Travel Location: Tokyo,Japan

En el aeropuerto de Narita lo primero que me sorprendió fue que nada más bajar del avión (fuimos de los primeros) los pasillos, hasta llegar al control de pasaporte, estaban llenos de periodistas y cámaras de televisión. Alguien famoso llegaba en nuestro avión aunque nunca supe quien fue. Y eso que estuve viendo algunas noticias en televisión para ver si lo descubría.

Debo reconocer que de los controles de pasaportes que he pasad, ha sido en el de Tokio donde más amabilidad he encontrado. Desde que te acercas al puesto te reciben con una sonrisa y te indican con una amabilidad extrema todos los pasos que tienes que seguir para salir bien en la foto que te hacen al entrar. Cuando terminas con los trámites un: “Gracias por su colaboración” son sus últimas palabras acompañadas de otra sonrisa y una leve inclinación de cabeza que instintivamente yo repetí con mi primer: “Arigato”.

Si amable fueron en el control de pasaportes más aún lo fueron en la revisión del equipaje. Los policías pedían con una amabilidad mayúscula la apertura del equipaje, lo revisaban con una delicadeza exquisita y cortesmente te de daban las gracias por tu colaboración.

Por fin salimos a la sala de espera y en el aeropuerto ya nos estaba esperando mi sobrino Fran, cuya primera pregunta fue que cuál había sido nuestra primera impresión de Japón. A Fran casi no lo reconocí en un primer momento, tan adaptado estaba a la cultura nipona que hasta ya se peinaba como lo hacen los jóvenes japoneses.

Con nuestros carritos llenos de maletas fuimos a comprar los billetes del tren que nos llevaría a Tokio y la tarjeta Suyca que nos permitiría desplazarnos por la zona metropolitana de Tokio en sus famosos trenes, aunque no a un precio excesivamente barato.

El viaje desde Narita a Shinjiku duró casi dos horas. Por el camino nos llamó la atención que casi todos los balcones tenian los edredones secándose al sol, era como si todo Japón se hubiera puesto de acuerdo para hacer la colada aprovechando el día de descanso y el buen tiempo que hacia, algo frío pero soleado.

Tokio (東京都,Tōkyō-to?, literalmente “capital del este”). Es la capital de facto de Japón y está localizado en el centro-este de la isla de Honshu, específicamente en la región de Kanto; en conjunto forma una de las 47 prefecturas de Japón, aunque su denominación oficial es metrópolis o capital(都 -to). Esta metrópolis es el centro de la política, negocios, finanzas, educación, comunicación y cultura popular de todo Japón. Posee también la mayor concentración de sedes corporativas, instituciones financieras, universidades y colegios, museos, teatros y establecimientos de compras y de entretenimiento de todo el país. En una de ellas estudia Fran, la Universidad Sofia de Tokio.

Se subdivide en 23 barrios (区 -ku); 26 ciudades (市 -shi); 1 distrito (郡 -gun) subdividido en 3 pueblos (町 -chō o -machi) y una villa (村 -son o -mura); y 4 subprefecturas (支庁 -shichō) subdivididas en 2 pueblos y 7 villas, que representan a varias pequeñas islas al sur de Honshu que se extienden más allá de 1.800 km de Shinjuku, capital de la prefectura y sede de la gobernación. El Centro de Tokio, con sus 23 barrios, ocupa un tercio de la metrópoli, con una población cercana a los 8.340.000 habitantes; esta área es lo que se conoce internacionalmente como la ciudad de Tokio. Su área metropolitana posee 34.5 millones de habitantes (2007).

A pesar de que Tokyo es la romanización más correcta del nombre en japonés, el nombre de la ciudad es Tokio en español, alemán, neerlandés y esperanto, entre otros. En inglés y otros idiomas se escribe Tokyo, aunque antiguamente también se escribía Tokio. En el pasado, la ciudad se denominaba como Tokei, Edo o Yedo. El gentilicio de Tokio es tokiota.

