In Summary

A few amusing points of Interest and Random Advice.

I just wanted to close with some things that didn't quite get into my daily blog.

Love Hotels

It is very crowded in Tokyo. Adult children are often renting a room from their parents. So what do they do when they have a boodie call? They go and use a Love Motel. There were a couple of these across the street from our place in Meguro and I took some pictures.

This is actually 2 places, right next to each other. The only "Mod" buildings around

Rest

A “Rest” is for a couple of hours.

A “Stay' is for the night.

Some of the things that theses places offer:

1. Automated checkin. No need to talk to a front desk person. Preserve your privacy.
2. No windows. (why would you need them?)
3. Many places have special settings (such things as round beds, mirrored ceilings,and sex toys).
4. In the one across the street, it looked like they even had special secure “car” check in. Drive your car in, and lock it up, no people needed.
5. It is all BYOG

Couple at shrine with funny T-shirts.

Saw this couple on our first day of touring. She was taking his picture. I took both of theirs. Obviously he used the t-shirts to propose to her. Perhaps on that very day. I wonder if brought 2 different shirts for her (just in case she said no).

Would YOU Marry ME?

Yes I Do

Condo Mania

Oh look, a giant talking banana trying to sell Condo's. Wait.......

Grand Open !! (skytower).

You build the tallest free-standing transmission tower in the world, you pay Hundreds of Thousands of dollars for signage and creative art, and you don't get the damn things spell check by a native english speaker?

Eating Out.

In general, it isn't too bad to get around the language barrier in Japan. However, if you go into a restaurant, make sure that there are pictures of the food outside or that you have some way of asking for what you want. We had a couple of times where there was no english text what-so-ever on the menu and we ended up just walking out. This was mainly because one of us was a vegetarian.

At dinner, you have to summon the waitress. Also, you always pay at the cashier on the way out. If you don't have a bill, just go to the cashier. But usually you will have a running bill sitting on the table.

The Metric System Kills.

I was walking down the street, checking out the route that Dan I would take the next day to get our luggage to the the airport bus. The desk staff said “10 Minutes” but I was untrusting. Suddenly this cab drives by and the driver throws something at me. It comes in fast by misses my head by inches and skids across the sidewalk in front of me. Hey !! What the frak? It is a tape measure? Huh? Perhaps he didn't throw it. Perhaps someone left it on the roof of his cab and it just came loose. I picked it up. I waved at the cab. He slowed down. He did a 3 point turn. OK, he is coming back. Hopefully he will not be coming back to kill me. He stops across the street from me and picks up a new fare. That is why he turned around!! He didn't want the stupid tape measure. BUT IT IS IN METRIC !!

No go.

Now that I look at it, it probably was on the street and he just hit it with a tire and kicked it my way with his cab. Hey, at least I have a +5 magic tape measure. In Metric.

Service Minded Culture

Asked for a cab. I thought the girl would call one on the phone, but instead, she grabbed an umbrella, walked out in the rain to the street corner, and stood there for 3 minutes until she could hail a one from the street. Was she thinking, “It is a honor to help our honorable guests” or “Stupid lazy Fraking Americans can't even get their own cab”.

Street Safety:

Daniels definition of how safe Tokyo is: There are random vending machines in the streets. These would all be vandalized in the USA.

Watch your Fingers

Elevator doors are not forgiving. They close hard and insistently. You can stop them, but you have to push pretty damn hard. Don't know if they could hurt you, but they can definitely cause pain.

And it saves Paper!!

All of the toilets have bidet and “shower” buttons on them that activate a hidden spray for “personal Cleanliness. I can't tell the difference between the to options, But I like both.

I feel as fresh as springtime.

Unless, of course, they are the traditional “hole in the floor” type of toilet. You find those around a lot also.

Why don't I have photographs for these things?

The Language Barrier

Pretty much impossible to predict who will speak english. The ultra western looking waitress may know no english, while the older lady in the kimono will be fluent.

