The Great Train Robbery (Japanese Style)

Occasionally I stumble across a factoid or news article so delicious that I feel compelled to tuck it away for further contemplation. The basic idea is that I might blog about it later - generally I don't, but I might. One such incident that I tucked away was a series of news articles on the great train robbery (or actually robberies) that took place in Japan late in 2015 and early in 2016.

Fabulous Faecal Facts

Some time ago I worked with a chap that was in the habit of advising me of the details of his bowel movements. He spoke with a rather posh British accent that I was reliably informed was a ‘Sandhurst accent’ and indeed he had been an officer in the British military. He sounded quite a lot like Trevor Bailey, the former English cricketer and sometime commentator.

On occasion, in this very proper accent, he would stand upright and loudly announce; “It’s time for my 2 o’clock poo!” He would then pivot  in a military fashion and depart in the direction of the men’s room. On his return he would usually make some further comment, usually along the lines of everything having “come out splendidly” but occasionally a more graphic description of the process along the lines of “I’ve just passed a bowel movement the exact size and shape of a coconut. Extraordinary!”

I Lost my Phone in Japan

LERK [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) or CC BY-SA 2.1 jp (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

So I was back in Japan again last week and I am pleased to report that it is still quite Japanese. I live in mortal fear of Japan becoming westernised in some way and my first check is to see how westernised it has become while I was away. I can report that the westernisation continues to encroach but it’s having a hard time of it.

Profoundly Deaf and Composing Classical Western Music in Japan

Back in the dark days of 2001, just a few short days after the World Trade Centre attack, Time Magazine published a touching story about a Japanese composer who had lost his hearing just at the time he was beginning to be recognized. Momoru Samuragochi was born in Hiroshima in 1963 to parents who where both hibakusha or atomic bomb survivors. Hibakusha and their children have suffered terrible discrimination in Japan and there is little doubt that Samuragochi would have also suffered because of this. Among other things, he had no classical music training at all despite being a prodigious talent from an early age and possessing 'perfect pitch' - the ability to determine a note without reference.

Regarding Satan’s Underpants

I recall, I would have been about 18 or 19, driving my brother to some place or another, being stopped at a traffic light and having my brother announce apropos of nothing much at all, that he knows a poem. My brother is 12 years younger than me, so he would have been only 6 or 7. At that age, I remember him as an intensely serious child, so when he said to me “I know a poem” I braced myself for all six stanza’s of John Donne’s A Nocturnal Upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day.

The Most Popular Car Park in Japan

Give me a minute to get to the point.

A few days ago, while researching limb ratio of gibbons, I came across an interesting website.

As I’m sure you all know, the maps of the world that we are used to seeing are created using the Mercator Projection. This gives us nice, rectangular maps that can be folded neatly and used for origami in our spare time. Unfortunately it also gives a distorted view of the relative size of various places.

Last Day

It’s my last day in  Japan and I am pleased to report that I am typing in the cafe in front of The Tobacco and Salt Museum. The museum has been on my list of things to do since I got here and while I’m glad I made it, I have once again been reminded that the things I plan to do are rarely the most interesting ones. It’s the events that occur on the margins that hold my interest most often.

Case in point is this visit to the Salt and Tobacco Museum. The museum itself was not especially interesting, mainly because it’s almost entirely in Japanese. On the other hand, coming out of the museum, I was presented with this cafe, which is called “C’est Bon Plage” and is entirely pink. C’est bon plage, as I understand it, means “it is a good beach”. There is no beach that I can see and no good reason for the place to be pink, but Japan’s a bit like that.

Another problem with visiting Japan is that the list of things you intended to do invariably contains a number of items that have not been crossed off by the end of your stay. I didn’t make it to Harajuku on Sunday afternoon as I planned and I didn’t get to the Science Museum. On the other hand, the reasons for not crossing off the items are often more interesting than the items themselves.

