Trip diary: March 21st, 2007

Putting lumber in my bag doesn't help.

After Charles' morning caffeine injection we made our way to Shin-Osaka eki to pick up our rail passes and get shinkansen (bullet train) tickets for Kyoto. The guy who helped us was an old hand at the process. He had our passes and tickets ready in no time flat.

When two people get tickets together the normal assumption on the part of the ticket agent is to give seats next to each other. That is not a good thing when both people are the size of Charles and I. Especially with the size of the seats in Japan. We were pressed in tight together.

The ride to Kyoto only takes 15 minutes so we had barely had time to complain about the tight quarters.

Our first stop in Kyoto was the market, Kobo-san. This market is held on the 21st of every month. It has been in operation for about 700 years.

Entering the market we went looking for some food and found a stall selling takoyaki (octopus balls). We had been told to eat takoyaki many times so we each got a 6 pack and sat down to eat. They were good but I felt that bonito flakes were too much.

We went looking for stuff and I bought a kimono for my friend Robin and Charles bought a noren to put over the door to his living room.

After we had seen all the stalls and looked though all the knick-knacks we headed out to find a certain temple that was supposedly having a display of Noh chanting. We went to the area where the temple is and tried to find it. We couldn't find it. Even the locals we asked had never heard of the place. By this time we knew that we had missed the chanting so we went looking for lunch. We tried to find something good that wasn't overly expensive. Unfortunately this was a very touristy area of town so everything was more expensive than normal. We gave up on the search for good and just settled on 'not expensive' and went to KFC. I don't know how it is possible but KFC is even worse in Japan then it is here in Canada.

Our next intended destination in Kyoto was the Taiko Centre. It is a store that sells taiko related stuff. It wasn't very far from where we were so we walked down there. We were greeted by a closed store front. It was a national holiday in Japan that day so most stores were closed and this was no exception. As we stood there cursing our luck we noticed a delivery van making a delivery to the side door of the store. Charles walked over to the people doing the deliver and asked if the store was closed. The answer was affirmative so Charles proceeded to lay it on thick. “We are from Canada and came all this way to come to the store. We can't come back tomorrow because we are leaving.” The woman looked at us and asked what we were looking for. After we told her we just wanted bachi (drum sticks) and such she let us in to look over the merchandise. We bought some bachi and shoes and CDs and such. It was an expensive stop for us.

Our next destination was Otagi Nembutsu Ji. It is not very well known. It has 1200 statues there which are all kinda silly and odd. It's very different from the normal Japanese temple where everything is very serious and sombre.

To get there we had to take a long slow and hot street car ride to the outskirts of town. On the street car there was a guy who kept clapping in front of his mouth. His mouth made the clapping sound really weird. Neither of us could do it right when we tried it. We then had to walk through a bamboo forest and a very up-scale touristy area filled with expensive shops.

The walk was mostly uphill. We came to a place called Nembutsu Ji so we paid 500¥ to get in. The place was just a big grave yard. We were confused. We asked at the ticket gate where Otagi Nembutsuji is and they pointed up the hill.

The steepness of the climb was increasing as we went higher. We were starting to get annoyed at whomever decided that the tops of big hills was a good place to put a temple.

We found the place eventually and went in. There were very few people there. The place is not very well known even among Japanese people (we met some locals who had never heard of the place). We spent the next little while looking at all the statues and exploring the area. We had the place almost to ourselves. There was a family looking around and some people washing the temple but that was it. We took lots of pictures of statues we found interesting or funny.

Eventually we had seen all we needed to see and went out of the temple. There was a bus stop across the street so we went to wait for the bus. A local walked past so we asked him when the bus came and he said it would be there in about 45 minutes. Our feet were killing us but we decided to walk back down to the street car. On our way back we passed a rickshaw with two geishas sitting in the back. Those were the only geishas we saw on the whole trip.

When we got back to Kyoto station we took time to explore the station itself. The building is really cool. It's about 10 stories tall and open concept. We took escalators up to the roof top and looked out over Kyoto. It was a very nice view.

