Well, 2012 is off to an inauspicious start.
I got back from Japan to a dead washing machine. It made some awful noises when I was washing clothes for my trip to Japan in September, but I just figured it was being unruly. Nope, it was in its death throes. It stopped working completely.
Then the water heater broke. It’s in the attic (a stupid idea), so it dumped a bunch of water into the upstairs bathroom. Ugh. What a mess.
Happy New Year!
It’s Wednesday, and I’ve crested the hill of my trip to London. Today I had to move out of room 114, a nice little room, so I spent some time throwing everything into bags.
I had also decided to send two boxes full of unneeded books home.
Using the mail turned out to be a dumb idea.
In fact, it turned out to be an expensive, horrible idea.
You would think that sending things home by mail would save a lot of money. You might even think that sending books would entitle you to a book rate.
You would be very, very wrong.
The difference between sending 9 kilos of books home by surface mail (which takes 8 weeks), and by air mail (which takes 5 days) is £Â80 vs £Â100.
Either way sucks. I need the books sooner than 8 weeks from now, and I really didn’t have the luggage room to spare anymore, so I had to take the full £Â100 hit. That’s $160 for the folks back home.
Thanks for nothing, Royal Mail. I heart you too.
To be fair, the lady at the Post Office was very nice, and found a way to save me a few pounds. Still, using US Mail, this would have cost about $58… okay, maybe $58 per package. I might still have gotten screwed on the deal, but I’d have money left over for a meal or two.
After that, I learned another important lesson: traveler’s checks aren’t worth the trouble.
I went to cash in my checks at Lloyd’s TSB Bank, and took an absolute beating on the exchange rate. Sure, the current rate is in the $1.60 range, but when I got my money, I discovered that the rate I got was $1.75 per pound. And that was from one of the only banks that would take the stupid things.
The fees were hidden in the exchange rate.
I’m never doing that again. I’ll carry an ATM card and cash. I’ll use plastic. I’ll even sell some plasma.
But I will never carry traveler’s checks again.
When I used the ATM, I got hit with a 1% fee and a fixed $0.75 fee, but I got the market exchange rate. So $5.75 on $500, vs. $26.79 from the crap exchange rates using traveler’s checks.
Lesson learned.
Note to self: USE A FREAKIN’ CALCULATOR! THERE’S EVEN ONE IN YOUR PHONE!
Speaking of credit cards, good luck using them in England. I pretty much gave up on them, outside of hotels.
Of course, both of my credit cards will smack me in the head with a 3% foreign transaction fee anyway, but it’s cheaper than the $26.79 I lost on the traveler’s checks. ($15 on a theoretical $500 purchase.)
And that’s why nobody uses traveler’s checks anymore.
After handing over large sums of cash to people behind bullet-proof glass (now I know why it was bullet-proof, even at the post office), it was time to head over to another place where people generally take large sums of money from people and spend it unwisely.
Yes, Parliament.
I arrived at Westminster, and joined the crush of tourists wobbling around the Palace of Westminster, looking for the visitors’ entrance. I asked a guard how to get in to see Parliament. He told me to come back in 2 hours, and I could see a session.
So I went over to the Churchill War Rooms at the Imperial War Museum, and the Winston Churchill Museum, both of which were very interesting.
There was a lot of shuffling around in the dark and listening to Winston Churchill.
I learned a lot. He liked painting, whiskey, and gambling. He was a liberal, then a conservative, a POW who escaped from South Africa, and the second honorary US Citizen since Lafayette. I even saw his US passport. He was also grouchy.
I highly recommend visiting it if you have any kind of interest in World War II, or Winston Churchill. The latter obviously helps. It’s very interesting to see how they lived while trying to run a war under constant threat of German bombing raids. It’s also interesting to get a peek into the mind of Churchill, who was a fascinating man.
After that, I headed back to Westminster Palace, where I began an complex ritual that consisted of varied intervals of standing in line and sitting on benches. First, I stood in line to go through security. They take your picture, print it on a paper badge, and that’s your pass. Then they scan your bags, and let you in. Then you can wander around a bit. (Just a bit, mind you.)
