Japanese Expeditionary Travel Scholarship

Tsukiji Fish Market

2007-11-26T00:05:48Z

I've uploaded 285 photos of the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo to my Flickr account.

I've written up a few of the pictures, and when I get a chance I'll narrow it down to a subset and do some tidying up/levelling of the pictures, but after deleting pictures that were badly out of focus, this is the unprocessed set.

British Summer Time ...

2007-09-19T12:31:54Z

... the weather forecast for Tokyo today is 30C and 51% humidity according to the BBC ... the current observation for the area around my office in London is 12C and 86% humidity. Some places in the UK are hitting zero at night, and it's been going down to single digits around here ... makes a difference from a couple of weeks ago where it went down to the mid 20s in Tokyo (on the evening of the typhoon, between the water cooling and the wind chill factor, it was surprisingly refreshing and pleasant, aside from the people blowing past, the heavy luggage and the threat of having to sleep under an overpass somewhere!)

Excess luggage from Japan ...

2007-09-19T09:43:19Z

... even after sending off two bundles via post while travelling in Japan, and leaving a bag of stuff to be surface shipped, I still got to the airport 7-10kg over my luggage allowance (7kg in checked baggage, 3kg in carryon) so I ended up packaging up 10kg (very VERY quickly) and posting it back (7,700yen/kg for excess baggage is about £35/kg, so 7kg would have been over £200! Postage was 16,800yen for 10kg which is about £75 for 10kg, or £7.50/kg so a *lot* cheaper) ... but how long would it take to get back to the UK?

Answer: it arrived yesterday (Tuesday!), so it got posted 10am Saturday, travelled Sunday-Monday, and arrived in Feltham on Tuesday morning, before I'd had time to unpack my bags from the trip! Excellent service :-)

Sunrise ... Sunset ...

2007-09-15T16:50:46Z

Tokyo is nearer the equator than London (waits for gasps of amazement to die down ... grin)

This means that not only is it hotter (on average) but that the day/night division of hours is much closer to 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of nighttime (and that the change from day to night happens faster)

Add in British summer time, and you get a situation where it is dark by 18:30 or so in Tokyo and there's still an hour before sunset in London and even then it will slowly get dark after that, so closer to two hours of useable light ... we're getting near September 23rd so the UK daylight hours are getting closer to 12on/12off but since I've not been getting up at 5:30am, it means that sightseeing in Japan is something that (aside from bright lights of city) is pretty much over by 6pm each day ... then back to the hotel and change for dinner and nighttime events (kareoke etc.)

I was talking to a lovely couple from Liverpool (Jenny and Carl) on the flight back and they had won their flight from a mobile phone game download competition. 7 days in Tokyo at the Hilton Shinjuku ... but they said they were so jetlagged that they were waking in the early hours, having the hotel breakfast, going back to sleep until 2pm and only heading out then ... and that they had pretty much stayed in the Shinjuku area (no subway trips etc.) ... still they sounded like they had had a fabulous time!

My advice to anyone travelling to Japan in the middle of summer is
a) don't, go in Spring for the cherry blossoms (March I think) and the more temperate weather, or in the late Autumn (October)
b) lots of short sleeved white shirts and be prepared to sweat! Drink lots of water!!
c) get up early and go visit things early while it is still only stifling hot and before it gets far too hot and humid ... it rains one day in three in September, and it seems to cloud over more in the afternoon (at least that was my experience) so for the best lighting for photographs, again go earlier in the day and be prepared for a lot of overcast afternoons and rainy days.

e.g. Tomorrow Tokyo will have a high of 33C and a low of 26C, London (Feltham) is a high of 23 and a low of 13 (and dropping to a low of 7C by later in the week), so on a lovely warm summer's day here in Feltham, the high temperature is still lower than the coolest part of the Tokyo night.

Nearly home...

2007-09-15T15:28:24Z

On bus from Heathrow to Feltham. Change buses there and I'll be home in 30 minutes. Long queue for passport control but first piece of luggage got to conveyor belt at same time as I did. Second piece was fairly quick behind, and it was straight through customs, long walk to Central Bus Station, and I am just passing next year's Eastercon hotel as I type this.
Sunny day, 22 centigrade and I am wiped out from flight and excellent 3 weeks. Will post more later.

Take off!

2007-09-15T01:55:34Z

On plane about to leave, too much luggage still, 16,560yen to post 10kg or 7,700yen/kilo excess for 7kg. I had 17,000yen left so I posted. Sayonara Japan!

Leaving on a Jet(s) plane ...

2007-09-14T22:20:56Z

... took the train to Narita last night, I had a reservation for the 20:04 but the nice conductor decided there was plenty of room on the 19:04 and let me take that instead.

The train is fast but it does lean a lot and bounce around a little. The toilets aren't in every car so you may have to walk to find a toilet (there was one between car 8 and 9 on my train, and between 6 and 7 was the conductor's room) ... also between 8 and 9 was the vending machine ... but they have a trolley that comes through the train selling drinks (hot and cold), candy and sandwiches/sushi rolls.

