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Japan Dispatch #5
Jun. 28th, 2008 08:41 amWe’re now in Yokohama in the Kanto region, and I can officially say that I’m much more of a Kansai person at heart. I won’t go into too much of a rant, but let’s just say that Kyoto is generally much friendlier, cleaner, prettier and in general more pleasant. It helps that Kyoto is 1000+ years old and Yokohama as we know it is only about 150 years old, but there’s a big difference that I can definitely feel, and once we get back to Nara and Kansai I think I’ll be much happier.
So as not to leave some threads dangling in terms of our narrative, we spent our last full day in Takayama by going to a nearby town called Furokawa and then walking around the city for a bit. I guess Thursday nights tend to be the nights people stay at home for dinner, since hardly anything was open, so we ended up going back to the place we’d been the nice before! Not that it was a bad thing, since it was a very nice place called the Kyoya, but I think we felt a little silly about it and the staff seemed surprised to see us again.
The next morning we walked around the markets one last time before catching our train to Yokohama. I finally managed to find a wooden Kannon statue to take back with me along with a business card holder (a necessity for Japan) and a pretty painting that I can hang on my wall at Suffolk. There was also a rather funny scene where I bought some food for the carp in the river and was tossing it in, and before I knew it I was surrounded by pigeons all wanting some of it! That was pretty strange.
As for the hotel here, I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic. We also have a very nice view (of a brick wall outside) but I don’t care too much about that. At least it has a shower and bath that you aren’t competing with other people to use. I’ll write more about Yokohama later, but let me just say now that it’s the city I’ve enjoyed the least outside of a few places.
So as not to leave some threads dangling in terms of our narrative, we spent our last full day in Takayama by going to a nearby town called Furokawa and then walking around the city for a bit. I guess Thursday nights tend to be the nights people stay at home for dinner, since hardly anything was open, so we ended up going back to the place we’d been the nice before! Not that it was a bad thing, since it was a very nice place called the Kyoya, but I think we felt a little silly about it and the staff seemed surprised to see us again.
The next morning we walked around the markets one last time before catching our train to Yokohama. I finally managed to find a wooden Kannon statue to take back with me along with a business card holder (a necessity for Japan) and a pretty painting that I can hang on my wall at Suffolk. There was also a rather funny scene where I bought some food for the carp in the river and was tossing it in, and before I knew it I was surrounded by pigeons all wanting some of it! That was pretty strange.
As for the hotel here, I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic. We also have a very nice view (of a brick wall outside) but I don’t care too much about that. At least it has a shower and bath that you aren’t competing with other people to use. I’ll write more about Yokohama later, but let me just say now that it’s the city I’ve enjoyed the least outside of a few places.
