Alright, everybody just calm down
First of all, the typhoon missed us, and I didn't even know about the earthquake until someone told me (the tsunami warning was called off). So obviously, we are fine.
There, now I can tell you about my trip.
Traveling alone is weird. Going entire days without really speaking to anyone, and not really sharing the sights you see is honestly a little boring at times. It has its advantages, tho, like not worrying about anyone else's agenda or pace, but I was glad when the weekend rolled around and Helen joined me.
Kobe Part
Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday, I was in Kobe. Kobe is compared to Yokohama because it is kind of like an extension of the megalopolis of Osaka, much the way Yokohama, tho called the Second Largest City in Japan, is really just years away from being totally absorbed into the Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolis (an aside: I discovered on this trip that other cultures, such as the Japanese, also like to claim superlatives for things to make them attractive to tourists, just like in an American roadtrip where you can see the World's Largest Wheel of Cheese or Biggest Ferris Wheel in the Southwest or whatever. You'll see these things popping up). Dammit, every time I think I'm going to make a brief-and-to-the-point post, I go rambling off into Tangentland.
Anyway, also like Yokohama, Kobe is a port city. On my rainy wanderings I found Chinatown (One of the Three Largest in Japan)
and Harborland. The latter contained Merikan Park (names after Americans), which in turn contained the Kobe Earthquake Memorial and the Maritime Museum.
With the price of admission to the museum also came with admission to Kawasaki Good Times World. I had no idea what this was -- I thought maybe it was a mini theme park that was connected to the museum so that parents would have something to bribe their kids with so they would behave in the museum. But no! It was a museum devoted to the history and products of the Kawasaki companies.
Boring, right? Actually, it was pretty fascinating. It was started way back in the late 1800s by a guy who got mad that his business failed because his Japanese cargo ship sank. He turned to western-style engineering and started building modern ships. Then the company did trains, planes, bridges, cranes, and other heavy stuff. Did you know Kawasaki invented the Shinkansen (bullet train) and the jet-ski? I had always just associated Kawasaki with motorcycles, I had no idea they were behind so much stuff. They've also done pioneering work in robotics and built the machine that dug half the Channel Tunnel between England and France (finishing ahead of schedule). Amazing!
Rubik's cube!
And yeah, they had the motorcycles, too. A whole big room of 'em. I'm on the Biggest.
See lots more pictures of Chinatown and Harborland stuff here.
The next day, I had some hours to kill before I hopped the train to the next place, so I hit that other similar-to-Yokohama area, the foreign settlement. And just like in Yokohama, it is up in the hills (Helen tells me that foreigners like to build up in the hills to escape the heat). It seemed a little more thematic in Kobe, with all the houses clearly marked as Ijin-kan (Foreign People's House). I went to Uroko-no-Ie (Fish Scale House) the Rhine House ( a corruption of 'Line House' which is a description of the siding, not the origin of the inhabitants), and had the Strongest Lager Beer in the World at the Austria House (14% alcohol, syrupy, and totally undrinkable, by the way. I managed maybe a third of the bottle).
Rhine House
More pictures of Ijin-kanland here.
Nara Part (Horyuji Temple and National Museum)
I took the train to Oji, where I checked into the loveliest of guest houses Yougendo. It's run by a British guy and his Japanese wife and it's the most wonderful place. Reasonable price, good location, amazing service, beautiful house, home-cooked breakfast, and they'll drink with you in their bar of sorts. Chris and Shu want you to come stay with them.
After I got up in the morning and took my sweet time getting motivated, I headed to Hyoruji Temple, site of the World's Oldest Wooden Structure, built in the 7th or 8th century (couldn't figure out which bit was the oldest). It was on the way to Nara city.
I had told Helen that I would save the deer and Big Buddha bits of Nara Park for when she got there, but I figured I could go to the National Museum, which was just inside of Nara Park. Sadly, the newer part of the museum, with the painting and stuff, was closed in preparation for a new exhibit, but the original building was open. I got quite a few pictures clicked off before I was told I couldn't do that (though I didn't see any signs and they are usually fairly redundant about them).
Also, just hanging around outside the museum were dozens of deer.
It's kinda odd to see that when you are used to seeing them run away in terror of humans.
