Carl's reports from Japan

[Zagatto]

Carl, the best man at my wedding, has been sent to Japan for four months as a part of his job. He's been sending reports of his travels there with his impressions of life in Japan.

My favourite so far is the baseball post. I hope other people enjoy some of these tales as well (the first few he seems to be getting the feel for how he wants to write... they get better with time).

[Zagatto]

Japan...week 1.

Okay, it's really Tokyo. I haven't actually seen Japan much; just the 5 square miles around where I live and work. So far, I can't complain; it's quite nice, though a bit small...

The biggest shock of the week was on Monday. I was jet lagged, tired, and in general, wanting to curl up into a ball and turn into a vegetable. I looked at some of the US Market news, and flipped thru some random channels. Low and behold, a Japanese
cooking show! Cool. Looked interesting, with shrimp, vegetables, etc... all laid out nicely. The live abalone I'd seen the night before at the tapanyaki bar. Then, came the piece d'resistance. The host removed the lid from a large bowl, revealing.... Live
octapus. The Octapus did the only thing an octapus would do - it tried to crawl out of the bowl. Chop sticks lifted it back in. Two quick swishes of knife later, the octapus was beating a hasty retreat like Napoleon fleeing Moscow back into the bowl and the hosts
were sampling pieces of octapus tentacles. Raw, and still squirming.

Okay...japanese cooking shows just aren't for me.

The rest of Japanese TV that I understand consists of, um, every Yankees and Mariners baseball game. I mean *every* game. I get more Yankees here then I do living just outside of New York....

The cost of some things is amazing. A cantelope runs Y1000 ($8), comes in a fancy little holder with a ribbon tied around it. Mangoes are Y650. Oranges are Y200. It's amazingly expensive.
Thank god for expense accounts!

Tokyo is very clean. It is amazingly clean compared to places like London, or New York, or... pretty much any other major city I've ever been in. And the people are polite and friendly and I'd almost say nice to a fault. And the trains run exactly dead on time. You can set your watch to these things, that's how on-time they are. I've heard for years how the Japanese society has this cronic "Over Employment" -- I think it is really more of a case where they've decided that they want a place that is nice to live and those are the costs you have to bear to have it.

I'm living in an area called Roppongi, on the west side of Tokyo. It used to be the seedier area of Tokyo, but then the Mori company came in and "Gentrified" it. They cleaned it up, made it up scale, etc... Or most of it anyways. The walk from the Roppongi subway station to my flat is interesting. One route goes thru western yuppie central, featuring stores such as Louis Vitton, Eves St. Laurent, and any number of trendy ultra-chic botiques. The other route goes through "Old Roppongi" -- which is just find in the daylight but after dark, it turns ultra-seedy. In addition to the people on the street saying "come into club, you get good time!" in various states of Undress, you also get the "Personal Massage, Sixty Thousand Yen!"

So nice of UBS to put me up less then 5 minutes walk from such an area.

The flat here is nice, but small. I expected about as much. It comes with a gym membership for a really nice gym with pool and excerise room and... Most of the staff speak English there to some degree, and are way too attentive. Working out, there were 4 staff members for 3 guests, which meant I had my own personal "towel girl". One of the particularly cute ones works as a personal trainer. She offered politely to be my "Very own special trainer" who would "show me lots of different excerises to stimulate me." I didn't think I really wanted to explain the concept of "double entendre" to her...

Starbucks is everywhere. There are *3* of them between me and the two entrances to the subway I use. And a fourth a block away. And a fifth just down thataway. In fact, there are more Starbucks in Tokyo then in San Francisco. It's frightening.

I only have a couple of examples of "Engrish" for you to hear about. The first one is from a shop over in the mall. I'm going to get a picture of it today, so I can post it to a web page. The name of the shop is "White Trash Charms Japan". Quite amusing. The other example is a box of *something* that came with the flat here. The box has this oh so useful thing on it...it reads

Gentry (<--product or company name, not sure which)
Ding Dong
Ding Dong
Church Bell's ringing
Nightingale in the dale
Little boy so full of joy
Little girl so sweet and cute

Nobody has any clue wot's in the box. The best guess so far is "sugar", but with how it rattles around, well...

The jet lag wasn't too bad, surprisingly. You get over it pretty quickly. Most of my time here has been spent digging thru and learning the stuff I need for the JSDA securities exam. Urgh! That's next Friday...

That's the news that's fit to print... Oh, Ichiro just hit another home run...

[Zagatto]

...or, how I enterained myself while NOT studying for the JSDA...

