Shibuya

On October 28, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan6 Comments

Most people know Shibuya mostly from images of Shibuya Crossing in movies and tv shows. I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I wanted to talk about Genki Sushi. It’s a chain with several locations in the city, including this location in Shibuya.

Genki is essentially a self-serve sushi restaurant. For example, each seat contains a bin of green tea powder and a hot water tap for mix-it-yourself tea.

The ordering is done on a touch-screen. When you place the order, it is prepared and sent out to you within a few minutes.

The sushi arrives automatically on these little trays. The whole mechanism is reminiscent of the rollercoaster restaurant I went to in Nürnberg.

Once you have retrieved your food, you must press the lit up button to send the little automatic tray back to the kitchen.

The food was delicious.

There were moments where the food caused me confusion or amusement. For example, their idea of a hamburger or cheeseburger is not at all in line with what I think of.

Seriously, this is a “hamburger.” It was a tiny patty of ground meat resting on a bed of rice, with a sauce on top which I believe was mayonnaise.

I didn’t figure out what they meant by “Semi Fred” for days after this meal, but it looked like blueberry cheesecake, so I gave it a try.

I had never heard of “Semifreddo” before this trip. The Blueberry Semi Fred was delicious, as it happens.

I think that’s enough talk about food. Let’s turn our attention to one of Shibuya’s most famous residents, Hachiko. Hachiko was an Akita dog who was adopted by a professor, Hidesaburō Ueno, in 1924. The professor walked with Hachiko to the train station every day before going to his job at the University of Tokyo. The dog waited at the station for his return at the end of each day. Professor Ueno died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1925 while giving a lecture, and Hachiko continued to walk to the station each morning. He stayed at the station waiting for his Professor every day, until his death nine years later in 1935. Hachiko was immortalized in bronze, and the first of several statues was unveiled in 1934, with Hachiko himself present.

The original statue was recycled during World War II for the war effort, and a new statue was placed in August of 1948. That statue is the one which still stands at Shibuya station today. Hachiko’s story has been featured in several movies, including an English version called “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” with Richard Gere as the professor.

The Hachiko statue at Shibuya Station is also in front of Shibuya Crossing, one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the world. This is what’s known as a “scramble crossing.” When the light changes here, it’s red lights in every direction for vehicles. Once the light is red, pedestrians cross from every direction, including diagonals.

None of my pictures capture the crowd properly, because I was there on a pretty quiet weeknight. You can see this intersection in countless television shows and movies, including Lost In Translation.

This Starbucks overlooks the Crossing. It is reportedly one of the busiest Starbucks in the world. It’s supposed to have an amazing view of the Crossing, but I never had a chance to go up there.

Once you’ve crossed the street from the station, this part of the city is filled with shops and restaurants. This is where Genki Sushi is located.

This part of Shibuya is also home to Tokyo’s only Taco Bell, as far as I know. I tried to go here once out of sheer curiosity, but I didn’t succeed- there was a thirty minute wait for food and I had to go to work.

Have you ever seen a movie about Hachiko or a film with Shibuya Crossing featured?

The Edo-Tokyo Museum

On October 23, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan1 Comment

The Edo-Tokyo Museum in the Ryogoku district of Tokyo is a museum that details the history and culture of Tokyo during the Edo period. The museum is in a multi-level building with a very interesting structure. The main entrance is up that red escalator on the left.

One of the first things you see after entering the museum is a life-sized replica of the Nihonbashi, the bridge which has crossed the Nihonbashi river since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was constructed in 1603. The Nihonbashi was rebuilt with stone and a steel frame in 1911.

Looking over the rail of the bridge, you can see a life-sized replica of an old Newspaper office. You can get on the seat of the penny farthing, the bike with a giant front wheel. It doesn’t go anywhere, however, which was very disappointing.

On the far side of the bridge is an area with models of castles and other buidings from the Edo period.

I didn’t take very good notes as to what the models represented, but they’re incredibly detailed. They reminded me a lot of Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg.

Look, a tiny palace!

The detail on these buildings and courtyards is extraordinary.

This demonstration involves lifting heavy buckets on a pole. However, the metal guides prevent you from lifting them too far, which makes it even more awkward. I tried this, and it made a terrible noise when I extended the ropes too far.

Boats! Boats! Boats!

I deeply regret not taking the time to photograph the placards that explain what these items are. It’s been four months already since I left Japan, and the best I can come up with now is, “ooh, tiny Japanese people!”