Of course, I also managed to drop my camera bag, when one of the straps of my backpack came undone. That was brilliant. There’s nothing like the sound of an SLR hitting flagstones. But everything looked okay. (By everything, I mean the camera body and the 17-55mm lens attached to it.)
Silly badge around my neck, I went off to Westminster Hall, which is big. Very big.
It’s also very old.
It was completed in 1099, and survived a fire in 1834. The woodwork in the ceiling is gorgeous, and well, it’s just impressive.
Enough looking around, it’s time to go stand in line to go up to the public gallery for the House of Commons!
As the line moved ever so slowly, I eventually made it to a big wooden bench, where we sat for about 15 minutes, then got whisked off upstairs to St. Stephen’s Hall, where we sat on another bench.
While we sat on the benches there, we could look at big frescoes of scenes of Famous English People doing Famous Important Things. And we repeated the process of moving from one bench to another and then another. Four benches in St. Stephen’s Hall, and then we could finally go up to the Central Lobby.
At least we got to sit, rather than standing in line.
The Central Lobby is the place where people can, well, lobby their MPs.
Yes, that’s where the term comes from.
From there, we went up the stairs to another security room, where we had to drop off our bags and cell phones.
Then it was off to the gallery, where I got to watch the emergency debate over the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Very historic, or so I’ve been told by every BBC commentator on TV in the past 48 hours.
It was interesting to see the debates… although you can’t really call it a debate when politicians all get up and say that criminal activities are bad. When journalists or anyone for that matter engages in hacking that destroys evidence, well, that’s wrong.
The sun is also hot, ice is also cold, and Jerome Bettis is still from Detroit.
On the way out, I realized that I had lost my Oyster card, with £Â25 still on it.
D’oh.
So I ran back up to the security station at the public gallery, and sure enough, they had already found it for me. That was awesome.
Then it was time to buy a few souvenirs, shuffle back to the hotel, and check out the new room, number 117. It’s nice, although the mattress isn’t as nice as the one in old room. It’s a bit thin and kind of worn-out, as though it has seen a few too many chunky Americans who have worn the stuffing out of it.
But I can deal with it for one night.
On the upside, the room is nice and big, and otherwise comfortable, although, oddly enough, the smaller room had a nicer bathroom with a bigger shower and a bit nicer view. The window over the bathroom sink is a bit weird, but I’m good at adapting.
Dinner was the local Wagamama on the high street around Earls Court. Wagamama is a chain of Japanese restaurants in London. Everything on the menu comes with chicken of some sort, it seems. No pork in sight. Kind of a bummer there.
The yakisoba was good: lots of vegetables in it, plus shrimp and, of course, chicken in it, as well as some delicious crunchy fried onion bits. It was nice to sit at right in front of the second-floor window and just stare at the crowds walking by the high street.
I can understand why it’s not popular with Japanese people. Wagamama means “selfish” in Japanese, not a trait that any culture is particularly fond of. Also, the lack of pork didn’t do a lot for me, either. I like my Japanese food with some pig in it. Not a lot, but just enough to make things taste good.
After that, a trip to the Sainsbury’s for a few supplies, and back to the hotel.
I took the chance to do some laundry in the sink, and used the heated towel rack to speed up the drying.
My “No Cotton” rule has saved my bacon on this trip. It makes washing shirts, underwear, and socks in the sink a breeze. They all dry out relatively quickly, too.
So on to Akihabara, or Akiba as everyone calls it here.
First, I stopped at Asakusabashi station again, as I transferred from the subway to the JR line. I had a wait, so I took some more photos of Asakusabashi station:
Asakusabashi platform:
Roof detail:
Signal lights:
My train came in, and I made it to Akihabara.
First off was Yodobashi Camera. It’s just.. wow. A 10-story monstrosity full of electronics. It’s where nerds go after they die. It’s like 4 or 5 Best Buys stacked on top of each other, only with really cool stuff, and no lame junk.