I'm told that Godzilla destroyed this building once. They Japanese are very good at rebuilding after Gozilla related incidents. They have had a lot of practice.

We grabbed dinner at a restaurant in the underground mall at the station. It was OK but not very remarkable. The most interesting part was getting the panties shot. It was taken surreptitiously while the waitress was taking our orders.

We went down to Osaka and went straight to the hotel. Our feet were telling us that they planned to make our lives miserable if we persisted with this silly walking idea of ours.

We slept soundly that night.

Trip diary: March 20th, 2007

Was that her pet duck?

I woke up early as usual. Charles woke up at about 7 and after he had had a few coffees we went out to find somewhere to have breakfast. We went down to Tennoji eki and went looking for breakfast places.

We settled on going to Mos Burger. When we walked up to the counter there was a frantic discussion amongst the staff about who would have to deal with the strange looking foreigners. Eventually one girl lost out and came over to serve us. We got some ham sandwich things (with mayonnaise!) and sat down to watch the rush hours crowds run through the station.

That kept us amused for a while.

After breakfast we returned to the hotel. On the way we turned down a small covered street and found ourselves in a pedestrian shopping mall. Kinda like Namba, but less trendy and more scuzzy.

We were supposed to meet Asuka, a girl Charles met on the plane ride over from Vancouver, at 11 but she was late. Then there was a mix up as to what exit she should use at Shinimamiya eki. Eventually we hooked up and went to go down to DenDen Town, Osaka's electronics district. We wandered in and out of stores looking at prices and were sorely disappointed.

We went for lunch at a “things on a stick” type restaurant near the base of the Osaka tower. Apparently this place is quite famous for not allowing double dipping. Asuka got a little bit drunk and started telling us all about her life and how it is seriously messed up. We coined a term that day: The Asuka Syndrome. It means “a Japanese person who wants out of the Japanese life”.

We spent a long time in the restaurant. We talked for a lot longer than any of us planned.

Eventually we left the restaurant and made our way over to Kobe to meet a friend of Asuka's. There was some confusion with the trains and we were late getting to Kobe. The friend was waiting for us even though Auska called the wrong number to say we would be late.

The friend's name was Saho. She was a very quiet and shy girl who didn't say much over the course of the evening. Apparently she is a Opera singer. At the time she was staring in Carmen. We tried to convince her to sing for us but she didn't.

Asuka took us to a Brazilian restaurant for dinner. The meal was good. Lots of meat.

After dinner we went out to admire the Kobe skyline by night. It was amazingly beautiful. I decided right then that Kobe was the best city we had been to. I am still awed by that sight.

At about 10 o'clock we made our way back to the train station so we Charles and I could go back to Osaka. We arranged to meet Asuka again on Thursday to go to Himeji. We invited Saho to come with us but she couldn't come because she was teaching opera that day.

We returned to the hotel and went to bed.

Trip diary: March 19th, 2007

Put it on a stick and I will eat it.

Woke up at 4 in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep so I played with my PSP. Charles got up at about 7 and left to go to see the sumo fights. I took a leisurely shower and wrote the journal entry for the previous day.

At around 9 I made my way out of the hotel with every intention of getting lost in Osaka so I would have to figure out the city. I took the subway to Nipponbashi eki which is connected to a huge underground shopping mall. I wandered the shopping mall and took an exit that I didn't know from my previous visits to the mall.

I found myself in a parking lot. Turning left out of the parking lot and taking a few random turns brought me to a major intersection. I turned left again and started walking.

I was in a business section. Lots of tall buildings everywhere. I think I was the cause of quite a few discussions around the water cooler. I haven't mentioned yet that I had decided to wear my kilt that day. Under normal circumstances Japanese people stare at me but in a very polite way. They try don't want me to know that they are staring and whispering to each other. With the kilt, all pretence of politeness went out the window. They openly stared at me. They pointed and giggled.

Walking along this major street I saw a sign saying “Osaka Station” with an arrow pointing straight ahead. On the train trips to and from Kobe the day before we spotted a building that we dubbed 'Funky building' that was near Osaka eki. We were thinking of going to get a close up view of it anyway so I kept walking in that direction.

