Me and my hobbies...

Just to let you know I run two more blogs, but extremely silly ones. They both have to do with the extremely silly hobby of hosting little (inanimate!) creatures from people I know across the world, and showing them around. Likewise, these people host some of my little ones. It is not unlike the well-known travelling garden gnome, as featured in the film Amelie, except with captions. :)

Check them out:

http://dreadpirategavroche.blogspot.com/

http://crittertravels.blogspot.com/

Behalve deze blog heb ik er nog twee, maar een beetje vreemde. Ze gaan beide over mijn rare hobby om kleine figuurtjes op bezoek te krijgen van mensen die ik ken uit andere landen. Ik laat die figuurtjes mijn wereld zien. Tegelijkertijd hebben anderen mijn grappige figuurtjes op bezoek, ongeveer zoals de reizende tuinkabouter in de film Amelie. Maar dan met onderschriften. :)

Japan Diaries, part IV: Tokyo! (3)

I did not do a lot of specific sightseeing in Tokyo. Most of the time I simply wandered around the streets, taking in areas like fancy Ginza and geeky Akihabara. I used the underground extensively, to get around but also to do some people watching.

The underground system is large, well-kept, clean and (of course) punctual. Rush hour is frantic with people navigating their way through complex underground stations in streams. Sometimes one walks on the left, sometimes on the right. Sometimes one needs a ticket to reach the platform, sometimes one is already through without noticing. I deliberately travelled the underground during rush hour to find out what that was like. It was busy. The biggest challenge: finding the right exit of the station. Some have over twenty exits.

Picture right: During rush hour there are special ladies-only cars on the underground. Apparently men who like to feel up skirts during busy hours are a real nuisance.

I enjoyed Tokyo very much. Although I still felt very much like a stranger, it was a good transition from total immersion in all-Japanese society to a more open, cosmopolitan way of life. Tokyo is the only place where I have seen African-American people, and westerners who looked like they were at home in that place. I was not an oddity at all, until I bought and wore a plastic raincoat in a city where umbrellas are the height in fashion. Oh well. I guess I have a knack for being an oddity everywhere.

I was already getting late when we headed out for our final evening meal in Japan. We were already in a trendy neighbourhood and just as we were checking out the pictures on a restaurant menu we saw a small group of young hip Japanese climb the stairs in front of us. Naturally we followed them to the restaurant. Once upstairs in the grill restaurant we took off our shoes at the door once more (they were put neatly into a cupboard) and we were placed at the bar by a grinning young waiter. It was a small place with only a few booths and seats at the bar. The waiting boy left us with the customary hot hand towels and left.

Our golden rule so far: do as the Japanese do. The Japanese were not doing anything except chat and sip their drinks, and maybe admire the apparently stunningly handsome and attractive trio of staff: waiting boy, grill master, and salad guy. We didn’t see the attraction but hey, who are we? We had seen better samples on the way and besides, we were hungry. The menu only provided us with new samples of kanji (characters) to decipher. Until waiter boy kneeled at our seats (we were sitting with our legs sunken into the floor under the bar) and ‘explained’ the menu to us by pointing at the various sections and saying “rice”, “noodles”, “salad” and while pointing at the bar “grill”. We had already explored the refrigerated bar in which small skewers were awaiting their fate. Ah. We ordered some random rice (S managed to get yet another dish with raw egg) and salad and struck out to get us some grill-stuffs. Point, nod, smile, arigato. (Sound familiar?) We complimented the waiter on his excellent English which was received with a broad grin.

And then, after two weeks of travelling in Japan, we finally had our first sake! It was served in a small glass standing in a small wooden box. The sake was poured at the table into the small glass until it overflowed into the box. Try drinking that without spilling! But it was good stuff, we enjoyed it. And afterwards we went home, to our friends’ lovely apartment, for our final night in the land of the rising sun. With a promise to come back someday.

(Picture below: traditional Japanese sweets at a tea house in Kueno Park, Tokyo. It includes seaweed jelly, red bean mush and fish-soy paste. It looks marvellous - let's leave it at that.)

