Forgotten Japan

(Note: I forgot to publish this post from almost 3 years ago, just an outline)

Thu
Shibuya with Kelsey at internet place
took train to Kashiwazaki

Fri
with David in Kashiwazaki

Sat
train trip from Shibuya-Shin Yokahama-Okayama-Fukuoka

Sun Fukuoka
night food stalls
green hotel
bar with music, records
sumo

Mon Miyajima
ferry to island
tori gate
temples
hike to lookout
ropeway

Tue
Hiroshima
tatami mat hotel room
peace museum, memorials

Wed Himeji
hotel by train station
with public bath
himeji castle
middle eastern food
Kyoto 1st night
gion corner
bar

Thu Kyoto full day
golden palace
rock garden
late lunch
2 lit up temples
shopping area
modern style sushi

Fri Nara
train to meet Crystal
temples
lunch at place with no menus, just pointing to plastic displays

Sumo Tournament

On Saturday, Brett, Kelsey and I took the Shinkansen south to the island of Kyushu. From Tokyo, the distance was around 1200km and we covered the distance, including stops and changing trains once, in about 6 hours. I asked the guy wheeling the food cart down the aisles and he said the train travelled at 270km/h. There was a faster service called the Nozumi, but our rail passes didn't allow us to use it. The slower trains stop more often and at a station stop the faster ones whiz by at top speed. It was quite shocking the first time when that happened as you don't expect it.

We went to the city of Fukuoka to watch a sumo tournament. We were lucky to find a sumo tournament because there are only 6 tournaments in Japan every year. We decided to spend most of the day at the sumo stadium. The early matches have the lower ranked players and it builds up to the top sumo guy at the end of the day at 6 o'clock. There was a match every few minutes so the action was pretty much non-stop. Sumo isn't as popular in Japan as it used to be, so the stadium was never full and most people didn't come until the end of the day. That did give us the opportunity to sneak down to the front to see it close-up. The one bad part of the sitting area is that there are no seats, only pillows for you to sit cross-legged in the defined square sitting areas demarcated by metal bars.

Before every match the fighters go through rituals of drinking a cup of water, stamping their feet, slapping themselves in an effort to intimidate their opponent. They also throw salt into the ring to purify the fighting area. The match itself starts with the ref chanting some things and then they plow into each other. The first one to step outside the ring or touch his arm or leg on the mat loses. Matches rarely last for more than a minute, and then the cycle starts again. At the end of the day after the last match, everyone throws their seat cushions into the air to celebrate. It's kind of an odd sport but actually quite exciting to watch. The only thing that would improve the experience would be real chairs!

More on Tokyo

I never really wrote much on my sights in Tokyo in my last post. Kelsey and I zipped around Tokyo Monday, Tues, and Wed this week. The first day we stopped at the tower of the Metropolitan government complex in Shinjuku mainly for the view of the city from the observation deck on the 45th floor. Shinjuku has the most skyscrapers in Tokyo but there are many other clusters of them around central Tokyo. The sky was a bit hazy off in the distance so the edge of the city couldn't be seen. There was continuous development in every direction except for a few large parks. We had a guided tour of the complex where we learned a bit about the building and how the municipal government works.

The grounds of the Imperial Palace are right in the heart of Tokyo and are an unusual open space in the crowded city. You can't actually get into the palace grounds but just catch glimpses of the guards and workers feverishly sweeping a bridge above. Close by, on the other side of the tracks was the Ginza, the high end shopping district with the fancy name brand stores and bright shiny lights. Checked out an electronic store to see what was available. The prices didn't seem to be much different from back home, but I guess there were a few models that haven't made it to Canada yet.

Some of the other places we saw was the Akihabara electronics district, Ueno Park where all the big museums were, Shibuya the party place, Ebisu beer museum (400 yen for a set of four tasting glasses), and the shrine in Yoyogi park. The lesser known Meguro Parisitological Museum was interesting with it's display of the 8.8m tapeworm extracted from a local man who had the misfortune of eating the wrong piece of trout.

Now I'm in the western seaside town of Kashiwazaki in the Niigata prefecture. Got my first ride on the Shinkansen train to get here, that was really smooth! This area was in the news earlier this year because of the magnitude 6.8 earthquake that destroyed many houses and killed around 20 people. There is evidence of cracked roadways and a tennis court is used as a temporary housing area. I learned that earthquake insurance is impossible to get in Japan. The only part of the earthquake that made the world news was the fact that the nearby nuclear power station was damaged in the quake. Apparently some transformers caught fire, but no radioactive material was released.

Last night was fun hanging out with my friend David who has lived here for the past 7 years. His fluent Japanese and local knowledge helped us get into a good sushi place and a fun izakaya (pub). The food, drink and company were excellent. Today we're going to explore the area, and then I'll be heading back to Tokyo.

Tokyo

I`m here in Japan for 2 weeks, starting out in Tokyo for the first few days. It has been a whirlwind few days so far. I got here on Sunday afternoon after a 10 1/2 hour plane ride followed by a 2 1/2 hour bus ride into the centre of the city. Although I was very tired I went out to a festival in Tokyo Teleport town and met up with Brett`s friend Kelsey and girlfriend Natsuki. We had some Japanese food (imagine that!) and got my first glimpse of the complex Tokyo subway and train system. It would be very easy to get lost if I didn`t have someone to show me around. Everything works very smoothly with all the complex movements of people and trains running on time, it`s really quite remarkable.

There are some photos I have put up online here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/matthew.ian.buchanan/Japan1/

Cheers! Matthew