Chapter 1
Travel Diary to Japan
Hello to everybody!
This is the Diary of the Travel that I did in Japan. It was such a long time that I wished to visit this incredible country, and by a good chance, I managed to do it. So, in these pages I’ll tell you about my travel, and I hope that you’ll enjoy it!
Have a good reading
Franz
Hello to everybody!
This is the Diary of the Travel that I did in Japan. It was such a long time that I wished to visit this incredible country, and by a good chance, I managed to do it. So, in these pages I’ll tell you about my travel, and I hope that you’ll enjoy it!
Have a good reading
Franz
Before getting the things started
It was the beginning of the Summer 2009. It was just an ordinary office day, one of those days that you feel like living inside a loop of days repeating themselves over and over. Those days that each of them looks like cloned from the previous one. Works that lasted months brought me to grow unsteady pinnacles of folders on my desk. The fade light that was coming from my window, facing a narrow street of the Genova Historical Centre, was playing bizarre jokes of shadows and reflections on the screen of my monitor. Sometimes, looking at my own reflection on the screen surrounded by the folders pinnacles, I felt like I was staring to some sort of dinosaur or fiend hidden into his midst. A very bored dinosaur, indeed. The office, slowly, was turning into a flat scene which colors were slowly washing away, turning it into a surreal picture of moving gray shades. Tapping noises from my colleagues typing on the keyboards. The hypnotic humming of the aircon. Some voices from outside. And the heat. That was a really hot summer and the heat of those humid days made the time to flow slower and slower.
I was there, at my desk, staring at the files, but my mind was far away. I was still thinking about the time that I spent in Cambodia. All the emotions that I lived in that country were still alive and pulsing warm in my soul. I believe that this is my “favorite addiction”, to live those emotions. Perhaps, this year I’d plan another trip far away, perhaps in Burma… Yes, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… The idea of that part of the world (South East Asia), which I adore, and to visit her again was a chill that made me shake for a second. Goose bumps into that heat. Emotions ready to come to the surface, and memories screaming back their stories into my hears. A fabulous chaos. The perfume of the flowers, the smile of the people, the feeling of exploration, the joy of the parties, the laughters with friends, the charm of those landscapes, all into a sublime mix. How could I be stay there still? The idea and hope of a trip looked like mirage far into the tides of time and space. But then, the mirage turned into reality. All of a sudden.
All of a sudden my mobile started to ring like a crazy. I caught it and I saw that on the screen was the name “Lula”. So, I pushed my mobile into a pocket and running with the grace of “Sylvester the Cat”, I got out of the office and on the street I answered.
At the other end of the line there was Lula that with excited voice told me that she just found an unmissable and incredible offer from the JAL (Japan Air Lines) which, for a very ridiculous price, was selling direct flights from Milan to Tokyo, inclusive of a week of Japan Rail Pass (unlimited travels by train). I told her to catch it immediately and I’d make an excuse up to take those 15 days of holidays in August. Which meant a month later.
When I came back to my office that I was smiling broadly, I entered to my boss office and I said that this year she should be happy as I was going to take Summer holidays, as she wished, and we wouldn’t be fighting for my Autumn holidays. When I was talking to her, a lady which I deeply respect, I was looking at her lips moving and I was trying to focus on their movement to understand what she was saying, as inside of me my memories and travel emotion were screaming and cheering louder and louder.
In the following days both me and Lula had to work quite hard on our upcoming trip as we had only few days to plan and optimize the time in Japan. We bought a Lonely Planet guide (for Lula), a Rough Guide (mine), the beautiful book “Hitching Hikes with Buddha” by Will Fergusson and with help of both Internet and our Japanese friend, we managed to plan a beautiful trip in the central Japan, the Honshu Island. Here start our journey! I wish you a pleasant reading!
Now it’s time to get the things started!
