Rail pass, Osaka, Kyoto

Yesterday I left Hiroshima after a quick walk-through one last time. The weather was perfect, unlike the previous two days so I had to get a couple photos for proof that the sun does come out in Hiroshima.

After that, I hopped onto the bullet train again. I LOVE the rail pass. Basically I just flash it, the ticket people nod, and I am on my way. There seems to be a bullet train that I can catch every 30 minutes or so. I also had no idea how extensive the train system here in Japan is. The bullet trains are just one small component. THere are trains that seem to go EVERYWHERE. If you can`t get to it via train, then you must be going somewhere pretty isolated. Well on Honshu at least. I do not think Hokkaido and Kyushu have as many train lines. Best 250 bucks I have spent on this trip by far.

So the train I hopped onto went as far as Osaka. I was thinking I would stop in Kobe and check it out, but then I got an urge to return to Osaka, which was where I first saw Japan. I got off there, and took the subway into Namba, which is pretty central, and a big shopping area. I strolled around, reminising and remembering my previous visit there. Namba is a massive station with tons of exits. The first time I was there, I was looking for exit 10 to find the Korean consulate and I couldn`t seem to do it for the life of me. I became super nervous and worried I wouldnt find the consulate in time and my trip would be a failure. Thankfully I found it in time.

This time, I found the consulate in like 2 minutes. Of course it helped that I already knew where it was. Looks like they have changed the set-up a bit though. I went into the basement, but now it looks as though you go through the main entry-way for visa services. The holiday inn across the street is no longer there either.

Anyway, I continued on down and ended up at this shopping mall on top of the rail station. Apparently it was the grand opening of the place. Yesterday was literally the first day it was open. I didnt know this until i saw some signs saying as much. Before that, I was really puzzled why so many people were at the mall mid-day on a week-day. Well, that explained it.

After having my fun in Osaka, I hopped onto a train to Kyoto. An illustration of how awesome the train system is here- I missed the first one but caught one 5 minutes later and there were a couple soon after the one I took.

When I got to Kyoto 30 minutes later, I took a bus. Nothing like riding a bus at rush hour. Fun times. Managed to get off in the right place (unlike today when I was returning from sight seeing) and found my hotel- a ryokan off a main street. It really is pretty cool, although a bit rustic. Dimly lit, hard-wood floors. Pretty sweet set-up though. French receptionist was a bit of a dick though. He pronounced my name `seen.` yeah, what a tool.

As for kyoto? Well yes, it has lots of temples. It has lots of cool small alleys. Lots of tourists. Lots of japanese people in stores speaking english. Well besides the woman in the post office. I am very familiar with post offices now. I have gone to one every day since i have been here, either to mail something or to get money. FYI, the Japanese postal service has the highest amount of bank deposits in the world of any financial institute. Or it did, not sure if it is still number 1.

ok, so then

Toilets: they rock. They have some high quality technology here in the land of the rising sun. The suckers are heated. Sit down and you are in for a very nice surprise. In addition, they have a control panel on the side so if you want your rear to be washed, it can be done. Talk about service. The heating thing though, they need to start doing that to toilets in America.

Escalators: Being smart, the Japanese (and I found them in Korea too) realized why waste power on an escalator when no one is using it? Therefore, they have a sensor to detect if anyone is approaching the escalator. When it senses someone approaching, it begins moving. When it doesn't sense someone, it doesn't move. Pretty smart if you ask me.

Yellow fever: it came up in convo last night at dinner. I said something along the lines of, "yeah, kinda sad i'll be leaving Japan. There goes the eye candy.|"
Aussie chick: there aren't hot women in america?
(Turn red): umm yeah there are. I meant where I'm going

Whenever I talk to an asian chick, such as the one last night, I try to hide my yellow fever. As if it really matters. for some reason it does.

I think i had more to write but I had another fun night. Went out, grabbed some dinner- blocking on the food we had- then hit a few bars. I really didn't plan to check out the night life as much as I have but the prices are reasonable and i'm still within my budget. Fun times.

unrelated and related

Ok, I have 6 minutes of internet time at the present moment. Once that is up, I am off to dinner with a fellow american and an aussie. So, let's begin.

