７月１３日（月）

My mom and I changed hotels to 帝国ホテル東京 (teikoku hoteru toukyou, Imperial Hotel Tokyo) today in order to really treat ourselves and live it up, which was quite a genre shift from the capsule hotel. We also went to サンリオピューロランド (sanrio pyuurorando, Sanrio Puroland), a Hello Kitty amusement park apparently dedicated to cuteness.

Since this is the first full day in Tokyo, I'd like to write a bit about Tokyo/Osaka differences. There's a bit of a rivalry between Tokyo and Osaka. They are both large cities with hubs for business, fashion, culture, and tourism. When it comes down to it, though, the to regions have a separate attitudes. Tokyo people tend to be colder and more uptight, whereas Osaka people have more of a friendly "anything goes" attitude. Since living in Osaka for a year, I came to much prefer Osaka and socializing there. To me, it resembles the difference between Southwestern and Northeastern people in the US.

There are more concrete differences between Tokyo and Osaka such as escalator usage. One thing I truly appreciate about Japan is how mindful people are of their effect on others at all times. Being a more group-oriented and less individually-inclined culture when compared with the US, Japanese people in public display high levels of awareness of others in public space and are usually effective at navigating limited and crowded space effectively. For example, when riding an escalator in Tokyo anyone who wants to stand on the escalator shifts to the left, and those in a hurry walk up or down the steps on the right. Osaka has the opposite arrangement, so people always stand on the right and walk on the left. Either is effective, as long as everyone is on the same page!

On a travel note, Oskaa uses ICOCA cards like I posted about before for use on the trains. Tokyo uses a card called Suica. Both systems are very much the same, but each originated in its own region. When I was here two years ago there was doubt as to if I could use my ICOCA card in Tokyo and vice-versa. Now, however, I am using my ICOCA normally in Tokyo, and recharging its balance in station machines mean for Suica as well!

Now, on to travel stories! I was really impressed with the service at the hotel. We changed trains a few times to come from the capsule hotel to Imperial, so we were tired and sweaty from hauling our suitcases around in the heat and humidity. (It's been unusually unbearable lately, people have died from it!) The staff, regardless of our appearance, took our suitcases and treated us like queens immediately upon our arrival. After signing us in and each staff member speaking excellent English to us, we were led up to our floor by an attendant and handed off to our "floor attendant," a young Japanese woman dressed in a kimono who acted very properly. She led us to our room, and told us she was at the floor's front desk should we need anything at all. She served us cold green tea, bowed her way out of the room, and left a stunned silence in her wake. I think my mom and I were both a bit shocked by the top-notch customer treatment, but it was quite amazing. Japan really is the best when it comes to customer service.

Here's some pictures of Imperial and its amenities.

beds

luxurious shower

bathroom

anything we could possibly need 

in a useful little box

keycard

cold green tea upon arrival

even complimentary water bottles from Imperial

How naughty can I make this?

Can I request a dashing young Japanese man?

Clothing optional.

Yes, thank you.

Truly the lap of luxury.

On our way to Sanrio Puroland we stopped at a small noodle shop and order からあげうどん (karaage udon, fried vegetable patty udon) and きつねうどん (kitsune udon, "fox udon," cooked soybean patty udon). (The fox god Inari supposedly loves these soybean patties.) It was delicious, but udon can be hard for foreigners to eat with chopsticks since the noodles are thick, soft, and slippery. They are not easy to hold without cutting accidentally. 

Culture note: When you eat noodles in Japan, you generally try not to bite or cut them off. It's considered bad luck and kind of bad manners, but I am not entirely sure why.

Saurio Puroland was only a couple hours from closing when we arrived, but it was certainly ridiculously cute and overpriced. We had fun. :) We rode the boat ride, which was perhaps too cute for proper processing purposes.

Saurio Puroland

This treehouse eminds me of Tarzan's Treehouse in Disneyland,

or Cinderella's Castle

You walk through and read books telling you about how to do different little activities.

For example, there was one room with three mirrors. You held hands with another person and each touched the outside two mirrors with your outside hands, and a screen in the middle then told you how "matched" you were.

My mom and I matched 30%, whatever that means.

I understood the instructions, but a couple of Japanese people ahead of us did not... I felt a momet of pride in my reading comprehension... at a children's amusement park. (>_<')

book from treehouse

pillar to boat ride

distressingly cute archway to boat ride

boat ride cuteness

Dear lord, cute nerd frogs and everything.

