Fear

The root of all forms of imposed order, strata councils, governments, religions, all institutions, is FEAR! We feared loss, so we created insurance, we feared chaos, we created the council, we feared responsibility, we created a king, we feared theft, we created marriage, we feared uncertainty, we created God. Illiminate fear, and you will be free.

Things I Will Miss

If you don't know by now, I'm back in Canada, and I had an amazing trip. My blog is not over, I will still post a few more things about Japan, but I wanted to talk about what I missed from home and what I'll miss about Japan.

Things I missed about home:

Beer:
Japanese beer is good, and they have lots of varieties, but they are not that different. The most widely available beers are always lagers. There are some stouts but you would have to go to a real liquor store to find them. Canada has everything. I really missed Guinness. I like deep, dark and complex beers. And they don't have many ales there or IPA. I think I enjoyed Sapporo the most, and Yebisu. Yebisu is a light redish orange color, and the taste is a bit more flavorful than other lagers.

Central Heating Systems:
Japanese homes/apartments don't have central heating systems. So most of the house is freezing cold all the time.  In the summer, I wouldn't be worried about this. So Japanese keep doors closed all the time and heat the room you are occupying the most. At Mao's house, when I would use the bathroom, it was so cold. They use some sort of portable gas heaters, and heat specific rooms. Apartments are heated with air conditioners which do a really good job in small Japanese apartments.

Wireless and fast internet:
Canada has got it good when it comes to internet. We were one of the first countries with broadband internet capacity, and we use wireless everywhere. Surprisingly enough, Japanese haven't caught onto this wireless obsession yet. Most likely this is because you can do everything on your phone in Japan. Every phone is almost as good as a Blackberry. Japanese don't need wireless Cafe's because everybody uses their phones to access email. When you text someone in Japan, you are actually emailing them. Yes, we may have good internet, but Japanese have really good phones, and this already widely known.

Finding a good Cigar Shop:
It's hard to find good cigar shops in Japan, but it's probably because I don't live there. So yeah I couldn't get a cuban from a convenience store like I can sometimes in Canada, everybody smokes menthol cigarettes and nasty shit like that.

What I will miss about Japan:

Convenience:
In Japan, you can get almost anything you need anytime. Vending machines, transit, you name it. It's almost right at your finger tips, specially if you live in dense urban centers. Convenience stores really live up to the word.

Some of the best Coffee in the World:
I really enjoyed the Cafe scene in Japan. 99% of Cafe's are sit down, they don't have no take away cups, that's what cans and vending machines are for. If you're going to destroy your coffee drinking it in a wax up you might as well buy it in can. I don't know if it's the water, but the cream and milk is definitely better. So much flavor and fat content. Coffee is made strong. Tea is delicate and flavorful. I was never disappointed with a cup of coffee in Japan. I have had coffee around the world a bit. Coffee was great in Spain too, and pretty good in Greece. But I had no idea Coffee had such a hold on Japan. Japanese and Chinese are different, no matter what anybody does, Coffee hasn't made it into China the way it has in the rest of the world.

Weather:
The weather in Japan was sunny and blue skies 85% of the three weeks we were there. It rained once, and snowed once. We touched down in Vancouver and just take a wild guess at what the weather was like.

Environment:
Japan was aesthetically pleasing to me. They take care of details. Very clean place. It's a very comfortable place in terms of climate. Yeah it will be hot as hell in Summer, but I'm ok with that.

The Service:
The culture shock back in Canada was felt the most when it came to service. We Canadians behave like wild animals compared to the Japanese. Japanese welcome and greet their customers in extremely formal language. If you stand around a retail shop facing one of the store keepers, they will keep repeating the same phrase with consistent enthusiasm, that means something like, "welcome, I'm at your service." Whenever they help you or serve you they say, "I've committed a disgrace, excuse me". When we got back to Canada, we were travel-high, it seemed like everyone was depressed and always in a hurry. What are they in a hurry for? The only thing people do here for fun is go home and log on facebook. (that's what I do...) Japanese are swift when moving about the city, but I never sensed that feeling of hurry and rushing or desperately wanting to get ahead of everyone else. The first thing I think about is J-walkers in Canada.

