Login

Dartz · 10-19-2016, 12:40 AM

Thanks. I never knew that was there....

Longpost. tl;dr, cool holiday bro

Sitting in a silent old stone house in Wexford, winding down after a hectic 2 weeks. 8 days in Japan, then crash straight back to work on landing making it all feel like a weird sort of dream.

So, I'm sort of gathering my mind back together after Japan. Crashing back into work the day after landing just made the whole thing seem like weird sort of dream - like a trip to another universe, with only a few kits and some photographs to prove it ever happened. It feels weird, being one part amazing, and on the other, half a mess.

Our trip begins 2 weeks ago, taking off from Dublin airport, racing through the first gloamings of dawn towards a burning, rising sun. In heathrow airport where my work phone goes off - it's someone who decided that I absolutely had to do some critical little thing for them before I left on my holiday. Despite being told a week before that I was leaving, and that if they needed me to do something before leaving, t get it to me by a date. Annoying - but it happens.

BA007 carries us into the night over the top of Siberia, fireflies of civilisation passing beneath. The food is good. The entertainment, less so. I can't sleep - lurking half awake through the night. For a 12 hour flight, it's as comfortable as a 12 hour flight can be, right up until the last 30 minutes when one of my tavelling companions reveals that she's brought some painkillers along. I know one particular kind's illegal in Japan, but can't remember which one, so I'd asked her not to before. Apparently, "If they get it up my face about it, I'll just play idiot tourist and tell them to leave me alone" is supposed to reassure me.

Either way, we land at Tokyo Haneda and disembark - come what may. The heat reaches out to embrace, crawling inside the jacket and sucking the moisture from our bodies. We'd dressed for an Irish October - a Japanese October is somewhat hotter, and alot stickier. The jackets are quickly ditched.

Either way, after a long walk, some collected luggage, Customs thankfully isn't bothered. After eying my suspiciously empty passport and hastily filled out landing cards, it gets stamped 'Enjoy your stay in Japan'.

And here we are, trying to find the JR office to get our passes. The most helpful person ever in the JR ticket office who asked us what our final destination was, then immediately booked us reserved-seat tickets on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, with such a short connection time we seriously thought we wouldn't make it. We needn't have doubted Japanese public transport -the Tokyo Monoroil giving us our first glimpses of Japan on the ground.

It's an eerie feeling, being somewhere else. It looks so strangley clean and square. The trains are pristine. There's no rubbish anywhere. Like people have heard of the concept of preventative maintenance. We arrive on time, find our train an wait, enjoying the spectacle of another train arriving on the platform beside is, with the conductor hanging out of the rear cabin pointing at a red spot on the platform while shouting up to the driver. I guess this means they have to stop inch-perfect. Our Hikari train arrives soon after.

Being a tourist, I check the departure time against my watch. My watch is found to be a minute fast.

The Japanese practice of dozing off on the train gains a new fan as I nod off somewhere outside Shinagawa and waking up halfway to Osaka.

Osaka being even hotter than Tokyo, and even stickier inside the station. Change trains for Hiroshima, onto a Sakura service with comfy seats

Hiroshima comes up soon after. We have reached peak humidity. A city bus carries us through Hiroshima city to our hotel a half-hour outside. Not being a moron, I grasp the Japanese bus system immediately. Grab a ticket when you board, with a number on the ticket. Match the number to a board at the front of the bus. Beside it's your bus fair. Pay that number in Yen to the driver when you get off. It's a brilliant system that would never work anywhere else in the world.

The hotel impresses. The view out the window o a 15th floor room of the Seto Inland Sea impresses even more. Dozens of boats and ships pottering about their daily business on shimmering water.

After nearly 30 hours of travelling, we crash for the night.

Morning on the second day. Breakfast is cereal we brought with us, knowing we'd have to pay for food at the hotel. Outside, it's still oppressively humid. And noisy. Bugs make noise - sounding like loose electrical connections hidden in the grass, then birds that make such different sounds. it's noisier outside, like being in a jungle. Our first port of call is the Peace Museum. Soaked by rain and humidity, it's still an intense experience that's hard to put into words. It's one thing to read about nuclear weapons, and quite another to see what one actually did to real people. Most of the exhibits in the museum are personal effects, and most of them carry the same basic story.

The rain drops on us as we leave, soaking me to the core. A cheap umbrella from the Orizu tower is a bit like bolting the door after the horse locks. The shop staff take pity on the pathetically drenched irishman and hand over a fresh cloth aswell to dry off, even a little.

The sun breaks free over Hiroshima castle, and we take in a little shopping. The hotel offers a high quality Japanese dinner, and one of my companions -my brother- joins me. The other decides she's a picky eater and would prefer to have KFC instead. It doesn't matter -the view from the 30th floor is spectacular. The food is even better- even if it's my first time using chopsticks. It's six courses that starts with pumpkin tofu, then a bowl of soup, then a plate with six little dishes on it. Sashimi, Miso, Tempura prawns, Rice, something tasty I don't know. I pick through it, the server being somewhat amused at the idiot tourist insisting he persevere with learning how to use chopsticks. Eventually, I grok the technique. Sake is nice when sipped. Three bottles get bought later

Japanese restaraunt food is great. It's not a big dollop of easy-to-eat stuff like American cuisine - it's a lot of little flavours and presentations that you don't realise are filling until you've finished and are quite satisfied with the variety.

Day 3 is a run up to Hakone on the train, through Osaka again. Sweat drenches. Odawara arrives by evening time. It's already getting prepared for the night. As a town it feels somewhat older - like something built in the 70's and 80's - a weird sort of lying in state, even if the station is newer. Night drops as we board the bus, passing Hakone-Yumoto train station - which looks oddly familiar somehow - up into the darkness. Fuck me, is that driver manually shifting gears the whole way up? Our ryokan is down a steep concrete slope.

