Japan 2010 Chronicle - December 25
I woke up in the morning and immediately attempted to drink the suspicious ginger energy drink bought the previous night. True to form, the thing was totally rancid. But I did my best and chugged it anyway. I can't believe I didn't puke all over the bed.
After frittering around for a while, Retro and I went out for the day's tourism, but it wasn't looking good. Outside, snow was piling up on the ground, and still falling fast. Additionally, this snow was falling horizontally.
On the way out of the hotel, I asked the concierge to book Ninjadera for us, and he obliged. My Japanese level is enough to get it done in this way, but I think I would have panicked on the phone (I don't like phones in the first place.) The concierge was a good dude. I guess they're all like that though.
Back onto the loop bus, we figured we would go around to the stop nearest Kenrokuen. But even by the time we got off there, the weather was still extremely shitty. We ducked into the nearest shop for shelter and to buy umbrellas. It was there that we found the hilarious samurai umbrellas. They were detailing which samurai clan each design represented, but there was one design listed separatelyy. Oh yeah, I know this kanji, it's "Shinsengumi." Shit, Shinsengumi? BUY IT~ (2100円). I bought a cheaper plastic umbrella to actually use (500円), and protected the samurai umbrella, stubbornly refusing to use it in case it got shredded like the other one.
Walking out and around to Kenrokuen, the weather was still too shitty. Paying a fee to enter the park seemed insane when not only was the park itself covered in white, but the air was full of white and the wind was so strong we could be randomly blown over at any minute. So we gave up on that, and Castle Park, and figured we would hit the nearest enclosed attraction.
The nearest turned out to be the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. 1000円 included access to the general exhibition (normally 350円 by itself) as well as the special exhibition, which turned out to be a bunch of works by Peter Fischli and David Weiss.
As far as the general exhibition goes, the most memorable installation would have to be Aesthetic Pollution. I eventually managed to find someone who had blogged a photo of the horror, but this photo really doesn't do it justice. In the installation, all the walls and floor were polished white (you had to remove shoes to get into the room, so that you wouldn't leave marks on the floor) and the sculpture itself stands about 2 metres tall, not counting the spiky bits.
The special exhibition was marvellous. The Rube Goldberg machine which seemed to go on forever, involving copious amounts of fire and liquids. The creepy statues of rat & bear and the even creepier miniature dolls of them which were actually breathing.
On exiting the museum, I discovered that some bastard had switched umbrellas with mine, so I now had a more flimsy looking umbrella. At least it worked.
Following on from the 21st Century Museum, we headed over to the Noh Museum. That was significantly smaller but at 300円 it is still worth a look. They have a lot of old Noh costumes on display. Really old ones, in perfect condition. Sadly they didn't have a store. A place like that could make a killing selling creepy masks to creepier foreigners.
At this point we had to make for the loop bus again to make it to Ninjadera in time for the tour. Getting off the bus at the other end, the weather had become even more dire than it was previously. We had to fold down the umbrellas despite sleet hitting us from all sides, out of fear that the umbrella would be destroyed. Foolishly, I ended up opening it when I thought it was safe to do so, and lost my second umbrella for the trip.
Finally arriving at Ninjadera, I get a chance to bin the umbrella. I still refuse to use the samurai one because I still don't want it to break.
Hitting the vending machine for hot coffee while waiting for the tour time, we camped in a shelter nearby.
The temple tour itself was interesting. The temple, the real name of which is Myōryūji, contained a number of hidden areas, tricks and traps. Despite the common name, Ninjadera, the place was never related to ninja, but rather, samurai held fort in there in preparation for an attack by the Tokugawa Shogunate. A number of the tricks were, unsurprisingly, cunning ways to get in a sneak attack on people, for instance, hidden doors which are only visible when another door is closed, so you have a place to hide when people come in. There were also tricks employed to get light into hidden areas while keeping those areas hidden from the attackers.
Thankfully the weather had mostly cleared up by the time the tour ended, so the walk to Belsel immediately after wasn't too bad. I had the Belsel shopping centre marked on the map because some previous visitor had mentioned that there were some otaku stores in there. There was an Animate and one of those Volks branches (creepy dolls, yay) and a few smaller shops but nothing was bought. The Miku VN02 figure was tempting but the size of the box was a bit over the top so it would have been hard to transport.
The bottom floor of Belsel appears to have a lot of lolita fashion outlets. Presumably thanks to this, a lot of lolita fashion was spotted in the area.
At about this point we returned to the hotel to make plans for dinner. We figured we would hit that Ivory Coast place which WikiTravel mentioned, to see what it was like. I'm still not sure whether it was a good or a bad idea...
Because of the Christmas season, there was some kind of special on, 4500円 for all you can eat and drink (although we didn't really eat!) which also covered the music charge (usually 3000円) so it was an OK deal. I think we drank enough cocktails to make that worth the money. Showing up at 07:30 seemed to be the right idea, because not long after that, all the remaining seats were taken. I do regret getting pushed to the edge of the room though, as it made it just a little bit harder to get the attention of the serving staff - we could have exploited the drinks much better if we were, for instance, at the bar.
The waitress was all kinds of hot, and was wearing a Santa outfit, as was appropriate for the event. What I didn't expect was that she was the singer for the band - but actually, pretty much all the staff were members of the band (even the guy who looked like he might have been the boss.)
The music was your usual pop and rock covers. There was a bit of western and a bit of Japanese stuff mixed together, and some of it was Christmas-related.
If there was any downside to Ivory Coast for us, it would be that the crowd there is somewhat older than we were. I would peg the average age at around 45. At one point, a lady I could only describe as a cougar came to try and pick up Retro. She apparently failed, but not before we were forced onto the dance floor.
I don't remember much after this night, which might be further proof that drinks were adequate. I know we probably spent the night packing for the next day's trip to Shirakawa-go. At this point I really started regretting having so much luggage, and wished I had a chance to get to a post office before the 26th.