This post is dedicated to my Dad, who is over at mine painting my flat as we speak. Thank you Daddy (or should I say dōmo arigatō gozaimasu, Otōsan / おさん、どうもありがとう)!
Today’s weather was still a bit hit and miss, so I took the chance to carry on my culinary exploration of Kyoto (meaning yet another visit to Nishiki market, of course!) and also hit up one or two of the city’s “quirkier” museums en route.
The first was the Kyoto Samurai Museum, which I found absolutely fascinating. Did you know Darth Vadar was modelled on the ancient samurai? And that women could also be samurai (if born into a samurai family, that is…)? And that the word for a samurai warrior in Japanese is actually bushi (hence bushidō as the term for their moral code), while samurai refers to the social caste as a whole? And that satsumas are from a place called Satsuma in Japan, where the Satsuma Rebellion took place….? And that Chandler from Friends personally put an end to the prior period of Japanese isolationism? And that the last ritual seppuku (self-execution by disembowelment) actually only took place in 1970…?
Well, now you do! 😉 Btw, the museum also had a handy guide (which I’m including for reference below) on how you too can commit seppuku at home, but a word of warning here: it won’t officially “count” if you’re not a samurai already, so you may just end up looking like a bit of a tit here, if not careful. Just like I’m looking a bit of a tit myself, dressed up a like a samurai below (they made me do this…).
Next stop was the Kyoto International Manga Museum (not just a ‘local’ manga museum, not even a merely ‘national’ one, but a full-on ‘international’ version…), to see if I could improve on my non-existent baseline knowledge of manga here. I can’t say I emerged from this experience much more the wiser, in all honesty, but I did get a chance to play in a manga photo booth, to quite hilarious results… 😉
Well, Dad, you did say you wanted more pictures of me… 😉 Oh and for the record, I’m not on drugs here – the photo machine just manga’d up my eyes. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
In other news, does anyone remember that scene from The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) by Günther Grass, where the mum goes nuts and compulsively binge eats all the eel? (I appreciate this may well just be me, some remaining fellow German Language & Literature course mates, and possibly Mum…?) Either way, that was totally me today.
I’d decided to go for a late sushi lunch at Nishiki market (pictured below), and afterwards thought I just about had room enough for a barbequed eel skewer from one of the neighbouring food stands – which was bloody delicious. This pretty much would have done me, had I not then spotted the bad boy with the caviar on the way back out – and I just had to have it. As a result, I’m now sitting here typing this with oily fish oozing out of my pores, but oh my God it was so worth it… Some people are all about the cheese, others all about the chocolate; turns out I’m all about the anguilliformes, baby.
Anyway, that’s it for another day! Sun’s back out tomorrow, so will be exploring the eastern part of the city, which I’ve not got to yet – will report back soon…
One of the great things about Japan is of course the food (of the non-plastic variety, that is…). Ramen, sushi, shabu-shabu, yakitori, ongiri, okonomiyaki, kaiseki, tempura, tonkatsu, mochiand much, more more – so a big thing for me has of course been eating and drinking my way round the place as I’ve gone.
Admittedly, I do keep getting stuck mainly on ramen – usually purchased at various little hole-in-the wall type places, similar to as pictured below. It’s quick, affordable (as far as Japan goes!) and is one of my all-time favourite meals at the best of times, so a default ‘go to’ most evenings for me. The ones I’ve had to date have varied from the mediocre to the sublime, with some so bloody good they almost count as near transcendental – truly like achieving noodly-inspired nirvana at times. Eat your heart out, Wagamama.
Plus, there are about as many types of ramen as there are Japanese people – so you could literally spend a lifetime eating only ramen (and, oh, what a happy life that would be…) and never make it through… To date, my favourite is tonkotsu, which is a creamy pork-based ramen – super fatty, but really good on the one or two chillier days we’ve had here.
But I’ve also gone off piste and pushed the boat out too, on the odd occasion. Today is quite literally piddling it down, so I took strategic advantage of this fact to schedule my one big blow-out meal of the trip. Kyoto is known for its kaiseki cuisine, which basically means a set course meal chosen by the chef to highlight a specific seasonal theme. You are very much spoilt for choice on where to eat out in the city, but in the end I landed upon the mid-range Pontacho Fujita in Kyoto’s downtown dining district (think yet more wooden houses, red lanterns and curtains over the doorways, etc.). I’d chosen this place pretty much for the sole reason that they had one of the more easily navigable reservation sites (by no means a given in Japan!) and the ability to book for just the one person, rather than a two head minimum – but thankfully the food was amazing here as well! I’d love to be able to describe what I had (and the chef did make a point of carefully explaining each and every dish to me at the time…), but with all of 11 courses in the mix, I honestly can’t remember the details now… Suffice to say though, it was all bloody lovely – even the tofu course (not my bag usually, but in a whole other league of its own in Japan, at any rate).
Admittedly, I did have a bit of a panic beforehand at the prospect of turning up to a more upmarket establishment in my (increasingly manky at this point…) trainers, so ended up having a last-minute dash around the city to buy a semi-decent pair of cheapo heels. Only to then be reminded, once I arrived, that of course it’s a case of shoes off at the door in most ‘proper’ Japanese restaurants anyway – doh! Which does raise the question as to how the Japanese might contend with any potential podalic hygiene issues on the part of the clientele that could arise in this scenario…? In my case, I’d come daisy fresh straight from the hostel (with brand-new clean socks on…), but close-hand recent experience tells me that my feet have distinctly hummed after some of my busier walking days of late. Do the Japanese carry emergency clean socks with them for just such occasions…? I’m beginning to think it’s not a bad idea to do myself here too, you know, just on the off chance…
But anyway, once again I digress. Back to some other recent examples of non-ramen based dining… I also got dinner the other night at a sake bar, where I ordered omakase (meaning chef’s choice – much easier when the menu is all in Japanese). The below was (I think) some squid in sauce, yellowfin sashimi and kim chi, followed by potato and egg salad and deep fried baby squid. All duly delicious, but I did have to get a couple of 7/11 rice balls on the way home again to properly fill the hole on this occasion! The first glass of sake also came free with the food, which (silly me, given the venue) I hadn’t been expecting. After the last 3 months off the sauce, I couldn’t manage more than a few sips without threatening to fall off my stool in the process.. Complete cheap date alert right here!
