New Year

Buddhism takes care of dying and Shintoism of birth and life. So, the old year is chimed out at the Buddhist temples and then everybody moves on to a Shinto Shrine to welcome the new year.

This year I missed the bell ringing and went instead straight to the merry part.

It was a bit noisy. Megaphones herding people this way and that way. When the crowd in the background was let to enter the gates, it was like watching a human tsunami role across the street and up to the shrine.

After a lot of waiting and slowly moving forward, the crowd is finally, in small portions, let to approach the main hall and throw in some money into the shrine collection.

When all the waiting, praying and buying is done with, it's nice to warm your hands by a fire.

Both spiritual and bodily needs are catered for. Stalls offer a variety of foods and sweets but I also noticed a few of them specializing in model guns.

Winter in Kyoto

Kyoto today is a city covered in snow. I can’t actually remember ever seeing this much snow in the city! Some of the cars make a different sound and drive more slowly than usually. Snow chains! People are out taking photos and enjoying the winter.

This morning when I woke up, I was again reminded how cold the Japanese houses can get at winters. There are no insulation and the buildings are not very tightly made. You feel warm as long as you sit in front of a heater, but move away or turn it off, and you will feel the cold again immediately. Like sitting outside around a camp fire. And in the morning, the only thing that can make you get out from your layers of warm bedding is the need to go the bathroom. Also that reminds me of camping and cold mornings.

More snow is promised for tomorrow.

Summer tiers weren't enough this time.

Lots of cameras out in the city today. More than usually.

One of the famous shrines in the middle of the city, Yasaka shrine.

This and That

Night shift digging up the road

A lot of construction and maintenance is done during the night hours. Roads are dug open, station buildings taken apart, but in the morning everything is back to normal. And then when the night arrives once more, the workers rule the city again.

McDonald’s has free wireless internet in some of it’s restaurants, but only if you have bought the services of a certain Japanese internet service provider and has the codes and passwords to log in.

In Japan you can’t buy mobile phones with a prepaid card anymore. The official excuse is, I think, that because the criminals used them, it should be illegal. A logic that is used, not only in Japan, for more repressive laws and surveillance. Maybe a foreigner committed a crime in Japan in the past? A good excuse to have all the tourists fingerprinted at arrival now.

World traveler in Kyoto

If you are traveling on a tight budget or just don’t want to spend money staying in a hotel, there’s all night open internet cafes where you can stay pretty cheap during the coldest and darkest night time hours. In Fukuoka I paid 1 200 yen for five hours and got a very comfortable chair in a private booth that I could sleep in. For a couple of hundred yens more I could have had a tatami floor to sleep on instead. There are manga and videos to borrow, and you can buy instant ramen and drinks from vending machines. You could bring your own food too if you would prefer that.

When I came to Japan first time I thought it was strange when all the workers in a shop greeted me with a loud voice when I entered and thanked me similarly when I got out. I thought it was funny. But then when I went back home and didn’t get the Japanese treatment as a customer anymore, I missed it. I didn’t get anything, hardly a smile when I entered, and many times I felt like being just a nuisance interrupting conversations between employees.

Kyushu

There’s a bridge for cars to drive from Honshu to Kyushu, and a tunnel under the Kanmon Straits for trains, but what many people might not know, there’s also a tunnel for pedestrians. The tidal streams between the two islands are very strong and you can see how large ships need to work hard to move at all.

I had a busy schedule in northern Kyushu with three interviews on the same day. Shimonoseki, Kashii and Fukuoka. In Japan it’s actually possible to make a detailed plan with many transfers. The trains arrive and leave exactly according to the time table.

If it says 12:14, it will leave 12:14.

Fukuoka is one of my favorite cities in Japan and I could give it a chance and try to live there, I think. There’s nothing concrete really that I can point to, why I like it, it’s just a feeling I’ve got from a few short visits. Like a remote space colony on a warm planet, connected to the earth and it’s culture but with a somehow independent, bustling with activity, rebellious atmosphere.

I met a friend of mine and got an insight into some of the aspects of being a ‘Salary Man‘ in Japan. Many Japanese companies have some sort of morning ceremony with the workers before the start of the day. Somebody is chose to hold a short speech, motivational cheering and things like that. My friend’s company had a somewhat extreme variation of the theme that lasts for 45 minutes with some parts resembling church sermons where the priest and the disciples chant with each other according to a specific pattern. All in order to hammer in the philosophy and proper behavior of the company.

A thick book teaching business manners for company employees

Kagoshima was warm! To wear a T-shirt was quite enough. The volcano on the other side of the Kagoshima Bay was quiet now but few weeks before the city had been completely darkened by ash. It had been impossible to see the neighboring buildings.