WARNING: The train stops a few times between Tokyo and Narita Airport, and one of those stops is NARITA ... don't be fooled, that's the town/city itself and not the Airport; stay on the train and the next stop (I think) is Narita Airport Terminal 2, then the stop after is Narita Airport ... also really worthwhile knowing which terminal you're flying from so you can pick the right exit.

Anyway, it's 7:22, and I have an 8:30 shuttle bus booked to the terminal, and an 11am flight, so the next time I post is either going to be from my phone in the airport, or from my own computer back in the UK.

Thanks again everyone, it's been wonderful!

Staying in Yokohama tonight ...

2007-09-13T15:21:26Z

... in spite of the fact that I'm renting a room in Asakusa and my luggage is there, I'm staying in Yokohama tonight! Met John and Wakey from the convention for a meal (after touring Akihabara with John earlier and spending well over one hundred ... yen. I bought a three socket plug adapter and NOTHING ELSE (well, lunch, but nothing else otherwise!) Saw the Tsujiki Fish Market earlier with T and had the freshest most delicous sushi, and then wandered around the Hamaryoki Gardens and had traditional tea in the beautiful teahouse in the middle of the lake.

So I'm here, my luggage is there, and I'll have to head back early in the morning to do my last packing and wrapping stuff for posting. It's mostly big piles of paperwork collected at the convention, so heavy but easily posted and can go surface mail.

And so to bed ...

Pedometer

2007-09-12T23:04:38Z

... due to the five hours plus on the train travel, plus the packing time and the sitting in restaurant time, only managed 4,500 steps yesterday (mostly up and down stairs dragging luggage for the first 3,000, and the last 1,500 were wandering around the market and bar area of Asakusa with T last night as he helpfully offered to aid me in increasing the step count!)

Should do a bit better today, I hope!

A minor tidbit ...

2007-09-12T23:00:53Z

... according to my GPS tracker/logger, (and based on a quick check) the fastest the bullet train travelled yesterday was 273kph = 170mph!

A quick observation on Japanese toilets ...

2007-09-12T22:51:26Z

... Japanese toilet paper (in my experience) is single-ply (and quite thin!) and often (perhaps always?) unperforated. In the UK almost all toilet paper is two-ply (I think the Izal medicated is one=ply, but then it's made of thick greaseproof paper suitable for baking on!) and some is three-ply and/or "quilted" for extra softness ... none of that here!

Also this Ryokan (Shigetsu in Asakusa (pronounced: a-saxa or osaxa)) is the first bedroom toilet I've had that doesn't have a bottom-washing and bidet system on it (the one in Nikko didn't, but it was a shared toilet on the hallway rather than one in the bedroom).

This is possibly also the smallest bathroom of the trip (which is a surprise as I thought I'd already had the smallest in Japan!), where I can't stand straight under the shower as my shoulders touch the wall one side and push the curtain out the other, even hunched! and the "tub" under the shower (deep but short) actually curves in in the middle to give you knee room on the toilet (which is placed diagonally to give you knee room on the other side). If I had a tape measure I'd measure the bathroom for you ... ok it's 1m x 1.5m (short side, finger tip to nose; long side finger tip to elbow on opposite arm)

I've seen public toilets where you can easily see the urinals from outside, and on the bullet trains they have a gentleman toilet which is like a phone box with a urinal in it, with a clear window so you can see the back of anyone using it (to see if it is in use) ... and the urinals at the Irish pub in wherever it was (grin!) had urinals on the fourth floor that had a wall not much wider than the urinal immediately behind each of the three or four urinall and about 1.5m high (dropping down to 30cm between pee stations!) and otherwise a clear glass window looking down on the main shopping street below, so you could watch all the people wandering past below and they could look up and see your head and shoulders (and in my case some of my chest) and then a pillar which blocked the fact I was peeing at them!

It still amazes me ...

2007-09-12T07:59:38Z

... travelling at 300kph+ oma Japanese bullet train and updatihg my livejournal using my British cellphone! And it just works, no config changes etc. I'll let you know how much it costs!

Drat, misread the ferry timetable ...

2007-09-12T01:10:50Z

... I thought it was a tour ferry and that we'd go out on the boat, around the floating temple and be back in an hour ... in fact it's an hour to Miyajima and they drop you off, and then an hour back again, and the only way that would fit into today's schedule would be to have caught the return boat immediately (ten minutes later) ... sigh, perhaps I should have done it and bailed out on dinner, but at least this way I have time to repack properly and prepare a bag of maps, tickets, receipts and such that I want to keep, that I can post back from Japan surface mail :-) and I can sort out a bunch of other maps and junk I can just ditch here ... so that's what I've just done. (the stuff I'm throwing is either duplicates, or things like booklets of hotels that are in places I've already been and aren't for the hotel I stayed at ... things that I can get again from the Japanese National Tourist Organisation (JNTO) who have an office in London and sent me a big stack of stuff for my trip)

Off to floating temple then on to Asakusa ...

