Theme of Today: Singing Enchanted songs is very dangerous.
Day 6 started off in a panic, I put on my watch and the friendship ring Andrea bought for me. And my ring wouldn’t fit! I couldn’t believe it, finally after 6 days, the excess salt and MSG used in Japan got to me. I had extreme water retention! All of a sudden I broke in a panic because I couldn’t take off my ring and my finger was turning purple.
*gulp*
I managed to get it off after using soap, but it was really eye-opening and testament to the crazy amounts of MSG in Japanese food.
Sens0-ji Market – Revisited
A girl trapped in a caged bubble. Andrea wouldn't let me buy it.
We went back to the tourist strip to buy souvenirs. I angrily glared at the redbean pancake shop, SUCH LOUSY DESSERTS!! The happiest thing there was spotting Ninja and other japanese costumed Monchichis!!!! They are awesome! I bought one for each of us siblings.
Ueno – Ameyoko-cho Arcade (famous black market district after WW2)
Our sweet Hideyoshi from the previous evening (aka oishi yakitori anime guy) actually emailed us, saying that we should check out Ueno. SO NICE OF HIM!! The email was date stamped 12+!!!
The Arcade was alright, a street market! A clean JJ market! (Bangkok reference)
Andrea and I were hungry, so wanted to walk in to any restaurant, we walked into this one restaurant, it was quite empty. Imagine a vast room, with a circular counter in the center. The chefs waved and welcomed us, and directed us to the machine to order lunch.
NO PICTURES. Japanese words only!
Andrea loves markets.
In dismay we left that restaurant and found ourselves having lunch at a diner!
My first time in a diner!!! It was smokey and they forgot my meal, so they gave me a free glass of coke. (I didn’t drink it though, I’m a pepsi girl and still on my no-softdrink resolution)
Enroute to the Airport
We had such a good chat and chill time on the train to Narita Airport. Laughing talking about life, and at some point of time I kept on raving about Enchanted. I really like that movie!!! I was busy singing, “True Love’s kiss,” when they announced that we would be alighting at Narita Airport soon. Andrea was really anxious and went up front to get her luggage. I la la la happily got off the train, but was rummaging for my ticket. When I got off the train, I looked at Andrea, and
Stacy: I am so sorry Andrea, you have to bear with me, I lost the ticket in my – - -
I turned around and banged the express train with my hands as it started to move again, kept on banging it to stop, but it didn’t
And just like that my small silver case was gone to another terminal.
I was literally shaking, and Andrea really saw the panic on my face and gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay. We went to the conductor, took out a piece of paper, Andrea started to draw a brief case, and I was anxiously doing charade movements of a travelling case.
Andrea had to board her plane, (we took separate flights) so she had to leave me and gave me one last big hug and hoped to see me at the agreed place in Bangkok Airport.
ARgh!!! I was so edgy and my hands were shaking! I had to stand there for 15 minutes, regain composure and hop on the next train heading to terminal 1. The conductor told me that once I get off the platform I would see my suitcase.
That wasn’t the case. I was directed to the lost and found, which was closed. Went back down to the platform to ask the Terminal 2 conductor’s help. At the end of the day, I got my luggage and was able to breathe again.
As I was boarding the plane, I glanced at the Plasma TV airing CNN – BOMB BLASTS IN BANGKOK. 48 INJURED (or something to that extent) Lovely, isn’t it great to live in Bangkok?
****
This is my last entry of my Fabulous Japan series. I have to say that the trip for me was more of experiencing Japan with Andrea than experiencing Japan itself. The entire week I was not stressed at all, (except for the suitcase train incident) it was filled with fun and laughter, and so many random stories.
Japan was fabulous, but what made it truly fabulous was being there with Andrea. We had such a great reunion trip and after travelling to Japan together, I feel like we can conquer the world! (except for India, I need Neha’s help on that one.)
I love you Andrea!!
Andrea, I LOVE YOU TO PIECES!!! Thank you for such fabulous memories!
