Day 5: Japanese Lesson

We got a late start to the day on our first morning in Tokyo, the bustle of the last few days finally catching up with us. Once conscious, we realized we were again faced with the most confusing Japanese meal of the day: breakfast.

After some Googling to the sound of grumbling stomachs we settled on a restaurant called Bubby's, the Japanese sister of a restaurant in Tribeca. With all the accoutrements of a diner, from the pies in a glass box to Wild Horses playing from the speakers, I felt like I was back in the US--so much so that I began speaking to the waitress in English as though she could understand me. Martin had to remind me that we were in Japan, which was hard to remember as we devoured our sourcream pancakes and my somewhat suspicious sausage.

Satisfied, we headed to Meguro--the district of Tokyo where the MLC Language Center and our private Japanese lesson was to be held. The reason we're in Japan in the first place is that Martin's work will pay for his flight and his housing in a foreign country if he takes a language course there. We picked Japan because it's somewhere neither of us ever thought we'd go.

Once we arrived at MLC, we were greeted by the entire office as though we were old friends. The receptionist took one look at us and asked "Martin-san and Sylvia-san?" We nodded, at which point every woman in the office stood up excitedly to greet us. We filled out quick questionnaires and then settled into a small room with our teacher, a very friendly woman named Numa who seemed genuinely entertained by us.

Our lesson, conducted using a workbook called "Survival Japanese Course," was four and a half hours long. In the first two hours, we learned all kinds of interesting things. For instance, Japanese has three distinct alphabets--one is with kanji lettering, for words that have Chinese origins, another is phonetic, for children to use and for foreign words, and the last is the traditional Japanese alphabet.

Around hour three, I started to lose it. Everything became hysterically funny, from my own disastrous pronunciation to trying to learn different tenses in a language that was gibberish two hours ago. I took frequent coffee breaks which resulted in frequent bathroom breaks, which in turn resulted in my observation that some Japanese bathrooms have knit coverings on the toilet seats. Overall, though, Martin became very good at basic Japanese, I drank a lot of coffee, and Numa had a great time with us.

For dinner, Numa recommended a restaurant across the street, so we ate there before heading back to our apartment. I stayed to rest and Martin went to the Intercontinental to pick up his friend Abe, who joined us for our part of the journey in Tokyo.

Once Abe was settled in, the three of us got ready to go out and took the subway to Shibuya, a popular nighttime area for the younger set in Tokyo. We crossed the famous Shibuya Crossing, an intersection at which people simultaneously cross on six different crosswalks in different directions, making for a pretty impressive, if hectic experience.

Our destination was Maiddreamin', a basement restaurant designed like a pastel Super Mario in which subpar food is served to you by girls dressed up in maid outfits, who occasionally burst into choreographed song and dance (video coming once I get it from Abe).

Martin at Maiddreamin'

I ordered pancakes and one of the maids decorated it in a "cute" way, giggling as she drew a cat in chocolate on my pancakes. After she finished, she pointed at the dish and with the other hand over her mouth said "cute, cat, cute, cat" over and over in broken English as the chocolate melted.

We really felt as though we were in a different world, where baby voices are supposed to be attractive and giggling at cats is supposed to be charming. We finished our food and decided to call it a night, heading back to the apartment.

Day 4: Kyoto to Tokyo

We woke up with no set plan for the day other than making it to Tokyo via Shinkansen (bullet train) at some point during the day. We packed our things up (mostly Martin because I was still upset about losing the bag yesterday), went back to the breakfast buffet for the last time, and headed to Nishiki Market.

Breakfast for the last time

Within walking distance of Ryoko's apartment, Nishiki Market is a narrow, five-block long shopping street with many restaurants, food stands, and shops. The picturesque market makes for a pleasant stroll in theory, but the smells from various sweets, pickles, and dried seafood made me feel very sick, so we left.

Back in fresh air, we started walking in the direction of Kyoto's one-room Kaleidoscope Museum. Along the way we bought some beautiful printed postcards to frame when we get back to NYC and also spotted a Tintin store, which we planned to return to after the Kaleidoscope Museum. Once we arrived at the cash-only Kaleidoscope Museum, however, we realized that Martin was out of yen and that I had left my cash in the apartment. The woman at the museum told us we could exchange money at the bank a few blocks away.

The bank in Kyoto was among one of the most interesting experiences of the trip thus far. We were led to the upstairs, which consisted of an open office where something like ten people worked silently and swiftly to a loud but peaceful background music. It looked like something out of a dystopian future, like 1984, with no one speaking louder than a whisper and moving in almost choreographed movements.

We left the bank and passed through an open-air shopping complex, finding a few gifts to replace the ones we lost.