Cuando llegamos a Shinjiku buscamos la salida de la estación que nos llevaría al hotel. Shinjuku es el más importante centro comercial y administrativo de Tokio. En el mismo, se encuentra su famosa estación de trenes, que es la más utilizada del mundo, (un promedio de 3 millones de personas emplean la estación diariamente), yo formé parte de esos millones durante mi estancia allí, además del Tochou (都庁) o　edificio del Gobierno Metropolitano de Tokio, el cual el centro de la administración de Tokio y símbolo urbano más importante de la parte oriental de Tokio.

En el área cercana de la estación de Shinjuku se encuentra una gran concentración de tiendas de electrónica, centros comerciales como Odakyu, cines, restaurantes y bares. Muchos hoteles internacionales poseen una sucursal en este barrio, especialmente hacia el oeste del barrio. Entre esos hoteles el Keio Plaza que fue donde me hospedé. La amabilidad japonesa continuó una vez más en todos los empleados del hotel. Poco tiempo estuvimos allí y no pudimos sino apreciar toda la comodidad del mismo. La habitación estaba en el piso 28 del hotel.

En el año 2008, la población estimada de este barrio fue de 312.418, con una densidad poblacional de 17.140 personas por km2, con una área total de 18,23 km2.

Una vez que me duché, dejé las maletas en la habitación y terminé de preparar todo, fuimos en taxi hasta un restaurante japonés, cerca de donde más tarde cogeríamos un barco para seguir nuestra visita por la ciudad. Mi pequeño sacrificio alimentario comenzaba. Para mí la sopa de miso era la salida más fácil antes que probar alguna comida que no conociera, así que una vez que me tomé la sopa probé algo de lo que habían pedido los demás y que parecía tener una pinta aceptable a mis gustos culinarios. Más que un restaurante era un pequeño cafetín que ofertaba toda su carta con reproducciones de los platos que servían en plástico a la entrada del restaurante. Luego me daría cuenta que todos los restaurantes lo hacían. Yo no pedí nada sino que esperé a que los demás trajeran sus platos y probé aquello que yo creía que no me iba a disgustar.

De ahí nos dirigimos al templo de Akasaka en uno de los centros neurálgicos de Tokio. Fran se encontró allí por casualidad con unos compañeros de la residencia. ¿Cómo puede ocurrir eso en una ciudad de tantos millones de habiltantes?

La visita al Templo supuso mi primer contacto con la cultura y religión sintoista. Pude apreciar cierta sintonía con el budismo y vi como medio en serio medio en atracción de feria había muchos puestos para la adivinación del futuro. En la calle que nos llevaba al Templo había infinidad de puestos y pequeñas tiendas donde ya pude comprobar que no iba a ser fácil comprar algún recuerdo.

La siguiente actividad de la jornada era coger el barco desde un embarcadero cercano al Templo para ir a una isla artificial construida en la Bahía de Tokio.

Creo recordar que se llamaba Obaida y después de un mini crucero por la bahía de Tokio en una embarcación que más parecía una nave espacial que un barco llegamos a la isla. En ella había un mega centro comercial con varios restaurantes, en uno de ellos íbamos a cenar.

Nada más bajar del embarcadero me llevé una gran sorpresa al encontrar una réplica de la estatua de la libertad frente al centro comercial. A lo lejos también se podía contemplar otra réplica: la Torre Tokyo, hermana gemela de la Torre Eyfel aunque algo más alta. Inaugurada en 1958 es la estructura más alta del mundo construida en hierro. Pero para mí la imagen más bonita fue la del Rainbow Bridge, un puente que cruzaba la bahía iluminado en vivos colores que intentaba hacer brillar el arco iris en la noche tokiota.

La vista desde la isla era impresionante. Los rascacielos iluminados en la noche de Tokyo sirvieron de telón de fondo a nuestra primera cena japonesa. La imagen más llamativa de Tokio es la nocturna: millones de luces rojas aparecen delante de la vista de quien contempla la infinidad de rascacielos que pueblan esta gran urbe.

