Still enjoying the trip!
Sep. 15th, 2006 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieI regret to announce that the mullet seems to be alive and well in Japan. Only now it is also long in the front. The hair is beginning to scare me (not to mention the pointy shoes on men). Life with a Japanese guy must be one constant grim struggle for the hairdryer.
On the plus side, Kyoto is heaven for desserts of every variety and it is good we are leaving it tomorrow otherwise I would not fit on the plane. They are works of art and it seems a shame to even ruin them by eating them. In other food news, we had sukyaki today and I think amused the ryokan staff immensely because we had no idea how to cook it and ended up doing it all wrong (the equivalent of using a fish fork and knife to eat a hamburger :P) I wonder what they think of the oddballs staying in one of their rooms :P
We went to Himeji today and saw an amazing castle from the 16th century, apparently the most famous one in all of Japan and justly so (oddly, the closest thing I have ever seen to it is a Tudor manor, if the manor was fortified and made in Japan and had holes for pouring boiling oil). It was gorgeous (pics forthcoming) but just as wonderful was the hour train ride to Himeji (and back), as we would see out of the window rolling green hills, squiggles of streets full of houses (whether traditonal ones with wooden roofs or large apartment buildings and beyond it all the great Inland Sea, crowded with ships.
I have also wandered into a bookstore in search of something in English and it was my undoing. I have not discovered anything much worthwhile of that nature (understandably so). But what I did discover were rows and rows of manga (duh), and they are spectacularly cheap! Cheapy editions are for around $3 a pop and fancy glossy ones for around $10. And by glossy, I mean they are super nice. So, why am I undone? Well, I bought a random cool-looking yaoi volume for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aliterati, but what really did me in was finding the super deluxe, super gorgeous editions of Hana Yori Dango. And I could not resist. I bought 5 volumes out of 19 they had in store. They are entirely in Japanese of course, but they are gorgeous!!! Not only is each volume contains more than each "normal" volume (at least 2 or 3 normal ones I think), they are all on glossy thick paper, the books are large size, there are pages and pages of color illustrations and even things like HYD postcards tucked in (mail your Domyouji today!), as well as (amusingly enough) little posters of the Taiwanese F4. Heck, I am actually going to buy a few more tomorrow! Also, Domyouji keeling over bleeding into Tsukushi's arms? Hot.
Tokyo tomorrow!
Also, check out this super cool pimping post bykitsune714 for doramas: http://kitsune714.livejournal.com/137137.html
ETA: Saw a poster of Rain today. EEEEEE!
ETA 2: Nothing makes Japan cooler than its taxi drivers (what, you thought I was going to say temples or fashion or food or technology? Dream on). I have not ridden one but they are immaculate inside and out, and the drivers wear white gloves (!!!!) And today, walking by a taxi, we saw a driver dust the car! The outside! With a duster!
ETA 3: By accident (honest!) we have also apparently discovered the smut theater in Kyoto (hopefully only one). What gave it away? Maybe the giant poster of a naked woman with a dog. She wasn't petting it. That was a different kind of...art, and not one I needed to see :)
On the plus side, Kyoto is heaven for desserts of every variety and it is good we are leaving it tomorrow otherwise I would not fit on the plane. They are works of art and it seems a shame to even ruin them by eating them. In other food news, we had sukyaki today and I think amused the ryokan staff immensely because we had no idea how to cook it and ended up doing it all wrong (the equivalent of using a fish fork and knife to eat a hamburger :P) I wonder what they think of the oddballs staying in one of their rooms :P
We went to Himeji today and saw an amazing castle from the 16th century, apparently the most famous one in all of Japan and justly so (oddly, the closest thing I have ever seen to it is a Tudor manor, if the manor was fortified and made in Japan and had holes for pouring boiling oil). It was gorgeous (pics forthcoming) but just as wonderful was the hour train ride to Himeji (and back), as we would see out of the window rolling green hills, squiggles of streets full of houses (whether traditonal ones with wooden roofs or large apartment buildings and beyond it all the great Inland Sea, crowded with ships.
I have also wandered into a bookstore in search of something in English and it was my undoing. I have not discovered anything much worthwhile of that nature (understandably so). But what I did discover were rows and rows of manga (duh), and they are spectacularly cheap! Cheapy editions are for around $3 a pop and fancy glossy ones for around $10. And by glossy, I mean they are super nice. So, why am I undone? Well, I bought a random cool-looking yaoi volume for
aliterati, but what really did me in was finding the super deluxe, super gorgeous editions of Hana Yori Dango. And I could not resist. I bought 5 volumes out of 19 they had in store. They are entirely in Japanese of course, but they are gorgeous!!! Not only is each volume contains more than each "normal" volume (at least 2 or 3 normal ones I think), they are all on glossy thick paper, the books are large size, there are pages and pages of color illustrations and even things like HYD postcards tucked in (mail your Domyouji today!), as well as (amusingly enough) little posters of the Taiwanese F4. Heck, I am actually going to buy a few more tomorrow! Also, Domyouji keeling over bleeding into Tsukushi's arms? Hot.Tokyo tomorrow!
Also, check out this super cool pimping post by
kitsune714 for doramas: http://kitsune714.livejournal.com/137137.htmlETA: Saw a poster of Rain today. EEEEEE!
ETA 2: Nothing makes Japan cooler than its taxi drivers (what, you thought I was going to say temples or fashion or food or technology? Dream on). I have not ridden one but they are immaculate inside and out, and the drivers wear white gloves (!!!!) And today, walking by a taxi, we saw a driver dust the car! The outside! With a duster!
ETA 3: By accident (honest!) we have also apparently discovered the smut theater in Kyoto (hopefully only one). What gave it away? Maybe the giant poster of a naked woman with a dog. She wasn't petting it. That was a different kind of...art, and not one I needed to see :)
