Photos / 2003: Japan, New Zealand, Fiji and New York /
The old but charming and cheap ryokan (Japanese inn) we stayed in in Tokyo.
The three people running Taito Ryokan were incredibly nice and helpful.
Sundays in Harajuku's Yoyogi park is the place to be if you're young with a cause, or at least sub culture or fetish clothes. A classic Tokyo destination.
Another classic destionation, the Meiji Jingu shrine is a large park area with an old temple inside, in the middle of Tokyo.
The main building. It's more than a musem piece - people come here to pray, which usually involves giving a token amount of money, clapping your hands twice and saying a silent prayer.
Heathens as we are, we took care not to befoul the shrine, by ritually washing our hands and mouths.
You can walk around for hours in Tokyo just looking at people. Like many cities it's quite ugly during the day but becomes quite beautiful at night.
We found this on some Shinjuku street. Only the japanese can name a store Cowpoo. That's why we love them.
We ended the day with a few rounds of Soul Calibur 2.
The view from the Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro is quite amazing. Urban sprawl as far as the eye can see.
The omnipresent soft drink vending machines are crucial to surviving the oppressive Tokyo heat during the summer.
The Kaminarimon temple gate is a stone throw from our ryokan. It's a very touristy place.
"Eye-rashes"? Sounds unpleasant.
Kamakura is a good, cheap day trip from Tokyo. We went with two charming girls we stumbled on at our Ryokan - Jessica (purple shirt) and Grace (white shirt).
The Kamakura town is full of big and small shrines, many with Buddha statues like this.
The biggest and baddest Buddha statue is the Daibutsu, though. That's the bronze guy in the middle.
Sunset, the Pacific ocean and cloud-veiled Fuji in the distance. Very beautiful.
- Look yonder, old chap, an ocean!
- Why, you're absolutely correct, you old horse!
You can't go to Japan and not try karaoke.
Unlike the bastardized karaoke you find here, where you humiliate yourself in front of drunk strangers, in Japan you rentyour own room with couches and a karaoke machine. There you can humiliate yourself in front of your drunk friends instead.
New, hitherto unheard levels of disharmonics are reached when two drunkenly enthusiastic voices that lack singing ability are combined. It almost drowned out the sound of Elvis spinning in his grave like a propeller.
Some are better singers than others.
Drunk, happy and not very poor at the end of the night. Time to give Elvis a rest.
The Edo musuem has an excellent exhibition about Tokyo's history, but it's very much on the beaten track.
One of the displays at the Edo museum.
Is that wall closing in..?
Capsule hotels were really quite nice. They're definitely worth a try for one night.
The japanese sure know how to make food.
They also know how to make sake. Mmm... Sake.
Actually, most sake I've tasted hasn't been that good, but this one was.
Yes, they eat sea urchin. Doesn't taste like much on its own, but it's considered a delicacy. I prefered it on sushi.
A good time to stop drinking is when you bore the crap out of your friends.
Danjiri is one of Japan's many festivals, this one just outside Osaka. People pull these lantern-laden wagons around on the city streets while others ride in them, bang taiko drums, play flutes and get drunk. They even race with them.
Takoyaki is typical japanese fast food - fried squid balls with some sauce. Quite tasty.
Japan's most famous castle, not far from Osaka and Kyoto.
If it seems familiar, it might be because you've seen it as a setting in the Shogun TV series.
A display of one of the queen's chambers for when she visited Himeji.
Kyoto has a vast, modern station that no picture can do justice. It makes you wonder why I even try with this picture, doesn't it?
One of Kyoto's main temples, located on a mountainside above the city.
That's Kyoto down there.
Don't forget to wash your hands.
Typical temple props. A kitsune is a fox spirit, a common trickster in Japanese mythology.
You'll find this picture of the gold-clad Kinkakuji shrine on a million postcards.
Not only is the temple beautiful, it's surrounded by a lush japanese garden.
The garden was so tranquil and picturesque it brought on meditative feelings for a while. It's a good place for a moment's quiet contemplation.
Another Kyoto classic - the Ryuanji stone garden. Also very meditation-friendly.
I like japanese gardens. Can you tell?
Unfortunately the harbor was pretty much all we saw of Nagasaki this time.
It was a beautiful day, so we took a ferry in search of the mysterious Hashima island, of which we had learned in a documentary.
We managed to make a deal with a local on the resort island of Takashima to take us to the nearby Hashima.
This miniscule island was inhabited by 7000 people during its glory days of coal mining. It had everything their society needed, even a school. Too bad it was off limits, so we only circled it with the boat.
Hashima has been deserted for decades now and is an island ghost town, slowly being eroded by the sea. Most spooky. According to the locals, during severe storms the waves actually crash over the island.
The a-bomb detonated over this very building, which stands to this day and has become a monument.
The dead (added to each year) are remembered at this monument. The nearby museum is an excellent but moving display of the horrors of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima should be a mandatory visit for the leaders of any nation wielding nuclear weapons.
Sadako got cancer from the aftermath of the bombing, and at the hospital she made 1000 origami cranes in the hope it would grant her wish - becoming well. She eventually succumbed to the cancer, but her story lived on and now she's an important symbol for the victims of nuclear weapons.
Outside Hiroshima lies the picturesque island of Miyajima, one of Japan's most scenic places. It's famous for its temple gate in the sea.
The seaside shrine overlooking the temple gate.
We explored Miyajima with Julie, a canadian we ran into on the way there. It can be hard to make contact with the japanese sometimes, but this actually makes it easier to meet other westerners since being different from the japanese sticks you together.
I don't know, the tame deer were a little over the top. It almost got a little too picturesque.
The island has a few beautiful shrines in the forests on its mountain.
Again with the meditation.
Statues like this are common in Shinto shrines. The kami (spirits) are sometimes frightening...
...and sometimes not.
Three swedes, one island.
The atmosphere at Miyajima inspired martial acts. By "martial" I mean "silly".
Before leaving Miyajima, we absorbed the beauty of the sun setting behind the temple gate.
The place for Japan's most famous battle between a bunch of daimyo and their samurai troops is surprisingly and utterly boring. A momument and a crappy musuem is all there is.
Don't go there. The only redeeming value of the place was the strange softdrink ("Bionic" something) I found in avending machine there, and nowhere else.
Foolish are those buying rice rolls without being able to read the text on the package! Natto shall strike them like a ninja in the night! Natto is not only gooey fermented beans, but also profoundly revolting.
The clothes stores were full of t-shirts with nonsensical print on them, although just this one had the slick leather pieces. I regret I didn't buy one.
Jason and Alice, two crazy brits, lured us into another party.
Miyazaki, one of Japan's most famous film makers, has a whole musuem outside Tokyo dedicated to his fantastic worlds.
This robot is one of Miyazaki's characters, from the excellent Laputa film. It's in the middle of a roof garden on top of the musuem. Unfortunately but not unexpectedly the musuem didn't allow cameras, so this was all we got from there.
I like this guy so much here's another picture.
Again we rule the Tokyo night.
Expensive but positively delicious sushi at Maguro-Bito in Asakusa, Tokyo.
Tsukiji is Tokyo's fish market. It's packed with people, and, most importantly, sea creatures of all sizes and shapes.
Apparently the tuna have once been even larger than this, before they became endangered. It almost makes me feel guilty for the sushi I had, but it's so tasty...
Nice as Tsukiji was, it was hard to appreciate at 6 in the morning, which is when you have to be there to see some action. And also fish.