Display by Label: Japan

Saturday, we went into New York to see a show. Hoshi was wearing her brand-new Jersey plates, which we had finally gone and picked up earlier that morning at the DMV. It was strange seeing her in that sickly yellowish color grade instead of the strong DC blue and white and red. But ugly as the NJ plates are, they do manage to give us a sense of "belonging" here. Because now when people randomly honk at us for accelerating at a normal rate instead of immediately hitting 60 from a dead stop (we can't all be like some blondes), we understand that what they are saying to us is: "Hey, Brother. Fellow New-Jersian. Look, I'm sorry to seem rude, but it's out of the utmost respect that I must give you this little toot of my horn, and beg of you, kind sir, to let's please have a move on, shall we?" And not: "Get out of my way you ridiculous foreigner with your out-of-state plates or I will drive over your ass and you will hurt mightily." It's a subtle difference, but I hear it now, and I get it. And I feel the love.

Since we were heading up-town, we took the Lincoln tunnel. Our other trips into the city had been via the Holland, so this was new territory for us. We had a Google Maps printout along with C's Blackbery Navigator. But all our modern navigational accoutrements couldn't anticipate a road closure on the other side. We were supposed to take this particular ramp that would take us to the West Side Highway via 42nd, but when we were delivered out of the depths of the tunnel into the city, we discovered it was tragically blocked off for no apparent reason. Just these menacing orange cones standing in our way between here and there. And the really frustrating part was that we could see clearly that if we had gone through the right-most tube of the tunnel, we would have come up exactly where we wanted to be and would have had no problem entering the ramp. But having gone through the left-most tube, we couldn't cut over. Or rather, we could. It was possible. It's just that these cones were in our way. Funny the influence that cones have over our driving, isn't it?

Okay. No problem. We'd just resort to our instinctual "city sense," you know, the kind that naturally develops after four years of driving around Washington DC, with its strange two-ways that become one-ways or that dead end altogether, only to resume a couple of blocks later, and the circles and diagonal state streets intersecting the letters and numbers at random places. With C navigating and me driving, we'd be good. If by "good" you meant taking a series of "gut-instinct" turns only to wind up on a one-way stretch of pavement that took us straight back into the Lincoln heading west into New Jersey. There was no passing "Go." No collecting $200.

I guess if you wanted to put a positive spin on all of this, you could say that we enjoyed our trip through the Lincoln so much, we were willing to pay another $8 to do it all over again. Back on the Jersey side, even though there were more orange cones indicating to me that I should not, under any circumstances, cut back over to the east-bound lanes, I had no more patience for their senseless warnings. And so I cut across anyway. Because I had no doubt that if we continued on our current trajectory we might wind up in Pennsylvania. And I was in no mood for a cheesesteak. I felt I might have a harder time getting away with a cone-crossing move now that I had local tags. Because one advantage of being a foreigner is that people are a little more forgiving of you, even if it's with an attitude of "you poor sod, go on, then." But nobody said anything. Not even a honk. I really don't think it matters what you do on the road here, as long as you do it quickly and decisively.

So we paid our $8 and went through the tunnel again, this time going through the right-most tube, and we finally made it to the Upper West, and even found street parking, which was a bonus. And while I'd love to tell you that all of this effort was for some Broadway show like Avenue Q, or Wicked, or Grease, that shit just ain't the truth. The truth is that we were heading to Symphony Space to see 5 Centimeters Per Second, which was showing as part of a "Children's Film Festival" there. C is on a mission to make me an anime fan. And I have to admit that this series of three short films went a long way toward that goal. It was definitely my kind of story, laced with just the right blend of tragic longing and melancholy. Makoto Shinkai is a master at making the viewer ache along with the characters. The final film in the trilogy was a little disappointing, but the first two were great. Here's a trailer, though the narration is kind of bad. One reason I liked it so much was that Shinkai loaded the film with all of these visual details of Japanese culture. Weird little things like the hand rings in the subway, or the water bottles, or the coffee machines. And it all really brought back our trip from last year.

