Busan Trip Continued

I left off on Thursday in Busan. The next day, we had planned to go surfing, so we got to Songjeong beach, but it was really crowded and the waves weren't very good. I would have gone if it were just me, but I had the feeling that my friend didn't really want to do it, so I decided not to surf. It was a pity because the next day had no waves. :(

This is the beach - Songjeong. It was really beautiful and I would hhave loved to surf there :(

This is a rocky point. It was really cool, I guess volcanic rock. 

After the beach, we decided to walk a fair distance to the nearest metro station. It was pretty far, but it was a really nice walk. 

This is from a viewpoint, you can't see anything, but there are supposed to be two lighthouses, one white (right) and one red (left). It was pretty misty.

The walk to the station was over/around a mountain, so we were quite high above the water.

After getting to the train station we headed to Spa Land. It's another Onsen. It was very popular. It had various relaxing rooms, like body echo rooms and salt rooms. Inside the baths, they had sodium bicarbonate (good for soft skin) and sodium chloride baths (good for chronic pain and neuralgia). My favourite thing to do is rotate between very hot (44 C baths or 80 C saunas) and cool water baths (18 C). There are some baths of 30 C or 36 C but those feel tepid to me... It's not nice, but rather gross. This Onsen also had outdoor baths which is nice. I don't see any improvement from the salt baths for my pain though :( I guess you need to keep going.

In the same complex as the spa (a giant - the world's largest - store called Shinsegae) there was a model of the Trevi Fountain. How random.

After the spa, we wandered to the Busan International Film Festival theatre complex. It was really cool. They have several indoor theatres as well as an outdoor theatre. 

Very futuristic movie theatre...

We were going to see a movie, but it would have ended pretty late, so we decided to just return to the guesthouse. The next day my friend was leaving, so I was on my own for one day.

I enjoyed being by myself. I guess I'm a loner. I decided to go to Gamcheon Culture Village. This village started off as a place to house the many refugees of the Korean War. At the time of the war, Busan had a population of 400,000 people, and during the war, 700,000 refugees came... You can imagine they couldn't cope very well. So many refugees settled in tiny little houses that were squished very close to each other.

The village.

People still live there, but it has become an important artistic and cultural area. There are many community art projects in the are and the houses are all painted bright and happy colours. In Korean they call it the "happy village." While it certainly looks happy, I found myself thinking that the residents couldn't have been that happy. The houses are very small and literally on top of each other. What's more, the village is built into the side of a mountain, meaning that the hills are steep and there are sooooo many stair cases. Most of the residents seem to be elderly, so I imagine it must be difficult to get around. On top of all that, they have to deal with literally bus loads of tourists who don't always respect their privacy and homes. 

People birds.

More people birds. It was a public art installation.

The colourful houses of Gamcheon. Literally on top of each other.

Lots of stairs... A lot of houses are accessible only by narrow staircases and paths like this.

From an angle she almost jumps out at you. 

This is Korea, so of course there were love locks. 

Colourful mural.

At a well supposedly built during a drought by a starving but determined young man. 

More houses!

The house of peace. Apparently it has signatures of Koreans hoping for peace and reunification of the Koreas.

The stairs of stars. This staircase has 148

steps and is very steep. It's called the stairs of stars because people used to see stars climbing it with heavy loads on their backs. Tough life...

One of the narrow passages connecting houses to staircases and roads.

Public fish art.

Gamcheon.

After walking around the village, I walked back down the mountain. All throughout the area, the houses are made of random materials. Sometimes, brick, cement, stone, tile, or painted plaster. 

A house covered with stones.

After getting back down the mountain, I went to Busan's namesake station - Busan Station. There was a traditional market in the area as well as an "international shopping street" which was full of bars and clubs established by foreigners I guess. There were Phillipines bars, Russian clubs, Czech coffee houses, and many more. I felt it was a very shady area and wouldn't want to be there after dark when everything was open... 