Yesterday we were invited to a lunch in Ginza with Shun and Ami (the newlyweds) along with Akino’s parents and her brother Noriki. Hence the Sunday afternoon and Harajuku didn’t happen. Instead we got to eat at a chinese gyoza restaurant of some renown. We arrived there to be greeted by an enormous queue that stretched down two flights of stairs and into the street. Ami had already arrived and secured our table, so we didn’t have to queue up. The food was delicious.

Afterward we went to an izakaya with some of Shun’s friends that had come over from Australia. The izakaya was famous for selling 180 yen beer. Now you might not think that 180 yen is cheap for a glass of beer (it’s about AUD$2.40) but let me assure you that it’s cheap in Tokyo. We had a great time and all got our moneys worth out of the beer!

Today, for our last day, we’ve come to Shibuya. Shibuya is one of the busiest places in Tokyo and let me assure you that’s saying quite a lot. The station is famous for having the statue of Hachiko at one of the entrances. Hachiko is a dog that used to meet his master every day at the station. When his master died, Hachiko continued to come to the same station entrance every day for several years afterward. The residents around Shibuya would greet him and feed him and when he finally passed on to join the great dog kennel in the sky, they erected a statue in his honour.

It’s a bit of a sad story, but the worst is yet to come. Apparently there is a Hollywood movie in the making, telling the story of Hachiko as only Americans can and starring … wait for it … Richard Gere!

OK, there are a bunch of other posts that I have been typing over the last few days that I’ll make over the next day or two. I also have a shedload of pictures (I took around 300 pictures at the wedding alone). For now I’m going to take some snaps of this cafe and go back to the Hachiko Statue to meet up with Akino.

See you all soon!

And here's the photos

Akino hams it up for the typhoon pictures.

Checking out the subway map to find where we have to go.

The Museum of Science. Note the little Stars of David.

Inside the Science Museum

The National Budokan

The National Budokan again. I took this picture on the way back.

Took this pic at the Gates of the Budokan

Outside the Budokan

At the National Museum of Modern Art (it was closed)

A Day of Contradictions

If humour is the unexpected juxtaposition of incongruities, then Japan is a very funny place indeed. For a country that seems to run on planning and formality, very little ever turns out the way you expect. At least for me.

Today started off with an expectation of visiting Tokyu Hands (a craft store), then visiting Takebashi, where Akino planned to spend an absurd number of hours having beauty treatment, while I would visit various museums and possibly the National Library. Akino’s plan seems to have come off a treat, but mine has gone completely awry. Not that I’m complaining.

Last night we got word that there was a Typhoon on the way. It’s been expected for a few days, but my experience of Japan tells me that any amount of wind, combined with rain, constitutes a Typhoon. Weather is incredibly predictable in Japan. Presumably it has been indoctrinated into the Japanese way of thinking. Everything must run according to schedule and in the manner to which the Japanese people have come to expect. It’s usual in Japan to wake up one morning and realise that it’s now spring (or summer or autumn or whatever). From that day on, the weather will behave according to the expectations of the season.

One of the niceties of Japanese weather is that when it rains, there’s very little wind. The rain falls in a comfortably vertical direction and that flimsy umbrella that you bought from a kombini (convenience store) for 300 yen (about $4.00) will serve very nicely. From time to time however, a gust of wind will appear at the same time as the rain and this appears to be known as a typhoon.

I awoke this morning to the sounds of Japanese news reports. Akino was sitting up in bed glued to the increasingly frantic (and slightly hysterical) reports that were being broadcast on ANN (or some bloody TV station). They featured a serious faced middle aged man in the studio with the obligatory pretty young girl, crossing periodically to their man in the field. The man in the field was a youngster. He was wearing a hardhat, strapped under the chin and had one hand desperately slapped on top of the hardhat. He was facing into the wind, with both eyes closed tight and was leaning slightly forward.

“Look,” says Akino, “it’s the Typhoon!”

