こんにちはニポン

Time flies, when you have fun … no kidding ! It was as if we arrived just yesterday, but in fact it is already departure day. Flight leaves at 0:30, so we have a full day in Tokyo, for last activities.

On our way to the Digital Arts Museum, it appears there are “smartholes” here as well … at least indicated by signs posted all over the train stations.

The “Borderless” show at the Digital Arts Museum is indeed a very intriguing showcase of large scale interactive projection mapping in a huge venue with multiple different “worlds” there to explore and interact with.

In two rooms there were drawing stations where you could pick up a template of a particular crawling critter, such as lizard, frog or some fish or so … sit down at the desk and color it to your liking … once you were done, you brought it to a scanning station which captured your creature and brought it to life on the wall or on the floor of the adjacent room, but not only floating around statically, but actually moving, crawling, swimming, whatever was appropriate for your chosen creature. And fitting for the venue, the most interactive toilet installation in -possibly- all of Japan. Sooo many buttons to press, scary not to cause some disaster :p

After that a birds-eye view of the immediate area, …

… before it was time to go back to the hotel, pack and have one last dinner here in Tokyo. Now we are sitting at Haneda Airport, waiting for our first leg to Dubai, and then a quite eventless onward journey to Vienna.

So unless something really noteworthy happens, this is likely the last entry for our trip. Four Austrians in Nippon signing off. Good Night.

… was #1 priority of today. Basically it is the last full day here in Tokyo, and Japan for that matter. So it was more of a “finish the bucket (or shopping) list” day today with a … visit to the Sumo Museum …

… the Japan Stationery Museum, which is – while also stationary – all about Stationery, so writing utensils …… showcasing the largest brush in the world … … traditional japanese writing utensils, but also international ones 😉

… and some Japanese Garden / Park strolling …

After downtown Tokyo and shopping was checked off, it was all about discovering the neighborhood of our hotel, Kamata or more precisely the city of Ota, which is a bit outside the city center, but never the less charming in its own way … it was more of a choice of convenience, it being quite close to our departure location, Tokyo Haneda Airport.

I guess it can be considered a suburb of Tokyo, but considering the size of the Tokyo metropolitan area, it is hard to say what isn’t 😉 One can only judge by the more commuter-like behavior of the people, and infrastructure … like this bike parking garage next door to Kamata Station, and the number of bikes “parked” alongside the tracks right around the station.

Kamata Station is a small train hub with multiple lines crossing here and as such there is quite a buzzing area around the train station with -again as all around- streets and streets of establishments that offer either food, booze or both.

All around, there is proof of the footprint-optimizing building concept used …

… and this must be the smallest bar i have ever seen. Seriously, the dark gate on the left is the entrance to some other place, and i have no idea what would fit in a place as small as the one with the orange awning … ?

We have already discovered (and enjoyed) the japanese fondness for MRE (meals ready to eat) but just to be clear … those are MREs of a different kind. Supermarkets here carry aisles and aisles of stuff that you can just pick up and either eat cold (like those damn delicious looking -and tasting- sushi boxes, or heat up to get something warm to eat, like noodle or rice dishes.

And we are not talking about those factory made, TV Dinner style boxes that you pop in the microwave and hopefully remember to peal off the top to prevent it from exploding … oh no … not even close … we are talking about freshly prepared stuff, where you can watch the guy preparing the fish for the boxed sushi, for example.

One thing though that struck us as odd, but is now confirmed multiple times, is their obvious lack of fresh fruit and vegetable variety, so different than other countries in Asia where there are all kinds of odd fruits and vegetables on display.

The choice here is pretty limited and -honestly- not even comparable with what we are used to in our supermarkets. Fruit is limited to bananas, apples, peaches, grapes, cherries and some citrus. Vegetables are also of the limited variety but neatly packed instead. And yes, those are tomatoes in shrink-wrap two-packs, at least they are not foam-cushioned like peaches or apples 😉

So far so good, nice area overall and it remains to be seen, which of the gazillion eateries we will bless with our patronage tonight … but the tendency is towards a taiwanese place, to try some different asian food, while we are closer to its origins than ever before.

Ah, almost forgot … i found Waldo.

Cheerio!

We were heading back to Tokyo for our last couple of days here …

… after about a five hours ride on Shinkansen, with a brief stop in Kobe (too short to grab a steak though, damn!)

We made it back to Tokyo, checked into our last hotel here, and went out for a night stroll in town.

TS1812 did leave something behind here in Tokyo … cooler temp’s … but not for long. Tomorrow we are back at mid-30C … but from what i read, back home is no different … DAMN!

TS1812 indeed hit land last night in the area between Tokyo and Kyoto and there were some horrific pictures on the news, but down here, all we had was a wet half day with medium heavy rain until around 1300, from then on it was cloudy which cleared up towards the later afternoon … all at around 30C … 😉

In fact the only impact we had was that some sights were closed since yesterday and last nights fireworks were cancelled. But given what has happened here a couple of weeks ago, with flooding and landslides it is more than understandable they take precautions.