Unrelated to trip: the warriors can clinch a play-off berth with a win in their last game. Why am i so excited? I am not a fan of the NBA. Maybe because the last time the warriors were in the play-offs I was a freshman in high school. Just in case you aren't aware how old I am, that was 13 years ago.

Related: It is freaking COLD here in Hiroshima. I toured around the a-bomb sites today and had my fun, then said screw this, I need to get inside. What did I do? Went to starbucks, nursed a mocha while writing a certain someone a letter, and people-watched. The japanese have an interesting way of dressing. Well many dress quite conservatively and look like they'd be in a gap ad. Others though? Let's just say I wasn't aware how many asian women had such long legs. They're not afraid to show them off. It really is mind-blowing what some of the women here wear. And the guys? Well I've seen a lotta wanna be gangstas. Interesting hairdos too. Anyway, it was quite enjoyable just staring out the window in starbucks looking at people passing by. The clientele wasn't half-bad either. Lots of gaijn there such as myself though. Not a big surprise given the circumstances.

Ok, i'm down to a minute...

Coming up later: toilets! escalators! yellow fever! I know you can't wait!

My goodness

Presently in hiroshima. Spent the evening with 3 Aussies and another american at the japanese equivelent to a tapas bar. We got a bunch of small dishes and a lot of beer. I am totally blocking on the japanese term for that kind of place due to the two large bottles of Kirin that I consumed tonight. It is further proof that Japan is no more expensive than the west. We each put in 20 bucks or so, and we each had 2 big bottles of beer and shared about 10 dishes.

Anyhoo... Yesterday I left Tokyo and stopped over in Himeji to check out the castle there. First off, the bullet train, as I'm sure you would suspect, is quite nice and efficient. Have to say it provides a very pleasant ride. Secondly, I was suprised to see cherry blossoms. In Tokyo I saw hardly any, so I assumed I wouldn't see any south of it, since the general rule of thumb is the further south you go, the warmer the climate, and therefore earlier blossom season. Well I don't know if that was the case this year, but fortunately there were still lots of blossoms south of Tokyo, including around Himeji castle. Anther surprise for me was to see the interior of the castle to be wood. The reason that suprised me was the outside is all stone and whatnot, it hardly looks like it would have a wooden interior. The last suprise for me was it had 6 floors. Quite a climb to the top of the castle.

After visiting Himeji, I took another train to Hiroshima. I arrived at the hostel, checked in, and saw there were a total of 8 beds in the room I was staying in. It was completely empty and devoid of people. So was the "common room." I was pissed. Why? Because a big reason I decided to "slum" it and stay at hostels was to meet fellow travelers. It didn't seem like that was happening for me. I went totally solo in Tokyo (until the last night, when I met a dude from Singapore who drove me nuts) and it looked like it was going to be the same in Hiroshima. So I decided to go out for a bit.

When I came back, there were a couple people in the common room, so I figured I would get a beer and chill with them. Well I set a trend as far as the beer drinking goes. By the end of the night, a handful of others were drinking and the common room was quite packed. I ended up staying up until 12:30 chatting away, and today explored Miyajima with the aforementioned 3 aussies. We also went to a town called Iwakuni, which I had never heard of prior to last night. It had a rather unique bridge. Oh, and white snakes. That I didn't have any interest in seeing, so I didn't. The aussies did however. Their enthusiasm confirmed my decision.

Got back to Hiroshima in the evening. Receptionist told us of all you can drink, all you can eat place. We were obviously down with that. Alas, that place was closed due to remodeling. To fill that "void" we settled for the place mentioned above. It ended up being quite pleasant and enjoyable. I suppose I should elaborate and explain HOW it was, but uh, just trust me, it was.

So tomorrow I aim to actually check out Hiroshima itself. I have yet to see Peace Park and the A-bomb building. Tomorrow, inshallah. Going through the city via train and street cars, I find it to be quite pleasant. It is close to the sea and apparently 6 rivers run through the city. I look fwd to exploring it more.

There you go, a quick recap of the past couple days.

Sunburned in Tokyo

You know, now that I am traveling, I really dont give much thought to what I eat. For instance, for lunch, I got a really greasy bowl of ramen. Had I been back home I would have thought, ewww, this is gross. This isn't healthy and will get me fat. Today though? Well I did say ewww, too much grease but simply for aesthetic reasons.

