travel phrases

this is a list of phrases i had ready to go last time... not sure how helpful they will be this time considering i have forgotten 95% of the japanese i learned. :(  these aren't the phrases you would think - like, where is the washroom? or how much does this cost? apparently, 5 years ago, these are the phrases i wanted to remember.

i don't know. - shirimasen.
i forgot. - wasuremashita.
please repeat that. - mou ichido onegaishimasu.
please show me ~ . -  ~ o mitte kudasai.
let's have a drink together. - ippai nomimashou.
i'm staying at a hotel. - hoteru ni tomarimasu.
jason cannot speak japanese. - jason san wa nihongo ga/o (hanasu koto ga) dekimasen.
i want to buy souveniers before i go home. - (kanada he) kaeru mae ni omiyage o kaitai desu.
we got married 8 years ago. - (watashitachi wa) hachi nen mae ni kekkonshimashita.
can i take pictures here? - koko ni shashin o totte mo ii desu ka?
i'm full. - onaka ga ippai desu.
i'm hungry. - onaka ga sukimashita.
i'm thirsty. - nodo ga kawakimashia.
may i take your order? - gochuumon wa.
excuse me, can you take our picture? - sumimasen ga, sashin o isshoni totte kudasai.
sorry, but could you take one more? - aa, sumimasen ga, mou ichido totte kudasai.
(right before eating) - itadakimasu.
(when done eating) - gochisousamadeshita.

accommodations

now is the time when i have to start looking into places to stay in japan. we'll definitely be in both tokyo and kyoto again, but since we haven't narrowed down if we adding other stops and which those might be (nikko? nara? etc.), i haven't even started with those yet.

i saw a video about a group of themed hostels in tokyo from a girl i subscribe to on youtube who lives in japan. she only highlights the one she stayed at (obviously) - the ninja one - but they also have samurai, kabuki, origami, labratory, and "world" themes ones. they look so cool! and the prices are pretty good.
but hubby said "shared bathroom? no way." so that kiboshed that. but if you're headed to japan and aren't afraid of shared facilities, check it out. www.khaosan-tokyo.com




another cheaper option are the business hotels. meant for business men who don't live in the area but are attending late night company parties and meetings, i guess. they are often VERY cramped, but at least have the privacy that hostels and economy hotels lack.
this list has a few, as well as some other options http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/feb/01/10-best-budget-hotels-tokyo

and for the extremely budget conscious, check out this list of options (mcdonald's? really?) http://blog.gaijinpot.com/cheap-accommodation-in-japan

i have a feeling the husband is NOT going to go for any of those options. he mentioned just staying at the same place we did last time - the prince park tower hotel in hamamatsucho. it was pretty expensive... but hey, he's paying. whatever. it was also supernice, so i would not complain. 

as for kyoto~ last time was stayed at the hotel granvia. again, supernice... superexpensive.

it was great. connected to the kyoto station. very convenient. but... not helpful for anyone who doesn't want to spend a shitton. i gotta work on that to come up with some more affordable options (whether we go that route or not ourselves, it's helpful info for other people who may be looking at this to help plan their own trips) so i'll get back to you on that later. 


a lot of stuff i know about japan - these little tidbits i become obsessed with - are usually things i hear about from documentaries. one (of the thousands) of these things i saw on a doc and am enchanted by are machiya. otherwise, townhouses. these would be the really old, street front homes. generally one would think of kyoto for this type of home. there was a lot of them being renovated in recent years and i just found out that someone has turned some into guest homes. sweet! 

so, this may be an option too. 
http://www.kyoto-machiya.com/eng/ 
i have yet to show it to my husband so we'll see how that goes. it looks amazing. *fingers crossed*

going back

i didn't think i'd ever get to use this blog again, but guess what? hubby and i are going back to japan!! i could not be more excited.

this time, we've decided to time it to see the cherry blossoms. that's something that was on my original must-do list, but we couldn't make it work. only problem is that the planning time is more rushed. we are aiming to go for the end of march/early april. i've got a lot of work to do. like last time, i'm unemployed, so i've got the time. i've just been... in a funk. extreme laziness is the main symptom. better get started now.

