JKT48Stuff’s Japan Raid Part 2: RHKilis’s Story

Japan. Endless Discovery.

Tourism slogans are usually just lip service, but I think this particular slogan describes the Japan travel experience well. This is especially true as a first-time traveler to the country, which I was during my trip earlier this year. Over the course of one week, I was able to visit Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, and Kamakura. I wanted to see as many sights as possible, so I didn’t mind the rushed and packed schedule. I was also fortunate to have traveled to Japan the week before its consumption tax rate increased from 5 percent to 8 percent on April 1, 2014, so I was able to save on travel costs.

Promotional display for TV anime series Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha at Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto.

I actually didn’t think I’d be visiting Japan so soon. It’s one of my top destinations to visit during my stay in Asia, but it hadn’t been a priority. My cultural interest in Japan only developed five years ago, which is probably later than most, if not all, JKT48Stuff contributors. Anime and manga are the primary drivers of my interest. As a traveler, I’m more keen on exploring locations which were replicated in anime and manga (pictured right) and seeing how the Japanese society matches or doesn’t match the one that’s portrayed through these mediums. Idols came into the picture much later, so it was never my intention to visit Japan to meet idols.

The trip began as a passing comment in a conversation with one of my friends from university when I was in Singapore. We thought it would be a good idea to visit our Japanese friend with unused PTO (paid time off) days from work. Two months later, we were on a flight to Nagoya.

Transportation and Accommodation

We decided to use AirAsia X—the long-haul subsidiary of budget carrier AirAsia—for our roundtrip flights to Japan. This was the logical option because I’m based in Kuala Lumpur, which is only a one-hour flight from where my friend is in Singapore. AirAsia X opened a new route between Kuala Lumpur and Nagoya, so the promotional ticket prices were very attractive. I was hesitant at first to use a budget airline for a long-haul flight, but AirAsia X provides all the amenities available on a full-service carrier minus the inflight meal and entertainment. However, if you bring your own snacks and entertainment, it’s an economical alternative to a full-service airline.

Because we were traveling back and forth between the Kansai and Kanto regions, we determined early on that we needed to utilize the bullet train (shinkansen). Although tickets are costly, we were willing to exchange the money for the travel time saved when going back and forth. The seven-day Japan Rail Pass, which cost ¥28,300 prior to the consumption tax hike, made this possible. It can only be purchased at designated travel bureaus overseas, so it must be purchased before departing for Japan. This pass allows the user to travel on any bullet train schedule except for the Nozomi and Mizuho, which are the fastest trains, during the validity period. Furthermore, because the shinkansen is owned by the Japan Railways (JR) Group, the pass also provides unlimited access to any local train lines owned by JR.

In order to maximize the funds available for sightseeing and entertainment, we stayed at hostels and share houses which cost anywhere between ¥3,000 and ¥4,000 a night per person. These are primarily booked through Hostelworld.com, which is a reputable site used by many budget travelers worldwide. Because we were traveling in groups of two to four people at any given time, we decided to rent a mobile WiFi device to share rather than renting a mobile phone or purchasing a prepaid SIM card. I made an arbitrary choice in selecting the provider, and eConnect Japan didn’t disappoint. Connection was excellent in rural areas and even when traveling at high speeds on the bullet train.

Kyoto: City of Ten Thousand Shrines

Our first 48 hours in Japan were spent in Kyoto, Japan’s capital city for over 1,000 years before it moved to Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration. Given its traditional roots as the nation’s intellectual center, Kyoto has a very refined cultural aura, perhaps akin to the former Indonesian capital of Yogyakarta. (Unsurprisingly, Kyoto and Yogyakarta are designated sister cities.) Our visit in late March coincided with graduation season in the Japanese academic calendar, so there were many visitors to the city’s shrines, including young women dressed in elegant furisode kimono.

