Photos

I've posted a larger album for folks to browse..giving Picasa a try this time here. This blog's photo album is one level up as well though most of the blog pics are in the larger album. Captions will be added as time permits...

Back to reality

When this post goes live I'll be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on the way home. I'll update this blog with some sort of photo gallery link once I sort through all the duplicates and horribly boring ones (and deal with jet lag). Thanks to everyone who helped out with the trip from advice, lending materials, wandering around with me, reading this site, etc. It made the trip go much smoother than it would have otherwise and helped make it more fun. :)

雨の日 What else are you going to do...

...on a rainy day except visit a cat cafe? Actually this one was a cat playground of sorts and nothing except for some souvenir stickers was sold here though it is attached to a pet shop on the 8th floor of a department store. I must have wondered into the cat cafe district in Ikebukuro as I saw 3 different ones within a minute's walk of each other. Basically the idea is that a lot of rental places won't allow pets of any kind so you go to these sorts of places to interact with cats without having to take care of them. Apparently some of the cats at this place are rescue cats which is good to see. The staff appear to take very good care of them and the cats obviously liked them. One of the staff girls had a Nikon DSLR and was taking photos regularly. They have what looks like a twitter feed going too...

This place had enough cats that they left some in slightly small themed enclosures where they were fed, could sleep, and avoid people. They seemed to occasionally rotate which ones were out in the main rooms. There were numerous perches, raceways, etc. where the cats could be out of reach of any of the people.

I bought my ticket back to the airport for tomorrow and will probably head back to Shibuya one more time to pay for an overpriced chai tea latte to stay out of the rain...

長谷寺 Hase-dera Kamakura

If you're in Kamakura this temple's definitely worth a visit. It was crowded but nothing like a Tokyo subway car. The merging of commercialism and religion in all of these touristed temples is interesting. There are truly devout people visiting these places but they may also be cash carrying tourists at the same time. This temple has a restaurant on the grounds and a yummy stall selling some rice dumplings. I'd imagine if these temples weren't tourist attractions a lot of the history and treasures would be long gone by now.

One area of the temple is dedicated to the worship of a guardian of children which, at least in Japan, means that this photo of many statues is probably really sad...

大仏 Kamakura Daibutsu

I'm not sure how to describe the Great Buddha sculpture at Kamakura. It's huge, it weighs 93 tons, it's probably close to 800 years old, it's survived numerous storms/flooding that have repeatedly destroyed temples that were built around it (so much so that they gave up and have left it in the open air for the last 500 years), and it's iconic of Japan. Kamakura's about an hour from Shinjuku on some trains on the Shonan-Shinjuku line. It's definitely something to see in person. There are only 2 larger Buddha statues in the world and both were completed in the 1990s...

Even more らーめん

I knew my new favorite ramen restaurant has a branch in Ikebukuro and it happens to be only a few blocks from the hotel. The guy at the front desk was surprised when I specifically asked for directions to that restaurant (in English since the hotel caters mostly to foreign travelers). With less than 2 full days left in Japan I'm going to have to cram in a couple visits at least. This place had a line of about a dozen people around 5:30PM but it moved fast. Inside it was similar to the Shinjuku location but with a bit less space. I *really* wanted to try their Arctic ramen but went with their signature dish that's midway up the spicy scale again. Half the fun of the place is watching people mechanically deal with the spiciness of some of the food by grabbing more tissues, wiping themselves down with a towel, downing glasses of ice water, etc.

松島 Matsushima

The main reason for heading to Sendai was to get a small taste of the region to the North of Tokyo (there be pine trees here) and see Matsushima bay. That's the Pacific Ocean you're seeing, and at similar latitudes to California, only 5000 miles away. The area is about 30 minutes by train outside of Sendai and it's small enough that you can walk from the station and see the entire area. The bay is made up of hundreds of tiny islands though only two sizable ones are accessible via bridges from the mainland. The smaller one, Oshima had some really cool Buddhist ruins/carvings, most of which are being left to the elements. Many of the carved stone tablets or sculptures are almost worn smooth.

It was nice to note, however, that even this area is not immune to Hello Kitty. To the lower right of the worn statue there was a bunch of incense and a Hello Kitty pouch (maybe to hold matches?).

仙台 Sendai

A little over 900km (550+ miles) away from Osaka is Sendai. Yesterday, even the Shinkansen can fail and due to some >20 minute delays around Tokyo I missed a connector train. The normal connection time seems to be 6-15 minutes. Thankfully they got me booked on a train that left only a few minutes after I managed to get the ticket. Not counting the delay time this train was only a bit slower than the one I should have been on. It also separated into two trains partway through the trip so you had to be sure you were in the half you needed to be in (and you could not pass between them from inside).

Sendai station has multiple levels filled with おみやげ　shops and restaurants, even a grocery store. A good number of the restaurants served the local specialty, 牛タン, grilled cow tongue. There were over 75 taxis waiting outside in the evening but few people seem to use them. Also, the pillow at the hotel came with an instruction sheet which was kind of scary. They do provide wired and 64bit WEP wireless and a really good breakfast buffet though.

Osaka's DenDen Town

Osaka's DenDen town doesn't quite have the craziness of Akihabara but it does have a heavy focus on electronics of all sorts. Anime is there too, mostly off the main street. There were a few lost looking maids handing out flyers along the sidestreets and it looked like the maid cafe phenomenon has made some inroads into this area but it was mainly folks looking to buy electronics or cheap merchandise. There was also what seems to be a mythical Lawson's 100 yen store where things like a 500ml Coke were 105 yen whereas every other convenience store sells them for exactly 147yen (to beat the 150yen price of the vending machines).

I didn't notice this until after looking at the picture but that SuperPotatoPC place mentions all sorts of retro gaming systems like the Famicom, PC Engine (Turbografx16 in the US), Dreamcast, etc. I should have actually gone inside. :)

In Osaka many names that would normally be translated with 'n' sounds used 'm' in romaji. Like Dotombori in hiragana is どとんぼり or a station nearby, Namba was なんば. Japanese doesn't really have the standalone 'm' sound but it was pretty consistently used this way here and nowhere else I've seen so far.

Going back to Dotombori, once it got dark a few groups of young guys in suits who spent a lot of time on their hair seemed to stand around and not do much besides smoke in some of the more crowded areas. They seemed to be having fun though.

大阪 Osaka

Osaka's an interesting town. It's kind of like Tokyo, only a bit smaller, and if anything, even more people seem to smoke here. The food's been great, Dotombori (Bladerunner inspiration?) is kind of a crazy shopping mall/restaurant neighborhood. Osaka-jo has a great 360 degree view from the top of it. The outside of the castle is restored to something similar to the original but the inside is basically a small musem, stairwells, and even an elevator due to the complete(?) reconstruction of it in the 90s.

By the way, the matcha (green tea) softserve ice cream here is addictive. Some places have a ton of flavors and when you buy one they load in a softserve cartridge into the machine that then dispenses the ice cream.