2007-09-12T00:03:14Z

... ferry out to floating temple leaves in one hour (10 mins from here) so finishing packing and I'll go get the ferry. Then back to hotel, grab bags and up to JR station ... aiming for 12:10 bullet train to Shinosaka, then change for train to Tokyo (then one stop on tube to Kanda and change for Metro Ginza line out to Asakusa (last stop) then find the hotel!

If I don't make the 12:10, the 13:10 trains repeat the same pattern, getting me to Tokyo at 18:13 but I don't know how long it takes to get to Asakusa (trying to get there by 7pm for dinner with a couple of fans) ... if I get there too early I can freshen up or go wandering (it will just be getting dark then) ... though the thought of me arriving anywhere early is laughable!

What a lovely day!

2007-09-11T14:44:46Z

Stayed up far too late last night worrying about options for today (was I heading back to Shinjuku and staying at expensive hotel there, or staying in Hiroshima or something else) and doing laundry etc. so at one point, around midnight, I went for a walk (I hadn't done my full 10k steps yesterday as I'd been on trains too much, so I needed to top up before bedtime) ... and as I wandered I spotted a large orange AU sign (one of the local cellphone networks) and remembered reading that there was an Irish bar up several floors in a building opposite it, so I checked, ans sure enough there was traditional Irish music coming out of a speaker and a sign saying Molly Malone's 4F (fourth floor), so I went up. Looked like a standard plastic Irish pub (loads of them in London!) with Guinness etc. but while the (local) bartender was pleasant and chatted, the rest of the clientèle appeared to be Australian or very cliquey so I had my one orange juice and then wandered the streets between the nightspots before returning to the hotel. So good walking (taking me up to the 10k pretty much exactly) but a little disappointing (more in the full trip report!)

So it was very late when I finally crashed, and I'd planned to be up early, pack, then see the A-Bomb Dome and Peace Museum and then head out to the floating temple before catching the fast train back to Shinjuku. But I was too tired this morning, so it was a slow start so I shifted to Plan B, stay one extra night at this hotel and see Hiroshima slowly, and then head back to Asakusa tomorrow ... so I booked the Asakusa hotel for Wednesday and Thursday (exchange of emails, they are very efficient and all reports are that they are a very good place to stay)

So it was nearly 11:30 before I headed out of the room (having extended one day) and started my wandering ... it's now 11pm and aside from sitting down for an evening meal, I've basically been going non-stop inbetween (12,363 steps on the pedometer) ... wandered down the Peace Avenue, followed the river (beautifully landscaped but looking a bit parched due to the hot summer) past many little shrines and statues and other structures to commemorate various groups (including the children aged 12 and over that were sent off to factories to work during the war, and those that were being used to build firebreaks etc. in Hiroshima when the bomb went off ... before today I could have told you it happened in August 1945, now I KNOW it was at 8:15am local time on August 6th, and that fine weather over Hiroshima was the reason it was chosen (it was the second choice on the final list after making the short list of four ... though the determining factor, aside from the weather, appears to be that there were no Allied POW camps in Hiroshima).

They have preserved a building which had a dome on it (very near the T-shaped Aioi Bridge which was the aiming point for the bomb) and which was gutted and the frame of the dome survived but twisted ... it's very evocative and I'm glad that they did so ... the path to the Peace Arch and on to the Peach museum (along a reflecting pool) is in a direct line with the dome (I have pictures of course). Having got that far, it made more sense to go to Hiroshima Castle first before the Peace Museum ... a fine castle which, like every shrine and temple in Japan (aside from the floating temple I visit tomorrow) is at the top of a hill! And then after climbing the many stairs to get to the front entrance, there's another five storeys inside to reach the top. The original castle was destroyed in the war, but this is a 1958 rebuild (this one in pre-stressed concrete rather than the wood of the original) but they still didn't fit an elevator!

So I did that, did more wandering around the city and then back for the Peace Museum before it closed ... I had been warned that it was a very powerful story, and it is, and well told. I'll write more about that in my trip report once I have time to process it more ... I thought I'd be able to detach myself pretty much, but I found myself trying to record my thoughts and my throat totally choked on more than one occasion. I'd love to talk to a US or UK military historian to see if they agree with the reasoning for the bomb drop on Hiroshima (as the presentation material states pretty clearly that Japan was losing, was trying to find a way of surrendering without losing the Emperor (which the unconditional surrender document they were offered didn't include) and that the major cities of Japan had been carpet bombed flat (not Hiroshima though, because the Americans were saving it to see how effective the A-Bomb was) ... and that Russia had agreed to join the fight against the Japanese in September, which would have meant a more powerful post-war Russia ... and the US had spent more than 2 Billion 1940s dollars on the bomb, so they needed to keep Russia down and show that the money spent had been worth it, and so they decided to bomb Japan, starting with Hiroshima before the Japanese could negotiate a surrender with/through Russia which was looking likely) The Museum shut around 6pm and as that's sunset time around here, it started to get dark and I took some interesting pictures of various memorials etc. and played with the camera settings ... at which point T phoned to sort out what time I'd be in Asakusa tomorrow as he and S would like to do dinner with me, and about the plans for the rest of the week. T confirmed reports that the Narita Holiday Inn was good so I said I'd book it ... so all that was nice and I wandered back to the hotel.

