One of my many pet peeves is people who start taking out their hand luggage from overhead bins before the plane has rolled to its gate.
I now have a new hero: Steven Slater, a disgruntled JetBlue steward.
Who, according to news had an adverse reaction to a misbehaving passenger.
Grabbing a beer off a cart before disembarking the plane via an emergency exit is an appropriate icing on the cake.
Spent one lazy vacation day hiking in Noux national park. The day was hot, and that curtailed the walks.
There are multiple routes in the park – we walked the Falcon and Robin – altogether some seven kilometers.
The falcon takes the high road on top of hilly area. The forest is dry, especially this summer. The path passes by several high cliffs with great views on the shallow lakes in the park.
The forest was very quiet. Apart from a few fellow hikers, no animals were in sight. Even the birds were unusually quiet, perhaps they were taking a siesta in the noon heat.
The robin route skirts around the edge of two lakes, and was quite a bit livelier than the falcon. The highlight of the route was a view on bright white waterlilies, onto one of which a neon blue dragonfly landed for a perfect photo opportunity. Unfortunately the only lens I was packing was a 18-200mm zoom. which didn’t get me quite close enough to the turquoise insect.
As noted above, quite unlike the first visit two years back, the park was rather barren of life. The summer heat has apparently taken its toll on both flora and fauna – but nonetheless the hike was a pleasant one.
And upon talking with the park rangers over lunchbreak, we learned that there’s a brand new route available, so there’s definitely new things to see on the next visit.
Spent a day in central Sweden. In a location that turned out far more historical than initially met the eye.
Allegedly Skara is more than 1000 years old, and definitely an old bishop’s seat.
The town was small indeed, but pleasant in a very laid-back fashion (that probably conceals a massive conspiracy in the best Stieg Larsson fashion).
Missed the second Allsång of the trip by just minutes. The crowd had just ceased singing by the time we arrived. I blame the rain that delayed walking.
Visited Varnhem on the way back to the train to Stockholm in Skövde. The old church / monastery was in impressive condition. Too bad I hadn’t yet read Jan Guillou’s Arn books – they fit well into the history of the area.
Dropped by two museums on the way to Skansen.
Vasamuseum holds the sole remaining 17th century warship. Vasa infamously sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. The ship is a familiar sight, and I only wanted to pick up a book on the salvaging of the ship. The courteous tickets officer let us in for ten minutes. Enough to purchase the book from the giftshop and to snap a couple of quick photos of the ship.
“Watermuseum” Aquaria is a new entry in Djurgården. It is a smallish aquarium, which does pack a few interesting displays. Some of them are pretty much commonplace – after all, in public aquaria coral reefs and South American rainforests are dime a dozen. A swedish river and a mangrove swamp, on the other hand are far more interesting. The latter packed a big school of foureyes – finally managed to photograph the anatomically odd fish. The show was rounded off with an outdoors tank with a swedish catfish. The occupant was initially hard to spot, due to the fish being more than a meter long and sitting quietly on the muddy bottom of the aquarium.
The entry to Skansen proper was surprisingly packed, and the reason presented itself on a schedule. The day was a day for Allsång på Skansen – a huge singalong festival with more than 15000 participants around the Soliden stage. The songs sung ranged from utterly swedish to covers rendered in unexpected fashion (my personal highlight was the opera bass taking on Britney’s Oops I did it again). According to the wikipedia article, the artists on stage included Salem Al Fakir, Gunhild Carling, Drängarna, The Real Group, Thomas Di Leva and Oskar Linnros.
Had to split miday through the festivities to be able to visit Skansen’s Akvariet before it closed at eight. Akvariet, like the tunnelbana, was one of the things I vividly recall from 1981. As far as I can remember the akvariet hosted the very first coral tank I ever saw. The akvariet had changed in the intervening thirty years. The biggest apparent change is the addition of a walk-through cage of ring-tailed lemurs. The funky primates were taking it easy in the cage. Despite visitors the animals did not seem to be bothered at all, but kept a safe distance. In some cases the distance was just a couple of centimeters when the lemurs bounded through the multi-level cage.
