An Unexpected Trip

We met Ryo in the lobby of our hotel and headed for a Sonic train to start the 2 hour trip to Nagasaki. What we were expecting to be a day spent checking out the sights — including the bomb memorials — ended up being entirely different.

As before, the train streamed passed more power lines scattered all over the place. Ryo let me try some little cheese bites he picked up that morning. They smelled like the inside of a pumpkin and tasted like pumpkin-flavoured processed mozzarella; not bad, but not great either.

Halfway through the trip, the previously-clear sky was clouding up. Off in the distance, there was a freeway going up and we could see the high spans over the numerous valleys being built.

The clouds started clearing about 20 minutes after the midway point of our voyage. Unfortunately, another 20 minutes later and we were back into the clouds! Along the way we passed a schoolyard with all the little kids doing their morning calisthenics. I’d seen it lots of times in various videos from Japan, but never “in person”.

After passing through several more tunnels, we were back to the blue sky. I think the weather was taunting us. On approach to Nagasaki Station, the wheels hitting the gaps in the track sounded exactly like the beginning of the Terminator theme, all the way down to the pacing.

New Friends

After disembarking, we met up with two guys that Ryo knew outside Nagasaki Station. Julien has lived in the area for four years, but used to live in Toronto. Ponte (pronounced PAWN-tay), as he asked to be called, is a doctor and rented a Honda STEPWGN with a wicked power middle seat for disabled people that swings out of the van and down to the ground. This is when we discovered we weren’t touring Nagasaki; rather, Ponte was going to chauffeur us to a volcano that buried some houses and killed many people in 1991 by way of a pyroclastic flow.

Nagasaki has a great, old-fashioned looking streetcar system. Everything from the cars themselves, to the power poles, and even the brick pathways surrounding the tracks. We also found out why there’s hardly any garbage cans to be found out in public: terrorism. Instead of providing places for bombs to be hidden, all public garbage cans were removed.

On the way out of town, we stopped just beyond some potato fields (ash from the volcano makes for very fertile ground) and took some shots over the ocean.

Once we got to the shorefront town named Obama, we parked near an onsen and a course for playing gateball to do some wandering around for a bit.

Aside from nice views of the ocean, there were many rows of old Suntory whisky barrels at one end of the park that had been repurposed as flower pots.

Mount Unzen

We headed up a narrow, winding road toward the volcano. Many hairpin turns awaited us amongst the switchbacks that brought us upward. There was even a 10% grade at one point in the road.

The town of Unzen was the next thing we went through; no stopping here, though, as the volcano awaited! The area became the first national park in Japan. Mount Unzen is actually a volcanic group, not just a single volcano as the name would suggest. We turned onto Nita Pass, a single lane road heading further up the side of the mountain.

From high above Shimbara, the town that got hit by the pyroclastic flow in 1991, we could see the path of destruction stretching out to the ocean. The museum near the shore was built over top of some houses that were buried in lahar, almost two stories deep. They now stand as part of the exhibits of the devastation.

From the viewpoint, we could see that it was indeed still an active volcanic group. The steam coming through the rocks on the face was evident.

Ponte lent me an official Urawa Red Diamonds jacket to head to the nearby summit in a gondola as it was going to be much colder up there than it was where we stood at the first viewpoint. He was joking that, because I was wearing it and was a foreigner, people might think I was a member of the team. It sure seemed like it when some people saw me in the jacket!

It was only 1 degree at the upper gondola station, so I was happy for the Urawa jacket. There was a lot more snow on the ground up there than down below. Ponte and I walked up the series of stairs along the trail to the very top and got some amazing views of Mount Unzen and Shimbara. We were up at 1,333 meters (4,373 feet).

Branching off from the trail we were on, was another that travelled along a nearby ridge, but we didn’t have time to check it out as the others were still waiting down in the parking lot.

On the road down, the van was stopped many times for picture taking, including at the artificial lake in Unzen which we could see earlier from the top of the mountain.

As we made our way back to Nagasaki, Ponte stopped at a small bakery and picked up a tasty snack: thin Japanese cookies. I still have a box of them sitting at home as a memento. Not only did he get the cookies, but he got a few extra bags of “scraps” for us to munch on in the van. The cookies are circular and get cut out of a large sheet of dough. All the leftover pieces get tossed into bags and sold as well.

Finishing the Day

Once we got back to Nagasaki Station, we bought our tickets for the return trip to Hakata and for our planned outing to Hiroshima tomorrow. Ponte grabbed some gyoza for all of us while we waited to get our Shinkansen tickets.

The group went to a ramen place near the station for a really late lunch (7pm is late for lunch, right?). There was a ¥2,200 (around $30 CAN at the time) pitcher of ice cream sundae on offer! I got to play with Julien’s Dell Mini 9 for a bit, which was a new thing at the time. I polished off a big bowl of tonkotsu ramen (a specialty of the area) and some more gyoza; both were excellent.

After saying our goodbyes, we hopped onto the train at 8:25pm to head back to Hakata.

Rail Rage

What an interesting term: Rail Rage. Thankfully, we weren’t in for the kind of experience that might immediately jump to mind. Rail Rage is what hirosan uses to describe a whirlwind tour of parts of Japan by way of multiple trains in a short period of time. They’re something he does for people that stop by to visit, and we were lucky enough to be on Kyushu when he had time to take us out.

Starting the Journey

Finally today we’d put to use all those tickets we’d purchased two days prior! It was raining when we ventured out of the hotel for our 6:29am train, so I got to pull out the umbrella for the first time. It stopped about a minute later…

When we got to the ticket desk in Hakata station, we surprised the attendants with all the tickets we had. As mentioned before, the station staff like to be prepared with all the pre-planning and contacting of stations ahead of time so they’re ready with the portable ramps and whatnot for when we arrive, and since we were doing a rail rage, there was suddenly a bunch to do. The one gentleman had initially asked if our first stop was where we were ending the trip, and I said no while passing him the rest of the tickets (for a total of 10). The look on his face was classic; poor guy.

Our first train this morning was a Tsubame. It was quite nice inside and there was boatloads of legroom, as I’d come to expect from trains in Japan. The interior had this great 1950′s retro look to it, too. My brother just about fit through a decorative wall partition* on the right side so first they tried loading him from the other door of the car, but that didn’t work as the entranceway on that end of the car was too narrow. I ended up moving him into his seat with a weird “hug” maneuver, which was good practice as we had to employ it several more times during the trip (and something I got stunned looks for from train attendants who offered to help me get my brother settled several days later when I just picked him up and deftly moved him to his seat with one arm).

hirosan had planned out the tickets so he’d join us two stations into the trip allowing him to avoid coming all the way down to Hakata station just to meet up. And speaking of trains, for quite some time we ran parallel to the new raised deck being constructed for a Shinkansen line due to open in two years time. There was even some photo dueling (here’s the reverse angle).

Out of Service

My Sony DSC-W80 point-and-shoot fell off the window ledge* — it was a surprisingly rough train ride, much more so than any thus far — and bounced hard off the lower ledge. I picked it up and physically it seemed fine; no scratches or new dings to be found. I was relieved, that is until I hit the power switch to make sure I hadn’t broken the internals of the LCD: nothing happened! It refused to turn on. I even quickly borrowed the battery from my brother’s new DSC-W300, which happens to use the same type of battery, to no avail. Nothing I did would cause it to turn on. After much frantic fiddling, I declared it dead at 7:25am JST on November 19, 2008. It had served me well since I got it on April 17, 2007, and yet it seemed like it was too early for it to need replacing.

I was particularly bummed* about this due to the fact I used my Sony for quick pictures where hauling out my Canon was too cumbersome or time consuming, and in low-light situations where I didn’t feel like configuring my Canon to get the best shot possible. All the night and low-light shots I took to date were with the Sony. Today was only about the mid-point of the trip, and suddenly my “primary” camera was in a coma. Boo-urns, says I.

Leg Two

We arrived at ShinYatsushiro station for the first switchover and walked across the platform into the next train which was already there waiting. The Kyushu Shinkansen Tsubame 800 was a swanky new train, again with tons of legroom, that runs at up to 270km/h and sits low on the tracks. And hey, another ferris wheel!

We travelled through a whole bunch of tunnels and there were lots of rolling hills to look at, still absolutely packed with trees. When the train stopped briefly at Shin-Minamata station, I noticed it looked similar to where we got on the train: sparse and clinical gray, but still somehow elegant due to its architecture. This section of the line sported large tube-like stations made of horizontal sections … well, they’re hard to describe and naturally I didn’t take any pictures of the others.

Our car’s attendant, Takemoto*, came in with a train-shaped board bearing the date (20/11/19, the 20 being the Japan Year), and offered to take a picture* for us. And when we got off at the end of the line, Takemoto offered to take a picture of us in front of the train* as well.

The Good Stuff (Legs Three & Four)

Now that we got to where we needed to be to start the real meat of the Rail Rage, we shed the high-speed Shinkansens for a small two-car train comprised of carriages that looked to be 60 years old.

Onto the Hayato No Kaze, an the older black train with a nice wood interior, including some bench seats facing out the windows with a big table in front. I spent a lot of time on that bench*. To make things a little nicer, the sun had finally come out.

