Tokyo - under my umbrella

Life would be really boring if there were no surprises related to the weather forecast. Thanks to the Typhoon Krovanh (which is a Cambodian word for a kind of tree) visiting Tokyo turned out to be a kind of extreme sport. After arriving from Kawaguchiko, Daniel and I were full of hope for a better weather. Well, actually I was looking for the sun, while Daniel was complaining how dirty, smelly and nasty the capital of Japan is when you compare it to Nagoya. In those more or less optimistic moods, we've reached a building of the Tokyo City Hall, which has 2 towers and 48 floors. We've picked the North Tower to see the panoramic view of Tokyo in the fog, so the elevator took us to the 45th floor. The other cool things about that building were 2 great tourist information offices - the 1st one had all the information concerning every region of Japan and the 2nd one was devoted to Tokyo only. What's more, it was the day of elections - we were in the right place in the right time.

Our hostel was located in Asakusa, which was considered to be the main entertainment district of Tokyo in the past. Probably, its most characteristic monument used to be Senso-ji the Buddhist temple. Right now, I would rather say that it's much more difficult not to notice the advertisement of Asahi beer, which is supposed to look like a giant drop of beer but it also resembles a golden piece of sh...

On Sunday morning, when it started raining even more heavily, Daniel and I made a deal - what is more popular in Japan: Starbucks or Mister Donut. Luckily, in that moment MrD won (even though I was in favour of *$ and we had a morning coffee with super tasty green tea donuts! Later it turned out that there are more *$ around the city but since then I'm always in favour of MrD!

How is it possible, that in the city where every person recycles garbage, almost every person rides a bicycle or metro instead of a car, everything is surrounded by huge advertisements filled with power consuming lights???

I have to confess, in my opinion Tokyo is a really strange place. I'm able to understand why did they put a robot called Gundam on an artificial island - this robot is something very important for Japanese culture and people all over Japan are mad about him. On the days when the tyhpoons are not expected, the robot even moves and does all those things that make him a true robot. Meanwhile, I can't find any reasonable explanation for the rest of crazy stuff.

What I mean by "crazy stuff" is a copy, erected in the year 2000, of the Statue of Liberty that has been standing in the middle of the New York Harbour starting from over 100 years before I was born until now. It also seems that it's not the only replica of the statue in Japan. The situation gets even more weird when the most famous bridge of Tokyo - the Rainbow Bridge - partly disappears in the fog and pretends to be the Brooklyn Bridge. In one of the movies Woody Allen said that "the true New Yorker secretly believes that anyone living anywhere else than New York must be kidding". The Statue of Liberty in Tokyo is a good Japanese joke then!

This post was not based on the pictures that I took in Tokyo, but on the pictures of me taken in Tokyo by DanielSan. Hey! It's my blog, I also want to appear here from time to time... :)

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

Iga - nothing rhymes with Ninja

The city of Iga is located 2 hours away from Kyoto by car or train. My first thought after getting out of the train station there was that we left the train in the wrong town. After a few seconds a couple of signs proved that it really was the place we were looking for - the city famous for Ninja.

As the city is isolated by the mountains, it gave perfect location for numerous schools of Ninjutsu martial art in the past. It is said that art of Ninjutsu came to Japan from China through Korea and is not that much about the strength of a person, but it's the way of using intellectual solutions to fight - manipulation or parapsychology.

The river Hattori, which crosses Iga, was named after Hattori Hanzo, who lived in the XVIth century and is considered to be one of the most awesome ninjas ever. He started his trainings at the age of 8 and managed to posses more skills than any other ninja in history and what is even more, the legend says that he had supernatural powers such as ability of predicting things. It seems that the name Hattori was not accidentally given by Quentin Tarantino to the sword smith, who is one of the Kill Bill movie characters.

Iga fits perfectly to the vision of the stereotypical Japanese town that was being created in my mind for the last 23 years. It has all those typical wooden houses with tatamis on the floor, gardens with trees that look like huge bonsais and crowds of children wearing typical uniforms.

