Japan Tour

First off I believe an apology to my readers is long overdue.  For those of you who have either faithfully or even sporadically followed my blog only to see it quickly and abruptly stop I’m sorry.  Officially, this blog has two more posts coming at least (maybe a bonus trip will be added).  Although I’m already home I wanted this blog to be a thorough documentation of my years travel abroad and since I’ve gotten home, I’ve succumbed to laziness as well as been overwhelmed with the onslaught of schoolwork.  I have just completed my fall quarter back at my home university and will once again be reinvesting some time to this blog, at least until it is complete.  So here goes as I see how many details I can remember.  This is going to be a long one as I show you my trip through Japan…

First, some context.  After school ended in Japan, I had roughly a week before leaving for my trip to China.  Andrea at the same time wanted to plan a brief trip around Japan to see a list of major cities and sights around southern Honshu and asked if I wanted to join him.  I worked it out perfectly so that I would be able to stay in Fukuoka long enough to get my Chinese visa which was 15,000 YEN!!! with no discounts for being of Chinese decent *sigh*.  Also I got to work one more night at Cream and celebrate with Nick on his birthday which was an added bonus.  The plan was I would travel by local train (because it’s the cheapest option to travel) with Andrea to Yamaguchi, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Okayama, Naoshima, Himeji, Kobe and Osaka.  At Osaka we would branch off and he would head for Kyoto while I would head home.  This was good for both of us because I had never been to any of these cities yet and at the same time I could show him how to use the “Juhachikippu” ticket and navigate the sometimes frustrating local JR (Japan Rail) train system.  It worked out so that I would end up traveling for 6 days in Japan, return home to Fukuoka for only one day to rest and recoup before going to China for two weeks.  So here goes…

  

Fail at Yamaguchi

Yamaguchi is a small and often overlooked city that we decided somewhat on a whim to go to.  It was conveniently along the way to our first intended destination and we decided it was worth taking out about 2-3 hours to see Brittany’s recommendation, YCAM – Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media.  Unfortunately after taking about 40 minutes off the main JR line to get to the station and walking for about another 30 minutes with our huge backpacks to YCAM we were met with some bad news.  Apparently, there were no exhibits to see that day because they were setting up a new exhibit called, “Cloud Forest”.  It was scheduled to open the very next day and there were still preparations still being set up for the grand opening.  We were just too late to see anything and just in time to see… nothing.  Despite our foiled plan we remained in high spirits as we made our way back on our original path.  We don’t regret stopping in Yamaguchi because the city was quaint and we still had enough time to hit all our intended destinations.  Plus we got to see this huge cat!

 My Favorite Place in Japan

Our next point of interest was Miyajima (AKA Itsukushima), a place that is famous in Japan as having the only torii gate in the bay and is a UNESCO world heritage site.  It is one of the major attractions listed in most guide books and travel websites and for good reason, I learned.  We were happy because we saved money on the ferry since it was included in our train ticket.  And at first I didn’t really get what all the fuss was a about.  When we arrived and asked the information booth what to do, they said to wait for sundown because that’s when the tide would come in and the torii gate would be its most beautiful for viewing and taking pictures.  At the moment, it was just muddy and the temple surrounding it looked like it was built on a dried up swamp.  So we explored the little town and few surrounding temples and pagodas to kill time.  The city itself was very likeable and like Nara filled with random friendly deer like this fellow…

There were plenty of sites to keep us clicking away and busily taking pictures until sundown.  Here are just a few pictures of the temples and moments we encountered:

But the real beauty of Miyajima is definitely at sunset.  Andrea and I grabbed ourselves a prime spot on the beach next to the water temple and basked in the unrivaled beauty.  The best part about this site that was unlike other major sites in Japan was that it really wasn’t crowded at all.  We shared the whole beach with maybe 2 other pairs of people and that was it.  We took a ton of pictures of the gate at every angle, setting and perspective we could think of.  Maybe this is unusual since we at our next destination…

 

Hiroshima

We arrived on the 65^th year anniversary of the day the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6^th, 1945.  This was also the same reason that there was a huge influx of visitors who wanted to see the yearly memorial which looks something like this (even though we missed it, this is not my picture):

We got into the station at about 8 PM and scrambled to find a place to stay for the night.  We had not been able to book any hostels since everything was full online.  In fact most of this trip had little or no planning and we had to find lodging for many of the cities we went to without first booking something in advance.  We found a nearby internet café by the station.  This was going to be Andrea’s first time staying at an internet café and he was very excited by each of the perks and grew increasingly giddier as I moved down the list of things that was included in our admission.  He particularly liked the unlimited soup and soft serve ice cream.  

Ice Cream

One thing to note about traveling with Andrea who I will first say was a great travel companion, but Andrea is a guy who loves his ice cream.  And when I say love, I mean he loves his ice cream.  Every day of the trip we would stop at least 2 or 3 times at a convenient (conveni) store to get an ice cream bar/cone.  We would have ice cream more often than we would have real food.  This was fine since it’s 1) once of the cheapest things to eat in Japan especially out of convenis and 2) it was summer and hot as hell most of the time. 