A quick online booking (and a frustrating phone conversation with the Holiday Inn) later, I decided I should go eat something and asked at the desk where I could get a good Okonomiyaki, Hiroshima-style (as I'd had Osakan okonomiyaki a couple of days ago, and T had been saying I should try local specialities) ... the front desk people didn't speak English, but pointed out one on a local map and when I had trouble figuring out what they were saying, one of them came out from behind the desk and walked me around the block and pointed out a tiny sign in Japanese for a tiny restaurant on the 2nd floor of a tower block ... went upstairs with a little trepidation but when I entered it was like a standard British cafe but with a big hot plate for making okonomiyaki.

Wikipedia's article on Okonomiyaki is pretty much spot on on the difference between Osakan and Hiroshima style as far as I can see/taste!

I'd forgotten my voice recorder and notepad but I had my camera and have pictures (grin!) ... and while the main staff didn't speak much English, they did have an English menu and there was a bookcase of manga to one side to read while waiting/eating ... it felt very much like a local cafe for local people and I was the only gai-jin in the village (!) ... there were only about a dozen seats in the place (three tables of four) and one table was full of salarymen. Another table had a single Japanese man at it, and when he heard me asking some question he came over to help as he spoke some English. He asked if he could join me and I was glad of the company and we chatted away for the next hour or more before the owners (the waitress and the cook are married and it's their restaurant) introduced their daughter (who'd been taking drink orders and providing some tranlation) and as the other diners left, the five of us (mom, pop, daughter (in her mid to late 20s I'd guess) and talkative chap sat down and kept up a conversation about a bunch of things. It was after 10:30 before we finally escaped. It turns out that talkative chap is staying in my hotel so we wandered back together.

A very pleasant evening, nice food, charming company (the daughter may be coming over to London sometime, which would be fun!)

So stopped by a convenience store on the way back to get a chocolate milk and something for tomorrow while wandering around. And then back to the room and online to make this posting

but now I'm fading fast so I'll say goodnight!

Rest of trip, hotels booked.

2007-09-11T11:29:31Z

Tonight I stay in Dormy Inn, Hiroshima
Tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday I stay in Ryokan Shigetsu in Asakusa
Friday night I stay at Holiday Inn Narita [1]

Tomorrow morning (Wed 12th) is going out to see floating temple on island near Hiroshima, then back and catch bullet train to Tokyo and then over to Asakusa for meal with T & S.

Thursday 13th is probably something in morning with T & S (Asakusa, Kamakura, something anyway) and then hopefully in the afternoon/evening meet up with John & Wakey maybe in Yokohama (train passes are good!)

Friday 14th is Akihabara and anything else in/near Tokyo I've missed out (not going to do Disney this trip, no time!), possibly meeting up with Japanese friends of T&S if the travel works out (and getting luggage to airport of course)

Saturday 15th is fly back, collapse and despair at state of house.
Sunday 16th is spleep!

[1] I realise English isn't everyone's first language, but even after asking to be put through to someone who spoke English better, it was just about impossible to get them to explain the difference in price between the Standard East Wing Single Room, and the Airport Plan East Wing Single Room (East Wing is old wing and has slightly smaller rooms, but is about £20/night cheaper ... and airport plan is nearly 4,000 yen more expensive and it appears the only difference is that you get breakfast included (which would only cost 1-2,000 yen anyway) ... but I couldn't find anyone that could tell me what the extra cost was (airport shuttle is free, internet is in all rooms and is free, and you get the same East Wing room ... at least in a West Wing room you'd get better scripts for the first few seasons!)

Doing laundry and thinking ...

2007-09-10T17:19:57Z

... it's 2am and I'm waiting for one load to finish washing while the other load is finishing drying ... and I'm thinking I brought too much stuff with me (shock, surprise) in some areas and in others, well, actually I can't think of anything I brought too little of except perhaps white light cheap shirts (finding shirts my size in Japan is probably going to be harder than finding such in the UK ... they go S, M, L, LL here, where LL is about a UK large I think (based on the Disney rain coat I bought last time I was here, which was *snug* on me) while I can buy 18 or 18.5" shirts in Asda for about £3 each.

Currently plugged in, or sitting around this PC are:

UK six way power strip with japanese converter
UK phone on charger plugged into UK power strip
Japan phone on charger
SLR camera battery on charger on UK strip
Digital voice recorder (on USB)
iPod cable (not currently hooked up to iPod)
Other UK phone (doesn't work in Japan but has my phonebook and calendar on it) on USB lead for charger
Japanese AA battery charger
GPS tracker/logger on USB
7 port powered USB hub with Japan to UK power adapter
retractable ethernet cable
laptop
laptop power supply plugged into UK powerstrip

Osaka, bullet trains and Hiroshima ...

