The trip was actually consistent with our expectation, we knew that there’s nothing spectacular at Osaka, just an easy-going city, cheaper and less fashionable than Tokyo. It did turn out that way, eating is significantly cheaper at Osaka for the average restaurant. Shopping is sometime cheaper too. Thanks to a friend’s reference, we stayed at the very central and convenient Shinsaibashi [心斎橋] area. We could basically walk around the 3km radius and have access to everything that Osaka has to offer, between Namba and Umeda subway stations. We stayed at the Hearton hotel which is a short block away from the underground city.

We visited two touristic attractions of Osaka: the Osaka Castle Museum [大阪城] and the world-famous Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. The Osaka Castle is a typical Japanese castle style similar to the more authentic and famous Himeji Castle [姫路城]. I feel that the park surrounding it is equally interesting. We’ve been to other big aquariums before, at San Francisco and Shanghai, what is special with the Kaiyukan is its gigantic tank which is the central attraction, with two big Whale Sharks in there, and a whole lot of deep sea species that I can’t remember their names, sharks, hammerhead, stingray, etc.

Actually what we enjoyed most at Osaka is the friendly Shinsaibashi-suji shopping street. We basically live there during our entire trip duration, passing by and eating by every day and night. It strikes me to see how the young japanese girls dress despite a not-so-warm Winter time: ultra-short skirts/pants, fancy hairs, impeccable make-ups and mostly very high heel shoes. Not as sexy and fancy as Tokyo girls, but still quite a show for a tourist like me… Mary has had her own time in the numerous drug stores and female accessories stores, she could literally spend a day in each one of them! That was it for Osaka.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the grayish-ness of Kyoto. We took JR train to Kyoto and only spent half a day there, visiting 3 temples: the iconic golden pavilion Kinkaku-ji Temple [金閣寺], the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine [北野天満宮], and the impressive Kiyomizu Temple [清水寺]. Other than that we also had an okonomi yaki for lunch, which is a kind of DIY japanese pizza… it is just funny to try but doesn’t really taste anything special.

Moving around in Kyoto is just inconvenient, I heard people walking around Kyoto but I feel that it’s too far away between each interesting temple/shrine to make that attempt. We took the daily bus fare (very limited subway coverage there), visited North and East of Kyoto. There’s nothing in between, not even young people to see… We were lucky  not having to stay there at night and to endure boredom. I’m sure that my half day trip is not making justice to such a famous and glorious city, I’m giving myself a goal to return to Kyoto again during the sakura blossom season, with more time to visit it, and maybe have a more comprehensive plan…

That’s it for this trip, we didn’t plan so much, just went spontaneously and sniffed around. It wasn’t bad, we’ll return again in the future.

Click here to see the entire Osaka and Kyoto albums, and the portrait album.

Tokyo view from Cerulean Tower - We can see the Tokyo Tower at far left.

Tokyo view from Cerulean Tower - Quite messy actually

We went to an isakaya [居酒屋] that night with a dozen friends of Desmond, at Shibuya area naturally, and later to a pub at the corner. Around 1:30am I was so drunk that I could barely walk back to the hotel room by myself. The next morning (it was more like noon) I heard that the other guys came to our room for sleeping until early morning, but I had no idea about that… Anyway, it was nice to know all those guys and gals. I hope they’ll come to visit Shanghai very soon.

After checked out, we had a ramen at [博多天神] and went to visit the Meiji Shrine [明治神宫]. For those who don’t know it, a japanese shrine is a place for meditation and prayer, just like a church or a temple, but it doesn’t have any god figure or any human symbol, it’s just a quiet place to pray, zen style normally. At new year eve people would go to their favorite shrine to pray, and bring back an arrow distributed by the shrine, if one can be ahead of the pack to get it.

