Japan – Page 6 – Travels with Owen

Matsumoto Towers

Guest blog by Ray Shortridge

The famous Black Crow Castle has loomed over Matsumoto, Japan, since 1504. Over the centuries, several successive warrior clans ruled the region from the eponymous black wooden fortress until 1868.

Black color was used to intimidate enemies

Another equally tall structural steel tower now looms over the city, facilitating voice, data, and video digital communications.

During dusk, a flock of black crows cawed their way from the sixteenth century to twenty first century one, and back, circling from the past to the present.

Itoya in Tokyo is a 100 year old stationery store with an entire floor of fountain pens, a fabulous cafe, and even some housewares. Everything is beautifully presented and the quality is amazing. If you are ever in Tokyo and love pens or stationery, it’s definitely worth a visit.

Just a handful of the stunning pens available. They also had a Pelikan writing area where one can try out the high end Pelikan models.

And there were so many drool-worthy models that I was overwhelmed.

They also had an amazing collection of stationary and journal supplies.

And to to it all off, the cafe served delectable Japanese style pancakes and mango sangria, as well as a variety of lovely salads, soups, and entrees.

On the way down, we noticed even more fun items.

Tatami Mat Manufacture and Care

At our ryokan, we have beautiful tatami mats on the main floor, and in the dining areas. A wood or tile step before you enter the tatami room reminds guests to remove their slippers.

The tatami mat in dining room

While beautiful, tatami mats are expensive (one price quote was close to $1000 USD) and somewhat fragile, as well as hard to wash, although they are easy to vaccum or sweep. An errant pair of heels or careless movement of furniture can cause irreparable damage.

Tatami mat in bedroom with futons on top

The cost and care required is easier to understand once one has viewed the process used to create these classic Japanese floor coverings. Tatami mat manufacture video.

They give a warm, restful glow to any room they grace, but are a bit firm under a futon.

Traditional rice harvesting

Rice is a beautiful crop as you can see from these pictures. The bright yellow green plants pop against the dark green of the surrounding hills. Most of our team volunteered to harvest rice using traditional methods (second photo above). Ray and I opted out. As an ex-farmer and a farmer’s daughter, we had both put in enough hard work on farms that the prospect of farm work wasn’t appealing. The process is fascinating, however, as the video linked (under process) shows. Modern techniques have been adopted where the farmers can afford the equipment.

The workers from our team wore rubber boots, wellies as the Brits call them.

Japanese Vending Machines are a win

(A guest blog by Ray Shortridge)

Unlike Pachinko, playing the vending machine slots is a guaranteed win for the player.

Japan has the highest per capita number of vending machines in the world. Let’s focus on one vending machine commonly seen on the street, beverages. Here’s one stocked with a wide variety of types of drinks.

A player wins > 99% of the time, because the vending machine vendor maintains the machine assiduously. In Japan, one rarely encounters something broken. Although, if a machine lacks, sufficient coins to provide change, then it won’t let you play.

The bottom row of Boss cold coffee in a can products warrants closer attention. On a video commercial played in the subway car, I had seen Tommy Lee Jones evidently shilling Boss coffee. Well, if the Man In Black guy likes it, then I’ll give it a shot. Must be good.

I played against Boss, for 110¥, and selected the tan 3rd can from the left, cafe au lait. I WON! 😀😀😀 And it was delicious.

Slipper challenges

These red slippers are only for the bathroom.

These slippers are for the hallways inside the hotel. Inside the room, since we have tatami mats, we don’t wear slippers, just bare feet or socks.

And if that isn’t challenging enough, there’s this:

What you always needed: a slipper cleaning machine

Ghibli clock animation

While I didn’t get to see this clock in action, it goes through a full animation several times a day. (animation) This article describes the background of the clock and how it ended up in front of Nippon television headquarters.

Wrestling with Sumo

Sumo is a fun sport to watch but often a bit bewildering for non Japanese. Basically, whoever gets shoved out of the circle first or made to touch the ground with any body part except for the soles of their feet loses. There’s a tremendous amount of religious ceremony due to the sport’s Edo period beginning and its ties to Shinto religion. Here is one of the best explanations I found for neophyte attendees. Sumo basics

We went to one of the really big tournaments and the audience was really excited. The actual matches last only seconds, but the preparation and ritual before the match takes much longer.

It was a large crowd in a large stadium. Finding our seat was difficult as the ticket didn’t have a translation and the apparent entry gate wasn’t the right one. Fortunately, the stadium staff members were very helpful and spoke excellent English

The sumo wrestlers are huge! Yet, they move with surprising grace and agility. The extra weight they carry subtracts about 10 years from their life expectancy and leads to illnesses such as diabetes.

We’ve Got Big Drums

On the way to our workout/class for Taiko drumming, we spotted a fun workout gym. Now for the fun part. Here’s a sample of what we were trying to do. Fun video of Taiko drumming

Our instrctor uses the big drum. She played an amazing concert for us. I have video but we were asked not to share on line. (Close friends can ask for a link if you promise, like me, not to share it online. We not only have video of her but also of Ray and I )

Smaller drums in storage.

Pachinko, the Japanese alternative to casinos

Pachinko machines are sort of a vertical pinball machine. One of my coworkers collected antique models (at what I considered exorbitant prices). So I was excited to see Pachinko parlors near our hotel. The older models are classy in the same way as classic movies. The newer models are glitzier but the concept of play remains the same.

If you’re interested in playing pachinko, this link https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Pachinko gives a good description. From Wikipedia: “By 1994, the pachinko market in Japan was valued at ¥30 trillion (nearly $300 billion).
As of 2015, Japan’s pachinko market generates more gambling revenue than that of Las Vegas, Macau and Singapore combined.”

The entire Wikipedia article and references is at this link. Now, pachinko is spreading, mostly to other Asian countries, so it’s a trend to watch.

Category: Japan