Japan: May 21-30, 2005

This past May I was fortunate enough to have the oppurtunity to attend the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) Conference, held in Kobe, Japan. Four people from our lab had submitted papers that had been accepted (myself included), so myself and one other lab member (Sankaran Anniruddhan) were able to go and each present two papers. My paper concerned some work on phase-locked loops that I had been working on last year, there is a link to it in another section of my website if you are interested in taking a look.

Roanne drove Ani and myself to the airport early Sunday morning so we could catch our 8:40 flight to San Francisco. We then transferred to a larger plane, and completed the 11 hour flight from San Francisco to Osaka. Upon arriving in Osaka we passed through customs without any problems, then took a limosine bus (fancy name for a normal bus) from Osaka to Sannomiya Station in Kobe, which took about 40 minutes. We then got on a light rail service called the Port Liner and made the 10 minute journey out to Port Island, a man-made island where the Kobe International Conference Center is located. We walked to our Hotel (Hotel Pearl City Kobe), checked in, and went to bed at around 9:00 pm local time, since we were super tired (it would have been 4:00 am back in Seattle and we had gotten up at 6:00 am to catch our flight. The next morning we woke up at 5:00 am, and played cards until the hotel restaurant (we had breakfast included with our rooms) opened at 7:00. One awesome thing is that the mirror in the bathroom had a heating element behind it so that it didn’t fog up when you showered, here is proof:

We then ate breakfast. It seems that japanese people eat rice, fish, soup, and other strange things for breakfast, so we mostly stuck to the western style food they had. Next we headed over to the conference to register and attend the opening session. In the later afternoon there weren’t any papers that seemed too interesting, so we took a train to Himeji to check out a Castle located there, accorded to my Japan guide book it is the best castle in Japan. It was built in 1333 and has been designated a World Cultural Heritage site, it was pretty impressive. We toured around the castle for a while, everytime you went inside you had to take your shoes off and carry them with you in a plastic bag, probably to protect the wooden floors. At the other end you left the plastic bag with a guy who had the job of folding them and carrying them back to the other entrance to be reused, which was pretty good, on this continent I’m sure they would just be thrown out. Here is a picture of the outside of the castle:

This is looking through the gates, there were some stinkin’ big pieces of lumber used in the construction, Trev would have loved it:

Here are some bonsai trees that they had on display, they were pretty neat looking:

Walking through the halls was pretty neat, lots of nice wood finishing. This section looked a bit newer than the rest of it, and was a also a lot brighter:

We came across these two nice ladies getting ready to pray (actually they were mannequins):

They had some interesting exhibits on display in the castle, including these old samurai suits of armour. The masks that went with them were pretty neat, you can even see that the one on the left has a mustache included with it:

Here is another picure of the castle from the outside. The main building had 6 floors, it was pretty fun to walk up , really impressive architecture, especially considering when it was built. The top floor housed a little shrine.

After finishing up at the castle we walked around the town of Himeji for a bit, observing some of the funny little cars the Japanese like to drive. There were also a lot of bicycles, and tons of scooters. Another thing we noticed was that drivers didn’t have the same respect for pedestrians that is found in North America. They would cut between people on cross walks, run red lights, and just seemed generally unconcerned about the well being of people walking. Here is one of the small cars (they also tended to be really boxy, and parking on the sidewalk was apparantly an accepted practice):

We then headed back into Kobe and walked around looking for places to eat. I had heard of something called “Kobe Beef”, which is a special type of steak from a cow that has been fed only honey and beer and is massaged every day to keep it tender. Because of this, the steak is apparantly really tender (and really expensive). Before going over we had read that it cost $300 per pound. Since we had a $170 per diem for food, I thought it would be worthwhile to seek some out and see if it was within the budget. We found a recommended place that sold steaks for $60, so this seemed like a comparative deal, and we went in and I ordered one. It was really good, I am pictured getting ready to dig in below. Ani is a vegetarian, so he watched me eat, and then we went to an Indian restaurant and I watched him eat. Not the most efficient way of doing things, but what can you do.

