Thursday, May 27, 2010
Japan and summer clothes
IT'S starting to get warm in Japan. Summer is just around the corner. So I thought I'd write a quick post about one of the different habits of Japanese women. In Japan having very light white skin is the only way to go. So during summer, most women will wear long sleeved sweaters, turtlenecks, jackets and arm sleeves to keep the sun away from their faces and arms. Some even wear gloves to keep their hands from tanning. I find it amazing that they can wear such thick clothing when it so hot and humid.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Movie
TODAY I went to IMAX and saw Alice in Wonderland. It was pretty good, I don't think it's the best movie Johny Deep has ever done but it was worth seeing. I also went shopping and Jen bought some cool jeans and a gundam t-shirt!
Weird man on the train
ON friday, a few days ago I was taking the train home. It was late and I was a long trip home. I was at Kanazawa-bunko, one stop(12 min) from my place. An old woman came on and I gave her my seat. I then went and stood. There was a very drunk man standing near me. He was slowly spinning in circles as he lurched and kept grabbing the handle to stay straight. He was holding a large paper bag with some things inside and kept hitting me with it. So I moved down a ring. After a few seconds he saw me. He then extended his hand and tried to grab my face with one of his hands... So I jerked back and gave him an angry stare. He seemed to jump in surprise. I decided to move a few more rings down. He followed me. Then he took out his cellphone, opened it and tried to stick it in my pocket. I swatted his hand away and moved many rings farther away. He continued to slowly move towards me. Thankfully by the time he was getting close again it was my stop. I jumped off the train and walked away. This was the weirdest person I ever met!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Laptop
Whoo! I bought a new (for me) laptop. I got it used from a person selling them on gaijinpot.com. It's an older model from Toshiba, and it's also a Japan only model, Dynabook SS21.
I think it's about 5 years old, it has:
a Pentium M,
768Mb of Ram,
and a 30Gig HDD.
It's a good laptop for what I need though, it's really light, even with the battery, about 1.2kg. when it came out it was selling at about $3000, lucky for me I got it for $160. So now when Jen goes in June, I'll still have some way to use internet.
I think it's about 5 years old, it has:
a Pentium M,
768Mb of Ram,
and a 30Gig HDD.
It's a good laptop for what I need though, it's really light, even with the battery, about 1.2kg. when it came out it was selling at about $3000, lucky for me I got it for $160. So now when Jen goes in June, I'll still have some way to use internet.
Asakusa
ON Sunday We met with a friend at Asakusa for Sanja Matsuri *literally "Three Shrine Festival")
It is one of the three great Shinto festivals in Tokyo, it is considered one of the wildest and largest. The festival is held in honor of the three men who established and founded Sensō-ji.
It is believed that two fishermen—brothers named Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari—found a statuette of the Bodhisattva Kannon caught in a fishing net in the Sumida River in May. The third man, a wealthy landlord named Hajino Nakatomo, heard about the discovery, approached the brothers and converted them to Buddhism. The three men then devoted their lives to the Buddhist faith and consecrated the statue in a small temple. This temple, now known as the Sensō-ji, currently houses the Kannon statue and is the oldest temple in Tokyo.
Sanja Matsuri is held on the third weekend of every May at Asakusa Shrine. To celebrate people play music and carry on their backs huge portable versions of shrines while shaking them up and down. These shrines weigh about a ton each and it takes a big group of people to carry them. Anyone can participate in carrying them. However you have to wear the right clothes. It's basically a white and blue shirt, with sumo wrestler bottoms.
The procession of the three Asakusa Shrine-owned mikoshi begin their march early Sunday morning. These three elaborate shrines honor and represent the three men responsible for founding the Sensō-ji. These important mikoshi are split up in order to visit and bestow blessing to all 44 districts of downtown and residential Asakusa. When evening falls, the three shrines slowly weave their way back to Asakusa Shrine in another grand procession that lasts late into the night.
We watched many parts of the festival and were within touching distance of all three mikoshi (three portable shrines referenced in the festival's name). It was really interesting and we really enjoyed the atmosphere or festivity which was everywhere. The streets were crowded with people and to get through intersections we had to slowly shove our way through.
We ate lots of festival food, and while we were sitting, a photographer thought the foreigners sitting in front of a Japanese temple, eating traditional Japanese food with chopsticks was too incredible a sight to pass, so he came and took a set of pictures of us. He gave me his card and he said he'd email me the pictures later.
It is one of the three great Shinto festivals in Tokyo, it is considered one of the wildest and largest. The festival is held in honor of the three men who established and founded Sensō-ji.
It is believed that two fishermen—brothers named Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari—found a statuette of the Bodhisattva Kannon caught in a fishing net in the Sumida River in May. The third man, a wealthy landlord named Hajino Nakatomo, heard about the discovery, approached the brothers and converted them to Buddhism. The three men then devoted their lives to the Buddhist faith and consecrated the statue in a small temple. This temple, now known as the Sensō-ji, currently houses the Kannon statue and is the oldest temple in Tokyo.
