Tag: Japan

Real time: July 14 at 6:25 AM.

It has rained every day but one since we got here. Not hard rains. Sort of Seattle rainy. We were walking to our first attraction yesterday morning and it started to rain again. As soon as we came to a 7/11 we went in and I got us umbrellas. The “deluxe” 4-dollar plastic umbrella. Deluxe was the only kind they had. Every time you go in anywhere you stash your umbrella in a rack and put your shoes in another. As luck would have it – my “deluxe” plastic umbrella vanished. So, I just took another non-deluxe plastic umbrella. All plastic umbrellas sort of look alike.

We tromped around all day looking at various temples. (and thousands of shops crammed with trinkets.) The first temple we saw was really stunning. No photos allowed. You couldn’t even sneak a picture – they snatch your camera. It has 1,000 more or less identical 7 foot gilded wood Buddha statues and one really big one. About 100 of them date from 1160 and the rest from 1200-1300. They are in a large wooden temple. All it would take is one misplaced cigarette butt, firecracker, lightening strike, or tiny earthquake to end it. Amazing that it is still standing. No pictures, but in the best Buddhist/Catholic tradition you could light a candle. Did that.

We also saw several temples that didn’t seem to get any western visitors. Later discovered that one of them was the Japanese Tomb of the Unknown from WW2. Did big purple joss sticks there.

And, I think the other was just a very old cemetery were some famous Japanese were buried. (Tossed one yen coins at dragon here.) That is what happens when you slip off the regular tourism route.

The funniest thing was at the last place we went to – yet another famous old (750 something) temple complex. We decide that we are tired and have seen rather enough temples for one day and don’t want to spend about 8 dollars each to go in to the main temple – but for a 100-yen – we could go see another smaller temple. We spring for that. Take off our shoes, park our umbrellas (this is when I lose my “deluxe” umbrella) and go in. “In” is downstairs. The guy tells us to hang onto the rail. Well, after about 6 steps it is total dark. We are in a pitch-black rat maze with no shoes. Surprise, western person who can not read the signs!

No matter what the post time is – it is 6:13 AM, Tuesday July 13. We are in Kyoto, and I am using an old woman’s inability to sleep – has nothing to do with jet lag – everything to do with advancing years – to snag some internet time before the traveling companion wakes up and pounces on the single internet connection.  Actually, the LAN is really fast, and it seems to be the internet connection of choice in Japan vice the US and Europe’s use of wifi.

Pictured above is the Kanazawa Castle. It burned down in the late 1890’s – and is being reconstructed.

Today, after breakfast, we’ll set out to see some of Kyoto. Kyoto get 50 million tourists – Japanese and international – every year. So, I’ll try to get us going early.

You know how zoo’s have notices to “don’t tease/feed/etc the animals” in Kyoto they have notices telling you “don’t hassle the geisha”.

After one week and 4 hotels, 2 planes, 9 trains, many buses and uncountable flights of stairs, we are both still alive and neither of us has been reduced to tears yet.

We have left the land of wifi and are reduced to sharing the single LAN connection in our hotel room. Life is tough. I didn’t even connect for the 3 days that we were in Kanazawa. But, when we got into our room in Kyoto where we will stay for the next 7 days – I got my own machine going.

We are having a fine time. My traveling companion is not too adventurous foodwise. So we have settle on eating a buffet breakfast at our hotels. (Aside: The Japanese eat a lot of breakfast. No bowl of cereal, bagel, etc for them.) Since I wake up hungry as a horse (the Japanese eat those too) I think the Japanese breakfast buffet is a great thing.

We decided to forego lunch and then pickup and early take-out dinner. The basement of most department stores is devoted to take-away food.

Our stay in Kanazawa was a hotel “learning experience”. Saturday’s lesson was that we should have “made reservations” for our free breakfast earlier. By the time I got around to getting our free breakfast tickets – the earliest time slot they had was 9:10 – 9:30. Who knew you had to make a reservation for free breakfast? The first night they just gave us the 7:00 to 7:30 time slot and that was when we happened to show up. So, we were spared arriving at the wrong time and committing a terrible cultural mistake.

Our first experience was the room lights. After we checked in (at 3PM as required), they gave us 2 breakfast tickets, the secret code for the onsen (communal bath) on the roof and our room key. I had prepaid this room and the staff spoke about as much English as I spoke Japanese. They did not tell us how to turn the room lights on. Turns out that when you are in your room, you stick your key in a little slot. That makes the lights work. When you leave, you take the key out and all the lights go out. It was rather like being in one of those old time “adventure” video games where you were always looking for a secret device to get you to the next level. In this case the next level was light.

I had a rather unsatisfactory food day Saturday. I accidentally acquired a raw egg for breakfast – and well, I was for damn sure going to eat it. Being the only western person in a room full of pajama wearing Japanese. Then at dinner – selected from the local 7/11 – I ended up with another raw egg. And, some nasty fermented mung beans. I did not get all that egg eaten. In the middle of the night – I declared an emergency and broke out a Granola Bar.

For our big Saturday night – Sam did her laundry and went to the hotel onsen. To die for. Wonderful indoor/outdoor natural hot spring waters delivered to the roof of the hotel. Plus all manner of lovely skin/hair care products. (I had to point a body parts to be sure the right stuff was going to the right places.) Plus combs, brushes, little scrubber things, and a 200+ degree sauna, which I stepped in and said – not for me. Oh yes, and a cold bath as well, I passed on the cold mineral bath as well.

The onsen is just for women – men have their own – and at 8ish on a Saturday night I’d say there were 15 women from 20ish to 75ish using the facilities.

We are getting all settled into are fine digs here over top of the Kyoto Train Station.

Headed to Ishinomaki  and a “well known” manga museum today. For my part it was a quest for all things “cute”.

Heading to Kanazawa for 3 days tomorrow.

So far so good. But jet lag continues.

We got up early, and started out on our trek to Sendai. Got on a train. The wrong train – but still ended up where we wanted to be. Got here OK. Since the Japanese take “check in time” very seriously – we dropped our backpacks off at our hotel and headed out on sightseeing.

Rode the Loope Bus around Sendai. Saw some sights.

Had cow tongue curry for dinner. I should have done laundry. But didn’t. For sure tomorrow do laundry.

Have arrived in Japan. The flight was late and long. We got 4 movies and 3 lunches in-route. Needless to say, neither dinner nor TV was on our evening agenda.

We had surmountable issues with the ATM machines. But, have a modest supply of yen. We navigated our first Japanese train. And have a fancy Toto Toilet with lots of “features” in our tiny bathroom.

Pictures later. To much jet lag to mess with photos.