Japan Trip April 8th (Day 8): Japan observations, Nara, deer and a Shrine

Today was the day to transition to Nara by transfer in Kyoto by a limited express train. So it was packing up after both of our bodies ignored the fact we COULD sleep in and woke after 7.5 hours. I went down and checked the comments and Linda insisted taking our laptop since a) the Japanese laptops have a LOT more key on the keyboard to enable them to type in Japanese (I guess using two different character sets does that) and b) the computer likes to switch for no apparent reason to Kanji mid-sentence which means comments and emails I have to discard. Oh, and here is a shameless photo of the World Heritage Shrine we go to later in the day to keep you reading to the end of the blog!
Linda woke one night early in our trip to hear me talking and thought I was calling for her. After listening for a while she realized I was asleep and muttering Japanese phrases in my sleep. Talk about information overload. As soon as I try to learn and use a few new phrases it seems like I need another 50. My brain gets so tired that at the end of day I am mixing up “excuse me” with “Thank you” and “I’m so sorry.” At one point I started doing Wah (putting hands in front on your palms together, head bowed if really apologetic) until I realized, hours later that the Wah is Thai, not Japanese. I have asked people “where are we?” in German, “What is that?” in French and complimented people in sign language. I seriously am going through some sort of melt down where my brain is TRYING to be helpful by throwing out whatever “alternate language” phrase I know. Too bad those months of Japanese aren’t coming to the surface more often as I think the number of ASL sign language users in Japan is pretty rare.

Some things we REALLY are starting to miss:

Toilet Paper – so far, even in top star hotels it is the nasty thin clingy 1 ply paper which makes you want to spray your vagina with Pam or some other cooking spray before doing the post pee dab.

Side Note: After the wash yesterday we figured out how to turn the toilet seat warmer up to maximum and used it for the last day and a half to dry two pair of jeans and one pair of sweats that we took out for hang dry. Makes for an odd bathroom when we are checking and flipping the jeans on the toilet lid like slow cooking pancakes.

Trash/Garbage cans: There aren’t any, at least not in public, because no one eats or drinks in public which is rude (except us international disabled hobos). So after wheeling across Shinjuku station and using a wet wipe to turn your hand from grease black to my natural red/yellow….there is no where to throw it away. Arg! Try going through a day and every time you feel like throwing something away hold on to it and see how much crap you end up with.

Long Blankets: This is both for Linda and me as if I can’t wrap up my feet, I get the Reynaud’s pain which is simple to replicate; take two javelins and puncture your ankle/foot hinges with them. Turns out that even Linda is too tall to have warm toes.

Finding stuff: It is easy to forget how often we simply “know” where things are. For example we have bought a few gifts and would like to send them to people (we have their address) so we need a bubble wrap envelope. We go to the post office and ask there. No, they have no envelopes or small boxes for sale at all. We try at the department stores (nine stories…must have a few padded envelopes? No go, so we are sent on to the TRUE destination of padded envelopes: book stores. We have yet to find our “cold packs” that we break because we assumed they would be at a pharmacy – no go, it seems they are only sold at a particular kind of convenience store. As for leg razors, we have tried two or three places including being directed (again) to the book store (got some interesting looks at the book store about that one).

Other things noticed about Japan:

Anime, Ghibli films, Japanese films and other popular genre whether set in the past or the present or the far future are not making things up. For example if you see in a Ghibli film a boy ride a bike down a street, miss a car, go around a street light, wait at a crossing for a JR train, come in and be chided for not taking off the shoes quickly enough, change out of his school uniform, etc. Everything in that, every single depiction is exactly the same as we have seen every day. I wheel down streets in every city we have been to (four or five by now) and they are the same, and they look like every manga: they look like Translucent, they look like anime, like popular films (alright, not that many zombies as in Versus, but other than that).

It is interesting because both for Britain and North America it is unusual to capture the singular and intense Japanese actions from how to drink, to how to order from vending machines, how to give way to people, how to walk down the road. I have watched hundreds of episodes of dozens of shows set in New York and yet when Linda and I visited Manhattan it was like seeing it the first time. In Japan, we often know what an alleyway will look like BEFORE our taxi turns down it to drive the back way. We know what the shrine will look like (all 400 each city), what the steps to the shrine will look like. We have been given packets of tissues every day (and drinks) and we know about this (think Gacha Gacha, sis!).

Women are encouraged to be intimate with each other. I don’t quite understand the why yet, and it is obvious to see the separation of the sexes but while men are given the hierarchy in the workplace, young women, particularly single women are encouraged to walk hand in hand, to go and have fun together, to hug. In the machines where we take the pictures the poses are often ones for couples: one kissing the hand of the other romantically, cheek to cheek smiling at the couple, holding the other and smiling suggestively and yet the models on the screen are two females as are the people who take the pictures. I would say the ratio of female/female “dates” we have seen to female/male dates are about 5-1 at least. Going and sharing fries at McDonalds, then getting pics taken of each other, holding hands and going to watch a movie or do a dance game together before separating at the train station (And running back to give the other a lingering hug before jumping on the commuter train – seen MANY times). Not that I am against it, but by simple observation, the women are seen as the ones with money, with fun, with clothes and only once they get married do they dull out and do what the nation requires, produce children. We can’t see why else they are getting married (they do know about vibrators I hope) – I mean they even have café’s to get attention from dominant butchy and beautiful women who caress their hair and give them hugs into the bosom as just part of the “meal service.” This is “Girl Power” with a lot of strawberries and flowers in the back ground and a little less kick ass. Still, I think a sort of latent lesbianism is just part OF the culture. Because even for a North American or UK person, this goes WAY beyond the “best straight girlfriend” level. I will, of course, try to get pictures!