Total Distance Walked: 20 Km, Feet-Pain-O-Meter: 9
Theme of the Day: TBA
1. Orange Tori
Tori isn’t a snack, Tori-s are gigantic arch like structures. Andrea read that it was a beautiful site, to go see 3,000 Tori lined up. And when she asked the Customer Service officer at the Hotel lobby, that woman was ’so sweet’ to even highlighted the subway station we had to get off. She told Andrea that it would take us a 45 minute ONE WAY JOURNEY, and it would cost 140 yen to get there. 140 yen ONLY???
I seriously didn’t see whats the big deal about giant orange arches, but I decided that, yes we are in Japan and we are going to do as much as possible! So told Andrea that I was willing to wake up at 6, to take a 45 minute train ride to see this place, tour it for 1 hour, take a 45 minute journey back so that we can still squeeze in Nijo Castle before lunch.
Again our day started with a chewy energy bar, and we were sitting chatting on the train.
REACHED OUR DESTINATION IN FIFTEEN MINUTES.
FIFTEEN MINUTES
This is pure testament to local Japanese people’s lack of understanding of time and space.
Anyhoo, exiting the subway station worried Andrea a bit, because I misplaced my subway ticket, but I figured I could get away with smiling at the booth kiosk guy and asking him directions, and he let me out without asking to see my ticket! Great!
Our subway station was very local, in the sense that we landed in a real village, with real homes – no high rises. So it was nice to experience that. Turns out that the Orange Tori place was…
Fushimi Inari Taisha (tunnels of torii)
We woke up really early for this..
A shinto jinja (shrine) located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. Fushimi Inari Taisha is also famous for appearing in the film Memoirs of a Geisha It is especially well known for the thousands of vermilion torii lining the paths on the hill on which the shrine is located. The torii gates are all donations from individuals, families or companies. The Inari spirit is considered to be the protector of grains, especially rice, and has thus historically been associated with wealth. Companies often make offerings to Inari shrines in the form of barrels of rice wine (sake) or torii gates.
Good. A shrine for businesses. I prayed there and just absorbed the whole setting. Don’t remember anything from the Memoirs of the Geisha though.
2. Nijo Castle – UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE
Finally! A tourist attraction that has english signs and AUDIO tapes! I quickly paid 500 yen to listen to the Audio guide, I suggest this to anyone. That or…before going to Nijo Castle or any tour sites in general – DO RESEARCH.
The castle itself was very plain but somewhat grand at the same time. The highlight of the castle was the nightingale hall. Which was designed many many years ago using ‘high’ technology. They constructed it so that any weight on the floor boards would cause a squeak – a nightingale chirp.
Nijo Castle
Hence, the whole hall sounded as if we were surrounded by birds. The bum part of it was that we couldn’t hear what chirp sound we made individually. BUT then, Andrea and I found ourselves in a position where there were no other tourist with us, and we were tiptoeing on the boards and NO SOUND! We could be Ninjas!! (We had really good stealth experience at York!! HAhaha the RAID OF TATHAM HALL! MUAHAHAHAAahahahah good times good times..)
Well we could be ninjas. That – or the technology isn’t very good.
Nijo Castle Gardens
Andrea and I walked through the palace gardens, which was apparently a very ‘in’ trend in the 1500s for castles to have gardens. The Nijo Castle actually has 2 castles, but the other one was burnt down.
Um, the park was extremely nice, and we enjoyed our walk around there, it was close to 12, so we wanted to go and try that 100 year old restaurant. We couldn’t see the exit sign, so Andrea asked a Japanese woman where the exit was, and she pointed to us LEFT. In front of us, I kinda saw a sign indicating another garden (close to the exit) that said to turn to the RIGHT, but I figured maybe her way was the real exit.
IT WASN’T. Andrea and I basically walked the whole outergarden and were stuck in Nijo Castle grounds for 30 minutes! In those empiral days, if you were a Ninja – you’d really need to know where you are going.
