Japan Trip 2009
As briefly mentioned in my Japan Travel Preparation Checklist post, I went to Japan with my brother for 2 weeks where we visited Tokyo, Kamakura, Yokohama, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, and Okayama. Both of us have taken a keen interest in many-things-Japanese throughout our lives. We grew up reading manga, watching anime, and playing Japanese video games, so we’re somewhat semi-otakus.
As for myself, I took several semesters of Japanese classes in the past. I’m a huge fan of Japanese TV shows Iron Chef, TV Champion, and Takeshi’s Castle. I’ve always been impressed with Japanese culture, specially their politeness and sense of collectivism. To me, visiting Japan was a lifelong dream.
My brother and me, near Kaizoji Temple, Kamakura.
What impressed me the most was that their trains were always on time. I was there for 2 weeks and not even once my train was late. That’s amazing compared to our local train operator in Melbourne, Connex, the symbol of incompetence. I can’t remember the last time a Connex train arrived and left on time.
I was also impressed by a number of smart things I saw in Japan, things that made me stop and think “Hmm, we should have that.” Things like foldable wooden rubbish bin, blood donation bus parked near busy stations, maps with orientation to where you’re standing, stackable bicycle parkings… just to name a few.
The top 5 favourite places I visited…
- Jufukuji Temple, Kamakura – the most peaceful place I’ve ever been.
- Korakuen Garden, Okayama – it was very relaxing to walk around the garden.
- Kaiyukan, Osaka – where else would you see 2 whale sharks?
- Meiji Jingu, Tokyo – a nice shrine in a busy city.
- Umeda Sky Building, Osaka – see Osaka at night from 173m high.
And the most memorable experiences?
- Looking at mount Fuji during our Shinkansen ride from Osaka to Tokyo.
I was amazed for several minutes, mount Fuji was majestic. I wondered if someday I could ever return to Japan and climb the mountain to watch the sunrise from up there. - Exploring Kamakura.
I felt very much at peace while walking around Kamakura, a nice little town with many temples. I couldn’t help thinking that it would be a nice place to live a retired life (in reality, I have to stick with Perth though). - Walking from Bentencho Station to Kaiyukan.
It looked quite close on the map but it turned out to be a very long walk. We had to rely on the sun to tell the direction since all signs were in Japanese and the buildings looked similar on each side of the station. It was such a huge relief when we saw the Kaiyukan building from afar.
For more pictures from the trip, check out my Japan Trip 2009 album on Picasa.
Japan In Black & White
Some black & white photos I took during my trip to Japan last month. I used a Lumix DMC-FX50, sometimes I wish I had an SLR camera.
If you want to check out the original images at 1024×768, please visit the photoset page on Flickr.
Offline Wishes At Meiji Jingu
I’ve heard of prayer tablets before (usually found at Shinto shrines in Japan) but it wasn’t until I visited the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo that I noticed the similarity in concept to Wish.
At the the shrine, people bought a wooden tablet and wrote their prayers on it, they then hung the tablet on a wooden plank along with the other tablets. While with Wish site, people submitted their wishes, which would then go to a moderation queue before appearing on the site.
The similarity is mainly on the idea of making a prayer/wish, with a certain degree of anonymity, and it is then available for others to see. What was interesting to me is the way they handled ‘inappropriate’ content. They filtered out most of the ‘spams’ by making it a non-free process (most people wouldn’t spend 500 Yen just to spam). They also put a piece of paper with an explanation of how the process works, and that’s where I noticed this sentence “Please write down your prayers, in a faithful spirit of respect and devotion.”
That sentence highlights the main difference between our visitors. The shrine visitors made the prayers mostly with a good intention. While Wish site had to face the evil spammers and angry people on the Internet, besides the real wishers who simply want make a wish. The long walk from the main shrine to the entrance gave me a lot of time to think of how I should improve the way Wish works, the site has stayed too simple for the past 3 years, it’s time for some improvements. Stay tuned!
Some pictures from the shrine…
A couple reading the prayers. This is similar to browsing the wishes at Wish.
A text based prayer with a simple timestamp. We got that at Wish.
Some people like to draw. We got it too, though most picture submissions weren’t original content from the submitter, so this part hasn’t worked well at all.
I didn’t spot this until I returned to Melbourne. Is that kennysia.com on the second tablet from the top? He did go to Japan in April. For the uninitiated, Kenny Sia is Malaysia’s most popular blogger.