Silver Week Adventures Grand Finale: Nagoya and an afternoon in Osaka

Instead of heading back straight to Tottori, I made a stop in the next major city of Nagoya for a quick power tourist trip. Even though I was feeling a bit under the weather, I didn't let that stop me from enjoying my vacation. I started my day at the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology, which features the Toyota company's history, which started in the textile production industry. Toyota built much of it's initial reputation and wealth on textiles prior to becoming a car company. It was while the company head, Kiichiro Toyoda, was traveling abroad to learn more about the textile industry that he saw the potential for automobile manufacturing. The museum featured a variety of looms Toyota invented and used, which were quite impressive to watch in person. Even the oldest machines were impressive, but the modern textile machines (which Toyota still makes) are unfathomably efficient. 

The latter half of the museum featured the first car manufacturing efforts done by Toyota. It was awe inspiring to see the humble beginnings of the company displayed next to a massive room featuring their cars and modern manufacturing methods. 

Why didn't you get the GPS option back in 1991 Dad?

Apparently the Lexus my dad has was the first Lexus to be made and come to America, and in Japan is was the Celstor and a high end, and very notable, Toyota model. 

Afterwards I went over to Nagoya castle to see the rather impressive fortress. Since this castle is a recreation, they built the inside to accommodate tourists and featured museum like exhibits. The castle still boasts an impressive view of the surrounding city. Other parts of the castle are currently being restored, so I got a brief tour of that section as well. On the grounds themselves I found some nice landscaping and a tranquil open park where I took a quick break to appreciate the scenery. 

Following that I went towards the science museum, which features the largest planetarium in the world. But since it was silver week tickets were sold out.  So I instead went and killed some time at a themed cafe, which is a niche attraction Japan is known for. The one I found was an Alice in Wonderland

themed cafe, with the ceiling shaped like the underside of a table and large chairs creating alcoves for tables guests actually use. The waitresses dress as Alice, while the main hostess was dressed as the queen of hearts. The food all carried themes as well. It is a novel experience, and I am glad I found the time to visit one before calling it a day.

My last day of silver week was spent in Osaka. I met up with a Japanese friend named Erika who I met during the JET welcome party in Tottori. She took me to a delicious Mexican restaurant, which is a rarity in Japan. Afterwards we went to Dotonburi a shopping district with a famous section of town featuring giant billboards which light up at night. The most famous is the Glico Running Man, where crowds of tourists (us included) pose in the same fashion for cheesy photos.  We window-shopped a bit before ending our day at the Max Brenner chocolate bar, a famous international company selling premium chocolate. I had an incredibly rich white chocolate strawberry smoothie, a sweet way to end my week of adventuring.

The Tokyo Megalopolis Parts III & IV: Skytree, Harujuku, and Fuji Q

The next morning I ventured out to Tokyo Skytree, the highest building in Tokyo where you can view the whole cityscape from a 360 degree platform. The view was striking to see such massive urban sprawl dominating the landscape. I am amazed the city is as easy to navigate as it is with how chaotic it looks like from above. After taking in the view and fighting through the crowd to leave, I decided to get serious about fall shopping. 

Heading back into the heart of Tokyo, I decided to get some much needed fall and winter shopping done in Harujuku, Tokyo's main fashion district. Center stage Takeshita Dori, an outdoor street/mall of sorts which featured tons of boutique shops. This is where you can find some of your more obscure fashion choices, and where I found some sweet sweatpants, a sweater shaped like a sport coat, and much needed raincoat.  I also came across the rock star" style store Jimsinn which had their walls and ceiling covered with band signatures from the decades they have been open, including Metallica, Cheap Trick, Anthrax, and more. Outside of this street the major retailers have lined the streets and malls with their biggest stores. Lining the side streets even more boutique stores dot the landscape. It was wandering through these streets I managed to find a great faux leather fall coat at the upscale shop Tornado Mart, which was the highlight of my shopping excursions. Continuing to wander I ended up in a really quite upscale mall. A quick anecdote, here I found sneakers (think converse low top style) which were roughly $600 USD, because they were made out of fish scales, which apparently makes them durable and waterproof, which they better be for that much. So while the shopping was outside of my budget, the free dance show inside the mall kept the detour from being a waste. 