Open-air shopping

Interesting things for sale

I kept asking how close we were to Gion, not-so-subtly asking if we could spend some time looking for the lost bag. Martin kept answering that we were close but not that close.

The Kaleidoscope Museum was amazing. We walked in in the middle of a presentation in Japanese about how kaleidoscopes worked given by an elderly employee of the museum, presumably Mr. Yoda, the creator of most of the kaleidoscopes. The presentation consisted of projections of kaleidoscopes on the walls and an explanation of how there are three ways to make kaleidoscopes, using isosceles triangles, equilateral triangles, or squares. Once his lecture was over, the room emptied out except for us, and Mr. Yoda showed us about twenty different kaleidoscopes, each more incredible than the next. One kaleidoscope was inside a glass-tiled geisha. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed.

After a brief stop at the Tintin Store, we continued walking along Sanjo Dori, which is a famous covered street lined with shops. Along the way we found a giant, moving crab fixture on the side of a building.

Giant crab

Sanjo Dori

Once we had purchased a few more gifts, Martin decided we were close enough to the subway station where we realized we'd lost the bag the day before that we could go in and ask about it. We went down into the station and essentially played an extensive game of pictionary with the station agent, who spent a good 20 minutes calling other stations to see if they had found our bag. No luck.

The amount of effort he had put into looking, though, made us suspect that we hadn't lost the bag in the subway. We had some extra time and felt up to retracing our steps from yesterday to see if we could find it.

At first, we planned on skipping the shrine in our search because we both specifically remembered that we almost left my backpack behind because it blended into the grey rocks around the shrine. At the last moment we decided to be thorough and stop by the mammoth shrine again. Once we arrived, we asked the elderly man at the ticket counter if he had found a bag. He gave us a disdainful/confused look, but we continued with our pantomime until he got up and walked to the back of his office. When he returned he was holding...OUR BAG!

If we hadn't been separated by glass I would have hugged him. I decided to crawl back through the hole in the shrine with a new intention, almost certain that the shrine was good luck and that I should probably become Shinto.

                                       

Through the shrine again!

Feeling elated, we decided to splurge on a second cab, which moved too slowly, so we got out almost immediately. We bought sushi and chicken in the basement of Daimaru, a huge department store (the basements of department stores in Japan are massive food courts without seating areas) and went back to Ryoko's apartment.

Saying goodbye to Ryoko

We said goodbye and took a picture with Ryoko, packed the last of our things, and bought tickets for the Shinkansen, or bullet train. After a brief sprint upon realizing that only the first three cars were for non-reserved ticket holders, we enjoyed a 2 hour train ride through lush green mountains and small towns. Martin was upset that we didn't see Mt. Fuji from the train, likely because of the fog.

We got to our apartment in Tokyo, which is above a Turkish restaurant and underwhelming. I was pleased to find that the ceiling in the shower is too low and that I can't stand up when showering. Too tired to complain, we passed out around 9. 

Day 3: Arashiyma and Sangano

Martin woke up at 530 to a note from Ryoko saying that we had fallen asleep with the door open and without eating dinner, so she had bought sushi and some sandwiches for us in case we woke up hungry.

Moved by her hospitality, we ate breakfast with her and watched TV, at which point she warned us about the upcoming typhoon. As we watched the TV, one of us had to take one for the team and eat an extremely suspect ham sandwich while the other one of us got to eat delicious salmon sushi. After our quick breakfast and storm warning from Ryoko, we decideed to head back to the trusty breakfast buffet because Martin was feeling a little under the weather and was in need of soup.

After our third meal there, we took the subway to Arashiyama, a town in Northwest Kyoto famous for its bamboo groves. This meant that we were taking the Kyoto subway for the first time, and were impressed to find it extremely clean. We are so accustomed to the faint smell of urine, suspicious stains, and trash everywhere in New York that we found it very surprising.

Once in Arashiyama, we paused to admire the scenery from the Togetsukyo Bridge, also known as the moon crossing bridge. We were expecting to see local fishermen out on the river, but we either arrived too late or the morning's rains had deterred them. The view from the bridge was very impressive, with fog hanging low around mountains of a deep green with trees that looked like broccoli (in my opinion, anyways).

The main tourist street of Arashiyama is filled with overpriced souvenirs and young men asking if you want to ride in their rickshaws, so we decided to immediately make our way to the bamboo trail. Before heading into the bamboo forest, we bought some sweets that we had read about on blogs. I really liked my three sticky rice ball treat, but Martin didn't like his similarly sticky, hash brown looking thing.

