Japan

[Lrfox]

I was in Japan for a around 2 weeks earlier in May. I know many of you have been before, but this was my first time. I loved it but that's probably largely because I didn't have enough time to see the negative.

I spent time in Tokyo (rented an apartment near the Nishi Ogikubo station), Matsumoto, Nikko, Nagano, Narai, and Kawaguchi.

For the most part, the cities are fairly unattractive during the day. Fairly bland architecture with a few gems scattered about. At night, the lights make up for the bland architecture. Even residential areas are fairly bright in Tokyo (especially around the stations).

Matsumoto was a nice little city. Compact and small enough to be easily manageable on foot or by a fairly user friendly bus, but large enough to be interesting.Nightlife was very good in Matsumoto. The castle and some of the older sections of town were charming and the mountain views (when it wasn't raining) were awesome.

The country is beautiful. I was lucky enough to get to a few different places in the mountains and man, was it impressive. Simply stunning. The U.S. has awesome natural beauty, but what shocked me about Japan was simply how close together everything was. We have thousands of miles of "meh" between the East Coast/Appalachians and the Rockies. Japan just offers stunning landscape after stunning landscape. Of course, I never made it more than a 300km from Tokyo so I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

The people were hospitable and friendly (I didn't speak a word of Japanese). However, you do get the feeling that they're constantly thinking "kindly leave..." Still, not one rude action was made toward me during the entire stay (though they may have called me horrible things... I wouldn't know better). Boy do they move. Especially in Tokyo. Fast paced like you wouldn't believe. Makes New York feel "laid back."

The trains were as advertised (fantastic). While the Shinkansen were very neat (and very fast), I found some of the regional and limited express trains to be more comfortable. No knock on the bullet trains, but standard reserved seating was only OK. The Narita Express was pretty comfortable as was the Tobu Limited Express we took to Nikko. My favorite train was the local train we took from Nagano to Matsumoto. It was two cars (no longer than a standard green line train) in length and it passed high into the mountains and had stunning views. The Fujikyu line was the worst... slow, rickety and uncomfortable. Not to mention packed with tourists. Service is fast, clean and reliable. Boy do I wish we could get that here.

Anyway, the real reason I made this thread was to post a few photos. These are just a sample (don't want to load TOO many).

Shinkansen at Tokyo Station:

Platform at Shinjuku station (busiest station on earth):

Shibuya District:

Shibuya Crossing... busiest street crossing in the world

An old Zero fighter at the War Museum in Tokyo:

Entrance to Yasukini Shrine in Tokyo:

Yasukini Shrine, Tokyo:

Yasukini at night:

Asukusa Station, Tokyo:

Asukusa Tokyo:

A river in Tokyo near Asukusa:

Central Nikko:

Nikko Temples:

Nikko Temples:

Forest scene in Nikko (Ok... I really played with this one):

More Nikko:

Nikko:

Nikko

Prayer Paper:

What Nikko's Temples are REALLY famous for. Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil:

Nikko... Again:

Sacred Bridge, Nikko:

Sacred Bridge:

Sacred Bridge (last time, I swear):

Matsumoto Castle:

Old shopping street in Matsumoto:

Narai:

Nishi Ogikubo area in Tokyo:

Nishi Ogi:

Nishi Ogi:

Nishi Ogi:

 

[Matthew]

Great pictures!

I remember the seating on the Hikari I rode were too narrow, although leg room was good. Guess they weren't designed for us fat Americans.

 

[Lrfox]

Great pictures!

I remember the seating on the Hikari I rode were too narrow, although leg room was good. Guess they weren't designed for us fat Americans.

Thanks!

The narrow seating was what bugged me too. I only rode the E2 series (on the right in the picture I posted), but the seats were fairly narrow. Legroom was OK. I've ridden TGV in France and AVE from Madrid to Valencia, but Japan was the most compact. I guess it's all about expectations and I expected more "luxury." Maybe I should have tried a green car ticket. Definitely understandable considering how much larger we are on average.

