Japan Trip - Kinkakuji and Gion Corner

We left Tokyo the next day via Shinkansen for Kyoto. I managed to take some pretty decent photos from the window, despite the speed of the train. We stayed at the Capsule Ryokan Kyoto, about a 7 minute walk from the train station. The ryokan's basically a hostel, with some capsule rooms that have shared showers and toilets, and a few private ensuite rooms (where we stayed, and it's larger than the photos on their website suggest) with awesome showers, a larger TV than we had anywhere else and satellite reception!

We got settled and then headed out to see my favourite site in Kyoto - Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion. There's a viewing platform at the front, which though crowded, allows for some amazing views. The pond and gardens are also nice, though with the weather as hot as it was there wasn't much moss to speak of and what they did have was mostly brown.


After the temple, we went to the Teramachi shopping area and had dinner, then headed for Pontocho, which I'd been told looks beautiful at night. Correct. It's an older district of Kyoto, where geisha still perform. The buildings are older and wooden fronted with lanterns lit at night. From the bridge of the river, you can see all the restaurant patios lit up (sorry, the picture's a bit blurry).


To end the day, since we were in the area at night, we headed over to see Gion Corner. It's a long running show of Japanese culture, put on mainly for tourists. The performance has sections on the tea ceremony, ikebana (flower arranging), koto music, kyomai (Kyoto style dance), gagaku (court music), kyogen (comic play) and my favourite, bunraku (puppet play).

If you've never heard Japanese court music, it's... unique. Here's a taste.

Next is a short sample of the dance.

Finally, here's a short clip of the Bunraku. The doll shows a remarkable amount of emotion through 'body' language.

Anyway, the program they hand out for the show has enough explanation of the various arts that it's easy to follow along. And there's both Japanese and English explanations before each segment.

Japan Trip - Kyu Shibarikyu Park and Zojoji Temple

After visiting the fish market, we went back to Hamamatsucho station (where we transferred from the train line to the subway). We'd noticed a park and decided to go back and check it out. The park, Kyu Shibarikyu, provided hours of entertainment. The weather was threatening rain, so we took the opportunity of taking pictures with the knowledge that there were pavilions where we could hole up if rain did fall.

The garden was gorgeous. And as the clouds went away and the sun came out, so did the wildlife, including numerous turtles, birds and butterflies.



Also near Hamamatsucho station, are Tokyo Tower and Zojoji Temple.



Like most temples, Zojoji had a well maintained cemetery. It also has hundreds of little statues called mizuko jizo. These statues are donated by those who have lost children through stillbirth or abortions. Here's a New York Times article about them, if you're interested in knowing more.

Japan Trip - Tsukiji Fish Market

Our first full day in Japan was spent in the Tokyo area. I'd counted on jet lag to get us up early, and we headed for Tsukiji fish market.

Above is a video of the street we had to cross to get from the side with the flea market and restaurants, to the fish market proper. And below are two photos of what the market looks like. We were there after the auction, when things were wrapping up.

Many of the seafood items were sold live. Including what looked like baby eels.

Back from Japan, Thoughts on the ipad & the kobo

So, we returned safe and sound from Japan on Thursday. I'd meant to post my thoughts on the ipad yesterday and start blogging about our trip but jet lag hit so I spent the day napping instead.

Of the two devices we brought on the trip, the ipad and the kobo, we definitely found the ipad more useful. My husband downloaded a mapping program, which we used to track our progress (and our walking side-trips), as well as help us in unfamiliar places to avoid getting lost. He amused himself on the airplane with various games. For the most part I used it, rather than the kobo, to read (explained below). When we could find a free connection, we used it to check email and download more games, etc. On the occasions when we encountered my friends, we'd uploaded photos and did slide shows with it. It was also a great conversation topic for my husband, as his Japanese (and often their English) wasn't good and he didn't know any of the people we were meeting.

The backlit screen was excellent for the airplane, as it meant it could be used without using the overhead light and thereby disturbing people (I tried to read the kobo on the plane and ran into this dilemma. Since the screen isn't backlit, you can't read it without an outside light source. In the past I'd always get window seats and crack the window a bit to read books, if necessary. This time I was in a middle seat, so couldn't do that).

We never found ourselves reading in direct sunlight so glare wasn't a major problem with the ipad, and you can dim the screen (in fact it's recommended to do so in order to save battery life), which makes it easier to read in sunny conditions.

Typing messages with it wasn't as hard as I'd expected. Switching between the letters and numbers takes some getting used to, but everything has a learning curve.

