escapewindow | Entries tagged with family

himeji-jo.
i loves me some castles... neuschwanstein, salzburg, and that small castle in spain on that island in that river. himeji is definitely up there, if not at the top. apparently it was bombed twice but survived. most likely due to near misses rather than uber architecture.

i think this wall was in kagemusha. definitely saw some familiar courtyards where the horsemen ride out in ran.

i like wide angle lenses.

the sakura were much prettier once i had my allergies mostly under control.

set.

in unrelated news, i just got a boxful of small, medium, and large slave unit shirts, since our first order is pretty much down to a handful of larges and a ton of x-larges.

[kabuki]:

On Friday we went to Ginza and stopped by Kabuki-za. Hunh, I was completely unaware that that was the center of Kabuki theater. That's cool.

Standard tickets had long since sold out, but there are day-of tickets available on a per-show, first-come-first-served basis (for much cheaper). We were thinking about just attending the first of the three afternoon shows, but a kabuki regular (who was unable to buy her standard tickets due to the popularity of this particular set of shows) recommended staying. We ended up buying tickets for all three.

Armed with bento and our commentary handsets, we filed up to the nosebleed seats above the balcony. The seats were narrow and cramped; the seats in coach had more leg room. Still, I was there for a new experience.

The first show was modern (1930s) and set at the end of the Shogunate, shortly after Commodore Perry and the Kanagawa Treaty. It was surprisingly realistic (due to its modern style) with a set that included the first 10' of a house, complete with sliding doors and raised veranda. The makeup and acting were realistic, with little of the over-the-top stylistic flair that one would associate with Kabuki. Overall it seemed like one of the lengthier expository scenes of a Kurosawa film.

I found the commentary a little jarring for this one; recorded dry English commentary in one ear and the live Japanese dialog in the other. At times I turned the volume down to listen to the Japanese. Overall I liked it, and the intermission gave me a chance to stretch my legs.

The second show was a classic, telling the tale of Minamoto Yoshitsune and Benkei using guile to evade detection (and execution) at his half-brother Yoritomo's roadblocks. This one was fully Kabuki with Noh artifacts, with thirty or forty traditional Japanese musicians accompanying the ten or so actors. This one was great, quite a treat. We were glad we didn't just see the one.

As a side note, I experienced my first earthquake in Japan during the second show =) A 4.0 quickie; the actors didn't stop acting.

The third was ultra-modern, having been written in the late 90s. An amusing but waaaaay too long comedy with maybe eight different scenes and set changes that were obviously not written for the people sitting in the backseat-of-a-yugo footroom nosebleed seats. Without the commentary I probably would have fallen asleep.

Still, we were glad we went, and by the time we left, it was dark, allowing me to photograph Ginza at night.

[night shots and roppongi]:

The city is so much more beautiful at night.

After humoring me for a while, my parents wanted to head back to the hotel. I decided to wander around Shinjuku for a while to get some of those shots I had missed the first time around... my first time oot&aboot Tokyo by myself.

Shinjuku
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Kinda wanted to pop into a pachinko parlor to see what the fuss was about, but not enough to actually do it.

Headed over to Roppongi by train since Tim had regaled me with tales of girls in outrageous costume: the loligoths and cosplay and various other outfits crowding the streets... just something you gotta see. Maybe I got out the wrong exit (there were six or more widely dispersed exits from the station) or maybe he was exaggerating... I just saw a bunch of fairly normally dressed people, "gentleman"s clubs and bars, and a bunch of shady types trying to lure people (in shady ways) to walk into said clubs and bars. The better to part with your money, my dear.

Although I had never been to Roppongi before, I've seen it. The hustle, the girls on the other side of the doors, the drunks, the glassy-eyed men stumbling in or out. Not really what I was looking for at that point.

Instead I popped into the Tokyo Hard Rock, dodged some vomit, and took the ultra-packed train back home.