We looked for a place to throw the sticks and paper out after we had finished eating, but were again reminded that there are no garbage bins in all of Japan. We asked Ryoko what she does about this later, and she said that she either carries the garbage with her back home, or she secretly and quickly throws it away at trash cans outside of convenience stores even though the stores don't like it when you do that.

Having finished our sweets, we went into the bamboo forest, which was fairly crowded and not so impressive after the majesty of Fushimi Inari the day before.

More fun were the several shops we stopped at along the way that sold items made of bamboo and other local Japanese specialities--like washi, handmade paper. We paused in one store where a man makes little animals and mobiles out of cocoons he finds. We also spent considerable time in another store run by an elderly woman, where we bought many gifts for friends and family.

The walk out of the forest and through the historically preserved town area was beautiful; a little village nestled in the mountains. The only nuisance were the thousands of tiny bugs desperately attacking us and clinging to our clothing, but the views kept us from complaining too much.

After a short walk through historically preserved streets we arrived at Adashino Nenbutsuji Temple, at the top of a short, mossy hill. The temple was founded in the early 9th century when the famous monk Kobo Diaishi placed stone statues for the souls of the dead here. Today, there are thousands of statues on the grounds of the temple. Once a year, candles are placed on the heads of the statues at night, giving the appearance of floating candles in the dark. It felt a little weird to be taking pictures in a cemetary but I'd really never seen anything like it before in my life.

Adashino Nenbutsuji

We continued down the path and the number of tourists around us started to wane until it was just us, walking down what started to look like a dirt path, being increasingly eaten alive by mosquitos. Martin wasn't sure we were heading in the right direction but this time it was me that insisted we keep going--I had read about Otagi Nenbutsuji Temple and wanted desperately to see it.

Finally, we arrived at the temple and paid the entry fee at the bottom of the hill. The temple is famous for its 1200 stone statues of raken, followers of Buddhism, each with a different expression and pose. The sheer number of these raken was astounding, and we were by ourselves in this place that seemed like it was out of a movie. Again, the contrast of green moss on grey stone created an eerie, mystical effect for those of us not born in the Pacific Northwest and therefore unaccustomed to such things.

After walking all day we couldn't imagine having to retrace our steps back to the Main Street in Arashiyama, so we took our first cab in Japan. The interior was decked out in what looked like white doilies, what Martin said made him think of what he would imagine an Indian cab might look like.

Back in the main part of Arashiyama we decided to try the tofu restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet book, our most expensive meal to date but easily our most enjoyable one. We elected to sit on tatami mats rather than at Western-style tables, and were seated right by windows overlooking a peaceful garden--perfect for resting after all of our walking. Martin ordered hot tofu and I ordered cold tofu (and ended up eating most of his). We ate almost everything except for a bowl of tiny dead fish which I couldn't even look at. The meal was finished off with delicious light-as-air tofu dessert with a drop of raspberry jam.

After some milk-flavored ice cream from a street vendor, we took the subway back to Kyoto's city center to explore Gion, a neighborhood famous for its shops. As soon as we emerged from the subway we saw three girls all dressed up in costumes and I had to get a picture with them.

Which one of these is not like the others?

At this point I started to completely lose my energy because of the humidity, so Martin was basically dragging me through the back streets behind Gion as he searched for something he had saved on his phone. I was so tired and in such a bad mood that I didn't even ask him where we were going, and was elated to find what must be the most whimsical shrine in all of Kyoto (I know that is a superignorant Western thing to say). The shrine is about four feet high and looks kind of like a mini wooly mammoth from afar, the wool of the mammoth made up of papers upon which people write their intentions. Once you write down your intention, you take the paper with you and crawl through the hole in the center of the mammoth, crawl back the other way, and then glue your intention to the stone. Martin didn't want to do it, but I did--finding it very difficult given the fact that I am six feet tall and not under five feet like most of the women comfortably crawling through the narrow hole.

After wandering in Gion for a while, mostly underwhelmed by the experience, we decided to get our guidebook out and look up Pontocho, another area supposedly worth seeing for its shopping. The only problem was, we couldn't find our guidebook...or the blue and white bag filled with carefully chosen presents for family and friends. At this point I basically threw a temper tantrum and Martin had to calm me down before we went down to the subway, hoping someone had possibly turned it in. Martin said he had some hope that we might find it again, because the Japanese have a reputation for being very honest. To their credit, the Japanese station agent we talked to made every effort to locate the bag, calling all the different stations and asking if they had seen it. When she apologized for not being able to find it, it was a real apology, not the kind of throwaway apologies we use back home.

