Kyoto – October 22, 2005

We thought that today would be a good day to take a day off from work. I told my supervisor last Thursday (October 18) that I would not come to work on today. When he asked me why, I told him that I had some personal things to do. He also asked if I could possibly switch with someone, and then come to work on Wednesday, or something like that. I told him that I needed to take Monday off, and that I would still also need Tuesday and Wednesday off as well. This also meant that I had to have them reschedule a training that I was supposed to go to on Tuesday (which was supposed to be my day off, anyway). Given the work environment of the last couple of weeks, I knew that I would be able to take off whenever I wanted. Paola basically did more of the same, except she didn’t give as much notice to her office. This meant that we would have three days to go to Kyoto.

This morning we woke up at 5 am so that we could get to the train to Kyoto early. The travel books that we have said that the trains to Kyoto were frequent, but we didn’t really know what that meant. I assumed that there would be a train leaving for Kyoto maybe every two hours. When we got there, and saw the train schedule, we saw that the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) leaves for Kyoto at least three or four times an hour. That was a bonus. We didn’t know exactly how the long distance trains here worked, so that is why we left so early. The guide books said that the train should get to Kyoto in about two hours, and sure enough, we got there in about two hours and twenty minutes. Basically, the Shinkansen only stops at major cities along the way. Before getting to Kyoto, we stopped only at Yokohama and Nagoya. I can’t say how fast the train goes, but it’s fast. I think that we basically got there as fast as we would have if we had taken a plane (especially since airports make you wait around for so long, and you can’t get on so easy as you do on a train. Also, the same guidebook says that if we had taken the normal train, it would have taken around 8 hours, and probably cost a lot less. Since we were on a time budget of three days, though, we decided that the extra cost was worth the time.

We got to Kyoto station about 10 am. Since we couldn’t check into our hotel until 3, we decided to start our sightseeing right away. One book that we had picked out 25 sights in Kyoto that we should see. We started with number one, and then moved from there. Actually since, the train station was listed as number 2, we actually started there, and then went to number one. There really wasn’t much to see at the train station, though, so we left right away, and tried to get our bearings.

At first we went the wrong way, as is always the case. But we didn’t waste much time before realizing which way was north. After that, everything was pretty easy since the street plan of Kyoto is more or less grid-like, which makes things simpler to find (this isn’t always the case in Tokyo, where the diagonal streets make it easy to not know where you are if you are not acquainted with the area).

Kawagoe Festival – October 20, 2007

George and Paola

Singers on a rooftop

Singers in a float

Typical Float at the Kawagoe Festival

Battling Floats at Kawagoe Festival

Several people at work told me about the Kawagoe Festival. It is one of the biggest traditional Japanese festivals in Japan, and famous throughout Japan. My buddy from work told me to go with him, even though I didn’t want to at first. Paola works right there, though, so I thought that it would be easy to meet up with her after she was done with her shift, so what the hell?

Before leaving work, Matt opened the closet, and I saw a windbreaker with our company logo on it. I thought that with all of the trouble that our work was going through, my coworkers would be happy to see me in it. So I stole it from work, in lieu of getting paid, and wore it out to the festival.

The festival was crowded with people, and much bigger than I had expected. It was not simply one long street covered off, but rather, the whole center of town was consumed by the festival. Of course, there were food stands and beer stands all over (remember, you could drink on the streets in Japan!), but there were other things too.

For one thing, every hundred meters or so, there would be a small concert being played on the roof or balcony of a short building. The music that was being played was traditional Japanese music, and it all sounded the same to me. The players were wearing masks and dancing and having a lot of fun.

Another great treat was that there were large floats representing different neighborhoods in Kawagoe. These floats were taller than they were long or wide, and they looked to me like battle towers, or siege towers from the medieval ages. Inside, instead of men with spears, swords, or bows and arrows, the floats would meet and battle each other with music and dancing.

After drinking a lot and having fun with friends, we went back to someone’s house who lived close by, and kept the party going there since the street festival ended around 10 or 11. I thought that we were pretty rude to the neighbors since house parties like this aren’t usual in Japan because the walls are paper-thin. Anyways, we had a good time.

Mori Art Museum

I had read in the Japanese paper that there was an art exhibition of current Japanese artists at the Mori Art Museum. One of the reasons that I wanted to come to Japan was to experience the contemporary art scene. I was already familiar with a number of Japanese artists, but looking at the article, I noticed that none of them would be at this show. It made me a little excited to see new artists on display. I headed over there after going to the Apple Store.

