Category: Japan 2007

It’s been a long day and I’m somewhat tired, so this may be a somewhat abbreviated entry. We’ll see how much I can type before I have to call it a day.

We left the hotel in Kanazawa this morning –gee, come to think of it, I haven’t said anything about getting to Kanazawa in the first place, have I? Well, that shows you what kind of time we’ve been having recently. I’m going to set that story aside for the moment.

Okay, we left the hotel in Kanazawa and caught a train to Kyoto. I amused myself before the train departed by making recordings of the PA system and the trains in the station. During the ride I took a fair amount of video of the buildings and landscape passing by, and Tracie focused (successfully) on not throwing up her antibiotics. read more

We are in our hotel at Kyoto, which adds new dimensions to the word “posh”. Sadly our stay here will be much shorter than planned. The room does have a nice, fast Ethernet connection (and a multi-purpose scanner/fax/printer, and a remarkably stocked mini-bar, and complimentary Hennesy and other stuff we can’t drink, etc. etc.) so I will probably post more photos later on.

This will be my last posting here until we’re back home. I have a bunch more photos to post but I don’t expect to post the from here, given the circumstances and the necessity of making a long-distance phone call just to get a slow dial-up connection. Check back in a few days. Thanks for reading.

Special note to those of you who are directly affected by our change in plans (Hi Judy and Lisa): we’ll provide details when we have them.

We have arrived in Kanazawa. I’m gonna be brief because I have to make a long-distance call just to get a modem connection, and a slow one at that.

We’re bailing out. Tracie is getting worse and the backup antibiotics she brought “for emergency use only” aren’t agreeing with her. Current plan is to head to Kyoto tomorrow AM (as previously planned) and catch a flight the next day. This is assuming that we can get United to change the ticket. I’m having to get on the web just to find out what United’s phone number is because the local numbers are now closed and the only thing printed on our reservations is 1-800-UNITED-1 which is of no freakin’ use in a country that doesn’t print English letters on its telephone keypads. (Yes, how stupid is that of United? Don’t get me started.) read more

We’re checking out of our hotel in 20 minutes and heading to the bus station to catch the bus to Kanazawa. As before, don’t panic if no new posts appear here for a day or so; it merely means that I’m unable to obtain an internet connection. Also, since we’re arriving early in the afternoon and leaving the next morning, I will probably scurry out to see a little bit of Kanazawa before I post again.

Tracie seems to be perkier this morning and while her hands are still very itchy and sensitive, the rash itself seems to have abated for the most part. Now she’s just hoping that our stash of emergency medicine, which is in our luggage that we forwarded ahead to Kanazawa, contains a tube of cortisone cream. read more

Since I just wrote at some length about the Japanese medical system I suppose it’s as good a time as any to post a couple of photos I’ve been saving. Both of the hotels we’ve stayed in have rather elaborate toilets. My description of and commentary on these devices will require a descent into bathroom humor, literally. You may skip this post if you suspect it will offend your sensitive nature.

Ah, still reading, are you? Good.

Before we left on this journey we read up a bit on Japanese bathrooms. Part of the story is that Japanese toilets are different than Western toilets. They’re more like a trough you squat over than a bowl you sit on. So far I haven’t encountered one but Tracie has successfully made use of two of them. Western-style toilets are proliferating, however, and can be found throughout the country. read more

Here’s what you don’t want to see if you visit Takayama:

That’s the hallway of the emergency room of the Takayama Red Cross Hospital. We spent our morning exploring the health care system of Japan as represented by this local hospital. I won’t leave you in suspense: Tracie is basically okay but still does not feel well and we may end up cutting our trip short.

The long version of the story starts late last night. Tracie was still not feeling significantly better, and noticed two things: first, her symptoms were roaming from one part of her body to another, although mercifully her lungs were staying clear. (For those of you who are not as intimately acquainted with Tracie’s medical history as some of us, Tracie has a long history of asthmatic bronchitis, pneumonia, allergies, and other ailments of the respiratory system. If she gets a cold, it’s bad; if it moves into her lungs, it’s Very Bad.) Second, and more disconcerting, she noticed a strange rash on the palms of both hands. read more

I sort of blew it this afternoon. After doing my “Morning Stroll” entry and showing Tracie photos of the town, I set out again in search of lunch. I made several mistakes. The first was that I got a later start than I should have. The second was that I forgot to bring along the English map of the town that I found previously. The third was that I decided that I could find my way around without it, and got lost as a result. Takayama is not a big city so there wasn’t particularly any danger of becoming lost in the strict sense of the word, but I did get sufficiently turned around that on at least two occasions when I did find a sign or other landmark that reoriented me, I was traveling at right angles to my intended direction. read more

I plan to post an entry here devoted to the wonders of Japanese beverage vending machines, but first I need to comment on just one particular beverage: Bikkle.

Someone I know told me about Bikkle. It was either Dan or Gregory, I think. (Any guesses, guys?) I have to admit that I mostly forgot what I was told about it, but the name stuck with me. I spotted some in a vending machine for the first time today and of course had to try it as a matter of sampling the local cuisine.

I think this one gets filed under “acquired taste”. Tracie was so amused by my reactions that she grabbed the camera: read more