My Japan Adventure18829
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| I've got a few moments to upload some photos of things I found interesting so far, so here we go. To pass some time on the plane, I listened to a playlist of '80s Japanese pop. This playlist included a song amusingly titled "Monotone Boy" by Rebecca. Listening to it, I detected a clear '80s Madonna influence.  Tom and Jerry seem to be popular here. I'm not entirely sure what this is advertising, but it was posted at a train station.  My brother and I ate at this New York-themed bar and gyoza restaurant in Tachikawa yesterday. I was charmed by the blurb on the English menu. I'm not making fun; their English is far beyond my Japanese (which is nil). For the record, it was lunchtime, so I only ate the yummy gyoza and had some fun.  |
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| Stop #2 Kokuzen-ji Temple  Icon: Daikokuten |
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Right now I'm in busy Shibuya, staying at a nice hostel called Turn Table. This is the entrance lobby. There is also a restaurant attached, but I haven't eaten there. Navigating the twisting, unnamed streets and alleys of Shibuya is dizzying, with stores, restaurants, and establishments of all kinds tucked into corners and stacked atop one another. Winding my way to a rock club last night, I was surprised to find a rare outpost of Shakey's Pizza on one floor of a nearby building. Once the most widespread pizza chain, Shakey's is long gone from the American midwest, but it appears they still have spots in Japan, the Philippines, and California.  I went to a venue called Club Quattro to see the Korean indie-pop band Say Sue Me, who I was already familiar with but had never seen. They were terrific, reminding me often of the band Alvvays, along with other, older indie-rock touchstones (they even covered Yo La Tengo's "Summer of the Shark" and Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End" ). I love seeing concerts in Japan. I've only seen a half-dozen or so in my three trips here, but they always start promptly at the advertised time, and the crowds are very polite. Instead of the constant chatter that plagues club shows in the U.S., you can hear a pin drop after the applause fades following a song and before the next song starts. There is plenty of excitement for the performance, but people don't rudely talk during the whole thing. Chatter is reserved for before, between, and after the bands. These are some pet peeves of mine about American shows, or at least those in my area--lateness, vague timing, chatter--so I love how they seem to run things here. The admitted drawback is that the shows do tend to be more expensive than I'm used to.  Walking back to my hostel, I noticed the sweets-themed hotel that I had read about somewhere online and couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of the exteriors. I don't know what the hotel is like, but the outside certainly stands out.    That'll do it for now. Today I'm going to hit some record stores and explore. Time to get out there. |
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| Stop #3 Onaga Tenman-gū  Icon: Jurōjin |
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| Stop #4 Hiroshima Tōshō-gū Shrine  Icon: Fukurokuju |
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| Stop #5 Tsuruhane-jinja Shrine  Icon: Benzaiten |
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| Stop #6 Myōjō-in Temple  Icon: Bishamonten |
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 It gets old smelling it everytime I go outside my door.
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@Byrdibyrd You sure do "get around"  |
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| Stop #7 Nigitsu-jinja Shrine  Icon: Ebisu |
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 -Our Odin-Rest in Peace |
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| You did it!!! Great going!!!! | ||
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My reward for completing the pilgrimage is a visit to a freakin' awesome CASTLE!!!   |
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| @Jesse_O Thanks! I really booked it so that would have a chance to visit Fukuyama-jō Castle. I'm pretty stoked it worked out |
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| @Nearmint67 Saw the Beach Boys in concert once. really great  |
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| @scratchtasia I love ❣️❣️❣️ your post! This is exactly what my posts are missing!! You're seeing some fantastic stuff. Keep posting, please. Tom and Jerry ad was for sweets, by the way. |
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Okay, here's an eel sushi  bentō box. |
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This what the front end (and the back end, as it turns out) of a bullet train looks like. This one was pulling in to Fukuyama Station while I was on the platform. |
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This is a manhole cover in Hiroshima. The origami crane design is in honour of Sasaki Sadako, a girl who died of leukemia contracted from exposure to the bombing of Hiroshima. She hoped that by folding 1,000 origami cranes, she would survive. She died at the age of 12, but strings of 1,000 origami cranes are still considered a symbol of strength and life. |
