect to be bending down to see stuff.
The exhibits themselves are also nice. A good bit of the permanent exhibition is devoted to how movies work, the creative design process, and so on. There was a fantastic strobe-effect setting, which sculptures of all the stages of animated movements. There was a bat flying, a girl skipping rope, someone riding a bicycle. The entire scene was built on a wheel.
The wheel would spin up to speed, the strobe light turn on, and it was timed so you suddenly were watching a brief stop-animation movie. It was quite impressive and definitely the highlight of the movie creation gallery.
The seasonal exhibit was devoted to the new movie, which we have not seen, so we had no particular attachment to the project. Aside from declaring we should see the movie upon our return.
The biggest disappointment was the gift shop. There were studio ghibli gift stores all over Japan, and we refrained from purchasing anything because we were going to the museum. Sensible, yes? But sadly it was so very, very wrong.
The gift shop was tiny and mostly featured movie-creation related paraphenlia. Cells from the films, audio and video collections (at Japanese prices, whoo!), and a whole crapload of cell phone charms. It had none of the cool statues from the various films, robotic-head seed planters from Castle in the Sky, the kodama statues from Princess Mononoke.
But we did get a couple cool pictures of the rooftop garden area and the building itself (the only two places where photography is allowed) and we nabbed the movie-cell admission tickets as our souvenirs instead of watching the 15 minute short film like we were supposed to. The tickets are way cool.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Dex was my dump stat
Warning: If the stories of other people sustaining non-serious, but slightly cringe-worthy injuries bothers you, please stop reading here!
It started out just a day or so in to the trip. Not sure exactly what I did, but best I can figure, I strained an outer tendon of my left ankle. Never happened to me before in my entire life. But boy it hurt. Especially with all the walking we were doing. And, of course it happened before our skiing day in Hokkaido! For those to have never experienced this before, it's like a burning and pinching sensation every time you have to move that tendon. Which, when you're walking everywhere, is a lot. I had big boots and after some experimentation, found that the most comfortable solution was to undo them and loosen the top portion as much as was possible. But, there was still a fair bit of limping. I also bought 'leg cooling sheets' from a convenience store that helped to relax the area a bit, but caused the skin in the area to burn because my boots had chaffed the skin a bit. But, we moderated our walking level a bit and my ankle is now feeling just fine. We did briefly consider buying different shoes that wouldn't press against the area with every step, but weren't able to find any appropriate ones in an acceptable price range. And, it turns out that a ski boot tightens perfectly on the foot below the tendon and on the muscle above it, so walking/skiing in ski equipment turned out to be MORE comfortable than just plain walking was.
Then, I dropped a ceramic anime character mug on my right foot. Luckily, after some therapeutic exclamations, hopping, and rubbing, it turned out that neither the foot nor the mug was worse for wear.
Not sure if it was starting out with such a persistent annoying injury that just brought the rest of them to the forefront, but the next three weeks involved a disproportionate amount of exclamations as the result of minor injuries.
It got me kind of paranoid. So I started noticing a lot of little things. Which resulted in me almost always seeing those little steps that cities invariably have. You know the ones. They aren't very big so they kind of just blend in with the rest of the street. If you half-step on one it can easily lead to a twisted ankle or falling over and getting some bruises and scrapes. If you're lucky, your stomach just drops a bit or you bite your tongue with the sudden change of elevation. Well, as I said I have been seeing them, but Lance hasn't. And I haven't been seeing them soon enough to give any kind of useful early warning to him. Miraculously enough, the worst thing he's suffered from is a less than graceful stumble and hop as he kept walking on unscathed.
Now that we're on our last night in Japan, I thought we would be free and clear from further injury. We're both feeling a little sad to be leaving and returning home again, so I guess I subconsciously decided to leave part of myself here. A section of skin, about the size of a pea volunteered this evening. The skin started out on the third toe of my left foot, but when I stepped too far forward and then pulled the door open right over top of it, the skin mostly separated from the toe. After some inspection and consideration (and some colourful exclamations) I decided to completely separate said piece of skin and leave it behind. I've mostly stopped the bleeding. (Incidentally, do you know how hard it is to try to balance on one foot without using the aid of your toes? Just sayin'!)
The cushion story
On a previous episode of Sauntering Sunflower, Jenn and Lance were shopping in Kyoto. Walking up and down Kiyomizudera and exchanging yen for fancy trinkets. But our famed protagonists were unable to find a zen cushion in Kyoto.
More importantly, however, we had not found a foo dog. Foo dog is a name I invented for the statues I liked in Nara. I doubt it's accurate, but a good author doesn't let integrity and accuracy get in the way of a blog post. We had seen the foo dogs in abundance in Nara. But searching the shops of Kyoto, we discovered a dearth of foo dogs. Kyoto was foo dogless. But because the train system in Japan is so phenomenal, we thought nothing of zipping between cities.
We went to Nara and bought a foo dog. We knew exactly where they were sold, and which one we wanted. So aside from waiting around while the owners manufactured a box large enough to wrap our purchase, that part of our trip was pretty uneventful. This post isn't about foo dogs, though. That's just a lead in to the cushion story. This is why this post is entitled 'The Cushion Story' and not the 'Really easy foo dog purchase story'.
So we were in Nara after an entirely uneventful foo dog purchase. We decided we had enough time to hunt for a zen cushion. I didn't actually know what a zen cushion was, but Jenn wanted one, and that was a good enough for me. Being pragmatic, I suggested we ask the local tourist information bureau where we could buy a zen cushion.
Unfortunately, the girl at the tourist desk wasn't prepared to field this sort of question. She sought the guidance of a higher authority, who sought the guidance of an even higher authority, and soon we had two co-workers and a manager digging through the Japanese yellow pages hunting for a zen cushion store. I took pictures of the robo-ninja deer. Eventually, it was determined a shop existed that could produce the cushion we were probably looking for. It was also only half a block away.
We set out for our cushion store. We don't read Japanese. We missed the store the first go by, but found it on the second. We sauntered (as sunflowers do) to the counter and the nice lady inside brought out one of the cushions. I thought it looked very nice, but a glance at Jenn informed me this pillow wasn't zen.
I don't know how many of you have tried to describe something you haven't actually seen into a second language with which you are marginally proficient, but let me assure you the experience is highly entertaining!
We had a quarter-dozen shop keepers scouring the store, trying to appease us mighty foreigners and sate our bizarre pillow related demands.
In the course of twenty minutes we established the following facts:
1) One of the shop keepers had at least a passing familiarity with zazen, and the cushions there of.
2) Japanese zazen doesn't use cushions anymore. They use little cushioned mini-benches.
3) The shop did not actually have the cushions we sought.
4) Lance actually remembered the japanese word for 'round/circle' at a key moment. Man, that saved a lot of potential headache.
5) The shop would make us cushions in 30 minutes.
Yes, that is correct. The shop did not have the cushions we wanted, but they had a square cushion filled with pipe bead. The square cushion was far too thick to serve a useful purpose in meditation, but the shop owner assured us they could remove the pipe beads from the cushion. He got the approximate height that Jenn wanted, and told us it would be ready in thirty minutes. We asked for two cushions, and he increased the wait time to....thirty minutes.
That's awesome math. We went for burgers.
No, wait. We looked at kimonos first. Jenn got a kimono last trip and I was going to buy a men's kimono this trip. Sadly, this shop didn't sell used kimonos; they sold custom-made new kimonos, in whatever fabric you desired. And if I had $9000, I would have totally bought one. We chatted with the shop owner about Banff, then went for Mos burgers.
