August 30, 2009
When one is sore, lost, all alone and in the rain in Tokyo at 3:00AM and one finds a vending machine that sells Ultraman Soda, one can certainly be forgiven for deciding to sample said soda. However, while there are things that one feels one simply MUST do, there is a procedure to follow.
BEFORE saying in an ultra-deep Baltan type voice "BAH!!! HA!! HA!! YOU ARE DEFEATED!!NOW I SHALL CONSUME YOU ULTRAMAN!!! it is highly adviseable that you check to confirm that you are in fact all alone....and not actually scaring the locals.
Just...you know...sayin'.
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August 29, 2009
As Japan Battens down for the incoming typhoon, I spent the day in Ofuna and Akihabara. It's the first time I've spent an extended time just browsng in Akihabara since I arrived except to vist Gamers or go to the Cyber cafe. With a budget of only 90 bucks there was a lot of longing and little buying but I ambled through lots of places, ate some curry and was interviewd for a commercial.
Kotobukyia in Electric Town has several staff members who speak good English and as I was , it seems, the first person they approached with a camera who did not flee, they interviwed me and filmed me gleefully and apreciatively interacting with their staff...in English. I also talked to the interviewer and a fellow staffer about various fannish things ranging from Endless 8, to the difference between Super Robots and Mechs...They were perplexed that I liked Lucky Star as it is "old" and they couldnt see how I could possibly "get it". I pointed out that I'd seen many of the old shows it referenced. The two were also quite surprised that I liked Spice+Wolf , which they both seemed to regard very highly. I ended up with the first volume of the light novel, the translation of which which will be one of my two projects over the next few months.
Kotobukyia is a truly awesome shop with a huge and ever changing display of models, figures and whatnot. They get something of a short shrift as they are literally in the Shadow of Gamers and they dont have their own TV show...but inside they do have things like this.
I returned to the apt and am now at the cybercafe in Narimasu where I banged out my summer homework...a "What I did on my sumer vacation" E-mail to my instructor. Now I must try to catch a train or I'll have a two stop walk.
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August 21, 2009
Very mild tremor this morning.
Now all the cats seem to have left.
So....any readers in Tokyo notice anything wierd about the cats?
Update page is off...I can't post pics yet, I suspect weirdness with this I-cafes set up.
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August 20, 2009
Today I got on the train to go to Ikebukaro...then got off and ambled over to the local train that was going the other way.
I got off in a place called Narimasu. Stopping in a fast food joint, I ordered something that appeared to be called "beef egg StrangeKanji rice Big". I was presented with a bowl of scallions and beef on a bed of rice with a rwa egg on the side. I was presented with a tool...presumably to use with the egg. I ASSUME the thing is to avoid an ungodly mess with the egg...The exact method to be used with this device is unknown to me, but I was able to narrow the possibilities by eliminating one technique that produced a demonstrably ungodly mess.
Afterwards I got back on the train and went, via 3 transfers, to what appears to be the very end of the Tobu line, a farming community called Ogose. I got off and made a perfect turon of myself as I went from shrine to shrine and, not having brought my Kanji dictionary today, followed the mile markers that helpfully indicated that several "things" were 0.6, 1.2, 3.1 and 6.8 kilometers away. One Bhuddist temple, one Shinto shrine and a senic overlook later I began hiking up a huge array of steps...that ended in more steps and arrived at what appeared to be a very modern tomb...and a trail off to the side marked with a sign that said "Kanji Kanji Mountain Up 5.4 KM"....so I decided to hike up to the top of Kanji Kanji mountain. (I THINK the name of the mountain is actually Kuro). Anyway, a couple of hours, 2 senic overlooks, a bit of washed out trail that required using cypress roots like a ladder and some precarious rocks later...I was at the bright orange marker at the top of the mountain. Which by the way is covered in a cypress forest that doesn't afford much of a view from the very top. But I took the last pic my battery would allow of the marker at the top of Kanji Kanji mountain. Anyway,,,realizing I was not going DOWN the root ladder I chose one of other 2 paths from the top.
