First thing's first. There are no quakes right now in Fukuoka city. I'm here, so I ought to know.
Second thing's second. In an effort to rest my poor pulled hip muscle ahead of a day full of walking tomorrow, I've been taking it pretty easy today. I really only did the last bit of touristy stuff in Hiroshima, then got to my hotel in Fukuoka and vegetated. I'm also doing boring things like laundry while I have the chance, but you don't need to know about that.
Since this is shaping up to be a fairly short post, I'm going to take the opportunity to provide you with a Special Report on something that I've been thinking about since I got to Japan. Stay tuned after our scheduled program.
So, bright and early (ish) this morning, I arose from my amazing bed in my amazing room on Miyajima Island and headed down for breakfast. You remember the elaborate spectacle that was dinner last night? I had vainly hoped that breakfast would be a more subdued affair.
I had 6 individual bowls of food, not including the rice, and I'm not entirely sure what all of them were. The waiter this morning was nowhere near as good as the waitress last night at explaining what things were and what bowls to put them in. But, in the order that I ate the bowls of food, I had: oysters with steamed greens and bamboo shoots; some sort of raw fish (possibly octopus, so raw cephalopod) with seaweed and a weird, slimey, noodly thing; a poached egg submerged in a liquid that was possibly a mix of mild vinegar and dashi stock; a piece of curried fish; miso soup with clams (cooked at the table); and a bowl of tofu with what I thought was apricot preserve on the top, but was very definitely not (it was savory, and I didn't eat very much of it). And then there was the rice, and a little tray of pickles. And then the waiter said 'Help youself to bread if you want any'.
I haven't needed food since. Right now, I'm picking at this tray of strawberries (photo because the neatness basically just defines Japan), but I'm not hungry, I just feel like I ought to eat something. But, on the up side, I have definitely checked off the 'eat proper shashimi' part of my to do list. Raw fish is actually very nice, if you haven't tried it, but next time I'd rather have it without the complicated entourage.
Back to Hiroshima. Yesterday, I did the peace park and related areas. Today I wanted to see the castle. I was a little confused at first, because the castle (along with everything else) was destroyed by the bomb, but then I remembered that practically every wooden building in Japan has burned down at least once, so they are no strangers to rebuilding things.
Second thing's second. In an effort to rest my poor pulled hip muscle ahead of a day full of walking tomorrow, I've been taking it pretty easy today. I really only did the last bit of touristy stuff in Hiroshima, then got to my hotel in Fukuoka and vegetated. I'm also doing boring things like laundry while I have the chance, but you don't need to know about that.
Since this is shaping up to be a fairly short post, I'm going to take the opportunity to provide you with a Special Report on something that I've been thinking about since I got to Japan. Stay tuned after our scheduled program.
So, bright and early (ish) this morning, I arose from my amazing bed in my amazing room on Miyajima Island and headed down for breakfast. You remember the elaborate spectacle that was dinner last night? I had vainly hoped that breakfast would be a more subdued affair.
I had 6 individual bowls of food, not including the rice, and I'm not entirely sure what all of them were. The waiter this morning was nowhere near as good as the waitress last night at explaining what things were and what bowls to put them in. But, in the order that I ate the bowls of food, I had: oysters with steamed greens and bamboo shoots; some sort of raw fish (possibly octopus, so raw cephalopod) with seaweed and a weird, slimey, noodly thing; a poached egg submerged in a liquid that was possibly a mix of mild vinegar and dashi stock; a piece of curried fish; miso soup with clams (cooked at the table); and a bowl of tofu with what I thought was apricot preserve on the top, but was very definitely not (it was savory, and I didn't eat very much of it). And then there was the rice, and a little tray of pickles. And then the waiter said 'Help youself to bread if you want any'.
Not my breakfast, but look how beautifully these strawberries are arranged!
I haven't needed food since. Right now, I'm picking at this tray of strawberries (photo because the neatness basically just defines Japan), but I'm not hungry, I just feel like I ought to eat something. But, on the up side, I have definitely checked off the 'eat proper shashimi' part of my to do list. Raw fish is actually very nice, if you haven't tried it, but next time I'd rather have it without the complicated entourage.
Back to Hiroshima. Yesterday, I did the peace park and related areas. Today I wanted to see the castle. I was a little confused at first, because the castle (along with everything else) was destroyed by the bomb, but then I remembered that practically every wooden building in Japan has burned down at least once, so they are no strangers to rebuilding things.
