So I'm in Japan at the momnet

H

hopeful_monster

Thousand Master
Any Suggestions as to what to do?
Last trip I was mainly in Tokyo, Osaka and Himeji, and although I'm sure I missed stuff I am only going back to Tokyo (due to flights and all). Currently in Kyoto and going to do as many sights as I can in the next two days, before... well any ideas?
I've got a JR pass, and am fairly flexible so any ideas guys?
 
I could only really suggest generic places of interest, since you have just missed Ohanami, and anything that would have been happening during Golden Week.

Day trip to Nikko? Kamakura?
 
First off, I am extremely jelly. Just thought you ought to know.

If it was me, I'd go to one of the Pokémon Centre stores and blow all my money xD (They have one in Tokyo). Although that might not be to everyone's tastes =3.
 
SO JELLY MAN ha ha
I have heard that The Heian Shrine and the area around it is amazing and if you in kyoto its not to far from Jingumarutamachi Station
have not been there but have spoken to people that have and rate it pretty well

http://www.heianjingu.or.jp/index_e.html

Where ever you go im sure i speak for everyone and think you should show and tell some pictures as i know i would love to see them ha ha

Hope you have an AMAZING time there mate keep us posted :)
 
Well been in Japan for a two (and a bit) days and I have seen more World Heritage sites that most people see in a life time, and I am working on a theory Geshia and Yeti/ bigfoot are somehow linked (more on that later).
Most of the bit day was spent getting from Tokyo to Kyoto, getting a room and having a much needed shower. What was left of the day was spent visiting Toji Temple (a World Heritage site), the park and the Minotaur's Maze of a Mall under Kyoto Station. After a good nights sleep I went on a walking tour of Kyoto. This was good as while most of the time I walk around where I'm going it's always nice to have someone who knows the area to guide you. It also helps the guide was as mad as a box of ferrets (but in a good way). We visited shrines, temples (and found out the difference between the two, ie shrine = Shinto, temple = Buddhist) a traditional fan workshop, and Nintendo's birth place. Afterwards went on the Geisha walk and discovered the possible link between Geshia and Yeti/ bigfoot. This was due to the fact that a lass that was on the walk wanted to get a photo of one. the geisha didn't really want to stop and pose for tourists, and despite being wrapped in up to 12 layers of tight clothes, can move like "greased weasel ****" and of the 5 or so sightings we had the lass could not get a decent picture, with all of them being blurry images generally from behind. The opposing theory was that of the a Laughing Man style virus.
Next day was supposed to be the day of the Aoi Festival, but due to rain it was called off due to rain (nice to know it's not only the Uk that has this problem), so went to the Toei Studio Park instead. While not Universal studios it was fun to wander round a set of a ancient Japanese town and watch both the mock fights on the street and in the theatre, and getting the picture despite my Japanese being ... limited (the number of times I responded in Spanish or French (my second and third languages) was embarrassing). Also wandered round the small anime bit they had, and while not either recognising or caring about most of it, was stoked to see Mazinger Z (my 1st anime) statues all over the place.
Afterwards when to Ninnaji Temple, my World Heritage site for the day ( I swear they are like pubs in Edinburgh, throw a dart in a map and you hit one) but missed out on the Golden Pavilion (again, guest I've got a reason to go back) due to torrential rain.
After the rain of the day before I was not hopeful for the Festival, but clear sky's and a hot sun gave me the best tan of the holiday waiting for the procession to start. The procession took about an hour to pass my spot and took over 1 gigs worth of pictures and really wished I had brought sunscreen and the people from the Heian period had invented WD 40 (man those carts needed a good squirt to stop the squeaking).
After that when to Kiyomizu Temple , which if you have watched any anime set in Kyoto you will know of it. Even did the walk between the two stones at the Jishu Shrine
P1200428.JPG

