Japan

Still almost 2 weeks before I leave Japan but I may not have another opportunity to blog for awhile so here are my random thoughts and photos of this amazing country.

I'd like to return for a longer stay; maybe a home stay to help me learn the language and culture. Language classes turned out not to be an option during my current  visit.

Public transportation system is impressive and while it can be intimidating at first, it's logical and therefore not too hard to get around. Of course it would help to be able to speak and read Japanese:)

Food is expensive, especially fresh fruit and vegetables; however, after awhile one learns the how/where/when of smart shopping. Also, having a garden would be very helpful if one were here for summer or longer.

It seems hard if not impossible to practice at most zen temples without a long term commitment and mastery of the language; that is probably the biggest incentive (for me) to coming back for a longer stay.

Tourists are everywhere and Abe wants to double the number to 30 million by 2020; that is probably the biggest disincentive to returning to Japan.

Like the USA, so many things seem dependant on a never ending lust for consumption, whether it be food, cars, clothes, etc. I realize this is the western world in general and not just Japan.

Japanese are serious about their hair:)

Air pollution is an issue in cities but trash and graffiti are rare; so are trash cans so I'm not sure where all the trash goes:)

One reason many Japanese people are so thin is because there are very few places to sit (or in some places stand) so they must keep moving:)

Hotel check in time is 3 pm and not a minute before.

At 50 cents or more each, one can buy individual grapes in Japan but don't even think about buying an individual banana:)

The people I met were friendly, helpful, and polite; the kind of people one would like to get to know better.

Luggage update

I've found it useful to carry a small paper or plastic bag for food and other items I need to access quickly (e.g., food, Kleenex, cleansing wipes, jacket when I'm not wearing it, etc.).  Today I stumbled upon a Mont Bell store so bought a more permanent lightweight nylon tote.

I'm still carrying my Tortuga backpack on my back and daypack on my front; total weight, including the tote, drinking water, and food is about 30 pounds; more weight than I'd like to carry but good exercise, especially with the many train and subway station stairs:) Weight includes 1-2 pounds of dry laundry detergent; something I use about every other day to wash clothes in the sink; it's hard to find small containers of laundry detergent so I bought some in Korea and been carrying it since; will discard before my flight to Singapore. Airport security was very suspect of this detergent when I flew from Korea to Japan:)

At the Mont bell store I also purchased a 48" foam, sleeping pad; guess I'm getting old but laying on concrete floors at temples and meditation centers is so painful on my hips and knees that I can't sleep; need to ensure I get some sleep at the upcoming retreat. I also purchased a pair of slip-on Merrill waterproof shoes and an umbrella; it has been raining a lot and the meditation retreat I'm going to next week said to bring rain shoes and umbrella. To partially offset the weight and bulk of all these new items I'm giving away or discarding my extra pair of eyeglasses (Rx is old), sunglasses, hand sanitizer liquid, compact clothesline, and vapur collapsible water bottle. Hard to part with this stuff but I'm determined to keep the weight and bulk of my luggage to a minimum; will probably discard more before leaving Japan.

Its getting cold in Japan and it chills the bones when it rains but I should be able to get by with my lightweight arcteryx jacket for my remaining 16 days in Japan; hopefully accomodations at the 10-day meditation retreat will be warm:) the new gloves should help:)

December 1st I move to Singapore so I'm reluctant to add any more warm clothes to my luggage. In fact, I've been considering what to do with my new waterproof shoes, jacket, and warm clothes while I'm in SE Asia for 3 months- carry, storage, or donate - not sure. Each time I repack to move to a new location I think about which items in my luggage I can leave behind:) It's liberating knowing I'm carrying everything I need to live; also keeps me from acquiring stuff:)

Reliance on phone

The last couple of days in Japan emphasize how reliant I am on my phone. All is well now but thought this post might help others.

It is prime tourist season in Japan but I didn't realize how far reaching the effects are; even small towns and non tourist destinations are affected; not sure why, overflow? Last week I visited Chiba, a good size city but not on the typical tourist itinerary like Kyoto or Tokyo. I stayed 2 nights (check out Friday)  thinking, since I was staying at a Japanese business hotel, there would be no problem extending my hotel reservation through the weekend if needed. Wrong! Turns out this time of year tour buses with hundreds of tourists descend on just about every town with a hotel on the weekends so I had to check out Friday and didn't have another reservation for the weekend. 