After the show, we met up with Kelly and her friend, walked around central park a bit, and then stopped for dinner at a grill where I ordered Shepherd's Pie and Guinness in honor of St. Patty's Day. And while we did manage to do the Lincoln in only one trip on the way back, we couldn't help but experiment with an alternate route back to our house, which wound up taking us way out of our way and through Newark. Unfortunately, the best way to learn your way around a city is to get lost in it a lot, and we still have a lot of learning to do.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Hoshi  Ho_Hum  Japan  Movies  NY  Weekend 

Some memorable things about Japan, in no particular order:

1) Vending machines. In Japan, if you need a coffee, or a bottle of water, or cigarettes, or a soft drink, you don't need to look far. Ever. There are vending machines all over the place. And I'm not talking about just in the urban areas. I mean everywhere. I'm a huge fan of this. Especially because the stores and restaurants close pretty early - 9:30 or 10:00 - but because of these you can still pick up necessities. Namely, caffeine (which I need on a fairly regular basis) and nicotine (which I no longer need, but with it pushed in my face all the time, it was pretty hard to resist). Interestingly, not many of the machines have food.

2) Okay, now where do I put this stuff? In contrast to the ubiquitous vending machines, trash cans are surprisingly difficult to find. Surprising because Japan is so damn clean. The subway. The streets. The constructions sites. Tidiness is everywhere. And yet just try to find a simple trash can. What's a salary man to do when he's done slurping down his can of coffee in the morning? The answer is he has to pack that trash, buddy. You know, like when you're hiking. And when you go to throw it away, don't just toss it in the bin. Separate that shit, man. Now you're thinking Japanese. Before people got off the shinkansen, I saw them packing up their trash and then they'd put it neatly in the appropriate bin, separated by paper, plastics, etc. I didn't get a chance to find out if the movie theaters were the same way.

3) Girl's fashion. By American standards, many girls in Japan dress a little like - how can I put this nicely - porn stars. And yet, somehow they carry it off innocently. Like it's your sister or something. You feel bad looking. But come on. The high heels, black or white stockings that go up just above the knee, short skirts that stop just below the . . . crotch. (Gulp.) A bit of bare thigh in between. The affected pigeon-toed walk. It doesn't matter what age or orientation you happen to be. You'd have to be dead or blind not to turn your head. Actually, I think even the blind could hear these outfits. I guess this is why there are special subway cars in the morning that are for women only. Apparently there is a 'groping problem.'

4) The incongruities. Japan's culture is full of contradictions. It's architecture is a conflicting mix of old and new, a battle between dirty urban sprawl and manicured parks. Peaceful elegant shrines and castles minutes from gaudy neon lights and boring office buildings. High and low fashion worn side by side. A teen wearing Gucci sunglasses underneath a baseball cap that says Lynard Skynard. Or pearls and high heels while playing a game of catch in the park. It's a culture of politeness, where each time a server comes to your table she literally says, "I commit a rudeness," where people will say nothing and look at their feet rather than tell you you are wrong, where the word "no" is rarely spoken. And yet in the subway or on the bus people have absolutely no problem pushing and shoving each other like elementary school kids running for the playground. I guess that it's universal: being on time trumps manners any day.

5) Acupuncture. You don't necessarily need to speak the same language to get good medicine.

6) Fish auction. If you missed it before, here's the video and a few shots.

7) The shinkansen. Do not dilly-dally when boarding or exiting the shinkansen. If you do, it will leave without you . . . or with you. It doesn't care, either way.

8) Breakfast at the ryokan in Hakone. I love breakfast. It's my favorite meal. I love waking up and making coffee and having eggs or pancakes or biscuits or cereal. It doesn't really matter what you feed me. At least I thought that was the case. But I have to admit that when I woke up to this, egg in miso, big salty fish, seaweed . . . well, it put my breakfast stomach to the test. But I still ate it all. Or most of it, anyway. I think there was one thing I passed on. I'm unable to describe exactly what it was. Really.

Okay. That's it. And here's another gallery for Hakone and Kyoto.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Japan 

My blog-posting plans fell a little short of my goal for Japan. I kind of new they would. Oh well. Good thing I don't do this for a living. Anyway, here's a little about our last several days there . . .

