Japan Trip: Day 4

Gifu to Tokyo

After my routine morning photo editing session, I began packing for Tokyo - jamming the essentials into my pack sack. Then Mrs. Shimoda entered, inviting us to their kitchen for breakfast. We washed up, put our slippers on and went over for some fried eggs, ham, toast and coffee.

She was going to drive us to the station which was some distance away. We ensured all our tickets were in order - marking them with numbers and asterisks since we couldn't read anything but numbers on the tickets - and hopped into Mrs. Shimoda's miniature, sixty-horsepower Suzuki RW Wagon.

The ride to the station, as always on the narrow Japanese rural roads, was fun - just staring out the window wondering, if their two-lane traffic is as wide as a single lane in Canada, why haven't we seen an accident in Japan yet? Surely by now in Canada, especially with five millimeters of snow on the ground, there would be emergency lights and sirens, people who have careened their minivan into a ditch, groups of 4 cars all sandwiched together, standing outside and examining the damage, wondering what powers of the universe caused such chaos.


But not in Japan. As cars seem to pass within a few inches of each other it makes one think - if we didn't have so much space, maybe we would be more inclined to pay attention to what's going on around us. You wouldn't be able to weave in your lane if it was only an inch wider than your car. Weaving at that point would send you into another lane where you would surely get honked at, or in Toronto, shot at. Nevertheless, we got to the Gifu-Hashima station with time to spare, picked up some food and beverages for the trip, and waited for our train.


Standing on the platform while the bullet trains pass is quite the exciting experience. I took a video of a train flying by, but somehow it just doesn't have the same effect. First of all, since the trains were made in a country that chooses to lead the way instead of following the leader - and by following I mean the way that a very fat person tries to follow an olympic triathlete - the trains are electric, and don't have a coal burning furnace from the days of the Model-T Ford. Because of this, and their aerodynamic shape which itself bends space and time, you don't hear them coming until they're ten metres away - too late to jump out of the way had you reconsidered your suicidal wishes, and much faster than anything in Canada.


With more reliable service, better selection of food, and much more room inside, it is quite a nice ride. And the amount of room is surprising since the average Japanese person is about half my size, yet somehow they feel it is worth having more cars with fewer seats in the interest of comfort, instead of jamming as many cattle as they can into their 18th century cars. Though I do believe that GO have put some new carpeting in their cars recently so maybe we're making some efforts there.


The Shinkansen line of bullet trains have various types that are each progressively faster than the other, beginning with the Hikari, Kodame and the fastest we were aware of which took us to Tokyo: the Nozomi. There is apparently another, faster train of which I'm unaware of the name.


We get to the busy city, and grab a cab outside Tokyo station after enjoying some ramen (noodles and soup) in the underground array of eateries. On our trip to the hotel it's obvious this is a busy place, with high end stores like Burberry, Tiffany's, Prada, and Giorgio Armani flooding the streets in the upscale Ginza district. The popular Matsuya Ginza department store takes up an entire city block, elegantly designed as a bright white Louis Vuitton suitcase complete with gold latch and edge accents, and porting the distinctive L-V pattern in multi-colours. Across the street lies the Tokyo Apple Store, Chanel and various other expensive retail stores.


In search for dinner, we cruised some small side streets for a while until coming to a great sushi restaurant my parents ate at last time - Tsukiji Sushiko. After much sake, sushi and watching some wealthy looking Japanese business men eat with their significantly younger ummm... secretaries, we eventually headed back home to sleep in the interest of a very early morning wake-up. The mission: a trip to Tsukiji Fish Market to literally get a taste of what fresh seafood really is.

Japan: Day 3

Gifu City

Waking up to the call of nature I walked briskly through the arctic-like cold - down the hallway to Yuya's bathroom. Since the Japanese winters are quite mild, barely any of the homes have any central heating, so they depend on electric stand-alone units to heat the areas they are using which are of course off during the night. The daytime temperatures are perfect in comparison - a pleasant 15-17 degrees.

