Thursday, November 25, 2010

Shinkansen to Hakata

From Speedy Efficiency

The Shinkansen puts the American Acela to shame. The Acela is worthy of shame for many reasons, mind you, the craziest of which is the gross negligence involved in building a train that can't run on existing tracks, and for which new tracks won't be created. But let me speak of my day. After packing our backpacks for the trip to come, and bringing our main luggage to the hotel we'll be staying at when we return to Tokyo, we arrived at the main train station to take a long 6-hour trip to Hakata. Along the way we would meet Dave, who flew into Osaka from Beijing, where he works at a nonprofit.

I was very happy to see that the woman who came through the car after each station had a yogurt drink I'd tried before.

From Mmmm

Tastiness. Japan is full of various drinkable concoctions, from Coca-Cola (no diet available here) to various energy drinks, juices, yogurt drinks. Vending machines here also have wine, beer, sake, and hard liquor. On the trip we passed Mt. Fuji. There weren't many clouds, so I managed a decent shot at around 175mph:

From Drop Box

Getting out of the train in Hakata brought a cool night and fresh air, which were a relief to our senses. In the night we visited food stalls along a main canal in town, which was a main attraction to the town. Hakata is known for its ramen, and we chose a stall that had the longest line of people waiting patiently on chairs outside its plastic covering. The food did not disappoint - the noodles were delicious, and we tried a beef tongue yakitori as well.

Later we walked around Hakata, and found ourselves quickly in what appeared to be yet another "red light district". This one was much more overt about it, though it appeared that none of the places were open for Geijin, or foreigners. Most of the places had women standing in front soliciting guests. As the night went on, we saw many drunken men whose hands were held by well-dressed women (some formally in kimonos, some in more modern clothing that might have been purchased in Shibuya). The conversations would always end with "arigato gozaimasu" and a polite bow. There were almost no women outside on these streets who were not soliciting, which was strange. Dave spoke to a few of them in chinese, and after getting over a surprise, they suggested places for us to go. We were looking for a simple bar.

What we found was a maid bar, which turned out to be a new experience, but not a strange affair. A maid bar is a place where women (in our case dressed up in a quasi-victorian look - black and white dresses that were cut long with frilly cloth at the bottom - of all things, puritans!). We sat there for half an hour and had a drink. Our maid did her best to speak to us in English. She was a sweet girl, perhaps around eighteen. Her personality seemed to stand out in the neighborhood, and spoke to us about her interests in anime and comics. This was experience that was definitely foreign. Alas, no pictures were allowed.

We also stopped at a yakitori place to get a little more food. With each completed order the cooks banged a drum that hung in the air:

From Yakitori

We had octopus, bacon, beef heart, ground chicken, mackeral, ginko, and a few others. Tasty, and new to me. After walking a little more, we went home to rest up.

This morning it's off to Beppu for an onsen. Woohoo!

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