He Says - home at last

It feels really good to be home, even if that does mean going back to work. Slowly working my way through jet lag now.  Was up at 5:30am this morning and couldn't sleep, but at least I got into work early to catch up on my emails from 2 weeks.

The 12.5 hour flight from Tokyo to Washington went by like a breeze oddly enough.  I was prepared for it enough and distracted enough with things I brought not to notice too much.

The 1 hour flight from Washington to Philly was a hot, sticky, nausiating hell, however, but at least it was short.  Seated at the very back of what amounts to a pencil of an airplane is not fun.

I'd like to thank everyone who read the blog and offered their support.

I'd very much like to thank my parents for the ride to and from the airport, and the wonderful food they provided us on our return so we wouldn't have to go shopping the minute we got back.

Thanks to Deya and Chris for their wonderful hospitality.  Really one of the highlights of our trip.

And, of course, thanks to Helen for being a wonderful travel partner on this adventure.

She says: Ah hah!

There was a question that was bugging us for a lot of our trip to Japan. We saw Wendy's. We say McDonald's. We even saw multiple Denny's restaurants and at least one Sizzler. But there was never any Burger Kings to be found anywhere.

We think we now know why.



While on Okinawa we bandied about the idea of a "Burger Shogun" and hypothesized on the popularity of the "Little Ronin's Meal" complete with a toy and a cheeseburger.
It could be big, you guys. Really, really big.

She says: Yatta!

We are home and experiencing the fun that comes with both jet lag and time change. We endeavored to stay awake but only managed to long enough to get home and take showers to clean off the plane-ick. Then around 4 pm we passed out HARD.
Our last full day in Tokyo was a fun one. It was raining again, so we decided to stay local and ran around in Shinjuku. We played in the Sega arcade once more, and Bob thoroughly routed me not only in Mario Kart, but also in Taiko Drummer. It's like Rock Band except you have drums instead of a guitar. And trust me, it's no less hard.)
we played Typing of the Dead, pachinko, and a plinko-type game that used silver coins instead of plastic disks to drop down. We played the UFO catchers again and failed hard core, and then moseyed out to wander the neighborhood.
We saw a lot of fun stuff, goofed around a lot, then went back to the hotel and packed everything we wouldn't need for the morning. Dinner was at the Glass Court where we sampled many bits of lots of different things. I had my last taste of fresh octopus carpaccio and must admit that it is a taste that will be missed. We just don't do it right in this country.
After dinner we went up and said goodbye to the Tokyo skyline in the Aurora Lounge, watching the lights showing against the dark and misty night.
I was feeling more generous towards Tokyo at that point. We'd met several friendly people who were pleased we were enjoying ourselves, and seen a larger cross section of Tokyo's populace thanks to a train ride and an accidental wrong turn in Nakano trying to find the Ainu restaurant. It was becoming obvious that we were seeing the product of a highly internalized society, at odds with our own outgoing, extroverted society. What we'd been missing this whole time was the subtlety with which they displayed their personalities, their colors, their sounds, even their smiles. To them it was probably just as vibrant and colorful as a mardi gras parade, because they knew to be quiet and observe. We, distracted travelers, kept missing it. Until it rained, and for some reason that brought all the colors out and we could see what they did all the time.
So as we sat there looking out over the dancing neon lights and tired rooftops of Shinjuku and southward we talked about what we would miss and the differences we had noted. We had drinks and relaxed and watched the red warning lights blink on the top of the skyscrapers to warn helicopters and planes in the dark. It was beautiful and a lovely end to the trip.
The flight back wasn't quite as bad this time because we knew what to do to keep ourselves entertained, and we did so with great ferociousness.
Bob folks were nice enough to pick us up at the end of the whole thing and even set us up with stuffed shells for dinner and makings for sandwiches. Seeing as we completely emptied the fridge before we left and had no food, it was an awesome surprise. We didn't have to stumble out when we finally woke up to try and acquire food while starving.
Thanks to everybody who read this while we overseas. We may post a few extra things over the next few days to wrap up, so don't abandon us completely yet!
Special thanks to Chris and Deya for letting us hang out with them on Okinawa which, yes, was STILL the best part of the trip and you guys still have to watch Destination Truth when you get a chance. Josh Gates look like a frat-house douche, but he's seriously funny. Heck, I recommend everybody go take a look for the same reason.
Domo arigato gozaimasu and Sayonara, everyone. :)

She says: Kiyomizu

I don't think we went over Kiyomizu, which we went to on Wednesday.
Given that today we're willing to call it good and just venture out briefly to the local shops to get the last few bits of Japanish stuff... and also to find a yakitori-ya before we go... there probably won't be much else to blog unless you guys are dying to hear about the cellular death of our hind ends due to sitting for 14 hours. (We're trying to figure out how to say "Benadryl" in Japanese so we can take it and knock ourselves out for a good part of it.)
So, yes... Kiyomizu.
Every photo you have seen of a 3-tiered pagoda with a circular ringed pole coming out of the top of it is this place. It is a matter of great pride to the point that everyone we talked to, able to speak English or not, talked about it or asked if we had seen it. I'll be honest, I had read about it but wasn't too curious. I was too intrigued with the city proper and worried about walking in to a tourist trap.
But Tuesday night, coming back from our fantastic kaiseki meal, I realized I wasn't ready to leave yet and wanted to do something else. So we set up our room for a late check-out, and the next morning we grabbed a cab out to it.
Now, they asked us if we wanted to take the cab up to the entrance, or to be dropped off at the "short path" that led up to it. We said oh, we want to see the path, we're all about the local color.
And then they dropped us off at the foot of a street (NOT A PATH) that was at least a 30% incline the entire way up to the temple, about a quarter of a mile up the side of the mountain. It was hell, and it was scenic with lots of cute little shops that we only partially paid attention to as we huffed and puffed our way up this steep hill.
Once up there, though, it was beautiful. From the balcony off the side of the temple proper you could see the whole of the valley and most of Kyoto, with the Kyoto Tower poking up from near the train station in the distance.
Kiyomizu, as mentioned, was built in to the side of a mountain. It was easy to imagine walking for a day from the old downtown Kyoto to get there, through thick woods, or riding a horse up there as it was so remote. But these days it is a quick train or cab ride and a short walk to be there in that stunning location.
It's obviously popular, as every shop sells the same thing, or a variation of the same thing from top to bottom, with a few spare unique shops that sold hand-carved buddhas or dragons, or hand-made pottery.
There was an interesting mix of Shinto and Buddhist belief at Kiyomizu, with some definite Shinto influence in the pagodas and smaller shrines in the area. There were the Lover's Stones, which we walked between (Bob helped me, so it was a bit of a cheat but okay since he's the one I love.) and shrine maidens manning places to sell you talismans at a moment's notice, in case you suddenly realized you were a bad driver, a bad student, or terribly unlucky at love.
Once you reached the temple proper, however, the bright colors died and it was the color of blackened lacquer, dark eaves and time-worn wood. No bright oranges or turquoises or greens here, the focus was on the Kwan Yin there and the prayer. it made for a surprising comparison in the viewing and photos.
I'll leave you all to read the article as it explains in depth what would take me forever to do. We drank fro mteh 3 fountains, picked up a few final souvenirs, enjoyed a walk through the trees and ferns there, and then finally being willing to say goodbye, we made our way back to the hotel and checked out.
A few minutes and a crazy taxi ride later and we were dropped off at the JR rail station. A 2 hour Shinkansen ride later and we were once again in Tokyo, Shinjuku Ward, and fording the human sea of people.
For a look at Kiyomizu, though, give a click here.
It's interesting. I must completely recall my comment of the city as being "gray" for some reason in the weather the colors are coming out more now. maybe they were there and the sun wasso bright I spent my time squinting and not looking. But now the umbrellas, the purses, the scarves and jewelry all flash bits of color. When we got out and away from the waves of salarymen and women the teens and twenty somethings sported T-shirts with colorful logos and pastel shades. So... it is not Tokyo that is gray. It is Shinjuku that is gray, and its workers. Tokyo itself when it is not in the midst of getting to employment is awash in flashes of brightness and lights and levity. I wonder if I did us a disservice by choosing a hotel here and making this our first impression of the country. Too late now, but I am very glad that it did decide to rain these past few days to give us that other view of what it's like, and the sneak peak at personal preference via rain hoods or umbrella shades.
By the way, they have some awesome umbrellas here. Some made of lace and embroidery just for the sun (which the women use liberally) and some with great patterns that hold off the rain. It caught me off guard to see them both.
Here are the photos from Nekobukuro for those interested.
Time to run out and start the day. Lunch and a quick run through some local shops in the misty rain. Let me share with you:

He says: Day 13

It's our last day in Tokyo and we're going to start this one out slowly. Breakfast, blogging, reading the newspaper and watching the rain in Tokyo. It's actually so cloudy/foggy here that we cannot see a skyscraper that is 3 blocks away from our 32nd floor window.

It's amusing because normal business atire is black and gray, but in the rain you see all sorts of different colored umbrellas. Nothing shocking or terrible bright, but it's nice to see blues, greens and some pinks walking the street for a change. As the day itself gets more gray the people get more colorful to achieve balance. It's a nice image.