The Mori Art Museum is in Roppongi Hills, which is a land development that was completed only a couple of years ago by some rich Japanese real estate developer name Mori. It is mostly stores and a mall. The center piece is a tall building, in which the Mori Art Museum resides on the 53rd floor. In fact, admission to the museum also includes admission to the observatory deck, which is on the 52nd floor. The art museum does not have any permanent collections of their own, but rather they just organize their own shows, and borrow all the works that they ever have on display. This could lead to a colossal failure, but they have done well with this museum model. It makes me think that I could open up an art museum, if I could just get to know enough art collectors with impressive art collections to borrow from.

There were several impressive pieces on display. Higashiona Yuichi made chandeliers out of circular fluorescent lights; Hara Shinichi sculpted marble (I guess there are a few artists still doing that, which amazed me) to look as soft as a dress; Enoki Chu made a cityscape model out of old drill bits of various sizes; Yoshimo Yoshio drew 365 self portraits in pencil for everyday in 1988; Sato Mashiko and Kiriyama Takashi made an arithmetic garden where you walk through gates that do simple arithmetic for you; Nanknishi Nonbuhiro had several photos on transparent films layered like a snake across the room; and Tsujikawa Koichiro had a stop motion music video with hundreds of toys on the screen at once all moving in a carnival.

It is good to see artists at work today.

Ginza Apple Store – October 19, 2007

My ipod died. This is a big deal to me for a couple of reasons. First, I use my ipod everyday to listen to music on the train, and walking around. Second, I just bought the stupid thing in July, right before I left New York. It has a one year warranty, so I knew that anything that was wrong with it would be taken care of. Also, I still have my old ipod with most of the same music on it, so I would still have an ipod to keep me company. The only music that I do not have a copy of is a series of about 15 cds of Bach’s holy cantatas, which I didn’t really listen to that much anyway, and a new cd by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov called ‘Oceanna,’ which I really like; in fact, he is probably my favorite living composer, so although the cd is waiting for me in America, I will probably buy another copy of it here.

I am also upset because for a short while, I was on the Apple bandwagon. I have long since jumped off when my first Mac laptop broke. I realized that there is nothing special about Apple computers, and that they have all the same problems as Windows machines; obviously that even holds for their stupid ipods. That said, I will still use my Mac, and will probably even buy another Mac when this one breaks. That is because I am chosing between two shitty products, Windows or Apple. I suppose that I believe that Apple is merely a bit better, but I cannot claim that it is a lot better.

In any case, the problem was that after I charged my ipod, the charge would not hold, and the battery would die. I took it in, and they said that if they could fix it, they would, and if not, they would simply give me another ipod. In either case, I will have to reload all of the music and movies onto the machine all over again, and that takes a few hours. Pain in the ass.

Yasakuni Shrine

From the Korakuen Garden, it was a short walk to the Yasakuni Shrine. This was the only thing that I picked for us to do today. It seemed like a nice historical spot because the Yasakuni Shrine is dedicated to all of the war heroes in Japanese history. This includes World War II heroes. It is always a very controversial event when some high ranking official visits this place, especially in the eyes of the Chinese and Koreans, who suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the 20th century. I wanted to come and see the place where so much controversy has brewed.

If I didn’t know better, I would not have been able to tell anything special about this particular shrine. One thing that stood out was that the minister of war from the Meiji era had a statue in front of the shrine. Other than that, there really wasn’t any sort of evidence that this was a shrine related to war and controversy.

Korakuen Garden

From the last garden, it was a short subway ride to the next one, Korakuen Garden. Ranking the two that we went to today, I think that this garden was one that appealed to me a bit more. It was a bit bigger, if not the same size, but there were some more interesting features. For one, there was an orange bridge that spanned over a small creek. There was also a small waterfall, and further back it seemed like there was a completely different garden, with its own pond and lily pads.

Although Paola selected the gardens for us to visit today, I have to admit that I had a pleasant time walking through them, and checking out nature. At one point, I thought to take out my book, and write a short poem. Paola made fun of me by composing and reciting her own poem on the spot. Here it is:

The leaves fall.
The birds quack.
Quack, quack.
Quack, quack.

She is probably a better poet than I am.

Rikugien Garden – October 17, 2007

Paola had said that she wanted to visit some parks today, and suggested that might get our spirits up. I allowed her to lead the way, and take us wherever she wanted. She decided to start at Rikugien Park because it was relatively close to our first subway stop in Tokyo.

We paid a small fee to get in, and then we get access to a big park. It is unusual for me to think of paying to go to a park. Where I come from, parks are typically free. However, we pay higher taxes in America (in Japan, they only take about 11 percent of our paycheck), and those taxes go to paying for the upkeep of the park. I suppose that it all balances out in the end.