Yes, JSDA studying is taking up my whole week. The only good thing this week was the 3 day weekend, which gave me a day to study and explore... But first, the JSDA.

It was a nightmare. The translation into Engrish was terrible. Being asked "...when offering the, A method must be used" doesn't help things. It was frightening. You leave the exam not knowing how you did due to the strange terminology, words that magically changed from the text to the test, and in general, um....er....different vocabulary from the US. I'll find out next Thursday or Friday...

On Monday (the day off), I hit up Shinjuku. Shinjuku has a number of electronics stores. The strange thing is that the prices are MUCH better in the US. I've been looking for a digital camera, and the prices here are 20% more for the same camera! Now, for the very low end, that doesn't hold true, but for the high end, I can't find a reasonable price on a Canon EOS 10D or EOS 1Ds.

Computers, meanwhile are a bit strangely priced as well. There are a number of absolutly TINY notebook computers here. Like one-half inch thick with a 10.4" screen and weighing less then 1 pound. Wow. Truly portable machines that you can literally take anywhere. The selection here is probably twice the selecton you have in the US. And everybody has everything IN STOCK. Really cool. Watching people walk in and plunk down Y200,000 and walk out with a notebook is an amazing thing...

Shinjuku also inspired parts of the Blade Runner movie. Flashing lights in narrow dark streets are one of the inspirations for Riddley Scott's filming. Having the need to explore them, I got some nice pictures as some think, dark clouds came in. The neon lights are fabulous. Whole sections of Tokyo light up like a temple to consumption. New York has Times Square; Tokyo has a dozen districts each 10 times the size worshipping the neon gods.

Restraunts... hmm...I know of a great Tempura place. Downtown in the Ginza district two stories beneath ground. Sit at the bar and watch them cook it right in front of you. Periodically, you can feel the subway rumble beneath you... Of course, the sushi is incredible -- and the rule in the states about "avoiding places with boats" doesn't apply here. Conveyor belt sushi means "fast, efficient and high turnover" -- and usually cheap. You can stuff yourself on good sushi for $20-$30. I have to recommend it. Sit-down places aren't as good; okay, the menu is better but the more extensive menu is probably the major downfall. Just plain old sushi bars work wonders.

There are also noodle bars. Had this bowl of Ramen noodles the other day. Ramen isn't just for college students any more.

Saturday, is rainy. Its quite depressing. Wandered out to Shiboya, and wandered thru some shops, etc... Eh. I think we managed to find the world's biggest collection of mega-tacky shops, selling all sorts of, um, "stuff that looks like it escaped from the 1960s". It was frightening. Shiboya is, of course, another neon meca dedicated to consumption and if you ever get to Tokyo, well, you'll see exactly what I mean...

Sunday poured rain all day. At least now I know what a mild typhoon is like... Didn't do anything, and when I tried, I just got wet. Very wet. Eh.

Tuesday, which was another holiday here (September is full of them!), I wandered down to (Y)ebisu. There is a photography museum featuring some pictures done by a Very Fameous Japanese photographer. Ironically, the pictures in the display were from "Spring Green, Wisconsin". Those of you reading this in Stamford, you can ask Nick about Wisconsin... Very wierd. Fly 7,000 miles to see a photography display about a small town that looks remarkably like the place i grew up in...

From there, I wandered to the Sopporo Brewery Museum, where they had a mini-tour (they really need to take a leson or three from the Guinness people in Dublin about how to do a tour), and sampled some beer. Beer...good. nummy. Listened to some good opera singers while drinking said beer too, which was interesting.

Outside the brewery, was the best example of Engrish I'd seen yet. On a giant inflatable can were the words:

Nature's Bounty

FIBER

For that clean, refreshing
feeling...

Yes, they have a beer called "Fiber". And yes, the words on the can make it sound like a laxative. That was even worse then the candy product I saw advertised on TV: "Hommes Sweets" -- or literally, "Man sweets". They seem to like French over here now...

That's all the news here... The markets re-open tomorrow, and are likely to continue their decline. The further down they go, the less chance there is of an election as the current PM was using the market's response as an argument for the fact that "his reforms were working...".

[Zagatto]

Okay, I just experienced Japanese Mass Insanity.

I went out on a UBS event. I walked in to hear what appeared to be 30,000 people engaging in mass karoke. I was terrified.

