the Minshuku Jomon

I did not make reservations before leaving for the island. Perhaps dangerous or perhaps I was getting in the adventurous spirit of the island. I could always camp somewhere I figured, then I learned the nickname of this place. The island where it rains 35 days a month.

So I walked to one of the closer places to sleep called the Minshuku Jomon. This hideous creature is what greeted me at the door... My mind immediately flashed to the gimp from Pulp Fiction... You have to realize, I didn't make a reservation. I wasn't entirely sure I was walking into the correct place. The big sign out front said Jomon in Japanese, but half the things in this town are named Jomon after the famous Jomon Sugi tree... A small sign on the driveway said Family Restaurant in katakana and English but nowhere did I see a sign that read Minshuku Jomon. Walking in to a quiet, empty building and the first thing you see is someone wearing a black and gold mask scares the shit out of you.

Turns out it was Hide, the owners son, who was goofing around and didn't hear me come in. We exchanged names, he was Shokka, a famous Japanese villain and I was Superman, a famous American superhero. haha We had a good laugh.

The head chef at the Minshuku Jomon is a guy named Okanyi who took it upon himself to teach me the finer points of Japanese culture. Things like the Kanchou - sneak up behind them in an onsen. How to eat a fried flying fish - no, no, no superuman... And of course, what to say for delicious food - Shin ken ume!

These guys were instant friends. We ate breakfast at the local place. They took me for kakigori. Took me to the public bath and one of the local hot springs. Got me takoyaki to try. Organized my surprise hiking trip. Took me for coffee on the way back to the jetfoil.

I hope I get a chance to go back to Yakushima for no other reason than to drink more beer and shochu with these guys. Thanks fellas!

Leaving on a jetfoil to Yakushima

These suckers fly!

Hopped on a jetfoil named Toppy to get from Kagoshima to Yakushima Island, which is supposed to be a somewhat of an undiscovered tropical adventure island. I am planning on spending a couple days in a hostel and getting the lay of the land before taking an overnight trek to a mountain hut on the top of the volcano. The island is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site to protect its unique flora and ancient Japanese cedars.

Kagoshima Festivals

So my friends are famous... I just thought they like to play the guitar and drink beer on the patio. They took me to a summer festival at the meat packers plant where they were the headlining band! We met up with one of their friends, Una, a local Okinawan guitar celebrity.

I knew I was in for good treatment when we arrived and the president of the plant immediately gave us as much shochu and beer as we could drink.

While my friends got ready to play, I looked for a good place to take pictures and videos. Lots of yatai stands selling beer and shochu and all kinds of pork products. They had roped off an area for the VIPs in the middle near the sound guy that would be perfect... So I decided to sneak in (if a 6 foot tall white guy can sneak anywhere) to the VIP area and take an unoccupied table near the front. One guy took a liking to my ability to speak Japanglish and said I had to meet someone, the "top guy" in Kagoshima. I wasn't sure what to make of it all, but OK... The man I was introduced to really is the "top guy" in the Kagoshima perfecture, the representative to the Japanese government for the whole perfecture. The equivalent of a congressman back home... A few shochu and kamupai later we were good buddies watching the show. This Japan place is crazy.



After the show we adjourned to the meat packers bar with the president for more drinks. And karaoke! The whole bar was singing and dancing. Our friend Hiromi arrived late to the festival and wasn't able to sing Nada So So; I was glad she got a chance to sing it at the bar.

Selling かき氷 (kakigōri)

I moved to the Moon Garam Masala Guest House in Sakurajima and the owners from Okinawa have adopted me. Riding in the back of the truck with the block of ice and guitar I get a personal tour of Sakurajima. The owners of the guest house, Funky Amamori and Jinko-chan, supplement their income during the summer selling kakigori. Back home we call them snow cones. They have an antique, cast-iron ice shaver that they toss in the back of the truck with a cooler full of ice and fruit syrups. They drive me around the island selling kakigori to fishermen and kids on the beach. I realize they are using me for the novelty of it. An American riding around in the back of a truck draws plenty of questions and stares... But for me it is a free open-air tour of the island complete with blue-Hawaii ice and guitar music when we stop. Plus it converts to free beer and dinner when we get back to the guesthouse because now I'm "staff". We stopped and did some fishing at dusk. I didn't catch a thing, but Jinko-chan caught enough for dinner!