2007-09-10T13:29:20Z

Woke up early this morning in Osaka, but spent time downloading pictures from camera, sound recordings from digital recorder, GPS points from GPS tracker and doing some planning of what I'm doing over the next few days.

So when Yoshio said he was going to be 10 minutes early arriving, that was 10 minutes I didn't have slack in the packing for ... so I met him at the original time ... but the good news was I'd booked the hotel here in Hiroshima (where I am now), and that the hotel here has laundry facilities so I didn't have to do coin-op laundry with Yoshio.

Did a few of the highlights of Osaka today, starting with the Starbucks at Osaka station (grin!) then Osaka castle where I ran into another Worldcon fan on his way out as we were on our way in. We did the Castle and grounds properly (more about that later, but basically it's a fairly recent restoration of the castle on that site which was pivotal in the unification of Japan about five hundred years ago).

From there we tried a few other places (warning: Osaka closes on Monday! At least many of the museums and such do) ... so we had lunch in Namba (Blade Runner town!) which was a local speciality of octopus in quick fried dough balls with a creamy filling and covered in a sort of teriyaki sauce and fish shavings! Delicious!! This follows on from last nights Okonomiyaki.

I think I've earned a reputation as an amazing drinker of water though ... I've been going through fluids (or vice versa!) at a stunning rate (the 30 degree plus heat doesn't help)

Then from Namba we headed over to the Billyken, which is a smiling chubby wooded statue at the top of a tower (like a mini Blackpool Tower) which is supposed to grant good fortune, particularly to students. Saw a magic shop in the tower as we were leaving, but it had closed for the day.

From there we went to the mini-Akihabara of Osaka and I got a few bits (an extending ethernet cable, an ethernet cross-over adapter for peer to peer networking without a hub, a 7 port powered USB hub (and a Japanese to UK plug adapter, and yes, it runs on 110-240v so no power adapter needed) and a triangular camera pouch case which was on sale marked down from about twenty pounds to about four) to protect my camera bouncing on my stomach!

Took about 800 photos today before the battery ran out (and I'd forgotten to recharge the spare last night and the backup spare is either in a different bag here, or back in my main bag in Tokyo/Shinjuku)

Back to the hotel to collect my luggage, and then over to the post office to send off the David Brin/The Postman poster I'd won in the volunteer lottery at the convention! Surface mail to the UK, about 350g, 430yen (which works out under £2, fantastic value!)

Dashed from Osaka station to Shin-Osaka station for the Shinkansen (I'd left plenty of time, but the post office bit was a last minute addition and blew out *all* the contingency ... still it's good to have that done before the poster got badly damaged)

Arrived on the platform with more than ten minutes to spare, and then couldn't board the train until they'd finished cleaning it, two minutes before departure. So had time to buy a couple of bottles of isotonic drink and a tonkatsu box (about which more in my long report, but basically breaded pork cutlet, rice and vegetables, for 850yen, so about four pounds, filling and delicious!) Thanked Yoshio profusely for the help he's given over the last three days, and handed him a gift for Hiroshi (in one of Flick's boxes, some Iced Gems and a Beefeater keyring) and gave Yoshio a London TeaTowel, a Hansai Tigers phone dangly (his favourite team) and a British commemorative coin (a "crown", worth twice a "half-crown") celebrating the anniversary of the marriage of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip (it has a pretty back design, though there are prettier ones, but it has been my lucky travelling coin for the last ten years, and I felt he deserved it for all the help he'd given me)

90 minutes from Osaka to Hiroshima, (sounds like a Supertramp song lyric!), airline style seats. On the "Hikari Road Star superexpress" (their capitalisation!) ... two seats, aisle, two seats, and the seats recline and there's a tray table and plenty of legroom even with the seat in front fully reclined. But in the carriage I was in, the last two rows are ONE seat, big aisle, two seats. And I'd got one of those, the back one, so I could put luggage behind me, beside me and in the rack overhead, so plenty of room to spill out and sort things. Managed to get rid of a load of packaging and stuff and reduce the bags down a bit, and when I got off at Hiroshima I took aother five minutes to reduce the number of bags still further to make the tram journey a little less hectic.

Then It was a (minor) exciting adventure getting to the Dormy Inn from the station (finding out how to use the tram, finding out which tram I needed, finding out that I didn't have to commit suicide by crossing the tracks with my luggage, finding out that there are two steep steps up (and the same down but by a different door) to get on/off the tram, and that you need correct change :-)) but it all worked well, and there was a nice elderly man who spoke good English who helped me find the right stop ... and being dropped off on an island in the middle of a very busy road meant watching other people to prevent being a traffic statistic! And then the Dormy Inn is down a side road and (from the angle I approached) only labelled in Japanese until you spot a sign inside in the foyer. So I was wondering as I wandered (another good song lyric!) how long I'd wander around before giving up and checking in to the Comfort Inn instead ... but then I found the Dormy Inn ...