Fortunately, a baseball game then broke out. The fans in the US could take some serious lessons from the Japanese. In the US, you have a few random drunks shouting a few random words. In Japan, you have, well, everybody shouting and doing everything IN UNISON. 30,000 people rooting for the team in Grey, singing IN KEY and pounding on these noise makers IN RYTHM and spontaneously BREAKING OUT INTO THE SAME SONG ALL OVER THE STADIUM provides an amazing sight. Not to mention the small group of people -- 500 or so -- in the outfield doing the same for the team in white...

Amazing.

After several minutes, it then dawned on me. The home team was the team in white. Yes, 30,000 people were in the stadium cheering for the visitors. So, I had to ask why. The answer was simple. You see, back in 1984 the Hajshin Tigers last won the Japan World Series; it was the start of the last bull market. There is a belief in Japan that if they win again, the stock market will be a bull market. So everyone in japan wants them to win...

Go figure.

From there, the game progressed as a normal baseball game would with some amusing things. The 7th Inning stretch wasn't so much of a 7th Inning Stretch, it was a 7th Inning "Sing the Hajshin Tigers Song and Release your Giant Balloons that look like giant pieces of the male anatomy". Everybody had a balloon. Picture, if you will, 25,000 balloons of dozens of different colours flying thru the air in this stadium, each balloon equipped with a loud whistling device.

Insanity.

I tried the food. Warning : don't. The octapus was terrible, the curried noodles smelled terrible, I don't like cheap saki, Food on a stick is reserved for State Fairs back home, and um...I'm surprised some of the dishes didn't get up and run away. This is, after all, Japan...

Yuck.

The game continued, with the home team literally being ignored. The visitors won, and the fans were happy the home team lost. The game was quite good, really, but you go to watch the fans.
So that's baseball, Japanese Style...

[Zagatto]

Heya...

Well, after a couple of weeks of studying, I've now passed the second Japanese Securities Dealer's Association Exam. It now means that I can sell all of you futures, options and other "speculative" investments...or will, when the registration bit is completed sometime next week. Life, recently, hasn't been really all that interesting --too much studying and hanging around in Tokyo...

So, some interesting bits on Japan. There are these groups schoolgirls roam the streets selling red feathers for charity. They seem to run in groups of three. But this isn't like the states. Here, they are coordinated like a pack of velociraptors waiting to strike their prey with their savage ritual.

They are all dressed the same. Each pack wears the familiar school-girl uniform. There is no variance in the uniform, with everything being specified right down to the buckle on their shoes. The only difference between the various groups prowling the streets is how high their bright white socks are pulled up, but within each pack, it is uniform; some at the ankles, some to the knees...but each of the three is exactly the same. When they shout out what they're raising money for, it is never just one random voice. It is all three of them. In unison. On pitch. In rhythm. Perfect three part harmony. The Saint Olaf Choir could learn a thing or two from them.

But what is more amazing is the ritual for the exchange of money. When someone feels sufficiently sorry for them and decides to purchase a red feather, a ritualistic dance in sues resembling the mating habits of avian species. The donor approaches the girls. They bow, in unison. The donor bows. The girls bow back. A mutual interest has been established. The girls have lured in their prey.

The person politely asks what the girls are raising money for. Not that you haven't heard it 1,000,000 times already while walking. The girls tell her, in unison. And bow, in unison. The donor bows. The girls bow back.

The donor goes for their wallet and produces a couple of coins, probably about Y100 (or about $1 in real money). The girls bow, extending a ceremonial vessel in which to place the money. The donor half bows and deposits the money. Then, the girls bow properly. The donor bows. The girls bow back.

Then, a red feather is produced from the stock. This is greeted with some kind words of thanks. The girls bow to the words of thanks, the donor bows, and once again, the girls bow back. The feather is then inserted in the vict...donor's lapel or pocket. The donor then bows. The girls bow. The donor bows back.

With the mating ritual complete, a fond "thank you" is now sung by the girls. In stereo, whatever that is, all on key, again with perfect three-part harmony. The girls then bow as the donor steps back. The donor then bows. The girls bow back, even deeper then before, with multiple "thank you"'s being said. The donor bows again, saying "Thank you thank you thank you". The girls keep bowing as the donor steps back into the traffic. 14 bows later, the exchange is over.

The donor has escaped.

Afternoon comes around, and Advanced Techniques start showing up. First, there is the "Passing Wave" -- where the girls space themselves about 2' apart and then bow as a potential victem passes. Then, there is the sandwich bow. Here, the middle girl makes an announcement and bows. As she rises, the two flanking her, in stereo, say "thank you!" and bow slightly inward, creating a triangle effect. And finally, there is the multipack -- 4 groups of 3 stake out an intersection and then proceed to hit everybody up at least twice, sometimes three times. Cries of "Donate to *US* to proove this corner is better!" radiate outward.?