my only ideas this time around, so far are:

hanami (cherry blossom viewing party crashing - ueno park?)

revisiting some of the same places as last time - wandering akihabara, tokyo station, fushimi inari taisha

ghibli museum (missed it last time - best to buy tickets at the same time as getting the JR pass because they sell out) 

more temples and shrines

gundam cafe

imperial palace

and maybe head out to nikko or kamakura~

edo wonderland

daibutsu

things i want to buy:

toilet slippers

uwabaki

eco powder for used cooking oil (katamete-pon)

bull dog sauce

heated toilet seat?

wagashi

konpeito

i love how i wrote out precise instructions on obtaining an exchange order for the JR pass. i was doing it to help out other people (even though no one reads this blog), but as it turns out, i helped myself. there is no way i would have remembered all that. i just hope the process hasn't changed in 5 years. (has it really been that long?!)

i'm still trying to update the days from my first trip... i SWEAR, i will stay on top of it this time around. even if it's just point form with pictures, i WILL post something every day when we're there again.

a long story about nothing much in particular

i don't, by any stretch of the imagination, consider myself a blogger... and yet i have 2 blogs (2.5 really since i have a 3rd which was supposed to replace this one). i told my friend in a facebook message that i hadn't written a post for a long time and that maybe i should. so~ maybe i should. 

