I'm a wife, mom, and doctor. I'm occasionally inappropriate, frequently odd, but not weird yet....I don't think. Bugs Bunny said it best: "It is to laugh."
I just had to show you a big difference between American and Japanese hotels. You know when you stay in a hotel here, you usually get shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and soap in little containers that you can take home, right? In fancier places, they even give you Q-tips and cotton balls. Well, in every place we stayed, we got this: Yes, comb and brush, hairbands, and TOOTHBRUSHES with TOOTHPASTE! Tiny little toothpastes - how precious! Also disposable razors, but I forgot to get a pic of that. One hotel even had full-size containers of facial products, and the shower had dispensers of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. Obviously you don't take that stuff home. Every place also had PAJAMAS! I slept in these everywhere - very comfortable. Of course you don't take this home, but you do get to take home the slippers! (Yes, I'm so much about the free stuff.) Now you know this had to be done, right? You've heard of Toto? The fancy schmancy Japanese toilet company? Well there are different models of course, but here's a sample of the control panel. I'll let you figure out what button does what. See that sound button? This simulates a flushing sound for those shy bladders. There was also a top-shelf toilet that intermittently cleaned itself while lighting the bowl from inside - weird! I'll leave you with a sign at the monkey park demonstrating the creative use of English, and spelling too!
Uh, yes, I DID run back to Marunan and get 2 more pieces of fabric before we left for the airport. The blue geometric is a knit, and the gray one is cotton.
And here's a Bento box just for fun. You can buy these anywhere, but they sell them on the bullet trains too. It's just like flying on a plane - an attendant wheels a cart down the aisle and you can buy a drink, lunch, or even little toys. The packaging is awesome, and inside...
BAM! Lunch!
So I read a lot about "man-pris" which are apparently all the rage in Japan. Men usually wear really long shorts, or these capri pants, or they just roll up their regular pants. Huh... Apparently these are young, fashionable men who don't want to wear boring old work pants or jeans, which are rare to see. It got kind of hard to take pictures of people, especially if they were facing me, so I usually snapped them as they walked away. And I only took one woman's picture, because they would always be walking towards me and I thought that would be tacky. (But seriously, you should've seen the chick with 4" gold stiletto heels walking up the mountain to see the monkeys!) This is an employee of the Information booth at a mall - so spiffy, and why don't we wear hats here anymore? Though they thought nothing of taking our picture. I spied 2 people taking our family's picture at a train station, and on the streetcar to the monkey park, a woman seriously held her camera up over the back of a seat and appeared to be making a video of me reading my book. Either that or she took a bunch of pictures, because she held it there for several minutes, even after I looked at her! Ah, the trials of Caucasion-ness in an Asian nation...
And here's some Darren, who sounds so angry and sinister. The show sounds much more serious than it did in the States.
So my MIL and I went to Kamata on the advice of Michiko, who's pictured below.
Right outside the train station is a couple of blocks of Yuzawaya, which is a ginormous fabric and craft store with 5 or 6 buildings with multiple floors. They had tons of Liberty of London prints in one store, which I know Katrina would love - I would've gotten you something, but I didn't know what you already had! Here's my stash - I'm not a huge fabric hound, so I feel like I should've gotten more stuff while I was here but I just couldn't do it. And here are a few gratuitous shots that Michiko took for us at lunch the other day. I believe we shall never take another picture without throwing a peace sign!
Lastly, we ate a fine shabu shabu dinner last night at Shabuzen, the restaurant apparently made famous in Lost in Translation. They claim it in their advertising still! Shabu shabu, in addition to being fun to say, is where you cook premium Japanese beef in boiling water, along with vegetables and noodles. Lots of fun, and Lucas is now supremely proficient with large cooking chopsticks!
Off to the airport shortly...should I run back to Marunan for one last piece of fabric?!
