Two things about Japan stand out to me after my first week.
The first is how this is a country where smart little conveniences are ingrained into everything. So you have toilets in many bathrooms where the water refilling the cistern first flows through a little tap on the outside, which you can use to rinse your hands. Which makes perfect sense – it’s clean water, it’s about to become waste water, so might as well use it for something, right? (This is assuming the tap actually is for washing your hands and I haven’t repeatedly embarrassed myself – you never know). That said, though, a lot of the examples I can think of aren’t unique to Japan – they’re just so much more widespread. In Canada, you can use a machine to place your order and pay…in McDonald’s, and pretty much nowhere else. In Japan I’ve used a machine to order takoyaki from a street stall. Order machines are so much more common and were clearly adapted much earlier, with many machines resembling a mechanical vending machine instead of a touchscreen computer.
The second is a little bit specific, but I wasn’t expecting Japan’s historic buildings to be so big.
It’s possible that I’m easily impressed as a New Worlder. Maybe Europeans don’t find the size of the castles in Japan anything special. I remember meeting an Indian in Malaysia who was unimpressed by even the biggest temples there, so maybe Japan’s temples aren’t much to write home about either. But they blew me away.
I complain a lot on Instagram that my dinky phone camera can’t do justice to the places I visit, but in Japan’s case this is often because I literally can’t fit everything into the frame without a better lens (or a drone – although drones are banned in a lot of public areas for some reason). Nara was especially difficult – I’d crest a hill and come face-to-face with a bell the size of a Hummer, but I couldn’t take a good picture that captured the entire thing while still getting across how big it was. First world problems, I know. It does makes me glad I made this trip so I could see it all in person.
I’m also really enjoying is how easy it is to get around here. After some number crunching I shelled out for a JR Pass for an eye-watering 50,000 Yen (~650 CAD) in the knowledge that paying for all the trains individually would cost even more, and it’s made travelling around the country a lot of fun. I flash my pass at the Shinkansen station, take a bullet train for 45-60 minutes, store my backpack in a coin locker, explore a 400-year-old castle, then wander back to the Shinkansen station to hop to the next town. A pretty penny for sure, but I get to cover an astonishing amount of ground without even thinking about it – just show up and catch a train. The longest I’ve waited was maybe 40 minutes.
So for those that want to keep track, I started my trip in Osaka, which for some reason is the cheapest airport to fly to in Japan. After half a week there to get my legs under me (and check out Nara), it was off to Himeji to explore the castle there and then on to Hiroshima.
I’m really glad I went to Hiroshima. It sounds off to say that I “enjoyed” my time there (although I did discover that Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is delicious), but visiting the museum dedicated to the atomic bombing was very worth the time. I’ve written my thoughts in another post, which you can find here.
I’m writing this on my last day in Fukuoka. I’ve checked out, the hotel has my bag, and I’ll be hanging around for lunch and a bit of exploring before catching the train to Nagasaki. Fukuoka is not a major tourist destination, but it is great for food – specifically, tonkotsu ramen, which I’ve eaten for almost every meal over the past two days. My hotel is around the corner from the original location of Ichiran, a famous ramen chain across the country, which offers its own unique dining experience:
You place an order at the machine outside, which spits out a ticket. You take that ticket inside and sit at a booth, which I can only describe as being like the visiting booths in prisons that you see on TV. A small bamboo curtain in front of you leads to the kitchen, but it’s so low that you only ever see the hands and apron of the server. You give your ticket to this mysterious pair of hands. A disembodied voice spits Japanese to you in a determinedly cheerful tone, and the curtain comes down. After a few minutes it comes back up, and the hands deliver you the best bowl of ramen you’ve ever had in your life. If you need to order more noodles, you press a button to ring a bell and give the hands an order slip and money, after which you get a small bowl. When you’re done, you leave without ever seeing the owner of the mysterious hands. It’s like being served by house elves. And the food is so dang good.
That’s all for now. This post is going up a little later than I like because of the breakneck speed I’ve been moving, but I’m hoping next week will be a little more timely. Until then!
Harmon Moon 