Trip to Japan

Juhi and I visited Japan in Sept 2015 and we wanted to blog our experience. It was a fascinating trip learning about Japan and its people. The trip was long and hence the blog, so Juhi and I divided 1 day each to scribble down our experiences.

Day 1 
By Sanchit

Bullet train

I reached at 7am (Tokyo time) and had only 2 hours sleep previous night - partly because of Japan Airlines who have amazing movie collection in inflight entertainment. Juhi would reach airport from US after 9 hours and I was very sleepy. Post immigration I was looking for a resting place and found out a big hall with beds and resting chairs (and all empty). I had a good 3 hour sleep and I refreshed at airport before beginning "visit to Tokyo". I picked up local SIM which we preordered at post office and headed towards Tokyo station via Narita Express (1 hour journey). I had 6 hrs with me for a solo trip before Juhi would arrive and we would leave for Kyoto.

View from the hotel

I started exploring on foot and visited Imperial palace (1-2 km away). Imperial palace was sort of a big lawn in the middle of business hub of Tokyo. Looked similar to Central Park of New York. While coming back to the Tokyo station, I visited various malls. These were the public malls with restaurant/shopping chains and local eateries. However what sets them apart was the lavishness/size of malls and there were so many malls in a row. I felt that Tokyo has a huge infrastructure - more than anything I have seen in any other city. For my lunch I visited various restaurants but couldn't find any vegetarian food. I had cold tofu with spring onion over it. It felt filling!

Juhi had a long 19 hour flight and she arrived straight to Tokyo airport at our rendezvous point (Whatsapp location sharing comes to the rescue). We took bullet train (Shinkansen Nizomi) for Osaka. Watching the train run at 300 kmph was fascinating. After reaching Osaka, we took a cab and checked in our hotel.

Juhi's side of the story for the day
This was one of the longest flight trips that I've done so far. Took a flight from Charlottesville to DC.

Exhausted!

Then took a flight from DC to Toronto. From Toronto to Tokyo, which was a super long flight over the northern most parts of North American continent. Upon reaching Tokyo, which was about 6 hours after Sanchit had landed, he made it super easy for me to figure out where to pick up my SIM card and catch the Narita Express to Tokyo main city. I met Sanchit at the main railway station and we boarded the frequent connection to Osaka in a high speed train. The ride was so smooth that we downloaded an android app to measure the speed. We reached Osaka and checked into our hotel where we first came across the hi-tech Japanese toilets. The room was only slightly bigger than the bath, but the view was fine.

Day 2 
By Juhi

Wishing Wall

Adding our wish

Offering water to statue

The next day, I got up super early because of the jet lag. Although Sanchit seemed to have no problems and slept soundly. We went to a breakfast buffet. It had all sorts of Japanese food, and Sanchit will describe it in his section of the blog, as understandably he was more excited about the food.

 I had two presentations today at two separate venues. So I ended up running between the two places quite a bit, in addition to giving final touches to the presentations.  And Sanchit caught up on more sleep and work in the day. We were super excited to get exploring, and decided to go to the Dotonbori commercial area. There we went to a buddhist temple. This was apparently a unique temple, as the statue of the God was accessible to common people. Usually the statues are only accessible to priests and people can pray to them from a distance. We didn't know how to pray, so we decided to observe other people. People would light thick bunches of incense sticks and stick them in a pot with sand. Then they would wash their hands and mouth before offering prayer to God. Then in this temple, people would pour water on the statues. As a result of long term water being offered, the statues were covered with green moss. After offering water, they would clap their hands twice and bow their head. After this people could write their wishes on a piece of wood and tie it to a wall. It was an amazing experience - we saw new rites, and some familiar ones. 

Ramen love

Dotonbari Canal

After visiting the temple, we decided to indulge in some local food exploration. And what better than Ramen - Naruto's favorite food. Sanchit was very happy to have a huge bowl of ramen. It was a bit too much for me, and despite my best efforts, I could not finish it all. But we were satiated, and happy to explore more. We walked around in the shopping area. We knew there was a water canal nearby, and after a bit of exploration found it. It was almost like seeing Times Square on a water canal. The stores were very brightly lit, and the ambience was very festive. We decided to take a boat tour, because by now I was very tired to walk all the way to the end and back. The narrative on the boat tour itself was average, but the views were fantastic. After the boat tour, we went to a shopping complex on the other side, and bought some stuff before calling it a night. 