Random picture of the cute garbage trucks they have here. Well, first we had to find a coin laundry to do some wash, which we found successfully using an old map from Google - thanks people who draw maps of stuff like that! Next, we met a relative for lunch, and she gave me some tips on fabric shopping, which will happen this afternoon in Kamata. But I did find Marunan, which is widely known by bloggers and is very close to our hotel in Shibuya. The stuff I really liked was about $50 a meter (100 yen is about a dollar, so you just throw a decimal in there and it's like dollars), so I found some cheaper stuff that I might make a skirt or sleeveless top from. It was $5.80 to $7.80 per meter, and is the typical Japanese print in cotton. I'm not really big into cutesy prints, though... Next we went to the Tokyo Dome, where I saw my old friend, Ultraman. Siblings, you remember watching this when we were little? Apparently made of metal, but strangely flexible (as if really made of silver foam) when bending his arms and shooting lasers from his hands! And since the giant Ferris Wheel with no center support was closed, we bowled before the baseball game. Ours were the only names in Roman letters - funny. I believe that the inventor of bowling must've taken it around the world, because the lanes are exactly the same, but apparently Japan wants no funny business, so the beer in the vending machine is alcohol free, and there's no food. Dean throws some Geijin technique at the Nihonjin. The teenagers near us bowled about like we did, but the older couple behind us carefully wiped the ball down before EACH turn, and were very meditative...it was their personal rock garden. Then the big event - Tokyo Giants vs Hokkaido Fighters (I think)! And what do you eat at a Japanese baseball game? Well, you can have a burger outside the stadium...uh, I think that's a burger joint. Can you make heads or tails from the sign? I had edamame with my beer...those are soybeans. And the hawkers here are all cute girls in pastel outfits who just wave their hands and smile - no yelling. And they like their bowling alcohol free, but you can get sake or whiskey at the baseball game. These businessmen had a bento box for their dinner. Lots of men came to the game in their suits with their briefcases...very interesting. I tried to get all the different beer girl outfits because they were so cute.
And here's a sample of a Japanese baseball crowd...the men and women take turns chanting - those aren't kids' voices!
We also went to the Golden Temple (I forgot how to spell Kinkakkuji), which is made out of real gold. (Note the shrug is being worn as a sun screen - Japanese women wear fingerless mittens up past their elbows here in the summer as a guard against the sun, I found out. This is the original pine tree from when this place was built, and it's been pulled into the shape of a ship on the sea. Do you see the flat part in front of the tall part? Now, random things seen from the cab. First, 2 boys being pulled in a rickshaw. No idea where their parents were. Japanese kids are totally self-sufficient here. They ride the trains to school with no supervision...not usually the rickshaws, though... Two "miako," which is probably misspelled and means Geisha-in-training, or "fake Geisha," as the guide called them.
And two things to notice here. Everybody seems to have a bike, and I wouldn't drive here because they just pull into traffic and don't wear helmets. Also, note the fancy white doilies in the cab, and the driver's white gloves. Very nice. The doors also open and close by themselves so you don't have to get germy. This is Roan-ji (I totally am not spelling anything right tonight), which is the most famous rock garden. Thirteen rocks in a sea of gravel, which is very carefully raked, and they look like islands in a sea...(but not islands in the stream, which is what Dolly and Kenny are.) Beautiful garden with carefully manicured moss...no leaves. We had the boys take notes for implementation at home... How the heck did these turtles get on top of this rock? One aspires to greatness on the right. We watched him for 5 minutes S-T-R-E-T-C-H his back legs and push himself up to the top. We kept hoping he'd topple the whole pile into the water - would've made a great video... This is the bamboo forest. Not enough room to pitch a tent between these trees... And leaving the majesty and tranquility of Japanese temples and gardens behind, Lucas and I set off in search of arcane arcades....where he scored 2 prizes within 15 minutes. This kid is going to be a pathological gambler. (And don't you love the slogan on the top of the machine?) And of course we had to pose with the Colonel in the food court. He's at least wearing something of Japanese origin.
This is the escalator up to the Skyway at Kyoto Station. We already took about 7 escalators to get to this point. Tracey, let me know if it makes you nervous!
This was coming down from the restaurant floor to go back to our room, and here's this middle school band playing a concert to hundreds of people - neat!
This is in the Shibuya part of Tokyo, and if I had an aerial view you'd recognize this as famous Shibuya Crossing. I think this is the busiest pedestrian intersection in Tokyo, but I could be wrong. I was standing up under a tree to get a better shot, but you probably miss a few hundred people. Also, there are elections going on, and that's some political candidate campaigning...it's not really Big Brother...I don't think.
And lastly, this was the lounge called Southern Comfort in the Kyoto hotel where we stayed. When we walked in we had to keep from laughing, because it was JUST LIKE the bar from Lost in Translation, down to the music selection the guy was singing. (Thank you....we're Sausalito!) Yeah, you have to see the movie to get it...
So yesterday we toured Nijo Castle, where the Emperor lived until 1867, when he moved to Tokyo and made that the capital....I could be confused on that, though. Did you know that Tokyo really was To-kyoto, which means east of Kyoto, and they just shortened it. That explains the name similarity...you're welcome. Yeah, so Dean has better pictures on his phone....this is all I have from the outside, and you can't take pictures inside. But check out these crazy trees. They cut off the trunk a little ways up and let the limbs grow, but make them very straight. Very Dr. Seussery.... Beautiful azalea bushes around a solitary rock... You think I missed Drew in the picture, but I was going for the 2 gardeners high in the pine tree cutting the needles short. Can you spot them? I mean gardening is a fine art around here. Today at the rock garden (pics to follow), there were people just sweeping the moss to get every last leaf up. I go to sleep now.