All in all it was a cheap and good trip. I got some cheap beauty products and enjoyed some Korean food. I regret not surfing though :(

Trip to Busan - Golden Week 2016

This year for Golden Week I went to Korea again. I was a little worried in light of the tense situation with North Korea. Extra worrying was the Party Congress that North Korea was gearing up for... In the previous week there were 2 (failed) missile launches. I was worried they were going to launch an attack in honour of their special day, but nothing happened. Luckily, I was going to Busan this time, not Seoul. Seoul is directly south and an obvious target for North Korea, whereas Busan is in the south of Korea. 

This trip was hastily put together and came after my rather shocking news, so it has been a bit of a distraction for me. However, my thoughts often turned to that shock and the possibility of impending surgery. I keep telling myself that it isn't necessary and that the MRI will be negative for any damage. Two days after I get home I have a doctor's appointment where more will be decided. Here's hoping no surgery!

Anyway, back to the trip! I left Tuesday afternoon and arrived at around 8:30 pm in Busan at Gimhae International Airport. The day was very windy and I was warned by the airline that we might get sent back to Narita if the winds were too strong. My friend was supposed to arrive much earlier, but her flight was delayed and she ended up arriving only slightly earlier than me. The flight was smooth and I watched half of "The Revenant" on the plane. I guess I'll watch the other half on the way back. We were served a small meal (!) of beef and rice. It was good (except for the rice...). After we met up, we tried to find our way to the guesthouse... It was no easy feat because everything was in Korean (surprise, surprise). We got on a bus and then I thought I saw the characters for our stop, and we got off, much too early. Oh well. We found our way and had a rather long walk to the hotel. At least it helped me get my bearings. The guesthouse is called Yusun Guesthouse. The owner is really nice and it's very cheap! For 5 nights it cost me ¥6500. It's of course not very clean and fresh looking, but it works. 

On the second day, we wandered around our guesthouse area. There is nothing around it. There is one tiny convenience store and then everything else is industrial, meat-related or building related. We eventually found a cafe (which are ubiquitous everywhere but our area, apparently...) and had some much needed coffee. After that we walked around more and found a busy shopping area and traditional market. The market was huge and it mostly sold meat, fish, and vegetables and fruit. It was very interesting to walk around. After the market we decided to look for food. It's very difficult in a non-touristy place because everything is in Korean. We found a restaurant with pictures and pointed to what we wanted. It was a one pot kind cooking kind of place, like hotpot. 

My friend and our hotpot stew dish. It had lots of greens and then stewed beef bones with meat on them. It was good but soooo filling. 

After lunch we went to find the folk fishing museum and were able to find it just as it was closing :( With nothing else to do, we went shopping a little instead and found a Starbucks and had very expensive coffee. A tall cappuccino was about $5 (or 4600 won). Crazy! After that we made our way back to the guesthouse. 

This was displayed at Starbucks, where there was an impressive lack of sugar. Only white, brown, and liquid sugar were available...

The next day we went to the Busan Museum and Cultural Centre. At the cultural centre there was an exhibition of calligraphy. I remember finding a similar thing in Seoul. Here are some of my favourites: 

After the exhibition we went to the museum. We passed by the U.N. Memorial Cemetery, the only one of its kind in the world. Buried/interred there are the graves of the U.N. Soldiers who fought to keep Korea free during the Korean War. I think there are 2200 graves there. 

 U.N. Memorial monument.

UN memorial cemetery.

Playing on Korean park exercise equipment.

Trying to mold myself to the glop of public art.

After the museum (I didn't take pictures inside), we went for lunch, we had bibimbap, a popular Korean dish that mixes vegetables, beef, a raw egg and rice in a hot bowl. It was okay, luckily I gave most of my rice to my friend, so it was more enjoyable. 

After lunch we had a cultural experience and partook in a traditional Korean tea ceremony. It was similar to Japan, but also different. 

I'm making tea in the traditional way!

The set up and the sweets. 

Perfectly lined up. 

Interestingly enough, the tea ceremony explanation had to be done in Korean and Japanese. We were the only two non Koreans there, but they couldn't do it in English, so we got it in Japanese. It was nice to hear and speak Japanese. Everytime I wanted to speak to Koreans, only Japanese would come out, as if it were a reflex. It was strange.

The cursory freeze shot in front of the museum.

I can jump sooo high (not- talented photographer)!

This was for Glen.