The Skansen aquarium was smaller than I remembered. And the truly awe-inspiring dark hall had been repurposed. The coral reefs were pretty, the crocodiles uncomfortably large and toothy. The snakes were more numerous than the last time (including this spectacular horned adder). The zoo offered a possibility to stroke a boa or a tarantula. The latter got far less interest than the big snake. The special exhibit on large spiders got only a fraction of viewers of the rest of the displays. The bird eating saucer-sized arachnids seemed docile enough, but panic would have ensued if one of the tiny terrariums would have been dropped on the floor.
Had a late dinner at Gubbhyllan, a very traditional restaurant located next to the aquarium. Chose an appropriately traditional dish: fried herring. The three medium-sized fish, plentiful potatoes and a surprise addition of lingonberries were just the thing pick off nagging hunger. The dessert – consisting of a trio of swedish cheeses, malt bread and gooseberry jam was a taste explosion on top.
Stockholm and sunny weather was a combination that invited a day on the seas and in the archipelago. On account of not having a full day, we settled on a shorter trip as opposed to a 12 hour two-meal cruise.
Fjäderholmarna (feather islands, of which only one was easily available) are reached with a half an hour journey on a boat. The ride crosses the harbour and provides a great view into the Stockholm waterfront.
The island was billed as a center of craftsmen, with plenty of workshops to visit and browse. In reality the number of shops was small, but at least some of them did contain plenty of interesting objects. Picked up a hollow glass fish – just the thing to hang on the balcony.
Ate a scrumptious meal at the Rökeriet. The restaurant smokes their own seafood, and both the fish and the shrimp were nothing short of excellent. My background as a landlubber surfaced again, there’s a trick on peeling shrimp that persistently eludes me.
Äventyrsgolf (apparently a mini golf course) was shut down for the year, and all the holes carefully excised from the ground. The only real “activity” offered in 2010 was lounging around the cliffs. Nothing wrong with that, obviously, and plenty of people were enjoying the sun.
The Mackmyra facility on the island was quite a disappointment. On account of alcohol monopoly ther were unable to sell bottles of their product, that much I expected. But the unavailability of swedish whiskey by glass struck me as an odd omission. But even odder things were on the cards: the shopkeeper refused to sell t-shirts to anybody who does not own a share of a Mackmyra barrel. Their loss.
Forgot to check whether there were any caches on the island – the environment would have allowed plenty of good hides.
The crowds were plentiful enough in the departure pier, but fortunately the vast majority of them were taking another boat – to Slussen as opposed to our destination.
Spent a good chunk of the second week of the summer vacation in Stockholm.
This was the first visit on swedish soil in close to fifteen years – had transferred in Arlanda multiple times, but hadn’t entered the country.
Flew Blue1, and apart from a way too early wakeup call the flight in was effortlessly pleasant.
Arlanda Express, the fast train between the airport and downtown had a great promotion running – two people into the city for 280SEK, when a single trip was 250.
The hotel, SAS Royal Blue Viking, is next door to the Stockholm Centralstation – nicely continuing the keeping it simple trend. An even more pleasant factoid was the availability of the room at 9 am, definitely above and beyond the call of duty.
Walked around the area and moved over into Gamla Stan, the old town packed with small shops and narrow alleyways. Paraphernalia from the royal wedding was ubiquitous – available in many forms, most of them done at least in semi-decent fashion.
Started the acquisition of home improvement things in Lagerhaus on Drottningvägen – a big bag packed with place mats, silicone ice cube forms and such was full of equipment unavailable (or way more expensive or rare) back home.
Had a mandatory pizza and beer at da Peppe, and pushed on towards Science Fiction Bokhandeln. The shop was even more impressive than I remembered, a two floor structure stuffed with books, comics and games. Apart from the collected edition of Mass Effect: Redemption didn’t find anything absolutely mandatory to buy, so settled on a paperback of Frederik Pohl’s Gateway and a swedish roleplaying game magazine (a domestic hobby industry which seems to be going strong).
Took the tunnelbana back to the hotel. The Stockholm metro is one of the things I distinctly recall from the very first trip abroad back in ’81. An underground train was quite a discovery at an impressionable age. The trains were oddly quiet – I’d expect a lot more clunky design from a decades old construction.