Hiroshima Castle.
The castle and grounds were beautiful, as all historical buildings and grounds are in this country. There's a museum inside, which charts the history of the area from before the town of Hiroshima, and it's mostly a very nice museum for English-speaking people. The ground floor has English translations of all the displays, and headphones with English audio for the video parts. The next couple of floors slowly loose the translations, but they become more object heavy, so it felt less important. The fourth floor was filled with swords, and boy were they beautiful.
The top floor is a little room that opens onto a viewing platform.
Hiroshima. This is one beautiful city.
The main reason I took this photo was to show off the zoom on my camera (although it's also a lovely view in its own right). In the centre (ish) there is a little green hill (just to the right of the tall, square buildings) and on top of the hill was something I wanted a better look at.
The thing on the hill.
I still have no idea what it is (maybe a chimney of some sort), but it's quite pretty. And this zoom on my camera has made itself useful in a myriad of ways - not only looking at things on distant hills, but reading signs down the road without having to walk to them, or checking which buses stop at the far away bus stop before I lug my luggage over to it. I am very much appreciating my camera.
So, aside from a little while spent taking nature shots (including a tree that survived the bombing), that's pretty much it for my tourist thing today. Onto the Special Report!
Today I would like to talk to you about toilets. Before you turn your nose up in disgust and close the page, just take a moment to think about what might have compelled me to bring this subject up. And remember where I am.
Japan is a quirky place, to put it mildly, and the toilets are no exception. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I arrived, but it certainly wasn't the airport toilet playing running water sounds at me when I sat down.
Japan has a fascination with what are called 'Washlets'. These are part toilet, part bidet, and as far as I can tell, no two are the same. Most come with a little panel with various buttons ('shower', 'water pressure', 'heated seat') - some of these have a 'Preparation' button, which starts the water warming before it shoots it at your undercarriage, while some just have warm water ready to go. Some have a sound that plays to disguise your own toilet noises - running water is a popular one, but some also play music. Some have different jets of water, in case one doesn't meet your cleaning needs, while others have a blow drier built in for complete after-wash care. The toilet in my hotel room yesterday started the wash water running as soon as you sat down, which was unnerving, while the one in my Tokyo room had a blindingly bright little light that flashed to remind you of the water pressure level.
And the flush! It's never in the same place, or in the same format, between two toilets. Some have a handle, like we're used to, although the location of this handle is variable. Some flush automatically when you stand up. Some have a button (sometimes on the panel, sometimes on the toilet, sometimes completely unrelated to both), and some have a hand waving sensor. Some of them seem to have a hand waving sensor, but if you take too long to wave at it, it flushes anyway. One toilet today had a sensor that you had to hold your hand in front of for a good 2 seconds before it flushed - waving simply wasn't good enough. And my toilet in my room here in Hakata has a button hidden down the side of the cistern.
The heated seats are probably the worst bit of them - I mean, who wants to sit on a warm toilet seat? Like someone else has just been sitting there. Ugh! As far as I can tell, though, any toilet that is not a Washlet is the traditional squatting toilet, and it's fairly safe to assume that, if you go somewhere that isn't filled with tourists, you're more likely to find the squatting kind. I dislike squatting toilets much more than I dislike heated toilet seats, so Washlets win the day for me any time.
My tour guide to Mt Fuji (all those days ago) had some interesting toilet facts for us. The Washlet was an American invention introduced to Japan in the 80s, and since then, they have taken over somewhere between 70-80% of all toilets in Japan. I can sort of see why - they're fancy as a fancy thing, and they play heavily into Japan's interest in technology. As a non-Japanese person, however, the lack of standardisation has had me standing like a fool in many a cubicle, desperately scanning every sign (and there are many signs) for some English instructions on how to use this particular toilet. Oh, did I mention, every cubicle comes witha 'How to use this toilet' instruction panel? Mostly it's about not standing on the seat and using it as a squatting toilet, and it makes me wonder how often that had to happen befor someone thought about putting a sign up about it.
With no particular conclusion, there ends the Special Report. Thank you for sticking with me this far - it's a relief to get my toilet confusion off my chest. As compensation for reading through all that, here's a video of some fish I met today.
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