Japan diaries 4: Hiroshima

After Kyoto we took the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, a place we’d heard a lot of. Hiroshima is, no doubt, most famous for being the first actual city in the history of the world to be the target of an atomic bomb. The people of Hiroshima recall this event mainly as a positive one, however, and everything related to the bomb is prefixed with “peace” rather than “bomb” — for example, the park located near the site is called Peace Memorial Park, and the museum is called Peace Memorial Museum, the bell is called Peace Bell and the… You get the idea.

We went to see the sites and stroll around in the park, and it was very beautiful and compelling, and the bombed out building that had been preserved to serve as an example of how nuclear destruction looks was a very moving sight.

We also rang the Peace Bell, placed in the middle of the park to emanate the signals of peace out into the world, by people all over the world.

Dystopian stories like Fallout and the like have however lied to us: Life is easily attainable in the wake of a nuclear bombing. Nuclear weapons are a far smaller threat to the life on earth than accidents like Tjernobyl, for example, as people are living all over the nuclear site of Hiroshima today without trouble, only a few landmarks kept intact to remind people of the terrible toll of war.

Atomic nightlife
My twentieth birthday was on the 14th of July, the day we arrived in Hiroshima, so naturally we’d have to hit the nightlife and have a good time. It was however a rather dull wednesday, so not many clubs were open, and the ones that were had zip people in them. We started out by getting some fancy dinner, a crab restaurant in a very nice Japanese styled building with traditionally dressed staff.

The food was a bit odd, and much of it was probably an acquired taste, but the experience was nice and authentic, so I do not regret going there.

We then hit a bar, containing one patron, and then went out to search for some clubs, before allying ourselves with a dude apparantly charged with helping tourists with directing them to places where they can spend absurd amounts of money on nothing at all — just what we needed. He directed us to a Club Diva, which is a hostess club with kareoke.

Now a Hostess club is basically a club in which you pay an entry fee and then you are entertained by what amounts to a modern geisha: a girl that talks to you, asks question about your ever-exciting life and laughs at your jokes. We hit two of these clubs before giving up on clubbing and instead looking for a pub with some life in it, but not before singing Bohemian Rhapsody on the kareoke system to much applause.

We did find a pub with some people in it, although they were all tourists like us — but it was nice to finally meet some english speaking people. There were a couple of australians and a couple of americans, and both groups were fun to talk to before we called it a night.

Oriental Hotel Hiroshima
Last but not least a few words about our hotel in Hiroshima. As we were staying there for my birthday, and only were staying there for a few days, we figured we could splurge a bit on the budget and book a nice hotel for those two nights. This was not a mistake, as we found something incredibly cheap yet very satisfying.

Located on 16th floor with a nice view to the skyline of Hiroshima with a nice bathroom and a very good bed, polite staff and beautiful interior, we felt like a couple of hobos in a palace. A culture shock, to say the least.

So far, so good. Hiroshima was a nice experience, but I’d rather go to Kyoto if I ever return to this country. Next up will be training with Shihan Midori in Fukuoka.

Japan diaries 3: Kyoto

After Kawaguchiko and the battle with Fuji-san the trip went to Kyoto for a small week, and then a few days worth of sightseeing in Hiroshima. For Kyoto we had booked a few bunkbeds in K’s House, a popular hostel, especially for young people. In Hiroshima, just the two nights, we splurged on a good hotel called Oriental.

A bit about Kyoto
Kyoto is first and foremost famous for being the original and ancestral home of the Japanese emperors throughout history. Tokyo only became the capital of Japan in the late 19th century during the industrialization. Kyoto is a bustling metropolis built in the middle of a circle of beautiful, lush mountains and is at once a city with a pulse yet somewhat isolated from the rest of Japan. A saying is that if you only have a few days to stay in Japan, Kyoto is the place to go — it has a little bit of everything Japan has to offer. Lui and I whole-heartedly agree with this notion.

K’s House
K’s House, as our hostel was called, is a series of hostels present in most big cities in Japan, very popular and very, very nice. The price is a bit steep for a hostel, but it is worth every penny. Everything is clean, the staff speak great english and are very helpful, the rooms are nice and cool(Kyoto is a very hot city), and the people you meet there are very interesting.

