Kyoto

Kyoto is an amazing place. It's completely different from Tokyo. Where Tokyo is modern, crowded and fast paced Kyoto is serene, traditional and much more sparsely populated. The city is very concentrated and there is a building limit so from our 6th floor room in the hostel we can see all the way to the densely forested steep mountains that surround the city on two sides. Many of the famous temples are nestled at the base of these mountains and you can ride to the edge of the city in as little as half an hour.
Despite a tumultuous history as Japan's feudal capital, Kyoto was spared much of the WW2 damage inflicted on other Japanese cities leaving many of the traditional houses, castles, canals , theaters and many many shrines and temples. This has made it the Capital of traditional culture in japan.
Kyoto people seem to us a little colder than the people in tokyo which adheres to the stereotype. We certainly seem to get a lot of long stares. However I think this may be more to do with the fact that almost all the foreigners here are tourists (as opposed to Tokyo where many are expats). I can see how this would give Kyoto people a worse impression of foreigners or at least make them seem more of a novelty. Especially if most of the tourists are like the American guys at our hostel ( they are nice but obnoxious and loud. Very loud.)

The philosophers walk.

We took a bike ride along the famous philosophers walk. It is a walk that runs along an old canal surrounded by beautiful forest and temples on one side and a panoramic view of the flat Kyoto valley on the other. It is hands down the most beautiful place I have ever been and even despite it's tourist status it is not overdeveloped, just dotted with nice restaurants.

The manga museum

We went to the Kyoto manga museum, an ambitious museum which explains the history and concepts of manga (and it was co-founded by a brain scientist). It is however mostly devoted to amassing a huge collection of manga for the public to read. It has now over 200 000 titles and 800 yen will give you a free pass to read manga on the lawns all day. It was so relaxing lying on the fake grass in the afternoon light and reading from the huge selection of manga in English.

Kinkakuji

We also went to the kinkakuji temple, known in English as the golden pavilion. This group of temples was constructed initially as a retirement villa for the shogun yoshimitsu in the 1200s. It was later taken over by a sect of buddhist monks. The actual pavilion that gives the area it's name is a magnificent three leveled pavilion covered in gold leaf. The whole area was so beautiful and detailed. We saw it on a day shrouded in mist which created the perfect effect: the surrounding forest and moss covered hills dripping with the last night's rain.

Gion district

We spent a day in gion district: a shopping and restaurant area famous for it's traditional food crafts and its many geisha houses. Everywhere we went we saw maiko (geisha in training) . It's strange to see them in their kimonos shopping and smoking, but in general I think japanese people see less of a partition between traditional and modern elements. To the people of japan a Shinto shrine with a vending machine at the base is not so incongruous. The food in gion (and Kyoto in general ) is great and we have eaten some great local dishes like folded Kyoto omlettes and delicious brown rice which is somehow turned violet.

The imperial palace

Luckily the day we arrived in Kyoto the imperial palace was having it's autumn open days. So we got a rare treat. It was amazing walking around the huge stark and beautiful palace complex. I couldn't help imagining the emperor Meiji living there as a boy totally isolated while the world changed outside. Japan transformed in his lifetime from a feudal isolated nation to an industrialized world power and by the end of his life he would be wearing western clothes eating western food and living in his new modern Capital Tokyo. But when I saw the emperors private garden I imagined him as he is never shown. A child in a traditional world. It's amazing so much of his world is preserved for tourists like us to see.

Tomorrow we are off to Osaka. I'm sad to leave the peace of Kyoto but I'm itching for some more Tokyo style craziness. More posts to come so watch this space!

