City, mountains, and rice

2003-08-22 - 8:53 p.m.

August 11, 2003

I woke at 5am, took a shower, and drove to the airport. I was there by 6am and my flight left Sacramento at around 7:30. It took about 40 minutes to fly from Sacramento to San Francisco on the smallest plane I have ever been on. My seat was both an aisle seat and a window seat and I had an excellent view of the propeller. I took an early flight from Sac to SF because I wanted to have plenty of time to get through security and such. Turns out I didn't need so much time. I was the first one at the gate for my flight, three hours early. This plane was the largest one I've ever been on. I've never been on an a transcontinental flight before. My seat was near the back of the plane in an aisle seat of the center row. The seat next to me was unoccupied so I had plenty of space for the trip. The food was disgusting. I watched a few of the movies but spent the rest of the time sleeping. I think that helped a lot because I didn't have any problems with jet lag.

August 12, 2003

We crossed the date line somewhere along the way and it was the 12th when we landed. All the stuff you've ever heard about how much trouble it is to get through customs is a big lie. Getting off the plane and into Tokyo only took two glances at my passport. Maybe only bringing one small backpack of stuff helped. Azuma was there to meet me at the airport and we took a train from there into Tokyo. We got a hotel room and then hit the town. Unfortunately, I left my camera in the hotel room so I don't have any pictures of this day. We had dinner and then saw the Senso Temple where I received a good fortune. It's in Japanese but it has an English translation on it. It says, "Washing off all bad things in the past, now everything is clear and clean. The brilliant light and glorious flower came out clean again being washed so well. What you desire will finally gets profit, which means everything around you comes out quite well. Time passing by, everything out to be better, just like the sun shines all day long. Your hopes will turn out to be real. Recover from sickness, but if careless, might be serious. The lost thing will be found and the person you wait shows around. There are no problems of building and moving house. There are no worry about marriage, travel, and employment." Nice to know. Next we headed over to the Tokyo Tower which looks like the Eiffel Tower only it's several meters taller. We went up to the observation deck where we could see all over Tokyo. We walked by the Zojoji Temple on our way back to the hotel. Those stories about Japanese hotels all being little boxes are also myths. While small, our room was big enough for two twin beds.

August 13, 2003

This day we went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum which is basically a museum of the history of Tokyo. Then Azuma took me to a restaurant where he fed me eel, which, I think, was meant to gross me out, and when it didn't he was a bit disappointed. Then we took a boat down the Sumida River in Tokyo out to Tokyo Bay. We stopped at a man-made island in Tokyo Bay, Odaiba, where we wandered around, ate octopus balls, and rode the Odaiba Ferris Wheel which is supposedly the largest ferris wheel in the world. We took a boat back across the bay and then rode the subway to Shinjuku where we ate dinner and saw another temple.

A view of Tokyo from the top of the Odaiba Ferris Wheel

Shinjuku at night

August 14, 2003

The first thing we did today was to go to the nearest store and buy umbrellas. It was pouring rain. Next we went to the Yasukuni Shrine which is a shrine that commemorates all the Japanese war heroes. We walked around its garden, which was beautiful in the rain. Then we went to a museum on the same grounds about all the wars Japan has ever been involved in. It was definitely interesting to see history from a different point of view. They kept reiterating how all of the wars were only self-defense, never mind that Japan has never been attacked first since the Mongols attacked in the 1500's. After that we hopped on a train to Nikko. Nikko is a small town in the mountains, very famous for its shrines. It was raining there, too. We got a room in the local youth hostel. Actually, it wasn't a room. There were eight people per room divided with girls in one room and guys in another. I basically got a cubby hole with a curtain. After dropping off most of our stuff there, we went for a walk up the Daiya River to a "stone park." It had a ton of Buddha statues placed along the riverbanks. Very pretty, but again, all in the rain. We got a bit wet. On the way back to the hostel we stopped in town for dinner.

The garden in the Yasukuni Shrine

A bridge across the Daiya River in Nikko

August 15, 2003

The first item on the agenda today was to buy rain ponchos. The umbrellas just weren't cutting it. Unfortunately, Azuma didn't know the Japanese word for poncho, so this was rather amusing. Then we walked up the hill to the Toshugu shrine and mausoleum of Tokugawa leyasu, the first Shogun of Japan. Then we walked up the hill further to the Taiyuinbyo, which is a mausoleum and shrine for the first Shogun's grandson, Tokugawa lemitsu, who also happens to be the third Shogun. Afterwards we walked down to the town again for lunch and then bought train tickets back to Tokyo. We had an hour before the train came so we spent it walking around the mountains and the river. Back in Tokyo we bought tickets for the bullet train to Niigata. We had another hour so we found a nearby park to walk around. It had a lake in it, that at one time apparently you could rent boats to paddle around in, but now the lake is completely overgrown with lotus. The flowers were huge and pink and the leaves were all collecting big puddles of rainwater. We rode the bullet train to Niigata where, thankfully, it wasn't raining. Terumi, Azuma's girlfriend, picked us up at the station and drove us to Azuma's apartment. We went out to a restaurant where they give you a bowl of stuff and then you dump it out on a hot plate at your table and make a sort of omelette out of it. We met three of Azuma's friends there. They all spoke a little bit of English, but not too much. They all got a kick out of shaking my hand and saying "nice to meet you." Afterwards we rented a movie and all six of us went back to Azuma's place to watch it. We rented "Monster's Ball," which in Japan is known as "Chocolate." Woah, that was a horrible movie. If you haven't watched it, don't.

