Yasukuni Jinja and the Yushukan

So I don't know a lot about Japanese history, but one thing we learned about in Japanese class is Yasukuni Jinja. It's a shinto shrine dedicated to war dead. Here's the kicker: most (or all?) of those war dead are from the era of imperial Japan. Like, 1900s through World War II. I'm pretty sure that this is a time for Japan that people generally don't view favorably. Especially in China. Like this gets as bad as Nazi Germany's cartoonish super-villainy.

A couple controversies surround Yasukuni Jinja in particular. One, is that the prime minister of Japan always insists on visiting it. What this boils down to is that the Japanese prime minister goes to pray for kamikaze pilots and torturers every year. Neighboring countries, who bared the brunt of Imperial Japan see this as a negation to some degree of what Japan did during that time. So they don't like this.

The other is the Yushukan. A museum dedicated the the military history of Japan, it focuses on World War II. But it kind of glosses over some facts, and presents others...in such a way to put Japan in a not-so-bad-light.

My friend Mark and I visited the shrine during our trip to Japan, but we neglected to check out the Yushukan. So now that I'm back I got to!

I started out by walking down to Shinjuku and heading east around Shinjuku-dori.
I love walking past all the crowds; it's so exciting and is what makes cities great.

Shinjuku-dori starts to look a whole lot different after you get east enough; it was quite a sudden change.

After a bit more walking and a stop to get some milk tea (gotta love those con-binis), I made it to Yasukuni Jinja.

Even if it is controversial, it still looks pretty cool.

I took a quick walk around, but soon headed to my main goal: the hopefully hilarious Yushukan.


The lobby was filled with vehicles used during WWII and other eras in Japan, including a creepy kamikaze torpedo called Kaiten. It's hard to say that a human-guided torpedo won't be effective. I bought my admission into the museum (cheers to still having my student ID on me!). The first thing they lead you to is the movie room.

There was a movie playing called みたまを継ぐもの which means something to the effect of succeeding the spirit (of someone dead). The movie was about some dude and his dilemma in getting a job. His dad wants him to get some business-y job making money and all, but a trip to the Yasukuni Jinja with his girlfriend gets him thinking. He speaks with his girlfriend's grandfather, a World War II veteran, and is inspired by the tales of the honorable soldiers. After all, he decides that he doesn't want to be a stuck-up suit, and that he'd rather work for his girlfriend's relatives making coffee. I'm not exactly sure why that's better, but then again, what the hell do I know?

So his dad gets pissed at him and all and blames the girl. A fight breaks out! He challenges his dad, claiming that he's greedy, and doesn't have the honor of the kamikazes, who were willing to sacrifice their lives for their nation without the slightest amount of remorse. The dude's grandma comes in and accepts him, and after some time of cooling off they're a relatively-happy family again.

Now this creeps me out at least a little bit. He gets inspiration from these Japanese soldiers who fought in WWII, and from going to Yasukuni Jinja. Is that like the Asian equivalent of a modern-day German being inspired by the stick-to-itive-ness of the Nazis? Because that would definitely be scary. I don't really know how to feel about it, but I'm curious about what others think.

After that, I headed around the rest of the museum. Again, I don't know a lot about Japanese history, so it was hard for me to pinpoint to a good degree where details were off or missing. Until World War II.

There was pretty much no mention of any atrocities against Korea, China, or...anyone. According to the museum, Japan had set a good example for the rest of eastern Asia by being the first major power there, and that their independence led to other Asian countries rising up and pushing out expansionist Europe/America.

It claimed that Japan was expanding and that due to embargoes, it was forced into World War II, with America. Well, that's probably partially true, but it kind of missed some of what Japan was doing earlier... It went on to describe the battles against America, in a slightly pro-Japan fashion, and ended with the bombs. There was little to no decoration around the fact that the bombs were dropped; no mention of the number of civilians killed, just "yeaah...they came and then a couple days later Japan surrendered". Coming from a culture where people never stop mentioning how badly they were screwed (and I don't mean that in a negative way), it surprised me that Japan would try to hide the fact that America massacred hundreds of thousands of civilians. I guess it's their way of saving face that they lost.

The first major defeat of Japan, said the signs there. According to the signs, the emperor decided that, for the sake of the Japanese people, he would allow the war to end. Kind of a weird way to put it.

