Rich and Strange Aeons

Dew points of 24+ C have inhibited outdoor exploration. W had thought we could take day trips during the week off but ducked out given the weather. Which included a tropical storm, though the impact here was just a lot of rain Thursday night. Mostly I've read reading, cooking, watching anime with W.

Reading included Judea Pearl's The Book of Why, which was very neat. With the right causal model, correlation *is* causation. More some other time. I started reading an uberlong fanfic, Dungeon Keeper Ami, which was pretty entertaining. W and I finished the Yona anime, she started reading the manga, I started re-reading it, then reading Golden Kamuy. Read articles on psychopathy and online game monetization.

Oh right! W and I finally went out to yakiniku a few nights ago. I'd been shy of trying it myself without a translator, though afterwards she didn't seem so necessary. It's a bit like hot pot but for grilling: you order portions of meat and cook them to your taste on a small table grill. We had "assorted beef" which was decent, then a cheaper tray of outside skirt, which nearly melted in our mouths. Also "garlic" which turned out to be whole cloves, in a small tray of some liquid, which boils on top of the grill. When the garlic finally turns golden-brown you can eat it, maybe with salt and some other sauce. Eating it felt a lot like eating mildly pungent potatoes, which surprised me; I've had oven roasted garlic which became spreadable like butter.

After hiding at home for several days with minimal excursions, I finally set forth again, to a shrine I'd passed on the way to Nara. Not so much for the shrine but for being on the boundary of a mountain range separating Osaka and Nara. It's a bit perverse: I hide from the humidity, then plunge into the woods, but oh well.

I also keep forgetting mosquitoes are a thing, though I didn't notice many new bites.

Hiraoka station is small - no Western toilets, biggest nearby building is only 7 stories. Many houses have planter strips or even front yards.

Hiraoka shrine is right by the tracks, on the edge of the mountain. Forested mountain shrine. Lots of cicada noises. Two short white vans. I had Higurashi flashbacks. "Oyashiro-sama, I'm innnocent!"

Went up a tall flight of steps, with various breaks; hopefully my out of shapeness is partly the sheer humidity, 24 C dew point. Rested at the top, with more paths going up somewhere; I decided to be prudent and went down a different path. So, not that prudent, but it worked out. Up another path to some short waterfalls, back down again. Found a playground with an actual Western toilet -- not an electronic Japanese washlet, just a regular toilet. Found a map with a tilted compass rose, where North was kind of pointing toward actual north, so my hypothesis may have some validity.

Ended up by Nukata station which was even smaller; I don't think anything over five stories, and started seeing some sizable yards, even a back one. The 'main' street was 2-way one-lane but annoyingly busy. 20 KPH speed limit.

The crossing guard seemed to go down every couple minutes, if that. Local trains every 10 minutes... in each direction... plus rapid trains not stopping at these stations...

Some of the trains are "Sub semi-express" which I'd thought meant 'sub' as in below, but apparently it's suburban.

Where I'm staying in Osaka has an internal space of around 28 square meters, I estimate, which is 300 square feet. This isn't counting the not-very-usable stepped entranceway (where you'd leave your shoes) but is otherwise an overestimate (I treat my armspan as 2 meters, it's probably a bit less. I've been here almost five weeks so far, out of seven scheduled, and am considering extending my stay. The biggest problem is that the stairs are more like a ship ladder, so it would be annoying to haul stuff like books up to the bedroom/storage room. As a traveler in an era when a whole library fits on my phone, that's not much of an issue for me.

And it actually is a tiny house, just barely detached from anything else.

(It's slightly more than one armspan wide at the widest, and around 3.5 armspans long; I'm 5'10".)

The lot is basically the size of the house; Japan doesn't seem to require setbacks or yards. You can *have* a yard, but zoning doesn't hide the opportunity cost of having a yard instead of another house.

The smallest bill of currency here is 1000 yen, analogous to a US $10 bill. Coins are 500, 100, 50, 10, 5, and 1 yen in size, and all are in common use. I think coin lockers and laundry machines only take 100 yen, but vending and meal order machines take 10 and up.

