Day 1
May 26, 2018
We landed on a man made island airport near Osaka. The Boeing 787 we were on was losing chunks of paint on the upper wing surface and looked awful. We had planned to fly to Narita but when flying standby one must be adaptable. When we went through customs we caused some anxiety for the lower level staff because we have no place to stay. They pulled us off to the side and told us to book a room somewhere, but you know modern technology. Finally a guy discreetly said just pick a hotel name and go with it. We got through but the customs agent gave me severe stink eye.
Getting a sim card was easy and cost about $60 for 5gb for 30 days. Be sure to shop several of the many vendors as prices vary greatly. Note to consumers everywhere: Never travel without an unlocked phone. Internet speed here is awesome, by the way. Now we could reserve a room.
What a room. Alicia opted for an upgrade because we were a bit tired and just wanted some additional comfort. I never expected a heated toilet seat with push button warm water robo wash features. The train ride to the hotel cost about $4 each.
Dinner was at a nearby shopping mall. We walked past the food court and opted for a sit down restaurant. They served pork. Pork with about 20 or so side dish options including more pork. When the meal came it included several things we needed help with. Do I drink this or use it as dip kind of questions. The waitress may have been a little embarrassed, but was quite helpful.
Day 2
Breakfast was a buffet at the hotel. I was happy to find forks and spoons, which saved us a bunch of time. Most food in Japan is a bit undercooked, borderline raw, and delicious.
Generally observations so far:
- The women are beautiful! From 6 to 66 they are just breathtaking.
- Everything is very clean, even the construction sites are clean and organized.
- There are rules and instructions for EVERYTHING! How to unwrap your straw. Where to stand. What you can flush down a toilet (very specific). What not to flush down the toilet (anything not on the above list). How to flush the toilet. Etc…
- Coffee. Where do I start? For now I will just say vending machines.
- TV. Mostly kid shows, game shows, American news shows, shopping channels, and old “Easterns”. I just made that up. Kind of like our old western movies. Samurai’s and Showguns instead of Gunsmoke and Bonanza.
- Google maps is awesome.
- I see a lot of German cars.
- There are no potholes. All of the infrastructure seems to be nearly new with little or no wear or tear.
Public area noise. The train stations play chirping bird sounds constantly. Not sure why. The mall plays horrible “music” way louder than necessary.
When dealing with any person at a counter use both hands to hand them anything. They will do the same. When your business is concluded stand up strait and square to them, then bow. Casual observation: this may be more formal with men than with women. We were in the last car on a short train ride and the conductor marched stiffly up the car, turned around, stood at attention, bowed, and then marched back to his spot.
Day 3.
Yesterday it took us several hours to find our air bnb. Google said it would take about 55 minutes. It was a fun trip anyway. The train \ subway system is very complicated but we are learning what kind of signs and color codes to look for. Also, people are very interested in helping us. We have noticed that we get discreet glances. Cuz we are exotic! Just kidding. We do stick out though.
Our air bnb is quite comfortable, and I could get used to the heated toilet seats. Still not sure about the robo wash features. The unit features no art at all. The walls are painted white. Actually the architecture here is disappointing. There is no concept of fenestration.
After dropping off our stuff we headed off to the electronic shopping district. AKA “dindin”. This is world class shopping. Neither New York, Paris, London, or LA have anything like this. This is a must see.
More observations:
1. Samsung products do not seem to be available here. Too much history.
2. There is a conspicuous absence of donuts here.
4. Smiling is forbidden. Everywhere. No exceptions.
5. It takes ten words to say something in Japanese when three American words will do. Watch this Bill Murray clip.
6. Streets have no names.
7. Osaka has a population of about 15 times that of Denver.
8. Food here is always exciting but a lot of this stuff is too wierd, even for me. After the octopus balls that I had to gag down I lost some of my spirit of adventure. Portions are huge.
Today we found a massive shopping area off the beaten path. The signs were in English, but no one spoke it. Ordering lunch was done by pointing at something on the menu with our fingers crossed. It was delicious.
A total stranger wanted to take a selfie with us. We said ok, but I am still suspicious that she wanted to scam us somehow.
Tired of looking like an aging hippy I decided to get a haircut, and what a haircut it was. After sitting down they handed me an oval metal cup with fur lining and gestured that I do something with it. I was clueless. They gestured some more so I started feeling the fur trying to figure out what to do and then they took it away from me. Then came just a normal haircut followed by a beautiful young lady that gave me a shampoo, head neck and shoulder massage, shave, and a hot towel facial treatment. This is not what I was expecting. All for about $19.
Day 4.