Cuando terminamos de cenar nos dirigimos a la estación de tren para coger el tren que nos llevaría a Shinjuku. Esta vez no volveríamos en barco sino en tren sobre uno de los muchos puentes que para este medio de transporte surcan la bahía. La última imagen de la noche fueron los árboles iluminados a modo de decoración navideña. Mi sobrino me explicó que había habido decoración navideña a pesar de que en Japón hay pocos cristianos y que una vez pasada la Navidad apareció la iluminación para fin de año.

El jet lag había hecho estragos este primer día, mis ojos habían estado intentando cerrarse durante buena parte de mi primera velada en Tokio. No aguantaron ni un minuto cuando llegué al hotel y caí rendido en cama. Al día siguiente me esperaban más emociones.

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Travel Location: Nagasaki,Japan

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Travel Location: Beppu,Japan

Beppu is famous for its onsen: mineral hot spring public baths. The town and surrounding area is full of vents spouting hot white clouds of steam from the geothermal outlets.

Our hostel has an onsite onsen which is lovely. You sit naked on a low wooden stool along with other (same sex) bathers, and give yourself a good scrub. You then submerge yourself in the hot mineral water for as long as you can stand the heat. Follow this with more low stool washing.

Today we took it a stage further and went to an open air, mixed gender, hot mudbath in the hills above Beppu. It wasn`t a glamorous spa experience. We entered what looked like a run down old people`s home and separated into the male and female changing areas. First off, we had single sex sulphur water (hot and stinky) soaks. Following the correct protocol was tricky as most of the instructions were in Japanese. H briefly found herself naked in the men`s bathhouse. M grabbed a few minutes in the steam room before we met up in the communal outdoor mudbath. It took M a while to get from the steam room to the mudbath because of the difficult signage and so he had a short spell scampering around the pool for all to see wearing nothing but a wet flannel. Luckily photography wasn`t allowed so we won`t be publishing evidence on the blog.

The mudbath was mixed and naked, but the sexes were separated by a bamboo pole. We could see and speak to each other, but we were not allowed to cross the bamboo line. Modesty was maintained by the muddy waters. These were thick, gloopy and VERY hot at the bottom, and thinner and cooler at the top. We covered our faces in the hot clay mud and soaked for as long as we could stomach the wafting smells of rotten eggs.

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Travel Location: Tokyo,Japan

Travel About: big-city

It was sad to leave India after only 6 weeks, so much more to see and do there, but our flights had been booked for a while and Japan was calling.

From Narita airport we headed into Tokyo on the cheap train into Ueno, where Alex had booked us into what the Lonely Planet apparently calls ‘the cheapest accomodation in Tokyo’, and in fact it was only 4 times as expensive as our last hotel in Delhi, although somewhat smaller.

grabbing machine professionals

We headed back onto the metro to have a look around Ginza, which felt a lot like a deserted Oxford Street, in fact, compared to India the whole of Tokyo felt deserted, maybe it is the recession or something. We were also already missing all the beeping, tuk-tuks, cows and bare-bottomed children. Most strange of all was that you could stand outside a shop looking at a map and no-one would come outside to implore you to come and ‘take a look’.

Second day in Tokyo was more business like, we had to head down to the Chinese embassy to lodge our visa applications, this was VERY straightforward, we haven’t picked up our passports yet, but the whole process took no more than ten minutes, and all of the supporting documentation that we had printed out the night before was waved away as being unnecessary.

When we came out of the embassy it was snowing, actually snowing, which boded well for our snowboarding trip a couple of days later. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Tokyo Midtown mall at Roppongi Hills, we looked at all the ridiculous shops selling designer puppy wear, and diamond encrusted mobile phone jewels. And we had a great lunch in one of the many restaurants with lunch time special menus for around 1000Yen. Also visited FujiFilm’s free display, which at the moment was a collection of photos of National Parks from all over the world. It seems that there are still lots more places we want to visit…

And so to Carolyne Day. We met up at Ueno station and took Carolyne to her prison cell-like room in the hostel. The Japanese style rooms there are really not that big at all, and, although they don’t have bars on the windows they are a bit institutional. We then headed straight out to Ryogoku, where we had read there would be sumo wrestlers roaming the streets. We didn’t see any, although Carolyne claims she saw ‘a fat girl’. So, we headed into the Edo Museum. A big dimly lit affair, that covered Tokyo’s history from formation to the present day. Reasonably interesting, and warmer than hanging around outside.