Luci

Visual kei, bullet trains and Kyoto

Luciano and I had a deal that if he went on a roller coaster, I would go and see a visual kei band, so keeping my end of the bargain we went to Shibuya O-West live house (in Shibuya) on Tuesday night to see this band called Kiryu (see the pictures I've posted below the writing). We waited around for a while with a crowd of tiny, fake-eyelashed, high-heeled and extravagantly dressed up girls (and about 1 boy), feeling very tall and western. We were then packed into a smallish moshpit area where everyone stood in perfect rows, waiting for Kiryu to come on stage. They began exactly at the advertised time, 6pm, which would be very unusual for a band anywhere but in Japan. What followed was probably one of the weirdest moments of my life. Five of the prettiest drag queens I have ever seen ran out onto the catwalk part of the stage and posed in their massive platform shoes and boutique metal guitars, and all the sweet little girls in the audience suddenly developed these very manly, terrifying voices and began screaming the names of their favourite band member while doing either the devil/rock worship sign or making a little loveheart with their hands. The lead singer (the purple drag queen) then began with a very metally scream and everyone in the audience all began this sychronised dance. Everyone seemed to know the same dance moves and every 16 bars or so they would change at the same time to a slightly different move. Whenever the singer screamed and the song got really metally, the girls would all at the same time start this crazy headbanging, which looked particularly impressive (once you got past the totally bizarre part of it) because they all have very long hair. And every single person in the audience would be doing it so it looked like a swishy, stormy sea of hair. Then there would be a nice pop-metal kind of song where the audience could sing parts, and suddenly all the girls (there were about 3 men in the audience) would have their cute little child-like voices back on again. Then the song would end, and it was back to creepy, manly devil voice "yeeeaaaaahhhs" and so on. It took a while to get into the dancing and such because I was totally weirded out, but I eventually figured out some of the moves. Apart from this one which I still don't really understand: About 6 songs in the crowed suddenly smooshed forward and crammed themselves right up against the stage, leaving 3 quarters of the mosh suddenly empty, and at every "on" beat the girls at the back on this crush would literally throw themselves up against the crowd. Then after 16 bars they would just move exactly back into their perfectly formed lines. There was also a "move" where the crowd became a violent "death ring", little high heeled girls suddenly pushing each other over and slamming up against each other (for only 16 bars though) and then going back to being completely still. It was so weird. We had gathered after talking to both Hana and Quan (from regurgitator) about the music scene in Japan that crowds never dance or even clap if you don't tell them to, almost because they don't want to do anything that they haven't been told to do. So we figured out that the members of Kiryu were doing subtle hand gestures (whilst playing very complicated metal guitar) to tell the hardcore fans (everyone in the audience) what moves to do. They do this so they can get the crowd to actually dance, but it also gives the whole show this kind of creepy robotic quality, which really weirded me out. What I did really appreciate about the band, however, was their constant interaction with the audience - they were really lovely and much easier to like than some Indie bands in Australia, or from America or England etc, who are too cool to chat with the audience or even acknowledge the audience's existence. They even took a picture with the audience which I thought was really cute. Anyway, there is just so much more I could write about this bizzarre experience but I've written HEAPS already and you're all probably beginning to look like when Luci doesn't stop banging on about Visual Kei, so I will stop. The day after seeing Kiryu, we sadly said goodbye to Asakusa and Tokyo and hopped on a bullet train to Kyoto (which come every ten minutes and go at about 250 km per hour - cityrail is going to be a very depressing reality when we get back to Australia). So yeah, bullet trains go really really really fast! Unfortunately the stupid business man next to me had the blind down over the window for most of the journey, but we did get to see My Fuji out another window, which was so cool. Kyoto is very very different to Tokyo - quieter, less crazy, more traditional and a little less friendly to tourists, I think. We're stopping here for 5 days before going on to Osaka, which is another city just next to Kyoto. So far we have visited the Imperial Palace, the Manga Museum, eaten in a traditional style restaurant and rode our bikes down the extremely gorgeous Philosopher's Path. I'll leave it up to Luci to write about Kyoto in more detail.

Hope everyone reading this is doing well and that the mountains has warmed up a little since last weekend!

Much love
Annika

(Photos: Kiryu, Luci with a 800 yen (about $9) lunch - the food here is so amazing and cheap, this was a whole set for $9!!!, and shots from around Kyoto - a man on his laptop with his cats, watching the sun set and the main river which divides east and west Kyoto.