I was there, at my desk, staring at the files, but my mind was far away. I was still thinking about the time that I spent in Cambodia. All the emotions that I lived in that country were still alive and pulsing warm in my soul. I believe that this is my “favorite addiction”, to live those emotions. Perhaps, this year I’d plan another trip far away, perhaps in Burma… Yes, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… The idea of that part of the world (South East Asia), which I adore, and to visit her again was a chill that made me shake for a second. Goose bumps into that heat. Emotions ready to come to the surface, and memories screaming back their stories into my hears. A fabulous chaos. The perfume of the flowers, the smile of the people, the feeling of exploration, the joy of the parties, the laughters with friends, the charm of those landscapes, all into a sublime mix. How could I be stay there still? The idea and hope of a trip looked like mirage far into the tides of time and space. But then, the mirage turned into reality. All of a sudden.
All of a sudden my mobile started to ring like a crazy. I caught it and I saw that on the screen was the name “Lula”. So, I pushed my mobile into a pocket and running with the grace of “Sylvester the Cat”, I got out of the office and on the street I answered.
At the other end of the line there was Lula that with excited voice told me that she just found an unmissable and incredible offer from the JAL (Japan Air Lines) which, for a very ridiculous price, was selling direct flights from Milan to Tokyo, inclusive of a week of Japan Rail Pass (unlimited travels by train). I told her to catch it immediately and I’d make an excuse up to take those 15 days of holidays in August. Which meant a month later.
When I came back to my office that I was smiling broadly, I entered to my boss office and I said that this year she should be happy as I was going to take Summer holidays, as she wished, and we wouldn’t be fighting for my Autumn holidays. When I was talking to her, a lady which I deeply respect, I was looking at her lips moving and I was trying to focus on their movement to understand what she was saying, as inside of me my memories and travel emotion were screaming and cheering louder and louder.
In the following days both me and Lula had to work quite hard on our upcoming trip as we had only few days to plan and optimize the time in Japan. We bought a Lonely Planet guide (for Lula), a Rough Guide (mine), the beautiful book “Hitching Hikes with Buddha” by Will Fergusson and with help of both Internet and our Japanese friend, we managed to plan a beautiful trip in the central Japan, the Honshu Island. Here start our journey! I wish you a pleasant reading!
Now it’s time to get the things started!
Day 1 – From Milan to Tokyo Asakusa – Where the “U” make the difference
We took off from Milan Malpensa at the 21.45 of the 5th August 2009 with a Japan Air Lines flight, and it would take about 10 hours to reach Tokyo Narita. The night went by very fast and at sunrise we discovered that we were already flying over Siberia. This was a land where an endless spread of forest was only interrupted by broad sinuous rivers flowing peacefully toward the sea. Unbelievably, as far as we could see, there were no traces of people. No housings, no roads, no smoke… Nothing at all. Just trees, mountains and rivers.
We stood up from our seats and spent some times staring at this land from the windows near the toilets of the plane. We were enchanted and eagerly we kept on watching at this place which was evoking freedom, exploration and wilderness. We were longing for adventure, and we felt the adrenaline thundering in our hears, reminding us that we were at the beginning of a journey that in a few hours would take us in a new country, apparently into a different world that was waiting to be met.
We landed in Tokyo Narita that were 16.35 local time and after a short immigration procedure, we were allowed to enter The Land of the Rising Sun.
