Wow - Machines edition

So I recently came across this video:

Which is mesmeric despite the terrible quality.  It looks like one of those videos that loops indefinitely, but in reality only has 100 or so frames to the entire thing.  The way these guys have got the system down to a fine art really make the whole thing.  Also, how cool is that machine?  I assume the driver has a wealth of experience using it which makes the whole process look simple, but the design of that piece of equipment is also brilliant.  Although, having said that, it doesn't look like it would be particularly versatile.  You wouldn't be able to fight off the zombie hordes with it for very long.

You might be able to change a duvet or two with it though.  Your bed changes per hour would be through the roof.

The Shinkansen, Tokyo Aquarium, and of course, Happy Birthday Ray!

Happy birthday Ray!  First of all, follow that link for my Happy Birthday Ray Japanese lesson.  Curtesy of a couple of willing Japanese 'volunteers.'  You have no idea how difficult it is to convince Japanese people to participate in such events.  They either have to be drunk, or in ann extremely good mood.

Secondly, check out my visit to Tokyo Aquarium.  It has more drums, is full of fish; and even has the best meal ever conceived!  The whole day was fantastic.

So onto yesterday.

Yesterday was a travelling day, I took the shinkansen (bullet train) from Yokohama to Kyoto; and arrived around 2:30PM, having left at 12PM.  Frankly speaking the whole thing was too efficient. While i was on the train I wrote todays entry, so here it is:

At this point I mention Nan and Ray. I got the people in the hostel to say happy birthday in Japanese, and I recorded them, but I've lost that days' pictures and videos. So hey Nan, happy birthday! I'll give you a ring later.

And hey Ray, happy birthday, I'll probably catch you on MSN when you should be working, at a later date.

So I'm sitting on the bullet train, on my way to Kyoto.

I woke up this morning and decided I'd had enough of Tokyo and Yokohama. I'm off to Kyoto, for some serious temple and shrine sightseeing, while meeting up with Pascal for some fun and frolicking; maybe. I'm told there's not a lot to do in Kyoto, other than the temple and shrine route. This has driven a number of my fellow travellers to distraction, and I've found a number of them crave the Tokyo life after only a week or two in Kyoto. I have to say that the type of person who's commented in such a way is usually here for the technology, rather than the general tourism. A number of people have come here on stays for cultural reasons, Naree for example, and loved Kyoto. Then again, she was engaged in dancing activity for a large amount of her time, so it was more like a job than a sightseeing tour I guess. We'll see how it turns out for me, I might get bored of it, I might not.

One of the guys sitting next to me seems extremely nice, he's chatted a little, and even showed me the power socket for my computer. His English isn't very good, but neither is my Japanese so I think we're equals in this sense. The other guy is too cool for school. Ginger hair is big over here, men and women wear it with equal zealousness. Genetically speaking, I don't think it's possible for a native Japanese to have anything other than black hair, so when they see foreigners with blonde hair and blue eyes, they immediately stare, mouth agape. If you happen to be blonde and have blue eyes, and be female, no matter how ugly you are - a job teaching English beckons here.

So to explain my motivation for dropping such a large amount of money on this mode of transport: The shinkansen is just awesome. It's doing two hundred miles per hour, and it feels like we're on a cloud. The trains have their own dedicated tracks which means no interruptions by normal intercity riff raff, and the tracks have neither junctions or much in the way of bends. Those corners we do round, as you'll see in my videos when I upload them, are banked like an american oval to a degree that you can actually feel your bum being pushed into the seat. That's really g-force. However minor it may be, the fact it happens on a train is just plain mental.

I also can't emphasise how luxurious this travel is, even in scumbag class (I accidentally got on the wrong end of the train, meaning I had to walk, bag and all, through all the really nice parts of the train, knocking people, cups, sushi, bento and all flying) I have ample legroom, and I mean ample, just check out the pictures. My baby laptop is sitting so far away from me on the aeroplane style desk, that I'm having to lean forward to reach it. This is amazing. Width is still something of an issue, but since the age of ten it became obvious my shoulders were not designed for public transport. Height is the most amazing thing though.

Most trains require me to enter sideways, while bent double in a full ninety degree shuffle. This modern, forward looking transport system means I only have to nod my head down to get through the doors, and once I'm inside I can stand tall! It's amazing! In twenty years time, foreigners might not even have to duck at all.

