Capsule Tour

Location: Nara, Japan There's a city near Kyoto (Nara) that's famous for having free-roaming deer. The deer are mostly found in Nara Park, but it's easy to spot deer elsewhere in the city. They generally know to walk on sidewalks, and they seem to understand how to safely cross the street at intersections. I don't know if they understand the pedestrian walk signals, or if they just wait alongside humans who are also trying to cross the street. Probably the latter. I went to Nara Park. I saw a few people petting the deer. I didn't know if that was safe, or recommended, but I gave it a shot. The deer I decided to pet was completely indifferent to my presence. Its skin twitched when I touched it. I think that's a reflex to keep flies from landing on it. I followed a group of tourists to a giant temple. There was a large paved area in front of the temple, with vendors selling food for the deer, and dozens of tourists buying said food and feeding the deer. I've b...

Location: Kyoto, Japan I stayed at a brilliant hostel in Kyoto. It was managed (and possibly owned) by two people: a younger woman and an older man who were members of a local rock band named "Niplets." The word for Japan in Japanese is Nippon, so a "Niplet" might be a little Japanese person? Or maybe it has something to do with nipples. The hostel had a large shared area with couches, bean bags, and a big TV that was showing the BBC documentary "Planet Earth" on a loop. The woman (I think her name was Junko) would organize outings to traditional Japanese restaurants in the evenings, and she would play her guitar for a while after we got back. Once a week, Junko would hold a traditional Japanese dinner at the hostel. She moved the furniture out of the shared area and replaced it with a long, low dining table. She put out mats for guests to sit on. The cuisine was specific to Kyoto. I got back from sightseeing in time for the dinner. Junko told me that nobo...

Location: Tokyo, Japan There's a district in Tokyo named Roppongi that's famous for Western-style nightlife. It's full of bars, clubs, restaurants, and foreigners. I took the subway to Roppongi and started out at an Irish pub. I sat at the bar. Two younger men from Australia came in and sat next to me. They worked construction in Australia and were spending a long weekend in Tokyo. I suppose that, if you're Australian, a city that's "only" nine hours away by plane seems close enough for a weekend getaway. I sipped a Guinness while they drank pitchers of beer. One of them had written down a nightclub recommendation. They asked me if I wanted to go with them. I said sure. I didn't have any other plans. We left the bar. The Australians wanted to take a cab to the nightclub. I said we should try to figure out where it was first. I didn't want to pay for a cab ride that might be very long, nor did I want to pay for a cab to somewhere that we could easil...

Location: Tokyo, Japan I went to an EDM nightclub in Tokyo that was recommended by Lonely Planet. I got there at around 9 PM. It was pretty crowded. Most of the people there were Japanese. There were a handful of tourists (or exchange students?) who looked American. I would have talked with them, but the music was too loud. So I leaned against the bar, sipped a beer, and enjoyed the music. From my spot at the bar, I had a clear view of the entrance. Shortly after 10, a group of three girls walked in together. They were attractive, and their makeup and outfits were on point. They surveyed the room for a second or two and split up. One of the girls walked straight at me and introduced herself. She only knew a few words of English, but she was friendly and enthusiastic. The situation was suspect, but I decided to not overthink it, and offered to buy her a drink. We talked with each other as best we could, given the volume of the music and lack of a common language. She tried to get me to ...

Location: Tokyo, Japan Before going to Japan, I had read that they don't use street addresses in Tokyo. That sounded too stupid to be true, but it is true, and it is stupid. Instead of street addresses, they use a system of numbered blocks and building names. Lonely Planet had a listing for a nightclub in Tokyo and I decided to check it out. I copied down its "address," along with directions that started at a nearby subway station. I followed the directions as best I could, but couldn't find the club. I ended up in front of a hotel and decided to ask for directions. The hotel was nice, and not busy. There were three employees at the front desk who spoke English and were eager to help. I showed them the address. None of them could make heads or tails of it. They pulled out a binder full of maps and eventually located the correct page. That narrowed the search down to a different, smaller binder that was also full of maps. They had many binders of maps. After a couple m...

