Well, it's been awhile between posts I know, but Internet access has been limited by time more than anything else. So here we are at the airport in Narita. Gene & I are sitting in the Yahoo! Cafe overloooking the runways of Terminal 2. It's been a fantastic week in Japan and we wish we could stay on. However, all good things must come to an end... and we're a little broke but rich for the experiences.
Before I continue, I'd like to appologise for any creative punctuation but I'm using a Japanese Dell laptop with Japanese keys. This wouldn't be a problem if I didn't touch type but suffice to say the apostrophe key is shift-7 and the @ is beside the P key... it's all a little screwy...
Anyhow, when I last posted (settle in folks, I've got just over three hours till departure and a weeks worth of goss) Gene & I were heading to Matsumoto, namesake of our favourite Japanese restaurant in Melbourne.
亜 Argh!!!! I just hit a random button and everything turned into characters!
MatsumotoWe decided to take a day trip to Matsumoto which is approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes from Shinjuku where we were staying. We didn't know much about the place, except there was a castle (Matsumoto-Jo) and we used to eat at a restaurant with the same name. The train ride was pleasant, as almost all train trips in Japan have been. We spent the time reading up on the town in the Lonely Planet guide and learnt a bit about the history of the town and what the local delicacies are. There was the usual city to town landscape followed by acres of rice & wasabi paddies. A couple of lovely looking mountains and fog covered hills and we arrived at the station.
During our trip we learnt very quickly that the tourist information centre is our friend. It's your best bet for finding someone who speaks English anyway. The lovely people at the station's info centre gave us a map and directions to Matsumoto-Jo as well as showing us
a picture of a landmark that we needed to turn right at.
Armed with this info we exited the station and stepped into a sleepy Japanese town near the Japanese Alps. The streets were small and quiet with a pleasant mix of modern and more traditional Japanese architecture. We did manage to find
a goth-punk shop on our travels which we had to check out of course. Gene ended up with some badges and after a round of
arigatos we were off again.
To be honest it wasn't that far a walk to the castle, but we managed to get distracted again, but with a slightly better cause. We crossed a bridge to be greeted with by a statue of
two samurai frogs on top of a toad. Naturally we had to stop and investigate so we travelled down a quaint little street that we rapidly realised was a small tourist area. This would usually mean nothing but tacky little trinkets and overpriced postcards, but this place was different. You could buy some gardening tools as well as food and random gifts. We hunted around the street for an explanation of the frogs that had greeted us and possibly passed many, in Japanese, but finally I decided to buy a small glass frog for Gene's mum, Cathy, who couldn't join us that day due to work appointments. It was a good thing that I did that too, because with the frog came an explanation of its significance.
The History of the "frog" on Nawate Street
Before the Meiji Era, Nawate Street was just a bank lying between the river and the moat. After the Yohashira shrine was built in the year Meiji 12 (1879), the bank became an approach to the shrine.
Horse carriages were not allowed to pass through. The shrine began to promote various entertainments to gather visitors and prosper. People began to start businesses there, which attracted many visitors.
Because of the vehicle-free street, shop owners on the street said that visitors can buy kaeru (I wish I could post the three characters that formed this word) and go home kaeru (again with the characters but only two this time) safely.
Since then, people started to call the street "frog street" (kaeru = frog). So the shop keepers put a big frog statue at the entrance of the street to watch over us and keep us safe.
After browsing the rest of the stretch we took a detour through a Shrine enroute to the castle. We dug out our guide book which advised us on the ettiquette of visiting Shrines and managed, we think, not to make fools of ourselves passing through. There were many signs surrounding the Shrine, probably telling us what it honoured, but our Japanese reading is a little lacking, so its significance was a little lost on us. Sadly this was a bit of a trend, but we muddled our way through.
We finally arrived at Matsumoto-Jo and it was hard not to get a good picture of the place. It was a stunning castle. We crossed a moat which we later learnt was one of three that used to surround the castle and stamped our entry tickets with the free woodblock stamps that were at the entrance. If you make it to Japan, take blank paper with you to the tourist sites and stations, there are often woodblocks with the place name and pictures to be stamped. The gardens were meticulously manicured and even included some
"space azaleas".