After finishing our lunch, it had started to rain. We returned to the shop damp but unharmed. The owner had two employees furiously hand stitching pillows for us but they were not yet done. The staff seated us at the back of the shop by the heater and made us tea while they finished.
Roughly an hour after we arrived in Kyoto, we had two hand-stiched quasi-zen cushions in our possession, and they charged us a grand total of 60 cents for labour.
More importantly, however, we had not found a foo dog. Foo dog is a name I invented for the statues I liked in Nara. I doubt it's accurate, but a good author doesn't let integrity and accuracy get in the way of a blog post. We had seen the foo dogs in abundance in Nara. But searching the shops of Kyoto, we discovered a dearth of foo dogs. Kyoto was foo dogless. But because the train system in Japan is so phenomenal, we thought nothing of zipping between cities.
We went to Nara and bought a foo dog. We knew exactly where they were sold, and which one we wanted. So aside from waiting around while the owners manufactured a box large enough to wrap our purchase, that part of our trip was pretty uneventful. This post isn't about foo dogs, though. That's just a lead in to the cushion story. This is why this post is entitled 'The Cushion Story' and not the 'Really easy foo dog purchase story'.
So we were in Nara after an entirely uneventful foo dog purchase. We decided we had enough time to hunt for a zen cushion. I didn't actually know what a zen cushion was, but Jenn wanted one, and that was a good enough for me. Being pragmatic, I suggested we ask the local tourist information bureau where we could buy a zen cushion.
Unfortunately, the girl at the tourist desk wasn't prepared to field this sort of question. She sought the guidance of a higher authority, who sought the guidance of an even higher authority, and soon we had two co-workers and a manager digging through the Japanese yellow pages hunting for a zen cushion store. I took pictures of the robo-ninja deer. Eventually, it was determined a shop existed that could produce the cushion we were probably looking for. It was also only half a block away.
We set out for our cushion store. We don't read Japanese. We missed the store the first go by, but found it on the second. We sauntered (as sunflowers do) to the counter and the nice lady inside brought out one of the cushions. I thought it looked very nice, but a glance at Jenn informed me this pillow wasn't zen.
I don't know how many of you have tried to describe something you haven't actually seen into a second language with which you are marginally proficient, but let me assure you the experience is highly entertaining!
We had a quarter-dozen shop keepers scouring the store, trying to appease us mighty foreigners and sate our bizarre pillow related demands.
In the course of twenty minutes we established the following facts:
1) One of the shop keepers had at least a passing familiarity with zazen, and the cushions there of.
2) Japanese zazen doesn't use cushions anymore. They use little cushioned mini-benches.
3) The shop did not actually have the cushions we sought.
4) Lance actually remembered the japanese word for 'round/circle' at a key moment. Man, that saved a lot of potential headache.
5) The shop would make us cushions in 30 minutes.
Yes, that is correct. The shop did not have the cushions we wanted, but they had a square cushion filled with pipe bead. The square cushion was far too thick to serve a useful purpose in meditation, but the shop owner assured us they could remove the pipe beads from the cushion. He got the approximate height that Jenn wanted, and told us it would be ready in thirty minutes. We asked for two cushions, and he increased the wait time to....thirty minutes.
That's awesome math. We went for burgers.
No, wait. We looked at kimonos first. Jenn got a kimono last trip and I was going to buy a men's kimono this trip. Sadly, this shop didn't sell used kimonos; they sold custom-made new kimonos, in whatever fabric you desired. And if I had $9000, I would have totally bought one. We chatted with the shop owner about Banff, then went for Mos burgers.
After finishing our lunch, it had started to rain. We returned to the shop damp but unharmed. The owner had two employees furiously hand stitching pillows for us but they were not yet done. The staff seated us at the back of the shop by the heater and made us tea while they finished.
Roughly an hour after we arrived in Kyoto, we had two hand-stiched quasi-zen cushions in our possession, and they charged us a grand total of 60 cents for labour.
Hotel Superlatives
For some odd, inexplicable reason, I started a list of the hotels we stayed at and began assigning a superlative description to each of them. I think it adds a little flavour to an otherwise incredibly similar set of hotel stays. Since we're now in our final hotel of the trip, I thought I'd share the list with you.
- Hotel Sky Court - Kawasaki
Most first hotel!
Lance assures me it was chosen for its proximity to Anato-no-Warehouse arcade and not because it was in the 'red light' district of town. - Hotel Dormy Inn - Otaru
Best hotel robe!
Most, if not all, hotels in Japan will have a robe available for their guests. In most cases, it's a fairly cheap Japanese style 'summer robe' called a Yukata. In some of the other hotels we've stayed at, they have chosen a slightly different style. The Dormy Inn in Otaru was the only we stayed at to have a top and bottom to put on. Not sure if it was just because of how new the hotel was, but they were super soft and cottony and more like traditional pyjamas. - Hotel Piano - Kiroro
Biggest room!
It was like having a small suite to ourselves. I guess they figure people who ski don't really travel light. We picked this hotel at the ski resort because it had more restaurants than the other one and because it's name was cooler than 'Mountain Hotel.' - Ascent Inn - Sapporo
Most cacophonous toilet flush!
It was very noisy. And it had only one flush option, instead of having the normal 'big flush' and 'little flush' options that most other hotel toilets have. - Hearton Inn - Osaka
Most familiar!
Most offending soap!
This is one of the hotels we stayed at the last time we went to Japan. It was kind of nice knowing exactly where it would be and how to get there! It also gets the superlative of most offending soap because I got sprayed with soap one day, just before we were going to head out. The nozzle had gotten clogged with dry soap and I was going to wash my hands but instead of getting creamy white soap pumped into my hand it shot across the sink and all over my dark grey pants making an unsightly mark that wasn't going to be rinsed off quickly. So, I had to change into my other pants, which were luckily clean. All things considered, we did fairly well since the only 'stain' our clothes got was caused by soap. - Super Hotel Lohas - Nara
Darkest room!
Weakest shower!
Hardest mattress! (tie)
The room had blackout blinds which made it completely dark, even during daylight. The water pressure was also pretty low. But it was still a really convenient hotel since it was right by the train station. It was also pretty new and so it ties for another superlative 'Hardest Mattress!' The tie for this is shared with the other Super Hotel we stayed at. Both were new and I guess they decided to purchase the hardest mattresses they could find. We actually pulled out the extra blankets and slept on top of the duvet just to get some extra padding under us. At one point, I was so incredulous that it was an actual mattress and not a wooden plank or stack of bricks that we were sleeping on, that I pulled up the sheets to confirm the existence of a mattress. - Hotel Dormy Inn - Nagoya
Most Meh!
Biggest desk chair!
Add this to the list of disappointments about Nagoya. We stayed here hoping for another great Dormy Inn experience but everything was rather mediocre. The only thing that did stand out was the desk chair, which was huge relative to the room. Couldn't really turn without bumping in to the things and the arms were so large that the chair had to be lowered so that you could reasonably pull it in to the desk. - Hearton Inn - Osaka
see above - Super Hotel Lohas - Kyoto
Most difficult to find!
Hardest mattress! (tie)
Partly because the two streets listed, aren't the actual streets that it's on. But, once we had an actual map, it was much easier. We walked within a block, couldn't find it, trekked all the way back to the train station where the Welcome Inn centre is and got them to book it for us and give us a map with instructions. It was very cute to hear the woman at the Welcome Inn centre list the attributes of the hotel. As she put it, "it is a new hotel here in Kyoto: it has a natural hot spring; we don't really know how." They were trying to be 'green' so they gave free bottles of water to guests who declined room cleaning services while they were there. But, then all the women got 5 free gifts of little sample beauty products for each day that they stayed there, the packaging of which kind of defeating the attempt to be more 'green.' - Kikunoyu - Matsumoto
Best onsen ryokan!