Location: Tokyo, Japan When I was in Japan, Italian food was very popular. Foreign restaurants in Japan seemed rare, but I did see several restaurants that only served Italian food. And most of the Japanese restaurants I went to had a section of their menu devoted to Italian food. I suppose everybody in the world likes Italian food. At one point I was eating at a restaurant in Akihabara. Half the menu was Japanese and the other half was Italian. The restaurant was going for a romantic atmosphere, with dim lighting and a candle on each table. There was a young couple seated towards the front of the restaurant. Everything about their body language said they were on a first date. The woman had ordered Japanese food. The man had ordered a plate of spaghetti. I wonder if he had ordered foreign food to seem cosmopolitan. The spaghetti had been served with a fork. He obviously had no idea that you're supposed to twirl noodles around a fork. He kept inserting his fork into the side of the ...

Location: Tokyo, Japan I was walking around in Akihabara one night (the district of Tokyo with all the electronics shops, anime shops, etc.) and happened upon an illuminated, free-standing vertical map of the neighborhood. I wasn't going anywhere in particular and decided to check out the map to get a feel for what was nearby. From behind me, somebody said, "You got a problem?!" The tone of voice was aggressive and the accent was perfect American English. I thought to myself, "Shit, I'm just walking around and now I have to fight a guy?!" I turned around. The speaker was an older Japanese man. He repeated himself. He could say this one phrase with no accent at all. Then, with a thick Japanese accent, he elaborated: "You lost? You need direction? Where you going?" The guy was just trying to be helpful.

Location: Tokyo, Japan I met a German man at the hostel in Tokyo. He was a professional photographer, sent to Japan by his employer, and had managed to extend his trip to do some sightseeing. (Aside: I've found that being able to speak German is enormously useful when traveling. Germans love to travel. I can't remember the last time I traveled to somewhere and didn't meet a German.) We compared travel guidebooks. They both suggested going to the same onsen, so we did. An onsen is a facility that has been built around a hot spring, such that you can go and bathe in the hot spring. They figure significantly in Japanese culture. We arrived at the onsen. The lobby had prominent signs indicating that tattoos were prohibited. I've been told that this is common, and intended to prevent gangsters (yakuza) from entering. That was in 2007. Now that tattoos have become so popular, I wonder if the policy has changed. Traditionally, men and women would bathe together, naked, in an ...

Location: Tokyo, Japan A week before flying to Asia, it occurred to me that I didn't know how to use chopsticks. I had always thought of the fork as a superior utensil, and felt no embarrassment when asking for a fork at an Asian restaurant in the US. I was pretty sure they had forks in Asia, but didn't want to chance it. I got a pair of chopsticks, poured some peanuts into a bowl, and practiced by moving the peanuts one-by-one into a different bowl. As a backup plan, I also bought a little camping widget that looked like a Swiss Army Knife, but instead of flip-out blades and screwdriver heads, it had a flip-out fork, knife, and spoon. I was very proud of this idea. When I got to airport security, they X-rayed my bag, located the camping widget instantly, and threw it away. My first meal in Japan was at a noodle restaurant. The restaurant was interesting: it had a vending machine right inside the front door, with a bunch of tiny buttons. Each button was labeled with a picture o...

Before going to Japan, I had heard that the Japanese don't say 'no.' I assumed this was wrong. Of course they say no. What if you ask a Japanese person, "does two plus two equal five?" How could they not say no? The answer is, they have a way of saying no, but they don't necessarily use the word no. Location: Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan My flight into Tokyo landed late at night. The airport was almost empty. I took the airport train into Tokyo. The train was almost empty. I took the subway to Asakusa. The subway was almost empty. I walked to the hostel, following directions that I had printed out in advance. The streets were almost empty.  The whole experience was surreal. I had been in the world's biggest city for a couple hours and had only seen a handful of people. Maybe because it was late. And November. And cold. I arrived at the hostel and saw signs of life. There were three Japanese people manning the front desk, and a group of backpackers playing video g...

Location: Flight from Seattle to Tokyo I boarded my flight to Tokyo and sat down. I had never been to Asia and I was nervous. It seemed very foreign. Much more foreign than Europe. I had an aisle seat. Looking forward and to my left, across the aisle, I could see a little Japanese boy. He was maybe four years old. We waited for takeoff. After ten minutes of waiting, with nothing to do, the little boy started to whine. The boy's father was sitting in front of me. He bolted out of his seat, shot across the aisle, grabbed the boy by the shoulders, and shook him violently. Then he grabbed the boy's head, forced the boy to look him in the eyes, and growled something at the boy in Japanese with the intensity of a gangster in a mafia movie issuing a death threat. The little boy sat quietly for the entire 10 hour flight. I was already nervous about going to Asia. That didn't help.