Thirdly, the other night I also joined a more casual group kaiseki dinner at a local place called Hamacho, which was a bit hit and miss in terms of the food (though admittedly I forgot to take pics of a couple of courses, amid the conversation). It was definitely a great opportunity to meet and mingle though – and I ended up having a really good time!
That’s us before, during and after the meal in another bar (and yes, that is a real drink – being consumed very slowly and carefully on my part!)
Plus there’s all the various snacks and picnic lunches I’ve had along the way too. I started out typically eating one ‘picnic’ meal per day from the supermarket deli counter or 7/11 per day, in part to keep an eye on costs (Japan ain’t cheap y’all) – but also because these ‘pick n mix’ meals are also really tasty in their own right.
Until I did the maths, that is, and realised it would actually still be cheaper to just go for ramen, or to buy a lunch Blue Peter style (i.e. one that someone else made earlier). Which brings us nicely onto ebiken. These are what basically inspired the ‘bento box’ in the UK, which really doesn’t exist as a concept in Japan in the same way – i.e. you wouldn’t go out to eat bento at a fancy restaurant, for example. Rather, ebiken are basically the Japanese equivalent of a day-to-day sandwich or packed lunch – something you might pull together for a picnic or buy ready-made for a long train journey. This is kind of what they look like – I do love the fact they many of them are gift wrapped too!
Well, it certainly beats Pret, that’s for sure!
And then there’s the markets – both the Tsujiki Market in Tokyo, which I’ve touched on in a previous post, and the local Nishiki Market in Kyoto, which I’ve also hit up a few times of late for various lunches, dinners and just for shits and giggles for the most part too. Once again, a ridiculous amount of camera storage was used up during these various visits, and also once again the below constitutes just a tiny fraction of the total pictures taken!
Then of course you have your drinks. Let’s put it this way: it is physically impossible to ever go thirsty in Japan (bar being short of a bit of loose change, that is). There are vending machines literally everywhere here, on every street corner and even on people’s driveways in some cases. Most of the drinks here are incredibly sweet (e.g. think sweetened green tea, cold milky sweet black tea and even sugary sweetcorn tea…) and far too sickly for me – but there’s always good old pocari sweat in a pinch…
In fact, drinks-wise, the overarching theme of trip has not been sake or asahi (I’ve actually been incredibly sparing all trip), but matcha tea – which is my new potable equivalent of crack cocaine. I’ve had the ‘real deal’ in matcha a couple of times at formal tea houses or at yesterday’s tea ceremony, but the one I’m really obsessed with is from Doutor, which is basically the Japanese equivalent to Costa or Starbucks – i.e. the completely bastardised version! No one day in Japan has yet passed without a Doutor visit – sometimes two, once even three. Perhaps it’s not so much the matcha I like after all, but all that lovely jubbly milk and sugar that constitutes today’s commercialised matcha latte offerings!
So there you have it – and, as you can see, I’ve certainly been eating well here! Thank God for the 30k average steps per day to balance out all the matcha (et al) calories, or I’d seriously be coming back to the UK ten times the size (though even then, it would still be worth it!).
So once again, that’s it from me for now – back again in a day or two’s time…
Well, the weather may have temporarily turned, but I’ve still been having a fab old time in beautiful Kyoto, most recently exploring the city’s geisha traditions past and present.
To set the scene a little bit, just before the rain kicked in, I hit the old town areas of Ninen-Zaka and Sannen-Zaka (meaning ‘Two Year Hill’ and ‘Three Year Hill’ respectively, the years referring to the ancient imperial years when they were first laid out).
As you can see, there was no shortage of tourists – both Western and Japanese – decked out in kimonos and/or formal traditional dress here, and it’s very much ‘thing’ in this neighbourhood to get togged up and have your photos professionally done against the historic backdrop of the area. In fact, there are places that will kit you out in full-on geisha (or maiko) garb – think kimono, wig, make-up and all. Now if – and I do mean if – I were ever to indulge that particular little whim, best believe I would never be so foolish as to post any of the photographic results on a public forum (far too sensitive ground in these oh-so-fevered times…). All I will say on that front is that if I had done anything of that particular nature, it would very likely have represented the hands-down best thing I’d done in Japan to date, as well as being possibly the most beautiful that I’ve ever felt in my life before too (and that includes on my own wedding day…).
Anyway, moving swiftly on, let’s take a look at some real geisha instead. In the afternoon, I went to the Gion-kōbu Kaburenjo Theater to observe a Japanese tea pouring, followed by a performance of the Miyako Odori (translated as “Dances of the Capital”). The latter is basically a musical and theatrical tribute to the four seasons, performed by about 60 geiko and maiko (a geiko being another Kyoto word for geisha and a maiko being a geisha in training). Somewhat counter-intuitively at first sight, the geisha actually has the simpler make-up and attire, while the maiko gets to rock the snazzier kimono and bling-bling hair pieces. This is apparently a reflection of the fact that the geisha, as the consummate professional, has no need of such outer adornments, while the maiko as a trainee is essentially compensating for her comparative lower-level skillset by means of external fashion and accessories (and I’m sure we’ve all met someone like that before too…).
The Miyako Odori had a no photography rule, which I personally thought was a bit rich – I mean, what the hell did I pay best part of forty quid to get in for, if not to photograph some real-life frikkin’ geishas…?? (Sorry, that sounded terribly incel of me right there *gives head minor wobble*). Hence the photos and vids that I did take being a little bit on the furtive side – but hopefully enough to give you the gist here…
Of the performance itself, I suppose all I can say on this front is that geisha performance represents something of an acquired taste…? A visual spectacle for sure, and the costumes were stunning, but, as with a lot of these things, was pretty much reflective of a time well before Netflix, when entertainment was basically just that – shall we say – little bit more rudimentary all round. But hey, at least I’ve done something vaguely cultural / artistic while I’m here (unless you count the Poo Museum, which quite frankly I absolutely do…).
