hey all, i am safely situated in tokyo and having a good time. i do not have regular email access, so i am discontinuing the blog until i come home on the 2nd and then i will do some sort of wrap up.
sleep time for nuri. happy new year, people. good night!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
hiroshima and hakone
Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday -- the keyboard was really weird and japenese-oriented, making it hard to type. This one is too, to a lesser extent, but Im really not going to worry about correct punctuation for that reason. Also, i only have 10 minutes to write this, so i will be speedy.
Hiroshima was really interesting. I did not get terribly emotional about the A-bomb stuff, more thoughtful. And a little emotional. By dropping that bomb the US leveled a whole city with the exception of like 3 buildings, and the people who didn:t die instantly died agonizing deaths over the next months and years (not everyone died, but the ones that did). The museums did a great job of somehow not being melodramatic about this. For example, it presented some of the whole complex situation that made sucha horrible event happen. Like, 6 years previous, when the Japanese captured Nanking, the people of Hiroshima danced in the streets when they heard the news. Meanwhile, of course, the Chinese were being slaughtered. Lots of bad, bad stuff was happening at that time.
A couple of things I didn:t know before though about the US: the exhibit suggests that one of the factors behind the decision of the US to use the bomb was how expensive and labor-intensive the Manhattan Project was, and produces a memo from some agency person to the President basically saying look, if we dont use this thing weve been using all this manpower on, people are going to ask questions. Also, accompanying the Enola Gay were a couple of other planes -- one to measure stuff about the weather and atmosphere immediately after the attack, and another to take photos. In fact, the people of Hiroshima could see weather measurement devices parachuting down just moments before the bomb went off. Air raids of Hiroshima were prohibited by the US before the A-bomb was droped once that was selected as a potential target -- basically, in addition to serving a military purpose, the US wanted this to be as close as possible to a controlled experiment of what happens when you drop this thing on a city. That is probably the right way to do it if you are going to do it, but still, creepy.
I am running out of time, so Im going to fast forward -- Hiroshima at night is really cool. The entertainment district is packed with stuff to do (i finally dragged myself out of my room at night). i briefly considered going into some restaurant where the waitresses dress and act like maids (hi erika! hi mom!), because i wanted to do something weirdly japanese and had heard that was a thing. But then I saw the waitresses outside and they looked so young-looking, as in holding teddy bears as part of the shtick young-looking. So I just had a beer and some cow-third-stomach and ran home.
Hakone, where I am now, is the biggest bust of the trip so far. Their big thing is you get to ride all these different types of transportation around, but some of them are bad. Im mainly bitter because the place im staying at is expensive and still nobody there speaks english, which is pretty annoying. but i just came from the onsen (natural hot springs), which feels pretty great, so Im doing better.
Tomorrow: tokyo. and meeting up with friends... hopefully.
More from tokyo!
Hiroshima was really interesting. I did not get terribly emotional about the A-bomb stuff, more thoughtful. And a little emotional. By dropping that bomb the US leveled a whole city with the exception of like 3 buildings, and the people who didn:t die instantly died agonizing deaths over the next months and years (not everyone died, but the ones that did). The museums did a great job of somehow not being melodramatic about this. For example, it presented some of the whole complex situation that made sucha horrible event happen. Like, 6 years previous, when the Japanese captured Nanking, the people of Hiroshima danced in the streets when they heard the news. Meanwhile, of course, the Chinese were being slaughtered. Lots of bad, bad stuff was happening at that time.
A couple of things I didn:t know before though about the US: the exhibit suggests that one of the factors behind the decision of the US to use the bomb was how expensive and labor-intensive the Manhattan Project was, and produces a memo from some agency person to the President basically saying look, if we dont use this thing weve been using all this manpower on, people are going to ask questions. Also, accompanying the Enola Gay were a couple of other planes -- one to measure stuff about the weather and atmosphere immediately after the attack, and another to take photos. In fact, the people of Hiroshima could see weather measurement devices parachuting down just moments before the bomb went off. Air raids of Hiroshima were prohibited by the US before the A-bomb was droped once that was selected as a potential target -- basically, in addition to serving a military purpose, the US wanted this to be as close as possible to a controlled experiment of what happens when you drop this thing on a city. That is probably the right way to do it if you are going to do it, but still, creepy.
I am running out of time, so Im going to fast forward -- Hiroshima at night is really cool. The entertainment district is packed with stuff to do (i finally dragged myself out of my room at night). i briefly considered going into some restaurant where the waitresses dress and act like maids (hi erika! hi mom!), because i wanted to do something weirdly japanese and had heard that was a thing. But then I saw the waitresses outside and they looked so young-looking, as in holding teddy bears as part of the shtick young-looking. So I just had a beer and some cow-third-stomach and ran home.
