adam.oliner.net

Japan was beautiful, charming, and occasionally surreal. I was propositioned for sex in Tokyo, drank water from a spring at a temple overlooking Kyoto, and practiced my talk in a hotel room in Yokohama that overlooked the world’s largest ferris wheel. These are some of the moments by which I will remember the trip. What follows is a whirlwind summary.

Day 0-1

After landing in Narita, I took a bus to Tokyo, where I was picked up by the Iwase family. The Iwases have known my family since I was a baby, and they were kind enough to host me for part of my time in Tokyo. I’ve already thanked them profusely for everything they did for me, but if they happen to read this: thanks! I spent the night in their home and set out alone the next morning, headed for Tokyo. This was my first time out of the United States (I actually had to get a passport just for this trip), unless you count a brief journey into Canada, which no one seems to. Having never seen anything outside of America, many of the small differences struck me potently. Consider driving-related issues: they drive on the left, which freaked the crap out of me the first time I was in a car, luckily as a passenger. Many cars have the side-view mirrors on the hood, which may partially account for what I perceived to be an uncanny ability of the Japanese to back-in park with unparalleled speed and accuracy. Many roads are absurdly narrow, with two-way streets having a width of 1.5 cars; courtesy is required to avoid death. The signs are friendlier: instead of a child crossing sign just having a smaller-looking adult figure, the little girl has a bow in her hair and is carrying a lunch box. The racoon crossing sign shows an animal with huge anime-style eyes. Oh, and everything is in Japanese.

I took the subway to Shinjuku, which is roughly divided into a commercial and an entertainment district. The commercial part has some department stores and office buildings, and the entertainment district has restaurants, arcades, theaters, and a red light district full of Yakuza. I accidentally meandered into the red light district, and was approached by a shifty-eyed gentleman. “Massage?” he asked me. “No, thanks,” I said politely. Then, as though perhaps I might naively think he was suggesting something purely orthopedic, he added, “Massage and sex, japanese?” I declined and thanked him again. I was going to make a joke to him about not paying for sex before 2 PM, but it would have been wasted. I walked through a section of Shinjuku that inspired the cityscape in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. I snagged some strange tea from one of the ubiquitous vending machines and hopped back on the subway to Akihabara. Akihabara is a bit of nerd heaven, with an electronics district filled with hundreds of tiny shops selling the most obscure electronic goods you can imagine. Need a purple 2 picofarad capacitor with copper connectors and, whatever, a Hello Kitty design? Akihabara.

Day 2

I visited Kamakura, which is an old-style city outside of Tokyo. Among the sights was a giant bronze Buddha. You could actually walk inside the Buddha, which I of course did, never being one to pass up a chance to get inside a deity. Despite being the rainy season in Tokyo, the weather held out for the first 4 days of my trip. Instead of being rainy, it was mid-80s and humid. I recommend not going inside a giant metal deity on such a day; analogies to an oven would not be hyperbole. That night, I ate dinner with the Iwases and one of the father’s IBM coworkers, Kato-san. We had some delicious Japanese BBQ. Oishii!

Day 3

We drove to Yokohama and parked at the Grand Intercontinental, where I would be staying for the conference. I then hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and went to Kyoto. For the record, the bullet train goes fast, to the point where I felt almost dizzy watching the countryside fly by at 175 mph. Frequently, we’d slip into a tunnel, emerge for a moment to reveal a small valley in which a village was nestled, only to zoom back into darkness a moment later. In Kyoto, I went to a Buddhist shrine with hundreds of beautiful statues, in front of which were 12 sculptures of Buddhist gods. There, I met Jasmin, a model from Germany, who was doing some shoots in Tokyo and visiting Kyoto alone. Of course, I invited her to join me for the rest of the day.

Next, we went to Kinkakuchi, the Golden Temple. This was a gold-leafed temple sitting at the edge of a gorgeous lake. Then we went to Kiyumizu (”pure water”), which is a series of temples atop a hill overlooking Kyoto. The path up to Kiyumizu was lined with small shops, which Jasmin and I browsed for gifts. The temples themselves were brightly colored and imposing. We took drinks from the fountains that gave Kiyumizu its name. Jasmin told me about a commercial she had shot while in Japan, in which these women are swinging pick axes in a gold mine and, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, they strike Canada Dry ginger ale. After saying goodbye to Jasmin, I wandered parts of downtown Kyoto. Then I checked into a hotel for the night. I flipped on the TV, because trying to figure out what’s happening without understanding the language is a real kick. Suddenly, there was Jasmin, toiling in the mines, searching for a vein of soda.

Day 4

More Kyoto. We checked out Roanji rock garden, which was truly peaceful. I sat down by the edge and just spaced out for a bit, still not entirely sure that all that I had seen in this country was real. I liked one particular carving that read “I learn only to be contented.” We also checked out a huge fort. The front gate was guarded by two huge statues, one of which had its mouth open and a hand up and beckoning. The other had its mouth closed and hand held up in a gesture to stop. One is meant to keep evil out and other is to let good in. We took the Shinkansen back to Yokohama, where I said gooodbye to the Iwases and checked into my hotel for the conference. My room on the 22nd floor overlooked an amusement park with the world’s largest ferris wheel, as well as Landmark Tower, which is the largest building in Japan. At night, the wheel displayed a beautiful cycling light show.

Day 5-6

The convention center and area around the hotel seemed to be very active in terms of the film and television industry. One evening I saw a bunch of people spreading cotton over some bushes, and spraying them and the ground with water. This was meant to simulate melting snow for a movie scene that was being filmed. I tried to take pictures of the set, but was largely foiled by a woman who knew just enough English to instruct me that I had better put away my camera. It wasn’t a thrilling scene, anyway, just some hotel bellmen yelling at each other in Japanese. The next few days, however, they were filming an episode of Power Rangers in a space next to the hotel. From what I could tell at a distance, the Rangers were fighting a monster of some kind. They got blown up a few times, but I think they won in the end. In between takes, crew members would gather around the monster with little paper fans; he would remove the head of his costume and allow them to wag the fans at him for a few moments before the next scene.

My talk, which I gave on the first full day of DSN, went well. I got the same comment I got last time, which was that I kept my audience awake. Granted, this is the same praise I could have achieved by standing on stage and lighting stuff on fire, but I take what I can get. In my slides, I included an anecdote involving a character who I described as “your average blonde-haired, blue-eyed, computational astrophysicist.”

Day 7-9

I was disappointed to discover that the hotel gym was not free. In fact, it was 3800 yen (~$38) per use. So, instead, I asked the front desk whether there were any running paths I could use to get some exercise. They gave me a little card indicating 3 km and 1 km running paths. These proved to be really beautiful, taking me past Yokohama harbor, the giant ferris wheel, an old ship, and Landmark Tower. The conference included an excursion, which took us to a Japanese garden, to a theater to see a Noh play, and on a dinner cruise in the harbor. The Noh play was not what I expected, but interesting. Apparently, the words in the songs of the play are deep and multifaceted, much like Shakespeare; unfortunately, the translator barely spoke English, so these subtleties were lost on me. The conference ended uneventfully. I took a bus back to Narita and hopped a plane home. As soon as I got into Boston, I packed up my things again and drove up to Vermont, but that’s another story for another day…

You can now check out my Japan pictures in all their imported glory. I left out several stories, so if you’d like to hear more just ask me about the trip sometime. It was really a spectacular voyage in a wonderful country. Domo arigato gozaimasu! Sayonara!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.