Day 3 
By Sanchit

I had learnt on what all can I eat in buffet breakfast. My breakfast would include - chilled tofu, curd
with fruit jellies, french toast, vegetable spaghetti, omelette, fries and bread, soba noodles and soup, miso soup with mushrooms, dutch pastry, milk with cereals and juices. This would be the best part of day and I could then survive for the rest of the day with eating whatever vegetarian restaurants would offer. Juhi and I were both working throughout the day. At dinner, we went for a vegetarian only restaurant - which was all empty. Came home, grabbed some munchies I brought from India and slept.

Day 4 
By Juhi

Paper Presentation

Today was the D-day. The main paper presentation of Ubicomp was today at 2 pm. And so, a lot of nervous preparations were on in the first half of the day. Nervous, because in the last two days, I had three presentations, leaving very little time to incorporate last minute inspirations to my main paper presentation. After shuttling between the conference venue and hotel (I can't seem to be able to work amidst 800 people), I got my presentation up and running. Sanchit came to the presentation. This presentation was more unnerving than the previous three, and I think part of the reason was that I was standing on a pedestal that was a bit too far from the rest of the audience for me to make eye contact with them. The presentation went well, and Sanchit and I were ready to continue our explorations in the evening. 

Walking towards Floating Garden

Osaka Station

We decided not to stray too far from the hotel, and went to Osaka Station. This was a huge railway station and mall. We walked past restaurants with plastic food displays, and finally selected a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Out server at the restaurant was surprisingly very well versed in English. Turns out that he lived in Canada for a while before returning to Japan. We had some good food and conversation, and decided to take a stroll at the top most floor of the Station. After walking around for a bit, we wanted to explore more. So we decided to go to Osaka's Floating Garden.

Plastic Food

Starry floors

Osaka night view

The floating garden was actual a really high observatory. You can see Osaka's night lights from up there. The floor on the roof was embedded with iridescent stones, and the UV lights on the roof was making the floor shine in the dark. We learnt fascinating facts about how the floating garden was built. We were rushed down where thunder clouds came by. We weren't sure when the roof would be opened again. After hanging out for a while, we decided to go back home.

Day 5 
By Sanchit

After breakfast, we headed to Osaka castle. The castle has a long history of

Osaka Castle

1000+ years, however all the historical monuments in Japan have been ravaged (by earthquakes, fires, air rades) & then rebuilt so many times that some charm has lost. Mostly all these monuments were re-constructed post 1950 and kinda look all new. In particular, I liked the way there were 3 water moats to protect various layers of castle. Also to know the history of Tadami was very intriguing. I also liked the roof architecture & various gilded carvings on the wall. I could only imagine a lot of samurais practicing and protecting the castle in the open areas back then. Japanese history as such dates long back with edo era and so on. Buddhism came to Japan in early 500 AD from India - so I was glad to learn about the same.

Japanese versions

Amazing display at castle museum

Post castle, I visited the Peace Osaka Museum. It is a very small museum which displays why Japan went to world war and how it suffered from the world war (esp air raids) and then recovered quickly. It gave a strong signal that peace is very valuable and people should  understand its importance. I guess this message has been engrossed in Japanese folks and they are very polite and genuinely very caring for each other. I would rank them above US for zero rascism.

I wanted to go to a barber and check how they are different from other parts of the globe :P I saw a nice saloon and went inside. I found a few different things here -

* They charge you in advance - but the fees is nominal - I paid 1800 Yen ($18) in a very cool saloon.

* First one guy would do hair cut with scissor, then there is a different guy for cleaning side hair with razor

* They shampoo your hair post cutting

* They charge you for hair cut + shave (by default) :D

* Before shave they would put shaving cream and then a warm towel to get your beard soft before scrubbing it off. Yes, scrubbing!! My cheeks were hurting for the next 2 days and beard refused to come out for the next 4 days :P

At lunch after politely shooed away from a few restaurants, I finally got 'special only for me' vegetarian meal - pasta. Pasta came and it had no pasta but mushroom with letuce. I was happy for the food anyway. On way back home, we visited a few toy stores and bought star wars action figures - they were pretty cool.

Day 6 
By Juhi

Bell house

After attending some of the talks in the morning session, Sanchit

Traditional Japanese Dining

and I decided to head to Kyoto. Trains to Kyoto from Osaka are frequent and we had no trouble getting one within 45 minutes of arriving at the station. Its a short ride, and we reached Kyoto within an hour. The train station was about a mile and a half from our hotel - a traditional Japanese Riyokan. We decided to walk the way to get in some of the local sights. On the way to hotel, I saw a sign that said Vegan food served here. I was staring at the sign wondering if the place was open or not. Suddenly a Japanese lady wearing an Indian Kurta-salwar, came out as asked very sweetly if we were vegetarians looking for food. We were so happy and we almost nodded our heads off. We had a nice lunch and a delightful conversation with her. She told us about how she visits India regularly to visit her guru Sri Sri Ravishankar and follows Art of Living. We gifted her a small Rishshaw souvenir and continued walking towards the hotel. On the way, we came across a huge temple. Intrigued, but tired, we decided to return to it after checking in at the hotel.