Let's see, yesterday was a trip to the Tokyo Hands building, which I was lead to believe was a shop for crafting, and indeed it has hand crafted goods and things for making art projects, dresses, woodworking and other crafts. It also had lots and lots of gadgets, from the USB powered Owl that sits on your computer and looks upon you wisely, to the 3ft high Alien statue to the latest in make up. I think at some point they just realized 'what the hell we have all this space, let's fill it up'. It only lacked the 6 floors of computers, cameras and video games most other shops have to make it blend in with all the other department stores. To be honest it was refreshing to see a place without all that tech for a change.

At the top of the Tokyo Hands building is 'Nekobukoro' or 'Cat world' It might be 'Cat Appartments' or 'Catapalooza'. The meaning is the same for us. They had a lot of cats wandering free.

Now the purpose of this takes a bit of background. Space is a premium in Japan, and therefore most Japanese, esepcially young Japanese adults just making their way in a crowded city, live in very small spaces. It's true, I've seen it on TV. Anyway, these spaces are so small and they spend so much time trying to avoid going back to those small, lonely spaces they don't generally have pets. Nekobukoro, like any good business, sees a need and fills it. They have a floor of the department store (Smaller than you'd think, think your average Radio Shack) filled with cats. Anyone can then pay the equivalent of $5-$7 to go in, sit among them, and if they let you, pet them.

There were about 12 cats wandering about. They play, they fight a little, they run from the crazy humans trying to pet them. It's all good fun. They have 'cat skyways' or little planks near the ceiling they can walk around on if they want to avoid the floor to get just about anywhere. They have lots of resting places to look cute in, etc.

What interested me was the demographics. Describe that place to me in the US and I'd tell you it'd be full with a lot of crazy cat ladies who can't ahve cats and some random screaming 12 year old girls with mean parents who won't let them have cats. Actually, not in Japan. The largest demographics was couples. 4 of them when we were there not count us. Mostly late teens to mid twenties. I guess that's their date place. There were a couple single females there dressed in office attire. I pictured them as on their lunch hour and having a bad day at work and wanted to get away and look at something cute for a while that wouldn't give them something stupid to work on in their office. There was one mother/daughter, with the mother being in her 50's and the daughter in her early 30's. Probably their afternoon get together.

...and lastly there were 3 14-ish year old boys. Yes, 14 year old boys in Japan dig cats. One was actually so excited that a cat stopped and let him pet it it that he hurredly took outand handed his cell phone to his friends to take his picture while he posed smiling with it. It was kinda surreal and the distinct lack of 'typical male bonding' by mocking someone enjoying something like that was pretty cool.

After that we went out and hit up some conveyor belt sushi. Literrally, it's a sushi bar with a conveyor belt, and the chefs make sushi, put it on the belt and you remove what you want and eat it. You keep all your dishes and in the end you pay some small amount per dish when you leave. Pretty amusing and innovative, I thought.

After a rest at the hotel for a couple hours to recoup we headed out to our next destination, Nakano to find an authentic Ainu restaurant. I'm sure I'm about to say something horrible un-PC here, but the story I understand of the Ainu is they're kinda like the Native Americans in the US. An original tribe to the area that was basically marginalized, coralled, and 'integrated/assimilated'. I don't believe it was until the late 90's they were even legally recognized as existing.

Anyway, in a fit to see more different things we tracked down the one place in all of Tokyo that serves authentic Ainu food. This, to us, meant "yuk" which translates as "red deer". They serve it both raw and smoked, and with a couple bottles of what they said was an indiginous beer (Tasted like bud light to me but what do I know.) A very tasty meal. There was a bit of a story getting there. We took a wrong turn out of the station for what we knew was a '4 block walk'. And 90 minutes and 4 miles later....we finally found the place. Oh, and it was pouring the whole time.

However, they were pleasant, and I believe shocked to see American's wander in and not demand sushi and tempura. The fact that we knew their native dish, their location and the name of the their tribe seemed to sit very well with them and they took excellent care of us. Some very happy, giggling women sat at a nearby table and one knew pretty decent english and chatted with us for a bit.

We finally got home from our hike/feast around 10pm, grabbed a bottle of $5 sake from the convience store (which was better than the $15 bottle of sake we got at dinner 2 nights ago to my mind) and crashed in our room happy and tired.

On the last day now we've been talking about what we'll miss from here. I think mine is the newness of it all (to me anyway). I like puzzles quite a bit and it's hard not to see all this as a giant game on some level. 'Can I get directions with only minimal command of the language', 'what will I end up eating if I pick the red dish compared to the other red dish on the picture menu', etc. It's a challenge being here in a way it's not at a place you have a full understanding of. To a degree that's a detriment, you can't get in a cab and say 'Take me to your favorite restaurant' and find some place totally new. But overall, i find it a joy. Although if there's a next time coming back here, I'll know more of the language for sure.

This was highlighted to me in Kyoto, where the staff speaks very good english. We also met 3 people who worked there born outside Japan (Canada, Austrailia, and Britain), who therefore knew perfect english. The staf just assumed you wnated to speak in English and greated you that way. IT didn't feel like Japan in the hotel. Outside, sure, but inside you could be anywhere. In Tokyo though, the hotel assumes you at least want to speak Japanese and are willing to switch for complicated concepts. It feels less like hand holding that way.

On one hand it's sad to leave, but on another it'll be very good to be home. On both hands, the 14 hour plane ride will be annoying though. :-)

Random Fun Time Happy-Happy!

Sometimes I worry that there's so much long, drawn-out description that we don't give you enough random factoids about the trip. Because lemme tell ya, we're having a blast and being stupid as it suits us, and for some reason they let us get away with it.
First, I want to introduce two new traveling companions we've picked up. One came from Kiyomizu Temple this morning (No worries, I'll write more about it in the next post, it deserves it) and Stitch-kun, which some of you will probably recognize.
Here are our intrepid little buddies resting in the Tokyo hotel room:
And as you can see, they are having a relatively good time chilling.
The Daruma Hello Kitty caught my eye from across the street on the way down from Kiyomizu this morning and seeing as it combined my love of daruma dolls and Hello Kitty, I scooped it up. If you aren't familiar with Daruma, click here and it'll get you up to speed. He was a cool guy, and they make cool dolls out of him these days. He's the Japanese equivalent of a saint.
And now, on to the random factoids:
~On Okinawa there are pink elves with leather thongs and leaf headdresses set out to denote areas of interest, much like the minehune statues on Hawaii.
~One of our hosts, Chris, will do everything except dig a ditch to avoid getting his picture taken, and that was only because he lacked a shovel. We have photographic evidence of him actively avoiding photos on several occasions.
~Deya is directly at fault for getting me back on my coffee habit, which I had kicked for 6 months before going to Okinawa. Damn you, caramel frappucino, why must you be so tempting and delicious??
~Older Japanese people will smile at you when you smile, but the younger ones look away. I was actually dissed by a baby on the subway in this fashion this morning.
~In Kyoto, Bob and I jumped on the bed for a good two minutes.
~They had no less than 3 native English speakers in Kyoto at our hotel. One was from Scotland, one was from Canada, and the other only ever hailed a cab for us, we never got his story. It was still odd to see.
~Kyoto had more fluent English speakers than Tokyo, despite Tokyo being more "international"
~Shinkansen trains all have a tiny woman pushing a huge snack cart around and on average she will pass you four times each trip, as long as you are going from at least Tokyo to Kyoto or vice versa.
~Lilo & Stitch and Snoopy are extremely popular right now and we keep seeing toys for them everywhere we go (hence Stitch-kun joining our ranks)
~Inari sushi, the pockets of rice in fried tofu, are actually named after the rice god and not the fried tofu they're wrapped in, unlike most sushi. Foxes supposedly love rice wrapped in fried tofu, and statues that show a "ball" instead of "key" are eluding to that fact.
~There is a TV show on TV right now called Mr. Brain sporting a man in a plaid suit with crazy hair. As far as we can see, he's trying to be Dr. Who... except it's a crime drama and there's no Tardis. Mr. Brain currently has been turned in to a cartoon character, and even has his own pastry line. Observe:
Bob tells me it was filled with marshmallow and something that wanted to be peanut butter but wasn't. I tasted it and think it's more like caramel pudding. Either way... it's not good. It's just... not...good.
~You can buy alcohol anywhere in Japan at any time. This includes hard liquor and beer. You can't pick them up out of the ubiquitous vend-o machines, but you can walk in to any quickie mart, super market or drug store and buy beer, even at 8 am. Nobody looks at you funny either way.
~There is a woman selling bento boxes on every Shinkansen platform between Kyoto and Osaka (we can't vouch for anything outside of that.) We have dubbed her the "bento babe". Today she sold us lunch on our way back from Kyoto.
~Tokyo is a very train-centric city, while Kyoto is very taxi-centric. Okinawa is very auto-centric. It's interesting to see the difference in cultures and expectations regarding their transportation.
~Teenagers will make fun of you if you can't balance on the Yamanote line in Tokyo. Older business men will laugh under their breath at you if you can't do it on the Shinkansen.
~If you see someone stumbling around in Kyoto, they may not be drunk. They may be renting a resort kimono and wooden shoes and have no idea how to walk in them. We had to dodge several such instances of this while we were there.
~The sake purchased at the Circle K is sometimes better than the stuff you shell out good yen for at a higher-priced restaurant.
~The Japanese stack their ice cubes in a neat pylon before pouring a drink over them.
~It is perfectly acceptable to grossly discriminate against smokers in Japan. They have mostly been relegated to "smokers aquariums" inside glass rooms or very small areas on a sidewalk in order to indulge in the cancer-sticks.
And finally?
~If you fan yourself with your passport, someone at the front desk will run and get you paper fans covered in tour company promos so you don't appear "ghetto" while in their lobby.

