Me and my lolita
Well, we landed after a long and tiring ten hours.
Waiting in line for a 7-day ticket for Japanese trains, we start with coffee and chocolate at Starbucks - the prices and atmosphere are like on Marszałkowska. And we have to rent a mobile phone with Japanese internet. And in a moment we get on a fast train. Ahead of us is 500 km to Kyoto (a Japanese Krakow). We will check if their trains are really less late than ours - apparently the average delay on a Japanese train is 6 seconds...
Exhausted by the long journey, we finally arrived at our hotel in Kyoto.
The train ride was exhilarating, I must admit. We first rode the 70 km from the airport to Tokyo, and then boarded one of those blisteringly fast Shinkanzens. It had a monstrously elongated nose, resembling a cross between a Rolls-Royce and a Huckleberry Hound.
We covered the 494-kilometer route from 12:40 to 15:11. I measured the speed - GPS showed 285 km/h.
The train wasn't overcrowded. There were quite a few foreigners on board, and all the natives were eating some strange dishes - probably bought at the station - from variously shaped cardboard containers. All the gaijn (that's how the Japanese call foreigners) were salivating.
Then a taxi. The guides are telling the truth that taxi drivers don't know English. But they're not telling the truth, because they're not very expensive at all - for about 6-7 km we paid 1,600 yen.
Interesting, because taxis have exterior mirrors attached in a completely different place than ours.
Well, now we're off to bed to gather our strength for this evening's review of Kyoto's culinary offerings....
After long negotiations, Maja and I agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to eat in the same restaurant to our mutual satisfaction. We made a compromise: first we would eat in a place indicated by Maja and then by me.
Maja couldn't decide for a long time. Kyoto's culinary offer is really very diverse. And as it turns out, sushi is not in the first place.
Ultimately, Maja chose a happy meal at McDonald's with McNuggets and Hello Kitty.
And then we went for sushi. Washed down with sake - Maja couldn't drink too much, because sake tastes like watered down vodka with a touch of sweet wine.
An interesting ingredient on one of the nigirias was sea urchin, or rather its interior. I've never eaten it before. I can't say what it looked like because Facebook would block this post. But it tasted better than it looked.
If I had to say how all this sushi tasted, I would say this: it's worth flying 10,000 km.
And a few words from Maja:
We return to the hotel with full bellies. And the dessert tasted like inedible jelly sprinkled with green tea.
And the first day is done
We slept so long that we overslept our hotel breakfast.
But it was only after three inflatable Japanese pancakes in a nearby restaurant (Maja in the American version, i.e. with fruit, whipped cream and chocolate, and I in Polish, i.e. with an egg, thick slices of bacon and lettuce) that we felt that the jetlag had gone away for good.
Immediately after breakfast we set off in search of a bike rental. In such weather - over 20 degrees and a cloudless sky - bikes proved to be a bull's eye.
Kyoto is a beautiful city. There are countless Buddhist temples (allegedly over 1,500), lots of blooming parks and gardens. There are 37 universities and 20% of Japan's national treasures. There are bike paths along the river, and dozens of Japanese people lounge on the lawns, play football, and practice martial arts.
We visited the 12th century Sanjusangen temple with its thousand gilded statues, Kiyomizudera - a complex of temples set among gardens, the huge imperial garden and the Nishiki market with its fart food.
By accident, we also came across the Buddhist equivalent of our Sunday Mass.
For dinner, sushi with plates moving around in circles, eating which was a condition for taking a photo with a geisha working there.
Maja is also starting to warm up to Japanese food and ate a hotdog from a street stand.
And in a moment we're going to a farewell dinner in Kyoto.
On the recommendation of our hotel concierge, we headed to the Gion district to say goodbye to Kyoto.
There is a charming street there, along which there are pubs lit with red lanterns (hello - this is not what you thought, reader), and geishas invite you to enter.
In one of these eateries, just behind the bamboo doors, we were treated to delicious food: Maja had shrimp tempura, and I had beef shabu shabu. A fairy tale.
After breakfast we leave our hotel in Kyoto and head to the train station. Our destination today is Hiroshima, 361 km away.
By the way, a few words about our hotel.
Located in the city center. We rate the rooms average. A flashlight is a must in case of an earthquake and this fantastic toilet with countless buttons and lights (worth trying - if you can fall in love with a seashell, I experienced that feeling).
Breakfast Japanese-European. So both Maja and I were satisfied. Kyoto Royal Hotel & Spa - worth recommending.
It must be admitted that communication here is perfectly organized.
On buses, you pay when you get off. Either by tapping your ticket/card on the reader or by putting the exact amount into a special drop box next to the driver.