While we were planning our trip, we wondered if it’d be better taking a taxi or a train to the Tokyo centre. Seeing that the Japanese Trains are matter of legend for their precision and quality, we chosen this second option. We went to the desk of a train company and I asked for two train tickets to “Tokyo-Asakusa”, pronouncing as it’s written “Azakooza!”. The girl opened broadly her pretty long eyes, with the look like she had been thunderstruck in the same moment she closed a finger into the drawer of the desk. Then, she first shuddered, and then she came back to reality. She smiled, typed something at the PC and she handed us two small tickets. Then with a gracious and delicate gesture she pointed a direction with her thin finger and said something incomprehensible in very fast Japanese. We stared at the finger, we looked at the direction where she was pointing, that meant somewhere hidden by a multitude of people. We said “bye” to the girl and left her. We followed that direction, across the huge airport overcrowded with so many people that looked like all the humanity decided to cross our path exactly in that very moment. Later I guessed that they were all searching the exact train to Tokyo after they asked for some useless information at the Airport staff, but I would understand it just days later…
We reached a girl in uniform which was standing still next the gate to the platforms and we asked if that was the right platform for “Asakusa”. She answered sounding all but very convinced “Ooohhh… Ahhh… hmmm …Yeees?…”, of course we believed her, and we took the first train outbound from the airport. As soon as the train left the platforms and the airport vanished behind of us, a huge storm came down on this green land of fields and small housings. Gusts of wind rose waves on the crops fields and the rain drew lines on the windows of our train. We were keeping on staring outside, but then, we were recalled to the reality by the train officer which was checking the tickets. We handed him our tickets and, of course, we discovered to be on the wrong train. The problem was that the officer couldn’t understand half word of English with the exception of the word “train”, and I couldn’t understand half word of Japanese in spite of the words “Samurai, Geisha, Sushi, Sashimi, Tempura and Sakè”. After a long attempt to communicate, in the end we were fined for the wrong ticket and we were “suggested” to get off the train in the Ueno station. Actually, the officer, in an extreme will of communicate, shown us on the map the Ueno station and kept on saying “Ueno! Ueno! Ueno!” hammering the station with a finger.
“Fra… What’s good in Ueno?” was Lula;
“I don’t know, but if he’s braking his finger hammering the station, there must be something beautiful… or maybe he wants to dig a hole in the map…”.
We got off the train, and the officer looked relieved that we left his car. We searched the big Ueno station as Lula was dragging her luggage and I was carrying two backpacks. We asked to some people about the trains to Asakusa, but nobody understood. Nobody knew Asakusa? Were we really in Tokyo? Luckily we had our guide books with us which had the names of the places written in local language. So, we started to check the trains board and compare the “Asakusa” symbols. “Lula I think that I found the lantern-shaped symbol!” and she “No, it has the leg in the wrong place!”. It took to us ages, but in the end, we managed to find the right name, the right ticket machine and, surprisingly, the right train too. This was the first time in the Tokyo metro system. It had been absurd, but we learnt so well from this occasion, that in the following days we hadn’t had any more problems.
We got off the Asakusa station that was already night and it was raining. I tried to ask to some passer-by information about the street where we were walking, but without any help. Most of the people were just pointing with a finger the direction that we were facing or just pretended that we didn’t try to stop them. So, we took the wrong direction and we arrived to the river, and here we found, on the other bank, the Asahi Beer Headquarter (the picture above was taken another day). This building is easy to be recognized as it has a sort of golden-flame-statue on the roof. So, when we recognized this landmark, soon we understood where we were and soon later we arrived to the beautiful “Hotel Chisun Inn Asakusa”.
When we entered the hotel we were greeted by the very kind and helpful desk personnel. In that precise moment we understood why all the people didn’t seem to understand what we meant when we were saying “Asakusa”. In fact, it sounds like we were spelling the name wrong. Japanese people pronounce it without the “U”, so this neighborhood sounds like “Asaksa”. In that moment I reminded of all the foreigners that come to my town asking for places which they misspell, and I decided that the next Japanese asking me for information would have in change my vengeance. After that we finished our check-in procedures we were given a fax sent by our friend Megumi which welcomed us in Japan, warned the personnel of our arrival and also gave us some emergency numbers. Japanese people can be even very sweet! …sometimes.
We went up the eleventh floors with a tiny elevator filled up with us and our luggage, then we arrived to our room. It was very small but super clean and had anything we needed, moreover she had a beautiful sight on Asakusa. On the bed there were two perfectly-folded gowns that, perhaps mistaking, we identified as Yukata and we kept on calling them in this way for all the journey. The bathroom was barely bigger than a phone booth, but it had all that we needed. A basin, a small bathtub and a super-high-tech toilet. It had more buttons and dials than a computer. It was intimidating. What if I pressed the wrong combination of buttons? Would it turn into a Gundam-like robot and it would start shooting me lasers? “Oh my… Somebody rescue us from the robo-toilet!”, I was in Japan for few hours and I was already becoming one of them! Anyway, we loved that room from the very first moment. We took just the time to unpack the luggage and the backpack and we were again in the roads exploring Asakusa by night.
