Japan, the Second Half
Sep. 20th, 2007 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedishampooHere are the rest of the pics, at least the ones I figured I could post without overloading everyone. I have bucketloads of "landscape" pics, but won't bore you all with those, as they don't exactly convey the beauty of the things we saw in Japan.
Cut for pics! These are the last, I believe!
I believe I left off in Tokyo? We were in Ikebukuro, and our hotel was right across the street from another set of anime/doujinshi/bookshops. So I bought more stuff, including my only "Howl's Moving Castle" items (doujinshi) at the Animate store. Apparently EVERY Ghibli store in Japan is sold out of Howl's Moving Castle stuff. So I have to continue acquiring everything via E-bay, despite having been to Japan. :)
The last bit of Tokyo was a short walking tour to the Ginza, a popular shopping area and where the big Tokyo Kabuki theater is. It sorta looked like Las Vegas at night, all neon and crowds. Here's a picture of me in the Ginza:
Next we left Tokyo and began the second week of our trip, the "tour" part. We started by driving up Mt. Fuji. However, Mt. Fuji was invisible. That typhoon was heading our way and the mountains were covered in clouds. We drove up into the clouds, in fact. The below was taken on Mt. Fuji's fifth step and is one of my favorite pictures of the trip, solely becuase of its sweet irony:
It was raining and cold up there, but there was a nice little "Alpine-style" village of souvenir stores at the top. Below are some Japanese preparing to climb the mountain. Apparently most Japanese want to see/climb Mt. Fuji once in their lives. But only once. More than once, and you're pretty much an idiot, they say.
Then we went for a ride around a mountain lake (Lake Ashi) in a PIRATE BOAT! ARRR!
Later, we stayed at a lovely resort in a town called Hakone. They had a HOT SPRING BATH! Hot spring bathing was one of the items I'd put on my list of "things to do in Japan." This one was lovely. The baths are separate for men and women. (There had been some confusion about this in our tour group.) You put on your yukatta (robe, see pic below) and slippers. You go to the bath area, then strip and sit on a little stool in front of a mirror. You have to completely wash yourself BEFORE you get in the hot spring bath; hey, it's shared! But it was nice, they had great facial scrub, shampoo, conditioner, you name it. THEN you get into the hot spring. The resort had a spring bath inside and outside. I did it at night; the mountain air was cool and it was raining, but I was sitting outside in 120-degree water that was soft and silky, and only smelled lightly of sulfur. Lovely. I was glowing and relaxed when I was done. I didn't wear makeup for two days after this, I looked so fabulous. :) I wish I could have taken pics of the bath but it was prohibited. People were naked there!
The next few days, I am ashamed to say, were a bit of a blur. We saw temple and shrine after temple and shrine, and while they were all lovely, and some of them made me feel quite peaceful after the purification ritual (washing the hands in the spring), I began to lose track of which was where on what day. I did learn: Shrine=Shinto=happy occasions, Temple=Buddhist=funerals.
One I do remember is Nara Park, where they had a giant buddha and the "attack deer." Apparently Buddha rode a deer into town, and so they built a temple and around it, the deer are sacred. The deer are hungry and aggressive, because apparently September is the "slow season." You're supposed to buy deer cookies from stalls and then you feed the deer. What really happens is that the deer watch you buying cookies, and then follow you and nip at you trying to get the cookies. The deer were cute, even if they did give a few members of our group bruises. Below, see the deer attack! OK, so they don't look all that evil, do they?
On into Kyoto! I was really looking forward to seeing Kyoto, because of its history (capital of Japan for thousand years). It had more shrines and temples per acre than any other city in Japan, there was good food, and there were more "westerners" in Kyoto than I'd seen even in Tokyo. I bummed a cigarette light from a cute Italian dude, and talked to a British citizen who was currently living in Holland. We went to a kimono fashion show, which was cute:
We also visited a beautiful garden with a castle, the "second or third most beautiful garden in Japan," I believe. It was four or five hundred years old! Things there are surprisingly old; I guess coming from America, even studying history, you don't realize sometimes how old objects or buildings can be. The Giant Buddha at Nara had "newer parts;" some of them were only 400 years old (gasp)!
Then on to Kurashiki, where we toured and stayed in a Japanese-style hotel. This was one of the coolest parts of our trip, even if the tatami/futon combination is not the most comfortable one for sleeping (IMHO). The ladies who ran the inn welcomes us so kindly; they gave us slippers and yukatta to wear around the hotel (it was all shoes-off), they poured green tea in our room and bowed out so graciously; they also had a hot bath.