3. Lunch with a TV star.
The 100 year old restaurant turned out to be closed, that or we decided to save our money for our NINJA dinner in Tokyo..forgot which. Anyhoo, we went to a local fastfood but GOOD food restaurant. TEMPURA! We had udon noodles with tempura, everything laid out buffet style for us to choose. I found the lunch quite good.
We couldn’t find a booth to sit at, so we placed our trays down at a counter and sat like a couple. haha. I went to get us green tea and more sauces, when I returned, Andrea was chatting with this American 40-5o year old man sitting at the opposite side of the counter.
You have to visualise, 2 counters facing eachother, separated by a board covering the face area only. So I could see his hands and food, but not his face. His name was Mike and he was the most chatty thing in the world. Andrea and I supposed that it was because he rarely ever met native English speakers in Japan, thats why he was talking at 100 words per minute. (alot)
He told us that he acted on BAYWATCH!!! My eyes POPPED OUT!!! (yes, I admit, I used to watch it on Starplus. Didn’t you?) And I was about to bombard him with questions like, so who did you play? were you Yasmin Bleeth’s boss or something? (because I didn’t recognise him) But right away he said – I was the doctor on Episode XX (some number i forgot which)
A comedian!
He really was a comedian, an entertainer, teacher, musician, and ordained minister?
The best joke we heard was, when he conducts a ceremony he says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today to witness the joining of….*sees all the stone faced Japanese people*….so what time is the funeral?”
haha, fabulous.
3. Train to Tokyo
Sometimes I find that I am really too smart for my own good. I noticed that a bottle of water in the train station cost 150 yen, but on the train I remembered seeing a sign 120 yen, so waited to buy a bottle of water there. It was 120 yen for a 330ml bottle of water, FABULOUS. I almost died of thirst.
A few things about the train ride.
1. Andrea and I slept shamelessly. At the opposing aisle from us were 2 working Japanese men, who weren’t good looking at all, but presentable and stylish. (Seriously, the only good looking Japanese guy in Japan is Hiro, ladies, if you want his number, ask me.) They must had chuckled quietly at Andrea and I. I don’t know about Andrea, but I was so exhausted when we sat down, that I actually slept with my mouth open – which I hardly ever do. When I feel myself starting to open my mouth, I’d wake up and fix the way I look, but this time, I just slept all the way. Not to mention that I am a head-bobber, and my head was bobbing towards the aisle..so much so that I was…
2. almost decapitated 2wice by the food trolley girl. What is with trolley manners in Japan? They just ZOOOM by. Its crazy!
3. We filmed my funny North West video.
4. We saw Mt. Fuji for the 2nd time and Andrea musta taken 20 photos. But it was foggy
5. We didn’t get to see that nice Vietnamese family! A darn shame, I was looking forward to hearing about their tour. But it gets better. A few stations before Tokyo station, Andrea looked at the people walking on the platform, and she said, Hey Stacy! Isn’t that your guy with his parents!? She was right! He was on the same train as us but different compartment. He was walking 10 paces ahead of his parents, POWERWALKING with his poor small parents trailing behind. SO RUDE!!! Omg, was so shocked about that. Tsk tsk. Never judge a book by its cover. Lesson learnt.
Last thoughts on Kyoto
I was so impressed on how Andrea and I conquered Kyoto in 2 days, by the 3rd day we were navigating the routes. The life in Kyoto is slower pace, and somehow I came out preferring Tokyo much more.
Perhaps we didn’t go during the right time, Kyoto is the place to visit when the cherry blossoms are blossoming and/or during the fall.
And 13 degrees in Kyoto is FREEZING COLD. I almost died – my teeth were chattering.
Also, I wish we went to Osaka, which was just a 30 minute train ride away .
Overall – I appreciated the very glam hotel we stayed at, and the lower cost of living in Kyoto than in Tokyo, and I found Kyoto folk to be much friendlier.