The train rolled along down by the ocean and we saw an active volcano (that wasn’t doing anything at the time). Along its journey, the train stopped at a number of small stations and everyone got out to take some pictures and roam around for a few minutes. The landscapes along the Hayato No Kaze’s line are fantastic and were a really nice change-up from all the city-dwelling we’d been doing.

We reached the end of the line at Yoshimatsu station where we waited for the next train, the Isaborou-Shinpei, which was basically a red version of the Hayato No Kaze. The differences were more than just the exterior paint, though. The inside looked somewhat Victorian with high-back dark wood bench seats with dark green fabric. One of the neat features the train had was a camera mounted on the nose with a video feed being displayed inside the cars; this was especially cool when going through tunnels.

One of the interesting things about the route this train takes is the switchbacks it traverses. You get to one station and think it’s the end of the line, only to have the train double-back and take an adjacent track that lets it continue on its way up the mountain (that last picture was taken right here). The surroundings at the stations were still just as nice as they were on the Hayato No Kaze.

The Isaborou-Shinpei also stopped on the track at a large vista for some picture taking from inside the train, giving us a better idea of where it was taking us. Later on, it would stop at yet another viewpoint.

At some point during the ride, I handed hirosan my dead camera to look at. After a few moments of inspecting it, he hit the power button … and it turned on! It lives! Perhaps my declaration of death was premature. Sadly, this was a short-lived period of joy. I took a test picture (shown on the left) with the Sony and everything seemed ok. It died again when I hit the playback button to verify the photo was taken properly, so now the lens was stuck in its open and extended position … goody. Seemed to be a bad power connection as everything checked out when it was on. Until I could open it up and take a peek inside, it was “dead”. Over 31 months, it captured 5,623 frames for me.

The next stop for the train was Yatake station where we had our pictures taken in front of an old steam engine (with hats!*). Then another quick stop in Okoba — where I caught hirosan chatting up the staff — before making our way to the next transfer point.

Leg Five

We changed trains in Hitoyoshi to the Trans-Kyushu Limited Express. Go figure that, like before, it looked very close to the train from which we just disembarked.
It travelled through the bottom of a lush valley (and by through, I mean there was a lot of tunnels) that felt like being in the BC Interior.

Once we emerged from the valley, we hit a wide open area with tons of power lines heading up into the hills; more and more just kept coming as we rolled along. Plus, we caught back up to the future Shinkansen route.

The Rail Rage came to an end when got off at Kumumoto station. It was a tremendous amount of fun and we got to enjoy a a truly out-of-the-way experience. If you want to see 163 additional pictures from the Rail Rage, including my favourite picture taken of me*, you can head over to hirosan’s photoset.

Kumamoto

After much pondering*, I had a late lunch at Yoshinoya while my brother and hirosan hit up the MOS Burger next door. Sooooo tasty: ginger beef, coleslaw (which I used to mop up the rest of the sauce from the beef), rice, miso soup, and a little side of actual kimchi cabbage! I’m positively addicted to Nong Shim Kimchi (12 bowls for $8 at Costco!), so it was a treat to finally try real kimchi.

After eating, we got on the Kumamoto Castle Loop Bus to head up to … well, I’m sure you can tell by the name. The driver spent a fair amount of time trying to secure my brother in his wheelchair to great comedic effect. Part of my amusement came from the instructional images on the wall right beside him that showed the right way to do it (yes, I’m a jerk for not pointing them out to him, but he’s the driver, he should know about them!). Really friendly fellow, though. Many things in Kumamoto are in Japanese, English, and Korean due to South Korea’s proximity to Kyushu, and that included the various brochures on the bus.

We arrived at the gate of Kumamoto Castle (first built in about 1588), but it was about to close as it has shorter hours from November through March. Still got to snap* some good pictures from the outside since the sun was starting to set*. Dejected, we rode the bus around the rest of the loop back to the station where we took a Tsubame Ariake back to Hakata. Another different train, another stylish interior. Dark gray, purple, and red. As mentioned before, since it was getting dark and my preferred method of shooting low-light was now useless, I have no pictures of it. hirosan does*, of course.

Back in Hakata

We ventured out to Yodobashi Camera Hakata (man do I wish we had some of their stores here at home) to pick up a replacement for my dead Sony. Since I was going to be there for a little over a week still, I didn’t want to miss out on all those shots (which make up a fairly big chunk of what I’d taken thus far). I found a suitable replacement that wasn’t too expensive: the Sony DSC-W170, which is a “model successor” to mine. Unfortunately, all Sony cameras sold in Japan only come with Japanese menus! All the other brands there had an option for English, but I didn’t like any of them. While using the camera in everyday situations doesn’t require English menuing, if I ever wanted to change any camera settings, I’d be fumbling around trying random selections until something happened. I decided to just suck it up and go without for the rest of the trip, relying solely on my Canon.

Since the plan was to head to Nagasaki tomorrow with hirosan, it was off to bed with us!

* these are hirosan’s pictures

The Green Bus

Today we rode on the Fukuoka City Loop Bus (“Green Bus for Sightseeing”) around town while hirosan was at work. True to its name, the driver shut the bus off whenever we stopped at red lights. We’d learn from hirosan a little later that this is what most buses in Fukuoka do.

The bus itself looks similar to other city buses from the outside, but on the inside it’s a very different story. The seats are curved wooden benches with green fabric covers (well, this one had them, anyway; another bus we took didn’t), and the whole interior has an “airy” feel to it.

During our first round on the Green Bus, we were the only people on board.

Canal City

After cruising along the route for about five minutes, we got off at the first stop: Canal City, a large complex — 2.5 million ft.², 2/3 the size of West Edmonton Mall — in the heart of Hakata.

It can be best described as a large shopping complex split into two major halves with a canal and outdoor promenade running between them.

Right inside the doors we were met with by a white and metallic pink robot trundling down the ramp towards us. It’s an autonomous information robot that wanders the mall (when we came back on a later date, we found it off in another section) with a touch screen on its chest to provide visitors with directions. Unfortunately it was heading back to its charging station, complete with backup warning beeps, so we couldn’t play around.

On the first floor of one of the sections we found a bunch of different branded merchandise stores. There was a Pokémon store, a Sanrio store (makers of Hello Kitty), and even a candy-esque store that had Giant Pocky! There was a store full of Christmas decorations and other homey-feeling items that, to my surprise, had licensed stuff from the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer TV special.

In the center area about the canal, we found a bunch of Christmas decorations set up in the water. There’s also a large area called the Urban Theater, which is about seven storeys high. While there wasn’t anything happening during this visit, during the evenings there would be a regular water show similar to what you get at the Bellagio in Vegas. In fact, they were testing the system just before we ventured back to the Green Bus.

Back On the (High) Road

Since we just missed the next Green Bus outside Canal City, we decided to use the time to walk to Stop 3 to get the next one. There are three buses that run the loop and they come by each stop every 30 minutes during the week and every 20 minutes on weekends.

As we walked through the streets, we came upon a small temple and stopped in to have a look.

The bus ventured through more of the city and we skipped the next few stops on the way to Fukuoka Tower. The route took us over a section of toll freeway which culminated in a big section of double-decker bridge over the bay. Just on the other side of the bridge, we went past the Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome, which is where the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks play.

Fukuoka Tower

We disembarked at Stop 6: Fukuoka Tower. Before heading to the top of the tower to see the sights, we went into on eof the adjacent buildings in the complex and stumbled upon Robosquare. It’s sort of a cross between a mini robot museum and a showcase. There was a little display set up near the middle of Robosquare where we got to play with an AIBO ERS-7 for a while. Tissues, anyone?

The area around the tower looks like a manufactured business complex so while it gives the impression of being too spaced apart, it’s still a nice place.

On the way to the elevators, we caught a glimpse of a failed suicide attempt by a blue-clad Santa. The observation deck in the tower is 123 meters high and provided a fantastic 360˚ view of the city and the bay. I even managed to get a shot with the Pokémon jet in it. Plus being up so high gave me a great opportunity to play with the 75-300mm lens I borrowed from a co-worker for the trip. I even managed to find two more ferris wheels to add to the ever-growing list.

In a moment of better timing this go ’round, we got back to the bus stop right as it pulled up.

Small Detour

Next up we got off the bus to head to an outdoor covered shopping street. At one of the stores I found out scarves are called mufflers in Japan, even though most everything else in the cold weather apparel category is named the same. And, as usual, we spotted some interestingly-named businesses. While the sun was poking out through the clouds periodically, there was a very cold wind all day so we headed back to the bus to continue on the tour of the city.

Tenjin Core

Stop 12 is the central shopping district in Fukuoka. We spent most of the time in the Tenjin Core building and also in “the most beautiful underground mall in Japan”, Tenjin Chikagi. It definitely had a neat atmosphere, but some of the others we’d been in were “nicer” (marble, wide open space, etc.). It felt like being in a gothic dungeon with its dark brick and arched ceilings, which was pretty cool. The street entrances made it feel like you were about to descend into an old pub. The building itself was the basement floor of a long shopping center with a slight bend in the middle. Each half of was incredibly long, to the point you could barely see the end of the hallway.

Shrine

The last stop of the day led us to a largeish shrine complex. Shortly after crossing through the torii, a kindly little old lady came up to us and practically dragged my brother through the complex. The only English she knew was “please”, which she said earnestly while gesturing to follow her; it was tremendously cute.

