A day in Japan

[chadbag]

Last stuff from Chiran (I have to go edit the pic in the last post as one is wrong and one is missing)

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There were also lots of different uniforms, personal effects, rifles (just a few), old bullets, etc. One interesting display compared the US 50 cal (12.7 mmm) to the Japanese 13mm bullet.

[chadbag]

So, like I previously mentioned, we went Shinkansen riding this past Friday and went to a War Museum in Tokyo. (My son and I -- wife and daughter stayed at her (wife's) mom's place and did girl things)


Here are the pics from that day:


Here is the E4 Max double decker Shinkansen we rode for about 25 minutes from Tokyo to Omiya and put another type under our belt...



And the E2 we rode back to Tokyo from Omiya. Yet another new type of Shinkansen for us:




Then it was off to the museum.

In the entry gallery they had a bunch of stuff on display (before you enter the paid part) and there were no "do not take photos" signs so I took a bunch with the iPhone.

They had a ZERO fighter on display right there...









This wing cannon was on display next to it. The caption for it was not in English but it may have been the type a Zero had.




Here is some artillery that was recovered at Okinawa. You can see places where small arms bullets gouged out metal in the fierce fighting. (The pieces have been repainted since the war). They are both 150mm pieces. The short barreled on more a howitzer type or light artillery and the longer barreled one the caption said was a heavy artillery unit piece.








The Japanese built an (in)famous railroad from Thailand to Burma (made famous by the novel Bridge over the River Kwai) and this engine was one that was used by the Japanese on that railroad. Originally it was a civil engine used in Japan but was taken to Thailand for use on this railway. If I understood correctly, this was the first engine to traverse the railway. After the war it was used by the Thai railroad system but was eventually bought by a veterans or war memorial group and donated to the museum.




more info is at the end of this listing on the manufacturer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Sharyo

[chadbag]

A few more random thoughts and pictures.


Beef is super expensive here in most cases. I bought some "stir fry beef" at Costco in order to make some Fajitas for my in-laws and it was not that bad, for Japanese priced beef. Being from Costco this was USDA graded US Beef but was sliced and fatty "stir fry" and was like $7 or $8 a pound IIRC.

They like really marbled beef for grilling and for "Shabu Shabu".





That price you see is 900 yen for 100grams. 900 yen is, at the moment, around $12. And 1 US pound is about 455 grams, so that comes to around $55 per pound. And this is at a smaller local market in the small city my MIL lives in, not the high end department store grocery sections (with $12 melons).

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Lots of Prius vehicles here. Lots of Prius being used as Taxis. I saw a couple in Tokyo when we were walking around on the way back to the train station after the war museum. I saw this one in the Osaka area...



They are on a real "eco" binge here. I will try and get a picture but the mall up the street (a new mall I should say -- it was not here when we were here 2 years ago) has a big sign out front (electric sign) that says how much CO2 the place is generating, how much electricity it is currently using, etc.

Lots of Hybrid vehicles here (Hybrid FIT from Honda) that we don't see in the US.

Signs every where about how much CO2 they are saving and how we can do the same etc.

Saw a commercial or infomercial on TV that showed a device that measures how much power each appliance has (ok, we have those too) but it showed a lady installing them on each appliance, and the device was programmed to show how much CO2 the device was causing to be generated based on its electricity usage. (And the lady then had a paper "spreadsheet" she was using to calculate her house CO2 usage.

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We went to the Kobe Zoo today. We try and get a day or twos worth of family activities in with my wife's mom and 2 sisters all together. The first few times we came to Japan we would go stay overnight somewhere at a resort or vacation spot but with her mom getting older and having trouble walking long distances etc plus a sister living in Yokohama now (by Tokyo -- 2.5 hours from here by Bullet Train) it is harder to travel away with everyone so we just do local things now. We had been to the Osaka Aquarium a few times in the past (nice Aquarium but wicked expensive -- Adult entry is like $30 or more at todays crappy exchange rate) so I suggested the Kobe Zoo. It was only 600 yen (about $8) for adults and free for kids through junior high. So we went there for a few hours today. It was pretty cool.

They have 2 Pandas there. I only got one in my picture. But he was laid back in a tire eating bamboo leaves. I like how these guys relax and eat.