After tea ceremony we went to oncheonjang, an area at the base of the mountains with lots of hot springs. We went to the Onsen in Korea and it was good but also alarming. In Japanese onsens, there are many rules and I expected the same of Korean ones, but I was wrong. People were washing themselves by the pools, sitting on the floor and grooming themselves, swimming in the Onsen, and putting their heads underwater. All of these are no-nos in Japan. The Japanese Onsen experience is much quieter, politer and calmer. 

This is a colourful monument to the onjeong well, which supplied Onsen water for a bathhouse almost 400 years ago. They say the water was hot enough to hardboil an egg back then.

This was a motel (I'm pretty sure it was a love hotel, and the place was full of em) with a very interesting inscription on it: "have you ever slept in the motel 'dream' that kills you" 

I'm not sure what to make of that... 

That concludes the write up for the first half of my Busan trip. There's more to come!

Animal Café Culture in Japan

Japan is rife with cuteness. We all know it. We can’t deny it. We all want it. That’s why people flock to animal cafes in Japan, which are also becoming increasingly popular in other parts of the world. Japan, I’m pretty sure, is the birthplace of the cat café and the subsequent various animal cafes that came later. This makes sense; People living in big cities like Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka are living in tiny little boxes of apartments and have no space for pets. Let alone time. Let alone money. Therefore, it’s a clever idea to have a place where people can pay to pet animals for 30 minutes to an hour and then go home. All the benefits of a pet and none of the responsibility or costs associated.

Pets are particularly expensive in Japan. If you go to a pet shop, you can look at all the cute little puppies and kittens; just don’t look at the price. A little French bull dog will cost you 500,000 yen, or $5,000. That cute calico kitten? 300,000 yen. Say you suck it up and pay the price for your desired pet. Then you have to get the finest food, electrolyte water for those hot summer months, pee pads, butt wipes, fancy collars, clothes, grooming, nail cutting, stroller, bed, etc. Then you have to pay a pet damage deposit for your pet (2 months’ rent? 100,000 – 200,000 yen). When you go on vacation or a business trip, who will take care of the pet? No one, so you have to use a pet hotel. I don’t know how much they cost, but they probably aren’t cheap. So as you can see, why buy a pet if you can just go to a café? It’s much cheaper and easier.

These days, animal cafes are not limited to cats. There are cafes for owls, hedgehogs, goats, dogs, rabbits, monkeys, penguins, reptiles, parrots, hawks, falcons, finches and other small birds, lizards, snakes and goldfish. I’m sure there are more that I haven’t listed. If you go to one of these cafes, the general flow is pay for the amount of time you want in the café, look at the animals, pet the animals, buy a drink and food, eat and drink, buy food or outfits for the animals, feed them or dress them, leave. Of course the order of business changes for each café. In some cafes, like owl cafes, you are not allowed to touch the animals. However, in cat cafes, you can touch them all you want.

Remember when I said everyone was flocking to these cafes? Well, I’m not. I just can’t accept this notion of animal cafes. It feels wrong, predatory, unsanitary, and bad for the animals. There are some cafes where the welfare of the animals comes first, and perhaps they are rescue animals, but for the overwhelming majority, I’m sure this is not the case. Japan already has a big problem with stray cats and rabbits. Some islands are overrun with them. Yet, rather than find a solution to all these feral animals, animal cafes profit off their animals like a zoo, but with less regulation. That being said, with the explosion of animal café popularity, the government is trying to regulate the industry, but it seems it is mostly just regulating the hours of operation of these cafes.

Another problem I have with these cafes is that they are using wild animals: birds, predators, owls, penguins, reptiles, monkeys, etc. These are not domesticated animals like cats and dogs. They should not be cooped up and put on display in a café. The environment for these animals is troubling. At least in zoos, habitats are made to be realistic, but in animal cafes, it is far from their natural habitat. Since you are allowed to touch the animals (not in all cases), travelling to multiple cafes and touching multiple animals is risky for the health of the patron, as well as the health of the animals. Diseases can be spread from café to café, from animal to person to animal, and from animal to person. This is a big public safety concern, especially in a densely populated metropolis like Tokyo.