Anyway, on a similar theme, while in Ninen-Zaka, I also went to a tea ceremony – or at least a highly abridged version of the 4 hour ‘real deal’. Personally I thought this was really interesting to learn about – plus I got a matcha and a sweet out of it too, which always helps. I can’t remember all the details, but it will come as no great surprise here that the tea ceremony, like most traditional Japanese customs, is highly refined in nature – almost exquisite in its encapsulation of nuance, precision, poise, delicacy and finesse, with every move, every gesture being imbued with deeper meaning and significance.
While I realise all the above is not necessarily reflective of the realities of modern-day Japan outside of the tea room or the theatre etc., there is still undeniably a clear element of refinement, respect, subtlety and sophistication woven into the fabric of daily life here, that does go some way towards making up the day-to-day social niceties and norms. It does make me seriously wonder what the Japanese must think of us gaijin… In contrast, we must come across as giant, ungainly, ungraceful heffalumps, with our unsophisticated manners, loud voices, giant doorstep sandwiches and (in the Brits’ case) tendency to swig builders’ tea from a giant Sports Direct mug. When stacked against the Japanese, in short, culturally speaking we’re positively Neanderthal by comparison…
Anyway, enough of my musings for now and back to Ninen- and Sannen-Zaka. Of course, in this tourist-saturated neck of the woods, there were also souvenirs a-plenty on sale literally everywhere you looked. Now, I wouldn’t normally go round photographing tourist tat, I hasten to add, but some of these were so damn kawaii it hurt – hence taking a bit of a photographic selection of various memorabilia here, rather than giving into the very sore temptation to simply buy them all instead (which I still very well might…!).
And, on a completely unrelated note, bad weather is also great for eating! I’ve been working my way around the local Nishiki market, and also had my long awaited Kyoto kaizeki dinner yesterday evening too – but more on the above in the next entry…
In the meantime, I’m continuing to keep a trusty eye out out for glimpses of the weird and wonderful on my travels… That’s me with Totoru (I didn’t know who he was either till this trip); some of the monsters over on Yokai Street; a giant crab on the side of a building and… well… my guess is as good as yours on the rest!
Anyway, that’s plenty to be going on with from me for now – off to re-read Memoirs of a Geisha as we speak! In the meantime, sayonara for the moment…
Well, if Monday’s veritable route march around Kyoto city was motivated by a rabid and insatiable cherry blossom frenzy on my part, today’s 35k epic was by contrast very much weather-driven. It’s due to rain in Kyoto over the next couple of days, and for that reason I wanted to see the city’s top-most attractions to their best advantage, before the weather turns. Fret ye not, however! The sun’s due to appear again before I move on, and in the meantime I have lots of fun indoor things on the cards to do over the next couple of days (also laundry, but I doubt that will make the blog somehow… 😉).
With the above in mind, today’s theme was very much temples temples (too many?) temples. Apparently Kyoto has a whole host of 1,600 of the things, of which between yesterday and today I’ve seen just the seven – all of 0.43% of the actual total, which puts things into perspective a little bit here!
Anyway, before I get into that though, my inner grumpy old woman (who is increasingly becoming more outer than inner these days…) once again needs to vent her spleen a little bit first. What has boiled my piss this time, you may ask….? Well, I’ll tell you – it’s this: since when the feck did it become a fecking thing for tourists to try to pull off choreographed tik tok dances in front of major sites of historical and/or natural significance…? Or to spend practically half the frigging day carefully curating that ‘just-so’ insta pose in front of a famous landmark / monument / view…? I wouldn’t care, but for the fact that the above invariably ends up being transacted at the expense of everyone else patiently (or in my case, not so patiently…) waiting their turn for a pic, who are de facto forced to sit through the whole bloody juvenile, narcissistic palaver in the process. Anyway, I’m not quite enough of a cowbag that I’ve (yet) deliberately sabotaged anyone’s desperate devoted quest for social media virality, but I am enough of a one to find it an entirely appealing prospect all the same… It’s just so bloody selfish: stop monopolising the view, take your fucking photo and move, bitch. Kids these days, honestly…
Anyhoo, best not go any further down that particular rabbit hole, or we’ll end up here all day… Kyoto itself was (as you’d expect) duly stunning, and more than lived up to its reputation as one of the most beautiful cities of the East. I won’t wax lyrical, as that’s not really my style – suffice to say the place was pretty amazeballs, and I’ll otherwise let the pics do the talking here. (You’ll also note I was a bit premature in my last post in consigning this year’s cherry blossom to oblivion yesterday – still clearly a fair bit hanging in there today! One of those rare occasions where I’m happy to be proven wrong…!)
So, in order of uniqueness / interest, rather than chronology of visitation, we have:
1. The Golden Temple
It’s a temple and it’s golden. Does what it says on the tin!
2. Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari is known for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which stretch 4km into the forest of Mount Inari (I didn’t walk the whole route, but a fair old chunk of it). There’s a bit of fox theme going on here too – as they are thought to be messengers from the god Inari, the Shinto god of rice and sake (who sounds very much like my kind of guy… 😉 ).
3. Imperial Palace Kyoto
No longer off limits to the general public, this huge palace gardens and grounds (former residence of the Imperial Family before the capital moved to Tokyo) is a popular spot for picnics in the city. I too followed suit with a katsu sandwich, iced matcha latte and a much needed sit-down (when in Rome, etc…).
4. Nijo Castle
This residence of both the shogun and later the Imperial family still had cherry blossom out in force on my visit. More notably, I had a matcha ice-cream (seriously needed the calories at that point) here, which suffice to say absolutely blew my tiny mind.
5. Tofukuji Temple
To the south of the city, Tofukuji is known for its garden bridge (the Tsutenkyo Bridge) and manicured rock and sand gardens.
6. Gion
Gion is Kyoto’s geisha district, full of traditional wooden buildings, emblematic red lanterns and upmarket bars / restaurants that are booked out for weeks if not months in advance. I did spot one geisha on my wanderings, but that was my lot for the evening here.