Here's the hotel, and the second picture is our balcony (a garden with steps and a lantern on the BALCONY, can ya believe it?):
Here we are in yukatta again. I believe I look so cranky because my ankles had disappeared by this point; all the soy and the rice and walking had gotten to me:
Speaking of soy, the hotel served us a 10-course Japanese-style dinner, and a Japanese breakfast the next morning. Here's a pic of breakfast:
I finally got to use my Japanese again at the hotel, asking where to smoke and what slippers were for outside, etc. Once I walked in after smoking and said "o-yasumi nasai" (good night) to the nice older gentleman who'd directed me to the garden; five people popped their heads out of various doors and waved to me, calling "o-yasumi nasai!" It made me very happy.
The hotel ladies were so nice; they waved goodbye to our group (26 of us) as we walked out the following morning, and stood there until we were out of sight.
Kurashiki town was cute but I was about over it, I fear. Even the art museum, which had a surprising western collection (Monet, Pollock, and Picasso, among others), could not hold my interest; I was tired and ready to go home. The blueberry ice cream and iced tea helped, but the heat and humidity were killers. Here's a nice pic my mom took of the village; note the bird!
After Kurashiki it was back to Kyoto. I hate to say it; I love rice and seaweed-- hey, I'm a vegetarian-- but I was ready for American-style food by the time our last night in Kyoto arrived. We did find an Italian restaurant-- well, Italian sorta. Everything there that is "western-style" is just not quite the same as it is here. Lots of it was good, but really, when mom and I got home the first place we went was Taco Bell and then the Harley-Davidson Cafe. Yes, we're that pathetic. Here's the plastic food from outside the Italian restaurant (EVERYWHERE has plastic food in the windows, so you can see what you want!):
One last picture-- yes, it's a toilet, on the floor. The Japanese-style stall in the ladies' room. Yes, it's clean, so ya shouldn't be grossed out. I just had to have the pic. Luckily, everywhere we went there were western-style restrooms. Even if one restroom had four Japanese-style stalls and one Western stall, we found it. And surprisingly, Japanese women would eschew the traditional stall to wait in line to use the western toilets. These were very fancy, with bidets, seat warmers, and many had a "tinkling brook" feature that sounded running water when you went in. I never did find out if this is to help or if it's a polite-sound sort of thing.
Overall I had a fabulous time, the Japanese are lovely, and I bought lots of snacks and souveniers to take home, and didn't even spend all the money I'd brought! good thing, since now we have to move by October 1. Darn our landlord, anyway, selling our house. :)
Thanks for looking, everyone!!
Cut for pics! These are the last, I believe!
I believe I left off in Tokyo? We were in Ikebukuro, and our hotel was right across the street from another set of anime/doujinshi/bookshops. So I bought more stuff, including my only "Howl's Moving Castle" items (doujinshi) at the Animate store. Apparently EVERY Ghibli store in Japan is sold out of Howl's Moving Castle stuff. So I have to continue acquiring everything via E-bay, despite having been to Japan. :)
The last bit of Tokyo was a short walking tour to the Ginza, a popular shopping area and where the big Tokyo Kabuki theater is. It sorta looked like Las Vegas at night, all neon and crowds. Here's a picture of me in the Ginza:
Next we left Tokyo and began the second week of our trip, the "tour" part. We started by driving up Mt. Fuji. However, Mt. Fuji was invisible. That typhoon was heading our way and the mountains were covered in clouds. We drove up into the clouds, in fact. The below was taken on Mt. Fuji's fifth step and is one of my favorite pictures of the trip, solely becuase of its sweet irony:
It was raining and cold up there, but there was a nice little "Alpine-style" village of souvenir stores at the top. Below are some Japanese preparing to climb the mountain. Apparently most Japanese want to see/climb Mt. Fuji once in their lives. But only once. More than once, and you're pretty much an idiot, they say.
Then we went for a ride around a mountain lake (Lake Ashi) in a PIRATE BOAT! ARRR!
Later, we stayed at a lovely resort in a town called Hakone. They had a HOT SPRING BATH! Hot spring bathing was one of the items I'd put on my list of "things to do in Japan." This one was lovely. The baths are separate for men and women. (There had been some confusion about this in our tour group.) You put on your yukatta (robe, see pic below) and slippers. You go to the bath area, then strip and sit on a little stool in front of a mirror. You have to completely wash yourself BEFORE you get in the hot spring bath; hey, it's shared! But it was nice, they had great facial scrub, shampoo, conditioner, you name it. THEN you get into the hot spring. The resort had a spring bath inside and outside. I did it at night; the mountain air was cool and it was raining, but I was sitting outside in 120-degree water that was soft and silky, and only smelled lightly of sulfur. Lovely. I was glowing and relaxed when I was done. I didn't wear makeup for two days after this, I looked so fabulous. :) I wish I could have taken pics of the bath but it was prohibited. People were naked there!
The next few days, I am ashamed to say, were a bit of a blur. We saw temple and shrine after temple and shrine, and while they were all lovely, and some of them made me feel quite peaceful after the purification ritual (washing the hands in the spring), I began to lose track of which was where on what day. I did learn: Shrine=Shinto=happy occasions, Temple=Buddhist=funerals.