I've been on the train an hour or so now and the air hostess lady has passed three times. Now that's (expensive) service.

The noise is also something that took me by surprise. English trains, at their fastest, do half the speed of this thing; but by god do you know they're doing that speed. One hundred miles an hour on an English train may as well feel like a thousand, and every time another train goes past those with gulf war syndrome jump aside for cover; and those sleeping pretend it didn't just make them wet themselves.

Here, when another bullet train goes past, in the opposite direction, at a combined speed of over 400 miles per hour you hear nothing. I kid you not. Nothing. The only reason you know something just happened is because train rocks slightly, and by the time you look over to see why, the other train has already gone.

So it was getting a little crowded between the other two guys, so I switched seats, and using my incredible foreigner powers I've bagged myself a seat with a spare to the side.

The efficiency of the entire endeavour boggles my mind, every time I think about it. It's never late, there's no fuss with tickets and whatnot because you ask someone before buying, buy it from a person, have it pass through a machine, then another person checks it. In terms of economic efficiency, it's probably much more labour intensive than it could be, and therefore much more expensive; the human and mechanical efficiency of such a system means that everything runs smoothly. It's obviously an expensive service, as I've just seen first hand, but the fact a large number of people are using it, even today at a decidedly non-peak time is testament to the value this service holds, beyond the cost.

I guess justifying having eight members of crew on-board a single train, not including the drivers (plural) would be difficult for the bigwigs who run British trains.

On a side note, rural Japan seems to be extremely nice. Contrary to what I was expecting, a large percentage of the houses do seem to carry the traditional style to some extent, specifically the typically oriental roof design, that seems so frivolous and eccentric. It's difficult to see at this speed whether there are any wooden buildings left, I fear this might be simply a dream. The number of rice fields here is also surprisingly high but then again, Japan produces 120% of the rice it needs as a country, so presumably they've got a large export industry in rice. This is of course nullified immediately by all other foodstuffs. Except maybe daikon. They love daikon here, and I don't even know what it is; bar some kind of vegetable. All meat is imported, hence the horrific bill I paid yesterday for my yakiniku meal. A day on and it was still worth it though, so I figure I'm safe in terms of conscience on that spend.

On a further note about Japan; I learned in a geography lesson a while ago that the landmass of Japan is primarily mountainous and cannot be built upon. Therefore, despite being (roughly) 1.1 times the size of England, they only have the luxury of being able to build upon a quarter of that land. This is the reason for the chronic population densities, that top anywhere in the world. Having been here for a while I couldn't really see where this particular mountain statistic came from, or what the Japanese obsession with yama (one of the few kanji I know, 山, mountain) was. I now know. Since we left the built-up regions I've seen nothing but mountains. And I should add they're mountains that are quite definitely not populated, or able to be built upon. The effect is quite incredible, having massive high rise apartments a stones throw from a great big hill. Although most are quite modest, some reach through the clouds. Most belong to chains, and I suspect a lot also have shrines and temples on top, with thousands of steps ala Kill Bill, or any number of samurai/martial arts films.

Factor all this into a population of 125 million, and the density now makes perfect sense in my mind.
Awww jeez I wanted to write so much more, but we're already at Kyoto. Damnit.

You never know, maybe we'll be delayed and I'll have more time to write...

And now for some pictures!

A funny little warning telling you not to run on the platform.

Presumably to see this sign you've made it onto the train; so you survived the platform experience.  You never know though I guess; someone might have been carried aboard.

It also tells you the load weight of the table!  How thorough a warning is that!

Look how much room I have!  There's enough for me and my enormous bag!

I don't think you can buy this kind of space on any other mass transit system.  First class?  Pfff who needs that...

So this is an aisle view of the train.  Looks pretty much like an aeroplane in my eyes.

Three on the left, two on the right.

That's as many words as I can stretch this picture to.

Moving from Tokyo to Kyoto is one hell of a creepy experience.  I was in this underground station, and there wasn't a single other person; it was only 7PM!

The hustle and bustle of Tokyo only really begins to become apparent once you move to a city like this.  There are still 1 million or so people living here, but it feels like a village... Albeit a village with a metro line.

And this is the view of the station looking in the other direction.  Creepy.