Compared to US common practice, note that there are six coin types, vs. four in the US, with a maximum value ratio of 500:1, vs. 25:1.

At first I kept them all in my wallet coin purse, but juggling six unfamiliar coins meant I mostly didn't use them, and they accumulated. My current system is different:

* 500 and 100 yen in the wallet, because they're real money.
* 1 and 5 yen in a pocket, where I can easily whip them out to zero out the 1s digit of a price.
* 10 and 50 yen in another pocket, where with lower priority I can use them to zero out the 10s digit. But if I feel I've taken too long I can skip this step, since 10 yen coins are still spendable without too much pain.

One thing that's easier is that you only have to provide change to a multiple of 10, while US change optimization often goes for a multiple of 25, and you find yourself figuring 43-25.

Back in the US, I might start using the coin purse for quarters, and a pocket for smaller change.


In other news, I visited a 100 yen store. It was not the specialist in 100 yen cheap shit that I expected, and looked more like a full service supermarket.


I still suck at keeping track of compass orientation. Fortunately today was bright and sunny, so my shadow could tell me I was 90 degrees off a proper course for home. Going for a walk on a bright day without my phone or a watch was somewhat foolish, but I had some idea of what time it was.

10th: Finally got to Keitakuen garden in Tennouji park. Nice, but for being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Got into Issenji Temple, which is mostly cemetery, but seems to have many Buddha statues, and two front statues apparently made of compacted ash or something. Went back to Chausuyama, which didn't look much like a kofun, and may not be one after all. Saw a bunch of crows hopping around in a way I hadn't seen before. Discovered that some shrines do have lockable gates, such as Horikoshi. Had an "ultimate burger" and some chicken at Lotteria, cannot recommend.

11th: So Abeno Harukas is 300 meters tall, the tallest building in Japan, and the top floors are observatory for 1500 yen. W's mother visited recently, and passed on the free tickets her hotel gave her, so we went up in the late afternoon. It was pretty neat; the 16th floor is free, but doesn't go all the way around, and the 60th floor is way higher. We played "can I see my house?" and "wow that's a lot of (H) helipads" and "what is (R) on a roof pad?" and such. Then we had Vietnamese pad thai (nice) and hung out at her newly cleaned place. Brief discussion of EVA and its Angels reminded me of the one Angel I could recall and I joked "when d8s attack"; she promptly brought out the matching figurine.

12th: At W's I'd noticed Google Maps showing Ikutama Matsuri Festival. It was still there during the day of the 12th, but had vanished by the time I left home at 5:30, and I saw nothing on my walk up. So if there was a procession I completely missed it. There's some Ikutama market by Osaka Castle, but the real Ikutama shrine is elsewhere; when I finally got there, I found myself in a classic anime festival. Crowds and food stands and crowds and game stands and crowds and a shrine with stuff happening. In this case, teams of teens carrying sacred boxes around and banking on gong and drum. I found it helps to be taller than most of a country. :p The area north of the shrine is full of Love Hotels; I know Japanese religion doesn't frown on sex the way Christianity has but it still felt weird.

13th: I re-read a lot of Hodgell and went out for groceries in between rain.

Wow, I really bailed on Japan blogging.

Hmm, looking at my journal, I'm not sure I left out that much. Met up with W a bunch of times for anime or dinner. Went to the Rose Garden, which was pretty lame, no blooms. Walked around that area for a while, got to Ogimachi Park. Been doing a lot of reading and hiding from humidity and cooking more at home.

Yesterday, though, I headed to Kyoto. But as I approached I looked at the map, and decided to ride one station further, to Yamashina. This was on an express train -- I think it made one stop between Osaka and Kyoto! so even at a lower speed, one stop was 8-9 km away. It looked nestled in mountains, and I spent 2-3 hours trying to get up into them. Mostly failing: there's a park to the NE, but I couldn't find a trail, and Google's help was useless. I did get right up to the forest, thanks to a cluster of Buddhist temples and their cemetery. Houses nearby had yards, and goats. Well, one goat, but that's infinitely more goats than I usually see in an urban area.

There was a tiny park area adjacent to the hill forest, with two cats visible, and a sign with 'neko' on it. Don't know if it was saying "don't bother the cats" or "don't feed the cats" or what.

