BTW here's my lifeline when traveling the Tokyo trains.
That's the train map I was given at the sakura houses. Starting to finally get some sense out of it :P
So basically I leave from Shoinjinjamae station. From there I take to Shimo-Takaido. Switch to Keiou line bound for Shinjuku. From there it's switch to one of the JR lines that goes(light green is my favourite since it takes you all the way around the big circle in the center of first picture). The JR line then stops at Harajuku and off I go.
With some new advice on locating the street(name of the street was particularly useful!) I found the street and after a walking across various cloth stores(if you are looking for clothes in japan this seems like a good place!) I found the store that sells the concert tickets. As it turns out Tokyo concert was already sold out here too but they had tickets for same band performing in Oosaka at the 16th. Hmm. Well as I had abandoned idea of going to Okinawa and had bought week long JR pass for the march it was actually viable concert so I bought this one. Tad more expensive than I had hoped at 9000 yen but at least I wasn't nuts enough to get the 100,000 yen one. Wonder what THAT ticket contains? Almost thousand euro's for a christ sake! Personal meeting with the band or what?)
Store also quickly printed out map of a performance venue. I wonder if that's standard service, or as is more likely, they gave one since I'm foreigner and therefore probably don't know my way there(good idea if that's the case. That was DEFINITELY welcomed bonus!)
Need to figure where in Oosaka that is but it refers to Oosaka castle park, Oosaka castle outside music venue and old baseball stadion(I think) so should be faaaairly easy to find. There's also mention of 5 minute walk from JR related station and seeing how I hope to use JR lines to get there(no extra charge with JR pass) this is good news indeed. Looks like I can get there fairly easily. Also mention of hotel which could be handy as the concert starts around 18.30 or so I doubt very much I can get to Tokyo same day. Actually I'm thinking of 3 day trip. Arrive to Oosaka on Friday, visit some places, maybe find out the concert halls location, sleep in some ryokan(traditional Japanese hotel), Saturday check more places, visit concert, sleep another night there and on Sunday drop by somewhere else on my way to Tokyo. Though the Friday part might be redundant depending on how long it takes to get to Oosaka.
After this it was definitely time for meal and first restaurant I ran into seemed to be some sort of chinese one so picking up most appealing sounding one from menu I got this:
So rice, some sort of soup, salad, main course and some sort of yellow yelly for dessert. Soup was good, salad had some sort of tasteless noodles that gave me real hard time before I came upon idea of using the main meal to give some taste to the tasteless noodles. Main food was excellent, rice was rice and yelly was good. Didn't taste all that sugar-like. Actually best meal I have had yet. This for 900 yen.
After meal it was straight to the Meiji temple that was nearby. The route there was marked by huge torii gate(funny thing about the name. kanj's making up it mean bird and reside).
The road toward the shrine was covered nicely by huge trees that gave nice shade from the sun. Quite relaxing walk though damn long.
After the long walk I arrived to the shrine's main building. Turns out there was actually traditional wedding going on but I only got one picture before I realized a) what was going on b) camera said "battery empty". I had spares with me but by the time I had them on group had moved on so no picture of bride and groom. Ah well. Not my business anyway.
Alas there was strict no photographing rule for the main area of main temple. I guess it would be considered rude to take photographs where you are supposed to give your prayers. So guess if you want to see it go see it yourself. I ain't breaking any rules that I can avoid.
I was now considering turning back but looking at guide map I noticed there was "Meiji treasure hall" FAR away. Considered for a while is that long walk worth it but hey I have time, it's good practice and interesting sounding place so off I went walking paths. Curiously empty walkways though(btw the walkways were extremely wide. Tank battalion could probably drive around comfortably...) compared to steady stream of people on way to main hall. On the way nice scenery(probably even better when spring bursts properly).
These were to guide me. The one on bottom left is one I followed. From left first 3 kanji's mean "treasure, item, hall/mansion so logical enough for treasure hall.
Finally I arrived at the treasure hall. And what was that sign I found there...Closed on Mondays?!? You got to be kidding me! Good timing...No wonder pathways were quiet. Everybody but me knew not to head this way on Monday ;)
No choice but to head toward entry. On my way I ran into small lake with little birds. Looks like ducks I think. Maybe some breed of Japanese ducks?
With Harajuku plans for today exhausted time to find a Go salon. Go is old Chinese board game introduced to Japan like god knows when. I was introduced to it by a friend last summer and I was thinking I could play it while I'm here. I had tried to find one on Saturday but the one location google map provided turned out to be wrong. Or at least nobody around the correct place knew anything about go salon. This time I had googled up one in the ward I live so it would even be closer if it exists. Trip there SHOULD have been easy but hopping on wrong line(rapid express or limited express I think rather than local or rapid) so shot straight past the station I was heading for. After first mistake I could still have got there without having to turn back which costs some extra but nope, I just had to make same mistake twice.