While, the city is undeniably beautiful, as a whole it is quite different from how I’d imagined. I’d kind of pictured the place as one of those higgledy-piggledy labyrinthine, olde worlde type places, chockful of teeny tiny windy narrow streets and confusing street numbering conventions. Quite the opposite though – beyond the temples and certain well preserved old districts, Kyoto is actually based on a grid system and as such feels really light, airy and surprisingly modern – think broad boulevards and tree-lined streets all round, with lots of futuristic architecture dotted about too. Just by way of example, here’s Kyoto central train station:
So anyway, that about wraps it up for another manic day – I’m pretty much beat at this point, and am finding myself almost relieved at the prospect of a slightly rainy day tomorrow, if it means I can actually allow myself a lie-in!
That’s it for now then – stay tuned for another exciting episode in a day or two’s time…
So as it turned out, yes, I am indeed the only person not to have realised that Kyoto and Tokyo are anagrammatic. I also didn’t realise they had similar meanings too – and thanks Sam for filling me in here! Turns out, Kyoto actually means ‘capital city’ and Tokyo ‘East capital’, Kyoto having held the top spot previously before it was moved back in 1868.
I’m a bit of a history buff at the best of times, and as per usual M.O. have been duly reading up on the history of Japan of late (genuinely fascinating stuff, btw…) – but for whatever reason I hadn’t seemed to have clocked this particular little factoid. Or perhaps I did, then forgot. Then forgot I’d forgotten. This seems to be becoming more and more of a running theme as I get older – and I seriously don’t like it.
Anyhoo, today it was off to Kyoto via bullet train / shinkansen! Is it me, or does it look a bit like a duck billed platypus…?
The highlight of the trip was getting to see some pretty decent views of Mount Fuji – which more than made up for the disappointment of Hakone, much to my delight.
Aside from that, traveling by bullet was pretty much just like any other normal train journey – though with the notable absence of any a) ‘leaves on the line’ / ‘wrong kind of rain’ BS and b) minus all the usual f*ckwittery from fellow passengers, which increasingly characterises the average London commute. By which I am referring to more and more common bell-end type behaviours as: conducting high-decibel (and often deeply personal) calls without shame or consideration for fellow passengers; playing infuriatingly noisy plink-plonk phone games without headphones and at full volume; and failing to acknowledge the train’s quiet zone. In short, basically evidencing a complete and utter inability to successfully discern between public and private spheres… I know I’m starting to sound like a grumpy old woman on this front, but screw it – I still stand firmly by the stance that anyone engaging in the any or all of the above should be summarily shot. In fact, hand me the gun – I’ll happily pull the trigger myself… Thank God though the Japanese are far too polite for that shizz, and I genuinely love them for it.
In fact, now I think about it, there was a security guard walking up and down the aisles all journey – not that there was anything even vaguely untoward for him to tackle at all. This brings me on to another phenomenon I’ve noticed here, which – for want of a better term – I’ll call ‘old(er) men in uniform conducting semi-superfluous roles’.
By this, I’m referring to men of a certain age (maybe 50 to 60 – call it ‘pre-retirement’, if you like) who are a) in a uniform of some description (i.e. not police, but maybe in transport, tourism or similar capacity) and b) are proudly and diligently, even enthusiastically doing jobs which in the UK we’d class – no, we’d dismiss – as decidedly entry-level or unnecessary (e.g. ticket inspector / conductor / crossing guard, etc.). The key difference being that most Brits would unfailing CBA it in the same position (sensing, most likely, how little one’s efforts are valued by both the powers-that-be and by wider society…), while the Japanese take these positions very seriously indeed (some might even say officiously, in certain cases…). I don’t know even nearly enough about Japanese society or economy to really make much more than an uninformed observation on that front – though I do have a fledgling theory that Japan is only so efficient in no small part due to this army of ‘uniformed men of a certain age’, and the fact that they (and Japanese society) actually do give a non-ironic shit here…
Anyway, enough of my trivial musings and back to travel matters more immediately at hand. After a smooth 2 ½ hour journey, I pulled in (bang on time – of course!) to Kyoto at 11.37am, where first order of the afternoon was to hit up as many hanami (cherry blossom viewing spots) as humanly possible before the day was out. As I mentioned in a previous post, the season is out by 2 – 3 days here due to a warmer spring, meaning that the full bloom had already passed in Kyoto and it was literally a case of ‘now or never’ in terms of seeing what there was left to see…
In took 5 hours’ of solid walking (from Gion downtown over to Yasaka Gate, then up to Maruyama Park and across to Chion-in Temple, through to Heian Shrine and the Okazake canal, then round to the Keage Incline and on to Eikan-do temple, before finally embarking along the tree-lined Philosophers Path to the Ginkakuji Temple (aka the Silver Pavilion) as my final stop) – but I got it done!*
For the most part, there was still blossom about – albeit more on the ground that on the trees in some places, where a couple of days ago they’d have all been in fully-fledged bloom. Luckily for me, however, the trees at Heian Shrine typically bloom a few days later than across the rest of the city, and indeed there were some truly beautiful, archetypical Japanese-style garden scenes here in particular (most of the below pics are from this particular spot in the city).**
What surprised me was just how seriously the Japanese take sakura season as well. Turns out it’s a massive thing here every year – kind of like Christmas, except no one is all blasé / love hate / cynical about the entire thing. It does involve a lot of picnic-ing though (Maruyama Park in particular had very much a party atmosphere when I swung by), as well as countless young girls and couples getting their photographs professionally taken in full kimono / formal attire.
So, all in all, I think we can safely say I’ve seen the cherry blossom season in both Tokyo and Kyoto, albeit by the skin of my teeth in the latter, and not quite as abundantly as I’d have ideally liked in all places. Still, ‘my sakura is not sufficiently in bloom!’ is truly the ultimate in first world problems (I can hear the tiny violins playing as I type…) and I do genuinely count myself as extremely fortunate to have even been in a position to see them at all.
By tomorrow, it will likely be all but gone for another year…
* This was the epitome of ‘flying visit’ – I will definitely be doubling back on myself at some of these places over the next week to see them properly, rather than in something of a sakura-induced FOMO frenzy…
** No need to read too much into this sentiment, Dad and Lorraine – I’m not about to go spunking over gardens any time soon; this one was a legit exceptional case on account of the country and the season.
