Day 4: Kyoto

"If you want to feel Japanese, you have to look Japanese" 

"Mom," I would reply, "go away I'm in the bathroom"

My mother's words were not lost on me. Like Jackson at a buffet, I recognize something good when I see it! If we wanted to make good on our vows to assimilate (see post from Days 1 & 2) we would need to change our appearance. Our fourth day thusly begins at a barber shop called QB's House, stationed snugly between the Gap and Auntie Anne's at the Aeon Mall. 

All of the hair cutters were playing dress up doctor. "I hope they just cut our hair and don't remove our spleens!" Dickie joked. I sat down in the chair and asked the kind gentleman to give me the cut that the Japanese tweens were rocking. He said back to me something in Japanese that seemed like "I'm so sorry -- I hate to be a bother but what?" And so began the lengthy process of describing a hair cut using hand motions. 

He cut me pretty short but very Japanese, then vacuumed the extra hair clippings off of my head using a vacuum that was attached to the ceiling before sending me on my way. Premium service for a small fee of ¥1000 ($10). 

When I got up, it was clear as day that Dickie was unable to communicate "Japanese hair cut" to the non-English-speaking barber. I should have known -- the whole while that I was getting my cut I heard him behind me saying to his barber/doctor "Number 5 buzz over here, 7 over here. No... 7 there, 5 here" over and over, which manifested itself in a semi-Japanese mohawk. 

Looking more Japanese already!

We were groovin' the Japanese vibe and rented bikes for a 10-mile bike ride around Kyoto. We spent the day touring the back alleys of the city visiting the Golden Temple, Rock Garden, and other historic sites. 

Golden Temple 

Rock Garden

Inside the gardens of the Golden Palace, visitors can purchase a prayer candle, light it, and ring in the prayer with a ceremonial bell. There are specific candles for specific prayers that cover all of the basics -- schoolwork achievement, traffic in safety, a got of marriage, and so on. Dick opted for the classic be in safe and sound and I picked safety in family. The most popular candle by far was the find employment that was absolutely flying off the shelves. Not sure if it gets you a random job or a job that you want, but in today's economy it's well worth the risk at just fifty cents (¥50).

Not sure what the big candles on the right do, but for ¥200 they must be powerful. 

After a long day we returned to our hostel, a six-story building that boasted multiple lounge areas, kitchens, and movie screening rooms in addition to the spacious and modern living quarters. The only negative was the razor-thin mattress that barely covered the hard wooden bed frame. Only by observing the more experienced and elderly hostel-goers with a keen eye did we discover how to properly sleep on such a Japanese mattress. Crisis averted!

Japanese sleeping style 

TIPS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM DAY 4:

- When getting a hair cut, a #4 buzz is shorter in Japan than it is in America. Way shorter.  

- K's House Hostels are unreal. Highly recommended. 

- It appears that only major streets are marked with street signs, and often times they are only in Japanese. This provides an enhanced traveling experience for travelers. 

Transit directions to lord knows where

- Biking and walking directions provide an even more enhanced traveling experience, and are only comprehensible by those able to navigate based on pure intuition. 

Day 3: Tokyo

Welp we missed the tuna auction. 

By the time we got to the fish market at 5:30am, seats for the auction had all been reserved. But they have a saying here:

"When life hands you adversity, get over it and get AMPED"

(More here: http://youtu.be/11quU3nqkVE)

So, with tears in our eyes but excitement in our hearts, we explored the rest of the bustling market.  

We headed for a tiny sushi bar in the middle of the market, which was widely regarded as the best in the area. Someone would later tell us that the line to be seated was already several hours long by the time we had gotten there (6:30am).  However, we were seated in under 30 minutes by using the ol' American shortcut --being unable to read the Japanese signs about where the line starts.

Edit: Found the sushi place in this CNN article. 

Outside the sushi bar

We took our seats at one of the 12 stools and our personal sushi chef got right to it. We never ordered anything, we just ate whatever the chef put on our trays. The food was exquisite -- might as well have been Chef The Habe (#sadie) behind the bar, slicin' the wheesh. Fortunately it was not. 

After we finished eating, they pushed us out the back exit into an alleyway of the busy market and it was like nothing happened. We headed home for a well deserved nap, then took a short ride to the touted high-tech district of Akibaraha. 