There's more, I'm sure Bob can think of a few. But for now? It's late and it's going to rain in Tokyo. I want to hear the storm hit.

She Says: Back in Tokyo! (Recap!)

So I think we're all forced to face up to the fact that we suck at updates and I sincerely hope people weren't waiting with baited breath to hear about our adventures in Kyoto.
They totally freakin' rawked, btw.
At this point there is a LOT of photos and a lot of smaller details that Bob keeps leaving to me because I apparently remember them better, except that by the time I'm done tagging and uploading photos I'm usually exhausted. So I've started and forgotten 3 posts over the last 3 days, and I want you all to blame Bob for fudging and deciding he wouldn't give a good enough round up. In fact, email him about it. Because that would be funny.
It would appear from the global news that the world is poised to scream its lungs out over Manchester United vs. Barcelona, and we're rooting for ManU just so Spain doesn't have to deal with a riot.
So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give a quick rundown of what we did in Kyoto as best I can remember and link the snot out of wikipedia so you guys can read up on your own for more detail. I'm also going to post links to the albums so you can go take a peak.
Kyoto, Day 2... Johnnie Hillwalker's Kyoto walking tour, inappropriately named. It was Johnnie Hillwalker's stand around in a parking lot or in an active back alley and point at buildings while talking about them lower than most of the group can hear, Tours. We did see the major temple for the Pure Land sect of Buddhism in Japan (currently in a literal dry-dock to protect it from the weather while it's being restored.). We also went on to see a few small shinto shrines and a cemetary as well as a few other craft shops. The shrines and temples interested me. Standing outside a closed bath house made of yellow brick talking about how it's world famous... yet closed... not so much. However, we did get to see that the claim of there being 9,000 shrines and temples in Kyoto is probably accurate and not hyperbole. Also got to see the original headquarters of Nin-Ten-Do... some of you might have seen their products at some time? Super Mario Bros, maybe? Except when they were in their downtown Kyoto headquarters, most of what they made were playing cards. They still do, in fact, and we saw workers carrying them out to delivery trucks as we stood there.
After the sweets shop my feet hurt so bad I couldn't handle standing around listening to Mr. Serious give more talks, so we slipped out and walked the two blocks back to the hotel after finding a place for lunch. It was literally called "Coffee and Lunch" and what they actually meant was "We have coffee. If you gesticulate wildly at the omelette and rice pictured on our menu, we will also make you that, but it's not normal." However, might I say, it was damned good food.
We were so blitzed we crashed and napped (walking and standing for 5 hours will do that for you) then rose to shower and treated ourselves to dinner at the hotel's restaurant.
Y'all... I had grilled calf's liver and a cup of cauliflower soup, and I ~liked~ it. Huzzah for new culinary horizons! Bob had a plate of multiple dead farm animals, labeled the "mixed grill", and it was everything from our fluffy lamb friends to our porcine pals and on to our beefy buds. He tells me right now that the beef was excellent, and says it with shining eyes that tell me he will think back on it and salivate while stuck with PB&J sandwiches in the future.
Aaaand... that was kind of that. Except I believe we made a late-night run down to a Circle K quickie-mart to grab a few small things and just to get out in the beautiful night air.
The next day? Oh, lemme tell you about the next day.
Fushimi Inari Taisha... the mother of all Shinto shrines dedicated to the god of rice, Inari... guarded by the sacred foxes of Inari and so important that they dedicated an entire MOUNTAIN to it. Fushimi Inari Taisha, home of the twenty million orange and black torii doors that you have seen in every guidebook about Japan and Kyoto specifically, even if you didn't know that's what it was. And I have wanted to walk on the paths of Fushimi Inari Taisha ever since I saw an article for it in National Geographic when I was 15-16 years old. I stood there in awe of the thousands of torii and then... I giggled madly. And went everywhere we could without risking life, limb, or being yelled at by the shrine workers.
It was lovely to hike up the mountains early in the morning and I can easily say this was my favorite thing in all of kyoto. There were large toriis and small offering-sized torii everywhere. I could go on, but.... here... just lookit the damn pictures:

Click here for more complete and utter awesomeness.
Fox statues were ~everywhere~ on the mountain, some wrapped in the sacred red cloths they favor, some in decorative brocade... you name it.
Even when we were not under tree cover and in direct sun, the torii were so many that we walked in dappled shade the entire time. It was awe-inspiring, and with that and the beauty of the mountain one could easily see why they loved it so much and held it as sacred.
Hell, I even tossed in a few coins to one of the offering boxes and said a prayer, and even filled out a little fox-faced ema asking for a good life:

(Yes, that IS the infamous "Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo! Konnichiwa!" shirt that gets us stared at every time it's worn.)
This was the Japan I was hoping for and looking for, the one that might be haunted in the evenings as everyone is leaving and where the sheer power of belief kept the ancient gods walking.
Fushimi Inari Taisha, btw, is rare as Shinto shrines go. Shinto gods and spirits do not have images that are worshipped, or even symbols. The kami are strictly spirits that are invisible to human eyes, and usually a space is designated as their home but nothing is in it. Fushimi Inari, though, has Inari's mirror in several of the shrines all over the mountain as a symbol. It is one of the very few that does.
I am actually kicking myself for not snagging a miniature of it, or of the little guardian foxes that flanked it. It would've been awesome and I blew it off thinking "I'm not Shinto, do I really want to dust it?" *sigh* Yeah... I do now...
After we made our way back down off the mountain we stopped at the little shops at the base... shrines and temples are good business, as the tourists stop there and buy items to remember it by. We found many, many nifty gifts. I won't go in to detail here because some of them are Xmas presents. But they are nifty.
Also, Bob found me a lovely pink pearl necklace and snagged it for me, having overheard my desire to have a piece of jewelry to remember the country by. I thought that was really sweet of him.
We had lunch at a small shop where an elderly woman missing her two front teeth kept saying "Hai hai! Dozo, dozo!!" to everything and smiling and waving us to go this way or that with her hands. She served us broiled eel in sweet sauce and oyakodon rice with shrimp tempura and it was stunningly good.
We then headed back to the hotel to sort things and get them packed to send off via takyuubin to Tokyo, and to get ready for the kaiseki meal.
Kaiseki is a specialized feast where the local style of cooking is used to accentuate the flavors of whatever food is in season. It is a luxury that was once reserved for the samurai class and royalty, and now is practiced elsewhere as a more bastardized tradition.
Wanting to have not just good kaiseki, but stuff we could be sure was not some tourist-diluted crap, I hopped online the previous day and began hitting foodie journals to see what they recommended as great locations.
Somewhere in there I found Kichisen, the Kyoto restaurant of one Yoshimi Tanagawa. He is well known in Japan and the US for beating Iron Chef Morimoto in the Iron Chef TV series. Morimoto is big news in the US for the restaurants he's opened in NY and elsewhere. Any man that could beat Morimoto would be more than sufficient to serve us excellent kaiseki.
We got dressed up. I wore a dress, ya'll.... And one harrowing taxi ride later from a man who wasn't sure where he was going and another panicked street crossing and we found ourselves being greeted at the door by one of the wait staff, who knew immediately who we were.
We were escorted in, asked to remove our shoes, and then taken along a beautiful hallway where two of the wait staff knelt and bowed to us, thanking us for coming to their establishment. On the way down the tatami-mat hallway we passed a small dry stone garden with moss and ferns off to the side. It was idyllic and reminiscent of the older Kyoto houses that are slowly disappearing.
A turned corner and one of the kneeling waitstaff bowed again and slide open the rice paper door for us, motioning for us to go in. Once inside, we saw that they had set fresh flowers in the alcove, but the only other things in the room were two chairs, the table, and two smaller side tables that later held the trays. An iron hanger holding a silk brocade shield kept us from viewing the hallway each time they opened the door to check on us or bring food, keeping our complete immersion in the event from being disturbed.
Once there, they spoke to us entirely in Japanese and with hand gestures, and one gentleman who knew enough english to ask us things like Hot? Cold? Okay, arigato... The food was never explained to us in English at any time. We listened as they brought in each dish, pointed to what each thing was, said their piece, nodded, and then they exited so we could enjoy. There is no experience equivalent in the Western world.
I believe we can safely say that there was upwards of 12 different dishes brought in. Everything from sweet peas in a chilled sweet broth to whole grilled fish pickled in white miso before being set out on the hibachi. For that last one, Bob and I looked at each other for a long moment before diving in, at which time the taste was so wonderful that, even having bitten the head off first, I uttered an "Oh!" very loudly in surprise. I would eat those again in a heartbeat even though they looked at us before we chowed down.
We had fish in every imaginable way, along with melons, pickled vegetables, regular vegetables, and fruits. Desert was fresh fruits with a complimentary liquor. I had a ripe fresh passion fruit with the top cut off and the insides so fresh and ripe they could be spooned out like a soup. Bob's was a melon with a type of clear jello in the same shape of the melon and a net of spun sugar and flower blossoms. After ~that~ they brought us bowls of matcha and seemed very pleased that we knew to study the bowls and comment on how beautiful they were before turning the main designs outward so that others could see it. (Who knew the tea ceremony lesson at Shofuso back in Philly would come in useful so soon?)
They followed THAT up with sweetened sticky rice wrapped around sweet red bean paste, then all of that wrapped in a sweetened pickled cherry leaf. The last item was a cup of hot bancha-tea in beautiful cups marked with Kichisen's logo. Then a taxi was called, the hostess came in and gave us the remainder of the rice and steamed fish's-head meat that we didn't have room to consume along with a pair of chopsticks and a gift fan with a beautiful printed golden koi on it to thank us for coming. When the taxi arrived, all 3 of the people who had been waiting on us walked out with us, helped us get our shoes on, thanked us again, then with the front door's attendant, they escorted us down to the taxi and told the driver where we needed to go.
Two things at this point. First: they didn't ask us where we'd come from. They just remembered the hotel from our initial reservation and had looked up the name and address specifically to tell the cab driver.
Second: We were the only ones there for 80% of the meal. There was only one other customer there, and we only knew that because their shoes were by the front door as we left.
It had been my hope that we could have a highly unique and wonderful culinary experience, and this one completely blew Bob and I away. I grinned the whole way home and Bob commented on various parts in between fielding me grabbing for him when our kamikaze cab driver whipped in and out of traffic. (At one point he road the bumper fo the guy who cut him off and flashed his brights...ahh, a bit of home. Japan has road-rage too...)
After that? Yeah. We collapsed. Happily so.