Total Distance Walked: 20 Km, Feet-Pain-O-Meter: 10
Theme of the Day: Shiny Happy People
Yesterday I forgot to mention that on Day 3, Andrea and I had a reunion with our friend Deidre from Tatham Hall (The residence at York U) we met at an Irish Pub along the river. It was the shittiest Irish pub I’ve ever been to my whole life, and I ordered Lamb Stew, and what I got instead, was clear chicken stock, 4 pieces of diced carrot and 2 pieces of lamb. Andrea’s lamb tasted like rubber.
Dee teaches English in the small town of….hmm its a small town and right now I can’t recall its name. She moved to Japan around 6 months ago, so it was good to see her again. We both hadn’t seen her for over 6 years. At first I was a bit worried about the reunion, what if it’s awkward?? But that didn’t happen, we clicked like before.
So our day 4 started off with a chewy energy bar. Mocha chocolate flavour, super condensed but it was apparently suppose to fuel our day. We agreed to meet Dee at Kyoto station to hop on a bus to see the Golden Palace. SOOO many people were lining up for the same bus!! It was incredible. Luck was in our favour, and we met the most lovely and warm Japanese couple of the trip. Mr. & Mrs. Ando. — Andosan(s?)
Sweetest Couple of the Trip. – Making Friends on the Bus.
Andrea and I saw this sweet couple (around 60 years old) and offered them a seat, they both refused, but this started a very nice friendship…
They offered us an orange and insisted that we eat it on the spot, and we three communicated with them using my limited but quite impressive written chinese (you’d all be so proud of me.), Andrea’s amazing Mr.Dress up drawing skills, and Dee’s intermediate Japanese. We spoke to them about everything, they loved Andrea’s hair and Andrea was a sweet heart, always thinking of new things to talk to them about.
Do you have any pets? *magically draws a cat and dog*
I flew over from Canada, and my friend Stacy flew over from Thailand *magically draws the world map, airplanes, and arrows*
Here is one I secretly caught on video:
Video 1: Andrea asks if they like to eat Kobe Steak (because they were from Kobe)
After 15 minutes, they finally allowed Andrea and I to give our seats to them. Shortly afterwards, they hurried off the bus, and we didn’t know why. We looked through our bus window, and saw Mrs. Ando sick. Andrea was sad and immediately wanted to rush off the bus to help her, but I told her that we’d see them again and that they would lose face if she did that.
The Golden Palace
We reached the Golden Palace and saw swarms of people. Lo and Behold, we bump into the Vietnamese family (the guy + his parents) and we exchanged greetings and spoke a bit then went on our separate ways, we found out that all of us were scheduled to leave on Monday, so we figured that we’d chat to them on the train.
The Golden Palace is…a house decorated with Gold paper. Granted I know that there must be great his
The Golden palace, Kyoto
torical significance to it, and if I remember vaguely, it was on Emperor’s/Shogun’s palace, and as history goes someone (a monk?) burnt it down, and they rebuilt it with gold paper. But honestly, there was no tourist information for us to really truly appreciate the Golden Palace. All plaques were in Japanese. This irritated the hell out of me, because my experience in China was so different, there were English signs all over so that tourist can really absorb and appreciate culture. At the Golden Palace, the only english sign I saw was – GREEN TEA 500 YEN.
And as I predicted, we did met the Ando couple at the Golden Palace! it was fabulous! I just knew that we would see them again! we took photos and walked around together. Then because the Golden Palace was flooded with tourist souvenir kiosk (can you tell from my tone that I did not like that place at all) we were able to buy 2 small gifts for them. Well-wishes charms: Get Well Soon and Happiness in their homes.
Andrea, Dee and I with the Andos!
Andrea and Dee asked me to go choose, since the charms were in Chinese, so I chose those ones, thought them appropriate. I asked Andrea and Dee to keep Mr. & Mrs. Ando occupied while I sneaked off to buy them, and I broke a sweat when Mrs. Ando put her arm over my shoulder asking what I was buying. THANKS ANDREA!! so much for me being stealth!
