Kyoto's Imperial Palace, Nijo Castle, Eats

I'll start off this post by saying I'm not going to cover all the places I visited in Kyoto. Mostly because I don't have any pictures to show these places I went to and I know that most of you don't want to read boring descriptions without any pictures.

This first paragraph will be about Kyoto's Imperial palace, and I don't have pictures for it so...skip to the next paragraph if you need to see pictures with your reading. Shit... go read a picture book why don't you.

This place was the former capitol of Japan, way back in the day. The layout was pretty similar to many of the palaces built back in the days. Big rectangle, with the royal families residence in the middle. There were huge expansive rock gardens all around and plenty of trees all over the place. The palace grounds as a whole has been pretty much been converted to a large park. The only interesting thing about this place was that they had guided tours for the residence.

I gotta say the people lived pretty fancy back in the day. Lots of big open rooms everywhere and decorations all around. It wasn't over decorated though like a lot of places. It was simple and clean. Just enough to get you to look and notice, but not so much as to make someone think that it's audacious. The guide even showed us where the throne where the royals sat. We weren't allowed close to the chairs though...I would have proclaimed myself emperor of Japan if they let me sat on that chair. They also had a pretty huge koi pond too. It had an miniature island in the middle and even a mini "beach". If only I had pictures... It looked purty cool. For all you curious people please go google to see pictures and you might find what I'm talking about.

After spending the whole morning at this place I went to Nijo Castle. Nijo castle is more of a fortress than anything else. It was temporarily used as a capitol building when the residence at the Kyoto Imperial palace was burned down(happened more than once btw). This place is actually surrounded by a moat. It has high walls and plenty of layers of defense. The coolest thing about this place was the floorboards. The floorboards where all the important people slept were made to squeak. So under some of the floorboards there were springs that if you stepped on the board it would make something squeak. I believe the squeaking floorboards were placed at random. The reason they did this was to protect themselves from an ambush at night. The guide even told us that no matter how softly you stepped onto a squeaking floorboard it would make a sound. I tested this theory and yup, you barely touch it and it will squeak.
Since this place doubled as a royal residency it wasn't totally like a fortress and it did have some nice gardens and ponds.

One of the corner towers of Nijo Castle. If you look closely you can see the moat. Entrance to Nijo castle. I was going to write something about the pillar but I forgot what it says. Anyone wanna translate?

Residence of the royals when the place was a temporary palace. Squeaky floors in there!!

One of the ponds at the palace, I like this pond picture the most.

More of the same pond from a different view.This an actual type of tree that grows, I believe it's groomed, but not quite sure. Someone go find out for me please. I'll give you a cookie!!!!

I duno why I took a picture of this building, but here it is.
Another cool shot of the pond, there's a bridge in the back over there.

The last thing I gotta talk about is some of the food in Japan. DAMNNNNNNNNN THE FOOD IS SOOOOOOOO FUCKING GOOD!!!!! First things first, you have not, HAVE NOT had real sushi until you've been to Japan, well I might be wrong but I haven't tasted anything as good as the stuff I tried in Japan in the US. Second, I have never seen such an effort by any company or food place to package food the way that Japanese companies do it. It's kind of ridiculous how much attention to small details they put into packaging a small pack of candy all the way up to a full meal. Third, picture time...

Melon Pan. Pan is Japanese for bread. Yes, it is as good as it looks. Maybe even better....
This was a Bento Box I bought. FROM A CONVENIENCE STORE. I'd like to see them sell something this nice at a convenience store here.
Inside of that box, a variety of mixed sushi. This was probably about as good as any decent sushi place in the US. Kinda sad that it was shitty compared with real sushi restaurants in Japan...
Gold star goes to whoever guesses whats in this box. Don't scroll down and cheat you cheaters, ya you know who I'm talking to.































If I would have known it tasted as good as it did, I would have bought a whole cake and not just one piece. And yes, I could have eaten the WHOLE cake, it was that good.
Can't go to Japan without trying some Curry.
Okonomiyaki!!!! If anyone ever finds a place in the US that serves a decent plate of this I'm treating.

