We arrived in Japan having really enjoyed the warmer and less developed southern Asia, somewhat nervous about hitting cold weather for the first time on our travels – the northern hemisphere winter. Having just been in 35-40 degrees it was going to be a shock. And it hit us immediately we left the airport building! We were met by a guide to help us onto the bus via the Japanese JR rail office to pick up our JR national rail pass and 14 sets of different tickets which we were taken through one by one and had a very briefing on the ins and outs of the Japanese rail system and how to get around on your own with loads of bags and young kids!! We then got on a bus having queued up in row 3 then 2 and then 1 as the buses came in. We were on the bus for nearly 2 hours from the airport to our hotel. Narita airport is 70km from Tokyo downtown!
We were staying at the Hilton Tokyo – I am not quite sure why – it was quite a way from anywhere and was not particularly nice but fine/OK. The objective of Tokyo was to find out what Tokyo was like compared to London and to see and maybe buy a robot – Toby has been saving up for 2 years to buy a robot (we think as a slave - Which we were all in favour of!). Our guide – Katsumi arrived and off we went on the Tokyo tube and train system around the city. First stop the main temple – Buddhist – down a long shopping open air arcade full of Japanese goods – all in Japanese. We tried some sweets which had sweet potato paste in – which the Japanese adore but we did not like at all! We shook our sticks in the temple to pick out our numbers and our luck charts – Toby and Megan got very good luck – the rest of us just good luck! We saw old Japanese streets, Kimonos and thick clog style flip-flops in the shops – which apparently few people wear these days! We saw a special Japanese city garden and then went on a boat trip (a bit like the Thames!) but we saw old Japanese mixed in with big city life and high-rise residential and commercial blocks. We had hot drinks from the vending machine in the street – café au lait – in a can and it wasn’t bad at all – shame I had to put coins in the machine rather than pay for it with my mobile phone (as others were including paying for their tube tickets!) It was just another day in the developed Japanese world. We walked around the Imperial Palace Park where the black Pine trees (similar to the trees in Carmel/Monterey!) get wrapped in winter and individually protected against the snow and where the duck catching by the Emperor with nets, not guns, all took place. We then went to the “Tea House” and Katsumi kindly took us through the Tea ritual kneeling on Tatami mats. The tea (Green tea) was revolting but the ritual very calming. We moved on to the National Museum where we had a Japanese picnic lunch outside (cold but sunny so it was quick) of sushi, Seaweed sandwiches and rice – all eaten with chopsticks – even Meggie). We had a history tour and lesson around the museum which had Shogun outfits, swords from 600 and each century since then and huge amounts of pottery and historic pictures.
The history lesson covered these key points:
· Japan started 2650 yrs ago when the 1st Emperor was named, being the son of God. We are now on Emperor 125 and Japan is the only country in the world to have an Emperor. And the only person in the world that the Queen would bow to!
· The Indigenous Japanese were actually like the Inuit Indians – which makes sense cos when Laurasia was together (200m yrs ago) Japan and Alaska would have joined. The first Japanese were actually from Korea (and before that from ancient China) although Japanese and korean have no similarities whatsoever.
· The original capital in 700 AD was Nara until 1603 when it moved to Kyoto during the Edo period. Until 1603 the Emperors had ruled since the first one, although the first Shogun government was in 1162 the Emperor still ruled. In 1603 the Shoguns took over and ruled the country – there was only one Shogun although there were regional shoguns who had their power bases and they were called Daimyo’s. The Emperor was kept in the Kyoto Imperial Palace and had no power other than their title – so effectively they were in exile over this period. The Shoguns ruled for 265 yrs or so until 1868. At this time America sent 4 Black ships to help persuade the then Shogun to give up power back to the Emperor and to open up the country to trade and development – as a closed country Japan had fallen very behind – hard to believe today but could explain part of its driving force! The capital was moved to Tokyo (previously called Edo) from Kyoto, in around 1868 when the Edo period ended. The Emperors have ruled ever since with a prime minister who holds all the real power – similar to the UK’s Queen and Prime Minister. But the main thing is Japan has been democratic ever since 1868.
· The structure of society was Emperor (1), Shogun (1), Daimyo (250~ in Japan), Samurai, Ninja, Farmers and commercial workers.