Sanja Matsuri is held on the third weekend of every May at Asakusa Shrine. To celebrate people play music and carry on their backs huge portable versions of shrines while shaking them up and down. These shrines weigh about a ton each and it takes a big group of people to carry them. Anyone can participate in carrying them. However you have to wear the right clothes. It's basically a white and blue shirt, with sumo wrestler bottoms.
The procession of the three Asakusa Shrine-owned mikoshi begin their march early Sunday morning. These three elaborate shrines honor and represent the three men responsible for founding the Sensō-ji. These important mikoshi are split up in order to visit and bestow blessing to all 44 districts of downtown and residential Asakusa. When evening falls, the three shrines slowly weave their way back to Asakusa Shrine in another grand procession that lasts late into the night.
We watched many parts of the festival and were within touching distance of all three mikoshi (three portable shrines referenced in the festival's name). It was really interesting and we really enjoyed the atmosphere or festivity which was everywhere. The streets were crowded with people and to get through intersections we had to slowly shove our way through.
We ate lots of festival food, and while we were sitting, a photographer thought the foreigners sitting in front of a Japanese temple, eating traditional Japanese food with chopsticks was too incredible a sight to pass, so he came and took a set of pictures of us. He gave me his card and he said he'd email me the pictures later.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Kyoto
We went to see many more temples for the next couple of days, we saw the geisha street and I got a couple of pictures of them! Then we went to show where we saw traditional tea ceremony, dancing, plays and flower arranging. We saw a very famous temple with a bridge and to my great delight there were geisha doing a photo shoot. So of course I grabbed the opportunity to take some more pictures. The most interesting shrine was the 1000 tori gate temple. We didn't climb up the whole mountain but we did do a small tour. We got a lot of good pictures and saw quite a few friendly temple cats (I will update with full information later). The last day we went to the shrine near our house. It was beautiful, it was the largest I've seen. There were many buildings connected and at the front we got to feed lots of nearly tame pigeons who would fly up into your hands to eat from your palm of even eat right from your fingers. It was lots of fun! Then we saw it's sister shrine down the road. We then went back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and took the Shinkansen home.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Kyoto
Today we woke up early, had breakfast and went to see many temples and shrines, Ninna-ji, Ryoanji, Shimogamo, Kamigamo and Kinkakuji. We bought day bus passes for 500yen each, a really good price. The most interesting was Kinkakuji, the golden temple. It was very nice, the temple has squares of gold leaf everywhere. A guide said each leaf is 2 inches by 2 inches and is worth 37$. He said the temple is covered with more than 200.000 of them! The most beautiful was Ryoanji, it has the world famous stone garden. We sat and looked at it for a while and enjoyed the gorgeous gardens and pond.
We walked a bit today, we did a good 4km trek between the temples. Got a bit of sunburn too.
However this morning I had a bad surprise, I had done a load of clothes washing in Osaka. Most were dry except my socks, so I rolled all those into a plastic bag and packed them, or so I thought... I discovered that I somehow didn't pack them! Now I only have two pairs of socks left... I'm going to have to go buy some! Some person right now is looking at a plastic bag with a dozen pairs of humid clean socks... And I'm going to be washing the same two pairs of socks and drying them everyday of this trip...
We walked a bit today, we did a good 4km trek between the temples. Got a bit of sunburn too.
However this morning I had a bad surprise, I had done a load of clothes washing in Osaka. Most were dry except my socks, so I rolled all those into a plastic bag and packed them, or so I thought... I discovered that I somehow didn't pack them! Now I only have two pairs of socks left... I'm going to have to go buy some! Some person right now is looking at a plastic bag with a dozen pairs of humid clean socks... And I'm going to be washing the same two pairs of socks and drying them everyday of this trip...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Osaka, the last day
Today was the last day of being in Osaka. We checked out, left the big suitcase with the front desk and went out to look at the last day of the big Golden Week sales. Today was a shopping day for omiyage and for souvenirs for friends. I also wanted to check out some electronics.
We got there at 10 am and found out we were still too early. Everything in the area opens at 11 am. So we went into a Mr. Donut and wasted some time with a donut and some water.
We started wandering around at 11 am and many shops were still not open. We looked at Japanese anime stores and random electronic goods. Though there were some decent deals for very old stuff, most electronics were still very expensive.
After we moved onto the big main shopping area of Osaka again. We looked at some stores where we had been two days before but now there were less people. We ended up going into America Town and it was funny to see Japanese people trying to look North American even though we would never wear such clothes. We ate some decent Indian curry for lunch.
Then we slowly made our way back to the hotel. We picked up our suitcase and took the train to Kyoto. The last leg of our trip! Nooooo.... It's going by so fast!
The hotel in Kyoto is really nice, it's called the Costa del Sol, and despite it's name is a Japanese style hotel, similar to a ryokan but more modern.
We got there at 10 am and found out we were still too early. Everything in the area opens at 11 am. So we went into a Mr. Donut and wasted some time with a donut and some water.
We started wandering around at 11 am and many shops were still not open. We looked at Japanese anime stores and random electronic goods. Though there were some decent deals for very old stuff, most electronics were still very expensive.