Surprisingly I have no pictures of the Sushi I ate. Which is kind of weird. I had a lot of other really good food that I have no pictures of too, Ramen, Donburi, etc etc. Oh well I'm sure you guys get the idea.

Wow I might finish writing about this trip yet...maybe before a year is up...

Apologies, more apolgies...Enter Kyoto

Welp let me start out this post by saying SORRY. It's been six months since I updated this blog and I'll be surprised if anyone even reads this shit anymore. For piece of mind, and finishing what I start, I'm going to continue. Plus I think its a good idea to write my thoughts down about my trip before I totally forget how great of a time I had and move on to real life and work. I gotta deal with the god damn fucking customers because our engineers have no people skills!!!!

So more apologies, like an idiot I accidentally deleted a large portion of my pictures that I took in Kyoto. You don't even want to know how pissed I was when I realized I did this. You go on a trip and you want to be able to document the small things that you might not remember later on and like a dumbass you delete them. Those of you that really know me know that I love to take pictures, so the fact that I deleted the makes me really pissed and sad. I remember all the small cool things that I took pictures of now, but lets see.. I duno... like 10-15 years from now I probably won't remember it. So sorry for all of you that will miss out on the small cool stuff.

Anyways after Sumo wrestling it was my last night in Tokyo and I was heading to Kyoto on the bullet train the next morning. A few words to describe the bullet train; mother fucking awesome. It's nothing like Amtrak. Amtrak sucks big time, and yes I can say that because I've been on Amtrak before. So the bullet train. Let me tell you tickets aren't cheap. $250.00 round trip between Tokyo and Kyoto. The distance between Tokyo and Kyoto is about the same as Northern California to Southern California, so yA pretty damn expensive. I'm sure I could have flown there at a comparable price, but why the hell would I do that? I'm gonna have plenty of chances to sit in a damn plane for the rest of my trip. Also where else can I go to ride a bullet train? Maybe Europe? Definitely not in the US.
There are two current types of bullet trains operating right now. One is a newer one with more of a flat front, and the other is the older version that looks more like a bullet. I rode on both types, but only have a picture of the older version. If you really care about the types and how each of them looks go google for some pictures or someting. I had a picture of the newer one, but accidentally deleted it... so here is the only picture I have.

Old style bullet Train. Puuuuurty Cool!!!!

First thing I gotta say is this train is super smooth. You don't feel any bumps or anything at all. The most you feel is like a gentle sway from the train going on bends. It has pretty decent legroom too, I could stretch my legs all the way straight with ease. This comes from a person considered "tall" in japan. HAHAHA. So I'm sure that any six foot guy would feel comfortable sitting in these seats. They also have these train attendants that walk up and down the aisle selling food, snacks, and drinks. And WOW, some of these chicks were pretty cute. Imagine flight attendants except a cooler uniform with gloves and like a cool circular type hat. So pretty cool experience on the bullet train. Oh yes, did I forget to mention, its fast!!!! 2 hours to Kyoto from Tokyo.

I stayed in Kyoto for 4 days. This place was soooo much more chill than Tokyo. So if you don't know what Kyoto is known for let me tell you. Kyoto is known for having the most shrines and temples per square mile than any other part of Japan. It is also known for it's arts/crafts and Geisha's. On the itinerary for this leg of the trip, visit some cool temples and shrines, checking out the art stuffs, and going to geisha district. Oh ya, one more thing, eating a kaiseki dinner. So what is this your asking? Brief description, its a meal with a set amount courses ranging from like 6-15 courses depending on how much you want to pay and how elaborate it is. Google for those of you who want to know more. I'll talk about it more later on also.

