jedishampoo | Japan pics and brief travelog!

Wow, I have a lot of pictures. I've tried to pare them down, however, so I don't overload my f-list. ;)

Cut for pics and Japan blabber:

Overall, it was very cool, a country that is clean, well-organized, and full of very polite people. And I say this all in an admiring and not sarcastic way. Seriously, it was culture shock coming back to the US and seeing the trashy, grungy Southwest terminal at LAX, and having people ignore you when you try to purchase things at convenience stores, etc. The amazing Japan Rail lines, subways and Shinkansen (bullet trains) made me long to live in a city with a good public transportation system.

Course, my first night there was hellish. Mom and I had traveled for 24 hours on cars, planes, buses, cabs, and whatnot, so when we arrived at our hotel in Yokohama on 8/27 (8/28 in Japan! they're like 16 hours ahead or something) we were pretty bushwhacked. I was cranky; I hated Japan already, I was hungry, tired, our room was small, and I wanted to go HOME. Then I remembered what

sharpeslass told me before I left: If you arrive and believe it was all a big mistake and that you want to come home, that's JET LAG.

And it was. I woke up bright-eyed at 5:00 a.m. Japan time all ready to check things out. I found an all-night diner and found out they had no coffee (noooo!), but found hot coffee at the 7-11. (Overall, my one semester of Japanese did me very well. And I learned tons more while there, especially food-related terms.) The first thing I took a picture of was one of the very clean, very reliable vending machines that are found EVERY four or five steps in Japan. They are full of cold coffee, green tea, unrecognizable juices, food, cigarettes, beer, you name it:

Below is the street next to our hotel, the Breezbay, in the early morning (by nighttime this street is full of people drinking and men going into peep shows and pachinko parlors):

Mom was awake early too so we went for a walk, and I took a picture of bicycles. I did this because there are LOTS of bicyclists in Japan, ready to ding their bells at you when you hog the sidewalk. However, I can see why they use them; who needs a car when you have great public transportation?

On our early-morning walk we wore shorts and some of the older ladies gave my mom some strange looks (in Japan you don’t see anyone over the age of 25 wearing shorts, usually). We walked to Chinatown. Yokohama has the largest Chinatown in Japan. It was very cool, and we were so early that people were cleaning outside their shops, and restaurants were just then putting their giant buns up to steam. I would have eaten some but I don’t think they were vegetarian. ;) We did find some neat buildings and a very cool little temple in Chinatown, with very elaborate statues and people burning incense and praying:

On one side trip to Tokyo I went to the GHIBLI MUSEUM! This was one of my priorities in visiting Japan, since I’m a complete Hayao Miyazaki nut. I have only two pics (below), though, ‘cause you aren’t allowed to take pictures. Suffice to say it was very neato, if a little full of screaming children. The food pic is the “Straw Hat Omelet” I got at the Ghibli café. Note the very sweet china—Noritake with pictures of Tortoro! And we had to ride rush-hour trains back to Yokohama, which was a little hard on my Mom. People REALLY crowd those trains in Japan.

Oh, yeah, the con. I hardly attended Worldcon this year, except the masquerade, a few parties, and a few trips to the dealers/exhibition rooms, and now and then to check for messages on the Voodoo Board. And Regency Dancing, of course! There were several Japanese people doing Regency Dancing for the first time, and it was fun listening to all the teacher’s instructions being translated into Japanese. There were a couple of girls dancing in kimono, even, and the Japanese men got into the spirit as well. It didn’t seem my mom’s pics of the dancing turned out, however.

We had a nice dinner out with Donna, Margaret, Irene, Raymond, Theresa, and Elizabeth after the dancing. Here we are at the Yokohama pier, which our balcony restaurant overlooked:

Yokohama had a cute amusement park, tall ship (nippon maru) and Tower of London by the seaside, but I never made it onto any of the rides. There was no one to ride with!

I did a little partying at the con, as I said. Here’s a pic from one of the freakier parties—they had anime-head characters serving tea and posing for pictures:

I did a side trip another day into Akihabara (Tokyo Radio City neighborhood) to do some otaku (fan) shopping. WOW. These stores had some of the best statues and action figures I’d ever seen. I was drooling, and I’m not even a fanatic for action figures. There were lots of maids around shilling for their maid cafes, lots of Stitch and Hello Kitty and whatnot, lots of naughty stores, and even a six-story costume shop. The pachinko parlors have pics of sexy ladies and anime characters to attract the men and cover the windows:

(Costume shop)

I came home with a 128,000-yen (about $110), incredibly-detailed, 12” action figure statue of Edward Elric. It was the one I liked best for the money. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Jack Sparrow were way out of my price range. I would have taken pictures but the very friendly staff at Kotobukiya and Aso Bit City were keeping an eye on their customers (you weren’t allowed to take pictures of the figures). Here’s Ed, on my “Howl’s Moving Castle/Anime shrine:”

After six nights in Yokohama we moved to Tokyo for a day or two before beginning the "tour" part of our vacation. This was good and bad. Mom and I had done pretty well on our own and had a great time, but I was looking forward to having someone drive me around for a bit showing me what they thought was significant. Some of the tours ended up being a race against time, though, especially in Tokyo, and we didn't get to look around as long as we might have liked. And on our "long" tour there were some nice people, but there were also some people who just shouldn't have left the U.S. If you're reading this journal it wasn't you. ;)

Tokyo is huge and busy; I’d thought Yokohama was busy but Yokohama was in da boonies compared to Tokyo! And we saw lots crazier clothing on the young people, also—gothic Lolitas and whatnot. (A side note: there were many Japanese men and a good number of girls as tall as me, surprisingly. Apparently this generation has different nutrition. And all the girls in Japan wear heels. They have hammertoes by the age of 22, or at least it seemed by my examination of their feet.) And Tokyo was jam-packed. The entire region is one big city, stretching on into nearly forever. Here’s the view from our hotel room window in Tokyo: