Friday, May 11, 2007
April 21, twice.
We woke up at some normal hour or another and made our way v…e…r…r…y slowly to the airport, where our plane left at 4:00. We stopped for breakfast/lunch at Andersen’s bakery again, eating lots of breads and generally relaxing. We had repacked all of our stuff so that we could check through a duffle bag and take smaller backpacks on the plane. We knew what we were doing. Unfortunately, it was a pretty heavy bag, but Jess is good at carrying around huge bags like this (it’s what she uses for her hockey gear) and so she helped out my technique.
We took our time at the station, looking at various stores (another bookstore…man, I wish I could read Japanese!) and then took a private rail line (which just means ‘not JR’) out to Narita, since our JR passes had expired. We timed that really well. We had the passes to help us while we didn’t know how to use the rail systems. By the end of the trips, we were pro.
We arrived at Narita airport roughly 4 hours early for our flight. No problem checking in, so we walked around some stores to get rid of some extra yen and time. We had lunch at a restaurant where the cups were made in the USA. Ha!
After that we went through security (didn’t have to take off our shoes! HA HA!) and then wasted some more time at duty-free shopping where we picked up some Sake and a couple of cartons of cigarettes for me on the cheap. No, no, kidding. No cigarettes or perfume, though those seemed to be the most popular items. We could have bought more stuff, but we actually have Asian markets in America and they sell most of this sort of stuff no problem. I did get this Sake that was packaged in a container that looked like one of those old-style sake-fermenting vats I’d seen before. Really neat, I thought. After that, we wandered over to our gate, Jess took a quick nap, and then we got on our plane bound for America.
Another long, boring, overnight flight, and I don’t think I slept much. Strike that, I really didn’t sleep at all. Planes. Yuck. But we flew all through the night and landed…earlier that morning! Thanks, international dateline!
Got our bag, breezed through customs and got a ride home. That’s where we saw Jessie’s favorite surprise of the trip. One of Jessie’s hockey teammates had volunteered to come over and feed Tigger while we were gone and they also used the opportunity to raid our place and throw a party, ‘decorating’ our house in the process. We walked around and found balloons tucked away, streamers everywhere, and all sorts of things wrapped in aluminum foil. Jess was just tickled pink that she had so many great, strange friends and called everyone to tell them how much she loved the surprise.
Can you identify what is wrong with this picture?
After that, we did a little bit of unpacking before jetlag caught up with us and we both konked out around 4 in the afternoon.
Vacation: Success.
-N
We woke up at some normal hour or another and made our way v…e…r…r…y slowly to the airport, where our plane left at 4:00. We stopped for breakfast/lunch at Andersen’s bakery again, eating lots of breads and generally relaxing. We had repacked all of our stuff so that we could check through a duffle bag and take smaller backpacks on the plane. We knew what we were doing. Unfortunately, it was a pretty heavy bag, but Jess is good at carrying around huge bags like this (it’s what she uses for her hockey gear) and so she helped out my technique.
We took our time at the station, looking at various stores (another bookstore…man, I wish I could read Japanese!) and then took a private rail line (which just means ‘not JR’) out to Narita, since our JR passes had expired. We timed that really well. We had the passes to help us while we didn’t know how to use the rail systems. By the end of the trips, we were pro.
We arrived at Narita airport roughly 4 hours early for our flight. No problem checking in, so we walked around some stores to get rid of some extra yen and time. We had lunch at a restaurant where the cups were made in the USA. Ha!
After that we went through security (didn’t have to take off our shoes! HA HA!) and then wasted some more time at duty-free shopping where we picked up some Sake and a couple of cartons of cigarettes for me on the cheap. No, no, kidding. No cigarettes or perfume, though those seemed to be the most popular items. We could have bought more stuff, but we actually have Asian markets in America and they sell most of this sort of stuff no problem. I did get this Sake that was packaged in a container that looked like one of those old-style sake-fermenting vats I’d seen before. Really neat, I thought. After that, we wandered over to our gate, Jess took a quick nap, and then we got on our plane bound for America.
Another long, boring, overnight flight, and I don’t think I slept much. Strike that, I really didn’t sleep at all. Planes. Yuck. But we flew all through the night and landed…earlier that morning! Thanks, international dateline!
Got our bag, breezed through customs and got a ride home. That’s where we saw Jessie’s favorite surprise of the trip. One of Jessie’s hockey teammates had volunteered to come over and feed Tigger while we were gone and they also used the opportunity to raid our place and throw a party, ‘decorating’ our house in the process. We walked around and found balloons tucked away, streamers everywhere, and all sorts of things wrapped in aluminum foil. Jess was just tickled pink that she had so many great, strange friends and called everyone to tell them how much she loved the surprise.
Can you identify what is wrong with this picture?