We arrived the day before the Football World Cup Final, so a big TV had been set up in the common room, and posters were evident about the scheduled celebration. A curious fact is that in Japan, the TV-day extends beyond 24 hours, it is only reset to the actual hour when you go to sleep. A bit fuzzy explanation, I know, but that was how it was explained to me by the hostel staff when I asked why the match was scheduled to be played on July 11th on 27:30

Awesome people
Everything about Kyoto was an adventure, including the people we met. Lui and I are fans of the trading card game known as Magic, so we had brought a box of cards, this particular series inspired by Japanese mythology, for the trip. By sheer accident we stumbled into a couple of American Yu-Gi-Oh players, Courtney and Aaron, who expressed interest in learning Magic, so we borrowed them a couple decks and taught them the rules and played a few matches. It was loads of fun, and they were generally awesome people.

They told us about this card store in Kyoto where you could buy Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh and a lot of other trading card games. We actually went there and saw their impressive displays of cards — most in Japanese, but a few in english too. I even bought a handful of cards for favorable prices, in Japanese of course.

I also met a Canadian guy whose name cannot be pronounced, so he told me to go with Marc, and I did. He actually worked on the hostel, planning to stay in Kyoto for a year — he did two months of travelling Japan last year, like we are doing now, and was so enamoured with the country in general and with Kyoto specifically, that he decided to work and live here for a year. He was familiar with the city already, so I asked him about an electronics store — as mentioned earlier, my camera got smashed in Kawaguchiko, so I needed a replacement. Marc just so happened to know both a place to get cameras, as well as a fair bit about what to get and what not to get, so off we were. I got my camera alright, a Pentax camera with 12.1 megapixels for just around 750 yen — it would have cost more than double that price in Denmark, so it was a bargain.

We also met a bunch of american and french people with whom 3-4 hours went with playing the International Backpackers Game: Uno. I was having so much fun with the “french rules” they were teaching us that it didn’t occur to me to take pictures, so there are none, sadly, but it was a great time. In the group was also an american man named Mark Rosa, living in Tokyo on vacation in Kyoto. His father was an american soldier on Okinawa, so he had lived a lot of his life in Japan already, so it felt natural to him to travel there again. He told us a lot of awesome stuff about the culture on Okinawa, where we are going after Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

Doing Kyoto
Kyoto is an awesome city, it’s only drawback being it’s humid climate and lot of rain. We went for a lot of sightseeing, visiting the Imperial Palace, going to the top of Kyoto Tower and strolling around in the old Geisha area of Kyoto.

The Imperial Palace was the home, and after the coup d’etat by the Tokugawa-clan of Shoguns also the prison, of the Emperor of Japan for centuries until the Meiji Restoration that abolishhed the Shogunate and put the Emperor back into power. You have to reserve and pay for a guided tour in order to get inside, though, so we got no further than the gates, but it was still quite an experience. You could really feel the history of the place.

A goal while in Japan had also always been to visit an arcade. We originally feared we would have to wait until we returned to Tokyo before having the chance to experience one, but by chance we stumbled upon one a few minutes walk from K’s House, just above a Pachinco-hall.

The place had all sorts of games and lived up fully to the platonic arcade we had read about in Japanese legendry. It had rows upon rows of obscure fighting games based on animes we had never heard of before, one more strange than the other. We played one coop game where you entered the role of a couple of female fairy superheroes that shot pink laserbeams and had a special move that blew up everything on the screen. It was the most bizarre gaming experience I’ve had in a long time.

I was happy to see that Tekken 6, a game I’ve been playing for more hours than I’d ever admit on my X-box 360, was also present there. It was also, incidentally, the only game where I wasn’t completely smacked to bits and pieces by the other arcade guests — I still lost every fight, but it was a close call every time.

It wasn’t a close call, however, on one machine called “Actress Again”. We both played the machine for about a minute before we were both annihilated soundly by what appeared to be an insane AI. We saw others sit down and play the machine, only to get completely smacked to bits in a few seconds too. Later we realized that the insane AI was actually a dude sitting on the other side of the row, slamming buttons and winning every fight in a few seconds.