I grunted something vaguely neanderthal and sat up in bed. As it happens, the youngster was, quite literally, in the field. Behind him, tall grass swayed gently to one side in what I can only describe as “quite a strong breeze.”

“Why is he holding onto his hat?” I asked, “that wind isn’t going to blow the froth off a head of beer.”

The silence at this point should have been sufficient for me to realise that I needed to sympathise more with the plight of the poor reporter trapped in the wild typhoon and critically analyse less. But, patient reader, you should remember that I had only just woken up.

“This is nuts,” I said, “in Sydney, this would be nothing more than a windy day and they’re making it out to be a national disaster! Look at this guy, he’s putting it on.”

Ah well, so the day did not start well. Akino contended that I was being unreasonable harsh on the Japanese news reporters and eventually I was awake enough to realise that arguing with you main source of communication is not wise.

By the time we set off, the meagre gusts of wind did not elicit any comment from me at all. Then we set off on the wrong train line, changed at the next stop and found that the line we wanted was closed “due to the typhoon”. Eh?? It’s an underground line?? We found out that several of the train lines had been closed at some point during the morning and they were only just starting to open.

We decided it was all too hard and made our way to a coffee shop to reconsider our plans. We decided that Tokyu Hands could wait until tomorrow and we would head straight for Takebashi, where we would have lunch and I could plan the rest of my day in more detail.

Takebashi is a little bit nowhere in particular for fun and excitement, but it does have quite a number of museums and galleries. Being a bit of a museum buff, I decided that I would visit the Tokyo Science Museum (that ought to be good) and maybe the National Art & Technology Museum.

So with a spring in my step and a confident look in my eye (or maybe it was the terrible wind from the typhoon that was in my eye?) I set off for the Science Museum first. It’s an impressive building, set in quite a large park and built entirely out of stars of David. You know, the Jewish symbol. I have no idea why and I took a picture just in case you don’t believe me.

Inside, the building appeared to be under construction in an odd sort of way. There were partitions everywhere and a sense of mild panic. There were no signs in English, but eventually I came upon a sign in katakana that read “Science Hall”. This lead to an enormous auditorium but not much else.

Around this time I bumped into a couple of travelling academics that had come to take a look. One of them was Japanese and was able to explain to me that the museum had closed for the day due to the typhoon. He was in the process of calling another Science museum in Ueno which I didn’t even know existed. He duly reported that it was closed too and it gradually became apparent that pretty much all museums and galleries in Japan had closed. Due, I can only continue to say, to a strong breeze.

I ended up walking through the park, whereupon I stumbled across, completely by accident, the “”Nippon Budokan”. This is the National Stadium for Sumo tournaments. It was closed of course, but it’s still an impressive building. More pictures and I continued walking.

At the end of the park, I came upon a busy road that looked slightly familiar. It was the Yasukuni Shrine that I had visited yesterday in the pouring rain. So, I went back again and having a few extra hours to kill, I walked through the museum there. Happily it remained staunchly unaffected by the typhoon.

Eventually I met up with Akino again and we headed off to meet up with the Ikuta family who had made their way from various parts of the world. We all went our for Yaki-niku (grilled beef). Next few posts shows some pics. Please enjoy and please … click on the little button that says “comment” and say “Hey! Here’s a comment!”

Yasukuni Shrine

I went to the Yasukuni Shrine today. It’s a shrine that was built about 140 years ago to honour the memory of soldiers that died in war. It’s a rather controversial site, as it includes those soldiers that were convicted of war crimes and it retains a nationalistic sentiment and a touch of bitterness that is not found in Hiroshima for example.

 For this reason, it’s become something of an attraction for the Japanese right-wing. Although they weren’t there when I visited, I’m told that there are often protestors there decrying the loss of Japanese culture.

Yasukuni Shrine is probably the least gaijin-friendly place that I have visited in Tokyo. I don’t mean that it’s overtly unfriendly, just that it’s not as welcoming to foreigners as most places. For example, there is very little signage in English.