After that, we did a little bit of unpacking before jetlag caught up with us and we both konked out around 4 in the afternoon.
Vacation: Success.
-N
Labels: Bread, Japan, Shopping, Tokyo, Travel
Thursday, May 03, 2007
April 15,
We woke up, a couple of times, and eventually got back on the road. We dubbed this place the cutest hostel in Japan because it was just adorable all over. Nice beds, too, which was a definite plus. Then, off to Hiroshima!
Jess slept on the bullet train. She’s so cute.
We met a couple of fellow travelers on the way from the rail station to the Hostel; one guy who chatted about hostels, and another couple of guys who needed help getting to Peace Park. I felt soooo experienced when I got to explain how busses work.
Walked to the hostel from the streetcar stop, found the hostel was closed (grr), so dropped off our bags in a coin locker and walked off to Peace Park, a park in memory of the A-bomb dropping and in hope for peace. We ate first and I got to try some okanomiyaki, sort of a savory noodle/sauce/seafood pancake that I’d heard about. It was pretty good.
Fueled up, we made our way through the A-bomb museum, which documented the whole incident, lead up, and atomic war since with a decided (and justified) anti-war slant. Seeing watches forever frozen at 8:15 (when the bomb was dropped) was eerie. Hearing stories about the survivors and the victims of radiation later was pretty stark, too. I half-expected it to take a one-sided pro-Japan anti-America stance, but it was surprisingly even-handed.
We strolled through the park afterwards, seeing the eternal flame which is supposed to be extinguished only when all atomic bombs are dismantled.
The Cenotaph was also nice to see, as was the children’s peace memorial, with thousands and thousands and tons of paper cranes all in display cases. You could even sign up to make your own ‘1000 paper cranes’ and have it housed there.
We also saw the a-bomb dome. Almost right under the blast and it remained standing, though gutted. It’s the one part of the city that wasn’t restored afterwards, and I think that’s what surprised me the most about the city. The bomb wasn’t dropped that long ago, 1949. That’s less than 60 years ago that the entire area where we walked through was leveled absolutely flat. Our hostel was built on land that was scorched clean only 55 years ago. To look at Hiroshima now, you’d never know. The city is alive and breathing just fine. 55 years! That’s not bad!
After all of that, we checked in at our hostel and then took a stroll through the shopping district.
I got to play at Japanese arcades! I knew they were bigger over in Japan, but good gravy! I have a theory as to why, by the way. In Japan they have 100 yen coins, which is, roughly, a dollar. It’s much easier to pop in 100 yen and think: ‘oh, it’s just one coin’ than to pop in four quarters. Four quarters? That’s a dollar! No way! So they can make more money. They certainly made some off of me.
(I love that picture). Each arcade (and there were several) had multiple floors. There was usually a floor for prizes with those grippy-arm things that never work, a pachinko/gambling for prizes floor, plenty of arcade games, and a floor where girls would go and take pictures in photo booths. Jess and I explored those, but we couldn’t quite figure the system out. We think it involved cell phones.
I spent some time and energy and yen there and had a ton of fun. Jess relaxed and played the DS. (She’s really nice to me). There were some fantastic-looking card-game based arcade games too. The arcade machines had a surface where you would place your cards and some sort of either ID chip or encoded image on the card would let the arcade machine know where the cards were. Then you *moved the cards around* and tried to beat your opponent’s cards with yours. It’s amazing. You can see a video of it here. I would have paid more attention…and a LOT of yen, I’m sure, on the game, but all the text was in Japanese, and I wouldn’t have been able to understand.
I played some drum-mania too, but I can do that at home.
We also visited a model shop. There’s a level of model-collection and creation that I’m just not able to bring myself up to. That store was that level.
Also, another bread store. We went nuts again, but that was some seriously good bread.
Lots of, I’m sure, very impressive cell-phone technology, but I really only use mine for calling people, telling time, and occasionally for calculating a tip. More than that just doesn’t appeal to me.
On the way back, we saw bats! Jess noticed them first. I tried to get a picture, but it was at night and they wouldn’t hold still. The peace flame looked nice at night, though.
Next day we would travel to Osaka, but as for where we would stop…who knew?
-N
We woke up, a couple of times, and eventually got back on the road. We dubbed this place the cutest hostel in Japan because it was just adorable all over. Nice beds, too, which was a definite plus. Then, off to Hiroshima!
Jess slept on the bullet train. She’s so cute.
We met a couple of fellow travelers on the way from the rail station to the Hostel; one guy who chatted about hostels, and another couple of guys who needed help getting to Peace Park. I felt soooo experienced when I got to explain how busses work.
