Big Japan Trip Take Two: Our Final Days

Best Laid Plans....get ruined by typhoons

After our trip to Hokkaido, we were left with 5 (five) days in Japan. The last one not really counting cause that's the day you try to shove everything into your suitcase, innit?
We had wanted to go to Hakone again, to see the lakes and do the mountain trail and ropeway circuit and try the egg ice cream, but the typhoon that had hit Vietnam a few days before was blowing over the Kyoto region, along with another typhoon hitting other areas. The forecast for Hakone was bleak. We were sad and disappointed but managed to fill our time in other ways.

Return to Ueno

First we went back to Ueno, because the zoo there is Tokyo's oldest zoo. It's large and spans across a main road - to access the otherside you can take the zoo's monorail or walk over a huge bridge, within the zoo boundaries.

Flamingo chick

I like zoos. Zoos are important: They educate people about animals around the world, habitats and conservation. They allow people to see creatures they may never see around the world, either because they're rare or because they will never travel to that region OR, as is often the case, they don't see them despite travelling to that place.  This zoo is no different - they have bred pandas and have managed to breed various raptors and other animals. However I found myself disgusted and angry at times by what I consider, as a frequent-zoo-visitor and outsider (so I may be wrong here, and I would welcome the keepers of the zoo to argue back, but that's unlikely, so....) to be a lack of basic care of some of their animals.

The polar bears were a prime example. The weather in Tokyo that day was 34 degrees, complete sunshine, with the occasional shower, felt like 39 degrees. The Polar Bear enclosure had water, good. It had that crap plastic, "we're making it look like the arctic" environment.  The bears were out of the water, on land, where there was no shade. No drinking water, other than what they swim in. They were panting and languishing in the sun. Polar Bears, let's not forget, have thick fur made for sub-zero temperatures. There was no visible or physical sign of airconditioning; the enclosure was the same temperature as the otherside of the fence and there was no cooling water spray system in place. They were suffering.

I have been to many zoos but I have never seen animals suffering like that. It made me angry that such a basic thing as providing polar bears with shade and a cool environment - their indoor enclosure, if needs be cause fuck the public's desire to see them, frankly - was not provided for these poor animals. Have you ever seen a polar bear pant? It's not pretty. 
A stark contrast to the neighbouring enclosure for the Hokkaido black bear; shaded, complete with cool water misting over it. You can see the ground is wet from the photo.

The Asiatic lion, too, was suffering from the heat. He was panting and drooling and showing signs of over-heating. He too had a water pool, but unlike the enclosure next to his, it was not freshly running water. It was a tepid and unattractive looking pool. I felt sorry for the lion - it's possible he had been drinking, but I can't help but feel that if you can't lead the horse to drink during a heatwave, then there's something wrong with what you are offering, not with the horse.

The meercats, too, were the saddest, motheaten meercats I have ever seen in my life, and they're not hard to keep happy. It could be that they're simply old and on their way out, hence the smaller enclosure (there were only about 5) and they were at least indoors.

Those three animals excluded, it's not a bad zoo - it has a wide range of habitats to explore and many birds, mammals, insects and reptiles. Unfortunately, it was seeing those three animals not looking as well-cared for as all the others, that marred the visit.

Photos of zoo animals

Japan's Greatest Stand Up Comedian

When the laws regulating Airbnb came in, Airbnb gave us a £100 voucher to spend on airbnb experiences. Unfortunately, I messed up - you have to pay for all experiences at once, it's not a code that gets applied to your account, so we only got to spend it on a single experience: a live stand up show in Asukusa, Tokyo, with a private audience with said comedian.

It seemed like it could be a lark, so we booked it.  We were two of 6 - 3 couples, one from England (near Milton Keynes, as it happens) and a Spanish couple who are currently living and working in Wisconsin (poor souls).  We each had a drink on the house and we spent time getting to know each other and letting the comedian practise his English on us - which we were paying for him to do, really. #cynic

The show consisted of two parts, the first setting the scene for Stand Up comedy in Japan (there is none) and why Meshida wanted to be a comic.  There were a lot of jokes that hit home and he interacts well with the audience. One or two jokes were still a little rough - the delivery was a bit too... blunt, I guess. I can't think of a better way of putting it. There were times when it was clear that he didn't quite 'get' the way that "English stand up humour" worked, but there was humour in itself as well.