The one saving grace during these late night bathroom visits though are the Japanese toilet seats - the coolest anywhere for sure. All have the standard base and tank, but most have an electronic toilet seat. As soon as you sit down you can hear and feel the seat begin to warm up. Then, after your business, you could just get up, flush and go, but if you want the bidet option the toilet seat will do that for you as well - with settings for men and women of course. The one in Yuya's parents' place even auto-flushes, and some others (in the X Wave hotel for example) begin to pour water into the bowl after you sit to mask the sound of any natural disasters.

I went back to bed, and eventually woke up to the sound of Yuya and my parents talking outside my guest room at the table. I quickly washed up and joined them at Yuya's parents' place for some breakfast. After scrambled eggs, mini sausages, toast and coffee, we had some kitchen table discussions including mini-English and Japanese lessons for all.

I had hoped we would visit a Ramen (noodle soup) restaurant in Japan, so Yuya took my parents and I to one that is quite popular in Gifu, where the Canadian paparazzi unleashed their cameras on the unsuspecting staff. We started with some very fresh gyoza - Chinese dumplings - before being served two types of Ramen, both quite spicy and made for hungry people. Yuya ordered everything, including gigantic beers for my Dad and I which I had serious trouble polishing off.

We then went to a popular nature park in Gifu and had a nice walk around, taking pictures of some Japanese Coy, monuments, more cars of course, and numerous flower arrangements that were part of a local competition. All of this was at the base of Gifu mountain and castle, near the children's playground I remember Yuya taking me to last time I was here - a large wooden obstacle course. We took a break at the tourism centre where cable-car rides to the top of the mountain are booked, and sat for some hot vending-machine coffee. Whenever they say hot though this means the can is like molten lava, but the coffee itself is just above warm. I am now deeply missing Starbucks.

Returning to the car, Yuya then whisked us through the narrow Japanese roads, his engine screaming in the background as he wove through the tight bends and hairpin turns, uphill to a fantastic look-out point where we got a great view of Gifu city. The drive back down the mountain was almost as exciting if it weren't for obtrusive reflectors on the centre line that were placed every two feet, and would seem to take out a tire if one were to stray over the line slightly - which isn't hard to do given the narrowness of these roads.

Once back on ground level, we hit a drug store - quite the experience in comparison to Shopper's Drug Mart - then eventually made it home around 6.30 pm or so. Rina also joined us for dinner - Yuya's mom made some great enoki mushroom soup and fried chicken.

After dinner we gave Yuya and Rina some wedding gifts - his parents gave me a very ornate Japanese gift card with some serious cash money inside. Maybe I should stay in Japan until I spend it all! They also showed us a very nice wedding book they made for themselves; thick pages like a nursery school book, and very professional wedding photos with Yuya wearing a very formal kimono, and Rina clad in 4 eccentric kimonos, from deep red, colourful and flowery varieties to an immaculate white. Obviously the Japanese women put more effort into this than the men! Or maybe Yuya's just lazy. Whichever.

We then fled to our rooms and settled in for the night, preparing for a trip back to Tokyo in the morning to get a taste of the big city.

Japan: Day 2

Tokyo to Gifu

The faint sound of a Japanese alarm clock combined with the delicate ring of the wake-up phone call brought me into the morning. It was 5:40 AM and time to have a nice shower, shave and repacking of clothes before scrambling for the bus... likely down the road again.

The night before I had realized that my ziplock bag of personal care items withstood the explosive blast of my body wash container, and everything inside had been covered in a clear, aromatic ooze. I washed everything out that night so I was in business this morning - all was dry and ready to go.

Of course the Kovach's were the last ones on the bus, but we weren't too late. The shuttle headed back to Narita airport where we received breakfast vouchers for ¥1,000 ($10) and went to grab some food at an airport coffee shop. My parents had an American-like breakfast, and I opted for a Japanese meal which was quite good. We then had to catch the Narita express train which would connect us at Tokyo station with the Shinkansen.