One I do remember is Nara Park, where they had a giant buddha and the "attack deer." Apparently Buddha rode a deer into town, and so they built a temple and around it, the deer are sacred. The deer are hungry and aggressive, because apparently September is the "slow season." You're supposed to buy deer cookies from stalls and then you feed the deer. What really happens is that the deer watch you buying cookies, and then follow you and nip at you trying to get the cookies. The deer were cute, even if they did give a few members of our group bruises. Below, see the deer attack! OK, so they don't look all that evil, do they?
On into Kyoto! I was really looking forward to seeing Kyoto, because of its history (capital of Japan for thousand years). It had more shrines and temples per acre than any other city in Japan, there was good food, and there were more "westerners" in Kyoto than I'd seen even in Tokyo. I bummed a cigarette light from a cute Italian dude, and talked to a British citizen who was currently living in Holland. We went to a kimono fashion show, which was cute:
We also visited a beautiful garden with a castle, the "second or third most beautiful garden in Japan," I believe. It was four or five hundred years old! Things there are surprisingly old; I guess coming from America, even studying history, you don't realize sometimes how old objects or buildings can be. The Giant Buddha at Nara had "newer parts;" some of them were only 400 years old (gasp)!
Then on to Kurashiki, where we toured and stayed in a Japanese-style hotel. This was one of the coolest parts of our trip, even if the tatami/futon combination is not the most comfortable one for sleeping (IMHO). The ladies who ran the inn welcomes us so kindly; they gave us slippers and yukatta to wear around the hotel (it was all shoes-off), they poured green tea in our room and bowed out so graciously; they also had a hot bath.
Here's the hotel, and the second picture is our balcony (a garden with steps and a lantern on the BALCONY, can ya believe it?):
Here we are in yukatta again. I believe I look so cranky because my ankles had disappeared by this point; all the soy and the rice and walking had gotten to me:
Speaking of soy, the hotel served us a 10-course Japanese-style dinner, and a Japanese breakfast the next morning. Here's a pic of breakfast:
I finally got to use my Japanese again at the hotel, asking where to smoke and what slippers were for outside, etc. Once I walked in after smoking and said "o-yasumi nasai" (good night) to the nice older gentleman who'd directed me to the garden; five people popped their heads out of various doors and waved to me, calling "o-yasumi nasai!" It made me very happy.
The hotel ladies were so nice; they waved goodbye to our group (26 of us) as we walked out the following morning, and stood there until we were out of sight.
Kurashiki town was cute but I was about over it, I fear. Even the art museum, which had a surprising western collection (Monet, Pollock, and Picasso, among others), could not hold my interest; I was tired and ready to go home. The blueberry ice cream and iced tea helped, but the heat and humidity were killers. Here's a nice pic my mom took of the village; note the bird!
After Kurashiki it was back to Kyoto. I hate to say it; I love rice and seaweed-- hey, I'm a vegetarian-- but I was ready for American-style food by the time our last night in Kyoto arrived. We did find an Italian restaurant-- well, Italian sorta. Everything there that is "western-style" is just not quite the same as it is here. Lots of it was good, but really, when mom and I got home the first place we went was Taco Bell and then the Harley-Davidson Cafe. Yes, we're that pathetic. Here's the plastic food from outside the Italian restaurant (EVERYWHERE has plastic food in the windows, so you can see what you want!):
One last picture-- yes, it's a toilet, on the floor. The Japanese-style stall in the ladies' room. Yes, it's clean, so ya shouldn't be grossed out. I just had to have the pic. Luckily, everywhere we went there were western-style restrooms. Even if one restroom had four Japanese-style stalls and one Western stall, we found it. And surprisingly, Japanese women would eschew the traditional stall to wait in line to use the western toilets. These were very fancy, with bidets, seat warmers, and many had a "tinkling brook" feature that sounded running water when you went in. I never did find out if this is to help or if it's a polite-sound sort of thing.
Overall I had a fabulous time, the Japanese are lovely, and I bought lots of snacks and souveniers to take home, and didn't even spend all the money I'd brought! good thing, since now we have to move by October 1. Darn our landlord, anyway, selling our house. :)
Thanks for looking, everyone!!
PEEK A BOO
Date: 2007-09-21 09:37 pm (UTC)(in the background, particularly at the end. i'm taking this video in your shot. ^_^ )
The tinkling noise is a politeness thing, yes; the sound of peeing is masked by it. The electronic noise is a substitute for repeated flushing cycles (done for the same purpose - to drown out bodily noises) and saves water. This is mostly an older-person thing.
Re: PEEK A BOO
Date: 2007-09-21 10:04 pm (UTC)I'd wondered about the tinkling noise thing-- now I have the correct explantion. :)
Re: PEEK A BOO
Date: 2007-09-22 04:22 pm (UTC)