Hakone, where I am now, is the biggest bust of the trip so far. Their big thing is you get to ride all these different types of transportation around, but some of them are bad. Im mainly bitter because the place im staying at is expensive and still nobody there speaks english, which is pretty annoying. but i just came from the onsen (natural hot springs), which feels pretty great, so Im doing better.
Tomorrow: tokyo. and meeting up with friends... hopefully.
More from tokyo!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
MONKEYS
What up. So last night I did go out, briefly, to Gion, which is Kyoto's red light district. It was disappointingly creepy rather than busy, probably because I got there at like 9:30 and left at 10. Christmas Eve is supposed to be their big night out, like New Year's Eve for us, too -- I guess I missed it. Also, the guy working at my hostel said it was news that all over Japan Christmas Eve was pretty quiet -- probably because of the recession. So maybe New York will be a little calmer than usual in a week. We'll see.
Today I forewent (foregoed?) all these fancy temples in favor of the Arashiyama Monkey House. What a great decision. When I was approaching the ticket counter and saw that I would be entering with an entire class of Japanese schoolchildren (little ones), I knew I had to do this. I can honestly say that it was the best 550 yen I have ever spent.
So at first, I'm walking up this steep hill with these kids, and all of a sudden I look down to my left and -- holy crap, it's a monkey! Not in cage or anything, just on this hill, doing its monkey thing. It couldn't have been more than 6 feet away, and then it just leisurely strolled up the hill on all fours. I was dumbstruck. Walking up a little further, I saw -- holy crap, 2 monkeys in a tree! And then -- oh my god, another tree full of monkeys! Then, climbing higher -- jesus christ, 5 monkeys sitting in a row on 5 adjacent posts! This was nothing compared to the clearing at the top of the hill: it was filled with literally dozens of monkeys. No cages, no fences. Just hanging out. It was awesome.
Like the deer of Nara, these things are fed by people, so they hang around people and are otherwise pretty lazy about their lives. While the deer were annoying though, monkeys are so great that it didn't really get to that point for me. There was a baby monkey kind of practicing walking on 2 legs who kept falling into a puddle. There were monkeys that kept fighting and screeching. There were -- these were my favorite -- exhibitionist monkeys. Here's how those guys worked: first, the lady monkey runs aggressively up to a group of 4 terrified Japanese girl-teenagers, then stops abruptly. Is she attacking them? Then a guy monkey (though you can't tell them apart at first) runs up and kind of gets on top of her. Is he trying to make himself look bigger by standing on top of her? No, he is humping her, while both monkeys make eye contact with the 4 terrified Japanese girl-teenagers, 6 feet away. 3 thrusts and done, every time. The girls kept moving around, and the monkeys kept repeating this routine. It was hilarious.
Hanging out with those Japanese girls on Monkey Summit for a while left me with an extraordinary revelation. So when I got to the top, camera in tow, the girls saw me, the white guy with the camera, and teasingly said "Photo, photo," like they knew I was going to ask them for a photograph. Eventually, I did ask them to photograph me with the monkeys, after which they said, "Wan mo, wan mo" -- "One more," as they've no doubt heard dozens of white tourists say. So here's the revelation: IN JAPAN, WE ARE THE SILLY CAMERA-TOTING GAWKERS. I wanted so badly to share this revelation with them, than in my country things are the other way around, but alas, the language barrier got right in the way. Meh.
The highlight was this: a guy who works there at one point looked at me and said purposefully, "mon-key feeding time." He then stepped outside, and classical music started playing from loudspeakers as he starts throwing food to the monkeys. I have a video clip of me recording this while laughing uncontrollably. When I get back, this will the first and only video I ever post on Facebook. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, and whoever thought of classical music for that deserves every prize there is in the world.
A few other things to note:
Once you are separated from your group of children and the giggling teenagers and are alone with the monkeys, they suddenly become very scary to be around.
These monkeys clearly have very active social lives -- especially right after feeding time, they were constantly chasing each other, "talking," and humping each other (the best monkey-couple did a thing where the guy would spend 15 seconds grooming the girl, then 5 seconds humping her, then right back to the grooming, in a cycle like that, for as long as I was watching them). They looked like they were having a good time.
What else happened today?
I saw a bamboo grove that the guide book says is supposed to look like the one from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, though I honestly don't know how else a bamboo grove could look. It was so thick the sun barely got through though, which was cool.