[NYxCalm]

Keepém coming zag! I'm readingém ... pretty interesting. Hope it gets seedier

[Shibo]

Good stuff, Zaggy. =)

[sanosuke]

i really gotta go to japan soon! im think of goin there for a year or two to teach english after i finish college

[Zagatto]

Carl's back in New York for the next week or so but he's promised me a write up on Japanese Toilets in the near future.
Apparently they do more than just flush...

[CrayonShinChan]

Oh those toilets are great. Those electronic ones that probably make you toast and sushi if you press the right buttons.

I went to our hotel bathroom on japan after my brother came out and the whole bathroom was dripping with water and so was he. I shoulda known he'd not come out until he'd pressed every button.

[Zagatto]

Where is the most advanced seat in the universe?

The most technologically-advanced seat in the universe does not belong the commander of the USS Enterprise. Jean Luc Piccard controls the fate of planets, all by shouting out orders to a bunch of subordinates. But it is not the most advanced seat in the world. Ironically, it is almost certainly the Japanese toilets. You see, most toilets have about 10-20 buttons on them to control all sorts of things. The fanciest has numerous functions; functions that will make a small nuclear plant to shame. For example:

- Autoraise lid triggered by you walking into the room.
- Autoraise seat ditto.
- Autolower of seat, triggered by you turning around
- Seat temperature control
Set digitally in centigrade, anywhere from 20 to 50 degrees,
plus usually a "High" and "Low" button for heating/cooling
it to the correct temperature quickly or slowly... (2 buttons)
- Built-in Bidet, with buttons that allow you to control...
spray location (L-R), spray location (front-back), spray
intensity, spray temperature... oh, and a button to activate
this feature, of course... (9 buttons)
- Built-in "Shower" with buttons that let you control the
same stuff as the "Bidet" function above.. (9 buttons)
- Autolowering of lids when done, combined with an auto-flush
that checks the clarity of the water to insure that no mess
is left behind.
- Muzak Volume. I kid you not. Muzak is piped into everywhere
and anywhere. Toilet stalls included... It's enough to drive
one crazy sometimes.
- Wireless internet access point. Not sure if it is in the toilet
or in the room, but still...

And those are the features that I've figured out! Good grief...

We are still taking bets as to the lithium content in the air, but people are so happy around here it must be prozac they're pumping into all the subways. Nobody is quite sure, but whatever it is, they're all happy...

[Zagatto]

Here's another report from Carl. Read the food part after you've just eaten or just before you're going to eat. If you read it mid morning I can only think of it as a form of self-abuse.

Joe.



Two earthquakes last week to note. One was on Tuesday; I was in the office. It was sort of slow, swaying of the office. When they happen, everything goes dead silent in the office and people just sort of wait in silence, unmoving silence. The earthquake doesn't bother me much; it's the way they creep out the people who should by now be used to these things!

This other one was Saturday morning. I woke up, and remember lying there thinking I hadn't had THAT much to drink last night... When you realize its an earthquake, I?m not sure "relief" or "terror" is the more applicable...


It is also turned into winter. Winter in Tokyo is pretty much like summer in Tokyo -- only rather then hot, unforgiving sunshine and humidity there is cold windy rain. Either way, you don't want to be outside.
Of course, the Japanese don't change at all from season to season -- in the summer all the hip fashionable ones carry umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun. In the winter, from the rain...

Japanese fashion also dictates the outfits of the "call" girls ? the girls who stand out on street corners selling cellphone service for the likes of NTT, Vodaphone and KDDI. Now, in the summer they're wearing these hideous, hot plastic dresses and knee-high black boots. In the winter, they're wearing... hideous, freezing plastic dresses and knee-high black boots. In the summer they're shaking from heat exhaustion, today, they're shaking from the cold.

I did buy a cellphone; but not from one of them. For 1 yen you get a phone that is brand new that Sprint will charge you $200 for. And the service is like $20/month for what Sprint charges $30/month. Wow. It's insane.
And it works EVERYWHERE, includig the subway. Why aren't things more like that everywhere else?