Have to quit now as we are transferring to Nara and the rest will be about our visit there (if it isn’t raining as mud and deer droppings are NOT fun to wheel through).

Part II: Well, it turned out the JR was late, about 30 minutes late on a 2 hour journey, which is darn late so our transfer to Nara was late. On the train we overheard an American family which talked endlessly the entire time. We had become so used to being the only person who was a native English speaker in the city/hotel/area that this was a bit of a shock. This was reinforced at Nara park and the Shrine as we can’t just go about making muttering comments and swearing as SOME in fact MANY of the visitors will understand us. The taxi drivers still however have no English whatsoever but the sense of being the only foreigner in a foreign land is going away and I think as we hit more and more of the “traditional” tourist visits near Tokyo/Kyoto that our sense of being in a new class of “English speaking tourist” instead of unique visitors will progress.

We checked into our hotel which is as close to a “capsule hotel” as possible. Our reservations clearly asked for the quiet side and we are on a corner facing the train station on one side and the busiest street on the other. Even the manager admitted this is not a “quiet” room (cubicle). The problem was…the air conditioner, which worked from 4-6 pm but then started blowing hot air in a room where the windows are closed so I can understand Linda speaking. They fixed this by blowing vast amounts of cold air in, which has no regulation we can determine, so it is freeze or boil.

Anyway, after depositing stuff we headed to Nara park as I was sure there were deer desperate for our loving and feeding. Well, it is true that at the park there are deer EVERY WHERE and they don’t seem to lack for affection since if you don’t give it to them, particularly the alpha males, they knock you down to get it. This park was created in 1880 and is designated by a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The guys selling rickshaw rides kept saying to me, “You have to go! Todaiji Temple closes at 5:30.” And I was, “So?” But found out it is the one temple I COULD go visit (only one wheelchair accessible) and since the weather was good (not raining) and opportunity for more pictures…why not (see how in tune I am with great culture – Todaiji Temple is also a World Heritage Site all by itself)

So there is a path to wheel in the center and I am wheeling away and Linda is walking and I am going, “Todaiji!” and she is like, yeah, whatever, until we see the “pre-gates” which are huge and make me think, “So THIS is where all the BC timber is going!” As it happens the temple is the largest wooden building in the world (and really RED), and was built in 752 AD to enshrine the Great Image of Buddha.

Now, this will seem a wee bit callous but remember we are by now essentially “What, another world heritage site?” people and were going to this because it is the ONLY one of the several important and world heritage shrines that is wheelchair assessable. So we took a picture of the Great Image of Buddha but it, while LARGE, was also kinda boring (grey, and in darkness) and made a not so interesting picture so we took this picture of a lesser Buddha covered in gold which is about 50% in size to the great Buddha. So if you want to see the great Buddha, get your ass over here and see for yourself.

Because I was in a wheelchair I took a different route through the temple than everyone else, seeing out into the courtyard. Then I followed it along the outside instead of walking the middle. A nice outer court which was impressive and again, very red. Oddly, the building burned down twice and this one was rebuilt in 1692 at only 66% of the original, but STILL the largest wooden building in the world (this sucker burns, there won’t be a tree left in western Canada!). It was 5:30ish and the Japanese are VERY obsessive that if you close at 5:30 then EVERYONE is gone at 5:30. Linda however was getting her book stamped which wasn’t just stamped (Twice) but then calligraphy was done in it as well. She was in ecstasy. Then she decided she needed to RUN across the entire courtyard to take a picture of the shrine…with 6 minutes until closing (the wardens let her do it because I think they were amused by her). I bought a fortune since it was one of the few shrines to sell English fortunes which says: “It is strongly recommended that you take a travel now!” as well as saying that Linda will continue being late as I wait for her.

Now with less than three minutes to go, Linda wants me to take a picture of her by the cherry tree in the courtyard. I do and the monk himself in his monk gear comes out to chase us off by 5:29 and 30 seconds. Ha, we got full value on that shrine!

We then went to feed the deer. This was SUPPOSED to be romantic and joyful and just like feeding squirrels only better. Well, that is until you realize that a) deer, particularly male deer are about the same size as you and b) they can be aggressive and unlike squirrels CAN steal things from you.

I was feeding this one guy and things seemed to be going well except after a while he got aggressive, and suddenly he not only shoves his face in my groin but then steals my food as well (I’ve met guys like him before). Plus, I wanted to feed the cuter female deer (the doe) but it seemed that the only way to get near the females is to feed one of the aggressive males with one hand and then feed one of the does with another. I wonder if my attraction to the smaller, cuter, female deer is some sort of inter-species lesbianism? Should I be worried?

Of course, even after I had given over ALL of the deer food, the alpha males wouldn’t give up, even after I had raised my arms in surrender they were convinced a body search would yield a bit more food.
Linda fed them with a bit more success, in that she was able to choose who to feed and when. However, there are a few things in her favour: a) she is CLEARLY bigger than them, not staring into their eyes from a wheelchair. B) She can back up and frequently did and c) she is used to dealing with cows so deer are nothing to her and while I am terrified of “Deers gone wild” (Since right after we filmed THREE alpha’s started fighting over food including leaping into the air and head smashing – not something that is so cute when you are in a wheelchair), she is just like, “Move over” and shoves their head away.

Anyway, it was fun though not exactly the paradise I expected and we headed back exhausted to try and get some sleep in this particular cubicle room and horrid shower pre-fab unit. This was the LAST twin in Nara so we didn’t get this Twin in this hotel and we couldn’t come here. They said there was one step into the bathroom and then said it was 30 cm. and we assumed they were joking. No, it really is a single 10 inch step (or more, 12 inches?) to get to the toilet. Barrier free? I think not.

Well, they only keep the computer open another few minutes so I have to run and post. The rest of the news tomorrow (when we take on another shrine and attempt feeding the deer again).