My trip to Japan didn’t end in Kyoto, I also was fortunate enough
to take in Osaka for a few days. The closest I had gotten to Osaka in the past
was owning one of those Superdry Osaka t-shirts that everyone had in the late
00s. Why were they so popular? Were Japanese people wearing t-shirts with
Bradford emblazoned on them? I didn’t see any while I was there.
The train didn’t take too long and I was out sightseeing
before lunch. First stop, the Shitenno-ji Temple. It’s the first official
temple ever built in all of Japan dating back to 593. And it seemed that they
were still building it.
Those scaffolders didn’t take the Zen vibe into
consideration much. I think even Gautama Buddha would have lost his rag trying
to meditate during that racket.
It looked better from this angle.
Onto the next quieter sightseeing destination, and I ended up
at the Namba Yasaka Shrine. Some say it’s a huge lion’s head, others say it’s a
demon’s head. All I know is that it’s too big for my apartment. It’s actually a
platform where they stage performances. It’s over the top and tacky, but that’s
Japan. I liked it.
Next on the agenda – Nipponbashi. It’s a shopping district
popular with “otaku” (people who are fond of anime, manga, video games, and
such collectables) or “nerds” to most normal folk. I walked around wide-eyed.
What happened to Japan? The men have gone from samurai warriors and kamikaze
pilots to socially inept men who fall in love with a pillow.
OK, maybe that’s a
huge generalization, but these people exist in large numbers. I wandered the
streets questioning how anyone could be interested in such things.
I found a retro gaming shop. It was the one shop that I
genuinely enjoyed looking around, I suppose it was nostalgia more than
anything. Entire walls of SNESs, Nintendo 64s, PS1s, Gamecubes, Sega Mega
Drives, Dreamcasts, games and memorabilia. Maybe, just maybe my inner otaku
came out a little.
In the evening I looked around the areas of Shinsekai and
Dontonbori.
Dinner, a little sake, a few beers, and then bed was the
plan. I ended up meeting these two fun guys, Justin and Aaron. They were fun in
the “we love Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli” sort of way.
Justin, a professional dancer, and Aaron, a naval officer
(the two gayest professions after rent boy) had the audacity to ask me, one of
the butchest men wearing a pink t-shirt, if I was gay. You can imagine my
horror.
They were both staying at a Japanese pod/capsule hotel nearby.
Maybe it was a subconscious decision, fitting into tight spaces.
We were a Brit, an Aussie, and a Yank drinking in Osaka. It
sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke, but it turned out to a great
night and I got to bed at 5am. My own bed. I was drunk, but I wasn’t that
drunk.
The next morning, after shaking off the hangover, I took a
wander over to Osaka Castle. Probably Osaka’s most famous site. It played a
major role in the unification of Japan during the 16th century. This
blog is not only homophobic, but also informative.
I recently went to Japan as we had an extended break at
work. Having been in Korea for two-and-a-half years, I kept on thinking I
should take advantage of living so close to The Land of the Rising Sun. It’s only an hour flight
from Seoul. After being lied to by the check-in lady and laughed at by the man
at immigration I made it to Kyoto and dropped my bags off at my hostel.
My first stop was at the Yasaka Shrine (founded 656), I hadn’t
planned on visiting this place, but as it was at the end of my street it would
have been rude not to.
The shrine accommodated a main gate, a stage, many statues
and, of course, a crab stick stall. All other shrines I visited didn’t have a
crab stick stall and thus failed to compare.
Soon after, I headed south to the Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddist
Temple (founded in 778, with the current buildings built in 1633). All of the
buildings in the complex are assembled without a single nail. You can tell an
Irishman wasn’t assigned to that particular job.
I made my way further south to the Fushimi Inari-taisha.
This is a compound of shrines all connected by trails. Along the trails you
walk through thousands of torri, or gates to you and I. The trails are about
4km long and take up to 2 hours to walk.
It was a pretty cool place, but if truth be told, I wasn’t
in the mood by that point. I’m British and a little rain won’t deter me, but
there wasn’t a little rain on that particular day, it was pissing it down. It
starts to take its toll after a while. Walking for hours in the heat and
humidity and my umbrella could only protect me from the thrashing rain so much.
My shoes and socks were soaked through. Ultimately, I was braving it all to look
at some orange pillars with Japanese and Chinese scrawl on them.
