Kyoto, at 6am.

Kyoto is pretty dead at 6am, even the salary men arent up yet. However, its a good time to go look at some temples before it gets crowded (if you can open your eyes enough). So we walked to some near the train station but they were all a little under-constructiony. Not so good for taking photos. I really was starting to dislike Kyoto at this point. A few temples and parks after, Kyoto started to wake up so we went to the museum of costume which had a small but really interesting exhibition on the Tale of Genji (some slightly seedy Japanese tale) and the costumes people wore. There was also an opportunity to play dress-up with some full-scale clothes so I got to make myself look important for a bit.
After lunch, we went to check in at our 'Bola Bola' guest house which is a pretty nice Japanese styled one (tatami floor futons, sliding doors) which I quite like. The woman gave us a map of the neighbouring town which had a lot of sightseeing places so we headed over after a rest. It was more like the Kyoto I had imagined. Old houses, small winding streets, forests and more temples and shrines than you could ever need. This started to bring my opinion of Kyoto back up. The main town with the station, is a bit of a hell hole, but it seems going outwards away from it, you can find some really nice villages. This one even had a bamboo tunnel!
In the evening, we went to a grill-type place for yakisoba and okonomikyaki. The okonomiyaki seemed to have legs (well tentacles) coming out of it in all directions so I got most of that to myself, which suits me. I was also quite pleased with myself to read the handwritten menu in Japanese and find something that both of us would eat.
So today has definitely been one of the better days in Kyoto, and I wish I had of stayed here the other 2 nights rather than in the center.

Last day in Tokyo (for a loooong time)

Today we had to keep ourselves busy in Tokyo til 10pm when our nightbus was. We checked out as late as we could (11), dumped our bags in lockers at Tokyo Station and then made our way to Shinjuku to see the I.C.C (fancy communications place) where they had some really good interactive media exhibits. It beat my University Degree Show my miles. On the way there, I saw the Square Enix building across the road. They make my favourite games. Their place was actually pretty small.
The plan for the afternoon was to go to a planetarium which turned out to be ages away from the main Shinjuku station and also impossible to find. So that was a few hours wasted but we had a lot of them to spare today.
It was getting dark when we got back to Shinjuku so it was a good time to see the view from the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. It was a good view but they seemed to have built a 'Toy City' right in the center of the observatory so you have to walk around a toy shop to see Tokyo's most sophisticated view which was a little odd. It was quite popular too and there were some interesting gadgets in the toy shop, so I enjoyed it.
For dinner we headed to a vending-machine ramen place in Tokyo station's subway/department shop. We had butter-corn ramen which was good but not as good as the one in Sapporo. But it was a lot cheaper too, so in a way its better if you dont mind sitting in the middle of a load of single salary-men.
The night bus was pretty interesting. I didnt plan to sleep much so I kept my Nintendo DS on me. However, I didnt expect them to do a lights-out at 11.15pm. So I abandoned it and tried to sleep which was a bit difficult when they turned all of the lights back on for their 2-hourly stops. There wasnt much leg space either but I guess that serves me right for booking so late. Apart from that, it went pretty fast and we arrived in Kyoto earlier than planned, which would have been good if it wasnt for the fact that nothing is open at 5.55am.

Nagano

The plan today was to go to Nagano and find Yudanaka monkey park. But due to Nagano's backwards Dentetsu bus/train service, we never made it onto the bus. However, we decided to explore Nagano anyway where we discovered Zenkoji Temple. It was really popular and pretty huge. Within about 5 minutes of arriving there, a woman who volunteers at the temple approached us and offered us a tour of the temple. It was really kind of her, as she gave it in English and she showed us around the whole temple complex and even translated all of the signs in the museum for us. The strangest/funnest part of the temple was walking through a secret pitch-black tunnel under the temple, touching the wall for guidance and inching along as to not tread on someone. Halfway along was a handle you could twirl, underneath a Buddhist statue, which was something or other to do with paradise, so twirling it couldnt do much harm.
We got back about 6ish and decided to be boring and rest as we have a big day tomorrow -entertaining ourselves until 10pm when we will get a night bus. We have to get the night bus to Kyoto as our next WWOOOF host is nearby. Which suits us as that also happens to be near Osaka where we will leave Japan from.

