Hiroshima

I was thinking for a title of this blog post, about my first day in Hiroshima, but there aren’t really any words that could describe it.

My first day in Hiroshima started cloudy and grey and rather depressing. My first stop was obviously the thing Hiroshima is most famous of: the bombing. I took one of the rather shaky but reliable trams to the ‘Genbaku Dome’, which was one of the very few buildings that wasn’t completely obliterated by the atomic bomb.

 

I have seen more than enough ruins in my life, but seeing this and knowing that this happened in a blink of an eye, and that the rest of the city was instantly gone is horrifying.

The museum in Peace Park was full of the terrifying things caused by the bomb: pictures of charred people, wax statues of how the people looked after the explosion (their flesh as torn fabric hanging from their bodies, etc) and stories of survives were impressive and painful. There was one story that scared me the most: Because of the extreme heat many people were burned, looking for water. In such a moment you obviously don’t make long term plans, and jump in the first water well you can find. Soon the water wells were filled with bodies instead of water.

Another very sad story is that from Sasaki Sadoko. She was 2 years old when the bomb exploded 1.5km from her house. She survived and grew up as a healthy girl, but 9 years later she was diagnosed with leukemia, caused by the radiation of the atomic bomb. Inspired by her friend and a legend that folding 1000 paper cranes would make a wish come true, she started folding these with every kind of paper she could find in the hospital. From here on the story is unclear. Some say could ‘only’ fold 644 before her death, and her classmates folded the remaining number, while others say she folded even more than 1000. She died 8 months after being hospitalized, at the age of 12.

The beautiful side of this story is that she inspired many people to fight for peace and the banning of the atomic bomb. Also, every school-class which goes on a field trip to Hiroshima fold paper cranes, which are displayed around the Sasaki Sadoko Memorial monument, creating a beautifully colored background to this painful story.

Sasaki Sadoko Memorial monument

Paper Cranes folded by school classes

Many monuments are covered in paper cranes and flowers.

Now there is one more thing I want to write in this post. Although every tourist guide I read and the maps I picked up at the tourist office are almost only about the bomb, Hiroshima has rebuild so quickly into an amazing city, that it is hard to imagine what happened. Although the center of the city is rather small, it is full of high-end shops, very good restaurants and amazing people.

More on Hiroshima later!

Japanese Music

Pff ok, I have a hard time thinking of stuff to write about, but from now on I will do it more often, promise.

I wanted to write about this for a while now: Japanese music.

The geolocation function within Youtube thinks I’m japanese, so spams my Youtube homepage with Japanese stuff, often including videos of crazy Japanese music. I will add some video’s here and maybe write a bit about them, but mainly I just want to share some crazy Japanese popular music.

Let’s start with one of the most crazy awesomeness, which is obviously:

AKB48

Maybe you have seen this photo already. This was of my first time in Tokyo, around 10.00 AM in the morning in Akihabara. The whole area was completely deserted this ‘early’ in the morning, except for this line in front of the AKB48 building. And yeah, they’re all guys.

AKB48 is a all-female theater group, with, as you can see, their own theater. They perform once a day every weekday and several times a day in the weekend. They have three ‘teams’ (A, K and B) all consisting of 16 members (Hey, that adds up to…?).

Now check out the following video.

Next up,

Ellegarden

Actually I pretty much like this band. They sing in both English and Japanese and the singer his English isn’t even that bad. Unfortunately they are not playing together anymore, although they don’t say they will never play again. Check it out.

Electric Eel Shock

You actually may know these guys even if you’re not from Japan. They’ve been touring the world quite a lot and I think I remember seeing them on TV as well. The English of this guy is slightly worse than that of Ellegarden, but it actually adds in some way to their often slightly arrogant or self-centered lyrics. It’s fun, listen it.

The Gazette

You could say this is also pretty famous around the world, as long as you ask the right kids. As you can see in the video, they obviously are part of the Visual Kei movement (which includes other popular musicians like Gackt, Alice Nine, Naitomea, etc). It seems like The Gazette is one of the more popular and well-known bands in Japan, at least, I see posters everywhere.

An Cafe

Another group which doesn’t play together anymore I think. Just now discovered it, it’s kinda.. strange. Well! We’re getting used to that, no? Oh, and yeah, it’s a dude.

Ok, one more for this time! This one is NOT Japanese though, but South-Korean, but I couldn’t get it over my hearth to not share this with you!