[homeless encampments + winter]:

After I showed so much interest in graffiti and homeless, my father showed me a small homeless encampment in Shinjuku Chuo Gyoen (the park just outside our hotel room). While others picnic nearby, homeless doze off on benches or take advantage of the free water and bathrooms. A small neat cluster of little tents, small enclosed shelters covered with blue tarps, lay in one corner of the park.

I asked my father where they go when it snows... is there a shelter? He said he saw them clustered underneath City Hall, in the parking area.

All men. My mother hypothesized that women adapt easier to new situations, so it's easier for their friends and family to take them in. I think there might be another reason as well.

They don't panhandle, so they're most likely getting some sort of handout from the government. I wonder what sort of carrot or stick keeps them well behaved and relatively neat and clean.

It's sad in a way. If my mother had been right, and there were no litter or homeless or graffiti or crime in Japan, that would have been some comfort, that there is a way for humans to reach a sort of utopia in this world. Who knows, maybe it's there in Canada or somewhere, maybe it's all about the moose. But Japan, with its strongly capitalist ways (privatized rail, privatized health?) doesn't have it, unless you have money.

[randomness]:

Ginza is the high class shopping district. Before kabuki we walked to Nihombashi, the site of an old bridge, 4 train stations away.

We finished our walk in Mitsukoshi, the oldest department store. Old enough to have a train station named after it: Mitsukoshimae, or "in front of Mitsukoshi".

Another notable train name: the Chiyoda line. Literally, "blood of Yoda". ;-)

Small police stations abound, three or four police per (and often a couple are out patrolling). These certainly contribute to the safeness of the city.

Akihabara is the electronic store district. Yodobashi Camera is a Circuit City / Fry's mix. The US isn't terribly far behind in tech these days, so it wasn't mind boggling... but I really liked the camera section. They had a number of camera bodies out and a greater number of lenses, all tethered to the counter. I was able to try out the various lenses in-store. The rest of Akihabara is just kind of crazy.

The cherry blossoms in Shinjuku are definitely fading fast, and will most likely be gone next week.

On Sunday we took the shinkansen to Kyoto, which is gorgeous. One 4gb card lasted me all week in Tokyo; I'm afraid I'll fill up my second soon and today was our first full day in Kyoto. Internet access is a bit more limited here and they cut off anyone who's a bandwidth hog, so I'm going to wait to upload photos til Tokyo or when I'm back in SF.

[subways]:

Greater Tokyo is 239 square miles (618 square km) and is home to more than 17 Million people in the day time and 12 Million at night.

When walking from point A to point B downtown, there are often 4+ levels to choose from: street level, a level above (bridges above the street), and two or more levels of subway. The subways aren't merely entrances to train routes, but also connect to skyscraper basements and other street entrances many blocks away, so that people are able to walk under the streets to their destinations without having to enter the paid train areas.

Under each skyscraper there are restaurants and stores in the basements. Under every department store highrise there is a basement level consisting only of sweets and snacks, many freshly made that morning. These help lure the surface dwellers below.

You see, the population of Tokyo has slowly diverged as the subterranean lifestyle has become more and more self-contained: the surface-dwellers go about their business above ground, while the underground dwellers have grown pale and sun-blind, preferring to burrow in the cool, moist earth. They lure the surface dwellers below with sweets so they can hunt, culling the herd of the weak, sickly, and old so they can feast on their succulent flesh.

[shinjuku gyoen]:

We visited Shinjuku Gyoen, or Shinjuku Park, on Wednesday. Just us and several thousand of our closest friends and neighbors.

The park was in full bloom. Fifteen types of cherry blossoms, as far as the eye can see. It got a little ridiculous how many cherry blossoms there were. Apparently the blooming schedule is brief, only a couple of weeks or so, making this a rare treat, but since I had no non-blossoming context it definitely seemed like overkill.

The cult of Canon was out in full force; after a while I gave up trying to shoot around people and just started including 'em in the shot.