More pictures of Hyoruji Temple and (forbidden ones of) The National Museum of Nara.
I was going to go to Tennoji to meet Helen for dinner (she was working at Kansai airport), but when I got to the Nara JR station (after wandering far away from the closer Nara Kintetsu station, from where I couldn't figure out how to get to Tennoji), I found out that the trains had stopped running due to some accident or other (later determined to have been caused by one suicide and one crane-carrying truck running into a train bridge and killing the electricity for 12 hours). Helen and a phone-charger from the combini saved me from my panic at being possibly stuck in Nara for an undetermined period of time by directing me back to the Kintetsu line and on to Namba (an Osaka neighborhood), where we ate in an izakaya. My grapefruit sour came with a large bottle of flavoring syrup instead of the usual grapefruit and juicer, but whatever.
When I made it back to Oji, just as I was getting off the train (a long ride), I got an email from Jamie, a friend of Chris' whom I had met at Bar Yougendo the previous night, and my early night turned into a late night at a tiny local bar with gigantic chu-his and a funny collection of locals.
After a yummy and hangover-curing bowl of rice porridge, I slept most of the day until it was time to meet Helen at the station. We ate at an inexpensive but good izakaya across from the minshuku (guesthouse) and wandered around little Oji til we found a small karaoke bar. Hm, less said about that, the better. OK, one word, for Helen: "Fame!"
Next day, in the pouring rain, we went to go see the Largest Indoor Buddha Statue at Todaiji Temple and to feed the deer. The deer traveled in ravenous packs. I had too much fun watching Helen get attacked by the deer to feed them myself (they ate her map, too).
The Daibutsu was indeed massive, and he had some big friends, too.
Some perspective
We did the stick-shaky thing for good luck (you buy a chance to shake a box full of chopsticks until one comes out, marked with a number. They pull a fortune out of a corresponding door). Helen didn't like her fortune, so she bought a new one, and it ended up being the top of the good fortune scale. Mine was the second from the top, which is good luck and has room to go up. I'm pretty happy about that.
More pics of our rainy adventures, including Helen getting mauled by deer, here.
We went back, dried off, and had some (many) drinks with Chris and Shu. On the way home, we stopped to stock up on booze and snacks in case the typhoon hit and kept us indoors, but just when it was supposed to touch down in full force, it stopped raining altogether.
Sunday, we had a lot of time in which to make our way back to Yokohama, so we mulled over breakfast where we could get off the train on the way. We decided on Nagoya. The station was packed because of weather-related train delays (apparently a river had swollen high enough that the trains had to wait for the level to go down before they could cross it).
This is a "fashion and health" place, which is apparently a euphemism for a place men go when they need a quick, uh, health-restorative procedure (gotta keep this clean, who knows who reads this blog):
In Nagoya, where it was hot and windy, they have a castle, Nagoya Jo (which is also used as a pun for "Nagoya girl," a particular kind of materialistic, spoiled fashionista).
The original building burned down awhile ago, as almost everything in Japan seems to, and the restored ferro-concrete building has educational exhibits and historical artifacts. It also has many versions of the famous gold dolphin-like sea creature that originally graced the roof.
Just before hopping back on the train, we ate in the station. I tried the Nagoya specialty, miso-tonkatsu, and Helen had a bowl of 7 lucky udon that was twice the size of her head.
Nagoya pics here.
By the time we got to Tsunashima and the Blue Corn for Ebara Matsuri (Ebara is a young bluesman who has a big blues night once a year, with all his friends, like Toshi and Sachiko and Katz), I was sooo sleepy. I couldn't even drink (it had been 6 days in a row) and I left right after the music, but it was worth staying for the show. Bar staff Takeshi (bass) and Mo-chan (vocals) both performed, too.
Now I am wrapping this up in my very damp bedroom. We don't have A/C in here, and it feels like a rainforest. Our bed is soggy and our clothes are getting moldy. I have to go and buy a bunch of moisture-sucking packs (like those silicon "DO NOT EAT" packs you find in shoeboxes and the like) until we can find a dehumidifier.
Posts may be sporadic from here, as Anuska and Eric (and Olivia and Ashley) get here next week (SO excited!!!), and we will be very busy. I'll try to keep up when I can.