I am completely against animal cafes, the concept makes me very uncomfortable. I do however recognise the benefit that interaction with these animals can have on busy, stressed people. Pets are wonderful; they reduce stress and make people happy. But these animals are not pets. These cafes take attention from the real problems that Japan has with animals. If anything, they add to the problem of stray animals in Japan because fewer animals are rescued or adopted, and perhaps more are abandoned as a result of split second decisions to buy a cat (influenced by visiting a cat café) and then regretting the decision later, when there is no time or money to take care of the cat or it turns out to be jerk.

If animal cafes are going to exist, they must have a greater purpose. They must work for the animals. They must work towards solving Japan’s nasty abandoned pet problem and educate their customers about animal issues, proper treatment and care of animals, and they must advocate for adoption of animals and creation of shelters, rather than purchasing “new” pets from the pet mills. Pet mills are another huge problem in Japan that will probably never be addressed. *sigh*

I don’t mean to rant (well actually… yes I do), but I just can’t support animal cafes, especially those toting animals like penguins, owls, or reptiles and keeping them in inappropriate habitats.

In Japan, anything can be turned into a café. Why? It’s weird. 

Floor Horsemen - Aichi edition - Oct. 25, 2015

On October 25, 2015, an event called Floor Horsemen - Back to Van City, held in Kariya City, Aichi prefecture. This event originated in Vancouver, and it was created and organized by some friends. Since there are a lot of dancers that come from Japan to Vancouver, they decided to bring the event to Japan. One of the creators even came to Japan to help put it on. 

I have seen the pictures of the previous events in Vancouver, both of which occurred while I was in Japan, and I really wanted to go. When I found out that there would be an event in Japan, I knew I had to go. Unfortunately, the timing was not so convenient, but I made it work.

I took a night bus to Nagoya. It left Saitama shintoshin station at 11:45 pm on Saturday evening and arrived at 4:45 am Sunday morning. The night bus was loud and uncomfortable, so I didn't get much sleep. 

This is the bus I took. 

Upon arrival, it was dark, cold and windy and too early to do much. I found a combini (convenience store) and bought a coffee. Then I walked around debating whether to check into a hotel for a few hours. In the end, I found Denny's and ate a bit of breakfast and drank a lot of coffee. I left around 6 am. From there, I decided to explore the city. I walked to Nagoya Castle. 

One of the iconic buildings around Nagoya station.

On my way to the castle I found a shrine upon a roof. 

Then I found a larger shrine, the walls were original, but the main buildings had been rebuilt. It was closed.

This is a shrine at a historic bridge. 

I can't remember what the bridge was called. It led away from a covered market area.

My first glimpse of Nagoya Castle. It was about 3 or 4 km from the station, so it took a while to get there.

A closer shot, and the best shot. I couldn't get into the castle because... You guessed it, it was closed. 

A statue near the castle. Don't remember who he is.

Castle walls and a former moat?

Let's play a game, how many cats can you find? There were so many stray cats in Nagoya!

A part of the castle!

This is one of the original gates for the castle. I believe this is the east gate.

I found a little shrine to the fire goddess for protection against fires. 

The main shrine building and its requisite torii.

A little altar at the end of the Torii gates. 

This is Nagoya station. It has two towers. It's a nice place. At this time it was around 8 am. Still early. No shops open, just convenience stores.

After visiting the castle, I went to Starbucks for more coffee. 

After Starbucks, I wandered around the city centre a little more. I liked this building.

I went shopping, and found this motor bike. It was only ¥10,000,000.

Eventually I left Nagoya for Kariya, where the event was to be held. I arrived a bit early, so I walked around the city, but there isn't much around there. 

The event was held at a music lounge called Birdland. It was a very cool little place, filled with all sorts of interesting collectibles. The event had a very relaxed and fun vibe, and the dance floor was open for most of the event. There was a live DJ and several exhibitions. Rather than try and explain it, you can watch a recap of the event put together by the creator.

https://vimeo.com/145017201

After the event I had to get home and go to work the next day. I took the train back to Nagoya station and caught the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.

It was a wonderful one day trip on almost no sleep. I'm really glad I got to experience floor horsemen in Japan.