We explored Hiroshima which was exactly as heart wrenchingly sad as I had expected it to be and moved before the nightfall by train to our next city, Okayama and had…

 Pictured: Heart Wrenching

The Worst Night Ever

We arrived in Okayama, a city we knew very little about after the information offices of the train station had closed.  With nowhere to find any information we wandered around for an hour before we found an internet café that had room but was kind of pricey.  Andrea was also travelling with a very limited budget which I completely understood and we agreed to continue to try to look for a more affordable café.   Another hour of wandering around the confusing streets of Okayama later, we stumbled upon another internet café behind a group of similarly aged Japanese guys/travelers.  The employee at the café informed us that there was one option left and it was a single room that had a couch and had to be shared by two people.  After taking a little while to discuss it we gave in and just took the cubicle.  What went wrong:

1)      We had to sign up for the one shower in the café and after an hour of waiting, just decided to go to sleep.

2)      The leather couch meant we would get hot and be forced to turn and change the surface area of our body that came in contact with the couch every hour or so or just succumb to extreme heat and melding into the couch itself.

3)      We had not realized, but the internet café was located directly below, above or next to a club.  A constant but disturbing beat was thumping through the walls until about 4 AM.

4)      Just the most uncomfortable night I’ve spent anywhere in all my travels.

Me vs. Homeless Man

The next day we tried to put it behind us and moved on to our next port city and ferry to the island of Naoshima.  Naoshima is a unique island because it has very little development on it except for a small population of residents and one single resort.  An art collective organization took over the development of the island and had placed pieces of art in very specific locations throughout the island.  All the pieces and buildings on the island are carefully designed and placed to be integrated perfectly into the surrounding natural landscape.  It also came highly rated by everyone who visited it.

The island is small but filled with treasures like the Lee Ufan museum designed by Tadao Ando which was dramatic, stunning and really a place that can only be experienced.  A lot of the architecture I didn’t even really understand, like an abstract painting, his lines and intentions are not obviously stated but definitely meant to elicit a specific emotion or feeling.  The one thing I did get out of it was a small square skylight cut into a few feet thick concrete ceiling that would change the lighting on the art piece on the ground depending on the time of day.  

Pictured: Architecture

Secret Garden 

We got back to Okayama late and were disappointed since we were almost sure that Okayama garden (rated one of the three best gardens in all of Japan) was closed.  But as we got closer we were pleasantly surprised as we entered and found there was actually a special summer festival where the whole garden was lit with lights.  This served 3 purposes: it let us explore the beautifully illuminated garden while avoiding the heat and even see Okayama castle in the far background which was just one more castle to scratch off the list.

Contemporary Tradtion

Ramen!  The best meal ever.

We had been so busy traveling and sightseeing that we had skipped right over dinner and at 9 o’clock we were really almost certain that all we’d find was lame conveni food.  But just in our time of need, our prayers were answered as we came upon the most beautiful shop that could have been there, it was Ippudo, my favorite ramen shop in all of Japan.  I got a bowl of ramen with 2 extra noodles, a side of discounted gyoza and to top off the perfect meal a free soft boiled egg because the employee screwed up the order.  If any of you could have seen me then… well, it was not a pretty sight but you would have seen what I assume was pure happiness on my face.  

My first time in a capsule hotel…

We had came across a cheap looking capsule hotel before we’d left for Naoshima in the morning and had decided to stay the night there.  We were sure as hell not going to go back to the worst night ever internet café and were both excited to try the capsule hotel.  So how was it?  It was GREAT!!  The worst night of sleep ever was completely made up with the best sleep of night ever in the capsule hotel.  Andrea and I didn’t know exactly what to expect when we went to see our “rooms”.  But when we found our boxes we were actually very happy with the space and surprised by the extra amenities.  Amenities included:

1)      Not-so-coffin-like box/room that had plenty of comfortable sitting up height with clean towel, bathrobe, sheets and pillow. 

2)      Personal speakers and built in television (with as-expected AV programming)

3)      Blind for privacy

4)      Access to in house public shower/onsen

All for about $25!  Not too shabby.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Himeji Castle 

This is Japan’s most intact original castle and is currently being preserved and restored to its original condition.  This is good, but it also means the castle right now has many main sections closed off and the main structure has a really dorky looking metal brace on most of it supplementing the structure.  This makes for terrible pictures and made taking good pictures of it particularly difficult.  We made do, came to terms with it and moved on to Kobe to find…

The Giant Robot: Tetsujin

I was very disappointed when I heard that I had missed seeing the giant Gundam Robot in Yokohama by less than a year.  But when I heard there was one more giant robot left and it was in Kobe, I knew I had to find it.  While we got into the main Kobe station and tried to find our way to the giant robot, we asked everyone around the station and nobody seemed to know where the giant robot was located.  This started to puzzle us.  How could everyone just miss the gigantic robot?  After exploring the area a little bit and seeing the major sights around Kobe station we found that the robot was actually two stations back.  Though it was starting to drizzle we were determined to see the robot and I wasn’t about to be deterred by a little rain.  We finally got off at the right station and found a sign pointing us in the right direction to… TETSUJIN!