Yesterday we made our way up to Kyoto. It is only 26 miles but took hours. Kyoto is a whole different animal. Those incredibly beautiful women are gone. This is a different race. Like Cherokee VS Hopi. Flannel and cotton has replaced business suites and high heels. The city itself is even dumpier. The difference is astounding.
Saki, by the way, is a blend of turpentine and camel urine. My lackadaisical method of pointing at something on the menu and hoping for the best has failed me two times in a row (see photo below), so last night we sprung for some comfort food. Pizza and pasta.
When it comes to religion Kyoto is to Japan what Rome is to Italy, and today we went to the Vatican. There are hundreds of temples around Kyoto. I wasn’t terribly excited to see any of them but they are worth the effort because of their size and method of construction. These surprisingly large wood structures are held together by tennons, wedges, and dowels. At the top of some of the columns there is sometimes a cast iron ring, the rest is wood. The curved and complicated cantilevered roofs are something DaVinci would have been proud of.
Many local women, and a few men, rent kimonos from adjacent shops to wear while they visit the temples. They look uncomfortable and hot as hell. Think Geisha when picturing Kyoto kimonos, and fancy bathrobes when in Okosa. The differences are striking for only 26 miles of separation.
We went for a short hike in the rainforest and it rivals anything I have ever seen, including Costa Rica. Had dinner in the Geisha district followed by drinks in a bar with a bunch of foreigners (not Japanese). A seriously beautiful crowd about half our age.
Day 5.
More temples and gardens, bla, bla, bla… Saw a number of Geisha’s and one with the white face and the whole getup. She sticks out more than we do.
A lot of places post signs saying “we speak English”, but they don’t. They have memorized a bunch of words but can’t even come close to forming a sentence, and the meaning of many words is only close. Eg: a small portion is described as “compact”. But we get by mostly because they are so kind and helpful. We were standing around looking lost and a gentleman led us to our train platform because he was unable to give us verbal directions. Stuff like this happens all the time.
Once I was looking for a donut and tried to walk into a bakery that was closed. The girl working there apologized profusely and then came back outside again and gave us each a free cookie with even more apologies. Truly nice people.
Getting around is becoming tiring because of the complexity of the system that services this many people, and the language issue. Nothing is ever simple. We think we have it figured out and then bam! There goes an hour or so plus a healthy dose of frustration.
Tomorrow we are off to a small town near the shore with great views of Mount Fuji, or so they say.
Day 5&6
We took the shinkansen, AKA the bullet train, North to a town called Odawara and spent the time just sightseeing. There is a castle here where the battle was fought that finally united Japan in about 1600. I am still amused by the people (adults) that rent costumes, in this case Samurai costumes, and take the tour. See photo below (aren’t they cute).
We both had several meals in Kyoto that were not quite edible and we spent the last two days or so looking for “Americanized” restaurants to eat at. There are none and we driving ourselves crazy, so we gave each other a pep talk and decided to go big! Never again. I can now scratch sashimi off of my bucket list.
Japan is literally surrounded on all sides by beaches, but they are empty. No sunbathing. No surfing. No swimming. No bikinis. Just the occasional fisherman. Just not what they do.
Mount Fuji is truly astounding, by the way.
Day 7,8 &9.
We are now in a resort area called Hakone. Think Vail or the Grand Valley. Small towns with big hotels and second homes. We have a very luxurious Airbnb, at a luxurious price, that is a bit off the beaten path up in the rainforest. His & her kimonos are included for when we go out to dinner. It takes a lot of work to get into one of these. Our host (male) was far too interested in helping me get in to my kimono. We did a photo shoot, but did not wear them them out as our host suggested.
No one ever told me about the natural beauty of Japan. Truly spectacular! We have a local three day transportation pass good for trains, busses, funiculars, boats, and aerial trams (gondola). The highlight of exploring the area is when the gondola flew us right over an active caldera with a great view of Mt. Fuji. I need to find another adjective besides spectacular.
Day 10 thru 14.
Off to Tokyo. These bullet trains are unbelievably fast. I saw about six of them go by and they are gone before you can get your camera turned on. Finding an airbnb was proving difficult so we checked into a hotel. Our room is expensive and little more than a master closet but it works. We have a great view out our 14th. fl. window. A little choreography is required to move around and the bed is less than roomy, but it works.
Everything bad I said about the architecture in Osaka – Tokyo makes up for, and them some. This is the most amazing modern architecture I have ever seen. Not just tall, but massive as well. They are blocks and blocks long and as tall as anything I have ever seen. One building under construction near the fish market had 17 tower cranes plus a slew of hydro cranes littering the perimeter. How they handle expansion joints and such I can’t even imagine. They make great use of pre-cast with color patterns, glass, and reveal lines. Where we are staying, Asakusa, the buildings max out in the 20 stories range interspersed with single family residential houses.
