Domo Arigato Mr Roboto

Published on Sun 6 Sep 2009

It's been a sporty couple of days. Watching, not playing obviously. On Friday I got to go to The Oval to watch England play Australia, which was a lot of fun (though, top Oval tips - don't get the chicken samosas from the Best Indian Food Ever In The History Of The World stall - the pastry is way too thick and dry - also, they close the bars for 30 minutes at random intervals, and nobody knows why...). It went down to the last ball, which is all you can ask for really (other than an England win). Cricketers seem to be very tall. And can throw cricket balls very hard. I didn't really understand why Strauss decided to bowl first when he knew it was a day/night game and the ball seems to be much harder to see under floodlights, but I'm not an international cricketer. The weather just about held, despite the fact I took my magic rain generating sunglasses. I wanted to get a copy of the Times on the way to read if I got bored, but there weren't any shops, and then there was a stall giving them out as soon as we got in. I do use up my luck on the silliest things.

Then yesterday, I went to watch a more eventful than usual Cambridge United match. About half an hour in Cambridge had a vaguely promising attack, everyone clapped a bit, and then the Red Arrows did a flypast. I wondered what would happen if Cambridge actually scored. The answer turned out to be that they'd score another 6, equalling their biggest ever victory. The Arrows flew past again later, but not in such good formation. Cambridge have scored a total of 10 and conceded 0 in the last two games I've seen. Seems like they're using my luck up as well.

I've realised that I'm not going to have time to write about Japan in as much detail as I'd like because stuff is happening faster than I can keep up with (I'm going away again next weekend), so here are a few highlights (in no particular order).

Riding the bullet train. They really are amazing things - the 575 miles from Tokyo to Osaka takes a little over 2 1/2 hours, and even though you're going nearly 200 mph it's unbelievably smooth - almost silent. And I thought the trains in Germany were good. The scenery is pretty nice too.

I also liked the fact that the train we were on was called the Super Express.

Baseball in Osaka. Osaka is an even stranger place than Tokyo - it feels darker, like a science fiction film. On the second night we were walking along and a 30 or 40 strong motorcycle gang roared past. They went past again about half an hour later. I thought it was quite sweet. We were mostly there to go to a baseball game at the Osaka Dome, which is pretty funky looking from the outside.

And pretty impressive on the inside

The Hiroshima Toyo Carp were playing the Hanshin Tigers. The Carp are, apparently, the worst baseball team in Japan and have a really rubbish name, so obviously they are now the baseball team that I support. Within about 15 minutes of us getting in there Dan had spilled his beer on the old people in the row in front. They made a big show of being annoyed, but I'm pretty sure, what with them being old, having something to complain about made their night. Especially having foreigners to complain about. Luckily there are very nice people who'll come and give you more beer without you even having to leave your seat.

All the home players (Hanshin is a bit of Osaka) had entrance music, which was the only real way of distinguishing them from where we were. The only one I really remember had "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. I wish he'd been playing for the Carp - he'd have been my new favourite baseball player. I'd have found out his name and everything. I think I could get quite into baseball if they had it here. I'll definitely try and watch a game if I end up in America again, though I'm not sure they have such fun music playing the whole time:

To round off a really good evening, the Carp won 9-0!

The other real highlight of Osaka, other than some really odd bars was this 173m high tower that you can get on the roof of. There are some slightly terrifying escalators that take you up the last little bit, suspended 150m off the ground.

It had some great views.

Kyoto is definitely one of the more lovely places I've been, or will go. It used to be the capital of Japan until they moved it to Tokyo in the 19th Century (I don't know if it's a coincidence that their names are so similar, presumably not), and is littered with temples and shrines, and surrounded by mountains. This one said it was built originally by a daughter to house a picture of her dad, and is the largest wooden structure in the world. It is pretty big.

We caught the subway up into the hills a bit, where we found this graveyard,

before going on a scenic walk that took in a few temples, a park, and a street of tourist traps

Culminating in this temple complex, further up yet another hill.

Even further up the hill are some shrines dedicated to people looking for love, and two stones that you have to walk between with your eyes closed to test the strength of your current relationship - if you make it from one to the other then things are going well. Obviously I didn't bother, but Dan had a go, and made it. Sort of. There were lucky charms you could buy (for all kinds of things - exams, good health, safe return from skydiving expeditions). I decided it could do no harm and was going to get one of these,

but the place that sold them had shut in between us going in and coming out, which speaks volumes. There were bits of wood that you could write prayers on and the head monk would see to it that they were answered on the first day of the next month - I found it kind of moving how many there were.

There were some more amazing views on the way down

Kagaya. The single weirdest bar I've ever been to I think. It's a small basement room run by a guy who takes your drinks order and then makes you choose a country to have them served in the style of. We chose France, and he came out in a beret and cravat with a small easel and did a cariacature of me. It looks quite like me, except I look happy. Unfortunately I've lost the cable that allows me to get pictures off my camera so you can't see it. Nor can you see the Spanish style drinks service, which was a daily special, and involved a rubber bull's head and some castanets. Nor can you see my special treat after everyone else had gone, which was him dressing up as a frog, then yelling my name into a small robot frog, which then ran forward repeating it. I found this all really funny until he told me, with a weird loneliness in his eyes, that he'd been doing it for 21 years.

Here is a short list of things that surprised me about Japan

1) The getting the letters l and r confused thing actually extends to writing - my favourite was "robby" on the floor list of a hotel.
2) They drive on the left. I assumed that we were the only proper country that drives on the left.
3) They really don't like foreigners much - people got off subway carriages when they saw us and moved along to the next. Though that does happen to me a bit everywhere I go.
4) There were hardly any English people there - almost all of the western people we saw were Spanish or German

Here are some miscellaneous pictures.

If only we could have found 2 girls to pose with that last one...