Before nightfall we make our way to Osaka and find a special pass that covers a lot of major attractions in exactly the amount of time we have to spend in Osaka, how perfect!  We check into our hotel near Dobutsuenmae station which means roughly, in front of the zoo station.  This area used to be a bustling commercial center and the site for a major retail promenade but has since turned into a slum and definitely one of the most interesting neighborhoods in Japan.  In my stay of one year in Japan I can honestly say that it was difficult to find any slums or neighborhood that looked or resembled or was equivalent to an American slum.  How I asked could this society be so perfect that there was no poverty anywhere.  I had seen homeless, but there seemed to be no middlemen between the middle class and the complete wino.  Here in Osaka, I had finally found it.  The streets were nitty, gritty, and full of interesting sights and sounds.  The first night exploring I had seen homeless in the streets, shady looking characters (one of which had long shaggy stringy hair and went into the building we were staying in), naked men in rooms with doors flung wide open, bikes in the middle of entryways, vomit in the street and a random bra on the ground.  All of these things you would be hard pressed to find in most other parts of Japan, but here I saw all these things in one night. 

 Just a small taste

Shadiest Hostel Ever

The room we had gotten was on the 4rth floor of a hostel that seemed promising at first.  The staff was friendly and we went up to our floor to find our room.  We emerged from the elevator to find ourselves walking down an eerie hallway lit by one glowing green exit light at the end of the hallway next to our room.  The sign stood in the way of our door and prevented the door from fully opening.  Inside the room smelled of an unidentifiable odor that was repugnant, lasting and like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.  We really had no idea about the actual cleanliness of the room itself but we definitely questioned it.  The other rooms down the hallway seemed to be permanently lived in and served as lower income housing.  There were only squat toilets available in the bathroom and a trough for the sink.  The public bath downstairs had too few stalls and was open from 8-10 for Men, 10-12 for Women and 12-1 for Men again.  Every single time I went to take a shower however early or late, there was one man sitting on the far right stool showering the whole time.  Even though everybody was patiently waiting in line and took only the amount of time necessary, this man stayed there in place showering the whole 2 hours every night.  The reason nobody spoke to him was because he was most definitely yakuza and had a full dragon tattoo that spanned from the base of his neck down his back and sliding down his leg.  I never made eye contact with him, got in, showered and got out without engaging him ever.  Oh yeah and the last night we were there I took the elevator down and when I reached the ground floor the elevator jolted and dropped an additional 2 feet.  When the doors opened a second later the ground level was two feet above where my feet were.  I stepped up and the hostel clerk warned us not to use the elevator anymore.  But it was cheap!  =P

 Thought I was kidding about the horror movie ambience?  Think again.

Tennoji zoo, Shinsekai, Tsutenkaku (aka Hitachi Tower), the Natural History Museum, River Boat Tour, Fugu, Osaka TV building, Osaka Aquarium, Umeda Sky Building and Osaka History Museum

To my surprise, Andrea had never been to a zoo before, or if he had, he had forgotten what it was like because it was when he was very young.  So when we went to the nearby zoo, he was very excited to see the animals on display even though in my opinion, the zoo was quite lacking.  Next we tried kushikatsu which is an original Osaka food consisting mainly of skewered meat and organs deep fried and paired with raw cabbage that is popular amongst the locals and visitors alike.  We ate it after going up to see a view from Tsutenkaku.  It was good but much too expensive for the amount of actual food.  The Natural History Museum is lame, don’t go.  The river boat tour is lame too.  But I do recommend the streets around the river are great to walk around.  It is the iconic image of Osaka with both shores filled to the brink with brightly lit billboards.  Osaka Aquarium has a very large tank with a whale shark, other than that, it is crowded and not that much fun.  The Umeda Sky Building offers a great open air view of all of Osaka.  Afterwards we rode a Ferris wheel since Andrea had once again been depleted as a child and had never been on one.  One of the most educational and interesting museums is the Osaka History Museum that we decided to go to very last minute.  I also tried the possibly deadly Fugu AKA blowfish in Osaka which is famous for Fugu.  It is one of the few places in Japan that serves Fugu year-round despite it being out of season, it gets the fish from elsewhere when it is off-season.  The taste and texture is very unique and unlike any other type of sushi I’ve had.  I can’t very accurately describe it, but I did feel a faint numbing, dulling feeling on my tongue which is supposed to be the low level of paralyzing poison that is excreted from the fish itself.  The texture is chewier than most other fish and the taste really isn’t good enough to risk your life too often.  Worth at least trying once in your life though.

Food for Thought

On this trip I ate okinomiyaki which is a pancake type food from Hiroshima and takoyaki which is from Osaka and though it was good in both places, I would say that many parts of Japan may do an equally good if not better job of it.  It’s not always better at the place where it’s from.  After all these adventures, I said farewell to Andrea and wished him a good rest of his journey.  The next morning we took trains in the opposite direction and I made my 13 hour trek home to Fukuoka.  I spent 2 of those hours in a standing room only train doing pull ups every few minutes and getting a few strange looks from some train-goers.  I arrived home, did laundry, got a night of comfortable rest, packed and left for China a day later.