One evening we also went out to see the Geisha area of Kyoto and have a little sample of their nightlife. Both was very satisfying, although I myself went home because I still was sick from Fuji-san and it started raining. The Geisha area was very old Japanese style in it’s look and feel, and it had this vibrant, cozy atmosphere.

Kyoto Tower was also an attraction we had to take a look at, it being the tallest building in the city, and the city being encapsulated by mountains, so we could see all around the city from up there.

After Kyoto will be the world famous city of Hiroshima, a bustling metropolis and a living piece of history.

Japan diaries 2: The karate pilgrimage

While staying in Asakusa our plans were mostly centered around visiting the shrine and grave of Masutatsu Oyama, the founder of the Kyokushinkaikan karate school. Later on we went to the mountains of Mitsumine, where the same founder had held many training camps close to tournaments, a mountain peak with much spiritual energy.

A bit about Sosai Masutatsu Oyama
Curiously, he was originally from Korea, but emigrated to Japan as a young man to join the airforce, but was rejected due to him being a foreigner. Instead he took up a life of martial arts, and developed his own branch of Karate, derived mainly from Shotokan Karate, which he called Kyokushinkaikan — meaning something along the lines of “the school for the path to the true meaning”. During his career he wrestled bulls and lived as a hermit in the mountains, mostly Mt. Minobou. A recurring karate tournament in his honour is also held called Mas Oyama Memorial Tournament. He lies buried in Tokyo along generals of legend and important politicians.

Visiting the grave
From Asakusa, we had to take three different metro trains in order to get to the temple where he was buried, a temple called Gokukuji. The Tokyo metro system is very intuitive and the staff was very helpful with pointing out our route, so it went smoothly. The temple was beautiful, and I was positively surprised to see young guys of my age walking around in traditional kimono talking to their casual-clad friends — walking around at a burial ground in denmark dressed in classic danish clothes ala folkdance would make people, if not laugh, then at least exchange looks.

We dressed up in our karate clothes and paid a visit to Masutatsu Oyama’s grave, where we paid our respects and took pictures together with the master.

The atmosphere around the grave was tense and authentic, it really was an experience I’m going to relish for a long time.

Honbu
Honbu is the name of the “main dojo”, headquarter training facility, of the international Kyokushin karate school. There are two Honbu now, because of a legal dispute after the death of Masutatsu Oyama, so they’re called “old” and “new” Honbu.

We paid both honbu a visit and took some photos to mark the occasion — a requirement of our karate pilgrimage.

Kawaguchiko
After a brief stay for a few days in Tokyo Asakusa, we traveled with JR down to a town called Kawaguchiko with a nice view to Mt. Fuji, in Japanese called Fuji-san. It was a rather small town, mostly serving as a hub for travelers to the mountains, but also carrying it’s own little isolated community and a number of good and not so good restaurants. We were lodged in a hotel called Kawaguchiko Station Inn, just in front of Kawaguchiko station, thusly named. Fun fact: When you step out of the train you immediately feel like you’ve entered a city in a Pokemon gameboy game due to the atmosphere and the peculiar, loud 8bit music tune coming from the streetlights to signal for blind people. This music is audible from the hotel rooms from 8am to 10pm, so it also works as a makeshift way to keep track of getting up and getting to bed.

The hotel itself was very nice, with authentic japanese style rooms, Asakusa Smile being bunkbeds, and with free tea(for those so inclined), futon roll beds on the floor and hot spring “onsen” bath, which was very nice. The atmosphere on the hotel was incredible, but the breakfast was a letdown — a piece of airy half-exisistant quasi-bread with butter, for the price of 500 yen a piece, money that could easily buy you breakfast for two persons for two days in an expensive japanese supermarket.

Mt. Mitsumine
Following in the footsteps of our karate master Sosai Masutatsu Oyama we hired a tourist bus to take the group to Mt. Mitsumine, a lush forest mountain with a lot of temples and shrines. The mountain was one of Oyamas favourites, and he often went there for training camps. The mountain was so important to him, and he important to it, that he posthumously has been given a memorial shrine larger than his very grave on top of it — so of course we needed to go there.

The mountain is incredibly beautiful, but on the way up my camera got damaged from the heavy rain, so I have no pictures myself of the summit itself, but once I get them from the others I will edit them into this post.