Saturday night we had a really nice dinner with the whole family, plus Mitch, Naoko, and a few of their friends. Then Sunday, Mitch, Naoko, C and I took the shinkansen to Nagoya and headed straight to M & N's apartment. We grabbed dinner at Mos Burgers, which is a burger chain in Japan that markets itself as a slightly 'healthier' alternative to MacDonald's. I had a chicken teriyaki sandwich. The trick to Japan and food is the portions are smaller. I left feeling satisfied, but wanting a bit more, which is perfect.

After Mos, We headed over to the Nagoya Dome to watch the Dragons play the Swallows. Baseball in Japan is a pretty cool experience. There are a lot of ritualized chants and cheers. When the home team is up to bat, the chanting begins. They're lead by a really dedicated (volunteer) fan base. I took a bit of video when one of the favorite players stepped up, but I'm having a hard time getting it up on YouTube or Google Video right now. Will keep trying. When the other team bats, the stadium generally falls silent, which is kind of strange. There's no booing or anything. Japan is a positive reinforcement kind of culture, I guess.

The next couple of days we hung out with M & N in and around Nagoya. We saw Inuyama Castle, which is the oldest castle in Japan - with the original structure still in tact - as well as Nagoya Castle. We also did quite a bit of shopping for gifts and souvenirs. Nagoya is a big shopping city. In fact, it reminded us a little bit of Dallas in that regard. We broke down the different cities we saw this way: Tokyo = New York; Kyoto = San Francisco or Seattle; Osaka = Las Vegas; and Nagoya = Dallas. Mitch thinks Osaka is a little more like Chicago in temperament, which is probably true. We were mainly thinking in terms of the bright lights and neon.

As fate would have it, Mitch's apartment is literally next door to a back rehab clinic, so we stepped in to see if we could make an appointment. They were very friendly and the rates were extremely reasonable so I wound up having two sessions - one involving the application of these suctioning electrode doo-dads (I believe that's the technical term) and the other involving a round of acupuncture. Receiving acupuncture from a doctor in Japan who doesn't speak English was one of the more memorable moments of the trip for me. Mitch was there one of the days, and was able to translate. But the other day, he had to work. So Naoko came with me and was able to help a little, but her English is more limited. So we got by through the use of phrase books. The doctor used his to tell me I might feel nauseous and dizzy following the treatment and I should get some rest. I used mine to tell him the needles felt strange in my back, but didn't hurt. Before leaving, we bowed to each other a lot and I told him domo arigato (thank you very much) several times, which is the one Japanese phrase I was able to use expertly, thanks to Styx.

Therapy from the Far East. In the Far East. Can't beat it. The treatments really helped, and actually helped me walk somewhat normally the rest of the week. So that settles it, I'm going to look into acupuncture at home.

We had a great time in Nagoya and many thanks go out to M & N for their hospitality. It made the trip to be able to get a true "local's view" of Japan while we were there.

After leaving Nagoya, we spent one final day in Tokyo, and then it was back to DC - and you've already heard about that.

There's a bit more I want to say on Japan, but will save that for later this week. In the meantime, enjoy this photo gallery of our first several days in Japan. These are all from Tokyo. This will be the first of three or four galleries, probably. Since I took over 800 photos, I need to do some weeding out first so as not to completely bore you.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Japan 

I've got a second glass of sake on the way and I'm thinking I could get used to traveling this way. We splurged a bit on the tickets home. Used some miles - and some cash - for an upgrade to business class. Because I don't fly well. Because I'm big and awkward in coach. Because I tend to carry my stress in my spine like a lead pipe for days. A three-hour flight I can handle. But twenty hours of travel - it sort of puts me over the edge. The flight out taught me that. I've had a funny strut for most of my time in Japan as a result. As if I didn't stand out enough already. (Not many tall white guys there, you know.) Anyway: the walk. 'Waddle' is probably the best word to describe it. It was a sort of hunched over, stiff-legged affair, as embarrassing to perform as it is hard to describe properly. Occasionally I'd catch my reflection in a hotel lobby mirror and think, Who is that poor sod? And why the hell does he look so constipated? I'm not sure when it was that my body developed such a cruel sense of humor. I'd like to say, the way I've been walking, I've maybe looked a little like John Wayne. But evoking the image of his famous swagger might be stretching it a bit. In reality, it's nowhere near as manly. Now, let's say the Duke just spent a few nights in a Mexican prison. Now you get the picture.

