Japan

We recently returned from Japan. We spent two days in Kyoto, one day at a Buddhist Temple on Mt. Koya (a.k.a. Koyasan), and two days in Tokyo with our cousin Jonathan, who lives and works in Tokyo with his wife and daughter. Overall, it was a great trip.

Visiting from China inevitably caused us to draw a series of comparisons between the two nations. After seven months in Beijing, it was hard not to notice the complete absence of spitting, pushing, trash on the street, yelling, gated apartment complexes, or Soviet-style city planning. Instead, there was bowing, excessive politeness, quiet, foliage, Pocky, less people, odd-looking electronics, uncensored newspapers, incredible trains, extremely cute-looking little automobiles, lots of faux redheads, obsessive fashion consciousness, men wearing mascara and modern suits, and pedestrians with the right of way. Japanese dog owners will place pads on the ground if their pets need to use the facilities, or even carry water bottles to wash away the waste if they don't have the pads, while Chinese parents will have their children defecate in the entryway of the Beijing aquarium. (These Chinese parents may be the minority, but they are tolerated by the majority.)

So while China sits only 1,000 or so miles away from Japan, it seems like China's only influences involve the written language, growing fears of economic competition, and a certain amount of pollution. And much of that pollution is an unwanted import from China that simply comes in across the Pacific.

Kyoto and Koyasan

I can't really point to a single highlight of the trip, as it was all fantastic. We had a funny little experience checking in at our hotel in Kyoto, when the staff became confused after I did not sign a credit card receipt "SEE ID," which appears on the rear of my American-issued Visa. After several back and forth exchanges, the hotel employee agreed that may name was not "SEE ID" and accepted my regular signature. In terms of location, the hotel was a fantastic base for visiting Kyoto and a few of its 1000 temples.

In lieu of purchasing a guidebook to get around Kyoto, Katie got the co-author of Lonely Planet: Japan to take us around. Chris Rowthorn lives in Kyoto, writes for the Tokyo Times, and runs an inexpensive guide service that any visitor to Kyoto should try out. He kept us away from the Golden Week crowds in Kyoto by taking us to some out-of-the-way sights, shared all kinds of interesting tidbits about Kyoto and Japanese culture in general, was kind enough to map out a couple of walks for us to take on our own, and even dropped us off at a wonderful little sushi place for lunch when we finished up our walk. After the tour was over, he even gave us some tips on where we should go for our next international trip, but we're going to keep that information to ourselves.

While we didn't manage to see Kyoto's famous fishing cormorants, we did see pretty much everything else we planned to in Kyoto. We also tried out green tea McFlurries, visited a great Japanese restaurant run by a bunch of battle-axe mama-sans, ate some fantastic sushi, discovered okonomiyaki, and saw a few genuine geisha.

Koyasan was our next destination after Kyoto. It was somewhat complex to get there, in that we had to take multiple trains and a funicular up to the top of the mountain, but it paid off in the end. Koyasan is the home of Japan's Shingon sect of Esoteric Buddhism, and seems to specialize in both monumental tourism and Buddhist pilgrimages.

The thing to do in Koyasan is spend a night in one of the monasteries on the mountain: you stay in traditional Japanese living quarters, bathe in a communal setting, eat unidentifiable vegetarian food, attend prayers with the monks in the morning, walk through Koyasan's world heritage graveyard and other temples, and marvel at the beauty of Mt. Koya.

And then you start to figure out that the monks are part of the old monied class when you notice that they are picking fallen leaves off of their BMWs, which take up the prime spaces in the monastery parking lot. And did you know that monks can smoke? It was news to us as well.

Tokyo

After Koya, it was back down the mountain and on to stay with family in Tokyo. Jonathan and Eiko live in an expat-friendly section of town with their daughter Emi, who is an absolutely adorable bundle of joy. Eiko's mom was staying with them as well, so we got to spend some quality time with the whole family, albeit with a few language barriers. As usual, our cousin was a complete mensch, picking us up from the train station, letting us crash at his apartment, taking us around Tokyo, and even taking us out to the airport. Best of all, however, was Emi and her adorable hugs and smiles.

Jon showed us the side of Japan that many people think about, which seems to revolve around modern subcultures and consumerisum. We visited the Akihabara neighborhood of Tokyo, home of the Otaku subculture. Otaku evidently involves a bunch of very nerdy people hanging out in a district filled with electronics stores, anime/comic book shops, and video arcades.

The otaku guys either dress up in flannel shirts and carry backpacks around everywhere, or they dress like their favorite anime characters. You will often see them hanging out outside of the electronics stores doing highly choreographed dances in front of somewhat tone-deaf women singing songs next to the train station in Akihabara.

To cater to the otaku set, a series of "maid cafes" have sprung up around Akihabara. These cafes are staffed by pretty 20-something women dressed in suggestive French maid outfits. When you enter the cafe, the women will greet you by saying things like "welcome home, master!" and generally acting in a very submissive fashion. The outfits seem to work, however, in that the maid cafes are packed with otaku guys. And super weird.

But it's nice to see that folks can express themselves. Before we came to Japan, we expected to find a repressed culture in which intimacy was rarely talked about and women not objectified. Our visit to Japan soon disabused us of this notion: evidently pre-Meiji public baths were co-ed and public nudity only became taboo after Western mores started to influence Japanese culture.

As in the West, however, law really plays a strong role in influencing Japanese culture. So, for example, there was an article yesterday in the Tokyo Times about how an article in the Japanese Constitution prevents Japan from reconstituting its armed forces. As article 175 of the Japanese criminal code prevents the photographic depiction of certain acts, an entire genre of cartoons emerged in Japan to skirt certain censorship laws. Even law-making itself bears a prominent role, in that becoming a successful politician in Japan confers a certain amount of status.

Indeed, a lot about Japan seemed to be tied to status. Tokyo's Omotedando shopping district was filled with high-end retails stores, packed with shoppers on a Sunday afternoon, and punctuated by passing Bentleys and Ferraris. The more successful the individual, the more features you might find on their Toto electronic toilet seat. Because the peasants could not have surnames until after feudalism ended in the 1800s, certain surnames stand out as almost monarchic in nature. Granted, New York likewise seems obsessed with class and pedigree, but in Tokyo it seemed to be more prominent.

Be that as it may, we really loved spending time in Japan, seeing the sites and visiting with family. And we're looking forward to going back, if we ever get the opportunity to do so.