· Each Japanese person eats (?800kg) of Rice per year – and all the Rice eaten gets grown in japan – but the Rice farmers are poor and all over 65 yrs old – none of the young are interested in becoming Rice farmers as the prices are controlled to be kept low. The Prime minister harvests an acre of rice (as light as snow) each yr and it is televised!
· The average age of a Japanese woman is 88 and men is 85 – due to the healthy food they all eat.
· At the end of the 2nd world war as a condition of surrender the Japanese Emperor had to go on the Radio and announce that he was not the “Son of God” and that Japan had surrendered although apparently it sounded a bit like “The war has not gone well for us” was as much admission as the Emperor could muster.
We travelled around via a very efficient and actually quite easy to follow tube and train system in Japan. Your JR pass is invaluable and gets you onto all trains as part of it – except the super fast bullet train – Nimoko – although no-one can explain why? We ended up in Electric city, which was the other end of the historical spectrum from all the J history! Ian remembered Electric city as being so much more advanced than the products in Europe – but actually apart from a few twisting DoCoMo phones there was not really anything that we have not see in Europe. We could not find any robots in the normal electronic shops. Katsumi had really looked after us incredibly well and was an incredibly nice guy – very helpful and friendly. And his English was very good that we learned a lot from him about Tokyo. We look forward to welcoming Katsumi in the UK when he takes the tours there! We ended up back at our hotel and set out insearch of a safe family Japanese meal and found it Teppanyaki – absolutely delicious but the shock of the cost in Japan suddenly hit us – we had eaten for a week in southern Asia for the price of our first meal in Japan!
The next day we were on our own with Ian guiding us on the Tokyo railway system – no chance!! We set off in search of robots having done some research overnight via the hotel Concierge. We set off on a 3 connecting train and then a tram treck across the city to the Museum of Modern Science at the Tokyo educational park. This basically has all the new things that Japan is developing which are not all out there yet. The first floor was Food Science – where we learnt about Euglena, a bacteria being developed to create food pills for when food supplies run short in the world; we learnt about the eating habits of the worlds nations where the USA eats the most Kcals per person per year and the Japanese eat the least! And how 1bn of the worlds 6.8bn people are in the starvation zone; and what McDonalds process is to produce a burger in 50 secs from customer order.
The next floor was robots – finally we had hit robots. There was a great demo of how the internet worked – helped us all – we had robots that went into firezones to help people get out. Robots that picked up on peoples moods and played the right music. And then we had “Asimo” a real person Robot developed by Honda. Asimo walked, waved, talked, danced, ran and answered questions and reacted to being asked to dance etc…. All absolutely awe-inspiring. We had a 30 minute demonstration and the whole audience was blown away. I have no idea how much Asimo cost but it seems Honda are nearly there on a marketable product. We then saw a huge globe 30m in diameter – with the world moving around on the TV style surface – again an amazing site. There were some other rockets and stuff about how the human race could conquer the outer galaxies in the future but we decided Asimo had really done our heads and so we set off for the Sony building and the Apple store in downtown Tokyo Ginza shopping district (like New Bond St) . We had visited the Sony Building in New York last July and seen a wide range of amazing products and some robots – the true home of Sony in Tokyo – had one robot but some amazingly thin 3mm TV’s, cool 3D and internet TV’s already loaded with Youtube (sadly not yet 123webtv!!) There was a small dancing robot called Rolly that dances to the MP3 music it was playing and we saw a cool TV wall to put in our basement (having saved up!!) when it is finished! But sadly no other robots. Then on to Apple and we were taken around by Lev, an Estonian Japanese speaker, who helped show Sam that Japans Apple Macbook laptop was the cheapest in Japan versus China and the Uk and that he really needed to buy it now! Bearing in mind he saved nearly £200 it was a very good deal – thanks Lev (Sam is now really enjoying it and Apple have yet again showed what amazing products they make!!) (We now have 11 Apple products with us – 2xiphone, 1 broken iphone that works as an itouch, 1 itouch, 5 ipods, 1 Macbook Air & now 1 Macbook laptop! We could not have travelled around the world without them – they are all invaluable – I used to rile my friends for being Mac bores ad now I have turned into one!!). I am writing this on a bullet train from Hiroshima to Tokyo currently at 300kmph which is a good match for “fabulous product of all time award!” with Apples products.