Spent the evening doing more shopping – guided by google maps into the design stores strewn around Sergelstorg. And there’s indeed a few of them around.
Capped the day with a late dinner in Neko – sushi & wok in the Gallerian-mall. They served an amazing Tom Yam soup for a starter, but brought a wrong main course to the table (wussy coconut milk chicken instead of a properly spiced dish). The ice cream desserts were big, and pineapple icecream was impressively served within a frozen shell of a pineapple.
The top floor of the hotel hosted a sky bar with a nice view from the ninth floor. Sampled Nils Oscar’s World Cup Beer – a strange product promoted even when the swedes failed to qualify themselves into the South African event.
Earlier on on vacation finally landed on a finnish island lighthouse after a few false attempts in previous years.
Söderskär, a 19th century lighthouse stands in Sipoo, some two hours boatride away from the Helsinki market square.
The lighthouse itself is an imposing structure. The view from the top covers the baltic in all directions. The lighthouse is situated on the edge of the archipelago, so the sea remains open towards Estonia to the south. The light was decommissioned in the eighties, but the original lamp, a complex glass structure built in France remains at the top.
The stay on the island lasts some two hours, and in the warm and pleasant finnish summer weather, was easily spent just walking around and taking photographs. A supplementary pan-fresh crepe with homemade jam and rum-flavored whipped cream was just enough to sustain the energies high enough.
The lighthouse offers accommodation for visitors. In the actual lighthouse. The price is not that bad, and considering that the island also packs an aging wood sauna, an overnight visit might be something to try out in the future.
The island, or actually islands, there’s two – connected with a suspension bridge, are protected. There are plenty of seabirds nesting on them, and all in all the nature is quite different from mainland. The breeding season is mostly passed. According to the guides, there’s still a few of velvet scoters (pilkkasiipi) and on pair of ringer plovers (tylli) still lounging on the island. Saw the nest of the latter (parent birds absent throughout the visit), but the well-camouflaged nests of the former remained hidden.
Took two trips to Germany in late May.
The first was the annual University of Utah European Alumni meeting.
The reunion took place in Mainz. Taking a flight through Copenhagen to Frankfurt was by far the easiest way to reach the town.
The Isis hotel was next to an ancient Roman theatre, and altogether a pleasant HQ to explore Mainz for a few days.
Prior to the official reunion there was a walking tour through the town. Highlight of the endeavour was a visit to Gutenberg museum, where a replica of the ancient press was demonstrated by recreating a lightly illuminated page from the bible.
The reunion fell traditionally on pentecost, which meant rather expedited shopping (all the merchants, being good catholics and all were shut down on both Sunday and Monday). Picked up some uncommonly spiced mustards and a metal opossum for the garden.
Official part of the reunion absolved me from executive duties (the title of a vice president had not exactly caused massive amounts of work) and provided a sumptuous feast.
Walking back to the hotel had a truly unexpected sight – a flock of flamingoes lounging in one of the city parks. The lighting conditions were very dark, and the Ixus was thus sadly unable to capture any evidence of the pink birds.
The second day was a river cruise. Bacharach was a very picturesque semi-alpine small town, and Oberwesel ran Mittelalterisches Spectaculum, a huge medieval festival. The festival had consumed the town almost totally – all modern conveniences had been either removed, covered or carefully camouflagued. The day was hot, and the huge crowds turned the narrow alleyways tightly packed bottlenecks. Food and drink were traditional – beer barely chilled and definitely unfiltered. A lot of the visitors had taken the trouble of dressing up properly – faded leather and old dresses were very much common sights.
Got reacquainted with flammkuchen – the local variant of pizza. Had eaten one back in 2000, in the reunion in Strasbourg – under the name tarte flambée.
Frankfurt was a necessary stop on the way back due to Blue1 being unable to serve points-flights on the backswing on the most optimal day. A bus tour showed the biggest attractions. Skipped the tour on Senckenberg Museum. The museum provided a nice bit of lunch, plenty of interesting animals and an awesome display of domestic fossils. The big plastic dinosaurs in the yard were a nice bonus on the visit. Other than that, the city was quite well shut down. Fulfilled the schnitzel-quota and tasted the local wheat beer. Both with serious approvals.