I put in 350 yen (230 for me and 120 for Maja). The driver's monitor immediately showed the amount and he signaled us to get out.
After seven stops we got off at the impressive Kyoto Central Station. Then a fast Shinkansen to Osaka (50 km in 15 minutes), a transfer and a fast Shinkansen to Hiroshima (350 km in 1 hour and 20 minutes).
With the so-called JR pass purchased in Poland (PLN 1,000 for 7 days for almost all trains) you don't need any additional ticket - you just get on and go.
And here we are in Hiroshima
The bomb exploded on August 6, 1945. 600 meters above the ground. Within a radius of several hundred meters, exactly under the point of explosion, one building partially survived. Its remains are impressive. And then there is a model of a circle with a radius of 600 m with the epicenter in the middle in the atomic bomb museum.
There’s basically nothing else to see, apart from the evidence of the Hiroshima explosion. That’s why Maja and I decided to spend the rest of the day in the hotel spa. Together we’d go to the pool, Maja to the jacuzzi, and I’d go to the treadmill with a chatty seventy-year-old from Texas.
The Hiroshima Sheraton is really nice. Room with a beautiful view of the city. Right by the exit from the train station. There is a sightseeing bus around the city (it's just a shame there's nothing to see), which took us to the bomb museum for the JR Pass.
If anyone had any doubts that fathers don't know how to comb their daughters' hair or braid it - here's proof that they're very wrong!
A local delicacy in Hiroshima is okonomiyaki.
Full documentation of the preparation process can be found in the attached photos.
Okonomiyaki - as Wikipedia says - is a type of Japanese dish, pancakes consisting of many different ingredients and baked on a hot sheet. The word consists of three parts: "o" - an honorific prefix, the verbal noun konomi - "to like", "to want" ("something"), the verbal noun yaki - "to fry", "to bake", "to grill". The whole means: "to fry what you want".
We ended the evening at the hotel with a pizza margarita, beer and apple juice - I couldn't let the baby fall asleep on an empty stomach...
On the way to the hotel we stopped at the supermarket to do some small shopping.
I must admit that I have a weakness for Japanese stores.
Between the shelves my knees go weak, I feel goosebumps and I can't breathe.
Luckily I was full.
We like everything here. Except fermented soy.
After breakfast we went to Miya Jima Island.
The island is about 30 km from Hiroshima. First train then ferry (all with JR Pass).
The most important site is the Isukushima Shrine, built on sea stilts, which is accessed through a 16-metre-high gate that is the island's symbol - and all of which is one of the three most famous views in Japan.
For dinner: Maya has chicken and I have eel.
On the island of Miya Jima, there are lots of tame deer (and maybe even fawns) roaming around. One bun is enough to make you a mother for a while.
According to Maja, this was no ordinary aquarium - it was a real display of cuteness.
Although on the list of sweets that Maja has been keeping since the beginning of the trip, it was only in third place - after miniature dogs that could be bought on the main promenade of Hiroshima and the ubiquitous deer on the island of Miya Jima.
Here, everything generally has to be sweet, cute and cool. The Japanese call it "kawaii". There is no good equivalent of this word in Polish. And the closest we know is the American "cute"...
It had been over 30 hours since we had last eaten sushi. So we had no doubts and had dinner tonight at the nearby Sushi Tei. About 100 meters from our hotel.
A place worth recommending. When we entered, some of my food was still swimming in the restaurant's aquarium. I'm talking about cockle and abalone. The first is a clam and the second is a sea snail. Both are tough and rather tasteless.
The turban top shell was also interesting - unfortunately I didn't find the Polish name on Google - delicate and tasty, and the fatty tuna (from the English fatty meat of tuna) lighter and overgrown with fat, which is good, and eel - but not like ours, only light and without sauce - delicate and delicious. There was also sea urchin, which I am slowly starting to like.
There was also miso soup. Served here with every meal. I can't say I like it, but it's much better than the miso served in Warsaw's drying rooms. Here, they always add these tiny clams to the miso.
Maja ordered shrimp tempura, which will definitely become her staple meal when she returns to Poland.
While eating, we had a lovely chat with a Japanese guy sitting next to us. That is, he spoke to us in Japanese with such great conviction that we understood everything (where did we know it from), and we googled him - in the offline Polish-Japanese-English Google dictionary there is an interesting function that when you turn the screen towards the other person, the translated text appears on the entire screen, on a blue background, in large white letters. I recommend it - Google has saved our asses here many times.
After breakfast we leave Hiroshima.