Kamakura

Kamakura was the destination for today. Its a little way out of Tokyo (about an hour) but is home to an open-air giant Buddha statue which is pretty amazing. You can even go inside it for 20 yen but its nowhere near as special on the inside as it is on the outside. We had our 100-yen shop breakfast of chocolate and crisps (readily-prepared vegetables are really scarce in Japan) but I have been eating healthy Japanese food a lot so its ok to eat junk one time. Nearby, there is also a really good temple, complete with giant golden statues and a cave of tiny statues. There seems to be a focus on unborn children there and there was a shrine with offerings such as Mini Mouse toys and Pocky sweets. I didnt think thered be such a nice temple so close to Tokyo.
Later on, we headed to the beach where a HAWK decided to attack and swoop in to grab half of a sandwich with a little warcry. Bastard almost took my fingers off! But it was pretty funny.
The evening train back got pretty crowded with miserable Tokyolites as we got back towards the enter of Tokyo. It must be pretty hard to live here. Luckily, we havent been or seen anyone being pushed onto a carriage with a shield yet. But inside, everyone is pretty much squished together if youre not luckily enough to be seated. You can see why groping is a problem here.

Yoyogi, Akiba and Shinjuku

Today, as its a Sunday, we decided to head back to Yoyogi park to see the music again. This time, the music wasn't so varied and good (though there was still lots to choose from) but there seemed to be more Harajuku Cosplayers on the bridge, but just as unsociable before. We went for a walk around the Harajuku shopping streets and saw part of a Disney Halloween parade.
In the afternoon, we went to Akihabara as I wanted to do some shopping. I managed to loot a Neon Genesis Evangelion umbrella, some chocobo mobile phone chains and a few Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy mini figures. I also got myself some DS accesories as Yodobashi Camera. Walking around Akihabara is strange as you can walk into an innocent toy shop and then spot figures of octopuses trying to gain...entry...to naked anime girls. A bit gross but hillarious to walk around. As long as youre not by yourself, that makes you a pervert.
In the evening we met another Skype friend of mine, Soichi, for dinner. We went out for a tenpura dinner which was really good (and pretty cheap) and I got to try some Conger Eel which didnt really taste so fishy but it was good. After we went to a traditional (but modernised) tea house a little walk away for a drink. Its nice to know local people as they know some nice places to go that you usually wouldn't be aware of.
So today I spent quite a lot but I feel better for it. I could easily spend so much more in Akihabara if I had it to spare.

A Day at Ueno Park

We planned to go to the Tokyo National Museum this morning and elsewhere this afternoon. But we got a little distracted by all the entertainment in Ueno Koen on a Saturday. By the time we finished the museum (which was huuuge and had tons of ancient things in) the park had filled up with various art performers. Musicians, acrobats, comedy shows...they all appeared from nowhere. So I grabbed a bento from the nearest convience shop and we watched some. It was a great place to take some low-quality videos with my camera.
In the afternoon we went to Ueno Zoo. Im starting to feel that for a nation that goes crazy over cute animals...they dont half treat them like crap. Ive seen monkeys in small cabinets in shop windows, kittens tied up to benches outside shops to draw people in, overcrowded elephant enclosures and polar bears pacing insanely at the zoo. It had a lot of animals, including ones I havent seen at zoos before. It was just a shame that they couldnt stick to having a couple of them and had to put loads of them in the same enclosures together.
In the evening we wandered around some streets in Ueno to find something to eat but it was mostly fish based so I couldnt stop as Ed wont eat fish so we headed back to Sukiya, a cheap place for rice bowls and curry. But I think I might head out myself one night for some rotating sushi...

