2 posts tagged “shrine”
Ah, back at home once more from a long weekend trip to Okayama Prefecture, west of Kobe and Osaka.
I headed down by shinkansen for a 3ish hour ride to Okayama city where I was picked up by some friends that live in Osaka. Off we drove into the hills and ended up at a wonderful villa and ryokan with an onsen spa.
We were racing against time trying to beat the literal oncoming storm, as Japan was hit with the "biggest typhoon on record (since 1951 when they started)" starting with Okinawa on Friday afternoon. The worst of it seemed to pass us by, and the central part of the storm itself, judging from the satellite maps, just grazed the Pacific edge of the Nippon island chain. This, combined with the mountain shelter left us with a rather unimpressed view of the whole thing. It certainly rained heavily and for a long time, but the super strong winds seemed to miss us completely. And while the river the villa was close to certainly did swell, it didn't overflow and there was no flooding in our area at all.
Sunday we trekked closer to Okayama city and rented some bikes and took a little bike tour through a set bike path weaving in between rice paddies and temples to reach a spectacular wooden pagoda overlooking the fields. In my incredible wisdom I failed to pack sunscreen or even sun glasses not expecting there to be perfectly blue skies following the typhoon's passing. So, I have a very nice red glow; sunburn on my arms and face. Thankfully not too painful, lets hope it stays that way.
I was going to take a whirl-wind tour of the garden and castle in Okayama city today before returning, but the beautiful weather from Sunday didn't last and it was alternating between pouring and spitting. So after taking the bumpy, 45 minute train from Takebe to the shinkansen station, I wandered around to see if I could find a coin locker that wasn't already full. Alas, to no avail. At that point I figured that with the sunburn being irritating, lugging around a suitcase and the rain, maybe I should just hop on the next shinkansen back to Tokyo. So I did.
After being back a couple of hours, just heading out to the store to grab something to have for breakfast tomorrow, I run into one of my flat-mates gathering everyone to head just up the street to the Yutenji temple and shrine as there's a festival going on today.
Flocks of young girls in kimono (for what reason, I don't know yet ... wikipedia or google might help me out here ...) giggling and carrying on, circulating through masses of other people enjoying lots of festival food like tako-yaki, okonomiyaki, yakitori, and wow, so much junk food and booze! It was quite a sight. in the centre of it all a stage with dancers and drumers with more dancers dancing in literal circles around it all. So much excitement, running children high on candy floss and bonking each other with inflatable hammers. So many smiles, so much laughter and just joy at being alive and there at that moment.
Ah, Electric Town. Denki Gai. The mekka of all things nerdy. Also, simultaneously the most bizzare and familiar place I've been here, yet. The story is that it's the cheapest place with the broadest selection for consumer electronics and computers anywhere in Japan. I'm not sure I can compare, but it sure is vast.
I was looking to buy an electronic dictionary today, so I made my way to the other side of the city to Akihabara. I knew what exactly what I was looking for, I just wanted to find a decent deal. I wasn't disappointed. I actually had found the particular model I wanted at a shop in Shibuya a few days ago, but wanted to make sure I was getting a good price. I'm glad I did. I saved more than ¥2,000 in the process. I'm also glad I waited to buy one here instead of ordering one over the internet before. The cheapest I found before was US$265 without shipping.
That out of the way, I wandered around looking at, well, anything and everything. I took walk around the semi-famous Sofbank computer shop. I found where all the Wii remotes are. Here, in Tokyo. They had so many; about $45 each. Wii's too. Lots and lots. USA and Canada have shortages, Japan has surplus. Crazy world.
I saw many girls handing out flyers dressed in maid outfits, too many to even start photographing, advertising for the maid cafés in the area. There's a lot of manga and anime DVD and bookshops, it's no surprise. If I get curious enough, maybe I'll check one of these (rather) creepy places out. Maybe they're not as weird as they sound, but I'm hesitant.
In all the hustle and bustle, I found a shrine. At least I think it was. I couldn't quite tell, since it was closed, if it was a shrine or a really tiny temple, but it had a cute garden. I think it was little foxes ...
It was a small and quiet respite from the swaths of people and the loud speakers just a street over. In fact, it was so calm it was actually kind of shocking.
After this, I decided to find a bite to eat. I had planned to find a place called Mos Burger, which is a highly regarded japanese burger chain, but couldn't find one. Well, that's not true. I found one. I found it after I had sat down and ordered lunch at ramen shop. It was literally across the street! Great on me. Oh-well. There's a Mos Burger close to home here, so maybe another day.
Following the best noodles I've had (the pho shops in Toronto have nothing on this place), with restored energy I hit the narrow streets again. This time I wanted to seek out as many arcades as I could until I got either bored of seeing them or too tired. The former got to me. They all had the same (weird) games with the same (chain smoking) crowds of people.
In one of the Sega ones, I found a distinctly different type of arcade game that I'd never seen. There were these odd grouped games, multiplayer I think, that used what appeared to be collectible game cards (like Magic, The Gathering) in a tactical manner.
There's a game field, the cards are put on there, and other controls, too. It was confusing, but rather amazing, too. They must have been connected in some way, as there was a big "board" screen that displayed the action on a macro level, too.
These games took up entire floors of the arcades. This one here was some world war game involving mecha and another floor had a soccer game.
Having found my way to the top of an establishment, I'd either find the elevator or stairs and wander out. All of them had escalators. None of them had escalators that went down. The ground floors of all of them had the "saucer game" rigs where you try to win a prize by moving a crane. So many strange and fun prizes, so little luck on my part. I didn't even attempt. Maybe when I get a keitai I'll see if I can win myself a cellphone strap ... Until then, I'll marvel at the cuteness of the stuff in these.