Thats where I found the orb weavers...BIG orb weavers. At least in Mirkwood the giant spiders stay off the path, in Japan they use the path as their casting area...and my camera with a dead battery. The cypress forest was wierd. I'm from the US South so cypress means swamp, but here they grow like pine trees. Their branches are arrainged different and they have really really interesting acoustics. The light wood creaks in the breeze and sounds like the sound effect of creaking timbers in an old wooden ship.
Anyway, despite spiders and some bits of the trail being washed out, I got down without mishap (unless one counts rolling/sliding part of the way). I arrived at the station just before dark and made my way back to Narimasu where I found a cybercafe...but no USB port that will fit my oddball camera widget. I`ll post the pics later in an update.
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August 18, 2009
I thought I might have solved my aformentioned money problem on this vacation.
But my cunning plan resulted in me being in possession of possibly the most useless item in all of Japan.
A Western Union Money Order.
Does ANYONE out there know where a black and yellow money order can be cashed? (Preferably in the Tokyo area)
In return...
Fundage aside, things are good....
...except for the fact that even on this side of the Pacific, the malevolent creatures that eat one sock at a time are lurking about the dryers.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone but Western Union is just not spoken in Japan. There USED to be Western Union services through Suruga Bank but no more. No one I talked to in the banking district would deal with the thing. Anyhoo...no Roman albums or Super Robot Wars game for Ken. Oh well.
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August 13, 2009
I've been laid up sick the last 2 days so I am begging off the first day of Komiket 76. I dearly wanted to see the opening ceremonies but it would be downright rude to bring such gifts as coughs, aches and post nasal drip to 300,000 other fans.
This is the last Komeket before the censorship/doujinshi crackdown this October, so this may be the end of an era. Therefore IF I'm feeling better I'll go tomorrow or Sunday. However, I understand from the brochure that photos are highly restricted..
I'll be buying a bike this weekend. Then heading farther afield.
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August 11, 2009
I'm at N-Cafe in Akihabara, avoiding the "pushers".
The guest house is excellent. It's spartan but quite clean, has US/UK style toilets, is a very short walk from a train station that's only 15 minutes from Ikebukaro, has US/UK style toilets, has a coin operated dryer that is a laundromat model meaning that it REALLY dries your clothes fast! A big surprise...all rooms come with kitchenettes. It has a roof that is accessable for tenants. It is devoid of holes in inappropriate places. It has US/UK style toilets and it is made out of reinforced concrete, (which, I should note, does not burn easily). If I had a laptop I'd have high speed internet. All this and US/UK style toilets for more than a hundred less than either place I stayed in previously. The only demerit I can come up with is mind numbingly minor: Instead of a regular futon it has a western style bed that doesn't fold and therefore takes up a large swath of the tiny room...a necessity with its tiled floor. Yes kids, the fact that it has a bed is what I'm reduced to complaining about!.Now put away the tiny violins and make a note of the company. If you want to stay in That thar'ole Jaypan for 3 weeks or more one of these is hard to beat.
I'll post pics of the trip later, I managed to choose a computer that doesn't have an accessable USB port.
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I'm on a coin operated computer so this will be brief.
I arrived yesterday but only a little bit ago did I get situated in my guest house. It is really quite nice.
Flooding and mudslides from Typhoon Etau closed the Narita Express and caused delay on the other lines sufficient to keep me from ariving at my guest house during office hours. I ended up spending the night at a hotel in Ueno that is equipped with a very comprehensive and somewhat ill-thought out fire protection system. Around 5 AM I woke up and noted that we had encountered some moderately heavy heavy seas. I woke completely up and sat bolt upright when I realized I was not actually on a boat.
Even given my limited Japanese I'm pretty confident of my ability to get by with basic requests and to comunicate. However, the phone takes away all pantomime from a conversation making breadth of vocabulary and listening comprehension even more important. For example..... The words Fire Escape, Jammed, Firedoor and Trapped would have been quite useful to know about 12 hours ago.
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August 08, 2009
As compensation here is something to ponder....