The second trip was a semi-regular work trip to Berlin. A city I find myself liking more and more every visit. Ipad was inconveniently sold out, and some of the local shops still resist the lure of credit cards. Other than that, a successful trip once again.
Stockholm is still its old trusty self. Decade-old skills are still valid.
Plenty of retail therapy. A decent pizza. A misdelivered thai dish.
Proper description of the trip later on.
The return from the trip to Japan in April was as effortless as possible.
The distance to Narita from Shinjuku is not a trivial one. And getting to the Finnair plane demanded quite an early departure from the hotel. Debated between using the train (guaranteed duration, but very limited availability) or the ambiguously named “airport limousine”. The latter turned out to be a bus, which speeded to the airport half an hour ahead of the schedule. Convenient, and heavily recommended.
As we were leaving Shinjuku, the first proper rain of the journey fell down. Thus far it had been very much in check, but the skies opened on the motorway towards Narita.
The Finnair counter opened late – there was already quite a queue when the bus arrived. Fortunately the check-in progress was fast.
A far worse piece of news was the utter lack of paper lanterns in the shops’ stocks. For some reason there were none at all available, meaning that the lone blue one from the Tokyo Tower was the only lantern bought.
Concentrated on food as opposed to drink when buying supplies. Got two big satchels of instant miso (hopefully, as no english appeared on the bag), chocolate and fried eel.
The flight to Helsinki glued itself to an unexpected jetstream and landed some fifty minutes ahead of schedule.
Rapid arrival of suitcases on the carousel meant that we were home around the time the plane was originally supposed to touch down.
The last evening of the April grand tour of Japan was spent in the Ghibli Museum.
The museum is located in Mitaka, some 40 minutes away from Shinjuku by train, and requires a ticket purchased in advance.
The former condition is not too bad, the efficiency of the Tokyo municipal traffic system reaches the western suburbs easily.
The latter, on the other hand, needed some hands-on assistance from locals. The tickets are sold in the ubiquitous Lawson stores (think 7-11), but not across the counter. Instead the way to obtain them is to deal with a thoroughly native vending machine. The helpful clerk in the store in the basement of the hotel couldn’t be thanked enough – the purchase was as smooth as they can be.
The train ride took us through the suburbia, and the metropolis quickly gave way to more low-key accommodations. Houses grew in size and the idea of actually owning a car seemed no longer as alien as it had in downtown.
The museum is located some two klicks away from the station. And even if there would have probably been enough time to reach it by walking, it was ar easier to grab the door-to-door bus instead.
Ghibli museum is a single house, positively tiny in comparison to museums of the world. But few other museums pack a roof garden festooned with the robot from Laputa.
The museum is a “no photo”-zone, and I put away the camera for the duration of the visit. Inside that is, the top image of the entry bears witness that photography was kosher outside.
The interior is divided into rooms of various sizes. Some packed with tons of objects and images (storyboarding/animation workshop), some with just a single toy (a cat bus, constrained to kids only). Despite the carefully allocated timeslots for visitors, the museum was quite quite packed. Japanese politeness meant that it was pretty much easy to reach all sights with an appropriate amount of waiting.
The basement of the museum has a movie theatre that shows short films that have not appeared on dvd yet. The movie of the day was Looking for a home. Would have preferred the Mei and the Kittenbus, a surprise continuation of Totoro, but any film that contains images of huge catfish is OK+ in my book.
The giftshop contained both kitch and objects of desire. Didn’t pick up a statuette; they were not really browseable, and I already had Professor Layton claiming a big slice of the suitcase.
Even if the museum closed, the outdoor cafeteria remained open. Capped the visit with a bottle of Ghibli Museum Beer – a brew uniquely available at the location only.
Tastewise the beer was very pleasant – sweeter than the usual Japanese fare, and equipped with a very fancy label.
The local four-wheeled variant of the catbus returned visitors to the train station.
Shibuya, the site of world’s busiest crosswalk is just a stop away from Harajuku.
And quite a busy area it is, indeed. Though not really comparable to the Shinjuku train station, in Shibuya the hecticity is confined to a just a small area, in Shinjuku train station the tsunami of people is just oberwhelming.