While my brother was being whisked away, I slowly wandered through the complex taking a bunch of pictures. Compared to most, if not all, of the shrines we’d been to thus far, this one had a significantly higher tree density. I really liked the amount of trees here because you couldn’t really tell you were still in the middle of a modern city. This shrine was also the first of a few places I found “tree grass“.

Back to the Hotel

The cold wind was still blowing on us and the fact the sun was about to set didn’t help matters. We hopped onto the second-last bus back to the depot. The poor guy kept mis-aligning the back door so he couldn’t get the ramp out. Well, he could, but the ramp was aimed right at a wall! After a few tries he got it right and my brother could get off the bus without having to hop off the side of the ramp which was reasonably steep and had raised edges (to prevent accidental sideways exiting).

We’d be going to bed early tonight as we had a 6:29 am train to catch tomorrow at the start of the rail rage with hirosan. He stopped by the room on his way to visit his uncle to do some last-minute planning and then it was into the sack for us.

Travel day! Checkout was at 10 am but our train didn’t leave until 1:11 pm (we sure planned that one well!) so we had some to kill. We wandered down to Nagoya Station and found a place in the shade on the second floor balcony of the JR Towers where some of the light show stuff happens. Later on we moved inside to the Shinkansen waiting area.

While up on the platform waiting for our train, we chatted with a lady from Sweden who was with a big group of folks. She had been working with assistive devices for 35 years so she and my brother had a discussion for a bit about things ranging from all the wheelchairs Sweden exports to what it’s like getting around in Japan.

The Ride to Hakata

Traveling from Nagoya to Hakata takes you a good half-way across the country, and involves crossing between the islands of Honshu and Kyushu. The trip took us past the Solar Ark again, and my brother got video and a good picture (the fact I was facing backwards led to me not getting anything as by the time we realized it was there, I didn’t have time to get my camera out of my pocket). The video capture came from pointing the high-def camera out the window and letting it record for a while in order to get some “traveling footage”.

We also went past a few Shinkansen yards with many trains lined up side by side, like so.

This leg of our train travels marked the first time we had to transfer trains with all the luggage, which we did at Shin-Kobe. The small image on the left is the train from the first half of the trip, a Hikari Super Express. The small image on the right is what we transfered onto, a Rail Star Hikari Super Express. They’re the same train — a 700 Series Shinkansen — but they have different paint jobs are are owned by separate branches of Japan Railways; the former is from JR Central while the latter is from JR West, thus making Shin-Kobe a figurative handover point. We weren’t able to get the private cabin in the second train when we booked the tickets, but this had some benefits. For one, we got beverage service for the first time on a Shinkansen, which is similar to what you get on airplanes.

The neat thing about Shin-Kobe is it’s a station between two tunnels and at the base of a hill full of trees. There’s also a gondola going up the side of that hill, though we aren’t sure where it goes.

We sat in two of the single seats in the rear of the car which were surrounded by luggage due to the abundance of open space back there.

There were lots of tree-covered hills along the route which are incredibly densely-packed. We went through numerous tunnels, as well, including one that took us between the two islands. Nestled in between the lush greenery were towns on the ocean and the occasional massive refinery installations.

Hakata

Hakata is a ward of Fukuoka, home of hirosan. As part of the trip planning, hirosan had offered to book our hotels during the stay in Hakata because he knows the area well. He got us a room in the Nishitetsu Inn which is right beside Hakata Station (bonus!). This place was gorgeous. The surprising thing was that while this was by far the fanciest hotel we would stay at while in Japan, it was the second cheapest!

An interesting thing about the hotel is the main lobby is on the second floor. This is because the first floor is a large public bath. Because the escalators from the main entrance to the lobby are single-person width, we were at first concerned my brother wouldn’t be able to get in! That is, until we noticed the wheelchair access door off to the side. The sign beside the door, a frosted glass sliding door, instructed us to hit the buzzer which would alert staff at the front desk who would open the door only after checking us out on the closed-circuit cameras mounted on either side of the door. We had to do this each time on the way out too.

There were more chip-and-PIN credit card terminals at the hotel, like at Gohan Dining in Nagoya. It’s a good thing I received my replacement credit card with chip-and-PIN less than a week before the trip. Nishitetsu uses the card key to turn on the power in the room, though the hotel in Nagoya only used the long plastic fob which, if you remember, I managed to simulate with a toothbrush.

Reunion

We met up with hirosan in the lobby that evening, and one of the first things I said to him was “We’re finally here to visit you!”. We’d hung out with him on multiple occasions during his trips to Canada, and we even had him over for Easter Dinner at our parents’ back in March. After comparing gadgets, we were off!

Dinner was had at MOS Burger while we planned for the next few days’ activities. There would be a “rail rage” on Thursday; Nagasaki on Friday. I tried a spicy burger topped with chili and a strip-beef burger with a “bun” made of rice.

We then went to book the tickets for the upcoming rail rage. hirosan handed over the planning sheet, seen in the photo on the right, which was way easier than trying to explain it all. We received some raised eyebrows from the ticketing staff, but I guess that’s to be expected as we were picking up 16 tickets, after all. We also got day pass tickets for the Green Bus which is what we’d spend our time doing tomorrow while hirosan was at work.

Having had our fill of MOS burger goodness and acquiring all necessary tickets, the three of us headed up to the hotel room to finish planning stuff for the rail rage and dole out the tickets accordingly. We gave Ryo his presents: some candies and syrup from Summerland Sweets which I picked up this past summer.

Today we’d be doing a day trip to Kyoto. But, before we left Nagoya, we stopped off at the Station Master’s office to grab our written instructions for our tickets to Hakata that we’d requested the night before. As you may recall, we had a similar issue getting today’s Kyoto tickets and since we’d requested the Hakata ones later in the evening, we had to come back the next morning to get the final confirmation. Since we had a train to catch, we kept the instructions with us and planned to get the actual tickets once we returned from Kyoto.

The forecast for today said rain so I figured it would be prudent to pick up an umbrella. Last night I bought a compact umbrella that fit in the upper pocket of my camera bag so I didn’t have to haul it around in my hand the whole time.

Kyoto Station

On the ride to Kyoto, I noticed an interesting visual effect. Some of the trains go fast enough that when passing another going in the opposite direction, you can still clearly see through it to the landscape on the other side. If you’re busy staring at something out the window, your line-of-sight doesn’t get blocked.

Kyoto Station is a big building sandwiched between two 11-storey department stores. It hosts 34 platforms (numbered 0 through 33) as it is one of the main terminals in this part of Japan. As we wandered outside into the rain (good thing I bought that umbrella!) we noticed an informational sign with Astroboy on top. Upon closer inspection, we found there was a small “museum” focused on Tezuka Osamu! I loved Astroboy when I was a kid, and it wasn’t until several years after getting hooked on the series that I learned what anime was, and that the show was my introduction to it.

Tezuka Osamu is the guy behind Astroboy, Black Jack, and Jungle Emperor (known in North America as Kimba the White Lion), among others. Off at one end of the large station building you’ll find Tezuka Osamu World. He also holds the distinction as the man who started the “large eyes” trend in Japanese manga and anime. There was a large schematic poster of Astroyboy in the gift shop which I wanted to pick up, but I couldn’t figure out at the time a good way to get it back home without destroying it.

First Temple

Wandering off from the station, we made our way to Higashi Honganji, a very large temple complex. The Goei-do (Founder’s Hall) is one of the largest wooden buildings in the world and was currently undergoing a massive restoration, accentuated by the large exo-skeleton building surrounding the hall. The prayer room of the smaller hall (which due to the restoration project is currently the “main” hall) was beautifully ornate and the entire inside was lined with tatami.

Between the two halls there were artifacts from the history of the buildings. One was the sled that was used to move the massive trees down from the mountains to be used in the construction of the temple’s main pillars. Another was the 69 meter-long rope made of hair donated by followers of the temple. Hair was used because it was significantly stronger than the regular rope available at the time.

Within the Goei-do, restoration work was proceeding. Even with all the construction materials laying out, the interior was impressive.

Having spent a fair bit of time in and around the two main halls of Higashi Honganji, we decided to take leave from its encircling walls and search out what else there was to see.

In the courtyard of the complex, there was a flock of pigeons frequently surrounding visitors, and at least once, taking flight above the temples.

Back at the Station

One thing I wanted to make sure we saw while here in Kyoto — even though we were planning to be back several more times throughout the trip — was the big staircase at the station. It covers the gap between the two department stores and runs from the fourth to the eleventh floor, from which there’s a separate small staircase to the rooftop garden on the twelfth floor. The view from the top is pretty nice, especially at night!

Before heading out from the station again, we decided to check out the department store to scrounge for souvenirs. In the Isetan building we had some fun with the elevators while trying to head up to the tenth floor, where a bunch of the restaurants are, for lunch. To get to the big staircase, you have to go up to the fourth floor in the Isetan building, which is where we were. In order to get up or down from the fourth floor in a wheelchair, you have to also take the elevators; this is assisted by the fact there are seven elevators in the store. Good stuff. The problem is that this is a very popular department store. We must have waited for at least 20 minutes for an elevator that wasn’t packed to the teeth with people, going up or down! It seemed for a time like we were trapped on the fourth floor. It was about this point that I was getting rather irked at the people for being so lazy and not taking the stairs.¹

Finally, an elevator heading down had enough room that my brother could squeeze in. I told him to just stay on and ride it back up to the eleventh floor (which was my mistake, I meant the tenth) and I’d meet him up there. Into the stairwell I went and waited on the tenth floor outside the elevators. Several minutes passed with no sign of my brother. Thinking he may have taken what I said literally, I hopped up to the eleventh floor; nothing. I spent the next five minutes bounding back and forth between the floors searching for my brother. I figured by this point I may as well go back down and look for him, even though I was hesitant to do so because if we started playing floor tag, it might be a while before we found each other again (what if we both stay put and wait for the other, what if we keep passing each other, etc.). I jumped on an elevator on the eleventh floor (and since this is at the one end of the floor list, it was easy to get on) and went down to the first where I found my brother. Turns out staying on the elevator/getting back on it was easier said than done — he was right at the doors, after all, and had to get out to let all the others exit. People; can’t live with ‘em, can’t kill ‘em.