Back to the fish market: watching a tuna getting getting cut up is really quite a show. They start with a sword about three feet long and work down to smaller knives as they go. Each step of the way they stop and show the crowd the flesh, pointing out different features and fat content. The next booth advertised “squid guts”. Yum!
Transportation here is expensive. The two week rail pass was about $450 each and is only good on the JR trains, so cross country plus a loup around Tokyo. All of the local trains and subways are private and generally cost between $4 and $7 per ride. The problem is that sometimes it takes several trains to get to your intended destination so we try to ride the JR loup with our passes even though it may take longer, plus it saves us the hassle of multiple transfers. There are a bunch of transfer stations, but two of them are massive. These two each facilitate around two million transfers every day. On the street level the adjacent intersections has around two or three thousand pedestrians cross the street every time the light changes. We crossed a couple of times just for fun.
The mass transit works so well that there is almost no street traffic. I really expected to see a lot of mopeds, and there are some, plus some Kamikaze bicycles. Old school bicycles with a basket on the front, or more likely child seats, that share the sidewalks. It gets kinda crazy at times. The mopeds are about evenly divided between Chinese crap and Honda Cubs, which are coming back to the USA with 125cc, ABS, and fuel injection. Can’t wait!
There are a few taxis, some delivery trucks, and a few tourists on gocarts on the streets, but there is NO congestion.
Some more random observations:
- I have not seen many tourists from the USA, or from any other nations either, although it is difficult to tell. Nothing like London or Rome. Not even close. Outside of the obvious tourist areas we are occasionally the objects of curiosity. As is our custom we found an Irish bar for some fish & chips and a Guiness. We had a nice chat with the owner who immigrated here from Tipperary 28 years ago and he told us Japan has changed a lot since then in that they are no longer terrified of outsiders. He also credits the low crime rate on the lack of drugs.
- Safety is a big deal here. Even the smallest construction site has a full time safety manager. I watched two guys working on a door in a mall. They had a safety guy flagging pedestrians clear of their ladder and toolbox. Another job on a sidewalk curb had two flaggers keeping pedestrians clear of the temporary fence around the immaculately tidy job site. Buildings that have deliveries where a vehicle drives over a sidewalk have a flagger. After the vehicle is clear the flagger bowes deeply until all of the affected traffic has passed. This is a very different culture.
- Food in general is not ever familiar. Remember the afore mentioned squid guts? Kitkat bars come several flavors. Tea, strawberry, raspberry, etc… We got all excited for an “American breakfast” at the Hard Rock Cafe. Very disappointing, to say the least, but it was kinda fun watching the locals eat without chopsticks. One gal stabbed her English muffin with a fork and proceeded to gnaw off pieces of it. I can only imagine what they think watching me trying to eat.
- Tokyo is again a different tribe (I think) and has a bit more diversity.
- Cleanliness is mandatory. The streets, restaurants, storefronts, bathrooms, everything is clean and well maintained. It must cost a fortune to maintain an entire nation this way. Even the homeless keep their stuff neat and tidy.
- Quality is a step or three ahead of the USA. Door hardware is much higher quality than our Schlage or Kwikset. The craftsmanship is better as well. Doors latch easily and the reveals are perfect. The wall fabric is very high quality, if not a little bland, and the seams are almost impossible to spot. The base and other trim is fit nicely. Japan is way ahead of us in the plumbing department.
- Everything works as it is supposed to. Apple rules, by the way, and Apple Pay is common. There is some android stuff but not much. The transit cards worked flawlessly.
- Now comes my only criticism of Japan, except for the food of course. Pedestrians lolligag and dawdle. The shops and sidewalks are crowded and it seems to take forever to get anywhere. Then, the old lady in front of you that you can’t get around suddenly whips out her smartphone and stops to read her emails. The six million or so people bottle necked behind her just lolligag out into the street and keep dawdling along.
- Sorry, one more thing to complain about. The music. The malls play kitchey show tunes from the 1940’s that get stuck in your head for hours. Even worse than the malls are the restaurants with that horrible jazz fusion. As if the food wasn’t bad enough.
I had a great time and have learned to truly respect and admire the Japanese for their work ethics, kindness, cleanliness, and their many other attributes. I would not hesitate to visit again or recommend Japan to anyone contemplating a visit. Next time I hope to spend more time in the small towns and less in the big cities.
For more photos and Alicia’s version of the trip go here:
Travel With A Curmudgeon 