Kamakura, and a reprieve
Kamakura, and a reprieve
Today was a long day with a lot of walking and such, and at the end we got some good news.
We woke up this morning, and after showers and such we decided to get some food at the “food court”. The food court has several fast-food places like Popeyes, Subway, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts. I decided that I wanted Taco Bell. They had a table in the corner where they sold all kinds of dog tage, non-standard oji, nes that have things like japanese words for things like Strength, Courage, astrological signs; you can also order ones that have a picture acid etched on the metal. The funny thing here was that they had t shirts that had various japanese phrases in Kanji, either black writing on a white t shirt or vice versa. Some of these were Courage, Strength, Pariot, but the funniest ones say “Seeking a Japanese Lover, I am single”. I wonder if they work.
After this we went to set the Buddha at Kamikura(known as Daibutsu, which is a temple space that has this huge statue of Buddha (about 3 stories tall). The statue is made of brass or bronze or something and is hollow. You can get inside it. I took several pictures (actually many many pictures all week, perhaps I’ll be able to upload them to these journals, but I tend to doubt it, in the meantime, here’s a link about it: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3100.html) both inside and outside. It was a seriously touristy thing, but I’m glad we went, it was big and amazing.
We walked back down to the train, stopping in several shops looking at touristy things. At the bottom we stopped in a “hawaii shop”. It had a whole bunch of things from Hawaii like orange pineapple juice, macadamia nuts, hawaiian shirts, etc. I had to comment that the main difference between this store and stores in Hawaii was the lack of 5XL shirts for the Samoans who live in Hawaii. Those boys are huge!!
Anyways.. I’ve been mostly letting Michelle and Dalton handle buying the train tickets. This has involved stopping in the train stations each time and buying a separate ticket. It seems complicated. It’s not like RTD where you have standardized tickets that take you anywhere, the fare is dependent on where you go. It’s apparently really easy to get yourself turned around; a few times we ended up paying twice. When guys in the Navy get here, they have about a week in class learning how to get around, learn the customs, etc. They are considered American “ambassadors” here, and don’t want to show disrespect.
The trains have a few other interesting things. There are “women only” trains because of how crowded they get during rush hour. (7:30 - 9:30 on one, 6:30 - 8:19 on another.. yes, 8:19!) On the trains, there is sometimes “priority seating”. On one side of the car, you’re supposed to turn your phone off; on the other you’re supposed to put it on “manner mode”, which shows a phone vibrating. I haven’t seen anyone talking on their phone on the train, but nearly everyone is useing it to read email or surf the web or something.
In Kamakura, I kept seeing where people had left out several water bottles in the sun. I don’t know what that was about, didn’t get any pics of it.
I bought a new buckwheat hull pillow and a bag of buckwheat hulls to refill one, amazingly cheap, it seemed. I remember paying something lke $40 for my pilow years ago, I think i paid something like $40, but got one for only 1500 yen, and the refill only cost about 500.
We had been looking for a particular kind of Sake for my friend Dave. We managed to get it from a liquor store, at least I hope i have the right stuff..
When we got back to the base, we got some good news: Dalton’s not shipping out on Friday because there is something on the ship that needs repair, so he doesn’t have to go anywhere until Monday.
In personal news, after the movie the other night, I drank a can of Mt Dew, then a cup of coffee in the morning and some Dew with my Taco Bell. By the evening some of my health issues that I’ve made some progress with
As i write this, I am hearing on TV about congressentities (described as a “gang of eleven”) having a “woodshed” conversation with President Bush, and an ad where a former general who served in Iraq openly criticizing the president. Amazing. (www.votevets.org seems to be the website that put on the ads)