One of the first things I wanted to see was the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Whats so cool about this place? The walk to the top. The shrine is on a top of a mountain overlooking Kyoto, but the way up is lined with Torii Gates. I only intended to spend like 2-3 hours at this place, but when I got there it said to get to the top it would require 3-4 hours going up and 2-3 hours going down. Sounded like a challenge to me!!! Some vital stats; approx 4km to the top, and scaling 500-600 feet vertical. The goal was to get to the top in 2 hours. So sacrificing enjoying the sights for speed to get to the top. Going up I passed people left and right, I'm sure most of them weren't trying to race up the top, but I felt buff going past them. It took me 2.5 hours to get to the very top and I actually broke a sweat too...It was cool once I got to the top though. Picture Rocky climbing up to the top of those steps. Luckily though there was a small cafe at the top with refreshments, I sat down for a bit and drank some tea before slowly walking down so I could enjoy the sights. One thing I can safely say is..SO MANY TORII GATES!!! It kinda sucked though because I spent a lot more time up there than I wanted to. So all the stuff I wanted to see and do that day got pushed back.

Part of the Path going up with the Torii gates.

One of the many mini shrines on the way up to the top

The very top, If you click on the picture and look closely you can see a dangling rope. This is a rope that is attached to a bell that you ring.

Overlooking Kyoto, this photo doesn't do it justice, I duno why it turned out so shitty.

Normally I would have more photos, but like I said I deleted a big batch of pictures that I took in Kyoto. FUCK, I had some good ones too... I could probably go on describing more detail of what I did that day but ehh, I'm sure most of you will find it boring. If not comment and say something. This feels like a long ass post... hey asshole wake up, I don't think I'm that boring!!! More later.

Sumo, Tokyo Dome, Kabuki Theatre

The Sumo Tournament occurs 6 times in Japan every year, and in Tokyo, 3 times a year. I was lucky enough to happen to be in Japan when one of the tournaments was taking place. Nothing like watching two giant fat people slam against each other in a ring. The shaking blubber is totally mesmorizing. OK enough with the slander. Sumo in fact is a pretty fascinating sport. The object of sumo is to either force your opponent out of the ring or to throw your opponent to the floor(this was kind of confusing to me at first but pretty much means that if any part of your opponents body touches the ground other than the feet you win, but since most of the people in sumo are really "big" once they lose balance they pretty much go all the way to the ground).

The Sumo Tournament is pretty much a daily ritual that lasts for 2 weeks. One of the most interesting things is that wrestlers are not grouped by weight class, but by skill level. So pretty much any person of any size can be a sumo wrestler. Although you wont have much success unless your a pretty big person. When I bought the ticket they told me that my seat was for the whole day starting at 9 am and ending at 6pm. Each day bouts occur from morning until evening. The lower skilled wrestlers go first and then the highest skilled fight last. So when I went there in the morning the stadium was practically empty. Apparently nobody wants to watch the low level guys that are just starting out.

Here's a picture of how the place looked in the morning.

I eventually got bored with this. Luckily they allow you to come in and out of the stadium if you get your hand stamped. So I went ahead and got my hand stamped and decided I would come back later.
I left the stadium and went to check out the Tokyo Dome. This is the baseball stadium of the Tokyo Giants. The equivalent of the New York Yankees. The stadium itself was closed that day but some of the shops around the stadium and entertainment stuff were open.

From far away....

and a little closer.

So after my brief visit to the Tokyo dome I headed back to the Sumo Stadium for the final bouts of the day. When I got back the crowd was huge. I guess all the fans and crazy people turned out for the major bouts. Here's how it looked as the Major bouts were about to start.

A lot more mother fuckers.

So before the wrestlers actually face off they all go through this elaborate ring ceremony ritual. It was interesting, but what was more interesting was the 2 groups of white tourists sitting near me. They were discussing Japanese culture and how interesting it was. Sure I'll give them that, but then what made me really want to start cracking up was when they started to ANALYZE it. One of them started reading about how Sumo started in the past as a rice harvest ceremony. "You know it probably started as the most healthiest people of the villages wrestling. Then it probably evolved into what it is now. The bigger the better." At first I thought these guys must be joking, but when I looked over at them they were dead serious. Anyways who wants to see lovely big fat asses? You know you want to see.

