The contrast between the US and Japan could not be more telling. While the dollar is strong, for those finding a week or two to explore the regions of the planet, one could not choose a better destination than Japan. The cost, the people, the festivals and culture, the deportment and expected conformity, and the safety, safety, safety cannot be matched most anywhere in the world. Plus, it’s one of the few countries in the world that you drink tap water from and not worry about the linings of your intestine becoming infected from bacterial and viral invaders. It’s also a country that is respected and cherished by the Japanese who live there.
This, our second trip to Japan in the last two years explored the regions of Nagoya and Takayama…….one the fourth largest city in Japan, and the other a quaint and picturesque historical city located inland about 2 ½ hours by train. We entertained ourselves with selected tourist and shopping attractions in Nagoya with vanishing Sakura, while our experience in Takayama was enriched and frequently overwhelmed by the Takayama Spring Festival at the height of the cherry blossom season.
There was some trepidation in planning this trip since our previous experiences in Japan were controlled and guided by a variety of entities including Okinawa and Yokohama Medical Societies, cruise lines, travel groups, and personal friends. For this one, we were on our own.
The utility of the IC (Integrated Circuit) card in Japan cannot be overstated. Downloading the card on your iPhone wallet is the best way to leverage the utility of the card while injecting additional boluses of yen by charging your credit card in real time only when needed. The card was ALMOST universally accepted……trains, buses, subways, convenience stores, restaurants, gift shops, etc. Still getting around Japan posed challenges and unexpected consequences.
We arrived in Nagoya late at night Hawaii time. I had memorized the map of the airport and the path through immigration and customs was swift and straightforward. Finding the train station to the proper train to Nagoya Central Station was easy and we decided to hobble from there to the hotel with three medium size pieces of luggage and two backpacks. With barely a decent nights sleep, we began touring Nagoya with one of three Goodwill Guides - volunteer Japanese guides that get to practice their English while showing a potpourri of visitors from far off lands the remarkable attributes of Japan.
We visited the Nagoya Castle grounds, museums, gardens, and ventured on our own to investigate the morning market. Not everything in Japan was inexpensive..... figs were about $2/each; most of the fruit selection was relatively expensive. We did see three colored strawberries which piqued our interest.
At the Tokugawa Museum, we were politely discouraged from talking while touring the museum.
There was a beautiful outside garden as part of the Tokugawa Museum experience.......
The Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology was also both fun and interesting.
In between touring, we relied on the ubiquitous Family Marts and 7-Eleven's in Japan for which nothing that was sold there was not worth eating.....(in stark contrast to the quality and selection of items in the US 7-Elevens)
Still the Japanese version of 7-Eleven would not do very well in the USA, particularly in liberal cities like San Francisco...... Thus it was a mixed bag
We spent the next three plus days in Takayama. The train ride was lovely when I was awake to view it. The town was beautiful, historic, quaint, clean, small enough to walk, but large enough to explore for several days. For some reason, we ate at a Vietnamese Restaurant twice, but we managed to venture out of our 7-Eleven and Family Mart comfort zone to try a few new restaurants. The sakura was in full bloom, I managed to capture a street that lacked the hordes of festival attenders just to show how clean it was, not even the slightest hint of any refuse, as you were expected to save your discardable items to dispose of at your lodging.
The Takayama Spring Festival was quite amazing, lasting two days well into the night. Everyone young and old participates in order to serve and preserve the tradition and customs, as well as to guarantee future succession planning for the hundreds of moving parts needed to keep the floats afloat. Everything is done as performed 5 centuries ago (as much as possible) when the festival first began. It felt quite primitive, especially the marionette show which requires skill, human flexibility and considerable dexterity. Needless to say, the streets were crowded making it impossible to navigate more than a few inches from your base. Good luck to those seniors needing to pee during any of the performances! Its important to also note that the floats themselves are preserved in their own houses, kept immaculate and dry; they come out looking fresh and unscarred. Looking closely at them, it's inconceivable that these floats are any more than a few decades old instead of 4-5 centuries!
I must admit that I was only able to enjoy (endure) the festival for several hours at a time without being overwhelmed by the oncoming procession and visual display, cacophony and human activity overtaking my senses. I did eventually find a place to sit and zone out for a few minutes to recover for another dose of the festival.
Finding our way back to Nagoya to enjoy the last three days of our Japan vacation was pretty much of a snap. By then we were experts in navigating the Nagoya Station train complex, or at least we thought we were. Stacked on top of the train station was an entirely separate maze of floors filled with brand name department stores and a vast variety of every conceivable items that you could imagine, as well as food courts serving mainly take out food - filled to the brim with local Japanese rummaging through shopping and feeding areas dressed with decorum, while always prepared to help a needy tourist unable to communicate in their own native tongue.
The next day we spent learning the subway system while navigating the Osu shopping area that was fun, entertaining, and productive. I was happily people watching after hours of shopping in an antique fair, along with several shop-lined walking streets and then Gerri struck it rich. First a fast food place that sold fried chicken, and while munching on that greasy favorite, Gerri spied a Diaso sign. I promise that virtually every inch of that Diaso was subsequently interrogated for possible purchase. Four floors of Daiso! Daiso heaven! How Gerri was able to contain the 1001 items purchased from that and several other Diaso's during the week's adventure is still a mystery to me. We only brought a limited amount of luggage that was already cramped. How she was able to contain more stuff and not result in a luggage meltdown was beyond my comprehension.