It is unexpectedly hard to get around or even buy dinner if the place isn't using your alphabet. The japanese go a long way to use European alphabet, but there are still some places (out of the way subway stations) where the maps have no english. The station names are usually bi-lingual.

The poor japanese school kids have to learn like 4 alphabets. The chinese characters (kongi) two phonetic sets, and the European alphabet.

Travel Tips:

1. Get rid of all of your cotton things. Try and carry new synthetics. They are much lighter and you can wash them in the tub and they will dry overnight. I think this especially goes for mens underwear. I really wish I had a couple more of the long sleeve button hiking shirts and some of the hiking underwear.
2. Don't expect the waiting staff at a restaurant to hover over you. I think they find that rude. They give you your space. When you want something, wave at them.
3. In Tokyo especially, if you are a non-smoker, ask for a non-smoking floor. (not just room).
4. Go into a japanese grocery store or convenience store (they are everywhere) and try some local sweets that you don't recognize. They are fun and not too challangeing. (hey, same goes for the local beer. Cheaper than at the hotel).
5. In the better class hotels, it is probably worth it to get the room with breakfast. The japanese style buffets can be a lot of fun.
6. Explore the subways in Tokyo. Get a good map from a tourist agency and have some fun. It isn't that hard, and if you stand around looking confused in front of a subway wall map, someone will come up and help you.
7. I think a trip should include a trip to a public bath. Ideally, stay in a hotel that has one, but at least get out one evening to a recommended one. Be sure to be ready to be Naked. This means that no matter what happens you are determined to be nonchalent.
8. There are a lot of places that won't take credit cards. Either make sure that the restaurant or store will take plastic before you order, or carry a bunch of cash.
9. I really enjoyed being on a tour the first part of my stay in Japan. The tour groups really take care of you. They get you from one hotel or station to the next and take much of the worry out of travel. They sort of ease you into the idea that you really can do lots of the travel on your own.
10. In japan, all of the restaurants have japanese cooks. So the italian and chinese and american restaurants are all really japanese restaurants. So you might as well to japanese. The one exception I found to this was the Indian/Nepalese restaurants. These seem to all be run by genuine Nepali people who speak great English and love to have american customers.
11. If you tour guide says to be someplace at 12:15, be there at 12:15, dammit, I don't want to wait for your slow american ass.
12. Walk on the left. 
13. Eat at the sushi place with the long line. (but go the next day earlier).
14. Ride the Shinkansen between Kyoto and Tokyo. Then write your senator.
15. The green powder in front of you in the little bowl at the Sushi Go Round is green tea mix. Not Wasabi. Don't put it in your soy sauce.
16. If you are a Vegetarian, get someone to write on a card for you (in Japanese) “I am a Vegetarian, no meat or fish, please”.
    私はベジタリアンです
    ない魚や肉は、ご遠慮ください。

17. Recharge your camera battery every night.
18. The power in japan is fine for most american electronics. The only trick is that they use a 2 prong plug with no polarization. This means their plug is just like our 2 prong plug without the “one side bigger than the other” thing that you see on some high power electronics. Most of the hotels I was in had a compatible polarized outlet, however. The problem I had was that there was really only 1 outlet. You could only plug in 1 thing. So I think it makes sense to bring a 1 to 3 plug. In fact, what I did was get a 3 prong 1-3 and pull out the ground prong. Net cost, $2.50.
19. Aragato is a short thank you. Say it a lot. It makes everyone happy.

Daniel Adds

1. Go to Ahkibara for anime things. You need to look around a lot, it is a big place.
2. Beware of sex shops that look like anime cosplay shops.
3. Practice saying “Really, Dad, I thought it was an anime shop”
4. Get a good subway and train map.
5. If you like Tori Gates, go the the shrine of 1000 tori gates. It is only a couple of train stops from Kyoto Station.
6. If you want to buy a Kimono or Yukata, go to Asakusa and look in the shops near the budhist temple.
7. You really want a Yukata. Perhaps you can just get one of the ones from your Hotel.
8. Don't do the chinese restaurants. 
9. The Indian/Nepal food is awesome.

