Back from Japan last night. The best news I can tell you about that country is (considering how HK thinks Japan is superior in every way, more advanced, more efficient blah blah blah) HONG KONG WINS ON EVERY COUNT!!!
Happy dance! Happy dance!
FIRST UP, TOKYO!!!
Narita 1 International Airport in Tokyo? I was shocked at how inferior it is to our own Lap Kok International Airport. I mean, this Tokyo's NEW air terminal, but it looks like something you'd find in a resource-rich third-world country, only with lots more duty free. Oh, and it's much cleaner too! (Clean is something Japan does very well ... OK, maybe even better than we do! OK, maybe we can score a point for Japan here ... although HK does clean very well too I have to point out!)
And the service in Narita 1? What sodding service??? It took over three hours to clear Health, Immigration and Customs. Like, there's this formidable Japanese reputation for efficiency, right? And here you are, entering the country at its major entry point, planes arriving every eight minutes, and in each department there's only four to eight counters. Yes, seriously. Four to eight counters to service about 80,000 people. Hey, I'm used to having 10,000 people standing in front of me at any given moment, but these were queues like even I wouldn't believe.
And, yup, queue rage too!
Although the Japanese seemed willing to wait quietly, everyone else of every other nationality was ready to kill. Gosh, major scream-fests going on all around me! For the first hour, I went into my happy little zen-space in my head and tried to enjoy all but after that I found myself getting as angry as everyone non-Japanese around me. Obviously, the Japanese have more efficient "happy little zen-spaces" than I do. Or else they're just used to it.
Oh, and after you get through that torture, don't be fooled by the word "limousine". Because I was terrified of getting lost, I advance-paid a lot of money for a limousine to pick me up and take me to the hotel ... and - tricky sods!!! - "limousine" is their name for the airport bus service! It's actually the bus that goes around ALL the big hotels. You know, in HK, limousine MEANS limousine so I didn't suspect a thing! Cheapskates!!!
In HK too, "five star hotel" means five star hotel! Talei and I shared a hotel room with constant plumbing noises ... and when you flushed the loo the pipes howled like a wolf for the next three to five minutes. No spare pillows and blankets either, small bath, hot water ran out after two minutes and only Japanese green tea-bags in the rooms. I expected MUCH better. (Did have a Gideon in the top drawer of the bedside table however. Gosh, those Gideon dudes really get around, don't they!)
Tokyo itself would only be exciting if you didn't live in HK. It's kinda the same only everything is much smaller. Little buildings, all about 7 to 10 storeys, forgivable only because it's right on the "Rim of Fire" Pacific Tectonic Plate earthquake/volcano line.
HK does the whole neon-lights-at-night thing much better too - although I didn't get to Electric City in Tokyo where apparently it's spectacular.
Their much lauded subway system sucks too, at least in comparison to HKs. Theirs looks like it comes straight out of Orwell's "1984" - all unpainted concrete, ugly pillars and stupid organisation - whereas ours is just gorgeous, with all mosaics everywhere and sublime colours. Ours is much more user-friendly as well and I really felt the lack of nice little HK details, like green lights telling you which side of the train the doors will open. Easier to get around on ours too, once you work out the differences between our four terminuses (or is that terminii?), Chai Wan, Sheung Wan, Tsuen Wan and Tsang Wan.
Our buses come much closer together as well. Like, ours come 4 minutes apart and theirs are more like 12 minutes, and we have a limit to passengers, whereas they keep shoving people on until no one can breathe - let alone get out again! SO WE TOTALLY WIN IN THIS DEPARTMENT TOO!
And HK speaks English better than Tokyo, which isn't saying much since HK generally speaks lousy English, but it wasn't really a problem because Japanese for "toilet" is "toileto", and "western-style tea" is "teazo" - compared with the Cantonese "chee saw" and "yit lai cha" - so it was easy-ish for me to communicate with the locals since my needs are unusually limited. And, besides, the Japanese have charming manners and really do want to help you out. (Contrast this with this American woman in Nagoya. I asked her if she knew where the women's toilets were and she says, in this broadest Boston twang "Ahhhhm sahhhhrrry. Yaahhh aaarrrcarrnt ahhhz sahh straaahhhhh-j Ahhh daahhhn aaahndaaahstaaahn aahhh waaahrd yaaahhhhh saaahhn.") (Translation? I think it's "I'm sorry. Your accent is so strange I don't understand a word you're saying." Cute, huh! Mind you, it's bloody arrogant as well, considering!)
Tokyo temples? Gosh, I am soooo over Buddhist, Taoist, Shintoist, Whateverist temples I don't even want to talk about them. Gorgeous in their own way, sure, only, like in Siem Reap in Cambodia, don't try to see too many on one visit. Temple Fatigue is no myth. Like in Siem Reap or Bangkok, only try to see five a year. Solid advice there!!!
Oh, and don't EVER go to Tokyo Disneyland in the middle of a long weekend, particularly when that long weekend is Mid-Autumn Festival when everyone comes into the city. It also happened to be one of the hottest days of the year too. There was a two hour wait for every ride so everyone was doing a China-shuffle with their noses in the sweaty back of the person in front.