Second Temple

With that mess behind us, we decided to forgo lunch and venture out from the station again. Next up was Nishi Hongwanji temple, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The wall surrounding this temple was much more than just a simple wall (as at Higashi Honganji) and had a dry moat separating it from the sidewalk. As Nishi Hongwanji is the mother temple for the Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha sect of Bhuddism, there is a large administration building on the grounds, styled to match the original buildings.

Like so many of the places we’d been to on the trip, this complex was under construction and restoration as well, resulting in a large section remaining inaccessible to us. At least the sun was starting to peek out between the clouds while we were here.

Kyoto Tower

Now that the sun had gone down, we decided it was time to head up to the top of Kyoto Tower which is just across the street from the station. On the way there, I spotted some garbage cans on the street! The first ones I’d seen since we set foot on Japanese soil. We’d learn several days later the reasons behind why this was such a rare occurrence.

Up in the observation deck 100 meters over the streets below, we got a great nighttime panoramic view of Kyoto. I was a little surprised by how small the observation deck was, especially since at first glance from the street, it seemed pretty big. Though to be fair, the last observation deck I was at was the Stratosphere in Vegas, which is quite sizable. There were 30×120 power mounted binoculars all around the perimeter of the deck which I used to get some “spy shots” of the city.

From this vantage point, we could see down into the Higashi Honganji complex from earlier in the day, and spotted the light from Kiyomizudera. Plus you get a better sense for just how organized the taxi lines are at stations.

Heading Back

Before departing on our homebound train, we stopped at Mister Donut in the station for a quick snack. I tried the Angel French (a chocolate dipped, twisted, torus-shaped eclair) and a Honey Churro (no sugar or cinnamon on it!).

We got to take a ride on a Series 300 Shinkansen back to Nagoya, where we went to the ticket office to pick up tomorrow’s tickets to Hakata. It will be our first inter-hotel trip that includes a transfer (at Shin-Kobe).

1. For those that don’t know, my office at my job is on the tenth floor. I take the stairs both ways six times a day, so I didn’t feel like much of a hypocrite for thinking this. ↵

Up in the morning to catch some breakfast, and this was the only hotel during the trip where breakfast was included. I even had some soup! The plan for today was to hang out with another of my brother’s flickr contacts, Tabito, and see some sights. By the end of today’s journey, we will have visited two of Japan’s national treasures.

Off to Inuyama

We grabbed a Mietetsu train bound for Inuyama, 25 kilometers to the north of Nagoya. Instead of getting off at Inuyama Station, we instead disembarked at Inuyamayuen Station, which was one station further down the line. Unfortunately, we had some problems exiting the station as there was something wrong with the tickets we had (the ticket gates spat them back out saying they were invalid). Luckily, we had Tabito with us and he used a neat communicator near the ticket gates that you use to speak with the station master for just these types of situations. After seemingly getting nowhere, the station master came and argued with Tabito for a while, which was rather entertaining. There were phone calls back to Nagoya station and all sorts of fun as they each took turns speaking with whoever was on the other end of the line. Apparently the guy at the departure station caused the mixup by punching in the wrong things at the machine when we got our tickets. It turned out we paid too much … I think, though that wouldn’t explain why we couldn’t get out of the station. At least that’s what I’m led to believe as the station master gave us a little over ¥500 when all was said and done.

At Inuyamayuen station there were also some statues advertising Monkey Park, and is also where you catch the monorail to get there.

Uraku-en Garden & Jo-an Tea House

After everything got sorted out at the station, we went on our way and walked along the river en route to Inuyama Castle. However, before venturing there, Tabito took us on a small detour to check out Uraku-en Garden. The landscaping and pathways that cut through it were beautiful, sometimes lined with bamboo and other times with large trees (picture taken by my brother; you can see me blending into the hedge in the bottom center).

Once you’ve made your way through the garden, beyond some small traditional buildings and water features, you come upon the Jo-an Tea House. Originally built in 1618, it is renowned as one of the three best tea houses in Japan and was designated a national treasure in 1936. The part of the house in specific that’s held in such high regard is the round window which is made of woven bamboo.

Traditional Sweets

On the way out of Uraku-en, but before we started up the hill to Inuyama Castle, we stopped at a small sweets shop for some Japanese treats. The inside of the shop felt very homey and it was nice to get in out of the rain for a bit (oh yes, it was raining on us once again). While good, the things we tried were surprisingly bland for the most part, but the red bean broth that one of the dishes came in was quite tasty. I wasn’t completely surprised by the “lack of sweet” in these sweets as I know they’re prepared differently from in North America; I’m just too used to refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup to appreciate real sweets I guess, which is a little amusing since the production process of HFCS was refined in Japan.

Inuyama Castle

Now that we had a little something in our stomachs, we started to venture up the hill to Inuyama Castle, the second national treasure on today’s itinerary. There was a bit of entertainment on the way up the hill to get at the castle itself. As you ascend through the trees, you start up a cobblestone path which was fine for the majority of the distance. However, once we were two thirds of the way up, the path changed from a reasonable representation of a slope into an uneven staircase sort of thing. As we stood there for a few moments trying to figure out what our next move would be — immediately to our right was a small temple we could kill some time in, at the very least — our (apparent) helplessness was noticed by a group of Chinese tourists at the stop of the stairs. A few bounced down and inquired, through the very effective pantomime that gets used to overcome language barriers, if he needed help getting the rest of the way up. When he indicated in the affirmative, several more came down and after a few quick pointers on where to take a hand-hold on his wheelchair, they practically lifted him up and ran him up the rest of the way to the castle, like a chariot crossed with a Roman litter.

Tabito and myself ventured into the castle to check it out and take in the views from the top. Inside are very steep stairs that take you between the levels, so steep I was actually somewhat concerned coming down (though it probably didn’t help I was holding a video camera and a bag with my shoes in it at the time). The castle had a bunch of old items including sets of armour, writings, and other artifacts from the history of the castle. Once you climbed to the top, you could walk around almost the entire upper balcony except one section which was closed off, possibly due to deterioration. The view from up there was great, albeit a little cloudy.

Back on the ground there were some winter cherry blossoms to be seen! I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

City of Inuyama

Getting my brother down the path to the castle was far easier, which was nice. Next up was to just wander around through the streets of Inuyama. We stopped at a museum for Japanese dolls and saw how the small tea-serving dolls worked and also the behind-the-scenes of the Japanese equivalent of marionettes which are impressive if for no other reason than all the strings are inside the dolls and are typically controlled from underneath the stage.

We also checked out another museum which had examples of the yoyama floats that go through the city each April during the Inuyama Festival. They’re often three storeys tall, and some, like one of the ones we saw, are covered in lanterns. While here, I spotted a grandfather clock that looked practically identical to the one my parents have, which was really odd to see.

As we continued our wandering, we stopped at a small stand and had goheimochi from a busy food vendor. I could have stood there all day eating the stuff, it was that good. Basically, it’s just rice balls fried with miso paste.

During a late lunch, Tabito gave us each a gift: our full names written in katakana, hiragana, and kanji. The literal translation of my first name is “Time Get Well”. Tabito also gave me the “brush pen” he used to write out the gifts which is essentially a felt pen with a tip that bends and flows like that of a paintbrush. The lunch was at a ramen and udon place in the Ito Yokado department store beside the station in Inuyama. Mine came with tonkotsu (pork) and egg on rice, which was yummy.

Back to Nagoya

We hoppped on a shiny new Mietetsu Series 2000 µSky Rapid Limited Express (as seen here when we first arrived in Inuyama) back to Nagoya cruising at up to 108 km/h. Even the sink looked fancy.

As we had Tabito with us (i.e. someone who spoke Japanese) we tried to book our Shinkansen to and from Kyoto for tomorrow’s day trip but ran into the same problems as the first time when we tried in Ueno. So, off to the station master’s office with a hand-written note from the ticket desk to have him figure it out. He said to come back in a few hours. Time-killing time!

We went back to the JR Towers and headed to the 15th floor to take some pictures and did some further wandering around in the Towers Lights displays below. Afterwards we headed back towards the hotel for dinner at Oyster’s “Fisherman’s Beer Cafe” which was also in the Lucent tower (where we had lunch the first day in Nagoya). The waitress had a neat digital pad for taking orders and prepping the bill. It looked like a big touch-screen cell phone with a flip open hinge and appeared to incorporate the same type of functionality as the registers at fast food places.