How did I live through it?

too

much

cute

Now the light show, though: that was rad!

The designers had some fun instruments to work with!

After the park, my mom and I stopped in an arcade and did プリクラ (purikura, Japanese photobooth). There was a warning outside saying only a solitary girl, or a group containing a girl or of girls was allowed. Apparently they were having problems with lone men or groups of men taking inappropriate pictures of themselves. My mom and I took a series of pictures in a pose set we chose, then went to the side of the booth to decorate them with lettering and silly stickers using the decoration computer screen. Once finished, we took the two sets of pictures and cut them apart. You can request the photos emailed to you in addition to hard copies using the photo booth after you're done decorating your pictures. Also, the purikura area always provides scissors to cut your pictures apart. Lots of people put the little photos on their phones or other electronics as decoration.

Because we apparently have unfailing energy, we then went to Harajuku so I could show my mom a young people fashion hub in Tokyo. It's a cool shopping area with tons of clothing shops and also many crepe shops. I bought a strawberries and cream one. 

diabetes, yay

Speaking of diabetes, we stopped in an adorable sweets shop where the staff are making the sweets they sell right in front of you. They even said it is ok to take pictures when I asked. I love these lollipops, so cute! The shop is called Candy Showtime.

 watermelon lollipops being made at Candy Showtime

Harajuku is also home to this little treasure. This is a super small shop, but there are larger branches elsewhere.

Condomania

I found a Pikachu condom here 5 years ago, wish they still carried them.

Once my mom and I were done with Harajuku we went back to Imperial for the night.

７月１２日（日：to Tokyo 1st trip）

I went with my mom to Tokyo on the 新幹線 (shinkansen, bullet train) today. When riding the shinkansen you have the choice of reserving seats ahead of time or just showing up. We just showed up and got on a train. The only times when not having a reservation might be a problem is around New Years when everyone takes some time off and goes to visit family. New Years is huge in Japan. Christmas is actually somewhat observed, but is seen as a sort of date holiday for couples and doesn't often involve family gatherings.

That aside, station shops (especially in hub stations) are really amazing. There are usually several お土産 (omiyage, souvenir) shops and various food shops as well. The souvenir shops sell many specialties from various regions in the area where the station is located, just in case you didn't have time to buy some local specialties for friends back home before arriving at the station!

Shin-Osaka Station is where we had to leave from for Tokyo, and I was amazed also by the bathrooms. As silly as it sounds, I will share some pictures.

The plants are plastic but this is still super luxurious in feel. There were even ambient sounds from the stalls. Inside most public toilet stalls in Japan there is a motion detector you can put your hand near to activate, and it will make sounds of water or nature to shield the sound of you doing your business. I guess some people are very shy of their bodily functions, and this provides comfort. It's actually a pretty nice idea, but unusual and amusing from a Western perspective.

Apparently people have been stealing toiletries from the bathroom stalls. These signs are asking passengers to please stop doing this, because it is becoming a problem for the station. The worried bear and sad bunny staff member characters are super cute that, it sort of cracks me up.

Sometimes these are in the US, but we need more of them.

Ease of mind, super useful!

Easier and less wasteful than covering the whole seat with toilet paper.

 

 This is an anti-theft SOS button. I guess it must relate to the message about toiletries theft. The station must have installed these in the hope it would eliminate the problem, and that other customers will alert the station if they see criminal activity.

My mom and I accidentally got on a car for reserved seats at first and realized when hearing the announcements we had to change cars. Luckily, there are doors connecting all the cars so we just had to run several cars to unreserved seats. We bought boxed lunches at a food shop in the station and eat them on the train. Look how cute they are!

mine

my mom's

An explanation of where all my ingredients came from on the inside of the top flap! For the most part from around Kansai.

my amazing lunch, nom nom

We were a bit early to our reservation at 新宿区役所前カプセルホテル (Shinjuku Kuyaku-mae Capsule Hotel) despite getting lost on the way, but the staff allowed us to check our luggage with them and we went to a British pub chain called HUB for some wine and a pint of Bass Pale Ale. It was my first time having it and the best beer I've had so far on the trip. Selection's a bit limited, but I shouldn't complain!

