Mostly Harmless…
Osaka is only about half an hour from Kyoto by train, so we decided to spend today there and visit Osaka Castle. It was first built in the late 1500’s, and even though it has been rebuilt and restored a number of times since then (The castle itself is actually built of concrete!) , it’s still one of the most impressive buildings I’ve ever seen!
I went for a walk around Kyoto today and visited Nijo Castle and Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). I took some pictures.
I’m lucky enough that I’ve never been subjected to the UK rail network for more than a couple of hours, but still, I try to avoid it where possible!
The Japanese rail network is totally different! It’s spotlessly clean (even the Tokyo underground!) and runs to the minute. If the timetable gives a 14:03 departure, the train is leaving the station at 14:03:01.
Today I travelled to Kyoto on the Hikari high-speed train. The interior was set out more like an aircraft cabin than a train car, with everyone given an assigned seat in forward-facing rows. One very cool thing about that: The seats all face forward. What happens at the end of the line? Does the entire train turn around? Do the passengers just have to travel backwards instead? No. A team of cleaners rushes on board between services, and as part of their duty, spins each row of seats through 180-degrees! It’s brilliant!
Akihabara is Tokyo’s “Electric Town”, and as a self-confessed electronics geek, this is somewhere I wanted to spend a good bit of time.
Akihabara is the sort of place that could easily take up an entire day. I wandered around the 9-story Yodobashi Camera store for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, but wanted to check out the rest of the area and see the place light up once the sun had gone down.
I found Akihabara a little difficult to get around, but mostly due to Tokyo stations having similar but slightly different names! The station to aim for is JR Akihabara, rather than the Hibya line Akihabara subway station. If you have plenty of time to explore the area it might not matter, but the JR station exits directly into the “Electric Town”, simplifying things a bit.
Once in Akihabara things are a little easier. The best thing to do in my opinion is just to walk around the side streets. Those who are interested in Anime and the like will probably find something of interest, but for me the best part was the variety of electronic component stalls. Until now I was completely unaware of the vast number of different brands of copper wire, insulation and solder, but Maplin will never seem quite the same again.
Today we went to Miraikan (Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) and were just in time to see ASIMO come out of his* cupboard and run around for a bit!
ASIMO was only out for about 15 minutes, but he was pretty impressive. He did a bit of running in a straight line and managed to kick a football across the stage to one of the museum staff. He didn’t attempt any stairs though!
*ASIMO is so awesome that I often think of it as a tiny person in a suit. A kind of Turing test I suppose.
I’m currently sitting in the airport at Cairns waiting on my flight to Tokyo. I’ve still got about an hour before boarding, but that’s alright, there’s free wireless here!
It’s a little strange to be leaving the country I’ve been travelling through for the last 7 months or so. It seems I’ve been here long enough that other travellers look at me and think I must have some idea what I’m doing with this travel lark! I ended up helping a couple of people plan trips down the East coast to Melbourne while I was sitting on Magnetic Island! I don’t mind it all. I asked the same questions 6-months ago. It’s just a little strange being “that guy” now!
Anyway. Today I’m travelling from a country I know quite a bit about, to one that I’m relatively clueless about. I can’t wait to see it though! Lots of raw fish and robots everywhere! Awesome! That, and I’m meeting my parents and brother there. That should be good too!