Meiji Shrine	Meiji Shrine	Meiji Shrine
Meiji Shrine	Meiji Shrine	Meiji Shrine
Meiji Shrine	Meiji Shrine	Meiji Shrine

At evening we drove to Moichi’s home at Sayama [狭山] and stayed one night there. We were greeted by a very warmhearted and welcoming family that is The Tanakas. We were served delicious japanese foods, great wines and excellent snacks such as fried grasshoppers which is perfect with cold beer or whiskey! For the first time in my life, I had a chance to taste a bottle of Opus One, probably the best California wine out there. In addition, I also had a rare chance to taste one of the best shojiu [烧酒] that money can’t buy, Hanatare, unless you know someone in the company. Around the table, we had great and lengthy conversation with Moichi, his father and his brother-in-law (the full-time drinker and part-time surgeon). It was all interesting to learn each other’s culture and perspective.

Diner at Moichi's home

Hey watch out! I'm holding a magnum bottle of Opus One, 2000.

I'm holding a bottle of Hanatare, one of the best shojiu out there.

New Year Eve

At the night of 31st December, Desmond was so exhausted (after 4 nights of alcohol) that he returned to sleep at 8pm after our diner at Daidaiya [橙家], at Shinjuku [新宿]. So I went for a walk at the Meiji Shrine on my own. I heard that this place would be packed by huge crowd around midnight, that it would take 4 hours to make a round and get out, therefore I wanted to be there early to avoid the trap. There were indeed a scary atmosphere as one can see large number of policemen standing at every corner. I can easily count a hundred of them, visibly standing outside. I don’t know how many more are sitting inside. So I made a quick round and came out, within 30 minutes.

Meiji Shrine at new year eve

Meiji Shrine at new year eve

Meiji Shrine at new year eve

From there I took the JR train to Shibuya to see some street action. Expectedly, at midnight people go crazy, they all come outside for the countdown, hug each others (between strangers), jump around like if they just win lottery, and holding a bottle of alcohol. I can smell alcohol everywhere on the street, whereas japanese street is usually very clean and smell-less. But then, 1/3 of the crazy people are tourists, so that might explain the liberal behavior! It was a rather lonely new year eve for me, my phone didn’t work at Tokyo so I couldn’t phone anyone to wish happy new year, neither could I receive any wish… But it was a special moment standing beside those crazy youngsters at Shibuya, seeing all the policemen and special armed force.

Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve
Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve
Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve
Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve	Shibuya streets at new year eve

Golfing at 1st January

The next day we went to have a game of golf at Showanomori Golf Course, at the west suburb of Tokyo. On the highway I can see the Mount Fuji [富士山] with its signature white-top look. Everyone we talked to were surprised that a golf course was opened at the 1st of January. We fully expected that nobody would be there to play with us, but surprisingly, there are full of cars in the parking lot! Nevertheless, we had a funny twosome game, without caddy. It’s interesting that they build a monorail system to carry the golf bags all around the holes, with a remote control to advance or stop it. So we just walk around hand free, stop the train at anytime to pick a club. (see photo at page bottom) This is perfect for a small golf course where you don’t want 8 people to stand on the field.

After the game, it was a stressful drive back to Tokyo as we had to rush for returning the car before the rental company close for the day. Despite the very complex but stupid and user-unfriendly Panasonic navigation system that insisted on splitting the screen even though we only want the most basic functionality, despite we ran out of gaz and Desmond’s cell phone has only 4 minutes of talk time left and we need to call the hotel asking for information, we actually made it back to the car rental place 5 minutes before they close for the day! I keep reminding myself that I won’t ever drive in Tokyo myself, unless I can get an English-speaking navigation system. Tokyo streets are small and curving, highways split all the time, in such a way that is hard to tell which side is the main direction, and there’s toll booths at about every 15 minutes of driving!