Some photos from the day. The o-torii gate is 3 meters tall, 2 meters were buried in the eruption of 1914. Big eruption that connected the island with the mainland but they still talk about it like an island. Good view of the peak, usually obscured by clouds; you can barely see plumes of smoke. All the trees are the same size here... We also caught a poisonous puffer fish we had to throw back. They serve it in some of the fancy restaurant that are certified. Apparently it makes your mouth numb, I have yet to try it.

Kagoshima

I arrived in Kagoshima late and I was worried that the ferry to take me to Sakurajima would be closed for the night. To my surprise there was a fireworks festival that night at the port! Instead of being closed the port was covered with thousands of people. The ferry was running all night, so I sat down to enjoy the show. The fireworks shattered my eardrums again. Big fireworks. And close. These people know how to put on a show.

The Sakurajima YH turned out to be a little boring and the hot spring onsen was under repair so I switched to the Cafe and Guest House Garammasala. Not boring, this place... The couple that own the place are delightful. We sit on the patio in the evenings and watch the fireworks shows (there is a small show on Sakurajima every night this month) and drink some beer and listen to some Okinawan guitar.

Sakurajima used to be an island but they had a huge eruption here, (biggest in the world in the 20th century they tell me) that connected the island with the mainland. They had another big eruption in the `40s and nothing major since then. I thought it was funny that they built the youth hostel above the Kyoto University Observation Station. Nothing like sleeping on an active volcano...


Random collection of photos I took here... I really like how the photo of Sakurajima turned out. Monks in the Tenmonkan area asking for money by not moving for an hour at a time and ringing a little bell once every couple seconds. Experimenting with some long exposure night photos. Kids playing with these gigantic beetles the size of mice. Apparently they keep them as pets here... New friends at an artist collective.

Onsen

The hot springs are famous throughout Japan and they are everywhere. So Id like to share some of my onsen experiences so far...

First, there are some rules you must follow when soaking in an onsen. Most of these rules I knew before I left, some I have learned along the way.

1. You must wash yourself before entering the public hot springs. Makes sense. Nobody wants to be soaking in the grime and filth of other people. You have to realize that the Japanese are a bit Mysophobic, they take their shoes off before coming in the house, restaurants give wet hand towels to use before dining... In short, the Japanese are clean freaks. So washing before the onsen means scrubbing every square centimeter with a hand towel and full lather. A full 30 minutes of scrubbing is not unheard of.
   
2. Wash off all soap before entering the pool. Same as rule number one, public water must stay pristine.
   
3. Don't waste water. Keeping in mind rules 1 & 2, this one presents a bit of a challenge. Traditionally, the Japanese would fill one small tub at a time and dump it on their head, now there are shower heads. The showers are European style with the nozzle attached to a hose except there is an additional knob for switching between shower, off and faucet. Pretty simple except its written in Japanese and you are naked while trying to figure it out... The corollary to this rule is spraying people behind you. Unless they are your buddies, its not the most polite to spray your neighbors, so when you're washing your armpits you have to be especially careful not to miss with that upside down nozzle, or blam, you're neighbor gets a shot of water.
   
4. Check the temperature of the water first. This goes for both the onsen and for the showering area. Screaming like a little girl because you turned the wrong knob and blasted yourself with cold water is not the most polite thing to do. The onsen are just as dangerous. Usually there are multiple pools of various temperatures, some are wicked hot and some are ice cold (give your circulation a charge).
   
5. Male and female separate. Straight forward rule except sometimes there is not an English sign. Better to wait and see who goes in and out first, lest you want a scolding.
   

My first experience with the shared bathing was at the youth hostel. Pretty mellow place to learn how to use the faucets and double check your knowledge of the rules.