, to see if my current drought (I can't call a decade a dry spell) would end. Missed the stone by a country mile. Think it's not a drought, more of a climatic shift (curse climate change).
Then back to Tokyo and getting completely lost in Shinjuku looking for my hotel (loosing my Lonley Planet book) before finding a internet/ comic place to get directions. After shower and sleep my last full day in Tokyo was a completely cultural affair. Iin the morning when to the National Museum, and despite 2 of the buildings being closed I found a two things to resrach when I get home. The Kofun Period, pre buddhist Japan which is has completely a different style and feel to the ancient japan from samuri times (and it seems to have been a big infunence of the Mulians from Rahxephon ;) ), and Qilin a new mythical animal (which I also love). Lost my Domo-Kun change purse as well, bugger.
The afternoon was spent in Akihabra and Shijuku looking at anime and computer games (hey it's modern culture). I had lunch at the Gundam Cafe and while I could have burned through my £4000 limit on my credit card ended up getting Tiger and Bunny Head phones, and Eva long sleeve t-shirt (I was out of clean clothes), Macross Frontier pins and a Moyashimon Plushie.
What was interesting was the amount of merchandising and advertising for different shows availible. The most current shows (based on what is on Anime on Demand, Crunchyroll and other streaming sites) had little, but I'm not an expert on the Moe crap out so that may have had a presence, but there was a lot of Eva stuff, including plastic bottles of soda(?) in the shape of the female plug suits (will all the curves the characters don't have) as well as t-shirts to put over them. Macross Frontier had a smeg of a lot more than even Tiger and Bunny, which was odd for a 5 year old show, and One Piece seem to have taken over as the Shonen show of choice with a metric **** ton of stuff everywhere. The gashapon machines were fun with not only anime stuff, but lego, animals and even fungi as prizes. In one of the model shops they even had a set that had ladies in traditional Shibari poses (warning if you are going to look it up use safe search). The other thing that got my imagination going was a poster outside a Pakinko parlor. Eva unit 1 and LeLouch V Brittania. I would pay for a good fanfic where LeLouch is incharge of an eva instead of Shinji, and instigated Third Impact...
Photo's will follow when I get back home (and get over the Jetlag).
 
Sounds like you had a great time! Will look forward to the photos.

Also, thank you teo, for providing me with something that I must do in the Summer.
 
ilmaestro said:
Also, thank you teo, for providing me with something that I must do in the Summer.
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I would suggest to give priority to Hidemi Sugino. It's a bit of a hassle to visit his shop, since there is always a long queue of people and most of his stuff can't be brought away (you are "forced" to eat it there). About Japanese pastry chefs he probably has the most extreme philosophy and discipline. For example before handling mousses all his employees have to keep their hands in iced water until they feel pain, just to lower the hands' temperature to get the best results from the mousses.

But more than all I would suggest a visit to Sukiyabashi Jiro until you have the chance, Jiro Ono is still alive and kicking, but he's 85. All the coworkers I know that had the luck to eat there agree to say it was a humbling experience, Ono is simply the most sensible chef living on earth and what he does goes beyond imagination. It's pretty expensive (more than £200) but if I were you I would buy a JP LE less and use that money to eat there. A documentary about him was made recently: Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

But overall Japan is simply culinary heaven, just thinking about all the kaiseki restaurants in Kyoto makes me dreaming (and drooling).



Teo
 
Now I want to go to Sugino's place and order a mousse just to be cruel. That's a great anecdote.

I don't think I'll have any time to relax at a specific dessert shop on my next trip, which currently requires me to clone myself multiple times to fit everything I have planned already, but I did go to a nice little shop in Nipponbashi last time, where a very proud chef came over to introduce all of the cakes to us and refused to let any of his staff touch them (they were only to take orders and serve drinks). I had a lovely pear tart there. And now I feel hungry thinking about it.