There, now I can tell you about my trip.
Traveling alone is weird. Going entire days without really speaking to anyone, and not really sharing the sights you see is honestly a little boring at times. It has its advantages, tho, like not worrying about anyone else's agenda or pace, but I was glad when the weekend rolled around and Helen joined me.
Kobe Part
Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday, I was in Kobe. Kobe is compared to Yokohama because it is kind of like an extension of the megalopolis of Osaka, much the way Yokohama, tho called the Second Largest City in Japan, is really just years away from being totally absorbed into the Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolis (an aside: I discovered on this trip that other cultures, such as the Japanese, also like to claim superlatives for things to make them attractive to tourists, just like in an American roadtrip where you can see the World's Largest Wheel of Cheese or Biggest Ferris Wheel in the Southwest or whatever. You'll see these things popping up). Dammit, every time I think I'm going to make a brief-and-to-the-point post, I go rambling off into Tangentland.
Anyway, also like Yokohama, Kobe is a port city. On my rainy wanderings I found Chinatown (One of the Three Largest in Japan)
and Harborland. The latter contained Merikan Park (names after Americans), which in turn contained the Kobe Earthquake Memorial and the Maritime Museum.
With the price of admission to the museum also came with admission to Kawasaki Good Times World. I had no idea what this was -- I thought maybe it was a mini theme park that was connected to the museum so that parents would have something to bribe their kids with so they would behave in the museum. But no! It was a museum devoted to the history and products of the Kawasaki companies.
Boring, right? Actually, it was pretty fascinating. It was started way back in the late 1800s by a guy who got mad that his business failed because his Japanese cargo ship sank. He turned to western-style engineering and started building modern ships. Then the company did trains, planes, bridges, cranes, and other heavy stuff. Did you know Kawasaki invented the Shinkansen (bullet train) and the jet-ski? I had always just associated Kawasaki with motorcycles, I had no idea they were behind so much stuff. They've also done pioneering work in robotics and built the machine that dug half the Channel Tunnel between England and France (finishing ahead of schedule). Amazing!
Rubik's cube!
And yeah, they had the motorcycles, too. A whole big room of 'em. I'm on the Biggest.
See lots more pictures of Chinatown and Harborland stuff here.
The next day, I had some hours to kill before I hopped the train to the next place, so I hit that other similar-to-Yokohama area, the foreign settlement. And just like in Yokohama, it is up in the hills (Helen tells me that foreigners like to build up in the hills to escape the heat). It seemed a little more thematic in Kobe, with all the houses clearly marked as Ijin-kan (Foreign People's House). I went to Uroko-no-Ie (Fish Scale House) the Rhine House ( a corruption of 'Line House' which is a description of the siding, not the origin of the inhabitants), and had the Strongest Lager Beer in the World at the Austria House (14% alcohol, syrupy, and totally undrinkable, by the way. I managed maybe a third of the bottle).
Rhine House
More pictures of Ijin-kanland here.
Nara Part (Horyuji Temple and National Museum)
I took the train to Oji, where I checked into the loveliest of guest houses Yougendo. It's run by a British guy and his Japanese wife and it's the most wonderful place. Reasonable price, good location, amazing service, beautiful house, home-cooked breakfast, and they'll drink with you in their bar of sorts. Chris and Shu want you to come stay with them.
After I got up in the morning and took my sweet time getting motivated, I headed to Hyoruji Temple, site of the World's Oldest Wooden Structure, built in the 7th or 8th century (couldn't figure out which bit was the oldest). It was on the way to Nara city.
I had told Helen that I would save the deer and Big Buddha bits of Nara Park for when she got there, but I figured I could go to the National Museum, which was just inside of Nara Park. Sadly, the newer part of the museum, with the painting and stuff, was closed in preparation for a new exhibit, but the original building was open. I got quite a few pictures clicked off before I was told I couldn't do that (though I didn't see any signs and they are usually fairly redundant about them).
Also, just hanging around outside the museum were dozens of deer.
It's kinda odd to see that when you are used to seeing them run away in terror of humans.
More pictures of Hyoruji Temple and (forbidden ones of) The National Museum of Nara.