I saw my first black person in Japan. A co-worker of mine said when he was in Japan on business a few years ago he would get followed around by fascinated Japanese kids, for whom he was the first black person they had ever seen in person. He convinced a bunch of kids on a subway that he was Michael Jordan. So at least he had fun with that. The black dude I saw did not have Japanese followers at that moment.
All that stuff was in Arashiyama, which I now recommend as a cool place.
On advice from my hostel guy, I decided to give Kobe a quick visit in the evening. Good call. That city is beautiful. They had a boardwalk with a ferris wheel and games etcetera that was just packed with more couples than I've ever seen in one place. It was a great whirlwind of young Japanese-ness. I'd estimate about half of all the girls have orange hair, and about 10% of the guys. It's not ostentatious, and actually looks quite good and classy, I was just surprised with how many of them do it.
Kobe also had a beautiful park a couple of blocks from the station, where the air smelled to me like it has only at my dad's kibbutz. I think it's a mix of trees, breeze, and clean concrete, which doesn't come up that often. Also, it appears lots of people stop to pray briefly at random shrines dotting the city just on their way home from work. I have to figure out more about what that's all about.
Finally, I decided to go to McDonald's by the train station at Kobe. Whatever. The other places I went in smelled weird and I was hungry for cheap food. Now, McDonald's is probably one of the most efficiently run enterprises in the U.S. -- you get fully prepared meals in under a minute. And Japan is probably one of the most efficient countries in the world. What happens when you combine the two? I got my McPork and Juicy Chicken sandwiches in literally under 10 seconds. Amazing. For the record, McPork was gross, but the Juicy Chicken had all these Asian-y spices and was terrific.
That's all for now -- maybe I will finally go out tonight after my shower (I smell not so good), but I probably will just read, go to sleep, and save that for Tokyo. Also, I want to have all my mental faculties at the ready for what could be an interesting day coming up. We'll see.
Hiroshima tomorrow.
Today I forewent (foregoed?) all these fancy temples in favor of the Arashiyama Monkey House. What a great decision. When I was approaching the ticket counter and saw that I would be entering with an entire class of Japanese schoolchildren (little ones), I knew I had to do this. I can honestly say that it was the best 550 yen I have ever spent.
So at first, I'm walking up this steep hill with these kids, and all of a sudden I look down to my left and -- holy crap, it's a monkey! Not in cage or anything, just on this hill, doing its monkey thing. It couldn't have been more than 6 feet away, and then it just leisurely strolled up the hill on all fours. I was dumbstruck. Walking up a little further, I saw -- holy crap, 2 monkeys in a tree! And then -- oh my god, another tree full of monkeys! Then, climbing higher -- jesus christ, 5 monkeys sitting in a row on 5 adjacent posts! This was nothing compared to the clearing at the top of the hill: it was filled with literally dozens of monkeys. No cages, no fences. Just hanging out. It was awesome.
Like the deer of Nara, these things are fed by people, so they hang around people and are otherwise pretty lazy about their lives. While the deer were annoying though, monkeys are so great that it didn't really get to that point for me. There was a baby monkey kind of practicing walking on 2 legs who kept falling into a puddle. There were monkeys that kept fighting and screeching. There were -- these were my favorite -- exhibitionist monkeys. Here's how those guys worked: first, the lady monkey runs aggressively up to a group of 4 terrified Japanese girl-teenagers, then stops abruptly. Is she attacking them? Then a guy monkey (though you can't tell them apart at first) runs up and kind of gets on top of her. Is he trying to make himself look bigger by standing on top of her? No, he is humping her, while both monkeys make eye contact with the 4 terrified Japanese girl-teenagers, 6 feet away. 3 thrusts and done, every time. The girls kept moving around, and the monkeys kept repeating this routine. It was hilarious.
Hanging out with those Japanese girls on Monkey Summit for a while left me with an extraordinary revelation. So when I got to the top, camera in tow, the girls saw me, the white guy with the camera, and teasingly said "Photo, photo," like they knew I was going to ask them for a photograph. Eventually, I did ask them to photograph me with the monkeys, after which they said, "Wan mo, wan mo" -- "One more," as they've no doubt heard dozens of white tourists say. So here's the revelation: IN JAPAN, WE ARE THE SILLY CAMERA-TOTING GAWKERS. I wanted so badly to share this revelation with them, than in my country things are the other way around, but alas, the language barrier got right in the way. Meh.
