Japan Vacations, Baby

Gorgeous, gorgeous Beppu city. I'll be leaving for Aso-san soon, I'm at the tourist information center. I've got the Osaka ferry thing worked out - it'll be a tad tight, but I'll be taking the Shinkanzen from Osaka at around 7am, and it takes about 2.5 hours to get to Tokyo, so I'll have plenty of time to get to Narita by noon.

A few funny things happened along the way, but the day is too nice to spend much time blogging here, and I have a train to catch!

Well, it's been some time since my last blog entry, so this will be rather on the longish side.

Okinawa has been great, people are very friendly and it has a more third-world country feel to it, as opposed to high-sophistication Japan mainland. You get the not-quite-clean streets, old buses, people walking around in whatever clothes are comfortable - as opposed to suits and fashionable clothes.

At some point, I lost my pen, so I've been taking notes at a local Starbucks, where I borrow the pencil for feedback forms and write on a paper napkin. Sad but true. Another interesting item is that there are tall / large / venti sizes, as opposed to the short / tall / large sizes in most S-bucks of the mainland. Also, the first place I went into was a coffee shop, to buy a drink and ask for directions - what coffee shop? - Seattle's Best. Ah, the ironies of life :-)

What else has been going on, let's see... A Chinese garden - very close ties to China here, an open-air market, very few people on the beach (we're not in season yet, it seems), a lot of sunshine :-), a couple of lions / guardians that can be found everywhere, great people at the tourist center, a Starbucks on main street at the 'happening' corner (where all foreigners drop by, of course), a Simpsonesque train (can't recall the name right now), more Japanese-oriented tourist shops, clear waters on the beach, and who knows what else... Anyway, this was my first day in Okinawa.

The second day, it was a bit cloudy, so I took a couple of buses down to a memorial site, with a lot of information and some very good displays of the battle in Okinawa during WWII. Again, a very memorable place, for all the wrong reasons. After that, walking around the beach, dinner with steak a la Fedex (raw on the inside), tried a drink called Sima-Uta (vamo' Casero), and started planning for the rest of the trip.

The current plan is to take a ferry from Beppu to Osaka, from there a train to Nagoya, and spend the night there before my last day going to Tokyo and from there to Narita airport. We'll see how it works.

In the mean time, I'm still having problems sending email, and I need someone to confirm that Fedex can pick me up at the airport. Can someone forward this page to him with the flight info? Nevermind if you all do it, it'll just help remind him he needs to wake up early on a Sunday :-)

OK, so this is what's new.

My cereal bar rations have been replenished - yay! Also, having a hotel is A Good Thing (tm), even if check in at 5pm and carry my stuff with me the rest of the day. But I'm getting ahead of myself already.

I got to Hiroshima in the morning, and it's packed with tourists - at least the tourist-y places.

I started with a tramway trip to the Atomic Bomb Dome, very interesting to see how this was still in place. There were also a number of monuments erected to peace and to remember the people who died.

The Memorial Home has impressive settings - the Hall of Remembrance is sober but... the only word that comes to mind right now is majestic. The testimonies of survivors were very moving - it's hard to convey what happened here, but these stories are very humane and can get to you.

More dramatic was the nearby Museum, with good scaled models, and plenty of stories and objects from the time of the bombing. Some things that stood out:

- a wall with marks from the black rain that fell after the explosion
- calls for peace and disarm movements
- a number of stopped watches, all set at 8.15
- accounts of diseases developed by survivors (these were a tad hard to stomach)
- 'phoenix trees' that survived and tales of reconstruction and relief activities
- impressive facts about the generated heat, shock wave, and radiation
- a human shadow on stone
- clothes everywhere
- a lunch box with a charred meal within it still
- glass fragments everywhere - in people, in walls, in clothes

After the grim tour, I headed off to Hiroshima castle, with a tower that was rebuilt after the bombing and has some historical items. A surviving eucalyptus in the area was very interesting to see. I also saw a bunch of foundation stones remaining from buildings that stood before the blasts.

From there, to my hotel, drinking some coffee along the way, then a walk around the shopping district, okonomiyaki, and back to the hotel. Now blogging this, and wondering what I'll have to do to get my email back up.

