A Day In: Kawasaki (again)

I went back to Kawasaki for the weekend, and how I enjoyed it! For me, even more than Yokohama, Kawasaki feels like home. For a general overview of places in Kawasaki, see this post and this one.

I suppose for most people, Kawasaki just feels like any Japanese city. There are too many bicycles, and old drunk guys and a red light district. But I do like it better than any other place. I suppose that's mostly because it's full of good memories for me, but also, its layout feels satisfying.

For example, while Kawasaki station is a hub of three train lines, the station itself is compact; there is only one exit, and it's impossible to get lost. The department stores and entertainment areas are all immediately around the station. In Yokohama station or Nagoya station, the department stores are rather a mess of underground and above-ground all mixed up into one immense labyrinth. Even now, while I can find my way around in Yokohama station, I can't remember which mall is which.

In Kawasaki, everything is distinct; you can tell the stores apart and most of the department stores are not underground. In LaZona and Citadella you have nice outdoor public spaces where there are often free concerts. There are lots of places for karaoke, games or movies, and all my favourite chains and franchises are in the area, from Krispy Kreme to five different Starbucks. There are lots of different stores, including large electronics stores, bookstores and so on, and everything is nearby. There's a
good variety of different food, not only Japanese.

Yes, I like Kawasaki a lot. You could say that as you get further from the station, some of the areas get a bit dodgy, but I've never felt it unsafe.

One of my only pet peeves with Kawasaki is the bicycles; people ride them on crowded, narrow pedestrian streets where they really shouldn't. The streets are half-jammed with parked bicycles, and in the space left, there are lots of pedestrians walking. But people still don't get off their bikes. I've never seen anyone get hit, but it's a bit of a miracle.

Kawasaki bicycles.

I went back to Kawasaki last weekend. I always feel great happiness at going there, like 'I'm going home'. As far as I could tell, all of the things I mentioned in the aforementioned blog posts are still valid. There are a few new things. For example, Saika-ya (the department store I described as the least interesting) now has a big Kaldi Coffee, which has lots of import foods. There are a few different stores here and there. The clothes and accessories store at the entrance to Citadella, for example, is now a kushi katsu (fried pork on skewers) restaurant.

Cinecitta, in Citadella

Since it's coming up to Christmas, Le Front had Christmas characters on its front steps, and Cinecitta was lit up with Christmas lights (in Japan, 'illuminations'). In Citadella there was an open-air ice skating rink.
Considering the temperature on Saturday was a pleasant 17 degrees, this seemed a little premature, but oh well. I'd never seen an ice skating rink in Kawasaki before, although I know there is an indoor one near Higashi-Kanagawa station in Yokohama nearby.

While in Kawasaki this time, I went to the Peruvian restaurant, Inti Raimi, which is a little down the street which runs between Muza and La Zona. It has good food and is reasonably priced.

I also went to Salvatore / Crystal Jade, a rather odd fusion of Italian food and Chinese food, which is in Citadella. Within the restaurant there are two kitchens, and both types of cooking are good quality. They have a wood oven for their pizza. Sitting in this restaurant, you can order from either menu. I gave my friends leave to order anything they liked - they had the Italian menu open, and it's full of delicious things, so I couldn't imagine they could find anything I didn't like.

The dishes they chose included deep-fried chicken cartilage, and a dish of motsu (entrails). Hah! It amazes me that so many people like eating chicken cartilage (which tastes exactly as you would imagine), or that anyone would think to seek out cartilage and entrails on a menu. But we also had many delicious things. :)

Salvatore pizza (nothing weird on this one, only deliciousness ^_^)

A Day in: Kobe

A couple of weeks ago I visited Kobe for the first time. Kobe is the sixth-largest city in Japan - smaller than Tokyo, Nagoya and Yokohama, but larger than Kawasaki. Kobe is known as a fairly pleasant city to live in, quite modern, with a harbour and some foreign influence. In these respects, it's not unlike Yokohama.

When I went to Kobe, I did a lot of walking! First, from Sannomiya station (20 minutes from Osaka), I went to Kitanocho, an area with lots of historical foreign residences. It was all built up and down hills, with the mountains immediately behind, creating a nice natural backdrop. The area itself was lovely, and full of little cafes, snack and souvenir shops.

This is a Starbucks with class ^_^

After exploring Kitanocho (no, I didn't go to the Starbucks, but I found a nice French restaurant/cafe on the same street), I went back down to Sannomiya station. Checking the maps, it seemed like only a 400m walk from the station to the Chinatown/harbour area, so I decided not to take the train. Of course, after walking for 400m, I soon found a sign telling me the harbour was 1.2km away. This kind of confusion happens to me often in Japan. Am I really so bad at reading maps and signs, or are they just toying with me? Hahaha...