That night we stay at Chisun Grand Hotel at Akasaka [赤坂], went to an isakaya around the corner with Desmond and Yume. We didn’t drink so much, 2 bottles of shojiu for 3 guys, but at the end I wasn’t feeling good… The next morning Desmond had to fly to Hong Kong very early. I woke up quite late, took a long shower, didn’t quite recover yet. Then around noon I checked out and went to Akihabara [秋叶原] to see show electronic shops. I got lost into a huge gadget mall of 8 stories. It’s really amazing to see the modern gadgets available in the Japanese market that you can’t buy anywhere else, smaller, bigger, slicker, more colorful than what is sold in China or USA. For example: the >100″ flat TV from JVC, Sharp and Toshiba; the 3mm thin 11″ OLED TV XEL-1 from Sony; the Sony mp3 Walkman that you can use to watch TV; the newest digital SLR cameras from Nikon, Canon, Sony; all the big gun Canon lens; about 500 choices of earphones; etc. I only had 2 hours to spend there, so only visited 2 floors. After that, I rushed back to the hotel to catch the next Narita airport limousine bus, and that concluded my new year trip!

Tokyo Metro

After running around the city few times by myself, I finally figure out how to go from the airport to Tokyo, inside Tokyo and back to the airport. Tokyo has very well developed subway and railway system. The subway system is operated by Tokyo Metro, and railway by JR. They are very similar in the perspective of a passenger, so I was confused many times thinking that I was in a metro station while I was in fact in a JR station. They don’t share the station, but are close to each other sometime. Together they make very good coverage of Tokyo, as you can see in the map below.

Tokyo Metro and JR map

Tokyo Metro and JR map

The biggest problem, I think, is the transition from kanji [汉字] to romanized name. Maps given by hotels to tourists have station names in roman characters, while the map at the station’s ticket machine is only in kanji, and there is no way to relate them. Normally we could look at the line color and figure it out, but there are so many lines, and in some maps there are also JR lines in the mix, so it’s like a puzzle to tourists… Strangely, inside the station, all the maps have both languages and very good letter+number indicators for every station. For example S01 is Shinjuku, G01 is Shibuya and H08 is Ginza station, so that’s no mistake. But at the ticket machine, they don’t put such updated map, just the simple map with kanji only! Anyway, now that I know it, I’m no longer scare to travel around Tokyo, very conveniently indeed.

Six hours later, I was back to Shanghai home, sweet home!

I didn’t dare to drive the first day because the driver seat is at the right side in Japan. Why in the world do we need to have both standards? We don’t even have a map of Sapporo, lucky the navigation system in the Toyota Esteem mini-van seems quite sophisticate. And more fortunately, there are quite a large amount of Chinese words [汉字] in Japanese language. In some case we are able to understand a phrase if we know the context, just by reading the scarse Chinese words that we could understand. Many road signs, street names, city names, public signs and instructions have Chinese words that we understand. They might use those words in a slightly different way but it remains in the same context. For example they use the Chinese words 化妆室 (make-up room) to indicate a bathroom, which is understandable. They use 大丈夫 (big guy), meaning no problem, like in you’re big boy, no problem. They use 无料 (no stock) to mean free of charge, see, it’s not so difficult to understand when you’re in the right context.

Again our friend Desmond is quite familiar with Sapporo and Hokkaido as he has come here 5 times already. He can use the navigation system (in Japanese) without reading the words. I would have trouble using it myself, until the last day.

Sapporo

Sapporo

Sapporo

Sapporo

Sapporo

Sapporo is small and quiet city. Its downtown area comprises of ten streets down and across, that’s it! To my surprise, they have a subway system for this nearly 2 millions population city. I guess it’s really convenient for them during Winter, which I heard could be as bad as Winter at Toronto, or worse in mountainous areas. We spent the first day walking around the downtown, again ate like pigs and drunk like cows, several meals a day, sometime 3 meals at night, no kidding!