Tokyo Skytree, Asahi beer-glass shaped building, the flame

The second half still needs some work, but we learned things too - he spoke about religion (though there could have been more about that, particularly about weddings in Japan) and how Shinto Buddhism came to be and the difference between Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

We also learned about the strange art sculpture outside the Asahi building, which is famous. Japanese locals call it the golden turd, apparently.  Originally it was upright, and one of three  - they were flames. Then the buildings behind it complained because the three flames were blocking all of the natural light. They took away two flames. Still a problem. So they laid the third flame down, in the position you see in the photo.  I mean, the French are known for their art, but this particular piece is a monstrosity in its size. (It was a French artist)

There were quite a lot of on-going jokes, though Meshida hasn't quite got the hang of call-backs and recurring jokes. When we made a joke referring to one he'd made, he thought we had actually seen the thing happen. It will be really interesting to see how he develops in the next few years and to see if he perseveres and breaks through.

At the moment, the majority of people who see his shows are English tourists, Americans and Japanese hoping to practise their English.  What Meshida has done, quitting his job to become a comedian, was also a source of discussion for him - it married up very well with Convenience Store Woman, which I reviewed earlier this month.

He was thoroughly pleasant and has some good material. I hope that he won't be asked if he'd like more tea* and continues to do what he clearly loves doing.

*In Japan, if you're offered more tea at a restaurant, it usually means, "we've noticed you're taking a long time. Please leave."

Final Days

Well, it was raining or really really hot. We spent one of the really hot days shopping, making the most of the last day of our JR Pass. We went to Akihabara, so that Hubbo could buy a Sega Saturn. And controllers.  I got a pair of joycon sticks, so we can multiplayer the Taiko drum game on the switch. Unfortunately everywhere was sold out of the drum controller, so we've preordered on playasia, which works out for the best, because look how full the Merch Suitcase is.

At least it closes without squashing anything, but good grief.  I was reluctant at first to let him get the controller, because of how frickin' huge the box is. However it cost £7 in Japan and on ebay it's £70+, so it's very difficult to say no to that. I mean, what a bitch I would have been, right? The Saturn itself is in great nick (they look after and do up second-hand stuff so much better than in the UK where they will sell you things in "good condition" that you think, "good god why have they destroyed it?").

We spent time in Ikebukero as well. It was super hot that day - we scuttled back to our flat by 4pm because it was just unbearable. We also decided that it made sense to book a cheap hotel room at the airport, rather than getting up at 4am for a 10am flight.  So we tidied up, packed up and just chilled out for half a day. Which Hubbo finally admitted he needed - he had fun, but he's tired out from all the travelling we've been doing.

Big Japan Trip Take Two: "How can they make beer out of grape juice? That's just wine."

Sapporo: It has beer.

We spent our day half-soggy, as it started raining at about 12pm and lasted until about 7pm. There may have been a lull while we were inside the beer museum, but it's debateable.

We had a clear plan: Go to the Botanic Garden, Visit the Old Government building, See the Clocktower, Go to the Beer Museum, Eat Ramen.

Well, as with most of our plans, it was sketchy and we reordered as required or found that our plan was unattainable.

We went to the Botanic Garden! 

That was easy enough and thoroughly pleasant, though with its faults.  First, there was the inane ticketing system. There was a man in the booth, who directed us to the ticket purchase machine (a vending machine, basically). We bought the tickets, which were little card slips. Then we went back to the man in the booth, who indicated we place the ticket into the box in front of him. That was it. No hole-punching, no turnstyle... If he wasn't there, people could just walked in. I mean, the thing is not as well funded as Cambridge's, the greenhouse made that obvious - lovely though the whole garden is! - but what is the point in that man's job?!?!   He is living proof that we are only being semi-replaced by robots in our jobs. He doesn't have to interact with customers and he is still being paid. The cynical, capitalist-raised side of me thinks, "god, what a waste of a wage. They could easily stick a barrier that requires the ticket to get through, same as the train station."  