Castle, Cozmos and Capsule

This morning we headed over to Himeji to see Japan's most famous castle, Himeji Castle. Seems that Japan's ancient castles, as impressive as they are, seem to all be 'original, refurbished' castles with some parts being completed this decade. Himjei Castle was still cool though, and easier to climb than Matsumoto. The museum inside it was really interesting.
After that, we got our bento lunches and headed on the train to Tokyo as we planned to go out in Shibuya and sleep in a capsule hotel. We checked in at the capsule hotel which was a lot easier than I thought it would be. The capsules were big enough to sit up in, but you couldn't lie completely straight, which isnt a problem as I tend to bend my legs a little when I sleep anyway. The only bad thing about it was the door was a curtain rather than one that closed. And when all the capsules are men-only close-together and with free porn on the television, this can leave you feeling that you wish you (but mostly the other guests) had more privacy.
The club wasn't too bad. We found it easily enough, it was an international bar with an open-mic night going on. I think calling your bar 'international' is an excuse to call Guiness and Carlsbergs 'imported beers' and charge £5 each for then. But although the drinks were expensive, the musicians were really good ranging from guitar players to jazz through to experimental bongo music. It was really fun.
Sleeping at the capsule hotel wasnt as bad as I thought. I didnt really plan to sleep but it was quite quiet midweek. I couldnt really hear the others so much with my earplugs in. It was quite comfortable too.

Kurama Fire Festival

This morning, the manager of the ryokan gave us a lift to the station with two Australian guys. Nothing kills a conversation like hearing "Yes I recently went to Tokyo to attend a conference on CONCRETE". What can you say? "That sounds interesting" would be obviously untrue.
We got to Kyoto in the afternoon, it was pretty rainy. Not ideal for a fire festival. But we decided to go anyway, with an umbrella borrowed from the hostel. We had to take 3 trains by 3 train companies to get there, not so easy. When we got there we had a wander around and its a pretty nice town. We got there about 2 hours early to make sure we could see it but it seems there was no point. Youre not actually allowed to stand and watch it. You have to continuously move. So after being moved on about 5 times for standing and watching the festival we looped around like they asked. Everyone had an umbrella up so it was hard to see, you got splashed a lot and poked in the face by the spokes often. It wasnt so enjoyable. So we walked down the parade route to find that we then had to loop around in a queue if we wanted to walk back up to watch the parade more. So we queued and went through again. We got to see a lot of huge heavy torches being carried around but that was pretty much it. Then we had the choice to queue and loop around again to carry on or take the road to the station. So we queued for 40 minutes and then were able to chose the path to the station. LOADs of people chose to go home rather than carry on trying to watch this poorly-organised festival. With about 300 volunteers I dont know how they got it so wrong! Oh well.

Matsumoto Castle!

Today we went to Matsumoto to see the castle. It was really cool. Its nowhere near as high as you'd imagine but you can walk around the castle grounds (featuring a moat full of carp) and even go inside the castle, climbing up the stairs. The stairs were very steep with low ceilings so you had to go really slow, but it was fun to get higher and higher. It was full of white tourists though. Maybe its because we just got back from Hokkaido where you dont see any but I think they just ruin the atmosphere and make it less Japanesey. After the castle we headed to our accomodation, a ryokan on the ourskirts by a river. It is such an improvement on last night! Theres a hot spring bath, green tea and hot water in our room, and nice yukatas and futons. And wifi! So Im happy. Its nice to have a quiet place after spending a day on trains and sightseeing. We went out for ramen this evening, I think my Japanese is now good enough to get by at train stations and ramen shops. Important I think.

Tacky Takayama

Today we went to the old fashioned town of Takayama famous for its 'olden day street with authentic traditional shops'. In reality, it was an old fashioned street overtaken by souvenir shops. However, the area was nice to walk around in. Our accommodation (Zenkoji Temple' was questionable though. We booked a 'private twin room with bath' in a temple inn. We stayed at a temple before in Koyasan and it was an amazing experience. But this lied somewhere along the lines of a cheap-hostel with a grumpy-old-man receptionist. It wasn't much of a temple experience as you weren't allowed to see any of the temple, just the accommodation. The guy who organised it also gave the impression that it was a pain to have guests. Our private bath consisted of a shared male toilet that haven't to be broken and we were asked to use the shared toilet on the first floor. In the bathroom, we weren't permitted to use the bath but we could use the showerhead hooked onto the wall next to it. In our private room, the sliding door to the next room had warped and no longer closed properly leaving a gap that got wider as you headed upwards (so we could hear and also see a little of the people in the room net to us). So we decided to spend as little time as possible in there and headed to the Takayama Museum of Art which was expensive but had some nice stuff. Not stupid contemporary art that people like to see is priceless for reasons they cant explain, but it just had nice things to look at.
In all, I like Takayama as its nice to wander around, especially when the tourists have left. But its not the ancient village its made out to be, and definately stay clear of Zenkoji Temple.