Protesters of Japan's recent re-institution of a military
marching in the street.

I continued hopping to different shopping places, which including Roppongi where I ate dinner. This section of town was recently renovated into large skyscrapers with a multi level plaza connecting the buildings. Within this plaza were bars, restaurants, shopping, and pretty much anything else you could need or want in urban living. It was bizarre to think this complex featured so much that a person could feasibly live only in that city block and meet all of their living and entertainment needs.

I ended my day in Shimokitazawa, the hipster part of Toyko full of second hand and retro clothing shops. The secondhand shops are a totally different experience from department stores, with items strewn about everywhere and the tiny shops being stuffed to the brim with clothing. 

Wandering throughout so many districts in Tokyo in a single day, I experienced firsthand how segmented the city is, with each area specializing in a particular commodity or lifestyle. I really appreciate this aspect of the city, it gives the whole city a sense of synergy and promotes more colorful character driven environments. 

My last day in Toyko was one I had high hopes for, but did not execute well. I set off in the early morning to Fuji Q Highland, an amusement park with some of the best roller coasters in the world. Because of silver week the lines were insane, with 3 hour queues at opening. I hopped in a line for an epic roller coaster holding Guinness world records, only to have it shut down due to rain 2 hours into the wait.


But I still got to check out the Evangelion exhibit. It featured mainly life-size Eva sets that you can take photos with. There was even one set with a projection overlay which has a short skit that is pretty cool!  It also displayed artwork, promotional material, and production information about the show. I'm sure all of this might seem like silly non-sense to many people, but to fans of the show all of this is a real treat.

Thankfully Fugi Q realizes how long their lines are, so you only pay per ride, so I at least didn't waste much money that day.

I headed to Ikebukuro (Durarara fans yes it's the same place) to wait for my night bus. To kill time I headed to the Pokemon Center in the area, a cool merchandise store. Afterwards I was still a bit bored, so I headed to a game center (arcade) and met some cool locals who joined me in some matches on arcade machines. I hope to catch back up with them in the future.

The Tokyo Megalopolis Parts I & II: Silver Week Friendship Festival, Akihabara, Ramen Museum, and Odaiba

There were just a few people there...

Sunday night, September 20th, after TGS ended I trekked all the way across Tokyo to the Yokota Air Base for the Friendship Festival. This is one of the only times during the year they open the base to non-military personnel. My school's librarian mentioned she would be attending, and invited me to go and meet her family there. The festival was massive, taking place on one of the runways on the base. There were food stands run by soldiers serving American style eats like popcorn and burgers. The festival even had a stage for bands, and I made it just in time to catch a Japanese Metallica cover band. They were awesome!

After snacking on some great food I managed to meet my school's librarian and her family, who's two children are roughly my age. Together we set up camp and watched a firework show which ended the festival.

The next day I went with my fellow ALTs from TGS to the electric-town of Akihabara. After stopping for lunch at an English pub, we began to explore the city.  For those who don't know, this section of town serves as the main computer, video game, anime, and toy retail district.  Such places included a 6 story store devoted solely to action figures, multiple 10 story retailers of anime, CDs, and games, and various computer part shops with wires blanketing the walls.  I managed to find a cool keychain from my favorite show, a concert CD, and a glorious art book from a very popular smartphone game with illustrations by one of my favorite character designers.  I ended my day stopping at a small restaurant which a really flavorful dish.