Kyoto night view

Searching in the backstreets

The hotel room was everything we could ask for and more. Our room was actually divided at three levels. There was a bedroom at the lowest level, and a traditional japanese settee at the top level. We
took a quick nap, and then set out to explore Kyoto. We first visited the temple that we had seen on the way to the hotel. Unfortunately the temple had closed, but we could still see the buildings in the temple complex. We came across this enormous bell, that was so big that it needed a building just to support its weight.

Geisha spotted!

Chef Sanchit!

We decided to walk by the river side to a commercial district that was famous for Geisha sightings in the evening. We really enjoyed the walk by the river, and took lots of pictures on the way. As soon as we reached the commercial district, I got on task. Our mission - spot a Geisha. I took Sanchit to many back roads. We around for about an hour, before we gave up and decided to have some dinner. The chefs at the dinner invited us to the teppanyaki and let us try cooking. After a good meal, our energy levels were back, and we (I) decided to look in the back roads on the other side of the main road before calling it quits. But hey, guess what? It paid off. We saw, not one, not two, but three geishas within the next thirty minutes. I was solo excited. Years back, I had read a book Geisha and was super thrilled that I could spot one. We walked around a bit more before heading back home and calling it a night.

Day 7 
By Sanchit

Inno Shrine

Tori gate messages

Headed for thousand god temple and Inno shrine. No matter where you go in Japan, you find local metro always there. As other cities, Japan has built huge infrastructure which is far superior to any other country I have visited. They have high population density and I feel their public transport network works better than road network due to amazing infrastructure. They have done a tremendous job on building train network!

Bell-ringer

Tori gate walk to shine

We reached the Inno shrine. There are a lot of Tori gates and has a nice view - but more interesting part was again the history of the temple. We visited another temple, Temple of thousand god, which was spectacular. Here people would worship Buddha and its thousand almost identical statues in a big hall. These statues are protected by various gods, most of them originated from Indian religions. These statues were prepared in 1100 AD - fascinating to see that India was considered as a knowledge base back then. We are just forgetting our rich history. This rich history is not only mythology or stories - it also has a lot of meaningful knowledge that is getting lost. For e.g. Buddha achieved enlightenment. Buddhisatva who where the followers divided in two groups - one who would only try to achieve enlightenment and then others who would also want to help sufferers meanwhile. Not only most of us have lost the meaning of enlightenment, but also these two choices are very much relevant in today's world. (more in my next blog)

Bamboo forest

Sunset by the lake

Post the temples, I visited a ninja shop and shopped like a shopaholic! I would build my own ninja corner in my room. We also visited bamboo forest and a few more shrines. One shrine where Zen Buddhism started was so serene. In the middle of green mountains, there was a lake and an open area next to bamboo forest. Totally a place where monks would meditate and practice their religion. Out last stop of the day was a monkey park. We bought peanut and fed the monkeys. We saw how monkeys interacted with humans for food. By now we were tired when we hit our hotel only to find another story to tell.

Monkeying at Monkey Park

(S)Mothering

There were two floors in the hotel, with the first floor a kitchen-dining, and the second floor a bedroom. After making dinner - ramen, tofu-sesame and salad, we decided to go to bed. We were sleeping in the hotel and suddenly at midnight, we heard TV was on at a loud noise in the separate room. We didn't start TV at all and there is no way it could start by its own at midnight. We couldn't sleep that night much. Have complained to hotel.com and results are awaited.

Day 8 
By Juhi

We packed up early and took the train ride to Tokyo. Again this was very simple process given the high frequency of the bullet trains between Kyoto and Tokyo. Btw, if you notice Kyoto and Tokyo are

 anagrams, and Kyoto was the capital of Japan before Tokyo was designated. We reached Tokyo in about two hours. Then we set off to find our AirBnB accommodation. That took us more effort than we expected. Turns out that Tokyo has so many by-lanes, and high rises, that navigation systems have a hard time in some places. Anyway, with some effort, we managed to find our apartment. Thats a lie - our room in a shared apartment. We booked our accommodation in the last minute, and this was the best we could do within our budget. But hey, it was located in the commercial district of the city, and you know what they say - LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. The room had a bunk bed, a TV, a built in wall cabinet. But it was the smallest room i have ever seen in my life. It was so small that at-a-time only one person could stand in it. After checking-in to our room, we freshened up and started our Tokyo expedition. 