Royalty may get a comfortable seat, but I can’t help but think the whole contraption would be faster if it were a little bit less ornate.

Some sections of the museum covered more recent times. I thought the Subaru 360 was kind of neat.

The 2-door rear-engine 360 was Subaru’s first production automobile. It was manufactured from 1958 to 1971.

The next two pictures are a scale model of a type of hot air balloon bomb that was sent out by Japan during World War II. The Fire Balloon (fūsen bakudan) was a hydrogen balloon with a variety of bombs and incendiary devices attached. Used in conjunction with the Pacific jet stream, the Fire Balloon was the first device to have intercontinental range.

Between 1944 and 1945, the Japanese Navy launched over 9,000 fire balloons toward North America. About three hundred were confirmed to have reached the United States and Canada, but most of them caused little or no damage. Six people (five children and a woman) became the only deaths due to enemy action to occur on mainland America during World War II. One of the Fire Balloons landed near Bly, Oregon, and one of the children triggered the bomb. The site where this happened is marked by a stone munment in the Mitchell Recreation Area in the Fremont-Winema National Forest. The Canadian War Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario, has a full, intact balloon on display.

This is a Model T used as a taxi in old Tokyo.

This is a replica of the Ryōunkaku, Japan’s first western-style skyscraper. It stood in the Asakusa district of Tokyo from 1890 until the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. The earthquake destroyed the upper floors, and the tower was so severely damaged that it had to be demolished.

This sign shows how the tower looked after the earthquake, and details the subsequent demolition of the tower.

The Boodo Khan is one of Sony’s earliest audio systems. The Boodo Khan name was also applied to early Walkman models, but this is a component system for home audio. Collectors and audiophiles still rave about the audio quality on these boxes.

This is a very pretty phone booth. I think it looks a little bit like a lighthouse.

Have you ever been to the Edo-Tokyo Museum?

A Few Hours In Kyoto: Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji

On October 21, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan

On Sunday morning, after I was done at the Osaka Aquarium, I took the JR West Special Rapid train, which takes just under half an hour to go from Osaka to Kyoto. From there, a short ride on the Kyoto City Bus took me to Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Pavilion. Kinkaku-ji is a Buddhist temple, formally named Rokuon-ji Temple. It has been named a World Cultural Heritage Site since 1994.

Visitors can see the Golden Pavilion from a small distance, but cannot actually walk inside. The view in the first picture is really as close as you get. The golden hue of Kinkaku-ji is gold foil on lacquer, covering the upper two levels of the shrine. According to the tourist brochure given to visitors, each level is a different style of architecture: The first level is in the shinden style of the 11th century aristocracy, the second level is in buke style of the warrior aristocracy, and the top level is in the Chinese zenshu-butsuden style. A golden phoenix stands atop the roof.

After I was done walking around Kinkaku-ji’s small pond and garden, I decided to walk to another nearby shrine, Ryoanji Temple. The distance was a little bit more than one mile, and it was a pleasant walk. Thank goodness for navigational robots on smartphones, though- without them, I never would have believed I was going the right way.

At the end of that mile, I found the main drive to Ryoan-ji, and it was filled with buses for students on a field trip of some sort. I walked to Kuri, the main building of the temple, stepped inside, and took off my shoes.

Most of the students from the buses outside were sitting in front of the rock garden, said to be created around 1500. This rectangular Zen garden is twenty-five meters from east to west, and ten meters from south to north. It contains no trees; only fifteen rocks and white gravel are inside the boiled clay walls.

Ryoan-ji was destroyed by fire during the Onin War, and was rebuilt in 1499.

The gardens around the main building of the temple are very quiet and green.

Like Kinkaku-ji, Ryoan-ji was registered as a World Heritage Site in 1994.

While Kyoto is very large, I only had enough time to visit these two beautiful sites in the northern part of the city. After a pleasant mile long walk back to the original bus route, I returned to the Kyoto train station to get my final Shinkansen train back to Tokyo.

Naturally, there was live music happening in the train station. This sort of thing seems to happen wherever I go. They might even have been the same group I’d seen the previous morning in Hiroshima.

Have you ever been to Kyoto? Do you have a favorite shrine?

Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

On October 14, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan5 Comments

Before I left Osaka, I took a quick detour to the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan.

Between the rail stop and the aquarium entrance, there were themed paintings on flower boxes and the like.

The aquarium building itself looks a bit like a whale tail. This is probably not an accident.

The entry area contained this adorable toothy anglerfish sculpture.