Final district for the day was Asakusa, also known as Electonics Town. There are indeed lots of shops selling all manner of electronicy things, we most enjoyed going into the amusement arcades and watching the grabbing machine professionals doing a little dance as they collected their umpteenth manga figurine of the night with great skill.

Another good and cheap meal was had before we headed for an early night ready for our bus trip to Hakuba and the mountains in the morning.

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Travel Location: Tokyo,Japan

Feeling like a Jetsons

Driving around Tokyo on the elevated ring roads reminded me of one of my favorite cartoon shows, the Jetsons. At about a twenty story building high, I was cruising at 70 km/h in my comfortable and confidence car. To my right, the view of the urban jungle landscape was whizzing by. When the traffic slowed down enough and I was in the thick of the urban jungle, my eyes wandered to the skyscrapers and caught glimpses of the people living in their penthouses.

“Driving around Tokyo on the elevated ring roads reminded me of one of my favorite cartoon shows, the Jetsons..”

Japanese Delicacy

I love sushi but I had never seen the stupendous selections of raw seafood till now. I am adventurous as far as seafood, but I could not get myself to eat a raw Conch. I would rather enjoy its empty shell as an ornament than to eat its flesh even if it were cooked. But according to my dare-devil food aficionado California native friend, this Conch sushi is heavenly. I took his words.

To my surprise, there was a wide variety of pasta dishes here in Japan. Had I never been to Italy, I could easily be led to believe that pasta was from Japan. Vegetable pasta gratin, a bed of fresh vegetable and angle hair pasta topped with melted baked cheese, was one of my many favorite Japanese pasta dishes. Okonomiyaki, seafood and vegetable egg pancake over fried noodle, was another one.

The foods not only tasted heavenly delicious, but they also looked very ornate. Japanese people take pride in quality and presentation. They go through elaborate preparation to ensure that the freshness, the individual taste and aroma, the seductive color, and the unique form blend together to form an ensemble of culinary delight…

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Travel Location: Asia,Japan,Mie

Wound up heading over to the library with the intention of talking to one of the teachers but chatted with a few students instead. They are all studying their asses off for their exams. I feel bad for them. A couple were telling me the other day about how they haven’t slept in days.

They take test scores SO seriously here. It is actually the only part of their grade that actually counts. They do assignments in class, they participate and do homework every week but it doesn’t actually count for anything. All the school and students care about at the end of the day is what their test score is after the exam. It feels like such a weird system coming from Canada where at every level of education the importance of doing assignments and participating in class is shoved down our throats. Working in a completely different education system has been an eye opening and really interesting experience so far.

But back to my students…

So the girl I talked with first is a third year. She’s incredibly smart and always has some of the best work I mark each week. She pulled out one of their most recent assignments and pointed to the stamp I’d used on it. It’s a cute little Hello Kitty stamp with an apple – very fitting for school I thought. There was some kanji above Hello Kitty’s head and I didn’t know what it said but figured it wouldn’t be too bad.

So the student points to it and goes “Do you know what this says?” I said no and asked her to tell me. Apparently it means “Remember to hand it in!” which led the students to laugh (according to her). I had to laugh too. Considering how many of them hand their sheets in late it was pretty fitting in my opinion, but I could see how they’d find it funny. Well, I guess I won’t be using THAT stamp again! Back to the good ol’ reliable smiley face

There were a couple others I ended up talking to, too while I was flipping through a movie magazine. They had all these articles about Twilight: New Moon so I was taking a minute to read them. The girls came up to me all giggly, pointed to the magazine and confessed their undying love for Twilight. And there a friendship was formed! Not really, but we did have a little gab fest about the movies. They’re going to see it this weekend, I believe. I told them it’s really good and they should definitely go. Apparently the movie is huge here, according to the paper, but you wouldn’t know it based on the nearly empty theatre I sat in last week. Granted, I saw a 3pm showing and most people go at night but still.