At the station right next to the hotel we get on the Shinkanzen, 360 km to Osaka, coffee and chocolate at the station, then 30 km and we are in Nara.
On the way, after getting on the suburban train, one of the Japanese women stumbles and hits her nose on the floor, bleeding. Immediately, many people literally rush to help her. They sit her down and bandage her. After a few seconds, several uniformed men appear. The train is stopped. After a short conversation, the passenger decides to interrupt her journey, and the men help her get out. Only then does the train move.
We had more such examples of kindness and concern for others here. When we were cycling around Kyoto, Maja collided with another bicycle, which was ridden by a young Japanese woman. Nothing happened to anyone, but I couldn't count how many bows the young Japanese woman made, first towards Maja and then towards her father.
They don't check tickets on trains (tickets are checked at the station entrance), but uniformed employees appear during the ride to check if everything is in order. When entering the carriage, they show respect to passengers by making a ninety-degree bow. In hotels, each of the service staff - receptionist, concierge, waiter or cleaner - starts bowing in greeting and thanksgiving as soon as you appear in sight. Sometimes you can get the impression that their niceties involve too much concern for others, but who would mind transferring some of this concern and kindness to the Vistula?
Nara is a small city, for Japan, with a population of over three hundred thousand. It was the first capital of Japan in the 8th century. You can feel the history here at every step. The symbol of the city is the fallow deer. There are plenty of them here. One of them, in revenge for the cake, brought Maja to tears - fortunately with a gentle bite - in the bacon.
It is home to the world's largest, monumental 45-meter wooden building, and inside it is the world's largest 18-meter bronze Buddha.
Nara Hotel very good. In old Japanese style. We recommend.
Today it was Maja's turn, so she was the one choosing the place for dinner.
She didn't hesitate for long. Most Japanese restaurants present their dishes at the entrance using plastic mockups placed in the display windows. It must be admitted that they are quite faithful to what you are eating.
When a margarita pizza appeared in one of the windows, I knew that was where we would eat it.
I ordered scallops with zucchini and lettuce (excellent) and seafood risotto (good, but unfortunately the amount of fruit was too much for a little Japanese person).
We went out for dinner on foot. A longer walk. We decided to take the bus back.
It's quite a challenge. Those wonderful signs at bus stops and buses are useless without a knowledge of Japanese. And the knowledge of English here is about as good as our knowledge of Hungarian.
Maja tried to dip these Japanese worms between the map and the description at the bus stop - but quickly gave up. Luckily, there were some good people who, in addition to being good, knew a few words of English.
And here we are in our hotel room. We drink Japanese whiskey and play Agario....
Last night's evening of whiskey and Agario got a bit long, so today we decided to sleep in until we got up.
At noon, at the nearby Cafe "Coto Coto" for breakfast, or rather for lunch, Maja ate strawberries (Japan is the world's largest producer and consumer of strawberries), toast and chocolate cake, and I don't know what I ate. I couldn't recognize most of the ingredients and flavors on the plate.
In the pouring rain today we visited one of the oldest temples, built along with the entire city, which can also be visited, in 607 - Horuiji Temple.
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An old sea lion once told me three rules that he consistently applied in his life: "if vodka - then cold, if fish - then raw, if a woman - then a Polish woman."
Today I was able to convince myself that these three principles are also mine... Well, maybe I confirmed only two of them.
Well, actually one and a half, because the sake was cold, but it's hard to call it vodka.
Sashimi and sake. I have yet to find a better combination in this country.
Majka chose fries and deep fried chicken from the picture menu. Everyone wants to have a beautiful life.
We left the hotel in Nara at 10am.
Bus to the station. 50 minutes by suburban train to Kyoto. There you change to the Shinkanzen, which is less than 500 km.
Along the way we learn how to add fractions (Maja is catching up), I read a book (Bill Gifford, "Forever Young. How to Never Grow Old" - here in Japan they know something about it), we play a game of inventing advertisements.
And here we are at last. In the very center of the "Eastern Capital."
Tokyo has 13 million residents (35 million in the metropolitan area) in an area 4 times larger than Warsaw. There are almost 100 thousand pubs here. And a zillion people. A few years ago, a record was set at one of the metro stations: 3.7 million people passed through in one day.
I was very well prepared. I bought a GPS for Japan. A detailed Google map with directions. Printed maps, etc. It all came to nothing.
The printed train station that was supposed to take us to the hotel, which was supposed to be 300 meters from the station, could not be found (three police officers, when asked first in English and then in sign language, gave conflicting directions). The hotel address could not be entered into the GPS.
