Day 4 – Bullet Train to the Other Side
of Mt. Fuji
I started off the morning eating a breakfast buffet served by the hotel. This was
the most food that I ate since the buffet lunch I had two days earlier. With sadness
at leaving Kyoto, I boarded the Bullet Train to Tokyo. The train ride cost $121 and was
well worth it. If you plan on traveling in Japan, you can obtain a rail pass for traveling
all over Japan. The seats are comfortable and you have a lot of leg room. The train
has large windows so you can get good views of the countryside as you speed by over 200
miles per hour. Most of the passengers carried on their own lunch and once one person
started eating everybody else did. From the train, I could see Mt. Fuji, but I was unable
to get a picture. Nonetheless, it was a grand view of this very pretty snow covered and
famous mountain. When I arrived at Tokyo Station, I was able to find an Information Desk,
which gave my a map of Tokyo and directions to my hotel subway stop Ayoyamaitchome Station
on the Tokyo Ginza Line in
Akasaka.
When I finally got to Asia Center
in Akasaka, I felt really let down. First I managed to get lost on foot and walked about a
mile or south towards Roppongi. Luckily a nice Japanese woman who spoke English gave
me the proper coordinates. Unfortunately to get to the Asia Center, the most direct
route was up a large flight of stairs. After carrying my luggage up and down the
stairs of the subway earlier, I was beat. I think I must have walked over 30 miles
during my stay in Japan.
The hotel room was about half normal size and the wonderful service of the
Rihga Royal Hotel was no where to be found. In fact, the Asia Center has pay TV ($1 for 120 minutes).
Then again this was Tokyo, and I really couldn’t argue with the price $65 a night
including tax! The room was small but clean, and I could see a wonderful pine outside and
could hear the sound of many kinds of birds. One tip don't use the clothes dryer
there. It takes an eternity to dry clothes so ends up costing about as much as room
service. Also, I found out later that Akasaka is where the old geisha section used to
be in Tokyo. This area in Tokyo looked and was very safe. In fact, everywhere
I traveled in Japan I felt safe and I don't remember seeing any policeman.
Days 5 through 9 – Tokyo
I really made a mistake spending this many days in Tokyo. Originally, I was going
to shop for Anime cels (animation celluloid’s). When I got to the Anime World Star in
Nakano, I couldn’t find any cels that I liked, and I looked at a lot of cels. The
best ones they had available were from the adult (hentai) shows. However, I’m not
into that type of Anime. I thought about buying some of the main characters (not the dirty
ones) to sell on Ebay, but I decided I really didn’t need the money that badly. If I
had it to do all over again, I would have skipped Tokyo completely. Although there
are many museums and sites to see in Tokyo, I felt much more at home in Kyoto.
The place I liked best in Tokyo was the old section
Asakusa district, which used to
be one of the best places to party in the city until it was bombed heavily during WWII.
Asakusa never quite recovered, but I felt more at home there than anywhere else in
Tokyo.
Asakusa Park
After three days of concrete and crowds, I finally arrived at
Asakusa Park, which is at the very end of the Ginza subway line and very easy to
find. The entrance to the park is lined countless vendors selling just about
everything you could imagine. The walkway was packed with Japanese tourists.
As I reached the Hozo-mon gate or
Kaminarimon - Thunder
Gate, I began to get that nice feeling of aw that I had
experienced in Kyoto. Asakusa has many wonderful sights jammed packed into it.
There is a wonderful Hozo-mon Gate (big lantern right), a Buddha, a waterfall, a
pagoda,
and Senso-ji Temple. There was a service being held in the temple and the building
was packed with worshipers.
I wandered out to the side of the main temple to find the wonderful
Buddha
above. If you look at the bottom of this picture, you can see the shadow of pigeon.
My favorite part of the whole park was this simple waterfall whose waters
ran under a small bridge into a pond full of colored large carp. Looking at this
waterfall you would never guess it was in the center Tokyo.
Hozo-mon Gate
The large pagoda with a flock of pigeons
The small pagoda
I'm not sure what this ceremony was all about, but it certainly was
beautiful.
Tokyo Notes
From the Ginza District, Tokyo has many large TVs spewing advertising
crapola.
Shinjuku. This is the heavy duty Japanese business district.
Skyscrapers and
business suits rule here. I managed to go to Shinjuku right at rush hour. I
have never seen so many people in my life! It was like a dense school of fish and
like a school of fish everyone makes though the chaos without running into anybody.
I only spent about a hour or so there, but that was all I could take.