Walked around a bit, saw the Hachiko statue (and logged it for the my first ever featured Gowalla spot) and walked around some more.
Avoided the lure of shopping and had a late lunch instead. Gloriously good dim sum in the basement of Seibu was brightened further by the unexpected gift from a neighboring table – a voucher that cut off a significant chunk of the price.
Spent the morning of April 11th in Harajuku.
Meiji Shrine next to the Harajuku railway station was familiar from an earlier visit. The area was as impressive on the second time around. The park was in full bloom, and the visit to the shrine proper capped by a surprise wedding ceremony. The somber-looking priests were wearing the funkiest hats either side of the Pecos river, and the actual proceedings diverted quite a lot from the western norms. Picked up a cache and a mighty thirst. Skipped the garden of the empress, it opened quite late and there was already a queue forming in front of the entrances.
Harajuku itself was empty of cosplayers. According to the travel guides they would congregate into the park in the late afternoon, but we had an engagement with Totoro for that hour. Walked up and down a couple of shopping streets, and picked up the third and fourth shirts of the trip (the former accompanied by gratis shorts).
The clothing on offer was not truly outrageous, though a couple of shops stocked uncommon wares. Some so uncommon, that photography of the shop was allegedly a fineable offense.
The most peculiar sight was a ladies store equipped with an appropriately twee finnish name. “Ehkä Söpö” translates into “Like, Cute”, and fit the profile of the area well.
Continuing the long-drawn-out travelogue from Japan lands us today in downtown Tokyo.
Following the adventuresa in and around the Tsukiji Fish Market it was time to check out the Tokyo Tower.
The tower is a quasi-replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The structure is the same, but material is allegedly much lighter weight. And coloration, obviously is different as well. The peppermint colors comply with air traffic regulations much better than the dirty grey of the original.
The sightseeing platform at 150 meters offered a nice view of the city. The afternoon haze prevented Mount Fuji from being visible, sadly. The higher platform would have cost extra and demanded an extra wait of 30 minutes. Skipping that was not a hard choice at all. Fortunately the elevators were the only elements requiring extra waiting. And ice cream in the cafeteria arrived swiftly and was just the thing to quell the warmth.
The basement of the tower houses an adventure park for children (Nopponland, whose mascots got rampant applause when they put on a show i front of the entrance) and an aquarium.
The aquarium turned out to be massively disappointing. The tanks were small and plentifully overcrowded. Some of the aquaria housed catfish so large they had no real means of moving in their accommodations. The lack of any hiding places only served to increase their stress.
Spent the morning of April tenth (yeah, the reports are rather late) in and around the Tsukiji Fish Market.
Entry was not the most auspicious. Big warning signs along the way from the closest metro station stated that the market was temporarily off limits to “non-business” visitors.
Not so easily dissuaded, decided to go and see what was really going on. And it turned out that the warning was only about the tuna auctions held veruy early in the morning, not the whole market.
The first sight in the area was the massive number of ground-hugging transport vehicles zipping around the area. The flatbed cars were transporting the products to the vans of restaurants and shops that are not allowed to enter the halls.
The halls are vast, and absolutely packed with seafood of all descriptions – the selection ranged from the common (tuna) to truly obscure (sea cucumber) via the ugly (some deep sea crustaceans). Apart from the fish most of the wares were alive, so as to provide as fresh a dish as possible. Some critters were numerous (squid, mantis shrimp) whereas some were confined to one or two specimens on a single vendor’s table.
Photographed without aiming the camera much. The corridors were narrow, people were milling everywhere and the rapidly moving vehicles were a constant hazard and thus a free-ranging paparazzi mode was far easier to use.
While there were plenty of sales made in the halls of the market, it was the surrounding area that had the more consumer-friendly shops. And plenty of sushi restaurants.
Just had to have a breakfast in one – and got treated to likely the freshest sushi dish ever. And one of the cheapest. Close to twenty pieces (both nigiri and maki), a bowl of miso soup (with a bonus shrimp) and an infinite amount of green tea for the equivalent of ten euros is not a typical cost in Finland.
Picked up the second t-shirt of the trip (wrap-around stylized black tuna on white) and some sushi paraphernalia in the barracks next to the market.