The highlight was this: a guy who works there at one point looked at me and said purposefully, "mon-key feeding time." He then stepped outside, and classical music started playing from loudspeakers as he starts throwing food to the monkeys. I have a video clip of me recording this while laughing uncontrollably. When I get back, this will the first and only video I ever post on Facebook. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen, and whoever thought of classical music for that deserves every prize there is in the world.
A few other things to note:
Once you are separated from your group of children and the giggling teenagers and are alone with the monkeys, they suddenly become very scary to be around.
These monkeys clearly have very active social lives -- especially right after feeding time, they were constantly chasing each other, "talking," and humping each other (the best monkey-couple did a thing where the guy would spend 15 seconds grooming the girl, then 5 seconds humping her, then right back to the grooming, in a cycle like that, for as long as I was watching them). They looked like they were having a good time.
What else happened today?
I saw a bamboo grove that the guide book says is supposed to look like the one from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, though I honestly don't know how else a bamboo grove could look. It was so thick the sun barely got through though, which was cool.
I saw my first black person in Japan. A co-worker of mine said when he was in Japan on business a few years ago he would get followed around by fascinated Japanese kids, for whom he was the first black person they had ever seen in person. He convinced a bunch of kids on a subway that he was Michael Jordan. So at least he had fun with that. The black dude I saw did not have Japanese followers at that moment.
All that stuff was in Arashiyama, which I now recommend as a cool place.
On advice from my hostel guy, I decided to give Kobe a quick visit in the evening. Good call. That city is beautiful. They had a boardwalk with a ferris wheel and games etcetera that was just packed with more couples than I've ever seen in one place. It was a great whirlwind of young Japanese-ness. I'd estimate about half of all the girls have orange hair, and about 10% of the guys. It's not ostentatious, and actually looks quite good and classy, I was just surprised with how many of them do it.
Kobe also had a beautiful park a couple of blocks from the station, where the air smelled to me like it has only at my dad's kibbutz. I think it's a mix of trees, breeze, and clean concrete, which doesn't come up that often. Also, it appears lots of people stop to pray briefly at random shrines dotting the city just on their way home from work. I have to figure out more about what that's all about.
Finally, I decided to go to McDonald's by the train station at Kobe. Whatever. The other places I went in smelled weird and I was hungry for cheap food. Now, McDonald's is probably one of the most efficiently run enterprises in the U.S. -- you get fully prepared meals in under a minute. And Japan is probably one of the most efficient countries in the world. What happens when you combine the two? I got my McPork and Juicy Chicken sandwiches in literally under 10 seconds. Amazing. For the record, McPork was gross, but the Juicy Chicken had all these Asian-y spices and was terrific.
That's all for now -- maybe I will finally go out tonight after my shower (I smell not so good), but I probably will just read, go to sleep, and save that for Tokyo. Also, I want to have all my mental faculties at the ready for what could be an interesting day coming up. We'll see.
Hiroshima tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
(daibatsu picture)
This is the Daibatsu. It's really big. Keep in mind a person standing up doesn't even reach the top of that tiny red fence.
Nara
So I may have jumped the gun on my "I beat jet-lag" celebration. Last night I crashed at 9 PM and then woke up at like 3:30 in the morning. Today I almost fell asleep on the train at like 6, but drank some coffee with Tommy Lee Jones's silhouette on it and I'm determined to make it to 11 PM tonight.
Today I went to Nara, the imperial capital before Kyoto. Nara is awesome. I was honestly bored with a lot of the Kyoto temples yeterday (and none seemed that different from the others), but did not have the same problem in Nara. They have this thing called the Daibatsu, a giant buddha. In order to go near this thing, as you walk through the park you pass through a gate. As I was walking through the gate, I had a sense that something scary was watching me. I looked to my right, and there was a 30-foot high (at least) guard that looked really lifelike and really angry and were made out of wood. Lonely Planet had said these (there was also one on the left) were perhaps the finest example of wood-carving in the world, which upon reading I thought would be the sculptural equivalent of being the best JV team in the world, but these things were awesome. I thought they could not be topped. They were topped by the Big Buddha.
This thing is like 50 meters high or something ridiculous like that. He's huge. It's one of those things that, by its sheer size, force you to contemplate the planning, work, and emotion that must have gone into its creation. He's supposed to represent the original Buddha before all the temporal Buddhas, and again, really big. He has some more giant guards in the temple that houses him. I was quite impressed, and spent I don't know how long, but probably close to half an hour just looking at him. Good stuff.
Oh, the other main thing about Nara is that there are deer everywhere, all over the park. The first deer I saw was outside of a shop, just hanging out by the door, like I would if I got to a store early and was waiting for it to open. Weird, and cute. Deer are an adorable-looking animal. By the end of the afternoon, I would hate them.