So, as I mentioned at the end of my last update, yesterday afternoon saw me head across to Akihabara, Tokyo’s famous manga, anime, gaming and electronics area, as well as purported red light district.
I realise manga and anime have a huge cult following worldwide, but for whatever reason neither have ever really featured on my radar to date, beyond a vague awareness of their existence – in fact, I only realised manga and anime weren’t actually the same thing in the course of reading up for this trip*. Personally, the only ones I could name would be Spirited Away, Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon (I think?) – not that I’ve ever watched any of them at all. Unless you count Pokémon, that is, where I do admittedly have a working knowledge of the OG cast of characters – people and Pokémon – and know all the words to the original theme tune. I’d blame my little nephew (Pokémon obsessed) for this, but for the fact that this decidedly superfluous knowledge was in fact garnered through frequent hangover viewing of SMTV Live (with a young Ant and Dec!) back in my student days…
Similarly, my gaming phase pretty much started and ended with Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog in their early iterations – though I do also recall a bit of Alex Kidd and prototype Duke Nukem / Mortal Combat also in the mix back in the day as well… Unless Wordle, Quordle, Octordle, Solitaire, Sudoku, Minesweeper and Scrabble count as gaming proper these days…? I saw precious little evidence even of their mere existence at Akihabara, so am guessing that is very much not the case here…! 😉 )
Still, several million Japanese (not to mention legions of devoted fans worldwide) can’t all be wrong – and the place was certainly popular!! I had a bemused, but mainly mystified, wander through the various arcades, gaming centres and manga stores here – my one point of even vaguely familiar cultural reference being the 80s and 90s retro gaming shop Super Potato. This place had all the old school GameBoy and Master System etc. type games, and was even selling a real-life 16-bit Sega Mega Drive, which certainly brought back memories (mainly of fighting my younger brother for a turn…!).
Obviously the ‘adult shops’ here were somewhat less, shall we say, impenetrable (for want of a better term!) to the outside observer – in so far as no culturally specific prior knowledge was required here (bar that of the meaning of octopus tentacles, perhaps…).
That being said, one of the quirks of Akihabara is the many young Japanese girls dressed as ‘cutesy’ maids plying the streets here, inviting passers-by to be waited upon at a local “maid café” – for an absolutely extortionate drink and cover price, of course. My (very third-hand) understanding here is that the maids are considered more ‘entertainers’ in (an admittedly weird and f*cked up version of) the old geisha tradition, whereby guests are attentively served, conversed with and overall just gently entertained etc. (and I don’t mean that euphemistically here, or at least I don’t think I do…?). But what the hell do I know…? After all, it wasn’t like I was about to pay the cover charge to find out either… 😉
Which pretty much wraps it up for Akihabara – to my disappointment, I didn’t find any of those famous vending machines of used ladies’ panties on my wanderings either. If they were anywhere in Tokyo though, Akihabara is definitely where they would be…
Anyway, Tara and Stuart, I know you wanted a bit more sex drugs and rock n roll, so hopefully this goes some way to giving you your fix, at least on the first front… There is of course far worse than I’m posting on here (some of those sex shops got proper sordid), but my Mum and Auntie Anne are reading, so I will leave to your own imaginations here (which I know are both suitably filthy… 😉 ).
Anyhoo, while we’re on the subject of the weird and wonderful, here are some other odds and sods I have encountered on my travels over the last few days.
First of all, we have the insanely wonderful (or wonderfully insane?) Gotokuji cat temple, which for reasons unknown features multiple cat statues at the gates of an otherwise non-descript cemetery in a totally random residential district (side note: please please please please bury me here).
We also have: the steampunk style Gigli Giant Clock; a life-sized plastic Hello Kitty; a disembodied Easter Island style head; a giant gorilla statue (another one seemingly just plonked down at random in the middle of nowhere); a much photographed monument to Hachiko (a famous Japanese dog, apparently…); a stack of the many and varied local flavours of Kit Kats; an overly alarmist Japanese public information poster; and some random toilet instructions (both for Western and Eastern style alternatives – in case you ever get confused either way…).
And that about wraps it up for Tokyo, which has been an absolutely brilliant start to the trip! Next stop: Kyoto via bullet train tomorrow!
PS: I’ve only just clocked that Tokyo and Kyoto are anagrammatic. Had anyone else out there other than me completely failed to notice this fact to date….?? How stupid do I feel.
* For those similarly ignorant, apparently manga is the art form in book / comic format and anime is tv / film. A lot of anime is based on manga, but not all, and neither is all manga rendered into anime. So there you go: every day’s a school day!
Shit. I just realised, Dad, that I’d completely forgotten to let you know that I’ve officially not been dismembered by the yakuza yet. I was kind of hoping you’d be inferring as much through the prodigious blog output and daily Wordle score updates, but – just for the record – as it stands, I am currently sporting all my appendages (though there is still time on this front, of course…).
Anyway, my last couple of days in Tokyo were have been both busy and brilliant – hence it taking me a while to get everything all written up, and I’ve also ended up splitting this into a bit of a two-parter to keep this entry from running on forever… For now though, let’s rewind a bit and start back where we left off, after an admittedly somewhat meh type of a day in hazy Hakone on the Friday and the onset of sleep deprivation proper (I swear I could feel my brain literally seizing up at one point…).
Thank God, I finally managed to get in some decent sleep that evening in the end, and in fact was back up and out bright and early again the next morning to hit up the Tsujiki fish market over in the neighbouring Chuo district of the city. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely bloody love me a food market at the best of times – but a Japanese food market on top of that…?!? My cup well and truly runneth over.