As mentioned before, there was incredibly heavy rain up there, so we were suited up and training on top of the mountain in the beautiful gardens, covered in mud, our kiais echoing all the way down the mountain sides. It was an incredibly intense experience that I will remember fondly for the rest of my life.

Mt. Fuji
After some rest in the onsen and the hotel room we were gearing up and setting out for the next objective: Fuji-san, the tallest mountain in Japan and an active volcano, it’s snowy peak taunting us from above.

We drove with bus up to the mountain, met up with our guides and started walking up the mountainside at nightfall, so that we’d reach the top at dawn to witness the sunrise, one of the most legendary sunrises in the world. The trek upwards was much more steep than anticipated and was a true test of endurance, altitude sickness and exhaustion taking it’s toll on all participants. For hours we climbed, making brief stops at the various checkpoints before pushing onwards towards the summit and the sunrise, leg pains and thundering headaches pounding through us like a hailstorm. We were lucky that the weather was solid and it didn’t rain at all — rain on that mountain is said to be fatally dangerous — but two hundred meters from the top, the most steep and tough 200 meters of them all, I had to stop because my condition was considered dangerous by the guides — I’d collapse if I continued from headpains due to altitude sickness, so I had to return to the nearest checkpoint and wait for the group. It was alright though, as I got to witness the sunrise from there as well, and it was beautiful. The others later told me that they were too exhausted and in too much pain to fully appreciate their victory over the ancient volcano, but we all agreed that once we got rid of our sickness and cold and pains, we would have a great experience to look back on.

I, for one, intend to one day return to that mountain and reach the top at any price. But not today. Not tomorrow. Sure as hell not anytime soon. But someday, Fuji-san, someday!

Japan diaries 1: Asakusa

Hello, World!

This is my first blog post from Japan, where I am going to spend the next two months. I want to chronicle my travels and share my experiences with you people through this channel, any comments, suggestions and ideas are very welcome in the comment section.

A bit about the project: My friend, Lui, and I are karate buddies and have traveled from Denmark to Japan to stay all July and all August in order to experience something completely out of the ordinary. Japan has been a dream for us for years, and now this dream finally comes to fruition. We’ve heard a lot about the country both in mainstream media, from friends and family and through karate associates, history litterature and much more. Words cannot describe how excited we were for this adventure. That it is finally happening is still a mystery to us both. To introduce the team:

Lui, my travel companion:

Per, myself:

Both just arrived at Ueno station in Tokyo, on our way to our first hostel, Asakusa Smile. At this point we had zip idea of how to get there, so we walked around asking our way with people who spoke abysmally little English. The trusty tourist information did however point us in the right direction, and we soon arrived on Asakusa station with with Tokyo metro. The plan was to stay in Asakusa for a few days while getting some first impressions of the legendary Tokyo, visit some nearby temples and train in a kyokushin dojo near Shibuya, before traveling further on to Kawaguchiko(a village near Fuji-San, the tallest mountain in Japan)

A bit about Asakusa
Asakusa is a district in Tokyo mostly known for the availability of the finer arts (theater, temple sites and the like), secondly known for it’s cheap hostels and last but not least its rundown facades:

Asakusa also have a large golden statue that looks a lot like a carrot. Now I’ve been told by a Canadian I met in Kyoto later on that the statue has something to do with… beer. I’m going to have to do some more research on that.

Lodging
Our hostel in Asakusa was called Asakusa Smile, situated a few hundred meters from aforementioned statue in the most desolate street you can possibly imagine. The hostel itself was alright, but the reception was closed from 12 to 15 o’clock, so we had to wait in the smothering heat(it was at least 30 degrees celcius) and with insane jetlag from the 13 hour plane trip. The staff was kind enough to let us store our luggage inside the locked reception so we could go explore until they opened. When they finally opened we got our room, an 8-bed dorm on the fourth floor (in Japan the ground floor is the 1st floor).

All in all Asakusa was a nice place to stay, and you slept well on their beds, and the atmosphere was cozy, but the desolate location was a dealbreaker for future lodgings. We’re not returning there when we return to Tokyo, that’s for sure.