Seaside

This is the next post of our Japan trip.  It took place in September but I only managed to write these notes a couple of months later.  For contemporaneous reports, take a look at Track My Tour -- a brilliant app that I used to ... well, track our tour.  Here is the link.

The plan for the next day was to head to a seaside resort called Kamakura for one night and check out the local festival which would feature monks on horseback shooting arrows at targets.  It took one cable car ride, 4 train rides (becoming more local at each turn) and then a final monorail ride all courtesy of the train pass to arrive.

Cool looking train.  This is the Nagoya Airport Express.  The Japanese love their trains!

Unfortunately the show took place at 1 pm and we arrived at 3 pm by which time the rain had set in again so we all split up and went in different directions.

A prize winner at the flower arranging stand... I think.

Viv and I found a nice place for dinner though.  Sushi this time!

We also enjoyed a sake experience Cat had talked about before whereby the server brings both glass and a small lacquer box to the table placing the glass inside.  The glass is then filled up and up until it overflows into the box.  It is only when the level has reached the top of the box that the pouring stops.  Apparently it is a sign that the wait staff like you.  As it had only happened at this restaurant, I did wonder what this said about us!

Big bottle of sake!  That glass is really full!!  But this is the drinking combo of choice for the Japanese.  Very nice it is too!!

Tokyo tomorrow... and we are really are heading back.

Don't Mention the War...

This is the next post of our Japan trip.  It took place in September but I only managed to write these notes a couple of months later.  For contemporaneous reports, take a look at Track My Tour -- a brilliant app that I used to ... well, track our tour.  Here is the link.

We only planned to be in Hiroshima for a day, the main reason... actually sole reason being to watch a baseball match between the local Carps and the Dragons.

A month before had been the 70-year anniversary of the dropping of the first A-bomb in 1945 but none of us really wanted to visit anything that reminded us of something as ghastly as that.  Personally I think it was the right decision based on how many people died in Okinawa with the main island the next stop for landings.  Could have taken years and killed millions more.  So horrible as undoubtedly it was, it brought things to a dramatic crashing halt.  

Missed in all the talk of the horros of atomic weapons is the fact that as our holiday went along we realised more and more that every building was at most 60 or so years old.  Dating from the end of the war and the occupation in fact.  Everything else had been destroyed.  Remember I said that the O-torii Gate in Miyajima was wooden and therefore on version #38?  Well everything pre-war in Japan was also built in wood and with the night bombing focussing on incendiaries, you don't need to think too deeply to wonder why very few old buildings in Japanese cities survive.  We discovered in fact that the wonderful Horoshima Castle was in fact 20 or so years old as the old one was incinerated.

The only building that survived the A-bomb in 1945 is today in the Peace Park with a memorial to that awful occasion.

However the replacement architecture for the most part didn't harken back to the old days, rather it took the post-war London G-plan type build to extremes.  Actually pretty ugly with of course exceptions.  Hiroshima of course was flattened but being a major port had been bombed solidly before as well so all the buildings were of the newer... er, uglier type.  Except the train station.

We were staying at the railway hotel run by Sheraton which was really new, updated and absolutely splendid.  The station, as many country wide so we discovered, was under renovation, construction, whatever.  It was huge with a multi-storey department store inside and another across the street.  In Japan railway stations are THE central point of any city... because everyone uses the trains.  And boy are they clean, efficient and affordable.

Hiroshima

Stepping back from the bullet train (which comes tomorrow), transport in Japan seems great.  Indy told me it had got better (i.e. signs in English now) as a result of the football World Cup, before which no signs were in English.  But with a week rail pass and able to use everything from bullet train to local subway was a breeze.  The great thing is that the trains go everywhere, everyone uses them and did I say this already, they are very affordable.  It makes you wonder looking elsewhere when trains (in the UK for example) are so expensive and infrequent that if you build a lot, make them on time and clean, provide lots and lots of them AND make them affordable then people will use them.  Strange concept that others don't get.  They cut the service and put up the price so when people don't use them, they cut them again.  Makes no sense.  Anyway I am a HUGE fan of the Japanese train system and don't care who knows it!  If East Japan Railways needs an endorsement, sign me up.  As an aside I used to buy their Eurobonds in the past as they were AAA rated and always paid a little more coupon than some of their counterparts.

We traveled everywhere in Hiroshima on the smorgasbord of train offerings and found all of them excellent... even though it rained pretty solidly and had done so pretty much since we arrived in Japan... and tonight was the big game!

Zoom Zoom

Hiroshima is home of Mazda (zoom zoom) cars so the stadium is called Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium!  Fortunately it was just a few minutes away from the hotel.  Cat had got tickets for Viv and I (who decided to attend late) apart from the rest of the party and provided us with home team ponchos to stay dry.  This turned out to be a bit of a problem as the tickets were in the opposing team, the Dragons, enclave and as soon as we arrived in bright red, one lady in particular came up to us saying we couldn't come in dressed like that.  She even went to get a policeman who confirmed this but really kindly when we pointed out that it was tipping down with rain gave us a couple of blue Dragons' ponchos including her own to wear.

However the rain lifted a few innings in ... and yes in Japan they play in all weather conditions ... and the night became clear and we settled in to enjoy the game which has a few local rules that I think enhance the event rather than anything else.

First are the bands.  Yes bands.  Each team has its own bands, its own songs and chants and its own band leaders.  Everyone sings, claps and howls along.  By the 8th innings, we were joining in.  However rather politely they take it in turns only playing when their side is batting so there really isn't much competition for who makes the most noise.  I thought the Dragons had the better songs, chants and moves for yes it also includes a form of in seat dancing with everyone moving in synchronicity.  You have to see it!