About an hour after I first saw a sign for the station I made it there. Osaka eki is huge and complex. You can get lost very easily. I had been here on my last trip to Japan so I thought I remembered how to get around. I was mistaken. The station has changed quite a bit in the past 5 years. I got lost and then found something I remembered but everything else around it had changed. I then got lost again and the process would start over.

Eventually I made my way out the north exit of the station and saw Funky Building. It was still a couple of blocks away so I looked for a way to get to it. Between me and it was a large industrial section that I had to take the long way around. The whole neighbourhood had a bit of a blue collar feel to it. It was very different feel from the big business feel on the south side of the station.

Keeping 'Funky Building' in sight I weaved my way towards it. It looked like it was really close but no matter how much I walked it never seemed to get any closer until suddenly I was right there.

Funky Building's real name is Umeda Sky Building. Trivia point: this building was one of the buildings you could get in SimCity 3000.

I didn't feel like going up to the observation deck because by this time I was regretting my decision to wear the kilt. My inner thighs were chaffing like mad and I was tired. The combination of pain and sleep deprivation was making me cranky.

It was about 11:30 by this time and I was getting hungry so I thought I would get lunch at a Yoshinoya I passed on my way to Osaka eki. I walked back to Osaka eki and made my way through without any problems this time.

I walked back down the major street until I saw the Yoshinoya. It was at this point that I learned a major axiom of life in Japan. “Never ever go for lunch at around lunch time”. Yoshinoya was packed. And there was a line up. Every food place had a line in front of it. I kept walking and passed the enterence for an underground shopping mall. I went in and found the area of the mall with all the restaurants. There were people everywhere. I went out and kept walking down the street.

By this time I had adopted the 'sumo walk' to keep my thighs from getting any worse. The sumo walk is the walk I noticed all the sumo guy doing. It involves holding your feet further apart than is normal. The stance makes you walk a little bit more with your hips and a little less with your knees.

At around 11:50 I passed a Mos Burger that wasn't overly crowded. I studied the menu for a little while and decided on a chicken burger. The only seats available at that moment were at a table that had tall stools around it. I took a stool and sat down. I then realized that I was probably flashing all the people on the other side of the restaurant. I tried to close my legs but the chaffing was so great that I couldn't do that without pain so I stuffed the fabric of the kilt down between my legs and made do.

I sat at the restaurant for a while hoping that the pain would recede a little. It didn't. I reluctantly got up and started making my way back down the street. I passed a subway entrance so I decided to take the subway back to the hotel.

I went in to the station and looked at the subway map. Stroke of luck! The line that goes right in front of the hotel stopped at this station. I bought a ticket for the ride and walked through the gate. I needed to take the Midosuji line to Dobutsuenmae eki, which has an entrance directly in front of the hotel. There were signs that said “Midosuji line this way” so I followed them. They led me down a long corridor and some stairs to a platform, but it was not the platform I wanted. At the far end of the platform there was another sign saying “this way!” so I went that way. Up a flight of stairs and another long hallway and down some more stairs and I was at another platform. Still not the one I wanted. At the far end of the plat form was another sign saying “just a little farther”. I was just about ready to punch someone but I kept on. Some more stairs and another long corridor then some more stairs got me to the platform I wanted, just in time to see the train pull out of the station. Whee!

I waited a few minutes for the next train to come and boarded it with all haste in an attempt to get a seat. All the seats in the car were full so I had to stand.

At Dobutsuenmae eki I managed to exit via the wrong exit. Not a big deal. Just meant a little bit more walking.

I got in the hotel and bought a drink from the lobby vending machine. I went up to the room and put the cold bottle between my legs to cool the burning caused by the chafing. I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. I found a cool show for kids to teach chemistry called “Super Chemistry”.

I soon fell asleep out of shear exhaustion. Next thing I know it is late at night and Charles came back to the hotel. We chatted for a little bit and I fell back asleep.