As mentioned yesterday, today’s expedition was to Yokohama. Yokohama is about an hour from Shimotakaido, but only because I have to go East to get west. I couldn’t find a more direct route.

On the train I crossed another thing off of my “to-do in Japan” list (although I didn’t think this one would be as hard as it was) I finally saw Mt. Fuji today. As the train was rolling along I was sort of zoning out, as everyone on the train does, and I realized, that snow-capped thing in the distance was Fuji-san. Finally!

I didn’t do a whole lot of research on Yokohama before I went (just Googled the city’s website and read the blurb in my travel guide.) Leaving the station I wandered towards what felt like downtown. I soon found a map board and confirmed that I was headed in the right direction. A short while later I saw a very tall building in the distance. Thinking it would be a good vantage point to check out the surroundings I then headed towards my new goal.

On the way I walked along a stretch of raised freeway/railway on which graffiti artists had had their way. I do not promote or condone wanton acts of vandalism, but the graffiti here was awesome. The raised section goes on for about a kilometer and the whole thing is covered in paint. There’s the usual name art and graffiti characters, but if you think it’s hard to read graffiti in the states, try reading it when the artists use 4 character sets (romanji, hiragana, katakana, and kanji). Also, if you still have lingering thoughts as to the impact of “anime” on Japanese culture, even the graffiti is influenced.

Neon Genesis Evangelion Graffiti! Awesome!

Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) Graffiti, I’m sure Miazaki would be flattered.

Sort of painted over, but it seems there are Simpsons fans in Japan too.

I stopped ogling the art long enough to stop in here:
A little smaller, but more or less just like a Harley dealer in the states.

A few block later I arrived here:
The “Sky Garden” observatory on the 69th floor of the Yokohama Landmark Tower is Japan’s highest observatory. Landmark Tower, actually, is the tallest building in Japan at 296 meters. The observatory has the fastest elevator in Japan, whisking visitors from the second to 69th floor in only 40 seconds. The admission fee was a little steep (a whole lot more than the free Tokyo Government building) but well worth it. Today, going against all forecasts, was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately by the time I got to the tower, the summit of Fuji-san was back behind it’s protective cloud cover. Another thing of note was that they were playing Christmas carols in the sky garden. It was kind of creep actually…
Oh, um, vertigo warning.

While walking around and taking pictures, I was what looked like someplace I had read about in my guide book from the tower. After felt like I had got my moneys worth, I headed out and towards the place I saw. After a minute or two of walking about, I realized that seeing how to get somewhere from 273 meters up is quite different from doing at street level.

Eventually I did find what I saw from the tower, but it wasn’t what I had read about in the guide book. Instead it was a combination park and zoo. I walked around the park for a while, but didn’t go in the zoo.
The leaves are definitely changing now. According to one report I saw it seems that the change is coming two weeks late this year. Global warming anyone?

After my walk in the park, I headed back in the direction of the Landmark Tower and the port area. Yokohama’s port never really revived after the Allied bombing in 1945. Made worse by the slow down in the economy since the early 90’s, Yokohama had enacted several projects to change the port area to more commercial and retail space (ala Odaiba.) One such project uses old rail road track bed to connect a man made island to the mainland. The island is actually quite old and is home to two renovated 19th century warehouses that have been made into retail space. Other projects include a waterfront park and a very nice international cruise dock.
Yokohama waterfront from the cruise dock. Along the water are the warehouses. Back left is Landmark Tower. The orange-slice shaped building back right is part of a huge convention center (another port revival project).

I know you’re thinking, when is he going to get to the part where he goes to china-town? (Assuming you know that Yokohama is home to the world’s largest china-town.) In fact, I almost missed it all together. As the sun set and I was getting ready to head home, I checked a map to see where the closest train station was. I noticed the closest one was on the other side of “chuu-ku”, “chu-goku-machi”. It took a minute for my brain to catch up and realize I had to pass through “china city, china-town” to get to the train station. I can’t say I actually did more than pass through it, however, as I had a late lunch and wasn’t hungry.

So that’s today’s travels. I think tomorrow will be another rest and relax day. I may do a little adventuring, but probably just around the Shimotakaido area.

Ja Mata Ne.

Drat, I went another week without posting, and not for lack of goings on either.