After having a late lunch at an Irish Pub, we headed to the Sinjuku Gyoen National Garden. The garden had many smaller regions. Each landscaped in a different way. There was an English garden, French garden, Japanese gardens etc. There were many lakes, and the gardens were manicured well. There was also a greenhouse in the park. It was nice, but not super impressionable. The garden is supposed to be much prettier in the spring, during the cherry blossom or sakura season. 

After visiting the gardens, we decided to walk around the city. We saw the Shibuya pedestrian scramble. This is basically a traffic intersection in Tokyo. Its claim to fame - hundreds of pedestrians crossing the intersection even time the traffic lights are red. This is because the intersection is in the middle of a huge commercial district. We kept walking around the shops, and came across his store that sold tiny sized dogs. They let you pet the dogs, which was really amazing. We also saw interesting advertising methods, such as using a rabbit you can pet, to get people to come near your store.  Then we decided to go to the Ginza commercial district. More shops, more lights, and many more pedestrians. After a long day walking around Tokyo, we went back to our bunk beds and called it a night.

Day 9 
By Sanchit

Mile Marker 0 in Japan

Biking in Tokyo

We slept like crazy for 9 hours and headed out for Sensoji Temple early morning and bought some goodies and souvenirs for home. Even though architecture and aura was nice, I didn't find any charm in visiting another shrine. We then headed for a Tokyo bike tour for 3 hours with a local guide. The bikes were really light and well maintained. We visited old houses, some cultural shops and lot of 'only-local-can-tell' kind of spots. While we were very exhausted with the walking for the last 4-5 days, biking in fact came as a relief and we felt rejuvenated.

Elevator ride to the clouds

After bike tour, it was already evening and we had 2 more places in Tokyo that we wanted to visit - Skytree and Akihabara (the electric city of Tokyo). We first went to Tokyo skytree. I had no idea it would turn out to be so beautiful and inspiring. It was a tall tower supported by pillars left and right. Tall as in 630m tall - second highest building of the world. We first went to 350m floor from where we could see all lighted buildings till the horizon. Everything was small from here. We spent a good time just capturing a mesmerizing city which is all glittered with lights (while, yellow and neon), mostly comprised of high-rises (which looked so small) and hyperactive with so many metros and bridges.

That's where we are

Skytree

The view!

We further went up at 450m - which is the tallest point one can go on skytree. I could see flights in the clouds now and I lost the perspective of how high I was. At such a height, I could see the world in macro - out from my daily life and hence it took a philosophical angle. I strongly felt that this city has so many millionaires and billionaires and they are all somewhere part of this grand view. Becoming a billionaire lost its charm for me - it didnt ever charm me anyway. I also felt that so many people in these cities are equipped with latest technologies - they are in comfortable homes/cars and are connected with internet. With so much tech, they can definitely do more but there is no direction on "what to do more"? Also all the technology, doesn't imply more happiness! Other than philosophical angles, I was also feeling scared at such a height. At one point, there was a glass bottom on which you can stand and you can see all the way down under you. That was just scary!

Standing on top of Japan

Maido Cafe

After the skytree, we headed for Akihabara - the electric city. We reached as it was closing as it was already about 9p. We quickly run through a couple of anime stores to buy action figures of my favorite anime characters - we didn't find Naruto ones, but there was a good stock of One Piece ones. We also visited a maido-cafe which was unique and weird in so many ways - people dressed inside as one piece, death note characters; tourists who have no clue of what's happening around, and the maidos (the waitress) who was roll playing a maid and entertaining us. We made a run for the last metro and came back home. We packed our suitcases and crashed on the bed.

Day 10 

By Juhi

View from Tokyo Metropolitan Govt. Office

Sanchit left early this morning for the airport. Narita express had a stop very close to where we lived. We said our good bye, and I continued sleeping for some more time. My flight wasn't until the evening. Sanchit reached airport on time, and was united with his bagwati. I decided to take one last excursion before wrapping up the trip. I looked up Tripadvisor's list of things to do in Shinjuku (where we were staying), and it listed Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. This was about a fifteen minute walk from my apartment, so I headed out. The reason why this is a popular site is that the office has two towers, both of which have observation decks on top which are free for viewing to the pubic. Also, this places stays open much later than many other places in Tokyo, making it a popular night destination for tourists. It was quite crowded even when I went there at 11 am. I stood in a queue for fifteen minutes before I got into the elevator that took me to the observation deck. The view was nice, but by then we'd been to the top of the second tallest building in the world, and so I headed back home soon enough. I cleaned up the room, and checked out. The train ride back to the airport went smoothly, and our third international trip together came to an end.

Google Photos have created a cool feature that creates a cool travelogue when you upload photos taken from android phone. Here is a story in pictures - please click here.