Month: November 2012

 It was totally awesome!

We interrupt this blog chronology to bring you this important announcement.

We are already in Fukuoka and we’ve booked our hotel for the next two weeks. Our son is still with us, despite numerous attempts to trade him for Japanese children. We are staying at the Hakata Green Hotel Annex, which is located adjacent to the Hakata station. For those not in the know, Hakata station is the main railway hub in Fukuoka. Many years ago two cities, Fukuoka and Hakata, merged: Fukuoka was the samurai district and so the merged city took its name; Hakata was the merchant district and so most things are Hakata in Fukuoka. It’s all about the money.

All of the general admission tickets were sold out for the first day. Raku raku seats were available, but none of our lower ranked wrestlers were fighting on day one and we did not feel like springing for the good seats just yet. We watched the tournament on NHK in the hotel room, in HD, while drinking delicious Mystery Drinks (3% to 8%).

Today, however, we were determined to watch some sumo (or, as we’ve learned to pronounce it: smoh). There is a bus from the station that takes us directly to the stadium in about 12 minutes. We boarded the bus, charmed the passengers with our adorable son, and then bought our general admission tickets. True to form, we didn’t actually sit in the general admission seats until much, much later in the day.

Locutus was awesome. He charmed at least a dozen old ladies, who insisted on holding him. (Don’t worry moms! None of them stole your grandson!) He slept during the sandanme and makushita matches (but then, didn’t we all!) and awoke for the Juryo, in time for Yobadashi Kunio’s singing.

While Locutus was very well behaved, we quickly realized that only one of us could really concentrate on the sumo matches at a time. And so, a competition was borne. We each selected 11 Juryo wrestlers. On a given day, whomevers wrestlers perform best determines who gets to watch the Ozeki and Yokozuna fights, and who gets to wrangle the Borg.

The game is ON!

We visited Nijo Castle on our second day in Kyoto, amid choruses of “Kawaii!” Nijo castle is very, very big. The sign outside said to allow an hour – but if you visit the castle with an adorable child and a throng of potential admirers, allow two hours. We had the good fortune to visit the castle while seven or eight school groups visited the castle. Locutus was on form, flashing his winning smile and charming the girls.

Fortunately, Nijo castle has several large gravel areas where our son could run and play. Mostly, he spent the time picking up rocks in one area of the castle and moving them to another area of the castle, whilst posing for pictures when a group of school girls passed by.

Eventually we were able to coax our son onto the rest of the tour. Nijo castle consists of the castle itself, which was really more of a sprawling palace with many rooms, each gorgeously painted to inspire envy in visiting dignitaries. The floors were the infamous ‘nightingale’ floors, designed to chirp when stepped upon and alert the castle staff to intruders.

After touring the castle, we moved onto the gardens and the palace. The palace, sadly, was not open to visitors. But the gardens surrounding the palace were quite lovely. Locutus spent an hour or more playing in the drain channels, attempting to climb the fences, and banging his head on the low hanging beams beneath the elevated decks. Successes all around.

The deep drain channels

Elevated deck that was mostly just above Locutus’ head height

We’ll chalk this adventure up as a success.

Looking back through our posts about our first trip, I’m realizing that we put very little detail into them. Probably because we were writing at internet cafe’s and visitor info centres and were on a time limit. It was also not possible to really add pictures to those posts, so I’ll throw a few of those in now for you.

On our first trip to Kyoto, we rented bikes the first day we were in the city and tried to find a few places like the Philosopher’s Path.

Since I’m not a very good cyclist and was in a foul mood after having a run in with a wall (which I can now laugh about, instead of being embarrassed about) we ended up stopping before we found it and went in to the closest available temple. It turned out to be very cool despite the fact that it was under restoration. One of the things we wanted to do this time was find the temple again and see the artwork restored.

Because Lance is an awesome navigator, we actually found the temple quite easily. And discovered we were about 200 metres shy of the Philosopher’s Path when we gave up on our first trip! (But that’s ok as it probably would have done us in had we found it).

The first time through all of this was covered with scaffolding as they worked to bring back the original brilliance of the colours.

The temple also had a couple of other cool things like an awesome bell and the dragon walkway!

Along side the path were grave markers, no doubt the savage tally of others foolish enough to venture to deep. We wandered through the rows and rows of tombstones, reflecting on the path ahead of us. Though we could not read the strange pictographs on the headstones, we realized that these must be fallen adventurers. Adventurers, like ourselves, led like flies to the… GAH! Spider guardians!

In our haste to depart, we forgot to hurl our child at the danger. It seems we’ll have to carry him around a while longer.

I think that with this latest trip, we have officially purchased at least one of every stereotypical Japanese souvenir that exists. Just like Pokemon, you gotta catch ’em all, right? The challenge to you, dear readers, is to name a souvenir in the comments, if you think we haven’t got it yet. Go ahead, I dare you!

We have also finally bought some things for Locutus.  So long as the items are clearly for him, he gets the same duty-free allowance that we do. So I’m trying to carefully keep track of which expenses are going under each person.