Roppongi. I walked here down Gaien-Higashi dori one night from my hotel. As
it turned out, it wasn't that far from my hotel in Akaska. If you are looking for
nightlife, this is the area. When I reached the overhead expressway, I could see
crowds of young people gathering on each of the four corners there. Lot's of Tokyo
"Valley Girls" and even some San Francisco style barkers for nude dancing.
I also noticed several of those Tokyo Love Hotels on the main street. As I
walked further down Gaien-Higashi dori, I was confronted with the view of Tokyo Tower,
which doesn't look half bad lit up at night. I went by a bar recommended by the
Lonely Planet Guide, but the place was empty. If I was younger, I probably
could have had a good time there, but alas I returned early to my hotel room.
Subways. The
Tokyo Subway system is quite impressive. First the subway trains are very
clean. The windows are spotless and you don't see any of the scratched glass like
you do on BART in the San Francisco Bay area. It is very easy to get from points A to B.
Above each door of the subway train the is a list of each destination and there are
flashing lights which indicate where you are. This makes nearly impossible to get lost.
The only downside of the system is that it could use some nice escalators to get one up
and down. You have to be in shape to use the subways!
Food. You can many types of food in Tokyo and prices are reasonable. One of my favorites
was the Doutor coffee shops, where you get a good cappuccino for $2.10 and a sandwich for
about $3-4. These shops are all over Tokyo. Being a vegetarian, I was sad that I could not
find any Japanese Vegetarian dishes to sample so I ate Western fair throughout Tokyo.
Beer. I don’t understand why beer is so expensive in Japan. The cheapest I could
find a can of beer was about $2.50. In the restaurants and bars, beer costs about $5 and
more. One thing interesting about the beer cans is that the tops of cans have Braille on
them! You don’t want a poor blind person to end up with Coke would you?
Business Suits. I never saw so many men in business suits in my life. Tokyo is like a
massive contingent of IBM workers. Ross Perot would be so proud of the Japanese!
Japanese Women. I must say that Japanese women in general are very attractive. They all
dress sharp, and they are everywhere, which makes Tokyo a great place for people watching.
Japanese "Valley Girls". There seems to be a bit of platform shoe and bleached
blond hair craze going on in Tokyo. When I saw the first "Valley Girl", she
walking up the subway stairs in Shinjuku quite impressively in those extremely high
platform shoes. I imagine these girls could injure themselves quite easily falling off
those platform shoes.
Cigarettes. I think everyone in Japan must smoke cigarettes. Men, women, Valley Girls,
and pets. There are cigarette machines located about every 20 yards or so. R.J. Reynolds
must love Japan. Every in Narita airport there are smoking sections all over the airport!
They sell hotdogs at McDonalds!
On the way to the airport, I saw a strange suspended building like I have never seen
before. It looked like a giant bend mattress in the sky! Luckily someone on
the limousine commented that this was the largest indoor sky slope in the world.
I found it interesting that in Tokyo, that the people there thought it was too expensive
and the people to aloof in Kyoto. While the people in Kyoto, seem to think the same
thing of Tokyo.
The Flight Back to SFO
Happily the flight back from Tokyo was only an 8 hour flight. The plane was packed
but fortunately I set next to two Chinese woman returning to California from China.
The younger of the two woman was very animated and told me that she visited Japan and
Kyoto in particular after she had read "Memoirs of a Geisha". She said
that in Kyoto for about a $100 dollars, a woman can be dressed up just like a geisha.
She said she had the geisha treatment and enjoyed it. I tried to imagine what
she might of looked like and figured she must have looked very pretty as a geisha.
She also said that she was extremely fond of noodles and that she had to visit the famous
Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. She said that there were 5 or 6 lines for each different
noodle type and that she waited in all of those lines so that she wouldn't miss a single
noodle type to savor.
As I talked to these Chinese woman, I noticed like all people they had a
distinct bias for their home country. Whenever I talked about Kyoto, they remarked
how tiny the temples in Kyoto were or if you really want to see something big go to the
Forbidden City!
Finally after three stupid movies, I arrived back in the good old USA and after the
Limousine Bus dropped my off I drank a beer and the fell asleep for about 18 hours with
visions of Kyoto still vivid in my head.
Conclusion:
This was the best vacation I have every had. Although I spoke no Japanese, I was
able to navigate my way quite well. Most of the street signs are in English. I
truly loved Kyoto and must return there again hopefully in the Fall of 2000. Since
coming back, I have read "Memoirs of a Geisha", and I have to pull out the map
Kyoto or where ever to see where the actual location is. This book is one of the
better books I have read in years. I was totally captivated by the story of
Sayuri. Reading this book with the visions of Kyoto still fresh in my mind seemed to
make my Japan vacation continue as I read each chapter at night.
