Open on team Capo standing in Osaka train station. The train for Kyoto stands empty on the tracks waiting for the precise moment for the automated doors to open and let us board. Suddenly, the empty seats start re-arranging themselves. Spinning, sliding, changing direction in a very Harry Potter-esque way in order to have the perfect configuration for the passengers on the way to Kyoto, which apparently is a different configuration than the passengers needed on their way to Osaka. Is this our first encounter with automated feng-shui?
Right to the second, the doors open and the hoards of people enter in a polite and orderly fashion, finding their seats and getting out their take-away bento box and seaweed wrapped goodies. Bleary eyed from our red-eye from Africa, we recline our seats and watch the blur outside as the bullet train hurdles us past one city after the next which are really all the same city, seeing that there is absolutely no break in development on the entire ride from Osaka to Kyoto. The rolling hills are gentle and lush and it looks like instead of yards many people have mini-rice paddy fields in front of their homes. So pretty.
We get to Kyoto and check into our ryokan (a Japanese style guest house). It is complete with rice paper walls, a garden with bonsai trees and tatami mats for sleeping. The weather is brutally hot and humid and I feel like we are actually IN one of the popular rice cookers we see everywhere. The first real adventure is finding dinner. We venture into a blindingly lit tiny little restaurant with one-counter and bar stools. We point at something someone else is eating which looks promising. I open the Japan Lonely Planet to the page that has phrases like "I am a vegetarian- no meat or fish please" written in Japanese. The cook looks at it and says/barks "hai!" (Yes in Japanese).
Me: Great! So vegetarian? No pork- no beef?
Cook: Hai! Me: so...wait- there IS meat in it?
Cook: Hai! Me: ummm- great. I’ll take it.
Cook: Hai!
I learn quickly what is truly vegetarian in this country. Sapporo and Asahi. "Kampai!" after dinner (read: beer) we head back to the ryokan. Turns out the air-conditioning unit in the room is coin operated and we need to feed it every hour through the night to prevent our room from becoming a Japanese sauna. Between the tatami mats and that, sleeping = not so much.
Kyoto is extraordinarily beautiful and I assume it would be even more so without a deluge of salty sweat dripping into our eyes and soaking our clothes. The temple walk we attempted is replete with beautiful dark wood austere Zen temples (unlike the colorful and ornate Tibetan and Thai shambala temples, the Zen temples focus on simplicity and peeling away the distractions) lush gardens, stone bridges and ponds brimming with lily pads and colorful koi fish, regal bamboo forests and Buddha statues. It is quiet, peaceful, meticulously thought out and everything you think of when you picture old-world Japan. The trees here are absolute characters in themselves, some twisted and knotty, some flowering and feminine but my favorite are the ginkgo trees which have light green translucent leaves shaped like perfect stars. Most of the trees in Japan are deciduous and the pictures of Japan in the autumn are incredible and of course I can only imagine that cherry blossom season must be a sight to be seen.
We even stumbled across an ancient dojo, one of the oldest martial arts schools in Japan. There was a tournament going on and despite the heat, the hundred or so contenders were dressed in full samurai regalia. Full-length robes, breastplates and daunting looking helmets with metal grids over the face. They went mano y mano with blunted swords screaming loudly and getting awarded with some kind of point system for every hit. Very cool- or hot as the case may be.
That evening after looking for 2.5 hours for an ATM, which would take a foreign bankcard, we wandered the ancient district of Gion. Dusk was a wonderful compliment to the winding cobblestone streets with rows of paper lanterns lighting the night sky like strings of jewels. The rickshaws and weepy trees added a romance to the place that one would only attribute to a particularly well-lit Hollywood set. The nicest surprise for me was how many women were wearing the traditional kimono out on the streets. Young women in groups headed to dinner for a girl’s night out, mothers with their families, women walking hand in hand with their boyfriends wore them and in the morning at breakfast we saw many elderly women enjoying their morning miso and salmon dressed in them as well. So super cool that this graceful tradition endures here.
August 20th. My husband's 34th birthday.
Now, if there is one thing I know how to do- it's spoil my hubby with lots of laughter and fun on his special day. And what says hilarity and good times more than visiting Hiroshima? That’s right- we spent this whole day walking around the peace memorial gardens and visiting the sculptures, fountains, gardens and museum on the sight where we dropped the atomic bomb. The museum exhibit is actually very well done and we were surprised with it's extensive information on the development, testing and use of nuclear bombs as well as the personal accounts and dioramas of the day of the bombing itself. Perhaps the most surprising thing though was the verbiage that was used on all of the signs, plaques and literature. It was earnest and candid in it's accounts but did not contain any anger, accusations or sense that it was written by or being hosted in the city that was decimated by this act. It also seemed to take full accountability for the acts of aggression by the Japanese at that time. It said things like "...during those years, Japan was on a path of war, initiating the pacific war with the bombing of pearl harbor..." it also had chilling letters with excerpts highlighted from Einstein and American politicians pleading with the president to at least warn Japan that we were going to use the weapon and give them a chance to surrender first.
Hiroshima and a handful of other cities were intentionally spared from all the air raids that leveled the other Japanese cities specifically so that the decimation brought by the atomic bomb could be clearly seen, measured and feared. There were a handful of cities in contention for the bombing but on the morning of the intended strike, the first target was covered by a layer of clouds. In Hiroshima it was a sunny cloudless day-, which ended up sealing the fate of the city. Though the city has been rebuilt and is bustling and busy today, the effects from the nuclear fallout are still present and very real. I know that in a time of war, there is much that is grey and that we did what we thought we needed to end the fighting but I also know that every political leader and military general in any country armed with a nuclear weapon should be required to spend a day in Hiroshima.