We stood up from our seats and spent some times staring at this land from the windows near the toilets of the plane. We were enchanted and eagerly we kept on watching at this place which was evoking freedom, exploration and wilderness. We were longing for adventure, and we felt the adrenaline thundering in our hears, reminding us that we were at the beginning of a journey that in a few hours would take us in a new country, apparently into a different world that was waiting to be met.
We landed in Tokyo Narita that were 16.35 local time and after a short immigration procedure, we were allowed to enter The Land of the Rising Sun.
While we were planning our trip, we wondered if it’d be better taking a taxi or a train to the Tokyo centre. Seeing that the Japanese Trains are matter of legend for their precision and quality, we chosen this second option. We went to the desk of a train company and I asked for two train tickets to “Tokyo-Asakusa”, pronouncing as it’s written “Azakooza!”. The girl opened broadly her pretty long eyes, with the look like she had been thunderstruck in the same moment she closed a finger into the drawer of the desk. Then, she first shuddered, and then she came back to reality. She smiled, typed something at the PC and she handed us two small tickets. Then with a gracious and delicate gesture she pointed a direction with her thin finger and said something incomprehensible in very fast Japanese. We stared at the finger, we looked at the direction where she was pointing, that meant somewhere hidden by a multitude of people. We said “bye” to the girl and left her. We followed that direction, across the huge airport overcrowded with so many people that looked like all the humanity decided to cross our path exactly in that very moment. Later I guessed that they were all searching the exact train to Tokyo after they asked for some useless information at the Airport staff, but I would understand it just days later…
We reached a girl in uniform which was standing still next the gate to the platforms and we asked if that was the right platform for “Asakusa”. She answered sounding all but very convinced “Ooohhh… Ahhh… hmmm …Yeees?…”, of course we believed her, and we took the first train outbound from the airport. As soon as the train left the platforms and the airport vanished behind of us, a huge storm came down on this green land of fields and small housings. Gusts of wind rose waves on the crops fields and the rain drew lines on the windows of our train. We were keeping on staring outside, but then, we were recalled to the reality by the train officer which was checking the tickets. We handed him our tickets and, of course, we discovered to be on the wrong train. The problem was that the officer couldn’t understand half word of English with the exception of the word “train”, and I couldn’t understand half word of Japanese in spite of the words “Samurai, Geisha, Sushi, Sashimi, Tempura and Sakè”. After a long attempt to communicate, in the end we were fined for the wrong ticket and we were “suggested” to get off the train in the Ueno station. Actually, the officer, in an extreme will of communicate, shown us on the map the Ueno station and kept on saying “Ueno! Ueno! Ueno!” hammering the station with a finger.
“Fra… What’s good in Ueno?” was Lula;
“I don’t know, but if he’s braking his finger hammering the station, there must be something beautiful… or maybe he wants to dig a hole in the map…”.
We got off the train, and the officer looked relieved that we left his car. We searched the big Ueno station as Lula was dragging her luggage and I was carrying two backpacks. We asked to some people about the trains to Asakusa, but nobody understood. Nobody knew Asakusa? Were we really in Tokyo? Luckily we had our guide books with us which had the names of the places written in local language. So, we started to check the trains board and compare the “Asakusa” symbols. “Lula I think that I found the lantern-shaped symbol!” and she “No, it has the leg in the wrong place!”. It took to us ages, but in the end, we managed to find the right name, the right ticket machine and, surprisingly, the right train too. This was the first time in the Tokyo metro system. It had been absurd, but we learnt so well from this occasion, that in the following days we hadn’t had any more problems.
We got off the Asakusa station that was already night and it was raining. I tried to ask to some passer-by information about the street where we were walking, but without any help. Most of the people were just pointing with a finger the direction that we were facing or just pretended that we didn’t try to stop them. So, we took the wrong direction and we arrived to the river, and here we found, on the other bank, the Asahi Beer Headquarter (the picture above was taken another day). This building is easy to be recognized as it has a sort of golden-flame-statue on the roof. So, when we recognized this landmark, soon we understood where we were and soon later we arrived to the beautiful “Hotel Chisun Inn Asakusa”.