No joke, it’s big:
But since I didn’t have a point card there, I decided to search for Bic Camera in Akiba, because I do have a Bic point card with a lot of points on it.
Thus begins my Fool’s Errand.
You see, there isn’t a Bic Camera in Akiba. But I didn’t know that… yet.
Before I started searching, I had some business to attend to. As you exit the JR Akihabara Station on the Yodobashi Camera side, off to the left you’ll see a small glass building called Oasis. It offers two things. A smoking room and a 100 yen pay toilet.
You might scoff at a pay toilet, but it’s a damn fine pay toilet. That was easily the best 100 yen I spent in Tokyo so far.
You enter, and a receptionist greets you with a polite bow. Then you head to the bathrooms, where you can deposit your 100 yen coin or just tap your Suica card and it’ll deduct the 100 yen automatically. Then the frosted glass door opens, and you walk into the nicest public toilet in Tokyo. (Well, the nicest I’ve seen so far.)
There aren’t stalls so much as there are small rooms with sliding, locking doors, and plenty of room to maneuver. You also get a powered-up shower toilet, soft fluffy paper, and a touchless sink. You can wash your hands and dry them without touching anything. So nice.
Controls!
Then it was off to Chelsea Market in JR Akiba for a burger. Nice, but kind of odd. Had a weird curry-based sauce on it, but pretty good.
After that, it was time to begin my Fool’s Errand! As I was walking around Akiba, I found the Toranoana Main Store. Oh, look! Manga! So I started climbing the stairs.
Hmm… they sure do sell a lot of comics here with guys with no shirts on hugging other guys… with no shirts on.
Oh, wait– comics without shirtless guys are next door. I guess that would explain some of the looks I got from some of the patrons on that side of the store.
So I looked in next door– ah, this is more like it! No more shirtless guy comics! Stuff I might actually read!
But before I started to load myself down with more manga, I needed to make a trip to Bic Camera. (Which still doesn’t have a branch in Akihabara, but I didn’t know that yet.) So more walking around.
My Fool’s Errand completed, I went back to Toranoana, where I loaded up on manga and light novels…. you know, to help me improve my Japanese. I got into manga while learning Japanese. It’s really handy to read, because the language is usually pretty simple, and some titles (usually aimed at younger audiences) provide furigana readings over the kanji, so you can look them up more easily.
Of course, I also like electronics, and the weirder, the better. So Akihabara is a natural sort of place for me. I found some stores selling all kinds of weird old stuff, and some stuff that brought back good memories.
I could spend a week in Akihabara and not have spent enough time there. All kinds of electronics, video games, and books. Fun.
Then it was back to the station to pick up some dinner for later at Vie de France, then on the train back to Shinjuku.
JR Akihabara platform:
A word about trains (again? Yes, again.) As you go from Shinjuku to the east, the Chuo and Soba lines run parallel until you hit Ochanomizu, then they split. The Chuo goes on to Tokyo Station, and the Soba goes to Akihabara. So in order to go from Shinjuku to Akiba, you need to switch lines at Ochanomizu.
It sounds like a pain in the butt, but it’s actually amazingly smooth. As the Chuo Rapid pulls in, a Soba local is pulling in the other side of the platform. So just hop from one train to the next. Smooth as silk. Same for hopping from the Soba to the Chuo. That’s brilliant.
Tonight I’m going to hit Kinokuniya one last time, then hit Bic to buy stuff. (And an extra suitcase. Yeesh.) If I’m careful about how I work it, I’ll be able to plow through all of my remaining Bic points. *Fingers crossed.*
Tomorrow is…. well, that’s something I’ll worry about later tonight. I’m going to stop by the japanesepod101.com studios to say ‘hi!’ (they said I could), then I’ll try to hit Shibuya to get a photo of Hachiko and see 109. Then… MORE AKIBA! Maybe I’ll go to City View in Roppongi tomorrow night, too. Dunno.
