Kyoto

Shinkansen

After the program ended I embarked on a 7 day rail pass exploration of Japan. First stop was Kyoto, an ancient capital of Japan filled with enough temples and shrines to keep one busy for months. I also took the opportunity of rail travel to try out CouchSurfing for the first time. My first host was Patrick, a transplanted Austrian who took me on an hour and a half bike ride to Biwako, Japan's largest inland sea. 

We swam to the buoy.

After a memorable swim in the sea, we stopped for sushi at a conveyor belt restaurant. Here you pick up sushi dishes off a rotating belt. If they don't have something you want, you order it from the screen and it is brought to you atop a mini shinkansen train. 

sushi shinkansen

Kinkoji

The Golden Temple was one of the most impressive sights in Kyoto, which we saw in addition to the silver temple and the philosopher's path.

I'm still puzzled by this racoon with yes, a huge sac. 

Kyoto station is also impressive. 

Leaving Tokyo

By far the best part of my experience in Tokyo was interacting with Japanese graduate students and lab mates. Living in a country is it easier to discover the many types of individuals living there, just as diverse in personality as anywhere else in the world. 

They made me eat pig intestine, among other things

The JSPS set up a nice closing ceremony for the EAPSI fellows.

At the closing ceremony they constructed a powerpoint where they added captions to photos that fellows submitted.

Only in Japan. 

BJJ Tokyo

Throughout the summer I've been continuing my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training in Tokyo. It has overall been quite a rewarding experience. Most entertaining is the yellow/green mats of the gyms here. They also use pads as hand-held dividers to prevent collisions during Randori. The gym I went to was a group of friendly, enthusiastic fighters, and were good to train with. The training didn't seem as rigorous as in Boulder, and the style was slightly different, but overall it was a good way to stay in shape while in Tokyo. 

The Golden Poo, and other Tokyo exhibitions

The Golden Poo

It literally is called 'the golden turd' (Kin no Unko). Sitting atop the Asahi cup, next to the golden asahi beer mug (complete with head at the top which doubles as a cafe with a remarkable view). This is what happens when you let the French design your skyline. Although really, poo doesn't have the same negative connotation in Japan as in the US. In fact, sneezing is much worse, the equivalent of passing gas in public, I can only assume. 

Miraken. The museum of science and innovation housed some interesting exhibits, including dancing robots, science art, active camouflage, and a particle collider simulator. 

Of course, it is best to keep your hands and eyes well away from some corners of the internet.

I am continually impressed with the Japanese take on things

You can't read it, but I set the high score in the Europa mission planning game.

ASIMO, the japanese robot. 

Maybe ASIMO means something in Japanese, but I like to think it is short for Asimov, however I'm not sure if the three laws of robotics are fully programmed in. 

The Japanese military history museum was of course a must for me to see. Most interesting was seeing portrayals of WWII and other conflicts from the Japanese perspective. This can also be a bit disconcerting when the Nanking Massacre is referred to as the Nanking Incident in which soldiers 'disguised as civilians' were killed. Even so, the museum was quite interesting and well worth a few hours of time (or days!). 

Mt. Fuji

We were fortunate to have two experience Japanese guides take us up Mt. Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan (and a volcano to boot). The way to climb Fuji is at night, making it pretty brutal. Instead of sleeping for 8 hours, you hike for 9. The key is to start the 5-6 hour ascent at 10 pm so you can make it to the top before sunrise. Then you make the 3 hour decent. 

Our remarkable guides

I was continually impressed with our guides' climbing ability. Taka would smoke a cigarette every time we took a rest break, and was still forging ahead of us. Getting to the top about 2000 people were suddenly trapped in a queue to make it to the caldera summit. About 50 meters from the absolute summit we stepped off the trail to view the sunrise. 

hinode

The clouds were fortunate enough to break for us just in time to view hinode (sunrise). Viewing sunrise from atop a mountain (or anywhere) is a big deal for the Japanese. Japan is of course the 'land of the rising sun', and Nippon or Nihon (how japan refers to Japan) literally means 'the sun's origin'. This most likely comes from correspondance with early chinese dynasties in reference to Japan's eastern position relative to China. 

The decent reinforced my belief that Japan is one big video game. Our japanese guides named the sections of the decent train 'Run Course' and 'Jungle Course'.

Jungle Course

Run Course

Run course was basically a straight path through thick black ash sand. Like the rest of the terrain of the volcano, it seemed alien, to say the least.

Nagano

Nagano was by far my favorite weekend trip from Tokyo. It has a little bit of everything: temples, onsen, and nature. Our first stop was the Zenkoji youth hostel. We were greeted by an old lady who was perhaps the kindest hostel owner in all of Japan. She proceeded to lead us on the tour of the city on the way to the onsen. We stopped at a sake brewery where she got the owners to give us free tastes of sake (japanese rice wine), and umeshu (japanese plum liquor). Next she got us into the onsen (Japanese spa) for free. 

The main temple, Zenkoji, was also impressive. The main attraction was a 10 minute walk in complete darkness under the temple, where you touch the "key to paradise". 

Temple Guard

"Rotating the stone wheel may save one from pain and suffering"

It is no wonder Mario was invented in Japan. Religion sometimes seems set up like a video game. Rotating this stone wheel saves you from pain and suffering, visiting a temple on a certain day counts as 30,000 normal visits, dipping money in a specific shrines gives greater returns when it is spent. I'm continually fascinated by the many temples and shrines implanted all over Japan, and the general non-religiousness of most of the population.

After visiting the shrine we headed to the monkey onsen. I had been wanting to see the Japanese snow-monkeys since watching Baraka and seeing the saddest monkey in the world. Well, we found them, all of them. The Nagano monkey park housed more monkeys than we could imagine. Babies, adults, fighting for food, with plenty of japanese and a sprinkle of foreign tourists to entertain themselves.

Photo shoot

kawaii

We obviously had not choice but to get ice cream here

Fireworks

Fireworks are everywhere in Japan. You can buy sparklers at larger grocery stores and larger fireworks aren't hard to find. In addition, over the course of the entire summer, there are several firework festivals. We went to the one in Katsushika, which had about 7000 fireworks. 

What was most interesting about the fireworks was the music. During the course of the ~ 30 minute show they played: star wars, ode to joy (jpop version), coldplay, some opera song, amazing grace, more J-pop. The eclectic mix of songs was amusing, and different than the silence I am accustomed to at US shows. 

No night on the town can be complete without some Karaoke. Karaoke in Japan is done is small rooms with just the people you show up with. Because of rights issues (I assume) they play strange unrelated videos on the screen while you sing. This one shows the popular BBQ game of Suikawari. It is like a pinata smashing, except you smash a watermelon with a wooden stick (sword).