A couple of blocks away the market turned a bit more conventional, but still very seafood-related. Ought to have picked up an industrial-sized pack of nori or tasted a proper japanese omelette, but was way too full for the latter and figured that Narita shops would have sources for the former.
A long day had built up quite a hunger, and sadly Akihabara is not exactly packed with quality restaurants. At least ones that project their appeal on the streets.
Finally settled on a chinese restaurant on the top floor of Yodobashi Camera (a tactic that served us well in Osaka), and didn’t come off disappointed at all.
Quite the opposite, the spicy octopus dish (accompanied by an appropriately chilled glass of Ki-Rin) was a gloriously good cap on a day that easily surpassed 20k steps.
It’s been a long time since the previous entry about the April trip to Japan. Been busy and uninspired. Will try to conclude in decent time.
Akihabara had changed somewhat in six years since the first and thus far the only trip there.
The big stores, even chains have taken root and crowded out the weird small shops.
In 2004 it was easy to discover shops packed with old videogames and game soundtracks. This time they were in minority, superseded by ubiquitous porn-games for windows.
The weird shops were close to the metro station, present either as singular windows in buildings, or rather well-hidden in office blocks that show no signs of their contents outside.
Picked up the first t-shirt of the trip (grey on black, always an exuqisite combo) and cemented my position as the premier gaming geek in Nöykkiö by purchasing a Professor Layton figure. Sadly, the soundtracks of the classically-musiced series were nowhere to be found.
Planned to have a lazy morning in Ueno Park, but ended up spending a good chunk of the day there.
The breakfast at the hotel was rather lame, especially when compared to the gourmet offering provided by the ryokan in Kyoto. The dishes ranged from miso soup to scrambled eggs – both japanese and western sides thus covered.
Rode the Yamanote to the Ueno station, the scenery passing by in the windows gives a good view into what one of the largest cities in the world looks like.
The park (like all the others) was covered with blooming cherries, the sense of wonder had started to wane a little bit already.
Ueno zoo was a surprise discovery, and on account of cheap tickets figured that a quick stroll through it would be a good way to build up appetite for an early lunch.
The zoo was actually far more interesting than the advertisements promised, and the lunch was thus quite a bit delayed.
Ueno zoo had lost its biggest attraction, a giant panda, a couple of years back. The enclosures varied a lot. Quite a few of the big critters was stuck into plain concrete (especially the hippopotami seemed rather cramped), but for some the environment had been impressively built. The gorillas had a big forested piece of land to them, as did a lone tiger.
The stars of the show were quite a bit smaller animals. Ueno zoo has a good selection of prosimians. A family of ring-tailed lemurs had an island to themselves, and a nearby area housed a lot of their relatives. Including the very first aye-aye I’ve ever seen. The long-fingered malagasy primates were not very photogenic, their glass-walled terrarium being almost pitch-dark. The woodpecker-equivalent mammals obviously like their surroundings, having procreated multiple times.
Other animals worth a mention are a pair of bears having a morning fight, a mugging tapir, a huge lonely tortoise from Galapagos, and an anteater having a quiet conversation with the sloth housed in the neighboring cage.
Following a quick and cheap lunch in the cafeteria (the first outdoor one of the year) it was time to browse the selection of stuffed animals before exiting. The mascots were indeed plentiful – and amongst them the funky prosimians, mole rats and poison arrow frogs. Quite a positive change from the usual lions and seal cubs.
The neighboring buddhist temple was packed with afternoon visitors. Incense, sacred water and thrown coins dominated the area. The bridge to the temple was full of food carts, their contents far more varied and lucrative from the finnish equivalents – smoked octopus, satay skewers, fresh food and plenty more.
Experimented with Kaiten sushi at a nearby restaurant recommended at the hotel. Too bad the mode of operation outside the rush hour was a la carte. Everything had to be ordered. Tried shako (squilla or mantis shrimp) for the first time. Pleasantly smoky, yet expectedly crustacean taste.
Shopping-wise Shinjuku is either a paradise or a nightmare. Spent a couple of hours in Kinokuniya bookstore and various malls. Picked up a couple of books and a set of bright red hummingbird stickers for boring white walls.