One of the more famous sights of Kyoto is Fushimi Inari-taisha (pictured above), known for the thousands of distinctive orange torii gates around the shrine’s grounds. My Japanese friend tells me that foreign visitors often mistake the writings on these torii as prayer mantras, but they are nothing more than the name of the business which donated the particular torii. The manga Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha is modeled on this site, so I was excited to see some of the local restaurants displaying posters of the anime adaptation around the shrine. I find it encouraging that Japan can use the manga and anime mediums as means to promote local tourism. We took a two-hour hike around the mountain, passing through many more smaller shrines and shops at various points along the trail.

We then moved on to Sanjuusangen-dou, a temple complex which houses some of the National Treasures of Japan. It was a short detour before we walked toward Kiyomizu-dera. This temple which offers a breathtaking hillside view of Kyoto. I don’t know much about its history or its significance in Japan’s feudal period, but I had seen it in the anime series The Ambition of Oda Nobuna, so to be able to stand on and overlook from the temple’s 13-meter-high veranda is quite impressive. Later that evening, we visited Yasaka Shrine. I enjoyed the early evening atmosphere here because of the food stalls lining the path to the main shrine, and we were able to catch a maiko (apprentice geisha) performance.

On our second day in Japan, we ventured out from the center of the city to Arashiyama. It is situated in the hills to the west of Kyoto and is known for its thick bamboo forest and gorgeous natural scenery. Luckily, the weather had cleared from since the previous day, so temperatures were getting warm, and we didn’t need our heavy jackets anymore. We sat down for lunch at a restaurant next to the Ooi River, with a great view of the Arashiyama hillside. This is a very nice getaway from the crowds of downtown Kyoto, and we were also able to rent bicycles and venture into the local neighborhoods (pictured above).

Osaka: Old Modern Japan

We arrived in Osaka in late afternoon. After dropping off our luggage at our hostel near Doubutsuenmae, we headed to the Namba district. I wanted to stop by the NMB48 Theater. There was a performance by Team M that evening, but because I couldn’t figure out how to apply for an overseas visitor’s ticket, I didn’t watch the show. Instead, I picked up a few souvenirs from the NMB48 Official Shop down the street. We then walked north toward Doutonbori (pictured above). This area reminded me very much of Times Square in New York City with its neon lights and sea of pedestrian traffic.

I loved very much the atmosphere of the endless rows of shopping arcades (pictured below, note the quilts of Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and Indonesia’s Borobudur in the background). We ate our way through the area, trying out local delicacies such as takoyaki and 551 Horai’s butaman. It was also in this area that I discovered the original restaurants of Marugame Seimen, which has become a popular udon noodle chain in Jakarta, and Osaka Ohsho, whose tenshinhan is popular in Singapore. Oftentimes, when I see Japanese restaurant chains opening overseas, I’m suspicious of whether these places are authentic, so seeing these two restaurants in the heart of Osaka was encouraging. I would recommend friends and family in Jakarta and Singapore to try both of these restaurants.

As the night grew late, we decided to walk our way back to the hostel in order to see more Osaka’s cityscape. I find that the city has a certain feel of modern antiquity, as if capturing the essence of the late Shouwa period. We walked through Den Den Town (Osaka’s equivalent to Akihabara) and Shinsekai. Seeing the abundance of pachinko parlors in Osaka, my friends and I decided to go into one of them and see for ourselves what these gambling hotspots look like. They’re essentially mini casinos with slot machines and simple arcade games similar to ones you may find in Las Vegas and Atlantic City in the U.S. It was surprising to see how some people could get carried away with playing pachinko, with some customers purchasing spending enough time and money to accumulate entire crates of small metal balls.

On the following day, we made a day trip to Osaka Castle. Although it was a newer castle, it was still an impressive structure, and the surrounding park complex was great for a morning picnic. Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms had not bloomed when we visited, so scenery wasn’t as spectacular. We then had okonomiyaki for late lunch before journeying on the bullet train to Tokyo.

Tokyo: Sleepless Metropolis

Tokyo is everything I expected it to be and more. From the morning bustle of Tsukiji Market to the daytime scramble in Shibuya (pictured above), from the rows of stalls of Asakusa to the luxurious department stores of Ginza, this metropolis is full of unique things to see. We stayed at a guest house in Shinagawa, with easy access to the Yamanote Line railway loop that goes around the city. Because this line is operated by the JR Group, we were able to take unlimited rides using the Japan Rail Pass.