It must strike every first time tourist as to how polite the average Japaneses are, much more that the gentlemen at UK I bet! In North America people are friendly, in Europe people are snobs (or sophisticate sometime), in China many people are plain inpolite, especially the low end of the population, but in Japan everybody seems to be really polite and nice! I haven’t been bow to so many times in my whole life compare to one week here. I haven’t been said aligato gazaimaseta (thank you – politely) so many time in every single meal or shopping. I guess they must have said many other polite things that I couldn’t understand. At the end of our trip, I was already used to aligato everyone that I meet, and bow my head too…. If I stay a year there, maybe I would be stuck with that habit forever!

I think if there’s something nobody can beat the Japaneses, it would be politeness and hygiene! Every toilet that I’ve seen and used in Japan, in hotel, in restaurant (big or tiny), in public toilet, shopping mall, are all really clean and smell-less. It’s hard to complain about anything in their toilets, every little details are well thought of. You have to be there to really feel this. I wonder how Japaneses can stand it when they travel abroad to other countries, like those south Asia countries that even myself can hardly accept despite my pass experience there. Politeness, on the other hand, is something much easier to get use to. We normally respond in the same way we were treated at first place, that’s universal.

We spent a large part of our second day at Otaru [小樽], a little city 35km north of Sapporo. It looks almost like a tourist city, but actually it is a major port city of Hokkaido. I was surprise to see, on their main street, several excellent bakery and chocolaterie, litterary written in French. Beside this and the traditional glass-ware industry, there isn’t much thing to mention about this city. It was just nice to walk around and have seen it.

Otaru

Otaru

Otaru

Otaru	Otaru
Otaru	Otaru
Otaru	Otaru

The third day was really a special day for me! I started to get used to driving at the right side, and going to the other side of the street when turning right. So I drove, for the first time, at the right. It wasn’t so bad as I thought, I didn’t make any stupid mistake, but I was slower than usual, naturally.

Equally fun is our golf game at the Sapporo International Golf Club, a 27-holes public golf club that is absolutely impeccable and easy to enjoy. The only problem is that no one seemed to speak English there. We had to deal with the lady at the counter by writing numbers and Chinese words. We rent the golf clubs and the shoes. We had a lovely old lady as our caddy, she ride a small motorized cart with our equipments on it, kinda like a sophisticate lawn mower where she can stand on it, so it wasn’t exhausting as being a caddy during a PGA tournment. We enjoy the walk without anything to carry on the shoulder. The weather was perfect, it can’t get any better when you can walk under the sun of noon time without a cap and not feeling any discomfort! It was majestic!

Deeply in my mind, I was really worried that I can’t play a normal game because I have only practiced once since Summer last year… Then we didn’t have enough time after lunch to drive a bit before our tee time. We barely had enough time for 25 balls, and that was enough to bring back a little confidence in myself. So, off we go, following our caddy. She must be an experienced caddy, she can understand the basic golf keywords in English. She takes her job very seriously, following the golf rules rigourously, but without taking away our joy of the game. On a few occasions she suggested me to use a different club that I would have used, and she was right on the spot! Still, the strongest memory of her is how she call nice shot in almost a military order way… And also when a ball looks like going bad, oh… bunka!

And my score? I didn’t write it down… But I was happy with my performance, I did pretty good in the short game, using the rather cheap rental clubs, and I didn’t lose a single ball in the whole game! That’s almost the first time ever happenned to me. And obviously I wasn’t playing hockey, believe me…

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

The next day we drove (I did) to Jozankei [定山溪], a village of hot spring resorts where we would stay overnight. On our way there, we tour around the sea shore of north west Hokkaido. It was a pleasant experience to see the blue sea and blue sky, although going thru the many narrow tunnels across the mountains could become scary sometime, the 2-way lanes were really narrow and the trucks are big!

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...	Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...
Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...	Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...
Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...	Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...	Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...
Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...	Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...
Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...	Somewhere north west of Hokkaido...