It was pouring with rain and that made everything a little more tricky still - not so many photographs - but just to give you a flavour of Yasukuni, one English language flyer that I could obtain was a tribute to Dr Radha binod Pal, an Indian judge that sat on the Tokyo War Trials in 1946.

The war crimes tribunal was made up of eleven judges from various parts of the world. Dr Pal dissented with many of the decisions made during the trials and considered that the trials were more a matter of vengeance than justice. The flyer says in part, that the tribunal was “formalized vengeance sought with arrogance by the victorious Allied Powers”.

There is a memorial to Dr Pal at the shrine with the inscription “When Time shall have softened passion and prejudice, when Reason shall have stripped the mask from misrepresentation, then Justice, holding evenly her scales, will require much of past censure and praise to change places.”

In Ueno

As I type this, I’m sitting in a cafe in Shinjuku drinking outrageously expensive coffee (about AUD$8.00 for a cup of filter coffee). We arrived in Tokyo last night and it’s been raining pretty much since we got here. Despite this, we’ve spent much of today roaming around Tokyo. I’ve come to Shinjuku to visit some of the camera stores, where I’ve found that the prices are not a great deal different to Australia.

We checked into our hotel room in Ueno last night with the foreknowledge that our room was “small but clean”. I can report that this has been highly understated on both counts!

The main room is perhaps 3 meters square. There is a double bed (not a queen) and not much room for anything else. There’s

a bathroom/toilet that is as wide as the room and a bit over 1.5 meters deep. There’s also a small storage area.

Having said all this, it’s cheap for Tokyo at Y8500 per night (a bit over AUD$100) and very clean. It’s right next to Ueno station, so it’s easy to get around and Ueno itself is quite central.

More about Uji

Our trip to Uji was sufficiently interesting that I’ll make another entry on it.

Uji itself is quite an ancient town. It’s home to the Byodo-en temple, which, as I’ve mentioned before, is sufficiently renown to be featured on the 10-yen coin. There is another temple in the area, which I understand to be the oldest wooden structure in existance.

Another attraction of the area is the Genji museum and various sights associated with “The Tale of Genji”. “The Tale of Genji” is considered to be the oldest novel written. It’s a fairly lengthy saga, written by one of the ladies of the court in the 11th century. It tells the story of the life and loves of the Prince Genji and the last 10 chapters are set in Uji.

We were invited to Uji by Yamamoto-san, who is the owner of the Ryokan. He also has a steak-house across the road and a nearby Yaki-tori as well. In addition to all this, Yamamoto-san is the President of the Uji tourist commission and has recently been appointed as the President of the Uji chamber of commerce.

Essentially we were guests of Yamamoto-san for the duration of our stay and he took a lot of trouble to show us around Uji. We were fortunate enough to visit the chambers of commerce and meet with one of the executives there. Like many Australian towns, Uji has suffered something of a decline as young people move away and big shopping centres take over from local shops. Despite this, the chamber remains optimistic about the future of Uji and believe that many of the unique features of the town will ensure a bright future.

The ryokan itself is not inexpensive, but not outrageously priced either. An overnight stay including breakfast and dinner will cost around AUD$300. The rooms are traditional Japanese rooms and you’ll sleep on a futon, which is a thin mattress laid on the tatami-mat floor. It can be uncomfortable if you’re not used to it, but it’s the traditional Japanese way.

If you have dinner in the room, it will be wa-shoku, which is basically traditional Japanese food. There’ll be about 8 or 10 separate small dishes, all selected by the chef depending on the season. For our stay, we went to the steak house for dinner on the first night and had dinner in our room with Yamamoto-san on the second night.

Here is a word of advice. If you come to Uji, eat at the steakhouse. It is absolutely sensational. The degree of care taken is unlike anything I have seen before. Not only is the cut of steak selected, but you can see the origin of the beef and the pedigree of the specific cow! In our case, both cuts of steak were sourced from Kyoto beef. A serial number allows you to check the specific cow that your steak has come from.