First on my agenda for Tuesday was to head to the neighboring city of Yokohama to get lunch at the Ramen Museum, a food theme park. Built underground and designed to look like an old Japanese town, the museum was vaguely reminiscent of Casa Bonita. Yet unlike Casa Bonita, this place was ALL about the food. The Ramen Restaurant features 9 ramen shops from all over Japan and the world (there were Italian and German shops too) each cooking their specialty dish. On some days it is possible to order small bowls and sample a few of the restaurants, but since it was Silver Week, the museum was already packed. I queued up in line for 45 minutes to try Akayukaramiso Ramen. I picked it's broth had everything: seafood, pork, and chicken bone (most ramen only uses one).  As you would imagine, it was delicious! On my way back I noticed the wait times were now encroaching 2 hours long, so I am glad I went at the opening.

I ventured back to Tokyo, where I set out towards the man-made island of Odaiba. On the way I passed The Really BIG Clock, an art structure designed by Miyazaki attached to the Nippon Television Tower. As luck would have it, the next chime was just about to start. I joined the crowd of onlookers and watched an entertaining animatronics performance.

Continuing forward I stopped by the Advertising Museum of Tokyo. This small museum hosted the history of Japanese advertising, starting with historical paintings, to modern day products and television ads. It was interesting to see the stylistic differences and similarities between Japanese and US promotional materials.

After that fun and informative detour, I was back on the path to Odaiba. To reach the island I took a tram across the Rainbow Bridge, which gave a great view of the Tokyo skyline and bay.

Arriving at the island  I went to check out its main attractions, two massive malls, DiverCity and Palette Town. In front of Diver City stands a life size, to scale, Gundam. To my surprise this massive statue also had an animatronic performance I was lucky enough to witness. Afterwards I headed into the mall and wandered a bit, ending at the Gundam store, which featured tons of Gunpla builds and also had an interactive exhibit.

Leaving Diver City, I went to Palette Town. As I entered from the skybridge entrance I was surprised to walk into a collectors car exhibit, which is apparently just a part of the mall. They had some really neat stuff, including a DeLorean and some beefy muscle cars. 



 Another wing of the mall, called Venus Fort, modeled its interior the same way Caesar's Palace did, with Italian inspired building storefronts. I grabbed dinner here at an Italian restaurant to fit the theme.

A sport tuned Prius, must have been
made for Al Gore's son.

As I continued my task of looking for fall clothes I eventually stumbled onto the Toyota MegaWeb, a showcase of some of their more innovative and current technology, as well as a test track (that you unfortunately have to reserve in advance). Nonetheless it was a really cool place to check out. I continued to wander and found a large arcade, but at that point it was getting late, so I played a round of Time Crisis and called it a night.

Traveling to Tokyo and Tokyo Game Show! Silver Week Adventures: Part I

This year was a rare occurrence in Japan. 3 different national holidays aligned together to create what Japan calls "Silver Week" (Wikipedia does a good job explaining what it is). This, combined with some mandatory holiday hours I needed to take for working over the past weekend gave me a ridiculous 9 days off of work from 9/19-9/27. In an even more perfect storm, this also happened to be the weekend of Tokyo Game Show. So I planned a route through Japan's 3 big metropolises and set out Friday night. 

The most efficient way for me to traverse all the way to Tokyo was by taking the shinkansen, or bullet train. It's fast. While expensive, it gets you where you need to go, and I'm glad to have experienced it. I did find it humorous that to keep up with the idea of speed, even when the train stops, the boarding window is extremely small, less than a minute I would say. 

That morning I headed out to the Tokyo Convention Center for Tokyo Game Show (TGS). It was quite a scene. Hundreds of thousands of people had convened for the event, where companies showed off their newest video games and gaming technology. 


Different companies had massive stages constructed where they debuted new products, had concerts, and live demonstrations. There was so much to do, but unfortunately I learned too late that many of these things required people to queue up for up to 3 hours before even getting the chance to try a game or see a performance. Due to the sheer amount of people and things to do, the best strategy was apparently to look at the schedule days ahead of time, pick the 1 thing you really, really wanted to do, and go at opening and line up for that particular thing. 