They were so appreciative of the gift that they insisted on taking us to lunch, and we did not want to impose that on them, so gracefully bowed and tried to get out of the situation. And Mrs. Ando almost tore my arm off!!! haha so cute.
Enroute to Tenryuji
Andrea knew that I really wanted to go see Nijo Castle (because Mom INSISTED for me to go) and from the look of the Kyoto map, it made so much more sense to go to Tenryuji, then go to Nijo Castle (because it was just 1 stop away from our hotel.)
Enroute to Tenryuji we had to change buses, and at the interchanging bus station, a bus conductor walked up to us, asked us where we were going, and suggested us a different route to avoid traffic. SO NICE OF HIM!!! And then a young japanese couple overheard, also followed his advice and made sure we got off the bus when it was time.
From that bus stop, it was a TWENTY minute walk, crossing train tracks, walking through neighbourhoods, to Tenryuji. Which is… actually a whole area in itself. You could never say, I want go see Tenryuji. You’d have to be specific and say, I want to go see the Tenryuji Gardens, or the Tenryuji Temples, or the Tenryuji Bamboo Grooves, or the Tenryuji Monorail…(get my drift?)
Tenryuji - Temple of the Dragon God
When we reached Tenryuji area, we walked around 15 minutes to this Tenryuji Garden area. Which has this massive entrance, meaning you have to walk roughly 1.5km until you reach a group of entrances. Garden, Temple or the Interior House in the Garden.
Andrea really wanted to see the Bambo groves ( I kept on pronouncing groves = grooves). Famous Bamboo groves that line the entrance of something.(haha) So when we got to the Tenryuji Garden area, she asked a staff – how to get to the Bamboo groves. And this Japanese woman told her it would take a 45 minutes walk!! Faints. FAINTS!! Not to mention that it was close to 3pm, and the sun sets at 430pm, so there is a huge rush to take very good photos. (because of the sunlight). We were a bit dismayed, but we decided to go see the Bamboo groves, Andrea asked a French couple if they knew where the Bamboo Groves were, they were so nice, gave her their extra map, and said it was only at 10 minute walk away.
TEN MINUTES compared to FORTY FIVE minutes.
I have to admit, I wasn’t in my chirpiest mood, the whole damn floor was all cobble stone, I was tiptoeing everywhere, and Andrea just kept on APOLOGISING that we were going to miss Nijo Castle. She said something funny, she spoke to Dee, Stacy is probably thinking, what the hell its just Bamboo.
Wow she read my mind, because when we went there, it was really just bamboo. I mean…I guess it was somewhat spectacular, a part of me felt like I was in The House of the Flying Daggers (fabulous movie you must check out.)
I think what bugged me the most was she kept on apologising. It’s her nature to apologise, she is just way too nice all the time. I on the other hand, believe in this philosophy of If you eat salty fish, then you better bear the thirst. Meaning, I openly accepted and agreed to go to Tenryuji, so I got myself into that situation and there is nothing to be sorry about! That was probably the only riff we had the entire trip, her constant apologising, she is just TOO nice!! I was so close to hitting her.
Tenryuji Gardens
The Tenryuji garden was super nice and zen like. I also got to sit down and take off my shoes. (LOVEEEEEEEEELY!!!) and had time to soak up some zen.
Video 2: Review of Tenryuji
We headed back to Kyoto. Turns out we travelled SO FAR, it was a 30 minute ride on the train back to Kyoto station. We said our goodbyes to Dee, she needed to go home, and then we went back to our hotel to REST.
We hung out a bit then decided to go a 100 year restaurant, but by the time we went there, it was full. So we went to a Japanese chain, where I ordered Korean Stone rice! I love that! And Andrea ordered French fries!
What a day what a day.
The theme of Day 4 was Shiny Happy People because despite of the endless walking and wandering, we met really nice fellow travellers and they helped us along the way.
Kyoto totally made a comeback. Day 4 was a good day.
Catching up on my blog entries! Just 6 more days to write!