Went to another temple to the norht, Bishamon-dō, rather large, and with several associated shrines.

Roads NW of there looked like they did go further up into the mountains, but I was getting tired of hiking. I found this tiny cluster of houses, on the other side of a canal from everything else. First you hit this communal dirt parking area, then go over a bridge, then there's not even a street, just a foot lane, with houses and yards along it (plus a couple of teeny tiny shrines, basically a sacred rock at foot level.) Felt like a taste of 'rural' Japan. Google claimed it was a cul-de-sac but was wrong, I kept heading south and eventually hooked up with real streets again.

Yamashina back to Kyoto was 7 minutes by express train, 15 by subway, or 25 by car! Nice to be somewhere where the trains are just better.

Oh, yesterway was Tanabata, which seems to be more of a private thing than a big festival. Though as I left home, I heard and found a small procession carrying a god? relic? through the streets of Osaka. I'd wondered if I'd run into more in Kyoto, but I got there after 5pm so things would probably have been running down anyway. Kyoto Station area is full of modern tall buildings and such -- also a post office open on Sunday! With lots of ATMs because Japan has postal banking.

Kyoto also had lots of white people. Yeah, I'm one to talk. But staying in an outer part of Osaka I tend to be the freak gaijin, not one tourist of many, and Yamashina was definitely off the beaten path.

Perhaps related to a high tourist content, the first shrine I found had signs announcing that 24 hour security cameras were present.

Some buses seem to be every 10 minutes, other 20-40. This sort of thing inhibits my "get on a bus and view the city" behavior. At least the stops have schedules, so I can know.

Mosquitoes seem to love me here more than in Boston. That or I'm more often near open water so there are more of them.

Took a Keihan train back to Osaka. Like Kintetsu, there are a confusing variety of express levels. Car would have been 49 minutes, 51 km; train was 40 minutes. And 400 yen, under $4!

Why are trains cheap? Density high enough to fill the seats of a train slung every 10 minutes helps, as does slinging trains every 10 minutes so people are happy to take trains. But I'm reminded of another factor: when I got off at Kyobashi station in Osaka, I immediately found Hotel Keihan and Keihan Mall. IIRC the private railways in Japan own a lot of land around their station, so get a lot of money in rents, which are high from the land value created by their own trains. It's like privatized land value tax. This might be why JR Loop is cheaper than the Osaka subways.

Man, a bit over three weeks left. I don't wanna go! Though I need to worry about actual income.

I craved more. Went to Ganko sushi in the Abeno Harukas basement. Was tricky to find, behind a giant supermarket with varieties of cherry tomatoes and varities of more-than-whole milk (like 5% fat) and more.

Spent twice as much for half the food. The base plates are more expensive -- 120 and 180 yen -- but the real killer is having many more (or any) plates that are more expensive. Like toro. And more toro.

Read about the Crusades in the park, and looked up more parks to visit.

Friday I finally got to Shitennouji temple, which is huuuuuuge. The inner walls/arcade enclose an area like a football field. They were surrounded on all sides by market stalls -- yes, there was a flea market going on in the outer ward of the temple. Which also includes a cemetery, various subbuildings, and judging from a map later, I think a whole sub-complex I missed.

In the inner ward is a 5 story or so pagoda, that you can climb up to the top. Very tight spiral staircases (actually, two of them; I was proud of myself for realizing signs said to take one up and the other down.) There's a hall in the middle of the ward where the interior walls are covered in murals of the life of Buddha. Originally I would have said Indian-style art, but I'm more certain simply that the art depicted Indians. Then at the north end is another hall, where the murals show Chinese/Tibetans/Mongols in high mountains; I think I made out the words Bamiyan and Hindo Kush (which I would call Hindu Kush, but whatever.)

The market provided me some unexceptional peanuts and some excellent tangelos for cheap (500 yen for 13, I think that would be decent even by California prices, let alone Japanese supermarket ones.)