We then went to find the robot shop we had been recommended in Electric City. Our taxi dropped us in the backroads of Electric city and we searched for the robot shop – eventually a kind Japanese lady took us all a few blocks and showed us up the 4 floors of stairs to the robot shop. How disappointing – the robots were not impressive – there was a moving seal at £3.5k and a poor cousin of Asimo at a few grand but none of them talked or moved other than walking and so our robot hunt for Toby ended – he made the brave decision not to waste his money on these robots and we left Electric city with Toby having his money left in his pocket!
We left the next day wishing we had had another day in Tokyo as we had been quite rushed doing the things we wanted to do. (Audley please note another day would have been good). We had mastered the Tokyo train system and got around quite easily and now it was time to learn about the Shinkansen Bullet train as we caught one to Kyoto.
It was an incredibly fast and smooth journey – easy. The only problem was that we got on an earlier train and were sitting in someone elses reserve seats and so were told off by the ticket collector. We got to our hotel The Granvia, right in the station, where we were due to stay for 6 nights and had to wait 3 hours before we were allowed to check-in. So we went to have lunch and check out the pool – no kids allowed in the pool!! The rooms we were given were at the other end of the hotel from each other (rather than interconnecting which all our other hotel rooms had been!) We were offered disabled rooms next to each other as an alternative which we declined - So we decided to move hotels as it clearly was not going to work being at this customer focussed family hotel for 6 nights!! The manager came out, having spoken to the travel agent and offered us one night in their executive suite – all in one room and not very executive – but a kind gesture. We stayed one night and were very glad we had made the decision to move as they were rules for everything it seemed – and that was just for Ian 7 Sheena – you can’t take your coffee their, you need to do this or that – you cannot share a table if you want the buffet meal versus a la carte!! The next day we thankfully left the “Rule, rules, rules” hotel glad we had escaped and wondered how on earth this hotel Granvia had a reputation for quality and 5-star service!
We moved to the Westin Myoko in Kyoto, where the staff were so helpful and friendly – the kids could swim in the pool and we could use the gym – and the food was pretty good too! We met our Kyoto guide – a great fun lady called Mie who taught us about Kyoto and kept the kids amused at the same time – and started off on the Kyoto tube – each station has its own dedicated colour and music clip – if you put the music clips together from each station then each tube line has its own famous tune – nice touch! We visited the Nijo castle first – having visited the Ninja and Samurai shop and bought Ninja throwing stars and nearly an ancient Japanese sword from the 900’s but we could not work out how or whether we could get it back to the UK. Nijo castle was built around 1603 by the first Shogun who ruled at that time. He built it in Kyoto because his main enemy was the Daimyo of the area and he thought this castle would help him keep control and also control of the Emperor who lived in the nearby Imperial Palace – and as the Emperor had just been thrown out of Japan the Shogun was not sure what games the Emperor might be up to – or even teaming up with his biggest adversary. The castle was beautiful classical old Japanese style – very minimalist and cool – moats, big walls and Japanese Gardens. And best of all, to support the story above about his fears locally, he had all the floors in the corridors squeak when you walked so that he could hear his enemies coming at night!! The rooms inside were simple and Tatami mats everywhere – the waiting rooms for the least respected guests had tigers on the walls (which weren’t in Japan in 1600’s) to intimidate their guests (Sounds like a Sky waiting room!). A great first castle example to see. The Shogun had many concubines – when a new one was introduced to the Shogun they had to bring him a cup of tea – if he did not like the new concubine he said – “You are not my cup of tea!” Apparently that is where the saying came from.
We then went to see an ultra expensive Kimono manufacturer where they were all made by hand and cost £20-30k each – Elton John had his kimono made there for one of his shows. Megan and Sheena both tried one on – a very interesting stop. We then went to a Shinto shrine – one with 10,000 gates – all orange and bought by local businesses to offer support for the gods. We drew on the wooden foxes and left our best wishes for the gods in the now normal way as we did at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. We rang the bell, clapped twice, bowed twice and said our prayer before throwing money into the collection bin; having of course washed our heads at the entrance before we came in with the holy water. Shinto is the religion of supporting your Emperor or any other god you would like to – but basically it says be good and do to others what you would have done to yourself. Buddhism is similar – it is like a mirror – so it sort of says I will help you where I can and give guidance but basically I am a real person like you, and so together we will help ensure you have as happy and as fruitful life as possible – but mainly it is up to you to do that – by being kind and helpful.