My allergies really started to act up around here, and I was out (bedridden) Wednesday and Thursday evenings dealing with that.

Still, despite all my bitching, I came out with some nice photos. Just goes to show, if an infinite number of monkeys armed with cameras are taking an infinite number of photographs, at least one of the monkeys will be named Aki.

[on litter and homeless]:

One of the oddities about the park was the complete absence of a) trash cans and b) litter; if you can bring something in, you can bring it out. The wind did blow a plastic bag into the lake, drawing a large murmur of disapproval from all onlookers.

Bathrooms tend not to have any paper towels. Napkins aren't necessarily guaranteed at restaurants... it's somewhat expected that you carry around your own handkerchief.

(I, of course, tote lots of Kleenex and my sleeves. Maybe I'll switch to a handkerchief one of these days.)

Any and all environmental impact is counterbalanced by the sheer number of disposable chopsticks and plastic bags that abound. However, moving to reusable chopsticks and a European-type expectation that grocery shoppers bring their own bags would not be difficult. The US definitely lags in all of these departments.

My parents are very proud at how clean Japan is, how there is no graffiti, no homeless, no litter, no crime. Then again, there's the lurking presence of Yakuza; I was able to gleefully point out some graffiti and litter in an out-of-the-way pedestrian tunnel back to Shinjuku station; and I victoriously pointed out an entire park full of napping homeless people in front of the Emperor's palace.

("They're just taking a nap during their lunch break," my mother said. But one of 'em had a ratty old suitcase he was obviously living out of, and a few more were sleeping on newspaper.)

My current theory is that there's just a stronger delineation between upper and lower class, and that the current hierarchy allows the upper class to easily overlook or ignore any goings on of the lower class, outside of how it affects them on a service level.

[neo-tokyo]:

Tokyo is, for the most part, a relatively new city. Its history reaches back for hundreds of years, before the Europeans arrived in the Americas, but the Americans bombed the shit out of the place, so the bulk of the city (architecturally speaking) is post-war.

(My father grew up in Tokyo and has vivid memories of going into bomb shelters nightly, of B-29s bombing the city, napalm scorching the rice fields, and his childhood home(s) burning down twice. He turned 7 shortly before the war ended.)

I imagine the newness of the city allowed for more growth, since there were no historical preservation groups trying to keep you from building a skyscraper over a sentimental ramshackle shed. I believe that was the basis of Nero's argument as well.

(Still, the newness didn't completely remove all narrow back alleys like this one, where you can disappear and come back all Hello Kitty, your mouth having been stolen and sold to the black market.)

I'll get to see the difference when I visit Kyoto next week, which the Americans avoided bombing. The city, that is. As well as next week, hopefully. That would kind of suck.

[asakusa, emperor's palace]:

Asakusa is the oldest temple in Tokyo, though the actual buildings may have been rebuilt post-war. It's the one place Japanese visitors need to go, so despite the mid-day weekday visit, it was packed. The buildings there all try to reflect old architecture, though, so the entire area was kind of nice to see.

The Imperial Palace is pretty and insanely huge if you consider how precious real estate is in Tokyo. They don't let you into the actual grounds, just peek from over the bridge.

Still, when I was younger I was batshit about castles, and I remember my visits to Japanese (and Spanish, and German, and...) castles vividly. I'm still fond of 'em. It was nice to see this one, even non-functional, even at a distance.

We're off to Ginza soon, so I'll babble more later.

We've been waking up early... 4am or so. On Tuesday I took the opportunity to take some photos out the window before dawn; on Wednesday we went to the Tsukiji fish market.