Ok, so it was the only traditional onsen ryokan we stayed at, but still! The baths were very nice and since we were the only guests there the first night, they opened the bigger one for us as a 'family bath.' Then we even got little gifts when we checked out (which made me feel incredibly guilty for not giving them a gift in return). We also ordered a traditional Japanese dinner there which was served in our room. As Lance mentioned, the sashimi was very fresh and I still can't believe I actually ate that much seafood! - Touganeya Hotel - Tokyo
Most last hotel!
It was a little tricky to find, but once we able to properly orient ourselves with the various landmarks listed on the map, it became a lot easier. I was just relieved and surprised that they let us check in early, since most places are pretty sticky about the 3:00 pm check-in time. We were going to try to stay in the same hotel that we stayed in last time, but it was completely booked. In fact, it took quite some effort for us to find a hotel that was not booked for the nights we were going to be here. So, when the vacancy here came up, we weren't about to start getting picky about it.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Parks
One of the nicest things about travelling without a fixed itinerary is that you can take time for a nice relaxing walk in the local park if the weather and geography seem to suggest it. If you get a park that the people of the city actually use, it can be a nice way to catch a glimpse of what life is like in a foreign country. And, you get to see some pretty weird stuff too.
So far, we've taken two walks in large parks in Japan and here are some of the things we've witnessed:
- The end of a race (it was unclear as to how long it was, but I'd guess it was pretty long.)
- A group of four young gentlemen wearing masks and matching outfits filming themselves doing a dance routine. My guess was a game show demo tape.
- A Japanese mariachi duo. Guitar, pan flute, ponchos, singing a mariachi type song in Japanese. It was weird.
- A large group of people standing around clapping poorly in time to the music that the balloon animal creator had playing. It turns out, his balloon creations were pretty impressive. We walked by later when he was packing up and saw an ecstatic little girl carrying a balloon Minnie Mouse that was almost as big as she was.
- Japanese guys trying to skateboard. Again, not many places in Japan that have the space available to practice. What benches are available have arm rests and they have a habit of putting things that stick up off their handrails as well. So even though the guys looked to be in their 20's, their skill level was about that of the 10 year old who lives in our neighbourhood back home.
The first park we went to was the Osaka-Jo park and it was immaculate. It was pleasant to walk around and the people of the city obviously enjoyed using it as well. We saw lots of people walking or running, people practicing martial arts, kids practicing musical instruments, dog walkers, etc.
In the park in Tokyo, Ueno park, it's got a little more Tokyo-big-city influence to it. Still lots of people enjoying it, but it's definitely dirtier (my time spent in New York felt cleaner to some parts of this park). We've also seen some of Japan's homeless living here. But, they seem to be mostly left alone to do their thing and have some pretty permanent looking shelters set up. Even the gardeners seem to avoid conflict with them and just work around them. One of the people living there had even managed to set up a cook stove and kettle. I didn't see any of them begging for change and most of the Japanese people walking by just ignored them. My overall memory of the day was still pretty good, as we stumbled across an Irish pub at the train station on the way back from the park. But, perhaps we'll save the critique of their "Irish" pub for another post.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Matsumoto
Our two nights in Matsumoto were incredible.
The first night we had the run of the ryokan, because we were the only guests there. We were given exclusive use of the hot spring, our room was made up for us and our hosts were very generous and helpful.
The ryokan itself was described as a 'new' structure. Whether that meant built within 50 years or 200 years, I'm not certain. The style of building it emulated was from the 1600's, built with modern materials and traditional methods. There you have it.
There were various decorations around the inn from all periods of history. Marvellous tapestries, delicate ceramic bowls and cups, antique kami masks. The entire in had a wonderful character.
We didn't arrive to the inn until around sunset. The ryokan lady was going to carry our bags to our room but I took one look at the tiny lady, one look at the bags I'd been hauling, and felt an immediate twinge of guilt at being responsible for her death. It took some doing, but we convinced her to let us schlepp our own gear.
Our second day in Matsumoto was for sightseeing. We had warm, sunny weather to wander the town and we made the most of it. We hitched the bus back into town and spent around seven hours wandering the streets. We saw the castle and park, the art museum, a cool german liquor store, the time-piece museum (totally steampunk!) and a french tour guide that insisted on helping. We also took in lots of interesting buildings and shrines and temples along the way.
That night we had a traditional ryokan dinner served in our room. It was interesting. Some parts were fantastic, others required some suspension of disbelief. I'm particularly pleased I figured out how to eat prawn sashimi. It helped that the prawn was still so fresh and in one complete piece, he was able to offer guidance on how best to consume him.
This morning we hopped a train to Nagano city, only to be told by the tour guides there that the Olympics were being held in a different city this year. Who knew?
The first night we had the run of the ryokan, because we were the only guests there. We were given exclusive use of the hot spring, our room was made up for us and our hosts were very generous and helpful.
The ryokan itself was described as a 'new' structure. Whether that meant built within 50 years or 200 years, I'm not certain. The style of building it emulated was from the 1600's, built with modern materials and traditional methods. There you have it.
There were various decorations around the inn from all periods of history. Marvellous tapestries, delicate ceramic bowls and cups, antique kami masks. The entire in had a wonderful character.
We didn't arrive to the inn until around sunset. The ryokan lady was going to carry our bags to our room but I took one look at the tiny lady, one look at the bags I'd been hauling, and felt an immediate twinge of guilt at being responsible for her death. It took some doing, but we convinced her to let us schlepp our own gear.
Our second day in Matsumoto was for sightseeing. We had warm, sunny weather to wander the town and we made the most of it. We hitched the bus back into town and spent around seven hours wandering the streets. We saw the castle and park, the art museum, a cool german liquor store, the time-piece museum (totally steampunk!) and a french tour guide that insisted on helping. We also took in lots of interesting buildings and shrines and temples along the way.
That night we had a traditional ryokan dinner served in our room. It was interesting. Some parts were fantastic, others required some suspension of disbelief. I'm particularly pleased I figured out how to eat prawn sashimi. It helped that the prawn was still so fresh and in one complete piece, he was able to offer guidance on how best to consume him.
This morning we hopped a train to Nagano city, only to be told by the tour guides there that the Olympics were being held in a different city this year. Who knew?
An annecdote
The Japanese are way too helpful. We arrived in Matsumoto for a stay in an onsen ryokan. The ryokan itself was part of the Welcome Inn chain in Japan, which helps foreigners book lodgings around the country. We had received a print out from the Welcome Inn crew in Osaka that included directions on how to get to the ryokan. Since the onsen itself was quite some distance from Matsumoto station, we needed to take a bus. Unfortunately, the bus number listed on the directions did not exist at the bus station.
We wandered below ground to the sub-station, in search of better information. There was a help desk. We asked for help. Once we established where we were going, the lady informed us which bus to take. It was arriving within a few minutes. Then she proceeded to get up from behind her desk, walk around and point us in the right direction.
Or so we thought. Instead, she actually guided us to the specific bus stop outside, in sub-zero weather, wearing a skirt and high heel shoes. She insisted on holding all of the doors for us along the way, because we were rather laden from shopping, and then she waited until the correct bus came and made sure we got on. Above and beyond the call of duty.
Random extremely helpful lady at the tourist info desk who didn't speak English and helped us crazy gaijin anyway, we salute you!
Oh, but it doesn't stop there. Because the bus driver was crazy nice awesome, too. It turns out that Asama onsen has approximately seven stops, all a variation of Asama Onsen. We were uncertain if a particular stop was ours, so I asked the bus driver in my broken Japanese.