i haven't yet decided what i'm going to write about so i'll be making that up as i go. and since this is supposed to be a japanese-themed blog, i suppose i should stay in that area. 

~~~~~
i must admit something. i'm a fan of morning musume (and much of the other crap thrust out into the world of j-pop from under the hello!project umbrella). it's a guilty pleasure. it's just so.... pop-py. so singable. so danceable. and so damn cute with their sickly sweet and innocent lyrics. but something just now occured to me tonight why i might like them. ...or perhaps it's just my snobishness trying to find deeper meaning in the otherwise meaningless and therefore embarrassing delight i feel when i listen to them (the most played on my i-tunes ...other than weezer, of course!)

please bear with me as i digress for a moment~ 

at the end of the school year, several parents give teachers gifts. i was very happy to receive several myself. one of my kid's parents gave me a $25 i-tunes card.

anyone who knows me knows i'm an avid and shamless pirate but i was still happy nonetheless because there are songs you just can't download off torrents from time to time. so, almost right away, i added the card to my account and purchased the cars 2 theme "you might think" by weezer and something by lady gaga. i still had $22.72 left on the card. two days later, i went back into the i-tunes store not to buy something but just to look up what a certain song that i didn't have in my own personal collection sounded like. i noticed that my balance was now at 74 cents. wtf?! so i went to my history and somehow, i figured, someone had hacked my account and purchased some weird app and installation thingy totaling the difference. i was pissed. i ended up writing to support, changing my password, etc. (luckily, my credit card info wasn't on the account ~although i remembered putting it in...) anyway~ a very nice guy from i-tunes made an exception for me and reinstated the money and also gave me 5 free song credits! (yay him ~ made my day.) 

so, slightly back on topic~

tonight, i stumbled across rivers cuomo's website (http://riverscuomo.com/) which i never knew existed and was perusing the discography section (actually, the entire website thoroughly, but only the discography part is relevant to this account) and i came across a few songs he had collaborated on with other artists that i was previously unaware of. (normally, i would have known since i was a frequent reader of weezerpedia... but it's been down for several months.) 

since the incident with the i-tunes theft, i have been nervous about the same thing happening again, however unlikely. i thought it would be wise to use it up as soon as possible so every now and then, i go on to see if anything new has been released from weezer or if there is something new in the north american music scene that i actually like. no such luck usually. (as previously mentioned, i mostly listen to japanese music, much of which is only available on japan i-tunes.) so, after learning about these songs, i logged in and bought 5 songs featuring rivers cuomo with my free credits. that was all i could find. 

i still have that $22.72 to use up and still feel uneasy about it but i don't want to buy something for no reason. i was even going to buy some foo fighters stuff (husband and i just went to their concert on tuesday ~ it was pretty awesome!) but i could easily find that on torrents if my husband didn't already have it, which he does. 

on rivers' page, it mentioned he will be releasing a japanese language album (i'm so excited about it! he previews on of the songs on his youtube account and i LOVE it. check it out.) and it will be titled the kumamoto kid.

i thought i would type in kumamoto into the i-tunes search to see what would turn up. i already knew i wouldn't find anything of rivers but i didn't know what the name is in reference to so i thought i'd see if anything came up. (i looked it up on wikipedia too. it's a city in kyushu. ...maybe that's where his wife is from?)

when you search kumamoto, there are some apps and podcasts to do with the city. i scrolled down to the songs section and the very first one listed is called songs of kumamoto and the album it's from is what piqued my interest. it's called traditional folk songs of japan. i clicked on it, selected the first song and hit preview all.

that's what i'm listening to as i've been writing this.

and now back to my original point...

immediately what struck me was how the background singers chanting-style singing sounded exactly like what morning musume frequently does in their music. so, maybe tsunku writes songs with a little more substance than what i previously thought? ne? shh. just let me think that so i don't feel like a brainless idiot.

another thing i found interesting was that the very first song on the 2-disc album is called soran bushi. when i listened to it, i found a similarity to the melody of the para para song odore! soran by the group soran happies.

judging by the name, it's probably no mistake. i learn things about japan by looking them up online. not always the most reputable but the best option i have. i thought i had read that odore meant dance and i just assumed that the soran part was taken from the name of the group. never thought to check it out. after i heard the song, i decided to look it up again. apparently, whatever i had read (or my own mind) had mixed up odore with odori. as in bon odori~ a type of dance. denshi jisho informs me that odore is an insulting way of saying you in the hyougo banshu dialect (whatever that is). and soran only refers to that particular song which wikipedia says is one of the most famous traditional songs in japan, originally sung by the fisherman of hokkaido. it's also frequently sung along with bon odori... so i was wrong... but sort of right.

when i heard the similarity between the songs, i wasn't imagining it. i was thinking i was really clever knowing that the modern pop song was referencing an old traditional song... silly me. all the japanese kids probably got that right away.

anyway, i learned something.

now my only problem is, do i buy just that song or the whole album. my card doesn't cover the whole $24.99. what to do?...

earbuds

i'm in love with my earbuds that i bought while in japan.

the thing that made me appreciate them so much right now is that they were buried somewhere at the bottom of my backpack after a trip downtown (toronto) a few days ago and i was too lazy to get off the couch to get them. i was catching up on my youtube subscriptions and i didn't want to disturb my husband playing his rockband endless setlist (he's so cute~ haha).... so i used the earbuds that came with my ipod. ouch!