Hot spring is one of the healthy way of life of Japaneses, along with healthy foods and excellent hygiene, no wonder they’re ranked second in longevity in the world. This is how it works in a hot spring resort: they only let their hotel customers use the hot spring bath, no outsider. You check in the room, change for the traditional Japanese cloth (yukata). Relax in the hotel, go to the hot spring bath several times a day, about 40 minutes everytime. You would have all the meals in the hotel’s restaurant (included in the package). So, just go there and forget everything, relax. It is nice to do that once in a while, but if we have to stay more than one day, we would probably get bored quickly. This was my first hot spring experience, it was nice. We’ll try another resort next time, definitely!

Jozankei

Jozankei

Jozankei

Jozankei

Jozankei

During our 3 days at Sapporo, we had eaten so many fishes, mostly raw. The best that I can remember was the samma [秋刀鱼], served raw with a bit of gingered rice, it was the most delicious piece of sushi I ever had in my life! Simply melting in the mouth and fabulous taste! We also had toro, saba, bla bla bla. How can I remember all those fish names in such short time?

We also drunk uncountable types of sake [日本酒], sochu [焼酎] and umeshu [梅酒]. The one I can remember most is Otokoyama [男山]. That one is easy to remember, but we also had several other good sochu. Again, how to remember so many names in such short time? Need to drink more often, unfortunately Japanese wines are only good to serve with sushi or sashimi, it won’t fit with Chinese or western foods at all. Nevertheless, we have tried so many good dishes in Japan that we won’t miss sushi at Shanghai for a while.

Our plan is to return to Japan once again, with a tour guide, so that we could visit the attractions and understand something about them (reading book is too long). At least I want to go to the Mount Fuji [富士山], Kyoto [京都] and Osaka [大阪], and revisit Tokyo properly. I think there are many photo subjects there… You know what I mean………………….

Click here to see the whole album.

We spent the first 3 days in Tokyo (東京), and the last 4 days at Hokkaido (北海道) which is the northen island of Japan. In Tokyo we mostly shopped around, ate like a pigs and drunk like a cows, we didn’t really visit the typical tourist attractions like the Meiji Shrine (明治神宫), the Imperial Palace (皇居), the Tokyo Tower or the Mount Fuji (富士山). Instead we visited the shopping area of Harajuku (原宿), Omotesando Hills (表参道), Shibuya (渋谷), Ginza (銀座), Shinjuku (新宿), Asakusa (浅草) and the Sensoji temple (浅草寺). That was fine by me, actually visiting these places allow me to see the real Japanese live rather than seeing only tourists.

Sensoji temple	Sensoji temple	Sensoji temple
Kaminarimon gate	Shibuya 109 mall	Shibuya at night
Shibuya at night	Shibuya at night	Shibuya at night

In Tokyo we mostly travelled by subway. I estimate that their subway must be built around the same time as Paris’, it’s kinda old style, line transfer is sometime messy, but it’s very clean, no bad smell, and it goes to every corner of the city, so very convenient. The Tokyo public transport system is quite well developped and affordable, lots of people don’t need cars, so they have less road congestion than the other major cities around the world, like Paris or Los Angeles.

When walking on the streets or malls, it is striking to see how much Japanese women and men, especially young women, take care of their appearance. Every young lady is fashionably dressed, impeccable hair style, make-up, mascarat and nails, branded hand bag, and their shoes are incredible to say the least! In other words, nothing on their body is left to random, everything must be perfectly tailored to the latest popular style. I use to think that Shanghai ladies are stylish, and even care too much about their look. But that’s not remotely close to the Japanese ladies. Tokyo’s Shibuya is really the fashion place where every lady dresses and appears like the models on Japanese pop magazines! Actually I can’t tell the difference, maybe they’re actually the models. Nothing is too weird to wear, some girls dress like a princess in the fairy tale, other dress like the hero in some games, but that doesn’t seem to attract any special attention from passer-by on the streets. Maybe their cartoon culture has invaded their real life, manifested as cosplay in the real society.