I’m used to living in urban areas, but I had never seen anything like Tokyo. It’s pretty overwhelming in size and density. What surprised me the most is the cleanliness of the city. New York City has a prevalent pungent smell that reflects the urban decay that’s common in many of the world’s dense cities, but Tokyo doesn’t have this. This cleanliness extends to the functional design of modern buildings, simple and without much elegance. There are more people living in Tokyo than there are in Jakarta, so it was very hectic to ride the trains during peak hours after everyone leaves the office.

Tokyo’s subway system is also more confusing than I had read about. In one instance, we were lost on which train route to take from the Skytree to Nippori Fabric Town, but a kind lady who spoke in broken English helped us talk to the station officer. Another landmark we visited was the newly renovated Tokyo Station, whose historic 98-year-old Marunouchi side of the structure has been restored to pre-World War II condition.

On one of the nights in Tokyo, I met up with our Japan-based JKT48Stuff contributors and previous guests of our Jadilah Nekad program. I had dinner with Japarta, Wotaliano, Da-Chi, and Mt. Joss in a restaurant near the Ameyoko open-air market (pictured above). We enjoyed several hours of discussing the latest news of JKT48 and my travel experience so far. This was also my first time meeting Wotaliano. Unfortunately, Mr. Yokohama and Joe-san could not join us because they had prior commitments. The others resorted to using Japanese most of the evening because they knew I was trying to learn the language, but it devolved into conversations in a mixture of English, Indonesian, and Japanese.

On the previous night, Mt. Joss had also taken me to Ginza to a “Traditional Bunny’s Club” (pictured below). This is what Japan calls a hostess club, night-time entertainment aimed at Japan’s urban salarymen where customers can enjoy an evening conversation with women who are employed by the club. (There are also host clubs aimed at women.) These are different from strip clubs because there is no dancing or nudity, but this particular club has its female employees dressed in sexy bunny outfits to add to their appeal. The hostesses are quite professional and are able to strike off conversations very easily to make their customers feel welcomed and comfortable. (After all, I would assume the bulk of their income comes from tips.)

Our bunny hostesses throughout the evening were Moriguchi, Inaba, Yukimura, and Nakagawa. (These are not their real names.) All four were surprised that it was my first time in Japan, and yet I was able to hold a decent conversation in Japanese. Moriguchi seemed to be the older and most experienced of the four, and she even gave me the nickname Ricchan. All were open to listen to Mt. Joss and me talk about JKT48 and our oshimen Ve and Beby. One thing we discovered was that none of them knew about Haruka Nakagawa or her success in Indonesia. On the contrary, all of them knew Aki Takajo as a senbatsu regular. (Some even mistakenly named Sae Miyazawa as the other Japanese member of JKT48.) This was the first time I understood what an AKB48 senbatsu position means to the average Japanese person and how important the position is for public recognition.

I had an engaging conversation with Yukimura because she was also interested in anime and voice actors (seiyuu). We shared a number of the same favorite voice actors, and she also told me of how the Ikebukuro neighborhood is like the Akihabara counterpart for women. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to check out Ikebukuro during this trip. I was also able to share some Indonesian culture and words with our hostesses. Mt. Joss was kind enough to help translate and sort out my broken Japanese for the hostesses to understand, but even between us there was a bit of a language gap.

What fan of Japanese pop culture goes to Tokyo without visiting Akihabara? Like many others before me, I would call it the Promised Land. One of my Japanese friends in the U.S. had cautioned me that I should plan to spend at least half a day in Akihabara. He was right. I ended up returning to the place every day during my stay in Tokyo. I needed the first day to explore the district to gauge the area, and on the following days I could return to make any purchases for myself and fellow otaku friends. One place worth visiting is the Super Potato retro game store, which sells video games from the early days of the gaming console era. Discontinued game consoles like the Sega Mega Drive are also sold in mint condition.