We have visited a lot of temples/Shrines in Asia – Hindu, Buddhist and Shinto – and the Japanese ones were definitely the simplest, purest form of temple. No real jewels and fancy stuff – just pure simple religion – and a few different types if you want it, when you want it. No pressure. Quite refreshing and as a result 60% are Buddhist and 40% Shintoists – so quite a few practice a couple – just to make sure the rice grows well!
We then were handed over from Mie to a guy called Duncan – who was going to show us the Geisha girl circuit and explain what it was all about. We met a true Brit who turned out to be from Hertfordshire originally, brought up in the next door village to Ian – what a small small world!! He had a Japanese mother and had studied Japanese and Chinese at Uni and had decided to try his luck in japan – had met another UK lady with a Japanese father – had got married and were a European couple living in Japan. (Japan does not have an immigration problem as to move to japan is really hard – you need to learn Japanese, eat Japanese food which is not easy but when you get through that the people are incredibly kind and friendly to live with apparently and it really is a great place to bring up kids!) Anyway Duncan was a real character and fascinated us with his stories of japan and Geisha girls. Speaking true fluent English we could ask all the difficult questions and understand his answers or dig deeper and Duncan really helped our understanding of Japan as he answered all the questions no-one else had understood! We then had a great tour of the Geisha district, seeing many Geisha girls.
About the Geisha girls - only 70 left - train apprentice at 15 for 7 yrs until 22 - then fully trained - go on until get married when they have to retire. Kyoto is only training place in japan - Geisha girls leave home to live with a new mum who invest £200k in them over the training period buying Kimonos at £20k each and they need one a month. Geisha girls are practiced in Japanese arts - caligraphy, flower arranging, poetry recital, Reading, singing and dancing. They earn money from entertaining in Tea houses – which cost £500 odd per person for a whole 7 course dinner etc... - which are private venues for members (men and women) - very discrete - the Panasonic Sanyo merger was done in Tea Houses but no-one leaked it - also invasion of Pearl Harbour was planned in Kyoto too. The Geisha girls get paid by the stick (incense burning stick at 50 minutes per stick) and at the end of the month they get a payment for the amount of sticks they have earned. Very elegant and unique skill – only 70 people in the world can do it.
The next day we saw a Kendo demo and Tai Chi competition locally - Tai chi very slow and considered - great balance. We saw Tai Chi with swords and all great balance as well - Kendo was bamboo sticks fighting with masks - like fencing but more aggressive - aim is to hit the opposition on the top of the head - then you win - young guys late teens/early twenties. They came over and showed us what it was and allowed us to have a go - very polite and friendly.
The next day we went to Nara - original capital for 1000 yrs - visited old Buddhist temple and Pagoda in Nara park grounds - very wet and cold but interesting still - huge Buddha and statues - deer wandering around - apparently are "messengers from god" and feeding them biscuits was interesting as they were quite feisty. Nara not as interesting as we thought it would be but we had no guide (other than Ian!) and we thought the town of Nara actually very boring and grey! (Sorry).
The next day we had booked to go to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto on an English speaking tour. The Palace was quite impressive and beautifully built in Japanese style - not used any more - it was used for around 1000 yrs as the Emperors home from 764 to 1868 when the Edo period finished, the emperor returned to power from the Shogun era and the capital was moved to Edo, which was immediately renamed as Tokyo (a play on Kyoto letters clearly!). We could not go in the palace but we saw the waiting rooms for the emperor and where the emperor used to live. The gardens were very beautiful and there is still one room which is used by the visiting Emperor when he comes - he comes on via one of 6 gates (only for the Emperor) and parks his car outside (no horse drawn carriages here anymore!) and the room had a mix of Japanese and western furniture. The gardens were very beautiful and serene - depicting the sea, mountains and islands as usual. The most interesting thing was the roofs of layered cypress tree bark, held together with bamboo nails - looked very good (until they became mouldy 25 yrs later). The biggest worry of the time was fire - all the buildings were of wood and joined together - so you could see why this was so. The kitchen was a completely separate building so as not to start anything.
We then went to visit something at the other end of the spectrum - Japans version of Universal studios - where Japanese action and Ninja movies had been made for 50 yrs or so. The 3D dinosaur movie was very good and the stage show of a typical Ninja/Samurai/Shogun swordfight - which Megan participated in and slayed the nasty Ninja on stage on her own with a Japanese Samurai sword!!! We saw Ninjas and were able to throw the Ninja stars at targets and hold swords and see lots of typical settings from Old Japan - all-in-all quite a fun afternoon out - and better than it's billing from reviews online!! It is also probably the place where the Power Rangers ideas were created !!