Abashiri

Today we headed to Abashiri to see the museum of Northern Peoples. However, Ed (who insists it isnt him, and instead that every single Japanese person cant draw a map) thought it was 3km away and we didn't need a bus. 5km later we reached the Abashiri prison museum which was about halfway there. We settled for the prison museum.
The museum was pretty good, but the English translations seemed to come straight from Babelfish. So we trekked all the way back to the station and headed to Sapporo for a rest for the night.

Lake Mashu

Today we went to explore the Mashu area. Turned out that the only thing to really see was Lake Mashu - 11km away. Ed said we could walk to it in an hour and a half, liar. We got there after walking along a really long obscure road (with things like 'Cow Shack', 'Milk Shop' and a Blair Witch shack) alongside it. So many tourist busses must have passed us, I think they had the right idea. The view of the lake was really amazing though, but I hurt my leg a little getting up to it. I dont understand alot of Japanese tourists though. They come to Hokkaido to find peace and spend time in nature, but in reality, they hop off a coach with their huge tour group, take a photo in front of a sign, rush a long the view, and then hop back on their bus to the next stop. Kind of defeats the object.
The hotel we were at had a public hot spring bath which I used to help my leg recover a bit.
I seem to be getting a lot of exercise here in Japan.

Escape to Kushiro

Today we made our escape from the crazy house. After breakfast, I wrote a polite note saying that we got the dates wrong and had to go. It was better than saying "your dad cant run a restaurant to save his life. This place is dangerous to customer's health". So off we went on the bus to the local crain center. It was out of season so the really friendly guide gave us a tour around the the captive craines - in English! It was a really interesting place and I learnt a lot about the craines. After we headed to the hotel in Kushiro. Kushiro town is a little bleak. Its mainly a slow fishing town with a major train station in so there are lots of roads....just nobody on them. But at least our hotel room is really good.

Akanko WWOOF

Thursday:
Today we spent the day travelling from Sapporo to Akanko Onsen where our WWOOF host is. We had to transfer from train to bus at Kushiro city. The busses were every 3 hours, we had to wait just over an hour but it gave us a chance to grab a Lawson lunch. Kushiro seemed a bit of an odd place. It was fairly big as it seemed the transport hub of Eastern Hokkaido but it seemed a little under-constructionish. We got onto the bus and it took about 2 hours (and 2600 yen each!) but it was worth it because it was an amazing place when we arrived. A huge clear lake, traditional music, calm streets of souvenir shops, speed boats, hand baths and a load of stuffed bears.
We got a bit of an odd welcome, we met the host's father in a shop who hurried us over to an old woman who hurried us into a building with a slightly younger old woman who handed us over of a young Korean man. It wasn't the usual "are you hungry, here's some tea, are you tired?" welcome we usually get from hosts. On the way up the stairs to our room the Korean guy introduced us to another English person staying here. He was in his 50s and a bit socially awkward. Ed deemed him a paedophile in hiding. We went down for dinner and spoke to him some more. He was very negative and slow speaking. We think he might suffer from depression but he let us know how things work and about the area so we got on well enough.
After dinner, we went for a walk around the area. There was a whole street of souvenir shops and a stuffed bear with a motorised jaw. It would probably scare children. We noticed that there is a green mascot for the area, some kind of green balled man. Literally, he seems to have one giant lump between his legs that doesn't need to be there.