After a series of elevators, escalators and numerous underground paths it was obvious that my parents' dual rollie-bags were becoming a nuissance while navigating the Japanese underground - and all because of blind people. The Japanese have large, rubberized embossed dots indicating a change in elevation - whether it be stairs, elevators or an incline; and large lines which signify an exit. These are great for the blind, but not so great when my beloved parents are each carrying two rolling bags in addition to jackets and a violin, and the casters catch on these little nubs and cause serious baggage management issues.

Nevertheless, we arrive at Tokyo station, make our way through the terminals via another series of clean underground pathways until we arrive on the platform, and board the Shinkansen. As expected we leave on time, and the train flies toward Nagoya at a million kilometres per hour.

On arrival at Nagoya train station, Yuya's dad, Masami and his fiance, Rina were there to meet us. We drove toward Gifu - me with my camera out the window every five minutes to take shots of numerous passing cars that I didn't recognize, or buildings with loud advertising which usually involves the use of random English words for cool factor.

Just after parking in the Shimoda's driveway, we greeted Yuya and his mother - they pulled in right behind us, Yuya driving his brand new four-door Civic Type-R - and entered Yuya's late grandfather's house. Since his grandfather passed away, they had renovated the street-facing house, where Yuya and Rina will live after the wedding. Yuya's parents still occupy the connected house behind his grandfathers', and both homes rest at the dead end of a very narrow street just barely wide enough for two-directional traffic.

After some kitchen-table discussions, and giving us a tour of their renovations, my Dad got out his violin and had a rehearsal with Rina's friend (also Rina) who will accompany him with the piano. I sat glued to the computer and did some much needed emailing while the duo played on, and Rina selected which pieces she would wanted to hear during the reception.

When the rehearsal concluded, we were whisked off to the cars as our favourite big-sushi restaurant was going to fill up soon, and if we wanted a seat we best move out. Yuya's parents took off first to grab some seats while Yuya hung back to wait for the fat Canadians to get their act together. We then piled into the Type-R and the V-TEC kicked in quite a few times during our express trip to the restaurant, Senari. What a car.

The Shimodas treated us to quite a feast. The sushi chefs worked their magic, and placed gigantic pieces of sushi covering miniature pieces of rice - or in the case of the tamago (egg-omelette sushi) the rice was nori-strapped to the top of a huge slab of egg. We sat and drank a lot of sake, and consumed many rounds of fish, grilled whole shrimp, chowan mushi (egg and seafood soup) and fresh seaweed - all placed directly on the countertop. The most entertaining part of the evening involved watching two guys at the bar inhale packs of cigarettes while dipping flaming Fugu fish fins into a large cup of sake.

When the Canadians were full, we eventually headed back to Yuya's place and drifted off to sleep before 9pm.

Japan: Day 1

Toronto to Tokyo

[6.55pm EST]

So here we are - my parents and I waiting in the Air Canada Airbus A340 at Pearson International Airport for our take off to Japan. It must be a timely one as well, seeing as how the time between our landing in Tokyo, and our leaving for Nagoya is only an hour and a half.

We sit calmly as we hear that the navigation systems have become unexpectedly problematic. Not to worry, so assures our captain. "It's not unlike your computer at home. Sometimes you just need to reboot it to get things working."

Well that gives me a burst of confidence, let me tell you! The fact that this multi-millon dollar aircraft is similar to my error-prone Windows desktop at home that I got on sale for $1.95 provides all the comfort I need to know that hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL on our jumbo jet we will not only take off safely, but let us arrive alive with all of our limbs intact. I am now fairly certain that there is little chance of the GPS system conking out in mid-flight and directing us into the path of a large mountain face. In Kazakhstan.

Anyway, the power shuts off for about five minutes, then turns back on. About 10 minutes later our captain comes on the air again, indicating that - as expected - the reboot worked. Another problem has developed however in the engine! Super. "A valve in one of the engines is frozen shut - all it takes is to move it back and forth a few times, and we should be good to go. Sorry for the delay folks - we just have to wait for the ground crew to help us out."

So just a valve is it? Good thing the problem lies in one of the engines and not something important. Like the navigation system.