My first experience with a public onsen was at the Yamaga capsule hotel. Wasn't a big deal except I was surprised by half a dozen fellows with full body tattoos. Tattoos from ankle to wrist are generally associated with the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. Now if you're already a little nervous about being naked with a bunch of Yakuza you double check your mental list of the rules first...

My next experience of consequence was at the Sakurajima onsen. The cleaning lady. Apparently, the grandmas who clean the onsen are exempt from the male/female rule. They clean without regard for who is using the showers and what they are doing. More than once the grandmas, the ones with permanently bent backs, started cleaning right next to where I was scrubbing away in pursuit of rule number 1. The same thing happens in public toilets, the grandmas think nothing of mopping the floor right next you to while you're busy. People with stage fright need not apply.

Most of the onsen are quiet and mellow. People are friendly and talkative. But some onsen are rowdy and loud. Jumping, splashing and the like. Kinda like a public swimming pool back home except its a bunch of naked men.Its kind of like a clean room. You got a dirty area, an ante room for changing, and a clean area.

Wish I could take photos, kind of funny to see a line of a dozen Japanese men all sitting on little stools washing themselves. Or snoozing in the onsen with a hand towel neatly folded into a square resting on their heads. But as you can guess, no cameras allowed.

B-day dinner at a Satsuma restaurant

I ate at a really neat local restaurant last night, a traditional Kagoshima restaurant, that they call satsuma. It was delicious. Little raw silver fish called kibinago that you dip in vinegar miso sauce. Bonito sashimi that is eaten will a self-prepared garlic, onion and roe sauce. Fried fish paste called satsuma age. Tsukemono. Raw peanuts soaked in water; they tasted like they were just starting to sprout. A purple and white jelly made from sweet potatoes for dessert. The highlight was kurobuta tonkatsu (pork ribs) from local black pigs that was so tender it would fall into the bowl from the slightest nudge of a chopstick. Amazing!

I had so much fun with them they gave me a hand towel with the resto name on it as a present. The owner told me, in her best English, to think of them every time I washed myself - I don't think it translated quite right...

The Red Bulls of Aso-san

The red bulls of Aso-san are slightly famous, no not for giving you wings. Although, this particular fellow took a liking to me and was following as I was walking the 15.3 km down the road to the hostel. He wouldn't stop staring at me so I mooed to him. Seemed like the thing to do. Well, he mooed back. Similar to many conversations I have had in Japanese I wasn't quite sure what I was saying nor did I understand the response.

The Aso-san valley is beautiful, similar to the valley of Buena Vista where you are surrounded by mountains. But in Aso-san you are surrounded by volcanoes. So my plan was to take the bus to the visitor center near the caldera and then hike the rest of the way up. Cut me some slack, it was 38 degC... Unfortunately, the caldera was closed due to high concentrations of poisonous gas. So I snapped a few pictures of Aso-san, ate an ice cream cone and tried to figure out what to do.

I was hoping to get some good exercise in, so I decided to follow a trail marked on my map to Mt Komezuka (which translates to upside-down rice bowl apparently). It involved walking down the road for a couple kilometers and then taking a trail that goes right by Komezuka and then ends near the hostel. Sounds perfect. Except I never found the trail because it was hidden under grass a meter tall. So I walked. And I walked. And I walked down this road for all 15.3 km of it. Did I mention it was 38 degC? Oi.

So maybe that's why the bull was so curious about me - he'd never seen a crazy American walking down the road talking to him before.

These pictures (and a conversation with a bull) are about all I have to show for a day spent on Aso-san. I did a sketch of the bull in my journal in honor of his support during my downhill suffering.

Yamaga Toro Matsuri

The town of Yamaga is obsessed with the lantern; it has its own museum, it is on the manhole covers, it is everywhere! The lanterns are made out of gold and silver paper by hand, each one taking three days to complete. The dance is said to commemorate a visit by the legendary Emperor Keiko when the villagers greeted them with one thousand torches. The tradition of lighting the streets has continued to the present day.

