Osaka

We're back home at last, trying to recover from the jetlag that wakes us up from 2-5 every morning and has us feeling drugged all day. Osaka was the last stop on our itinerary. Japan's third largest city, Osaka was nice - maybe underrated, since most people would probably stay in Kyoto and just do a day trip to Osaka, only a half hour away by train. We had a Moroccan friend who lived in Osaka, and when I was planning the trip a few months ago, we were thinking we would catch up with him there and had thought a few days in Osaka would be just the right amount of time. Unfortunately, when we started trying to track him down, we found out he was very sick, and he passed away from cancer a few weeks ago. So our stay in Osaka was probably about one day longer than it needed to be, and everywhere we went, we thought about him and wondered what his life in Japan must have been like, as a Moroccan immigrant married to a Japanese woman. He had lived in Japan for many years and then moved back to Fes, where I knew him from 2000-02, but then he returned again to Japan for the last eight years or so. His English was excellent, too, and he was a real character.

Also, our time in Osaka coincided with people gearing up for New Year's celebrations, so most of the tourist sites were closed. We went to the Osaka castle (yet another example of something destroyed and rebuilt, this time in 1923!) and after a very long walk up the hill to get there, discovered it was closed. A museum I had wanted to see was also closed. What was open was this tremendous shopping district - a covered arcade that stretched on and on for kilometers. It was constantly packed with people from about 10 am on, and great for people watching. People from Osaka seemed a little more brash and outgoing than people in Tokyo, and they sported all kinds of out-there fashions. We must have seen a million young women in high, spiky heels, tripping along like little colts and seeming as if they might fall over at any minute.
There was also an electronics/anime district, where you could browse the latest technology or buy small replicas of your favorite cartoon characters. The latest technology also included $350 rice cookers and $400 toilet seats - the self-heating kinds that were in all our hotels and sported various other functions.

New foods sampled included potatoes sold on the street that had a crunchy, caramelized coating, and more baked goods - there were crepe stands everywhere in Tokyo and Osaka, and finally we decided to try one that consistently had long lines in front of it. We paid literally about ten dollars for two crepes that took so long to spread with cream, fruit, and brown sugar, that by the time we ate them, they were cold. There was also a stand that sold eclairs that were excellent, and those were only about $2 each. One of our most memorable meals was at this little underground pub that specialized in yakitori - basically kabobs. They put them on a warm grill in front of you, and you have to keep ordering more and more skewers because they are so good but also such tantalizingly small bites. We also had grilled onigiri, these rice triangles that they sell at all convenience stores with various fillings. These businessmen were having a great time after work as well, drinking beer and sake.
And finally, we went to one of those sushi places where the sushi sails by on a conveyor belt, and you just reach for whatever you want. I think I was scared to try one for fear I'd choose, say, an expensive cut of tuna belly and then wind up with a staggeringly high bill. But this was much easier than I thought - prices were clearly listed next to each dish of sushi, and the waitress scanned the dishes with a scanner when you were done, adding up all that you'd ordered.

After two full days in Osaka, it was finally time to come home. A cab ride to the train station at 5 am, a 40 minute train ride to the Osaka airport at 5:30, an 8:45 flight to Tokyo, followed by an 11:45 flight to Chicago, then a 10:45 am flight to Orlando. Sofia did a lot better coming back, but we were all exhausted.

One of many random observations to follow: everything works so impressively well in Japan. Have you ever been in a bathroom in the States, for example, where you couldn't get the automatic sensor in the spigot to work and actually give you water to wash your hands? Things like this routinely worked perfectly in Japan. Also, it was a very child friendly place - even in train stations and other public spots, you could find diaper changing stations. And the coolest invention of all - in the Osaka airport bathroom, there were these fold-down seats in the bathroom where you could sit your baby. Sofia loved it and didn't want to get out.

More thoughts and photos to follow...