The main tourist attractions of Iga are the castle, the house of Matsuo Basho (world's most famous haiku poet) and the Ninja Museum. Being honest, I've never paid too much attention to the stories about Ninja, except the Ninja Turtles cartoon, so I didn't know what should I expect from the museum.
The first part of the museum was a Ninja's house. Probably, during the presentation of the revolving walls, trick door, underground passage, lookout place or secret compartments for hiding weapon, I was amused not less than the children standing next to me. What was even more impressive, the person showing us all those "magical" things was passing through the secret door really fast.

Second part of the museum was an exhibition presenting everything that is known about Ninja lifestyle, Ninjutsu techniques or genealogy. Last but not least, we've watched a demonstration of weapons and some ninja tricks, which was kind of scary, especially when "one of the Ninja guys" threw 3 shurikens in the same time. Unfortunately, all of the presentations were given in Japanese but anyway, I understood the part about not taking pictures with flash, while Daniel thought it's not allowed to take pictures at all. Practice makes the master!

I'm glad I've taken pictures of EVERY SINGLE THING in the museum, because I don't think there is any easily available book about the Ninja topic in Europe. If anyone is eager to learn more about Ninja, let me know!

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

21st century Manga

Among all things that Japan has and the rest of the world doesn't, on the first place I should put enormously huge manga shops. Well, European cities have some comic shops, for example the one that I've been to in Bilbao but I wouldn't compare them to the Japanese ones.
While visiting manga shops around all of the cities I've seen in Japan, I was trying to find the one which I could read without reading haha! What I mean is that they were all in Japanese so I was looking for something that would catch my interest by its pictures. And I've found it!

My personal number 1 is the manga entitled "Saint Oniisan" (eng. "Saint Young Men") by Hikaru Nakamura! The story is about two guys renting a flat in a big city, dealing with daily problems and travelling. Quite boring, huh? Rather not, if those guys are Buddha and Jesus, if the city they are living in is Tokyo and if it the whole world is seen from their point of view!

The manga which I'm describing here does not only consist of jokes and funny situations but also encourages social and philosophical reflections. Even though, both characters represent completely different life attitudes, they seem to be very good friends . Some of the dialogues might be controversial, however, I don't think anybody could call them offensive. I believe that everybody would appreciate this manga in their own way but for sure they would!

Below I've selected a few of my favourite cut outs. They were translated from Japanese into English, so remember to read them from right to left (and click to enlarge) !

Check out
http://www.onemanga.com/Saint_Young_Men/
to find more!

Sushi - Around the Tables in 80 Seconds

Japanese culture wouldn't be as it is without sushi!

No wonder why not only it looks special, but also is being served in different that typical conditions. Opposite to the most of the restaurants all around the world, those which serve sushi are equipped more unusually. During my stay in Japan I've visited 3 kaiten-zushi restaurants, which are places where sushi goes around the restaurant on a special moving belt (a smaller version of the belt from which you pick up your luggage at the airport). The one that I liked the most was located in the Nagoya's neighbourhood of Makinohara and I went there with Daniel on bikes. Here I start the story about how different it was from all the other restaurants I knew before...

It doesn't matter if you come to kaiten-zushi alone or with a group of people. There is a place for everybody. The room full of tables includes both kinds of places.

Normally the second step would be ordering but actually the food passes next to you even without being ordered. I was a bit shocked when I didn't even sit down yet and Daniel already picked few plates with sushi!

Every table has its own computer, which is used for ordering things that you'd like to eat but you can't wait for them any longer to appear on the belt. Thanks to the picture menu you don't really need to read Japanese.

The difference between ordered and not-ordered sushi is simple. Few seconds before the requested sushi arrives, the computer makes a funny sound and soon after that you see your dish arriving on the red bowl. Red bowl means that if you didn't order the particular plate, you shouldn't take it. The rest of plates that was not ordered is simply going round until somebody picks it or until it's not fresh anymore and automatically thrown away.