R
 
teonzo said:
It's pretty expensive (more than £200) but if I were you I would buy a JP LE less and use that money to eat there.
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Haha, that is somewhat tempting. :) I had vaguely heard of Sukiyabashi Jiro before, but had never read up on it or even remotely considered going there. I was also surprised to follow the Wiki link a little and see that Japan has more Michelin three-starred restaurants than France, even though whenever anyone asks why I keep going back to Japan, my first answer is often "the food".
 
Rui said:
Now I want to go to Sugino's place and order a mousse just to be cruel. That's a great anecdote.
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Sugino brought to the extreme the philosophy of quality. His style is really similar to the French in the 90's and he is not super-creative like Sadaharu Aoki or Pierre Hermé. He "simply" aims to total perfection. Besides all the technical details on how he works, he wants to give the best with no compromise. Most of his airy cakes (mousses and so on) can only be eaten in his shop because he uses the smallest amount possible of gelatine. The result is that you get the most ethereal cakes possible, but if you try to transport them then they would collapse in a matter of minutes. Here in Europe most customers would insult a pastry shop that doesn't sell stuff for being brought home, there he is revered like an artist.
Unfortunately I can't suggest traditional pastry shops (wagashi and so on), it's a shame but the international press is not interested in them, and Japanese chefs are not the best example of promoting themselves outside their country.



ilmaestro said:
Haha, that is somewhat tempting. :) I had vaguely heard of Sukiyabashi Jiro before, but had never read up on it or even remotely considered going there.
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If you can afford it then try your best to go there, you even have no troubles about language (they require that people going there are able to speak Japanese, at least one person in each party). After 70 years doing that kind of food he achieved such a huge level of mastery that it's almost unthinkable someone will be able to reach or surpass him (maybe his son after other 30 years). Plus you are sure he gets the best of the best ingredients in Japan.
If you search on youtube there are various videos about him.



ilmaestro said:
I was also surprised to follow the Wiki link a little and see that Japan has more Michelin three-starred restaurants than France, even though whenever anyone asks why I keep going back to Japan, my first answer is often "the food".
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Japan is simply on another level, after some time the Michelin guide realized this and understood they had to use different criteria to judge Japanese restaurants. If they continued to judge Japanese restaurants with French criteria (like they to with the rest of the world) then it would have been total nonsense. Japanese chefs have the strongest ethics in the world, their commitment to high quality is simply impressive. I'm pretty sure that if the Michelin guide would be totally honest when judging Japanese restaurants, then the number of 3 stars in Japan would be at least the double, there are hundreds of restaurants in that country that can rival with any 3star in Europe.



Teo
 
teonzo said:
Unfortunately I can't suggest traditional pastry shops (wagashi and so on), it's a shame but the international press is not interested in them, and Japanese chefs are not the best example of promoting themselves outside their country.
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That really is a shame, niche local tastes and recipes are something that I would have thought would be sought out to some extent, but I can only say that I see the same kind of attitude within areas of my particular interest, such as the angles from which the US sports press reports on Japanese baseball.

I will have to make a point of watching the feature about Ono Jiro, at the very least. His Japanese is surprisingly understandable for an old guy!
 
ilmaestro said:
That really is a shame, niche local tastes and recipes are something that I would have thought would be sought out to some extent, but I can only say that I see the same kind of attitude within areas of my particular interest, such as the angles from which the US sports press reports on Japanese baseball.
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I'm not an expert in Japanese culture, unfortunately, but my impression is that Japanese people have a huge will to learn from foreign countries, but are reluctant to give out their knowledge. Just like a hydraulic valve: they let things in, not out. All the Japanese people I met in the kitchens were I worked were the most eager to learn the craft, but each time I asked them to tell something about Japanese food and technics it was like trying to interrogate a prisoner.
If we consider how high end Japanese restaurants and pastry shops promote themselves then it's totally absurd. Besides all the PR stuff (inviting journalists and so on), one of the major ways to promote oneself is writing a book and getting it out all over the world. Almost all western top restaurants published a book with an English version, especially in the last 10 years. When it comes to Japanese top restaurants there is only one book written in English: restaurant Kikunoi in Kyoto. About pastry chefs there is only one book that has a non Japanese version, it's by Hidemi Sugino and it's half Japanese half French (not English). They could sell a good amount of books if they published English versions, since in last years the books about top restaurants tend to be great editorial successes (see Noma, Quay, Eleven Madison Park...), but for unknown reasons they just don't do so.
I'm trying to write a book about "is cooking an art?", the literature search for Japanese material is just a huge pain in the ***, finding something interesting written in an understandable language for me (Italian, English, French or Spanish) is like a search for the holy grail.