Yet since I did not do that, I was able to explore a variety of stages at the show, stumble upon some cool performances, and watch other people demo games instead. Notable highlights were seeing the gameplay reveal of a newly announced RPG I hope comes stateside, The Last Guardian gameplay demo and life sized griffin, as well as a piano performance from the composer for the game Gravity Rush.

On the evening between the first and second days of the show I passed a street performer named TJ Ken rocking out. This is the second time since coming to Japan I have seen an amazingly talented street musician, so just like last time, I bought his CD. Here's a video of why I was compelled to support him.

I asked one of the locals listening to TJ Ken where to go to eat, and on his recommendation  I met up with a few other ALTs and grabbed a good dinner at an Italian restaurant in the area. Isaak, Jefferey, and Chiara were also at the show and stayed in Tokyo, we went on a few different adventures throughout the week.

Day two was another day spent wandering around the show and taking in the scenes. For friends who cosplay, apparently that is quite a different scene out here. Cosplayers have odd cult celebrity statuses, and spend pretty much the whole day modeling for the flocks of photographers who seem to come to the show just to take pictures of them.  This photo sums it up pretty well.


I was also surprised at how little merchandise was in the merchandise area, and that much of the cool swag had sold out halfway through the FIRST day. But I am coming to realize in Japan limited quality is not viewed quite the same way. They are rather obsessed with "limited" items (ex: McDonald's has a new item each month). So rather than a supplier looking bad for not stocking enough of a given item, it is seen as something more valuable, and if you didn't get what you wanted, it's on you since you should have made it a higher priority. So I did not get a sweet TGS hat like I wanted, but I did get a pretty cool banner type of thing as a memento, and the plus side was I had more money to spend later in the week.

Overall I am glad I got to experience TGS, and if I get the chance to go again I now know the strategy of how best to experience the show.

Shrine Reopening Ceremony

 

Last month  on Sunday the 9th, Samantha, one of the ALTs in Tottori, posted an invitation to attend a very rare ceremony in the town of Kawahara where she teaches. This ceremony was held at a small, old shrine which had just had necessary structural renovations done. In order to do the renovations, the diety had to be temporarily moved, and thsi ceremony was to welcome the diety back to its shrine. So standing in front of this shrine in the rain, the crowd and local news crew watched as ancient cultural traditions were performed for the first time in decades.  From my understanding, performances were something that no one in the audience had the chance to witness before, and portions of the performances used to be reserved only for royalty. I've compiled clips here to show you what we saw.

Quick Trip to Yonago

My friend Tim, another ALT, makes a habit to go to new restaurants every Friday in the other big city in my prefecture, Yonago.   Tottori sits on the eastern side of the prefecture, and Yonago sits on the western side. So after work on Friday September 11th, I caught a train out to meet him and a couple other ALTs to grab some food at an all you can eat restaurant. Much like an american buffet, this Japanese restaurant had a variety of stereotypical regionally popular foods. In this case that meant instead of pizza and hamburgers, it was sushi, curry, omelette rice, and other usual Japanese dishes. The food was good and the massive quantity was much appreciated! 

I decided to stay in Yonago for the next day to check out the local sites. Tim and I ventured over to the Yonago castle ruins, which provide a spectacular view of the city, the famous Mt. Daisen, and the man made peninsula city of Sakaiminato. 

After sightseeing we headed to a delicious cafe on another ALT's recommendation. Land and Years was a pretty stellar restaurant, with a cool atmosphere and delicious food. Tim wrote a review about the restaurant here. What I thought was particularly fun about the restaurant was it's location. It was styled very much like a loft above a store in a shopping strip, with a skylight added in the middle with couches and tables to lounge around in. If I lived in the area I could see this being a fun place to hang out and relax during an afternoon.

That evening before I caught my train back to Tottori, we met up with Maria, another ALT and went on another culinary adventure. This time we went to an Indian restaurant by the station.  Apparently there is a notable Indian population in Japan, so the Indian restaurants are run by Indians who prepare rather authentic meals. Much like every other meal in Japan, it was delicious and a great way to end my weekend excursion across the prefecture.