Following the sudden bout of shopping it was time for dinner. The restaurant next door turned out to be a fugu-place. Every item on the english menu had blowfish in them. The japanese menu had helpful pictures of other dishes as well, which meant that there was more than tetrodotoxin available. Sampled the poisonous fish in a mandatory appetizer – smoked skin in clear jelly. No tingling, no other odd effects, but definite relief when the scallops and tunafish arrived.
Too bad the images of the blowfish on the point and shoot didn’t succeed too well. The multiple layers of dirty glass and roiling bubbles in the water threw off the autofocus rather steadily.
The Hikari train worked its way through the Japanese countryside and deposited the passengers on Tokyo station exactly according to schedule.
The way to the Hotel (Best Western in Shinjuku) took a while.
First: halfway round the city in the Yamanote circle line (very convenient, though not the fastest way).
Second: cab to the hotel (which turned out to be just six minutes walk from the station).
The hotel’s reception was on the third floor, but this fact was more than adequately explained in their web page as well as the multiple positive reviews on tripadvisor.
The ground floor was occupied by a Lawson shop (seven-eleven with the serial number altered with acid), and the basement by a sports bar.
The room was small, as expected, but nowhere near cramped. But after the vast tracts of estate available in Kyoto, this was definitely a turn for the worse.
Shinjuku as an area is neon-covered, packed with restaurants, bars and semi-dubious clubs. At least in the daytime it looks safe and pleasant.
Shinjuku station, on the other hand, doesn’t quite reach “pleasant”. The busiest railway station in the world is busy indeed, and so large that its exits number in double figures. The platforms for the yamanote line are easily reached, but all in all the facility looks very much overgrown.
Took the shinkansen train from Kyoto to Tokyo.
The Hikari was nowhere near full, and a very pleasant ride indeed.
No pictures, forgot both the surroundings and the train itself, which both would have been good targets.
No bento box for the train, the breakfast at the hotel was plentiful enough.
The Ryokan in Kyoto offered genuine japanese breakfast. The dishes were almost completely different on the two mornings.
The first one (of which there’s no pictures) was good all around, with no seriously suspicious items on offer.
The second, however, featured oddities. The main event was an odd organ that tasted mainly of fish. Probably a liver, but possibly something quite else.
Spent the rest of the evening watching a display of traditional Japanese art forms in Gion Corner, where a rapid procession of presentations flicked through theatre, music and others in less than an hour. The attached piece of engrish is not from the cultura centre, it’s of a shop sign near the Kiyomizu temple.
The threate-like building was sold out at least for the first show of the day. Got tickets by just queuing up. The alternative of having dinner first had a credible threat of falling asleep during the quiet parts of the presentation.
The first pieces were also the most boring.
A tea ceremony is not much fun unless you get to participate. At least being watched across a large hall didn’t really wake the need to spend unnecessary amounts of time to arrange and present the tea just so.
The first musical piece was playing the koto. Koto being an overgrown version of the kannel, and the sounds mostly tuneful.
Ikebana, the art of flower arranging, was just about as boring. The artist had some issues with plants that didn’t exactly settele the way she planned. Definitely one hobby to avoid as long as feasible.
Gagaku, court music, was played by a fivesome of guys who had been surgically separated from any sense of the pitch. The atonal mess was accompanied by the prancing and leaping of a lion figure on stage.
Kyogen, a classical low-brow comedy, was rather followable even though it was entirely in japanese. Slapstick mixed with drunkenness is a winning combination. One of the players bore rather striking resemblance to William Shatner (some decades ago).
Visually the most striking presentation was the dance of two maikos, apprentice geishas. The setup was as minimalistic as they go – two girls on stage, heavily made up and dressed in period clothes.
The last part of the show was a short bunraku play. Bunraku is puppetry where the main puppeteer controls the large doll, and is assisted by another puppeteer dressed in black robes (and somewhat hidden from the view). The effect is odd to say the least – in western puppetry the controllers stay out of sight, in bunraku they are a definite part of the act.
Surprisingly enough photography was not banned in the show – it was almost encouraged, with no restrictions on capturing video either. Sadly, the prospect of the latter was forgotten until the end – especially the dancing lion and the maikos would have made a lot more sense with live images rather than stills.