Part of the ring ceremony. This was when it just started.

Near the ending of the ring ceremony. Notice how the crowd just totally filled the seats near the end. Guess people just wanna see some big mother fuckers wrestle.

Start of a bout.

This guy got owned. The guy in the black "trunks" is the Yokozuna, #1 sumo guy in the country, he wont the match. He literally tossed this guy over his shoulder.

So the last thing I'll talk about in this post is the Kabuki theater. If you don't like to read and would rather just look at pictures I'll save u the trouble. STOP READING HERE. I have no pictures of the Kabuki theater because pictures weren't allowed, but I can tell you about it. It is pretty much the Japanese take on Opera. It is very similar to Traditional Chinese opera if any of you have seen that. This was one of the coolest things I saw in Tokyo. The costumes were very elaborate and whats kind of cool is that the audience will shout praise at the performers if they perform a part of the Kabuki play very well. So the atmosphere there was very inviting.

Kabuki plays are kind of like Broadway shows in a way. They are made purely for acting. Most people know the story and the stories are very similar. So I gotta say, the acting in the play was very well done. I also learned during the play that Japanese people are the most polite mother fuckers ever. The lady sitting next to me while getting up for intermission accidentally spilled some of her drink on me. It was barely anything, maybe like 4 oz of liquid. Anyways she apologized to me non stop for like the next 5 minutes, luckily she knew a little English. I told her it was ok and that it wasn't that much liquid. She then continued to offer to wash or dry clean my pants. I told her that no, its fine these are jeans and they're meant to get dirty. So when intermission was finally over she stopped talking so we could watch the play. Then after it was over as I was making my exit, she caught up to me apologized a few dozen times more and tried to give me a gift. I told her it wasn't necessary, she had bought me a program guide (it's similar to those guides at sports venues) while we were exiting and proceeded to run and catch up to me as I was going toward the subway. I finally accepted and thanked her, and told her that it wasn't a big deal. She apologized again and wished me a pleasant trip. Then finally we parted ways.
Fin. More next post.

Asakusa, Akihabara

I know I haven't updated in a long time, I have no excuses other than I'm lazy. To those of you still reading this thing sorry. If your not checking this thing at all welp, sucks to be you. Your missing out on, not much...
My next area of visit was to Asakusa. This place is kind of on the outskirts of Tokyo, but definitely has a different feel to it. This area is surrounded by temples, parks, and a lot of the old school type things that are within Japan. The first stop I made was to Kaminari-mon or in english "Thunder gate". This gate has a HUGE lantern hanging from it. I don't know exactly how big it is but from what I saw probably about 30 ft high and a diameter of about 20 ft. This gate leads to the main temple of the area Senso-ji. This main walkway leads directly to the front of the temple, it was crowded as fuck. This street was lined with nothing but vendors. Most of them sold traditional Japanese food and trinkets as offerings, but there were also stalls that sold some touristy crap. This temple had an entirely different feel to it though than the Yasukuni Shrine I talked about earlier, even though it was very crowded. Walking around the area it felt more relaxed and also their wasn't much of the buzz around central Tokyo. It seemed that most people that come or live here are more traditional. Even the places to shop and eat seemed to be mostly mom and pop places rather than large chain operations that clutter central Tokyo. Anyways I'll stop yapping and show you guys some pictures.
The Kaminari-mon.

This is the path that led to the temple. Notice how crowded it was, and how short Japanese people are HAHAHA. Well I actually took this picture with my arms raised above me, but still I would say that I was above average when it came to height when walking around Japan.

The Temple itself....

A different part of the temple...

Supposedly all those drums back there are filled with Sake. I'm assuming that these were representations of offerings.

This is up close to the temple.

All these people gathering around are burning incense. If you were actually there you would have noticed that the smoke was a lot worse than the picture shows.