It's like something out of a horror film - decimated population, zombies in the woodwork, that kind of thing.

A mini salesman and repair shop.

In the middle of kyoto.

Interesting.

A lot of them were pretty beaten up though it has to be said.

I do think the mini is the perfect car for here though.



So for the Shinkansen videos:




So this is the platypus jawed machine pulling into the station.

I managed to get on the wrong end, and had to traipse through the entire train; knocking people and sushi flying. (they have an airline style food service onboard) A lot of people were very angry.  Stupid foreigner.




And this is an onboard shot; looking out of the window.  You can clearly see the banking of the track in this photo, and it might make some seasick!  Advisory, don't look at this video if you get motion sickness!

Oh wait, this is below the video...  Oh well  (please don't sue)

So basically this machine is expensive, and horrifically efficient.  Efficient beyond the realms of probability.  But then again everyone already knows that anyway...

Ride the shinkansen:  Tick.

On an unrelated note, Naree used a couple of my pictures on her website.

Picture one:  A tree that she made negative.  On her homepage as well!

Secondly: A blurred picture of  the zanily dressed girl!  I don't really like this picture because it's blurred as hell!  But then again, covert documentation such as this often carries with it such risks of poor quality.  Thanks for using my pics!

Ciao for now!

The Trip from Minamisenju to Yokohama

So this particular post covers the night before I left minamisenju, to the day after I arrived in Yokohama.

It's worth noting that drawing money out here is really difficult!  If you have a visa card it's fine, but if you have a debit card like mine, it's nigh on impossible.  I have to go to the big post offices and draw money from their machines because the banks don't accept my card, and none of the normal atm's here do either.

Also, they only use cash here.  Unless you're buying a  car or some expensive tech, they use  cash.  Essentially drawing money out at atm's is important here, and I can't do it easily!  It's quite the pain in the backside.

On the plus side it means I don't tend to keep drawing money  out, and I think this helps me keep track of my finances.  I'll draw a certain amount out and say to myself, ok this has to last x number of days.  Quite handy in that respect I suppose.

So I arrived here desperately needing to pay for the rent in my new hostel, and it took me two hours to find an atm that accepted my card!  Really annoying.

So having found the atm I went and ate dinner with my university language exchange buddy, who came to hull for a month between her normal degree study, and her masters.  She's a biologist studying seaweed and algae and wahtnot.  It's all very clever stuff.

Ok so the pictures start with the night before I left minamisenju, and me and the girl who works behind the Aizuya bar in minamisenju went to eat some dinner, that took about four hours...  Taking your time is important to me apparently, I never realised this before.

Ok so we had 'western' foods tonight.  Pizza, pasta, that kind of thing.  I remarked that even the pizza is tiny and cute, then couldn't resist making a little face out of it.

Don't play with your food children!

Yeah we got some strange looks from the staff...

Then we added a nose...

I don't know why...


But it's fun I guess?

Ok so this is the Aizuya bar.  The woman working behind the bar also works in the adjoining hairdressers.

The people that work here are the best I've met so far on my trip; amazing and friendly!

I'm pretty sure the bar makes no money, it's just something to do for fun, and it shows with the way the staff talk to customers, and how easy it is to strike up a conversation with them.

Really nice people.

The woman on the right owns the hostel/bar with her husband, and they have the cutest baby ever.  It's this devious and cunning little blob thing that already knows how to break things and spend peoples money, in the coin machines they have around the place.

It's a shame about the picture really, but the lighting didn't allow for a very good photo.  If only I had a good camera!

Ok so I forced her to do the bunny rabbit ear/peace/v sign thing.  She works behind the counter in the new koyo hostel and is an amazing help.  She showed me how to get all around the place, and is just generally awesome.

She also bought me lunch!  Thank you very much!

I'll definitely head back to that hostel on the way back to the airport.

Ok so now we're in Yokohama.  My bags weighed too much to take photographs while travelling, but there really wasn't much to see anyway.

This tall, cool looking tower is on the coast of Yokohama overlooking the sea.  The cool thing is that this isn't particularly tall, there are buildings nearing 100 storeys that have obsvervation towers at the top, but this is probably only fifty or so, if that.

So many unbelievably tall buildings in Tokyo and Yokohama.