He instead asked me where we were going. I supplied the name of the ryokan, and he said this was not the correct stop. Instead, the correct stop turned out to be directly in front of our ryokan, where he let us off. We did not learn of his kindness until the following day, however, when we had to go to the actual bus stop to head into town, and it certainly wasn't where we'd left it.
We wandered below ground to the sub-station, in search of better information. There was a help desk. We asked for help. Once we established where we were going, the lady informed us which bus to take. It was arriving within a few minutes. Then she proceeded to get up from behind her desk, walk around and point us in the right direction.
Or so we thought. Instead, she actually guided us to the specific bus stop outside, in sub-zero weather, wearing a skirt and high heel shoes. She insisted on holding all of the doors for us along the way, because we were rather laden from shopping, and then she waited until the correct bus came and made sure we got on. Above and beyond the call of duty.
Random extremely helpful lady at the tourist info desk who didn't speak English and helped us crazy gaijin anyway, we salute you!
Oh, but it doesn't stop there. Because the bus driver was crazy nice awesome, too. It turns out that Asama onsen has approximately seven stops, all a variation of Asama Onsen. We were uncertain if a particular stop was ours, so I asked the bus driver in my broken Japanese.
He instead asked me where we were going. I supplied the name of the ryokan, and he said this was not the correct stop. Instead, the correct stop turned out to be directly in front of our ryokan, where he let us off. We did not learn of his kindness until the following day, however, when we had to go to the actual bus stop to head into town, and it certainly wasn't where we'd left it.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Story of Photos
So, I just sat down to review my photos of the last few days. The good news is that there were a lot. The bad news is that there weren't a lot. What kind of story do they tell?
From Osaka:
And then from Kyoto:
You'd think that we'd been spending most of our time eating our way through Japan, but we've been doing more, really we have! Most of it just isn't the type of thing you capture on camera. There's also been shopping, and lots, and lots of walking through two of our favourite cities in Japan. Generally just taking things easy and enjoying the feel and culture as we wander and explore. Most of the really picture worthy things we managed to snap photos of last time, but we do have a few random ones that will probably merit their own blog post, when we get time to write them.
Monday, February 15, 2010
On maps and the truncation thereof
Okay. Fun story. It turns out upon further inspection that the map to the Gekkeikan brewery museum was truncated by about 10 km. Our 1:45 hours of walking only got us halfway before we gave up and found a trainstation back to Kyoto. But it was a good half, wandering minami Kyoto in the sunshine and searching for a vending machine that would sell pineapple soda.
Near misses would be the theme of our day, as we later were within a block of the hotel we wanted to stay at, but were unable to discover the secret alley hidden in the back of the old wardrobe that led to the magical Super Hotel Kyoto.
After tramping all the way back to Kyoto station, we visited the tourist information center and got slightly better directions, which may or may not have involved a secret handshake, a snow monkey with a scottish brogue, and discovering that the true meaning of Christmas was in our hearts all along.
If only we knew.
Near misses would be the theme of our day, as we later were within a block of the hotel we wanted to stay at, but were unable to discover the secret alley hidden in the back of the old wardrobe that led to the magical Super Hotel Kyoto.
After tramping all the way back to Kyoto station, we visited the tourist information center and got slightly better directions, which may or may not have involved a secret handshake, a snow monkey with a scottish brogue, and discovering that the true meaning of Christmas was in our hearts all along.
If only we knew.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Japan has really short promos
Remember that One Piece promotion? C'mon, it was like three posts back. Anyway, the promotion is already over. It lasted less than a week. We got 5/9 posters. Because back home, promotions last longer than 5 days. We figured we had time.
We haven't given up hope yet about finding the rest of the wanted posters, but the prospects are rather dim. Fortunately, we nabbed all the posters we really liked. The rest were simply for completeness.
In that similar vein, McDonalds is running a promotion featuring American Burgers. They have a burger named for every state and each burger gets one week. That's it. Then it's gone. They've already gone through Texas and New York while we were here, and they are halfway through Hawaii now. It's insane!
We haven't given up hope yet about finding the rest of the wanted posters, but the prospects are rather dim. Fortunately, we nabbed all the posters we really liked. The rest were simply for completeness.
In that similar vein, McDonalds is running a promotion featuring American Burgers. They have a burger named for every state and each burger gets one week. That's it. Then it's gone. They've already gone through Texas and New York while we were here, and they are halfway through Hawaii now. It's insane!
Nagoya
We zipped out to Nagoya in the Mie prefecture, with the intent of spending considerable time in that region. The city featured a few interesting buildings and lots of traffic, but we didn't feel any particular charm.
Our plan was to crash for a night in Nagoya, then head up to Gero Onsen for a relaxing night or two. We booked into the Dormy Inn Nagoya, which was decidedly less impressive than Dormy Inn Otaru. But it is conveniently located near the Nagoya red light district, if that's your thing.
That's three new hotels we've visited on Honshu, and two red light districts. We're on a roll.
Deciding to make the best of our time in Nagoya, we checked out the Nagoya science center. It was two buildings and a planetarium. Admission was $6 each, including our tickets to the planetarium show. Eat your heart out Science World. The annual pass ran $20.
So you would be fair in assuming that the Nagoya science world was pretty lame. Except you would be wrong. It was pretty darn awesome. I mean, everything was in Japanese, so it was pretty tough to understand some of the exhibits. But most of the things were interactive, and Jenn and I had lots of fun figuring out the rules of the games. Maybe a little more than we enjoyed the games themselves. And let's be honest here: zapping things with electricity is fun in any language.
We also checked out the planetarium show. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Maybe a similar script to the quickie 20 minute shows we get back home at our planetarium. Instead, we were treated to a 60 minute presenation on the cosmos, and a 10 minute intro on the NEW planetarium they are currently constructing, which will be a self-enclosed globe suspended between two buildings. It looks very cool.
The cosmos presentation was also pretty incredible, since I learned more about the constellations in a foreign language I could barely follow than I ever did back home. Which leads me to my current hypothesis: the Japanese are really sophisticated robots diguised as humans.
But I digress.
The second stage of our plan was Gero onsen. Unfortunately, after carefully navigating the Japanese language page of the onsen we wanted to stay at, it appeared they were not accepting reseverations anymore. At all. Ever. I'm uncertain if it was a glitch on the website, or if they were remodeling, or if they had gone out of business, but it was clear fate was not on our side.
It was about this time that we realized Nagoya wasn't really a city for us. We looked at the itinerary of things to do and see and decided we wanted to go elsewhere.
The next day we headed south for Ise, to visit the Umbrella Shrine. The shrine itself is one of the most sacred Shinto shrines in Japan: so sacred, in fact, the priests knock the shrine down every twenty years and build it again a few paces over. When you visit, you don't actually get to see the shrine, either, because it is that sacred. Instead, you get to view the sort of outer gate bits. And a sea of umbrellas as people wait their turn in the queue.
After the Ise Shrine, the drizzle became genuine rain as we searched for Samurai town. Several misadventures later, we realized that Mie was not for us and we left.
Our plan was to crash for a night in Nagoya, then head up to Gero Onsen for a relaxing night or two. We booked into the Dormy Inn Nagoya, which was decidedly less impressive than Dormy Inn Otaru. But it is conveniently located near the Nagoya red light district, if that's your thing.
That's three new hotels we've visited on Honshu, and two red light districts. We're on a roll.
Deciding to make the best of our time in Nagoya, we checked out the Nagoya science center. It was two buildings and a planetarium. Admission was $6 each, including our tickets to the planetarium show. Eat your heart out Science World. The annual pass ran $20.
