1 September 2000
Where's b? 
Japan |
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24 July -18 August 2000-- American School in Japan Summer Day Camp
Another fun summer at camp teaching 8 and 9 year old Japanese kids English. Especially nice this year since I lived so close to work and didn't have to make a Tokyo commute.
6 August -- Kawagoe - Edo period wharehouses
20-26 August 2000 - A week in Japan
Two days after my job finished I set out on a week of travel in Japan using my Japan Rail Pass.
Information for would be "budget" travelers
How much does it cost to travel in Japan?
Less than $700 per week
I fared very comfortably as a budget traveler for about $60 per day for accomodation, food and entrance fees plus $260 for a week of rail travel. That comes to less than $700 for one week in Japan.
I will say that without knowledge of Japanese you will not be able to do this comfortably. English is rare in spoken or printed forms.
Accomodation
Reservations are expected at youth hostels. When you arrive at the front desk toting your backpack the person behind the desk will first greet you and ask you your name. Probably in Japanese. I phoned the 4 hostels where I would be staying in advance so they were all expecting me. Youth Hostels usually cost about 3,000 yen for a futon in a dorm room. Almost US$30. There are a few hostels that cost 1,800 yen, but they are rare.
The other alternative is a capsule hotels, which can hover around 3,000 yen. Presumably you've heard of this Japanese phenomenon. Apparently these things are built like a bee hive and you pay for a cell in the honeycomb with a bed and a small TV mounted on the wall.
Another Japanese phenomenon is the love hotel. This is a institution for lovers to find privacy and paraphenalia at hourly rates. Apparently the rooms are available at a reasonable price from late at night until morning.
The best budget option is camping illegally for free.
I met a young Japanese couple that was doing just this. Camping is doable in urban Japan for two reasons. Japan is super safe and it still has public bath houses. This boy had hitch hiked up to Hokkaido to meet his girlfriend and they were traveling across Japan on the cheap, taking painfully slow local trains, camping, and eating at convenience stores. I met several young Japanese exploring their country by local trains.
Which brings us to transportation.
Transportation
You can travel all day for 2,000 yen on a local train. You get the 18-year-old pass which is good for 28 and 88-year-olds alike. This budget option is available for those who can't get a rail pass and use the fast trains. The one week Japan rail pass costs 28,000 yen about US$260. But it easily pays for itself after two hauls on the shinkansen. The shinkansen is the bullet train that zips accross Japan's main island of Honshu. If the shinkansen doesn't get you where you're going the extensive set of express and local rails usually will. The Japan Rail pass must be purchased before entering Japan and is only available to those entering Japan as a "temporary visitor" with a tourist visa (not an employment visa). Two and three week passes are also available.
Food
The Food options for budget travelers are fairly limited. There are noodle shops that sell tastey bowls of soba, udon, and ramen for 350 to 550 yen. This is hardly a great meal, but its a good supplement. The best deal is a boxed lunch (bento) sold at the box lunch shop. The cheapest bento is nori bento for 330 yen and that will get you nori (dried seaweed) on rice, with fried fish and very small sides of pickles and a vegetable. That may not sound very appetizing but it's actually quite good at the better bento stands.
Other than noodles and bentos it's convenience store fare, which also meets pretty good standards of quality. Quality is the one consolation to Japan's expense. Hostels will be clean and the cheapest of foods will be fresh and edible. This includes food from 24-hour convenience stores.
Food at convenience stores includes cold noodle dishes, onigiri (fish, fish eggs, pickles, or chiken wrapped in rice and nori) sushi, and salads of various kinds. Hot food can be rice dishes, hot dogs, french fries, or oden (choose from stewed fish things, tofu, daikon etc. served in broth). These things all run less than $5. Which is cheap for food in Japan.
Entrance Fees
Some tourist traps nickle and dime you. Japan doesn't bother it five dollar and ten dollars you. If you're out sightseeing, ie looking at museums, temples, gardens and castles and the like you will be charged $3-$10 to get into any of these. The Shinto shrines don't charge admission, but practically all of the Buddhist temples do. In Nagasaki I found what is sure to be one of the few if not the only Catholic church in the world that has an admission fee. In Kyoto one fee is often not enough. You will sometimes be required to buy separate tickets for each feature of a temple complex, so just get ready to part with your rubbles.
20-21 August -- Kanazawa -- Geisha district, Samurai district, Garden
Kanazawa, like Kyoto and Nara, was spared the bombing that reduced most of Japan to rubble in the 1940s. In Nara that means you find wooden buildings that are hundreds of years old built by Imperial Patronge. In Kanazawa that means you will find old buildings that reach back into the fuedal period of Shoguns and Samurias. Kanazawa was home of the mighty daimyo house of Maeda. I think only the Shogun in Tokyo made more money than Maeda. So Kanazawa didn't have the Imperial culture of Kyoto, but rather a Samurai culture.
Today are preserved and rennovated districts of old geisha houses and a district of samurai residences. Both are well worth a visit. The highlights of my trip to Kanazawa were walking through those districts and going into the Shima geisha house and the Nomura Samurai house and also the Seison Villa in Kenrokuen garden. It is difficult to rank things aesthetically but Japan has a well deserved reputation for aesthetic excellence and for me these places are as fine as any in Japan. Interestingly enough, the Samurai house in question is described as a "ruin." Meaning it is now only a fraction of what it once was.
The Japanese perhaps know better than anyone how to integrate a residence with a garden so that the two are inextricably linked and give vitality to each other. These three houses did this. One was a geisha house for entertaining the upper classes. One was the residence of a samurai ready to stick his sword in his stomach if called by honor. The other was the retirement home built by the daimyo for his mother. All were designed by and for the best people in the society and unlike the guady, extravagent, excessive structures in Euorpe, America and elsehwere these awe with plainness and delicacy rather than power and strength.
Japan, as a country, in fact, inspires tranquility and contemplation more consistently than any other. Japan has been called a straight-jacket society. But what is a straight-jacket for? To stop, to still, to calm down the spastic or aggressive. And that's what Japanese socialization does. The socialization is so thorough and powerful that casual visitors sense it and begin to adapt to it, often reluctantly.
So, like I suggested, Japan inspires tranquility (like a straight-jakcet perhaps) and this opens the door for more contemplation. That sounds like something you might do at a Zen monastery, but in fact thats what Japan does as a country.
Another side to this is a kind of militancy that is part and parcel of the Japanese nation. The earliest name for the Japanese is Yamato which means something like "conquerors."
It took me a long time to see the militancy that still permeates Japan as militancy. Japan is very much a "snap to it" kinda place.
This kind of discussion could go on and on so I'll cut it off for now.
22 August -- Himeiji Castle and Kurahshiki
23-24 August -- Okayama to Nagasaki -- A-bomb museum and park, Glover Garden, Dejima
25 August -- Tomo no Ura (Okayama)
26 August -- Takahashi to Tokyo
26-28 August -- Tokyo
29 August -- Tokyo to Bangkok
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