Walked around Gion for a bit after the show, but rising hunger and lowering temperature quickly chased us to a restaurant. A big bowl of noodles and a pint of Sapporo crowned a nicely cultural day.
The afternoon half of the Kyoto monuments tour was devoted to three temples.
Heian shrine is a large shinto temple, where both the boldly orange main temple and especially the surrounding gardens were photogenic. The shrine was in active use – the trees in the courtyard bound full of paper-clippings left by visitors to be blessed by the monks.
The path behind the shrine was a leisurely loop around a lake, packed once again with blossoming cherries.
The second target of the trip, Sanj?sangen-d?, a large buddhist temple was once again a photography-banned zone. The guide helpfully told about confiscated cameras and deleted shots, this quite well tempered the interest to engage in random snapping. The temple had one large room, in which a full thousand statues of Buddha were placed. The standing statues were accompanied by twenty-eight guardian deities – most of which quite imaginative figures consisting of many bits and pieces from different animals. The outside veranda of the temple was used as an archery field – the guide’s explanation made it rather impossible to figure whether the practice still continues.
The third and last stop of the trip, Kiyomizu-dera, is a buddhist temple built on the side of a forested valley just outside the city.
The temple area is rather a bit of a walk from the bus parking lot. The hilly streets are packed with shops, most of which do carry things beyond the most common touristy needs.
Kiyomizu temple is built on a steep hillside, and it partially overhangs the drop. Rather a dramatic change from the common design. In addition to the main temple there’s plenty of other shrines in the area. One of the most prominent is the one dedicated to ?kuninushi, god of love and good matches, who is displayed along with his rabbit assistant in statues and talismans for sale.
The Kiyomizu area provided plenty to see, and we skipped the bus ride back to downtown on purpose. After all, there was still bits and pieces to see about the past culture of Kyoto.
The only full day in Kyoto was mostly spent on UNESCO-approved cultural sights of Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto (Kyoto, Uji and Otsu Cities).
Participated on a two part tour given by the Sunrise Tours. I had taken the first half already back in 2004, but repetition clearly does not hurt when dealing with a city where the main sights are not that easily browsed. We had two guides for the day. Suzuki was the gentleman who dealt with the morning tour – a staccato-speaking professional, who genuinely seemed to care that the participants were around to listen. The afternoon was spent led by a lady who regularly lapsed into strange monologies that rarely had anything to do with the surroundings.
A lot of the day’s targets are indeed parts of a collection of world heritage sites in the area, none of the buildings is independently such a site. As the locations visited were packed with tourists, all the guides carried signals – the best among which was Suzuki’s fish kite.
The first location to visit was Nij? Castle, whose main attraction (in addition to the ban on wearing shoes) is a “nightingale floor” . The boards have been rigged to make noises when the slightest pressure is applied on them, thus easily negating the possibility of unwanted sneaking around in the area. In addition to footwear, photography was also banned.
The second area was named after its most famous building, Kinkaku-Ji, or the Golden Pavillion, but there’s quite a bit more around. On account of a hurreid schedule, missed the attached Zen garden completely (had been there the last time, so this wasn’t a total disaster). The weather was rather plain, and had to juggle the shooting position for the pavillion to capture its entire roof properly instead of it being shown across the whitish sky, the reflection in the lake turned out much better.
The imperial palace was open to general public (usually it’s available for tourists only), and as such the guide warned about hordes of onlookers. The palace area wasn’t really packed with people – the yards are vast, and the day was just starting. The palace itself wasn’t really that impressive (apart from its size), but the surrounding gardens were. They were lush, and contained plenty of water-related elements. My favorite piece was a curved bridge, of which I luckily managed to snap a picture without anyone standing on top.
The morning tour finished off at the Kyoto handicraft center. The seven floor building had not changed since the previous visit. Packed with things to buy – quality varying from true handcraft to mass-produced junk. Purchased a wad of origami paper and a couple of buildings to assemble. The t-shirts on offer were both over-priced and ugly.
The lunch offered by the tour company was of a buffet kind. Some of the dishes were good indeed, but all in all the selection was lacklustre and strangely tasteless.