Walked to the hostel from the streetcar stop, found the hostel was closed (grr), so dropped off our bags in a coin locker and walked off to Peace Park, a park in memory of the A-bomb dropping and in hope for peace. We ate first and I got to try some okanomiyaki, sort of a savory noodle/sauce/seafood pancake that I’d heard about. It was pretty good.
Fueled up, we made our way through the A-bomb museum, which documented the whole incident, lead up, and atomic war since with a decided (and justified) anti-war slant. Seeing watches forever frozen at 8:15 (when the bomb was dropped) was eerie. Hearing stories about the survivors and the victims of radiation later was pretty stark, too. I half-expected it to take a one-sided pro-Japan anti-America stance, but it was surprisingly even-handed.
We strolled through the park afterwards, seeing the eternal flame which is supposed to be extinguished only when all atomic bombs are dismantled.
The Cenotaph was also nice to see, as was the children’s peace memorial, with thousands and thousands and tons of paper cranes all in display cases. You could even sign up to make your own ‘1000 paper cranes’ and have it housed there.
We also saw the a-bomb dome. Almost right under the blast and it remained standing, though gutted. It’s the one part of the city that wasn’t restored afterwards, and I think that’s what surprised me the most about the city. The bomb wasn’t dropped that long ago, 1949. That’s less than 60 years ago that the entire area where we walked through was leveled absolutely flat. Our hostel was built on land that was scorched clean only 55 years ago. To look at Hiroshima now, you’d never know. The city is alive and breathing just fine. 55 years! That’s not bad!
After all of that, we checked in at our hostel and then took a stroll through the shopping district.
I got to play at Japanese arcades! I knew they were bigger over in Japan, but good gravy! I have a theory as to why, by the way. In Japan they have 100 yen coins, which is, roughly, a dollar. It’s much easier to pop in 100 yen and think: ‘oh, it’s just one coin’ than to pop in four quarters. Four quarters? That’s a dollar! No way! So they can make more money. They certainly made some off of me.
(I love that picture). Each arcade (and there were several) had multiple floors. There was usually a floor for prizes with those grippy-arm things that never work, a pachinko/gambling for prizes floor, plenty of arcade games, and a floor where girls would go and take pictures in photo booths. Jess and I explored those, but we couldn’t quite figure the system out. We think it involved cell phones.
I spent some time and energy and yen there and had a ton of fun. Jess relaxed and played the DS. (She’s really nice to me). There were some fantastic-looking card-game based arcade games too. The arcade machines had a surface where you would place your cards and some sort of either ID chip or encoded image on the card would let the arcade machine know where the cards were. Then you *moved the cards around* and tried to beat your opponent’s cards with yours. It’s amazing. You can see a video of it here. I would have paid more attention…and a LOT of yen, I’m sure, on the game, but all the text was in Japanese, and I wouldn’t have been able to understand.
I played some drum-mania too, but I can do that at home.
We also visited a model shop. There’s a level of model-collection and creation that I’m just not able to bring myself up to. That store was that level.
Also, another bread store. We went nuts again, but that was some seriously good bread.
Lots of, I’m sure, very impressive cell-phone technology, but I really only use mine for calling people, telling time, and occasionally for calculating a tip. More than that just doesn’t appeal to me.
On the way back, we saw bats! Jess noticed them first. I tried to get a picture, but it was at night and they wouldn’t hold still. The peace flame looked nice at night, though.
Next day we would travel to Osaka, but as for where we would stop…who knew?
-N
Labels: Arcades, Bread, Hiroshima, Japan, Peace Park
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
April 13,
Ah, much more relaxed. After the ‘temple whirlwind’ tour the previous day, today was much more simple. We went out to western Kyoto by JR rail and just walked around for a bit. Our first stop was a long bridge over a river and through a park. During the fall, you can see fishermen using cormorants to fish, but for us, it was just a walk over a nice bridge and through the cherry blossoms. We had breakfast at a restaurant and then walked along one of the main streets with some tourist-y shops. I ended up getting my bamboo cup there. It’s pretty neat.
We did check out one temple complex, but just one. The odd thing about it was that the way to the main temple was lined with buildings and we weren’t sure if they were temples, shrines, or just people’s houses. Imagine walking into one to look at the traditional Japanese architecture and seeing someone come out of their shower. We decided to keep our observations at a distance.
We went up to the main temple, and you could either pay to walk through the garden or the building interior. Jess and I opted for the garden, and I’m really glad we did. Everything was in bloom, the sakura (cherry blossoms) were falling, and everything just looked gorgeous. We took our time, sat and talked, and had a really relaxing walk through.
After the temple, bamboo forest! There are a lot of bamboo forests around western Kyoto and we strolled through one just around the corner from the temple. It was very peaceful, especially when the wind started blowing and the bamboo would sway and clack against each other above our heads. Very nice. Lots of young men doing guided tours on rickshaws, too.