The final room was filled with pictures of deceased Japanese soldiers, and some of their mementos. This disturbed me the most because, again, it's hard for me to completely relate since my knowledge of history is so poor, but I tried to imagine what it would feel like to walk through a similar room filled with deceased Germans' pictures from WWII. I daresay it would make me uncomfortable, at least.

I left the museum, but with enough time to grab another snapshot or two of parts of the shrine.

And, of course, what would any visit to a Japanese shrine be without the requisite delicious food stands?

Mmm...takoyaki... But still not as good as in Osaka...

-Benjamin

Buzzed Search

After school today, one of my classmates suggested a bunch of us go drink. Well, that sounded like a great idea (for those of you who know me, that's not sarcasm. For those of you who really know me, you know I'd never be sarcastic about wanting to drink more). So we stopped in the local con-bini and picked up some cheap, delicious beverages.

After that, we went to an izakaya, where we got yummy food (including takoyaki!) and more delicious beverages. It was a little expensive, as izakayas tend to be, but it was still fun. I have grown a tendency to not eat breakfast or lunch, so I was feeling the alcohol. That's when we decided to get going.

Everyone else went to the train, but I had a mission: a store called Yellow Submarine. Now, if I were in America, I could imagine having trouble finding that store. But I was in Japan, in Tokyo. And kind of buzzed, at least. I figured I had a one in ten chance of finding the store. Also, I didn't really know where the place was, just approximately where it should be according to google maps, which is kind of crappy in Japan.

So I set off. I headed into the heart of Shinjuku, since the place was supposed to be just east of the train station. There were tons of signs, but after carefully evaluating all of the yellow ones, I determined it wasn't any of them. I hit up a small lottery shop to ask them if they heard of it, and boy is "ielo-sabumarin" annoying to say in Japanese. He had no idea what it was, nor did some other guy running a nearby cart. I wandered into a big store in Shinjuku station where the information people knew what was going on. They gave me a map with a mark drawn on it for where to go, and then explained it in some Japanese I couldn't understand.

Ok, so next step, to follow the map. Pretty soon the map diverged from reality. As soon as I stepped outside, the streets didn't match. But that's OK, I figured it out based on store names anyway. I made my way to the west side of the station (that's where they said the store was). But there was no store. I found the closest DVD-ery and asked them about it. They took out another map (I think this is a running thing in Japan) and pointed out where it was; they said go straight, then make the first two rights.

At about this time I realized I really had to go to the bathroom. This tends to happen when you've been drinking, and if not, this tends to happen to Webers who've been drinking. I started moving a lot faster with the hope that if I didn't reach my goal, at least I'd find the restrooms soon. I turned the corner like I was told, and the store was right there. For a second I thought I should be annoyed because I was told I had to turn one more time, but I'll take my wins where I can get them. I went in, and was summarily told that they didn't have what I wanted. Oh well.

Time to head back. I went back to the train station, aiming for a bathroom and to get as far east as possible; that's where Shinjuku Sanchoume station is (which is on the line I use). After getting mediocre directions from a couple more store clerks, I found my way to the bathroom.

I then determined which exit I needed to get out from (there are probably around 50 exits to the train station). I needed A3. There were signs to C1-16, B1-16, and A6-18. Why no A1-5? According to the exit map, A1-5 should be in the same way as A6-7, but farther. So I went with my gut, and low and behold exits that were not on the original sign started appearing. I followed the corridor all the way down to the right exit, but it did not lead outside. It went into some other building. After getting in there, I followed the signs which led me...back the way I came. At this point, I was annoyed of going back and forth and I was starting to sober up, so I just got out another exit and walked home.

The end.

Otome Road & Sunshine City!

Man, it's bright out. It must be at least 12 or 12:30. That's what I thought when I woke up. Maybe I should go back to sleep. What time is it?

3:20?!

Holy crap! I'm not one of those people, who wakes up that ridiculously late! Well, I guess I am, which meant today's trip had to be majorly cut short. No walk to Yasukuni-jinja or Asakusa...just a short walk to Ikebukuro.

Ikebukuro's a pretty big area; it may not be as well known as Shinjuku or Shibuya (or maybe it is?) but it still has a ton of people walking around and shopping. In particular, the two places I visited today are Otome Road and Sunshine City. Otome Road is a street with anime and manga stores, mainly marketed towards girls. Sunshine City is a big shopping center complete with aquarium and food theme park (is that a thing?), with a whole bunch of stores surrounding it. I visited it in my trip in May, but I live here for now, so why not another trip?