Tokyo stuff part 2

AKB48
one of the most ubiquitous things in Tokyo is the mega girl group akb48 they are on everything. Advertisements for their own music their movies as well as them being in ads for almost everything else. They have their own stores and official cafes to sell their official merchandise. Despite the name there are actually more than 48 members in the band although only the top 8 actually feature on tv and in ads. The rest do the hard slog of daily performances and appearances, it's the only band in the world that could potentially be performing at 48 different venues on the same day. The top 8 members are chosen so Hana tells me via a huge idol type reality show where only the members of the band compete. I've since seen ads for it on tv here and it looks pretty full on. One girl was being taken to hospital I think!

Ad trucks.
Driving around the centre of Tokyo in shibuya harajuku and shinjuku are trucks which advertise a bands new single. The truck has the single jacket enlarged all over it and it blasts a 30 to 40 second sample of the song's chorus on repeat the entire time it's driving. Some suburbs in Tokyo also just play music out of loudspeakers in the street. In Ikebukuro it's top 40 j-pop and in koenji which is more out if the centre they were playing kind of light orchestral easy listening versions of moon river and other songs of it's ilk. Kind of nice, kind of annoying. Luckily its only on a few streets.

Tokyo is so amazing, I'm really sad to have to leave it. I feel both as though I've been here for a year and as though I've only been here for an hour. There is just do much to see and too explore and to do. It's such a visual city, such a friendly city, such a crazy city, such a clean city, such a futuristic city and such an ancient city. From a six story game arcade to an peaceful Shinto shrine in 100 meters.

Sayonara Tokyo, you definatley delivered.

Luci

Ikebukuro & Daikanyama & Halloween

Although we have to leave Tokyo tomorrow ( :( ), we have been having the best last few days. Yesterday we went to Ikebukuro, much like Akihabara but without so much of the seediness. We went to the enormous "Sunshine city" (think a massive corporation owned shopping plaza turned into its own underground city... like a westfield on steroids) and to the planetarium and aquarium within it. The planetarium was so cool - it was like we had been flung into deep space. We watched a spectacular film all in Japanese about space and our solar system. The aquarium was also amazing, the best thing being the two metre-tall Japanese spider crabs. Later that night we sat just outside the quieter, trendy Daikanyama train station drawing lipstick and eyeliner all over our faces, getting ready for a Halloween party and shocking a lot of salary-men coming home from work (see pictures). The party, hosted by Hana & Dan, was in a Peruvian restaurant (which served the best fried chicken - really, Japanese people can just do all kinds of food better than us (although Luci would like to add that they can NOT do coffee)). We were worried that there would only be Japanese speaking people at the party, but as soon as we sat down, Dan introduced us to some fellow australians, saying something along the lines of "and this guy here, he's from - what's the name of your band again?" Regurgitator, apparently. So we spent a lot of the night talking with Quan from Regurgitator, which was fantastic because Regurgitator was one of both mine and Luci's favourite childhood/early teenage years band, and his super nice girlfriend who is currently on student exchange in Tokyo and has inspired us to do the same once we begin uni (apparently the kind of subjects you can choose to do at a Japanese uni include learning to ride a bike and table tennis, so it really sounds quite easy + like a lot of fun). We actually met quite a few english speaking people from Australia, Canada and England, and it was quite nice for us both getting to talk to people other than just eachother for a while. This morning we are just heading back to our hostel in akakusa to sleep and then get ready to go and see a visual kei band (if you don't know what visual kei is, then you also don't know Luci, and you should go Google it immediately).
Also, because I love food, I have also posted a picture of the McDonald's burger I just ate, which is all normal and just like a egg-and-bacon mcmuffin - until you bite into it. The bun is actually two maple-syrup filled pikelets. It sounds gross.. but I actually think it's kinda amazing.