Akibaraha did not meet our expectations of a futuristic city that is packed with modern electronics. Street vendors there were pedaling corded landlines and kids crammed into the Sega stores to blast boges and play the crane game for stuffed Pokemon. If this is the future then keep the sardine sushi coming cause I don't wanna see tomorrow. 

The future. -___-

TIPS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM DAY 3:

- We think you're not supposed to hand money directly to cashiers. They sometimes look down at a tray when you try to pay and wait for you to drop money there, but other times become upset if you slam money into the tray while they're holding their hand out. This has caused confusion. 

- Re: doctors masks from previous post. We now suspect the masks are a form of dress-up, as we have encountered other dress-up costumes as well such as our waitresses dressing in hee-larious maid costumes. 

I'll have the steak please!

Days 1 & 2: Tokyo

Dear readers,

Konichiwa from Japan!

Dick and I are on our third day here in Japan and, like a good episode of Family Feud, much has happened. Allow me to fill you in...

Our 15 hour flight to Japan started at the crack of dawn at 7am on Monday. When we landed in Tokyo, the clock read 2pm Tuesday -- it was already the next day. By using science, Dick and I had watched 31 hours elapse in just 15 hours, a feat of high-efficiency that one would expect of this duo. 

An hour on the train and short walk in the sweltering summer humidity would find us at our hostel in the neighborhood called Nakano. We checked in and followed the Japanese tradition of taking off your shoes as you enter the building and tossing them into a festering heap of other strangers' shoes. Taking a page out of Hochberg's book, we took it easy that first night after a grueling day of travel and hit the sack after exploring the neighborhood. 

TIPS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM DAY 1:

- Tons of locals wear doctors masks when roaming about. Unsure if its because they're sick or they're afraid of getting sick. Will report back. 

- People are short here.

- Cars do NOT drive on the right side of the road like in the States. 

- Waiters do not accept tips. 

- About one in four people speak English. 

Day 2: Tokyo

By the time Dick convinced me to get up at 4:30 am, he had been up for 3 hours. He said he couldn't sleep partly due to jet lag and partly due to the snoring monster in the adjacent bunk. When we saw later that the monster was a girl, we laughed hee-lariously and congratulated her on a well executed fake-snoring prank, since any girl snoring that loudly for real would surely be in a hospital by now. 

As we were walking about at 5am, the funny signs, mysterious doctor masks, and men stuck in their childhood (see below) kept making us lol!

Why were they playing Pokemon on the TVs on the train? How come people had such funny hairdos? We vowed to become more assimilated and to take in the local culture during our time here, a promise we would make good on in the coming days. 

On this day though, after a fresh sushi breakfast, we accidentally visited the Tokyo Tower. Dickie, who was leading the way, had made the classic blunder of mistaking the Tokyo Tower (below) for the Sony building we wanted to visit. 

(Copyright: Sony Electronics)

The Tokyo Tower was as boring as it was tall so, no sooner than we had arrived, we were on our way to the real Sony building in Ginza to demo some of their latest products. Mostly, though, we ended up snoozing in their theater room for a good while -- me getting some shut eye in the Lazy Boy while Dick passed out next to me, drooling on every couch Sony owns. 

Later, we visited the Imperial Palace,

walking the grounds and picking grapefruits from the forbidden trees of one of the gardens. 

On the way home, we caught a Yokohama Baystars baseball game.

It was unreal. The fans were absolutely bonkers, whooping and hollering different songs the entire 9 innings. The mascots, which were two power rangers and a giant kitty, kept us hyped the whole game, while the announcer/DJ bumped all of the hits. 

 By the time we got back to the hostel we were absolutely wiped (see: Shelman's backside) and went to bed early. We needed sleep like Dickie needs a haircut, and sleep we got. The Tsukiji fish market opened at 5am the next day after all, and we didn't wanna miss the tuna auction!

TIPS AND OBSERVATIONS FROM DAY 2:

- Not a single person drinks coffee on the commute to work, even at 6am

- Sardine sushi, even in Japan, well... it ain't great. 

- The second piece of sardine sushi... it ain't any better. 

- Definitely check out a baseball game if ever in Japan.