Japan Diaries, part XIII: Tokyo! (2)

After a day of wandering around the city together, S and I decided to split up. We are both very individual and independent people and after two weeks of virtually constant company, it was time to do some exploring on our own. The next two days we hit Tokyo separately, each indulging in our own interests and curiosities.

I went to two different big toy stores and bought silly stuff. I checked out the latest at the Sony building. I tried to explore the bookstore area but got stranded in a Precious Coffee Moment. (The books were all Japanese anyway.) I had a seriously overpriced tea and cake at a tea shop in Giza.

It was in Shinjuku where I encountered the other Tokyo. Following the recommendation in the Lonely Planet I checked out the large shopping area and the department store (where I was again one of the elderly generation). Then in my usual wandering mode I took a few turns just to see where they would lead me, until I started to attract a few strange almost-looks. (By that time I had learned to recognize the not-quite-looks the Japanese use for things out of the ordinary.) Ah. I had wandered into a, shall we say, less reputable business district. Lunch hour coming up, the streets were starting to attract clientele with limited time and specific appetites. Time to wander back to the main street.

Still on my list: manga! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga) I had spotted a manga store and headed in that direction. I was the only westerner in the shop but I was used to that by now. Anyway, all the books were in Japanese so that was small wonder. With all the time in the world I decided to just browse the shelves a bit looking for interesting imagery. I had just found an interesting looking comic book that appeared to be about traditional Japanese culture (it was hard to tell because the books are all sealed in the store) and one Sweet Sixteen kind of periodical. I decided to buy those as keepsakes of Japanese culture. On the same shelf were cute books about cats and what were obviously children’s comics. Funny stuff.

And so it was a wee bit surprising (shall we say shocking?) to turn around in the aisle and find myself face-to-face with some of the weirdest and most explicit hardcore porn I have seen yet. I will not describe but suffice to say that this Amsterdam girl turned red. Opposite the kiddie stuff, I just didn’t see it coming. Later on I found out that small sections of ‘erotica’ are scattered around the store at the oddest places. My guess is that this is done to avoid aficionados being labeled as ‘the guy who is always in that corner’ but I’m not sure.

By the way, the people in the store there with me were just your average Japanese, both men and women, and the books also included literary works and even DIY manuals. Not all were comic strips either, most were simply books – in Japanese of course. I wouldn’t have you thinking that Japanese are all smut-reading perverts. But this encounter might explain why the people on the underground all have paper covers from the bookstore around the books they’re reading. I fear you don’t always want to know what is inside. Having said that, the Sweet Sixteen comic I bought also has some fairly explicit scenes, ‘my first time’ style. Nothing is really shown but a few strokes of a pen do away with the need to spell it out. It could be that buying exactly those was just my luck. Or that the sexuality so not present on the streets and in dress and general communications, has found an outlet in graphic design and literature, even for teens.

The bow that the (impeccably uniformed) shop girl gave me was the lowest I had seen yet.

Japan Diaries, part XII: Tokyo! (1)

There is something special about Tokyo. It is something different. It have tried to pin it down but so far with little success. To me the city felt strangely light, not only in terms of glowing screens and ads and lamps because in that sense it is not very different from other cities like New York. Unlike New York, Tokyo seems to have a strange kind of weightlessness that was, to me at least, unexpected.

The city has roots that go back to the shogun era. It was established as the nation’s capital in 1603. Very little to nothing of that is visible in the streets although some traces of this history are still there. Ueno Park, for example, is the hill where the samurai made their last stand – and lost. The final battle is depicted in the film The Last Samurai although by all accounts the character portrayed by Tom Cruise in that film was in real life an old and obese man who had to be carried around in a sedan chair.

Mostly, however, Tokyo is very here and now. The streets are spacious and modern and are still lacking trashcans while soda machines are a little less present, at least in the city centre. Our friends’ apartment is in the hippest neighbourhood in Tokyo, close to many high-end shops like Gucci and Ralph Lauren. More interesting are the many smaller and infinitely more fashion-conscious and drop-dead hip shops just behind the main street. Average age on the street: 19? Ladies and gentleman, I was old down there! And criminally unhip, with my slacks and surf shoes, simple shirts and tank tops.