Matsumoto-JoWe toured the Castle and I tried to capture it with my rather poor camera skills but was too excited to hold the camera particuarly still so there aren't many pics. Inside the many levels of the castle were various artifacts from the Edo period. Most of the signs were in Japanese, but we carefully read all the English signs. The rest we just had to guess at. It was like being in year 7 history again with Mr Sinclair making us guess what different objects were and their purpose. The stairs in the castle were all disconnected and crazily steep. There are many signs asking you to "mind your head" as the ceilings were Sarah height. It took us getting to the top level to find out that the reason the stairs were so steep was to make the castle easier to defend. I can't imagine how the fully armoured samurai who lived on one of the lower levels ever managed to get up to the war room on the second highest floor. We were struggling in normal clothes with our bags! There was also a hidden level which couldn't be seen from the outside where food was stored. There were wooden shelves on this level where stones could be dropped on any invading armies. Castle windows varied in size to allow for both arrows and guns to be used in the castle defence. Matsumoto-Jo is also one of two castles that remain in Japan (according to the guide book) which still has a moon-viewing balcony. It was a red painted balcony with a shin-height railing that offered a view of the moat, complete with Japanese koi and swans, and most likely the moon on a clear night. As it was day when we visited, we didn't get much moon viewing done.
After checking out the castle we headed towards what we thought were the souvenir tents but turned out to be two tents filled with bonsai. After a 5 minute game of charades with the attendent, a good will ambassador came over who translated for us. (Turns out we could have had a tour of the castle in English after all...) She explained to us that it was a bonsai judging competition and we had to pick our favourite bonsai and write down the numbers on the card. As you all know, Gene & I are highly qualified in bonsai judging... so we didn't take too long to finish up. We handed the cards to the nice men at the end of the tents who insisted that we spin a wheel. I spun the wheel first and a little white ball dropped out. The nice men spoke at me in Japanese and I looked puzzled and for some reason resorted to saying
hai (yes) a lot. While I was trying to walk off with said white ball to work out at a distance what I was supposed to do with it, the nice men stopped me and it became clear that I was meant to leave it with them. Gene then spun the wheel and out dropped a little pink ball. The nice men then got very excited and rang a bell loudly before handing Gene a little box in exchange for the ball. We both then got a little excited and found in the box was a small clear ball with Matsumoto-Jo etched in the centre. Gene has since gifted it to me and it's going straight to the pool room. I love it!
We paused for a quick drink at the vending machines and were stunned to find
Thorpie's drinks had made it to Japan!
Having toured the castle we headed to the Museum which had a few exhibits from the Edo period. We saw some more Japanese and Korean weapons, many little Japanese dolls from the doll festival, some brightly coloured textile balls which were the toys of princesses and their maids and, rather strangely, some large wooden phalluses. We learnt from the Lonely Planet that this was part of a festival that they held in September, however we can only assume that it has to do with fertility as there wasn't much information otherwise.
After all the stairs and bonsai judging, we decided there was only one part of our Matsumoto cultural experience left to fulfil, food. The local delicacies of Matsumoto were soba (my personal favourite), crickets (I believe they're deep fried) and raw horse meat. We headed off to the information centre and asked where we could find a soba restaurant as that was our priority and discovered that it was just two doors down from where we were. While at the soba restaurant we dined on zaru-soba and the raw horse meat, which we were fairly sure they killed in a very humane manner. There were two pieces each, one was a little fatty and the other was just a flesh piece. It was just like eating beef crossed with venison really. Except the fatty bit tasted like butter with the texture of meat. It was most odd but pleasant and we discoved the taste was a a gift that kept on giving. This prompted me to buy some chewing gum on our way home. Having sampled two out of three delicacies we had to get some crickets. With the help of the phrasebook Gene tried to explain to the staff at the restaurant that he wanted to eat some crickets. After we determined that we weren't talking about sport, the waitress walked out the door beckoning us to follow. She took us to the shop nextdoor and explained to the man at the counter what we wanted. They giggled and pointed us to some cans. Gene bought two so anyone who's up for some crickets head our way.