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Today I went to Hiroshima by bullet train to undertake the Hiroshima Lucky 7 Pilgrimage. I managed to start and finish the pilgrimage in its entirety. I'm very pleased to have done this and I rewarded myself with a castle visit that ended up with a SURPRISE TWIST!  My first stop on the pilgrimage was Shōkō-ji Temple. The temple was about a 12 minute walk from Hiroshima Station. It ended up having a pleasant dry rock garden, which I was not expecting.  It also had signs on the gates that were a bit surprising. They said to make sure to shut the gates so the wild boars don't get in. Good To Know!   Shōkō-ji's Lucky 7 icon is Hotei, god of happiness and contentment.  Kokuzen-ji was maybe an 8 minute walk from Shōkō-ji. It's Lucky 7 icon is Daikokuten, god of commerce, trade, and financial good fortune.  I went to Onaga Tenman-gu next. Here's a flight of stairs to reach it.  I didn't take photos of the massive slopes with a grade so steep that in the States it would have been illegal to build on them. Fortunately, at the top of the Torture Stairs was an ox statue (it is a Tenjin shrine, after all) and it was one of the ones that you're allowed to touch, and by touching a part of the ox, you ask for healing in that part of your own body.  I touched that ox A Lot. Onaga Tenman-gu's Lucky 7 icon is Jurōjin, god of longevity. After going up those stairs, I needed all the help from him I could get.  Next was a bit of a longer walk to Hiroshima Tōshō-gu Shrine, followed by more stairs. These stairs sucked, too, trust me. The rise on them was way more than normal, so they were really tough to climb.  The same way that Toyokuni-jinjas venerate Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and there are a bunch of Toyokuni-jinjas, Tōshō-gus venerate Tokugawa Ieyasu, and there are a ton of Tōshō-gus. This Tōshō-gu had as its Lucky 7 icon Fukurokuju, god of wisdom, wealth, and longevity. Sometimes he and Jurōjin are treated as one, and when that happens the Lucky 7 pilgrimage either winds up with 6 stops instead of 7, or another deity steps in to fill the empty spot.  Starting with Tsuruhane-jinja Shrine, the remaining Lucky 7 stops were pretty easy. Tsuruhane-jinja is a pretty shrine and it has a dry garden, which is unusual for a shrine, as that's usually a temple feature.  One surprise on the grounds is the font, which apparently survived the bombing of Hiroshima.   Representing the Lucky 7 at Tsuruhane-jinja is Benzaiten, goddess of music, poetry, and the arts.  The next stop, Myōjō-in Temple, was another surprise. Everything I saw about it implied that there just wasn't much there. It ended up being pretty good-sized and had multiple halls. It was a nice temple, and its Lucky 7 icon is Bishamonten, god of treasure, wealth, protection, and security.  Last was Nigitsu-jinja Shrine. This is another one that had more to it than I expected. It was a pleasant shrine, and its Lucky 7 icon is Ebisu, god of prosperity, trade, and good fortune.  With the last stop on the pilgrimage finished, I headed back to Hiroshima Station and took a bullet train part of the way back to Osaka, stopping in Fukuyama. Fukuyama Station is notable for being right next to Fukuyama Castle, and I do mean right next to it, as in across the street, and the street isn't all that big. I had enough time to visit the castle, but first i wanted to make another quick stop: Fukuyama Hachiman-gu Shrine. Fukuyama Hachiman-gu venerates Hachiman, the god of war, protection, and culture, among many other things. Naturally, I wound up with another set of Torture Stairs to climb, but it was worth it. The shrine was much bigger than I thought it would be, and it showed some of the architectural peculiarities of Hachiman shrines surprisingly well.   That odd roof on the shrine's hall is unique to Hachiman shrines. After I got done at Fukuyama Hachiman-gu, I finally went to Fukuyama Castle. Once there I found out the castle was having its 400th anniversary celebration! They were preparing for a huge lightshow at night, but sadly I was unable to attend that. Few bullet trains stop at Fukuyama, and if I stayed there until after the last one left, I would have to take a local train back to Osaka, and that would take hours & hours. It's really a shame I couldn't stay for the lightshow, because I'm sure it would have explained what I can only describe as The Field of Eggs.  As part of the anniversary celebrations, parts of the castle were restored to a more historically accurate state, and the castle itself looks amazing.  The main turret houses a fantastic museum, and of course, everything is reached via... a cubic s*** ton of stairs. I think I'm done with stairs for a while. I do believe I will be taking measures tomorrow to minimise any contact with stairs. One last thing on Fukuyama Castle: I was able to get an anniversary go-jōin, which is the castle equivalent of a goshuin.  Tomorrow I will be returning to Kyōto. I still have two contentious Shinbutsu shrines there that I want to visit, and I understand that there may be some events going on at Daitoku-ji Temple that will be ending soon. I think I'll go see if those rumours are true. As I recall, Daitoku-ji Temple is on the flat and has no stairs. Sounds like a lovely day already.  |
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 I've spent years perfecting my brand of assholery.