Wandered over to Diaba this past weekend. How to describe it? Hmmm... a Japanese theme park comes to mind. Of course, the theme is more along the lines of "consume, Consume, CONSUME!". There is a giant ferris wheel there that you can romantically see all of Tokyo from. Right next to the Super Toyota Showroom. They have a giant video game hall which isn't too bad and features loads of cool things, including a virtual 3d roller coaster. There is a giant shopping mall complex with areas dedicated to kids, themed to feel like "Hong Kong" (which Lilian, who has been there sorta laughed at...), and the Fuji TV Studio, which has numerous corners for you to BUY FUJI TV products for their shows. Fuji TV is just a giant marketing machine...

Temples are on for next weekend. Who knows what those will reveal...


So, what to talk about? Food. Yup. Food. Your favorite thing. I figure I'd do a rundown of the various restraunts here that are worth noting, either for what they are or for their food or for... so, where to begin?



The Japanese place under the tracks in Ginza, which only has a Japanese name --
Type of food: Yakatori (Skewered stuff cooked over a grill)
Specialities: Chicken, any way.
Cost: Y2,000 -- Y3,000 person w/o booze.
The place is under the tracks, which adds a certain atomsphere. Trains rumble overhead coming and going to Tokyo Station. But the food is amazing -- simple things like various ways chicken can be marinated and cooked on a habachi grill. The two best were the "Chicken and Welsh Onion (leek)"and the "Asparagus wrapped in Chicken" Both quite tasty. Nummy.


The Ex-Bar --
Type of food: "German Snack Bar"
Specialities: Pepper Steak, Meat Loaf, Sausages, etc...
Cost: Y5,000 -- Y8,000, depending on how much you drink.
Location: Roppongi.
This place is a legend amongst UBS people. Last night, we drug Haim there for his first visit. I went with the pork cutlet, Pete got the Meatloaf/Sausage Plate, and Haim had the Vinerschnitzle. After spending a good 40 minutes chatting and drinking beer, the food arrives. Horst (the owner) proudly puts down a full plate of food, and then follows it up with ANOTHER full plate of vegetables. The food is good, basic "anti-Japanese" food for when you want a real meal.
The beer is good German beer. You eat there like once a month after starving yourself for the whole day. And then don't eat until dinner the NEXT day. It's a must for those times when you don't want anything even remotely Japanese and you're trapped in Tokyo...


Mad Mulligans --
Type of food: British Isles...
Specialities: Fish and Chips.
Cost: Y2,000/person with one beer
Location: Kasumigaseki
Best fish and chips in Tokyo. It comes from having an English girlfriend.... Oh, and the Guinness is great too...


Kiwa -- The Chinese place across the street --
Type of food: Chinese.
Specialities: ??
Cost: Y2500/person
Location: Roppongi
They have great appatizers. Nummy. I get the fried pot stickers and the shrimp filled ones. Great stuff.


Cafe Danmark
Type of food: Pastries
Specialities: Various types of danishes...
Cost: Y200 / pastry
Location: Jiyaguoka
Great french pastries. Better then what you get in France, filled with fruit, chocolate, nuts, etc... I highly recommend the chocolate-pistachio nut ones. To die for...


The Chineese dumpling place in Roppongi Hills --
Type of food: Chinese
specialities: Dumplings
Cost: Y2500/person
Location: Roppongi Hills Shopping center
They do dumplings. About 20-30 different types. Really nummy dumplings. Highly recommend it for lunch on a weekday. And again, their name is in funny characters which I can't read...


Brendan's Pizzakaya--
Type of Food: Pizza
Cost: Y2000-Y3000/person
Location: Roppongi
For when you get homesick for pizza, this is as close to real pizza as you're going to find in Tokyo. It's a once-a-month trip for me; just to keep me sane.


Pepper Lunch
Type of food: Red Meat!
Cost: Y1000-Y2000/person
Location: All over -- chain place.
Okay, I guess this is a japanese steak place. They do fast food steak, served still raw on a sizzling plate. You then add in your sauces, cook it on the searing hot plate to your liking, and eat a perfect steak. And it's cheap, like $10 for a nice hunk of meat which is less then what you'd pay for it in the local stores. How they survive I can't tell you, but its great. There's one down in San Jose, California for those of you in the bay area...It was $10 for a meal there 5 years ago, so it's probably more expensive now...

(There are numerous knock-offs of this place; one just down the street from Lilian's place isn't half bad...)

The Tempura place downstairs in Ginza --
Type of food: Tempura
Cost: Y3500/person.
Location: Ginza, 5-chome (downtown), 1 block from Sony Store
One of the few truly Japanese places I hit up regularly. Sure, there is sushi but it is so common here it's hard to get excited about it. There are other Japanese places, but few I have frequented more then once. The food is great, course after course of tempura'd fish, shellfish, vegetables, plus some sashimi, salad, etc... They then finish it off with Tempura Fried Ice Cream. Nummy...