Not that I don’t also love a good supermarket visit in a different country too – particularly if the local alphabet is in a non-roman script for maximum confusion potential. For example, how many drink varieties can there possible be, and what’s inside them all…? Am I currently in the snack food aisle or the pet food one…?? Is that wine or vinegar or soy sauce or cola in those bottles, or none of the above? So many questions, so little time… 😉
Running with that theme a little bit, shifting from culinary blind spots to more matters of minor mystery encountered when in a foreign land. Here are some of mine from my time in Japan to date… Firstly, why is Japan’s toilet paper so inexplicably thin…? Why are the escalators insufficiently speedy and the elevators so overly effusive…? Where on earth are all the public bins…? Why the hell did the Japanese powers-that-be let an ephebophile design the school uniforms…? Why the ubiquitous vending machines – are the Japanese just congenitally thirsty…? Where did all the Harajuku girls disappear to…? What the eff are they putting in the matcha here to make it so god damn addictive…? How come Tokyo city can put wifi on the underground and Transport for London can’t….? And I still seriously don’t get the deal with all that plastic food…
Anyhooooo, I digress – let’s get back to Tsujiki. Long story short, I spent a loooong time exploring here yesterday morning – and the below represents only a teeny tiny fraction of the several hundred pics I took in the process (when I said I liked markets, I seriously meant it…). As it was still breakfast time (at least in my book), I took the chance to try an amazake drink (a sweet, hot, non-alcoholic sake, which pretty much looked and tasted like hot, thin, sugary milk porridge) and grabbed a couple of white strawberry mochi (white strawberries being quite a ‘thing’ here) to set me up for the day – and I may well have to come back for a lunch or dinner round here before I go as well…!
By the time I left Tsujiki, it had turned into an absolutely glorious spring day – the first since I arrived that I haven’t needed either coat or jumper or both… And that means cherry blossom time!!!! Over the course of the day, I visited three prime sakura stops – Hamarikyu Park; Chidorigafuchi Moat and finally the Kitanomaru Gardens in the grounds of the Imperial Palace (where Tokyo comes out in force to picnic). The pictures speak for themselves in terms of the sheer beauty of Japan’s sakura season, but it’s definitely a case of ‘blink and you miss it’… The blossom is already starting to fall (a little earlier this year than usual) and I sense this may well be my lot for the trip in sakura terms – unless Kyoto can hold out just that little bit longer. All told though, I’m really chuffed even just to have seen what I’ve seen so far – it is something very special to behold here, that’s for sure.
Once again, these just a tiny snapshot of sakura pics taken over the course of the day (I’ve apparently still yet to reach my upper limit of photos taken of pretty trees from various slightly differing angles…). I have to say on that front, one of my favourite things about Japan is never having to feel self-conscious asking a stranger to take your picture (photographing anything that moves – or indeed anything that doesn’t – constituting something of a national past time here…). That, and the fact that the nearest toilet is signposted pretty much literally everywhere you go – which is, needless to say, eminently reassuring for us poor, long suffering, tiny bladdered types…
Anyhoo, I had been planning to go on to the Shinjuku Gyoen park as my fourth and final sakura stop for the day, but even I was feeling just a teensy tiny bit cherry blossomed out at this point. Instead, I decided to head up to Akihabara, Tokyo’s famous manga, anime, gaming and electronics area – not to mention red light district – to round off the afternoon’s activities.
However, I personally think that particular weird and wonderful little visit is worthy of its own entry in and of itself – please stay tuned for a further update shortly… 🙂
Well, today marked a much-needed change of pace from the last few frenetic days, with a day trip out of the city and into nature at Hakone – a volcanic spa resort about 90 minutes outside of Tokyo, with views out onto Mount Fuji (on a good day). Which – unfortunately for me – it wasn’t. I had been monitoring the weather apps even up to this morning before setting off, but for whatever reason in the end it remained stubbornly hazy and overcast all day – just the usual unpredictability of mountain weather, I suppose…
In essence, this meant that I ended up taking a train from Tokyo (a normal one, not a bullet, that is), a zig zag (switch back) train up a mountain, a funicular railway up further still, and final a cable car – all to visit a mountain resort in decidedly iffy visibility and with a distinct chill in the air too… On the upside, this did give my poor beleaguered feet a rest at least – I’ve been averaging about 30,000 steps a day since I first got here, and they both bloody hurt at this point!
From the cable car, I did get to see voluminous plumes of sulphurous smoke rising from the craters at Owadukani’s appropriately named ‘Hell’s Valley’ (a decidedly eggy whiff in the air here – and don’t be looking at me on this one either… 😉 ). I also managed to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji – albeit a way off in the distance and with visibility not particularly great on this occasion either… Still counts in my book though!
On the food front, Hakone apparently specialises in two things: Japanese sweets (mochi) and black eggs – and when in Rome and all that… Black eggs are essentially just normal eggs, but which have been boiled in the aforementioned local sulfurous waters to give the shells and albumen a distinctive color (but no dead bird’s foetus fermenting in there or anything like that…). It was quite nice actually, as eggs go that is. Plus apparently eating one will extend your life by seven years – which in my case will hopefully go some way towards counteracting all the booze and fags I’ve consumed over the last X many years (till recently, that is…!).
I’d also been intending to visit Takone’s local hot springs while I was here, but ended up inadvertently shooting myself in the foot on this one by taking the wrong bus back into town again (same end destination, but going via the loooong circuitous local route – an easy mistake to make when all the signage and timetables are in kanji…). By the time I got back to the centre again, I’d pretty much run out of both time and enthusiasm for Hakone (which in fairness really needs the weather on form to do it justice), so sensibly decided to call it a day and head back to Tokyo for a much needed matcha latte and a chill instead.
As it happens, while on the way back in again, I finally received my sleep report from the first night’s capsule hotel. Now, I personally have zero frame of reference here in knowing what ‘good’ looks like in sleep terms – but at first sight I read this as that I’m a complete nocturnal fidget with an irregular heart beat and a tendency to stop breathing intermittently (and 18 seconds is quite a long time in respiratory terms as well…). That being said, I’d have likely slept a lot better had it not been for the tracker device whirring over and over all night in the first place, so it’s probably a case of swings and roundabouts all round really… I won’t be losing any sleep over it at any rate (boom boom!).
Anyway, speaking of sleep, I now urgently need some – apparently the above was the one night in the last 5 where I’ve gotten in more than 4 hours in all night, and I’m failing fast at this point… So with that in mind, I’ll keep it short but sweet for tonight then, and will be sure as ever to check in again in a day or two’s time!