Instead of a 7th innings stretch there is a loosing of thousands of balloons, tonight red for the Carps and blue for the Dragons.  At the end of a particular song, everyone cheers and lets loose.  

However with all this mayhem going on, the game itself was a close run affair ending in a very polite draw at the end of the 12th innings.  Local rules say the bands must stop at 10 pm because of the noise to allow people to sleep ahead of work on the morrow, and the game stops at the end of the 12th innings so nobody gets home too late!

So it wasn't that late an affair leaving us plenty of time to find an Okonami restaurant, the local dish of choice which is a pancake with very Japanese toppings washed down with local beer and of course sake!  

When they ask what you'd like, you say "Everything"

What a night!

The Radio Ham

Apologies for the delay in posting.  The trip took place in September but I only managed to write these notes a couple of months later.  For contemporaneous reports, take a look at Track My Tour -- a brilliant app that I used to ... well, track our tour.  Here is the link.

In the 1960's there was a wonderful radio programme called Hancock's Half Hour with Tony Hancock wherein he got himself into various situations and they humourously worked themselves out over the next 30 minutes.  The most famous was probably the "Blood Donor" episode but my favourite was the "Radio Ham".  It all took place in Hancock's flat where he connected to various hams all over the world including one from Japan whose English was poor but who had a stock phrase that he used: "It is not raining in Tokyo".

Classic Stuff!

When we landed there last week in the modst of a deluge, that immortal phrase immediately sprang to mind.

"It is not raining in Tokyo".... much!

Our arrival did coincide with a typhoon on the east coast of Japan and with Tokyo being "the Eastern capital", it felt some but thankfully not all of the weather impact.  Traveling 16,000 miles to land in the middle of a hurricane/typhoon would not have been good!

We'd taken Japan Airlines (JAL) from JFK, a 15 hour trip during which I made the decision to stay awake as our arrival time in Tokyo was 4 pm and watched 6 movies on their in flight entertainment.  I think this decision meant I'd be jet lagged and therefore find it difficult to sleep fior the next 3-4 days.  So not a wise decision.  But I did manage my first Japanese beer/sake combination of the trip.  This was to be repeated during the remainder of the trip!

For the first couple of nights while the rest of the party arrived, we'd be staying at the Tokyo Hilton which is near the main train station in Shinjuku and which also happens to be the business district of Tokyo.

The first day of course was a mess with all jet lagged but as we arrived at 4 pm, 11 pm and 12.30 am, the team of Indy and Cat, Gordon and Thelma, and Viv and I were able to move on out exploring  reasonably early the morning after looking for that first bowl of noodles.

Near the station (which is immense incidentally) are hundreds if not thousands of small places to eat, some so small that you cannot reasonably call them restaurants.  In Japanese they are called Izakaya's.  Very small with room for maybe a dozen people seated at the counter.  And of course at any time of the day or night, the drink of choice for most patrons is beer and sake.

A classic Izakaya in Food Street

Very nice indeed were the noodles once you got the hang of making your selection at a machine on the wall, paying at that time and being issued a ticket which you gave to the people behind the counter.  No chance of making special requests here!

One thing to remember about Japan is that all government closes on Monday and as our first tourist stop was the National Museum through the park, by the time we arrived to find it closed, we were all thoroughly soaked by the same storm/cyclone that ripped into the east coast a few hundred miles away.

This was true of all the shrines we subsequently chose to visit as well!

The first shrines of the day in Ueno district

However our next stop in Akihabara was not affected.  This district is known for its cartoons, anime and electronics.  One city block in particular was a high tech supermarket on 10+ floors that caused immediate sensory overload if you weren't a geek.

Akihabara, outside the massive tech supermarket

However after visiting, Cat had organised a ridiculous adventure whereby 20-something girls dressed in French maids outfits served you tea and cakes and generally giggled like schoolgirls calling you "master" and all that... this isn't a joke.  It's for real.  To call this weird is simple understatement.  It is not something Viv and I would have gone to ourselves, but having gone through it, I also wouldn't have missed it either!

Some of the other patrons are just plain weird.  It did seem that some may go there simply because it would be their only female contact.  For a few yen extra, the girls would play cards or other simple games with you!

Our night time extravaganza was at a really nice restaurant in a nearby building where we'd eat what is locally known as shabu-shabu, a hot pot dish where you have a bubbling vat of broth (this was clear) into which you successively put in this case Wagyu beef and crab (the house specialty) and then a bunch of veggies and noodles.  I'd eaten this before but in those cases we'd done the cooking ourselves.  In this case, it was the various staff who did it for you.

Great stuff.  The beef was spectacular.

"Wagyu, Wagyu very much..."

What a start.  Cat had written up detailed itineraries for most days of the trip and this was a crackerjack opening!  Here is the first day's itinerary in full (but largely not done):

1.  Breakfast in Shinjuku (Yes)
2.  Go up to Tokyo government building, wander round, Disk Union for vinyls (No)
3.  Train to Ueno Park.  Ameya-Yokocho market under train tracks, National Museum, Lake, Temples (Yes)
4.  Yanaka -- picturesque, street food, temples (Yes)
5.  Train to Akihabara.  Maid Cafe at Homecafe in Don Quixote (Yes)
6.  H line to Ueno then west on E line to Shinjuku. Stop off at Iidabashi to view Koishikaw Okra Kuen Garden (Partly)
7.  Pre-dinner drink at Peak Bar in Park Hyatt (Yes)
8.  Dinner at Seryna Hon An (in Sumitro 1 Building) (definitely yes)
9.  Omoide Yokocho (piss alley) if energy... which unsurprisingly was found wanting! (No)