I've been dreading the flight home. The last couple of days I've been standing a bit more straight. And I've been afraid I would go back to square one. But the wonders of business class have made all the difference. I've got so much room in front of me I can actually sit on the floor and do some simple stretches whenever the mood strikes me. And my seat - wonderful, roomy seat - is large enough that I can shift this way and that, achieving several different positions effortlessly. Not just the single position I maintained on the way out. My shoes are off, feet slightly elevated by the foot rest . . . I'm downright comfy. And damnit, I really wish somebody would bring me a vine of fresh grapes already and hand feed them to me!

Speaking of food, let's walk through the lunch menu, shall we? We started out with warm nuts, followed by a salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing and a few sushi rolls on the side. I ordered a glass of Gekkeikan Horin Daiginjo Sake to wet the palette. Then came the main course, Madeira Chicken with linguine in a basil cream sauce, followed by desert: vanilla ice cream in a strawberry sauce and walnut cookie crumble topping. Delicious. It's been kind of like traveling in a restaurant. I won't even tell you what I had when I was in coach. It kind of brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

Oh, hold on just a second . . . I see the waiter - I mean flight attendant - now.

Eh hem. Yes, excuse me. Be a dear and hurry up with that second glass of sake, would you? I'm feeling a bit parched.

I think I'll have a nap now. I'll get back to you in a bit.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Japan  Travel 

The pace has been pretty hectic. I've been jotting down notes and observations, which I'll probably post later, but I guess I'm not a very good gonzo journalist. I like to make edits. I like to refine a bit before I post. So for now, I'll just make a quick update while I still have Internet access.

Kyoto was great. It's been my favorite city, so far. Loved the Geisha district - called Goin. Kyoto is very 'old Japan.' Charming streets. After Kyoto, we went to Osaka, which was much more industrial. Mitch tells me the people in Osaka are known for being more laid back and lively. The city itself is a little more 'industrial.' A little more 'blue collar.' We went to an area called 'Namba' at night, which was a very young area full of arcades and lights and general craziness. It was like Las Vegas. We also mistakenly trekked through the 'red light' district. We wanted to take pictures, but thought it might be a bad idea.

Now we're back in Tokyo. Mitch met us last night and we're going to go down to where he and his girlfriend Naoko live in Nagoya. They just moved into a new place and are still waiting for their internet to be installed, so I may not be able to get online for a few days, which is probably a blessing in disguise. We'll be back in Tokyo Wednesday and then, sadly, it's home to DC on Thursday. (And in a neat twist of time, we'll arrive in DC before we leave Japan.)

I can't believe it's almost over.

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I'm posting Japan time, so for those of you reading back in DC, I am future Dave. Sorry, I know I'm making too much of this, but I'm kind of a geek about this time travel business.

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The hotels change, but the scene stays pretty much the same. Breakfast. Gentle music plays over the speakers, barely audible. Japanese, with their heads down, quietly eating their salads, their soft-boiled eggs in miso. It's quiet. Awfully quiet.

And then, from the back of room - it's hard to ignore. A cacophony of voices, each struggling to be heard over the other. Booming noises in an expanse of silence.

Now transfer this to any of a number of settings. The bus. The metro.

Breaking the silence. It's us. We are Americans - and we are loud.

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I thought it would be hard to wake up at 4 am to go to the fish market. I hadn't accounted for the wonders of jet lag. I opened my eyes at 2:30 am Monday morning. I tried to get them to close again for another half-hour and then decided I might as well get up. I took a shower, did some stretches and, since we were checking out later that morning, packed my bag. Still had time to spare for our 4:30 am departure. We took a cab to to an intersection near the fish market in Tokyo and walked a half-mile or so to where the auctions took place. Still dark, the various vendors setting up their stores, the workers zipping around on their motorized flat-bed carts - I understood that this was another world. A microcosm where everybody seemed to have a function, performed with fluid precision, and we were the strange foreign bits that bumped and bumbled our way through its arteries.

