Oh hey, now that I'm back from Japan and caught up with things needed catching up on, this is a good time to write up a bit about some cool stuff I saw on this trip:
Kyoto Manga Museum - I didn't expect too much out of this, but this place blew me away. It's not just a really cool manga museum dedicated to the history of manga (browsing through 1940s/1950s manga is super neat), but it also doubles as a museum about the old primary school which become the manga museum after the school closed down. You get to walk up and down the authentic old early 1900s woodwork stairways of an elementary school while the most depressingly sad ghibli-esque music plays and look at the old 1870s-1990 photographs of the principals from black and white and in oldschool robes to modern suits. You see the photos of the teachers and kids over the last 100 of years. Idk, it might have had more of an effect on me because I used to teach at a Japanese elementary school (as well as Jr. High), but I found the place really moving and absolutely wonderful. As good as the Ghibli Museum in a different way. Plus the gift shop had lots of cool Godzilla things.
Enoshima Island - This place was amazing! The entire island is an attraction theme park basically. You cross a long bridge from the mainland where there's beaches and beach town stuff (Hawaii burgers, etc...; has a very hawaii-vibe) and then you get to the island and follow this route along shrines, flower gardens, lighthouses and then it winds down to really cool caves at the bottom with ancient carvings in them (although there's a super cheesy dragon that flashes lightning everytime you clap twice -_-). They also do boat rides from the back end to the shore both ways so you can take one back or take one at the start and work through Enoshima backwards. Lots of places to grab bites, snacks and enjoy the view. Don't quote me on this, but my understanding is that Enoshima was a volcanic island that floating into Japan some hundreds/thousands of years back. I watched a video at the Science Museum in Ueno and the pictures looked like it was saying that.
Hakone - Finally got out to Hakone after hearing good things about it from travel websites. Was hoping to get a nice beautiful view of Fuji and enjoy cool places. Couldn't see Fuji at all
and the place, while green and forest and scenic, was ridiculously packed with American and Chinese tourists and everything was really slow and far apart. The selling point of Hakone is the 5 ways of transportation where you take a train up a mountain on a pretty scenic track, take 2 sets of cable cars over the forest then a boat ride across the lake and then a bus back to the station. This takes MANY HOURS and after about 5-10 mins you've gotten the view from each thing and are just packed with everyone else for the rest. The other thing is that Hakone is a hot spring place and I was just going for the day scenery so I didn't go to the onsen (went onsen elsewhere) and I could see that being nice, but overall Hakone seemed pretty boring and overrun by tourists and if I realized Bitsummit was going on that day (was sorta aware from some posts on fb but didn't pay much attention) I really should've gone to Kyoto and done that instead. Would not recommend Hakone and won't be coming back.
Fwiw, Enoshima seems undiscovered by Western/Chinese tourists at this point and was not too crowded since it was just Japanese tourists, which was nice. I found out about Enoshima from an Asian Kung-Fu Generation song Enoshima Escar and then later from the anime Tsuritama that's about fishing and aliens in Enoshima. Enoshima is cool!
Matsumoto - Finally got out to see the castle in Matsumoto. Was ok. It's a big deal because it's the oldest authentic major castle in Japan, but it's basically empty because of it whereas some of the rebuilt ones have cool museums and things in them. The best part is the good ole castle climbing and not dying experiences. Just as thrilling as a rollercoaster, but once you've done one castle you've done them all imo. Having been to Nagoya, Hirosaki, Osaka, Himeji, Matsumoto castles and probably a few other small ones, I definitely liked Himeji the best, but Osaka one is nice for convenience.
And outside of the castle there is not much to do in Matsumoto. Basically hung out at the mall tower records mini and the small arcade (with no actual real games) for the night I was there.
Tsukiji - Never been before because not really a fish person, but it was really cool. We took a tour and our guide had a deal with one of the Shenmue cart drivers and we got to hop on and seemingly try to run over people as they jumped out of the way. Then we bought some fish and made sushi which was cool.
Otherwise just basically went to places I'd been before in Tokyo (Senso-ji, Ueno Park, Shibuya, Akihabara), Kyoto (Kiyomizu-dera, Gion, Arashiyama) and Osaka (Aquarium, Den Den Town) which were all good as always. Had a really great Tonkatsu at Ganko Namba with Chronovore and had a really good Ganko meal at the mall outside the Osaka Aquarium (great sushi), so now I know Ganko is where its at in Osaka. Also had Shandygaff (which apparently is a thing now in Japan?) with Troidal at an Izakaya in Shibuya. I guess it's an old English ginger beer drink, but never seen it before in the states. Was weird, basically Chu-Hai Beer.
Narita airport was nice as always. Spent a decent amount of time in Tower in Shibuya at the listening stations checking out different new bands. Picked up the 2nd Ep of Moshimo cause they remind me a bit of some of the late Go!Go!7188 that I was into (which became the experimental band Chirinuruwowaka).