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October 16, 2008
I'd been laid up a few days with a cold, a foot injury and there had been days of rain from a typhoon that hovered offshore. As my entire discretionary budget after various fiascoes had ended up being <$400...for a month in Tokyo...I was coming to the end of my financial tether. Nevertheless I was determined to see something else not in the Tokyo area and as I was blessed with a rail pass transportation costs were not an issue. The problem was that touristy places tend to require money, so with 3 days and ~
70 bucks left, I looked for something off the beaten path and cheap.
Kanazawa is unusual in that it is one of the few large cities that was outside the range of the B29s in World War Two. Reportedly much of the Edo period architecture remains unscathed. It is not on a bullet train line and can only be reached from Tokyo via a 6 hour overnight trip from Ueno station...either via a sleeper car or a normal train...as the rail pass is no good on sleeper cars I took the sitter car.
In stark contrast to the shinkansen and other trains I saw on the east coast, the train to Kanazawa was a retro special.
Unlike the non-bullet trains on Kyushu that I took to Nagasaki (but like the Shinkansen) this one was electric, but it was far less gracefully appointed. Like most older facilities I encountered in Japan, it was well maintained to the point that it appeared to have been dropped almost new out of the 1950s.
Arriving in Kanazawa station, the retro sort of feel was reinforced by the old style commuter trains that were stopping there. The stations embarking area was quite old apart from what appeared to be a recently redone floor....
The Kanazawa tour bus costs 500 yen and in the US would be a children s bus at a kiddie park. I was the first on the bus and got a seat, however as the company uses the clown car method of bus packing, and because there was an elderly lady standing, I spent the ride standing up, hunched over and contemplating how short its interior was. The only non Japanese on the bus were a young Russian couple and they, like me, were too small for the hobbit bus...so when the conductor announced that "We are about to stop at a tourist trap." (!) ..the three of us extracted ourselves with some difficulty.
Looking at the map, I saw that the whole bus route was a bit less than 10 miles. We decided that we were not getting on that hobbit bus again.
It seems that major repairs to pre Taisho period buildings are now required to use traditional techniques for things not involving plumbing or electrical repairs. At least one home was open to the public so these could be observed. The Russian couple and I went in and we guys began discussing the fact that it looked like they had standard sized boards and cuts of wood in feudal japan as well as the different techniques for running floor supports...
*
Brickmuppet....awful diplomacy since 2008.
Where the facades were not traditional, hey were often corrugated. Like many other places I had observed in Japan, (and like most of the US south) there are very wild differences in income level from door to door. Which makes for a more eclectic neighborhood
Kanazawa is full of shrines....LOTS AND LOTS OF SHRINES. There are literally hundreds of them and they are active.
Kewell
I ambled inside to discover hat they were apparently either having a big seasonal clearance sale or were going out of business, everything was 25-75% off.
I of course, was broke.....
I'll also likely spend more than 33 dollars..... which is what I spent on 2 meals, a bathouse a coke and some batteries.
Even more remarkable I never encountered any....OH NOES!!!1!
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September 20, 2008
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Upon arriving in that thar ole' Jaypan I suddenly discovered that my 
accommodation arrangements were FUBAR'd due to an apparent oxidation mishap. I took no pictures of the grave of Casa Nova on that rainy night but I snapped this one 22 days later...
this old promo photo was taken from almost the same angle as the one below it.
The Tokyo boarding house I found was rough around the edges, but it was a surprise expense that fit within my budget. Green House cost about 500 dollars for a month. with a roughly 250 dollar deposit for utilities. It is less than a click from the train station and is only two stops on the express ( 9 minutes) from the big station in Ikebukaro.
On the bonus side it was in vastly better condition than that apartment was in August of '08.
The postit note speaks the truth...take my word for it.
I quickly learned that in Japan the most valuable thing on earth is a 100 yen coin. This shower, phones, laundromats, some vending machines and even one automat would take nothing else!
I realized early on what the problem was with the restrooms...it seems that due to a miscomunication, right was frequently disabled by the tenants, and, as nature abhors a vacuum, the restrooms would then fill up with wrong.
Despite the rustic touches there are a few things to be said for places like this. First the place is cheap.
500 a month in Tokyo is pretty damned good. You are unlikely to get better private accommodations for that without a 6 month lease. Gas is cheap, the 250 dollar utility deposit was 80% refunded.