Day 12: Last Chance

Day 12: Last Chance for Culture

Well, our last day of really being able to do something in Tokyo. Daniel still hasn't found what he imagines as the ultimate anime heaven. But he has a couple of ideas of where to look. One is the Shoen Jump store. This happens to be next to the Tokyo Dome on the MITA line. So, we can do that. We are at the start of the Mita line and we can just ride the subway right out there. And, there is a very famous but well hidden old garden that used to belong to some big shot Samurai.

What is Shoen Jump? Well, that is the company that publishes One Piece and Naruto, don't you know:

Daniel hangs out with his friend Naruto

This may explain the anime appeal to teenage boys.

The Garden was pretty much like all of the gardens. Very peaceful. Lots of construction work going on. How do they achieve both at the same time? Main new cool thing about this was this interesting curve shapped hill, which I realized was all from manicured Bamboo. Looks like they have gut the Bamboo to different levels to make this effect. Or maybe the hill underneath is the same shape. But you can see from the water line that the bamboo is all around a foot tall.

Here we are inside the garden Dome on Mars Station #1

 

This hill is all the tops of short manicured bamboo. How do they do that?

 

Later we circled back around to Tokyo Dome looking for another Subway and a place to eat. We found an indian place (where they speak great english and have good vegetarian fare) at a complex called LaQua. What a cool place. Sort of a combination amusement park and hot springs.

Worlds first ferris wheel with no center hub. In fact, a roller coaster goes through the middle.

 

And that ferris wheel is part of a huge hot springs facility. You go in, pay your 2500 yen, they give you a robe, a towel, and a wrist band (that you use to buy stuff inside). And you can spend the next 20 hours or so inside. You can even spend the night sleeping by a hot spring in some easy chair (cheaper than a love motel). Lots of baths and springs and such. I wish we had one more day here, I would go spend a few hours there. Natural spring water with Sodium Chloride, pumped up from 1600 meters below the surface. Hardly radioactive at all !!

LaQua

Now, on our way to the Tokyo Anime Center. The subway had one more important lesson to teach us. Some subway lines are not part of the same payment system. So you ticket you bought on (for instance) the Oedo line can not be used on the Giza line. In fact, you have to pay up during the transfer between the two. Hey, that is another 5 bucks !! So walked the one stop difference.

The map showed the Anime Center at this one intersection. And I found it, and guess where it was? Right back in the middle of Electronic City. We found yet another block of the place. Dan found a pretty cool anime stuff store (but no Gundam. What kind of Anime Model store doesn't have Gundam?). I finally walked up to these 3 teenagers in talking in the street (one was in Cosplay outfit) and asked for directions. They were very nice. The one young man walked us a few blocks were he thought it was, but it wasn't. Then he looked it up on his handheld (ubiquitous here). He told us we needed the UDK building. The big huge one over there. Ah. I read the guide book. That is what it said too. So we walked over there and found THE TOKYO ANIME CENTER. Turns out it has been closed since the earthquake. It will re-open last March. Hmmm. I doubt it.

Went out for Sushi at a local sushi go round. It was very pleasant. Daniel really got into the spirit of the thing and was grabbing vegetarian plates left and right. The nice ladies sitting next to us helped us out and even wrote a request for special order for us to the chefs (you have to write it in Japanese). I have had very good luck with older ladies in Tokyo. Perhaps I should move here and become a professional.

These places work by charging you by the amount and kind of plate (¥320 for anything on a blue striped plate with red flowers, ¥430 for a black plate with gold letters, etc) When it was time to settle up, you put you little plates in a pile or two, the waitress has this wand that she waives in front of our pile of plates and it totals everything right up. WOW. It was like..... NASA. Intel Home Group should be spending all of their time walking around Tokyo and stealing ideas. And it turns out that EVERY cash register is completely automatic. You feed the bills in, the change (including bills) comes out. No human counting needed.