I was going to go to Tennoji to meet Helen for dinner (she was working at Kansai airport), but when I got to the Nara JR station (after wandering far away from the closer Nara Kintetsu station, from where I couldn't figure out how to get to Tennoji), I found out that the trains had stopped running due to some accident or other (later determined to have been caused by one suicide and one crane-carrying truck running into a train bridge and killing the electricity for 12 hours). Helen and a phone-charger from the combini saved me from my panic at being possibly stuck in Nara for an undetermined period of time by directing me back to the Kintetsu line and on to Namba (an Osaka neighborhood), where we ate in an izakaya. My grapefruit sour came with a large bottle of flavoring syrup instead of the usual grapefruit and juicer, but whatever.
When I made it back to Oji, just as I was getting off the train (a long ride), I got an email from Jamie, a friend of Chris' whom I had met at Bar Yougendo the previous night, and my early night turned into a late night at a tiny local bar with gigantic chu-his and a funny collection of locals.
After a yummy and hangover-curing bowl of rice porridge, I slept most of the day until it was time to meet Helen at the station. We ate at an inexpensive but good izakaya across from the minshuku (guesthouse) and wandered around little Oji til we found a small karaoke bar. Hm, less said about that, the better. OK, one word, for Helen: "Fame!"
Next day, in the pouring rain, we went to go see the Largest Indoor Buddha Statue at Todaiji Temple and to feed the deer. The deer traveled in ravenous packs. I had too much fun watching Helen get attacked by the deer to feed them myself (they ate her map, too).
The Daibutsu was indeed massive, and he had some big friends, too.
Some perspective
We did the stick-shaky thing for good luck (you buy a chance to shake a box full of chopsticks until one comes out, marked with a number. They pull a fortune out of a corresponding door). Helen didn't like her fortune, so she bought a new one, and it ended up being the top of the good fortune scale. Mine was the second from the top, which is good luck and has room to go up. I'm pretty happy about that.
More pics of our rainy adventures, including Helen getting mauled by deer, here.
We went back, dried off, and had some (many) drinks with Chris and Shu. On the way home, we stopped to stock up on booze and snacks in case the typhoon hit and kept us indoors, but just when it was supposed to touch down in full force, it stopped raining altogether.
Sunday, we had a lot of time in which to make our way back to Yokohama, so we mulled over breakfast where we could get off the train on the way. We decided on Nagoya. The station was packed because of weather-related train delays (apparently a river had swollen high enough that the trains had to wait for the level to go down before they could cross it).
This is a "fashion and health" place, which is apparently a euphemism for a place men go when they need a quick, uh, health-restorative procedure (gotta keep this clean, who knows who reads this blog):
In Nagoya, where it was hot and windy, they have a castle, Nagoya Jo (which is also used as a pun for "Nagoya girl," a particular kind of materialistic, spoiled fashionista).
The original building burned down awhile ago, as almost everything in Japan seems to, and the restored ferro-concrete building has educational exhibits and historical artifacts. It also has many versions of the famous gold dolphin-like sea creature that originally graced the roof.
Just before hopping back on the train, we ate in the station. I tried the Nagoya specialty, miso-tonkatsu, and Helen had a bowl of 7 lucky udon that was twice the size of her head.
Nagoya pics here.
By the time we got to Tsunashima and the Blue Corn for Ebara Matsuri (Ebara is a young bluesman who has a big blues night once a year, with all his friends, like Toshi and Sachiko and Katz), I was sooo sleepy. I couldn't even drink (it had been 6 days in a row) and I left right after the music, but it was worth staying for the show. Bar staff Takeshi (bass) and Mo-chan (vocals) both performed, too.
Now I am wrapping this up in my very damp bedroom. We don't have A/C in here, and it feels like a rainforest. Our bed is soggy and our clothes are getting moldy. I have to go and buy a bunch of moisture-sucking packs (like those silicon "DO NOT EAT" packs you find in shoeboxes and the like) until we can find a dehumidifier.
Posts may be sporadic from here, as Anuska and Eric (and Olivia and Ashley) get here next week (SO excited!!!), and we will be very busy. I'll try to keep up when I can.
posted by Sandi at 11:57 PM
1 Comments:
oh, the comments i could make ;)
but me? won't stoop that low.
And why?
because i am crazy for you.
(snigger)
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