Anyhoodle, after some more marking, recording a listening exam and going over a script with another prof, I finally went home. Now I’m sitting toasty warm under my kotatsu, playing with the fabulous heating pad things they sell here to keep my hands warm and am looking forward to a night of writing and planning a trip to Kyoto for New Years. Fabulous!

Talk to you guys soon,

XO

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Travel Location: Toyama,Japan

Travel About: relaxation

Finally…

Our friends in Toyama!! Andy and Yukko were wonderful enough to be our hosts and tourguides for a few days.

Andy took us on a tour of the sake factory he works in. We saw almost the entire process for making sake. We also got to sample the sake at many different stages….Mmmmmm.

One of our other favorite activities so far on this trip was our visit to Andy and Yukko’s favorite local onsen (hot spring). It is up on one of the hills on the outskirts of Toyama so the men get to sit outside in the hotsprings gazing at the stars and looking out over the city. The women get to look at the rocks dividing the women’s side from the men’s (who decided that was fair?). There were many steps to having a full onsen experience. First you must scrub yourself Japanese-style (you get a shower space, a tiny stool to sit upon, and a wash basin full of water), from there you could move on to your choice of the outdoor pool, the indoor hot or cold pools, the lavender pool, the sauna (96 degrees CELSIUS!), or the wonderful waterfalls that work beautifully for beating tension out of your shoulders. After you get your fill of soaking and scrubbing you can retire to the resting room where there are tables and cushions upon which to sit. Sorry guys, no photos of that experience.

We left our friends Andy and Yukko as they were preparing to head off to Hawaii to get married! Have fun guys!

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Travel Location: Asia,Japan,Mie

Wound up heading over to the library with the intention of talking to one of the teachers but chatted with a few students instead. They are all studying their asses off for their exams. I feel bad for them. A couple were telling me the other day about how they haven’t slept in days.

They take test scores SO seriously here. It is actually the only part of their grade that actually counts. They do assignments in class, they participate and do homework every week but it doesn’t actually count for anything. All the school and students care about at the end of the day is what their test score is after the exam. It feels like such a weird system coming from Canada where at every level of education the importance of doing assignments and participating in class is shoved down our throats. Working in a completely different education system has been an eye opening and really interesting experience so far.

But back to my students…

So the girl I talked with first is a third year. She’s incredibly smart and always has some of the best work I mark each week. She pulled out one of their most recent assignments and pointed to the stamp I’d used on it. It’s a cute little Hello Kitty stamp with an apple – very fitting for school I thought. There was some kanji above Hello Kitty’s head and I didn’t know what it said but figured it wouldn’t be too bad.

So the student points to it and goes “Do you know what this says?” I said no and asked her to tell me. Apparently it means “Remember to hand it in!” which led the students to laugh (according to her). I had to laugh too. Considering how many of them hand their sheets in late it was pretty fitting in my opinion, but I could see how they’d find it funny. Well, I guess I won’t be using THAT stamp again! Back to the good ol’ reliable smiley face

There were a couple others I ended up talking to, too while I was flipping through a movie magazine. They had all these articles about Twilight: New Moon so I was taking a minute to read them. The girls came up to me all giggly, pointed to the magazine and confessed their undying love for Twilight. And there a friendship was formed! Not really, but we did have a little gab fest about the movies. They’re going to see it this weekend, I believe. I told them it’s really good and they should definitely go. Apparently the movie is huge here, according to the paper, but you wouldn’t know it based on the nearly empty theatre I sat in last week. Granted, I saw a 3pm showing and most people go at night but still.

Anyhoodle, after some more marking, recording a listening exam and going over a script with another prof, I finally went home. Now I’m sitting toasty warm under my kotatsu, playing with the fabulous heating pad things they sell here to keep my hands warm and am looking forward to a night of writing and planning a trip to Kyoto for New Years. Fabulous!