She says: Today's wrap-up!

Yay! Finally all caught up!
Today was a fairly laid back day, as we came to realize that Kyoto does not quite afford the same mobility that Tokyo does. The subway system is a bit confusing, the JR line is reserved for major transport (and is 10 blocks away anyway) and Kyoto is quite spread out. We have taken to hailing taxis instead.
Thi8s morning we walked across the street and visited Sanjusangendo, a national treasure of Japan and the longest wooden building in Japan for over 400 years. It is home to the famous 1,000-armed statue of Kwan Yin, which was still actively revered. We lit incense and candles while we were there and watched others do the same.
It was interesting for me as a Buddhist to see an active temple. There's not a lot like that in the states, and certainly not near me. It was an interesting change to be in a place where a reverent mentality is cultured towards Buddhist images.
We couldn't take pictures but they did sell booklets with photographs of the statues in the gift shop. The 1,000 armed Kwan Yin was one thing. The several hundred smaller Kwan Yin statues that were lined up on either side of her were another entirely. There were literally hundreds.
The grounds themselves were gorgeous and relatively serene despite having school children and tour groups running through constantly. We noted later that we didn't hear any of the traffic from the surrounding streets.
We picked up a lovely print of Buddha there along with calligraphy across the top that reads "We come together in this moment and will never get the chance again, so please breathe with me here." Or words to that affect. I liked the sentiment, and picked it up. Bob was sweet enough to buy me a hand-mala (prayer beads) and the aforementioned booklet of photos of all the lovely statues.
We then grabbed a cab and made our way to the Kyoto International Manga Museum.
Manga is the Asian version of the comic book, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, but they usually have more involved stories, and they don't center around super-heroes so much. They tend to focus on an average every-day person who is suddenly forced to deal with something unusual in their life. The favorite age for characters of these to be is between 12 and 18. But there are manga stories for children as well as the elderly and, yes, even "adult" manga.
They have walls and walls of manga from all around the world -manga having become so popular it has been picked up in style and format even in America and Europe- on each of the museum's 3 floors, and rotating exhibits of famous manga artists and authors.
We were lucky to hit it on a Sunday for two reasons.
The first is that on Saturday and Sunday only they have manga artists in the lobby for you to get a caricature from.
This is Yamano Saya, who did ours, and who is ~holding~ ours.

She spoke virtually no English and when we spoke a few Japanese phrases she was pleasantly surprised. She made us look adorable and she, herself, is very very adorable. We're going to get the super-adorable picture of Bob and I holding hands framed once we get back to the US.
The other reason is that the 24th was the last day the exhibits for the french artist Moebius and the very famous Japanese children's artist Sugiura were there. I'm really pleased we got to see them, as it gave insight to the background of the items I enjoy so much nowadays. A great deal of Anime and several video games come from popular Manga, and we are solid lovers of both.
There was also a quick rundown of the history of the modern distribution of manga in Japan outward in to the world, and by modern we mean 1950-present. Manga's apparently been around at least one hundred years prior to that. It was a treat to see some of the very early line art-only examples compared to today's slickly patterned stories.
By the way, as there are fewer and fewer children within Kyoto they have begun closing elementary schools and consolidating what's left. The Manga Museum was actually converted from an elemntary school that was there from the early 1900's.
Afterwards we hailed a cab and found our way back to the hotel where we had a solid crash, as we'd been walking a total of 7 hours at that point and figured for our first full day we'd done a good job of seeing some really damned cool stuff.
We didn't really learn any new words and we haven't had a WTF moment yet, so we're sorry for folks looking forward to that. At this point it's starting to look like your 2 adventurers might be just very accepting of whatever they see and it doesn't occur to them someone else might find it weird!
Pictures for the day can be found by making the clicky here.

She says: Day...7. Yeah. Day 7.