Anyway, I still walked down to Chinatown, past a floral clock and a park. The Chinatown was mostly concentrated on one street, but it was pretty cool. They had stalls selling shumai (dumplings), nikuman (steamed meat buns) karaage (deep-fried chicken), harumaki (spring rolls) and other treats. Om nom nom. I enjoyed some freshly prepared shumai.

Finally I made it to Meriken Park, a park overlooking the harbour. In this park is a memorial for the great Kobe earthquake of 1995. I just sat and watched some dudes riding stunt bikes.

I made my way on to Harborland, which had nice views. This complex reminded me of Darling Harbour in Sydney, or possibly Decks in Odaiba, Tokyo.

Kobe harbour

There were lots of great department stores in this area, with interesting novelty stores and funky layouts and decor, like little canals. I stopped at a cafe for coffee and cheesecake; their specialty of the house was a unique 'Denmark-style cheesecake'. I don't know what the Danish would have thought of this thing, but it came out with *hot melted cheese* all over it. Underneath it was a kind of generic, Japanese-style spongy cheesecake. It wasn't bad, per se, but rather unexpected.

I enjoyed my day in Kobe. And I did feel like Kobe was Yokohama's western cousin. In both cities, you have:

• the area with cool little cafes, former foreign residential areas with European architecture' (in Yokohama: Motomachi/Yamate; in Kobe: Kitanocho)
• the harbourside, with nice places to sit, and lots of shops (in Yokohama: Minato Mirai, in Kobe: Harborland and Meriken Park)
• the 'bigger neighbour' city which is an easy train ride away (Yokohama has Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka)
• Chinatown (the Yokohama one is much bigger, but the Kobe one has more emphasis on street stalls selling hot snacks, which was nice ^_^)
• a generally bright, modern feel with lots of shiny, tall buildings

Actually, I liked Kobe very much, and I thought that if I wanted to try living in a new place in Japan, I'd probably choose Kobe. It seemed much livelier than Nagoya, and I found lots of nice cafes, bakeries and patisseries, as well as many department stores, some open spaces, and nice restaurants.

A Day in: Kawasaki city

I did a day in Kawasaki previously; this one is more centered around the JR train station.

Today I went back to Kawasaki for the first time in several months. I've been back in Australia for that time, so I noticed new things, and revisited old favourites.

***

My hotel, in common with many Japanese hotels, has a rather early breakfast time. 6:30-9:00. I think this is because the hotels are catering to business travellers. Tourists probably don't come to Kawasaki very often.

I wake up at 10:30.

It's cold today. Everyone is a mass of black puffy winter coats. The cherry blossom trees, which brighten the otherwise drab streets, are suspended in mid-bloom. They'll probably be at their peak by the end of the week.

I hope to pick up a plastic bag or two during the day, since I don't have any spares. In Australia we now have strict plastic bag rationing, and I've received perhaps five plastic bags in as many months. I kept each one carefully, like a precious commodity, for re-use.

I go to get breakfast at Subway. I notice there is a new store called 'Womb'. This is possibly the worst name for a store I've yet seen (and I include 'Junoesque Bagel' in that). I decide not to enter the Womb, instead going to the 100 yen shop in the Marui OIOI building.

I love 100 yen shops. In Australia, we have discount stores, but the stuff is usually a) more than 100 yen, and b) visibly crap. You expect it to break into pieces the moment you get it out of the store. In Japan, some of the stuff in 100 yen stores is tacky, but a lot of it is quite decent. You could easily furnish an apartment with all the little bits and pieces - plates, cups, towels, storage containers, bins - from one of these stores. I once took a visiting friend here and she bought over 5000 yen worth of Japanese souvenirs!! If you're on a budget, I recommend them. ^_^

Coffee at Starbucks - there are five Starbucks in Kawasaki; today I go to the one in Kawasaki BE. It's on the second floor so you can look down on the street and watch people smoking.

The basement floor of Kawasaki BE has a food hall. The Italian store is gone. I'm sorry about that, but not surprised. It always seemed to be empty. Now it's become another generic Japanese bento store.

It's a cold day so I get some celery potage (=soup) and some fruit - gotta keep up the immune system. As I wander the vendors section, I look at all the items - ume (pickled plums), thick slabs of kimchi (spicy Korean pickled cabbage), miso paste, mochi products - and think that when I first came to Japan, I could identify hardly anything in this food hall. While my knowledge has improved, there are still plenty of things which I couldn't confidently identify as animal, vegetable or mineral.