Having adequately killed time, it was back to the JR Station with us to see if the Shinkansen tickets were sorted out at 9:30 pm. We got the proper information from the station master and went back to the ticket desk to get the actual tickets. Three station attendants were working out how to write up the ticket; one of the sheets they were referencing had a diagram of the special paper ticket they were filling out along with instructions for how to do so. By now we had come to realize these types of bookings must not be a common occurrence, and indeed, every time we booked Shinkansen tickets for the rest of the trip we went through a similar process with varying “wait times”. At 10:00 pm, we finally had our tickets!

Shinkansen

Today was transfer day. We would be leaving Ueno (actually, Tokyo Station) on the Shinkansen bound for Nagoya, the next hotel stop during the trip. The ticket for today’s train ride was acquired back during Day 5′s adventures. The train was set to leave Tokyo at 10:03am and arrive in Nagoya at 12:10pm. Our first bullet train ride.

In order to catch that train, we had to take the JR Local Lines to Tokyo Station during morning rush hour, complete with the attendants on the platform with white gloves ready to shove people in. It was busy, but not busy enough to need them. After waiting through a few trains to get one with enough free space, we managed to get on with my brother, his suitcase, and my backpack, but it was a very tight fit. I was twisted around sideways so I could hold on to a handrail while leaning over the big rolling suitcase, and my bag was hovering over my brother so it wasn’t pressing into other passengers. Thankfully Ueno to Tokyo Station is a pretty fast trip!

After arriving at Tokyo Station, we headed for the closest Shinkansen gate. We were told there was no elevator behind those gates and that we had to head to a different gate on the other side of the concourse. After moving over there, they said to go to the central gate which was around another corner. Good thing I made sure we got there early. At the central gate, an attendant led us through to the correct waiting area for our train and said he’d come back to get us at 9:50 (gotta love the personal attention people in wheelchairs get on the trains here).

After killing a little time, the attendant came back and led us up to the correct spot on the platform. We got onto the car and there’s a special mini-cabin for people who are nursing, not feeling well, and a few other things I can’t recall. In some cases — such as ours — that cabin can be reserved, which is why our ticket was for row 14 even though there’s only 13 rows of seats in each car. There was a double seat for me (facing backwards on this trip) and room for all our stuff. Not much room left over, but it was still comfortable. We got a good view of Tokyo Tower shortly after leaving the station, too.

As I mentioned back in Day 3′s post, this was when I had finished writing that post and decided to give up on writing the posts during the trip. Instead, I would just take notes on my iPod and write them up once I got home (like I’m doing right now).

Among the other amenities on the train, the cars with washrooms have Western toilets, Japanese toilets, and a separate urinal “cabin” marked Gentlemen. I’ll just say this: using a urinal in a train travelling at 200km/h+ can be … interesting.

Scenery

We had great views of Mt. Fuji as we travelled along. The line wrapped itself around the mountain so when we weren’t in tunnels or behind hills, we got to see many aspects of it including the hiking trails that go up to the summit through the snow.

After we left Mt. Fuji behind, the surroundings morphed into rural countryside with heavily-treed hills popping up periodically. We passed peach orchards, greenhouses, farmland, tea fields, and Sony & Panasonic factories.

Nagoya

We arrived in Nagoya and made our way to the hotel which was just up the street a few blocks from the station. However, check-in wasn’t for another two and a half hours, so we checked our bags at the desk and went off in search of lunch!

We chose the Gohan Dining Bar in the Nagoya Lucent tower which was about half a block from the hotel. Wonderful Japanese atmosphere, accented oddly by the playing of uncensored Eminem and other R&B songs, though it was mixed in with things like Fallen by Sarah McLachlan, Over My Head by Sum 41, and Irresistable by Jessica Simpson (hadn’t heard that one in a while). I had beef and mushrooms on rice and a big bowl of ramen (pictured at right), which was fishier than I liked due to the seaweed in it, but was still very good.

And the Lucent building itself is really nice. No bright yellow tiles for them. Later on in the evening, we stopped by and checked out the now-lit art installation at the front, replete with glowing LED light poles.

Meitetsu Inn

Now that lunch was done and we could get into our room, we headed back to the hotel which looked like it was at most five years old. This one had breakfast included, the first, and only, to do so on the entire trip.

The toilet in the room had what I initially thought was a “lady friendly” water spout turned on by a pressure switch under the seat. I based that assumption on many products I’ve heard of in Japan for public washrooms that would play a running water sound when women were making use of the facilities. After reading the instructions, my brother discovered that it was just the toilet flushing the cold water out of the bidet nozzle so it could be replenished with warmer water.

The room had a “key”-based power setup which would only have the power to the room turned on when the fob attached to the key was inserted into the receptacle. For times when I was heading out of the room for a bit and my brother was staying in, I found it can be fooled by any object stuck in there, so I used one of the free toothbrushes typically included in Japanese hotel rooms.

Tower Lights

Once it got dark, we headed back down to JR Nagoya Station to check out Tower Lights, the annual Christmas light show they put on. The centerpiece is a 5 storey animated light board which isn’t just a big screen; it’s a huge mass of prewired LED strips that are computer controlled to make the whole thing animate. It was very impressive. The approximately three minute animation loop was captured on the high-def video camera but hasn’t yet been uploaded anywhere. There were also lots of teddy bears all over the place.

In the towers of the station there are a few observation decks up on the 12th and 15th floors once you make your way past the various Christmas decorations. In the tower we went through, there were 12 elevators at one bank once you got to the second floor, many of which were express elevators to the top. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything to see up on the 51st floor; just a restaurant and a day spa.

As neat as the whole thing was, the music loop that played with the animation soon became really irritating for the same reason as the iPod commercial in Vegas did: constant, undying repetition.

Lower Ueno Park

The sun came out today for pretty much the first time thus far, which was a pleasant change. Since we hadn’t done so yet, and it’s literally right across the street from the hotel, we decided to check out the lower section of Ueno Park. The first thing you notice as you approach this part of the park are the thousands of lotus plants in Shinobazu Pond (pictured at left); they mostly seemed to be in that pre-winter phase of “half-dead”. At a more central location by the pond, there was a small watery alcove where a bunch of ducks were hanging out.

Continuing along further down the road that bisects the park we made our way past the Ueno Zoo and managed to catch a peek at the monorail that transports people in (though the only picture I got of the monorail itself has it almost completely obscured by trees, so I settled for the track). As the road continues, you leave the park and enter into some quiet residential streets where we spent some time just wandering around. It was here that I finally came across some street address signs. From what I’ve heard, (some/many?) addresses in Japan are based on when a building was constructed, not its relative position on a given road, thus why it can be so hard to find things sometimes. Either way, we cut back through the rear section of Ueno Park — where we also hadn’t been yet — down to the station to head off to another new part of Tokyo.

Ikebukuro

We jumped on the Keihin-Tohoku line to make a stop at Ikebukuro. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a way out of the underground station so we had to skip it and continue on down the line.

Shinjuku

The station complex in Shinjuku is rather large with several attached shopping centers. Like many of the places we’d been to so far, the area outside the station was under construction; this would turn out to be a running theme for the duration of the trip.

Nearby to the station is the large Takashimaya Times Square department store, so in we went. This is a very nice building and we found ourselves up on the 11th floor in search of ice cream. One of the bonuses about checking this building out was the rooftop garden they have on the 12th floor. This offered us nearly-360˚ views of Shinjuku and we could clearly see Tokyo Tower as well as a nice vantage point to check out the Empire State Building-eqsue clock tower.

Roppongi

It was getting later in the day, so we grabbed some dinner and stopped by the hotel to unload most of our stuff before heading off to Roppongi on the Hibiya Subway to meet up with my brother’s flickr friend, Altus. Home to Roppongi Hills, this area is full of nightclubs and Westerners, both visitors and residents. Before heading to Japan, my brother coordinated with Altus for a meet up and since today was a Thursday, the plan was to meet up at his usual weekly watering hole, Agave.

The place was just dripping with atmosphere, but the first order of business was to get my brother inside. You see, Agave is in the basement of a building, down a set of stairs with not one, but two corners. Altus and I teamed up to slowly roll him down the stairs, which is a common method of moving him down when there’s enough stairs to make flat out picking him up in his chair a bit too ungainly. One claim to fame of Agave is that it hosts over 400 kinds of tequila. Not having a clue what would be good, Altus ordered up a margarita (known colloquially there as “a frozen”) for me made with Harradura Silver tequila. It was the smoothest tequila I’ve ever had, and I ended up having two. To make sure hydration was kept up, we also downed a large glass bottle of water from Italy.

Altus works for Merrill Lynch and most of the people that hang out during this regular Thursday outing also work in the industry, so the discussion tended to center around that. It was very interesting to hear from people “on the front lines” what the world economic situation was doing to their industry, especially since just prior to the start of our trip, Japan announced it was officially in a recession. There were rampant layoffs and cutting of dead weight, but luckily for Altus he was having a very good year.

The method used for bringing my brother into the bar doesn’t work well for going up stairs, so I just carried him up the stairs myself while Altus followed with the chair. I don’t like using this method for going down stairs because if I trip, he’d end up at the bottom, whereas going up I’d just drop him onto the stairs in front of me (still bad, but way better than the former). As we parted ways, Altus invited us back for a repeat performance at the end of our trip as we’d be spending our final night back in Ueno. On the way to the Tokyo Metro station, we passed the fanciest (and biggest) Banana Republic I’ve ever seen.