Bass Pale Ale at HUB

 

some wall decor:

cute

haha yes

 

 

After a short break we went to see what our capsule rooms were all about. There is one women's floor and two men's floors, plus a common-space floor for hanging out, laundry, and eating meals. Each floor has a password to enter the living space, but suitcases don't get lockers. If you trust your fellow travelers, this arrangement is fine. I usually have a suitcase lock, so I'm never too worried about someone carrying out my whole suitcase. There are small lockers for slippers, pajamas, and towels that they provide for your stay. Each capsule has a solid screen your roll down over the opening to your room, it doesn't actually close you in, so it is not as claustrophobia-inducing as I expected. It's not incredibly private, but it is comfortable!

women's floor: lines of capsules, top and bottom

my bottom capsule

screen open view

sumou on TV!

screen closed view

more sumou :)

as you can see you are provided with a blanket an pillow

the bottom mat is firm but comfortable

inside toward the back of the capsule you have tv/radio controls

no headphone plug, but one outlet, and volume and channel controls so you can watch tv quietly with your head near the speakers (in the control panel) and not bother your neighbors

you even get a small mirror if you want to do makeup, check yourself, or take shamelessly lame selfies

my space!

After checking in my mom and I decided to see ひつじのショーン (hitsuji no shoun, Shaun the Sheep) at an 映画館 (eigakan, movie theater) nearby. It is a huge theater, but theaters in Japan are a considerably different experience from the US. For one, US cinemas are usually sprawling: you walk along a long hall of theaters to find your own. In Japan, space is limited so the movie theater construction migrates up... you take escalators up from the ground floor where you buy tickets and concessions up to your theater's floor.

It may just be my perception because we went to the theater on a weekend, but it seemed to me as though movies in Japan are more likely to see out hours ahead of time. My mother and I had to buy our tickets, leave, and come back. The movie was subbed with Japanese where English appeared, which was infrequently, because Shaun the Sheep does not require spoken words, only written signs and such at times since it's 子供向け (kodomomuke, for children).

The capsule hotel is surprisingly comfortable. Showers are equipped with all the soaps you could need and more, and the pajamas are very nice. The sinks even have facial soap, disposable toothbrushes equipped with toothpaste, hair dryers, and lotions at the side. I would, and indeed will, stay again!

yeah pajama! 

(sign behind me says "smoking prohibited")

７月１１日（土）

We fit Kyoto into our sightseeing schedule today, which meant one Shinto shrine and one Buddhist temple. I got to take my mom to one of my favorite places in the world: Fushimi Inari Shrine. It's supposed to be watched over by the fox god Inari, so there are fox sculptures all over. The main shrine is at the bottom of a hill, but the paths going uphill and around all the sub-shrines are the really impressive part. The paths up and down span about 4 km, and almost all of that is covered by orange 鳥居 (torii, arches). The nature on the hillside is breathtaking as well.

the station by the shrine greets you with the name of the shrine,

you pass a railroad crossing,

and vendors line the street up to the entrance to the main shrine
selling various snacks and souvenirs like ice cream, chopsticks, mini towels, etc.

We stopped to eat たこ焼き (takoyaki, spheres of dough and octopus cooked on a specific grill) on our way to the shrine from the station. It's common to put mayonnaise and fish flakes on top, but we're not fond of mayonnaise, so we got fish flakes only. Fish flakes are put on top of hot foods like takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Japanese people always point out to foreigners that the heat of the food makes the flakes "dance" or fluctuate.

takoyaki, yum

While we're talking about food: I also ate 日本酒アイス (nihonshuu aisu, sake ice cream) today. There are often many flavors offered at stands in Japan that are hard to come by in the US. Some of these include あずき (azuki, red bean), ごま (goma, seasame seed), 桜 (sakura, cherry blossom), and ベニモ (benimo, purple potato). Benimo is actually harder to find, it is a bit of an Okinawan specialty.

Next we went to the shrine, before we entered the area, though, we had to wash our hands and mouths.

 

basin for hand and mouth rinsing prior to entering the shrine,
you are expected to cleanse before entering sacred space

instructions for proper hand and mouth washing

Shrines have a lot of ways of getting money from visitors. One is the selling of お守り (omamori, amulets for a variety of purposes). There are varieties for passing entrance exams, economic fortune, traffic safety, even safe delivery of a baby. Just about any situation you may worry about, the shrine sells an omamori addressing your concern.