The manager couldn't have been any nicer, speaks excellent English, gave me great advice on what to see tomorrow (I'm tempted to stay an extra day!) and when I mentioned Internet dashed over to get me a network cable (I didn't have the heart to tell him that I have THREE with me ... a short and a long I'd brought from England (I was pretty sure the short worked, but wasn't sure about the long and ran out of time to test it) and as I'd just been to the high tech shop in Osaka and got a retracting 2.5m Cat5 cable... Washing machines are free, dryers are 100yen a go (I'm still basing exchange rate on 100yen = $1US as that's pretty close but slightly cheaper as it's closer to 115-125->$1, and of course £1=$2 or near enough, so 200yen=£1 (actually it was around 220-230 when I left)

I picked the Dormy Inn (with the help of pickledginger!) because of the laundry, the internet and because it's walking distance from the Hiroshima Peace Park and Peace Memorial. Oh and it's 5,500yen/night (and it has a big Japanese bath I need to go check out!) so that's something like £25/night (compared with the InterContinental in Yokohama which was 25,000/night so five times as much, and the breakfast there was more expensive (I'd guess, never tried it)

And there's a breakfast buffet for 900yen which sounds like a great deal but I'm not usually very hungry in the morning and there are things to do ...

... oh, T-shirt ... as I was pretty much out of clean clothes (hence the laundry requirement) I ended up wearing my Interaction Operations Team t-shirt today, and meant to change this evening before arriving at Hiroshima but failed ... luckily no one has noticed yet (I hope) taht it says
"Interaction Glasgow 2005 Operations Team ... We're Radio Active" ... as that seems terribly tasteless to wear in Hiroshima ... I will go get changed now (I'm assuming the Mackintosh font with the tiny "o", the strange extra dots and the stressed/streched letters will make it not easily readable to non-native English readers ...) but still, argghhh!

I'm in the hotel now, it's half ten and I'm thinking of nipping out just to see the night lights and to grab a bottle of something non-alcoholic, non-sugary and very very cold from the local convenience store. Then laundry (or maybe put on laundry first then head out, yes, that sounds like a better idea!)

Tomorrow it's hit the Peace Park early, see the A-Bomb Dome, visit the museum and then take the ferry down to the island with the floating gate, then (if there's time) back to the skyway to go up a small mountain for the view, before heading back to the station and catching a Shinkansen back up to Shinjuku ... on the other hand, the Mazda museum does an English tour at 1pm and if I go see that I could either overnight train back up, or stay an extra night in Hiroshima and head back up tomorrow, I'll give it thought over night and make my mind up tomorrow morning!

Sunday 9-9 Kyoto, Uji, Nara, Namba, Osaka

2007-09-09T23:46:35Z

11,640 steps on the pedometer ...
... started the day running late (as I have all trip) but managed to meet S and T (Californian fans) for the 9:03 train to Uji (had to skip breakfast at that point in order to do so, and stuff the last pile of maps and such into one plastic bag and the spare pair of shoes into another) ... caught the local train to Uji (home of The Tale of Genji museum, Uji Bridge which features in the Tale of Genji etc.) and met up with Yoshio who has been a fantastic guide and a great person for spending three days showing me around (he's doing the Osaka guide bit today!)

Saw shrines, temples, bridges, the museum etc. (oh, and grabbed a rice ball with salmon in it from the station convenience store). Temperature still over 30centigrade, so really glad that vending machines are every few hundred yards selling bottles of cold water and cold pocari sweat (like a less sweet, barely flavoured gatorade/isotonic sports drink)

12:20 and it was a dash to Uji station for Yoshio and me to get back to Kyoto to grab my luggage from the hotel and take it to Osaka station where we were to meet Hiroshi. We left S & T at the museum to finish off Uji, with the option for them to come join us later ... as we were heading into Nara station T phoned to say he'd be joining us but was maybe an hour behind us ... we dumped my luggage in a coin locker at Nara Kintetsu Station (the Japanese for coin locker is "coin locker"!), met Hiroshi, had a quick lunch at McDonalds (I had the Ebi burger, which is a shrimp burger, very nice!)

Nara is another beautiful city (Japan is full of them!) but the claims to fame are one of the largest Buddha statues in the world (and it is BIG), the long temple/shrine building on the back of the 10 yen coin, and the most tame deer in the world. They just come up to you and demand feeding, put up with children patting them and prodding them (though occasionally you'd hear a child scream and go running, but I put that down to the deer just turning quickly and giving a stern look :-) ... I have lots of photos, and the deer are just in green areas alongside the road and sidewalk/pavement so they just wander among the tourists and locals along the main road from the station to the big temple. There are steep steps to get up and over into the temple grounds themselves which I figure mostly keeps out the deer, plus probably some monks or guide people to shoo away any deer that try ... T joined us (S went back to Kyoto to write postcards) and we wandered through the Nara park visiting many more shrines and continually walking uphill (my theory is that anywhere in Japan, the shrine/temple you want to visit is uphill from where you are, it is only a theory but it is 100% accurate still!)