So after I left Asakusa I went to Akihabara, also known as Electric town. This place is any electronic enthusiasts fantasy. The streets are lined with nothing but Electronics vendors. This place is pretty much a swap meet for Electronics. A lot of the vendors here sold old outdated crap, but the main bigger stores sold new and cool shit, some not even available in America. These electronics shops pretty much had all the bases covered from the hobbist(resistors capacitors circuit boards), Computer Nerd(any type of computer part was available for purchase including a lot of old outdated CRAP), Gamer(DS, PSP, Ps3, Wii, haha and not so much the Xbox 360), and your general Consumer(household appliances, cell phones). This however was not the only reason I went there. This place is pretty much catered towards guys. There were plenty of electronic places around here, but surprisingly I found that there were also a decent amount of porn shops here. These shops had hella posters plastered all over and they were trying to sell DVD's or magazines or whatever porn shit you could find. I duno, I didn't come to Akihabara to see porn. I actually came here to see a Maid cafe. Akihabara is also known for it's anime enthusiasts. Among all the electronics and porn there were a lot of anime shops. Most of these places sold the usual manga(graphic novels for those of you that don't know), anime DVDs, and in some cases Cosplay outfits. If you don't know what Cosplay is look it up because I don't want to sit here and try to explain.
So I felt kinda embarrassed going into a Maid cafe, also if you don't know what that is look it up. Shit though once I walked inside I felt no embarrassment at all. The place was mother fucking packed. It was a total sausage fest as you might have guessed. I have no pictures of the place because posted all over the walls were no photograph signs. It's pretty much what you expect. Chicks dressed in costumes, most weren't that good looking...awwwhh, and being hella subservient to the patron. However I gotta say I was impressed with some of the outfits. They were very elaborate and it seemed that some of the girls spent a lot of time putting themselves together. I guess you could say going to a Maid cafe is almost like going to hooters for a guy. Except the service is WAAAAAAAY better.
Anyways here are a couple of pics of Akihabara.

Main avenue of Akihabra as you exit the subway station.

This picture gives you a general idea of how the place was.
Thought I had more Akihabara pics, but i guess not, maybe I accidentally deleted some, oh wells, done. Check later for more.

Tokyo Tower, Ginza, Roppongi

In the past couple of posts I was talking about general sightseeing places in Tokyo. In this one I'll talk about a little of the nightlife. Before I do that however let me post a few more pictures of Tokyo from up high.

This is Tokyo Tower. It's supposed to be almost an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. There is nothing really there to see. It's a total tourist trap and around it are amusement stuffs and attractions. The main reason it's posted on here is that it does have one of the highest views it Tokyo. However right now you can get a better view at Roppongi Hills.
more pictures of the city...
...

The next stop I went to was Ginza. This place is supposed to be the shopping district of Tokyo. I didn't take a lot of pictures here because who the hell wants to see shopping things. I sure don't. So instead I'll just describe a few places I went to. I have to admit though they weren't kidding around when they said it's THE SHOPPING DISTRICT. Ginza covers about 5 blocks and is filled with nothing but giant department stores and shops.
These department stores are no joke. The largest one I went into was 10 levels. To compare it to the US department stores, think of a 2 floored Macy's department store and multiply by 10. The configurations of department stores however are different from the US. Usually it goes like this. Bottom 2 floors are comprised of a whole supermarket and a prepared food floor. The prepared food floor basically sells food that is cooked and ready to eat. So things like Bento, Bakery's, and hot food stands. Then 3rd though like 7th is all women's crap. This includes makeup, perfume, jewelery, clothes, bags etc. 8th floor is usually home decor, arts and crafts, with stationary and pens. Then the last 2 floors are mens clothing and accessories.
If your wondering oh just department stores? Where is all the specialty shops? Oh they're there. Think of any high class brand and it's around somewhere in the area. Loius Vuitton, Burberry, Prada, you name it and they will generally have a shop somewhere in the area whether it be a stand along shop or a shop in a department store.
Oh ya, also the Sony Building is located here. The building itself is nothing fancy, and it's mostly an office building. They do have a "small" exhibition of 8 floors? I can't remember exactly how many floors. This exhibition shows off all their latest and greatest from computers, tv's, ps3 games, and personal electronics.
One of the coolest stores that I went to though was a stationary and pen store. It's name is Ito-ya. This store is 9 floors of pens, stationary, and art supplies. Who knew you could have 9 floors of this shit. I mean they even have a whole floor dedicated to fountain pens. When it comes to pen's and mechanical pencils Japan has some of the coolest shit. Too bad some of the coolest pen's were like $50.00 US. Some of the fountain pens they sell at the store cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Before I left the place for Roppongi Hills I snap a couple of shots of Ginza Crossing. It's the main artery of Ginza.