For Wednesday, I’ve already scheduled a late checkout for 2PM. It’s a little expensive, but worth it. That way, when I check out, I can just head straight for the airport and crash at the Admiral’s Club until my flight leaves at 7PM, and I don’t have to mess with having to find a place to put my bags for 4 hours. I’ll probably just take the Chuo to Kanda, then the Yamanote to Ueno, then the Keisei Skyliner to Narita Terminal 2. Or I could just take the Narita Express from Shinjuku, huh?
A few hours later…
At 6 or so I headed to Ikebukuro to the Bic Camera store there, because it’s supposed to be the biggest one in Tokyo. It’s actually in 2 different buildings. In one of the buildings, they have some stuff, and in the other, they have more of the same stuff. The difference is that in the newer building, they have luggage on the 8th floor. I should have bought it there. I should have, dagnabbit.
But I figured that if they had it in Ikebukuro, they’d have it at Shinjuku. So anyway, after futzing around in Ikebukuro for a bit, I couldn’t seem to find anything that I wanted.
So I went to Shinjuku. And helped a Norwegian guy buy a Suica card. The poor guy was so lost… he said, “I just came here from Kobe, and I’m totally confused.” I reassured him– Tokyo does that to everyone. It took me a little time to digest Tokyo as well. But now that I have a basic grip on things, and the Tokyo Street Map by Kodansha (in EN and JP), I’m okay.
Seriously, if you’ve never been to Tokyo, you’ll have that same stunned look on your face, too, when you try to navigate it. Eventually I got the hang of it, but at first, I felt like I was walking in mud as my brain tried to process everything. It felt good to help someone through that, even if it was only a little bit.
After helping the poor lost dude, I went to the Bic there. I found one of the things I wanted, and some privacy screens for my DS and my PSP. (Ah, privacy!) But no luggage.
By then it was 8:45, and everything was closing, so I headed back to eat some dinner, crash for a few minutes, and then head out to find the laundromat in Yoyogi they told me about at the front desk.
It took a little figuring out, but thanks to the street atlas, I actually found it. Right next to the neighborhood sento (public bath). Fortunately, it was open til midnight, so I could get all my laundry done. It was getting fragrant. Not like a flower.
When all was said and done, I got back around midnight.
But I had to have my clothes clean– I was down to the emergency clothes, and they were a little… ripe.
Rick Steves talks about doing laundry on the road. He says it’s a good thing to do, to meet locals and get local flavor. I agree this time. While it can be a bit of a nuisance to find a laundromat in Japan (or anything else that isn’t a tourist attraction), it’s totally worth it to see daily-life Japan. And by doing laundry and packing less, you save money on expensive hotel laundry, and you save space for those important souvenirs. (Or books, in my case. Lots of books.)
Tomorrow I’ll get up extra early to make a quick run to Ikebukuro to buy a suitcase. They open at 10, and I plan on rushing the door.
Then I’ll run back to Shinjuku, and my day can actually start.
In 42:30, I’ll be on a plane back to the States.
Shoot.
Last night in Hiroshima I tried to do laundry again. It’s not always easy to find a hotel that has coin-operated washers that work. Even though the 5,000-7,000 yen a night business hotels tend to have them, they aren’t always in the best shape.
I give you the hotel I stayed in last night as an example. The washing machine was fine. It did an admirable job of washing. But the dryers were all way too tiny, and either didn’t dry the clothes or just squealed like a pig being stabbed with a rusty icepick.
I asked the clerk if there was a laundromat (they call them “Coin Laundry” in Japan) nearby, and he showed me where one was.
Now, usually when I stay near the station, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s shiny and new, and other times it’s a bit on the older side. Hiroshima has a little of both. Some shiny right next to some not-so-shiny.
The laundromat was a tiny little one with some old machines, and an older couple, who were the owners, working on them.
I asked the man which dryer was the best, and he steered me to the one he just finished repairing. Then I wound up chatting with them in half-Japanese, half-English for the next 45 minutes or so. Turns out they were really nice down-to-earth people. It was a lot of fun talking to them.