We were one of the first of the bystanders to show up at the auction area. There were large frozen tunas spread out on the floor of a warehouse and men were numbering them and cutting their tales open so the meat could be analyzed. The scene was pretty barbaric - nightmarish, even - if you happened to be a tuna. After a half-hour or so, the auctions began. A man stood on a stool and clanged a bell loudly in the air. The clanging got louder and more frantic until it stopped suddenly as the bell was clapped decisively on the ground. Then the man bowed and began chanting and doing a kind of strange auction dance. I shot some video, because it's something you just have to see and hear for yourself.

Still very early, we rode an eerily silent metro back to the hotel and ate breakfast. We checked out around nine and went on our way to Hakone with Ian's friend Endo-san. There, we stayed at a traditional ryokan and ate elaborate traditional Japanese meals and took dips in the communal hot spring baths, or onsen. Maybe it was just the fact that we'd been to the fish auction earlier that morning, but it seemed like the entire ryokan smelled like fish. Also, I was continually made aware that my height was . . . above average. For instance, when I stood at the mirror in the dressing room, my head was chopped off. The sink came to just above my knee. I had to bend through doorways. And there was not one pair of slippers I put on in which my heal did not rest flatly on the ground. I felt like a giant. Despite the fishy smell, and the fact that I felt like a guest in the home of Bilbo Baggins, the ryokan was an incredible, and truly authentic, experience. Many thanks to Endo-san for making it possible.

While in Hakone, we visited the Open Air Art Museum, which has been my personal highlight of the trip, so far. The museum features an incredible sculpture garden that puts the Hirshhorn's to shame, as well as a great collection of lesser-known Picasso's, including several interesting clay plate-ware pieces he had done in the 50's. I snapped several pics including this and this.

My fear of heights was tested as we rode the Hakone Ropeway, the longest gondola ride in Japan (33 minutes), across the Owakundani Gorge (Great Boiling Valley), where our little cable car was engulfed by sulfuric fumes.

Monday night at the ryokan, we all retired early to our gender-segregated rooms where our floor mats had been set out and made for us. I'll say this: vacationing with C's family is an athletic experience which requires strength and conditioning. You rise early, play hard, and struggle to stay awake through dinner. Then you get up the next day and do it all over again. It's great fun.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Japan 

First of all, not only did we not feel any earthquake yesterday, we had no idea there even was one until this morning. We're a bit in our own world, I guess. Earthquake aside, here are some highlights from Day 2 in Japan. In the morning, we took a mini-tour of the city which included: a trip to the top of Tokyo Tower (Tokyo's version of the Eiffel), a wet walk through the Meiji-jingu Shinto shrine, which was beautiful, despite the pouring rains; a stroll through the Imperial Palace gardens; and finally shopping and people watching in Ginza, Japan's equivalent of Times Square. We ate yakitori at Torigin Honten restaurant, where all of us gaijin were put in our room away from the others. We ended the evening eating Shabu Shabu with Ian's friend Endo-san and his wife. We all got a little drunk on Sake, which in Japan is an excuse to say inappropriate things. We went to bed early so we could rise at 3:30 am for a trip to the fish market. More on that later . . .

Some observations: I love how everything is so automated and organized in Japan. The construction sites are clean. They have a little thing you can press at the hotel elevator which is specifically for ridding yourself of static electricity. The soap dispensers are automated. High end toilets have all these sophisticated buttons, which you need a manual to operate. But if you know what you're doing you can give yourself a little wash and blow dry after your through with business. We didn't get that far, but we did enjoy the heated seats.

Keep an eye on the photo blog for ongoing photos.