Second the place is casual.
"What does he mean?"
Other, newer places, like this that actually cater to foreigners frequently cost twice as much and have a ton of restrictions. No guests, a curfew, no food in the rooms...its like dorm life without D&D. This place allows you to cook in your room, go and come at 3 AM and as long as you observe shoe discipline and aren't loud..they don't care.
As an aside, when I told my friend Bob Mitchell about the pillows* that were in the closet he asked about the layout and the nearby bathouse. We realized that by bizarre coincidence he had stayed here before. In fact he had brought some friends, who balked at the place got another, better maintained place that cost more than twice as much and were miserable in the "prison" whereas Bob stayed here and had a fine time, being able to come and go as he pleased with no fear of being locked out.
The purpose of accommodations when on a vacation is to give you a place to sleep and put your stuff. This served that purpose well. I was not in Japan to see the inside of an apartment but to see the many sights of that strange land. Particularly given that this was found quite on the fly I think I did pretty well. For that reason I actually don't recommend against this place.
* Pillows in Japan are constructed to an utterly different standard of softness, more appropriate for a beanbag. Bob informed me of this in '07, and mentioned that he always bought several pillows from Sams Club before going to Japan. On the way back, the luggage space used for pillows was taken up with the stuff he'd purchased. When I discovered several Sams Club pillows in the closet I laughed and mentioned it to Bob...after a bit of exchanging notes we realized he had stayed in this place. I asked the landlord and sure enough he remembered Bob as "that really nice polite American".
Bob Mitchell ...legendary Gaijin.
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August 21, 2008
Kanazawa is awesome. It is a bit out of the way, but I highly recommend it. Like Nagasaki, I would have stayed a day or two longer if possible. There are literally hundreds of temples and dozens of gardens. The castle is undergoing restoration but even in its damaged state is impressive. The most remarkable thing is the parts of the town that consists of buildings that are literally hundreds of years old, and yet are still active shops and homes. There are very few non-Japanese tourists due to its not being on the bullet train line. More later with pics when I am on a computer that has the appropriate port to load said pictures.
I stepped into this cybercafe to avoid the pusher/stuffer brigade as the return train put me out into Tokyo rush hour. Aside from the fact that this row of computers has no flash drive ports open, I am typing from what is the most elegant cybercafe I've ever found. Besides the drinks they have free rice, curry (as available) and miso soup...plus spotless showers. All for 12 bucks.
I've been up for almost 56 hours now and I realize I just misspelled the word "few".
UPDATE: Yes...I am fully aware that there is a monkey on the loose in Shibuya...I'll bet there's a racoon loose in Brooklyn too.
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August 20, 2008
I return Saturday barring any calamities such as fires, earthquakes or floods.
RE calamaties: I've been sick, I got gigged on a rail ticket and I may have fractured my heel, though it is better today than at any time the last 3 days.
I have never seen so many bats in my life.
Niigata/ west coast plans foiled by flooding/rains.
Monkey Island plans foiled by rain/storms.
Weather has been wonky due to the near miss Typhoon.
I found a particularly surly looking cat....
...but mostly it's been non touristy sights between Tokyo and Youkuska....and the things tourists overlook.
There are a lot of interesting and odd little things one finds when one walks for 4 hours through lower middle-class Tokyo neighborhoods.
Tonight I'm going to try to take the sleeper car to from Ueno to Kanazawa.
Pics very slow to upload in this crash-happy web-cafe machine, only have a few minutes left.
Everyone stay safe!
UPDATE: Rail pass doesnt work on sleeper cars....but I got on a sitter car and arrived in Kanazawa after 7 hr train ride....no Hotel vacancies. Today we learned to check for big sports events and peak tourist seasons in our destinations.
I am on a coin operated computer at the station (!) checking for touristy things....and I think I found a bath house....so I'll at least be a clean tired & incoherent Ken.
Kanazawa is off the beaten path....no bullet train stops here. However, this was one of the 3 most important cities during the Edo period. It is also one of the 2 big cities spared the bombings during WW2 as it was out of range of the B29s (Kyoto was spared by presidential decree and the insistance of the Navy). Thus the the Edo era stuff is still here...this should be a cool stop.