After another hour or so of waiting, we end up running into traffic. On the runway. No, we're not taxiing yet - we're apparently on the wrong side of the runway, and need to wait 20 minutes for the runway to clear so that we can cross it and make our way to the de-icing area. As we eventually cross the runway, and sit in a line up for about a week we are finally promoted to the status of "de-ice-able". This means that the airport services guys in the earmuffs outside run the expensive machinery which blasts alcohol and ethelyne glycol (anti-freeze) on the wings and fuselage of the plane, so that nothing gets frozen stuck during take off (or in mid-flight).

We end up leaving the runway 3 hours late. Needless to say we will not be meeting our connecting flight on time. This sounds like an episode of the Amazing Race already. How typically Canadian. At least we have a good selection of in-flight entertainment to maintain our sanity: Ocean's 13, Chicago - or "our classic movie" as the steward referred to it, or some Harry Potter flick. I'm glad I have my technology to keep me company.

Dinner provided us with an option of seafood tempura, or "the chicken". Though I chose the latter in the interest of nutritional value - assuming both options would have some Japanese flare to them - it was obvious from the man beside me that I picked the wrong one. After some time he likely assumed I was attempting to come onto him by the number of times I looked over and drooled. Oh well. The sake was a great hit though, so if anything is calming my nerves on this flight, it's the booze.

On to read another chapter of The Art of Intrusion, and we'll pick this up later on.

Over and out.

...

We arrive at Tokyo's Narita Airport, and the pilot announces that All Nippon Airlines (ANA) - along with Air Canada in the Star Alliance group of airlines - will have people available to help with rebooking various flights for those who were relatively stranded due to the Toronto weather delay. We all know it was an Air Canada stupidity delay more than anything else, but I'll leave that alone for now.

After disembarkation, ANA have setup a booth immediately outside the gangplank. You think our Canadian counterparts would have done that? I think not - it always seems like mass chaos at Pearson whenever there are flight delays and cancellations. The girls from ANA - even with their limited English skills - were great at assisting us. Unfortunately the flight we had missed that evening would not run again until tomorrow evening, so they indicated we could alternatively take the Shinkanzen - the Japanese bullet train - and that would be leaving around 10 AM the next morning.

A woman from Toronto who was likely going to miss her 8:30 am tour bus in Nagoya the next day was obviously upset since neither of the options would help her get there on time. Since there were some frustration and some language barrier issues, a really nice Japanese kid - who was also part of the flight delay mess - helped out the ANA girls with some more advanced English translation. I can't remember his name now for the life of me but he was a great help. Ultimately ANA would have a shuttle bus to take us to a hotel tonight, a boxed dinner, then a shuttle in the morning so we could connect with the inter-city train that would take us to the Shinkanzen.

Passport control was about a 20 minute wait in line, after which we had to have both index fingers printed and our picture taken - courtesy of an all-in-one job by NEC. After emerging from the security check, we grabbed our checked bags, went through a very brisk customs check, and headed for the ANA counter where we would receive our boxed dinners and await the shuttle bus. We ate our surprisingly good boxed dinner at the airport with him before the bus arrived to take us to the X Wave hotel.

The shuttle drove us approximately 60km away from the airport, and eventually turned down a typically-narrow Japanese road, stopped at the dead end, backed the behemoth up in a tight parking lot entrance and stopped outside what looked like a Thai rub-n-tug parlour. Are we seriously staying overnight in the Tokyo ghetto? Nobody said we were bound for the Marriot, but we weren't expecting the X Wave to be this dire. Then again, by Canadian standards even a Japanese dive is pretty nice in comparison to what ours would be.

As it turned out we weren't staying at the adjacent building. The hotel was actually back up the street, across the main road, at the end of the street. The bus couldn't have turned around there so of course the larger woman of the tourists on our bus complained that walking more than 30 feet was required. Let's go fattie - if you wanna sleep you better hop to it.