Friday:
Today was our first day at work. It started at 10 we headed over to the tourist information place for a map. We got some other things aswell and learnt that the green man is made up of algae balls called marimo. Apparently Akanko lake is the only place in the world that they grow so big and spherical. Exciting stuff. We also found out that there are mud geysers around the area and town mountains to climb. With Ed being mountain inclined, I guess thats our day off sorted. There also seem to be Ainu tribal dances held somewhere.
Work was really strange. For the first hour, we stood around watching the dinner ladies set up in a hurry before having a coffee break and being sent for lunch. After, we were allowed to help set up and clear away but the manager has a bit of OCD it seems. He only likes one thing to be put onto a table at a time. So when there are about 8 people laying things down in his special decided order it takes a lot of stopping and starting. It makes sense to have everyone do one of the things (a bowl, the chopsticks, cups etc) each but he seems to hate that. Then I got to wash a load up. The upstairs kitchen would be closed down so fast in the UK. he dishwasher throws its dirty water onto the floor where a gutter runs down the center. The floor is slippy with dirty water and oil (you have to wear wellington boots in the kitchen), the dirty-pots sink is less than a meter away from the chef's main wok and the cupboards are really low so you bang your head a lot. We didn't get any introduction to safety in there, it was really bad. The manager likes everything thats used every day to be put into storage and then taken out again in the morning. He's crazy. At least we are only working 6 hours a day though.
Afterwards we went out in the evening and found a new street - full of souvenir shops again. But at the end was a studio Ghibli Shop and an Ainu village. I got myself some cheap Totoro things and then we went to see the Ainu dance which was a lot of fun. It was really interesting to see their crane and plate-taunting dances as strange as they were. As we left, a procession of Japanese people with flaming torches gave up through the Ainu village. Seemed we were in time to see the climax of some festival. They put all their torches around the center of the village and then everyone paid some money to drop some algae balls into a fish tank. Was a bit of a mix of a promote-the-Ainu and save-the-algae festival. Was fun to watch though.

Saturday:
Today was really good weather so we went to see the view of the mountains while it was clear before work. Work was strange again. The manager had selected random tables and chairs that he decided were to be cleaned. So we cleaned them. And then the manager double-cleaned them to be sure. Then we sent them upstairs in the elevator....to be put into storage. Right. So then we helped tidy away one of the floors of the restaurant and went back downstairs...where the manager had decided that now he only wanted each table to have 4 chairs as opposed to 6 so he asked us to clean those ones and send them into storage. But after 10 minutes he decided that we should go upstairs and wash up. This was the last I saw of Ed for a while as he stayed down to help...and then disappeared. After 2 hours of washing up (which I could get paid £5 a hour to do at my regular job) I was asked where Ed was. I assumed he was working with the manager so I looked all over 5 floors of the restaurant, ran back to the house to look for him, then checked the 5 floors again to make sure he hadn't hurt himself and was unconscious in a toilet or something and still couldn't find him. I was majorly pissed off to find that the manager had told him he had finished and Ed has disappeared to take a bath without letting me know where he was going. But the manager was taking us all to the top of a mountain so I had to pretend that I didn't want to kill him. The mountain had a really good view from the top and after we stopped off a a dump where the manager took some of a bigger hotel's dumped plates which he felt would look really lovely underneath some sashimi. Nice. We went for another walk after dinner where Ed bought an Ainu instrument known a Jew's Harp. Is fun to play but I got my spit all over it as you put it in you mouth to add an echo when you twang it. We stopped off a hotel lobby and used their PC to book a night in a Kushiro hotel so we can leave here a day earlier. We are enjoying ourselves as its such a beautiful place to walk around in our free time which we get a lot of, but the manager (whose intentions ARE good) is going to drive us crazy making us adhere to his OCD.