Gorgeous waterlily

The garden had multiple sections, all clearly demarked and sign posted (though we later found the sign posts are less than accurate). There was the marsh area, the ethnobotanical area, the Alpine Rock garden (Granddad had most of those), the Canadian Rock Garden, the Rose Garden, The Lilac Garden - hey, we missed that one :( - the Shrub Garden, the Herbacious garden, the Greenhouse, The Aboretum (tree garden if you don't know that word, it was all elms) and I'm sure I missed one just now. You get the idea. Big, windy, well spaced, pretty, loads of insects. We saw honeybees, which are bigger than our honeybees, lots of dragonflies, some brimstone-style butterflies and some whites and what I think was of the fritilliery group (google says yes). Also a lot of mosquitos.  👎

There were some truly beautiful waterlilies - one set reminded me of Tove Jansson's illustrations of waterlilies in the Moomin books. They were stunning colours. I took great pleasure photographing them. UNFORTUNATELY some numpty forgot to label them with what they were. I swear, they were the only plant without a name.

It was nice walking around and we saw a lot of amusing typos and spelling errors, as well as being able to enjoy the quiet together. We also saw a small family - parents and their daughter, who was about 5. She had a massive DSLR camera, the size of her head with a decent lens attached and she was taking photos of her mother. At one point, mum is posing on a bridge and the daughter is standing there, camera to face, shouting directions and instructions for where mum is meant to look (wistfully over the water, apparently) Dad and I found this hysterical. So cute.

There were also two mini museums in the gardens - one a memorial hall to the creator of the garden and the other a sort of anthropological folk musuem, with artifacts of the indigenous people of the island. "The Asians of the North."  It's amazing how even though their paths are unlikely to have crossed, the things we saw there were almost interchangeable with the sorts of things you'd see in a museum about indigenous peoples of Canada or Alaska. The main difference was in clothing style. There was an impressive coat made out of tree bark, barely destinguishable from the cotton version. Simply amazing. 

Photos from the Botanic Garden:

We went to the Old Government Building

I think I mentioned in the previous entries that Sapporo is a fairly new town, with the surrounding culture heavily influenced by its trading partners - that is, Western influences.

Well, I got to go into an American governmental building without even visiting the States. It was uncanny. There were some parts where I thought I was on set for a film I've seen. It was really interesting, just for that! The way that they dressed from the 1800s and the photos of past Kaitakushi leaders indicated that they mimicked the way the leaders of the West would dress. One from looked a lot like one of the King Edwards and another looked like Stalin (as did many people at the time), despite their having their own distinct way of dressing, still. 

There is a section of the building that dedicates itself to explaining the Hokkaido way of life, before it was changed so dramatically by Western influences, though it does so poorly. It seems to me that a lot of the changes (particularly winter dress) came about through necessity.

Where the photos suddenly shrink in size and quality, it's cause it was raining so hard I chose to use my phone instead of getting expensive camera wet.

Photos from the Government Building:

We finally found the Clock Tower!

It had become a bit of a joke, because whenever I saw a clock (there happen to be a lot in Sapporo, all varying heights and tower-like) I'd say, "there's the clock tower". To the point where Hubbo got confused later on about whether or not we'd actually seen it.

We did not see it. We found it, yes! However it's under renovation, so it's completely covered by building stuff and unviewable from the street. Failure~  It seemed somewhat typical that we would find something we'd somehow missed every time we walked in that area and it wasn't available when we finally got there.

We got Ramen!

I mentioned there were rumours of a Ramen street. We spent ages walking through the rain, following google maps and unable to find it... then boom! A teeny tiny passageway between two buildings was lined with the tell-tale lanterns and cloth doorways.  We ordered our ramen and it was all made completely fresh on site - a lot of places just make the broths up that day and are super salty, to keep it going all day... this was not as salty and tasted gorgeous. I had roast pork with noodles in a miso soup - the chef had sprinked ground ginger or something over mine and the ginger was honestly perfectly harmonising with the miso. Hubbo enjoyed his, he went for a fish broth-based one. It was super yummy.

We went to the Sapporo Beer Museum!

It took us a while - there were many routes to take: on foot, by train then on foot, by train then on foot (less distance) or by loop bus. We tried to get the bus, but couldn't work out where it collected from. So we got the train and then walked the rest of the way, about 15 minutes.