Byodoin temple

On our last night in Kyoto, we took a train 30 minutes out to Uji, where our new friends Bill & Setsuko live. They had invited us over for dinner, and for a tour of Byodoin temple, which dates back to the 11th century. (At last! Something genuinely old that wasn't rebuilt in 1979 or 1923 or 1633. Or that we didn't destroy in World War II). This temple is featured on the 10 yen coin. Setsuko knows the history well, and she walked us around the temple grounds informing us of the many phases of the temple's history. Inside was a giant wooden Amida Buddha, over ten feet high, faded gold and carved by a master carver who influenced later representations of Buddha. Sofia was interested, and continues to talk about "Boo-doo" or "Boo-di," depending on her mood.

It was a nice break from the city. Uji was a peaceful town, and on a cold night, Setsuko prepared a delicious dish called "nabe" while we talked, a stew rich with noodles, rice, greens, shaved radishes, oysters and chicken. We also enjoyed steaming hot cups of roasted tea.

Again, the best part of our trip has been spending time with people who live here-- getting an insider's view on what is fascinating, wonderful, and frustrating about life here, as in any place, and trying to imagine what it would be like to live here. Especially in spending time with expatriates, I always picture the other cultures in which I've lived and traveled, and wonder about alternatve existences-- what it would be like if I lived here, for example, or if I'd never left those places and just decided to make a life there. I could so easily picture myself in Istanbul, where I lived for six months in 1995, yet I've never since been back. Or I wonder what might have happened if I'd randomly picked Japan in which to study abroad as a college junior rather than Morocco. These decisions are sometimes so arbitrary, yet weighty at the same time.

Kyoto observations

Gion is the famous geisha district of Kyoto, with lots of old wooden buildings occupied by restaurants, tea houses, and bars. I didn't see any geishas, but apparently they don't come out until it's dark. There are very few of them left these days anyway. It was cold and cloudy when we walked around Gion with our volunteer guide from the Good Samaritans club. Tourists and busy streets gave way to this quiet riverside scene, right in the middle of it all.

My memories of Kyoto will be a blur of temples and tourist sites, of walking back and forth between our hotel and the super modern (and controversial) train station, the Matsubaya inn, where we slept on futons on tatami mats on the floor for four nights. Kyoto was more relaxed than Tokyo, but also more touristy.

It's getting close to New Year's here. Up until Christmas, we heard Christmas music in literally every store we entered, and lighted tree displays were everywhere. That ended after December 25th, which was not a holiday here, but now people are gearing up for New Year's, and many of them are off of work now. In Kyoto we wandered through two contrasting markets - the Nishiki market, with hundreds of food stalls selling an array of pickles, fish, and fermented bean pastes,
and the basement of the department store Daimaru, with its stylish displays of many of the same foods. (Department stores are a different experience here, particularly the food floor. You can buy a whole dinner's worth of delicious gourmet items, heat them up in the microwave provided, and enjoy some great cuisine on the spot.) However, since it's close to New Year's, even in the sleek department store, the hawking has begun in earnest, and from each section, sales clerks beckon you to buy, buy, buy. And here, randomly, yet another excellent French bakery.

Christmas in Kyoto

On Christmas morning, we got up, had breakfast in our hotel (they do a la carte eggs, toast, and coffee), and walked about an hour to the Kiyomazu temple. We had planned to wander in the general direction of eastern Kyoto, which is set in the hills and still has a lot of traditional wooden architecture, but we actually made it to a destination we had planned to see later with a volunteer guide. We first ended up at a cemetery, where there were only locals, and we talked a while to this guy who sells incense, which the locals take to the tombs of their loved ones. They rent incense boxes, which are kept for them in a niche in the wall. They clean up the tombs as well, and there's even a cleaning service that will do it for you - note the way even tombs look cute and happy when they're clean.


Kiyomazu, meaning "clear water," dates back to 798, though the current Buddhist temple was built (with no nails whatsoever) in 1633. It is up a very steep hill, and there were a lot of Asian tourists there. They were all buying charms and amulets that they can leave at the temple for good luck for various life endeavors.

The temples specialize in Buddhist vegetarian cuisine, so we stopped at a restaurant to try some. I had an excellent noodle bowl with udon wheat noodles and tofu. Nour had soba noodles with herring on top. Here's how you know what to order - you pick it out from a display of plastic food, though even with visuals it's sometimes hard to tell what you're getting.
We bought a few small souvenirs and then found a bus to take us back to central Kyoto.