Oh, and an interesting piece of news: it's over $600 to fly from Oita (near Beppu) to Tokyo, so I might still do the cross-country-in-train trip. Keep checking for more news!

Tomorrow, up at 5.25, and off to Okinawa I go!

Well, my last Kyoto day is over, and now I'm all by myself... But let me start from the start...

I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but a couple of days ago I walked by a Buddhist temple with temple-goers cleaning up the temple - it looked very nice, having everyone in a good mood and working for their temple.

OK, so this is what my last day in Kyoto looked like. First, a walk through a temple on a hill, with cute stones with faces. Then, a cool railcar up a mountain with somewhere near 70 temples and shrines, extremely cool.

Not so cool is coming down in the wrong railcar, which made us miss the imperial villa tour. Anyhow, this gave me the opportunity to get to know a bit of Smalltown Japan. Very nice, I should say.

After this part, we moved into a good ryokan, and I started with my clothes washing thing. It' s working pretty well so far. Then, dinner at an excellent restaurant, where I got to try sake - very yummy stuff. Dangerous ;-)

Today, Sunday, Fedex left for Tokyo and I came to Kobe. The Flower Road turned out to really have flowers in every corner, taking you to the coast. Very pretty to walk by. The city museum had some interesting historical displays. I moved on to an earthquake memorial site, where hawaiian dancing was taking place (that's what it looked like to me), just by the docks.

From there, I moved on to chinatown - mostly food joints, and had some coffee at a nearby Starbucks. On to the north side of the town, there's this neighbourhood with an international flavour to it, with English, French, Italian and German-style buildings. Lots of marriages, churches, and wedding clothes shops in this area as well - shivers down the spine, kinda. I finally found a hotel at about 5pm, and got me a well-deserved shower, then moved out again to walk along the shopping streets, have some coffee, get me some acceptable sushi, and walk into bookstores and CD stores.

And tomorrow I leave for Hiroshima, so that's where I stand now.... I'm dead tired today, and I'll probably end up in bed in a while. Thank God for Kinko's computer rental service :-)

Kisses to everyone I'd love to send an email to but my SMTP server figures I probably don't need to. Special kisses for the family and people dear to me (you know who you are). Mom, sorry I can't send email, I seem to be having some problems sending stuff.

Happy post-Easter to everyone!

M out. Yo.

PS: to the beautiful people who so willingly offered to pick me up at the airport, I'm arriving at 7:55am on Sunday on NWA flight 8. We can meet at the beginning of the arrivals lanes, near the United exit. Please send me an email to confirm. Danke!

Yesterday I finally discovered what Pachinkos are all about. They're essentially a version of one-armed bandits but with a little bit of skill thrown in, so you can, to some degree, influence your chances of winning. Also, we've been going to a really cool Italian-style cafe that has excellent tiramisu and capuccinos. It does cost an arm and a leg, but it's totally worth it (on a tourist mindset, anyway).

The highlights of the day were the Imperial Palace, and the very impressive Shogun Castle (can't recall the name right now, though). By lunchtime, we were starving and went into a cheap ramen joint, the only thing open - and it turned out to be pretty good. Then some temple sight-seeing, getting a new hotel for tomorrow (Saturday), and finished by walking around the fun district and having some excellent dish that tasted like smoked herring with noodles (again, I know, but it was totally worth it). Some funny anecdotes about toobrushes will probably be inserted here in the future :-)

Now I'm back at the hostel, blogging and trying to cope with a really, really slow connection to my webmail. I'll try setting up Outlook Express and see how that goes.

Bad times? My skin is pretty red in places, and my feet are killing me.

Very very good balance, all in all :-)

Excellent weather in Kyoto today, except for a few brief moments.

Auch. I think I'll burn rather than tan :-)

Today we walked all over eastern Kyoto, and visited four or five temples / shrines. Awesome stuff. Very peaceful gardens, very interesting history and legends behind everything. The Heisan garden was nifty, but it was waaay overcrowded - pictures will be coming in a couple of weeks to prove this. But as luck would have it, a Shinto wedding was in progress, and it was very interesting to see (no pictures, sorry).