Sunday:
This morning we took a look at the small eco-museum. Unfortunately it was all in Japanese but it had a few interesting things. Work was bizarre again. We were cleaning the 'new' plates the manager found yesterday but they were mostly chipped. The manager wasn't around so the staff were a bit manic and all telling us contradicting things to do, its getting annoying. Luckily, we got to finish an hour early so we went on a walk towards some of the other lakes. After dinner (which was fish) we went for another walk around town with the other grumpy English guy who wanted internet access even though he had before told us that he had 'nobody to keep in contact with'. So after moaning that his boots take so long to put on, we walked him over to the hotel. He seems to need a little spoonfeeding. We went on for a stroll around the Ainu village before heading back to our room. We have run out of things to do at night because its not really safe to walk around the mountain trails in the dark. We got the day off tomorrow so we can go mountain climbing then.

Monday:
Today was going to be the first mountain I climbed without a cablecar. Mt Oakan was meant to be the easiest mountain in the area, said Ed. Turned out he got it wrong and it was the most difficult one. The views across the lake at the bottom are amazing but the views disappear behind the trees as you begin to ascend. It wasnt a spiraly easy path either, we were cimbing in all directions using tree roots for steps and climbing over trunks. It was quite fun but really exhausting. It took us about 3-4 hours of scrambling up things to get to the top. The view was really nice so we stopped for lunch. Getting back down was faster but really dangerous as their seemed to be a lot of loose gravel hidden under the leaves so we both fell over a few times. But the path got easier and we made it out in about 2 hours. I feet and legs really killed by then!
In the evening we decided to try and walk around at nights for about 5 minutes but got distracted by some fiery torches lining the path - the fire festival had began. So we made our way over to the Ainu village where long lines of people carried torches to light up the area and then we were able to buy tickets to see the special Fire Festival dances. These were mainly the dances we saw the other day with more music and fire. So today was a really fun day but my legs aren't going to thank me for it tomorrow.

Tuesday:
Today was pretty crap. The manager hadn't got a clue what he was doing, he spent the whoe day running around. Literally. I very rarely saw him walk anywhere. He was badly disorganised and asked me to set the tables in a room out as in the example he left me. Funnily enough, he laid his example out wrong. So when he returned he almost had a stroke to find a room full of tables...with a plate on the wrong side! Its just so petty. And he has an obsession with this little piece of paper he keeps under the main plate. He doesnt seem to care so much if a person is missing chopsticks...as long as that piece of paper is there. Hes such a retard, I was ready to leave. However, it is only 6 hours a day so maybe one last day wont kill me. Im also going off the food here a little. Rice with cold side dishes 3 times a day gets a little boring. I want pizza...
Ive realised this place is nothing to do with living organically and exchanging cultural things. This place produces so much waste per person. As for cultural exchange...Its been 6 days now and they dont even know our names. I should probably report it to the WWOOF website as they have been pretty deceptive (it also said you didnt need to know japanese but the only person who speaks english just had a baby and cant be bothered with guests right now).
In the evening we made an application to the JET program to come and teach here later next year, Ed also went souvenir shopping and wanted to go into most of the shops to compare prices for his £2 souvenir. Not as if we had anything much better to do though and its always quite nice walking down the streets at night with the Marimo song looping on the loudspeakers.
Ah well, just 6 hours tomorrow and we will be free again.

Wednesday:
Today was a pretty samey day. Except I ate venison, which I didnt really want to do. The chef set a sample for me and Ed to try aside so I pretty much had to. He said it was Bambi's mother. I also got me my Akanko souvenir - a marimoman-in-ramen strap. Now we are just waiting til tomorrow to do our great escape from this towering shack.

Sapporo

Yesterday wasn't worthy of a blog entry, was about 12 hours of trains.
Today we got up at our cheap hotel and headed out to find the open-air architecture museum. Well, we headed out but Ed hadn't got very detailed directions so we had a stroll around but didnt find it. In the afternoon we had lunch at Odori park which was very pretty and then headed to the botanical garden for a walkaround. It had a small Ainu museum as well, but it was literally just a few cupboards and a video on loop. Walking around Sapporo wasn't majorly exciting but its a nice city, the weather was good, and its laid out on a grid pattern so we appreciated being able to find places quickly.
We are heading out tonight to find Sapporos famous corn and butter stock ramen. Sounds really good! But I have a feeling we will end up with a cheap eatery dinner which I also like doing.