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August 16, 2008
Partly because of tenuous finances, and partly because I'm rarely home during the 3PM-11PM business hours, I had not previously partaken of the bathouse only 74 steps around the corner from my apt. People spoke highly of the place and I'd never been to a bathouse before so I determined to do it at least once this trip.
Today I kept my roamings no farther afield than Ikebukero, and in the late afternoon I went to the bathouse.
I had NO idea what I was doing, but I figgured that bathing should not be all that difficult.
I walked into the lounge and the manager threw me a horrified look and demanded that I remove my socks. I proceded to oblige until the manager....realizing they WERE socks asked where my shoes were. I pointed to the lockers in the foyer plainly maked with the picture of a shoe. The look of anger evaporated and was replaced with one of surprise.....which worries me for some reason....
Anyway, I paid my 550 yen. No instructions, directional or otherwise were forthcoming but I did know enough Kanji to know the difference between "Mens" and "Womens". This is the second place I've seen those two Kanji on the whole trip.
There was an air conditioned lounge.....with all the secret and wonderful things that are in the boys side of the house that no female shall ever see......as well as lockers, vibro-massage chairs and the entry into the bathouse proper. This consisted of a set of showers and 3 huge swimming pool sized jacuzzi baths, one of which was shapped like a volcano and had red lights strobing up from it.
That was the HOT bath.
The other two were the merely scalding and the just above freezing baths.
It was awesome...if scalding.
In the back was a sauna which I did not use.
One surprise (to me anyway) was that the men and women are in essentially the same high ceilinged room (vaulted ceiling topping out at 40+ feet) seperated by a wall only about 81/2 feet high. The women could be heard on the other side, chattering and presumably doing the Natto dance。This arraingement greatly facilitates the airflow of the place, but given that I'm just over 6 feet tall, had I been obnoxious and stupid, mischief could have been perpetrated. The various Japanese shows where this apparant design flaw is a plot point do not, it would seem strain credulity.
At any rate I got to practice my Japanese quite a bit and feel cleaner than I have in.....about 16 days....
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August 15, 2008
Yesterday I began walking following the creek near the house with the flow rather than upstream. I happened across this, which would have been a welcome find 2 weeks ago, a Japanese consignment store.
Banal indeed, but his is a very useful thing to find, If you visit Japan for an extended period make a note of the name, they are a chain.
Lots of bargains... absurdly cheap stuff in there.
In a park along the creek I noted this restroom....which is significant only because it is the only time on this trip I have seen kanji used to denote Men's and Women's restrooms.
An interesting flood control system along the creek.
I talked to a fellow named Hoshi at some length here. He said that this drains into several nearby parks that become lakes during major storms. The parks with the baseball fields and tennis coursts are frequently in depressions, I imagine that their flooding during storms is considered an excellent tradeoff since their use during storms is likely limited.
Look! A...er.... Neolithic childrens slide!
I shouldn't complain about where I'm staying, it keeps me dry at night, has running water and a refrigerator....
...but I can't help thinking that living in this apartment here might be kewell....
In contrast to the cicadas we have in Virginia, the Japanese variety seem a bit smaller, though they are probably a bit louder.
They taste exactly the same though, with an identical amount of blargh*
Around 4, as stormclouds were gathering, I decided to head back. That was when I realized 2 things. I had been walking over 4 and a half hours, and water flows DOWNhill.
Today I did laundry, went to the grocery, cleaned the room and studied Kanji. I have 7 days left and just under a hundred bucks...not bad considering the curveballs. I can still go afield with the railpass and I'm going to make use of that Tuesday & Wednesday of next week. I want to head up to the Mt Fuji area.
If anyone has knowledge of the Kanji or precise kattakana used for the term "region free" please leave it in a comment.
* as in " Hajimemashite, Watashi w~{bzzzTHUNK!}Blargh! ptooie!!-ptoooie!!"
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August 13, 2008
While I'm here in Japan on a low budget self inflicted tour package getting by on a wing and a prayer, Faith Howell has been in China as part of a well organized Old Dominion University venture.