When we entered the hotel we were greeted by the very kind and helpful desk personnel. In that precise moment we understood why all the people didn’t seem to understand what we meant when we were saying “Asakusa”. In fact, it sounds like we were spelling the name wrong. Japanese people pronounce it without the “U”, so this neighborhood sounds like “Asaksa”. In that moment I reminded of all the foreigners that come to my town asking for places which they misspell, and I decided that the next Japanese asking me for information would have in change my vengeance. After that we finished our check-in procedures we were given a fax sent by our friend Megumi which welcomed us in Japan, warned the personnel of our arrival and also gave us some emergency numbers. Japanese people can be even very sweet! …sometimes.
We went up the eleventh floors with a tiny elevator filled up with us and our luggage, then we arrived to our room. It was very small but super clean and had anything we needed, moreover she had a beautiful sight on Asakusa. On the bed there were two perfectly-folded gowns that, perhaps mistaking, we identified as Yukata and we kept on calling them in this way for all the journey. The bathroom was barely bigger than a phone booth, but it had all that we needed. A basin, a small bathtub and a super-high-tech toilet. It had more buttons and dials than a computer. It was intimidating. What if I pressed the wrong combination of buttons? Would it turn into a Gundam-like robot and it would start shooting me lasers? “Oh my… Somebody rescue us from the robo-toilet!”, I was in Japan for few hours and I was already becoming one of them! Anyway, we loved that room from the very first moment. We took just the time to unpack the luggage and the backpack and we were again in the roads exploring Asakusa by night.
Asakusa - The holiness of the Senso-ji Temple and the craziness of the Pachinko, it's Tokyo night.
We took a map in the hotel hall. This map was definitely more detailed than the mini-maps of our guide-books and with this, we headed up to the Senso-Ji temple area. This neighborhood is quite beautiful and laid back. Among the streets you can find some interesting spots where live Japanese people and look light-years from the High-Tech Japan that we are accustomed to see in the travel reportages.
Here we had our first meeting with the Pachinko: this is the Japanese favorite gambling. The Pachinko is organized in huge rooms with bright lights and many rows of machines that, for me, are an hybrid between a slot-machine and a flipper with many tiny balls that fall from the high and follow a casual path. In the lower part there are many holes and in base of where the balls fall, the player get different score. The score is rewarded with more balls that fall from a dispenser, and the new balls can be played again or converted into prizes. The human influence is almost negligible and most is due to casualty. People were sitting in front of those machines, staring at all those balls falling down with cartoon characters flashing from mini-screens and with a very-very-vary loud cacophonic music. After a few minutes there, people start feeling alienate. We sat between those gamblers that looked like in trance and we tried to play too. We bet something like 5 Euro and five minutes later we were already heading outside after having lost our game. On the way out, we passed by many people with buckets full of those balls and we wondered if they gained those balls or were balls that they took to play them. At this point, I took my camera from my pocket but in a fraction of a second a black-suited bodyguard appeared at my side and told me to not take pictures. I’ve read that most of these sort of casinos are in the hands of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, so I smiled and bending forward I said “sooooorryyyyy!” while pocketing the camera back. I didn’t want to upset the Yakuza and maybe finding later a bunch of Kill-Bill style ninjas in my tiny hotel room. No, it was better to be kind and not to upset them.
We kept with our exploration through narrow streets with small restaurants and bars. They had those beautiful decorations like lanterns and bamboo plants. We felt like living inside a Japanese postcard. These were the scenery that we imagined and we were looking for. The clean, beautiful and charming Japan.
Along these streets we found a Kaiten-Sushi crowded with Japanese people, that this means that it should be a nice place. We entered the place and soon we were asked to sit near the conveyor belt. Here many beautiful and tasty Japanese dishes were passing in front of us and we could pick each one we wished. So, we eaten so many different of them, and I’ve to admit that they were one better than the other. In the end, the bill of the evening which involved one beer, tea and many-many-many of those dishes amounted up to 10 Euro each. It was very cheap!