Kyoto is glorious, but Bob is right, it thrives in its back alleys and hidden places that we and the tour books don't necessarily know about. We walked around yesterday evening and saw a ton of very cute small shops, mostly closed by the time we hit the are around 7. I am on some levels a bit sad we only really have 3.5 days for this city, as I know we could spend much, much longer. It is surprisingly like the sensation I got when we were leaving Okinawa yesterday.
Okinawa is a fascinating island. We are told that it is considered the rural backyard of Japan. We were both asked how long we were on the "mainland" and "in Japan" before arriving there and were surprised by both terms. To us it was all just a string of islands and hadn't occurred to us there was a distinction.
Mainland, it would seem, makes the distinction and Okinawa follows.
Other sources told us over beer that in spite of being a part of Japan, traditionally the Ryukyu empire had more to do with China. And it makes sense because there are Shisha dogs everywhere marking the entrances to markets, restaurants and tombs, even bottles of tea, something we hadn't encountered until we stepped off the plane there.
I should have a picture of them for you. I really should. But you know what? I seriously failed in that endeavor and I apologize. We're blaming it on the whole having fun thing. I'll just ~draw~ some if anybody's really that curious or unwilling to go to Google.
We are a light-hearted bunch in this blog, but I'm going to wax serious for a moment because it deserves to be a serious thing. Tokyo as a city was gray. Its inhabitants were gray, the buildings were gray, the train systems and streets and even the weather was gray. we walked around in a land of muted colors and tired workers who stared at their feet and felt culturally and humanly alone in that place the way only an extreme outsider fording the river of culture shock can. They were polite to us and smiled, but in a nervous and reserved way like meeting your boyfriend's parents for the first time. We got along with Tokyo because it didn't mind us there, for the most part. Just so long as we were aware that it was going to continue to do its own thing and we were on our own as gaijin, for the most part. We ate our food by ourselves, and only conversed with people if we needed information or talked with each other. There was no warmth in the place. And yes, that is their society. But even the teenagers seemed reticent to interact with us on the street. After hearing stories about how people might run up to us to test their English prowess on us, this was a surprise.
Okinawa has a million colors and a bright sun with white clouds in a blue sky. The seas are the kind of turquoise they color-adjust for in photoshop before sending out brochures for resorts in the bahamas. There are flowers and insects and birdsong, and children laughing and running around in the streets. Palm trees waft in the breeze and twenty million miniature cars race by each other on the highways skirting pimped out scooters and motorcycles alike. It was wonderfully alive, and in the middle of it Deya and Chris opened up their home (their totally awesome home, I might add) and let us stay there and observe it.
We spent breakfast at Starbucks, a wholly different experience than in the states. In Okinawa they greet you enthusiastically, grin at you, and do their best to figure out if you meant to say "short" or not when ordering your coffee size. I hadn't been in one in the states in almost a year because of the cold, bored baristas behind the counter. They didn't give a damn if you wanted cheesecake, they just wanted to get you through so they could make a paycheck and afford whatever. If, however, I were to walk in and be greeted in that fashion upon arrival home in Thorndale, I would happily drop $5 on a drink with sprinkles and whipcream whenever I could.
We then took a beautiful and scenic drive to what Chris termed "the other side of the island", where we saw an arboretum and the Okinawa Chiraumi Aqaurium. On the way there it was notable that Okinawa has a tone of tombs to it, granite or cement or cinderblock structures marked with places to leave offerings, and the Shisha dogs gaurding out front. Some were just sloped, some had a "turtle back", which was like a flattened dome raised at an angle over it. And they were utterly ubiquitous. We even saw them next to baseball diamonds. And always they seemed to mostly point outwards towards the sea, their little doors blackened. When I die, I want to have an ocean-view from my gravesite!
The aquarium was a blast, loaded with turtles and manatees and all sorts of sealife. We got to see the famous whalesharks swimming in their giant aquarium, having lunch beneath their shadows as they glided by. Seeing them and the beautiful assortment of rays made the oddly dubbed "taco sandwich" a little better and I forgave them calling it that when it was just ground beef and chopped tomatoes on a roll.
We took a lot of photos, and I'm going to spare you all and just say that if you wanna see, you should click here. It's worth it.
We found ourselves with some extra time on our hands before the dolphin show, so we did what anybody would do in that situation and walked down to the open beach. We saw in the tidepools there all sorts of spiny starfish, sea cucumbers and clam syphons. Some of them even shot water at us. There was a lovely waterfall splashing it's way down to the bay there, and lots of algae and seaweed-strewn rocks to walk on. I couldn't tell if the others were enjoying themselves, but I had a great time of it.
The dolphin show consisted of what looked like 3 harbor porpoises, 4 common dolphins and one spinner dolphin. They performed various tricks such as "singing", waving, shaking hands, leaping very high, and all the other wonderful things they're known for. The whole thing was in Japanese, though, so as Deya mentioned at one point, you had to listen for when the crowd went "OOOOooo!" to learn when to pay attention.
In the middle of the show they had one of the harbor porpoises up on the deck and put one of the well known Okinawan folk-hats on its head. I'm fairly sure we have a picture. I've since decided that I need one of those for when I'm in the middle of housework. I can stop, put it on, pose, and receive thunderous applause for my work up until that point. Then someone will give me fish and I go back to vacuuming.
We then purchased drinks made from young coconuts hacked open with a machete (I can really get behind the violence necessary to extract the useful drinkable part) and made our merry way back out to the car.
For some reason both coming and going the mist fountain shut off as we crossed, but didn't to anybody before or after us. I joked about a "gaijin alarm" on that thing but... you know, seriously? I think they wanted us to sweat a little.
After arriving home the boys opted to chill while us ladies ran down to JusCo to see the Hello Kitty store there.
I am a fiend for Hello Kitty, so you know I dropped quite a few yen there. They really do put her on ~everything~, and had a great kimono there as well. Deya was a sweetheart and even snagged a few surprises while I wasn't looking, including the charm I was pondering putting on my DS since the other two snapped off on the trip. It was one of those weird-yet-cool psychic moments.
We then acquired freshly made onigiri, grabbed another volley of caramel lattes, and headed back to their place.
Later that evening they introduced us to a fine group of people in the Air Force persuasion as they are and we all headed to Yoshi's sushi. We got to sit on tatami mats, drink Orion beer, and have a damned good time. Leilani, Vanessa and Andrew were good company and really funny to boot, and we were happy to finish off the evening at the Starbuck's in AmericanVillage.
Morning was spent having a fabulous breakfast and watching Ghost Hunters episodes on video. Then with our last bit of time Deya showed us the seawall, covered in very colorful graffiti and artwork, and her favorite cafe down by it. I enjoyed a piece of chocolate cake, another caramel latte, and we were off to the airport once more.
A mostly uneventful flight brought us to the mainland where we grabbed lunch at a McDonald's and confirmed it was pretty much the same stuff as in the US. It just tasted as if there was less fat overall, and they used less salt. But for the record, it's not off the wall and there isn't squid in the burgers or anything.
We hopped a train here, and the rest has been blogged.

He Says: Day....I have no idea

Let's call it 7 shall we?

The mechanitcs of travel is fascinating. I like it because it's between two norms. There's where/who you are at start. (Home / tourist / guest / lost & confused) and where / who you are at the end (work / hotel / imposition / more lost & confused) and in the space inbetween you're just about anything just like everyone else on your train/plane/magic carpet.

Lots of travelling within in the last few days. 3 trains and a plane ride between Tokyo and Okinawa was a chance to see a lot of countryside and a lot of random people travelling just as far as we. It's something of a small miracle we made it there as we did. Not having an exact grasp of the times involved when we left we made both flights to and from Okinawa nearly perfect as well as every connecting train.

Okinawa was an absolute blast. Deya and Chris are truly awesome people and we're lucky we knew them and could meet them here. After 5 days of fending for ourselves to find attractions and places to eat and sightsee it was great having a local's perspective. The trip is only about half over but I think that might be the highlight right there of the whole thing we shall see.

Last night we made it to Kyoto and today was a beautiful shrine and the international manga museum. We had our portrait done by a manga artist which I'm sure will be posted as a picture soon and grace our mantle or some other position of pride once we return home.

Kyoto has a pretty different feel to it than Tokyo pretty much obviously. Much more spread out to some degree. Buildings don't rise 50 stories but seem to have a much larger footprint. Where Tokyo builds up Kyoto built out. The real Kyoto I imagine is in all it's back alleys and fascinating shops, restaurants and bars. We duck down as many as we can but I'm sure there's a thousand wonderful places we'll never see. To some degree that dissappoints me. But really to truly get to know every nook and cranny of any city takes years, even if you speak the language, so I enjoy everything we manage to see.

I'm sure more pictures and recaps from Helen will be forthcoming as well.

She Says: When Kyoto Attacks...

We are seriously blessed to know the people we do, meeting them through chance and internet happenstance.
Having just spent 48 hours in the company of Deya and Chris in Okinawa these sort of things are brought to the forefront and we smile and thank the Universe for holding up people and going "Hey, they're cool, I'm gonna toss them together with you, okay?"
At this point in the game we holler back "You bet your sweet damn bippy! BRING IT!" And the Universe, ever obliging, does bring it and we have awesome adventures as a result.
A quick and lazy rundown of Akihabara and Travel Day:
Akihabara. Wow. It's like that section of New York where you can buy Rolex watches and nice CD players at such a good price you really really don't want to know where they got them. The crowning gem of this, though, was the Yodobashi store. 11 floors of electronic love and a few small non-electronic things in the forms of puzzles for children and anime figurines. So. Many. Anime. Figurines.
We ran through an arcade and got our pictures taken in the "pink zone" a place where girls are supposed to be the only ones... unless the guy is with a girl. Bob and I promptly decided we HAD to have a collection of shots inside one of their booths.
By the way, Japanese photo-booth technology blows away US technology once more, starting with the ~lightning~. We looked awesome with the multi-directional diffusers. Once you take the pictures you get to choose frames and effects and you can add things like hearts on everything. Terribly cute but I flailed at doing anything with it since the instructions were in Japanese. We finally just got it to print them out for us and off we went.
Bob later managed to get an AvP facehugger model out of one of the crane-machines downstairs. I only managed to knock stuffed animals around a lot and lose $10.
We also played a rather interesting game that supposedly used infra red and motion sensors such that our controllers were whips and we fought our way through a castle accordingly. Made it past the first boss to the second, then both died horribly and opted not to renew. Still a rather good time.
Lunch was tempura, and we made our way to Yodobashi where we ran up 8 floors staring at beautiful electronics and gorgeous TV screens. I didn't manage to find the camera I'd been hoping for but did get my hands on Taiko no Tetsujin a game for the DS where you use two sticks to tap on a drum in time to some J-Pop. It was played later that evening with much giggling.
After that we rushed the distance from Kyoto to Osaka in the matter of a few hours via Shinkansen and the glorious JR rail system. On the trip we actually managed to catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji and something called the Sanyo Solar Ark, which was a complete surprise and rather impressive to boot. Apparently it's an entire building that is also a ginormous solar panel!
Also to accomplish this time table we actually leapt in to the fray and got on a train from Shinjuku in the heart of rush hour when people pack the trains like sardines, literally. Some poor young man had his face parked inches from my armpit as I hung on for dear life to my monkey-ring hanging from the ceiling trying not to fall. He didn't even flinch. Nobody did. And it turns out that navigating when the trains are packed like that actually isn't the huge deal some have made it out to be. I wouldn't do it again, but my claustrophobia was short-circuited in the midst of that ride and I don't think it'll hit me again in that circumstance now. Happy things, happy things...
A 2 hour plane ride later and we found ourselves landing in the gloriously sunny land of Okinawa. Ms. Deya met us outside and proceeded to drive our tired butts back to her place in what is the most singularly adorable car I have ever seen, a Daihatsu "Move". It's a cube on wheels and she maneuvered that thing on a dime.
Once home and meeting Chris for the first time IRL, he plied us with an awesome meal of brisket, mashed potatoes and roasted corn on the cob. Having consumed seafood in raw and fried forms for the majority of the past several days it was a welcome break. (Not that we mind the raw fish, but a lot of you know my soft spot for potato products.)
A viewing of Spirited Away and Journey to the Center of the Earth later and we crashed for the night. The bed and pillows were actually soft, another nice change from where we'd been in Tokyo for the past few days.
I think I'm going to link the pictures and call it good, will continue to update later but I would rather go in to detail and do it justice than just get it slapped down because I'm tired.
If you clicky here you can see Akihabara pictures.
If you clicky here you can see travel day pictures.
Our hotel room is nice and has an awesome shower-room setup thingie that is very fun to use.
And a last thought, there are a LOT of gaijin around in Kyoto, more than I expected after the Westerner Wasteland of Tokyo. It was odd to be greeted by a Westerner in the lobby who actually also worked for the hotel. Everyone at the desk spoke English, too, and there were more white folk being checked in than asian folk. That's a complete 180 from the Tokyo hotel.
Time to pass out. Okinawa and travel day #2 in the morning, promise. It's easier to do now that we aren't running around having fun constantly...