The building was pretty easy to spot from a distance - its 15.5m red-brick chimney with the star icon on the top was a bit of a give away. It really is a gorgeous building, a fine piece of 19th Century brickwork. According to the video in the "mini theatre", it was built using the English Bond, (where they have a row of stretchers above a row of headers) which is "seen as a rational, sound way to lay bricks".  I love how passive the sentence came out in translation, as though they've not seen the rationality and structurally soundness for themselves, just heard it on the grapevine.

There were several men involved in the beer brewing history of Sapporo beer, with the Kaitakushi being instrumental in building up the industry. One of the main figures was educated in England and learned about breweries and what have you there, and the other was taught how to brew beer in Germany (which explains the flavours, if you ask me).   The city of Sapporo was pretty much built around the beer industry. The brewery building itself started life as a sugar factory, and was converted in the 1800s. Then after only 60 years it was reconverted into the museum. Before the sugar factory was recommissioned, the beer company began its life in Tokyo, but there wasn't enough access to ice and snow, which Hokkaido has plenty of!

They had plenty of displays, showing how the brand has evolved over time - bottle label designs and advertisement posters. To start with, pretty much only pretty women holding a beer. It isn't till later that men started to be included, displaying a bit more diversity in appearance and dress, too.

We also got a bag of "nuts"!

Entry to the museum is free, and there is a free self-tour with notes available in English, Chinese and Korean. There is a premium tour, complete with a beer tasting at the end, however it cost a fair bit and it was all in Japanese. As it happened, we got more beer this way, because it was only 600yen for three taster glasses, compared to the price of the tour where you only got two. Though apparently one of the tasters was a dark ale that Hubbo really wanted to try. BUT WE GOT CHEESE, so let me ask you this: Who are the real winners here?  [Answer: we are, we got cheese]

Personally, I liked the Kaitakuchi beer best, followed by the classic and I liked the Dark Label least. For Hubbo, it was the other way around. He has always liked stronger flavours, though my friends and I suspect it's cause I have more tastebuds per square cm on my tongue, so I can taste more full stop. #sophisticatedpalate

I didn't much care for the aftertaste of the last one and the classic had an edge to its aftertaste that was reminiscent. I'm not a beer-y person, anyway. I'd much rather bright, fruity drinks that may or may not come with a mini umbrella.

Photos:

How today's blog got its title

We decided to retreat to the hostel, as our phones were out of juice and we're beginning to run low on cash for the last few days and want to be able to buy some things.  We ordered a pizza between us (it was ok - the dough was gooey and soft) and Hubbo ordered one of This Month's beers, which was a grape flavoured ale. It tasted like a flavoured up Shloer. Which prompted Hubbo to explain why he'd chosen this one over the brown ale - because he wanted to see "how they can make beer out of grape juice, that's just wine."

Big Japan Trip Take Two: Home of the Herring Mansion

A small fishing town

The canal, complete with factories and store houses

We went for a day trip to Otaru on recommendation of just about every website to do with Hokkaido and Sapporo. It is a harbour town, complete with a large bay and relatively short canal, built up in the 1800s. It is right in the mountains and the train journey there from Sapporo is pretty, with a lot of coastal views as you get closer. 

We spent pretty much all day walking, largely because we didn't have any set plan of what we wanted to do. We found the canal easily, where they charge muppets about £12 for a boat ride along the canal for 40 minutes - it's a very short stretch that they do, as well.  Not worth it - you can walk it for free. It's not like Cambridge, where at least if you're being punted you get some historical background to what's along the river.

What is along THIS river is a bunch of old factory and warehouses from the early 1900s, some of them rare in that they'd been built entirely with brick, which is unusual for Japan. They have all been converted into restaurants and things - it reminded us of the ruin bars in Budapest. 