The first night is the fireworks display, it was amazing, and it lasted for an hour and a half! Yina forgot the mat so we spread out paper from a pamphlet to sit on, like a homeless person. The show reminded me of the E-days fireworks show at CSM from the days of old. Huge fireworks that are so close that your chest reverberates with the firing of every shell. And there were commercials. There was a pause every once in a while, a name would light up and the announcer would give the credit. Odd, but I actually enjoyed the moment to reset my brain and eyes before the next round of fireworks. All along the river, yatai stands were set up selling all kinds of food and beer. Yina bought me octopus on a stick and soba noodles. Delicious!

The second night was the dance of one thousand Yamaga Toro women. Imagine just after sunset, one thousand women dancing with lanterns on their heads and wearing white yukata. I couldn't imagine it either. But it was amazing to see them all dancing in unison to sound of traditional biwagaku music.

It was a wonderful experience to be in Yamaga during the annual Toro Festival. Just walking around the town, I felt like a celebrity, everyone wanted to know where I was from. Such a friendly small town. Thanks Yina for organizing such a great trip. Sugoi desu ne?












The music is absolutely addicting. I tried posting a video, let me know if it works or not.

Ramen noodle capital of the world

Today I am in Fukuoka, the ramen noodle capital of the world! Not at all like the ramen noodles I ate as a kid... I went to the Ramen Colosseum at canal city where they have eight or so different ramen restaurants each specializing in a different style of ramen noodles. For lack of knowledge about any of the different kinds of ramen, I chose Hakata, the local style.

I ordered the tonkatsu ramen which apparently is the classic version of the Hakata. A few pieces of thinly sliced pork in a buttery broth and dark strands of vegetables. And of course, draft beer, to wash it all down. Oishii!!

Now lets talk slurping for a moment. Slurping is how its done here. You don't use a spoon, you don't cut it with your chopsticks. You stick a wad in your mouth and slurp. Back home this is definitely not how it is done, but I pretended that I was eight years old and gave it a good slurp. Not as easy as it sounds, if you don't want to splash your cheeks with broth, that is. But in no time I was slurping with the best of them!

Ohori Koen

Everything here in Fukuoka is closing for the impending O-bon festival so I spent the afternoon at the city park. There were dragonflies and turtles everywhere, I even saw a few cranes. This one let me get close enough for a few photos. The lily pads were blooming too. Entire ponds full of them were blooming these gigantic white flowers. Anyone know the name of these flowers? [Mom: these are what make those huge cone-shaped seed pods you love.]

Tomorrow I leave for Kumamoto with Yina to celebrate the O-bon matsuri (festival of the dead). I am told there will be fireworks!

Yina

So I met this Chinese girl in Fukuoka...

I was wandering the streets of Fukuoka and happened upon some fire dancers and street musicians. A Chinese girl sat down next to me. We started chatting, her name is Yina. A PhD student in education at Kyushu University. We struggled to communicate in English but exchanged contact info so we could meet the following day and go to the city museum.

I was unable to get the phone at the ryokan to work so I sent her an email apologizing instead... Fortunately she checked her email, found the number and called me at the ryokan. We decided to meet for dinner instead.

She took me to a buffet style resto that was full of families and young adults, definitely a popular place. I must have tried 20 different kinds of vegetables and fish. Fermented beans and barley that are spread on fresh cucumbers and tomatoes. Sashimi. Tofu in coconut milk. Okinawa salad. And those are just the ones I can remember and describe! Its a little easier for us to talk now that's its quieter, but we still have to break out the Japanese-English dictionaries to convey the more difficult words. Funny how you could have so much fun with someone you struggle to communicate with.

She has invited me to a festival a couple of days from now, an O-bon festival in Kumamoto. I am excited to have someone to travel with and especially one that is fluent in Japanese. It is tiring struggling with Japanglish with everyone you meet and not being able to have more

Update: after spending a whole day with Yina in Yamaga at the festival I know that she and I will be lasting friends. I hope that I can meet you again when I come back through Kyushu.