I went back to the hotel, got some sleep, and got up at 8 a.m. to catch my 10 a.m. train to Fukuoka/Hakata. If you want to go to Fukuoka, make sure you tell them you want Hakata Station, not Fukuoka Station. (JR Fukuoka is somewhere in Northern Tohoku, like 1,200 Km away or something.) It was about an hour and a quarter to Fukuoka/Hakata, but much of it was in tunnels, so the scenery wasn’t so hot. No photos.
On the way, I planned my trip to Fukuoka for the day. I didn’t have a whole lot of time, so I went by my usual standbys: a museum, a tall thing with a view, and shopping.
First I headed to the info counter at the station for local brochures and maps. Fukuoka doesn’t really have a “You must do this or you will regret it forever” sort of thing, so it’s pretty much up to you. It is a pretty big city, so there’s a lot of fun things to do. On the downside, there really wasn’t a whole lot worth taking pictures of, either.
I stopped by the hotel to drop off my luggage. Some hotels will let you leave your luggage if you show up before check-in. If not, you can dump it in a locker, but going to the hotel can save you some yen on locker rentals. I found another Comfort Inn, and using my AAA card, I cut the rate down to 5,400 yen. 600 yen is another lunch bento box.
Then I went to explore Hakata. (Which is what they call this portion of town.) I went to the Hakata Folk Museum and looked at some cool exhibits of daily life in the area over the last 150 or so years. I really like looking at old Meiji, Taisho and Showa period stuff. It’s interesting to see the cultural transformation of Japan from an isolated, almost medieval society into an industrial powerhouse, and how that transformation affected the people of Japan.
They also had this really cool telephone exhibit. When you picked up the receiver, you could hear a couple having a conversation in full-blown Hakata-ben, which is the regional variant of Japanese spoken around here. It was so different from the Japanese I’ve been studying, that couldn’t understand a word, but it was fun, anyway.
On the way out of the Folk Museum, I saw the entrance to Kushida Shrine. I’m all shrine-d out at this point, so I took a few photos and headed on. But it looks like a neat place:
I decided to check out Canal City, because I saw some interesting pictures of it somewhere online. It was sort of disappointing. It’s just a mall. Yes, it has some interesting architecture, but in the end it’s still a mall. They did have an amazing arcade there, though.
A few Canal City photos:
The old shopping arcade a block away was much more interesting to me.
I found a store that was selling prints of old Edo– that were printed in the USA. So I didn’t buy any.
I decided to begin my search for Robosquare, which I could not find. The map indicated one place, and it wasn’t there. Nothing but more shopping malls. So I wandered for a bit, saw some scenic canals, and ate my first Mos Burger. It was delicious. The burger is definitely good. So were the fries and onion rings. And the iced cocoa. I love iced cocoa. Japan has some interesting beverages.
Here’s the general vicinity of Mos Burger and the non-existent Robosquare (at least not in this location):
By then, it was a little after 3, so I decided to go to the hotel and check in. It’s a VERY nice room for 5,400 yen a night. Seriously, not to sound like a shill or anything, but you should check out the Comfort Inns in Japan. They’re dirt cheap, they have nice amenities, and you can book online pretty easily. They only have one hotel in Tokyo, though, so that’s kind of a bust, but otherwise they’re great. They have hotels all over Japan. (And if you have AAA, you get the 10% discount.)
I have CNN-J on the TV, so I get some English language programming to get a rest. I sacked out until 5, then I went out to see some more sights.
First I went to Tenjin, the big shopping district, in order to catch a bus to the Fukuoka Tower, the 2nd tallest building/tower thing in Japan. The bus stopped nearby, I got out, and presto! I found Robosquare– 5 miles west of where the map said it was.
A nice lady there showed me a number of very cute robots they had on display.
The first one was Paro, a robot baby seal with fur and those sad seal eyes, and it made cute noises when you petted it. Apparently they use it for therapy for kids, the elderly, and people with mental or emotional problems of one sort or another. It helps people relax. It’s very cute and fluffy. I’m sure if they sold it in the U.S., it would clobber Elmo. (And parents’ wallets, too. Those sensors aren’t free, you know.)