i had been using those giant sony headphones that cover your whole ear for several years but they are very cumbersome to travel with and to use in bed and even they hurt my ears after awhile (smooshing them to my head). regular earbuds that have been around for 15 or 20 years have never worked for me. they are my nemesis! they kill my ears. i don't know if i just have teeny tiny ear canals or something but i can't imagine they are comfortable for anyone.

so... before going to japan, i picked up a pair of those silcone ones that fit inside your ear snugly and more comfortably for $5 at superstore and changed them to the smallest size (they come with 2-3 different sizes per pair). they were horribly girly looking. pinks jewels with giant rhinestones on the outside. (see my previous post on the things i purchased before going to japan). oh well. i'm still only 30!

i was all ready to enjoy listening to my extensive j-pop collection playlist on my ipod on the disgustingly long 13 hour flight to japan when ~argh! the left ear gave out before the flight even took off. and then, only a few hours in, the right ear as well. i guess that's what you get for paying $5. so, for the rest of the flight, i was relagated to the huge honking old ones...

needless to say, i needed to find a new pair before heading home again. you can find these new style of earbuds anywhere and japan is no exception. and with it's kawaii fetish/obsession, your choices are endless! we actually ended up buying a rilakkuma pair for my neice and a mameshiba pair for my nephew. i didn't want to pay 2000 yen like we did for them... i thought another cheap pair will do me just fine. and where else would you look for cheap electronic goods in tokyo other than akihabara?! i can't remember the name of the store right now but it's that famous building just outside the electric town exit of akihabara station... the one with the different coloured pod-looking projections around the stairs... next (or close to) kotobukiya... 
anyway, that's where i bought them. i think they were 800 yen or something. there were a ton to choose from but i bought the purpley-blue ones because they were cute.

i absolutely love them! something to be said about electronic stuff made in japan... not much more expensive than the crap pair i bought here but so much better in quality! it's been 6 months since i bought them and i use them almost everyday. i hope i'm not jinxing myself by saying so because i don't know how i'd live without them at this point! unfortunatley, it looks like it'll be quite awhile before i get back there again. X(

something else i like about them is that the different sizes you can put on seem even smaller than the ones here. maybe since everything is smaller there.... maybe japanese people have smaller ear holes?! regardless, they are super comfortable. i wear them for hours at a time and they never bother me. i've even slept with them in on several occaisions.

kenzo ramen restaurant in toronto

i grew up eating dehydrated instant ramen, which in my family we called it "ichiban" although we didn't eat the sappora ichiban brand... just no name crap. but that's how it was introduced to us by my cousins back in 1987 (who probably did eat the brand... or at least would have seen the commercial. remember it?! SAPPORO SAPPORO SAPPORO ICHIBAN!! haha) 

i didn't even know that it was called ramen until i was in high school. although, that's probably a good thing ~ because my brain never properly linked that... stuff... to the ramen i heard about when i started getting interested in japan. to me, dehydrated instant ramen is not ramen. and i can guarantee that anyone from japan or anyone who has had REAL ramen would agree.

anyway~ when my husband and i were in japan we ate quite a bit of ramen. it was at the top of our list of things to do while we were there. (we still eat the crap stuff at home but are fully aware that it is not ramen.) when we got home, we were in withdrawal. after a few months, my husband was desperate one day so he went online and searched for a ramen restaurant nearby. i had never seen any in my wanderings around downtown toronto. i don't think toronto has much in the way of japanese stuff in general. lots of sushi restaurants but they are mainly owned by korean of chinese people. i've HEARD of an area that has some shops and a cultural centre of some sort, but i've never been able to find it!

i was skeptical that he would be able to find anything authentic. he came up with, i think, only 6 ramen restaurants in all of toronto. he picked the one with the best reviews and the night we were downtown for the fan expo, we decided to try it out. my expectations weren't high but i was pleasantly satisfied with it. not the best i had ever had but, as far from japan as we are and with the unlikelihood that we will be returning any time in the near future, it's still pretty good.

we liked it so much that we are going again tomorrow! i'm excited ~ i'm dying for some ramen. we went there in august.

so~
if you are in the toronto area and have a craving for, or want to try out authentic japanese ramen, go to KENZO RAMEN. it is located at 138 dundas street west in between elizabeth street and bay street. (it's on the north side.) if you are taking the subway, get off either at dundas or st. patrick and walk the rest of the way.

street view


checking out the menu


decor ~ they have booths (shown), tables to the right of this, and a counter at the back of the restaurant. my back was to the front door as i took this.


specialty house cocktail menu


i ordered tea but was disapointed that i got a bag in a cup of hot water.


i ordered shoyu and hubby ordered chashumen ~ but when it came, we switched.



so good that we had every last drop (almost... the meat in the shoyu was a little fatty.)

sorry i haven't updated yet

obviously i've been to japan and back ~ i just haven't gotten around to updating... i have a lo~ot of pictures and videos to sift through and organize. i will do it soon! i'll back date the entries as i put them in so it doesn't seem so disjointed.

this is my favourite picture we took ~ it's that famous river in gion where sayuri first meets the chairman in memoirs of a geisha.

note: i was wrong. i just watched memoirs of a geisha last night. they show this almost exact scene in a montage type thing after the war ended and she is going back to gion. (October 30, 2014) and i JUST started finally updating. day 2 is up! yay.