Random Snack Note

Yet another late-night convenience store trip netted me a tasty find. I’ve known for a while that you can find some really interesting Pringles flavours around the world, and Japan is no exception. True to my expectations, I picked up a tin of Honey Roast Chicken Pringles, and they were excellent. They were next to the Consomme tins, which is surprisingly common flavour as I discovered.

Now I eat humble pie…

Leaving the hotel in the morning we couldn’t help but notice all the police officers working the intersections directing traffic. What made it odd was they were doing so even though all the signals were still working; in other words, they were directing traffic and pedestrians with the traffic signals. Strange indeed.

Since we had a full slate for the day, we got breakfast at Andersen again and went out the side door which is closer to the elevator and hill we need to take to get to the accessible entrance. As soon as we stepped foot out the door, the small one-way side street in front of us filled with a flock of police motorcycles, followed by a few police cars, a convoy of shiny black vehicles, a big police van, and a few more police cars. Clearly someone important was making their way through Ueno in this motorcade, but there were no obvious indications as to who that was.

After the motorcade had passed and the police officer that stopped us after exiting the station allowed us to continue, we crossed the street and went the 20 meters to the hill’s elevator only to find it, and the stairs beside it, still cordoned off by the police. Well … now what? They were directing us to the elevator right beside Bamboo Garden which we had surmised from looking at it on the station platform that it took you right up to Ueno Park. Good stuff, we could grab that and walk through the park for a litle ways to get to the station entrance.

Inside the elevator, a lady with what seemed like a New York Jewish accent mentioned the convoy was the King and Queen of Spain who were in town for some sightseeing. Actually, she said “the same reason as you” when I asked if she knew what they were doing in Tokyo; as far as I was aware, we weren’t there for any diplomatic meetings, so it must have been sightseeing. Or something.

Update Turns out, at least one of the things they were there for was to see some robotics demonstrations at Tsukuba University.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what’s up with the section title, just watch this. I had that stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

While waiting for the elevator, we met Nicolette from Georgia. The three of us strolled through the park talking about touristy stuff and we helped her with some directions to the various buildings in Ueno Park. Which happens to also be where we found a quiet corner to munch on our breakfast (good thing we got it to go, otherwise we would’ve missed royalty). As we ate, we were passed by what must have been a dozen, if not more, groups of school kids coming to the park from Ueno Station.

Update: I completely forgot to mention that part of what we talked about with Nicolette was the level of accessibility in Japan. She was serving in Iraq where she was injured by an explosion in 2003, after which she spent three years in a wheelchair. You can read more in an article about an outing of the Wounded Warriors Project.

Adventures in Tokyo (Station)

Before heading off to Kamakura, today’s sightseeing spot, we went to Tokyo Station to reserve our Shinkansen tickets for Friday. We went back to where we got the Rail Passes earlier in the week and got directed over to the Station Master’s Office as all the non-smoking seats were sold out and we needed a bit of a special handwritten ticket process to accommodate the wheelchair as a result. In the Station Master’s Office, we sat on some old furniture located in an adjacent waiting room. In a somewhat shocking moment, the Station Master pronounced our last name correctly on the first try; that hardly ever happens, but almost everyone that spoke it during the trip got it right.

A quick 10-15 minutes later and we had our ticket(s), so it was time to grab a train to Kamakura.

Kamakura

We bought day pass for the Enoden which is a cool little line that runs through town with stations near a bunch of the interesting things to see. Just like earlier this morning in Ueno, there were tons of school kids all over the place which made the small stations fairly crowded.

We passed a temple and garden on the way to Daibutsu. This is one of a number of Giant Bhudda in Japan, standing 13.35 meters tall. Luckily, since the weather wasn’t the greatest, there weren’t too many people at the site so it didn’t feel crowded. During our time admiring the scale of the statue, a worker came out and replaced the incense that sat just in front. I’ve still yet to figure out what the deal is with the windows at the back, though.

Enoden

We got back on the Enoden and continued down to the end of the line. Along the way, the scenery changed from that of a small mountain town to more of a “big-city” atmosphere. By the time we hit Fujisawa station (which is where we grabbed a train back to Ueno), we were in the midst of tallish office towers and big department stores. The train also ran along the ocean for a little while and at one point the train went down the middle of a narrow street, almost clipping a delivery truck that tried to squeeze its way through.

The day started off with breakfast at an Andersen bakery over in Ueno Station. All sorts of interesting things to choose from so I went with a cheese bun thing (think of a large bun with the middle hollowed out and filled with big chunks of cheese), a full-size pig-in-a-blanket with a drizzle of cheese, a small thin-crust Hawaiian pizza, and a Hygge Fruits & Vegetable drink that tasted similar to Extra Spicy Clamato. With that out of the way, it was off to first destination of the day.

Akihabara

Also known as Akihabara Electric Town, it’s a place filled with the lights of multi-storey electronic stores everywhere you look and little shops crammed into the tightest of places. In many of the smaller shops and stands along the streets, you can find just about anything from tools to home security cameras to Christmas lights.

We headed into one such giant electronics store and I saw Japanese keyboards for the first time. If it’s an electronic gizmo of some sort, it’s probably for sale in one of these stores along with about a billion accessories for each. Too bad I didn’t have a spare ¥1,000,000 on me to pick up a new camera lens.

After ogling all manner of gear, we stopped off at the Tokyo Anime Center in the UDX Building. It contained significantly less stuff than I expected given its name, though there were some nice statues of various anime characters.

The rest of the time was spent just wandering around and checking out the plethora of stores, shops, and entertainment centers. We even found a rather large Dell sales center.

Back to Ueno

Afterwards we jumped on the trains back to Ueno for a bit and beside the station we wandered onto a bridge that crosses over top of the tracks. From there we had a great view of a bunch of the lines heading into the terminal, and got a clear look at the double-decker setup of a lot of the lines. A good number of the larger train stations are multi-level (often with the Shinkansen on the uppermost level) but I had no idea that there could be raised sections this wide in the stations.

In the parking lot beside the bridge there were a few interesting things to see. The first was a missile/rocket of some sort, just sitting there next to the road. Another was the very much non-soccer mom styling on the minivans there. I saw one later in the trip with a nice body kit on it, and I bet many people here would love to be seen driving around in one like it.

We cut back through Ueno Park, got better views of the fountain.

Ginza

On the way there we had to quickly head outside of Tokyo Station to get to the correct elevator for the subway and in the process got to see the outside of the main station building. Unfortunately, like so many things other things on the trip, it too was under construction.

A quick ¥160 subway ride away and we were in Ginza. Being our first subway ride of the trip, we got our first experience of the “guided tour” out of the station thanks to the attendant waiting for us with a portable ramp; this happened every time we took the subway, and many of the times we took various JR trains. Very handy since, as I recall, it was a bit of a winding route to get from the platform to the street in Ginza. Also it was the first time being in Tokyo Station closer to rush hour; fun stuff!

Being Ginza, we naturally saw areas packed with fancy stores such as Tiffany & Co., Harry Winston, Bulgari, and Louis Vutton, among others. We even walked past really nice Bentley Continental GT outside one of the stores.

While in Ginza, I hit up the Tokyu Hands looking for chiyogami in general and stuff like this in specific, but had no such luck. I was starting to get the feeling it would be a very difficult search.

I also found a little store on one side street that sold nothing but chopsticks. Some were really nice, but not quite what I was in the market for. Others were upwards of ¥40,000 for a single pair! Granted, the chopsticks like these were beautifully decorated, many with iridescent pieces embedded in the wood.

One of our final stops here was the Ginza Apple Store, a 5 storey building packed with Apple-y goodness. At the rear of the store were dual glass elevators that automatically roamed the floors looking for people to transport. Immediately after snapping that picture, I was told by one of the light blue shirts that pictures weren’t allowed in the store. It’s an interesting store layout. The first floor is full of a bunch of different products in a really general display/trial area (similar to what you see at the majority of the smaller Apple Stores, such as ours); the second floor is where the Genius Bar and Creatives lived; floor three was the theater used for presentations and other events (such as the live music held at many of the larger stores like Ginza); the fourth was where most of the accessories and software were at; and the top floor had private seminar rooms that could be booked for various things.

And since it was “that time of year”, more Christmas stuff was making its debut. Even the high-end office towers were getting in the game. We also found once we returned to Ueno for the evening, Bamboo Garden had been decked out while we were roaming other parts of Tokyo.

Tired

We decided to head to bed a little early to try to better acclimatize our sleep patterns. After all, it was only our second full day in Japan and that 16 hour time difference is not an easy thing to get used to.

1. As mentioned in Day 3′s post, all subsequent posts from the trip were written after I returned home. Instead of posting them to the blog set to the dates they occurred, I’m just going to put a dateline at the top of each one. ↵

We started off with breakfast at the McDonald’s just up the street from the hotel. I know, I know, what in the world are we doing going to McDonald’s in Japan? Because it was 9am by the time we got out of the hotel room and we didn’t feel like searching out somewhere else to have breakfast. Plus, for the same reason the first few beverages I’ve had here were Pepsi: Japan has different varieties of things found in North America. To wit, I had a breakfast sandwich that I hadn’t seen before: double sausage patty, egg, cheese, bacon, and ketchup. Mmmmm.