In a horrible mood, we returned back to our apartment to have a tempura dinner with Ryoko and her husband. Ryoko basically cooked the entire time because tempura takes forever to make, but she happily chatted with us as we ate before it got cold. We used this opportunity to ask about Tokyo because they lived there prior to Kyoto, and got the names of several shops and restaurants to use later. We also learned about what Japanese weddings are like. In order to attend a wedding, guests must pay a certain amount of money, ranging from 300, 500, or even 700 dollars, depending on age and social status. There is no communal dancing but instead a kind of talent show, in which certain guests go up and put on an act for the other guests, who sit and clap for them. We decided Western weddings are a lot more fun. They agreed, and we thanked them for the tempura dinner. 

Day 2: Southern Kyoto

After a quick breakfast at the same buffet close to the apartment, we rented bicycles again despite a rainy forecast. Martin successfully got us to Toji, a massive temple in southern Kyoto. We (Martin) had read that there was occasionally a flea market on the temple grounds on Sundays, and were pleased to find it when we arrived.

At Toji

The wares being sold ranged from bizarre to mundane, including dolls' heads, kimonos, and thousands of china bowls and plates.

Wares 

We were able to find a few gifts for family and friends, resorting to playing charades with vendors in order to bridge the language gap. 

Pleased with our purchases, we packed our findings into our backpacks and headed for Fushimi Inari, the most famous Shinto shrine in Kyoto. The ride from Toji to Fushimi Inari was very beautiful, as we navigated the narrow roads of tourist-free residential Kyoto. The only complaint was a bridge whose bike path was extremely narrow, requiring Jedi-focus to not fall over and into the river below. Remember this bridge, it is going to make a reappearance.

Buying sushi en route to Fushimi Inari

Once we arrived at Fushimi Inari, we dropped our bicycles off at the bicycle parking lot and sat down on a bench to eat the sushi we'd purchased along the way. Right in front of us was a massive orange torii, in front of which tourists posed for pictures. We felt it start to lightly rain, and paused for a moment to contemplate whether we were really going to hike the 2km up the mountain in the rain. We decided yes, that we hadn't come all the way to Kyoto to wimp out, and took our umbrellas out. (Note: upon reading this, Martin said that he would like to clarify that he always intended to climb the mountain, and that any hesitation was happening only in my head).

The entrance to Fushimi Inari

As is turns out, the rain only added to the experience of climbing mount Inari, up steep steps and through torii as we made our way through the mossy green forest. 

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Fushimi Inari is a Shinto shrine. Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan, in which people worship spirits known as kami. We kept seeing statues of foxes in various mildly threatening poses, and learned that the fox is one of the most venerated spirits in Shinto, able to possess people by entering through their fingernails. 

With the fox kami

The climb rapidly became exhausting, as evidenced by the lessening number of fellow tourists trekking alongside us. Finally, after about an hour and a half of climbing, we made it to the top. Then, as if on cue, the deluge started. The rain was coming down hard and we quickly stopped taking pictures and started making sure our cameras stayed dry. 

We started heading down the mountain and naturally came to a cross roads--two paths seemed to head down the mountain. Martin selected the most interesting one, which had elevated gravel to allow a wheelchair to be pushed up the mountain. 

Wheelchair path

We followed this path down for a while only to find ourselves completely alone. Again, as if on cue, the rain seemed to double in intensity. We immediately stopped and put on ponchos that we still had from Hayim and Esther's wedding in Houston and made sure our clothes were covered. I insisted we turn back, and Martin (recalling a certain hike in which he had led friends astray in Israel) agreed. 

Lost!

Once we found the correct path, we were surprised to see a girl in a full kimono outfit (socks and wooden sandals) climbing Fushimi Inari in the rain. We tried to come up with a reason why she might have done that, and later asked Ryoko, but she was just as surprised as we were.

We finally emerged from Fushimi Inari, completely soaked, only to have to deal with the problem of our rental bicycles, which were currently sitting in the bicycle parking lot being battered by the rain. With only two hours remaining to return the bikes and the sky showing no sign of clearing any time soon, we decided to bike back to the rental store. It was at this point that I decided to abandon all hopes of keeping my hair dry and allowed it to become something like a wet mop on top of my head, which Martin pulled back into a wet mop bun before we mounted our bikes. 

About to bike in the rain

I prefer not to think about what we looked like biking back to the rental store, with our giant yellow and white ponchos draped over our backpacks, making us look like giant, dripping hunchbacks on tiny bicycles swerving between umbrellas on the streets of Kyoto. The worst decision of all was crossing that narrow bridge in this getup, silently praying to whatever Shinto kami guarded this bridge to please let us make it over alive. 

But, all's well that ends well! We made it back to the store despite the violent downpour, totally exhausted. Martin passed out at 7 pm and would not be woken up.