The last day we went to another Toyota Museum located in the out skirts of the city, that we needed directions on either train, bus, subway and or light rail. The internet told us one thing, the hotel staff another, and the train station staff yet another method. We chose the only viable method for that hour of the day, a train to the last station, and the light rail from there to the museum. To get to the train required patience and fortitude. We were literally stuffed like sardines moving forward inch by inch waiting for the next train coming in another two minutes to stuff ourselves into and hope for the best. Remarkably a train agent was orchestrating the exit and entrance of the hordes of people who were NOT pushing or shoving but rather standing in lines, politely waiting their turn and following the clear directives of the agent. Remarkably it worked and it was but a few minutes in time before we were on our way to the museum. Over time, the train thinned out and we were able to find some seating; by then everyone was settled in. Announcement after announcement canned into the system warned us not to talk to one another, or on our phone, or put on makeup, or do anything disruptive or annoying to others. Fortunately we were encouraged to breathe. What was remarkable was the 100% compliance with these mandates....everyone in my train car was quiet and fully immersed in their phones, a few reading the paper, a few nodding off, but NO one created a scene or any notice to themselves. Indeed there was no noise produced that could be heard over the heartbeat of the train that was vibrating rhythmically along its tracks pushing forward to its next stop with promptness and alacrity.
Sorry - too many pictures with me in my standard pose obscuring the details of the cars, etc. Also, bet you can't guess the two car models that were once the possession of yours truly.
Having been to Japan on numerous occasions throughout my life, as mentioned, this was the first time that Gerri and I planned a Japan tour without some official organizing body. It was a much more of a meaningful way of engaging ourselves in the community and encountering people and places that would never have presented themselves if we were being led by some travel ready agent or organization. That being said, I was left with many heartwarming impressions, two of which are summarized below.
Epilogue: The Japanese people seem aloof at times; one is unlikely to draw any significant reaction from strange or even bizarre behavior displayed in a public setting. Contrast this for example with my early experience in Germany where just about any German feels impelled and privileged to correct any perceived infraction or impropriety, especially from non citizen visitors. The striking aspect of the Japanese, however, is that IF you engage them for whatever reason with a question or a problem needing their assistance, they will immediately do anything and everything in their power to help you resolve your dilemma. This happened over and over during our wonderful 10 day trip. For example, arriving at the train station late at night after a long flight from Honolulu, the effort and time in repairing the damage I did attempting to purchase train tickets online to Takayama was extraordinary considering the circumstances. The agent dedicated 45 minutes to insure that our tickets were properly written to our date, time and seating specifications, patiently allowing me to cancel the misaligned ones. The agent never once showed any level of frustration or impatience despite my growing frustration in using my iPhone to cancel my prior reservations with intermittent internet reception deep in the bowels of the Nagoya Train Station. The agent was stalwart and professional and was not outwardly affected by the growing line of locals forming behind me to remedy their own late evening train ticketing needs, looking tired and hungry after a long day's work, eager to retreat to their homes for a short respite before restarting the endless cycle of their daily routine.
We also encountered another angel to the rescue on the last day in Nagoya on our way to the airport. The day before, we booked a train and scouted out the proper path to the train line platform. I felt confident that we would find our way comfortably to the airport with plenty of time without resorting to an obscenely expensive cab ride. However, when we boarded the train and attempted to claim our seats, a Japanese teenager was sitting in one of them....he immediately determined that we had boarded the wrong train. The train was on its way by then and it took one train station for this young man, after carefully viewing our tickets, with flying fingers on his iphone to look up the train schedule, to determine our best course of action to remedy our current dilemma. He was patient, determined, fluent in English and was fully committed to helping us. There was no hesitation or antipathy for the clueless gaijin (at least none that was perceived). He even helped us with the luggage at the next train stop and wished us a pleasant farewell.
The zeal displayed in our encounters with Japanese locals was astonishingly refreshing. People are usually helpful when confronted with visitors from other lands, but the level of engagement and effort displayed consistently by the Japanese was way beyond the norm. It almost seemed like an embedded cultural attribute in a country that is indeed a popular traveler destination but typically not one that is globally fluent in English or confident in their English skills. Frequently, responses to our queries were answered in a mixture of Japanese and English, and somehow this was discernible to us. The Japanese were certainly not comfortable with this level of translation, but their desire to provide proper counsel was and is unwavering, and deeply rooted in Japanese culture.
A second take away from this Japan trip was the behavior of agents of authority such as police and other street and train station attendants who guide the masses to insure proper order and efficient service. Friendly and approachable, this contrasts to the increasingly alienated and disengaged police and institutional officials in the US who are ostensibly planted to restrict and regulate behavior rather than facilitate community harmony.
I can't wait to begin planning next years Japan adventure. We love Japan, feel safe and at home there and will always feel a need to return on a yearly basis to a place where humanity and respectful human conduct and dignity is revered and valued.
A few more pics to complete this already obscenely long blog.
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| This is real, although it looks like a photo of a picture |
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