That afternoon, we had been invited to Christmas dinner with Bill and Setsuko, longtime Kyoto residents and friends of Susie Robertshaw and Charlie Rock (Rollins), who they knew from grad school (in second picture here).

We met at the train station and took a train thirty minutes away to a little village called Ohmi-hachiman. "Little village" is a relative term - 70,000 people live here -- but it had a very quiet, countryside feel to it. We dined at the house of Bill and Setsuko's pastor, Scott, and his wife Hiroko, who made us feel welcome even though we'd never met them before. They are loosely associated with the Episcopal church but liberal and open to coexisting with other faiths. What I didn't know is that there have been Christians in Japan since the Portugese converted some people in the 16th century, and there are about a million native Christians now. Other expats and Japanese were also in attendance, and we loved being in Scott's hand-built house (he's also a carpenter) with a warm fire and great food. Later we did a gift exchange, which we had fortunately known about ahead of time, and came away with some very nice Japanese presents.

Behind their house is a day care for children and the elderly, which is run by Hirok's family. We got to tour the daycare and it was fascinating. The whole building was set in a forest of bamboo and cedar, and it had windows everywhere, hardwood floors and tatami mats (with a heated floor beneath), and there were different rooms for kids up to five. In one room some three year olds were playing house, with tiny little Japanese kitchen implements and other things you'd find in a Japanese home. Sofia got very excited in the room with the babies her age, and talked avidly about "Mae Mae and Brit Brit," her teachers at her daycare in Florida. We had to take a picture.

It was also interesting to talk to people about their perspectives on life in Japan. Most of the guests were affiliated with Kyoto universities in some capacity or other, so we compared notes on the educational systems in both places, and the challenges of expatriate life. All in all, it was an excellent way to spend Christmas, being welcomed by people who took us in even though they'd never met us before.

A traditional Japanese onsen town - Ito

In Kyoto now after a one-night detour to Ito, an onsen town that just had a little earthquake last week. Onsens are the traditional Japanese hot springs, and because of all the volcanoes they are everywhere. I wanted to have the full "ryokan" experience of staying in a traditional hotel, where you sleep on futons atop tatami mats and an attendant makes your bed ready for you at night, serves you tea, etc. I also wanted to go to a town more likely to be frequented by Japanese tourists than foreigners, which made it a little hard to pick a hotel, but spending a lot of time on the TripAdvisor Japan forums and posting questions led me to pick out Ito and our hotel, which was called Yokikan.

Ito is a little town about an hour and a half away from Tokyo. The train ride there was beautiful - Tokyo seemed to stretch on forever, followed by Yokohama, another big city right next to it, and then we saw Mt. Fuji on our right and on our left was the ocean, which was a very deep shade of blue. We had the ocean on our left the entire train trip. At the train station, a taxi took us the five minute drive to the "ryokan" - the traditional Japanese hotel. The town itself was reminiscent of a little French mountain town, Nour commented, except that the buildings all have those sort of hatched, Chinese-style gable roofs. The ryokan was up the side of a hill and it was very peaceful and extremely quiet-- surrounded by outcroppings of rocks and lots of foliage. So the town was both mountainous and a beach town at the same time. We waited for our room to be ready while Sofia slept - it was naptime - and then they took us up to a big room with a tatami mat floor, a low table and low chairs with cushions. They got a futon out for Sofia to sleep on, and she continued with her nap so we decided to try the baths. There were hardly any other guests in the ryokan; because of the earthquake last week (which our guide in Tokyo had told us about), many people had canceled. This was good because we had the baths to ourselves, and although I was planning to try the baths regardless of the presence of other people, the fact that you wear no clothes while bathing with others seemed just the slightest bit awkward.

The hotel had two baths in the lobby and one bath that was open-air on the roof top. The two baths in the lobby were same sex-- one was smaller than the other, so they open the bigger one to men after 8:30 pm at night and to women the rest of the time, so we took turns having a bath while the other watched Sofia - you shower & soap up first before rinsing off and then getting in the water. The water is extremely hot, and only about two feet deep - you just sit there until you can't take it anymore and then leave. Our room had kimonos for us to wear (called yukata), plus a slightly heavier robe and slippers, and at an onsen, you're supposed to just walk around the hotel the entire time in your kimonos.