The Fashion:
Japanese are very stylish. Everybody takes care of their appearance. I said it before, Japan is like the France of Asia, so to speak. Except, they are nothing like the French, just stylish, and fashionable.
Department stores are huge in Japan. Think of them like malls. They are several floors of which the majority of stores are for women. If there are three floors of women's shops, then there is one floor dedicated to men's shops. It's really amazing. Each store is unique, you never find the same thing twice, unless you go to the ubiquitous Uni Qlo.

The Vibe:
What I miss the most, is the vibe... Japan is full of energy. It's familiar somehow. If Mao and I decide to live there one day, I would be very happy to call Japan home. Japan is filled with harmonious dualities, it is very peaceful there, but it is also vibrant, and you can experience both feelings in the same place. I feel something very special there. I didn't feel this in China for example. So far the only other place I felt a similar comfort was Oregon, oddly enough, and Greece. I cant wait to go back.

Cleaning the family gravestone.

Before New Years in Japan, people do a thorough cleaning of their house in preparation for the New Year. They also take a trip to the family cemetery and give the family tombstone a wash too. I was able to tag along with Grandma, Mao and Kie as they cleaned their family tombstone.

I didn't take any pictures out of respect for the whole experience. I would sure look like a super douche-bag-tourist if I did that, so sorry if their are no pictures. I'll just steal some examples from off the internet.

It seems that in Japan, Buddhism takes care of matters of death mostly and Shinto takes care of life related rituals. Grandma is a particular sect of Buddhism and is really serious about praying for her ancestors. She cleans the tombstone every month. She knows the chants too. She was generous enough to have me come along for the cleaning and I heard my name among her chanting so that was nice to hear. You see, Japanese pray to their ancestors that their ancestors will look after their family still living.

Japanese cremate their dead. So each family has their own tombstone which contains the cremated remains of their passed on family members. I agree more with cremating dead remains than burying them, but really, when I'm dead an gone am I going to care whether my body is left out for wolves to eat or cremated? No. But then, that's just me.

The graveyard was a really nice place. It was actually part of the environs of a huge Pagoda which houses some of the cremated remains of Siddartha Gautama!

At first I was taken by surprise... You mean the remains of the Buddha exist? People actually know where the remains of the Buddha are?? I couldn't believe it. Why didn't I know about this? Why isn't this bigger news? The Buddha was a great guy, he had some really good ideas, he has a very good explanation of reality too which has seemed to stand up to scientific scrutiny. And not only that, monks that follow him can do some pretty freaky shit! I thought it would be bigger news. I thought it would at least been in Wikipedia. But then, I'm one of the few people who were brought up and conditioned to believe that the Buddha is some divine manifestation. So knowing where he is buried is kind of a big deal. But even though I don't really believe that now, it is still a big deal to me that such a renowned and venerated personage actually has a resting place. It is pretty significant.

Now before you get your panties in a knot with all these questions like WTF is Siddartha's remains doing in Japan? What's the story here? I was like that too walking around the Pagoda while everything is in Japanese... One of the former premier Jawaharlal Nehru of India divided the remains of the Buddha and sent them to different areas in Asia as a symbol of peace. Apparently, there are many more of these Pagoda's around Japan.

Here is an article from the New York Times from 1909 regarding a discovery of part of the Buddhas remains.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0E13F63E5D12738DDDA00A94D0405B898CF1D3

When the Buddha was first cremated they were divided up in to eight parts to be sent to different areas. It was in that spirit that Nehru sent out these remains again after some were rediscovered. Anyway, I thought it was interesting. This is what it looked like.

I stole it from this guy's site. :P. Here is his site. http://davidbruce.tripod.com/himeji2.html

After we cleaned the grave we offered some money, lit up a candle, lit up some incense, and moved on to check out the big Pagoda. At the tombstone you can offer stuff to the dead. We offered a big can of Asahi. (It's an easier offering than food, and a lot less elaborate than burning fake paper stuff in the hopes that it will reach the dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_paper)

Anywhere I travel I hope I get to understand what it is like to live in the country or do what people there do. During this trip I got a little taste of what it is like to live in Japan. I'm really grateful I was able to do this.