So I like this picture, even though it doesn't really have a story behind it.  All the birds are facing the same way, because the wind is blowing directly in the faces and when they want to take off, they simply hop off the edge and use the headwind to fly off.  Literally zero effort required!

Another view of the same boat.  Nothing more to say here really...

Moped modification...

You know you've taken it too far when you put a massive fin on the back of a moped to make it look like some kind of shark...

Big bikes are few and far between here, even on the motorways you'll see more harleys than sportsbikes, which again makes no sense.  Harleys work on american roads, but Japanese road are like English ones.

There are side-streets that have turns a harley would literally not fit around.  Bizarre.

Speak of the devil...

I've seen a few R1's parked around the place, and a few more 600cc bikes about the place, always parked.  Never ridden.

This cool looking structure is a hotel/apartment building overlooking the bay area.  It's gargantuan in all dimensions.  Most tall buildings are quite slender, but this thing is broad as much as tall, so you recognise it all over yokohama.

The distinctive curve reminds me of the gherkin, only this building is pleasing to the eye.

I really struggled  to get a good photo of this wheel.  It's substantially smaller than the London eye, but it's still a skyline dominating lightshow.  It's called the clock, and each spoke lights up like a second hand.  It also has a digital display in the middle showing the current 24hr time.  It's impressive.

Inside there's a log flume, as you do, and running around the area is a small roller coaster.  No I didn't go on any of them, my companion is quite timid.

Ok so now we're going to play a little game.

Guess what this shop is...

A little more will be revealed in the next picture...

Ok so there's no name yet, but the little figurines should give it away...

That's right!  It's a pokemon shop!

It's actually styled to look like a shop in the game, and has places to meet other pokemon players and trade junk!

It's a whole shop dedicated to a game franchise, frankly that's incredible and well worthy of a few pictures!


That's everything for this portion of the blog!

Plans for Today, and the Past Few Days.

Firstly, I've lost my lucky coin!  I've lost my lucky rmb, so I'm debating about whether to leave the room today or not!

So for the last few days I've been travelling around with various people, visiting various shrines and whatnot.  Yesterday I went back to Harujuku because there's just so much craziness there, a day really isn't enough.  So I went with the then lost, but now found, Australian girl and a Belgian called pascal.  It was a good day, but the crazy amount of walking meant I woke up with cramp in the middle of the night.  That was painful.  But what was even more painful was me remembering that to stop reoccurring cramp you should let  the muscle spasm until it naturally finishes, rather than stretching it off.  This probably only applies to sport, but I applied it last night and sat there for about a minute in agony, before deciding to stretch.  Now it just plum  hurts, like a pulled muscle or something.

So Ueno park is my destination today.  It's already quite late, but there are half a dozen museums and interesting sights within this park, so a single day won't be enough; I'll scout it out today and see if it's worth investing further time in.  It's only a twenty minute walk away so it's not expensive.

That is assuming I don't cramp up in the middle of the street of course...

It's a shame  it's not a train journey away though because getting on the train here is fun; the locals immediately move away from you, because you're a scary foreigner, and if possible they relocate entirely.  It essentially means if I can find a seat, I will have the entire thing to myself before the next stop.  I would imagine this becoming tiresome after a prolonged stay here, but the social networks formed around foreigners migrating into Tokyo are pretty interesting.  Essentially, for every person who is petrified of foreign people, there's another who sees them as a fashion accesssory for their group of friends, another who sees them as a fashionable boyfriend, and another who has been abroad and doesn't think of us/them as a curiosity.  It's quite unlike anywhere else I've been.

I need to get something to eat...

Kamakura in the rain!

So it was raining this morning.  Me and a fellow traveller, whose name I will now get wrong: Hooshan, were sitting in the lobby wondering what to do.  So he googled 'tokyo in the rain and out popped a review of the ancient capital of Japan, long before Tokyo, and before Kyoto even, this place, 'Kamakura,' was where the seat of power was placed.  The review stated that Kamakura is a nice place to visit in the rain, and upon loudly debating this in the same lobby, a German piped in saying, 'I'm sorry to have eavesdropped, but I hear Kamakura is really nice in the rain.'  So almost entirely swayed we asked the receptionist to give us directions there.

In a bizarre twist it transpired that our receptionist was born there, and recommended that the previous reviews, both electronic and personal, were complete bubkus.