The next morning we were back at the conference. We each presented a paper in the morning, and then attended talks for the rest of the day. After the conference finished for the day we ate dinner and cruised the mean streets of Kobe, as shown below:

We walked by a place called “Big Echo Karaoke”, and since this is big in Japan we thought it might be fun to try it out. We expected that it would be a bar where you get up and sing in front of a lot of people. We went in, and they spoke no english, so after some gesturing they led us up some stairs to a hallway of sound proof rooms. It seems that people like to go with a few friends, rent one of the booths, order drinks, and take turns singing. Ani and I decided to try it for a half hour, but it was so fun we ended up staying for an hour, drinking sake and singing to each other. Some of the hits we belted out include “Barbie Girl”, “The Sound of Silence”, “Livin’ on a Prayer”, “Sweet Child ‘O Mine”, and many more. Here are some photos of me in action:

The next morning we got up early again to attend the final day of the conference. Ani and I each presented another paper towards the end of the day, and they both went well. When the conference was over at around 6:30, we headed for Sannomiya Station and got on a train for Kyoto. We arrived about 50 minutes later, and were impressed by the large and modern looking train station. We walked around for a bit trying to find somewhere to stay, the first few were full, but we finally ended up at a Ryokan, which is a traditional stytle of Japanese accomodation. You have to take your shoes off at the door and put on these weird slippers, which you then have to take off before you enter your room. There are also special slippers that you have to wear when you enter the communal bathroom. The Japanese seem to love changing their footwear. Here is a photo of our room:

The next morning we got up early and headed out to explore Kyoto for the day. Kyoto is reknowned for its wealth of old shrines and temples, and by the end of the day I had seen enough stinkin’ shrines to last me a life time. I felt the same way as I did when I was travelling through France with Roanne, but there it was with old churches. At first you stop at every old church and are like “wow, so awesome!” and take lots of photos, but after a while you are like “big deal, another stinkin’ old cathedral” and you just keep walking. But there were some good shrines and temples, it wasn’t that bad. Ani is a Hindu, so we had some good conversations about differenent religions, and I am considering switching to Hinduism (har har har, just kidding Mom!). We started the day at Sanjusangen-do, which is famous for its 1001 carved woodens statues of Kannon, the buddhist godddess of mercy. Each one is individually carved and they are all different and very intricate, it took 100 sculpters over 100 years to complete the statues. It was pretty awesome, unfortunately you were not allowed to take photos of the inside (as was the case with most of the temples) so I can’t show any photos.

Next we headed to another well-known temple called Kiyomizu-dera. This was pretty good, it was a bunch of different little shrines, with some interesting stuff to see. There were also swarms of Japanese school kids walking around, I guess they must have all been on field trips. They all had on school uniforms, I guess that is the norm in Japan. Here is a picture of the buildings near the entrance:

Here is a view of another small shrine in the distance from the main temple building:

Here is a picture of the main temple building, looking back from a path that winds up through the forest to small shrine pictured above. Note the swarms of school children.

This temple had something called the love stones, two stones spaced about 18 m apart, you are supposed to start at one stone, close your eyes, and try to walk to the other stone while thinking of someone that you love. How close you end up to the other stone will be a measure of how sincere your love for them is. Pictured below on the left is one of the stones. We didn’t try it because the path was blocked by people. There was also something called the Otawa waterfall, pictured below on the right, where if you drank from it it would cure any illness you had. There was a long line up to drink from it and we didn’t feel that ill, so we carried on.

We then continued walking, bound for the next shrine. Along the way we stopped for some pumpkin flavoured ice cream, and Ani (who is a strict vegetarian and quite paranoid) inquired as to whether the ice cream had any fish in it. Next we went to Kodai-ji, another shrine with some nice gardens around it. Here are some photos:

We then continued north past some other temples and shrines, stopping to look around at Chion-in, a really large shrine, the entrance to which is pictured below. Apparantly it has Japans largest bell, but we couldn’t find it.

We then continued past some other shrines, stopping to look at one with some giant camphor tree outside of it. These trees were awesome, super big, there is a picture of one below. The guy standing below it gives you some idea of the scale. We also some some neat scupltures, one of which is pictured below on the right.