This was in the morning. The Afternoon and evening was comprised of going to Kobe for some browsing, Kareoke, and Yakiniku (beef BBQ). Next blog will most likely be about food.

I will miss Kyoto the most.

We were in Kyoto December 30 and 31st. I really loved Kyoto, for its beauty, its culture, its hidden location in the hills, its historical significance. I was a great getaway. We only stayed one night but you need a lot more than that to really check out all the places this city has to offer. Kyoto was the Empire's capital for over a thousand years so you can walk down a street and pass by several temples wit their own history. It is also known for its nightlife and its Geisha culture. If you have a lot of money you can even be entertained by Geisha like back in the old days. Kyoto is filled with small alleys full of restaurants, clubs, and bars. People stay out pretty late too. Although we were in a hurry to get back to Himeji for New Years Eve, it was enough time to really see enough to fall in love with Kyoto. So I am looking forward to coming back, and staying longer.

A river overlooking the an older part of Kyoto associated with nightlife and Geisha culture.

This older building is a Chinese restaurant. I'm not going to eat there!!!

We are walking over to the older area to find a Curry Udon noodles place to eat lunch at. We heard about this place from TV. In Japan, when something goes on TV the whole country knows about it. They only have a hand full of channels but the programing is superb and I've been enjoying TV here even though I don't understand half of it. Most TV programs have a a food section. Japanese really love their food.

On the right we passed by a very old and renowned Kabuki Theatre. I don't know much about Kabuki, but the building looked really nice. It is still used today.

After walking through some dense streets passing by various restaurants and clubs we found the Udon restaurant. It was super small, and the employees were the fattest people I saw in Japan. Two of them looked like they were training for Sumo. I went to the washroom to blow my nose, and I kind of got stuck in the bathroom backwards because it was so small. I have no idea how those other guys use it.

Everybody in the restaurant was eating Curry Udon! Curry Udon had become pretty famous after being showed on TV, but it was probably pretty famous before that too, hence why it was on TV. .

The soup was pretty thick. The meat was tasty. The noodles were PERFECT! I love my curry spicy so this did the trick, it had some good bite to it. I didn't feel too full after, it was comfortable. This place leaves you wanting more. There were other good Udon places we saw on TV, but it's hard to come by a GOOD curry Udon place so we decided to go here.

Being well fed we started to sightsee. We had planned to see the Silver Temple and the Golden Temple. We are so lazy and love taking our time so we left for Kyoto pretty late. It takes almost two hours to get to Kyoto from Himeji so we got there around 3pm HAHA! The silver temple was the closest to where we were so we took the bus there. It really helped that I know some Japanese and I can read and recognize Kanji or else Mao would have been a stressed out wreck trying to figure out everything herself. You'd think it would be easy for a Japanese person to get around in their own country, but Japan is more complicated than that. YAY for me. I can get around Japan with relative ease. But the process was so much faster with Mao around.

The more time I spend here the more I realize that Japan is indeed a great nation. It was never colonized, it has always maintained its own sovereignty, but more importantly for me, it has always maintained its own culture. Yeah Japan borrows a lot, but for everything it borrows, whether it be tobacco, food, or toilets, it always improves on them and OWNS it. Japanese fashion is what boggles my mind the most, shopping here is great, if only I could find my size LOL. No longer a skinny bastard. Yeah, I'm looking for a winter jacket, and my size in Japan is XL or LL. That is latin for" you're too fat, lose some weight." Tonight I'm at Mao's Grandma's for dinner and my size is going to go from LL to LLL. SUKIYAKI time!

GINKAKUJI - The Silver Temple

It was supposed to be covered in silver, it didn't happen. They didn't cover it in silver later because it represents another artistic ideal in its unfinished state. Someone found perfection in imperfection. See, Japanese are deep and profound people.

Check it.