Girl’s Generation

Shibuya

Ok, by now I’m already back in my apartment in Kyoto, but I’d like to write some more about Tokyo! So here comes Shibuya and some other places.

Let’s first watch a video to get a good impression about Shibuya, shall we?

That’s a lot of people right? And it is like this every time the pedestrian light turns green. Every single time, the whole day long. But if you realize that only in Tokyo live around the same amount of people as in whole the Netherlands, it becomes a bit more comprehensible. A bit.

The moment I found the exit of Shibuya station (that actually took my 20 minutes, as there is a 8 or 9 floor tall department store right on top of the station, I couldn’t find the exit) I already liked it more than Akihabara.

Akihabara is a really weird place. The buildings seem OK on the outside, but are often actually really old, which is mainly noticeable on the inside. The shops are stacked and stacked, often being 8 floors, with tiny stairways and very claustrophobic elevators. And while the shops keep expanding, the concrete walls won’t budge. Akihabara is just too full of stuff. There is not a certain amount of stuff, there is just more stuff.
Shibuya, whilst as well extremely crowded, seems more open. The shops occupy a larger space, but use less of it.

Well I’m not gonna tell all about what kind of shops there are, because it’s just too many. If you don’t know anything about Japan, Tokyo or Shibuya, start at Googling “Shibuya 109″, which is one of the most famous shopping centers in Shibuya. Although it mainly contains shops for women, I walked around quickly. Mind to bring lots of money if you there, it’s not a cheap place..

This is Shibuya 109 and the famous entry tower by night (by the way, it is pronounced Shibuya ichi-maru-kyuu. Ichi = one, maru = circle, often used to indicate a right answer, kyuu = nine)

Closer to the station there is the Q front building, another famous attraction of the Shibuya ward. The building is covered with a giant screen featuring the latest advertisements. Inside the building there is a giant book/cd/dvd/game store, a Starbucks with a view on the scramble crossing, and an internet cafe on the top floor.

Then my favorite thing I saw this afternoon: the Hachiko Statue. Hachiko was a dog, which is said to have waited for his master to return from work every day at the station, even long after his master past away. Nowadays, it is a famous meeting place, but it as more and more people meet there, it is actually getting harder to find the person you’re waiting for. I was waiting here for a friend I met online, who would show me around Tokyo in the few days I would spend there.

Taking a clear picture of the statue was also pretty hard, as there were people constantly who wanted to be on the picture with Hachiko. But I managed. Sort of.

Yeah, he’s kinda cute right? He looks like an honest dog.

So the strangest experience for me this day was the familiarity I had with Shibuya. I recognized several places and landmarks, although I have never been here or searched for them on the internet. I actually must confess that I played an awesome Nintendo DS game, which used Shibuya as its stage. It was really funny to have the “wow, it’s actually here” feeling.

Shinjuku

After walking around we went to Shinjuku, to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This building is 243 meters high, and the best thing is, it’s free to go up! So of course we went up and enjoyed the magnificent view over Tokyo-by-night.

Then it was my favorite time of the day! Dinner time! Yay! I asked my friend what was typical Tokyo food, and he took me to a Monjayaki restaurant. That was some awesome food.

We ordered slightly too much food, but, 勿体無い! (もったいない “mottainai”, which basically means, that you shouldn’t waste good things like food or time) So we ate everything.. We were having dinner for two hours.

As always, more pictures on my Flickr account.

Hmm, so I have some more stuff about Tokyo, but that will be in the next post.. I can’t write too long posts in one go…

Comiket

In the morning of my second day in Tokyo I went to the Comiket, the biggest comic market of Japan. On this market there are ten thousands of comics for sale, of which about 80% is ‘Doujin’. This basically means that it’s work done outside of the official publishing companies, which often means that it is work by fans of a certain series. Doujin includes fan made and published manga, books, games and art.

A few things at the market surprised me. First of all, of course, the amount of people. I won’t say a lot about it, but as everywhere in Tokyo, there were a lot of people. See for yourself. There are a lot of people on this picture right? Ok, now I have to tell you that this is a line at one single bus stop, for people done walking around the Comiket. Now think of this density of people in eight giant exhibition halls. I guess it is impossible to imagine, but just think of the busiest place you have ever been and think of that amount of people a few hundred times, maybe you get close.