I feel like eating a nikuman (Chinese steamed bun), but in this hall, the only choice is a collagen steamed bun. Mmm, collagen. Thanks but no thanks. On to LaZona. The lady asks me if I'm planning to eat my nikuman straight away. Yes, I say. She puts it in a plastic sleeve and puts that in a plastic bag. I can't help wondering what she would have given me if I'd said 'no'.

I go to Uniqlo. This is the place for simple, reasonably-priced clothes. I notice their jeans come in three styles: 'skinny', 'slim', and 'super skinny'. It's good to have a choice.

More wandering around. There's a little bakery near Daiso with very tempting pain au chocolat. I get one. I do a quick inventory of the supermarket. For the first time, I notice an attractive feature of Japanese supermarkets - they don't trap you, but you can freely enter and leave. In Australia, if you enter a supermarket, there's no way out if you don't buy anything. You have to sidle carefully past people in the checkouts.

I go to the library. I am fond of this library. It strikes me, though, that I am about the only customer under the age of 60. There are not enough seats for the people wanting to sit and read. I sit on the ground next to the foreign book section.

In Australia, most libraries are now quite jazzed-up and refurbished; fancy seating, big windows and new architecture, loads of computers with free Internet use, video games for kids to play, free classes for mothers with small children - a hub of community life. This library is much lower-key; a little shabby. There are hardly any computers. I don't care though. Free books!!

I go underground through Azalea. It's a nice way to avoid the Great Outdoors, in which it is now raining. I take the world's shortest escalator through More's. I go to a pharmacy. While I'm waiting in line, I amuse myself by counting the number of different collagen-based products on the shelves nearby. I'm up to 16 when it's my turn.

I have dinner - delicious gapao (Thai food) - in LaZona. I buy my breakfast for tomorrow. I walk back through the night.

I am back in my hotel, with seven new plastic bags. I feel very rich.

A Day in: Kawasaki

Today I go to Kawasaki. This is the city between Tokyo and Yokohama. Though if you were travelling by road, you probably wouldn't have any perception of one city 'ending' and the next 'beginning'.

I start on Nishi-guchi-dori, and to a Peruvian restaurant for lunch. The staff are Peruvian. I always think it's kind of cool when I can communicate with Peruvian, or Chinese, or Korean people, in a shared second language.

I get a lunch set - meat dish, soup, and iced coffee - for a cool 700 yen. I'm beginning to really like Japanese iced coffee.

(See, in Japan, the 'standard' drinks are iced coffee, hot coffee, iced tea and hot tea. If you get a set meal anywhere, these are your most common, basic choices. All four are served black. So for example, in Australia, 'iced coffee' is a rather sickly sweet, very milky drink. 'Iced tea' is usually a flavoured, slightly fruity drink. But in Japan it's as though you simply took regular black coffee or black tea and served it cold, with ice.

To your iced tea or coffee you can then add milk and sugar. These are also different to Australian milk and sugar; the milk comes in tiny, super-concentrated little cups, and the sugar comes as 'gum syrup', which is liquid sugar. This is better for dissolving into a cold drink.)

The restaurant is almost empty when I enter, but soon starts to fill up. Groups of businessmen come in, and soon there is a mass of white shirts. I am the only woman in the shop.

After lunch, I walk behind LaZona. I'm going to try to walk towards Kamata, and the Tama River. The sun is bright and hot overhead. I'm a little hot in my t-shirt and 3/4 pants. All the other women I see are wearing long pants, and mostly, long shirts. The lady in front of me is carrying an umbrella. I wish I'd had the foresight to put on sunscreen.

I come upon a recycled goods shop - not a common occurrence, in my experience. I go in and think 'eh, the 100 yen store is better'. There is an electric ear cleaner which looks like a hair dryer. I remember a recent conversation I had with three Japanese friends.

'I clean my ears once a week,' said the first.

'Ehhhh,' said the second, shocked. 'I'm three days in a week. How about you?'

The third said, 'I clean mine every day'.

They were very surprised to learn that I don't even own a mimikaki (ear-cleaning brush).

I finally circumnavigate LaZona. It comprises a big area. Around the building is grass. It's not every day I see grass, so I feel happy. Unfortunately, all the grass has been fenced off with ugly green traffic cones and tape. Keep off the grass.