We did a day visit to Himeji castle – one of the top 3 Shogun castles and also home to the Honda clan is years gone by. It was very impressive and had an enormous 6 storey keep at the top of the castle which we climbed up. There was no furniture in the castle or the grounds just a few Shogun/Samurai outfits and swords. There was a copy of a legal contract were the Shogun had borrowed 2000 Koto which was repayable over 5 yrs at an interest rate of 1%! The castle was in great Nick but they had not made the most of the stories and the history of what actually happened which was a shame. We then went to the zoo on site which had a great array of animals like Polar Bears, Sea lions, Bears, Elephants and tigers but the animals had little space and so we left early.
It was then time to leave the Westin and Kyoto – we had done a lot of day trips from there by bullet and local JR train and seen a lot. It was time to visit Hiroshima for the day on the way to Miyajima island. Well H was very interesting. We visited the A-dome, the last remaining building within 2km of the blast. 140,000 people died from the Atomic bomb. The Japanese did the Rememberance museum and the history in the national museum of Peace with such class – as you would expect in Japan – Courteous and respectful like the people. It was all done as “We want this episode to be a lesson to all people that peace is more important than anything else and there is a flame burning which will burn until no Nuclear weapons are left in this world” – They are using the episode to tell everyone Peace is best. A great example of how it should be done. We visited the exact place where the A bomb exploded 580m above the ground causing heat of 4ooo degrees Centigrade and devastating everything above ground for a 2km radius – all a very good lesson – especially good history lesson for the boys.
We continued on South to one of Japans southern most islands - Miyajima island – a sacred island which has the oldest Shinto Shrine from 560 – 550 years before Angkor Wat. The Shrine was built on the sea when tide in – unique Shrine gate which you can just walk to at low tide and stands in the water 30m high when tide in. We walked to the highest point of the island (just smaller than Rarotonga) at Mt Misen 500m Above-sea-level – a very hard 3km walk up & 3km down! All good exercise and great views on a lovely sunny cold day. We stayed for 2 nights in a proper Japanese hotel – full Japanese food for Breakfast and dinner – Fish entrails, Fish liver etc….. We found the dinners great but could not get to grips with dried fish and fish entrails for breakfast!! The boys bought Samurai swords and we walked around the lovely old really Japanese old town. A lovely place to visit – we even had a couple of Japanese baths! It was a really nice end to our Japanese trip to stay in true Japanese normality – Japanese Tatami mats to sleep on, eat on with the low table and chairs with no legs at the Ryokan – and a maid to serve you your food.
We left Miyajima for a long days travel back to Tokyo to catch our plane to Beijing the following day – our travel day back to Tokyo consisted of 1 ferry – 4 trains plus interconnections between local and national bullet trains – all quite hard work but the Japanese yet again incredibly helpful.
It is difficult to summarise Japan Sand our 2-week trip here. We have really enjoyed it – we thought the history would be a lot more interesting than it was 8/10 instead of 10/10 (China is the most historical country in Asia so hopefully we will get it there!). Old Japan and Japanese buildings were incredibly cool and awe-inspiring – new Japan appeared grey and dark – with not very much interesting architecture outside of Temples and shrines. Tokyo and the rest of Japan felt to us like London and the UK – very similar but with Japanese people and language – so we did immediately feel at home. We felt safer here than in London and yet again our trip has been made enjoyable by the guides and other people we have met who have been so incredibly helpful and friendly – and courteous and respectful. It seems a great place to live if you can master the language and can live in smaller spaces than most places in the world. It was nice for Sheena to feel tall for a change as well. So again we move on sad to be leaving – but now getting a bit travel weary and a bit homesick. But our last part of the trip is almost the most interesting China for 2 weeks travelling around and then 6 weeks living in Suzhou near Shanghai – where the kids go to school. We are looking forward to our last country – it is the big one – the one which could become the dominant player in the world that we need to help our kids learn about and help them understand for the future to be a brighter place…….but at the moment it is bloody freezing there and we have no clothes for the really cold so we will be shopping as soon as we land in Beijing tomorrow……!!
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