Thanks all for the comments in the meantime! I’m glad some of you are enjoying reading along; I’m certainly enjoying putting this all together… 🙂 xx
Well, despite horrible night’s sleep last night (all those matcha lattes clearly coming back to haunt me….), I was still up bright and early this morning for a long-awaited trip to watch the local morning sumo rehearsals. I’d have ideally rather have gone to a proper sumo match, of course, but there are no tournaments on at this time of year – so figured this would be a ‘good enough’ close second while I’m here.
Now, I’ve been around the block long enough on the travel front to know that anything you book via Viator is unlikely to be the truly “authentic” local experience you might personally wish for – which, in my head, would be quiet and respectful observance at an historic dojo, watching on in silent admiration, as a group of novice sumo wrestlers trained and rehearsed together in their ‘natural state’ (or something vaguely akin to it at any rate…).
Even going by my already low expectations, however, what actual unfolded was a protracted scene of pure, unadulterated, almost physically painful bullshit. Suffice to say that a very broad interpretation of ‘sumo rehearsals’ had been applied here, which in this case actually translated as a bunch of about fifty very gung-ho Americans (both in terms of the tour leads themselves and 99.9% of tour participants) – plus two token Japanese sumo practitioners roped in to perform for the occasion – gathering in a mundane modern sports hall, and then going on to spend the morning non-ironically pantomiming / parodying sumo for the sole benefit of the tourists present. Between you and me, I have my doubts that the supposed “sumo champions” in attendance even qualified as that, personally – I mean, I carried more weight in my teenage puppy fat days than either of these guys, quite frankly…
And so I did a bunk. No drama or anything – but I’ve got better things to do with my time in Tokyo than to waste another two hours on this undiluted bull crap, that’s for sure…
‘What kind of things, Sarah?‘, I hear you ask… Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you: only the MOTHER FLIPPING TOKYO POOP MUSEUM – that’s frikkin’ what! Which – despite being an institution brought solely into being in the noble pursuit of honour, tribute, dedication and devotion to the humble turd (unko in Japanese) – was, in fact, markedly less shit than this morning’s sorry excuse for entertainment. At least here I knew what I was signing up for!
I’d expected ‘bonkers’, and the Poop Museum (PooMoo? – I seriously think that moniker could catch on) certainly did not disappoint on this front. In fact, this place constituted a veritable assault on the senses (bar – ironically enough – smell…) from the moment you walked through the door. By way of example, here’s a sense of what psychotropic absurdity awaits you just within the first three minutes of your visit alone:
What more can I tell you about the sheer wonder and awe that is the Poo Museum…? Mere words fail me here in doing the place justice, but picture this if you will:
A museum that, on entry, has its staff immediately cajole you into sitting atop a rainbow toilet (in a row with other recently admitted guests), and charges you with making various mock strain grunts and grimaces, while employees film and photograph you in the imitative – hopefully! – act.
Where said toilet then ‘magics’ up a plastic poo (in assorted colours) – as dropped in through the u-bend from behind a wall. Where staff then order invite you to stick a wooden stick into the bottom of aforementioned plastic poo, then to carry it round with you all throughout the installation (in fact, they even let you take it home with you afterwards too…).
Which features its very own rainbow poop volcano (“collecting poop energy from all over the world as it prepares to erupt“, according to the brochure…); a ‘draw your own poop’ section; an arcade dedicated to all things faecal matter; and an offshoot room where all the kids are worked up into a giddy frenzy of screaming ‘UNKOOOOOO!!!!’ at the top of their voices every 5 seconds or so (as if they needed any encouragement…!).
And which, at the end, has you exit the building via a gaping, anthropomorphic (not to mention vaguely menacing-looking) toilet. Almost as if – through this 30 minute transformational experience of frenzied, disorienting, turd-inspired noise / madness / colour / sheer and utter insanity – you yourself have now become the poo. It’s actually all quite meta really, when you start to think about it…
In short, the Poop Museum was everything I’d hoped for and more – and I know you’ll want to see some of the pics. I did think the inclusion of the cherry blossom (a subtle nod to the season, if you like) was a particularly classy touch here… 😉 .
Anyhoo, that’s holiday presents for the kids sorted from the gift shop, at the very least!
Emerging back to reality for now, another big plus of the Poop Museum was its location over in sunny Tokyo Bay, which I’d reached earlier that afternoon via Japan’s equivalent to London’s DLR (though unfortunately I didn’t get to be ‘driver’ on this occasion… 😦 ).
In fact – even without the bonus presence of the PooMoo – Tokyo Bay definitely represents my favourite part of city so far. This was in part due to its wide waterfront cityscapes, sunny vistas and the generally more relaxed atmosphere here – in comparison to the frenetic pace of Tokyo downtown, at any rate (though, in fairness, most places would fall into that category!). This being said, the fact of the random giant robot and replica Statue of Liberty also situated here (for reasons I could only ever hazard a guess at…) certainly did no harm to my positive first impressions of the place either, I suppose…
Anyhoo, fast forward to later in the day – and turns out I’m not doing at all well today on the organised tour front (a timely reminder as to why I usually avoid this type of thing like the plague in the first place!).
In short, I had booked a small group night-time walk through the bars and food stands of Shinjuku’s hidden back alleys for this evening, which I thought looked like fun. Not because I couldn’t easily seek these spots out for myself, of course – but more just with a view to the sociability factor here, given the fact I’m flying solo for this 3 week trip. I’d had this item booked a while now, and had been getting various reminder emails right up to the day prior – so was admittedly a bit taken aback when, in the event, absolutely no one or nothing turned up at the designated meeting spot (and, yes, I did double and triple check I was definitely in the right place at the right time on the right date!), with no return contact at the time or since… I’m putting it down to a very uncharacteristic lapse in organisation from the usually meticulous Japanese (that or the operation in question has very suddenly gone out of business…). Which means I’ll now be progressing a refund request on both this morning and this evening’s activities as a result…
So there you have it – shit served three ways: “sumo”, Poo Museum and tour no-show… 😉
In all seriousness, it was only a little bit shit on the latter front though – and I just ended up making my own fun* instead! Before too long, I’d ended up parking myself in one of the teeny tiny little bars that collectively make up Tokyo’s Golden Gai area – and with room for only about 8 people along the counter, I soon got chatting to fellow guests (a mix of both fellow tourists and locals), and even took turns singing a bit of karaoke with them too…. Tragically, there was no Eminem on the song list (only about 30 songs worth) this time round – so had to make do with Yesterday by The Beatles. Which is likely why I look just about as pained here singing it as others must have been listening!).