Once Sofia woke up, we went to explore the center of town, which was about a ten minute walk away. There was a walking district with no cars allowed, but it got dark early and there really were not many people around at all. We got sidetracked in a department store that had a wealth of "bento boxes"- those little lunch boxes I've been obsessed with. I loaded up on those, as well as on gifts, while Sofia played in yet another store playground.
Then we looked for a place to eat dinner. We finally ended up getting teriyaki chicken burgers at a fast food place. We walked home in the dark - it gets dark very early here - and then we all went to use the "mixed bath" on the roof - the open air bath set into rocks on the side of a hill with a waterfall and tropical foliage. We had Sofia in there for no more than 5 minutes, since it was so hot, but she loved it, and it was salt water but only had a shower outside, so I took her down to the other bath to wash her off in the shower and let her splash in the other one for a few minutes. She went right to sleep that night and we actually got to see a fireworks display from our window, as it was the Emperor's Birthday here. Oh, and there was a vending machine with $3 Asahi beers, so we enjoyed those, too.


This morning we had the breakfast included, which was a traditional one, like no other I've ever had. Our attendant took away the futons and set up the breakfast, which consisted of lots of little platters involving various fishlike dishes. Tofu in little cast iron pots. Miso soup, which I like. A cold, soft boiled egg in a cold bowl of what tasted like soy sauce soup. Various pickles. A few pieces of raw fish, sushi style, which were fine. Grilled fish, which was also pretty tasty and salty. Hot rice. Green tea, no sugar. Various condiments that we had no idea what to do with. All in all, it was obviously haute cuisine, Japanese style, though probably the full pleasure of it was lost on us - I think breakfast is the hardest meal to forego your own culture's food for.

The owner of the hotel (who got an MBA from UC Berkeley and was extremely nice) drove us to the train station just in time for our local train to the city of Atami, 30 minutes away. We had a tight connection there with the "shinkansen" - the bullet train that would take us to Kyoto in only 2 hours (probably a 4 hour drive by car). Basically we had 5 minutes between when the local train arrived to find the bullet train platform and get on. But the local train was delayed at one of the stops by another train coming through the mountain, so we literally arrived at 10:41 and had to get to the platform by 10:43 for the bullet train. Turns out bullet trains were completely in a different place, so we ran - me with Sofia in my arms and Noureddine with his blue suitcase, two backpacks, and a stroller. (Did I mention they have this amazing service where youc an send your large luggage on to your next hotel? Costs $15 and we sent our giant green suitcase to Kyoto, where it was waiting for us today). We just made it - people were boarding when we got onto the platform - and we had to walk back 6 cars to our reserved seats.


The bullet train was exciting! nobody talks, just like on the subways. We passed Mt. Fuji up close - it is huge and covered with snow and almost looks like a moon formation or something, it is so impressive. We passed lots of little towns, urbanized places, industrial cities. We finally got a cup of very good coffee (I was already getting a headache) from the girl who goes down the aisle with a food cart. Lots of people on the train are eating little packaged bento boxes, like this girl, full of sushi and rice and pickles and other delights.


Once in Kyoto, we marveled at the postmodern beauty of the train station, which is this massive glass and steel structure with an 11 story shopping mall full of expensive stores. We walked the ten minutes to our hotel - Kyoto already feels much more relaxed than Tokyo, and it was pretty quiet after we left the hustle and bustle of the train station.

Our hotel here is the Matsubaya Ryokan - it is in the style of the traditional hotels, with futons on the floor, but the big difference is that there are no meals included and nobody to put your bedding down at night, so you do it yourself. It is clean, the room is big enough, with a tiny, tiny bathroom.

We spent the afternoon exploring the Kyoto station's gigantic 11 story department store, letting Sofia play for awhile in the children's play area on the children's floor. She mastered this plastic slide they had and was so proud of herself and so cute as she came down the slide over and over again, laughing. Again, shocking prices - $15 for a small Snoopy? - but we just looked.