The whole day we only went on three rides. Had to queue like that for food and drinks and toilets as well ... although the Disney souvineer shops were really fast and efficient. Horrible, horrible, horrible. We all swore that next time we go, it will be on a Tuesday middle of Japan's exam week.
The whole day we only went on three rides. Had to queue like that for food and drinks and toilets as well ... although the Disney souvineer shops were really fast and efficient. Horrible, horrible, horrible. We all swore that next time we go, it will be on a Tuesday middle of Japan's exam week.
Oh, but I can now tell you, from very up-close-and-personal experience of many hundreds of armpits, that the Japanese smell wonderful; even sweating they all smell mostly of CLEAN, but with these subtle under-smells of ... nah! too obscure to describe, but it's all nice.
But what did I love most about Tokyo? Well, obviously, the best part is the fact that HK is soooo much better in every way! Apart from that? Let me think? Oh, definitely the number of Japanese women with inch-long dyed blond spiked hair who do the whole kimono thing; kimono, obi, shoes, socks and everything. They're everywhere. It's like they don't want to do the traditional thing unless they make sure you know it's intended to be ironic. AND it is a really wonderful look. Such a surprise, isn't it!
MT FUJI NATIONAL PARK
After Tokyo, we went to someplace relatively urban and totally forgettable - no seriously, I don't even remember what it was called, let alone a thing about it - and then we caught this little shunting train which zig-zagged up through the mountains - scary but unbelievably stunning - to a town called Gora in Hakone in Mt Fuji National Park.
Here's a link to their local tourist office's information film, and I have to tell you we did everything that's shown in this short, except the hiking, mountain climbing and other stupidly rigorous stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btYwoq2NTME
Scenery? Spectacularly spectacular. Beauty to the inth degree and it wasn't even autumn and the foliage hadn't yet turned, when, apparently, the Park is at its best. Me? This was as much beauty as I could stand.
Stayed at a gorgeous spa hotel five minutes drive above Gora train station. (It's the post-modern looking place in the above film.) Called Resortopia Hakone, but so nice you can forgive the name. Nice? Huh! Spectacular is more appropriate. In fact, let's go further and call it astonishingly, amazingly, luxuriously spectacular. I just adored the meticulous way they'd done everything, especially the care taken over the tiniest details, and they way it all came together as "Perfection"!
Oh, and remind me to tell you about the toilets they have there. Quite astonishing.
My only complaint would be they didn't really do the view thing very well. Since the hotel was perched high on a ridge they should have made so much of it, yet it was all obscured by trees (maybe it was more beauty than they could stand too) but even that was forgivable since they had stunning little gardens everywhere, and particularly nice ones outside each window and I sat in our bedroom's windowseat for nearly an hour spellbound at how gorgeous it was. (OK, I was really sneaking a great many smokes, hanging my arm out the window so the kids wouldn't smell it. But I was also admiring the gorgeous garden below.)
I would have loved to have stayed in Gora longer because there was so much we didn't do - like finding the exact spot where Hokusai was standing when he did my painting - and visiting the Modern Sculpture Museum just five minutes down the hill, where, from what I could see from the train, they had a giant Picasso bronze in an exquisite garden. Guess I have to come back some day.
But what we did do was that whole nude Japanese communal bathing ritual at the health spa and, to my surprise, I really enjoyed the whole experience - the washing, soaking, rewashing, resoaking thing - although I went into the woman only section. Mixed bathing? Nah!!! Too challenging! Who'd guessed I'd be such a prude. Or maybe it's just that my thighs aren't what they were.
By the way, you don't actually look at anyone else's nakedness, although there was one lady, about 6 feet tall, with the most spectacular film-star body. I must admit I actually looked at her because I couldn't believe a human was this perfect and I wanted to spot a flaw ... only there wasn't one ... and I also had a good hard look at this other elderly Japanese woman's bum because she had the oddest tattoos all over it. I couldn't work out what the pictures were and I thought it would be too obvious if I raced over and got my glasses so I had to let that one go.
MT FUJI
The clouds cleared at Lake Ashi itself and we caught a huge purple pirate ship and sat up atop the piles of life rafts on the top deck and were ferried around the lake to distantly view the various towns and shrines and destroyed castles and forts, but still the clouds on the mountains were so thick we never once saw Mt Fuji. (Apparently you can see it even from the bullet train to Kyoto but we didn't.) Scenery was getting a little too much by the end, so even though it was truly spectacular after a while I kinda stopped looking.
TOWARDS KYOTO
Here's a link to someone who took the same journey and did see Mt Fuji:
Lots of interesting stuff to look at too, on the journey. Little towns that look more like Japan than you'd believe possible. Really organised farming communities. Quite startling. And they
have cemeteries too which really surprised me since I thought the Japanese always cremated. I asked and it seems they do, only they don't do it very well so the remains of the cremations ("cremains"?) get a nice little burial plot in one's home village.
have cemeteries too which really surprised me since I thought the Japanese always cremated. I asked and it seems they do, only they don't do it very well so the remains of the cremations ("cremains"?) get a nice little burial plot in one's home village.