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When you get an hour of sleep, it's really not sleep. It's really not even a 'having gone to bed' in the proper sense. When you get one hour of sleep it's more like a 'having drifted off.' It's something you do maybe while watching TV on Wednesday night. Oops, I drifted off. But last night - Last night? Surely more time has gone by. What do I call it now that I've crossed the International Date Line? 'Night before last?' How about 'the last time it was night.' That works. - The last time it was night, I went through the motions of 'going to bed.' At 1:45 am, I brushed my teeth. I urinated. - Upstairs. In Doug's vacant place. Because we're still without an operating toilet. - I crawled into bed and set the alarm for three. That's A.M. When you do something like that, when you set an alarm for a time that is only an hour away, it seems like an okay idea at the time. It seems like that one hour of sleep is going to be great and you'll wake up refreshed and get on with getting to the airport. Because you're heading to Japan, after all, and that will be exciting, won't it? But then 3 am hits like a rear end collision, out of nowhere, and you find yourself struggling to acknowledge the situation. You squint at familiar things and wonder if they're real. You wonder how something could be so cruel as the sound of news coming from a clock radio at three in the morning.

Yesterday, which was Thursday, but which is now - as I type this - actually 'two days ago,' we had our tub glazed. It turns out that tub glazing is a pretty messy and foul-smelling thing to have happen in your apartment. Particularly the night before you're going to catch a 6 am flight from Dulles Airport to Japan by way of DFW. Much of the apartment smelled like a nail salon, one that had been inexplicably built on top of a chemical processing plant. The lingering fumes made your eyes water. I was mildly horrified. There was also a white film over everything in the kitchen, a by-product of the whole glazing process, apparently. The film was some kind of dust. I'm still not sure if it was toxic dust or not. I'm hoping not.

After opening every window in our apartment and vacating for a while, I came back and began the arduous task of wiping the dust off of every square inch of the kitchen. I have a thing, see. I can't leave on vacation with the kitchen dirty. It's a small thing, but a thing nonetheless. With the windows wide open, our neighbors over on 10th street had a great view of me standing at the sink with just my boxers on and a white safety mask covering my face. Around 9 pm, I settled down to a wholesome frozen pizza in the living room. AC fan running. Windows wide open.

And that was the situation as I remember it: nine in the evening. Heading to Japan in a few hours. Hair-curling fumes sifting through the cracks in the door. Not one item of clothing in a suitcase. You'd think I'd be a little nervous. But I've gotten used to the chaos. I've gotten used to working indian-style at a coffee table while men pound at my bathroom walls. I've gotten used to living out of a duffel bag. I've gotten used to walking eight blocks to the gym when the smell of myself becomes unbearable and I need a shower. I've gotten used to riding the waves. Going with the flow. And I knew the packing could wait a little longer.

C got home around ten. We started packing around 10:30, and as I've already indicated, we wrapped up around 1:45.

Which brings us to now. The present. If that's what this is. According to my Mac, it's 9:34 pm in DC now. So in that sense, it's still yesterday. However, in another sense it's 10:34 in the morning in Japan. And my mind and body are somewhere in between, in the last hours of a 13-hour flight from Dallas. It's dark inside the plane, but brightness leaks through the cracks beneath the shades. Babies are crying. There is a restless energy everywhere. People are reaching their breaking point. Including me. I'm somewhere over the Pacific. But that doesn't really matter. The present feels malleable. I barely remember the flight from Dulles to DFW now. I sort of remember eating breakfast burritos at the airport in Dallas. Then, some 11 hours ago we got on this plane, where I've been alternating between painful sitting and painful standing ever since. One Celebrex and one Aleve down, a second round standing by on my tray table, waiting for water to wash them down. The AS is really flaring up. When I get up from my seat, I walk like a bow-legged cowboy.

I know Japan is going to be amazing. I know it's going to be fun and exciting. A complete sensory overload. But so far, the first 18 hours of the journey have been more like . . . oh what's the word . . . hell. Yes, if Dante had lived today, he might have made The Inferno one long plane ride.

When I post this, C and I will have already landed in Tokyo, taken a train from the airport, negotiated a taxi ride from Shinagawa Station to the hotel. The line between sleeping and waking will have been a fine one. I hope I can remember the journey. I'll have to rely on the pictures.

Tomorrow will be an actual tomorrow, not a half day that becomes a premature tomorrow. Let the fun begin.


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