A thing you're supposed to do is buy some food and feed the deer. I had never hand-fed deer before, and thought that would be cool. The problem is that the deer know you're supposed to do it, and they get fed like that all the time, so they're real, real spoiled about the whole thing. A video clip I had some Japanese people take of me has me hand-feeding a group of deer, which looks adorable. The clip cuts off before the deer get a little out of hand as my stack of snacks gets short on supply. They really went for it, and one of them even gave me a gentle but firm head-butt. Really out of line. These lazy, obnoxious deer just follow people everywhere (especially if you have already fed them), bother them, don't do much else, and are annoying. When I was just chilling out on a bench later on in the afternoon, one got right up in my grill, and got really close to my camera, which I moved out of its way, my bag with my books in it, which I moved out of its way, and then it just started nibbling on the notebook I was writing in, like a total asshole. I had to get up and move. 2 life lessons I learned from these stupid, lazy, annoying animals:
1. If you constantly reward something just for being cute, that's all it will ever be capable of.
2. If you feed something for doing nothing and staying in one place, that's all it will ever do.
Deep? Maybe not. But those deer were annoying.
So what else was there? Oh, a thing I saw before I even got to the park, and made me speed up my activities for the day: Sega World. A really loud, flashing-light-y, video game arcade. They had an arcade version of Super Mario World. They had awesome games, like this Rambo shoot-em-up. They had silly games. At the end of the day, I knew I would come back, and I did. In the morning it was empty, but in the afternoon, packed with kids. And me. Here are the 2 highlights:
1. You know the arcade game called "1945," where you're a fighter airplane and you have to shoot down all these other planes and ships? I played it in Japan. Did I mention the game is called "1945," and you shoot down planes and ships? It was in English, so I'm pretty sure I was on the Allied side, but there's no way of knowing for sure.
2. There was this game in the Dance Dance Revolution mold, except instead of dancing on a foot-pad you bang a drum to a beat. I watched other people play it, and watched as they skipped right past the Mario theme. This was literally the only song on their whole playlist I could recognize because I'm not familiar with J-pop. Obviously, I had to play the game just to play that level. I did, and it was great. Really good stuff. It made me happy. They also had posters of Sonic characters saying slogans that sound silly in English. Hopefully my photos of them came out well.
They have a lot of Pachinko parlors here in Japan. It's really depressing. I stepped in one to see what it was like, and it sounded like I was right behind a jumbo jet engine, or, alternately, like death. Also, the standard slot machine noises. I don't know why people play that crap. They just put in money, and then watch these little pinballs fall into slots in a pattern they have no control over. You don't DO anything, and you have to know that if you play that thing a lot, you're going to lose money in the long-term, period. Sadness.
Also, I finally found some warped versions of American culture. One restaurant pub had a kind of drawn portrait of an African American, and enticed you into the pub with the promise of "Black music and bourbon." There was also like an America Lifestyle store, which featured in their window display a "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker and a "Jesus Saves" bumper sticker. They pretty much have our number. Their hip-hop dress store was also kind of funny, especially the trendy hat that just said "FUCKERS" on it.
A lot of the couples I see in these touristy places I'm going are white-guy-Asian (presumably Japanese)-girl, with occasionally the reverse. No follow-up here, just saying.
Sorry this is so scattered, my brain is kind of bad right now from a weird sleep cycle and not really having conversations in English. OK, let's see if I can actually make it out tonight. Yeah!
Today I went to Nara, the imperial capital before Kyoto. Nara is awesome. I was honestly bored with a lot of the Kyoto temples yeterday (and none seemed that different from the others), but did not have the same problem in Nara. They have this thing called the Daibatsu, a giant buddha. In order to go near this thing, as you walk through the park you pass through a gate. As I was walking through the gate, I had a sense that something scary was watching me. I looked to my right, and there was a 30-foot high (at least) guard that looked really lifelike and really angry and were made out of wood. Lonely Planet had said these (there was also one on the left) were perhaps the finest example of wood-carving in the world, which upon reading I thought would be the sculptural equivalent of being the best JV team in the world, but these things were awesome. I thought they could not be topped. They were topped by the Big Buddha.
This thing is like 50 meters high or something ridiculous like that. He's huge. It's one of those things that, by its sheer size, force you to contemplate the planning, work, and emotion that must have gone into its creation. He's supposed to represent the original Buddha before all the temporal Buddhas, and again, really big. He has some more giant guards in the temple that houses him. I was quite impressed, and spent I don't know how long, but probably close to half an hour just looking at him. Good stuff.