The ipad is fast. One very noticeable difference between reading on it and the kobo, was how long it took the kobo to refresh pages. As I said, I didn't end up doing much reading on the kobo. Part of that was because my husband was reading from it a lot of the time. But when he wasn't, I found it a pain to use. I chose Frankenstein as my plane read. I couldn't read the kobo on the plane for the above reasons (no backlight), so I started reading it on the kobo app for the ipad. What I didn't realize when I started was that Frankenstein is separated into letters, and the letters subdivided into chapters. The kobo has no way of jumping ahead to a specific page. You must either scroll between pages (and page refreshes, in this age of cable internet and instant gratification are SLOW) or you have to scroll through chapters. But the kobo didn't had the subchapters of Frankenstein listed, so once I started the 300+ page section, I was more or less stuck reading it on the ipad (or scrolling for hours, which I refused to do).

So, I'm not the best judge of the kobo's performance at the moment. I'm hoping to read a book off the kobo next week so as to give more accurate feedback about it.

In the meantime, the ipad is incredible. Reading on it was a joy. The weight wasn't a problem, the light wasn't a problem. When the screen's lighting is down it can last quite some time on a charge (we charged it every night and I think the most we drained it was to the 70% charge mark). Both the kobo and ireader apps are fun to read from. You can decide your page flip method, and they're practically instantaneous regardless of which one you choose. The option of font sizes is a plus (which the kobo has as well).

The biggest problem with the ipad was deciding who got to use it!

Seven Samurai, Movie Review

Director: Kurosawa Akira, 1954

Pros: surprisingly intelligent plot, amazing cinematography, great acting

Cons: LONG

I first saw Seven Samurai not long before I moved to Japan, several years ago. I remember expecting it to be a Chinese style martial art's film. I definitely wasn't expecting a film so long there's an intermission half way through, nor was I expecting the majority of the film to be about villagers trying to hire the samurai.

The story begins with a village threatened by bandits. The bandits are waiting for the harvest to finish before stealing everything the villagers have grown. In order to protect themselves, the villagers decide - not unanimously - to hire 7 samurai.

After finding samurai willing to help, they return to the village and plan the defences. The samurai realize the only way to make the villagers safe is to teach them to defend themselves and wipe out the bandits.

Though the plot seems simple enough, there's a lot going on in the film. There are class divisions (the villagers are looked down upon by the city folk), revelations about what the villagers have been through with the bandits, and an ending I never saw coming. There's also very little fighting in the film - most of it contained in the last hour or so when the bandits attack.

I can't praise this movie enough. If you're interested in Japanese history or samurai, this is a great movie to watch. Kurosawa was a master of his craft.

Ponyo, Movie Review

Director: Miyazaki Hayao, 2008

Pros: lighthearted story, excellent animation, great kids movie

Cons: artwork isn't as polished as other Ghibli films

Ponyo (or Ponyo on the Cliff) is a Japanese retelling of the Little Mermaid, with several twists. There's a stronger ecological undercurrent than Anderson's fairy tale had, and the protagonists are children, rather than adults ready to make life decisions.

When five year old Sosuke rescues a fish and names it Ponyo he had no idea the trouble it would cause. Ponyo's father quickly recaptures her, bringing her to his undersea home. She escapes and uses her magic to become human in order to rejoin Sosuke. But her actions cause major flooding and threaten to destroy the world.

The story is cute, reminding me of My Neighbour Totoro. Some parts are confusing as there is little explanation but the majority of the plot is simplistic. It's more a visual film, which is too bad because while the artwork is good, some characters (Ponyo's father being the first that comes to mind) look less than polished for a Studio Ghibli film.

It's not my favourite Miyazaki film, but it is worth seeing, especially if there are kids to watch it with.

Disney's youtube page has disabled the embed function for movie trailers for some reason, so if you want to see the trailer for Ponyo, click the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bskgNOXbdiE

Red Hood's Revenge, Book Review

By: Jim C. Hines

Coming July 6, 2010

Pros: quick action, fascinating rewrites of several more fairy tales, realistic characters

Cons: have to read the first two books in the series in order to properly understand this one

Taken from the back of the book, because it's written so well: Roudette's story was a simple one. A red cape. A wolf. A hunter. Her mother told her she would be safe, so long as she kept to the path. But sometimes the path leads to dark places.

After living through a traumatic childhood event, Roudette has become an assassin. Her current target is Talia, known as Sleeping Beauty.

This is the third of Mr. Hines' princess novels, and the strongest to date. He builds upon the foundations of the previous books, deepening the established relationships, so new readers would do well to read those first.

If you think you know Talia's story based on The Stepsister Scheme, think again. We get to see her homeland, and someone dear to Talia's heart. We also learn that her understanding of the events surrounding her cursed sleep are not as simple as she believed.

The book has a lot of good fight scenes, some romance and a lot of conflicted emotions.