After we moved onto the big main shopping area of Osaka again. We looked at some stores where we had been two days before but now there were less people. We ended up going into America Town and it was funny to see Japanese people trying to look North American even though we would never wear such clothes. We ate some decent Indian curry for lunch.
Then we slowly made our way back to the hotel. We picked up our suitcase and took the train to Kyoto. The last leg of our trip! Nooooo.... It's going by so fast!
The hotel in Kyoto is really nice, it's called the Costa del Sol, and despite it's name is a Japanese style hotel, similar to a ryokan but more modern.
Kobe
FOR day three in Osaka we went to Kobe! I saw a bit of already it on the train trip to Himeji and it looked really clean and airy. We left in the morning and we got there around 11 am. It was so nice! It has a small town feel with a many good sized areas. |The closest I could think of was how some areas of Vancouver feel like. We first visited the shopping area near Sannomiya station where we got off. There are many small streets but also big streets and lots of interesting little stores. Then we visited the European area. We walked around and up and down the hill quite a bit but it was very quaint. I also saw the coolest Starbucks ever! It was in an old Victorian house and it was very nice and fit in with the area.
We had lunch at a small homemade Italian restaurant. The food was expensive and the pasta was not great, though Jen said the pizza as pretty good.
We then went to Chinatown, it looked very Chinese-ish and had lots of my favourite Chinese sweet, sesame balls! It was pretty small but there were a lot of people lining up to go to a restaurant there.
We moved on to the harbor and when we got there we saw the end of a festival! It was happening in front of the marine museum. There were many interesting boats on display, people selling stuff, flea market items, and lots of food vendors. I tried Tacoyaki and I found out it tastes a lot like Okonomiyaki, except without the noodles and the batter is rolled into a ball with a bit of octopus in the middle. I thought it was pretty tasty. We looked around a bit more then moved on to the stores in the harbor area. I ended up having a Big Mac for supper since we were too late to go to a local place to eat.
We got back and went to sleep early, checkout was at 9am the next morning!
We had lunch at a small homemade Italian restaurant. The food was expensive and the pasta was not great, though Jen said the pizza as pretty good.
We then went to Chinatown, it looked very Chinese-ish and had lots of my favourite Chinese sweet, sesame balls! It was pretty small but there were a lot of people lining up to go to a restaurant there.
We moved on to the harbor and when we got there we saw the end of a festival! It was happening in front of the marine museum. There were many interesting boats on display, people selling stuff, flea market items, and lots of food vendors. I tried Tacoyaki and I found out it tastes a lot like Okonomiyaki, except without the noodles and the batter is rolled into a ball with a bit of octopus in the middle. I thought it was pretty tasty. We looked around a bit more then moved on to the stores in the harbor area. I ended up having a Big Mac for supper since we were too late to go to a local place to eat.
We got back and went to sleep early, checkout was at 9am the next morning!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Himeji
We went to Himeji today. The train ride was 1 hour long. We got there and visited the castle but couldn't go inside because it was under construction. It was really hot +25 but we somehow didn't get a sunburn. We walked around the grounds and took many pictures. We then went to Mount Shosha. We went and saw some very nice shrines and temples. We were supposed to be able to see some special wooden statues which were made in 1007 and were on display together for a few days only, but because of construction they closed the shrine and you can't see them anyway?... We were a bit confused by this but there was nothing to do about it. The best part is that we saw the temple where "The Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise was filmed. We went inside and there was pictures of when they filmed it. We walked around and we were told about the fake sakura blossoms which were attached to the tree to make it look like it was blooming, and the snow scenes which were made using lots of corn starch!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Osaka
The bus ride was pretty tiring. It was about 6 hours. We got there at 5 am and wandered around until Macdonald's opened. We had a heart stopping breakfast there then went to the hotel. We managed to check into the hotel at 9 am. I went to get the money from the machine but my card wouldn't work So I called my bank and had it fixed. After we took a nap at the hotel. After a nice nap we wandered around and visited the castle and a nearby shrine. It was great. The castle had beautiful gardens, stall vendors and there were some nice exhibits in the museum there too. I was very impressed. We walked back to the hotel and bought some very tasty dried strawberries and pineapples. Then it was time to get some bentos and then sleep!
This morning we went to the second shrine and the gardens next to it, sumiyoshitaisha. It was a very nice shrine, probably the nicest I've seen in Japan yet! Then we went to Namba park, a shopping center with a cool park on top. Also a very nice place and an impressive design like a canyon. After we went and walked around the famous shinsaibashi shopping and a few nearby streets. There are many Golden week sales so we did quite a bit of window shopping but not much buying. We didn't get to go to the electronics street, Donburi, but that will hopefully be for tomorrow evening!
This morning we went to the second shrine and the gardens next to it, sumiyoshitaisha. It was a very nice shrine, probably the nicest I've seen in Japan yet! Then we went to Namba park, a shopping center with a cool park on top. Also a very nice place and an impressive design like a canyon. After we went and walked around the famous shinsaibashi shopping and a few nearby streets. There are many Golden week sales so we did quite a bit of window shopping but not much buying. We didn't get to go to the electronics street, Donburi, but that will hopefully be for tomorrow evening!
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