I finally tried real okonomiyaki - and yes, it's pretty good. The table had a heated metal plate were the food was served to be kept hot - not just warm. Very yummy, although I imagine it has an insane amount of cholesterol - it's essentially the Japanese version of an omelette.

Another highlight: I tried a public bath. It was, how shall I put this... let's say it was interesting. Contrary to what I was led to believe, towels, soap and shampoo were not provided - I had to buy or rent everything. Yes, the hot tub is really, really hot. They're not kidding when they say it's a hot tub.

My feet are hurting already but they'll still be useful for a few more days. Tomorrow will be much more relaxed (supposedly), as I will be walking around central and western Kyoto and there will be more bus riding and less walking.

My webmail is super-slow, so I'm kind of disconnected with the rest of the world except through this blog.

Miss everyone (K)

Long time no post. OK, here I come - I'll try to be brief.

We left Tokyo having a very interesting sign-language based discussion with a few lost & found people in different subway stations, then took a bus from Shinjuku to some lake on the north side of Mt. Fuji. The stay there was excellent: awesome meals, a hot spring bath, walking around in a yukata, meeting a friendly dog from the village, visiting some historical ponds in the area, taking lots and lots of pictures of Mt. Fuji, and being pampered by the incredibly hospitable and friendly staff at the Fujitomita Inn.

The following day (today, that is), we took a bus from the village to some other place with one of the other lakes, then from there to Mishima, and from there the Shinkansen to Kyoto. Fast train, that one :-)

Eating from a bento box at the station, taking buses (they work like taxis in some ways), seeing a flock of schoolchildren board and leave the bus, many views of Mt Fuji, many many views of Mt Fuji, and maybe I'm forgetting some other highlight.

Finally, here in Kyoto, it was kind of late, so we only got to drop by a couple of temples that were already closed for the day, but at least now we're familiar with the city and the subway lines. Dining out by a river, and a karaoke bar (embarassing stuff, there might be more later), and finally here we are, at the rat-hole inn, blogging.

I need some rest :-)

Phew... many things have happened since the last post. Here's the short version.

Saturday night, we had dinner at this very cool restaurant. The table was in its own, narrow room, pretty tall though, and the corridors were made of transparent sheets of glass so you could see the running water underneath. Verry cool. Very friendly waitress, as well, she even spoke some Spanish (shock).

Sunday night, we started off in the morning by visiting Asakusa, and somewhere along the way I lost my "#%&%& JR pass, which means I'll have to buy each ticket separately and it'll put a dent in my bank account. Ah well. At least I'll get to complain some.

Next, off to the Imperial Palace, gorgeous place on a sunny day like we had, although it's closed off to the public. Still, the outer garden is very nice.

From there, a couple of subway trains and a taxi away, and we were in Tokyo Disneyland. It's been the shortest I've ever been to one, but as usual the roller coaster rides are never a disappointment. The fireworks with classical music were also spectacular.

And, finally, dinner in some very cool restaurant in Tokyo, in a building recently constructed from what we heard, were a nice couple gave us a hand with the menu (which was all in Japanese). She did all the talking in English, and she even understood a bit of Spanish. Again, shock :-)

The last noteworthy thing: she could tell where we were from by my Buenos Aires T-shirt. I put it on almost like a joke, expecting no-one to recognize it, but there you go - life is full of surprises, special moments, and platitudes.

OK, I got through the second day alive. Here's what happened.

Cool yukata in the morning to wear when I went to take a shower (cool shower system as well - one handle controls temperature, one handle controls the amount of water). Then, a quick snack, and then a walk to a nearby Ieyasu shrine (hopefully the spelling is correct). Verry cool place, although it was kind of hard to explain to the lady at the entrance what we wanted in sign language (how do I get in?)

After that, more long walks, along a street market, electronic shopping district in Akihabara, and lots of manga / anime / related toys stuff. Very cool Macross toys, by the way, if a tad unwieldy to carry around.

Mmm... what else happened today... excellent lunch at a restaurant under a bridge (Japanese food, in fact ;-) ), videogames, and I actually got to see what a pachinko looks like - more of a casino type thing than what I had imagined.