What I needed (at least!) was a hat. Or some leggings. Or at least something vintage-looking, apart from my elderly frame. Failing that I might have explored my goth side or go completely in the other direction and dress sticky-sweet with lace, fruit prints and parasol. In either case don’t forget the stockings (knee or overknee) and petticoat. I’m not a huge fashion shopper but I could have gone all-out because there were so many shops to cater every taste. Even mine. S bought a lovely sundress.

When walking further into town we suddenly found ourselves on the famous crossing at Shibuya station. At the green light hundreds of people will mix into the crossing, forming a veritable soup of human traffic until everyone has reached the other side (or at least a side) and the crossing is once again clear for traffic. It is an image everyone knows (it is in the film Koyaanisqatsi) and pretty much stands for the mechanical urban living, the hive animal that is Man.

Of course it is different when you are on the ground. It always is. There are magazine stands and drugstores. There are schoolchildren playing with their mobile phones and women busy looking fashionable. There are salary men and bums and general hangers-on, like us. All of us are different, all of us have a life, a heart and a mind. Standing there at the iconic crossing at Shibuya, one is again reminded that we are not a mechanism. Not a cog in the machine but each of us an entity in its own right. In Japan no more or less than elsewhere, even if society seems to emphasize conformity and adhering to the rules more than elsewhere. We are all just people.

Japan Diaries, part XI: Nikko

A long train journey across Kansai, through Tokyo and onwards led us to Nikko, about two hours north of the capital. Because of this proximity to Tokyo Nikko is a popular day trip for Japanese and foreign guests alike. We stayed at the Nikko Park Lodge where we encountered the most international company so far with hardly a Japanese in sight. Nikko Park Lodge is run by Buddhist monks who have a staff (volunteers? apprentices?) to take care of e.g. the front desk.

We skipped the early morning yoga practice (seven to eight – way too early for us) and one of the monks pointed us in the right direction for the main heritage sites. They were, again, stunning. It is so amazing how Japan has managed to hold on to its cultural treasures. Many of the really old art and architecture was destroyed during the Meiji Restoration (1868) and a great many sites and works were severely damaged by the many earthquakes that Japan suffers, some quite heavy. Many treasures made it through, however, or were restored beautifully.

Nikko is a real treasure trove of Japanese history with temples and shrines and woodcarvings to last a lifetime. We saw the stables of the sacred horse. We saw the sleeping cat. We saw the three Buddhist monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). We saw the sacred bridge that is only to be used by the emperor and his generals. (Oh and the sweeper who we saw cleaning the bridge.)

What we also saw was schoolchildren in great shoals (herds? packs?) sprawled around the sites. Especially where the school photographs were taken and large groups were directed by a busy photographer; all children standing in lines, boys to one side and girls to the other, all of them solemnly bored out of their skulls as is fitting for teenagers when visiting historic sites. The multitudes of black and white school uniforms was dazzling to behold.

In one of the temples a very serious affair was going on. A group of business people, mostly young man and a few women, were standing outside with solemn faces, obviously waiting for something. (Their turn?) In the temple about twelve pairs of feet were visible, one woman’s, and a priest was performing a ritual. We couldn’t exactly see what was happening and it was not an occassion to crane your neck to see. Judging by the serious faces of the waiting young professionals it was a career-deciding event. We sneaked by and left them to it. Poor guys.

In the evening we left for Tokyo, city of 12.5 million, and the final stop of our adventure. Tokyo deserves a whole new entry of its own in the Diaries. Tune in again later!

Japan Diaries, part X: Leaving paradise

Another entry about Shirahama? Yes, because the guest house Mifune deserves it. On the first morning we had already decided to stay another night and seeing how our hosts didn’t understand a word of what we were saying we had looked up “to leave”, “tomorrow” and “Tuesday” in our phrase book. It worked wonders, they were delighted. At first we thought they were stressed. We had to change rooms! The Americans had left and we had to move into their room. Ah no, we said, the room we have is fine, great, marvellous, arigato. The hostess kep insisting until we realised that it was her best room, and refusing was actually rather rude. And so we gratefully accepted and waited while she scurried about like an ant to get it all ready.

