We're all packed and ready to go to Japan! Traveling light so we can take everything on the trains with us.
Linda's Cousin Tom drove us to the Airport.
Our very own 747 ... well, us and some 400 other people...
We flew JAL for the first time and can report that it's excellent, even in economy class.
We flew JAL for the first time and can report that it's excellent, even in economy class.
About 11 hours later, we landed at Narita, waited in a long line at immigration, and found our first vending machine.
We took the Narita Express train through Tokyo ( about an hour ) and past Yokohama to the end of the line at Ofuna ( about another hour ). Narita is a long way north of the Tokyo megopolis, even on a fast train.
We met my aunt Yuuko at the train station. She claimed we were easy to recognize because I'm so tall, but I have noticed that the younger generation of Japanese is not that much shorter than I. She guided us onto a local train and eventually we were met by my uncle Masuo with a car at the station. This is the room we stayed in at Yuuko and Masuo's place. The cupboard in the back holds a small Buddhist altar.
The obligatory picture in front of Yuuko and Masuo's house. I think we take this picture each time I visit Japan.
My aunt and uncle live very close to Kamakura, so my aunt took us sightseeing. This is the Daibutsu at Kamakura.
These are apparently his shoes.
You can pay an extra 10 yen an go inside the Buddha. The stairs to the top had been closed, though.
Our next stop was Hasedera temple, also in Kamakura. We saw several wooden buddha statues there, as well as a nice view of the bay below and some neat butterflies.
Ice cream vending machine at the train station. This one had the ice cream filled waffles.
These are the sort of coin lockers that we used at the train stations to store our luggage temporarily. We had to use a larger size because even our small carry-on bags were just a little too large to fit in the standard size. 500 Yen a day will get you a nice big one.
We visited Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura. It's a huge Shinto shrine complex.
There were lots of sake kegs.
and a very old Gingko tree. When gingkos get very very old, they start to grow what I can only describe as stalactites which flow down from their limbs and trunk towards the ground.
After lunch at a soba restaurant, we went to Enoshima, and began a hike around the island. It was hot and very humid here. There's a path around the island that passes various shrines and street food vendors.
We visited some sea caves on one end of the island that have had special significance since ancient times.
They had old pictures of the treacherous path that used to be used to access the caves, but luckily for us, a new bridge had been built.
We also visited a shrine to the dragon that's supposed to protect this island.
Aunt Yuuko accompanied us to the train station ( pictured here ), and from there all the way to the hotel that my cousin had reserved for us in Yokohama.
The <a href="http://yokohama.panpacific.com/">Pan Pacific</a> hotel was in all ways excellent, and our room had a fantastic view of the Yokohama Bay Bridge.
We also had a great view of one of the largest ferris wheels in the world - Cosmo Clock 21.
One of our many encounters with Advanced Japanese Toilet Technology. These things were in every single hotel room we had, and in every home we visited.
The hotel is in a cavernous mall (Minato Mirai 21) that also includes a Snoopy Store!
That night, we visited the Yokohama Curry Museum. There's basically no English spoken there, and it's upstairs in a pachinko parlor, but you can get a variety of good curries. They also have displays about the history of curry in Japan.
The next day we headed for Tokyo and Akihabara to see a little Japanese pop culture and technology. Apparently Evangelion is still pretty big.
You don't want to know about that store on the 5th floor. Really.
In Japan nearly everybody has a cell phone, and they do a lot more messaging and e-mailing than actual talking. My aunt gets her e-mail on her cell. Cell phone etiquette is pretty good - there's no talking on the cell phone on the train, for instance.
The obligatory picture of me and the Japanese MacDonalds. They have a shrimp burger here.
I did not try this goo cup.
Neither did we try the Denny's, which is claimed to be "Natural and Healthy"
Akihabara started out as a market for electronics components, and there are still plenty of stores selling test equipment.
Although this store carried modern equipment, they also had a very nice display of some older pieces.
This store specializes in wire.
After our visit to Akihabara, we tried to find a restaurant owned by Rokusaburo Michiba - the famous Iron Chef Japanese. We went in the wrong direction and found the Tokyo Tower instead, after walking for about 45 minutes. Navigation is difficult in a place where most of the streets have no name, and the building addresses are assigned chronologically rather than spatially.
We eventually found ourselves, and got to the restaurant. Despite what I can only describe as a situation which taxed my Japanese language skills, we got some nice food.
After we had ordered, one of the managers who knew a little English stopped by and told us in detail what we were being served.
That night we checked into the Tokyo Palace hotel, directly across from the Imperial Palace. This is the view from our room.
The palace hotel is a little dated, and seems to cater to the English speaking crowd. The most fluent non-native-speaker English I have heard in Japan was spoken here.
That evening, we went to a nearby underground shopping mall. I can't help but wonder what the fascination with Orange Road is here...
There was a curry restaurant where you buy food tickets from a vending machine and then turn in the tickets at the counter to get your food.
After some shopping, we took the Yamanote line to Shibuya crossing - probably one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the world.
There's a famous statue of a loyal dog here. The story is that the dog used to accompany its owner to the station when he went to work in the morning, and then wait for him in the evening when he returned. Apparently, one day the owner died, and the dog just stayed at the station waiting for its owner for years and years.