They experienced no fires or other destructions of their living quarters...and she's a better photographer to boot....
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While it may seem redundant if you have a rail pass, the Suica card is a surprisingly useful bit of kit if you are staying in Tokyo. It is good on the subways 
and the few non JR line rail lines in Tokyo which the rail pass doesn't cover. It also gives a modest discount on those lines.This is importamt if. like me you are located on a private line. Also, most JR line stations have restraunts and even convinience stores that accept the little penguin card in lieu of cash and it has all the convinience of a card swipe as opposed to fretting with a ticket and rummagfing through your change at a ticket dispenser.
Finally, it allows you to....quite on the fly....provided theres a SUICA machine available...upgrade to a green car (first class). This may seem decadent and silly and it is not something I'd be likely to do often even if I had a reasonable budget , but, if one finds oneself, arriving in Tokyo...during rush hour...the prospect of a comfortable quiet seat on your 86 minute train ride from Yokuska is most appealing....
As I initially arived in Yokuska, I noted that there is now, on the outside wall of the US Naval base main entrance, an ATM machine that takes virtually all US ATM cards! This is important since such machines are very rare in Japan and generally quite selective about what cards they will take. The machine will also dispense yen from your avings account albiet only in 5000 yen incriments (+-50 bucks). This may be of considerable use to those of you not in the military who have an oddball ATM card.
To get to the Naval base from Yokuska station cross to and stay on the left (water) side of the main drag as you exit the station...This will take you through a park that is a small Japanese naval memorial (dont be loud rude or skate)...There will be one set of stairs up and down over a parking lot that is afiliated with a mall...the second set of steps is a pedestrian walkway over the main entrance....the ATM machine is just before hat on your left, sort of hiding behind a live oak.
To see the main Japanese naval memorial and the Battleship Mikasa, procede over the pedestrian skyway ...staying on the left side of the street keep walking about 2 blocks then turn left....this will put you in a brick paved park with bronze mermaids and ducks.... IJNS Mikasa is at the far end.
The ATM machiine and main gate of the Naval base is directly across from a sketchy looking taco joint named the Honey Bee. As I'd arrived...again...too late to partake of Yokuska Curry so I figgured what the hell....I'll try a Japanese Taco...it might make for a funny story.
While the comedy was lacking, to my considerable surprise the tacos were top notch! I ordered a regular taco and a steak taco...the steak taco consisted of lettuce tomato onions and a new yourk strip in a taco shell. The taco taco was filled with texas chilli rather than mystery meat.
The little shop has a large menu ranging from corn dogs to fried rice to taco pizzas to pizzas and curry. The menu is bilingual and I suspect they get a lot of US sailors in there.
Yeah....could be....
A.. the seats are counter seats...but you can get Coke and Coffee!
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Wha!!?...I....Who is spreading there awful rumors about me!!!!?
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August 11, 2008
Toyoko Inns are pretty ubiquitous here in Japan in my limited experience.They are not the cheapest place I've spent the night at but they are fairly easy to find, have laundry service, free internet and are clean.
Actually,I must say that all in all on both my trips to Japan, the hotels here have been a generally good experience. There is one just outside of Hiroshima station called...ummm...Kanji Kanji...something Hotel that was 40 bucks and was perfectly fine.
Toyoko currently starts a roughly 60 bucks a night which is astoundingly reasonable if you are not in super-oh my-God-my-budget-exploded-parsimony-mode and are making use of the verrrrry sketchy cyber cafe option. Even then, when you're in Kyushu, burned out, a little sick and have popped your hip out of joint, the blue Toyoko sign is a welcome one indeed and 60-120 bucks is money very, very well spent.
A note on Japanese hotel lights....
Note that this may be universal now, but I'm a homebody, so, if this is redundant information, bear with me.
When you enter the room...there is a keyhole or little notch in a lightswitch panel next to the door. If it is a keyhole use the room key on it to turn on the lights...if it is a little square (at a Toyoko for instance) put the square keyfob in the opening.
This will turn on the lights.
Do not close the door, plunging yourself into stygian blackness, then trip, become utterly disoriented and wander around vainly flipping switches while whacking your legs and feet painfully in the dark.