The Toshuga Shrine

Pond in park in Tokyo filled with lotus plants

August 16, 2003

We slept in fairly late this day and then got up and drove to the ocean, which wasn't far away. We took our shoes off and waded through the water along the beach. The water wasn't very cold at all and they didn't have many waves either. There were plenty of people in the water swimming. Later we hiked up to the top of a mountain that was right near the ocean. From there we could see an island off the coast of Japan and all around the valley where Niigata is located. It was really pretty and we had good weather all day. Two of Azuma's friends left after that and the rest took me back to Azuma's place and dressed me up in a kimono. Oh man, talk about uncomfortable. The two other girls dressed up in kimonos also and we went out to a nearby town to watch a fireworks festival. The fireworks were a lot bigger than any I've ever seen before.

The Pacific Ocean from the top of a mountain near Niigata

Niigata as seen from a nearby mountain

August 17, 2003

We got up early today and Terumi took Azuma and me to the bus stop where we caught a bus to Kanazawa. When we got off the bus, Azuma asked some Japanese girl for directions to the place we wanted to go, but it turned out she was a tourist also and didn't know. She ended up following us around for the rest of the morning. It was a little odd. We went to the Kanazawa Castle which I thought was really cool. It burned down a while ago and was recently reconstructed, but they recronstructed the inside to look as it originally did. A lot of these places that have been reconstructed only have museums or something on the inside instead of looking like the original. After the castle we walked across the street to a big garden called Kenrokuen which was very beautiful, but while we were there it started pouring again. And we had left our umbrellas at Azuma's apartment so we got soaked before we found a place to buy new ones. But even though it was raining, it was still hot. We caught a taxi to the local youth hostel and got a room and took long baths. It was so hot though that we never could get dry afterwards, we just kept sweating. We went for a walk around Kanazawa. Azuma wanted to see the Ninja Temple, but we were too late, it had closed already. We ended up walking down this street that had a whole bunch of smaller temples on it. We poked around the temples until it started to get dark, and then had dinner and went back to the hostel.

The view from the top of Kanazawa Castle

A pond in the Kenrokuen garden

August 18, 2003

We got up early again today and caught a train from Kanazawa to Kyoto. The first thing we did in Kyoto was to go see a few more temples. We saw the Honganji Temples, both the Nishi Honganji and the Higashi Honganji. Then we walked over and saw another garden. It used to be a samurai's garden. Again, it was really, really hot. We hopped on the subway to the Nijo Castle, which is where the first Shogun lived when he was in Kyoto. While we were there it poured heavier than it ever poured the whole rest of the trip. But luckily, it did eventually stop. We caught a bus up to the Hozugawa River. We were going to rent a boat and paddle around there, but apparently the water level was too high so they weren't renting boats. Instead we hiked up the river a ways. It was hot and humid and misty and probably the most beautiful thing I saw in all of Japan. When it started to get dark we found a youth hostel and got a room and took showers. Then we went out to a restaurant that, according to Azuma's guidebook, served the best gyozas in all of Japan.

A dragon in the Higashi Honganji Temple

The Hozugawa River

August 19, 2003

We slept in a little bit later and then saw a few more temples in Kyoto. I don't remember the names of those temples, but one of them had a two story entrance gate that we could go up in and see all over Kyoto. That was pretty neat. Then we got on a train to Osaka. First thing we did was to go to the Osaka Castle. The Osaka Castle is the biggest castle in Japan, I think. We walked around the outer wall for a bit and then went inside and up to the top of the castle which is five stories high. Inside it didn't look like a castle, though, it was a museum. Afterwards we had lunch. That was where we couldn't find any real restaurants to eat in so we ended up having Teriyaki McBurgers at McDonald's. Then we went to the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan because they have the world's only captive whale shark there. That was really cool. The shark is 4 meters long and is supposed to grow to be as long as 12 meters. I hope they build a bigger tank before that happens. We went back to the Osaka train station and did a little shopping and then caught a night bus to Tokyo. We got on the bus at 9pm.

Osaka Castle

The whale shark at the Osaka Aquarium

August 20, 2003

We got off the bus at a little before 5:30 in the morning. We hadn't showered since Kyoto and we really stank and felt gross so we had to go about finding a shower. We ended up at the Tokyo International Youth Hostel where we pretended like we belonged there and went with everyone else into the showers when they opened at 6:30. We went to one last shrine in Tokyo, the Meiji Shrine, while we waited for shops to open and then we went back to the Shinjuku area for a little more shopping before Azuma put me on a train bound for the airport. I got on the plane with no difficulties. This time I had an aisle seat next to a nine year old kid who wanted to get up every half hour until he finally fell asleep and then he used me as a pillow. Getting through customs, was again, much easier than everyone always said. They looked at my passport a few times and asked me if I had any plants or animals with me and that was it. I was early for my connecting flight so I got on the flight before it which was a bigger plane than the one I was supposed to take. It only took 17 minutes to fly from San Francisco to Sacramento.

The Meiji Shrine

One Good Thing:
Song of the Day: Night Rider's Lament - Garth Brooks
One Year Ago Today:

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