We walked along the road parallel to the bay and enjoyed the view and then trekked to the botanic garden which, it turns out, is set into a mountain side. There was a delightful sign on a small residential road warning us that it was about to be a 20% incline, only slightly mitigated by my wedges. It was an interestingly landscaped garden and we saw a lot of things while we were there and on our way to it. I saw a beautiful lizard but Hubbo was in the way and then he moved and the lizard hid in the brush so I couldn't photograph it. It was about 20cm long nose to tail and it was irridescent stripy and blue, with the last half of its tail completely blue. After looking it up online, I'm fairly confident it was the five-lined skink, which is common and younger skinks have bright blue tails - which was visible even when it was in the brush.

We saw butterflies, a variety of spiders and webs, giant ants - Hubbo got chased by a wasp/bee/hornet/large aggressive winged hellbeast. Then we walked all the way down, taking a shortcut that google guided us to. 

Fishing Town means Fish for Lunch

One place tourists are guided to is an indoor fish market, which also has a restaurant or two. We chose one and waited in a queue for a table to be made free. It was interesting seeing people coming and going from restaurants to pick up fresh ingredients for the next dish they were murdering cooking. I have never seen so many live crabs in one place at once, not even when we went crabbing in Blakeney. 

Hubbo had the "Season Special" bowl, which meant there was a bit of everything.  Prawns, shrimp, tuna, sea urchin (the current in-season thing), salmon roe, whelk. He ate all of it.  I've been feeling a bit off the last 24 hours so I played it safe and got grilled salmon and grilled sablefish, which I've never had before, and a bowl of rice. Ok, yeah I had to work around the bones, but the salmon was good. The sablefish was delicious. A fatty fish, so it was soft and tender and it broke apart fairly easily. It was well worth the wait (it came a while after the rest of our food).

Safe Passage and Good Business Blessings

There was a sign for a bus towards the cable car that would take us up to the summit of Mount Tengu, so named because... nobody's really sure. Some people think that people who'd travelled to Hokkaido missed their mountain which was called Tengu so they named another it. Some people think it looks like Tengu, a goblin or mountain god, others think that he was made on the mountain... either way, he has a long phallic nose and there were a lot of masks and statues inside the museum by the gift shop.

By rubbing his nose at the summit shrine, you're apparently blessed with safe travel and good business opportunities.




It was a strange station at the summit. There was the main building, which had the observation deck upstairs, a gift shop, small museum, restaurant etc. Then outside there was jazz piano playing all the time, a chipmonk enclosure, a shrine which had a fairylights walkway, some coloured lighting on a couple of birch trees for no obvious reason other than to make them different colours and what appeared to be an unused ropeway from the past. There was also a rentable blow up dome tent, which they sprayed with insect repellent. By the time dusk arrived, I rather wished we were in said bubble, but I don't think I've been bitten again*.

We walked along the woodland path a bit, as well, and saw other parts of the area surrounding Otaru, which was nice. We would have done the complete path but it became an unbeaten track and I didn't fancy it in my wedgets. Why am I wearing impractical shoes? Because my toe needed some air today - I've got a minor problem with my toenail again, it would seem. I didn't even have pinchy shoes this time, I think it's just triggered by walking on swollen feet for hours.

After a while we decided it was time to head back to Sapporo for the evening - Hubbo is sunburnt and tired (probably heat exaustion as well) and I was feeling headachy (also sun exposure, though I wear suncream, so no burns here!).

Tomorrow we're going to explore Sapporo a bit better and visit the brewery!

Photos:



* I got two: one on each ankle. 👎

Big Japan Trip Take Two: Sapporo #1

We should have brought our jackets

We knew it would be cooler. The forecast said it would be cooler. It's further north and therefore would be cooler. We failed to put our jackets on this morning at 6.15 when we left, because it was already boiling in Tokyo.

We got off the flight and began to shiver in the cloudy, breezy, 23 degree climate. Hokkaido is completely different - it is flatter for larger sections of countryside and Sapporo, its main city, has the feel of a small, westernised city. The area we are staying in, I could easily compare to areas of Essen in Germany - you know, built up, wide streets, fairly nice but not shiny in the way bigger, expensive cities are, not empty but not busy and a hint of an industrialised past.

Sapporo isn't an industrial city in the same sense though - it is largely known for its fishing ports and trading ports and of course, its beer. We'll be visiting the brewery at some point in the next two days, along with the Herring Mansion (yes, that's a thing!). 