The one joy I got from sightseeing that day was laughing at
the other tourists who were wearing traditional Japanese kimono. Not all that
funny, but the idiots decided to wear the complete outfit with wooden zori (essentially
wooden flip-flops). Walking down a hill in varnished wooden shoes in the rain
is possibly one of the worst ideas out there. I started to forget about my own
troubles as I watched oversized American tourists dressed like fools repeatedly
stumble down hills.
Back to the hostel, showered, in drier clothes and in a much
better mood I headed out into the Gion district to find me some geishas.
Geishas are “hostesses who mainly entertain male customers”. Not my words, but
the words of Wikipedia. After walking around for a while, I think I only saw 1
geisha and about 30 prostitutes.
They didn't have many customers.
I’m not too sure why the geisha look is still desired. If
you were going out on the town with your missus and she had that much white make-up
on you’d have to have a word with her. Not only that but they’ve got thick,
almost plastic-like hair. It’s not a good look. If you put a bit of red lippy
and a plastic black wig on an albino girl I don’t think they’d get the same
amount of interest…but probably more stares.
Day 2 in Kyoto and I headed for the Tenryu-ji Temple and the
bamboo forest.
Someone at the Tenryu-ji Temple has a sense of humour.
The bamboo forest was very cool. It was here that I realised
the amount humidity that I was due to face that day. It made for some rather
unsightly pictures. Still, at least I’m not Joachim Löw with massive sweat
patches AND getting caught adjusting one’s self live on TV and then sniffing
it. I did that too, it just wasn’t televised.
Finally, I headed for the Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion).
This was a beautiful place to visit, the building itself was quite incredible,
but I couldn’t truly appreciate it as I was being pushed around by inconsiderate
Chinese tourists (the only people worse than them are Brexit voters). After
only a short while I made my way out and went for a pint.
Kyoto is a pretty cool place. It’s everything you imagine
traditional Japan to be. Apparently there are 1,600 temples and shrines, and I
think the only one I didn’t see was Shirley. There was just too much of it and
the weather didn’t help either. Oh, and too many people. I don’t like people.
Karl and I recently travelled to Japan over the Chuseok
break. Japan has always been a country that I have wanted to visit, arriving
there I felt an excitement that I haven’t felt in other counties. Being in
Japan for the first time it reminded me of the time that I arrived in Korea. I
was in an unfamiliar Asian country where language was an issue (for me, not the
locals… they can speak Japanese pretty well). In Korea I’ve picked up enough of
the language to get by, but in Japan I was back to hand gestures and pointing.
While I was struggling it didn’t take Karl long to start mixing with the
locals.
Our first evening in Tokyo, Karl and I decided to explore
the local region around our hotel. Before long we noticed that we were in the
red light district of Tokyo, that’s why the hotel was so cheap. (The area is
called Shinjuku if you’re planning on going). As we wandered around we were
constantly approached by Nigerian men who try to lure you into the “bars” and
“clubs”. When they approach you they say things like “you like girls?” or
“Japanese girls sex” or “FREE TITTIES!” As much as I like girls, sex, and free
titties, I was not in the market for those services on that particular night.
Unsurprisingly, these guys started to get very annoying. When you turn down
their offers they try to entice a response from you by saying “you don’t like
titties?!” Karl and I started telling them that we were in Tokyo on our honeymoon,
that kept the guys at bay. If there’s anything that will ward off Nigerians it
is homosexuality. Karl and I just started making out in front of them just to
prove a point.
This is all the touristy stuff we did:
The following morning. When looking for things to do in
Tokyo, Karl told me that we should “have a beer for breakfast”. I’m not sure
how that is unique to Tokyo but we obliged, and in true British fashion we had
a beer and a curry for breakfast.
We went to the Meiji Shrine. It was vast and very Asian. It
was a cool thing to see but having seen a lot of cool Asian things in Korea I
think the novelty has worn off a little. It’s like when Lindsey Lohan did her
first line of coke, I bet she got a huge thrill out of it but now when she
vacuums up a line it’s a little underwhelming. That’s like me with Asian
monuments.
A little later we went to the Shibuya Crossing, you often
see it on TV. It’s a huge crossroad where all 4 directions of traffic stop to
let hundreds of people cross the street. It doesn’t sound that cool when you
write it down but it’s a touristy thing to do. Shut up.
