Indo, Day 3: Stairs

I’ve decided the dominant feature in Tokyo is stairs. Seriously, I’ve gone up and down more flights of stairs today than I did all of last year. And that included cathedral climbing in Germany. And Justin can tell you how many stairs THAT involves.

I woke up very early (read: 6am) because I went to bed very early (read: 10pm). Those times are meaningless because I’m in my own special time zone right now. My flight out of Tokyo wasn’t until 7, so I wanted to have as much daylight as possible. Breakfast and email at the hostel, then I spent about an hour in Asakusa, mainly around the temple.

It was interesting to see it during the day. Last night when I went by, there were still some people around, but this morning it was quite busy. In front of the temple stairs was a cauldron of burning incense. People would approach it and wave the smoke over onto them. Some people would also wash their hands and/or drink out of a water fountain with ladles. At the top of the stairs to the temple was a large box where people would throw in donations. They would stand with their hands together, I’m assuming in prayer, then bow, and clap a couple times. Those last two steps could happen a couple times. One of the smaller temples I saw had a stick with bells on it you could shake.

This reminded me of Elijah at Mount Carmel battling the prophets of Baal. The priests of Baal were shouting, singing, and cutting themselves trying to get his attention. I’m assuming this ritual was similarly trying to get god to notice. How thankful I am to serve a God Who never sleeps or takes His eye off me! I was also surprised to feel nothing in the temple. In the past, when I’ve been in places of spiritual depravity, it’s like you can feel a palpable evil. Here was nothing. I suppose that’s strangely appropriate and the very problem with the whole setup. There’s nothing (no one) there.

After that, I jumped a train to Akihabara the “Electric City.” If Fry’s had a metric ton of crack, covered in radioactive waste that exploded in a room filled with neon gas, you might get close to describing this place. There are blocks and blocks of these tiny little gadget shops. Well, there’s some big ones too, but most are packed into alleys. I mean, there’s a whole shop that just sells the ends that go on cables. Just the ends! The one that sells the actual cables is about a block away. It’s really hard to describe this place, and even harder to photograph. But I tried both. Unfortunately, like most geeks, the shop owners must have still been asleep. Some of them opened at 10, and the rest at 11. But I was gone between those two.

Something that surprised me, in an incredibly nerdy way, is now little Sony stuff there is around. I was expecting to find it everywhere. None of the cell phones I see around are, most of the laptops are Dells, and most of the cameras are Canon. Just like home!

Back in Asakusa, I checked out and hopped another train to Ueno. Here I was subject to even more stairs, something exasperated by the 50 pounds of luggage with me. It took me a good 20 minutes to find a storage locker big enough for my bags. I was up AND down about 10 flights of stairs. Japan apparently doesn’t have an equivalent of the ADA laws here in the US. No ramps or elevators anywhere. I finally found one, right before I was going to give up and just leave town.

I didn’t get too far out into Ueno, but there was plenty right around the train station. I spent most of the time in a large park that led to a zoo and about four museums. I opted for the Tokyo National Museum, mainly because I desperately needed to get out of the sun. It’s not really hot here, but the humidity makes it feel much worse. It’s good warm-up for Indonesia, especially since I was staying somewhere without AC.

The other complication is that I’ve been trying to drink LESS water. Yes, you read that right. Less. Back home, I drink about a gallon of water a day in the summer, half or three quarters that in the winter. It’s been freakishly hot lately, so I’ve been drinking a lot. I love water. Anyone at work can tell you I’m never seen without my Nalgene. But the water in Indonesia isn’t drinkable, which means I’ll be dependent on bottles, and I don’t know how plentiful they will be. So I’m trying to scale back. I’ve had 3 normal little bottle things today, and I feel incredibly dehydrated. So getting indoors was helpful.

You can’t take any pictures in a museum, so much of my time in Ueno goes without photo record. The museum was interesting, but it would have been much more engaging with someone there to explain the importance of this stuff to me. The English translations weren’t all that helpful. Also nerdy, but the thing that fascinated me the most (given my limited understanding of the artifacts) was the lighting. The museum was dark, but each item was perfectly lit. Yet none of them had that look of a light shining on them. In fact, if you were to look up, you wouldn’t see any beams of light. Using highly focused lights above, lights below and an array of mirrors, each item was perfectly lit, allowing you to see it without it even occurring to you that there is light coming from anywhere.

By this point, I was pretty tired, and decided to call it a wrap and head to the airport early (2 hours before I really needed to be there). Got on the fast train (nice!) and relaxed for a while. Pointed both the air vents at me. I’ve decided I don’t like sightseeing alone. I have no problem doing utilitarian travel alone, in fact, I think I prefer it. If I’m just hopping through airports or doing work stuff, that’s fine. But when I start doing the “fun” stuff, it’s not quite the same with no one else around to share it with.

Narita airport is nice, but weird. Very big, open, clean and attractive. Ha, that reminds me. There are some weird jobs here. Like the little old man who stands at the bottom of the escalator with a rag he presses onto the railing to clean it as it passes. Anyway… So the airport. It would be incredibly annoying if it weren’t so nice feeling. Besides all the escalators (seriously – is PDX the only airport on one level?), bathrooms are few and far between, food is scarce, and there’s NO FREE WIRELESS. And even though we’re indoors, it’s still humid. For some reason the check in counters are in a secure area. You have to go through a layer of security before you get to the counter. Then the normal one before you get to the terminals. Odd.

There are some cool things, though. Like the observation deck anyone can go out on (not in the sterile area) that’s above the terminals. You can watch the planes! There’s more power outlets than there are at PDX, which is my only complaint back home. There was something else I liked, but I’m not remembering it now.

So I’m sitting in the airport again. I’ll be onboard in about an hour. It’s fun to people watch, though. There’s actually Americans/Westerners over here. It’s kinda funny when you see one. Your eyes lock and it’s like you’re both thinking, “that person sure looks different!” But then you realize you do too. That probably sounds strange, but I’m guessing other people who have been here can explain something similar.

Japanese people cough extremely loud. You don’t try to disguise it, in fact, I bet they TRY to make it as loud as possible. It’s strange, and kind of disgusting.

My next leg takes me to Singapore, where I’m supposed to arrive around 2am. Awesome. Big thanks to Elina for sharing all her inside knowledge and helping me plan/survive this leg of the trip!

I uploaded the pictures I have so far to my Picasa space. I want to clean them up and add captions, but that will have to wait until I have more time. But I wanted to get them out there.