Moving on, a visit to Tokyo Station, and from there a subway ride that took us near to Tokyo Tower. Nifty place, although it was raining at the time (it's still raining right now), and you couldn't see very far. But the rain and the soothing music went very well with my capuccino, so I cannot complain a bit.

After that, a subway ride back to the ryokan, and now blogging and e-mailing. My personal account is back up, but my work account is still busted. Bummer.

Plans for the rest of the night? Dinner somewhere nearby, I suppose, and then maybe walking around one of the more lively districts. I'm still feeling the effects of jet lag a bit, and my feet are starting to complain.

But it's just day one, and more things are coming, so they'd better learn how thing will be run here as soon as possible ;-) I'm not taking 'no walking' for an answer.

I'm blogging on a Mac now, and it's sad. Very. At least for a regular Windows boy like me (oh please let me use Home and End and Ctrl+arrows like I'm used to!). Just the fact that the caps lock key is where it is, so easy to hit, is getting very annoying very fast.

My work email won't let me log in, my personal email server seems to be down as well.... ...

posted by Marcelo  # 4:25 AM (0) comments

Well, here I am, blogging from Tokyo. Let me tell you, this keyboard is really hard to use - it only takes one keystroke to change it to Japanese (and guess what, that key takes up the right half of the space bar).

Interesting things? Plenty.

For starters, I met some guy at the Narita airport that went on and on about the wild times to be had in Thailand. He went into a lot of detail, too, enough that I cannot explain much of it here. Anyway, he was married and settled down now and was obviously missing the bachelor life.

Then I met Federico and eventually we got past customs and took an express train to Ueno. I still have to exchange my JR pass by the way, but I won't need it until Monday.

We met two Mexican teens on the train, one in a student exchange program and the other just visiting. Very weird meeting Spanish speakers so early in my journey.

Passing by a Starbucks on the JR Ueno station (the invasion is going well obviously), we eventually got to the hostel. The hostess doesn't speak much (or any) English, but we more or less understand each other somehow.

After that, a walk in the nearby Ueno Park, verrry cool - hundreds of people walking about, sitting around food on picnic mats, and drinking loudly. Street performers, and lots of things going on - and it's barely nine o'clock. This place has already put Seattle to shame. :-)

After dinner (I'm not sure I can name my food), we're back at the hostel, and I'm letting the world know I'm still alive and kicking. But rather jet lagged as well - I think there will be no Tokyo Tower for me tonight.

Oh, and I tried the street vending machines. Hot chocolate, hot coffee, and regular cold sodas. Nifty.

In five minutes, my good friend Jorge is picking me up to go to the airport. Japan, here I come.

OMG, Fruit Friend is back at Penny Arcade. Hilarious.

Me out.

Well, I bought my yens today. Nifty looking, although rather on the large side I would say.

Why can't we have more or less standard sizes on bills? I know different sizes helps you distinguish bills more easily, but if you choose to have a single size for all your bills, like the dollar or the yen, why make it different from another country's?

Whine, whine, whine. Anyhow, pretty bills, even if I can only understand the amount :-)

OK, it's official now. No more posting to my home page until I'm back. Assuming I survive the earthquake, the tai-fun, and the volcano eruption. And the Godzilla attack and the alien invasions, from what I've seen on TV (and if it's on TV, of course it must be true, otherwise they just wouldn't show it, right?)

An update schedule of 'every other day' in the mean time is more or less realistic, but we'll see how it goes. :-)

It's a quiet night outside; and here I sit, blogging at my computer. Procrastinating, it might be said as well. :-)

For this trip, all I'm taking is a backpack. It's the first time I'm traveling so light, so we'll see how it works.

In addition to what I'll be wearing on the flight, I'm taking two T-shirts, an extra pair of pants, swimming trunks, two pairs of socks and underwear, and an extra pair of shoes. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shades, camera, batteries, battery charger, MP3 player, and I'm done.

Oh, and my little travel guide. Never leave home without it.

It's a Wednesday night, just two days away from my departure flight to Tokyo. Two weeks of trekking around, meeting new people, talking in sign language, discovering the history of a country I know very little about... And who knows what adventures may await me.

Japan, here I come ;-)