She says: Day 5 - Okinawa

Well, you'll probably notice that we didn't exactly post as promised. And I feel bad about it I really do. Except... well... see... we were too busy negotiating the travel itinerary to get us from Tokyo to Naha, Okinawa in a matter of 6 hours. No small feat I assure you. It took 3 train switches, an airport where nothing was in English, and a shady deal with a guy in a back alley I'd rather not discuss.
Also, after we did that we proceeded to have an utter freaking blast and really there was no time to sit down until now 11:30 in the evening. We're back on a plane for the mainland tomorrow, followed by another train trip and an afternoon arrival in Kyoto so we may not fully update everything until tomorrow evening. Fret not. We have so many photos of awesomeness and tales of daring-do your head will pop. If you're at all unsure let me tickle your imaginations and whet your appetites with the following info: In Okinawa the tombs get better real estate than the houses and dolphins wear folk-hats when performing.
Per usual -and really does it have to repeated at this point?- yes I'm serious.
Unfortunately every time I try to upload photos this evening our happy companion the netbook seizes like an epileptic at a rave so we're going to give it a go when we have a chance again tomorrow. You're gonna love the shots of mammals in water.
I have extensive sunburn. My cheeks are rosy, as are my legs, my arms, my nose, my knees and my forehead. I will sleep the sleep of the very super tired and burnt.

She says: ACK!

Hey guys? Day 3 will be even later than anticipated since we're running to catch a shinkansen out of Tokyo station. Our apologies. It will be posted later.
In the meantime, here is a bunny with a pancake on its head:

She says: Day 3

Today was Akihabara and it's environs. I would love to tell you about it except that we ended this evening in two different bars and I'm a wee bit blitzed. So instead of pummeling you with a poorly spelled GIANT run on sentence about the awesomeness that is a Yodobashi electronics store, I'm gonna go do a faceplant after I shower the haze of cigarette smoke off my person.
We'll get you up to speed in the morning. Pictures, too. Catch ya then.

PS~ I had jellyfish for dinner.

She says: Picture time!

Pizza was good, Japanese beer... not so great, but definitely more drinkable than some American brands.
Later we might hit a bar and take a peak at the nighttime skyline.
Also, yes I am well aware of the irony of the shirt I am wearing today. It's comfy and new, so it came.
On to pictures!

Just an FYI, there are 50 images in this slide show. If you want to see the pictures individually, including the ability to expand their size and stare at them for as long as you like, please click right here.

When I was ordering the pizza over the telephone, I bowed as I said thank you. Yes. It's like talking with your hands except it's another country's culture and the person on the other end STILL can't see you.

She says: Meiji Shrine's Courtyard.

Here's a quick 360 view of the courtyard. We were lucky to get there in the morning when it wasn't very crowded, as it's a popular place. It was starting to get that way around 1 when we finally left.

She Says: Day 2

As I write this we cheer that there is a second day of sumo wrestling on TV. This stuff is utterly addictive. There is something in the ballet of two giant men in waxed loincloths and the shock waves that pass through the fat that utterly entrance. Or maybe its the fact that this is the most real wrestling we've ever seen, having to deal with such gems as WWF and ECW back in the States. The men on the TV screen are dead serious, and the matches are over within seconds usually. Each one plays a little game of psych-out, though, and will raise their hands or stand up and walk away to prolong the match or catch a glimpse of their opponent' strategy. It's something you don't see to much sin the Western world, unless you could talking shit to one another as a means to gauge your opponent. I mostly saw that as a refuge for retards with the unfortunate ability to both play sports AND speak the language.
I think I can safely say that we did more before 2 pm than most of the rest of the world.
Of greatest note is the fact that we braved Shinjuku Station at rush hour, and we rode a human tide from the open doors up to the JR Yamanote platform as if surfing on the psychic energy of a million people to "JUST FREAKING GO I GOTTA GET TO WORK PLEASE GOD WHY DID YOU STOP RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, GAH!"
It's powerful, this psychic tide. I would really, seriously suggest you not stop in the middle of it, even to get your bearings. Let it take you deep in to the men's restroom if it wants, in fact. Your best bet is to simply swim to the side of the river like someone caught in whitewater rapids would do, then wait and grab any other companions behind you as they ford past.
My initial thought was that it wasn't actually that bad... except I was thinking that while we were standing in one of the side lobbies. We weren't actually in the station proper. As soon as we crossed that line it was immense and i'm proud to say we did damn fine making our way through without knocking people over, bumping in to people, or otherwise making a public nuisance of ourselves.
To portray the immensity of it would take a photo. But in order to take a photo would've meant stopping in the middle of that rush of people and...wow... you SO do not want to be that guy.
As Bob mentioned previously, we went to the Meiji Jingu shrine this morning, braving the salarymen crush in the trains to find ourselves in a beautiful forest. Literally walking out of the Harajuku train station and taking a right off of Omotesando will drop you right in to the park and immediately shut out all noise from the trains and street beyond.
It's a very calming, relaxing place loaded with trees, bamboo and streams. Originally it was given to the Empress Shoken by the Emperor Meiji so she would have a place to walk in the woods that reminded her of home. If that's not romantic, I don't know what is. Also, might I mention, that it was a NICE gift.
We paid a few yen to see the gardens there, but neither the azalea garden or the iris walk was in bloom (save for a few spare flowers that every tourist, Japanese or gaijin, stopped and photographed to have SOMETHING to show for walking down there.) Even so, a quick journey to the koi pond was fun. We had a little hovering buddy for a few minutes, green faceted insect-eyes, yellow translucent body and 4 wings beating so fast they were a whir. It made a whirring noise as it hovered to, and stared at Bob and I. It only backed up when I reached up to poke it with my finger to see if it reacted. It darted like a hummingbird, then darted back to where it was. I wish I knew what it was, the colors were very bright.
After we made our way out of the garden we purified ourselves at the fountains before going in to the Meiji Shrine.
It is a huge shrine, and demarcated from the world by the largest Torii, or sacred gate, in the world. You guys know what a torii is, they're on every postcard in the world, they look like a giant gate with two pieces of lumber across the top. In Japan they're used to specifically mark entrance to a sacred space.
Meiji-jingu, btw, is a Shinto shrine. Meiji and Shoken are actually interred there and people come to offer coins, pray and ask their help as ancestors and guardians of Japan for whatever they need.
For those who want to be extra sure, they sell ema, or prayer placards, for you to write your wish on. You then hang it on the wall surrounding a sacred tree and then.... I have no clue. I'm not a practicing Shintoist so it's lost on me, but I went ahead and bought a placard anyway and wrote my wishes on it. I even drew a little picture of Bob and I enjoying ourselves in hopes it would convey what I wanted.
At one point when we were in the inner sanctum, in front of the building where Meiji and Shoken are, I pulled out my camera and popped the cap off to get a shot. The guard there hurried toward me immediately making the "shame on you" motion with his fingers and saying "No photo preese! No photo!" I apologized profusely, as there hadn't been a sign and I certainly hadn't meant to be disrespectful. He probably thought I didn't understand initially, as I stared at him in disbelief just to see another human being use the "shame-shame" motion for the first time in about 16 years.
We saw several shrine maidens, bought some charms for good luck, and then walked back to the more retail-oriented souvenir shop. Once there I acquired a fabric fan (it's damned humid here, even when the sun isn't blazing overhead. It is an item of necessity) and a box of the most fragrant incense I have smelled in a while. A quick note to my father and to Blake; the box of incense is friggin' HUGE and I will be bundling some of it up to pass along. I think you'll enjoy it.
Lunch consisted of chirashi-sushi (sliced sashimi on vinegared rice) and custard with aka miso soup for me and tempura on rice with aka miso for Bob.
We then went back towards Harajuku Station, walked past it down the street a bit, and went up Takeshita Street. Takeshita, for those of you unfamiliar with Japanese fashion or "Harajuku girls", is a place of fashions for teens. We were quickly lost in a see of teens and 'tweens, mostly school girls in uniforms and the occasional male that braved the throng. It was interesting to see all of the different styles they wear here, and honestly if I wasn't sporting my goddess-sized exterior I probably would've tried to find something to wear. As it was, I just enjoyed the slice of life and kept walking.
We took a mosey through a side street, Harajuku street, where there were FAR fewer people. Then we turned and ended up on Omotesando-dori once more. A great number of western stores were here, with such familiar names as Body Shoppe, Lauren Ashley, and Ray-Ban.
At that point my feet were killing me -our phrasebook doesn't have a phrase for "I am in desperate need of gel insoles, PLEASE tell me where to purchase them"- and we decided that for walking around without break for 4 hours and several miles we had done more than any sane American normally did in a day and we deserved to take a break. Seeing that it was a 4 minute train ride and a 5 minute walk, we decided to head back to the hotel room for a bit.
On the way here, though... you guys know how easily I give in to serendipity. I found... a donut shop. Not just any, but one with the awesome name of Donut Factory New York. They also had bagels, but obviously bagels are not cool enough at this place to get equal billing.
So we're walking along, feet aching, mildly sweaty from the damned humid air that parks on top of Tokyo, and I see a square donut in the color of green. I then actually stop Bob, pause, and walk around to see if the place is still open. Upon seeing that it is, I then proceed to see a sign that says the green square donut is even MORE awesome in that it is a glazed green tea donut with green tea creme filling. It's very artsy. All of their donuts are. I immediately know that these are the kinds of things that travel documentaries hinge on, and inform Bob that I am going to stop in the middle of the busiest train station in the world and buy the Japanese translation of the common donut.
He, lucky bastard, orders what they call here a 'bitter chocolate' donut, meaning that it's dark chocolate with very little sweetener. With how they make it, you absolutely do not miss the sugar. The hot cocoa the first night and the bitter choco donut tasted more chocolately than any American junk I'd had recently, and you really have to hand it to the Japanese for being willing to extract the pure essence of a flavor from something.
We then carried our discoveries out, the sharp pain in our poor feet spurring us the five blocks back to the hotel. By the time we got here I felt like I had heel spurs. And toe spurs. And everywhere spurs. It burned.
We are now safely here, and I am uploading images to sort and post a bit later. The day's not done yet, so I don't ~quite~ want to post before they're all collected.
Words we have learned today: Infuruenza. Take a wild guess.
Otorii - The Biggest Torii in the world, and because of this gets the honorofic "O" in front. There are torii, and then there is the Otorii, and it is the one in front of Meiji-jingu.
For some reason when I saw it, the bit from Eddie Izzard popped in to my head, "It's the biggest henge in the wooooorrrrlllld...."
Tonight the plan is beer and Japanese pizza. Yes, I'm serious. We located a convenience store in the basement of this place when we were coming back from this morning's breakfast (today's fried potato product was animal shapes filled with mashed potatoes. I took great joy in biting the head off a potato-dolphin, btw) and they sell alcohol in it. Actually, they all do. You can buy whiskey, razors, coffee and a girly mag all within about two rows of each other. Also, they have sushi. But I digress... the place has biru, so we're headed down to buy some cold ones to have with pizza, and something for dessert. While there this morning we found Pocari Sweat, which is their answer to gatorade, a mildly citrus and slightly thicker than water drink that supposedly rehydrates you quickly. I enjoy the taste but find the sensation of actually drinking it somewhat unnerving thanks to the texture.
Oh, also, I ate tako, or octopus, at lunch. We just can't do that shit right and should stop now. When properly prepared it is NOT chewy like rubber, but rather yielding to the teeth and mild in flavor. I will endeavor to try it again soon.
Also, Mom, I am NOT allergic to shrimp brains as we originally thought. It was numb because it burned my tongue. It's blistered this morning. We're totally cool. I know you were seriously concerned your little girl was going in to anaphylactic shock while dying of swine flu in Japan.