So you would be fair in assuming that the Nagoya science world was pretty lame. Except you would be wrong. It was pretty darn awesome. I mean, everything was in Japanese, so it was pretty tough to understand some of the exhibits. But most of the things were interactive, and Jenn and I had lots of fun figuring out the rules of the games. Maybe a little more than we enjoyed the games themselves. And let's be honest here: zapping things with electricity is fun in any language.
We also checked out the planetarium show. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Maybe a similar script to the quickie 20 minute shows we get back home at our planetarium. Instead, we were treated to a 60 minute presenation on the cosmos, and a 10 minute intro on the NEW planetarium they are currently constructing, which will be a self-enclosed globe suspended between two buildings. It looks very cool.
The cosmos presentation was also pretty incredible, since I learned more about the constellations in a foreign language I could barely follow than I ever did back home. Which leads me to my current hypothesis: the Japanese are really sophisticated robots diguised as humans.
But I digress.
The second stage of our plan was Gero onsen. Unfortunately, after carefully navigating the Japanese language page of the onsen we wanted to stay at, it appeared they were not accepting reseverations anymore. At all. Ever. I'm uncertain if it was a glitch on the website, or if they were remodeling, or if they had gone out of business, but it was clear fate was not on our side.
It was about this time that we realized Nagoya wasn't really a city for us. We looked at the itinerary of things to do and see and decided we wanted to go elsewhere.
The next day we headed south for Ise, to visit the Umbrella Shrine. The shrine itself is one of the most sacred Shinto shrines in Japan: so sacred, in fact, the priests knock the shrine down every twenty years and build it again a few paces over. When you visit, you don't actually get to see the shrine, either, because it is that sacred. Instead, you get to view the sort of outer gate bits. And a sea of umbrellas as people wait their turn in the queue.
After the Ise Shrine, the drizzle became genuine rain as we searched for Samurai town. Several misadventures later, we realized that Mie was not for us and we left.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
A Photo From Ise and Tale of Samurai Defeat
We went to umbrella land Ise Shrine today. Unfortunately it was very misty and busy so I didn't get many good pictures. Not to mention that at the very inner part of the shrine, where all the really cool stuff is, I spent a few minutes lining up a really good shot only to be told "shashin o kakimasen" = no pictures :( (Lance tells me he snapped a few good ones while I was "cleverly distracting them," but I'm too lazy to upload any of his photos right now).
Somewhere in the general area was also supposed to be a Samurai Theme Park, but when we tried to ask one of the workers at the bus station for directions, there was a communication error somewhere and he instead gave us directions to the place in the picture above, which is a shopping area done up like historical Japan. This photo was taken from one of the bridges leading out of the neighbourhood. It was really crowded on all the inner streets, which were narrow to begin with, so I didn't feel like snapping any pictures in there. It was kind of neat to look around in there, but we decided to try one more time to get to the Samurai Theme Park. This time, we got directions to the bus stop that would take us there. After walking for nearly 15 minutes in an increasingly misty afternoon and not yet arriving at the bus stop we decided to turn around, not get lost, and grab the next bus back to the train station.
Monday, February 8, 2010
A couple more photos
I thought I'd post a few random photos for my blog contribution today.
First is a shot of Lance and I on a train heading somewhere. One of the few shots of us together so enjoy it!
This next one will give you a sense of the spring-like weather we're currently enjoying. The plum blossoms were just starting to peek out at Osaka-Jo-Koen (Osaka Castle Park) when we went walking through the other day.
I'm not posting any of the wonderful snow pictures for a couple of good reasons. One, I'd rather forget just how cold it was. And two, it looks like I only thought I copied all the pictures off my memory card before clearing it. In fact, I did not, so I don't have any of my snow festival pictures :( Lance still has all the ones from his camera though, so maybe I'll post some of his once the sting of losing all of mine wears off. As we're currently in Nara, I think I'll blame it on the deer. The deer ate my photos! Makes perfect sense since they do eat everything else!
Japan loves jazz
Almost every restaurant we've visited has had awesome jazz music playing in the background. All the classic standards.
The exception was the Dormy Inn in Otaru which had quiet string fugues playing in the hallways and - I kid you not - a room dedictated to the Bachs. The Bach Room was a small corner room with an ample supply of reading material, comfortable chairs, and 24/7 music by all the most famous Bachs.
If our vacation were a movie, it's had a pretty fantastic soundtrack so far.
The exception was the Dormy Inn in Otaru which had quiet string fugues playing in the hallways and - I kid you not - a room dedictated to the Bachs. The Bach Room was a small corner room with an ample supply of reading material, comfortable chairs, and 24/7 music by all the most famous Bachs.
If our vacation were a movie, it's had a pretty fantastic soundtrack so far.
Osaka Joe
After three flights in five days, we paused in Osaka for some R&R. We hit up the same Hearton hotel we stayed at during our first trip, in the same semi-double rooms, and it felt a little like coming home.
Our ambitions for sightseeing in Osaka were minimal during our two night stay, and we succeeded admirably. We did take one morning to hit up Osaka castle and the surrounding park. The park was simply amazing.
There were plenty of foot paths through out the park. And, being it was a Sunday, there were lots of people out enjoying the fine weather. Did I mention the fine weather? After Hokkaido, it was positively summer-like. Clear blue skies, and a warm 10 to 15 degrees most of the day. And cute, fluffy little white clouds dancing in the sky.
We sauntered around the park for some time, enjoying the warm sun, before we decided to tour the castle museum. The castle itself is not original. Most of the feudal castles in Japan were torn down during the Meiji restoration, when a "One Castle, One Province" rule was put into effect. But the replica castle had a lot nicer amenities inside, and the space was put to good use as a museum. Not much to see if you aren't into history, but all of the exhibits were in Japanese and English, making it a museum the two of us could appreciate more.
After the castle museum, we toured the plum blossom orchard. A few trees were starting to come into colour, but most were still bare. It is a little early yet. We are visiting another plum grove in Kyoto late next week, and hopefully the extra time will give the trees a chance to fully bloom.
Our ambitions for sightseeing in Osaka were minimal during our two night stay, and we succeeded admirably. We did take one morning to hit up Osaka castle and the surrounding park. The park was simply amazing.
There were plenty of foot paths through out the park. And, being it was a Sunday, there were lots of people out enjoying the fine weather. Did I mention the fine weather? After Hokkaido, it was positively summer-like. Clear blue skies, and a warm 10 to 15 degrees most of the day. And cute, fluffy little white clouds dancing in the sky.
We sauntered around the park for some time, enjoying the warm sun, before we decided to tour the castle museum. The castle itself is not original. Most of the feudal castles in Japan were torn down during the Meiji restoration, when a "One Castle, One Province" rule was put into effect. But the replica castle had a lot nicer amenities inside, and the space was put to good use as a museum. Not much to see if you aren't into history, but all of the exhibits were in Japanese and English, making it a museum the two of us could appreciate more.
After the castle museum, we toured the plum blossom orchard. A few trees were starting to come into colour, but most were still bare. It is a little early yet. We are visiting another plum grove in Kyoto late next week, and hopefully the extra time will give the trees a chance to fully bloom.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Sapporo Snow Festival
It was pretty good. Very impressive skills, coupled with impressive quantities of snow. Very cold. And crowded. The chocolate covered bananas on a stick the food vendors were selling looked interesting.
Yeah. That basically covers it.
Yeah. That basically covers it.
Four city tour
We left Kiroro in the morning and headed back to Otaru, whereupon we caught a train to Sapporo, switched trains in Sapporo and headed north to Asahikawa, where we had to stop for further directions because I forgot the name of our destination.