What did I get after i ate that greasy ramen? An ice cream bar. I haven't had ice cream in ages. What did I get after going out for a couple beers tonight? A pack of cookies. Yeah, travel=junk food time. I figure if I am going to walk 10 hours in a day, I can afford to eat some crap. Anyway, my days summary:

Thanks to jet lag, I was up early this morning. I woke up around 6, but forced myself to stay in bed until 8. After showering and whatnot, I left my hotel around 830. I did not return until around 630. What did I do during those 10 hours? Walk for nearly all of it. So what did I discover?

Sensoji Temple is all right. It is within walking distance of where I am staying. Lots and lots of tourists. Rather disorienting walking around hearing Chinese instead of Japanese. Not sure why, but it was.

Ueno Park was pretty nice. It reminded me of Central Park. Why? simply because it was massive. Thats about it really.

Turns out there are many parks in Tokyo. It was a pleasant surprise.

Where would I live in Tokyo? Harajuku. And no, not because young people dress all weird and whatnot. Personally I think that is a reason NOT to live there. No, I liked it because it was really clean, seemed a little quirky, just had this lively atmosphere.

Most disappointing area so far? Shinjuku. very busy, but bland. That being said, I got a quite a view of Tokyo from the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metro Govt Building. Even though it was sunny today, the view was rather unimpressive due to pollution or haze (one of the two, maybe both).

Flight over and first evening in Tokyo

Right now I am drinking my 2nd bottle of Pocari Sweat for the evening. How many times have I had Pocari Sweat before tonight? Umm no more than 5. Why am I drinking it? Because I have no interest in soda and I do not have the courage to try something new tonight.

So my flight over went all right. I upgraded to economy plus and the seat next to me was empty so I was quite content space-wise. The flight attendents minus one were very polite. United actually impressed me. FYI: check in online for Intl. flights. It saves you LOTS of time. There was one woman in front of me to check baggage, as opposed to the 100 people in line to check-in for everything. I said to her, uh, is this it? She told me she couldnt believe it either.

This japanese keyboard is a bit weird, so my puncuation is a little screwy.

Tokyo... Well.. It is too early to say anything. I wandered around the area of my hotel (which I found quite easily thankfully) and memories of Korea came back. It is like Korea but not. That is all I can say at this point.

I made 3 mistakes today. 1 of them wasnt embarrasing at all (I was about to buy a ticket to tokyo from the airport, then realized I needed to get yen), one was slightly embarassing (apparently the japanese line up on the opposite side of the escalator than the rest of the world), and one somewhat embarrasing mistake. I chose a tonkatsu restaurant simply because well, I can read tonkatsu and knew it is something I like (pork cutlet). So I go in, sit down, and get all ready to order for the first time. Dude comes up to me and says something in Japanese and Im like uhhhh what? He then points to the machine by the entrance. Turns out you buy a ticket from the vending machine and then hand it to the waiter. For us ignorant types, there are picture descriptions as well. It is a pretty sweet set-up I have to say.

It isn:t the only restaurant to have it either. Afterwards, I noticed it in a couple other places. Certainly makes it easier for us gaijin.

I'm adios

5 hours from now I will be boarding a plane to take me to Tokyo. Hard to believe the day has finally arrived. I'm a little edgy right now. A friend asked me this morning if I was excited. At this moment, not really. It comes and goes.
For instance, yesterday I went to get my rail pass over in San Francisco. When I stepped into the travel agency and saw all these brochures on Japan, the excitement came. When I held the rail pass "exchange order" I got a nice little adrenaline rush. It also helped that Jordan, who was accompanying me, was pumped up. When I was browsing a brochure and came across a map of the Tokyo JR system, that really got her going. I was like yup, that's where I'll be in about 24 hours.

Got my haircut yesterday (as illustrated in the pic to the right). Told the woman to do it really short because I wouldn't be there for awhile. "What, you don't like coming to us?" she said. Well yeah, but obviously I couldn't tell her that. And plus, "No, I'm not going to be around for awhile so I need it that way."
"oh, well, I guess that's ok then." Better be.