Day 11: Ohio Gosai Masu

Day 11 (or perhaps 12)

I desperately needed a coffee fix this AM (no, for a different reason) so I left Dan playing starcraft and headed out into the Japanese Urban Jungle. Such a civilized jungle. Couple of blocks away, according to the internets, is a Starbucks. Oh Joy. I cannot do true justice, with the written word, of a TYUJG taking my order while saying to me all of the japanese phrases that I know and could legitimately respond to:

• Ohio Gosai masu.
• Joto Mate Kudisai
• Domo Aragato

And then, I had a “Cafe Late Vendi” but I am not sure how to write it such that you would appreciate how wonderful it sounded when the your ladies said it. The ladies (plural) said it. Cause, first the order girl repeats my order to me, then the girl next to her yells it to the maker, then the maker yells it back to us. And then everyone says, “Domo Aragato”! Such Fun.

I sat outside and watched the nice people on their way to work. What a pleasant time. Oh, I was blogging then, where is my past self text? Oh right. He put that on Day 10. Silly past self.

Here is one cool thing I saw on the way. See those little cars up on the second floor? That is a haircut place for kids. They get to ride in the cars while they get their hair cut. Prices start at $50. I haven't seen anyone up there anytime I have passed.....

Daniel and I had been surfing for good places to go shopping for Yukata. We Decided to do Asakusa. We could get there by subway with only one change, Mita line to Asakusa line. And we know the area because Asakusa was where we went to see that important Budhist shrine in (oh right) Asakusa. But we didn't have time to do any shopping then and all we saw was the very stub of the shopping district that extends into the region of the shrine. And our guide had gone to lunch and sure didn't give us any insight into how wonderful the shopping district is around there.

But we are there now. Wow. What a bustling place.

Lots of shops. Lots of japanese robe shops. I think dan and I are final Yukata'd out.

 

We had a very nice traditional japanese Rice lunch. It was just some place we walked into. It was a dish where they cook a very course (brown?) rice in a sort of one serving integrated bowl with your requested ingredients on top. I had salmon, Dan had mushroom. It took 30 minutes to prepare our order, but the beer was cold and we needed the rest anyway.

Lots of shopping. We were constantly accosted by school kids that had assignments to track down and cute foreigners to death. I have like 10 origami cranes that I was given for providing answers to questions 3:

1. What is your Name?
2. What is your Quest?
3. What is the height of the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower?

(actually, questions 1 and 2 are really what they asked).

The little kids in red hats were standing in line to ask Dan and I The Three Questions. After red hat #4 or so, Dan and I made a run for it. Can only stand so much CUTE.

One woman came up to Dan while the kids were there. I thought she was their teacher, but she turned out to be some religious cult asking for donations. Hmmm, that seems to be universal.

So, after all of this “traditional Japanese” tourist shopping. We jumped back on the subway and rode 2 exits to the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower.

We have been seeing it in the distance all week, so we just had to go and check it out.

Sky Tree Tower from Askusa Market.

The Tokyo Tower guys must really be pissed. This thing is HUGE and has a HUGE tourist mall attached to it. Dan and I made our way to the base of the thing to see if we could get tickets.

 

If I was going to spend thousands of dollars on a sign with Japanese writing on it,
I would spend the money to hire a japanese speaker to do a grammar check.
Just saying.

But we couldn't get in. They are still testing out the safety systems on pre-paying customer who have signed waivers.

So we went into the main mall building. There we ran into (Guess What?) a bunch of cute young thin Japanese women in uniforms standing in front of a very high tech TV and arena sort of area. I thought it was a demo of a new hand movement detection and control system TV, and I wanted a shot. So when the very gorgeous young woman asked me, well, hell, I don't know what she asked me, it was in Japanese, anyway, I said yes.

Turned out (according to yet another cute young japanese woman in uniform who spoke English) we were going to be playing a game with lots of other Japanese people (mainly older people, by the way) for some prize. Oh goodie.

So, first we had to listen to by far the cutest and fastest talking uniform girl give us a sales pitch. I am sure it was something good. I would have bought a lot of them. MTV had something to do with this. And J Com. I urge you in my most sincere and cute manner, with stereotypical cute japanese girl flat hand gestures, to buy these products. Really.