The Trains

The first order of business was to head to Tokyo Station to exchange our JR Rail Pass vouchers for the real deal. We strolled up a neat hill to head to the upper entrance of Ueno Station (the only one where my brother could get both into the station and onto the platforms). We sat there staring at the system map for a while trying to figure out which ticket to purchase. We knew where we wanted to go (Tokyo Station) but the entire map was in Japanese. My brother had an English version of the system map on his iPod touch, but it was back at the room because we had initially figured on heading back after breakfast before going to Tokyo. Though my brother was nearly certain which station was the right one on the map, he wasn’t 100% sure. A lady noticed us staring at the board and came over to ask if we needed help. After a brief exchange, we knew which station was ours and went to get our tickets.

The fare system in Japan (at least for the JR lines) is calculated based on how far you travel on a given excursion. In our case, Ueno Station to Tokyo Station is fairly short, so the cost was only ¥150 each.

After just a single day experiencing JR’s train system, I can say that North America is so very badly behind the times. The interval between trains is as brief as two minutes, so if you miss one it’s not that big a deal. Each train is between 10 and 15 cars (depending on the line) and can thusly hold a significant number of people, even when they’re not crammed full. They’re all electric, and their non-light rail design means high speeds. Each car has eight sets of doors (four on each side) and you can travel freely between the cars.

At the stations themselves, each train comes charging in and stops in the same spot each time. The platforms have markings showing where the doors of each car will be and people line up waiting to get on in an orderly fashion. If only people in Edmonton acted like this at LRT stations instead of clumping around the entrances. During rush hour, you can see nice, neat lines at each “door stop” along the platform. Very cool. Each train has a conductor at the rear who steps off in each station and presses an On button on a pole nearby which starts, depending on the station, either a little musical chime or something that sounds like a ringing cell phone. This is the indication that the train is loading and will be leaving soon. When it’s time to go, he presses the Off button and gets back on the train. Overhead, there are video monitors showing live closed-circuit feeds of the train so he can ensure that all the doors are clear, at which point he signals to the driver and the train continues on its way.

And for finding your way in the stations, the signage is fantastic. Overhead signs clearly point you in the right direction, whether you’re heading for a platform or an exit. Some stations even have the supports for the elevators colour-coded to the platforms they take you to. For example, if you wanted to go to Lines 1 and 2 at Tokyo Station, you’d take the blue and green elevator.

Kudos to you, JR, for building a wonderful rail transportation system!

JR Rail Pass

Tokyo Station is big, really big. It’s a large hub with dozens of lines passing through. It’s also where we picked up our Rail Pass.

The JR Rail Pass is provided to non-citizens of Japan and can only be purchased outside the country via a voucher that you then redeem for the pass itself once in Japan. There are various options to choose from, but since this is a 3 week trip, we went for the 21-day ¥57,700 option (current exchange makes that $704.78 CAD). What it gives us is unlimited travel on all lines of the JR Group: Ordinary Cars on Shinkansen (bullet trains), limited express, express, and local trains. It’s even good on a bunch of bus lines as well as the ferry from Miyajima and Miyajimaguchi, which we’ll be taking later on in the trip.

Considering that some of the trains rides we’re taking on some day trips are over ¥10,000 each way, the pass easily pays for itself. And all we do at the stations is head to the “disabled gate” at the access terminals (which we would’ve had to use anyway), flash the pass, and walk on in.

Ameya Yokocho

Once we got back to Ueno, we decided to hit up Ameya Yokocho which starts just outside the station. It’s a narrow labyrinth of streets that run parallel (as well as under) the JR lines and is home to, well, just about anything. Here you can shop for fish, electronics, clothes, shoes, and much, much more.

Ueno Park

Next up was the large Ueno Park. Tall, lush trees abound here, but unfortunately they hadn’t all started turning their fall colours yet. Our last night in Japan will be spent back in Ueno, so hopefully by then there will be more to see in the foliage than mostly green with a few hints of colour.

There are all manner of things to see and do at Ueno Park. There’s a zoo with an amusement park for the kids, and major attractions such as the Tokyo National Museum, the Orient Museum, the National Science Museum, the Shitamachi Museum, the National Museum for Western Art, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Fine Art Gallery.

The park spans two primary “levels” with most of the large buildings in the upper section and about 1.5 storeys below lies things such as Shinobazu Pond which extends next to and beyond our hotel (we’re right across the street from lower area of the park).

Large trees line the pathways all over the park. There are many statues, too, and I think I found one of Emperor Hirohito.

Lunch

We had a late lunch which was a simple stop off at a nearby convenience store to grab some Pepsi White (Pepsi & Yogurt), some “pizza” chips, and a noodle bowl.

Yokohama

We jumped on the subway for a ¥180 ride to Yokohama. On leaving the station I picked up some grape Calpis which was really good and some Hi-Chew to snack on as we walked around.

The big draw for us in Yokohama is the 70 storey Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan, and home to a 5-star hotel we were thinking of staying in on our final night in Japan. The hotel runs through the upper floors of the building, so the view would be amazing.

In the mall attached to the building, there were Christmas displays all over and carols playing over the sound system. They start almost as early here as they do back home, and there’s Christmas stuff to be seen in most of the major centers.

Near the Landmark Tower there is a big ferris wheel and other attractions, including a full-size sailing ship harboured inland. Also nearby – in fact, just at the base of the tower – there is an old dry dock that’s been converted into a nice alcove of sorts. It’s awash up with accent lighting and the stairs that take you down to the bottom of it have their fronts covered in LEDs displaying an animation loop. The old access ways out of the bottom of the dry dock have been turned into entrances into the mall (there are stores all along the “outside” of the dry dock) and some of the upper access ways are now office windows.

Baricang

On the way back to the JR Sakuragicho Station to head back to Ueno, we came across a live performance being put on by a band named Baricang. It was a really good show and at one point, their portable generator (which they were using to power a surprising amount of stage gear) ran out of gas. While the guitarist ran to their van to get some more gas for the generator, the rest of the members handed out stickers to the crowd that had gathered to enjoy the show.

We got in line to buy their CD and when we got to the front of the line, they had just sold their last one. Quick thinking prevailed as they grabbed the demo CD they were playing after the show and offered it to us at half price! So now my brother has a Baricang CD, signed by all the band members.

Heading Back

The trains were fairly busy at this time of night, but hours worked in Japan are very different so you get office workers heading home at all hours of the afternoon and evening.

Back in Ueno the elevator that we take to get down to the street after heading down the hill beside the station was closed (shuts down at 10:00pm each night) so we had to head back up the hill and go through Ueno Park to get back to the hotel.

We got back to the hotel around 11:30pm, where I transferred and reviewed the rest of the day’s pictures. I started writing this post and gave up due to being tired and jotted down the rest of the content as point form notes to be fleshed out later.

… a short while later …

Well, here I am on Day 7 sitting in the Shinkansen on a two hour ride to our next stop, Nagoya, and am finally getting to work on finishing this post. When I had a spare minute here and there, I’d work on it a bit, but never had the time to really sit down and type.

Since that night, I’ve been jotting down notes on my iPod touch as each day progresses and transcribing them into MarsEdit when I can, hopefully getting to writing up the full posts at some point. The way it looks, though, is that many of my posts will be delayed until after the trip is over as I just don’t have the time to write them up each day (let alone select, tag, and explain the photos that I want to upload). I could just write less, but these blog posts are acting as more than just info for friends and family, but also as a journal of the adventure.

Random Observances

As I’m currently writing this on Day 7 of the trip, I’ve had some time to take in the culture here. There are some things that have struck me as interesting.

Tokyo is a very clean area (Tokyo isn’t actually a city but a prefecture made up of 23 districts). It’s incredibly hard to find garbage cans when you’re walking around, even in large parks and malls, and yet there’s very little litter … anywhere! Plus, since Japan as a country is so physically small, they burn a lot of their garbage. As such, there are two primary garbage cans: one for plastics, and one for combustibles. In some cases I’ve seen five cans clustered together: combustibles, incombustibles, empty cans, empty bottles, and empty pet bottles.

There is a downright ingenious system of navigation aids in Tokyo, and they can be found almost everywhere from streets and stations to walkways and alleys. They’re guides for those with vision impairments that use canes to navigate their surroundings. They walk alongside these yellow tiles sliding their cane into them as they go. When the feedback changes (parallel bars to dots, for example) they know it’s time to turn a certain direction. Double blocks of dotted tiles mean stairs ahead. We managed to see someone making use of these tiles inside the station, and it was pretty remarkable to see. She just walked along at normal speed the entire time, turning when she needed to. When you look around a place like Tokyo Station, it makes perfect sense why a system like this was devised; huge open spaces with large support columns would make it very difficult for the visually impaired to find their way without such a system.

Finally, and this is something that didn’t occur to me until a few days into the trip, but the people here are very trim! There are heavier people here, but they’re few and far between. You look around and all you see is people in fairly good shape. Goes to show you what diet and lifestyle can do for a people (I’m looking at you, USA, where I saw significant numbers of overweight people on recent trips to Orlando and San Francisco. Polar opposite here in Japan.

As for now, I’m going to sit back and enjoy the last half hour of the Shinkansen ride and post this once I get to the hotel in Nagoya. Already got some great shots of Mt. Fuji from the window, but that’s a story for the Day 7 post (if I ever get to it!).

Kris and I stopped off at the IHOP attached to our hotel in Vancouver for some breakfast before catching a cab to the airport for our flight. The line for Air Canada International Departures was fairly long, but moved quicker than I expected. After wading our way through security, we wandered off to find our gate.