KYOTO
Could tell you lots about what we saw there but it's mostly more sodding temples so I'll spare you all those. They were all nice, however. Nice gardens too but we missed out seeing all the apparently amazing ones by that most famous landscaper guy from 400 years ago. You know the ones I mean?
But we did get to that so-famous moss garden at The Golden Pavillion, however - F.Y.I. - it's not something you should do at the end of a long, hot, dry summer because it was more like "green slime and bare earth garden". However, there was enough there so I could see it would normally be spectacular so I'll have to go back later in my life when Kyoto's had lots of rain and then I can see what it's really like.
Missed out too seeing Nene Dori and Ichibi Dori, those little cobbled streets so sublime that were apparently the reason the American pilots refused to fire-bomb Kyoto at the end of WWII. (And it was apparently those amazing gardens by that guy 400 years ago that crossed Kyoto off the list of Japanese cities to be atom-bombed. I'm happy about that.) We planned to go but took the wrong street and by the time we realised we were so far away couldn't be bothered finding our way back again. Again, it's something I'll see next time I come, and there will definitely be a next time. Kyoto is so totally worth it!
What else? Oh, accommodation. That was interesting. In Kyoto we stayed at a big ... sorry, forgotten the name. Starts with an "r". They're those traditional-style guest houses where you're given a big room with a raised platform covered in tamati mats - or whatever they're called - and you roll out your futon on them at night. Six or eight to a room and no air
conditioning so night-times were a big funky sweaty sleep-fest, everyone rolling on top of everyone else. Cathy and I couldn't bear the thought of it so we got a room away from the kids.
conditioning so night-times were a big funky sweaty sleep-fest, everyone rolling on top of everyone else. Cathy and I couldn't bear the thought of it so we got a room away from the kids.
Communal traditional bathing too, which, by that time, I was totally into. Could have lain in those soaking tubs for days. Ended up, however, with a foot fungus that's proving particularly hard to get rid of.
The whole traditional guest house experience would have been really nice only the place was packed to the rafters, literally, of touring groups of Australian high school students who behaved shockingly, mainly running up and down the hallways all night and forever sneaking into each other's rooms (shrieking as they did so, so I guess sneaking isn't what it used to be). The elderly Germans staying there too complained endlessly and were up there screaming at them all night, adding to the mayhem, so I felt I had to be less fascist and just let it all go. Bloody annoying, however, since their noise woke me constantly and I really needed sleep because I was to-the-bone exhausted.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of the sneaking shriekers were our own students and I was meant to be one of the people keeping them under control but I was too tired to care. Really irresponsible but, hell, I can rationalise along with the best of them. Told myself they were all private school kids, and the other kids were from, like, Oz's premier private schools - the serious, serious money kind - so there was undoubtedly serious money behind each nasty spotty little boy, so whatever our little convent girls were getting up to in the dead of night the worst case scenerio was merely a shake-up in the Oz rich-kid gene pool. How could any parent object to that?!!! In fact, I think they should be THANKING us for letting it all go on ...
... and we got to stick it to elderly Germans too who were undoubtedly Hitler supporters in their youth and so thoroughly deserved to be given nasty noisy nights! ANZACs REVENGE!!!
All round good stuff you must admit! Cathy thought so too! Gosh, I did so like Cathy! It was only that glass of wine every night that kept us from going barking mad!
After that ... gosh, I'm sick of this already. All I can really talk about is more travelling and more temples and gardens and ... well, I'd just be repeating myself and you've already got the idea. Highlights? Hakone and Kyoto. Nothing else quite matched up.
Summing up? Teenagers are ghastly. Japan looks exactly like what Japan is supposed to look like! And the things that Tokyo is most famous for are the exact things we in HK do it a whole lot better: YEE HAHH!!!!
Lah lah lah, we are the champions!!! Happy dance! Happy dance!
And that's the main letter about our trip to Japan. There may have been a couple more shorter ones to individuals with special interest areas, and if I find any of those I'll post them in here as well.
Also, I really screwed up with my photographs. Had my camera on the wrong setting. Kept filling up memory card after memory card - after taking only about five photographs too - and when I got back I discovered my big mistake. Everyone made fun of me, so I decided to celebrate by making my ridiculous footage into a short film. You can see it on:
Finally found the letter about the toilets at Resortopia:
They've got these toilets with a built-in bidet and when you flush a strong dart of warm water squirts fair up your clacker. Total bullseye, totally unexpected and totally not-very-pleasant ...
... and when you try to move out of the way it tracks you. Not kidding! The damn blast of water tracks like a veritable SCUD missile. Really scary.
But you want to know the really scary part? Someone invented it! Someone actually sat down and designed a program to track anuses!!! I wonder how you'd explain that one to your spouse? Or your friends? Or, worse, your kids? And how would they talk about it in Show and Tell at Kindy?
Japanese, huh? The things they've given the world! Revenge for losing WWII, I reckon!
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