The other room was also a fine room, the wash stand was slightly newer, otherwise there was little difference. Except that at eight in the morning the next day (my friend was washing, I was in my jammies) there was a knock at the door. I opened it, hastily putting on a kimono. It was the hostess, speaking Japanese at me animately and pointing at herself (Japanese point at their noses if they indicate themselves) and downstairs. “What does she want?” my friend asked, around the corner. “I don’t know,” I said. “Does she want us to pay now?” S said. “Do you want us to check out?” I asked the lady. She hesitated, shook her head, and beckoned some more while speaking Japanese at me. “Oh well,” I told S, “I’ll just go with her.” “Good plan!” said S. And so I put on my slippers and went downstairs, only to find a full breakfast waiting for us. Ah. The special room came with special breakfast.

We left our bags in the ryokan (“May we leave our bags here until the afternoon?” – “Aaaah, aaaah, nono.” – “(He doesn’t understand) Um. Backu-packu. (point) Here. (point) One o’clock? (point at watch) – “Ah! Haihai!”) to enjoy some more sunshine and Shirahama before the long train journey to Nikko. While S lounged on the beach I made spirals in the sand, spotted some little crabs on the rock and found a half-closed shrine just off the beach. As I said, I like exploring.

At one o’clock the lovely host couple took us to the train station in their car. As we were bowing (low!) the woman received our little gift of ceramic clogs from Holland with a smile and said “You (point). Come (beckon). Back?” YES, next time we are in Shirahama, we will definitely come back to Mifune!

Japan Diaries, part IX: Shirahama

That night we moved the table to the corner of the room, pulled the futons out of the closet and slept under the ink drawing and tiny pay tv in the alcove. Next day: beach day! Shirahama is on the coast of the Pacific (HI HAPPY!) but in the shelter of the curve of the land. Besides, the beach is in a bay. Result: relatively warm water. The sand on the beach is bright white (1) and the scenery is stunning. The best thing was that we were there outside the season. Apparently during the holiday season Shirahama is packed with (Japanese) tourists, you can hardly reach the water for people, and loud music is blaring over the beach. Not so in late May, early June. It was quiet with only a few small groups of people scattered around the pristine beach. Maybe half the shops are closed but how many shops does one really need anyway? It was beautiful. We bought our breakfast from the surprisingly outgoing (for a Japanese) cookie baker across the street and spent the day marvelling.

Apart from lounging in the sand and easing in the water we wandered around for a look at the cliffs and a splash in the famous age-old onsen by the ocean front. As we approached the onsen stall we were quickly told that today entry was free. And so we put our valuables in a locker and headed for the curtained-off onsen. One side for women, one side for men. Which one? Peaking stealthily under the curtain we saw a pair of very hairy legs, hopefully a man’s. Luckily by then the proprietor had noticed our hesitation and, accompanied by some sniggers from his regulars, steered us toward the right section.

(Please note that this is not a picture of the public onsen we were in! This is just a funny guy advertising a hotel.)

A few moments later we found ourselves in a natural hot spring, surrounded by naked Japanese women of all ages, soaking in the warm water with the sun on our faces. The open ocean on the other side of the rocks. Our European bodies drew a bit of attention but the reception was very friendly and pleasant. Nakedness can do that, when there is nothing to hide. The most shy visitors were the younger girls. Skins all young and smooth, everything in shape but oh so insecure. Now my body doesn’t belong with the elderly women yet but by gods, at least that is over with! The older ladies were chatting as if over a cup of coffee.

In the evening we set out to find ourselves a simple meal and ended up in a restaurant on the edge of town. Specialty: lobster. So much for a simple meal. S tried to play safe (and failed), I decided to have the speciality. Just as S was explaining to me that she doesn’t like her food to be too recognizable, the cook came up to our table and pulled a live lobster out of a bucket. Pinchers and legs rattling against the plastic about 50 cm from where we were. I have to say we both jumped! Quickly nodding approvingly (Hai! Arigato!) to get rid of the cook and his unlucky friend, we both got the giggles. It was good lobster.

(1) It turns out that the original white sand of Shirahama washed away some time ago which is why new sand was imported from Australia. We were sitting on Australian sand in Japan.