Met Chris Cooper as we headed back to the station, he's staying in the Hotel Nara before heading onwards and catching the same flight as me on Saturday. We said farewell to him, and then to T (who needed a Japan Rail (JR) train back to Kyoto to meet up with S) while Yoshio, Hiroshi and I got the Kintetsu line train to Namba, pausing only to get my luggage out of the coin locker at Nara station, and again to put it in a coin locker at Namba station.

Namba is described as looking like where Blade Runner was set, has the futuristic building used as a club in Black Rain, and has so many neon signs and lights and bustling crowds! It was dark by now but I have many pictures :-)

Ate Okonmiyaki, an Osakan speciality. It's basically a sort of omelette with meats and such in it ... went to a high class Okonomiyaki place where they add noodles and such to it, and you're sat at a table with a large metal hot plate in the center and when your food arrives it is placed on the hot surface so that the noodles and omlette at the bottom continue to cook into a crisp caramalised surface ... you get a mini flat bladed spatula (the Fishlifters would have loved it!) to split up your omlette to decide how much you want to keep cooking ... Hiroshi said in less posh surroundings you'd just eat direct from the hot plate, but here you had a plate to move the food onto before eating it. Had many glasses of water (I'm going through SO much water and such this trip, but then I'm melting every day from the moment I step out of the airconditioning!) plus a glass of mystery soft drink, which tasted like a plum syrup added to sparkling water and a load of ice.

Returning to Namba station, we grabbed the luggage and headed on to Osaka central (Namba is in Osaka, but not where the central station is) and checked me into the Granvia (another hotel chain that has aspirations of high class but the room itself is a little pokey and the bathroom is another plastic cubicle). The signs that it is high class include an elevator with dark walls, a flat screen TV and they provide an ethernet cable for internet, rather than just a socket like even the cheapest hotel I've stayed in here does ... the bed is quite wide though, though since it is just me, I'm not really getting a lot of use for the extra room :-)

Stayed up too late (again) watching the Grand Prix (Formula 1) in Japanese. Tried getting the BBC Radio 5 Live commentary but it is blocked outside of the UK for contractual reasons. Couldn't find another live English commentary on the web and eventually fell asleep about 10 laps from the end :-) just in time to watch Hamilton overtake Raikkonen though :-)

steps walked today ...

2007-09-08T17:04:24Z

... 18,462 (plus a few, so let's just round it up to 18,500!)

Today (Saturday) was spent going to Kyoto and seeing sights!

2007-09-08T14:39:08Z

Left Shinjuku this morning, after oversleeping (1st alarm went off at 6:30 as planned, second and third alarms at 6:45 and 6:50 I missed entirely, so I woke up at about 7:45 and did the last minute packing/shower-thing, checked out of the Century Southern Tower Hotel (nice hotel, comfortable bed that I spent far too little time in!) and left my big bag at the hotel as I dashed down to Shinjuku station to catch the local (rapid) train to Tokyo and then the bullet train (shinkansen) to Kyoto. Local train was fine (rapid as I said) but I had to stand almost the whole way, though the very nice lady next to me (about 50 I'd guess) turned out to speak excellent English. I deduced that she did when I asked her how many more stops to Tokyo and she said it was the "second stop" (being able to use ordinals and cardinals in a language shows a more advanced grasp than the utmost basics!) ... I should have been on the 8:50 but it was nearly 9:20 at this point and I'd missed the very fast train, but the next train was the 9:36 (for which I didn't have a reservation), so I lined up (about 20th in the queue) to get a seat reservation and watched the minutes tick by ... at 9:28 I got to the front to be told that they only had reserved seats left in a smoking carriage, so I decided to risk no reservation and get on the "no reservation" carriages at the front (five out of sixteen on this train) and there were plenty of seats so I had an empty seat next to me for the whole journey.
I knew T&S were already in Kyoto and staying at a station hotel, so I asked T to meet Yoshio for me (the local fan who'd offered to show me around and was waiting for me at 11:30) and so I met up with them when I got there at 12:20 (the trains run TO THE MINUTE so even if you aren't sure about where you are or if it's the right train, if it leaves on time, you're on the 9:36 train (or whatever))
We dropped my bags in T&S's room and then went off to explore Kyoto (not a lot of time for a very impressive city, definitely more time here next time ... but it was free admission Saturday in the Kyoto National Museum and Tom is a big Japanese history fan, so we spent a lot of time going around there looking at textiles, calligraphy, pots and other artifacts, some stretching back to 8,000BC.

Then across the road to the temple with 1,001 statues of the deity Kannon (deity of peace), which was *very* impressive (we had to take off our shoes to do the tour, and no photography, but there are lots of pictures online and we've got pictures outside of the temple itself. This is the first giftshop I've ever gone into where you weren't allowed to wear shoes!