Oh, the other main thing about Nara is that there are deer everywhere, all over the park. The first deer I saw was outside of a shop, just hanging out by the door, like I would if I got to a store early and was waiting for it to open. Weird, and cute. Deer are an adorable-looking animal. By the end of the afternoon, I would hate them.
A thing you're supposed to do is buy some food and feed the deer. I had never hand-fed deer before, and thought that would be cool. The problem is that the deer know you're supposed to do it, and they get fed like that all the time, so they're real, real spoiled about the whole thing. A video clip I had some Japanese people take of me has me hand-feeding a group of deer, which looks adorable. The clip cuts off before the deer get a little out of hand as my stack of snacks gets short on supply. They really went for it, and one of them even gave me a gentle but firm head-butt. Really out of line. These lazy, obnoxious deer just follow people everywhere (especially if you have already fed them), bother them, don't do much else, and are annoying. When I was just chilling out on a bench later on in the afternoon, one got right up in my grill, and got really close to my camera, which I moved out of its way, my bag with my books in it, which I moved out of its way, and then it just started nibbling on the notebook I was writing in, like a total asshole. I had to get up and move. 2 life lessons I learned from these stupid, lazy, annoying animals:
1. If you constantly reward something just for being cute, that's all it will ever be capable of.
2. If you feed something for doing nothing and staying in one place, that's all it will ever do.
Deep? Maybe not. But those deer were annoying.
So what else was there? Oh, a thing I saw before I even got to the park, and made me speed up my activities for the day: Sega World. A really loud, flashing-light-y, video game arcade. They had an arcade version of Super Mario World. They had awesome games, like this Rambo shoot-em-up. They had silly games. At the end of the day, I knew I would come back, and I did. In the morning it was empty, but in the afternoon, packed with kids. And me. Here are the 2 highlights:
1. You know the arcade game called "1945," where you're a fighter airplane and you have to shoot down all these other planes and ships? I played it in Japan. Did I mention the game is called "1945," and you shoot down planes and ships? It was in English, so I'm pretty sure I was on the Allied side, but there's no way of knowing for sure.
2. There was this game in the Dance Dance Revolution mold, except instead of dancing on a foot-pad you bang a drum to a beat. I watched other people play it, and watched as they skipped right past the Mario theme. This was literally the only song on their whole playlist I could recognize because I'm not familiar with J-pop. Obviously, I had to play the game just to play that level. I did, and it was great. Really good stuff. It made me happy. They also had posters of Sonic characters saying slogans that sound silly in English. Hopefully my photos of them came out well.
They have a lot of Pachinko parlors here in Japan. It's really depressing. I stepped in one to see what it was like, and it sounded like I was right behind a jumbo jet engine, or, alternately, like death. Also, the standard slot machine noises. I don't know why people play that crap. They just put in money, and then watch these little pinballs fall into slots in a pattern they have no control over. You don't DO anything, and you have to know that if you play that thing a lot, you're going to lose money in the long-term, period. Sadness.
Also, I finally found some warped versions of American culture. One restaurant pub had a kind of drawn portrait of an African American, and enticed you into the pub with the promise of "Black music and bourbon." There was also like an America Lifestyle store, which featured in their window display a "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker and a "Jesus Saves" bumper sticker. They pretty much have our number. Their hip-hop dress store was also kind of funny, especially the trendy hat that just said "FUCKERS" on it.
A lot of the couples I see in these touristy places I'm going are white-guy-Asian (presumably Japanese)-girl, with occasionally the reverse. No follow-up here, just saying.
Sorry this is so scattered, my brain is kind of bad right now from a weird sleep cycle and not really having conversations in English. OK, let's see if I can actually make it out tonight. Yeah!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Japan for real
So I arrived safely last night to Kyoto after about 24 hours of travel, door to door. The flight was delightful, except for the landing -- there was some storm around Tokyo, and the landing was therefore flight-attendants-giving-each-other-looks rough. I almost ralphed, but didn't.
Upon my arrival at the airport, the first bathroom I used was completely normal, all the electronic displays were nothing special, and the first girl that laughed did so wihout her hand covering her mouth. 'What's going on?' I thought. Within minutes of me asking myself that question, I had seen monitors display information next to a delightful anime cartoon character, a girl giggle with her hand over her mouth, and had used a toilet with all sorts of complicated gadgets, including a heated seat. It feels better than you can possibly imagine.