We spent this morning in the Peace Memorial Museum, reading up on the events of August 1945. Later on it was off to Hiroshima Castle and some strolling in the streets of Hiroshima. Not many back alleys here, given they are all built around the same time.Dinner we had at a charming place in downtown Hiroshima. Challenge accepted ! How to eat a whole fish with only two wooden sticks 😉Just in case you were wondering, those are … two pork sausages … really :pThose, on the other hand, are not Soy sprouts … and HAVE EYES … so your guess is as good as ours :p we found out that apparently the english menu does not contain the more adventurous parts of the actual menu as this one was picked out (visually) from the japanese menu.Last, but not least today, a couple of japanese sights of the urban kind:

Trash Cans / Recycling stations : those are few and far between here. Their recycling revolves around plastic/PET, burnable and not-burnable garbage, but is slightly different in every city. Vending Machines: while Japan is renowned for their vending machine culture, one is for certain, the per-square-kilometer rate of beverage vending machines seems higher than the population-density of some countries. Crazy, but REALLY convenient. Looking out for the elderly: not only can you safely stow your drink at the ATM, but also your cane, if you need to.

American Left-Overs: the US influence here is very apparent. Not only well known brands, but also such like 7-eleven, Wendy’s and sports such as Baseball point to a strong cultural merge. Crazy stuff: Tower like parking garages, where your car is robotically parked in some high tower seem almost surreal, but what exactly is wrong with this picture. The nozzles for fueling your car are dangling from above … space efficient, for sure, but still odd.

Today our trip led us to Miyajima, and its cultural sites and nature … speaking of nature, we also learned the difference between high-tide and low tide here … in fact up to three (!!) meters.

Here is high tide, this morning …

… and this was yesterday afternoon, as we learned today at low-tide. Fun Science, fun science!Miyajima is a quaint little island off the coast of Hirosima in the inland sea. Besides it being a National Park, it is also a World Heritage Site for its shrines, most knowingly the Floating Shrine, with its prominent torri right in the middle of the sea.

Opposed to popular believe, the torri is not anchored to the sea bed but completely free standing and stable by its own weight. It is quite massive, which is hard to see without any real comparison, more on that later on. And yes, also this island has its obligatory wild, free roaming deers. Quite interesting having them hang around around town.

Then we went up the highest peak on the island, to 453m above sea by Ropeway, the rest to 554m on foot, and than all the way down on foot also … puh … had we only known before, what we signed up for :p

A merely 1200 years ago, some Buddhist monk hiked up the mountain to get enlightenment and along the way he lights a fire … little did he know he caused the longest fire in history, burning ever since… although it almost seems the next heavy air breeze will end its history. On our way down, we passed these two nice looking fellows. Only we saw them AFTER we had hiked half way down the mountain … could it be they were supposed to warn us of something ?Actually there were warning signs only shortly after that were actually warning us about the Japan Viper, only a deadly venomous snake one should look out for. No, why would you put those signs AT THE TRAILHEAD, half way down the mountain is early enough … you could always turn back up the mountain … and those two red guys were laughing, loudly :p

And another lesson in maritime action … tide is when a floating shrine’s torri ….

… simply becomes stuck in the mud. And with all the people around now, you can gauge its massive size.

The coming night, the Taifun is supposed to hit landfall in the Tokyo-Kyoto area, also impacting us down here potentially with thunderstorms and rain into tomorrow … so let’s cross fingers, the forecast is not too accurate :p

And here some nighttime shots, before the storm …

… with horrific history. Today we made our way to Hiroshima.

But before we made it to this historic place, we were in for a special treat ….

… waaaait for it …

… waaaaait for it …

… the Hello Kitty Shinkansen.

Pleasent ride … although a bit over the top like all things cartoon here.

This building, now called the A-Bomb-Dome withstood the blast of the Hiroshima Bomb, most likely because it was detonated approx here, just 600m up in the air. All other buildings you see in the pictures around were built after, as the whole area was obliterated on August 6, 1945 by the power of an equivalent of 15 Kilotons of TNT. Around 60.000-80.000 people were killed instantly, while about the same amount died the following weeks and months of radiation complications.

A couple of days later, Nagasaki was hit by Bomb #2, bringing the total death count to way over 200.000 people who died as direct or indirect result of the attack.

Japan, following the drops, announced its surrender mid August 1945 and with the signing of the instrument of surrender Japan effectively ended WWII.

Today, Hiroshima is a modern, vibrant city, but has this historic vibe all-present.

Rest of the afternoon/evening, strolling through Peace Memorial Park and Hiroshima style pancakes for dinner.

And a quite nice view from our hotel rooms, too.

PS: some pic’s from Nara

… on our last day here in Kyoto.