There was a sign for Cafe Du Monde - same font as the place in New Orleans - and it said it had beignets. But it didn't, just Japanese food. I asked about the beignets and they pointed at the Mr. Donut next door but said they had no beignets. We went to one of the excellent bakeries in the train station and got several different pastries to bring back to the hotel to eat later, etc. And then we came back to the hotel and did laundry, which was a huge relief. We all have clean clothes now. And are set for a few days in Kyoto.

Random Tokyo Images

People line up for everything - here, waiting for the train...

This karate school photo, shot from the train, reminded me of the movie Shall We Dance, about the lonely Tokyo businessman who takes ballroom dancing classes. Not sure why, need to see it again when we return.

Many people wear masks here to avoid getting sick. Sofia was particularly freaked out by this one woman, who tried to talk to her.

Pachinko parlors, noisy, light-filled places where older men play something that resembles pinball.

Many advertisements for grooming products are geared toward men... moreso than in the States.

Shibuya

For our last day in Tokyo we finally got to Shibuya, which has a Times Square-like atmosphere, neon televisions on all the buildings, and multiple crosswalks where hordes of people cross all at once - it's either cars going or people going, but the effect is impressive. There are also people shouting on megaphones - I have no idea what - it sounds like old movies set in Communist countries where someone is spouting propaganda in an unintelligible language, but I saw one guy with a sign that said "Good News" so I assume he was preaching. Shibuya is also very popular with young people, and we saw the coolest, most cutting-edge fashions there yet. I believe this crosswalk was featured in Lost in Translation, and at rush hour just the sheer number of people streaming by is mind blowing.

There's a dog statue at the subway station with a touching story - back in the 1920s, the dog waited for his owner, a professor at a local university, every day. When the professor died, the dog continued to wait faithfully at the subway each day until he himself died several years later.

We went to the basement 'food hall' of a department store called Seibu and made a sort of picnic dinner of their sushi, chicken cutlets, potato croquettes, yakitori, etc, which was fun. Walked around admiring the architecture (many of the buildings are narrow yet tall, which David explained was because originally, people parceled out land into very narrow areas, but that then it was difficult to get land out of the family, so if developers wanted to build something big and wide, they'd have a harder time acquiring and tearing down neighboring properties to do so), watching the people cross again and again, and checking out a capsule hotel, where guests (usually male) can rent a tiny space atop other tiny spaces, pull a curtain shut, and spend the night. We went to another department store, Tokyu Hands, in search of a playground for Sofia, but it did not materialize. However, she played contendedly for awhile in the kids' section, with other Japanese children, and more people oohed and ahhed over her cuteness and asked to take her picture.


I thought I might pick up some Hello Kitty souvenirs for her but they were outrageously expensive - try $50 for a Hello Kitty picture frame, for example, no bigger than four inches in height, or $60 for a little plastic piano where people pop up when you hit a key. I did manage to find a deal on a pair of these special, supportive Tsukihoshi sneakers for my friend Ryan's little boy, though they didn't have much in the same brand for little girls.

And that brings us up to speed on our last night in Tokyo. My overall impressions are that Tokyo is amazing, clean, beautiful, packed with people, and exhausting. It is fairly straightforward to get around on the subway but it can be confusing at first. At rush hour it's unbelievable how many people pack into subway cars, and though we avoided rush hour as much as possible, sometimes it was unavoidable, and then I noticed there were absolutely no children except Sofia. The trains and subway cars are also impressively silent, with no talking. Cell phones are forbidden. Everyone is texting, reading, or sleeping. How nice it would be if Americans turned off their cell phones in public spaces and just shut up for once, and you didn't have to listen to people's mundane or self-important chit chat. People move fast here and don't seem to take up as much space. There are no fat people. No one is screaming at anyone, no one is visibly angry about anything. But the pace is just relentless - you feel like you can't really linger anywhere without getting run over. Everything is stylish, slick, futuristic, and expensive. Tomorrow we go to Ito, a hot spring (onsen) resort town, where Japanese people go to relax. So it should be a polar opposite of the Tokyo experience, but we'll see. Certainly we feel like we need some rest after all this ourselves.