Finally reaching Chitosekarasuyama(name monster meaning roughly 1000 year old bird mountain) I started to hunt down the go salon which turned out to be easier than I feared but still required some good eyeballing. Thank god for the kanji sign studies though as I had to be able to recognize 囲碁 <- these signs for word "igo" which is the full japanese name for the game. Pretty well hidden place. Entering it I found place filled with mostly old men and also couple old ladies. Seems like I was youngest by decade or two...Well the game is in bit of a decline in popularity here and it's mostly played by older generation these days. I had to put my japanese skills to full use and finally got to play. Not sure of the pricing system. Pretty sure I heard 800 yen but when I handed out 1000 yen bill I got 500 yen in return but pretty sure I heard "first time" mentioned so guess it was first time discount.
I ended up playing 3 times(maybe I got couple freebies since I was so bad and games over so quickly or the bill was for the night or something. Maybe this gets clarified in the future with subsequent visits but for this trip 500 yen for 3 games was pretty cheap). First with no handicap which was as expected total slaughter. Then with 4 stones and slaughter. Finally 6 stones and again was struggling but at least was doing better than before until despite the nice man warning me TWICE I got big group getting killed. I just shrugged and motioned that "kill them". If I can't save em despite given chance twice I don't deserve them to be saved ;) He could have just killed them without warning me but instead gave me some rope.
The visit to salon was definitely funnest part of the day as I got to speak more japanese than before. First time I was also the one being asked questions rather than other way around. I own the friend who taught me the game big time as this just might be best weapon I have to get to use japanese language in more varied subjects. Hooray for Go! Go to the rescue!
On my way I found 3 manga's I have meant to buy anyway so bought them right away. Manga indeed is cheaper in Japan than other places(but in return anime is ridiculously expensive. Common joke goes about japanese and american manga/anime hobbyist comparing prices. American is wondering cheapness of manga and expensiveness of anime, japanese is doing the reverse. Funnily enough both times reasons for prices are same in both sides. In japan manga is read ridiculously much. You can see guys/girls in trains absorbed in them constantly. Anime meanwhile is bought by much smaller section of people and with production prices being higher in anime they need to cover up more money. So while manga can sell hundreds of thousands or more good anime sellings are like few thousands. This means anime is _expensive_. I can't afford it! One might think that reduce price, get more buyers but seems it hasn't worked like that. Sale amounts don't increase notably even if they reduce price so the segment seems to be pretty much set.
In America meanwhile it's otherway around. Anime is bought in droves, manga is more of a sidetrack. Without having to pay for the production values(just licence fees+subbing+dubbing fees+bit more for translated covers etc) they can afford to price anime cheaper. Manga meanwhile sells much less=higher prices.
After this time for dinner but again had hard time finding restaurant that is open. Seems the restaurants here are closing up real early as it wasn't even 8 yet. However I remembered that the Italian restaurant(though Japanese personnel) I had eaten lunch on Saturday had dinner mention as well so headed there and YES! Open! I won't be hungry tonight. Ordered some sort of Italian type...SOMETHING with ice tea for food drink(I'm starting to love the ice tea served here. What to do when I get back Finland! No more of this ice tea). Then on a whim I ordered for dessert drink orange...something. I could read it but don't remember what it was anymore.
In order, appetizer, main food(yeah kinda small meal...Though rice makes you feel quite full) and then the dessert drink. I swear this is best dessert drink I have ever drank. Not quite sure what it is. Orange at least(that I got from name), ice, is like liquid-semi-frozen ice cream with cream at the top. Aaaah what a taste. Though I have to be careful with this one. For starters I don't think this is that good when you are trying to lose weight. For second it's bloody expensive. Meal cost me just a tiny weeny bit over 2000 yen and the drink was like 700 yen or so. Quite an expensive meal actually. Most expensive one so far without even the dessert drink factored in.
Tomorrow no big plans so likely not that interesting post coming either. I'll be exploring the surroundings of where I live instead. Also probably good time to figure out how to wash clothes before too late and I need to find somebody living in same floor who wouldn't mind switching garbage duty(take out garbage to be collected on specific days. Duty switches each week). The week I'm in charge(next week) is the one I'm supposed to be in Oosaka on saturday and thought to use that week mostly with the JR pass. So yeah changing duty periods would be nice but shouldn't be too hard. After all I won't be skipping my turn, just do it on other part of month while somebody does next week.
Oh by the way something I forgot to mention last blog. Couple funny experiences with kids on Katsuura. 2 times little kids, about 3 years old maybe, were starting at me. When I looked back having noticed the stare out of the corner of my eyes even though the glance was brief and I was wearing half-smile(so shouldn't be too scary face) the kids immediately ran to hug their mothers :D Guess at the Katsuura foreigners aren't that common sight(actually don't think I saw anybody besides myself...Of course with the crowd there could be others). Another toddler who couldn't walk stared me with eyes wide as they could be when mother was holding her for some pictures. They got 0 pictures with baby watching toward the camera. Though then again maybe that's just usual for the girl since she was young enough one wouldn't expect her to recognize foreigner yet. But felt like it considering earlier running kids :D
At least kids in Tokyo aren't running away...
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