Boarding

The way things are supposed to go is that during the call for those who require additional assistance for boarding the plane, we get to tag along because Kris needs to transfer into the aisle wheelchair and make his way to the seats. On the Edmonton to Vancouver flight, that’s exactly what happened and it was a nice smooth process. This time, however, not so much.

Even though we had already spoken to the boarding agents and they had everything prepped for us, when the initial call went out it was for those who needed additional assistance and first/executive class passengers. This meant that instead of having the plane to ourselves (which means no obstructions by other passengers), a bunch of people had already boarded the plane ahead of us. Compound that with the airport staffers who’s job it is to do “assisted loads” (it’s actually the people who work down on the tarmac; don’t ask me why) not getting to the gate until almost 10 minutes later, plus the fact our seats were in row 60 of 63, and it was going to be a fun endeavour.

Once everything was in place, we trudged our way through almost the entire length of the plane, other passengers strewn about in our way as we went, and made it to our seats.

In Flight

The seat backs had both a USB port and a 110V power outlet so our iPod touches and laptops could be plugged in and fully-charged throughout the voyage. And when you’re about to embark on a 10 hour flight, it’s good to have your entertainment machines operational.

For the most part, though, I watched selections from the in-flight system. Hancock, Get Smart, and a few shows from the Discovery Channel. We also pulled out Kris’ MacBook Pro and watched Live Free or Die Hard on the “big screen”.

And the meals were pretty tasty. We got two meal services: the first, about an hour into the flight, I had sukiyaki beef with rice (other option was chicken); and the second, about 7 hours into the flight, was roast beef (other option was salmon). And they came with the cutest little single-serving soy sauce “dispensers”. They were baby fish filled with soy sauce, and you unscrewed a little cap on the front to squeeze it out.

One of the neat things about being on an intercontinental flight is there’s mood lighting on the plane. When it’s approximately time to sleep, most of the lights in the plane shut off and soft, blue-coloured light fills the cabin. In the interstitials, purple light bridges the gap towards more of a “daylight” soft yellow. I have pictures of much of the things I’m blogging about, but I don’t feel like spending the time uploading them to my flickr account because I don’t want to mess up the order of my photostream by cherry-picking some photos now and doing the rest once I get home. And just uploading everything I plan to when I get home is no good because I’m meticulous about descriptions and tagging, which takes up time I’d rather spend checking out Japan. Stay tuned shortly after the trip is completed and I’ll be uploading a whole whack of pictures and video.

Touchdown

Finally, at about 3:20pm local time, we landed at Narita International Airport. After a somewhat lengthy delay waiting for the aisle chair to be brought back to us (during which we had a nice chat with two of the flight attendants), we were finally off the plane. The gentleman that helped with the deplaning was amazingly friendly, offering to carry Kris’ backpack that normally rests on the back of his chair. So, with backpack on, he pushed Kris through the surprisingly long trek to head to Japan Customs & Immigration, and then the baggage claim.

Another nicety of flying with someone in a wheelchair: you get prime access to many of the services in airports. We were brought beyond the Customs lines for passengers (where there was a rather long line) and off to where the Crew enters the country (where there was no line!). After we handed in our embarkation forms and had our fingerprints and photos taken (standard practice for anyone entering Japan who is not a citizen) we were off to find the Keisei Skyliner which would take us right into the heart of Ueno and mere blocks from the hotel.

The Train

The aforementioned helpful gentleman took us to the ticket booth for the Skyliner and then to the correct check-in line where he was “replaced” by a very nice Skyliner lady who came with us down to the platform itself. When she saw that our tickets were for a car that didn’t have a wheelchair space on it, she ran all the way back to the ticketing booth and had them exchanged for ones that put us in the correct car. The people here really do go out of their way to be helpful!

It’s somewhat strange to ride a train at full-speed through a station without stopping, but it happens quite frequently on the many lines in Japan. The inter-car doors are powered and activated both by the train approaching one of the handful of stations it stopped at, but also by people placing their hand on the door. 50 minutes after we got on the train, we were on foot in Ueno on the way to the hotel in a light spitting of rain.

In Closing…

Right now, it is 9:45pm JST on Sunday, November 9 which is 5:45am MST, and I haven’t had any sleep yet after getting up at 8:00am MST on Saturday, November 8 in Vancouver. Nothing beats acclimatizing yourself to a dramatically different time zone! Which can only mean one thing: bed time!

It was interesting to see the airplane wheelchair in action; so very little! I snapped a good picture with my brother’s camera of my him sitting in his chair beside the airplane one after getting out of it. The flight attendants on AC251 were quite friendly, so a big hat’s off to them.

After disembarking, an airport staffer that helped my brother off the plane was transporting one of the flight attendants to another part of the airport on a little courtesy cart … thing. As he approached us, my brother and I were jokingly saying to each other he should grab on and go for a ride. Sure enough, the gentleman told my brother to grab on to the back and he hauled him along! I snagged my brother’s camera, as it was handy, and took a video.

We were flying on an Embrauer 190 which has rear-seat touch screen entertainment systems. I started watching The Dark Knight but figured I’d save it until tomorrow if I wanted to watch it (since the flight from Edmonton to Vancouver is scarcely longer than an hour). Plus I’ve already seen it and have eight movies ripped onto my iPod touch so I’ll probably skip it all together. While smaller, the iPod touch’s screen looks way better than the one in the seat back.

Now that we were in Vancouver and picked up our checked bags, the first order of business was finding the Canadian Border Services office to register all our gear for temporary export. As I detailed in the previous post, we’re taking a lot of expensive electronics with us. If we didn’t get the proper temporary export form filled out, upon return to Canada we could be charged import duties and taxes because we had no (readily available) means of proving we didn’t buy all that stuff in Japan; doesn’t help that three of the items – my brother’s MacBook Pro, high-def camcorder, and Sony point-and-shoot – are brand new.

Even after asking for directions several times, we went on a wild goose chase trying to find the office. In the end, we went from the Domestic Arrivals all the way over to the basement of International Departures. On top of that, the office had a sign that mentioned only Agriculture, Immigration, and Customs – which of course I didn’t clue in are border services – so we disregarded it and kept going. Plus the frosted glass on the windows blocked any useful view of the inside, and it had that “closed for the day” lighting inside. Needless to say, we eventually found it and got the forms filled out.

Once we got to the hotel, we pulled out the laptops to load up the pictures and video taken that day. And have a quick video chat with our parents back in Edmonton! My brother set up his iMac so all they had to do was turn it on and open iChat.

But for now, it’s time to relax in preparation for a long day tomorrow.

Update: completely forgot to mention that while waiting for my brother to pick up his new chair from the FedEx hangar at Edmonton International (that’s a long story in and of itself), Jamie Salé stopped with her son beside where I was sitting. It was quite nice to see her free of harassing fans and able to just go about her business. I didn’t want to bother her either so I left her alone, simply smiling as she eventually walked past (she smiled back).

My brother, Kris, is of a similar mind. Earlier this year we came to the conclusion that we now have the time and the means to go to Japan, so it’s about damn time we did! The flights were booked at the end of February, and planning began.

Since he could only get three weeks off from work, that’s how long the trip will be. Otherwise, we probably would’ve been there for anywhere from four to six weeks. One of the more interesting aspects of the trip is that my brother is a paraplegic (T6) and, accordingly, gets around in a wheelchair. So we’ll be checking out Japan with an eye towards places he can get to (which is quite a lot). This means, unfortunately, we won’t be staying in any ryokans and similar things¹, but there’ll still be tons to see and do!

We’ll be covering a good chunk of Honshū as well as parts of Kyūshū, visiting Tokyo and many of its districts (Odaiba, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza, Harajuku, and others), Yokohama, Takayama, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Hakata, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Osaka, and lots more. As it just so happens, the parts of Mr. Baseball shot in Japan were in Nagoya, one of the places we’ll be spending three days! The vast majority of our travel will be by rail, and we have our 3-week JR Rail Pass vouchers in hand.

Aside from the sightseeing and culture immersion, my brother and I will be photographing as we go. We’re bringing four digital cameras (mine: Canon Digital Rebel and Sony DSC-W80; brother’s: Sony DSC-R1, Sony DSC-W300) and a brand-new high definition video camera, the Sony HDR-SR12.

On our travels across Japan, we’ll both be making blog posts (hopefully daily) on our activities and encounters. One of the bonuses is every hotel we’ve booked has free high-speed internet. Some pictures will be posted here in my blog entries, but the majority of mine will end up in my flickr stream once we return and I have a chance to sort through them.

The trip runs from November 7-29 and will be a trip of many “firsts” for me:

• first time off the continent
• first in-flight meal (not sure if I should be too excited about that)
• first flight in a plane with two aisles (Boeing 777-300ER). Oooo, ahhh!
• first time visiting a location where English is not the main language

They’ll be long flights, too. The Vancouver to Narita leg is 9 hours 50 minutes, with the return flight being 8 hours 30 minutes (travelling in the same direction as the jet stream sure seems to help a lot!).

Our yen has been purchased, the packing lists made, and our iPod touches loaded with ripped DVDs to entertain us during the flights. All that remains is for Friday to come so the journey can begin!

1. There are wheelchair accessible ryokans, but they were rather expensive and typically nowhere near train stations. ↵