So now that I've been here a day, I can already dispel or confirm some myths. Here we go:
1. People wear surgeon masks over their mouths when they're just walking around.
True. The weird thing is this seems to happen across all types of people. Young businessmen, old businessmen, women, young girls, everybody. Someone explained to me that people wear them "to lower the humidity in their breathing when the humidity is too high, make it damp and increase the humidity when the humidity is too low, when they're sick so they don't get other people sick, and when they're not sick so they don't get sick." So, for no reason.
2. People bow
True. Not constantly, but just stare into a crowd for 5 minutes and you'll see someone do it at least once. Seems to be for goodbyes.
3. Bill Murray is the official spokesperson for Santory.
False. Santory is a real brand, and they have vending machines on the street for their drinks, but their spokesperson is Tommy Lee Jones. I'm completely serious. Pretty much every other block there's a drink vending machine with Tommy Lee Jones's face on it. I laugh almost every time. Also, the sub-brand is called "Boss" (I think it's coffee), and their slogan in English is "Boss has been the boss of them all since 1992.
4. Heated toilets, cartoon spokespeople for lots of stuff.
True, as addressed above.
5. Geishas
They exist, I spotted one. Apparently they are not prostitutes, just really sophisticated women that rich guys pay up to $500/hour to just sort of hang out with and talk to. I don't understand.
6. People wear kimonos sometimes when they go out.
Yup!
7. Used-panty vending machine, Godzillas.
So far these are both uncomfirmed.
Two things have happened that are great for me:
1. There is tons of English over here. Not so much that I don't get lost frequently or have to ask directions, but it's on a lot of street signs, in the subways and buses, and the tourist-oriented people speak just enough of it. And it's real English, not the Engrish I had expected. So, once again, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to General MacArthur. Way to be. Most people don't speak English, though, which results in a lot of situations where I point to a map I have as I say to someone one phrase I learned: "Sumimasen, imee doku-descu?" Which means, "Excuse me, where am I now?" Then we rely on pointing.
2. I am feeling no jet lag. None. Zero. Unbelievable. Last night I had a close call where I fell asleep on the train from Tokyo to Kyoto, but woke up a few minutes later and did not miss my stop, and other than that... I mean, I went to sleep at 11 PM tired, woke up this morning at 7:30 refreshed, and right now it's 8 PM and I feel like it's 8 PM. Awesome.
Here are some things about a couple of places I visited today:
1. The Golden Palace.
Some sign there said something about how its building showed "imperial ambition" on the part of its builder. But here's the thing -- the whole golden temple is barely bigger than my family's place on Shelter Island. The only reason it's bigger at all is that it has a third story. It does, however, look down on a beautiful "mirror lake," with "carefully chosen rocks" at strategic points in the pond. Here's something I discovered about Japanese people and rocks: Japanese people love rocks. Their "dry gardens," which are in all their temples, are just a little bit of moss / grass, a couple of trees, but mostly rocks, on top of raked, smaller rocks. And this is in their castles. They love the stuff.
2. Nijo Palace.
The Tokugawa Shogunate used to run shit from here, and it was on this site that the Shogun told his feudal lords that he was ceding power back to the emperor in 1867. Cool stuff. Way cooler is the fact that in the room where he told them that, there were 12 bodyguards hiding behind a screen, because that's what they did whenever the Shogun was in that room. It's just like Level 6 of Ninja Turtles Arcade for Nintendo. That's seriously what I was thinking. Also, after seeing this and the golden palace, it seemed clear that the Japanese had a taste for simplicity. Keep things simple, appreciate nature, don't mess with it, it seemed. Then, here, I sawthat to keep a place looking that serene and natural, you need to have old women pulling plant life and rocks out of the ground with their hands. Also, I remembered that the Japanese lead the world in Awesome Gadgets Invented. Confusing.
Their maps have swastikas all over them, near the train stations I think. I'm pretty sure they're those reverse swastikas that are supposed to symbolize eternal life or something, but this does help explain how such nice-seeming people got involved in World War II.
Also, shiny jackets appear fashionable.
More tomorrow hopefully! I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, probably Nara, to see the biggest Buddha in the world. That or the Ashigawa Monkey Park. Decisions, decisions.
Upon my arrival at the airport, the first bathroom I used was completely normal, all the electronic displays were nothing special, and the first girl that laughed did so wihout her hand covering her mouth. 'What's going on?' I thought. Within minutes of me asking myself that question, I had seen monitors display information next to a delightful anime cartoon character, a girl giggle with her hand over her mouth, and had used a toilet with all sorts of complicated gadgets, including a heated seat. It feels better than you can possibly imagine.