Ikebukuro is filled with people, even on Sunday evening. I love places filled with people!

It also had food that looked really delicious! Bomb-yaki! I need to eat this. Note to self: come back and eat here.

I bypassed the giant Sunshine City building for the time being, and instead for Otome Road.

I gotta say, I was kinda disappointed. Maybe I'm due for a trip with a guide, but there just weren't many stores. I stopped in the big Animate store and checked out all the wacky toys and books. They had Hetalia-themed drinks.

For those of you unfamiliar, Hetalia is a webcomic-turned-anime and manga where they take countries from World War II, and turn them into silly characters. It's pretty hilarious in concept, if not in execution. Go America!

After leaving there, it was on to Sunshine City. I crossed the street and entered the shopping plaza.

Stores, stores, everywhere! It's like a glorified mall...or just like a mall. Still fun to walk around in, though. The radio was playing exclusively American pop, though. I heard all of your favorites: For Your Entertainment, Already Gone, Your Love Is My Drug (go Ke$ha!), Telephone, According to You, Bad Romance, and Empire State of Mind. Man, that's a regular top 40 station's lineup!

I meandered my way through the mall, coincidentally (or not really coincidentally) ending up in a Toys 'R Us. After perusing the interesting toys and candy, I headed out of Sunshine City and back to the outside shopping plaza.

That's when I found the arcades! I'm a man who likes his games, and Japan has lots of wacky games. Two whole floors dedicated to girls taking pictures with their friends in wacky booths. A floor for card-based arcade games, a floor for Gundam pods, a floor for fighting games. But the best was this wacky fake horse-racing show area! If you look closely enough, you can even see the very-real smoke coming from the old men playing the game:


There's also this wacky new adaptation of the NES game Elevator Action.

I hit up some ramen place for dinner (sadly no pictures) and then found my way back south (of course after getting lost a couple times briefly)

-Benjamin

Finally, Shanghai!

I did it! I rescheduled my flights and made it to Shanghai! With only one day to see it all, I was in quite a rush. Luckily I was able to meet up with Mark in the airport and stay in a fairly cheap (which means expensive in China) hotel in downtown Shanghai. We went to sleep early to prepare for the big day ahead of us.

We woke up at 7 or 8 and headed out to the Bund first, one of the most well-know areas in Shanghai. I'll say it now, this post is going to be full of me complaining about the World Expo. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the World Expo is what they used to call the World's Fair (or maybe they always called it this?). A whole bunch of nations are supposed to showcase themselves or something, and I guess the 2010 one is going to be held in Shanghai. Who even knew these still happened? Frankly, I thought they were always a myth generated to hide the real origin of the It's a Small World ride.

What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, the Bund. Well, see for yourself:



Yeaaaaah...lots of construction. The Bund was not quite as pretty as I had been told. I could see a few buildings, and they were cool, but somehow I don't think this was the image people envision when they think of the Bund.

Well, on to fairer matters. Xiao Long Bao! They're delicious soupy dumplings that...well, if you're reading this you probably know what they are. If you don't, get to the closest Chinatown, find a place that serves them and eat them for yourself! They're Shanghainese, so of course my number one goal for my brief visit was to eat them...a lot of them.

I watched Anthony Bourdain's trip to China, and combined with looking in my Lonely Planet book, I determined the place to go was Nan Xiang Steamed Bun Restaurant. Mark and I wandered through the old city looking for it; it was hard to find and smelled funny because of all the construction (see: World Expo, above). But we made it, and without further ado:





Man. Freakin' delicious. After ordering two sets of the things, we decided we couldn't leave without another set. I thought they might be a bit better than the American version, but no...they blew the American ones out of the park. The crazy one with the straw you're not even supposed to eat! You just drink the soup right out of it and leave the skin behind!

We wandered towards some garden after that. I figured that I wouldn't have time to see any super-important Chinese garden, so this random one in Shanghai would have to suffice. It was filled with Japanese tourists, but I couldn't understand them well enough for me to eavesdrop on the tour guide. It was pretty cool, and I posted plenty of photos on facebook, but here's a taste.






Next we decided to head to People's Square, and then to the French Concession. It was a fun walk, through random streets filled with shops of all sorts. I bought an eggy pancake snack!



We made it to People's Square and stopped to take pictures of the nearby (or not-so-nearby) skyscrapers.