A trip to Japan wouldn’t be complete without seeing some
robots and the place to see them is at The National Museum of Emerging Science
and Innovation. You should have seen Karl’s face when we were there, it’s
basically Disneyland for him. His smile got wider when he saw the exhibits and
he started learning. I asked Karl shall we do some more sightseeing? He
scoffed. I asked him, shall we get something to eat? He said “why?” I asked
him, shall we go to a bar and meet some ladies? He said “science is the only
sexual stimulus I need”. They are genuine quotes. We hung around for the Honda
Asimo exhibit, which was pretty cool.
A Japanese phenomenon that I was unaware of was the maid
cafes. Essentially, these are cafes where cute Japanese girls dress up as
French maids and serve you, these exist for lonely guys who want cute girls to
pay them some attention. Like the lonely tourists we were we went. We ordered
some food and drinks and then the girls made us repeat the phrase “delicious
magic, meow, meow, meow!” It was so cringey. It was also the most ridiculous
thing I’ve heard since Harry Redknapp said that Tottenham could win the league.
There were 3 groups of people at this particular café; some drunk businessmen,
a loner (who was there on his birthday!), and the foreigners. I don’t want to
sound elitist but the other guys were fucking weird. We joined in with the
silliness of the experience because it was funny but the other guys enjoyed it.
The lonely guy who was there alone for his birthday requested that everyone
should sing happy birthday for him. When he counted down 3, 2, 1… Karl and I
were the only ones who sang. I felt sorry for him, having no mates, going to a
maid café for your birthday alone, and the only people singing happy birthday
are two random foreigners who don’t know your name. “Happy birthday dear… Happy
birthday to you!” Poor bugger.
Whilst in
Tokyo I noticed that there are a lot of white people. In Korea, there are a lot
but usually only in the “white people areas” of Itaewon and Hongdae. In Tokyo
they’re everywhere. The white people in Korea seem normal, they’re most likely
teachers, or in the military. But the white people in Japan are just strange,
they’re the weird kids at school who were into anime and Dungeons and Dragons,
and there are thousands of them.
We went
back to Shinjuku (the red light district), mainly because our hotel was there.
The sex trade is almost non-existent in Korea, so I’ve heard. But in Tokyo it’s
in abundance. Anything you want is on offer, and it wouldn’t take long to find
whatever you’re into. A crazy thing I’d heard about Japan that I wanted to
investigate was used panty vending machines. Not that I’m into that kind of
thing… honest. But, I’d heard that this craziness existed and I wanted to see
it (the vending machine, not the panties). I must have looked at every vending
machine in the area but I couldn’t find a panty pantry. I was quite
disappointed. I’ve since read that they don’t exist anymore but were available
about a decade ago.
One thing that the Japanese do well is British pubs. They have dozens of
them. I know, I know, you go all the way to Japan and you spend your time in a
British pub, it’s madness but sometimes you just want a quick pint. We made up
for it by trying the local cuisine. Karl and I both sunk our teeth into a
chicken Teriyaki sandwich from Subway. We were fully immersed in Japanese
culture.
The craziest thing we did in Tokyo was the Robot Cabaret Show. It seemed
a little expensive at ¥6,000 (£40) a ticket but I can say it’s worth every yen.
It’s not a show that you will fully understand unless you witness it for
yourself. The best way to describe the show is that someone took a lorry load
of acid and filmed what they saw. I went to Japan looking for weird shit and I
found it. If you go this is what to expect; dragons, robot eating sharks,
masked men shredding it on guitar, tanks and Gatling guns, giant snakes, robots
fighting pandas, robots fighting tribesmen, Japanese women in bikinis riding
10ft robotic women, and so many other things that my brain couldn’t process at
the time. It’s been a week and I’m still trying to comprehend what I witnessed.
(See the video below for some highlights).
The video highlights:
Japan is
probably the most interesting country I’ve been to, they can boast history,
scenery, bustling cities, and pure crazy. But I don’t think I’d like to live
there. The weirdness would become the norm and then the rest of the world would
just be a disappointment. It’s OK that Japan is strange because you can
experience it for a week and then go home. I was a tourist to the craziness,
but the people that live there are prisoners to it.