I suppose the most note-worthy item of the week is that I seem to be experiencing the 2 month low. It's nothing too bad, just a little homesick. I hear just about everyone gets it 2 months in. Luckily I like Japan so much that, even though a piece of me wants home, a bigger part of me is having too good of a time here.

In other news, I have figured out how to use my PSP (Playstation Portable game system) to watch anime on the train to and from school. It works out perfectly, I'm on the train for about 25 minutes total, which is the length of the average animated Japanese TV show.

Tuesday (as mentioned at the end of Sunday's post) I went with a group from school to see Kabuki. It turns out that when Sparks and I explored Ginza on his trip to Tokyo, we missed the giant kabuki theater by half a block. It's quite impressive. I unfortunately neglected to take any pictures.

Before we got to the theater, however, we stopped in a department store basement to get Obentos. Obento (or bento) is the Japanese word for packed lunch. Every department store has shops that sell food "to go" as well as restaurants in the basement. I bough some "beef and peppers" from one shop and some seafood-rice from another. Once everyone had gotten something we headed for the theater.

Inside the theater we were seated in the... how to put this tactfully... "cheap seats". Set up much as a normal theater, the kabuki theater had three tiers. Unlike a normal theater, the main floor is divided into three sections by two stage extensions that run from the main stage to the back of the audience.

There were head-phones available in both English and Japanese that tell what is going on during the show. Evidently, even the Japanese have a hard time following what's going on. I, by some misfortune, did not stop and get a headset, so I was left to figure out what was happening on my own. I did, after a while, remember that I had a handout I was given that summarized each of the four shows performed.

Kabuki today, as it was when it began, is still an all day event. You can purchase a ticket and watch Kabuki from 10am until almost 10pm. We had evening tickets, which means we were able to watch the plays after 4:30pm. The first play was about an hour and fifteen minutes long. The story involved an old blind warrior and his loving daughter who he abandoned. Of course it's much deeper than that, but that's the uber-short version.

After the first play ended we ate out Obento. Right in our seats. I expected us to head to some sort of cafeteria space, or at least the lobby to eat. Instead, just like everyone else in the theater did, we broke out our food and ate where we sat. I think American theater could benefit from this practice. It kind of felt like sneaking candy into a movie theater, but not getting in trouble for it.

The second play was a short one about a child warrior training on a mountain side. Amazingly the child warrior was played by a real child. The kid did a really good job for being as young as he was (6 or 7 at most).

The the third play was a Kabuki play based on and old Noh play, in turn based on an old Chinese legend. After the third play most everyone in the group decided it was late and that we wouldn't stay for the forth act. I like kabuki, but four hour of fruitlessly trying to figure out what's going on is very tiring.

Yesterday I was finally able to register for spring semester classes (stupid time-ticket system). Tomorrow's plan is to check out Yokohama, which should be fun. The weather this week has been awesome, but as per usual it looks like it'll rain this weekend.

Ja Mata Ne.

On a side note, I seem to be running out of places to go from my guide book. If anyone can think of anyplace you think I should visit before I leave, please post a comment letting me know. Keep in mind that time and money are limiting factors (i.e. Hokkaido is out of the question)

I suppose it was a productive weekend, as I accomplished everything I set out to do.

Saturday I got up early and had a hardy breakfast before heading to the train station. Instead of the usual direction to Shinjuku, however, I took the express train in the opposite direction. I heard a rumor (confirmed via the train company's website) that at the other end of the line from Shinjuku, there was a mountain to be climbed. Sure enough, there is.

About an hours train ride later I arrived at the foot of Mt. Takao. Takao-san is 599m tall and is a popular hiking spot for Tokyoites. The area around the mountain is a nation park (though I forget which one.) Also, it is clearly visible that the Keio rail company has put a lot of money into making the area a destination. It's quite reminiscent on the old American rail companies who built resorts to attract customers to their lines. There are adds on all of the Keio trains for the "Takao Fall Stamp Hike". A stamp hike is where you take a sheet of paper and, as you climb the mountain, stop at various sites and get your sheet stamped.

Exiting the train station I found a giant map board showing the various trails that one can take to get to the top. The longest trail takes 7 hours to complete, and takes you to the highest peak in the mountain range. Most of the other routes take about 90 minutes to get to the top of Takao-san. I picked what looked like the most direct route to the top and started out.