We went into this free museum there and checked out an exhibit on historical Chinese currency. There were some sweet coins with holes in them and dragons on them; why did they ever get rid of those? But really the strangest thing to me was that when Mark passed through security, they made him take a drink from his juice bottle. Why? Apparently that's how they tell the bottle doesn't contain poison.

Next stop: the French Concession. It's part of the area that was taken by France when a whole bunch of countries split Shanghai during one of those times of imperialism. What remains is a fancy-ish and expensive (we're talking real money now, not as cheap as everything else in China) mall area, complete with a shopping mall and the building where communism in China began. Yeah, that's right. It's free, so we stopped right in. I saw pictures of a Dutch and a Russian guy on the wall and felt a little less intimidated. Here's a picture of the Concession:



The only things left on our agenda at that point were Nanjing Road East (a popular pedestrian walkway and line of shops) and Pudong (skyscraper city, essentially). We decided against the train as we had been doing, and instead walked to Nanjing. We got super cheap milk tea, which was delicious! One of these days I'll go to Taiwan and get the original stuff. We made it to Nanjing Road.



We realized what we had been missing: more xiao long bao! It may only be minutes since you read that previous part about dumplings, but it had been hours for us at this point! We found a local dumplingry in a food court and got the pan-fried version...still really really delicious.



Next it was time for Pudong, before it got too late. Lonely Planet mentioned one way of getting across was the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. Not knowing what it was, we decided China was cheap and that that was the way to go. There were colors, there were projectors, there were wacky inflatable arm-flailing tube men...just watch...



We made it to Pudong a little bit freaked out, but each in one piece. Pudong was less crowded than west of the river, but it was still cool and there were really good close-up views of the skyscrapers.


We started by heading to the currently tallest observation deck in the world, the Shanghai World Financial Center. The darkness made my pictures blurry, but still awesome.



After that we hit up the slightly wussier next door tower which had a bar on the 87th floor. Here's Mark being too good to drink on the ground.


Sadly, there's not a lot left to say about Shanghai after that. We made our way back to Nanjing, chilled out for a little bit, and ate a nasty dinner. A lot of the restaurants were closed, so we submitted to one that some random police guy recommended. I'll just say that the xiao long bao they served were not up to par. We headed back to the room, had a drink, and eventually called it a night, with my trip to Japan the next day.

For more pics and whatnot, check out facebook!

-Benjamin

Snow in Beijing: Why I'll Never Make it to China

I was supposed to leave for China on the 3rd of January, giving me a full 3 days in Shanghai. My flight was delayed 5 times, and only after switching to another airline was I able to leave on the 5th...giving me one day in Shanghai. Dag. What did I do with my remaining time?

I ended up doing a couple things in New York I didn't get to in the month or two I was there. First up, Di Fara pizza!

We got there at 1 or 1:30 or so. The place was crowded, but there was standing room and it wasn't hard to order, so I wasn't too worried. Then half an hour passed. We stalked people who looked like they were leaving and were able to snag a table. About another half hour passed. Adam and Zachary started to bet each other when the pizzas would arrive; we all wanted Adam to win, because that would mean they would get there sooner. Alas, he didn't. After another half hour, the pizzas arrived in all their majesty. You get to stare at them and be jealous:

Damn, that looks delicious.

The next day (after my flight was delayed twice) we headed into the city once again. Sadly, I didn't take pictures. We hit up New York Hot Dog and Coffee - a hot doggery that strangely has a bulgogi hot dog and a dak-kalbi hot dog. We got those two and a barbecue chicken hot dog. Supposedly the thing to eat there is the bulgogi dog, but I gotta say it wasn't the best of them. The dak-kalbi dog was the best, but the barbecue chicken dog was really good too. Who knew that those Koreans could make a good dog? I guess if you'll find that anywhere, it'll be in New York.

But that's not all! One more flight delay and I headed to Porchetta, a well-known pork sandwichery in the east village. All they make is their name, porchetta sandwiches, but damn do they make a good sandwich. After taking just one bite I was sold, but it was still similar to great pork sandwiches I've had at other places. Then they let us try the patented Porchetta salt. If the sandwich was tasty without the salt, it was mind-bogglingly delicious with it. If you live in New York and can afford a trip to Porchetta (both in weight and money), go there right now.

Well, that's all for the exciting things I did right before my flight. I chilled at home for a little while and watched some Glee, but that's not all that interesting, is it?