The World of Balance

This could be the mother of all late posts by this kid. The events of this happening occurred in mid-September. I started the post and then saved and forgot about it. A half hour ago, I rediscovered it, and can now finally finish it. It belongs in the September pile, but I figure that no one would notice it there, so here it is, albeit late. To make up for tardiness, I put lots of pictures.

Preemptive sidebar: If you can identify which Final Fantasy game this is from, you get ten points.

What do random rides in BMWs, howling baboons, and love hotels have in common? This weekend.

It's funny that one can get cabin fever being in an entire prefecture. But this was my case up until a few days ago. Since my family's visit in mid-June (which I REALLY should write about...), I haven't been so much as across the border in a neighbouring prefecture in almost two months. All and all, it's not such a bad thing since I have many things around me to keep me busy. However, the patient realization of it all sort of hit me periodically like a metaphysical ton of bricks. Then and therefore, when I got the call from one of me favorite birds Renate to mission out for a long weekend, I gave it the green light and headed out me door.

A terribly oppressive morning later at 5 AM, I found meself on an express train bound for Himeji, which was then followed by a shinkansen over to Nagoya. I was rather excited to be riding the shinkansen as I had been looking forward to such a thing since I arrived. The badboy was much more crowded than I expected and so we were forced to stand in the hallway for about half the trip. Once the train started off and we went to full power, I must admit that found it somewhat... underwhelming. Granted we were moving at an incredible speed, I was imagining us to be going so fast that the view outside would resemble the streaks of light you see going at warp speed on Star Trek. This was sadly not the case, and so it was more a measure of time than visual cue that told me we'd made a long distance in a short amount of time. What seemed like only thirty-five minutes or so later and we found ourselves almost three or four hours by car from where we were.

We went straight from there to another city north of Nagoya called Inuyama. I myself would never have heard about it all all were it not for Renate researching and finding it. We had two reasons for going there. The first was the Monkey Park. No, I haven't been in Japan too long to not realize what I'm writing; yes, you did read that right. The Monkey Park. Essentially a zoo filled with various species of monkey. On paper, I thought her mad to seriously suggest such a place, but in the end it turned out to be quite fun. Especially because of the unexpected bonuses that came along with it.

For one thing, there were the kids. Being a place filled with monkeys, naturally many families were keen to bring their lil'un's to run around and see the animals. Thus, everywhere you went there were kids, kids, kids. And to say that a single Japanese child is two levels beyond cute is an understatement. But when you enclose a space with hundreds of them, your cute meter goes right through the roof and you're put into this lolly-pop, fairy tale, cloud-9-dreamy, euphoric high brought about by seeing all the happy and bubbly kids. Anyone having a bad day need only to go to the Monkey Park for five minutes and your mood is instantly improved - you don't even need to see a single monkey.

After monkey madness had taken us over, we walked to Inuyama castle - which is more like a 25 minute walk as opposed to the ten minutes that is advertised. I thoroughly enjoyed it as it is still one of the "old-school" castles and not one of the modern renovations that has removed the interiors and instead rebuilt them as museums. As we buy our tickets, the lady behind the glass asks my friend whether we'd like an English interpreter to accompany us. We agreed, and not a minute later a woman comes darting down the path breathlessly. How in the world did she know? Beats me. Japanese telepathy, perhaps. She mentioned that she'd studied English for a year in Nebraska, which caused the both of us to tilt our heads slightly and wonder why someone from Japan would seek out Nebraska as a place to learn English. (Prove me wrong, Lincoln, prove me wrong!)

Lunch and a wee bit of shopping later, we trained it back to Nagoya and finally to our hotel just outside of the city centre. Throwing fatigue to the wind (by this time [late afternoon], we'd been up 13, 14 hours), we went back the way we came into the city to hit up an orchid garden that Renate had found in her research. I must admit that I was a touch reticent to explore this one at first since I'm usually a "look and move on" person when it comes to flowers.

The next goal was to try and track down a Moroccan restaurant that existed somewhere in the city. By this time, we was mad hungry, but decided to stick it out for the hopes of trying something new. One helpful subway worker later, we did indeed manage to find the place. Dinner came with a show as a rather nimble belly dancer made her way out about half way through dinner to wow the crowd with moves that would make many a clubrat blush.

Stomachs satisfied, we returned to the hotel to partake in the spa. Our hotel fees covered a trip to a spa/onsen resort that happened to be conveniently attached to the hotel. It was nice to be able to relax after a long day by taking a dip in a pool of steaming hot, skin-scalding, can't-breath-'cause-it's-too-humid water. However, I'm convinced that the blissful visit later reeked havoc upon my system. Perhaps it was the raised body temperature coming into contact with the air-conditioned room, I'm not sure. But whatever it was, Ray's body was not feeling good the next morning.