Akiyoshi Vats

Took a bus adventure to a little mountain town called Akiyoshi that is famous for its geology. It was a little tricky getting the English translation but there was a coral reef a couple hundred million years ago that rose and created the limestone features on the Karst plateau. The plateau is nothing but green grass and limestone lumps everywhere. There is a gigantic cavern below full of interesting stalactites, stalagmites and blind, albino shrimp. And vats, there are vats everywhere. Live, flying vats. The vat is even the official town animal with cartoon vats in every store.

I really enjoyed goofing around taking long-exposure photos in the caves, mostly because it was cool down there. Much better than slogging around with a backpack in 35 degC heat...

I have to admit though, the little mountain town was full of little mountain folk that were not all that friendly. It was a stark contrast to the people of Iwakuni who went out of there way to have a good time with foreigners. I was the only six-foot white guy I saw in the two days I was there, and they definitely went out of their way to avoid me. And so it goes...

Iwakuni

Iwakuni is famous for its five-arched bridge constructed entirely out of wood without nails. The Kintai bridge is quite unique and photogenic from any angle.

The real highlight to my trip to Iwakuni, however, was all the great Japanese people that I met. Upon arriving in Iwakuni I met Keisuke who was celebrating his 20th birthday on his way back to Nara. Happy birthday Keisuke! That night I went to a udon restaurant and had a great time talking with the Tanakas in Japanglish. The whole restaurant was laughing at their jokes. What a great restaurant, the tempura udon bowl was delicious! The next morning over breakfast I met a guy named Waragai and we decided to explore the town together. Turns out he was the perfect person to explore with - he had lived in Iwakuni until he was six but had not been back until this trip. So he was simultaneously a local and a tourist (and is a native Japanese speaker). We went to the Iwakuni castle, he bought me the local specialty Iwakuni sushi for lunch at Hirase. Oishii! We explored the Uno Chiyo house in the area west of the river. We ate dinner at the hostel and went back to the Kintai bridge for some night photos of the comorant fishing. What a day, thanks Waragai!

okonomiyaki

So lets be honest, food is one of the most fun and most stressful parts about traveling. It can be so much fun to discover new foods that you love, new foods that you had never imagined eating. Its even fun eating things that disgust you so much you never want to see them again. But its also stressful. Stressful when you don't know how to order, don't have any idea what you're ordering, or how to eat it.

Okonomiyaki was that for me. I had heard that Hiroshima has some of the best okonomiyaki restaurants in all of Japan. So I had to try it. But I wasn't even sure I knew what it was. I had heard that it was a self-cook kind of operation, hibachi style food with a cook your own steak sort of atmosphere. I was nervous about eating odd seafood as is was, but cooking my own just sounded like asking for a intestinal nightmare.

So if you're going to jump into the pool you might as well jump into the deep end right? I figure you might as well pick the place packed with locals cause that way if you're drowning there is more people to recognize it and help you out. Or more people to entertain. So that's what I did.

Okonomiyaki starts as a thin crepe-like, round pancake which is placed on top of a pile of cabbage and sprouts to keep the steam in. As the veggies cook down, the meats are grilled. In my case, the meats were squid, shrimp and prosciutto. A circle of noodles starts grilling about the same time. Once the meats are done they are combined with the veggies and placed on the noodles after which an egg is scrambled in a circle of the same diameter. Once the egg is done its all stacked together and coated with cheese and teriyaki sauce.

Let me just say yum! A couple of beers and one okonomiyaki plate later I had one happy belly! I was just glad that I didn't have to cook it myself. Now, I will be searching out okonomiyaki restaurants as their master.

Hiroshima Peace Festival

The Peace Festival was amazing. And powerful. It was a lot to take in for just a single day and I am still digesting it all in my head... There were so many photos. There were so many people. So much noise and action.