Thus ended our day in Matsumoto. We headed back into Tokyo and met up with Gene's family for dinner and a briefing on what was happening the next day...
Harajuku & Shibuya
We'd been advised by many people that Harajuku was a must see area in Tokyo. It was where all the goths, cyber-punks and otherwise oddly dressed people congregated in their spare time. It was a great little area and most people where happily posing for pictures as soon as a camera was vaguely in their direction. A highlight was they
Tokyo Rockabilly Club who were dancing to some great hits from the late 50's. John Travolta eat your heart out because these guys had some seriously big hair. There were no poodle skirts for the girls either, they dressed in their leathers as well.
I'm not sure if it was planned but we stumbled across the Meijii Shrine which was fairly grand. It was our first big temple so we spent a bit of time there. We were lucky enough to see a bridal procession while we were there. It was a very elegant and dignified procession and very beautiful to watch.
We walked through the park and spent some time watching the people practice wooden sword fights, contact jugglers, poi and Mama Africa drumming (complete with didgeridoo). Gene says
hurray for Japanese rastafarians.
Once we'd had our fill of people watching, Gene & I headed towards Shibuya. This was by sheer chance as we were actually trying to find the shops that the kids in the square had gotten their quirky outfits from. Through zen navigation (and some signs) we determined that we had actually left Harajuku. We saw many designer shops along the way and checked out the Japanese equivalent to Episode where there were ruby slippers and crazy costume fashion galore. Some more zen navigation found us in Cat Street which is home to the Pink Dragon, an impressive rockabilly shop with a very gothic interior. This shop had everything a rockabilly lover could want, down to the comb for the immaculate hair styles. We hung around for a while looking at the stock while enjoying a mix of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Cherry Poppin' Daddies music before deciding that we were tired and it was time to head home.
On our way home,we passed the worlds coolest car park exit which had a revolve to turn your car around so you didn't have to reverse out. Pics & movie to come.
One vending machine dinner, a train ride and we were lost. We decided to try and find the other train station that was near the Tokyo Hilton on the E-line. We'd been travelling on the Marunochi line and decided it was time to get adventurous again. We later worked out that we'd gotten off two stops early. We finally made it back to the hotel and decided to have a night in.
A 5 Star Night InYou may or may not have guessed that Gene & I don't spend a lot of time in 5-star hotels. We discussed this on our way back to the hotel and figured that we should probably try to enjoy the hotel a bit as well as Japan as both were experiences we were unlikely to share again soon. There was a pool, gym and spa listed in the services/facilities guide so we decided that was an excellent way to unwind after a day of walking.
Needless to say we skipped the gym.
When you arrive at the health & fitness centre you check your shoes into a little shoe locker and then head to your respective change rooms. The womens change room had lockers containing a towel and towelling robe as well as a rest area with television and chilled water. There were also sterilised hair brushes for your convenience as well as cleanser, toner and moisturiser for after your exercise.
Gene & I slipped into the pool and paddled around a bit before agreeing to meet back in the hotel room after our respective spas. You see, it wasn't actually a spa as such, but a Japanese bath so it there were seperate baths for men and women.
You enter the shower/bath room and there were mirrors along two sides of the wall. In front of these mirrors there are stools and shower heads where you sit and shower before you enter the baths. There are no clothes allowed in this room and coming from a western society where women are pretty seperated in showers it felt a little odd to shower with other women. Especially in front of the mirror. It was oddly liberating and a rather pleasant, almost ritualistic, experience. I was grateful to have an older woman there who showed me what the procedure was as I'd never been to a Japanese bath before. As I was just following her lead, I stepped into the cold bath before I knew it was the cold bath and as a result was a little shocked. Despite the cold it was quite pleasant and made the transition into the hot bath even more relaxing. By hot bath I mean scorchingly hot but I could feel all my muscles relaxing and the aches and pains from the day melting away. I hopped back into the cold bath briefly (very invigorating) before rinsing off and getting dressed.