If your objective in Akihabara is to shop, there are some places to visit. For fans of anime and manga, stores like Animate and Comic Toranoana are great places to visit to find the latest product releases. However, if you don’t mind owning secondhand products, it will be much cheaper to explore the three Trader stores around Akihabara for used Blu-rays, DVDs, and computer games, where some products are sold at half the original retail price.

Idol and idol group fans don’t want to miss the Lamtarra EpiXis Akiba store, which sells CD releases from almost every national and local idol group you can think of, and the 13 Liberty stores, some of which sell previously released photo cards from the AKB48 Group (pictured above). I’ve been told that JKT48 photos can be found in Akihabara, but I didn’t see them during my visit. It was also surprising to see how cheaply (or how expensive) some of these photos were being sold for. The average price for one photo of a less popular member is ¥100, so if your oshimen is not very popular, you can definitely save a lot of money. On the other hand, one of photo of a popular member can fetch a staggering ¥700.

Japarta also took me to the Don Quijote Akihabara building where the AKB48 Theater is housed. (Contrary to what some may believe, the AKB48 Theater is not located in the same venue as the AKB48 Official Cafe and Shop in front of Akihabara Station.) Unfortunately, because my visit was the week before Yuko Oshima’s planned graduation concerts at the National Olympic Stadium, there were no performances being held that week. On one of the evenings, I also passed the AKB48 Official Cafe and Shop and saw a very long line in front for what I assumed was the daily AKB48 no Anta, Dare? broadcast.

Kamakura: Heart of Feudal Japan

Although Mr. Yokohama could not join us for dinner in Tokyo, my friend and I gladly accepted his offer to take us on a tour to the historical city of Kamakura. This city was, at one point, the military capital of Japan—whereas Kyoto was the official capital as the seat of the imperial family. Although its shrines and temples also have many visitors, I think Kamakura is more of a domestic tourist destination. It doesn’t have as many foreign visitors as the more well-known Kyoto. It was a nice day trip away from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, and the view of Sagami Bay was very relaxing.

During our visit to the shrine complex of Tsurugaoka Hachiman-guu, we were lucky to witness a traditional Shinto wedding at the main shrine (pictured above). I’ve participated in ethnic Chinese and Korean weddings, but the formality of a Japanese Shinto wedding is different. I’m also excited to discover that the upcoming anime Hanayamata by one of my favorite directors uses Kamakura and this shrine complex as model scenes for the series. From there, we moved on to the Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine. Because of a lack of public transportation, we resorted to walking between most of the tourist sites. Zeniarai Benzaiten, nestled in a mountainside cave, is popular because legend says the waters of a spring in the cave are able to multiply the money washed in it. As a memento, I washed one of my ¥10 coins. Mr. Yokohama says the legend also instructs not to spend the money, so I have kept the coin until now.

Kamakura is situated at the end of the historical Enoshima Electric Railway (pictured above). This railway also passes through the town of Yuigahama, which is a setting in my favorite manga series, Twin Spica. Enoden, as the railway is nicknamed, is also featured in the manga, so I was thrilled to be able to ride this particular train line. One of the stations on this line also overlooks Sagami Bay, but we didn’t venture that far.

Mr. Yokohama and I with the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

From Hase Station, we walked to the temple of Koutoku-in. This temple houses the Great Buddha of Kamakura, a hollow bronze statue of the icon. We were able to walk inside the statue through a small side entrance to see the interior of the sculpture. By this point, I had noticed that many of the temples in Kamakura are not as colorful as the ones in Kyoto. Whereas many temples in Kyoto are painted in bright orange or deep red, temples in Kamakura have prevailing brown and gray tones. Our final destination was Hase-dera. This mountainside temple has a great view overlooking Sagami Bay.