The steak is cooked in front of you on a stainless steel plate, then cut into strips so that you can eat with chopsticks. It’s served with two or three dipping sauces, but try some first without the sauce, just to savour the taste of the beef. I genuinely believe that this is among the best food (not just steak) that I have ever eaten.

Dinner in the room is a different matter entirely. First your room is carefully reassembled for dining by one of the traditionally-dressed maids. Then progressively you will be served with the various dishes that are on the menu for that evening. We had grilled fish, a selection of sashimi and shabu-shabu among other things.

Shabu-shabu is a little like the chinese “steam boat” consisting of a small pot of boiling dashi (stock) into which you drop vegetables, tofu and fish (in our case).

I’m not sure that I’ve really done it all justice, but be sure to visit Uji if you’re in the region. It’s about a 20 minute train ride from Kyoto and well worth the trip!

Leaving Comments

So far, although I have had quite a few emails, I haven't had any comments on the blog! Would be very happy to receive some at this point!!!

Around Uji

These are just some fairly random shots taken in and around Uji. From the top; a statue commemorating "The Tale of Genji" and 11th century novel set in Uji; The Byodo-in Temple, one of the most famous temples in japan, it's featured on the Japanese 10-Yen coin, a view of Ujigawa; the old "main road" out of Uji; a tower, it was explained to me as having been built by the locals early in the 20th century because "they didn't have one".

Uji

Kyoto is the "Old Capital" of Japan. Basically it was the capital until the opening of Japan in the mid nineteenth century. Until that time, the royal family and all the various diplomats and politicians were based in Kyoto. As a result, Kyoto has always considered itself the cultural centre of Japan and felt itself to be more sophisticated that Tokyo.

About twenty kms from Kyoto, set on Ujigawa River is the small town of Uji. In the past, Uji has been something of a retreat for the wealthy citizens of Kyoto to make their escape. A slower pace for the heavy hitters of the 18th century if you will.

We stayed in a ryokan (traditional Inn) called Hanayashiki Ukifune. The pictures below show the inn from the outside, our rooms and the view from our rooms. The view of the bridge over Ukigawa was literally a "point and shoot" picture taken on our arrival.

What happened to the Bike Ride?

Hello, hello...

Sorry that there've been no posts for the last few days. We've been in Uji, which is a small town outside Kyoto and we had no internet access there. Uji was our next stop after Miyajima, land of monkeys and deers. Some folks might know that we intended to go to a bike ride across the islands after that. Unfortunately the delay in the trip from Narita to Hiroshima meant that we lost a day. This combined with a weather forecast for typhoons, meant that the bike ride wasn't such a good idea.

As it happened, typhoons are now forecast for tomorrow in Tokyo, but I don't think we'll have too much trouble.

So, the next couple of posts will be from Uji. Enjoy!

Miyajima

Today we went to Miyajima, a small island just off Hiroshima. The entire island is heritage listed. It's famous for Temples, monks, slightly aggressive deer and highly aggressive monkeys. It also serves some of the mosts sensational oysters you'll ever want to eat. Perhaps it's most famous though for the O-Torii Gate, a bright orange temple gate built in the sea. You can walk to it at low tide, but it appears to be rising from the sea when the tide is in.

Day Three - Hiroshima

We discovered that Hiroshima has trams! Well it wasn't a discovery really. We already knew, but was kind of impressive to see them anyway.

This Picture is the A-Bomb Dome. It's an old government building that was left standing after the bomb.

The Tokyo Peace memorial and peace museum. Somewhat understandably, Hiroshima is very keen on the idea of peace.

The timber building is the Hiroshima castle. The original was destroyed by the bomb and this was rebuilt in its place. It follows the original design as closely as possible. It's surrounded by a moat which, while not infested by crocodiles, does have some very large carp and a turtle or two.

Akino morphed into a samurai while we were at Hiroshima Castle. Unfortunately the weight of the helmut cut short an otherwise promising career.