For dinner we tried a “hole-in-the-wall” noodle place right around the corner from the place we stayed at the last couple of days.

Very nice Udon (chilled – with duck, bottom) and meat tempura udon (top)

A couple of impressions from the way back to our place.

Seems feng shui dictates crucket alignments to offset the otherwise allpresent perfection, or to optimize the flow of energy, orr maybe it is to encourage a moment of rest, in an otherwise hectic journey, who knows.

It seems imilar teachings apply to electrical installations all around. Makes total sense, energy is energy, right?

A good-night desert … colorful, so it must be good! It actually was 😉

And in case you were wondering. Both Tokyo and Kyoto were AirBnB, typical dwellings in great areas … here in Kyoto on the more traditional side.

One of the japanese rooms, they could but never did for us) convert into a room by “rolling up your bed. (Below)

The main room, call it living/dining/family room. (Above)

And behind that fashionable sliding door in the far back is our en-suite “SPA area” …

… wrapping around our very own zen garden.

From now on, though, we had to resort to plain-old hotels as AirBnB only pays off above a certain number of nights (and it seems there are barely any AirBnB hosts in Hiroshima) 🙁

… is representative for Japan. Also everyday items, such as traffic lights are minimalistic here … yes, that barely a couple of centimeter thick thing is the whole traffic light. For sure, at least in vienna, traffic lights are muuuuuuch more massive, even though they are also using LED technology these days.

Rest of today was dedicated to Nijojo Castle, and a stroll around some downtown streets.

Overall a light day, as it is the last here in Kyoto and there is some planning to be done for our next stop, Hiroshima.

We’ll see what the next couple of days will bring, given TS1812 (Jongdari) is heading for Japan, with a planned landfall of July-29 right in the Kyoto / Hiroshima area. Good thing, it will bring some cooling down for the area (for Hiroshima, the prediction is low 30sC, for Tokyo even below 30C over the weekend !!, but back to 34ish by the time we get back there early next week, DAMN!), but all comes with a cost, and in this case it is chances of cloudy skies, thunderstorms and rain the next couple of days.

Let’s hope the weather is as polite and reserved as the people are 😉

Today was another tranquil day, exploring only few of the tourist spots, in fact only one (and a half). A forest made out of bamboo (mostly), but not your old “make some plant rods” kind of bamboo, but rather the “we can do scaffolding for serious buildings out of this” kind, with arm/leg diameters (depending of your arm/leg) 😉

And as always, no turning a corner w/o running a temple, shrine or vending machine … or any combination of the above … latter to our huge relief, as temps went slightly down from yesterday’s 39.1C (!!) to almost bone-chilling 37ish. Always having a vending machine in sight is helpful to stay hydrated w/o having to drag all that hydration around … quite ingenious, i have to say.

After that it was time for a tour of popular, and less known, gardens in Kyoto.

Diving into a walled-in conglomerate of 46-47 (seems it’s like pluto, say its a planet, some say it is not. Same here. Seems some say one of the sites here is a temple, and some say it ain’t).

For sure, it is off-off-off the tourist radar, but most certainly has no reason to stay in the shadows of other, more popular sites. In fact, the whole compound is much more impressive in size and versatility.

The hidden secrets are the gardens which are often hidden away from prying eyes, but some are open to visit. Like this one …

From the excitement of some of the asians around us it seems that we hit jackpot, since the lotus’ all around start to bloom.

Mythical creatures all around … some playful …… some more on the scary side.

And last, but not least, a part of modern japanese culture … comic books … pardon me … MANGA !

Though Japan seems to favor monochrome (cars, people, etc.) are majority black/white, some shades in between, but manga can be quite colorful.

Though japanese are so correct, stoic and seem so distant, mangas are not, for sure. Man, there is some crazy shit in those books … and some of them are rated R, with a huuuuuge R !

But i guess it is -kind of- fitting, that the Manga museum is housed in a former elementary school. I guess the halls there have seen generations of manga-reading children, and now it is stacked, floor to ceiling, with those books and children and adults alike enjoy them, all in the open, not under the desk.

How can such neatly smiling caterpillar be soooo nasty. Good thing they put up the signs.

So far we have been raiding various convenience stores and hand wondered about the abandoned absence of fresh fruit and veggies in those stores (except for bananas, for whatever reason) but we concluded that those stores carried good of convenience, like ready made food, toiletries, etc. … hence the name.

Today we discovered a real japanese supermarket. Not any different from ours, with the exception of certain food groups that are more rare in our supermarkets than they are here, and that any fresh fish product here looks suspiciously delicious.

One thing though, that we learned as well, was that large fruit, like apples, peaches, etc. are not only precious enough to foam cushion them individually (no joke, the below is khow one would buy each individual apple, peach, etc. … and … that one pays by piece and not by weight … but gets charged about the same 🙂

Besides that, things are quite normal … including the prices for other food groups. Seems only fresh fruit is luxury goods here in Japan.