Then the quiz started.

Daniel KNEW the answer to question #1. Go Daniel !! (the english uniform girl did read us the question, but Dan knew the answer.)

The second question was all about Japanese artists. We had no idea. Our english translator said. “This is a japanese question. The answer is B”.

All righty then.

The 3^rd question had for one of the answers Daniels favorite J-POP artist → Perfume. We picked them. Our interpreter agreed this was a fabulous answer.

So, then, (on the honor system) everyone with the right answers moved up closer to the huge TV display grid. We were going to play Rock Paper Scissors with fast talking presentation girl.

In Japan, they don't do 1,2,3, throw. They just do 1 throw. But Dan and I both threw what we thought of as paper. Our paper is a little different than their paper. However, the fast talk lady threw Rock, so Dan and I advanced.

Now came a bunch of throws against other contestants that I really didn't understand, but in the end, I beat some poor old Japanese lady and Dan and I BOTH WON !!!

It was so Funny that I felt Guilty. IN YOUR FACE OLD JAPANESE PEOPLE. Take THAT. That will teach you to mess around with America. Yeah Man.

Actually, I should have given my prize to the nice old Japanese lady. Next time for sure.

What did we win? A very nice portable strong base amp for a iPod. A really good one, not some cheap thing. Wow. Dan and I are so happy. We were literally laughing out loud as we we walked down the hall to more shopping.

Eventually, we tired of even this level of fun and got ourselves back on the subway for home. There I saw an eery site. Little elementary school kids (much like the question askers in Askusa market) riding the train by themselves and wearing little electric boxes on shoulder straps of their little cute (identical) backpacks. The electric boxes had little red lights that were blinking. What were they? Electronic Subway Passes? Location Monitors? Anti-Kidnapping Devices? Cylons?

Must do internet research.

Our plan for the evening was to wait until it was dark and then go explore the night life at Shibuya. One of the 47 offical hot night spots in this part of western Tokyo.

There were a lot of people there. I assume that all of them were pretty young women in short skirts, because that is certainly all I saw. So Many Women. I can't even say “Wow I saw this incredible young woman tonight” because there were so many that my appreciation sensors were completely overwhelmed. So Sad.

Here are some pictures !!

Thai Squid. Good Dinner.

Gansta corner

 

Day 10: Let's try this Museum thing again

Day 10: Let's try this museum thing again.

Dan and I are still a little on West Coast time, I think. We still get up around 5:00am. And since the city attractions don't really open until 10:00 or later, that gives us significant time in the morning to hang out. Perhaps play some Starcraft. It is Day11 as I type this and I have walked down the street to a (you guessed it) Starbucks for a cup of coffee and to watch the Meguro citizens walk by on their way to work. There was a brief flurry of running school girls around 8:10. There is a highschool right next door, school must start at 8:15. but it is 8:42 now and things have calmed down.

But let me teleport back to yesterday:

Dan and I decided that we want to do a real museum. So we picked the biggest best sounding museum we could find in our tour book. The Tokyo National Museum. Turns out this is one of the places that our tour guide on our first day told us about and even drove the bus past, in Ueno Park. Just a 30 minute ride on the JR Yamanote line. The train was a bit more crowded than it has been on some of our past trips. We got pushed around a lot. I had to guarantee Daniel that this wasn't really crowded. I mean, there wasn't anyone actually pushing people in the cars. Maybe they don't do that anymore.

Today was our first (and hopefully only) rainy day in Japan. We were the only people in the entire city wearing raincoats (well, some policemen). Everyone else has an umbrella. EVERYONE ELSE has an umbrella. This is a very Umbrella centric culture. So, you have your umbrella. You are waling down the street with thousands of people, they all have their umbrellas. There are bunches of Umbrellas for sale for 500yen at every little street store or newsstand. If you duck into the 7-11 for a coffee, there is an umbrella stand at the door. You don't want a bunch of wet umbrellas in your store making the floor slippery. If you go into a public bathroom, there is an umbrella hook by the unrinal, so you can free up your hands. The bicycles have Umbrella holders (instead of holders for like a hand pump or a water bottle). And the Museum had signs up: “NO UMBRELLAS PAST THIS POINT”.