A statue was erected here to honor the dog's loyalty, and now it's a popular place to meet before a night on the town. It was not difficult to find Hachiko - there's even an exit named after the dog.
We had to get up early to catch the shinkansen ( bullet train ) to Nagaoka. We walked by the Imperial palace on the way to Tokyo station.
There's a lot less smoking in Japan these days - in Tokyo smoking on the sidewalk was even banned in many places.
There are restaurants and shops in the real estate below the train tracks - it must be noisy, but I imagine the rent is cheap. Usually these are louder places like bars and yakitori joints. There are also taxi lots below the tracks in the Ginza district.
We found our train to Nagaoka without a lot of difficulty. Determining which line to stand in and which entrance to take was a bit harder, though. We had to ask a conductor where to wait because we could not read the markings on the platform.
We bought a special Joetsu bento box for breakfast. Everything was pre-packaged and perfectly arranged below about 4 layers of plastic and styrofoam.
My aunt Mise picked us up at the station with her sister, and we took a taxi back to Nakajyo after another soba lunch and a little shopping. We went on a walk that afternoon and visited a Shinto shrine in Wakinomachi, across the river from the house where my mother grew up.
Little did we know that we were in for rainy weather that afternoon - we left our umbrella at home. We hid below some bicycle parking structures at a local school next to a buddhist temple and waited for the deluge to pass.
The family tombs are just beside the old farmhouse. They were moved recently due to construction on the river that's behind the house. The river used to flood underneath the house on a regular basis, so the containing of the river is probably a good thing.
Aunt Mise ordered out for a very fancy meal from a local restaurant.
Linda and I wore yukata ( a kind of light and simple summer kimono ) which aunt Yuuko had given us in Yokohama. In the back are my aunt Mise and cousin Marie.
The old farmhouse still has a lot of damage from the earthquake last year. One wing remains uninhabitable.
The next morning it was still raining lightly, but we took a short walk around the property.
They grow taro, radish, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, and soy beans, as well as fields of beautiful rice.
The rice fields in Japan go right up to the roads and walkways. We were there in the middle of harvest time, so some fields had already been cut.
We even saw harvesting machines working in the fields while it was not raining. The rice plants were heavy with seed.
We said goodby to Mise and her family that morning, and hopped in a cab back to Nagaoka station.
In contrast to the controlled chaos of Tokyo station, Nagaoka is more rural and can be quiet at times. Big crowds still follow each train, but it calms down a lot between the arrivals.
On the recommendation of my cousin, we took the express train to Kanazawa and then to Kyoto rather than taking the bullet train again. It was a good recommendation, as we were able to see many strange and unidentifiable sights.
We spent a good part of the journey along the sea of Japan - much more interesting that being in a dark tunnel in the bullet train.
We stopped for a little over an hour in Kanazawa to change trains. They have a big, fancy station and are a popular tourist destination when it's not raining.
The station has a digital sign that's made from little fountains of water - it wouldn't be all that impressive, except that the message changes regularly.
Unfortunately, our visit was plagued by rain. At least we brought our umbrella this time. After getting semi-lost again, we stopped by the local fish market, bought a couple of croquettes, and were on our way.
Arashiyama, just outside Kyoto. We walked from the train station to our ryokan - a traditional Japanese hotel called Togetsutei. It was labeled only in Japanese, and a similar level of non-english was to be found inside.
Here they serve you tea, dinner and breakfast in your room. They also have large communal baths.
The dinner was kaiseki style, and probably was the bulk of the cost of the room.
Everything was elaborately presented and delicious. We ate whole ayu, a kind of river fish.
They did not speak much English at all here, but we were able to get by just fine. Maybe my Japanese was improving?
Presentation seems to be everything.
They Ryokan provides two sets of Yukata, for the full effect. These robes are worn around the hotel and baths.
Set #1 got changed to 3x-large size for me when the attendant saw how a large size fit.
Set #2 never got the new size.
Our breakfast was not as elaborate as the dinner, but it was still made of many little dishes and included a tofu hot pot.
We left our luggage at the hotel and walked around exploring the area.
They have cormorant fishing in the evenings here, weather permitting.
We walked through a famous bamboo forest.
And up to the top of the hill, to Nembutsudera. There are thousands of little stone buddhas here, which we later found out we were not supposed to photograph. Oops.
There's also this fountain thing where you can pour water over the heads of some figures. We do not know what it's for, but it must be good luck... Maybe this will make up for taking those forbidden photos of the little buddhas?
The area around Kyoto has a lot of very old style architecture, like this thatch-roof farmhouse.
The city of Kyoto itself is a mixture of both old and new. This is the view from our room at the Hotel Granvia Kyoto in the JR Kyoto train Station.
We visited the Fushimi Inari shrine in the afternoon. You've probably seen pictures of its many Torii ( gates ).
There are also statues of foxes here.
The gates run along a path that must go a least a couple miles up the side of the mountain.
It's a bit overwhelming, and we only went a little way up.
It's a bit overwhelming, and we only went a little way up.
We next visited Nanzenji temple, and briefly toured the treasure hall with its rock gardens.
We also walked a bit of the Philosophers Path ( when we finally found it ).
We ended up at the Heian Jingu, which is a big modern Shrine closer to the center of town. It has a huge gate in the park in front of it.
The courtyard in front of the shrine rivals some of the spaces we saw in the forbidden city in Beijing.