Undeterred we forged ahead into several fascinating areas.  Generally the two most impressive features, a giant bodhivista (Spelling?) and another giant buddha thing were indoors, while the gardens took some (hopefull) great photographs, because the lighting wasn't too harsh to become overpowering, or too dull to render photography impossible.  Therefore, two plucky tourists gambled on the weather machine, and ended up winning.

It did however rain buckets on my way back, after I had parted from my travel companion.  As an interesting side-note, the raindrops  here are fingernail sized, and carry an improbable force, dissipated in a violent fashion upon anything that may dare stand in its way.  I was drenched after ten seconds, and despite wearing a waterproof jacket, my trousers and bag contents were soaked.  Maybe some waterproof trousers and a waterproof bag container are in order at some later stage.

My favourite part of the day was a 10 metre tall wooden statue of a goddess.  It's the biggest in Japan and is absolutely amazingly decorated in gold leaf, with extra sprinklings of vanity all over the place.  It's made from a single tree, the name of which eludes me at the moment, although it's quite a well known tree.  It must have been monumental as well, because this thing was about 2 metres wide, as well as being 10 metres tall.  Unfortunately no photographs were allowed.

Onto the pictures:

The Japanese style full English breakfast contains many odd accoutrements.  Cucumber and what is possibly mashed potatoe, with (offscreen) oddly cut toast.  As usual, portions are quite mean.  Free coffee/tea refills are a nice american style touch though.

Cool looking bus with supporting pole type things on the front.  I'm not sure if that would pass a pedestrian impact safety test in Europe though...

It was a little gloomy at this stage in proceedings, but this temple marker was huge and well deserving of a picture.

At certain religious festivals people wish upon a rock, and try to throw it on top of these markers.  I'm not sure if they get what they wished for, but I'm certain that a lot of people get headaches.

As I understand it, these structures mark the beginning of temples or shrines, but this one led onto a big shopping street.  God is in the dollar I guess.

Perfect lighting!  I hope the rest come out this well.

The submerged plants in the picture to the right looked like some kind of lilly, but they stood up to a metre out of the water with no support.  May any horticulturalist know what these are?

There are also 15 pound (estimated) carp swimming around in there.  They looked pretty common to me.

This place proved to be the first of a number of traditional looking Japanese gardens, the likes of which is universally reckoned within the hostel, to exist only in the movies and an extremely small percentage of upper class, private Japan.  I guess it's not surprising to understand that what we know of another country, may turn out to be misrepresentative of the truth!

Terribly blurred picture of the carp.  Doesn't really do justice to it's size.  Although I guess the old joke goes that it was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big.

Looking out of the lily type plants, onto the mountains that permeate this town.  The mountains are as much a feature of the land as the plants that grow on them.

More of the same view.

The younger brother of the one that got away.

The path leading towards the main temple area.  Line of sight is difficult  to recreate with a photograph, but it was impressive to see the temple in the distance, it's a lot bigger than it looks here!

This all looks traditional and quite nice, until you see the bloody kid, on his bloody scooter!

Sans bloody kid, unfortunately still with bloody scooter.

This is on the steps leading up to the main temple.  It's kind of like the scroll containing area in asakusa.

The design of the eaves alone is intricate, before you take into account the paintings on the roof of most of these structures, or the construction of the roof itself.

I guessed that this raised platform was for some kind of performance.  No English speakers were on hand to prove or disprove this theory, so it stands as a tentative reasoning behind this structure.

One guard dog stands with his mouth open, the other closed.  One represents life, the other death.  Their proximity defines the co-existence and intimate nature of both aspects of our existence.  Plus they look mean.














I've sifted through some 150 photos so far, and there are about 200 more to go, so I'll finish the rest up tomorrow.

These must take a long time to paint...  I wonder why all the end parts are yellow?

This is the kind of classic design feature I always associate with Japan, it's nice to see it actually exists over here, albeit in a tourist form.

That's a damn big drum.  I think they're called taiko, but I'm not sure.  This type of drum is the same kind that reach house sized proportions during the big festivals, and I assure you, having experienced the noise from a variety only four or so feet wider than this, the experience is physical.

This is the facade of the main shrine, no pictures were allowed inside so I tactfully took this shot of the outside.

This is a little way off to the right, and is a modest shrine to (presumably) a separate deity.  It has its' own water dispenser/human soul purifying unit, but I didn't manage to get a decent shot of that.  In this one area there were lots of these separate shrines.