Good times. Good times... Happy birthday honey! (I did manage to find him a pizza for dinner just so you know...)
The next day we took a day trip to Miajima island to see the temple, which gets covered by the tide each day. Turns out we hit it at the wrong time of day and never got to see the water come in but we walked through the markets and saw the hundreds of deer milling about being fed by tourists and then well... it was too damn hot to do anything else. Get me back to my air-conditioned room STAT!
Tune in Tokyo...
Finally, it was time to meet Matt and Sheila in Tokyo. What a blast to be with friends again. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure I provide PLENTY of fun entertainment (hellllooo did you not read about his birthday?) but Angelo did get to talk about the upcoming Fantasy Football draft for THREE whole days (I keep telling him to go with Mecklenburg or Jerry Rice but he just doesn't listen). And finally I had a shopping partner that loved just browsing through markets and didn't ask me every time I picked up a jade paperweight or a goldfish shaped wallet if "we really need that?"
All in all we had an absolute blast in Tokyo. We laughed our heads of and had loads of Sapporo and sake and wine and sushi and tempura and green tea ice cream. We even went up to the top of the park Hyatt (featured in Lost in Translation) and had obscenely expensive drinks while overlooking the massive skyline. And although it really is a hideously expensive city and we spent more in 3 days there than in 2 months in Africa we laughed so much and had such a great time it was worth it. We even met a local Japanese girl named Miho who was absolutely lovely, answered all our silly foreigner type questions and met up with us for dinner a few nights later.
One day we hired a private driver and went to check out the fish market. An unbelievably massive operation that is many football fields big. 80% of the seafood that goes through there is for export. We went to the Asakusa temple (cool but pretty templed-out by now), and the market- where Sheila bought a real kimono which yes- she really did need. He also took us to the restaurant supply district ("It very fun. You enjoy!") Where we perused all the fake plastic food displayed in every Asian restaurant window in the world. Weird.
Tokyo is crowded and noisy and flashy and bright but strangely not chaotic at all. It’s a vast sea of people and mall after mall after mall. Everything is in a mall or on a mall or under a mall. The train station, the restaurants, the post office and yes even the dentist (which I did not have to go to- thank God). It’s hyper-capitalism and rabid consumerism on a scale that is hard to imagine. You know a country is doing okay for itself when the airport shops are Hermes and Tiffany's and Ipods are sold on the shelves of the 7/11s like they are packs of AA batteries.
This culture single-handedly keeps Burberry in business and is so fashion conscious the people watching is amazing. The people are thin and tiny and gorgeous and have some of the most over-the-top styles I have ever seen. They clearly spend a ton of time and money on their hair, which is colored, bleached, permed, spiked, feathered, coiffed and sprayed. There are leg warmers and arm warmers layered with lace dresses, cowboy boots, lace petty-coats, mesh shawls and retro t- shirts. The guys wear tons of jewelry and look like Asian versions of Steve Tyler (Aerosmith) or Mick Jigger (if you don't know this band I can't help you) and have tight jeans, carefully ripped and faded shirts, belts with bling and wrap around shades to match! See and be seen people!
We walked around Shinjuku (where unfortunately Paris Hilton was making an appearance. apparently someone let her put out an album? ughhh...) which is like the Times Square, Harajuku (also the name of Gwen Stephanie's clothing line) is the funky east village, Ginza which is the flashy upper east side and Roppongi is where all the Rockin' night clubs and jazz bars and the red light district is. (Curiously- the red light district is full of Nigerian men trying to get you into each club. what?) Lots to see, to take in, to marvel at and to Spend.
A few last random thoughts:
I do not think spray tanning booths would be popular in this country because apparently the whiter, the better. The women all carry umbrellas to shade them from the sun. They also wear gloves to protect their hands from sun and they wear these visors with massive brims made of the same material as dark sunglasses. The visors can actually flip down completely covering their face in way that makes it look like they are wearing riot gear. Weird but effective.
EVERYONE here owns a mobile phone/tv/mp3/GPS device.
Japan is the Germany of Asia and like the German youths, the young Japanese people are still struggling to find their footing as far as their post-war patriotism and national identity go. There is some controversy about young people wearing the Japanese flags on their shirts and such...
The Japanese work more hours than any other country in the world. They also have the highest suicide rate.
According to our friend Miho 30% of marriages here are still arranged.
The Japanese are either quite xenophobic or are just extremely proud of their heritage and traditions because they use a completely separate alphabet for foreign words so that the original Japanese language can stay pure.
We were absolutely shocked at how little English is spoken here (read: none). I don't know why we were surprised. I suppose it would be like Miho showing up in New York and being shocked that no one speaks Japanese.
It’s hard to know how and when to bow and when to stop bowing as it can continue like a ping-pong match for quite a while.
And finally... everything in this whole country tastes like fish. Much to my non-seafood loving chagrin here are a few of the surprise fish dishes I have had. All of the following contain fish/fish paste/fish flakes or fish juice: scrambled eggs, peanuts, rice, vegetable tempura, potato chips, vegetable miso and spaghetti with tomato sauce.
And that's it for now everybody...
Reporting from Japan this is Jenna Kobyashi and Angelo Tamagachi
Good night and sayonara.
