Sunday October 11 Tokyo, Kamakura and Kita Kamakura

Sunday October 11

Tokyo, Kamakura and Kita Kamakura

25 Sunny day

At 5:45 I was awake, really awake. I opened the curtains a little to peek into the early dark Sunday morning. Wrong, it was not dark! In fact the sun was about to make its way on the horizon. What better timing than this, to try and catch the early sunlight on mount Fuji from Tokyo 12th floor. I silently grabbed my gear, as Sheila was still asleep and took some trial shots. Than in the corner of my eyes I thought I saw someone walking on the 14th floor of the other building next to our hotel. Nah, its 5:45 I probably are not awake and see ghosts. Than on the 13th floor... again, but this time I saw it clearly. A old man with a big backpack on his neck. And after a few minutes, when he touched the basement I guess, he came back up! It must be his Sunday ZEN moment or exercising to climb Mount Fuji some day. With his 4th return trip I got to know the timing and started to aim the camera on him. Everybody his own hobby isn't ;-) I got him a few times, and than he saw me, I nodded my head. He continued without loosing speed. Interesting experience at 6am on Sunday on the other side of the World to me. The sun started to shed some beams on the buildings and somewhat later also on the majestic mountain. Happy with the early birds result I got back in bed again, to let the alarm wake me for the second time that day.

At 8am the sun was shining from a blue sky. At the Shinjuku Station we had to ask a couple of times where to transfer our vouchers in real passes for the train. The service at the JR information center was excellent, efficient and friendly again, or the better wording might be now, it was Japanese style.

With the fresh passes we went on board (after lining up smoothly with the rest of the travelers) to Kamakura. A city at the sea with many temples and ancient buildings(about 65 of them). And the best and famous attraction, the 13,5 meters high Great Buddha, Well and GREAT this Buddha is. Wow.

We pick-nick near the Great Buddha, as we bought some nice ready made sandwiches at the station. Delicious. We continue our journey and on the way we buy some soft ice cream with caramel flavor, cool. We pay a fee and enjoy the Hase-Dera-Tempels, statues and eagles flying over the crowd. The sight of the sea, well the Great Ocean is nice too. We walk back, but as we had walked and climbed(stairs) for some hours already we thought of taking the bus back to the station Kamakura. An other lesson in Japanese ways to travel. You get in the bus (enter via the backdoor) and take a ticket. This ticket has a number. On the display of the bus, you see the prices for the numbers, if you would get off the next stop. So if you continue your travel, you see the price climb up. (We already knew to the station it would be/stay 190 Yen). When you leave the bus, you put your ticket in a machine and put cash next to it. If you have not the exact number, an other machine provides you coins / exchange for bigger billets you might have have. In our case, the 1000 Yen was taken by the bus-driver, and he did all of the machine tricks and gave back the exact exchange. Friendly guy.

Next we visit Kita Kura, 1 stop further in this town. By food to far, so we go by train (passes are valid anyway). Here we find also a nice Main Gate(San-mon), Worship Temple(Butsu-den), Hojo, ZaZen buildings and much more. The sun is moving away (its around 17:00) and we go back to the train.

As we now get up at a very little train station, information is rare and not always translated in English. We jump on the train and get out on the next (bigger) station, as all these trains on this track do the first 5 stations, but than can split up in 5 other tracks, we want to make sure we get on the right track(literally). On this bigger station an information desk is available and a friendly guy helps us. He does not speak English, but my pronunciation of the destination is good enough for him to understand our question. (Questions we had, what train, what platform and what time does it depart... tough guy if you would be able to ask that in Japanese ;-)... and... understand the answers). The guy answered with 5 fingers, indicating platform 5 the train would leave from and typed on a digital calculator (sheila thought he was typing the price of a ticket, which we did not need as we had passes... I said, let him finish) and on the display stood 18,16... brilliant. 18:16 was the time of departure. The very full train takes us back to Shinjuku where do not feel hungry but do want some vitamins (both are still having flu symptoms). The only restaurant with something like a salad is an Italian one. We order pasta, Japanese style pasta in soup and the fresh salad. Rather good stuff. We buy some interesting flavored donuts for desert later tonight or for small breakfast in the morning and head home, as we call the Hotel already.

My mom and dad are online and we manage to get Skype with webcam started and talk about the trip. I update the blog and go to bed.