Stacy
Yes I am still in Hong Kong, but I need a break from all this crazy P.A.D (Powerfully Amazing Dimwits) stress so I am going to reminisce about my Fabulous Japan trip with Andrea.
Goodness me, I’m going to take us back to, 4 fridays ago, October 31st 2009. We finished the Tsukiji Market and headed down these crazy lanes. There are no “RESTAURANT HERE” signs, so again we had to ask the locals where the restaurants were. THANK GOODNESS FOR ANDREA’s PHRASE BOOK!
Andrea: Sushi Dae, doko desku?
Man: directions in japanese, but communicated us with hands and he drew out a map for us
Andrea: Domo arigato (in a very Portugese tone)
Me: Arigato gozyamase!! (in an overly exaggerating Japanese TV game show tone)
When we got to the food lane, there were basically 2 queues. One restaurant was called Sushi Dae Wo, and one was called Sushi Dae. The edition of the Lonely Planet that Andrea was holding told us to go to Sushi Dae, so as genuine tourist, we followed Lonely Planet and went to Sushi Dae. (Lonely Planet charges restaurants for advertisements and shameless plugs)
Sushi Dae
Imagine that it is 17 degrees (I’m FREEZING..), and we are all huddled in a line, not to go into a club, but to have 10 pieces of Sushi at 8 in the morning.
The restaurant was approximately 5 people in width, so they made us queue in an accordion fashion. When we first reached the line, I spotted a quite good looking and French looking guy, and I said, “Andrea, there is a good looking guy! let’s see if we get to speak to him!” hahah, I bet you 5$ that he heard me. Oh well.
Turns out that he was Dutch, and travelled throughout Japan for the past 5 weeks, learning Japanese and absorbing the culture, so we learnt quite a lot from him. And I WANTED to take his photo to show Heather, but he didn’t want to take a photo with Andrea, so later on, I super stealth-ly took a photo of him eating Sushi. (Outside-looking-in perspective)
After 1 hour we finally were given 2 seats right at the corner, a window seat. Our chef was super friendly and smiley, he spoke English, Japanese (obviously) and CANTONESE! Amazing lor!
We were smart, we ordered 1 big set, and 1 small set to share, total came to around, 6,000 Yen. For every sushi he laid out in front of us, he would say, SAUCE, or NO SAUCE. haha.
The sushi was really F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S FABULOUS!! I’ve never had such fresh sushi before, the fish really melts in your mouth! The only sushi I didn’t like was a sardine sushi (eee..) I went exotic and ate Sea Urchin, and all the while Andrea and I are snapping photos, making videos, and you could see the people outside looking at us. Haha hilarious.
During the course of the meal, we heard a CHOP SLAM of the chopping knife..then the chef put a piece of sushi in front of Andrea, and very animately said “ITS ALIVE!!!!!!!” (a bit like frankenstein’s mad scientist)
We took a look at what was in front of Andrea, it was a squishy thing that curled back, SLURP!!
I was cheering Andrea to go ahead and try it, and she just looked at me and said, oh please Stacy can you have it. So here I am eating Live Shell Crab
The texture was just like squid, but the taste was a bit like hmm the seasoned fresh seaweed, that usually comes as an appetitizer in Japanese sushi restaurants. Yummy!
Then came Andrea’s adventurous turn. IKURA – which are HUGE salmon roes – the size of a…5mg pill. And the funniest thing is that it was pure salmon roe, no rice!! haha, he gave it to Andrea, and said “3 months!”
..??? What? during that moment we were like, woah…this salmon egg is 3 months old…then on the train afterwards we just looked at eachother and said again, what??? 3 months old? Aren’t they huge fish by then?
Something got lost in translation. But bravo to her for having it.
Thus concludes our Sushi and Sushi Dae story, if you ask me, I would go to Sushi Dae Wo instead because the queue moved SO MUCH FASTER!! and make sure you get there before 2pm because that’s when they close.
I’m typing with Doug’s computer so I can’t add any photos to this entry.
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