The rest of the night we spent reading and catching up on some much needed sleep before the big day ahead of us.
Tokyo Disney LandOkay, okay, I know that we've come to a country steeped in culture and I proceded to spend a day in Disney land, but it was such a great experience! I don't regret a minute of it. Except perhaps the 130 minute wait for Thunder Mountain (total ride time 4 minutes).
The trip to Tokyo Disney is in itself an experience as, from Shinjuku, it requires a platform change at Tokyo station. We thought Shinjuku station was big... We finally made it onto the right train, without getting lost, and in no time at all we were at Disney land.
While I thought I'd end up with lots of pics from Disney land, I was too busy looking around at all the people (mostly Japanese) and enjoying the rides to take any pics. Our first stop was Adventure Land where we saw Tiki Town's animatronic birds singing classic hits like
Fever and
I Wanna Be Just Like You in Japanese. We didn't really understand much of what was going on but chose to sing along in English and clap our hands anyway. The guide seemed rather insistant that we hold our hands with our thumbs and little fingers pointed out and say "aloha" a lot which was amusing and confusing all at once. Thunder Mountain, my first roller coaster ride was next. I took
a picture of some spanners at the 1 hour mark and after 130 minutes exactly (just as the board had promised) I got to go on my first roller coaster. It was good fun, but even better rides were to come! After that we trooped off to
Pirates of the Carribean where we queued for about an hour and a half. We kept our spirits high and possibly the people around us entertained by saying "argh" a lot in our best pirate accents. There is something rather surreal about going on rides with commentary when you can't understand the commentary. The only English on that particular ride involved "Avast you scurvy scum" and various other piratey phrases. We ate some greasy but oh-so-good fried chicken before booking our "fast track tickets" for Space Mountain. We then enjoyed Micro Land (Honey I Shrunk the Audience in 3D) which had great special effects involving air jets that mimicked mice running up your legs and some impressive projections of the theatre being blasted with lasers. We also checked out the Haunted Mansion (also predominantly in Japanese) which was awesome. Moving walls and amazing projections once again. I have to hand it to the Disney folk, they know their animatronics. Next was Splash Mountain as Gene was positive that I'd enjoy a flume style ride. It was a 90 minute wait and we chatted happily with the American students in front of us who "loved our accents" and proceeded to apologise if they'd been offensive or had bothered us. They were quite lovely really! Every 15-20m or so there was a sign stating "you may get wet". Gene also assured me that if we were in front we might get a bit wet. So just before we got seated in the front row by the attendant, I took off my top layer and took the ride in my singlet top an jeans. Good move. We got absolutely soaked on the last big downhill. Gene's shirt was soaked (luckily he'd brought a spare one) and I got a face and lapful of water to boot. The photo taken by their camera was great though so we bought a copy to bring home to show our parents. We dried off in the Star Arcade where we played Mario Bros and Bomber Man. I sucked at both. It still wasn't quite time for us to ride on Space Mountain though so Gene & I checked out
It's a Small World before we had a couple of Mickey Burgers to take the edge off our hunger. Space Mountain was AWESOME. They had a great hyperspace lasery bit before plunging you into darkness with the odd star to light your way. A series of extremely tight corners saw Gene & I swinging around in our seats (as much as our safety brackets would allow). If it wasn't almost 22:00 and the park about to close, I would have loved to have gone on it again.
After a big day of Disney we headed back to the hotel to try and work out our accommodation for the last two nights of our stay.
NikkoThe next day we headed to Nikko on the
shinkansen with Gene's parents and their friend Ian. Nikko is a popular tourist destination and has more temples than we could have imagined. Unfortuntely the weather wasn't on our side and it rained most of the time we were there. We still saw 5 temples while we were there and admired the architecture while wondering what we were looking at (again the signs were in Japanese).
I'm going to leave you all here for now, and finish this draft later as Gene & I are going to get some food before wandering up to our departure gate, wherever it may be...
See you all back home!