Next day, bright and genki, was Nagoya castle. Two castles in one trip? Can we risk it? I think so! Now again, I love Japanese castles. You take one look and can almost feel like a medieval warrior being scared spitless and looking up at his own impending doom on orders to scale the badboy. For me, though, it's such a treat to see the original structures as they were laid out all those years ago. Nagoya, due to earthquakes, fires, and wars, was a reconstruct of the original splendor. Therefore, the interior was a modern museum, complete with AC, stairs, the whole nine years. Don't get me wrong, every castle is a mindblow and walking the grounds alone is worth the trip. Sue me, I'm just a historical funny pants.

After departing the castle, we happenstanced upon a Noh theatre just outside the castle. I had done a paper on Japanese drama, in particular Kabubi, however I was still nonetheless fascinated by Noh. Noh, for those not familiar, is a dramatic form hundreds of years old - a thousand, if I'm not mistaken. Everyone moves about painstakingly slow, wears masks and speaks in tongues I couldn't even fathom. Nonetheless, it's traditional, so everyone loves it. Back from the tangent, so we couldn't enter the theatre proper as it's only open during performances, but we could still see exhibits showcasing the theatres history, Noh in general, and famous plays.

After wandering the mean streets of Nagoya for another hour, we decided to hit up Ise at Renate's suggestion. Ise is a city a ways around Ise bay from Nagoya, taking about two or so hours by train. She had studied about a famous shrine located there that only the Emperor and a select few high ranking priests were allowed to enter. Commoners were (and are) not allowed to even see it; it's hidden behind a wooden fence surrounding all but the roof. I had no clue what any of it was about, but I was nonetheless gungho. We arrived in city and caught a cab ride from yet another infamous talk-your-ear-off Japenese taxi driver, who was quite endearing in his enthusiam, actually.

One more shrine up and down with, we soon found ourselves with the trouble of finding a way back to the train station. We'd discovered that the last bus was in about a half an hour, so we sat down in the shelter next to a young Japanese couple. Out of nowhere, an older Japanese man appeared and started talking to the couple. He was relating to them that the bus takes a good 20+ minutes or so, and how if they walked up one or two stops they could save a dollar or two on the fare. All the while we (Renate and I) were listening but making no indication that we could understand. He soon started talking about driving them to the station instead and asking their opinion. They seemed a little undecisive, and at this point the man metioned the "other people sitting there," - reference to my friend and I. I looked at him at this; he asked me if I could understand him. I told him that I did and that gave him further cause to press him point of driving. In my head, I figured that he was a taxi driver, however he wasn't wearing a uniform or anything and appeared to be quite casual. Doing the math in my head, I found it to be almost the same price split four ways if we took a taxi, so I said that I was willing. The other couple agreed and so we headed over to his car.

I was expecting to see one of the usual black, homogonous Japanese taxis that seem to be the standard in every city in the country. Instead, we roll up besides a brand new BMW sedan done up to the nines. NOW I'm thinking that this is some sort of limosuine thing that will cost us more. Starting to regret my decision, but I made my bed, so I figured I may as well lay in it. I popped in the passenger side and we were all off. I immediately noticed that there was no meter. Was it a flat-rate service? The whole way back the man was chatting me up, asking me where I was from, if I knew about the shrines in Ise, what I was doing in Japan, my life's story, basically. He was incredibly friendly and more than anything was curious about my home country and how I came to be there. Before I knew it, we arrived at the station. I figured that the bill was coming now, so I got out of the cab and drew my wallet, asking how much to pay. The man smiled and said (In Japanese), "Oh, no charge at all. I was just glad to talk with you. Have a good night!", and with that he climbed back into his car and drove off with a wave. Dumbfounded by the turn of events, I turn to the Japanese couple who up to this point hadn't said a word. The man looked at me and said (In English), "Lucky", and with a nod he and his lady walked off into the night.

We caught a train from there to Osaka where we decided to spend the night. Renate had made arrangements for us to grab places in a capsule hotel. An... interesting experience, to say the least. Yes, it had enough space for one person to be ok. Not luxurious by any means, but it gets the job done. If I had my call, I think I'd do an internet cafe next time. Leather couch and free drinks wins out. The reason that I mentioned love hotels in the preface was that this capsule hotel seemed to be in Love Hotel Central. Every building around it for blocks around was a love hotel. In my masculine immaturity, I'd take a look at a couple walking into one and think, "Ha! I know what you're up to!"

Shopping and walking followed the next day. Not too much excitement for those who know Osaka up and down by now. If I could put the weekend into a nutshell, it would be that monkeys are loud, Nagoya is a lovely city, and one should never underestimate the kindness of strangers in Japan.