My first beverage purchase in Japan was a bottle of tea from a vending machine on a train platform while travelling from the airport to the first hotel. I'd heard that vending machines in Japan sold tea. Seeing pop in a vending machine was a bit rare, but every beverage machine had several varieties of tea. Usually the tea was chilled, though some machines offered both hot and cold. In addition to tea, the machines also sold some "health" drinks that had vitamins in them, and something called "Pocari Sweat" that was basically Gatorade only it actually tasted good.
Here's a picture of my and Josh' first beverage purchases, once we got to the hotel. The Mitsuya Cider was quite good and we both ended up having a couple of them throughout the trip.
Speaking of hotels, here's our first room in Shinjuku. The beds were twin size. I'm not convinced they were quite as long as twin size beds in the US though. Josh is in the foreground, enthralled with the ceiling.
You thought there was more to the room? Not really. The room was tiny. Here's the other half. The room cost $150 for 1 night. And that was using a discount site to reserve it; list price was more like $250.
The room did include a small bathroom. Very Western, except for the space toilet. They're actually called "washlets", but i prefer "space toilet". It better conveys the sense of over-engineering that goes into them.
Here's the control console on the space toilet. Other toilets differed a bit, but all had a brown button with a picture of a butt on it, some sort of pink button or dial with a picture of a woman on it, buttons to control intensity, and a button to make it stop. After a couple days in Japan curiosity won out and i did try the extra features on a space toilet. But i never tried the pink button.
Here's the instructions for using the space toilet. Got to love Japanese English grammar: "When you sit on the seat, automatically the cold water flow." Doesn't get much more clear than that. As it says, when you sit water flows. I never figured out why the toilet opts to waste water, but i didn't spend much time trying to figure out the mechanics of it either.
Here's the view out the window of the first hotel. Scenic, isn't it?
This is Day 2. On the way to Gotemba we took a wrong train at one of the transfer points. This is on the platform waiting for the train that will take us back to the station where we made our mistake. Obviously that's me on the left, standing guard over my and Josh' luggage. Not that it is necessary to stand guard in Japan; it is one of the few places where you can leave your bag, come back an hour later, and it will still be there unharmed.
And looking the other way. Seeing trash on the ground was very rare in Japan. If you look carefully you can see a small number of cans and pieces of paper next to the tracks. But how many are on the train platform itself? None. And how many would be on the tracks in America? A whole lot more. This country is the cleanest place i've ever been. Look at the pavement the platform is made of. How many gum stains do you count? That's right, there weren't any. These people take cleanliness very seriously. I like it.
Kitty. This was in Gotemba. We explored the area around the station and hotel on foot after getting checked in. This cat was sleeping between the tracks.
I think there's a rule: all functional objects must be designed to either be cute, or at least have some form of decoration. This manhole cover in Gotemba has a locomotive and Mt. Fuji etched and painted on it.
In Gotemba if you want to get a waitress' attention, you just push the botton on the napkin dispenser. We found this out after Josh couldn't resist pushing the button since it didn't appear to be attached to anything. Guess it has a wireless transmitter. My hand is the model in this picture.
Josh bought this dessert. I wasn't sure why.
This is the box it came in. Japanese people really like their packaging. For example, it was a bit annoying when i'd buy a book and the store clerk would make a book jacket for it, put that on, then put it in a heavy paper envelope, and then put that in a plastic bag. What a waste. If i'm only buying one item, it is silly to even have the bag, and usually i bring my own bag anyway. The 2 layers of paper wrappings were just ridiculous.
We spent a lot of time just walking around town in Gotemba. This is one of the small random temples that are everywhere in Japanese cities.
Time to go find the monument where the plane my great-grandparents died in crashed. This was in the taxi. During Fuji's climbing season we could have taken a bus that would have been a lot cheaper. But the off-season was nice in that we were the only people at the site once we arrived.
This is the monument. Since these might be important to my family, i'm not going to delete any that are bad or remove duplicates.
Front of the monument.
Around back on the left was a plaque in Japanese.
And on the right, one in English.
I know i'm quite visible in the reflection. That was intentional. I wanted a straight-on view of the plaque so i could transcribe it easily: MEMORIAL MONUMENT July, 1967 On a clear day at 2:18 pm on 5th March, 1966 a British Boeing 707 passenger jet airliner was flying over Tarobo on Mt. Fuji at an altitude of approximately 4000 meters when it met with a sudden terrible accident whereby it broke up in flight. Fragments of the aircraft were scattered over 2 square kilometres and all 124 persons on board were killed. This monument was created to perpetuate the memory of these 124 people who died with the fervent prayer that such a tragedy will occur never again. The Memorial Monument Committee for Victims of the British Passenger Jetliner
BOAC is British Overseas Airway Corporation, the company that operated the flight.
These are the pictures from Josh' camera. Many of them are very similar.
I'm not sure, but i think the stone pillar with stones in it is to set incense in. Many monuments and shrines had something similar. Unlike others, this one didn't have an obvious place to light the incense. If at the time i visited the monument i'd known the Japanese tradition of leaving incense at such places, i might have brought some and a match.
The taxi driver took this. He was extremely helpful, especially once i told him that people who died here were my ancestors. After that, he often turned off the meter and he made some calls and got me into 2 temples that were associated with the plane crash. Unfortunately, i couldn't take pictures inside the temples. They were beautiful.
Very close to the monument were 2 other monuments. I'm not sure what they were for. This is one of them.
Here's a closer picture.
This is the other one. From the offerings it is clear that this one is visited often.
The offerings consist of a can of coffee, a bottle of whiskey, and a plant.
Maybe someday i'll look up the characters on the plaque that i don't know and can learn what this small monument was for.
After visiting Tarobo, the taxi driver took us to 2 temples. This was outside one of them.