THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN…
October/November saw us
spending 3 weeks in Japan. Quite an
experience, what an interesting country and people, so different to what we are
used to.
The red dot on the map shows
Atsugi which is where we were, quite close (just over an hour by train) from
Tokyo and 45 mins from Yokohama. Atsugi is a town known as a bedroom community for the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area,
and its economical claim to fame is a Nissan Design Centre and 2 Sony Technology
Centres. The population exceeded 200 000
in 2000 and I don’t think it has regressed at all. Transport is mainly on trains, busses,
bicycles and on foot. That said, the
traffic congestion is still ridiculous.
Nearly all cars are little square, half bread loaf shaped, easier to
maneuver and park I guess. |
| High rise living |
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| High rise car parking garage |
Car parkings are often found on top of
buildings and they favour the automated parking garages here where you drive
your car onto a platform then the automated parking system will move your car
via hydraulic or mechanical lifts, the best of all is that they even have these
for bicycles!!!!! I have witnessed police walking around, writing out and stapling little pink tickets to parked bicycles – apparently it could be for anything from parking in the wrong place to not having a permit to park or license for the bicycle.
We walked past a bicycle parking on Saturday
where there is a take a ticket on the way in and a little booth on the way out
where you pay the attendant for the time parked, just like a car park. Its also amazing to see allocated shaded
parking areas at blocks of flats for bicycles and not cars, certainly takes up
less space. Bicycles also seem to enjoy
the same power over the roads as a car, best you as a pedestrian look out for
them at intersections coz they seem to have right of way
The Japanese are generally a
short, slim bunch. This can probably be
attributed to the fact that they walk, run and cycle just about
everywhere. They will break out in a run
at the drop of a hat and for no apparent reason – no matter the age. It is fascinating to see elegantly dressed,
well made up and coiffed ladies, in any form of footwear, high heeled boots,
pointy and high heeled patent shoes and pumps and business suited men all
cycling or jogging along pavements. It
was pointed out, and I have to agree, that the Japanese are not the happiest
looking nation, they seem to have a continual a sense of urgency and purpose about
them. At the risk of generalizing I
personally find that around 90% of Japanese women are absolutely beautiful and
nearly as many men are not. That said, I
think Japanese children are the most gorgeous children ever (this is up to age
7 – 8). Little boys with shaved hair on
the sides of their heads and a long thatch of hair on top which many mothers
are happy to plait or tie up in pony tails and the most gorgeous little girls. At least as Japanese men age they become more
distinguished. 
They have what we consider
some funny idiosyncrasies –
Patience
is NOT a virtue, when you get in a lift MAKE SURE YOU PRESS THE CLOSE THE DOOR
BUTTON, if you don’t someone will be sure to push you out of the way to get at
the panel and do so. After this happened we paid a bit more attention to elevator buttons and the close the door
button is the most worn out one!!
Stay
on the left hand side of escalators and stair cases, room for someone to run
past you on the right, and someone Japanese generally will.
When
you pay for anything, always check around for a bowl to put money into and to
take change from, you should not put it directly into their hand or onto the
counter.
Bowing
is big – they bow at everyone and no one.
A nod can pass as an abbreviated bow.
They
are very quiet, the children are very quiet, on a bus or train you can
generally hear a pin drop. When they do
talk it is sudden, animated and rather startling.
They
translate literally, the sayings on their clothes don’t make sense and the best
was when I ordered iced coffee in a coffee shop – along came a glass of really
good coffee with ice cubes and coffee cream on the side.
Spitting
and smoking, anywhere, are quite the norm and hands don’t quite make it in
front of yawning, sneezing or coughing mouths – perhaps that’s the reason for
the masks?
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| Kevin at the entrance to one of "the" alleys |
There
are people talking over speakers and recorded messages everywhere, on the
streets, in the shops, all over. The
funny thing is that the music and voices are so child like. Nights are very colourful and pretty noisy on
the streets, most chain stores and some shops are open late and restaurants
open so lots of bright lights and people. There are some shops and alleys you don’t want to go into, massage parlours and places with exotic names and suggestions, popular with Japanese men.
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| See the hours on the sign |
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| Vending machine on deck of Ship Museum |
Eyesight
in general does not seem to be very good, lots of people wear glasses, made so
much more noticeable by the fact that most opticians only seem to have square
brown glass frames available for men!!