We came back on the rail and walked through a department store in Kyoto station. The upper floors mostly sold clothes we didn’t’ want, though I did get a picture of one of the very popular ‘horrible English on t-shirt’ t-shirts that are so entertaining in Japan. The basement was the real home run, though. There were two floors down there devoted to confections. Truly epic. Everything was so elegant and beautiful that I’m not sure you were supposed to eat any of it. Just put it on the mantle and remark on its beauty.
Then, Jess found a bakery and we went nuts. The place is called Andersens, and we would visit this place (it’s a chain) all over Japan. They bake bread fresh in the back rooms and are constantly bringing out fresh loaves. Jess was a big fan of the cheese breads (which lets me know what I need to be cooking more of :) and I got to try some more traditional Japanese breads. Butter rolls: soft and good. French bread rolls, too, with very crunchy exteriors. I also got some plain old sliced bread that was pretty good, too. It reminded me of one of the loaves I’ve made before, but done better, so I know what to aim for.
I like this picture. One of the recurring themes of the trip was: 'aww, kitties!'. We'd stumble across one looking out of someones house and Jess would stop and call. Sometimes they'd let her pet them, sometimes they'd just nervously stare. This one got away.
Oh, and by the way, Hotel Kyoto Costa del Sol was our least favorite hostel. The guy only had hot water available for 2 hours in the morning and two at night, and the beds were just a single, thin mattress on tatami. If I know my futons, there’s supposed to be another layer under the futon. My hip hurt in the morning from sleeping on my side.
And that was pretty much it. Not quite as hectic or traditional as some other days, but dag nabbit, this was our vacation and we got to do whatever the heck we wanted. So there!
-N
Ah, much more relaxed. After the ‘temple whirlwind’ tour the previous day, today was much more simple. We went out to western Kyoto by JR rail and just walked around for a bit. Our first stop was a long bridge over a river and through a park. During the fall, you can see fishermen using cormorants to fish, but for us, it was just a walk over a nice bridge and through the cherry blossoms. We had breakfast at a restaurant and then walked along one of the main streets with some tourist-y shops. I ended up getting my bamboo cup there. It’s pretty neat.
We did check out one temple complex, but just one. The odd thing about it was that the way to the main temple was lined with buildings and we weren’t sure if they were temples, shrines, or just people’s houses. Imagine walking into one to look at the traditional Japanese architecture and seeing someone come out of their shower. We decided to keep our observations at a distance.
We went up to the main temple, and you could either pay to walk through the garden or the building interior. Jess and I opted for the garden, and I’m really glad we did. Everything was in bloom, the sakura (cherry blossoms) were falling, and everything just looked gorgeous. We took our time, sat and talked, and had a really relaxing walk through.
After the temple, bamboo forest! There are a lot of bamboo forests around western Kyoto and we strolled through one just around the corner from the temple. It was very peaceful, especially when the wind started blowing and the bamboo would sway and clack against each other above our heads. Very nice. Lots of young men doing guided tours on rickshaws, too.
We came back on the rail and walked through a department store in Kyoto station. The upper floors mostly sold clothes we didn’t’ want, though I did get a picture of one of the very popular ‘horrible English on t-shirt’ t-shirts that are so entertaining in Japan. The basement was the real home run, though. There were two floors down there devoted to confections. Truly epic. Everything was so elegant and beautiful that I’m not sure you were supposed to eat any of it. Just put it on the mantle and remark on its beauty.
Then, Jess found a bakery and we went nuts. The place is called Andersens, and we would visit this place (it’s a chain) all over Japan. They bake bread fresh in the back rooms and are constantly bringing out fresh loaves. Jess was a big fan of the cheese breads (which lets me know what I need to be cooking more of :) and I got to try some more traditional Japanese breads. Butter rolls: soft and good. French bread rolls, too, with very crunchy exteriors. I also got some plain old sliced bread that was pretty good, too. It reminded me of one of the loaves I’ve made before, but done better, so I know what to aim for.
I like this picture. One of the recurring themes of the trip was: 'aww, kitties!'. We'd stumble across one looking out of someones house and Jess would stop and call. Sometimes they'd let her pet them, sometimes they'd just nervously stare. This one got away.
Oh, and by the way, Hotel Kyoto Costa del Sol was our least favorite hostel. The guy only had hot water available for 2 hours in the morning and two at night, and the beds were just a single, thin mattress on tatami. If I know my futons, there’s supposed to be another layer under the futon. My hip hurt in the morning from sleeping on my side.
And that was pretty much it. Not quite as hectic or traditional as some other days, but dag nabbit, this was our vacation and we got to do whatever the heck we wanted. So there!
-N
Labels: Bamboo, Bread, Japan, Kyoto