Second, the amount of female visitors.
I know, I shouldn’t be thinking about stereotypes, but, come on. Comics are mainly for dudes right? Well, as 80% of the stands here were Doujin, and Doujin is often bought by female readers, the six halls where they sold Doujin where filled with women. I don’t think I saw more then ten men in those halls.
On the other hand, if you enter the company spaces, you see almost only men. Probably because most companies have for some reason lots of half-naked manga girls pictured everywhere.

Third, the ‘danger’.
I got this advise about the girls in cosplay costumes  from the one who told me I should go to the Comiket in the first place:
“Don’t tell them who you really are, or where you live. They fantasize and follow people around if you look like a character from a manga”.
And although I still think there are worse things in life than being followed by girls in costumes, I wisely followed this advise. Having these following you around might become scary after a while:

Later on the same day I went to Shibuya. Don’t know it? Come out of your cave and see the daylight. Shibuya is one of Tokyo’s most fashionable wards, with hundreds of clothing stores and thousands of people to buy it. Next post!

Tokyo – Arrival & Akihabara

So, I went to Tokyo.

I had a reserved ticket for the Shinkansen (the spaceship-like trains which run trough Japan at 300km/h) so I would be sure I could sit the 2.5 hour long trip. So, what did I do? While changing trains to Kyoto I left my phone in the other train. Great.

It took me of course a while, some embarrassing Japanese talking, and a lot of running with my rather heavy bag to get it back. I don’t think that if I did this in Holland I would be able to get my phone back. And certainly not within an hour.

So I missed my train for which I paid about 120 euros. Luckily your ticket just changes to a non-reserved, and I could go with any of the Shinkansen which went to Tokyo. And there are quite a lot. It almost seems like a subway, so often they arrive at the station. And luckily I still had a seat.

Well I’m going to spare you the drama of my trying to actually find my hotel, and get on with some more interesting stuff.

Hehe. Food. To start with. After that, Akihabara (electronics & porn, mainly)

So I entered my tiny hotel room and jumped on bed. Too bad it wasn’t really soft. I went trough my Japan travel guide, and quickly start reading at the “Eating” section under “Asakusa”, the area where my hotel is. I found the restaurant called 駒形どぜう　(komagata dojo). I decided to go there. It was a traditional Japanese looking restaurant and there were no foreigners at all (yay!) It was really busy, but because I was on my own I could just sit down and start eating!

The food there was rather expensive, but really nice. どぜう (I’m not really sure how to pronounce it. The Hiragana characters are Do, Ze and U. So I would think dozuu. But it seems to be pronounces as Dojoo.) are small eel and they are served on a cooking pot with burning charcoal. You throw a big bunch of chopped scallions on top and let it cook for a few minutes. You can do this yourself, but for me, probably because they thought I wouldn’t understand, they did it for me. Picture!

Looks good right? Yeah, and it should be, for 1750 Yen.

Akihabara.

Nothing special about food for Akihabara. I did have dinner there, but the ward is obviously not really focussed on food. I had a rather plain and cheap tasting curry, which still cost 850 Yen. At least i expected to get some vegetables with it.
But before I had this grand feast, I spent my whole day walking around in Akihabara, just being amazed by its craziness.

I came the place quite early in the morning, and only a few shops had just opened. This gave me a cool view on the area with no people. But after a short while when the shops started to open, the people started to flow in. I don’t know where they came from, it seems they just were there all of a sudden. In only a few minutes the place was full of people. And full in Tokyo means really, really full. Here’s an photo of Empty Akihabara. For the version with people, just Google Akihabara. You’ll find enough pictures.

So why are there so many people in Akihabara? (when the shops are open)
Actually I don’t really know. There are so many shops, but I had the idea that they all sold the same stuff. Either they sold manga, video games, CDs, electronic parts, figurines or porn. And most shops sold all of them. The shops are crazy. The buildings seem to be really old and the shops are growing on the inside, but the walls won’t expand. Most shops have about 8 floors, which are crammed to the roof with stuff. Every floor often has it’s own products. So one of the I noted before.

The strangest thing of all was the huge amount of porn, here obviously accepted by the public, spread trough out every shop. Most shops had at least a section of porn manga, or if they only sold figurines they had more figurines which could be considered to be a form of porn than normal figurines. I have never seen so much unnatural and impossible large breasts.  Ok, so lots of porn. But I guess you have to see it to fully comprehend (or not. . ) it. There’s not one tucked-away section with porn. No, there are floors full of it. Floors full of bookshelves full of porn, and those floors are full of guys buying the stuff.