Personal
space does not seem to mean much here at all.
Hoards of people move around Japan, more during peak hours, making
trains especially packed. Waves and
waves of people march up and down train platforms and just when you think there
is absolutely no more room in a train carriage another 5 will shove their way
in. There are conductors on the
platforms – wearing white gloves, and one of their jobs is to shove passengers
into carriages to be able to close the doors.
Kevin was telling me there are women’s only trains because of this
issue. If you are claustrophobic do not ride trains in peak hours here.
Meat
here is odd. Majority of beef has quite
a bit of fat running through it, no matter the cut, wonder what they are
feeding their cows?
Tattoos
are not popular. When we arrived there
was a brochure advertising a spa close to the hotel, the only proviso being you
may not attend if you have a tattoo, no matter how small. In the same brochure was a wedding package
including facial shaving for the bridal wedding party, how is it ok for women
to grow beards but not for them to have body art – ha ha ha.
My first week was spent
orientating myself and getting to grips with the consumer side of things
here. They have multi-storey shopping
centres – probably something to do with space constraints. I had great fun exploring them.
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| Food Market under the Station |
There are some very
interesting looking vegetables in Japan, no idea what they are or what you do
with them and no one to ask, but they look interesting anyway. We also make a point of staying away from
anything that is not necessarily recognizable – don’t like those kind of
surprises.
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| Curry at our favourite Indian restaurant |
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| Dishes served displayed in plastic outside most restaurants |
Eggs are big here, Kevin had
warned me about this before I arrived, so first morning at the airport waiting
for the bus we get breakfast. I go the
safe route – basket of toast, ordered by the picture as no engrish of course,
should have a pat of butter and container of jam, safe bet ha ha. It arrives and hidden in the corner of the
basket is a cute little boiled egg – we missed the little bit of white hiding
in the picture!! SUPPLIES!!!
Depending on where you shop,
prices are quite reasonable. Chilean and
Australian wines seem to be the most popular and obviously the better the more
costly. Wine in restaurants is
ridiculous, R48.00 on average for 125ml of red wine. Have decided that beer with dinner is the way
to go, better deal by far. We found a
sushi bar on Sunday night that has sushi starting at R10 per plate of two
pieces, bargain, but no English descriptions, need to be careful of what you
order, I ended up with something horridly sticky and smelly instead of the
yummy salmon it looked like in the picture :-( will stick to what I know from here on.
Armed with my new data card
(yay, could use google translate, what a disappointment, not the most accurate
application I have encountered) I was finally mobile and on Friday I caught the
bus to Kevins work for sushi lunch and back.
Quite a feat considering navigation was via numbers – bus number and
stop number, thank goodness for google maps and Kevin who has done this enough
now to know. I found myself comparing
symbols to try to differentiate between stops, works, but you need a bit of
time to do so. Feel like I am playing those
match up games you play with cards when you are a kid.
The restaurant we went to
was unreal. The longest sushi train I
have ever seen, it goes round and round the restaurant. Green tea, as much as you like, is provided
free. There is a touch screen that you
use to order your sushi and it comes past on the belt, raised on a red bowl so
that you know it is an order and don’t whip someone else’s food off the
train. The screen notifies you as your
food is arriving, we worked out there are sensors in the plate and the red
bowl, very clever.
I was wandering around the
“OK Food Store” when I heard a voice saying “excuse me are you lost” and there
was this lovely Malaysian lady who told me I looked like a lost tourist, probably :-). Anyway, she
took me on a guided tour of the shop, pointed out where everything was, what it
is and what was in it and the best prices, she spent about an hour making sure
I was on the right track, so lovely. One
of the recommendations she had was Sake – pointed out the one her husband
insists on drinking, award winning, etc.
Well we got brave enough to buy a small bottle to try, on Friday night,  |
| Mohan and us - Kamesh has very little furniture so we sat on the floor |
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| And ate on the floor too good curry though!! |
On our return we were
wandering through the station and found a statue of something we have been
trying to figure out. Everywhere we
found pictures of a little pig chef with a fish on its head and had no idea
what it was. The statue explains it,
seems it is the Atsugi monument, a pig chef – representing their like for pork
and a fish on its head – representing their enjoyment of fish – huge!