Sakurajima

Tottori – Shimonoseki

Making of Mancha in a small coffee shop in Tottori.

City Security Forces in Tottori helping people to cross the streets.

A view from the train between Tottori and Himeji.

The Japan Rail Pass can be used on some of the Shinkansen bullet trains and today was my first ride with them. It was with impressive speeds that the passing faster trains run trough the station. Japan Rail Pass is only valid for the older and slower ones but it was fast nevertheless. I used about the same amount of time on trains both yesterday and today, but traveled a lot longer today. Maybe five times more.

Shinkansen at Himeji station.

One thing surprised me on the train. 25% of the carriages were for smokers. From Sweden I’m used to that everything is non-smoking these days.

Today I’m staying in Shimonoseki, the capital of Fugu. I met with Zile from Zambia, an assistant teacher on the JET-program, and went out with her and her friends. Armed with discount coupons the gang went from place to place and sampled Italian specialities, gyouza and chicken together with beer, wine and umeshu. All the places were really small and the street itself only about thirty meters long.  The major was rumored to come  but he never showed up.

Shimonoseki

Kyoto – Tottori

Arrived to Japan yesterday. Tired…didn’t sleep anything on the plane. I tried but it didn’t work. Watched some movies. Titles that didn’t require any sound. Predators and a Chinese Kung Fu film.

Some of the air lines have adopted a new style for safety demonstrations. Finnair used a more traditional approach.

First day in Kyoto was busy but I managed to fit in Musashi sushi at Sanjo street. A traditional must visit at arrival. A ‘Kaiten’ sushi where the plates move around the counter on a conveyor belt. My favorites are salmon and fried eel, and I didn’t disappoint myself this time either.

I had planned to go to bed early but that didn’t happen. Met a friend at a café, another at my favorite bar, and before too late, it was late. When the owner of the bar volunteered to drive me home I wasn’t too hard to convince.

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Today started with some quality time at the post office. I wanted to deposit money into an account but it wasn’t as straight forward as I had thought. It took a long time. Maybe this is a problem all over the world? Foreigners and banking abroad. I have only tried this in Japan so my experience is very limited.

A few years back there were no big electronic stores in Kyoto, you had to go to Osaka for that, but now there are two. Big Camera opened first and this year I found Yodoyabashi Camera not far away! this was very helpful! I found both a bag for my tripod and a backpack there. The sales person at the outdoor store told me that the backpack was made by a good brand a brought a mirror to show me how nice it looked on me.

Today I started my one week round trip by going to Tottori. There were no signs anywhere at Kyoto railway station pointing to the city. And when I asked one of the drivers about it he looked surprised at me. Like, why would anybody want to go there? I had planned to take a fast express train all the way but things didn’t work out quite like that. It was mostly local trains. And I had to change many times with some unexpectedly long periods of waiting time. I finally arrived at 22:14. Exactly according to the time schedule.

I listened to some interesting opinions and discussions with my newly found friends here, and tomorrow it’s time for my first interview this year.

It’s getting late. I should get up in just a few hours. Guess I’ll be sleepy on the trains again tomorrow.

Photos From a Japanese Culture Day in Gunnarsbyn

Oscar winning Japanese movie, tea ceremony, kid's activities and more!

Shinko practicing as a tea ceremony master. Her 'Sensei' would have been proud.

Our priest arranged the whole thing. Here explaining how to use the chop-sticks before dinner.

Preparations

My yearly trip to Japan is only one week away now. How did this happen? I was supposed to be prepared well in advance this year, but again, I find myself trying to catch up with hundreds of things at the last minute.

I’m taking contact with people in Japan, ordering equipment, thinking about gifts to bring, buying tickets, preparing our house for the winter, editing my documentary, launching my wife’s homepage. And a bunch of other things. And even more things I should do.

As always, I will drive through Finland to Helsinki and leave the car at my uncles place. A one way trip of about one thousand kilometers. There are daily direct flights from Helsinki to Japan and Finnair has good prices if you book well in advance. It’s worth the long drive I think.

For the first time I’m going to buy a Japan Rail Pass this year. I thought it has to be ordered in advance, but that could be wrong. I also thought that I have to pick it up in Helsinki but it seems I could have got it by mail too. But it’s too late for that now. A bit cumbersome to have to go all the way to the city just for that, but the economic benefit of having it is greater than the pain to get it. For 28 3oo yen I can travel as much as I want for a week with JR (Japan Railway), and I have planned to make good use of it. It will kick start my trip when I arrive in Japan. Unless there’s some hidden bureaucratic surprises awaiting.

Today I rented a SIM-card from Softbank to use in my mobile phone. It’s quite affordable at 105 yen a day. If you don’t make any calls that is. Incoming calls are free but to make calls you are charged 105 yen a minute! That’s about 1 €!