 

[blade_bltz]

Awesome pics! I'm glad you seemed to have enjoyed your stay! Been in Yokohama for the past year (4th time in the country), and I've only grown more fond of the country with time.

As an American on the smaller side, I admit the issue about seat width on the Shinkansen had never occurred to me before. I've ridden the Nozomi a bunch of times and I'm (still) usually too blown away by the punctuality and cleanliness to notice anything else! And the fact that they literally run every ten minutes (interspersed with yet more Hikari and Kodama trains)

Mind you, they've been constantly expanding the Shinkansen network, most recently up to the northern tip of Tohoku and all the way down in Kyushu. I expect the newer trains are a step up in the posh department. But as with all Japanese infrastructure, functionality comes first.

 

[Corey]

Thanks for sharing the photos, that one of Narai really caught my eye. I'd love to visit Japan. Were you with someone who spoke Japanese?

 

[tobyjug]

Very handsome photography. The countryside and village shots are quite charming. Are the cities unattractive because we bombed the shit out of them and the BRA's spiritual Japanese cousins handled the reconstruction?

I wish our Theatre District (or any drab architectural neighborhood) could be named the Neon District and be filled with Japanese style night lighting...electronic ivy.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

What an excellent selection of pics, thank you for sharing!

Everything looks clean and spotless - even the really cramped and crowded spots! Is this always the case? Or just happens to be where these pics are from?

 

[Lrfox]

Awesome pics! I'm glad you seemed to have enjoyed your stay! Been in Yokohama for the past year (4th time in the country), and I've only grown more fond of the country with time.

As an American on the smaller side, I admit the issue about seat width on the Shinkansen had never occurred to me before. I've ridden the Nozomi a bunch of times and I'm (still) usually too blown away by the punctuality and cleanliness to notice anything else! And the fact that they literally run every ten minutes (interspersed with yet more Hikari and Kodama trains)

Mind you, they've been constantly expanding the Shinkansen network, most recently up to the northern tip of Tohoku and all the way down in Kyushu. I expect the newer trains are a step up in the posh department. But as with all Japanese infrastructure, functionality comes first.

The seat size was a small nitpick. I'm 6'1 185 so I'm not fat, but I'm not a little guy. The seats were more cramped than on some of the other trains I used in Japan, but hardly uncomfortable.

How is Yokohama? I had a rail pass and wanted to shoot down there for a bit, but never had time.

I'm interested to hear you've been there for so long as an American and like it. I loved it, but obviously can't be sure of how I would enjoy living there (though I'm pretty sure I'd love it). I've heard many people say that the Japanese can be somewhat racist. Not burning crosses in front yards racist, but subtle (sort of viewing Americans as barbaric). A friend who lived there for 2 years said he was patronized constantly (almost like a child) for speaking Japanese well... for a Gaijin or using chopsticks well... for a Gaijin. The expectation was that he would fail at everything Japanese because he's not Japanese. I was a tourist so I expected to fail at everything Japanese which is why I didn't notice any of that. I've heard dating is rough, but one night flings are easy. I met some girls at clubs who were easy to talk to (eager to try English... and they approached me which is unusual here in the U.S.), but I guess actual dating can be difficult. Anyway, that's just what I've heard. I'm still certain I'd love it there.

Thanks for sharing the photos, that one of Narai really caught my eye. I'd love to visit Japan. Were you with someone who spoke Japanese?

Narai was beautiful. It's part of the Kiso Valley which has a few old postal towns that look like that. Probably the best preserved village architecturally that I saw in Japan. It's a little touristy, but not overrun (like anything around Mt. Fuji is).