We then continued north along the Philosphers path, a 2 km long path that winds along a little canal, pictured below:

Next we visited a well known temple called Ginkaku-ji. It had some neat stuff, the main attraction being a zen garden, with some big sand shapes designed to be moon light reflectors and replicas of Mt. Fuji. Some photos are shown below:

We then went to some more shrines, one of which is pictured below:

Next we walked towards the entertainment district of Gion (which is where most of the book “Memoirs of a Geisha” was set). This was interesting, we saw a well known Kabuki theatre, and a bunch of Japanese women walking around in their traditional dress. We then ate dinner and headed back to the Ryokan to get a good nights sleep before heading to Tokyo the next day. The next morning we got up and walked to the train station, where we hopped on the Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Tokyo. It was pretty fun, tons of leg room and super smooth. It made the journey in 2.5 hours, reaching speeds of 262 km/hr, and cost about $127 for a one way ticket. Here is a photo of the bullet train pulling into the station:

We arrived in Tokyo Station around noon, and walked towards the Imperial Palace which is in the middle of Tokyo. It is surrounded by a moat and you can’t walk into the main part of it, but there are some nice gardens around it and some nice views from across the moat. Here are some photos:

Near the Imperial Palace we met this British guy who was 7’2”. He had been travelling for 3 weeks in Japan and he loved it, despite his height impediment (I am only 6’2” and I regularly hit my head getting off the subway). We then walked north towards a shrine dedicated to the memory of soldiers killed in the war, called Yasukuni-jinja. On the way we had some green tea flavoured ice cream, which was semi-good. Japanese people love green tea and use it to flavour everything. We also had green tea flavoured tiramusou one night at dinner. It is controversial (the war shrine, not the tiramusou), as it glorifies the Japanese killed in various wars, including a number of generals who have been implicated as war criminals. The Japanese prime minister pays visits there, and many people say he should not do this in his official capacity. There is a war museum associated with the shrine, and we took a look in this (the only museum we went in during our trip, but this one was really interesting). It had some stuff from early war in Japan with swords and samurai outfits, and then a very detailed and biased account of Japans involvement in WWII. It was pretty interesting, they didn’t acknowledge any wrong doing on Japans part in their entire military history, describing how Japan was forced into war by the Americans, and how they had no choice but to attack Pearl Harbour. Even when they lost, they would say it was due to a misjudgement or turn of events beyond their control, implying that they would have won otherwise. Also, in many of the invasions they described, they said that the common people were happy to see them, and that they were liberating them from the existing governments (sound familiar? Operation Enduring Freedom?). You were not allowed to take pictures in the museum so I don’t have any, but there were some cool things, like a manned torpedo and a kamikaze fighter. One picture I did get was of the toilets, Japan is famous for having the most technologically advanced toilets, one of which is pictured below. Some of the features include a heated seat, a rinse function with adjustable temperature control, a button that realeases a nice odour (to counteract the not-so-nice odours that the user may be releasing), and a button that makes a flushing noise without actually flushing (to mask any unpleasant sounds without having to waste water).

We then went and walked around the Ginza district, a popular shopping district one of the main streets was closed down, and it was swarmed with people shopping in the huge department stores that line the streets. Here is a photo:

Japan has neat crosswalks, you can also cross on the diagonals, so when the cross walk is active all traffic throught the intersection is stopped, and it is just swarmed with people. Here is a photo of the sidewalk in one of the spots where the street was not closed so you can get an idea of the amount of people there walking around (this was on a weekend, I can’t imagine rush hour on a week day):

Another thing the Japanese love is Pachinko, a sort of slot machine type game where you steer pinballs into holes to win more of them, then trade them in for prizes or money. There are tons of Pachinko parlours, and they are super loud and always really busy. Sort of like a Las Vegas on steroids. Here is on pictured below at 11:00 in the morning:

We then needed to find somewhere to stay for the night. We went back to the train station where we had left our packs in lockers, and started looking. I had read of a unique style of Japanese accomodation called a ‘capsule hotel’ which is pretty cheap, it is just rows upon rows up little capsule style bunks that go back into the wall, so you go in, out your stuff in a locker, go sleep in the capsule, then leave in the morning. It is intended as accomodation for businessmen who are unintentionally stranded in a city and don’t want to pay the high price of a hotel. We found one and tried to stay there, but we found out that you are not allowed to stay if you have any tattoos, so that ruled us out (thanks to me). We could only guess that this was to keep ‘Yakuza’ (japanese mafia) out, since apparantly they typically have a lot of tattoos, and we didn’t see anyone else with tattoos during our entire time in Japan. We ended up staying at a hotel that wasn’t too expensive in the seedy part of the Shinjuku area.

