Japan Is Doomed

Ah, it’s all gone by too fast. It’s very emotional. Too emotional for text, actually. So here’s my bye-bye Japan video, for you all to enjoy and weep over.

Enjoy!

Japan Trip '08, Video

‘other‘ shrine central? Well yes! It goes without saying that Kyoto is the place to go for traditional Japan, just don’t pay any mind to the thousands of boring cement buildings that have sprung up. I don’t want to complain too much about Kyoto though as I think it’s a great place.

Anyway, Nikko is the ‘other’ place to go for traditional Japan, and in a way I think it’s better - there’s no office buildings, and it’s more out in the countryside.  Of course, it’s rammed full of tourists, both Japanese and foreign, but that’s just something you have to deal with. It’s reasonably well done - the shrine area has nearby hotels that people stay at, so if you stay in a ryokan (a sort of Japanese Inn) any distance from the tourist area, you’ll be avoiding most of the crowds. Also, you get an onsen. I was in the outdoors one when a collosal storm struck. Nothing like pelting, ice cold rain hitting you when you’re in a hot spring.

Anyway, here’s my whistle stop tour of Nikko! Hold onto your hats! Click any of the photos for a huge version.

The Red Bridge. Descriptive title!

This is the red bridge. Quite self-explanatory I feel, it’s a big red bridge! You can pay to walk across it, but we opted not to, as there was a big queue. To walk across a bridge. So we pushed on, until we arrived at the shrine complex with the other billion people who turned up that day. Can’t complain really - we were tourists just like everyone else, but it’s nice and British to do it anyway!

Probably the most famous thing we saw was this;

See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil

These monkeys are the source of the famous “See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil” saying. In Japanese they have a similar title 「見ざる、聞かざる、言わざる」 (Don’t look monkey, don’t hear monkey, don’t speak monkey) and they are very cool. The only thing is - the plaque they are on is smaller than you might think - you have to look carefully or you’ll walk right past it and miss the chance to take the classic ‘everyone does one of the monkey poses’ picture! (No, I’m not posting the one we took!)

Moving swiftly on, here’s an example of just how awesome Nikko’s buildings are.

Pagoda of Light

This pagoda isn’t even that special, apparently, but I think it’s awesome. It’s inside one of the shrine complexes, reaching way, way up, although I had a look around the net and through some guidebooks and couldn’t find anything about it. Perhaps I will break new ground researching about it!

Once you’re done with all your shrine exploring madness, but before you go back to the Inn for a good onsen soak, you could always use a…

Onsen in the street

…foot onsen! In the street! We decided to pass as the lure of a full onsen in the ryokan was too tempting, but there was another one of these near the station and that one had a really long queue! People love their feet these days!

Anyway, I hope this has inspired at least one person to make it to Nikko one day. It’s not too far from Tokyo and well worth the journey!

For more photos of Nikko, check out my collection here.

Japan Trip '08

This is part two of quite a few (probably four) ‘catch-up’ posts that I meant to do but in the end I got caught up watching all of the torrential storms we had. I don’t know why, but I could watch a storm for hours. I don’t even know why. All it does is remind me of England. The difference being when we have a storm in the UK, it’s just powerful enough to stop you doing anything, but nothing spectacular. When it rains in Japan, the drops are so hard they bore through buildings, and everyone walks around doing Matrix-esque bullet-time stunts, just to get a loaf of bread.

Anyway, part one of said series was the Koenji Awaodori, which was absoloutely brilliant. Part two was the trip I took up Tokyo tower. The thing that links these events was that my mum was with me. Although in all honesty the only thing that links them is that I forgot to blog about them, as I’m a terrible writer.

The Mighty Tower Of Tokyo

So that is Tokyo Tower. Half way up there is a two story white building, that’s where we went. You can pay more and go right up to the top, but apparently it’s not worth it unless it’s a mind-blowingly clear day (it wasn’t), so we didn’t bother.

The windows allow for a 360 view of Tokyo, and from the tower you can see Odaiba, Shinjuku and all the other places really rich people live. You can’t see Oji, but I think they might have just put up a giant mirror to block it from view. Nobody wants to travel half way around the world to see my dormitories, let me tell you.

Looking north east towards Atago, Onarimon, and Shimbashi.

As I’m terrible at geography I have no idea what exactly we’re looking at here, but as you can see the towers are very big and scary. When the Tokyo Sky Tree (the world’s soon-to-be tallest tower) is finished, you’ll be able to see it like a giant eyesore, I suppose.

Looking south east towards Odaiba and the dreaded immigration centre.

Here you can see the Odaiba wheel (which I wrote about aaaages ago here) as well as the end of the rainbow bridge, and more importantly, all the grey, depressing, identical buildings that make Tokyo just so friendly! In fact, if you look back over my blog posts, especially 06-07, it’s depressing how few photos actually don’t contain at least one concrete juggernaught. Oh well.

Anyway, that’s part one of ‘Oh whoops I have a blog I should write it’ over and done with! Tune in next week next month next year at some point for the next installment!

These photos are on Flickr, if you go there you can see much bigger versions.

Edit:Thanks to Drew in the comments for helping me work out where everything is.

Japan Trip '08

So I took the plunge today and posted my first ever Mixi journal in Japanese. They are pretty scary to write, as all of your friends can see them, but I’m hoping people will point out my mistakes rather than just get t-shirts made with them written on them. Because that would be expensive and inefficient, as the chances of me bumping into my friends whilst they are wearing them are basically zero, so they would have to actually plan ahead and wear the t-shirt on a day we had pre-arranged to meet, and even then the chances of me appreciating the t-shirt and remembering writing what is written on it are slim to none. Wait, what?

そうだね。僕は六ヶ月に一回しかミクシィをチェックしない。なぜだか分からないけど、今から毎週ミクシィをチェックするようにする。日記を書いたり、友達の日記を読んだりするつもりだから、面白い日記を書いてね。

今日本にいる。でもお金がないから、あまり友達と遊びに行けないけど、本当に楽しんでいる。大学で勉強した日本語を練習できるし、一年ぶり友達に会えるからだ。時々働いた学校で英語を教える。

二週前母は日本に行った。着く前の天気は毎日暑かったけど、母が日本にいる間の天気は雨だけだった。友達の西村さんによると、母が「雨女」だそうだ。。。でも母は日本が大好きようだ。魚料理が大好きだから、やっぱりすしとかさしみを楽しんだ。日本人のように魚を食べた。母に色々な場所を案内した。新宿とか日光とかお台場に行った。母がもう一度日本に来たいそうだ。よかった！

先輩によると、二年生は一年生よりもっと難しそうだから、もっと勉強したほうがいいと思う。文法や言葉は大丈夫でも、漢字は問題だ。５００漢字を勉強したが、２５０しか書けない。大学が終わったから、簡単な漢字も書かなくなった。でもがんばっている！毎日２時ぐらい勉強したり、友達と勉強したばかり日本語を話して見たりしている。

マイク

Note the use of cute little icons. Very important in Japanese. Anyway, if anyone who reads this can help with any problems, that would be greatly appreciated, too! :)

I’m aware I haven’t done a proper update for ages, but I have a few coming… oh, like you’ve not heard THAT one before…

9/9/08: Corrected some mistakes, thanks to Tom and Tom in the comments. (or ‘Tom’ments).

日本語

Today I had my visa extended, and to do that I had to go to the Tokyo Immigration Office ( 入国管理局 ) in Shinagawa. It was a total and utter nightmare.

To sum up my frustration, I made a video. Click the image below to watch!

Japan Trip '08, Video