What was our purpose in traveling three hours to an out of the way city in Northern Hokkadio in blizzard like conditions? A sake brewery, of course.
But not just any brewery. The sake they make is not available for sale outside of Japan. And they brew the sake in traditional ice houses, in small batches, with an emphasis on quality over quantity. In American terms, we were hunting for a micro-brewery.
Fortunately, the local tourist information office had maps of the area in English. And at the very edge of the map corner was our target: the Taka...something brewery. Okay, I've already forgotten the name again. Japanese is hard, okay?
The snow was falling heavily as we braved the icy streets of Asahikawa. The sidewalks were actually an accumulation of compacted snow, many inches thick; we figured we were walking almost a full foot above the proper ground.
After about twenty minutes on foot, we reached a building that could only be the sake brewery. It was a traditional wooden structure, with thick, traditional wooden doors barring entry.
It was closed.
So with heavy hearts and a sadness in our souls we turned around and..no, I'm just kidding. It was open. The real entrance was around the side.
The floor creaked as we walked inside and admired the rows and rows of bottles. All of this sake had been painstaking crafted. Some had been more painstakingly crafted than others, but we couldn't tell. I couldn't read a damn thing.
The nice shop lady came to our rescue. She didn't speak much English, but she knew the only words we needed to hear: 'tasting okay?'
Oh, hell YES! A dozen very generous pours later, we returned to the Asahikawa train station, warm in spite of the weather and weighed down with several bottles of extremely delicious sake. The two most expensive bottles will make the return trip with us to Canada, to share with our friends. The other bottles...will not be so fortunate.
Delicious sake soon to be consumed, we salute you!
What was our purpose in traveling three hours to an out of the way city in Northern Hokkadio in blizzard like conditions? A sake brewery, of course.
But not just any brewery. The sake they make is not available for sale outside of Japan. And they brew the sake in traditional ice houses, in small batches, with an emphasis on quality over quantity. In American terms, we were hunting for a micro-brewery.
Fortunately, the local tourist information office had maps of the area in English. And at the very edge of the map corner was our target: the Taka...something brewery. Okay, I've already forgotten the name again. Japanese is hard, okay?
The snow was falling heavily as we braved the icy streets of Asahikawa. The sidewalks were actually an accumulation of compacted snow, many inches thick; we figured we were walking almost a full foot above the proper ground.
After about twenty minutes on foot, we reached a building that could only be the sake brewery. It was a traditional wooden structure, with thick, traditional wooden doors barring entry.
It was closed.
So with heavy hearts and a sadness in our souls we turned around and..no, I'm just kidding. It was open. The real entrance was around the side.
The floor creaked as we walked inside and admired the rows and rows of bottles. All of this sake had been painstaking crafted. Some had been more painstakingly crafted than others, but we couldn't tell. I couldn't read a damn thing.
The nice shop lady came to our rescue. She didn't speak much English, but she knew the only words we needed to hear: 'tasting okay?'
Oh, hell YES! A dozen very generous pours later, we returned to the Asahikawa train station, warm in spite of the weather and weighed down with several bottles of extremely delicious sake. The two most expensive bottles will make the return trip with us to Canada, to share with our friends. The other bottles...will not be so fortunate.
Delicious sake soon to be consumed, we salute you!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
For the Wiffers, a Wine Review
First, a bit about the differences in finding and consuming alcohol in Canada as compared to Japan . . .
What Lance and I consider one of the best things about visiting Japan, is the proliferation of access to alcohol and the laissez-faire attitude towards its consumption. In Canada, you can only really get alcohol at certain licensed restaurants and specialty liquor stores. The liquor stores are really of two varieties: private owned and government owned. They usually suffer from at least one, if not several, of the following flaws: bad hours, poor selection, and high prices. Also, liquor cannot be consumed in public. At certain events it is permitted, but you can't just crack a can of beer open on a train and go on your merry way.
In Japan, the situation is quite different. You can readily find alcohol for sale at convenience stores, in vending machines on public streets, and even at train station kiosks. While it's considered rude to be walking around in the open eating and drinking, it's perfectly acceptable to eat and drink while sitting down on a train or bus. In fact, many seats will have flip down trays and/or cup holders to make it more convenient for you. Also, many of the bottles that have twist off caps, now come equipped with little pull tabs, so you can very easily open your beverage.
Now, to set the stage for the wine review . . .
We were heading back from Asahikawa (where we had just visited a sake brewery, sampled, and purchased some bottles to bring back home) and it had been a very long day. We were faced with almost 2 hours on a train to get to the city where our hotel was (and we didn't really know exactly where in the city our hotel was located, so there was that adventure still to come), we had done a lot of walking, and my ankle still hurt like hell. And did I mention we'd just been walking around in the snow in -10 degrees Celsius? Anyway, we got to the train station and had a bit of time before our train was set to arrive so we stopped for snacks and drinks. They had mostly beer and a few bottles of wine, so I decided to pick one up for the train ride ahead. Here are the basic details (keep in mind, this is what I could discern from reading the label, which was mostly in Japanese).
Now, the wine . . .
As for how it tasted, I thought I could actually detect a hint of Lavendar in the wine. But, it might have simply been the suggestive power of the bottle. since it was one of the few English words on it, and it had a picture of a Lavendar field on the front of the bottle too. It was a fairly sweet wine, and I found it pretty good after the long day we'd had. Probably not something I'd serve with dinner, but to kick back and relax a bit while travelling back to the city on the zoo train filled with hyper children and life sized stuffed animals at the front of every car (I kid you not), it was very much worth the price. I'd give it a solid 3 out of 5. Oh, and it paired pretty nicely with the Pocky too.
On a purely side note, I'm quite glad I opted for the white over the red variety, as you can't see at all where I spilled the wine all over the front of my pants when the train zigged just as I was pouring another cup for myself (did I mention they were tiny, jello-shooter size cups?)
Should I feel so inspired, I may pick up another variety at some other locale on our trip and post another review.
What Lance and I consider one of the best things about visiting Japan, is the proliferation of access to alcohol and the laissez-faire attitude towards its consumption. In Canada, you can only really get alcohol at certain licensed restaurants and specialty liquor stores. The liquor stores are really of two varieties: private owned and government owned. They usually suffer from at least one, if not several, of the following flaws: bad hours, poor selection, and high prices. Also, liquor cannot be consumed in public. At certain events it is permitted, but you can't just crack a can of beer open on a train and go on your merry way.
In Japan, the situation is quite different. You can readily find alcohol for sale at convenience stores, in vending machines on public streets, and even at train station kiosks. While it's considered rude to be walking around in the open eating and drinking, it's perfectly acceptable to eat and drink while sitting down on a train or bus. In fact, many seats will have flip down trays and/or cup holders to make it more convenient for you. Also, many of the bottles that have twist off caps, now come equipped with little pull tabs, so you can very easily open your beverage.
Now, to set the stage for the wine review . . .
We were heading back from Asahikawa (where we had just visited a sake brewery, sampled, and purchased some bottles to bring back home) and it had been a very long day. We were faced with almost 2 hours on a train to get to the city where our hotel was (and we didn't really know exactly where in the city our hotel was located, so there was that adventure still to come), we had done a lot of walking, and my ankle still hurt like hell. And did I mention we'd just been walking around in the snow in -10 degrees Celsius? Anyway, we got to the train station and had a bit of time before our train was set to arrive so we stopped for snacks and drinks. They had mostly beer and a few bottles of wine, so I decided to pick one up for the train ride ahead. Here are the basic details (keep in mind, this is what I could discern from reading the label, which was mostly in Japanese).