I wandered over to Shinsekai, had okonomiyaki at the English-friendly Usagiya, and found a flaw in the transit system. My feet hurt a lot by then, for the second day in a row, and I wanted to go home with a minimum of walking, but there weren't any great routes. I was right on top of a subway station and a streetcar line, but they didn't connect directly with anything useful, and I balked at a 3-leg trip. I ended up taking the subway to Tengachaya to explore another part of town, which wasn't too exciting, though I found a sort of walled residential area. Then headed home, and found that the JR Loop, going to the closest station by me, was running only every 15 minutes, so I had to wait 10 at the station.

There are buses too, but Google seemed to be showing 20-30 minute headways.

Some time before I'd found a Horai store, selling a few kinds of dumpling: gyoza, siu mai, pork bun (butanman). W had said they were meaty and dull, but W prefers Chinese potstickers to gyoza, so I figured I should make my own judgement. I like the gyoza, but the siu mai weren't so much meaty as gelatinous, would not buy again. I don't particularly like pork buns, especially steamed ones, at the best of times -- too doughy -- so didn't try.

At some point I switched from wearing my new hat to using my umbrella as a parasol. It's somewhat translucent but still helped keep the sun off my body. Hat just keeps my face from burning, head still gets sweaty.

After two days of achy feet I decided to stay in most of the weekend, studying Japanese or reading things. Made a shopping trip yesterday, armed with the names of things, including garlic and ginger; I thought I bought a jar each of minced stuff, but got home with two jars of ginger.

I was getting self-conscious about eating lots of white rice, non-calorie nutritional value zilch, or white bread, and was happy to read that soba is made from buckwheat, which isn't even a cereal, and has a more complete protein profile. So I got some of that, prepared and not. I see pork-vegetable-soba-ginger-sesame oil stirfries in my "cooking at home" future.

(And if you're in a restaurant facing the choice of udon vs. soba, "abused and maybe enriched wheat" vs. "whole seed buckwheat" might help you decide.)

"Let's go to Nara... nah, I spent too long on the computer, it's late."

"Let's go to a museum! ... oops, they're all closed on Tuesday."

"Let's go to Koreatown!" That worked.

Ate some store sandwiches in a shitty park near the station. Small park, small playground. Looked grungy, I guess partly the litter, even more so all the cigarette butts when I noticed them (no trash can, but there was a butt can clearly not used enough,), and the ground under the play equipment being part grass part dirt.

Found a Buddhist temple along a residential alley, one big enough to have two caretakers and at least two rooms. I looked inside but felt uncomfortable as they looked at me.

Found Koreatown, it has an official entrance. And right away I found a sizable Shinto temple, Mizukimori-tenjingu. Uhhh, Koreans aren't Shinto... actually the main entrance is outside Koreatown, but a side entrance opens to it. I ended up spending a fair bit of time and phone battery reading up on Shinto shrine structures, so I would have a better idea of what I was looking at and what the things were called. One thing is that they often contain auxiliary shrines, to related kami; this one had three different shrines/altars, or at least structures with bell ropes. I saw one woman ring and pray at each one. Plus a fourth little thing that looked altar-ish but didn't have a rope. The shrine also had trash cans. Look, when you carry your garbage for multiple blocks, you'll start noticing these things too.

I followed the "main street" of Koreatown to its end, though I later found there are lots of other Korean businesses (or businesses with Korean writing, anyway) in the area. Lots of places selling raw meat, or corn dogs(!), or kimchi, or things that looked like meat marinated in kimchi or some other red sauce. Wasn't hungry enough to buy anything then. Not a single conbini along multiple blocks.

Along the way I found a much nicer park, with trash can and water fountain (one faucet aiming straight up, which is how drinking fountains here work, one straight down for filling things.) Less litter, less scruffy (ironically perhaps because a big area was *just* dirt, so didn't have the "trying to grow grass but failing" thing), a lot more people hanging out. Tidy trees, maybe neater than the first park.

Looping back toward the train station, I found another Buddhist temple, Shukyo Hojin Minshuhotokekyo Kanon Temple. I was able to get much closer to the altar, which had a big bag of Pocky and a big can of pineapple, among other offerings. A priest had me light and plant an incense stick. Statues outside of Budai and Kannon.