I start to pass buildings I have never seen before. One building has a large flower display inside, with a water feature. At first I think I am seeing the reflection of the park outside, but no, it's inside. It seems a very elegant building. There is a McDonald's in it. It seems out of place.

I think it will be straightforward walking to the Tama, but I have a sad reputation for getting lost. When I see the Keihin-Tohoku line flying past, it reassures me that I'm going the right way.

I reach the Tama River. This is the river that is the border of two cities. On my side is Kawasaki; on the opposite banks it is Tokyo. There is a kind of homeless people's shanty town set up along the banks.

The Tama River is not a beautiful river. But it's such a perfect, sunny day today that it can't help but look nice. I sit for a while and study some Japanese. People are fishing in the river. A bunch of very noisy children play in an apartment block behind me.

Eventually I get up. I'd like to find a bathroom. There's nothing. I decide to just keep walking, and I walk and walk, and find myself on Daishi dori, so I decide to walk to Kawasaki Daishi park. It's a bit of a trek. I pass two shrines, two train stations, and Kawasaki Keiba racing track.

I would be enjoying the walk more, but it is rather warm, and my route is unrelieved by a single modicum of shade. I am going to be burnt. I am going to be very burnt.

When I finally get to Daishi park, 45 minutes later, I am relieved to get to a bathroom. I am less relieved to see it's in the middle of being cleaned. This seems to happen a lot. I am too hot and lazy to walk to the next one, so I sit down and wait. It's being cleaned with more zeal than finesse - the elderly cleaner is literally hosing the stalls down and blasting water all over the ground.

25 minutes later, and he still, unbelievably, hasn't finished. He goes to his bicycle and takes a roll of toilet paper. I lose patience and go to Daishi shrine instead.

I sit by Turtle Pond. I don't know its real name. But there are willows, and lilies, and gentle fountains. It is a very serene place. I try to count the turtles. I try twice, and each time, I get confused around the 80 mark. I listen to Porno Graffitti's 'Heart' and feel very relaxed.

A Day At: the Hakone Open-Air Museum

Recently I went to Hakone and went to the Hakone Open-Air Museum. I enjoyed it very much. 

The Open-Air Museum has a lot of sculptures and artworks, well, in the open air. There's also a Picasso gallery, and several other indoor exhibits. The mountainous scenery around is quite beautiful - so green! - and if the weather is nice, it's a grand place to stroll about. I spent a very leisurely four hours there.

So immediately after going in, it was straight to the cafe for a cappuccino. This is always the first order of every outing I have. ^_^ From the cafe I could see lots of green mountain scenery, and some seats that looked like fried eggs.

Cake followed the cappuccino, and then I went out. The weather was perfect - a hot summer's day, but as I was in the mountains, it was a little cooler. I pottered around past lots of different sculptures; a giant crying head, a series of coloured squares making a rainbow that kids were playing on; an underground tunnel. The whole area had the kind of whimsical, 'wander where you will' feel that I got from the Ghibli museum in Mitaka. There was a koi pond where you could feed the fish. 

My favourite part was a children's play area, the 'forest of net'. This was a child's heaven - a massive contraption of nets and hanging bouncy swings and soft spongy ground. The area was full of children's laughter. I sat and watched for a while. Those kids were having the time of their lives.

The whole 'museum' was very child-friendly, with lots of things for kids to play on, and many small children were running around excitedly.

I continued walking down and saw the Picasso exhibits. I went to the gift shop and bought some souvenirs. I was just thinking I should find a nice place to sit down - I'd been walking for a while, and was getting footsore - when I came upon a hot spring foot bath. The very thing! I sat in it for almost half an hour. Bizarrely, the bath had lemons and oranges floating in it. Like, whole lemons and oranges. It gave the bath a faint citrus flavour, and the kids something to kick...

After this, I went up a stained glass tower - so beautiful! - and enjoyed the panorama from the top.

I meandered my way back up toward the entrance - looking at other sculptures, including this massive series of interconnecting tunnels and tubes that was, of course, full of children playing - and looked at the exhibits near the entrance. I had lunch and walked around the park some more.

One room near the entrance was full of people making decorative plates out of clay. I mean, each person had lots of different colours of clay, and were shaping pictures onto plates. If I'd had more time I would have loved to try it. I was impressed by how good everyone was - even quite young children were making really good pictures.

I'd really recommend this place if the weather is nice.

To go there, take the Hakone Tozan line from Hakone Yumoto up to Gora. Just before Gora, get off at the stop 'Chokoku no mori'. You can't miss it, as you will see the sculptures from the train as you pull into the station.