Well, that does it for this week. Dessert is sitting here, and yes, it's from Cafe Danmark... There's also cheesecake place that is probably going to put me off of New York's New York Style Cheesecake for life...

[CrayonShinChan]

Ok after this and my sister describing her meals in Japan i am sooooooo jealous and hungry. ¬_¬

[Zagatto]

Merry Christmas...

Christmas started in Japan shortly after I got back from the states. About the 5th of November, the season called "Happiness" by the marketing people ended. Christmas began.

At first, it was subtle. "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night" and the like were quietly Muzak'd into elevators. Some lights showed up along the streets. And then, suddenly, everything exploded.

The Muzak in the elevators is now so loud you can't think. The lights are so bright and numerous you're worried about slightly lost pilots mistaking Roppongi for Narita. And the displays have multiplied.

There are subtle ones. The "Roppongi Christmas Precious Gift" signs aren't bad. Okay, they tell you the important thing -- yes, the PRICE -- but they're small and ignorable. The flashing, singing, dancing shop displays behind plate glass windows aren't bad; you get the same thing all over the US. But the most annoying ones are these animatronic robotic things. In the states, you can buy a little christmas tree that will sing a silly song. Here, you can buy a whole forest, and they communicate wirelessly. Picture walking into a store and listening to an animatronic Santa Claus, Misses Clause, Rudolph and a tree singing and dancing in unison. Amazing, perhaps, but then you realize that it will NEVER STOP!

Of course, Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas as anything religious or the like. It's entirely an excuse to spend money. And unlike in the US where we seem to pretend that Christmas still has some underlying value there somewhere beneath the prezzies, here they don't bother. It's about the stuff, and let's face it, in a consumer economy, the stuff is what its all about...

So, that's the news here this week?

[Zagatto]

Zen.

Well, I went wandering through Kyoto last weekend. It's a nice place that can be described as thus: When you think of Japan, you think of Tokyo. But you picture Kyoto.

Tokyo is "modern" and "neon". Kyoto is old and traditional. Sure, the downtown is "modern" and "neon", but 10 minutes away you have ancient temples built in the 1400s that date back to the 700s. Most are Buddhist temples, all are impressive and those pictures you see of Japan have those buildings like them in it. When leafing through a guidebook, you see one or two pictures of the neon and 1000 of the old, traditional temples. In Tokyo, there are 1000 places to see Neon and 2 to see temples.
Kyoto is the other way around.

So? the temples. Most of them have a section where they show off Japanese artwork that was painted before the US was a country. Wall after wall of these paintings dating from the 1600s? 1500s...1400s... It's amazing. It's also in the "iconographic" style we never had in the west, educating subtly and calming in the Buddhist ways.

But you should note -- and this is something the guidebooks NEVER tell you -- you should wear heavy, wool socks. Especially in December. As you walk into most of the temple buildings, you must remove your shoes. Some have slippers, but you still get cold feet walking across the wooden floor that was probably last replaced 500 years ago...

After we finished with the temple, there is usually a massive Zen garden. Rocks and plants are placed just so; exactly raked gravel gives a sense of motion like water. Pools and lakes reflect the changing colour of the autumn leaves...and the Zen path is laid out in front of you to follow...

Usually with little red arrows that completely ruin the Zen-ness of the garden. There really is only one way to wander through a Japanese Zen garden. You follow the arrows, you see the sights, and you move on. The path to enlightenment is the quickest way through the garden so they can get more people through the temple at Y500 / person. Very rarely do they just let you wander; you follow the path... And you get to the end and pass through the gate and you've found exactly what you expected...

Which, from what I recall about the subject, is not Zen at all... It's about finding your own path. Seeing things differently and obtaining Enlightenment; not about following a set path... Well, maybe in Japan.

So...after this Zen, relaxing, educating day, we headed back to the train station. Where we followed the little red arrows, which get us lost in a shopping mall, running around madly trying to find the people who had our luggage so we could make our train. About the time we were just about ready to scream, we ended up at McDonalds on a cellphone asking the hotel "Where is the baggage place!" Honestly, the best cure for too much Zen is 5 minutes in any major train station!

So, after getting our bags, ironically, we end up back in line at McDonalds to grab a quick bite to eat. We got in line. We followed the red arrows and in the end, passed through the gate with exactly what we expected: A Big Mac, large fries, and a chocolate shake.