The place is amazing - freshly built with fresh-smelling tatami mats on the bedroom floor. They feel great underfoot. It also has it's own Hot Spring. Hot Springs are totally worth the journey. Even if the slippers where about 5 sizes to small, and I'm just a bit too round for the Yukata offered that I'm walking around nervous it'll fall off. A little too much Onsen leaves me a bit dizzy and dehydrated, but relaxed. The television is showing something that looks like Pokemon, but what the fuck is that.

The weather cools off for day 4, even if the clouds hide My. Fuji from view. The Tozan line brings us up to the ropeway and spectacular views of lake Ashi. Owakudani roars beneath, smelling faintly of cooking eggs. Also, they cook these great black eggs up there.... even if one of our travelling companions refuses to touch the black things, being a picky eater. After a cruise on the pirate ship, it's a quick dinner at Hakone-Machi, followed by a long bus-ride back to the Tozan line, then back to our hotel and more Onsen. An elderly Japanese man watches intently while I wash.... but the bath is so fucking worth it. The other two wus out and book some private bath time.... but only the public bath is outside.

The staff are beyond amazing.

Hakone is amazing. Well worth the trip on it's own. It's this weird confluence of ancient and new, old and modern, like decades of history paved out onto the mountainside, mingling with the centuries past. Even an overnight in a Ryokan with a hotspring is a must. Even if all of them really are just manufactured up at Owakudani and piped down to meet demands.

An American on the bus fails to grasp the ticket system, leading to a hilarious Nanta Kore from a driver bemused at the space-cadet snapping tickets from the machine and continuously trying to tap-on with little slivers of paper, not realising 'after pay' means she's supposed to pay when getting off the bus.

Day 5 is a short run to Tokyo, the city welcoming us it's Dead-Television sky thing. The rain outside Shimbashi station thunders down. The umbrella from Hiroshima gives up, buckled open by a gust of wind. It gets buckled back into shape again - I'll be arsed if I'm paying for another one. We walk up to the Imperial Gardens, passing Godzilla. The strange feeling returns - being small and swamped by the city and the amount of people in it. The city is far larger than I can ever comprehend, towering buildings receding into the distance. Our picky-eater insists on dinner in McDonalds, despite passing a lot of interesting looking places in Ginza.

Both of them run out of money when the ATM's reject their cards as expected. I end up paying for the hotel for everyone out of my own pocket - having brought a thunderous amount of cash because I knew this shit would happen. I'll see none of it again. It kiboshes some of the akihabara activities - medicom Asuka stays on the shelf, but there was no space for her in luggage anyway.

Again. The view of Tokyo at night from the hotel room stuns. I could sit and stare for hours at the glitter of modern civilisation. It's a strange sort of overwhelming. Sleep claims my soul instead.

Day 6 is an Akihabara run. It ravages my wallet. I'm lucky it all fits in the space suitcase I packed inside my actual suitcase. Along with the three bottles of Sake and Hiroshima wine. I'm pretty sure the 2-decade old Nakoruru garage kit I found in a basement is a knockoff. It's resin, when every source on the internet says it should be soft PVC - and the parts are slightly different, even if the sculpt is the same. Don't care, it's a cool figure. The maid cafe is equal parts funny, and creepy. And utterly hilarious for the mundane of the group who's normally a picky eater. Let's never speak of it again. The place was just a bit rundown - it would've been better if it'd been fresher. In a place under a bridge, I found the true electric mecca. Old reel-to-reel tape-recorders, high-power radio equipment - stuff from back when Japan actually built things with sheer bullish pride. An Asahi Pentax Spotmatic follows me home. Dinner is in a Japanese 'barbeque' place. Charcoal-grilled salmon is amazing, if tricky to eat with chopsticks. The picky eater hates the pork.

Day 7 crashes us into the jam of health and sports day. When everyone else decides to join us at Tokyo Skytree. The views are good, but the crowds are uncomfortable. Tokyo Tower - which was a two stop journey from our hotel - is more intimate, but feels older and less polished. It feels somewhat unchanged from the 60's, strapped to a tourist trap, but it's also far more intimate and just a smidge more human, rather than the corporately managed experience of the Skytree. Diver City and the Gundam statue rounds off the trip, along with a nighttime view of the Rainbow Bridge that leaves me strangely melancholy.

It feels over far too soon, with so much left to do. So many little things missed.

British Airways causes us to miss our connecting flight home, so we're hours late. I discover how much the pound has fallen when I pick up a bottle of Uigeadail for 54 euro - it's nearer 98 in a whiskey shp I know.

On wednesday morning, I'm in work as if nothing at all had happened, with a full table of things to do and not enough time to do them. The shock of it all felt like a weird sort of dream rather than an actual holiday.

Already, I'm thinking of doing it again. Though maybe with someone else - too much smash from one particular person got in the way of a relaxing time. I think you might guess who. Seriously, talking hard down to people when they can't understand you..... it made even me uncomfortable. When we actually had the chance to try a saner route with the help of a phrasebook and things felt far more pleasant.

Although still occasionally awkward, like the cashier trying to explain that I had to build the Nakoruru figure. I thought wakarimasen meant 'I understand', but that's the risk of trying a language you've only ever seen and a word you've only really heard once at a train station. Eventually, he got it. And I could usually figure out numbers and costs and shit like that.... but yeah. It's easier with subtitles.

On the plus side. I have photographs to develop. And it's good to get the trip down in words. At least it proves it happened on some level.

Also. A few more snaps.

[Image: A3GNShJh.jpg]