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Quote:Originally Posted by GAC  |
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It gets old smelling it everytime I go outside my door.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Byrdibyrd Good morning... this is nice. So do the grounds keepers have to rake the sand often? Do inconsiderate people (kids) walk through the sand and mess it up? |
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 To answer your question, no, this is not where the comics go to die.
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| 私たちとあなたの冒険を共有してくれてありがとう | ||
| Post 271 • IP flag post | ||
 I have a problem with fattening women up.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Nearmint67 Whoever attends to the grounds does so regularly. They have to keep leaves and the occasional bit of rubbish out of the garden. To reach anything they need to remove, they have to disturb the gravel, so the raking happens regularly, too. As for little kids or even just jerks messing it up, that doesn't happen much. People usually watch their young children and even jerkweeds have better things to do than tempt the wrath of The Divine. |
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Quote:Originally Posted by MutantMania どういたしまして! 喜んでフォラムのみんなを連れてきてあげます。  |
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| I have some photos from yesterday. First, I don't think it would be right to go to Shibuya and not visit Hachiko. He was a very good boy.  I actually spent much of my day in nearby Shinjuku, however. Tokyo is a pretty safe environment, but it is not without its dangers.  I had some sushi at a restaurant under the shadow of Gojira. I just picked and chose a few that sounded good to me. The rest of my family doesn't really go for sushi, so it's best for me to get it when I'm flying solo.  I really wanted to go to Shinjuku to visit Disk Union, a record/CD chain here in Japan. Shinjuku has their largest selection of stores, including the 7-floor store that I visited. That's kind of misleading, though, because each floor is very small. Nonetheless, they pack in tons and tons of records and CDs that you wouldn't necessarily expect to see. I bought a few. Here's the map posted outside the entrance.  I did some random wandering and, as long as I was in the area, I decided to find a small cafe called Nope that is operated by my Japanese sister-in-law's friend. The walls and various other surfaces of the cafe are adorned with American pop-culture toys and figures, largely from the '80s. There is a lot to take in. I ordered a shake and introduced myself. It's a cool little place.  Then before heading back to Shibuya, I sought and found this amazing 3-D animated cat billboard. It's a delight.  Sometimes the cat wears a policeman's hat.  I didn't really have anything planned for the evening, but I needed to head back to my hostel and recharge some electronics. Then I went to look at the Shibuya Blue Cave Illuminations, where trees along the street and in Yoyogi Park are decorated in blue lights for the holidays.  I got there just in time for the food trucks to shut down and not allow me to order. After several failed attempts to find a restaurant that would serve me (it seems many close at 9:00 PM, or else they're jam-packed), I settled on a freakin' McDonald's. I rarely eat McD's at home, but in Japan they do have a "shrimp filet-o" that I like (at least sometimes--they can be inconsistent). Then I browsed at a large 24-hour Don Quijote shop and marveled at the nighttime bustle of the streets of Shibuya as I made my way back to my hostel. Today I'm switching hotels and finding some other things to do. Better get to it. |
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On my way to Kyōto now. Planning on a relatively lazy day that involves as few stairs as possible.  Of course, I'm still dragging around my massive Shinbutsu, but we can't have it all.  |
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It gets old smelling it everytime I go outside my door.
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Quote:Originally Posted by Byrdibyrd Now there's an expression I haven't heard in a while.... Well enjoy the rest of the day. Check back tomorrow. |
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That yummy thing with the smile is a delicious chicken & mushroom savoury pie. Believe me, I wiped that smile off it's face as soon as I put my phone away. 🤤 |
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I have a problem with fattening women up.
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| Not sure about anywhere else but all the dunkin donuts by me no longer carry French cruellers. Apparently there is some kind of ongoing shortage. This has been months since I've noticed and Apparently started at pandemic perhaps a year or more ago.... | ||
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