Category: Family

Beware Of Hawks

June 4, 2009

Legend has it that Enoshima Island, on the coast about 80 minutes south of Tokyo, was the summer palace of a trio of female gods. Now it happily exists as a tourist destination, and if any of you ever plan on going to Japan put this place very high on your list of sights to see.

Such are the sights of the three shrines (and surroundings) on Enoshima.

Although an island, Enoshima is connected to the Shonan mainland by a landbridge (about a 5 minute walk). The island is hardly flat, and to fully explore you need to be able to navigate a great many stairs. After Takao, we were a little concerned. But we prevailed!

< No!! More stairs?!?!

About halfway up the island there is a new ‘attraction’ at one of the shrines, a large loop made of reeds, which apparently needs to be walked through in a particular pattern to ensure luck?

< Eh??!

Of course I had to do this, and the results were astounding as this video shows!

There’s also a ‘love-love’ shrine halfway up, with the requisite charms available for sale…

On one of these plaques, I found a little red tick-spider thingy:

< Tick-Spider Thingy

And, as she does, KLS made me pose like a fool in front of the demon statues:

< Unstoppable?

At the summit there is a little collection of restaurants and an arcade with ancient games. There is also an octopus-flattening shop:

She takes two complete octopi (about 10 cm in length each) and places them onto a large hot press, then closes the top and ratchets it down with a crank. After a minute or so she opens it and removes a nice crispy octopus disc like you can see in the second picture. The poor things are flattened utterly into a giant chip! (Yes, they are dead first by the way)

The path continues to the other side of the mountain/island, down some steps and onto a rocky shelf behind. This place is popular with fishermen, who cast into the rough waters behind the island. It’s also home to a most unusual form of crustacean.

They vary in size up to about 5 cm (the one in the photo was about 3.5), move quickly and – as you can see – resemble pillbugs. They seem to be land-dwelling things, and KLS was apalled by their very existence. The rocks behind enoshima are home to large colonies of them, and they scuttle away like cockroaches when someone approaches. Interesting little guys they are…

Getting back off the island required climbing the hundreds of steps we took down to the rocks, which was a torturous and near soul-destroying ordeal. But (of course) we made it (helped by a delicious ice cream) and happily, on the way off, found one of our favourite Japanese stores – the ‘tiny glass animal shop’:

< ZOMG!

Some of you reading this can look forward to a trinket from this place…

Getting to Enoshima in the first place requires riding the famous Enodan train line from Kamakura station, which we had done in the morning and did again on the way back in the afternoon.

< Enoden Line

For JBF’s benefit, a video of the Enoden line in action! (Yes, I know I mislabelled the video… I’m tired!)

We didn’t really do much in Kamakura (home of Japan’s most famous Buddha statue) except check out the souvenir shops on the walk to the Enoden station. One of them was home to a stunning selection of (fake) weaponry, including such gems as ‘Staff Of Saruman’, ‘Chaos Sword Odin’, and a highly detailed magic book (for those amongst us disinclined to wield a bladed weapon):

Two food shots…

…and a me sleeping on the train shot…

< Not fake!

…leads me to this striking image (care of KLS):

< ???

The legendary Enoshima Uzumaki spider perhaps? This web was only a centimeter or so in diameter, and hidden under a leaf as it was, extremely difficult to photograph (my camera simply wouldn’t focus on it). I poked around a bit for the owner with no luck. I wonder if it was as beautiful as it’s creation?

Oh yes, we saw a squirrel! Our first Japanese squirrel! But that can wait for another post…

Acrosatan

June 3, 2009

The title is the name of a monster from an old Ultraman series, a tiny model kit of which we saw today in a retro toy store in Akihabara. I don’t remember the cost, although it was probably low (under $20). However the Mandarake in Akihabara sold a Y2,100,000, approximately 20cm tall vinyl toy of another Ultraman monster, still bagged and in great condition. That’s US$21,000 approximately. Even for an unopened toy from more than 30 years ago that seems a tad steep 🙂

Akihabara is where the otaku (maniac fans) go for all their manga, anime, games and toys. It’s also the best place in Tokyo to buy electronics, play video games, or eat at maid cafes 🙂

The ‘big’ franchises these days are Monster Hunter (both the games and the merchandise), which is massive and featured in every store; Neon Genesis Evangelion (yes, even after almost 20 years the franchise is as strong as ever, bolstered by the recent films) and Queens Blade (the series of ecchi gamebooks has spawned a mini merchandising empire).

We checked all the major shops yesterday, and most of the minors, paying particular attention to the figure stores and the game stores. I managed to find the latest volumes of Guyver and Bastard!!, and picked up a Monster Hunter artbook and a slew of TCG cards from such series as Duel Masters (the 52nd expansion just came out!?!), Monster Hunter & Queens Blade (yes every big franchise gets a TCG…)

No Railfan yet Jim, and you can bet we’re looking everywhere. We’ve even discovered there are three games in the series (Japan, Korea and amazingly Chicago!) but the PS3 sections in stores are tiny and the used PS3 sections are tinier still.