After depositing our stuff, we went to a clothing department store to find a jumper for each of us. Annoying that we didn't bring our jackets, but I managed to spend as little as possible and we both like our jumpers enough to keep them. [Horribly aware the idea is to leave clothes behind]

We found a restaurant that was open early enough for us to eat, before the crowds but also before we starved - we hadn't eaten since breakfast at the airport, nearly 10 hours earlier! Two of the local dishes are seafood donburi (donburi being meat ontop of rice) and a curry soup thing.  We had salmon sashimi and roe donburi which was really nice. I'm not a fan of curried things unless I can choose which spices and how hot etc, so I'll leave that one to Hubbo.

Our hostel is hipster enough to be comfortable and modern feeling but with a hint of pretention about its concrete pillars, bare lightbulbs and stripped concrete surface on the first floor. It'll do. The bed is the softest and most comfortable bed we've had all month so I will NOT mind sleeping on that. 

We mostly wandered around and got a feel of the place - it's heavily Westernised, but there was some sort of local festival happening down a side street. There are rumours of a Ramen Street. There is a clock tower, but it's not the thing I photographed with a giant digital clock on, oh no, that's the t.v. tower or something. Pretty at night, either way.

Big Japan Trip Take Two: Tokyo Dome and Ueno

Tokyo Dome: A place to take your children

It is chiefly a sports arena but around it is an entire complex fitted out with a rollercoaster (not for children), amusement park rides  - viking boat, up-and-down thing, ferris wheel, roundabouts etc - a waterpark, tonnes of eating outlets and stands and merchandise shops. 

It was nice to wander around - it had a great atmosphere, if you weren't queuing for the day's baseball game tickets. 

It was not entirely what we had in mind for our day's excursion so after browsing some fandom shops, we hopped on another train towards Ueno, which has a massive park and zoo.

Ueno Park

I couldn't think of a take away phrase or title for this. It is simply a huuuuuuge park that spans two sides of the road, encompassing a huge zoo (the oldest in Tokyo), a temple and 5-story pagoda, a giant lilly lake and a pond with pedalo boats.

We arrived too late to go to the zoo and appreciate it properly - last entries were 4.30, closing at 5. We got there at 4.15, and one had to have queued for the giant pandas (it was one of the panda's birthday that day) by 4 and you weren't guaranteed to even get to see them. 

So we'll go back at the end of the week next week - we've not done a zoo this time round and it'll be a change of pace. 

The park took us a couple of hours to walk around and I'm sure we didn't see everything. We started with a memorial bench and trees planted by Ulysses S Grant, or General Grant as he was back then. 

Then we followed a path that led to a temple. It was quite a bit older looking than others we have seen and we took the opportunity to write down our hopes and wishes on a charm to add to the wall this time. I also bought a "Children's Happiness" charm for my classroom. I might glue it to the underside of a particular group's table...! #tryanything

The giant lilly lake was a real change of scene for us - they stood about a meter and a half tall out of the water and went as far as the eye could see, with the edge of the park marked by a few tall buildings. There was another temple and shrine there, which had particularly good smelling incense. 

We decided to go for a ride in a pedaloboat which was a mistake because Hubbo was way too tall for it and was distorted and the seat was bang upright, with my spine riding against the ridge of it as I tried not to scrape the bottom of my wedges against the boat. It was very nice just I have an actual bump bruise on my back! And yes, I'm sure it's not just my vertebrae sticking out! Hubbo tried that question too. It's a bruise and it's raised flesh. So. There.  Had a nice view though and got to see how people behaved in their boats. Just because their swan was wearing a bow tie did not mean they were dapper on the water.  I almost got to photograph some non-mallard ducks! Exciting! But a couple of teens powered their way up and chased them. #unimpressed

Ueno's mascot is the illusive panda

Then we walked around for a bit after dark, looking for a place to eat and spend some time. There was an area where it was similar to areas of London - you know, built under a railway line and all shacks and lights. We found a bar with cheap snacks and drinks and got carried away.

Then we walked over to a karaoke place to carry on the fun - Hubbo will do it when it's a private room and Bad Religion is popular enough in the country to have loads of songs by them. It's great to see that side of him.

Photos from Ueno Park