This course of action will not have the desired result.
I hope this helps somebody.....
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August 10, 2008
I arrived close to midnight at my destination and found that it was litterally at the end of the train line. To proceed any farther would result in being very wet.
Ambling across the street, I jumped up on the streetcar stand to get my bearings via its map and found I was less than 300m from one of the places I wanted to visit. With this happy news, I decided to forgo the streetcar and instead look for a hotel in the immediate area. There was a hotel less than a block away and its prices were reasonable indeed. However I decided to echew the place with the pay by the hour option in favor of a slightly more expensive hotel down the street.
The next morning was a glorious, sunny, August day just as it had been 63 years ago, when for an awful instant the bright sky became thousands of times brighter and hell came to to the town of Nagasaki.
The second and hopefully last city destroyed by an atomic blast, Nagasaki seems sometimes to be forgotten. It is very out of the way at the end of a paenensula on the tip of Kyushu. However this is a powerful place, in some ways more moving and in some wasys more significant than Hiroshima.
I was there for the ceremonies at 11:02 and had wandered the museums in the preceding hours. I had accumulated at this point a drink, a bag with all the museum spam and all the flyers that had been handed to me by everyone from the red brigade asshats to schoolchildren....so naturally when a lady asked me where I was from, and I answered, I was suddenly surrounded by people who wanted to take a picture of the fat ass white boy with all manner of brochures falling all over the place....
I was asked to sing...no really...they wanted one representative from each country present to sing a little short 4 second song for peace and place their countries flag in the display. I did, and as I left I got interviewed by an American freelance journalist who wanted to see what a fellow American thought of this whole thing., and as there seemed to be a near dearth of Americans hecame to me....he left suitably appalled
No doubt there would be no ceremony for these people if this major shipyard and munitions producing city had been destroyed with more conventional weapons. Indeed, it seems odd that the people who died in the non-nuclear fires that leveled Osaka and Tokyo are not memorialized with the same fervor that the late inhabitants of these two cities are. It is bitterly ironic that no such annual outcry is heard for the citizens of Manilla, Wake or...Nanking (where the death toll was higher than Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined....and was perpetrated with bayonettes) However, these people did die quite cruel deaths and whatever memorials might be denied others are not their concern. They deserve to be remembered.
The sad fact is that the use of these terrible weapons was likely the least terrible of a set of truly wretched options the allies had at the end of WW2. The only card that didn't involve mass death was in Japanese hands, and they chose not to play that card until after this, about their last major industrial city, was imolated. Thus the suffering in this city was what finally tipped the balance and ended a horrible war, one that had been raging since 1931. The deaths of these people were, therefore, unusual in that conflict. They were not yet more mileposts on the long grim path of that horrid war, but the end of the line for that terrible chapter in history.
There is not much to say about the effects the bomb had on the people here. That has been well documented, but the displays here, the artifacts, and the dwindling number of first person accounts have a power that no words can convey. I strongly encourage anybody who can to visit this place....or Hiroshima which is much more accessable.
In these days when proliferation issues are quite real and many who covet these weapons consider them anything but a last resort, it is very important to remind ourselves of what happened so many years ago to ordinary people in a midsized town going about there buisness when hell came down upon them.
The scars still remain....next to the memorial is this remnant of an early church. Nagasaki was where Japan made contact with the west and some of the oldest churches in the far east were here. Check out the base of the church...being locally built, it has Japanese style gargoyles. 
Another church, built in the 1800s, is represented by this fallen bell tower...
One interesting thing about the Nagasaki memorial as opposed to its more famous sister city, is that there are plaques like this...
There is also this....a memorial to the Allied POWs who were killed here on that day. 
Nagasaki was a very large POW camp. The POWs ( about half from the UK) were used as slave labor in the shipyard. The bomb went off close to the prison camp and the shockwave devastated the shipyard.
Nearly 70% of the casualties aside from POWs were women and children. This was not some sinister plot, but a byproduct of the fact that a huge number of men had been conscripted and of those that were left many were either inside at the time, working on expanding air raid shelters under ground or at a big civil defense meeting in a bunker...ironically going over a report from Hiroshima to gain lessons from that recent calamity.