Greetings, Marcel

Saturday October 10 Tokyo, Senso-ji

Saturday October 10

Tokyo, Senso-ji

Sunny and partly clouded 23 C

We woke up early in the morning again, approximately at 3 o'clock, mostly due to the flu / coughing. We catch some more sleep, take a shower, that are very nice in this hotel by the way and head to the Shinjuku Station to buy some brunch (croissants, orange juice and raisin bread). We take the subway to Asakusa, where the famous temples are from Senso-ji. Interesting enough we bought some subway tickets for this trip and walk to the best line, so we do not have to take an other subway in between. Entering the gates we get red lights! When asking someone what happened to our newly bought tickets, the answer is simple but for us a complete surprise... Its from “the other subway company, these tickets will not work here”. So there is more than 1 subway company on the same destination and in the same city. So we head off to the “other company subway line” and with an other transfer we arrive safe and sound at Asakusa. A lively place so it seems. Many people and guys with hand cars so a couple could sit and get a tour. The shopping area is just around the corner, just like the main entrance, the Kaminarimon-gate to be precise. The street, Nakamise-dori, with all traditional goods is fun. The Nade Botokesan Buddha is touched on places (head, knee, hart etc) and than people touch the same part on their own body, as they believe it will give health and luck. The large temple is all wrapped as they are renovating it. Inside is open, and here we see many people throwing in money in a big box and make a prayer-like moment and bow to the statue inside. Outside I notice some interesting activities, I assume a wedding and run towards a spot where I might “catch”them for some photos. I was right, the men towing a car with the bride and groom all in traditional Japanese costumes is passing by. Wow, this is so cool. I end up almost 3 meters from the happy couple. When they enter the building, right next to the temple, the family has to wait a little before also allowed to enter. I see many well dressed family, like a beautiful lady in a kimono. I, but now also some other people who got to know this special occasion takes place, make pictures. The lady sees me and smiles shy, but than the dad comes in. I bow, as I do not want to offend them with taking pictures, but its even better. The dad is so proud on his daughter, he urges her to step forward and pose for a moment, for a good picture. I do take the opportunity and start shooting. Excellent! The pictures are great and I decide to ask for an email and provide mine so I can “give back” the pictures to them too. English is again a struggle, but with some paper and a pen they understand my intention and the whole family thanks me for the gesture. We end up thanking each other and letting them party further.

We cross the garden, little water streams with fish and temples. The Pagode with 5 floors of roof is impressive and beautiful in the sun. Passing a group of students who will perform at 15:00 a play gets us interested to wait and watch this appearance too. Too bad we can not understand the Japanese play / poems, but the costumes and make up is typical Japanese and interesting to watch.

After the play we go back to the subway and head to Uenopark. A parc build in the 17th century. Big and with large ponds where people go with little rental boats. Also some temples and a Pagode was build here. Interesting enough we see a guy dressed as a girl, with 60 girls around him. All go one by one to him, give their cellphone to a helper, stand next to him and let them make a photo on their cellphone. All laugh and giggle and seem to have the best moment of their lives. Maybe its a famous comedian, a real stud or something else I... I really do not get it. The night sets in and we go out the parc and into the shopping and eating area. Its very crowded and many (young) people are out. We are rather tired of the long day, and are not in the mood to just try our luck with the food. We do bump into a guy preparing and selling some kind of little pancakes, vegetables and an egg. Only 200 Yen and smells and looks good. This gamble we do take ;-) Without regret. It was very nice, hard to eat with only sticks, but even the Japanese had a hard time “cutting” the pancake with only some wooden sticks. We passed some more Japanese restaurants without English menu, nor with pictures and only seats on the floor. We bumped into an Argentine Restaurant and had a great dinner. Also different, smaller plates and hotter ingredients than we used to, but it was nice. Nice servants too, who tried to speak some English with us. We payed, “subwayed-back” and did some email and used skype to “phone and webcam home” before going to bed. Alarm was set for the next day, as we wanted to catch the 9:15 train.

Greetings, Marcel

Japan storm, we are OK

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/08/japan.storm/index.html

just to be sure for everybody, we had a bumpy flight, and no trains due to the storm. But no other harm was done. Apparently it hit more west/south, so Tokyo did not get into more troubles.

The days we had here were all partly sunny/cloudy and 24 C, so excellent weather to be honest.

Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com

Some pictures of the first day

Tokyo from the bus, our back-packs, plastic food in the windows you can order via a kind of gambling/fruit-machine and people leaving laptops and other stuff unattended while going to the toilet. Different world we came in, but we like it :-)

Friday October 9, Tokyo, Shinjuku, Japan

Friday October 9,

Tokyo, Shinjuku, Japan

23 Sunny

In the night we wake up at 02:00 am and try to get to sleep again. We do, and wake up near 9:30 and take a shower, have a “ontbijtkoek” and go to the twin observation floors of the Tokyo metropolitan government offices. The view over Tokyo is stunning and we stay there to watch from any angle and take pictures. We can see our hotel just across the parc and mount Fuji also to the west, all in the back of the large metropolitan.