I also went to a maid cafe, a really nice one with no charge per amount of time and English speaking maids, and still nice food and ambiance. Before I got there I walked in another one, but there were only a bunch of smoking guys and 2 bored maids..nah.

Today I’ve been in and around Shibuya, but I will post about that tomorrow. But I can already say that I liked Shibuya a lot more than Akihabara. I will also update my flickr soon with more pictures of Tokyo.

Shop food

In this post I will feature a few food things you can buy at supermarkets.

First of all: シュークッキー　(shuukukki)

I saw this pink box with a giant chocolate cake-like thing one it, with liters of strawberry flavored cream pouring out, so I had to buy it. The box says it is a chocolate cookie with sweet strawberry filling. I was expecting around nine good sized cookies to be inside the box. In stead of that, I found a bunch of tiny, puny, almost invisible to the naked eye sized cookies!

If they would have been 10 times bigger, they would have been awesome. Also, they were chewy instead of crunchy. They look cute, but that’s it.

Next one! In almost all supermarkets you can find a place where they have ready-to-eat food, like these skewers. Because I couldn’t read what they were made of, I just bought three different ones. It turned out that one was chicken, another one was fish balls, and the third one was liver. I threw that one away after taking two bites. They sell for 100 Yen each, which is around 0,90 Euro.

Nata de Coco!

Some people may already know this, as you can also buy it in Chinese Shops in other countries. This weird stuff originates from the Philippines. What it is really about are the cubic blocks floating in that jelly. They are made by fermenting coconut milk and some kind of extract from a special kind of seaweed. The cubes itself don’t actually taste like something, which is why they are always found in syrup or jelly or together with other food. But the cubes have a really strange texture and feel when you chew on them, making it really funny to eat them. First it feels like you can bit them but instead of being able to slice them with your teeth, you just squeeze all the juice out of them. Buy them at a Chinese shop and try it. A cup costs around 1 Euro here and in other countries, so even if you don’t like it, it doesn’t matter.

団子！(Dango)

Dango is a pretty famous food in Japan, and people who watch enough Japanese Anime probably recognize them on the second picture. Dango are balls made of rice flower. The result is a sticky and chewy ball, looking way lighter than they are. When eating three skewers of them you feel very, very full. They seem to explode when hitting your stomach. The first picture is the Goma version. These are covered in black sesame seeds and sugar.

The second picture is from the Bocchan version. These are colored by red beans, egg and green tea, and these are often pictured as cute food in anime or illustrations.

Also see this extremely awesome illustration of Dango by Kikariz on Deviantart

Pokemon candy!

Well, do I have to say more?

And then some more of the ready-to-eat department in the supermarket, for instant food it looks and tastes so good, and is extremely cheap. for either one of the meals I didn’t pay more than 500 Yen.

Aaand, it’s a wrap!

Gion Matsuri, Kyoto

This Saturday was the last day of the Gion Matsuri, which is one of the biggest festivals of Japan. Many people from all over Japan come here to celebrate, well, some old ritual. Most people in Japan won’t know the origin themselves. The festival was from origin a ritual to keep the gods who caused earthquakes, fires and floods happy, but in the 16th century all the rituals were halted. The people then complained that they could do without the rituals, but not without the procession of the Yamaboko floats. So these days the procession is more or less for entertainment only.

Many of the floats were topped with trees or other plants, or just very high stakes.

After the floats passed by I decided to grab my tourist map and start walking North, That way I would arrive at Nijo Castle, but there was so much to see in every street that I often turned left or right, without keeping track. Soon I was lost, but made some nice pictures.

I was in the middle of some sort of indoor shopping street, and suddenly I saw this on my right.

Eventually I arrived at the castle, which was big! And so awesome, all the walls of the castle building itself were traditional sliding doors, so in theory you could open the whole building! The doors were kept closed though, because of the fragile historical paintings inside the building. I wasn’t allowed to make pictures either, so only some pictures of the outside!

After I went to the castle, I walked on to the giant Kyoto Imperial Park, but because I was getting tired I lest fairly quickly and started walking to the station, which was at least another 40 minutes walking. And again I came across more interesting streets (a whole street full of food and drinks..) and giant temples… So it even took longer. I came home with blisters on my toes.

As you can see I’m not really in the writing mood, but more in the posting pictures mood. Unfortunately I can’t post all my 300 pictures of this day here.. But they will come to the internet some way soon!