Important part of having a good meal is also having something to drink. Each table has its own box filled with green tea and what's even more, a tap with hot water. The cup can be refilled as many times as needed. And by the way! One wise man told me once that the way a person holds chopsticks means a lot. The biggest difference is between samurais, who used to hold chopsticks at the end and poor people who grabbed them close to the food. On the day when I've learned it I was a samurai but in the picture below I'm probably representing the middle class.

As soon as the bellies are full, the next step is to officially count the number of plates by throwing them into the special hole in the table.

The surprise comes when the number of plates is registered in the computer. Each 5 plates counts as a one chance to win a toy. The toys are located above the computer and the whole thing about the competition is simply a very strange computer game. I keep on saying that the game is unfair... because I've lost! Anyway, Daniel has more luck in this kind of things, so I hope he will keep on winning toys for me.

Would you like some saromon nigiri? (There is no letter L in Japanese.)
One plate costs only 100Yen! (~1$)

(This is one of over 30 posts, which I accidentally deleted one day in January. Luckily, I was able to recover them thanks to the backup done by DanielSan! It's a pity that the comments are gone but someting is better than nothing.)

My latest discovery concerning kaiten sushi explains why in some places sushi is served on 2 different colors of plates. The reason for that is content of wasabi in some pieces of sushi.
Not only, wasabi changes the taste of the dish but also, has great antibacterial abilities and so it may prevent food poisoning. Unfortunately, Japanese cuisinse that includes raw fish is a potential source of bacteria.

(update from the 23rd of April, 2010)

Lost in Karaoke

Have you seen the movie "Lost in Translation"?
I used to think that singing in the karaoke room, which appeared in that movie must be amazing... and it really is! We've checked it out with Daniel in Tokyo, while the typhoon was passing by the city.

Before going to Tokyo we made sure, which karaoke place appears in the movie. It turned out to be Karaoke Kan - a popular karaoke chain in Japan, with a characteristic blue and red neon sign. The Karaoke where the movie was shot is located in Shibuya (30-8 Utawgawacho), not far from the Shibuya station. It's supposed to be open from 11am until 6am, so anytime is perfect to go there. In case the room 601 would be taken, another one where the movie was shot is 602.
At first we went to Shibuya's Karaoke Kan the night before but then, we thought that the best time to go there is just before dusk because we will have a chance to be there at both - day and night. It was raining cats and dogs all day, so the plan turned out to be perfect. The same guy, as the day before, welcomed us at the entrance and we followed him to the cash desk. As Daniel was speaking Japanese to him, I had no idea what were they saying. I just reminded Daniel, which was the room number from the movie that we wanted to go to so much. Of course Daniel had to do it his own way and asked for the room with a window! The guy looked at us with a strange face, most probably because it's a huge room and we were just 2 people but well, whatevever, there were no other customers. We got the receipt and went up to the 6th floor, ordered first free drinks (Daniel: strawberry shake, me: greeeen melon soda) and kept on singing and taking photos for 2 hours in a row. I was a bit annoyed by not a very wide selection of non-japanese songs but as I've found my favourite - "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette, the rest didn't matter afterall. One of the songs, which Daniel sang, was "More than this" - the song sang by Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation". For sure, this was the part of the trip to Tokyo, which I liked the most.

I have completely forgotten to write about a funny couple that we met at the Shibuya crossing after leaving the metro station. As it was heavily raining and we didn't have umbrellas (first one got stollen at the hostel and the other one got broken in Odaiba - Tokyo's artificial island - by the typhoon), a couple from Singapoure owning 2 umbrellas stopped next to us, asked where do we want to go and offered help with walking in the rain. I found it very friendly but Daniel thought that it was suspicious. Anyway, I still regret we didn't invite them to go to karaoke with us.