We head to the shopping and eat are, and with all the workers hunting for food too we are not the only ones. We stop at the place we saw the first time when we exited the bus, a day ago. You watch the plastic food, remember the number that is near it and order at a cash machine the food. The ticket you bring inside the place where the cook has you plate ready. You sit at a wall next to others and start eating, apparently the more sound you make the better. We eat our noodles and in the same time next to us, some business man sits eats all his food, some other takes his place and does the same and when the third arrives we are stuffed and quit too. Amazing, they not only sounds fast when they eat, they are fast!

We head to our next experience, the subway of Tokyo. The busiest and largest in the world. We manage to get the tickets and jump on the correct subway heading to Tokyo Palace. Again we notice the efficiency of the Japanese. They line up on the station, the train stops at the exact spot so all doors are in sync with the lines on the ground of the station. People leave thought the right door, and we enter via the left door. Needless to say the train leaves exactly according schedule. The station names are in Japanese, but also in English and have numbers, so its easy to follow and know where to exit. Next to that, in the train there is a route of the train and the station it passes, arrows and lights show where the train moves and what the next station is. It good not be easier.

I notice in the train, everybody is polite, neatly dressed, uses almost always the phone to sms or internet and or have headsets. Never the music or phone is too loud. Never people fight for space or have arguments. All trains have comfortable pillowed seats, are clean, do not smell and do not have a single dot of graffiti on them. Graffiti I have not seen anywhere so far. Nor did I find any trash on the ground.

We walk to the Palace and the only thing you can do is walk around the big walls and water canals. You can get a glimpse of the Palace and we take some pictures. We head to the Palace Gardens. Free admission, but closed on Friday... and err... its Friday today. We didn't know. We had to the Tokyo station and see it is indeed a building with architecture based on the Central Station of Amsterdam. Funny to see. Its even more funny to see, the station is almost all wrapped and fenced because of major re-work and road work, just like in Amsterdam for some years now. Not sure if they know how well they copy the Building and its surrounding ;-) .

We had to the Subway to go back to Shinjuku Station. We buy a large bottle of water, orange juice and banana milk. While waiting for the hotel shuttle bus, I play with my photo camera and shoot people at the station. Always fun to see how people behave, dress and look like. Something also interesting to see is that people do use bicycles and drive on the pavement, next to the pedestrians. Interesting and an other item to check when crossing the streets.

In the Hotel we take a little nap (at least Sheila did, I was writing this journal) from 16:30 to 18:00 and we head to the center again, to hunt down some dinner.

Near Shinjuku Station we roam around and get into one of the very large shopping buildings where on the 8th floor all kind of restaurants are. One of the restaurant we go in and order some food. English is not their native language, I know, but Hello was even difficult it seemed. But they totally make it up with the delicious food, rice with shrimps and white rice with sweet & sour pork. I pronounce and point to “ oy-shi-kat-ta “ which means “It was delicious”. The whole staff smiles. The dinner was interesting too, you get first Japanese tea and a warm towel to clean the hands. With the food we got all kind of plates and cups... which to use for what, right? ;-) We were able to peak at the other tables and got the habits and adjusted our “manners”. Nobody noticed we were noobs at this game, lol. I asked the o-kan-jõ (the bill) and payed with Visa. They add 10% service and do not expect nor want any tip. Giving a tip is seen as embarrassment in Japan, which makes life at the table much easier. We take the shuttle back to the Hotel.

In the Hotel I see an other guest walking with a plastic suite case with some strange gear and a UTP cable in it. That UTP cable triggers me and I ask at the desk what it is. Aha, internet connection set, for the strange sockets in the room, and without charge (they say). I hook up and indeed get connected on my eee PC, phew, so I did not buy this little gadget for nothing. :-) The journals I created I post on the blog. I stop writing, to spent some time on backing up the photos and hey, who knows, I might post some on my Picasa website to share with the family and friends. Check out http://picasaweb.google.com/photokingh .

Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com

Thursday October 8, Tokyo, Shinjuku, Japan

Thursday October 8

Tokyo, Shinjuku, Japan

25 Sunny strong wind (cycloon)

(9:45) We pass customs etc and with all our gear we had to the trains, where we find out they do not operate today due to the cyclone. So we buy tickets for the bus (6000 Yen for 2) and line up near the efficient people from the Friendly Bus Line.

These people here rock if you talk about service. Every bus goes right on schedule, all people on board, luggage in the bus and no errors or angry faces. Its in their blood you would think, even the people putting the bags in watch the clock every few minutes to make sure their work is done and the bus can leave JIT (11:10 as the schedule had requested). The lady coordinating all of this, bows to us and the bus when we drive away. In the mean time a policeman grabs some trash from the street and puts it in the trash bin. Wow.