The Japanese are really innovative and certainly know how to make the most use of little space. Well, the smallest space is usually the toilet/bathroom and they have a couple of innovations in this area that are
brilliant. In public bathrooms, when you
find a toilet cubicle bigger than something a 7 year old dwarf fits into, you
will generally find a toddler seat in the corner, somewhere to park the kid
while you do the necessary – brilliant, as long as you don’t forget it. Almost all toilet seats are heated, public as
well as hotels, etc. Toilet seats have a
control attached that plays flushing sounds –
still haven’t figured out why – sprays water and in case you are not sure where it should go there is a picture of a bum, some even have built in aerosol spray.
My best has to be the
cistern that has a built in water spout, as you flush water exits the cistern
into the toilet and at the same time water fills the cistern from the top
through the spout, stopping when the cistern is full, gives you quite a while
to wash your hands. Another brilliant
idea is the built in blow drier for hands, in the sink, so soap, wash, dry all
in one.
Sunday we went to explore
Sea Paradise in Yokohama. There are
outside exhibits housing dolphins, beluga whales, I think a minkie whale,
penguins, seals and sea lions, giving ad hoc shows throughout the day. They also have an area of cordoned off
squares housing various schools of fish. 
Kids pay to get a fishing rod, catch fish, take them in a plastic bag to the kitchen where they are battered and deep fried and handed back – teaching sustainable fishing seemingly. Very popular past time anyway. There is a water park with fun rides but we avoided that, too cold and too old :-)
The exhibition centre had an underwater tunnel in a dolphin pool, there were 4 dolphins swimming around, two playing with floating buoys and two divers cleaning the sides of the pool. At the end of the tunnel was a large cylinder in which a huge sun fish swims round and round.
In the Aquarium is another
underwater tunnel, under the seals and a funnel through which they swim, fun to
see them come up through the floor and swim out the top, they seem to enjoy it
too.
There was also an escalator
that went upward, inside a huge tank of mixed fish and sharks and rays, pretty
weird experience. They also had polar
bears and lots of unusual sea life in many different tanks and areas, I was a
little sad at the sizes of the area they were confined to but I guess I will
always feel like that.
The top floor of the
Aquarium was where we watched the last show of the day, 35 minutes and it was
really good. The huge tank is home to a
captive whale shark and the show takes place around it, the only time they seemed
to need to keep its attention was when the beluga whales and trainers did their
show. The dolphins were well trained and
performed so well, the sea lion was precious, even a pelican that marched in
and out. The beluga’s were really
impressive, their interaction with the trainers is great, pushing them with
their heads, being ridden and swimming kaleidoscope style. Loved it!! |
| Erevator this way ha ha |
There was a park off to the
side and it was great to watch a band and what I would call drummies practicing
– they put in serious amounts of practice, even in the rain. 
On Monday, public holiday,
we headed to Tokyo to the Imperial Palace in Chiyoda. The Palace is off limits to the public as the
Emperor still resides there, but the gardens are open to all and are
beautiful. Well manicured flower beds
and shaped pines. The wall around the
garden is still as impressive as it was when it kept people out of the city and
the guard houses while deserted are still well kept. They had lovely big koi fish in a fish pond
with a small waterfall and bridge, so nice to be able to spend a day outdoors
and out of the city, enjoying nature. 
Wednesday and Kevin had
business at Nissan in Yokohama so I popped on the train with him and went
exploring. Started out with a little
boat trip on a water taxi to Yamashita Park – not really a park, more like a
long area of well manicured gardens. 
By accident I discovered the Hikawa Maru, a Passenger/Cargo ship that used to work the route between Japan and Canada until the 1960’s, becoming a museum in 1961. It has been reconditioned twice but to as close to original as possible. Very interesting.
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| Design your own logo |
to town was the Cupnoodles Museum, a museum about the origin and progress of instant noodles. The best part was the do it yourself cup of noodles, I got a cup, sat at a table with a selection of felt pens,
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| Choose 3 fillings and 1 sauce |
We went to a “seafood” restaurant
down the road that claimed to have English menu with pictures – dingy little
restaurant much like we found in deepest darkest Mozambique. The pictures indecipherable and the English –
badly translated. We did eventually
manage tuna sashimi and prawn and shrimp croquettes which in fairness were very
nice and fresh but been there done that.
As far as funny foods, we avoided a restaurant that was advertising
horse meat ramen the other night and there is a restaurant down the road that
has puffer fish swimming in a tank in the window, seemingly a delicacy even
though they are poisonous. We are trying
to work out a plan to be able to release them.