The hotel was adequate - definitely not catering to the luxury starved but nice for a change. We were each given our own individual rooms and settled in for the night after having some beer, Cup Noodle and tea from the ubiquitous vending machines - both inside the building and scattered around the street corners.

We watched some TV programs we couldn't understand until about 1:00 AM Japanese time, then settled in for the night since we had a bus to catch at 7:00 AM the next day.

North Americans are more stupid than everyone else

Is that even possible? I seem to shake my head in total disbelief at someone at least everyday, sometimes multiple times per day. I really do try some self-talk, forcing myself to just accept it and move on, but I just can't because it's too unbelievable.

From my morning drive in, to the people I deal with at work, the people that serve me in food joints and retail stores, I just can't believe how people that stupid can still be alive and haven't somehow gotten themselves killed due to their lack of awareness of things going on around them.

Driving for example. Clearly nobody understands basic traffic flow or the causes and effects of certain situations, never mind the basic art of piloting a vehicle, which almost everyone in this country would refer to as "like, super easy!" despite teenagers complaining that driving exams passable by someone in the geriatric ward of a hospital are difficult. Have you been to Europe? And women, I'm very sorry to say but you are the absolute worst at it, that's no secret. I shake my head at you the most, but the look of total confusion on your face when I pass you on the highway is often worth chuckling over so I'll leave that alone for now to rant about another time.

So back to this stupidity thing. We have warning signs on products you couldn't imagine would be necessary (but obviously someone did something stupid enough to warrant the cautionary graphics) and criminals that seem to rake in boat loads of money in compensation for injuring themselves during some robbery or whatever. The whole world makes fun of us - well, Americans take the brunt of it but don't you worry, we're just a few steps behind as usual! A lot of it does stem from the setting of some precedent in the court system but due to my lack of legal know-how I'll leave that one to the experts.

I say Darwin's approach is the best - just take the warning labels off all the products and let the problem solve itself. Gave your child a swiss army knife and they stabbed themselves? Oh well. You put your car into cruise control and it didn't steer itself away from the guardrail? Sorry for your loss. The $30 camera phone you purchased takes bad pictures at weddings? You should have known.

The most recent issue with the Ontario Police force was their brilliant seatbelt blitz during the month of April. Really? Is this something new? If someone hasn't realized in the last 30 years that perhaps wearing a seatbelt is a better idea than not then you should be left to figure it out by yourself regardless of the injury you cause to yourself.

North Americans are just the absolute worst at attempting to devise the most ridiculous blanket solutions to social problems.

People shooting themselves? Ban guns! Drunk people driving at night? Cap alcohol sales at 2am. Don't want your child to watch brutal violence and sex on television? Write to the network and have them cancel the show - it's that easy! No actual parenting required! Actually, if enough of you do it you can get them to censor out all the swearing. Even words like "penis" will be censored out because clearly that is offensive language. How could someone say that on television! Penis. Oh they should be ashamed!

Who am I kidding, it's been like that for at least a decade now. To the point of watching a movie on Fox or some other horrible network late at night that is the same version they had to air at 8pm or whatever the cutoff is, so all the language has been censored out, and not with silence or the ever-amusing <beep> but with someone else's voice who very rarely resembles the actor's in the most remote way. Are we seriously paying for this?

Violence on television. With all of these stay-at-home people who obviously have very little to do with their minds complaining that cartoons from the 80's or whenever have over fifty thousand incidents of violence in each episode. And this violence is causing our children to bring guns to school, and rape women and steal millions of dollars from old ladies. Who's buying into this?

We are so determined to deny responsibility for everything so much so that we'll actually shift the blame to other people or corporations, the latter being the most popular. Drop a can of soup on your toe at the supermarket? Sue the company and you'll probably win millions. And we all know about that woman in the USA spilling hot coffee on her loins. Whether she actually agreed with suing the company is irrelevant.

Unfortunately attitudes will never change and it's only until bad things happen that we eventually wake from our slumber and think differently. We will continue as we have been, and I can only hope at some point beyond which we cannot do anything to counter the momentum of stupidity, other countries will pass by us laughing all the way. Maybe at that point we might take them seriously and realize we're not the best at... anything.