In fact game stores are mostly about DS and Wii these days (unsurprisingly), with the next biggest section being PSP. PS2 still has a healthy following, but 360 sections are small and, as I said, PS3 sections so tiny they are hard to find. This will all change in time though, as the system is picking up steam. Not to mention the 800 lb gorilla of FF13 about to be released.

Even so, in most game stores the section of shelves devoted to advertising the upcoming release of Monster Hunter 3 on Wii is typically bigger than the entire PS3 sections!

Above left is a maid, who was handing out fliers advertising the maid cafe you can see in the middle photo. On the right is a shot of a billboard used to advertise all the maid cafes just in the Akihabara region. What was a novelty when we were here in 2006 has become a local tourist attraction, and as you can see there are a great many cafes now. Basically they are (apparently) overpriced restaurants serving average quality food, the attraction of which is the waitresses all dress in maid outfits.

< In Animate

The above was taken (on the sly) on the 5th or 6th floor of Animate (one of the mega otaku shops) and shows just the maid outfits they sell for cosplay. The professionally made Bleach outfits ($100 and up) were much more impressive, but as they were next to the counter I couldn’t get a shot due to the no photography rule 🙂

A couple more random Akiba shots. Once again, I’m guessing AW is boggling at the fact that you can just find gashapon out on the streets here. Put it this way – there are so many in just the few blocks of Akihabara, they have to put some out on the street!

In Japan, ninja slice kebab meat.
In Japan, some drinks are bionic.
In Japan, well I’ll let you work out this photo 🙂

We actually walked to Akihabara via Ueno, and spent some time in the park before most people were up.

This next shot is of the two statues outside Ueno Zoo entrance, overgrown with vines. Can you identify the two animals?

< What are these?

When I review the days shots, especially the ones KLS loves to take of me eating, I’m always struck by how it seems as if I had posed or hammed it up for the camera. The rightmost shot (dinner) is an ‘American Dog’ (which was eaten cold, but was actually decent). The middle shot though is more interesting, since it was a piece of chicken at KFC. And it was great. Here’s proof:

< Mmmmmmmmm

I bet most of you will like this video though!

And what better way to end todays entry that this way?

< Lest you forget

With Our Thoughts We Shape The World

June 2, 2009

Before I start, some shots of the room in our ryokan…

And a shot of me eating beef bowl breakfast (again) in Yoshinoya:

Yesterday we went to the mountain! Mt Takao (pronounced ta-ka-oh) to be precise:

This had been a highlight of our last trip and we were looking forward to another visit. The 599 meter tall mountain is about an hour from Tokyo and is a very popular tourist attraction (and for good reason). Closely associated with a type of Japanese spirit called a Tengu, the mountain is home to many different shrines and many hiking trails wind up and around the peak.

On our last trip we thoroughly enjoyed the chairlift that takes hikers up the the starting point of the climb. We actually rode it twice it was so good, but alas yesterday it was closed and we were forced to take the cable car. Even though we were initially disappointed, as it turns out the cable car was no less thrilling!

In fact, rather than describe it, why don’t you ride it too! Here’s a video I shot of the trip so you can do just that!

The climb up Takao (assuming you take the most common route) is reasonably leisurely (excluding the several flights of torturous stairs) and passes a dozen or so temples and shrines. While the mountain views and nature appreciation level is high, this path is more about the shrines than the nature.

At one of the temples KLS enjoyed a delicious grape ice cream! I tried to steal some and ice-burned my tongue (and complained about it endlessly for 15 minutes or so)!

At one shrine we observed a monk performing his morning chant (yes, these are ‘working’ temples):

< Monk on Takao

Here is a video so you can hear what it sounds like.

The above is a tengu statue at one of the temples, and the right is a detail of what he is holding in his hand. So Japanese! This made me smile 🙂

We reached the peak in about 2 hours, and had a delicious lunch of chips and drink!

< Yum!

We were both tired-ish by now (you would be too, believe me!) but the Chip Stars and Mt Dew combined in my body and allowed me to activate Devil Satan Power, thus giving me unstoppable energy to begin the walk down!

Oh yes, a shot of Fuji from the top:

< Fuji from Takao

Can you see it? It’s really there! In the very middle of the picture, towering above all the other mountains! What, you can’t see it…?

And thus we began the walk down. Last time we took the path that followed a stream, this time we took the one that followed a ridge. And it was amazing! Here are some shots taken on the path on various points:

The path followed a ridge almost all the way down, and was frequently steep, or treacherous with tree roots, or narrow. Very rarely were there any railings at all, and the drop off was so steep at points that falling seemed like it would have been certain death. And yet the views were magnificent, as were the sounds of birds.

Here is a video to give you an idea what it was like.

KLS had some trouble with the walk because she was scared of slipping and hurting herself, but her ganbare spirit never faded and she made it all the way down safely!

In her own words...

Yesterday we tired ourselves more than any day so far this trip! We went to the mountain, and climbed the mountain, and we beat the mountain. But it was a narrow victory indeed! So today, well today you would imagine we’d have something restful planned wouldn’t you…?

Robot Claw