[Tsukiji fish market]:

We left at 4:45 to get on the 5am train; we arrived at 5:30ish and walked through the chaos that is the fish market in the early hours to the maguro auction. This is a warehouse room full of pallets with maguro (tuna) lined up from wall to wall. Buyers inspect the fish, looking inside the abdominal cavities, examining the quality of the meat where the tail has been lopped off (and placed inside the tuna's head through the gills for safekeeping). The auctioneer calls out in that nonstop frenetic chanting auctioneer way and buyers raise their hands: one finger, usually beaten by someone with two fingers raised. Each fish takes less than a half minute to sell.

One of the smaller fish sold for 12 million yen (approximately 120,000USD); one of the larger fish sold for 30 million yen (~300,000USD). Coupla those and you've got a house in San Francisco. You might want to ask for a short escrow, though.

The entire auction was over by 6am.

Then we walked around the place, which was full of every type of seafood imagineable. We had to constantly dodge motorized carts; not happy shiny electric robotic carts with friendly anthropomorphic personalities and permanent smiles rolling amiably along in a line, but gas-powered fish-laden contraptions appearing from nowhere, steered by madmen, roaring to and from every direction as they cut between slower traffic and crates, trying to zig and zag to find the quickest route to move fish from Point A to Point B.

I'm surprised I didn't see (or become involved in) some sort of collision.

They cut the frozen tunas with a table saw. The fresh tunas, however, involved several huge knives, including a knife so long that its maker must have had his penis length mocked by someone with a sword. Probably as tall or taller than me. The knife, that is.

I was a bit disappointed to see them carefully slicing the tuna rather than going all kendo kiai as someone slo-mo tosses the tuna up, the knife making several simultaneous blinding arcing blurs, the tuna landing gently in perfectly cut steaks. Still, it was cool.

Afterwards we stopped in a teeny tiny sushi joint (one of several) and had the freshest sushi I've ever had.

(Which reminds me: when we went to a Korean restaurant, I finally found a food my father wouldn't try: beef sashimi, which he finds unappetizing. I pointed out that he has cleaned a fish and eaten sashimi then and there; it's totally a mind thing. Then again, I didn't feel like eating steak or burgers outside the arena after witnessing the bullfights in Spain. I bet there are people out there who can eat rare steak after visiting slaughterhouses that would get squicked out by the fish market. Or even sashimi in general.)

[ICU]:

Yesterday (Tuesday), we took the train to ICU, where my parents met, dated, and got married. Monday was their 45th anniversary [!]. It was cool seeing the campus after only hearing about it in stories. Lots of cherry blossoms.

Speaking of, the cherry blossoms are beautiful. I believe they're also responsible for the increase in my (and a significant number of locals') allergies, however.

[Shinjuku]:

This is the part of Tokyo where my father grew up, "one of several downtowns" as he put it. We walked around the station last night so I could get my bearings. The east side definitely looks more like I pictured Tokyo before my visit. I made the walk without pulling out my camera, but I did reference quite a number of places where I'd like to return, camera in hand.

We visited the Canon store here, where I tried a number of lenses and bodies I hadn't tried before, including some that aren't available in the US yet. The bodies probably aren't localized for English yet, but I'm thinking about picking up a lens or two. It's a disease.

We went up to a few viewing spots in skyscrapers which are open to the public. Pretty, but they definitely don't allow for good nighttime photography; the interior lights cause way too much glare on the windows.

Everywhere downtown it's apparent what a precious commodity real estate is. Hotel lobbies are spacious, but mostly up (vertically). And everything gets so crowded. The walkways are spacious after hours, but during rush hour they're packed. Certain elevators, trains: packed. The common surgical masks make sense since there's nowhere to turn to sneeze or cough away from everyone else. I did get a sudden urge to mimic that Rad Girls sketch where they went into an elevator with a whoopee cushion and a stink spray. Probably not as funny once you take into account the events from 13 years ago.

And now, after jumping around chronologically through the events of the past day and a half, and with my parents passed out in the mid-morning sun, I think I'm going to go downstairs for some more pictures.

Tsukiji Fish Market photos
ICU/cherry blossom photos
All my Japan trip photos