So now that I've been here a day, I can already dispel or confirm some myths. Here we go:
1. People wear surgeon masks over their mouths when they're just walking around.
True. The weird thing is this seems to happen across all types of people. Young businessmen, old businessmen, women, young girls, everybody. Someone explained to me that people wear them "to lower the humidity in their breathing when the humidity is too high, make it damp and increase the humidity when the humidity is too low, when they're sick so they don't get other people sick, and when they're not sick so they don't get sick." So, for no reason.
2. People bow
True. Not constantly, but just stare into a crowd for 5 minutes and you'll see someone do it at least once. Seems to be for goodbyes.
3. Bill Murray is the official spokesperson for Santory.
False. Santory is a real brand, and they have vending machines on the street for their drinks, but their spokesperson is Tommy Lee Jones. I'm completely serious. Pretty much every other block there's a drink vending machine with Tommy Lee Jones's face on it. I laugh almost every time. Also, the sub-brand is called "Boss" (I think it's coffee), and their slogan in English is "Boss has been the boss of them all since 1992.
4. Heated toilets, cartoon spokespeople for lots of stuff.
True, as addressed above.
5. Geishas
They exist, I spotted one. Apparently they are not prostitutes, just really sophisticated women that rich guys pay up to $500/hour to just sort of hang out with and talk to. I don't understand.
6. People wear kimonos sometimes when they go out.
Yup!
7. Used-panty vending machine, Godzillas.
So far these are both uncomfirmed.
Two things have happened that are great for me:
1. There is tons of English over here. Not so much that I don't get lost frequently or have to ask directions, but it's on a lot of street signs, in the subways and buses, and the tourist-oriented people speak just enough of it. And it's real English, not the Engrish I had expected. So, once again, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to General MacArthur. Way to be. Most people don't speak English, though, which results in a lot of situations where I point to a map I have as I say to someone one phrase I learned: "Sumimasen, imee doku-descu?" Which means, "Excuse me, where am I now?" Then we rely on pointing.
2. I am feeling no jet lag. None. Zero. Unbelievable. Last night I had a close call where I fell asleep on the train from Tokyo to Kyoto, but woke up a few minutes later and did not miss my stop, and other than that... I mean, I went to sleep at 11 PM tired, woke up this morning at 7:30 refreshed, and right now it's 8 PM and I feel like it's 8 PM. Awesome.
Here are some things about a couple of places I visited today:
1. The Golden Palace.
Some sign there said something about how its building showed "imperial ambition" on the part of its builder. But here's the thing -- the whole golden temple is barely bigger than my family's place on Shelter Island. The only reason it's bigger at all is that it has a third story. It does, however, look down on a beautiful "mirror lake," with "carefully chosen rocks" at strategic points in the pond. Here's something I discovered about Japanese people and rocks: Japanese people love rocks. Their "dry gardens," which are in all their temples, are just a little bit of moss / grass, a couple of trees, but mostly rocks, on top of raked, smaller rocks. And this is in their castles. They love the stuff.
2. Nijo Palace.
The Tokugawa Shogunate used to run shit from here, and it was on this site that the Shogun told his feudal lords that he was ceding power back to the emperor in 1867. Cool stuff. Way cooler is the fact that in the room where he told them that, there were 12 bodyguards hiding behind a screen, because that's what they did whenever the Shogun was in that room. It's just like Level 6 of Ninja Turtles Arcade for Nintendo. That's seriously what I was thinking. Also, after seeing this and the golden palace, it seemed clear that the Japanese had a taste for simplicity. Keep things simple, appreciate nature, don't mess with it, it seemed. Then, here, I sawthat to keep a place looking that serene and natural, you need to have old women pulling plant life and rocks out of the ground with their hands. Also, I remembered that the Japanese lead the world in Awesome Gadgets Invented. Confusing.
Their maps have swastikas all over them, near the train stations I think. I'm pretty sure they're those reverse swastikas that are supposed to symbolize eternal life or something, but this does help explain how such nice-seeming people got involved in World War II.
Also, shiny jackets appear fashionable.
More tomorrow hopefully! I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, probably Nara, to see the biggest Buddha in the world. That or the Ashigawa Monkey Park. Decisions, decisions.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Japan.
This is Nuri. Looks like we never did a final Argentina post. We got back to Buenos Aires, had a good time, and came home. Now then:
I am going to Japan tomorrow. For the next couple of weeks, I will be blogging from Japan. Wish me luck!
This is what I think Japan will look like:
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