Now, the wine . . .
Furano wine. Lavendar fragrance. A white. 360 ml Bottle with aThe very nice girl at the check out was kind enough to ask if we wanted cups, to which I responded in the affirmative. As I said, it had been a long day, and when I grabbed the bottle, I hadn't really given any thoughts on HOW I would drink the wine, just that I wanted to try it. Once we were settled on the train, I pulled the cool bottle out of the bag, and my heart sank a little when I realized that it had a real cork. My husband came to my rescue though and pointed out that the girl at the store had also put a little corkscrew in the bag. Yup, they provide tiny cups and a corkscrew too. Oh, and did I mention the price? It was 480 Y, which works out to around $5.
real cork - no screw cap. Best served between 6 & 12 degrees
Celsius. A decent 12% alcohol. The little blurb on the front of the
bottle seems to indicate that this might be an expermental brew --> "Furano
viticulture and enology experiment station Shimizuyama Furano Hokkaido
Japan."
As for how it tasted, I thought I could actually detect a hint of Lavendar in the wine. But, it might have simply been the suggestive power of the bottle. since it was one of the few English words on it, and it had a picture of a Lavendar field on the front of the bottle too. It was a fairly sweet wine, and I found it pretty good after the long day we'd had. Probably not something I'd serve with dinner, but to kick back and relax a bit while travelling back to the city on the zoo train filled with hyper children and life sized stuffed animals at the front of every car (I kid you not), it was very much worth the price. I'd give it a solid 3 out of 5. Oh, and it paired pretty nicely with the Pocky too.
On a purely side note, I'm quite glad I opted for the white over the red variety, as you can't see at all where I spilled the wine all over the front of my pants when the train zigged just as I was pouring another cup for myself (did I mention they were tiny, jello-shooter size cups?)
Should I feel so inspired, I may pick up another variety at some other locale on our trip and post another review.
Dear Vancouver,
We found your snow. It was in Hokkaido. Evidentally, it had been drinking heavily; it certainly kept falling down the entire time we were there.
Ha ha. Ha.
But seriously, folks. We left the comfort of the Dormy Inn and caught a bus to Hotel Piano at Kiroro resort. We arrived mid-morning, too early for check-in. Instead we stuffed our bags in lockers, rented snow equipment, and went skiing. My wife is a wicked awesome ski demon. Zoom zoom! Away she went. I ran into a sign.
It was a good thing, really. The sign was the only thing I could find to prevent me from entering the speed mogul ramp. That would have ended very, very badly. Jenn did the moguls later, just to prove she is more awesome than me.
After a few runs, they closed down the course we had been skiing and opened up the night runs. We decided we'd had our fun and went back to the hotel.
Remember when I said food was cheap in Japan? If you don't, you should go back and read the old blog posts. You obviously weren't paying attention the first time. It turns out, you can find an expensive restaurant if you look really, really hard at the top of a remote mountain. And it's french cuisine.
Our table was on a balcony that overlooked the hotel lobby. Below us a grand piano had been retro-fitted into a player piano and we dined to the sound of jazz piano classics. The meals themselves were a set course: you could chose big, bigger, or biggest, and you could choose your drink. (We opted for gin and tonics).
The amuse bouche was a light carrot mousse. This was followed by seven courses, each artfully arranged upon our plates. Each course was small, and very delicious. The entire meal was choreographed over 90 minutes, and involved a supporting cast of 11 different utensils, and equal number of plates, one very attentive waiter and two very satisfied Canadians.
And, yeah. We forgot our cameras in the room so no pictures.
Ha ha. Ha.
But seriously, folks. We left the comfort of the Dormy Inn and caught a bus to Hotel Piano at Kiroro resort. We arrived mid-morning, too early for check-in. Instead we stuffed our bags in lockers, rented snow equipment, and went skiing. My wife is a wicked awesome ski demon. Zoom zoom! Away she went. I ran into a sign.
It was a good thing, really. The sign was the only thing I could find to prevent me from entering the speed mogul ramp. That would have ended very, very badly. Jenn did the moguls later, just to prove she is more awesome than me.
After a few runs, they closed down the course we had been skiing and opened up the night runs. We decided we'd had our fun and went back to the hotel.
Remember when I said food was cheap in Japan? If you don't, you should go back and read the old blog posts. You obviously weren't paying attention the first time. It turns out, you can find an expensive restaurant if you look really, really hard at the top of a remote mountain. And it's french cuisine.
Our table was on a balcony that overlooked the hotel lobby. Below us a grand piano had been retro-fitted into a player piano and we dined to the sound of jazz piano classics. The meals themselves were a set course: you could chose big, bigger, or biggest, and you could choose your drink. (We opted for gin and tonics).
The amuse bouche was a light carrot mousse. This was followed by seven courses, each artfully arranged upon our plates. Each course was small, and very delicious. The entire meal was choreographed over 90 minutes, and involved a supporting cast of 11 different utensils, and equal number of plates, one very attentive waiter and two very satisfied Canadians.
And, yeah. We forgot our cameras in the room so no pictures.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Otaru
Otaru was a lovely city. The highlight of the town is the Otaru canal district, which features several old buildings. The city has worked hard to maintain the historic ambience of the port. A very nice stroll, though not a long one.
To make up for that fact, we did the stroll about six times. Because we were not looking for the canal district. We had come to Otaru with a purpose. We were looking for a long lost cousin.
Ages ago, Vancouver sent a steamclock to Otaru as a gift. It is an exact duplicate of the steamclock located on Granville street, except that it is slightly larger in all dimensions, and it actually functions as a steamclock.
The steamclock is located in front of an orgel music box shop, at the very end of a picturesque boulevard. We probably would have appreciated the boulevard more, except it was -10 C. and we'd been walking for a very long time. We went inside the orgel shop to warm up.
The shop itself was an old brick and frame warehouse building, about three stories tall. The entire interior was one large room. And everywhere you looked were music boxes. We stayed for about a half hour, admiring the quality of the workmanship - both of the music boxes and the building itself. Eventually, we'd warmed enough to brave the trek back.
To make up for that fact, we did the stroll about six times. Because we were not looking for the canal district. We had come to Otaru with a purpose. We were looking for a long lost cousin.
Ages ago, Vancouver sent a steamclock to Otaru as a gift. It is an exact duplicate of the steamclock located on Granville street, except that it is slightly larger in all dimensions, and it actually functions as a steamclock.
The steamclock is located in front of an orgel music box shop, at the very end of a picturesque boulevard. We probably would have appreciated the boulevard more, except it was -10 C. and we'd been walking for a very long time. We went inside the orgel shop to warm up.
The shop itself was an old brick and frame warehouse building, about three stories tall. The entire interior was one large room. And everywhere you looked were music boxes. We stayed for about a half hour, admiring the quality of the workmanship - both of the music boxes and the building itself. Eventually, we'd warmed enough to brave the trek back.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
A few pictures to complement the montage . . .
One of the things we learned from our first visit to Japan, was 'when in doubt, follow the school children.' It worked this time as well. The picture is a bit blurry because I was taking it while walking up the stairs of the Kamakura train station. It's a smaller tourist spot and we didn't really have a map of where anything was. But, when we got off the train and saw hordes of school children, we just started following them, and sure enough, they knew their way to all the different tourist locations already.
Yes, we ran across an Amish cafe. Did not stop in to eat though. They might not have let us after taking a picture of their sign.
