Hello from Kyoto, Japan! - Democratic Underground

Lydia Leftcoast

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Thu Oct-27-05 04:03 AM
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Hello from Kyoto, Japan!

Yes, Lydia is back in Japan, this time for a mere eight days, having been called here to attend a meeting.

I wanted the board to meet in January, when I would have more time and money, but no, I was outvoted, so here I am.

I flew over from Chicago to Osaka two days ago, one looooong trip (13 hours), which was salvaged only by the fact that I had paid for Economy Plus. If I had been in regular Economy, I would have been kicking out the sides of the plane.

First stop was Kobe, the site of the meeting. It's an attractive city, spread out east to west on a narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea, with no signs of the massive earthquake of ten years ago, but as one of my friends once said, "It's a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there."

We had meetings all day yesterday, followed by, as Japanese cusom has it, by a nijikai, a "secondary meeting" at a local drinking establishment. The waitresses kept bringing beer and Japanese delicacies. I bowed out early because I was so jet-lagged that I barely needed to drink, but I'm sure that some of the rest of the board members were there till the wee hours.

Today was my day to see the sights of Kobe.

The major sight is the Ijinkan, the old foreigners' section from the days in the nineteenth century when Kobe was one of the few places that foreigners were allowed to live. It's up in the hills, so you get off the bus that circles to all the tourist sites, and then you start walking uphill on little narrow streets, through a neighborhood of Victorian houses.

Many are decorated in Victorian style, but for some reason, each house had some annoying music box type tunes playing in the background. Since I've seen Victorian houses before, the most interesting building was the old Chinese embassy, which was lavishly furnished in Chinese antiques.

Kobe also has a Chinatown, small, but packed not only with restaurants but with stalls out front that sell dim sum-type foods to go. You can walk down the street and get a humbao here and a skewer of fried chicken there and a sesame ball at another place, a real movable feast at $1 or $2 per item.

After deciding that I wasn't ambitious enough to take the aerial cable car up to Mount Rokko (after all, I'll be back in Kobe next summer for the convention that we worked on), I boarded a train for Kyoto.

I just checked into my hotel, part of a budget chain, and my room, which is tiny, but immaculate and equipped with a full bath, a TV, a refrigreator, a coffee brewing machine, AND a broadband Internet connection (which is how I'm sending this message), is only $62 a night.

Don't let anyone tell you that Japan is impossibly expensive. My hotel in Kobe was only $80 a night, also with broadband Internet and a breakfast buffet included.

The train from Kobe to Kyoto (50 miles or so) was about $10. The bus from the Osaka airport (Kansai International) to Kobe was $18.

When it comes to meals, if you have to pay more than $10 for lunch or $15 for dinner, you're not trying very hard.

So far, my only firm plans are to visit a client whose office is in the suburbs of Kyoto tomorrow and to take the rare opportunity to see the treasures of the Shosoin, an eighth-century storehouse in Nara (30 miles south) that is opened only once a year and that has kept items brought on the Silk Road from all over Asia in fine condition the whole time. I wouldn't even have remembered the Shosoin exhibition if I hadn't seen a poster about it in the train station. I've been to Kyoto five or six times, so I have to decide whether to visit some old favorites or to try for new sights.

So that's my trip so far. Oh, and on the way over, we flew over Siberia with clear skies and saw about two hours of Nothing Much. There were mountains, snow, rivers, and lakes, but no trees, no towns, no roads, not even any signs of animal life--and I was watching for something, anything.

In contrast, when we flew over northern Japan at the same altitude (you could watch reports of the plane's altitude and speed on the seatback screen), it was easy to see boats, houses, and roads.

I'll report in again later.