Some other random details in a stream of consciousness fashion . . . we’ve finally arrived in Fukuoka for the sumo tournament. Sadly we were too late to get general admission tickets for the first day and we didn’t want to spend $200 for tickets the first day, so we went back to our hotel room in order to watch on tv. It’s going to be strange for us not to have sumo in the background in the evenings during this sumo tournament.

We believe we’ve found a solution to posting photos of Locutus on a public forum. Stay tuned!

Some ‘mommy’ thoughts . . . I’m noticing quite a bit of baby-wearing so far. Mostly it’s soft-sided carriers and lots of Ergo’s – yay! Their Ergo’s seem to be a bit more fancy than ours. Different colours and patterns on the interior so it looks good even when it’s hanging down and the baby isn’t in it. Plus, most of them make extensive use of the hood so it’s always hanging out. Babies are bundled ridiculously, just like their parents are (seriously, toques even if it’s over 10 Celsius!). And I don’t think I’ve seen more that 1 or 2 babies being worn on the back. I guess it’s because Asian babies tend to be so much lighter than their Caucasian counterparts. A lot of people have guessed that Locutus is 2 already, because he walks so well and is so large.

Ok, a messy, stinky diaper is demanding my immediate attention. Good thing we’re in our hotel instead of the sumo stadium!

While walking the Philosophers Path, I had a revelation. The path was named for its ability to bring clarity and focus. In particular, clarity and focus on where you put your feet, because those stones are pretty treacherous in places. The path culls the weak and unfocused mind, bodily removing the poor philosophers from the gene pool and leaving only the greats.

It also features crazy old men on bicycles that randomly accost travelers and exhort them to visit Honen-in shrine. It sounded like a trap. We readied Locutus in the baby carrier, prepared to toss him and flee the moment a threat appeared.

Kyoto is so chock full of temples and shrines it’s easy to see something new every time you come. I thought I’d do some more detailed posts about some of the new old sites we’re seeing during our time in Kyoto.

We’d seen Kinkakuji (Golden Pavillion) before and this time we really wanted to see Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion. The Golden Pavillion was named because it is actually covered in gold leaf (well, I’m not sure if they actually did that for the restoration, but it is gleamingly gold). So you’d think that the Silver Pavillion would be silver, right? Well, you’d be so very, very wrong. I believe it was named thusly to indicate that it was built during the great time after the Golden Pavillion. (Do you sense the innate hierarchy that is so prevalent in Asian culture?).

So we went up to the Silver Pavillion by bus since it is fairly towards the top of the map (which you’d think would be North, but it isn’t.) On the way we got to do a bit of people watching on the bus. The particular route we were on ended in the foothills of the mountains, so when I saw a group of girls wearing parkas and big winter hats and serious looking boots with backpacks, I assumed they were on their way for an outdoor adventure.

The one sitting on the left also had awesome pink moustache earrings.

See? Not so silver.

Just like at Golden Pavillion there was a spot where people toss their coins and try to hit a target. It’s for luck, I’m assuming. This time we all faced forward and there were also school boys attempting. And, just like last time, guess who hit it with a definitive ‘click’ on her first try? Oh yeah, that would be me. However, the boys were distracted by the cuteness of my baby so my coin tossing didn’t receive the same chorus of appreciation.

My 10 yen coin is one of the ones on the right of the rock 😉

You’re absolutely correct. Pass me my bottle of sake and I’ll get this story started…

Our stay in Tokyo was surprisingly excellent. Tokyo is not our favorite city in Japan, but the hotel we stayed at did its best attempt to win us over. The bellhop went out of his way to explain everything in English, and even went back downstairs to the lobby to pick up a children’s bath set for Locutus.

We woke up quite early on our first morning in Tokyo. Locutus declined his socks and shoes and so we put him in the baby carrier for our errands.

We exchanged our vouchers for our rail passes, then sauntered over to the Imperial Gardens for a stroll. The gardens are several city blocks of immaculately groomed grass and Japanese pines, with a wide gravel path to traverse. The Imperial palace itself is off limits, but the outer grounds were turned into a very pleasant park. The notable landmarks were a statue, a bridge, and rows and rows of Japanese pines.

The sky was sunny and clear, the temperature too warm for a jacket. The paths were filled with people on their way to work. We both remarked what a tough commute that would be. The park has several running courses set out. And at the hub where all these courses connected, there was a giant stone monolith with a clock for runners to monitor their times.

We arrived back at the station around the time most stores were opening up.

Since we were all still adjusting to the time change, we decided to forgo visiting the Meiji Jinja shrine and park complex and instead travel to Kyoto while Locutus napped. The ride was uneventful, aside from the half dozen Japanese that had to come over and compliment our beautiful son.

Upon arrival, we wandered Kyoto a while on foot while Locutus napped in the carrier. I was heartened to see throngs of school children carrying their English dialogue books! Tomorrow, we shall ambush the ambushers! We will be in Kyoto for a few days, seeing a mix of old and new sights.

We eventually settled on a hotel, grabbed some dinner, and retired to the hotel room to relax and adjust our internal clocks to local time.