Day 8: On our own again

Day 8: On our own again. So nice to be back on our own again.

Here I am back on a train. This time we are on the Shinkansen, going at 300KPH headed for Tokyo. I hope. I mean, I know we are on the right train. I think. Everyone smiled and nodded. Our seats are facing in the way we are moving, that is a good sign, right?

We had a relaxing morning and then started several different journeys. First: We sent our bags ahead to our Tokyo hotel. This is how you do things in Japan. Every hotel has a special service area, you take your bags there (make sure and bring a japanese text address for your next hotel) and poof! Your bags are gone and will show up there sometime tomorrow. You don't have to carry them or worry about them or try to find a place for them on the Shinkansen. We have reserved seats, box lunches, power outlets to recharge our laptops (should they need that, but being Macbooks, they will probably be fine for the 3 hour trip into Tokyo). And, I just found out that the station that I thought the Shinkansen goes into is NOT the one it actually goes into. Instead of just having to ride the commuter train for 4 stops to our hotel, we are going to have to ride it 1 stop. Almost not worth bothering with the train, huh? (news flash from the future, it was 3 stops)

As a special side trip, and to try and satisfy Daniel's need for Tori Gates, we took the local JR train a couple of stations to the Anari Shrine. The shrine of 1000 tori gates. What a cool place. At first we thought we had made a mistake and were at the wrong place. Because we only saw like 6 Tori Gates (but they were huge and orange). There were also a lot of shinto shrines and prayer areas. Everything very old and with that classic Japanese roofing style. Lots of fox carvings. Going to have to look up what that is all about sometime when we have Internet connection.

 

Once we had looked around the main area, we followed a large side path up the hill, and there we found it. The Infinite Corridor of Tori Gates. I made you a Movie !!

After viewing this movie many hours later I just have to say, I was so focused on the Tori that I had NO IDEA that that young women was walking just in front of me. Really. Honestly. Trust me on this one.

Or if you are boring you can see some stills.

 

I am pretty sure that the pretty girl in the previous photos took this shot.
I said "Dozo"

See the Wishes?

Here is the idea, as far as we can tell, you have a prayer you want answered? You buy a tori gate, write your name and prayer on the tori gate, and erect it for your ancestors to see and take action on. The bigger the gate, the more likely your wish will be answered. And, of course, the bigger the gate the more it cost to put up. You want a 10 meter Tori Gate? That is a few hundred million yen. We forgot to take a picture of the sign that had the prices. I will look it up on the internet <Note to future self, look up tori gate prices>.

Daniel bought a small one for 800 yen, but that was just as a souvenir.

We also ran into a guy that was sell (what I assume were) used Yakata (a light cotton Komona). While Daniel was trying on one, an elderly woman in a beautiful Komona came up to us, smiled, and said “He looks very good in that. I look the look of it on him.” Surprised the socks right off of me, let me tell you. Then she engaged the merchant in polite conversation and everyone was happy. I bought the Yakata and everyone bowed to everyone and we were all very happy. What a pleasant experience. If I had been on the ball, I would have asked for a picture of this nice old lady with Daniel in his Yakata.

OK, back here in realtime, the Conductor just took my ticket and said “thanks so much”, so we are definitely on the right train. Woo Hoo !!

I think I will have a beer.

The shinkansen is very pleasant. I had time to write a short story and read some of Vernor Vinge's new book and then we were gliding in to Tokyo. We made the transfer to the JR. I was thinking that we would need a new ticket to pay for our trip on the local Tokyo line, but it turns out that our Shinkansen ticket was good for any transfers in the Tokyo District. How cool is that? Imagine something like that working in the US. Imagine taking the high speed transit from LA to SF (that would be the airplane), getting of the airplane and stepping right onto Bart and never needing to get a new ticket.

Think through what we did. We walked up to a ticket booth at 12:50 and asked for two tickets to the next city over. The guy did some button pushing and asked us which train we wanted. The 1:06 or the 1:16. I asked for the 1:16 because I wasn't sure how to find the track and wanted time to screw up. He took my credit card (call it $300 for 2) and we walked out, through an automated gate (it takes your ticket in, says “OK” and gives you your ticket back) and (since the ticket agent had told me “platform Eleven”) we were right up onto the platform. We were at our car entrance point at like 12:58. Time to get a bento box and a beer. Which we did. In fact, we had to wait for the 1:06 to leave (don't want to get on the wrong train). And then we were off.

So, we travel from Kyoto to Tokyo, we have no reservations, we have LOTS of leg room, and we have power we can plug our computers into. And it cost us $150. And that includes transit to our hotel via local city transport. Oh, and we arrive at each destination within 1 minute of scheduled arrival time. (unless there is a massive earthquake, then within 2 minutes).

Our Hotel in our new digs (for the next 5 nights) is the Princess Garden Hotel, in Meguru. It isn't as nice as some of the places we have been, but it would certainly compare well to any Holiday Inn in the US, so we will do just fine. (though, a Holiday Inn in the US would have a pool. They don't seem to have swimming pools in Japan. In fact, I think they consider swimming to be a special ability. Like typing used to be. (but I could be wrong about that).

Oh. We are now going to play Star Craft for a while.

(we must be number 1)