Sayonara until Kyoto
Annika
(Luci also promises to post real soon)

Electric Town

We were finally able to fully experience the truly wacky, weird side of Japanese culture with our visit to Akihabara on Thursday night. We visited the "electric town" side of akihabara once again, and at night time it is even crazier - just overwhelming with all it's flashing lights, spruikers and loud noises. After visiting a 7-floor Sega arcade and playing lots of dance dance revolution, we were persuaded by the army of girls (and drag queens) dressed as maids spruiking all over the streets to visit a Maid cafe for some dinner. I don't think it's actually possible to give you an accurate picture of the weirdness of a maid cafe in a simple blogpost, suffice to say that we were referred to as "Master" and "Senorita", and that the person next to us ordering a cocktail prompted the lights to dim and the maids to begin a 5 minute choreographed song and dance routine just to shake the cocktail. We ordered for dinner bizzare animal shaped parfaits (for which we had to do a little dance and song for before we were allowed to eat) and for most of our time there sat in bewildered and amused silence. After that strange experience, we wandered into a 6-level late night variety store filled with nothing but junk you wouldn't need, from a butt-shaped pen holder to a hello kitty humidifier. If you can imagine it, and you know you don't need it, it was in this store. So anyway, we of course both bought something, and then said goodbye to akihabara for the night, although not before passing by a huge AKB48 themed cafe, restaurant and shop (more about the phenomena that is AKB48 to come).

Still cannot get our photos from the camera to the computer sorry, so here are some more photobooth photos which I took photos of on my mobile. (We do do much more than take photobooth photos, just by the way, its just that these are the best pictures I have on my mobile camera)

Lots of love to you all
Annika

Tokyo stuff

Men in uniform
Everywhere in Tokyo there are people in elaborate uniforms. At first it seemed like there were police everywhere but in fact they are just government employees or private employees. Often you will see a person in a full officers coat and officers hat complete with ceremonial shoulder rope and sewn on crests and white gloves and their only job is to wave cars in and out if a carpark. Also there will be not one but three people employed to this. In Tokyo there is always a man or women dressed like a French army officer from the 1st world war who's sole job it is to help people use the ticket machines or stand outside a construction site.

Speedy food
The food in tokyo always comes extremely quickly. Even in a fancy cafe we have never waited more than ten minutes for food and at cheap places it often comes much quicker!

Subway etiquette
The subway in Tokyo is huge, literally hundreds of times the size of the Sydney subway and every train is packed with commuters. To avoid the trains being a madhouse a kind of code of politeness is observed on the train. People don't talk very loudly if at all and people look at either the floor or the advertisements on the ceiling at first this seemed bizarre but soon you get used to it. Anyone who is sick wears a face mask and you can't talk on your mobile phone. ( in fact talking on your mobile is considered rude in many places in japan including shops and restaurants).

From Luci

Asakusa, Akihabara and Disneyland

These are just photos off my phone from the last few days. We haven't figured out how to get photos from my camera onto the computer yet, and we have lots more/nicer photos than these, but for the time being we though we would just upload these 'uns. Also, Katoomba: stop being on fire!! We hope that everyone is okay and safe!! Much love - Anni (and Luci says hi too)

Photo 1, 2 & 3: Our home town on a sunny afternoon. We walk over this gorgeous bridge everyday from our hostel to the subway. Even the giant golden sperm building looks particularly beautiful as it catches the afternoon light.

Photo 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8: at a games arcade in akihabara. Akihabara is the craziest town full of anime and manga and games arcades (like the 6 level Sega games arcade) and pachinko palours and tonnes of seedy sexualised plastic anime figures and cheap electronics and maid cafes and endless tiny alleyways of electronica that made us feel like we were Deckard in Bladerunner.

Photo 9: Tokyo disneysea! We went last night, to try and avoid the crowds, but it was still pretty crowded. Still, we managed to get on 4 rides & Luci lost his roller-coaster virginity on a loop-de-loop high speed steel coaster that was themed as an ancient incan sacrifice tower or something like that. It was pretty fun.
Photo 10: taken while waiting in a queue for 40 minutes for another queue which eventually got us on a rollercoaster called "journey to the centre of the earth". Even in the queues, the detail they put into the theme of the ride is just ridiculous. This photo shows juat part of a whole 19th century explorers lab built inside a massive fake volcano (which spewed MASSIVE fireballs every 5 minutes.

Photo 11: just chilling with ma new friend outside a pachinko palour in asakusa.

Photo 12: the beautiful Buddhist temple just 10 minutes from our hostel and the rows of markets (nakemisa street) leading up to it

Photo 13: mmm. Ouiishi. (That means delicious in Japanese)

Photo 14: wandering through the Buddhist temple in asakusa late at night