No problem I thought, I'll just use hotels.com to find another hotel in Chiba or nearby town; what I didn't count on was that just when I needed my phone to access hotels.com, I maxed out on my SIM card's data plan. When I entered Japan last month I purchased a 3 month, 2gb data plan so I was surprised On reaching the limit after only 3 weeks; I didn't know how to check my usage so was caught by surprise.

No problem I thought, I'll just use the hotel's computer to find another hotel. Luckily this hotel had a computer I could use (not all do); however, non-western hotels, especially outside major cities cater to the Japanese business man. This means hotel staff speak very little to no English and the hotel computer is in Japanese and has a Japanese keyboard. Lesson learned for international travelers - note the position of signin icons and important login info on google and other frequently visited pages because, like me, you might have to navigate through Japanese pages before you can see your gmail or other info in English.

After successfully navigating through Japanese login pages on google I was reminded by Google that I was using a computer they didn't recognize so wouldn't let me login without verifying it was me. The problem is they want to call or text you, neither of which are an option when your phone isn't working:)

After a long while I finally got to the English version website of hotels.com only to discover it wouldn't let me book a hotel because it couldn't validate my payment info - credit card. This was puzzling since I've been using their website (via my phone) for the past 2 months to book about 15 hotel nights in 2 countries without a problem and had not changed cards or any info in my profile. 

So I tried calling hotels.com and learned one can only make room to room calls from one's hotel room phone in a Japanese business hotel; one has to go to the front desk and ask them to make outside calls for you. So after being connected to hotels.com I ran into the same problem, they couldn't accept the same credit card I've been using with them for the past 2 months and have been using for several years. They suggested I call my bank but with the 16 hour time difference it was then 3am in Colorado. 

So I set my alarm for 1am Japan time/9am Colorado to call my banker (couldn't just email my bank because I couldn't get into gmail - see above:). To make a long story short, it turns out Chase said they had a very old address for me in their system. Why this didn't present a problem for the previous 2 months of charges to various vendors and why they had this old address (3 houses ago) instead of the correct mailing address (which i verified with them before leaving in my trip), is something they couldn't explain. Very strange.

Anyway, by the time I cleared up this mess, it was getting down to the wire; the hotel room I previously tried to book was now gone as we're all hotel rooms in the area. So I had to move to tokyo where there are lots of hotels; albeit expensive, especially same day bookings. But I found  one and am therefore in tokyo at another western hotel where a very kind concierge spent almost 2 hours with me figuring out how to recharge my sim data card.

This kind of stuff could be stressful if I were on a schedule:)

Yokohama

Left Yokohama today; seemed like a nice city. I stayed at the intercontinental (got a good deal) on the waterfront; they didn't have a lap pool but said I could swim at nearby golds gym. Decided to walk around instead; better for the bones:)

ATMs

Thus far (3 weeks in Korea and 3 weeks in Japan) finding ATMs that will accept my chase debit card has been extremely difficult. To date, have found only 2 ATMs in Japan that took my card; many don't accept foreign cards and those that do typically won't accept mine. I often get a message saying my card is invalid or expired. 

Western hotels in large cities accept my chase credit card and they will exchange currency but both countries are still largely cash economies. Post offices seem to be the best bet where one can find an ATM that accepts foreign cards.

Philosopher's Path

Kitaro Nishida, a 20th century philosophy professor at Kyoto university is said to have taken daily meditative walks on this cherry tree-lined canal in Kyoto. It took me about 30 minutes to walk the path (each way) this morning. Tourists and local school kids flock to this path later in the day so best to get an early start. The path follows a canal between Nanzen-ji and Ginkaku-hi temples.

Things I didn't know about Japan

After being in Japan for about 3 weeks I've learned several things about this wonderful country. I love the people so I'm not criticizing; these items just surprised me. 

1. Convenience stores and supermarkets carry a lot of processed food; fresh fruit and vegetables are extremely expensive; especially grapes ($0.30 each seedless grape!) 

2. Finding somewhere to buy/enjoy hot green tea is a challenge; if they serve tea at all, coffee shops and other places seem to only serve English breakfast.

3. Food in one form or another is for sale everywhere; temptation to eat is great. Sweets, fried food, and meat are prevalent.

4. Difficult to avoid cigarette smoke (like Korea).

5. People with tattoos are forbidden in swimming pools.

6. Real Greek yogurt can't be found.

7. Trash cans are few and far between and very small yet packaging of items one buys (like food) seems excessive; except for bottles, recycling doesn't seem common; where does all the trash go?