Most of my favorite things in the Osaka Aquarium were not fish at all. For example, this little guy is an otter. He was doing barrel rolls in the water.

Nearby is a seal doing seal things.

The aquarium is home to an entire tiny colony of Gentoo penguins.

…and one juvenile whale shark.

This spotted fish was the main reason I wanted to come to the aquarium. I hadn’t ever seen a whale shark up close before.

The whale shark swims in the aquarium’s Pacific Ocean tank, which is also home to bluefin tuna and many other very large fishies.

This seal was very interested in what was happening on our side of the glass.

Bio-luminescent jellyfish, as seen through very thick glass.

My brain keeps wanting to label these cuttlefish as “scuttlefish.” Do you suppose there’s a cuttlefish in charge, telling them which direction to point?

This crab is facing a tank wall which appears mirrored because of the light inside the tank. In my head, I hear his little crabby voice doing his best Pacino impression. “You talking to ME?!”

Approaching the exit, there was a small group of very smelly Rockhopper penguins.

…and one very chubby seal.

I also took a bunch of other fish pictures, but the photos in this post are the ones which I thought were the most visually interesting.

Have you ever been to the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan? Have you ever seen a whale shark up close?

Osaka

On October 12, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan2 Comments

In the second weekend of my time in Japan, I did some very intensive travel. I started in Hiroshima, and on Saturday afternoon, I hopped over to Osaka. I took the rail directly into the center of town, dropped off my bag at the hotel, and immediately set out to see stuff.

One of the first things I checked out in Osaka was the Castle. On my way there, I walked past this building and I really wish I had paid more attention to what it is. All I know for sure is that it’s attached to the Osaka Historical Museum, the curved building to the left.

Osaka Castle is in a very large green space with ascending walkways spread out over fifteen acres. I wasn’t expecting the way to the castle to be quite so twisty. You walk through several large gateways to get there, and this was the first one. This is Otemon gate.

This charming fellow with the Samurai’s top-knot is Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the founder of the Edo period. He’s the ruler who built Osaka Castle. The original version of this statue was destroyed during World War II, and this one was remade in 1943.

I quite like these little Samurai guys.

This is the castle itself. According to local legend, Godzilla destroyed it in 1955 by pinning another giant monster against it. It has since been rebuilt.

Every once in a while, I have to stick myself in here so you can see that I was really there. Truly!

I kept walking through the grounds, past the keep, only to discover that the walkway to the castle from the other side was significantly less shorter. Much less scenic, however, until you get to this side, just past the moat.

With my mission to see Osaka Castle completed, my next task was to find Amemura, or Little America. “Amerikamura” was founded in the 1970s in Shinsaibashi, where it was a central place for the import of fashion from the United States. It has since become a place with a trendy nightlife, and a rather interesting blend of American culture into the area. I knew I was getting close when I saw this giant kitchsy bowling pin.

The most well-known landmark of Amemura is arguably a scale model of the Statue of Liberty atop one of the buildings.

This is how I knew for certain that I was in the right place, because there’s not really much else to indicate that you’re in Little America.

Before returning to the hotel for the evening, I had one more thing on my to-do list. I wanted to go to the Umeda Sky Building, sometimes referred to as the Floating Garden even though it isn’t really a garden. That tall building with twin towers in the center is the building in question.

When you get closer, you can almost see why it’s called the Floating Garden. Two tubes contain the escalator up to the very tall observation level.

At the top side of those escalator tubes is a round open-air observation deck with amazing views of Osaka’s skyline. While this isn’t taller than some of the other places I’ve been on this trip, it’s still pretty nifty.

“Over Macho Grande?” “I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande.”

I’ve pointed out Love Locks in Regensburg, Cologne, and Paris, and here they are again in Osaka.

I digress. Here’s the amazing view to the other side of the observation deck. If you look carefully, you can see my reflection near the center bottom, as I took this photograph.

Osaka contains over 19 million inhabitants, which makes it one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

It’s still not as crowded as Tokyo, though, or at least that’s how it feels.

I want to say that this is the Dojima-gawa river, but I have no clue if I’m reading the maps correctly. Pretty view, though, don’t you think?

By the time I was done at the Umeda Sky Building, I went back to my hotel room near the train station. I had a very nice room, and the view from my hotel room window was pretty nifty.

In the morning, I took a little side trip before getting on the train to the next destination. On that side trip, I happened upon a giraffe made of Lego. The building over the giraffe’s shoulder is the Osaka Aquarium, but that will be the next post.