The actual memorial is a masterpiece of gently falling water. No pictures can do it justice.
The grounds outside include this ravine paved with stones. 
Many of these have an odd sheen, they were glazed by the blast. When you walk down this stream you are walking on trinitite amongst other things.
Not all of the memorials are as sublime, I was unable to get a photo of the official peace statue due to a dais being erected over it....and I found Fabio the Peace God to be unbecoming of the solemnity of the ocassion....
...but that is in keeping with the spirit of the town because Nagasaki is a really interesting and neat place to visit!
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:43 PM
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3 days ago I hopped on the bullet train and headed south...wayyyy south.
I should mention that the Shinkansen has the sexiest voice in the whole world.
How fast is the shinkansen?
About this fast.
While we see how well that works, here is some vintage girls manga.
Click here for supah size.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:00 AM
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August 07, 2008
Tuesday, despite weather delays and train derailments that put me 5 hours behind, I went to Yokouska to use the base ATM machine and collect my last pre-vacation paycheck ...
...which saved my arse....
I also purchaced some new shoes as my steel toes were cutting into my feet...
I attempted to eat dinner at Yokuska Curry, but found out that the famous curry place (which advertises via a Duck In a Sailor Suit...at Yokuska Station...keeps bankers hours.
Also, they turn on the Mikasa`s running lights at night....
Yesterday, when the rain cleared, I went to Akihabara to exchange my dollars for yen. Along the way I noted a few things....
Everything old is new....I saw a Pervert Frog reference in an on train ad....
I think Gamers has moved closer to the station, or perhaps I was turned around. The interior certainly seemed different.
However, there are still enough Roman Albums in there to flatten Carthage.
A few months ago, in one of the articles regards the Akihabara stabbing, some wag blamed it in part on the utter lack of sitdown restraunts in Akihabara, which is typical of the depersonalized Otaku culture....I`ll post some pics when I can link the article and have time, but damn, they hadnt moved them...there were still sit-down curry houses french restraunts, pizza parlors and...this....
....Cleverly hidden beneath this maid cafe is the Heroes Steak House...one of the best steaks I have ever had.
Today I wandered down the stream behind the apt....I was...not alone...
The bike paths on either side follow it untill disrupted by RR tracks...
not even Japan is going to provide a RR crossing for a bike path....
...oh...
Eventually the bike paths sort of merge and morph into this park about 2 miles down.A place for a kid to have all sorts of fun......
...with the usual caveats....
And the suddenly it ended at a storm drain....
And I have used up my hour of computer time.....
Update: edited for spelling/clarity and added links as post was originally made in great haste.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
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August 04, 2008
I woke up around 5AM. Rather than interfere with the toilet\shower cycles of 20 families with 2 showers and 4 toilets I waited until 8 by which time I figgured that most people would be done. In the meantime I finished arrainging /cleaning the room and watched the NHK morning news.
I understood very little except that some people here are upset that the USS Houston is in port, there was either another mass stabbing or a serial killer was caught, there was an awful escalator accident (!?) yesterday, a big rig drove off an elevated highway and caused mass pandemonium for the morning commute and....shocker...it is hot in a nothern subtropical region in August.
After dealing with the shower I went shopping for a few more sundry items, came back, studied Japanese a bit...practiced my Kanji a bit and then headed out and wandered the neighborhood.
I noted that the streets were, if anything even more narrow in this part of town.....traffic volume is much higher here so the lack of sidewalks is downright harrowing.
This boys and girls, is a 2 way street...
I discovered Kaiju Begonias...
...and a bit of information that must be kept from Wonderduck at all costs...
I was shocked to stumble upon this, right next to what appeared to be a cement plant....
....Holstiens! 2 dozen of them! It`s a working dairy .
The walk was cut short by a thunderstorm...that is lasting rather longer than it ought to.. It is still pouring as I type this in a foｒtuitously located webcafe (just outside the train station) which is why I`m blogging at all.
Tomorrow I continue my neighborhood wanderings and in the afternoon start making use of this rail pass. Day after tomorrow or thereabouts, I`m going rather farther afield...posting will be light.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
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