This is a different shot of the same thing.

I've no idea what these are, or what their purpose is, but you see a number of  them around the place, and they look pretty cool.  Incense can be burned around the area, or inside the two taller structures, but I've also seen figures inside them instead.  So, basically, they could be anything.

  There were a number of these elongated paths with a single focal point in the far distance.  On the one hand they looked quite spectacular to the eye, but not to the camera...

Sometimes these gates have golden suns on their faces - this represents a royal tie, and usually means the shrines' upkeep is handled by the royal family.

A common problem?

There were a thousand photo opportunities a minute in this particular area.

These things also appeared to be markers of some kind, as they were everywhere in this particular area, and can often be seen in other shrine areas.

The old trees seem to define what makes a shrine area, and what makes these areas different from other areas.  Although it may sound ridiculous, they look to me like full sized bonsai trees, all gnarled and ugly, but perfectly shaped.

These shoes are actually for fully grown adults...

This impressive structure marked the entrance to shrine number two!

A close up view of the detailing in the supporting beams.  That big roof was supported, as you can see from the picture above, on a frame that all bore the detailing on the left.  Again, it must have taken quite some time to construct this.

This is one of several bells around the area.  This one is not used anymore, it's too old.  The sign even says, do not touch, this is a national treasure!  It looked so old that a stiff breeze might disintegrate it.

Another temple structure, bearing many similarities to those found all around this area.  It feels like the same designer worked on all the structures around here!

Inside was another ornate, gods abound festival of sobriety.  The gods on display looked buddhist, but I can't say for certain.

I'm sure Tokyo-ites visit temples and shrines as much for the greenery as the religious aspects.

This view looked pretty so I took a picture... There's nothing more to be said really.

These sites are still actively used for devout worship, and this area is for private prayer.  It also houses a gift shop of sorts, for all your praying needs; including: paper to write wishes on, that can then be tied to a special rope, in a certain knot, that will therein grant the wish; a wooden slate that ambitions can be written upon.  Once tied to a special rack, these dreams will come true.  And of course, incense; for all your smelling needs.

This is a comparative shot.  The people also give it a sense of scale, albeit a skewed one, because native Japanese really are that small!

Welcome to the third site!  This one has some particularly nice gardens, for all the horticulture buffs out there.

This is the first example (I think) of a proper Japanese style garden, and came at the foot of a peculiar shrine.  It's interesting to see how few of these there are around Japan.

The water contains a number of goldfish, and a massive number of coins, many copper based.  How are the fish not poisened?  Or maybe that's why they're such a bright orange...

There's an awful lot happening in this picture, and I included it to show everyone that the 'style' they have over here isn't always minimalistic!

Lots of these little statues arrange all over the place.  The patience to set these up in orderly rows like this is something only a monk could have.

That's going to make a hell of a noise when it's struck...

The view on a cloudy day, across the bay, where we did stay, hooray!

A slightly different take on the same view.

One hundred pounds to anyone who can identify this bird of prey.  There were waarning signs up saying these things eat your stuff, so be careful, and we got a really good look at it, but not with the camera so we're certain it's a bird of prey.  Which kind, however, remains a mystery.

This building is at the top of the gardens as seen before, and houses an incredible 10 metre statue of a deity.  The largest in Japan, and made from camfer (sp?).  It must have been a hell of an undertaking to create that statue from a single piece of wood.

Close up of the little figures, placed all over any non-walking area in the shrine.

A really evil looking guy with a cool sword and flames behind him.  Message:  Don't annoy this guy.

Normally these gateways are well above head height, something that is not always the case as I found to my detriment.  The headache inducing height of this example is aptly demonstrated by my colleague in this picture.  He is roughly 5 foot 8, so I was perfectly placed to tackle this particular obstacle head on.

This cave was carved into the mountain, and was a shrine of sorts.  This tunnel is actually around four feet high, and is quite claustraphobic, and also quite a strain on the back!!!

These small figures were placed all around, on any surface that would hold them.

More of these cleverly placed figures.  They even put them on the power cables supplying lighting to the cave!







At this stage my camera ran out of juice, but we did see a number of other things, so when my travel buddy gets back home and uploads his photos, I'll put them on here.