I didn't go with anyone who spoke Japanese. Just me and my brother and neither of us spoke a word of it. It wasn't too much of a problem. Most train stations have things written in both Japanese and English and on the main lines, most announcements are in both. Ordering food is easy for the most part as many menus have pictures and many restaurants have plastic models of the dishes outside (that's sort of a big deal there... souvenir shops sell the little models). Many menus even have English translations and some places have all English menus. Only twice did we go into a restaurant where there were no photos or English descriptions and at those we just pointed at an item on the menu and hoped it was OK (and each time, it was). Food was awesome there. Very little English is spoken, but many people can read it and understand a few words. Honestly, I've had a tougher time communicating with people in rural Quebec and in rural Spain than I did anywhere in Japan.

Very handsome photography. The countryside and village shots are quite charming. Are the cities unattractive because we bombed the shit out of them and the BRA's spiritual Japanese cousins handled the reconstruction?

I wish our Theatre District (or any drab architectural neighborhood) could be named the Neon District and be filled with Japanese style night lighting...electronic ivy.

Thanks! The countryside was gorgeous. Nikko and Narai were beautiful, but Narai is really the only place I saw every day architecture preserved very well. In the cities, there are some well-preserved structures, but they're usually shrines, temples, palaces, etc. Very little historic architecture on normal office buildings or residential structures. I'm sure our bombing efforts in WWII didn't help.

Interestingly enough, I did visit the Yasukini Shrine and War Museum. Cool to see a different perspective. In the WWII sections, they didn't really try to spin the story. I saw a few write ups that tried to make it seem as if the US tried to lure Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor, but not much beyond that. There was almost no mention of the atomic bombs (one little excerpt mentioned it in passing) which I though was strange. I did read letters from the Japanese troops during WWII to their families. Completely different content than what an American troop would write. Mostly about how they are honored to die for the glory of the emperor and Japan and they will come back as a beautiful cherry blossom and all that. Fascinating. And I'm not even a war/history guy.

 

[Matthew]

Very handsome photography. The countryside and village shots are quite charming. Are the cities unattractive because we bombed the shit out of them and the BRA's spiritual Japanese cousins handled the reconstruction?

This does get at some of it. The other part is that they were sick of rebuilding every time the nice old-fashioned style wooden structures burned down, which happened every few decades.

 

[tobyjug]

Ah. Interesting. So the vernacular architecture is rendered in wood, and there is no masonry counterpart to fall back upon as a fireproof substitute.

I wonder what sort of building went up after the great earthquake of 1923.

On the plus side, no Hotel Commonwealths or endless suburban branch bank style "Georgian" retreads.

 

[czsz]

Look at photos of Tokyo from back before the war -- it was a surprisingly "western" city with architecture that would be fairly familiar in expanding industrial cities in Germany or the UK, with hints of American architecture as well. In essence, most Meiji-era masonary architecture in Japan was derived from western prototypes. There was a lot of brick beaux-arts used for public buildings, for example (the same is true in places that were Japanese colonial outposts, like Taiwan or Korea). When the Ginza was first built, it looked like the main shopping street of a British or Australian town or city (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/3109868831/) and was actually called something like the "Brick District":

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2010/09/12/backstreets-of-ginza/

The Yasukuni Shrine is a fascinating place. It's also really controversial -- the shrine itself is used to worship the spirits of dead Japanese soldiers who fought during the war, so there are riots all over Asia whenever the Japanese PM pays a visit. I remember reading in the attached museum that the Rape of Nanking was a myth and that Chinese soldiers had simply dressed up in civilian outfits, forcing the Japanese army to act against anyone in civilian clothes without distinction. There's not a lot of atonement going on there (though to be fair, neither is there here, for bombing the shit out of their and Germany's cities).

 

[KentXie]

Thanks for sharing LrFox. I plan on visiting Japan one day soon but I've always been hesitant because my handle on the Japanese language has been waning since I took three courses during my freshman-sophomore year in college.

I'm probably going to brush up on it if I officially set a date to do so but now I feel more confident.

Million thanks!

Oh if you don't mind me asking, about how much was the two week trip to Japan individually?

 

[datadyne007]

Incredible photos! That first bridge photo is surreal.