The festival started with speeches from the mayor of Hiroshima and the prime minister and other VIPs followed by a moment of silence at exactly 8:15. The entire city was quiet for that one minute. A city as big as Hiroshima entirely silent. Every person was thinking the same thing: those poor people, the war, the politics.

This apparent degree of organization was followed by chaos. Anyone and everyone who had　something to say could just carve themselves out a space in the park and make noise. Or hand out leaflets. Groups would hang graphic photos of a-bomb victims on the fence around the dome. Groups of monks drumming. A flag ceremony with every country in the world. Origami crane folding sessions. Children's book readings. Korean demonstrations. Iraqi demonstrations. It was very moving although it felt more like a funeral than a peace festival.

That night there was a floating lantern ceremony. Thousands of colored-paper floating lanterns with writing on them were released into the river. Children would put hordes of the lanterns into the river together. It was all very scenic. Too scenic in fact, the photographers were almost coming to blows to get the best spot with the A-bomb dome in the background.

I was a little skeptical about attending the festival as an American, I wasn't sure how I would be received. It could not have been better, in fact, I almost felt like a celebrity. Everyone wanted to ask me questions. Questions about my perspective on WWII and history. Questions about America. Questions about the current war in Iraq. Questions about my perspective on Japan.

The dome at night reminds me of R2D2.

There are many, many more photos online on my flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-bug/sets/72157601248349995/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/b-bug/sets/72157601244030990/

Japanese Friendliness

I have been amazed at how friendly people are here. I guess I was expecting the sort of treatment I received in Europe or the way we treat foreigners in the states. These people go way beyond that to make foreigners feel welcome.

On Miyajima island I met an older man traveling with his son. He was curious how an American had heard about the island and the floating shrine. His name was Dr. Kenji Sugai, a doctor of pathology. He sat down next to me on the stone bench and watched the sunrise on Itsukushima Shrine and chatted about all kinds of things. What a nice old man. He asked if he could take a picture with me and mail it to me. He wrote down my address and gave me a business card. Or its a situation like the movie "Hostel." haha So Mom you might be getting a photo in the mail from some doctor in Japan...

I have been here less than a week and the number of stories of helpful people is too many to list in a single blog. Simply amazing. I hope that we, that I, can be this helpful and welcoming to foreigners when we encounter them at home. To help them with directions. or food. or simply have a conversation with them.

As I was waiting at the ferry station some children nervously approached me. I could tell they wanted to talk to me but they were nervous. They kept shoving each other in the back saying, "No, you go talk to him." I could see their mothers in the background encouraging them. They had a homework assignment to talk with an americanjin and write down the responses. One by one they would say "Hi, my name is ______. What is your name? Where are you from?" They would struggle, then ask me to write it for them and then scamper off in bliss at having completed the assignment.

What a proactive educational choice these people make. I am reminded of back home where we complain about things being in Spanish and how people should speak the English because its national language. How stagnate we have become in our perceived leadership of the world.

Or when I got lost in Hiroshima, a woman came out of her house and asked me if I was looking for the hostel. With a clueless look on my face and a backpack on my hind side she already knew the answer. She offered to walk me their personally. She had lived in Minnesota for a while and wanted to ask about the Minneapolis bridge disaster.

Itsukushima Shrine and Japanese Attack Deer

Got up early to ride the shinkansen to Hiroshima, a 4 hour ride on the bullet train. Less exciting than all the hype but the banked turns are kinda fun. After a low-s@eed transfer to Miyajimaguchi and a ferry ride, I was on Miyajima Island! Home of the famous floating shrine and the infamous deer...

The first thing I noticed after stepping off the ferry were all of these adorable deer. They were everywhere, cute little brown ones with white spots. Its like seeing the Rabbit of Caerbannog up close, Awww so cute. Do not be fooled. They are not cute and they are not friendly. The little buggers spotted me as an obvious tourist, ran up, snagged my map, and ate the whole thing in two bites. And I was worried about pickpockets... The kids loved it. They would buy "deer cakes" and the deer would chase them around while they screamed in joy. I was not quite as amused at having lost my free map that had my only directions to the ryokan on it. I overheard some girl muttering about the 10,000 yen note that she was waiting for one of the deer to poop out...