* Disclaimer: By ‘fun’, I of course – for the moment – mean of the moderate, low-key, sober variety, whereby one nurses a single non-alcoholic beer for 90 minutes and is safely tucked up in bed by ten.
After this diverting little interlude, I then had a bit of nose about all the many and various little ‘hole in the wall’ food joints up and down the nearby Omoide Yokacho (otherwise affectionately known as “Piss Alley”), before grabbing some pork ramen at one of these along the way (in a place so “local” that no English was spoken or written here, so ended up just communicating by pointing at the soup – which did the job in fairness!).
Which just about left time for a final wander around central Shinjuku by night, before hopping on the metro and heading back to Shibuya for the night and to bed (where – 3 hours later – I find myself still writing up this entry, rather than catching up on last night’s missed sleep… 😉 ).
But that’s it – am done for now. That’s it for now after another manic instalment – will check in again in another day or two’s time…
Well, I’m not entirely sure how I can top yesterday’s cats, capsules and khazis post, but I did start the morning by meeting Godzilla – which you don’t get to say every day!
In the event, I actually woke up full of beans this morning, having slept a good 9 or 10 hours last night in the cocooned, womb-like safety of my capsule pod (so method to the madness after all!). The only annoying thing was this whirrrrrrr like noise that kicked in every minute on the minute, which I presume was the remote sensor in place to (somewhat obtrusively – and most definitely non-consented on my part…) track and monitor my sleep quality – though nothing a bit of Youtube white noise didn’t sufficiently put paid to in the end.
First item of the day for me was hitting the train station to a) reserve some seats for onward travel and b) observe Tokyo during rush hour. Mission complete on the former front, but somewhat less success encountered on the latter… Shinjuku station was certainly busy and definitely labyrinthine (Bank is for utter wimps, by comparison!), yet somehow managed to simultaneously to encapsulate both the orderly and chaotic in one. Think mad crowds, unerringly queuing commuters, various jaunty musical interludes, and repeat announcements ringing out from the tannoys in that high-pitched, teenage girl staccato type voice that the Japanese seem to go in for…
However, any uniformed men or women shoehorning people on to packed out trains with the aid of a reliable broom (which, let’s face it, was what I was really after here…) were conspicuous only by their absence on this occasion. Apparently “train pushing” is much less of a thing these days, as it unsurprisingly fell foul of modern-day Health & Safety regulations – much to my own selfish disappointment, not to mention the presumed relief of the average Tokyo commuter…
From here it was on to downtown Shibuya, to both dump my bag at new hotel (still a cheapo hostel, but one at least with the luxury of its own bed) and visit the famous Shibuya Crossing – that iconic Tokyo cityscape scene of multiple pedestrian crossings all in play at once. I ended up getting hopelessly lost on the way there – Google was completely confused at the sheer multitude of floors, muddle of entrances and maze of exits at Shibuya station – and quite frankly I don’t bloody blame it! Finally though, I made it there (if more by accident than design in the end), to some great views from on high:
After downing a quick snack (pork bun and cucumber salad) from one of the ubiquitous 7/11s here, I then carried on down the Meiji Jinga Shinto shrine, which sticks in the mind for the giant vats of sake saved in straw barrels they have on show here (though I’ve yet to touch a drop of anything other than Asahi 0% here myself – check me!).
From here, it was just a hop skip and a jump to Harajuku, which I’d understood as a kind of underground, counter culture type neighbourhood, with a something of an edgy / alternative vibe. What I instead found in the (hilariously titled – only just noticed!) Takeshita Street was a true orgasm of rainbows, kawaii and cotton candy (the latter also only available in said rainbow theme). Honestly, it was like a unicorn had projectile vomited pink and glitter all down the street… I only spotted one or two OTT clad Harajuku girls ‘proper’ out in force here, and pretty much everybody else was normally attired and / or just queuing for crêpes (as in literally all around the block at every single confectionary stand going…). I have to say, I can’t really see where Gwen Stefani was coming from on this one, but one thing’s for sure: my 4-year old niece would absolutely bloody love the place!
In fairness, a few streets down from Takeshita (fnnarr fnnarr) was a more artsy network of backstreets, where I had a bit of a wander and stopped for a drink at the funky Design Fiesta Gallery, but that was about it in terms of visible counter culture in evidence for today. Maybe it’s just been done to death over the years, or perhaps it all happens at weekends, who knows…?? Either way, put me down as officially non-plussed for this one.
Anyhoo, last stop of the day for me was one of the city’s many food courts, where I stopped in for my third matcha latte of the day (weirdly, I didn’t think I liked matcha before I came here, and now its proving a burgeoning addiction…). Bizarrely enough, it turns out that a certain strata of Japanese restaurants have a “thang” for replicating the various dishes they have on offer in plastic format and setting them out in public view as a way of enticing people through the door. This is in spite of the fact that each and every one of the dishes invariably ends up looking disgusting – spaghetti carbonara in particular lends itself poorly to rendition in plastic form). The mind truly boggles – I mean, there must be literally a whole cottage industry out there responsible for crafting these abominations… Is each model unique to the restaurant, for example, or does each place choose from a set menu (no pun intended!) of available local and international dishes…? How and where do you train as a plastic food artiste (and – most importantly – can I get in on that gig….??).
And speaking of food, for those who’ve asked where my usual round of food pics are (as in actual real-life edible dishes!), fret ye not – I’ll look to cover off all that I am eating and drinking here in Japan via a couple of stand-alone posts along the way… 🙂
As for now, my Fitbit reliably informs me that I’ve covered 30,000 steps and clocked up 137 Active Minutes for the day, which is a new record – at least in the six months since official records began! My feet hurt and am knackered, so I’m off to bed for now – more from the Tokyo leg of the journey in a day or two’s time!
Sarah Round The World 