I was in too much of a hurry to really appreciate all the historical stuff about this site. So I enjoyed the beauty of the surroundings instead. On the way there, we were really cold so Mao suggested I try this hot soup-like sake. It's sake, but it's the non-distilled stuff. It was white and beige colored and really wasn't my cup of tea. It was sweet, but I expected it to be sweeter. Very odd taste. Though it did help make me warm.

Zen Buddists love to play with sand! They are getting so good at, it's become a form of meditation and an art. Some sand-players even gain enlightenment. Who knew sand could be so versatile?

We were running late and only had 35 minutes to get to the Golden Temple so we took a cab. It took about 20 minutes to get there, but we made it on time. 

KINKAKUJI - The Gold Temple

Kyoto is probably most well known for the Gold Temple. It is covered in gold. I don't know whose idea that was, but I guess they had a lot of money to burn at the time. As you can see, we were pressed for time to appreciate the history behind the building. But nevertheless, we really enjoyed this spot for the limited time that we could be there. It is definitely a beautiful place, a must see, if not just or the temple itself but for the serene surroundings as well. 

After this it was about dinner time and we had to meet up with Mao's friend who lives near Kyoto. It was good to see him. It's always good to see friend in far away places. It's almost surreal, the fact that the first time you meet the person is in a familiar place, and the next time you see the person in such an unfamiliar place is really mind boggling. He was visiting Vancouver during the Olympics and we hung out a few times and watched the Gold Medal Hockey game together. In Kyoto we had dinner together and got a little walking tour of some areas of Kyoto. It was his birthday the next day so we bought him dinner. 

I haven't even left Japan yet and I already feel like I miss these times. As of now, I have about only another full day in Japan. We don't want to leave... Part of me doesn't want to leave and part of my heart is already hardened and ready to go back home. It sounds crazy. It's as though we have two minds inside. It will be hard for Mao, I really don't know how she has been able to live away from home for so long. She has a great family here, very loving, and very supportive. She is already sad that we are leaving. This time will be a little easier for her since she wont be leaving alone. 

We've been talking about the good and bad things about Japan. What it would be like to live here. Would we be able to live here if we decided to? What would we have to expect. It is definitely easier to live here than say China or India. Life is extremely comfortable, and way more convenient and lively than Canada. But there is more rigidity here. People get grouped into certain categories. In Canada, you can be whoever you want, do whatever you want to do. You can find your own niche in society because there are just so many varieties of people. In some sense, there is that feeling of the American dream, where you can do whatever you want and be whoever you want to be, because there are less social expectations. There is a certain way of doing things in Japan, and so much more social pressure. That is one of the things I like about Japanese people and culture is that they tenaciously hold on to their behaviors. They have changed as a result of influence from other cultures and globalization, but they also hold onto somethings more dearly than PERHAPS other peoples and cultures do. In other words, they have a very, very strong identity as a nation and as a people. I feel a fierce nationalism here, not the like of nationalism that we have in Canada where you wear red and white on Canada Day and say, "we're all Canucks!". I'm talking about silent nationalism. It's kind of like the deafening power of absolute quiet. It's not something you can erase as easily as a color or a label. I'm saying, that these people will be around for a while. 

It also makes me remember that Japan is not an ultimate place. There are other places of equal value. Every country has its pros and cons. How a person rates a country is more related to what a person values than any objective standard. But Japan definitely ranks high on my scale. More importantly for me, it's the creativity of the people in this country that really has my attention. 

More Kyoto:

So we really wanted to try out a capsule hotel. We heard of this new capsule hotel that Mao saw on TV back in Canada. It happened to be in Kyoto and we found it by chance so we decided to stay here. It was pretty cool, and very comfortable. The hotel had a white marble motif. It was plastic but it looked like marble. Absolutely everything was crisp white in the place. It was an interesting experience. 

As soon as we came in, we had to remove our shoes. It felt odd to be barefoot in a hotel. Not what I am used to everyday. Then we check in and our shoes went into lockers and we gave the keys to the clerk! How strange, I kind of wanted the ease of going out and coming back in case I wanted to grab something from the store. Then I was reminded there were slippers we could use to go out for a smoke or to the convenience store. LOL. 