Then I got to play with some of the original Sony Aibos. Cute little robodoggies! It was a lot of fun.
Then she showed me a robot whose name escapes me, but it’s designed to assist the elderly with daily tasks. It doesn’t move much. It’s more like someone to talk to who also handles your e-mail and phone duties… sort of like a robo-secretary, I guess. It was cute.
Then came the robot that had the most personality, but which also scared me a little bit. It was Hello Kitty ROBO. It actually said some funny stuff (all in Japanese, of course), but it was just a little bit creepy, and I never could figure out what you would buy it for. It was more of a toy than a tool. Toys are fine, too, but this one looked pricey.
I thanked the people at Robosquare and left to go to the Fukuoka Tower. It was tall. The views were great, the pictures were difficult to get.
A circular polarizer is a necessity for these kinds of places, and you can’t easily attach them to a compact camera.
Some photos of the Fukuoka skyline at night. Don’t expect too much:
I like photographing Ferris wheels at night. I wish I brought a better camera:
I made a mad dash back to Tenjin before the department stores closed to find dinner. I love Japanese department stores. They all have such wonderful food in their basements, and you can take it home with you.
After picking up dinner, I took a walk around Tenjin. It’s a lot of fun. It reminds me a bit of Tokyo, only less cold. People are nice and lively, and it feels like a lot of stuff is going on all the time. Tenjin is definitely worth the time, especially in the evening. (But a lot of stores close at 8.) I found my favorite chain in Japan so far– Bic Camera. They have 6 floors of nerd toys. I picked up a camera neck strap, and saw the Epson RD1-s, which is a digital camera that takes Leica M Mount lenses, and is only 240,000 yen (~$2200 US).
I must purge all of my lustful thoughts for a camera I cannot afford.
The best thing I found was on the 6th floor. FFTA-2 for the DS! And a thick as all heck game guide! GET!
I went back to Hakata Station, and my hotel. The station gets depressing at night, because the homeless come in droves to sleep in front of it in the square. It’s a whole different place from the day.
The guidebooks all say that it’s easy to find a yatai (food stall) in Fukuoka, and it’s a thing you should do, but I couldn’t find one tonight. I’ll have to do it some other time. I also didn’t find the good Hakata-style Ramen places, either. I saw a few, but they weren’t the ones I was looking for. That’s something else to save for next time.
Fukuoka looks like a good place to live; the people are nice, the food is good, and there’s normal stuff to do. It may not be a tourist haven, but I was only here for a day, so what do I know? I do like the vibe here.
Anyway, I’m going to get some rest tonight, then I’m off to Osaka tomorrow morning. I’m not sure what I’m doing there yet, but I’ll have 3 hours on the train to figure it out.
After Osaka is _____. I need to fill that in tonight. After _____ is probably Sendai, though, then Tokyo.
_____ is probably Nagano, if I can find a room there.
Well, I have a new Stupidest Thing I’ve Done So Far in Japan. And it’s up there with other Great Stupid Things I’ve Done.
I brought some U.S. toilet paper with me because, well, let’s just say that me and Japanese toilet paper haven’t been getting along very well. In general, the stuff I’ve been running into hasn’t been meeting my needs.
I had just finished in the shower, and I didn’t want to be seen lugging around a giant roll of toilet paper. So I stuck it in my pile of clothes I had changed out of after my shower.
And then I promptly dumped it all on my laundry pile, which I then went and washed.
…
I opened the washer, and noticed that a my black shirt and pants were covered in white fuzz, and I started to get mad. I thought that my new Japanese underwear had done that. So I tried to shake stuff around to get the fuzz off (succeeded with most, failed utterly with my black pants), then threw it all in the dryer.
I had to go the bathroom, so I went to grab my toilet paper, and it wasn’t there. I looked around for a minute or two, until I realized exactly what I had done.
Then I had that moment. The one where Scooby and I solve the mystery, only it turns out I did it.
Yeah, I put the roll in with the wash.
What’s amazing in a way is that the roll completely disappeared, save for the fuzz on my black pants.
That’s kind of impressive.
But still dumb as hell.