On the way back, we passed again by the Senso-Ji temple and we visited it. The access road was flanked by small shops which had their roll-up shutters all painted with Japanese patterns (Flowers, the Fuji Mountain, etc…). We liked the temple with her majestic entering tower-gate with those huge beautiful and at the same time scary Kongōrikishi statues which were emerging from the shadows.
Here we had our first meeting with the Pachinko: this is the Japanese favorite gambling. The Pachinko is organized in huge rooms with bright lights and many rows of machines that, for me, are an hybrid between a slot-machine and a flipper with many tiny balls that fall from the high and follow a casual path. In the lower part there are many holes and in base of where the balls fall, the player get different score. The score is rewarded with more balls that fall from a dispenser, and the new balls can be played again or converted into prizes. The human influence is almost negligible and most is due to casualty. People were sitting in front of those machines, staring at all those balls falling down with cartoon characters flashing from mini-screens and with a very-very-vary loud cacophonic music. After a few minutes there, people start feeling alienate. We sat between those gamblers that looked like in trance and we tried to play too. We bet something like 5 Euro and five minutes later we were already heading outside after having lost our game. On the way out, we passed by many people with buckets full of those balls and we wondered if they gained those balls or were balls that they took to play them. At this point, I took my camera from my pocket but in a fraction of a second a black-suited bodyguard appeared at my side and told me to not take pictures. I’ve read that most of these sort of casinos are in the hands of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, so I smiled and bending forward I said “sooooorryyyyy!” while pocketing the camera back. I didn’t want to upset the Yakuza and maybe finding later a bunch of Kill-Bill style ninjas in my tiny hotel room. No, it was better to be kind and not to upset them.
We kept with our exploration through narrow streets with small restaurants and bars. They had those beautiful decorations like lanterns and bamboo plants. We felt like living inside a Japanese postcard. These were the scenery that we imagined and we were looking for. The clean, beautiful and charming Japan.
Along these streets we found a Kaiten-Sushi crowded with Japanese people, that this means that it should be a nice place. We entered the place and soon we were asked to sit near the conveyor belt. Here many beautiful and tasty Japanese dishes were passing in front of us and we could pick each one we wished. So, we eaten so many different of them, and I’ve to admit that they were one better than the other. In the end, the bill of the evening which involved one beer, tea and many-many-many of those dishes amounted up to 10 Euro each. It was very cheap!
On the way back, we passed again by the Senso-Ji temple and we visited it. The access road was flanked by small shops which had their roll-up shutters all painted with Japanese patterns (Flowers, the Fuji Mountain, etc…). We liked the temple with her majestic entering tower-gate with those huge beautiful and at the same time scary Kongōrikishi statues which were emerging from the shadows.
Kongōrikishi or Niō
Kongōrikishi (金剛力士) or Niō (仁王) are two wrath-filled and muscular guardians of the Buddha, standing today at the entrance of many Buddhist temples all across Asia including China, Japan and Korea in the form of frightening wrestler-like statues. They are manifestations of the Bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi protector deity and the oldest and most powerful of the Mahayana pantheon. According to Japanese tradition, they travelled with the historical Buddha to protect him and there are references to this in the Theravada Scriptures as well as the Ambatta Sutta. Within the generally pacifist tradition of Buddhism, stories of Niō guardians like Kongōrikishi justified the use of physical force to protect cherished values and beliefs against evil. Nio-Vajrapani is also seen as a manifestation of Mahasthamaprapta or the Bodhisattva of Power that flanks Amida in the Pure Land Tradition and as Vajrasattva, the Dharmapala of the Tibetan tradition. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nio |
Honestly, I like this temple more by night than by day. It was quiet and there was nobody else around. This sense of peace, those statues and the shapes of the temple made me feel like I had been transferred into a Japanese-Fantasy-Middle-Age. If felt magical.
After the visit at this temple, we went back to our hotel for a few sleeping hours as the next morning we should get up very early to go to the Tokyo Fish Market.
After the visit at this temple, we went back to our hotel for a few sleeping hours as the next morning we should get up very early to go to the Tokyo Fish Market.