The next morning we got up and spent some time walking around the Shinjuku area. It is divided into two parts by the train tracks. The part east of the tracks is an entertainment district with lots of flashy lights and a lot going on (that is where we stayed the night before). The picture belows shows it in the day time, it would be better if it were night, but you can get an idea:

The part to the west of the tracks is a business district, where a lot of the development took place during the boom years of the 80s. As a result there are a lot of tall office buildings with some interesting architecture. Here is a view looking the other way, a pretty big contrast:

Here are some other shots showing some of the high rises:

We went to the top of one of the high rises to check out the observation deck, which was pretty interesting, Tokyo is a huge city and from where we were there were buildings in every direction as far as the eye could see. Next we headed toRyogoku, an area where Sumo wrestlers typically live and train, and the site of the National Sumo Stadium. We got there just after noon, and were lucky that a Sumo tournament was starting at 12:30. We got tickets (about $50 each), and the guy was nice enough to give us a free upgrade, and make it that we were the only ones in our box that four people (you sit cross legged on cushions, no seats) since we were big. It was pretty fun to watch, the stadium was packed and the people were really into it. Here are some photos. After a long announcement in Japanese (which we didn’t understand), the wrestlers paraded out to stand in the ring, shown below:

They then all went back out. The ring was made of sand, and they brushed it smooth before the matches. Next two wrestlers would come out at a time, they would enter the ring, and throw some salt for purifying the wring. Some would throw more than others, one of the generous ones is shown below (he got a lot of salt on the spectators close to the ring, I think his thinking was that more salt would intimidate his opponent, and maybe it worked because he ended up winning the first tournament):

Next they would face off with each other and stare for a while, then go back to their respective corneres and stamp their feet (shown below) and throw more salt.

They would do this process three more times, then finally they would face off behind the white bars, and as soon as each had touched his fist to the ground (shown below):

They would then rush at each other and it was game on, with the goal being to force your opponent out of the ring or knock him over. The matches were usually pretty short, 10-20 seconds, and always ended with one guy pushed out of the ring, though sometimes in spectacular fashion, with the wrestler hurtling into the crowd and landing on a judge.

Another interesting thing was that there were a few white guys. They looked really out of place, but did pretty well, with one of them winning the second tournament. One of them is pictured below:

Also, at half time they had a bunch of little sumos in training come out and challenge one of the normal wrestlers, it was pretty funny to see the contrast. He then picked them up by their sumo underwear and threw them out of the ring.

After the Sumo tournament we headed for a district where they make a lot of Japanese traditional crafts, and saw another temple. Here are some photos, the last shrine photos you will have to look at. On the left is one of the big lanterns, looking down an alley of shops leading to the shrine, on the right is a rack of pieces of wood where people write their wishes on them, then they burn them in a ceremony and all the wishes come true.

I thought I should throw in at least one picture of buddha since we saw so stinkin’ many of them during the trip:

That night we stayed in a youth hostel, which was really clean and nice. The next morning we woke up to a rainy day, which wasn’t too bad since it was our last day and we hadn’t seen a drop of rain yet on the trip. We walked around a bit and took a tour of the Japanese Diet, which is what they call their parliament building. It was pretty interesting, but we were not allowed to take any photos of the interior. Which, in retrospect, isn’t that bad since I am sick of writing this report and don’t want to edit any more photos. Here is a photo of the outside of the Diet Building:

We went to the airport that afternoon and flew back to Seattle (direct flight, only 8 hours). It was a fun trip and really fun to experience the Japanese culture, I was really lucky to have the chance to go there for that conference. Next year the conference is being held in Greece, come on luck!