There is a reason the place is so famous, it really is as scenic as it looks. It is kind of like the Eiffel tower in that regard, everyone and their grandma has a photo of it, so I tried to take photos from a different perspective than normal. What do you think?

The ryokan was just as different for me. Sleeping on the tatami mat floor in the traditional Japanese manner. My first experience with the shared Japanese bathroom. You sit on a stool and wash yourself with a bucket of water and then, once perfectly clean, you get into the shared bathtub (only filled once a day to conserve water) to soak.

Karaoke Competition

Went to Ueno park to see the museums and enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the park to stave off jet lag. The Tokyo National Museum was loads of fun, all kinds of great exhibits. The Buddhism special exhibit had a lot of great sculptures and paintings but little for English explanations. Bought some funny fish stuff and a drink from a convenience type store and had a picnic lunch in the park. Very peaceful except some bugs were biting me and I didn't realize it until too late. I'm screwed if I go to a country with malaria, my blood is just too sweet. ha. The weird thing about this place is that they have these umbrella lockers outside every building. They work just like a locker with a key and a little hole for the handle - these folks must have some fancy umbrellas!

That night they had set up lanterns and booths for a street carnival along the bank of the pond (full of turtles, koi, and flowering lily pads) at the NW end of the park. Lots of street vendors selling their wares and the Japanese version of carnie food. I heard music down by the pagoda and went to investigate, this iｓ where things got a little crazy...

Looking through the wrought iron fence, I could see five guys wearing tights. They looked Japanese but had painted their entire skin, except their ears - I thought they were some sort of indigenous acrobatic tribe at first. I had to get inside to see what this was about.

I took a seat at the back of the stadium style seating inside the pagoda. Could not tell what was happening at first, lots of singing and silly dancing, crazy costumes and terrible singing... It was a karaoke performance! Some random guy was handing out beers to the suits sitting next to me and he decided I needed a beer too. What a nice guy! He must have spotted me as the obvious stiff in the crowd and thought I needed a beer. He came back later and gave me another Asahi and a bento box of sushi! Turns out he was the VP of the Japan Travel Bureau of Tokyo and he was putting on this event! 14 sets of terrible karaoke singing later and we were friends. Well, a bit tipsy at least.

Not bad for the first full day in Tokyo, culture shock 0 : Japanese friendliness 1.

Tokyo Arrival

Ok, now its real. I got on the plane. The chaos of the last few days has transformed into the nervousness of going somewhere new. You know the kind. Where you find yourself in a place where you have less education than a first grader. Questions like, why are there no towells in the bathroom to dry my hands and what is that squishy food I am eating, just keep coming up.

I was expecting culture shock and it hit me harder than the wave of heat and humidity that hit the second I got off the plane. It was a bit stressful after being on a plane for 15 hours to find the correct train into Tokyo and then transfer to the correct Metro to get to the correct neighborhood. A couple of wrong turns and wrong trains but it all works out in the end...

The manager of the guesthouse Chika walked to the train station and picked me up. Good thing, I would have been wandering around the back streets of Ikebukuro for hours looking for the guesthouse. Its full of seasoned travelers, an Irish lass going RTW, a Dutch lady, a Isreali guy working in Japan, and a Japanese guy working a temp job for the summer. We already got into a great discussion about places to go in Japan, world politics, okonomiyaki... It reminded me of college, the way those random conversations would start in a dorm room and last till 2 am.

Anyways, off to bed and Ueno park tomorrow.

Alan at LAX

What a random occurrence to run into Alan at LAX on his birthday. We both had a layover at the same time. So I bought him a couple beers. We all know how drinking heaps of beer works before getting on a long flight... Aye Laddie!

I was expecting not to sleep at all but ended up sleeping almost the entire flight. I was a little tired from all that pre-leaving moving and not sleeping bit. And so the flight was an easy one for me.

Any suggestions of places to go in Japan?