These are two tombs in Koya-san, with something you may see in many other places in Japan: food and beverages. I guess they pretend them not to be thirsty in the near future… but I do not know the exact reason behind this… I will try to get some more information.
Today, I’ve been the whole day at home. Half of it sleeping, recovering from the tough week with the guests; and the other half preparing a trip I am going to do in Christmas… and suffering some allergy. 🙁 Therefore, I have not been out tonight in spite of being Saturday night.
But I did something else. I decided to walk from home towards a place I had never been and look for some place to have dinner in. If you remember what I wrote a couple of months ago, Tokyo neighbourhoods vary a lot from the area close to the stations to further places. I live relative far from my station, and today I decided to walk towards another station which, I realized today, is almost as close as “mine”.
Anyway, when I arrived to the next station’s area, I started finding lots of shops, restaurants and some more people than earlier. It is a pity that I did not bring this time the camera with me, as I saw some interesting things. I saw two hairdressers, with all the personnel training with dummies (Saturday at around 9 pm!) and a Spanish restaurant with a big flag, and no Spaniard in it (it seems every neigbourhood in Tokyo needs to have at least one spanish restaurant).
Finally, I went into a small sushi place, the only restaurant in a non-main street… It is normal that they looked surprised when they saw a western face sitting there. They understood quickly that I do not speak a word in Japanese and they (owners and all customers) did their best to communicate and did not wait long until they started asking me where I come from, how long I have been in Japan, why I am in Japan, where I work, how old I am, if I am single or not,… From all these questions, they are showed special interest in the company I work for. This makes a point, and you can realize how they use it when they talk one to each other about you… I had read about the importance of this in the japanese society, but today I experienced it.
After that, I walked back to my place, but using a different path. I was not in a hurry, so I could spend some time trying out new ways. And in a small corner, next to the tracks, I saw a small bar, from outside seemed very noisy and with lots of people. It reminded me to the atmosphere in some bars in Seville, so I looked in through the window, and found out a couple of paella pans next to the window… What…? I could not see anything else due to some curtains, but I decided to go to the door, and check why those paellas were there… And I checked that they were not the only spanish element of the bar: the name is “Barrera” (remember: it is placed next to the tracks), there are tapas and vinos in the menu, spanish pottery, bull fighting and sevillanas posters, a Spain’s map, … It was the first spanish bar (not restaurant) I have seen in Tokyo. When I was standing at the door, someone opened it, and I just went in… It was full of japanese people, and also an italian guy living for some years in Tokyo was hanging out with a friend. Just two people in the bar apart from him spoke English, and those who did, surprisingly could also say a few words of Spanish… Guess what they asked me, and what was then repeated to everybody… Yes, the same questions as in the sushi place, and special attention to the professional activity…
And now that I am reflecting about this, I remember another example, when we visited Yokohama. We asked a couple to take a picture from us, and it happened to be a spanish guy with his japanese wife. We talked for a while with him, and we did not talk about work… But his wife, suddenly, asked us what we do for work. The guy was visibly a bit embarrassed, as he knew it is not that common in Spain to ask that in the first two minutes of conversation…
But in Japan it is. So, be ready for that.
Just another small example of what a crowd is…
This picture was taken in Osaka some Sunday in the afternoon. Ok, this area is a commercial area, but I find it a lot of people… What do you think?
Some weekends ago (I’ve been quite busy lately), I went with some other Spaniards to Koya-san, which is an area in the mountains, where you can find hundreds of temples. It is historically very important, as it is here where the Zen sect of Buddhism began. Apart from that, Koya-san offers you some temples where you can sleep, enjoying both the life (and food) in the temples and the calmness before the arrival and departure of the tourists.
Just in case, someone is wondering: I am in Tokyo.
The flight was more pleasant than I expected. Even though the plane was full (I suspected that when I checked in online), there was almost one hour delay from Frankfurt, and we had to take a bus to the plane instead of accessing via a finger (it is quite impressive to be standing under a 747), I think this was the best long flight ever. I managed to have some deep sleep for many hours (my poor japanese seat neighbour had to literally jump over me to go to the toilet – I saw him when I opened one eye for a few seconds), and I had some nice talk with a bunch of Spaniards coming to a trade fair to Tokyo.
Furthermore, when I picked my bag up, I had a small present. A cute pink tiger panther, with a biiig heart, and very very dirty. It seemed it had suffered a lot. I thought it was a joke and I looked around to see if there was a hidden camera… But nobody came to confirm my suspect. As I had to claim because my bag got broken at some point of my trip, I also gave that back… This time, I didn’t give any contact information to keep it if the owner doesn’t appear. 🙂