It was nice and cool at the bottom of the mountain. A perfect fall day. The light was streaming in through the tree. There was a nice stream running along the path. It was really relaxing. The first 250 meters or so were paved, then the path branched off and became more of a hiking trail.

A short way up I came across a set of Buddhas. After maybe twenty minutes of climbing the path got steeper and more uneven. It wasn't challenging by any means (there were a lot of little old men and women doing the same hike I was) but walking up a mountain is walking up a mountain. The higher I went, the more the sun rose in the sky, and the hotter I got. After about 45 minutes of climbing I stopped and took a break. After my break I resumed my ascent and, about 5 minutes later I was at the top of the mountain.

I know this picture is bad, but hopefully you can see that the fall colors are just beginning to turn here. There were several shops and restaurants here. Also there was a very nice viewing platform from which (on a clear day) you can see a very tiny Shinjuku in the distance. A side note on the restaurants: they served beer. Mountain climbing and alcohol, a winning combination? I think not.

Another thing I find the Japanese like, such as stairs and vending machines, are false mountain tops. Several times on the climb with Sparks (see my Kyoto trip post) I could have sworn we were at the top, when we were no where near there. It just so happened the this mountain had the same thing going. While wandering around I found a sign noting that the summit was still another 40 minutes hike away. (And here I was thinking I did the 90 minute hike in 40 minutes.) Not wanting to quit half way up, I started to second leg of the hike.

On the next part, as I was walking I ran into a nice young woman from China and her father. We talked for a bit in Japanese and English (my Chinese not being good enough to do chit-chat). It seems she is also in the country studying Japanese. After a while they stopped for a break and I headed the rest of the way to the top.

As seen here, it was a really nice sunny day, though a bit hazy. Culture moment! In Japan the colors blue and green are intricately linked. Traffic lights are red, yellow, and blue (but they're the same colors as in the states). Point to something green and ask what color it is and there's a 50% chance the reply is "blue". Why you ask? Is the whole country color-blind? The working theory is that mountains, up close are green, but in the distance are blue, hence the colors are linked.

This, for those wondering, is a Ramune bottle. As mentioned in my previous post, Ramune is more or less the Japanese equivalent of Sprite. The novelty of this drink is, to open it, you press down on the pink part, which pushes a marble down and opens the pop (you can see the marble in this picture). At the real top of the mountain, like at the "fake top", there were several restaurants and food shops (including one that had Ramune). It seems to be popular to bring your picnic up to the top and eat.

After drinking my Ramune and resting a bit, I began my descent. Not being ones to waste a good mountain side there is, of course, a temple. Takao-san Yakuōin Yūkiji. It probably sounds bad that I say this, but seriously, there is a basic plan to all these temples. Once you see a few dozen, they all flow together.

This one, however, is closely linked to the legend of the Tengu (see above pictures). Tengu are winged or feathered demigods that live in the mountains. More information available here.

At the false summit I decided to take the cable car the rest of the way down. It was a little scary, but it was quick. At the bottom I got on the train and headed in the direction of home.

I really didn't do much of anything this morning except homework. Once that was done I decided to work on a Gundam model I picked up last week. The plan was, at 4:00 I was going to go with a group of students to the Ghibli museum again. That plan was up in the air, however, as I said I would give up my ticket if anyone else wanted to go in my place (as I have already gone.) One of the French guys said he wanted to go, but didn't contact me as he said he would if he really wanted to go. At about 3:00 I got a call saying that someone was coming over to pick up the ticket because the guy was going and needed it. Luckily I had a backup plan in mind. After the person came to get the ticket I quickly jumped on the train and rode to Ueno.

Today was the opening day of an exhibit at the Royal Gallery on Ueno called "Gundam: Generating Futures". Mobile Suit Gundam is an animated show from the 70's that could be though of a the gran-daddy of the modern Giant Robot animation and had spawned endless spin-offs and sequels. This exhibit featured modern art inspired by the show. This is how influenced Japanese culture is by animated shows; this exhibit is running in the ROYAL GALLERY. There was one outdoor exhibit (of which you could take pictures.)

This week on Tuesday I get to see a Kabuki play, which could be interesting. Until then (unless something wonderful happens tomorrow.)

Ja Mata Ne.