Disservice with a smile

If one specializes in something you expect them to do a pretty bang-up job of it. The burger place must have a superb array of quality hamburgers, and the pizza joint... well, they know pizza. It's the whole reason they're still in business, and this is especially true for franchises where a good majority of people appreciate their specialty product so much they've built an empire around it.

And though it makes the most sense when the specialty product is in the title such as Kentucky Fried Chicken - or as their marketers would rather you call it, KFC - numerous popular chains are just known for something good.

In Swiss Chalet's case it's their rotisserie chicken. And when combined with french fries and their unique love-it-or-hate-it barbecue sauce (or "used dish water" as my Dad calls it) it makes you smile with contentment. Their latest campaign is chicken marinated in a spicy sauce, served with spicy, battered fries and a house salad. You would think the staff would be trained to up-sell and perfect this thing like crazy and see whether the customer demand leaps or plunges.

During my most recent visit a few days ago, many of us ordered that special with some adjustments to the sides and some opting to pay an extra 99 cents to have the white meat breast as opposed to the standard leg. Well, as dishes began to arrive at our table it seemed we had all made the right choice. Wow that chicken looked good; juicy, tender, fall-off-the-bone good. Then I got my plate.

My first thought was that, perhaps due to some kind of error in The System I ended up with a kids meal.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The System - whether in hospitality or retail industries - all problems related to the original order are caused by something of a technological nature: computer upgrades, bar-code scanners, etc. otherwise known as The System. An alternate scapegoat is other staff members.

Well, maybe not quite a kids meal, but a portion of chicken the size of an infant's hand slapped on a huge plate beside 30 pounds of french fries somehow just doesn't look right.

I then began to analyze the situation: what would make someone not take a second glance at this and say - "Hey, wait a minute. Something here doesn't look right here because A) this will be served to an adult; and B) this is our feature dish that we are encouraged to promote. Let's put this little chicken back and grab this gentleman a piece more suitable for his age group."

But no that didn't happen, nor was any action taken by the person who brought it to our table because, well... that's likely not in her job description. All she has to do is go to kitchen, pick up food, deliver to customer. Rinse and repeat.

Thankfully our primary server was good enough and took the baby chick away, and replaced it with a man-size portion, no questions asked. What a great guy.

So you folks in the hospitality industry, or really anywhere a little common sense and input from you might benefit the customer and your company as a whole, just... give a shit. Just a little bit. Especially when your primary income depends on tips.

A much belated thank-you

So a while ago I wrote about how the makers of Axe products would give you a ton of cash to pimp out your bathroom if you could prove it was really disgusting.

Well what do you imagine happened? Yep they ignored me.

Did they? Maybe for a few days, but I received an email from the Axe marketing squad thanking me for the kind mention (which of course further publicizes their campaign) and that someone would soon be in touch. Yeah ok I said.

A week or so later I received another email, saying they would send me a token of their appreciation, but they first need my address. This is getting a touch more serious, and I still highly doubt anything will happen but what's the harm?

After another week I received a care package at my door from none other than Axe - inside were numerous sticks, sprays, body washes and matchbooks... more than I could ever use for years!

I ended up spreading the word and donating a few to other guys who also liked Axe stuff, but I still have a drawer full here that comes in handy for that all-too-important rotation of fragrance.

Thank you, Axe! And my apologies for the severe delay in my reply.

Back in action

So it's been almost a year since my last post... and though I'd really like to blame it on being insanely busy I cannot.

I am no longer in school so there is no need to procrastinate, but since there has been a few requests to keep up with my ranting and informative posts about various tech gadgets I thought I'd come around again.

What I have been wondering is who really reads this stuff? Who goes out and traverses the thousands of Blogger pages, ultimately ending up at mine, and pauses for a read?

Who knows, perhaps its entrapment under the Google umbrella makes it more advertised than one would expect, but regardless - I am back in action.


Upcoming:
- A much belated thank you
- Women drivers. Yes... you.