8. It is against the rules to break up a bunch of bananas. Typically bananas are sold in bunches wrapped in plastic so one has to buy the package. On the rare occasion when a store sells bunches that are not wrapped in plastic, the bunches are large (8 or more bananas) and you are not allowed to break off and buy 1 or 2 bananas; I tried and was scolded when I got to the cashier and not allowed to buy the 2 bananas I'd broken from the bunch:)

9. Temples everywhere, especially Kyoto, but difficult to find one that will allow foreigners to stay and practice.

Photo of a rare trash can (aka dust box).

Onigiri

Like a lot of Japanese I've become a big fan of Onigiri or rice balls; I especially enjoy them filled with salmon. Their convenience and cost (less than $1 each make them great for travel so you seem a lot of them in train stations and in convenience stores. I usually buy one or a bento box when traveling by train or bus for some distance. They are wrapped in nori (seaweed) which help hold the rice together and vice them.a crunch. There is a trick to unwrapping the plastic; if done wrong (as I've done) when the  the plastic wrapper is removed the nori will also be removed. It took this western mind a few tries to figure it out:)

Nara

Took the 1 hour train ride from Kyoto station to Nara today; called JR rapid service train but made 14 stops along the 1 hour route. No worries though, the 0849 train was not crowded and the sunny day provided good viewing from my window seat.

Nara is beautiful with lots of temples and fall colors; and lots of tourists:)

Beautiful walk up a lantern- and tree-lined path with lots of deer begging for handouts. I paid the 500yen admission to the small but beautiful botanical garden which the deer are excluded from.

Luggage for traveling RTW

When traveling for business I lived out of my 20- inch roll-on; it was small enough to carry on most planes, including international. And most importantly, rarely did I need to go up or down stairs.

Traveling round-the-world is completely different as stairs seem to be everywhere, especially subways and train stations. I feel sorry for the many tourists I see lugging their heavy roll-ins up and down  very steep and long stairs. Another challenge for roll-on luggage is the braille pattern embedded in most walkways in Korea and Japan; rolling luggage over a bumpy walkway appears difficult and one doesn't realize how many non-smooth walkways there are until one travels with a roll-on suitcase.

Another luggage option I see, especially young Europeans is the large backpack that extends from the butt to the top of your head. These packs carry a lot; I used them many times to lug 40-50 pounds of supplies to hiking and climbing base camps. Unfortunately every time you need something it seems it is at the bottom of the pack. Also, they can be a bit top heavy when full and it is easy to bump into people and things without knowing it; they are also too big for carry on trains and planes; basically they are meant for and work best outdoors.

While researching for this trip I came across Tortuga  backpacks designed for the type of traveling I'm doing. It is a compact backpack that can be carried on your back or as a piece of luggage and the size fits all but the most stringent carry on limits. But the best part about these bags is that they pack and open like a suitcase so it is easy to find things.

I use small zipping bags to organize things within my pack and keep non-clothing items in a small day pack I wear in front.

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Rice cakes

Stumbled upon a small shop selling rice cakes; photos show making a soy and seaweed covered rice cake for me - delicious!

Cycling in Japan

I expected to see a lot of people riding bikes in Japan; what I didn't expect is how many people ride without helmets and/or without lights. Of the many cyclists I've seen to date, only a handful wore helmets. Even more surprising is the rarity of lights on bikes riding at night; including riding on busy streets! 

Bike rentals are common in cities; prices seem to range from $25 to about $45 per day; rental bikes are functional but don't expect a new, mountain, or fancy road bike for this price.

Kyoto

Kyoto is a beautiful city; but most of the world already knows this because they are here with me this week:) like most beautiful cities, they've been discovered and many people come to Kyoto this time of year for autumn colors. I was thinking the other day how we humans never tire of seeing the annual change in foliage color; what keeps us coming back?

Anyway, if I were to visit Kyoto again it would be during a different time of year; maybe December? I'm staying at the travelers inn which is a low budget ($50/N) hotel with a great location; upscale places nearby include the Westin Miyaka (where I stayed last week) and the Ritz (where I can't afford to stay:) these and most other nice hotels and ryokans are booked months and sometimes years in advance so for the 2nd weekend in a row I'm leaving Kyoto. museums, shops, restaurants, zoo, temples, and more are abundant in this part of town. Subway stations and bus stops are within walking and one can get to the large Kyoto station in about 30minutes from which one can get to just about anywhere in Japan via train.

To be fair, Kyoto is not just about fall colors and temples; it is a culturally diverse and rich city. For example today there was a world food day where one could try foods from around the world; surprisingly, I couldn't find one vegetarian entree:)