The second largest Buddha in Japan. I think it would look bigger if the original surrounding building were still there. But I guess they were only willing to rebuild it so many times after various disasters before they finally gave up. Did Lance mention that you could go inside this one? Yup, for a measely 20 yen per person (which works out to about 20 cents) you can walk inside. You go down super-steep unlit stairs and then you're inside the Buddha. People were slapping his belly from the inside because you can't reach it at all from the outside.
And finally, Anata-no Warehouse. This is the outside of the arcade Lance mentioned.
And this is what the inside of the ladies room looks like.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Quest!
One Piece is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It is a cartoon about a boy who sails off to sea to become the Pirate King and beats up a lot of people along the way. It's practically Shakespearean, except nobody dies.
Lawsons - the 24 hour convenient store and my primary vendor of Pocky - is sponsoring a One Piece celebration. The store has printed up awesome quality images of the One Piece crew's wanted posters. Eight in all.
After some back and forth, we established that they do not sell the posters. You get a poster free, if you buy a Bunch of specially marked items in store. After even more back and forth, we established the magic number at Two.
We have so far collected two posters. And by the Power of Greyskull, we shall collect them all!
Lawsons - the 24 hour convenient store and my primary vendor of Pocky - is sponsoring a One Piece celebration. The store has printed up awesome quality images of the One Piece crew's wanted posters. Eight in all.
After some back and forth, we established that they do not sell the posters. You get a poster free, if you buy a Bunch of specially marked items in store. After even more back and forth, we established the magic number at Two.
We have so far collected two posters. And by the Power of Greyskull, we shall collect them all!
Travel montage
Every good story needs a montage. It's the bit where you fast-forward to here, from there. Here is currently Otaru, Hokkaido. And it involves a great deal of luxury. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.
We flew JAL for this trip. The flight was nice and wholly uneventful. Air Canada did several things better, however. For starters, we travel light. One carry-on each. Air Canada lets you check in via the website and print your own boarding pass from home. Brilliant.
Secondly, Air Canada has movies on demand. Trust me, it's better.
Thirdly (and admittedly this is Tokyo's fault) immigration came before baggage. In Osaka, we jumped queue by not waiting at the baggage. Essentially we walked off the plane, right past the baggage turns, and straight up to two very confused immigration and customs officials. Not so in Tokyo. We got to stand in line again.
On a positive note, nobody moves a line more efficiently than the japanese. And an extra bonus: neither Jenn nor I were accosted by stern looking customs agents with white plastic gloves.
Our first two nights were booked at the Hotel Sky Court. The hotel was pretty nice - spacious for a Japanese semi-double and a very reasonable price. It just happened to be in the red light district. We were a little uncertain of the directions, but a very nice pimp gave us two umbrellas and confirmed the directions, and we reached the hotel without incident.
The next day we visited Kamakura, an hour south of Tokyo. The train ride was pleasant, the weather cloudy but dry. We explored the town with a great deal of inefficiency and photography. Viewed several temples, shrines, shops, and the second largest (second best?) Buddha in Japan. In fact, second-best sums Kamakura up rather well.
On the way back to the hotel, zagged and zigged and stopped in at Anato No Warehouse; a five story arcade building built to resemble a run-down Chinatown neighbourhood. The walls were brick, the floors concrete, the vending machines rusted. Everything had a dingy, dirty appeal to it. Except the ladies bathrooms, which were done in high Parisian style apparently. That's understanding your demographics. The first floor was the entry, floors 2-3 were arcade and prize games, interspersed with darts and pool tables. We snapped pictures like crazy gaijin until on the fourth floor one of the staff finally had the nerve to tell us pictures weren't allowed.
At the top was an internet cafe. We tried to use the internet, but apparently we needed a card. We asked for a card, and were told we needed a card. Evidently, something was lost in translation. That something was our internet, we returned to the hotel in defeat.
Which brings us to today, when we woke early and boarded another train, took another plane, to yet another train. And thus we reached the Dormy Inn.
Okay, silly name. But the hotel is literally 100 feet from the JR rail station. The room is excellent (and has complimentary internet), but it is the baths that seal the deal.
The men's bath had three indoor pools (ranging from ice cold to lobster bisque), a sauna, and two outdoor baths. Nothing beats soaking in scalding water when the ambient temperature is -12 degrees Celsius. And after all the walking and traveling we've done the past few days, it was nice to scurry into the hot baths to soak for a few hours.
We flew JAL for this trip. The flight was nice and wholly uneventful. Air Canada did several things better, however. For starters, we travel light. One carry-on each. Air Canada lets you check in via the website and print your own boarding pass from home. Brilliant.
Secondly, Air Canada has movies on demand. Trust me, it's better.
Thirdly (and admittedly this is Tokyo's fault) immigration came before baggage. In Osaka, we jumped queue by not waiting at the baggage. Essentially we walked off the plane, right past the baggage turns, and straight up to two very confused immigration and customs officials. Not so in Tokyo. We got to stand in line again.
On a positive note, nobody moves a line more efficiently than the japanese. And an extra bonus: neither Jenn nor I were accosted by stern looking customs agents with white plastic gloves.
Our first two nights were booked at the Hotel Sky Court. The hotel was pretty nice - spacious for a Japanese semi-double and a very reasonable price. It just happened to be in the red light district. We were a little uncertain of the directions, but a very nice pimp gave us two umbrellas and confirmed the directions, and we reached the hotel without incident.
The next day we visited Kamakura, an hour south of Tokyo. The train ride was pleasant, the weather cloudy but dry. We explored the town with a great deal of inefficiency and photography. Viewed several temples, shrines, shops, and the second largest (second best?) Buddha in Japan. In fact, second-best sums Kamakura up rather well.
On the way back to the hotel, zagged and zigged and stopped in at Anato No Warehouse; a five story arcade building built to resemble a run-down Chinatown neighbourhood. The walls were brick, the floors concrete, the vending machines rusted. Everything had a dingy, dirty appeal to it. Except the ladies bathrooms, which were done in high Parisian style apparently. That's understanding your demographics. The first floor was the entry, floors 2-3 were arcade and prize games, interspersed with darts and pool tables. We snapped pictures like crazy gaijin until on the fourth floor one of the staff finally had the nerve to tell us pictures weren't allowed.
At the top was an internet cafe. We tried to use the internet, but apparently we needed a card. We asked for a card, and were told we needed a card. Evidently, something was lost in translation. That something was our internet, we returned to the hotel in defeat.
Which brings us to today, when we woke early and boarded another train, took another plane, to yet another train. And thus we reached the Dormy Inn.
Okay, silly name. But the hotel is literally 100 feet from the JR rail station. The room is excellent (and has complimentary internet), but it is the baths that seal the deal.
The men's bath had three indoor pools (ranging from ice cold to lobster bisque), a sauna, and two outdoor baths. Nothing beats soaking in scalding water when the ambient temperature is -12 degrees Celsius. And after all the walking and traveling we've done the past few days, it was nice to scurry into the hot baths to soak for a few hours.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
One good trip deserves another
In less than two weeks we depart (again) for the land of the rising sun.
Our vacation was cast into doubt when Japan airlines announced over Christmas that it had almost run out of money. It had money, it said; but the money seemed to be gone. They were rather embarassed.
Fortunately for us, the Japanese government has stepped in to guarantee loans and keep JAL flying. So for now it seems that the airline will have enough money to continue until we get over there.
They might even have enough to get us home.
Our vacation was cast into doubt when Japan airlines announced over Christmas that it had almost run out of money. It had money, it said; but the money seemed to be gone. They were rather embarassed.
Fortunately for us, the Japanese government has stepped in to guarantee loans and keep JAL flying. So for now it seems that the airline will have enough money to continue until we get over there.
They might even have enough to get us home.
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