If I knew more about Japanese history, perhaps I would have been able to appreciate many of these temples more. Unfortunately, Japanese history is difficult to learn as a foreigner, and it’s rarely taught overseas. Mr. Yokohama had given us a printout of with a brief history of the city, but it even became confusing in some parts because of the similarity of names in some of the historical figures. Regardless, I enjoyed this side trip because it gave me a view of one more different side of Japan. Given that we visited on a weekday, the number of visitors to many of the sightseeing locations were not as many as on a weekend or holiday, so we were able to leisurely enjoy the city.

Nagoya: Industrial Town

We left Tokyo the day before our flight out of Japan to spend the night in Nagoya because we wanted to be able to rest before the final leg of the trip. When browsing for accommodations in Nagoya, I came across a ryokan which was renting beds at a very affordable rate of ¥3,000 per person per night. I had been interested in staying at a Japanese traditional inn since watching the anime Hanasaku Iroha, so I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. I highly recommend Kyoya Ryokan (pictured above) for the experience. It’s a full service inn that also serves backpackers and student travelers, so they set aside one shared bedroom with six beds at a cheap rate. The owner also speaks English, so he is welcoming to foreign travelers. To further immerse yourself in the experience, the inn also comes with a public bath! Note that although the bath is separated by gender, the bedroom is not.

Because we only had half a day to spend sightseeing in Nagoya, I decided not to take a trip to Sakae to see the SKE48 Theater. Instead, we spent the day exploring the area around Oosu Kannon. This temple complex holds a flea market on the 18th and 28th of every month (pictured below), and our visit on March 28 coincided perfectly. Many of the vendors sold items from the Shouwa period, from classic Ultraman toys to antique storefront display banners. Many of the items being sold probably had nostalgic value for the vendors and offered a snapshot of Japanese society in the golden years of industrialization. One of vendors was selling the photo album of a Japanese soldier stationed in Manchuria during the period of Japanese occupation, collected by his mother from his letters home. We wanted to buy it to have a piece of history, but unfortunately the vendor would not bargain with us.

We took a leisurely walk in the nearby shopping arcades. Compared to Osaka’s shopping arcades in the evening, this area in the afternoon was much less crowded. We also had lunch at a random traditional restaurant to try some of Nagoya’s famous grilled unagi eel. Afterward, we took a walk on Akamon Street and checked out some of the stores for souvenirs. There were also a number of small shrines and temples in this area, and some of the elderly were making shrine visits to ask prayers from the minor gods.

Because our flight out of Japan was in late afternoon, we were able to squeeze a visit to the Nagoya Noh Theater near our ryokan. This theater has scheduled performances every few hours, but we didn’t find out about the schedule ahead of time, so we couldn’t watch one of the theatrical dramas. In front of the theater building is a cherry blossom garden (pictured below). We were lucky that temperatures had risen in the previous days, and the sky was clear on our last day in Japan. This meant that the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom and almost reached peak blossom on our final day. There was no better way to close the trip.

Cultural Impressions

Japan was much more eye-opening than I had ever anticipated. Japanese society, in its isolation from the rest of the world, had developed an entirely unique culture and way of thinking. One example is something as simple as the ticketing gate into train stations. In many other cities of the world, the ticket gates are closed by default, and one has to deposit the ticket into the machine before the gates open. However, Japan has the opposite mindset, where the ticket gates are open by default and only closes when there is a problem with the ticket. This saves a precious few seconds, which can build up into minutes and result in a long queue if the gates are closed by default.

I found the Japanese sense of security surprising. Japan has some of the world’s lowest overall crime rates among industrialized nations. This sense of security is reflected in the way many Japanese structures are built, without front gates that separate pedestrians from the main entrance. Compare this to Jakarta where one will find gated communities and neighborhoods. When I was waiting in Kyoto Station, I noticed a mother and her young daughter who were waiting for a train on the next platform. The mother placed her bag on the queuing lane and took her daughter to a nearby bench which faces away from the bag without any concern that it could be stolen. This would be unthinkable even in a relatively safe city like Singapore.

In closing, I will share my idol- and anime-related purchases. Most of these are gifts for friends, but I’m excited to finally have goods from the Wake Up, Girls! anime series.