We then made an attempt on a temple at the top of a very long, moderately steep hill (in 30+ degree sunny weather) and S decided that having walked around too long in too high heat and the fact we'd all missed lunch, meant that the last 1/3rd of the hill was just a bit too far and headed back ... Tom, Yoshio and I made it to the top of the hill, only to find several steep flights of stairs up to the temple ... I made it up to the gate and just beyond before the overheating got to me (I'd gone through 1.5l of cold drinks on the way up the hill and it was barely keeping up with the fluid loss I was getting from carrying too much junk with me as usual!) so I didn't make it into that temple but Tom tells me there wasn't anything much to see up there that I hadn't seen at other temples, so we headed back down through a narrow street totally lined with shops/stalls selling the usual tourist tat, food/drink, and chinaware (Kyoto is famous for its china goods) and then at the bottom of the hill (having passed some youngsters with a drumming band (several different sizes of drums and gongs, having fun and busking) we caught a bus back to the hotel/station complex and I went up to have a shower and get changed.

We met back up and had a nice evening meal of Katsu (deepfried breaded pork fillets, some wrapped around fillings such as cheese or asparagus) plus various other dishes (pickles, miso soup, shredded cabbage, thick custard soup (an egg custard, set, in an espresso sized cup with mushroom, pork and leaf vegetable bits in it), shrimp in breadcrumbs, chicken nuggets in batter and T had a sort of Foo Yung style (sort of an omelette with pork katsu in it) and then onto a stand that did tofu icecream, where I had the chocolate parfait (chcoolate "ice cream" piped on top of a base of rice "corn flakes" with various bits of fruit and fake cream on top.

Then back to the hotel and a goodnight to Yoshio, who will be meeting us at Uji in the morning for our next adventure (Uji is the location of the palace on the 10 Yen coin!) and then onto Nara if we have the energy. After I'd dumped stuff in the room I nipped around the corner to get a bottle of Pocari Sweat for overnight hydration and spotted four or five youngsters (18-24) outside the next hotel, obviously waiting for some music hero staying there ... as I came back two of the pretty young ladies were playing a music track on their boombox and started doing a choreographed dance routine to it ... very impressive as they were both supple and very much tightly in sync ... until one stumbled and fell over and the other fell to the ground laughing with her ... I have photos! So that was a pretty end to a lovely day (which started, as many have, just a little late, and is likely to end, as all have, far too late!)

I return to Kyoto to get my luggage tomorrow evening then on to Osaka to sleep. Monday I spend sightseeing Osaka and then back to Tokyo for my luggage before heading down to Hiroshima. A night in Hiroshima and then back to Tokyo for the last day or two before heading to Narita Friday evening and then home on Saturday ... I'll miss Japan, it's a great adventure and I already want to come back!

Travel tip #2

2007-09-07T15:29:10Z

Giving gifts is fairly common in Japan, but Japanese people live in very small houses/apartments, so gifts of food are incredibly common. Train stations will often have a stand selling pre-wrapped packages of food for giving as gifts ... the contents can vary from sweets to just about anything else (and sometimes useful household products like washing powder!) ... so a gift shows respect, but at the same time it will be useful and/or edible and so won't clutter up the house, need dusting or have to be put in a place where it will be seen on a future visit ... they are very clever here in Japan!

Useful tip #1 - Using internet in hotels in Japan ...

2007-09-07T15:26:05Z

... many of the more business-orientated hotels in Japan offer in-room internet ... and many of those offer only WIRED internet access, so remember to bring a network cable with you! (Most hotels will either lend you a cable (requiring a deposit) or sell you one if you forget)

Some others, even remote ones you might not expect, might have wireless.

How Flick saved my life ...

2007-09-07T15:18:40Z

... flickgc reminded me before we left England that giving gifts is a tradition over here, so I made sure to pick up a few teatowels, some London tat (keyrings of red buses, Tower of London guards (beefeaters), red postboxes etc.) and some other stuff such as Iced Gems (small biscuits with a piped curl of fruit flavoured icing sugar on top).

On leaving the convention, Flick passed over the remaining gifts she hadn't found a worthy recipient for (lovely little gift/jewelry boxes with tea, marmite and UK chocolates in them)

After being offered the couch to crash on during the storm, and then getting the cancellation room when it came through, I built up a little gift box of UK chocolates and a Beefeater keyring and presented it to the front desk as I checked out this morning, and they were suitably thankful and appreciative, and when I came back later they said that the wife of the front desk man had broken/lost her keyring the night before and so she would be using my one straight away (success!) which was suitably heartwarming ... and then the front desk guy went out of his way to help me get my luggage to the station (as mentioned in a previous entry) and waited for ages while I got my JR pass authorised etc. and he made reference to my gift, so I think without Flick I'd have probably died trying to get my luggage across town, so another worthy recipient of Hero of the Day is the always gorgeous and brilliant flickgc!

Shortest posting so far!

2007-09-07T15:05:36Z

Yesterday (day of the big storm coming in), walked 14,128 paces, the last few thousand pulling incredibly heavy luggage through the stations and streets of Tokyo looking for somewhere to stay, wrenched my hip and otherwise worked muscles ...

... today was a rest day so I've only walked 10,320 paces :-) and that includes pulling EVEN HEAVIER luggage up and down three sets of stairs (many many stairs) in the Shinjuku Railway Station. I'm told I saved about 4,750Yen doing so, which is about $45/£22UK ... next time I spend the money!