He says: Day 2

Lots of walking today. Visited the Meiji shrine, walked through many, many streets I'm sure Helen will post our pictures of soon.

Some random observations from day 2.

I've seen several McDonalds, a Wendys, one Sizzler, and even a Denny's. Where's the love for Burger King? Did the Emporer have him banished or something? Is it the creepy mask? What?

I watch Japanese TV and see these whacky commercials come on and say "Oh those silly Japanese" and then I think about the talking Chiuahua for Taco Bell and a dozen other things and I realize I should back off that sentiment cause I have no national moral high ground here.

You know, I'm kinda glad H1N1 is here now. At least I don't have to worry about being seen as the disease ridden person from North America who might sneeze and kill them all because I lied on the form on the plane that I am indeed not a plague rat.

I have to say though, I'm amazed anyone thought they could keep out a global disease in this day and age. Maybe I'm just used to living in a relative huge country with pretty porous borders or something. I never thought, sitting in Pa, "Maybe we can keep it out" It was always just a matter of time in my mind. I'm not sure of that makes me a pessimist or a realist or what. I just think we're all way too connected not to share the same problems like this now.

Lastly. Let's talk bowing. There's a sterotype that Japanese will bow endlessly. I have found this not to be the case...except in the hotel service industry here, or perhaps just this one in particular. I figured it was just for us or the tourists. Our Bell hop bowed and thanked us for letting her do her job a good 5-6 times before she left. I figured they were being nice to the guests.

Then, I witnessed a woman who worked at the hotel escort 2 Japanese women who were shopping at the shops here. She thanked them a good 7 times, bowing with each one. They stopped even acknowleding it after 3 or 4. For the finale, as the elevator doors closed to seperate them she thanked them very loudly and took one deep bow in final gratitude for purchasing something from her shop. I watched this exchange and that final bow and in my head heard the following from her "Yes, we both know this is excessive. I cannot help it. I think it's some sort of micro chip causing this. Since I cannot stop thanking you I will now distract myself by staring at my shoes for 10 seconds. If, during that time, you find means to escape, I think we'll all be the better for it. Bon chance, fair travellers. Save yourself before it's too late."

Damn polite these people. Damn polite.

She Says: WTF Japan?

You know, it figures that we would save up for 2 years for the trip of the lifetime, we get here safely, and the ******* PLAGUE follows us here.
As of this morning 2,384 schools were shut down in Japan to help contain the spread of the H1N1. I suspect more of the Japanese populace will be staying home in light of this. That's fine, just means we'll have a better shot at getting places quickly. I just worry that we'll be going to government-run places and they'll be shut down.
For those of you about to worry that we're close to spending the remainder of our vacation in one of the lovely hospitals, be advised that the majority of the outbreaks are in Kobe and Osaka. We won't be there. The closest we come is a trip on the 21st out of Kansai Airport to Okinawa. Kansai is just outside Osaka. I am guessing we will be scanned again if they let us go at all. Bob and I are wondering if we'll even be able to fly down there given the scare going on.
At one point my father mentioned how we seem to close things. By that I mean we are usually there on the last day something is open. The Hershey Drug Store, the Wanamaker's building in New York, and a host of other places just happened to be some of the places we had a meal before they shut the doors behind us. It even happened to Bob and I at a cafe in Linglestown. So... it would appear I am carrying on the proud tradition of our family by going to Japan before everybody gets sick and dies.
I am, of course, invoking hyperbole when I say this.
We'll keep you posted. For now breakfast downstairs, Meiji-jingu shrine, and possible a trip through Akihabara.

She Says: Day 1 - finale

I have partaken of sushi so tender and fresh it would make you folks back in the States weep. I had the perfect piece of uni sushi, and they did things with eel that I am fairly sure can't even be duplicated elsewhere in this city. It was ~phenomenal~, and I come away from it sated, pleased, with an eel bone in between two of my bicuspids and a weird reaction to something across the left side of my tongue.
Don't worry Mom, it isn't spreading and it's probably due to the grilled shrimp head we ate. This happened last time I had one, too.
That being said, my mind is blown and I'm calling it for today.
New word(s) learned: Itamidome. Meaning "painkiller". We had headaches in the AM and had to go find a shop with tylenol.
Also chizu, meaning "map". We had no idea where we were and the gentleman at the front desk didn't speak English too well.
The growing number of people in masks outside and news that 23 students came back from China infected with H1N1 and a school had to be closed down was top news. They take these things VERY seriously. The number of people in masks is growing.
WTF moment: Walking in to a pachinko parlor and being knocked senseless by the commotion. Between the reak of cigarette smoke, the deafening noise of the clanking pachinko balls, the machines themselves playing music and the roaring ventilation, and the harsh fluorescent lighting on white linoleum, we could only stay in one for a few brief moments. It seems to be the abode of older men who smoke a lot and teenage boys with lots of hair product.
I now present you with the images for today.

She says: Day 1 part deux

We accidentally found a temple at the back of a park in Shinjuku. It was very lovely, and we saw many people there actually utilizing it. Pictures forthcoming. It was a beautiful, peaceful place and very different from the cars and people walking all around it.
I'd say we walked a good five or six miles so far, and I'm going to call that good because I am out of shape and my feet are hurting. We accidentally stumbled in to part of Akihabara (Yodabashi Camera! YUM!) and wandered around checking out the little shops. We stopped at a noodle house and the nicest, most patient man ever showed me how to order noodles with the dispenser machine after I screwed it up. He even explained what everything was in a Japanese/English mix that thankfully I understood. "Negi", btw, is pretty damned good beef.
Bob's right, it's impossible to eat that stuff without spattering one's front with little droplets of broth. It was excellent broth, I should add, and I have no idea how people eat the entire bowl they served to us, but they do. It was half again too much for me and for Bob, but we gave it a good try.
I mailed grandmother a postcard, and both the woman who sold the postcard to me and the woman who helped me put postage on it and get it in the mail were extremely polite and helpful. I think in general this is going to be the case and I need to stop being surprised by it. I had ~heard~ that the service industries in Japan were unrivaled for the responsiveness and efficiency but I don't believe I expected it to be rapid, with a smile, every single time.
I'm looking forward to an evening at the sushi bar. Trust me, there will be a report on that as well. For now, though, we relax and watch sumo wrestling on TV. Yes, I'm serious.
PS - Bob has fallen in love with the bolster pillows in the hotel room. When he turned to me and said "We need to have some of these" my heart sang. I have wanted bolster pillows for around our house. There shall be bolster pillow and/or fabric shopping when we get back, Huzzah!
Coke comes in aluminum bottles here, btw.