Many of the following pictures were captured over a very short period of time, and I’ve miss many better opportunities because there were too many people on the streets. But nevertheless, it gives you an idea of this year’s trend in Asia, because everyone will be following the Japanese style eventually.

Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	These young people may have money to buy LV bags and pretty shoes, but they still eat instant noodle on the street.
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya

Trendy youth at Shibuya	Trendy youth at Shibuya
Shibuy station	Shibuya station

As for men, their hair style is remarkable, they all look like the characters in Japanese games or manga (漫画). They either wear teared-down jeans for going out, or black suit for work. I wonder if Men in Black isn’t a Japanese comics inspired by Hollywood. In the subway during rush hour, you can see a long row of men all wearing black suit, some grey suit, but never a colored suit. The same goes for cars, black, white and grey cars are predominant on the streets, I can hardly see a red or blue or green car out there. That’s the men world…

In constrast, in every lady shop, I was blinded by all the colored displays and labels, with pink being the predominant color. Everything destinated to ladies has to be cute, cartoon is commonly used for everything from avertisement to user instruction to packaging.

Where cartoon is not appropriate, such as beauty products or high-end consumer brands, you can expect an idol instead. Japanese idols are everywhere in public view. These quasi-perfect young ladies (and boys too, but relatively less frequent) have everything a young Japanese girl wants: they look good, they’re cute and they wear chic stuff. They’re used to promote everything that cartoon won’t fit. And among the 127 millions Japanese population, the marketing machines can easily produce thousands of new young idols every year, keeping the average age of idol below 20. So, they’re cute, good skin, naive, open minded, adorable and fresh. It’s like breeding a thousand of new Paris Hilton every year!

Actually the following annecdote would explain it all… While my tour mates were shopping in the 0101 mall at Shinjuku, I was exploring a small the street on the side. I saw several mini-casinos, actually there’re only slot machines, but lots of them! What striked me was in those slot machines, instead of the boring melon, cherry, apple, the bell and the 7 signs, what they put in there instead are the latest cartoon characters, the latest game characters, the latest TV show characters, and the hottest idols. Every mini-casino advertise their latest slot machines idols to attract players. I think that’s very creative, they must make lots of money out of those slot machines to justify changing the signs regularly, while even the fanciest casinos at Las Vegas still stuck with the century-old slot machine signs. I was really impressed, deeply impressed by how much their pop culture are found in every aspect of their life.

Slot machines using idol signs

Now, when we talk about Japanese cuisine (日本料理), that’s where the millenium long Japanese tradition remains very strong. In Tokyo, we had sushi (寿司), sashimi (刺身), ramen (拉面), curry rice, charcoal BBQ, tempura and donburi (丼). Our friend Desmond, who is actually our guide at Japan, probably knows more fishes than an average Japanese, and probably has tasted more sake (日本酒), sochu (焼酎) and umeshu (梅酒) than an average Japanese has. Under his guide, we tried many good Japanese foods and wines. We particularly enjoyed our meal at an izakaya (居酒屋, Japanese-style pub) at Shibuya, the atmosphere was good, the BBQ foods were tasty, the wine selection was rich, and it was memorable because Desmond celebrated his 4th wedding anniversary.

Revolving sushi

Stand up noodle restaurant

The last thing to mention is a rather unusual activity, Desmond and I went to the newly opened National Art Center of Tokyo to see Vermeer‘s exposition. It is a very stylish space-for-rent type of museum. We were there early the morning, sunny and blue sky, the interior view is really impressive. We also had lunch there at the very stylish suspended restaurant, Le Rond, founded by Paul Bocuse.

National Art Center of Tokyo	National Art Center of Tokyo
National Art Center of Tokyo	National Art Center of Tokyo
National Art Center of Tokyo	National Art Center of Tokyo
National Art Center of Tokyo	Restaurant Le Rond

Click here to view the complete album.