Evidently they don't want the Zoo patrons beating the pandas either as evidenced by this sign leading into the Panda cage:



(what it really says is to not tap or rap on the glass)

They also had some Asian Elephants there. A male and a female from what I gather. Both were huge but the male was really big. The top of his back was over 3.5m off the ground. That is over 11 1/3 feet. It was much bigger than any of the African Elephants that we have at our Salt Lake City zoo.



The Zoo had a lot of stuff our Utah Zoo does not or no longer has (and we have stuff they don't have here in Kobe) and I think Kobe is a but bigger in terms of number of animals and exhibits but the Salt Lake City Zoo probably takes up more land area as they have been trying to redo exhibits and make things more natural.

I enjoyed the Zoo today.


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For those of you who can never decide if they want the ice cream sandwich, or the ice cream bar, they have you covered here in Japan:



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People in Japan dress kind of like in the US in terms of casual wear. You see people in sweat pants and a tshirt at the store or jeans and a tshirt at the Zoo. (The dress reminds me more of American casual than Euro casual).

But you see a lot more women who dress nicer when just out shopping or where ever. Even in 85-95 degree heat and 75-95 percent humidity. We were at Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle) a week ago and there were a lot of women there dressed in nice skirts and blouses and shoes, or nice dresses and shoes. We see a lot of them out shopping and stuff too or at the train station or where ever. Both young and old. It was hot and humid the other day and this older lady had a nice dress and a knit shawl on of some sort.

It is not a case of being fashion conscious, as there is not a discernible fashion on display. Just that they like to dress nicely when they leave the house.

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Lots of iPhones here. And LOTS of iPhone accessories and cases and stuff we never see. There was a complete whole row 20-25' long of iPhone 4 cases at Yodobashi camera and a 15' long by 7' high row jam packed with iPad 2 cases.

I have seen several people who have phone straps that use the iPhone 30 pin connector to attach to the phone and people wear the phone around their neck or whatever. Lots of iPhones. Even the the iPhone does not have all the stuff like TV tuner, NFC chip, or other features that Japanese phones have, the iPhone is far and away the most popular smart phone I see and smart phone penetration seems to be quite high as well. Lots of Android as well from Sony and people like that since the iPhone is still only on one carrier here.

I have seen more white iPhones here than ever before in my life and have seen grade school kids on the train and old grandpas with them as well as everyone in between.

Lots of people use iPhone cases as a way to accessorize their phone rather than as a way to protect it it seems as many of the cases may protect against casual scratches and stuff but if you drop it they don't seem like they would do much.

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Japanese sports drinks are good tasting. They are not like Gatorade or anything. Usually a milky clear color the taste is hard to describe. But they are sold every where and they taste good. I have a water bladder in my BFG DAP pack and tend to put 25-40% sports drink in and water for the rest for when we go out on our day long trips. But we drink the sports drink straight to as it is available everywhere in drink machines and convenience stores.

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We'll see what else we get to this next week. We are going to Tokyo / Yokohama for the next 2 days. In tokyo we will go to Asakusa shrine and Akihabara Electric City (the place where you can buy any and all things electronic / electric). Tuesday my SIL wants to show us around Yokohama.

Wednesday my son and I are going Shinkansen riding again. We want to ride the 800 which is only found on Kyushu so we are going to go down to Hakata (Fukuoka) and hop an 800 for a 30 minute ride in to Kyushu and back to Hakata. Then we will go to Hiroshima on the way back and see the atomic bomb museum. We went there 2 years ago but my son wants to go again so we will go there a few hours on the way back from our 800 ride (the ride to Kyushu is like 2.5 or 3 hours) so this is pretty much a whole day trip down there, take the 800 ride, and the go to Hiroshima for a few hours and get back to Osaka round 6:45 pm (leaving the house at 7am) and doing some shopping for toy trains (not fancy electric trains but battery powered ones) before heading back to Amagasaki where we are staying.

After that it is basically visit friends, finish shopping, and hang out with family and maybe go to a bug (insect) museum they have here as we get ready to head back to Utan in a week.

[chadbag]

So we are going back to the US today (Monday sept 26). We are on a Shinkansen headed towards Tokyo where we will catch the Narita Express to Narita airport.

This is what 165mph looks like out the window of the train:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4YShBhGUhI

Cool thing is I was able to take the video and upload it to YouTube all from my iPhone, while traveling wicked fast, in a foreign country, and then post about it here as well, still traveling wicked fast on the train.

When I get back, I have a few more random thoughts and photos from the trip.