Also I found that you can copy place names out of Google Maps on the phone (long press on the full page). So I never had to type "Shukyo Hojin Minshuhotokekyo Kanon Temple".

Google Maps on my phone also has a working compass. YAY.

Nearly stepped into a moving motorcycle, I need to pay more attention.

Some woman was biking on a somewhat busy street while looking at her phone.

Many bikes here have a symmetrical kickstand, one that goes over the back of the rear wheel so the bike stands upright.

Wandered through the Tsuruhashi arcades (arcade seems a better name for the 'covered shopping streets' like the one I first stayed on.) Found a Korean restaurant and had bibimbap for 800 yen (actually 860 after tax, I would like better indication of when sales tax is going to be applied -- in 2008 it seemed always included in the price, but a lot of conbini products now have two prices printed on them, before and after tax.) Turned out to be vegetarian (egg, no meat). The proprietor mashed up the bowl's contents for me ("this is Korean food!" -- Japanese generally don't mix food like that, I think.) She provided metal chopsticks with odd shape and weight, then standard disposable wooden ones when I seemed to be struggling. Was good. Lots of side dishes as seems common for Korean food. One looked like a tiny bit of cheesecake but was actually tofu with a red sauce on it.

Another store in the arcade was selling churros. I spelled out the katakana on the sign, went "really?", and looked inside. Yep, churros.

Then home.

Observation: despite warm temperatures, most women here wear more covering clothing than I'd be used to around hot weather Boston, say. Almost all have trousers or below-knee skirts. I've seen some above-knee skirts or even miniskirts, but they're a lot rarer. Something like tank top and shorts is very rare, and tends to come with indicators of foreignness: speaking fluent English to a white boyfriend, looking Chinese (not that I'd bet a lot on my judgement), looking Chinese in a group and I think talking in non-Japanese (I didn't get to hear much).

Found a Hainanese chicken and rice place, tried it. Couldn't read much of the menu but it had pictures, so I pointed at something that looked tasty, and it was. Better luck than yesterday's teishoku (which I forgot to mention) which came with some gross vegetables (though good fried chicken.) The menu also had some bizarre manga in the back (or maybe the front? Have I been reading menus in the wrong order? Must pay attention.)

My previous place was right on a shopping street, practically in a mall. This area is quieter. I have to walk seven whole minutes to get to a supermarket. Tragedy!

(Actually it might not be that long, might not even be further than the old one. But I've gone from "go down the street" to "follow twisty path" so it feels more taxing.)

Tomorrow predicts a storm, like wind gusts of 75 kph, so I was stocking up on food. Three weeks in one place also means I can do things like buy groceries such as olive oil without feeling like a chump... and yes, they have alleged olive oil here. I got some basic pasta ingredients, though realized later I don't think I have a sieve. Oops.

Went back out to explore my nearby train station area, and stared at the JR map for a while. I learned something! The shinkansen doesn't stop at Osaka station, big and busy though it is, but at Shin-Osaka. Which Google says is a 50 minute walk from Osaka -- or a 4 minute train ride. I croggle at both numbers. For Kobe and Shin-Kobe, it's 50 and 13. Now I wonder if the Shin means "new" as I thought, or "shinkansen stops here". Or, likely, they had to build a new station to accommodate the needs of the bullet train. Wiki says the 'shin' in shinkansen does mean new, or at least the whole word means "new trunkline".

While I was there, I saw a woman in clothing whose color and drape made me think "yukata" but whose material made me think "ankle-length sweater dress". I did not stare enough to resolve the matter.

I found a store apparently specializing in beauty and cleaning goods; at any rate, I got to buy paper towels there, so I am no longer drying my hands with fucking kleenex. While I was there, the blaring radio or PA system or whatever started up with a version of the Battle-Hymn of the Republic, in high pitched anime girl voice. I don't know what it was saying, but imagined "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the sale / These discounts will turn your shopping into an epic tale".

I got more snacky food at Lawson, and milk because I can read their carton and not accidentally get skim or 0.5% milk. They also had drinkable yogurt! I got it, anticipating something like ayran or kefir. I got something sweet with no fat and 28 grams sugar instead of 9 (or so I guess based on comparative nutrition labels). :(