There are also おみくじ (omikuji, fortunes).

omikuji boxes

To have your fortune told by an omikuji slip, you need to take one of these boxes and shake it upside-down until one of many thin wooden sticks inside makes its way through the one small hole in the top of the box. You read the number on the stick, and convey that number to a shrine maiden working the stand where you can buy omamori. The number on the stick corresponds to a particular fortune slip. Once you buy the omikuji slip, you read your fortune, fold it into a strip, and tie it onto a frame provided for omikuji in the area of the shrine. Not all omikuji fortunes are positive, they are frequently neutral or negative. The reason you tie the slip to a frame near the shrine is so that your good fortune will be recognized and protected by the god of the shrine, or that your bad fortune will be ameliorated. 

frame for omikuji slips

There are 絵馬 (ema, wish tablets) that you can buy, write your wish and name on, then leave at the shrine to be conveyed to the gods of the shrine. The ema at Fushimi Inari are unique, made to look like orange torii.

Fushimi Inari's ema

You can see why the ema are shaped this way when you see the pathways up the hill at Fushimi Inari.

entrance to the pathway up the hill at Fushimi Inari

The paths branch at a couple places but are not complex, the areas are easy to navigate. Look how beautiful this place is.

                                       fox statue                                           off the path, in the woods

 these torii stretch on for miles
companies or individuals who donate a certain sum to the shrine get a torii on this path with name engraved on the supports

 

facing out from the path 

                                  

石灯籠 (ishitourou, stone lanterns)

 

highest shrine area on the mountain

My mom and I got all the way to the top! It was quite a hike and the weather this summer in Japan is especially hot and humid. Apparently people are being hospitalized... fortunately, we haven't been! Mom said that Fushimi Inari "puts St. Paul's Cathedral to shame" with the amount of climbing we had to do! JAPAN!

 

                    bridge on the way down                                 running water by the path

There are also some funny things at the sub-shrines, fox head ema for example.

fox head ema

The ema are designed with just ears and two black lines to indicate eyes on a white fox head shape. Somehow, people became obsessed with drawing various faces on these ema and the trend caught on. I don't know how long this has been a tradition but two years ago these were the norm, and apparently nothing has changed! They are very cute and funny, you can see a variety of impressively detailed and goofy faces.

My mother and I saw our fill of Fushimi Inari and went to a different part of Kyoto to meet Etsushi. He agreed to take us to 清水寺 (kiyomizu-dera, Kiyomizu Temple). It is a great place to see 紅葉 (kouyou, autumn colors) when the leaves all change in the fall. Unfortunately I didn't get autumn pictures, but here are some summer views.

the Kiyomizu-dera "stage"

view from Kiyomizu's stage

mom and me on the stage

Just for fun...

saw a geisha on our way

there are visitors to Kyoto who dress as in this style (commonly called maiko) as a tourist experience who are not geisha

but Etsushi suspects this woman was actually a geisha, because she seemed accustomed to people taking her photo and posed calmly, and maintained composure

Etsushi playing with my camera, goofball!

Culture note: 神社 (jinjya, shrines) are Shinto, and 寺 (tera, temples) are Buddhist. Westerners are often confused by the fact that religions in Japan harmoniously coexist. Shinto and Buddhism are not religions in the sense Westerns tend to think. They are not intolerant of other ways of understanding the world in the way Western religions tend to be. There are many Japanese Christians, and even they often attend shrines and temples. The practices of Shinto and Buddhism are built into Japanese society. For example, weddings are conducted in Shinto practice, generally, and funerals in Buddhist practice. The observance of one belief does not detract from observance of the other. The best way I can describe the situation is that Shinto and Buddhism are parts of Japanese culture and ceremonial occasions.

Holiday: I wanted to mention in an earlier post but lost track of time, Tanabata Festival went by before I realized it. The legend surrounding the festival is that the deities and lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi (also seen as stars) are separated from each other by the milky way, and only allowed to meet one day a year: July 7. The celebration is usually observed by the placing of trees and branches in public streets, in malls, at shrines, and just about everywhere, where you can write your name and wish on a slip of paper, and tie it to the tree/branch. I wish I understood more about the significance of the festival, but despite having written a few Tanabata wishes in the past and speaking with many acquaintances about it, I am still unclear on the details. Many stores sell small Orihime and Hikoboshi trinkets in late June and early July.

Tanabata display in Hirakata-shi Station

(All names used in this blog are pseudonyms.)