Talk to you guys soon,

XO

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Travel Location: Tokyo,Japan

I just got back into beadweaving and learned a few off-loom techniques this past week. But today my prize piece, a cute little mauve and gold ladder-stitch bracelet, suddenly snapped off my wrist, falling to the floor in a shower of sad little beads and I said to myself in a huff, “this 100-yen crap really ain’t worth the time. I gotta get me some good stuff if I wanna make this business happen.”

So I googled the words “Tokyo” and “beads” and came up with this: ASAKUSA-BASHI BEAD DISTRICT! There’s a whole “district” in Tokyo for beads buffs like me! Am I dreaming? Tokyo is already awesome for its “districts,” of things (think of a district as several blocks of city dotted with lots of stores carrying roughly the same thing. This is the essence of Tokyo) like the cookware district of Kappabashi-dori, the guitar and music supply shop district of Ochanomizu and the bookstore district of Jimbocho to name a few. But a bead district?

..hunting down the Fire Line

You know, when I hear the words ”bead shop,” at least, in Alaska, I always think of long-bearded fellas haunched over their soldering irons with shakuhachi flute music in the background hidden amongst aisles of plastic drawers and occult books, reaking of incense and tanned leather. But that’s not what I found here at all. Each and every shop here was approachable and brightly lit, draped with ropes upon ropes of glittering things and pre-packaged beads, all priced so I didn’t have to pick through them and weigh them out like they make you do in the States. And there wasn’t a single hint of religious overtone, Buddhist or other. The only thing that came close was the small selection of Catholic prayer beads and icons for sale at Kiwa, but they were shoved in among the silver fetishes so popular with the young Japanese males these days.

Japan’s quite famous for beads and the wholesalers are definitely here at Asakusa-bashi, as well as a healthy gathering of retail shops for the average granny or housewife looking for a time-filler craft. I found everything I needed: freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, cut and polished semi-precious stones, pre-packaged beading projects and lots more. A few of the stores tend to carry the same thing but most of the ones I’ve seen near the station tend to have a corner of specialty items that set them apart, particularly the stores Genuine (focusing on pearls and rare stones) and Kiwa, the biggest retailer in the area carrying lots of those lovely Toho beads. I had an amazingly fun time here hunting down my Fire Line and thread conditioner.

The only drawback though is that none of these places accept credit cards, which is unheard of where I live in northern Kanto suburbia. And only Japanese is spoken here, but the help is reasonably friendly.

The bead district is easy to get to. From Ueno or Tokyo, go to Akihabara on the JR Yamanote Line and transfer there to the JR Sobu Line (the yellow line) bound for Chiba (platform 6). Asakusa-bashi is just one stop next to Akihabara. Either exit, west or east has a nice selection of bead shops. You just have to walk down along the main highway a ways to find them. A Japanese map with the names of all the good stores is available on-line.

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Travel Location: Okinawa,Japan

沖繩 – 序

今次去沖繩, 其實無乜特別原因, 只係想搵個地方去個旅行..放下假..放鬆下咁, 點解揀沖繩..都係因為無都市o既氣味, 日日係香港樓又高…車又多…人又多… 其次就係有好靚o既海灘, 治安又比較好, 至於溝通就…唔好期望日本人識講英文, 不過佢地有用漢字, 起碼睇得明, 所以要自己四處去都問題不大, 決定左去沖繩之後就走去買機票, 原先係打算買自由行package..去到問時旅行社話無晒位, 咁就剩係買左張來回機票, 乜都等過到沖繩再算~

計劃今次o既旅程, 都有某d目的o既.. 主要就係想體驗下靠自己一個搞唔搞得惦, 當然唔係講緊日日邊到都唔去坐係酒店hea到走為止o個隻.. 係一個陌生地方, 無家人, 無朋友, 生活幾日, 又有某d地方一定要去.. 會遇到好多問題要解決, 而呢d問題係我地自己生活慣又熟識o既地方通常都會有人幫我地代勞或者根本就唔算係問題, 例如搵地方住咁啦..

Okinawa

最多朋友問o既問題都係”一個人唔悶咩”… 首先我本人絕對係喜歡熱鬧同朋友仔一齊玩, 另一方面我亦都唔係寄生生物, 短暫o既個人主義生活反而更加難得

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