We also boycott any restaurants that have sharkfin on their menu.
I have discovered the Atsugi
Central Park, or as we call it, the ball park.
There is a square of huge concrete balls, placed around a small pond
housing a couple of gold fish. The balls
have water emitting from the top, running down the sides, a great place for
pigeons and other birds to bath and drink from.
This has become my quiet place.
It is the size of two blocks, in the centre of the city and the only
small bits of grass and trees for miles. 
Even the play park attached is tar floored, poor kids that fall on
that. Sitting in the park is like
watching a Japanese movie, it is a favorite play place for various Nursery
Schools, the different age classes being determined by different colour
hats. The really little ones are
transported by cart, they look like little bottles in a crate, so damn
cute. So many people pass through this
park it is never boring.
I have also taken to walking
up and down the river, gives me a bit of exercise and has prolific bird life
and is quiet and pretty. I managed to
get some really awesome photos of a hawk, one of the company of goliath herons,
oyster catchers, king fishers, white herons, fishermen and model aircraft
fliers that call it home. There is also
a real squatters camp, an old kombi which seems to serve as a bedroom with a
hut built on made of sheeting and plastic.
Next to that a shelter of old umbrellas and plastic. Guess there are squatters all over the world.
On Sunday Kevin and I took a
trip to Hakone. An hour by train this is
a beautiful tourist attraction. All
recommendations were to spend the night there as there is too much to do in one
day – correct, but we only had one day so we made the best of it, we will
definitely stay over night next time. We
arrived and had breakfast next to a river, clouds topping all the mountains
around complimenting the Autumn colours but making it really chilly. 
We caught a bus down to the Lake then walked the
Ancient Cedar Avenue, well we thought we did, seems we might have done the
bicycle path but when we found the Cedar Avenue we decided ours was
better. We walked up a really steep
staircase to a lookout point, from where, on a good day, you can apparently see
Mt Fuji, well unfortunately all we saw was cloud, but such a beautiful view of
the Lake and surrounding area. 
Down to the Lake and we caught the pirate ship Victory, which carried us all the way across the Lake to Togendai-Ko.
We
stopped here for a quick lunch and cold beer, sausages and chips were a safe
choice and we got to eat them watching the other pirate boats arriving and
leaving. 
Then it was off to the Rope Car, basically what we would call cable car, what a lovely trip, could see for miles. At the end we could see the steam coming through the ground where the hot springs flow underneath, really weird. A train trip took us back to where we started and off we went back home, tired but grinning, we had had a fabulous day and look forward to coming back – we had planned to do the ship and cable car on this trip and will explore all the other interesting things…. next time.
I had my one and only tremor
this week, was sitting in the room when suddenly everything started jiggling
and shaking, it was only a baby one, 4.9, but my first quake ever – neat.
Lastly the washing
machine. Kevin discovered small washing
machines in Japan, just the right thing for a catamaran. We went with the view of purchasing a top
loader, ended up with a 4kg capacity twin tub.
The salesman spoke not one word of English made this an interesting
transaction. They were all astonished
that we wanted to take a washing machine back to South Africa. Then it was the turn of the bus to the
airport co-ordinator, he nearly had a melt down when he saw the size of the box
we wanted to put in the luggage hold, and the bus wasn’t even half full! 
Then at the airport we had to repack our suitcases 3 times, wouldn’t let Kevin have his laptop bag and cabin suitcase as carry-on luggage, eventually we got the weights and bags right even though Kevin was now wearing all his jerseys and carrying books in his pocket and we had donated our new trolley to the ground steward to avoid paying for excess baggage. Then the box only just fitted through the scanner at the oversized luggage counter, but eventually it was all headed for South Africa and we could stop sweating, though that might have been the extra clothing.
They made us open the box in
South African customs but were happy with a glance and a half hearted attempt
at looking through two of the suitcases, fortunately they didn’t find the extra
bottle of whiskey we had managed to shove in.
Well, now we have a washing machine on our boat, woo hoo, so beyond
happy.
Hopefully this has not bored
you all to death, Japan is a very interesting country and has a very different
culture to us. I am not convinced it is
a culture I really want to adopt so am not sure how long I could stay there,
but definitely look forward to future trips there with Kevin next year.