So out of these 2 pictures can you pick out which of the "billboards" are actually TV screens?

Roppongi is supposed to be one of the more wild nightlife places in Tokyo. This is probably true to some extent. I didn't really go inside any clubs in the area, but I did wander around a lot in the area to see what was going on. One of the first thing's I noticed about this area was that there were more foreigners aka WHITE PEOPLES in this area than anywhere else I've been in Tokyo. Probably because this place has a reputation of catering to foreigners and their sexual desires. Also they're were a lot of young people in this area. I would assume that most of these young people were on their way to clubs or bars. Most of the people were dressed to impress. Some were dressed in typical club attire while others were dressed hella weird. I'm talking borderline Cosplay stuff or ridiculously "hip hop".
As I walked around the area, I realized that this place is for nothing but entertainment. Bars were everywhere and clubs were here and there. Video game parlors dotted the area along with nude bars. I would have taken pictures but I felt really uncomfortable doing so.
I did however end up going to Roppongi Hills. This place is a lot like the Shiodome, which I talked about in an early post. Here are some pictures I took from their "Tokyo City View". It's supposed to be the highest view in Tokyo.
Tokyo tower at night from Roppongi Hills.
View of city...
If you look closely at this picture you can see little floating dots near the top, those are airplanes landing at the airport.
Look closely at this picture and see if you can spot the Konami building.
Last picture. More later.

Yasukuni Shrine, Shiodome

The Yasukuni Shrine is supposed to be one of the most famous shrines in the world, mostly because of the controversy surrounding it. It honors the war dead, including some that were convicted as war criminals. When I went to the shrine it seemed like many of the others except for the fact that it did have a "war museum". This museum was nothing fancy and a really small part of the shrine itself. When I was there however the mood did seem very somber and most of the people around seemed to be paying respects to the dead. It actually felt kinda weird to take pictures there, but I snapped a few just because. Other than the mood in the area, the shrine is a really cool place to see and I did spot a few Shinto Priests and Priestesses there.

The actual shrine itself.

One of the Torii gates leading to the shrine.

The Shiodome is a commercial region of Tokyo. It has lots of shopping and the buildings around the area are owned by huge companies. This place was built to compete with Roppongi Hills, which I'll talk about in another post. It is supposed to be a kind of city within a city. Live, work, and play all in the same area. Walking around the place I could see how this is. Everything is about 5-10 minute walk. Shopping, eating, entertainment, it is all built close together. There isn't too much to see here besides the huge new modern skyscrapers surrounding the area. Although I have to admit some of the architecture and designs of the area were interesting to look at. I think the only reason I bothered to stop by was because it was kind of close to where I was staying. One big plus was that it did have one of the highest views in Tokyo so I got some cool pictures of the whole city during the day.

The main artery of the Shiodome, kind of the middle. This I thought was an interesting piece of architecture. Caretta is a restaurant and surrounding it are various shops.One of the main skyscrapers in the area. A shot of part of Tokyo Bay. In the distance to the right is the Rainbow Bridge. It's regarded as the Golden Gate Bridge of Tokyo.A shot of the city from above, further to the right is Tokyo Bay.Last picture of today. More later on.