The trip to Tokyo is a little more than 1 hour and enough to make me take a nap again. At the station of Shinjuku we drop off. Sheila saw in the corner of her eyes the Shinjuku New City Hotel a few minutes back in the bus,so we had a rough feeling where to walk to. And we indeed were able to walk straight back to the suspected place and are around 13:30 at the hotel. Check in is at 15:00 but our room is ready and we can hop in. We take a little nap, check if our phones work (they do) and sent some “we are fine”-like messages to the family. After the naps (we needed that as we basically lost our Dutch Night, so had almost no sleep) we take the free shuttle to the center (Shinjuku station is destination and only a few minutes by this shuttle) and roam around in Down Town Tokyo. Its crowded, but not overwhelming / chaotic and we feel comfortable here. Also the 25 degrees and wind make it very nice to walk and checkout the shops. We eat and are surprised to see so many people putting their bags or even running laptops on the chair or table to “reserve” their seats, and than walk away to the counter or even toilets. Their belongings unattended, apparently people do not steel from each other like in other (or my) country. We walk around some more, but are rather tired and go to bed at 21:30.

Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com

Wednesday October 7, Zaandam/Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Wednesday October 7

Zaandam/Amsterdam, The Netherlands

14 C Clouded and drizzle

Last things we pack and drive to my brother, who brings us to the airport. Within 15 mins we checked in our luggage and passed customs and have plenty of time to have some lunch. The boarding is delayed and some stressed Japanese guy keeps saying something is wrong and something terrible is going to happen to this flight. His “proof” is that he cleaned his whole house and he has never done that before. I joke with the question if he has never cleaned his house before or never before a flight. Too bad for him he does not catch the joke.

In the plane we negotiate and “sell” my window seat for an ail seat, so we still are able to sit next to each other, rather than at different places in the plane. Next to us sits a very friendly Scotsman who is part of the Scottish rugby team, playing for a week in Japan. We had the best dinner ever in a plane, with excellent Japanese food. Eaten with chopsticks, of course.

Besides that you did not have your own tv and media selection system the flight is OK, until the end. The last 5 minutes are bumpy as hell, due to the cyclone nearing east of Tokyo. We go up and down, left and right and people yell in the plane. Its almost the same “roller-coaster experience”as the landing in Washington last year with the big Hurricane. Lucky us, this time the visibility is clear, even sunny, so you can see the wings bend like crazy and know you will drop and prepare for the “funny stomach feeling”. The pilot puts the plane on the ground. In the meantime we jumped from Wednesday night to Thursday morning due to the 8 hours time difference.

Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com

Ready 4 Japan!

Bought some new gear for the holiday.... the ASUS eee PC, 1005HA Black to be precise. I read that most people in Japan, had difficulty connecting with WiFi on their iPhone, as... well... Japan does not have that much WiFi.

Due to small rooms, people are all together for computing and the Edge / 3G technology is widely spread, so Japan did not need so much WiFi in cafe's and/hotels etc. With that, it would mean we would not be able to book our next hotels, so I thought I buy a small eee PC that can connect with a cable in the Hotel when needed.

Next to that, I have than also a backup device for all my photos I take and a easy device to blog for the family. In addition, we can use Skype when connected, to call or even webcam to home. Last but not least, its also just plain fun and a cool gadget :-) eg... DIVX are copied and ready to view in the plane or where ever we go. :-) with a battery lasting 8 hours, its easy to kill some time. We did check in today via the internet, but found ourselves spread over the plane. :-( There were no seats next to each other any more, so for next time we need to make reservations sooner. For the plane back, we just now did.... I did not know you were able to tell what seats you want, 90 days before the flight?!? Nobody told us, we always thought 30 hours before departure you can check in, and that's it.

Anyway, in the plane we need to see if we can negotiate with someone else to swap places. And otherwise we just have to accept it, the next month we are together anyway ;-) Now we first need to pack our backbags to a max of 10kilo to be really ready. cu Marcel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Marcel de Koningh Photo KingH LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/in/marceldekoningh Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/marcel.de.koningh Photos : http://picasaweb.google.com/photokingh Blog : http://photokingh.blogspot.com/ Hyves : http://kingh.hyves.nl/ email : mailto:photokingh@gmail.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weight is going down!

Hi,

Weight is going down, since I bought my bike and sport more.

I wanted to reach 80, so my new goal is to go below the 80 and hit the 70 target... but lets take it 1 kilo at a time and in a slow pace. As the kilos gained were also not added in a few weeks, I want to take it slow and have a balance.

Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com

Snow Leopard, the highly anticipated new operating system for the Mac, will be released ahead of schedule Friday, Apple announced Monday.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/24/snow.leopard/index.html

Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com