Teo
 
Yes, certainly from the Japanese side of things that is understandable to me. I guess it is hard for a Westerner to "infiltrate" the system to write a book of sufficient detail themselves.
 
This is actually quite interesting, and seems to correlate with an article I posted in the general convo thread a while ago. The article suggested that the Japanese have taken western recipes and artistry back to Japan, and then worked to improve and completely eclipse those recipes down to the last obsessive detail. I believe one example was a coffee shop in which espresso's where only served until a very early hour, because the owner believed the city's electricity is supplied at the optimum voltage for making espresso's only up to that hour. It's the same thing with clothes manufacturing as well apparently, with high end Japanese brands taking iconic Americana staples and then aiming to improve on them with fetishistically obsessive manufacturing methods. I'll try to find that article.

Anyone who has ever dedicated themselves to a discipline will be aware that a certain level of fanaticism is usually required to achieve a high standard. But it seems to me that Japanese find this fanatical mentality particularly natural, even if you look hardcore otaku. Though, I might be inclined to say that to a certain extent hardcore otaku are the product of the application of this fanatical mentality without a structured discipline to channel it into.

It is interesting to wonder why this comes so natural to the Japanese.
 
I think Japanese culture tends more towards introversion, and in general introverted people who are into a hobby of some kind anecdotally tend to be more obsessive about those hobbies than the average extravert (there are of course, exceptions). Whereas here in the UK, passionately enjoying something to that degree is not really acknowledged as anything more than a fringe way of life, and even though we certainly have a great deal of introverts among us, they're generally eclipsed by the extraversion our social structure champions so much.

Even on this relatively niche board for a relatively niche hobby, there are occasionally comments made which dismiss introverted lifestyles entirely as being immature or invalid, because on the whole a lot of people in this country don't want to accept the idea that a person can be happy focusing on their hobbies rather than achieving social mastery in more acceptable ways.

Again, entirely anecdotally, I've met a lot of people who would naturally tend towards the obsessive dedication we see in these devoted creators, but they've adapted and forced themselves to be more social and outgoing to fit in better, making compromises when it comes to their innately introverted tendencies. And then there are some people who rise to the top just the way they are, in spite of the status quo in the west, and succeed in gaining recognition for their attention to detail and dedication here too.

So in other words, I personally believe that there exist people from all cultures who are capable of the same level of dedication as these legendary figures, but it's a way of life which is respected more in modern Japanese society than our own (which puts much more weight on individuality and extraversion). Here, it's common to read insights by people appalled by the same things which are impressing us; I often hear the word "perfectionist" used pejoratively or with amused admonishment.

R
 
Very good points indeed. That does make sense to me. I can even relate to a large extent with the immense pressure people over here face to conform to an certain extraverted way of life. When I was 18/19 I partially decided to get away from (and partially naturally grew apart from) the vast majority of people who were my closest friends up until that point, for various reasons. I've always been a naturally somewhat reserved and introverted person, but at that point I was pretty much forced to live an introverted life too, due to there being no one else around lol.

It is at this point that my life changed and I began to become interested in certain disciplines that ended up effecting my way of life and outlook on it. So I soon actually began to relish the lack of influence others had on my life and thoughts. So your points certainly seemed true in my case.
 
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