He says : Day 1

First off. I cannot believe she blogged about the biday.

That aside. Some random things that occured to/fascinated me.

A nation that drives on the left side of the road would tend to walk on the left side of the hallway/sidewalk. This makes perfect logical sense to me in hindsight, but I still had to learn the hard way by trying to figure out why basic navigation in a hallway lead to so many close encounters. Thank heavens I'm not driving. We would not make it back alive.

I ruined a perfectly good shirt trying to eat noodles in a bowl of broth. It was an excellent lunch. I'd do it again as it was likely worth the cost of the shirt. I got the 'spicy meat' in my noodles and broth. I didn't ask questions. I do find myself wondering whether or not the noodle houses sell t-shirts on the side though. It's great synergy. I wonder if anyone's written up that business plan.

We seriously need to get on with inventing commercial teleportation so I can get here again without the 14 hour plane ride with no circulation in the lower half of my body. The plane and the crew tried hard. A dozen movies on demand on a personal video screen for each seat, some truly excellent Japanese food and very attentive flight attendants made a good effort. Seriously though, whatever warehouse the U.S government is keeping the crashed UFO from which they slowly leak it's technology out to corporations if we could move the teleporter pods higher up on the queue I'd appreciate it.

The Elephant in the Room: Yes, they are kinda concerned about H1N1 here. To a degree it's understandable. I'm not here to judge so I'm going to let them do their thing. I wish I was aware of the genesis of this though. I've seen 4 gray haired, high powered business people walking down the street 1 of them has a mask on. Did anyone say to him "You know Steve (I'm translating) maybe the client might be a bit put off if it looks like one of us is so concerned he might kill them he's got medical gear on". Or on our walk from the train station to the hotel I saw a couple, clearly on a date, walking hand in hand. She had on a mask, he did not. I suppose that's a better excuse than a headache anyway. No one looks twice at them though.

In my trying to understand I think I've come to the conclusion they see this as the opposite as I (and likely most people) did. When I saw someone wearing a mask I used to think 'Wow, what do they have?" And they're keeping it in. Instead they see it as "Wow, what does the world have?" and they're keeping it out. Therefore, it's not so much a comment on them, but on the world in general. And let's face it, there's some odd stuff out there, so maybe that's more understandable.

I will say though - and no one will get this reference but that's okay I amuse myself - the next Silent Hill game should not feature killer zombie nurses with knives, just 14 hours of flight attendants wearing masks is creepy enough. Although, I guess the bright side for them is they don't have to fake smile at the drunk guy in first class. Seriously, you wake up on a plane, you're sore, you're not quite sure where you are for a second and you look up and there's a woman in a surgical mask coming at you with a bottle of apple juice. Yeah....I couldn't get back to sleep either.

Tonight we try sushi in Japan. Wish us luck!

She says: Hooray for new experiences!

I finally tried out the robo-bidet.

WHY DO WE NOT USE THESE MORE OFTEN IN THE STATES? They're awesome! They even make sure to use warm water!
I will post scary pictures later. For now, just be certain that Japan surpasses us in potty technology and we should probably be working on that immediately.

She says: Land of the Early Rising Sun

We went to bed around 8 pm local time last night, and the sun was polite enough to wake us up at 4:30 am local time to let us know that we had actually slept quite a bit and that our internal clocks should work at being reset. That's right. Japan is so efficient even its sun gets up early to make sure workers can see what they're doing.
I would also like to say that the ride from Narita was scenic (and laden with rice paddies) up until we hit the outer wards of Tokyo, then it became all cement buildings and metal and glass high rises. It's a strange mix. It feels no different than New York, except that instead of 7 buttons it has something like 26 and it's much, much bigger. I can't read the signs, but most places are polite enough to include images or display foods with numbers on them so you can just point or tell them what you want in numbers.
Our hotel room is rather nice, with a hot water maker for tea, one of the crazy robo-bidets, and a desk that comes with a built in electrical plug, fax line and LAN.
It's obviously an upper-class hotel. I just didn't realize how much so until we got a bellhop to show us to the elevator and up to the hotel room, then AROUND the hotel room despite only having our carry-on bags with us. She was incredibly sweet and polite and was very concerned that we thought it was humid in the room even though she didn't understand what it meant. We finally had to settled with "wet", so she showed us where the AC was. Very very sweet. I wanted to tip her, but I everything I've heard says it's a no-no, so I held off.
All in all so far it has been wonderful to be here (transportation is wickedly efficient and for this I am grateful.) and there have been only minor problems with communication. We appear to know enough to communicate the basics of what we need and that should get us by for now.
Breakfast, btw, was an interesting take on what we normally have. Fried potatoes (think potato wedge-fries) sausage links that were more akin to small hot dogs, poached eggs and almond jelly were to be had, as were sliced cheeses, fresh fruit, and a variety of pastries. The help was exceptionally polite and brought around coffee constantly. Milk, soy milk, water and both orange and tomato juices were available if they were needed. It was held in the Tea&Coffee Lounge (click the name for info and images) off the Lobby of the hotel, and as we are members of the guest club for Keio Plaza, we get to have the same kind of breakfast every morning we are here, if we so desire. A girl could get used to this kind of life!
Once our luggage arrives from the takyuubin service we are off to see Shinjuku and surrounding environs and have lunch at a local shop where we have to gesture and point at a picture to get someone to give us the right food. All of these little mini-adventures will build up our confidence as we go and I think by this time Wednesday it'll be second nature trying to get our point across.
Yours truly is currently enjoying the complimentary white and indigo yukata to relax in as she writes this entry, just wanted to point that out. Que up "I Think I'm Turning Japanese", please!
Slide show below is a quick look at all of the images from our travels, including the lovely complimentary disease-masks provided by ANA airlines. So far I can honestly say that was the scariest part of the trip, and we are 7,000 miles from home in a country that barely speaks our language. This is going to be utterly epic, and I'm glad we can share part of our trip with you.

She says: We're here!

7,000 miles, 14 hours in the air, 1 hour and 20 minutes on a train and 25 minutes of walking through downtown Shinjuku and we have arrived!
A few things learned today. First, if you for some bizarre reason need to fly halfway across the world, by all means do it with ANA. The stewardesses were incredibly helpful and responsives. The food was the best I have ever had on a flight. And they are very clear in their explanations of things, so getting confused only lasts a few seconds, tops.
However, I would suggest that you not do this economy as we did. Premium Economy class at the VERY last. I have two dead spots on my bum from sitting that long, even with getting up and wandering around occasionally.
Before we could disembark we had to put up with being scanned for swine flu via thermal photography. I got a few surreptitious shots of the Japanese CDC at its best. I found out I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures of them and was asked to stop. Never let it be said I didn't go the extra mile to get the day's WTF? photo!
Bob is currently out cold while I am trying to type this up quickly before I collapse from exhaustion. We've both been up since 2 am Saturday, and it's currently 7:20 pm on Sunday (We're ahead of you guys by 13 hours, for the most part.)
Dinner was room service, the bento option that yielded grilled fish, sashimi, rice, a few pickles, jellied fish, grilled eggplant and zucchini, and a pot of hot cocoa. Bob had a back and forth on the phone for about 5 minutes trying to order it before we learned a new word: koko-wa! If you don't say it that way, fair warning, they will assume you are asking for a Coca-Cola.
Sorry this is all there is, but trust me... it was all I could do to stay awake to eat a bit and write this. I intend to be asleep in 6 minutes.
More tomorrow, promise!

He said: Yen incoming!!

Just got a call from our local bank and the yen we bought has arrived!  It's silly but I'm thinking actually having the foreign currency in my face will calm me down, like one more thing off the list to prepare.

In a related note if the US economy could stop tanking for 2.5 weeks and maybe rally so the dollar is worth more, that would be super...thanks.

She Says - Intro!

A big hello to everyone who is stopping by to check this out! We're not ~quite~ ready yet, you've caught us before we're all set to go!
We'll be heading out on Saturday, May 16th on ANA. With a 13 hour time difference and a 14 hour flight, we'll arrive there at 3 PM on Sunday, May 17th. We're incredibly excited about this opportunity to explore such a rich and alien culture, and we hope you enjoy the ride along with us!
For the purpose of the blog, if Helen will be posting, it'll be marked with "She Says". If Bob is posting, it'll be marked with "He Says". Hopefully that'll help keep our thoughts and impressions straight for folks.

T-minus 4 days and counting!