We felt strange and didn't want to leave the lobby, which doubled as a place to eat and a place to hang out.Women and Men slept on separate floors and it felt strange to part ways before sleeping. When was the last time we slept separately? You can't take food up to the capsule area. So we stayed here for a while not wanting the night to be over, but we had to get up early so after sitting around reading and rereading the instructions for the hotel we went our separate ways in different elevators, one for girls, one for guys. 

Feeling freer now that I only had to worry about myself, I went up to get my accessories from the 9th floor. They provided sleepwear, toothbrush and toothpaste, shampoo and all that. I got ready for bed and was super tired, but didn't really want to sleep. Saw some Japanese people, saw some white people. Everybody was really quiet... like it was all their first time in a capsule hotel. The capsule area was really awesome. Felt like I was on a spaceship. Check the video, hope you can hear my voice. 

That was a really, really good experience. I would definitely recommend it at least once. Really good sleep, except I woke up in the middle of the night to what I thought was a dog barking, and thought "wtf is someone doing bringing a dog in here...zzz...". That was strange, but I wasn't ass raped or anything by morning so I guess it wasn't a big deal. I got up at 7:13 AM and got ready to head out. I surprised Mao by being half an hour earlier than our meeting time. HAHA. Showed her... They had a big bathtub (Ofuro) that people could use, but it wasn't filled by the time I was done my shower so I didn't use it. And yeah, you'd have to go buttnucks. Man, what a comfortable sleep. The pillow filled the whole headspace in the capsule, so wherever you rolled, your head was GOOD. 

We woke up to snow. It was snowing outside, yes. Beautiful, my wish came true, I saw a nice snowfall in Japan in the best city to see it. We couldn't really do all we wanted to in the snow because we weren't prepared for it. I was so cold. My spring jacket was useless. And it was really snowing. 

I'm not going to go into too much detail about this day. We were in a hurry to get back to Himeji for dinner and New Years so we went to one place, it was cold, tried to do something but, it was cold. So we went to eat Ramen. OH MAN. GOOD SHIT. This was on the 9th floor of Kyoto's main station. 

The barrage of people buying New Years gifts we had to get through to find the Ramen place. 

Ramen!

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To tell the truth, we went for Ramen the first week we were here? Or the second week. Anyway, It was horrible. It was a new place that we weren't sure whether we should go or not! We shouldn't have gone! It was terrible. The Ramen was very cheaply priced, but the beer was expensive! A glass of draft was the same price as a bowl of Ramen! In the end, we redeemed ourselves with this ramen. 

Ok just so you know, I know I'm going to be hated for this but I don't like Chinese food. Japanese took Chinese "Lamian", "Ramen" in Japanese and made it better and more edible. Then they took Chinese "Jiaozi", and it became "Gyoza". (I admit I like Chinese Jiaozi too). But, Japanese Chinese food is way better than Chinese could ever make it. I don't know why. I will just never understand Chinese taste, and I will never have it. The only thing I really liked of Chinese food was Jiaozi, and Beijing duck. Then I liked Xinjiang food, which isn't even Chinese food. Chinese have such different taste than everybody else in the world, I'm sure of it. Apparently, Chinese don't like Sashimi. Japanese are Island people, remember that. Fish have been the most important food source for these people. Not only that, I think they even regard rice more highly than Chinese do. There are two foods that Japanese can survive on. One is rice, and the other is Miso, usually in the form of soup. Miso soup and rice is served at EVERY Japanese meal. There is no meal without rice. I didn't have that experience in China. I was always left with the thought in my mind, "Where the "F&%$ is my rice!?" In Japan, I never really felt that way. Japanese rice packs a punch, you don't need to eat a lot of it to get full. Being Persian, I know that for a fact. We eat way more rice per meal than Japanese and Indians put together! 

Anyway, Kyoto was awesome. I love Japanese food. We waited a long time in line for that Ramen. Every restaurant on that floor was packed. I love this blog, I hope you love it too. The rest of the blog will most likely be about food. I have one more day in Japan.. I bought a suitcase, and it's full of gifts and food I'm bringing back. I'm going to close this blog now, I've written enough about Kyoto. I want to live there. Bye.