Didn't say nothing about wet rain jackets.

So, Ueno Park, much walking. There are a lot of things goin on at Ueno park. There are a few museums (including the Tokyo National Museum) and a Zoo, and of course, many shrines.

The Tokyo National Museum was having a special exhibition. It was incredibly mobbed by Japanese persons. And what was this exhibit? Oriental exhibits from the Boston Museum. There was a long line (in the rain) for that, so Daniel and I skipped that and went to the “regular exhibit”. This was a lot of fun. Some pictures:

 

 

This flame was lit from the flames of Nagasaki and kept burring ever since.

huge, very simple, very wonderful set of screens. Mt. Fuji through clouds.

 

little tiny horse sculpture.

 

This is the 12 Generals. The dog general, the cat, the ox, the dragon. etc.

what is he doing?

 

lots of long scrolls

 

 

Detail of screens on left

And what did we find in the first gallery we entered? A map of the museum especially formulated for blind patrons. Each exhibit area was represented with a different texture or object. For instance, the old paintings exhibit was prepresented with canvas squares. Little earing danglies for the human decoration gallery. It was very neat and very in tune with the entire complete inclusion of the blind that we find in Japan. Some of the other things that I have noticed:

Most sidewalks have a yellow textured 1 foot wide strip that runs down the middle of the walk way. I couldn't figure out what they were and then I realized it was to make it easier for blind people to negotiate the sidewalk. When you come to a place your should stop and wait, there is a larger sideways plate to let you know. Hey, there is even a brail marking on the top of the beer can. I wonder if it is in japanese. But getting back to the museum, who are they kidding? What is a blind person supposed to do in from or pictures, statues, and works of antiquity that they can't touch? Enjoy the smell?

Since Daniel's current favorite place is Electric City, and we were right next to it, we walked on in and did some more sight seeing/ shopping. He wanted to back to this one anime store and get more t-shirts and stuff. But we also found the little shops district and walked around there some.

 

 

 

Then Dan saw one side street all lit up and he was sure that was an anime Cosplay area. So we went over there. There were lots of bars. And lots of pictures of young women. A nicely dressed young japanese man came up to me and said “Hey Joe, you want sext Massage?” I told him no.

He was insistent. “All Japan girl. Real Sexy Massage. You like a lot”.

So I said, “Look fella, this isn't going to work, you picked a guy walking down the street with his Son for gosh sakes. Try again some other time”.

He went away. And the next guy down the road walked up, “You want sexy Massage?”.

Daniel was ver emabarrased. This is the second time this trip he has convinced me to walk into a sex area looking for anime. He is beginning to suspect a connection.

Also, what exactly is a sexy massage? I mean, I get massages all of the time at my gym, and since I am naked and they are young women, I consider it a sexy massage. (they probably don't but what the hey). So is that what these guys were selling? Or are we talking “happy ending” here? I need more specifics before I go waltzing off into some strange building. I will say that these were the nicest, most polite, and best dressed pimps I have ever met. Spoke better english too.

By now we had been walking a long time and my knee and my neck were killing me. I really needed some iBprofin. I saw what looked like a pharmecy and we went in and asked. The guy had some, they were 2200 yen for 24 capsules. That is over $1 a pill. If I could find my bottle of them back in my room I could finance my trip selling the damn things on the street.

We finally found the train again and got our asses home. We were hoping to have a nice new room waiting for us. Oh yeah, the room Saga. When we first arrived they had put us in a smoking room (look, an ashtray). So I asked for a different room. They put us in a non-smoking room on a largely smoking floor. The place isn't vented well and the floor stank. So I asked for non-smoking floor. They fought that idea but finally gave in. And now I know why. The room they put is in is much bigger and nice that our old rooms. Ha. So I guess we finally complained enough.