Out of desperation we went to McDonald's and, over Maja's happy meal, we devised a plan to regain our bearings.
We arrived at the hotel around 4pm. It turned out to be two metro stops from the station and an 800 metre walk.
The view from the 37th floor of the hotel room with a simultaneous remote-controlled massage in an armchair standing in front of the window (me and Maja alternately) compensated us for the hardships of the journey.
Our first destination was the electronics, manga and anime district - Akihabara.
There are plenty of white collars in impeccably tailored suits on the streets, and then tourists looking for electronic bargains. And of course, Lolitas. Lolita - the object of every Japanese man's dreams - no longer a child, and not yet a woman. Are the Japanese crazy about them because they are intimidated by true femininity? We, Slavs, have a completely different idea of the ideal woman.
We dived among the shelves with tablets and mobile phones. Prices are a bit better than in Poland - especially when you deduct Tax Free. Here, Apple, Asus, Nec are in first place, then some Asian gadgets with strange names, including Samsung. Maja has her eye on a silver iPad mini...
Then we went up the Tokyo Eiffel Tower (Sky Tower, 10 meters higher than the original). Awesome view of the city. And to end the day, sushi near the Tsukiji fish market, which is open in the morning and where we will start tomorrow.
Today my father-daughter bond was especially solid and strong.
We started the day by visiting the large fish market. Apparently its biggest attraction is the auction of tuna fresh from the sea. However, you have to be a real hardcore tourist to see it - it takes place at five in the morning.
What impressed us most were the enormous clams and the first rude Japanese man we met here, who swatted us away like flies when we tried to observe his technique of sharpening a fish knife.
Then we went to the electronics store - I had to fulfill my promise to Maja the previous day.
Then the oldest temple in Tokyo, Senso-ji from the 7th century. There is a tradition there - you throw a bunch of previously purchased and smoldering incense sticks into a large, burning cauldron, while making a wish. My wish was to live to be a hundred in health. Majka's wish was to leave the temple as soon as possible.
There are omnipresent ads for the telecommunications giant with an eight-trillion turnover - Softbank. In Poland, it is almost a forgotten word, and here, among others, the main mobile network. It is nice to see a company with such a friendly name (I have devoted a part of my life to this name) doing so well.
Another attraction today was climbing the second tallest building in the world - Tokyo Sky Tower. It is over 600 meters tall and is second only to the Burj Khalifa. We waited in line for an hour. Majka was playing Minecraft on her new iPad mini. But it was worth waiting in line.
For dinner we ate broth with soba noodles (handmade in almost every restaurant here) with pieces of duck and onion (me) and shrimp tempura (Majka).
And finally, at the end of the day, we visited the terribly overcrowded district of Shibaya. It has the most crowded intersection in the world surrounded by neon lights and blaring music. When the light turns green, a wave of people flows out from everywhere in every direction. We crossed this intersection a few times, and then watched this Armageddon from the second floor of one of the buildings, Starbacks. You can look at it for hours. The view is simply hypnotizing.
Right at the intersection is a statue of the most famous dog in the Eastern Hemisphere. Hachiko waited every day for his Master to finish work. After his Master died, he would come to the same spot and wait for him for another ten years. I wonder if the most famous dog in the Western Hemisphere, Lessi, was as loyal.
For dinner, sushi at the fish market near our hotel.
We started our last day in Japan with a visit to a Buddhist temple.
After a short Sunday reflection, we went to the largest kabuki theater in Japan.
The options included an unbearable performance lasting 5 hours, or a version for tourists - one act lasting an hour and a half, in the last two rows, which were emptied of tourists after the end of each act and then immediately filled with new tourists.
After the show, we took a land train to the artificial island of Okinaba, rode the 100-meter wheel, looked at Toyotas in a huge showroom, visited Legoland, dipped our feet in the bay, and finally took a two-kilometer walk around Tokyo's Golden Gate.
During our farewell dinner, Maja and I came to the conclusion that it would be possible to live here. However, I would not be able to do it considering the taste of Polish żurek with sausage and morning coffee, made in our own way and drunk on the terrace in Chyliczki.
One of the coolest things I'll bring back from here is ikigai. I read about it in a book I'm currently reading. You can't buy it anywhere, but apparently the Japanese, especially those from Okinawa, owe their longevity to ikigai.
Draw four circles on a piece of paper, separated but with common parts. Label the first circle "What I'm good at". The second - "What I love". The third - "What the world needs". The fourth - "What they can pay me for". The common part of the first and second circles is passion. The second and third is mission. The third and fourth is vocation. The fourth and first is profession. The common part of all four circles is ikigai.
See you in Poland!
