World Heritage in Kyoto, Japan

In some ways, Kyoto is the cultural archives of Japan. The city, about an hour from Osaka, was central to Japanese history for well over a thousand years and the marks of that millennium are in every little corner you could possibly explore.

If you come to Japan looking for temples and shrines, you’ll hit a divine motherload in Kyoto. There are more than 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines. It doesn’t matter how lost you get, you will also find a red tori gate or a smiling Buddha not far away. The religious and historical are inescapable.

Kyoto first became the capital of Japan in 794AD and, despite a few periods when the power base was moved, remained the centre of politics until 1868. The imperial family over those centuries constructed much of what you can see today. It has only 1 per cent of the Japan’s population but is home to more than 20 per cent of the country’s national treasures.

Within the city, there are 17 specific places that have been designated as part of the official Kyoto listing on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It’s impossible to see them all in a day. I think you’d be hard pressed to see them all in three days even. If you’re the kind of person who likes to explore things in depth then you’ll need to leave yourself enough time to properly understand a city as culturally-rich as Kyoto.

I gave myself just one day in Kyoto, which I now regret. It’s easy to get templed-out in this region of Japan and I fear that was beginning to happen to me. But I still managed to see some of the most important temples and shrines… and finished the day, as the sun set, at the most beautiful of all the sights.

Here’s one way to spend a day in Kyoto.

Nijo-jo Castle

This castle at the centre of Kyoto is hard to miss. Surrounded by a huge moat and high fortifications, it served as a protection from enemies from when it was built in 1626. It couldn’t, however, protect itself from the fires that destroyed large parts of it on two occasions.

There are two main parts to Nijo-jo Castle that you’ll see when you visit. The first is the main palace – a single-storey building that stretches out over a large area, full of rooms connected with paper doors and tatami mats. Most of the walls have beautiful and intricate paintings or gold leaf designs.

The second part is the expansive gardens and shrines which are carefully manicured and blossom with colour at certain times of the year.

Ninna-ji Temple

There are many parts to Ninna-ji Temple and, again, it’s easier to think about the two main sections. The first is the ‘palace’, or the mansion of the imperial priest. There’s an entrance fee for this part but it’s worth it because the building is beautifully understated and has a great view across its garden.

The second section of Ninna-ji is ‘everything else’. This part has no entrance fee and includes a five-storied pagoda, the actual temple building, a golden hall, and smaller shrines scattered through the area. After walking through the main and magnificent gate, there’s a long and wide boulevard to the top.

Ryoan-ji Temple

Most of the space in the Ryoan-ji Temple complex is taken up by a lake surrounded by forest. It’s a serene area where you can sit and look at the water and hear the birds in the trees around you.

But the highlight – and the main reason for coming – is to stare at some rocks. The rock garden at Ryoan-ji is world famous and is made up of a large rectangular area filled with white sand and fifteen rocks placed into five groups. There is supposed to be something spiritual in the exact design of the rocks and people do sit and look at it for hours. If it all sounds very zen, you’re right. This is actually a Zen temple.

Kiyomizu-dera Temple

This is one of the busiest places in Kyoto in the late part of the day as bus after bus arrives with tourists coming for the sunset. Up on a mountain, Kiyomizu-dera has quite a few different sections to discover. There’s the gate, pagoda and shrines at the entrance, which are bright orange and impressively-large.

If you pay the entrance fee, you can go further in to the main wooden temple which was built without a single nail. From the decks here, you can look out across much of Kyoto and see the sun go down towards the horizon, creating silhouettes of the buildings you’ve just walked past.

It’s a stunning way to finish a day in Kyoto and it’s no surprise this is the last stop for the tour groups as well. Luckily Kiyomizu-dera Temple is large enough that it never feels too crowded.

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For more info click here.
You can see all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites I’ve visited here.

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Khao Luang Cave, Phetchaburi, Thailand

There’s a sudden commotion in the cave. A monkey has snuck in and is scurrying across the rock floor to the corner where the large Buddha sits. The monkey makes a grab at a bit of food that’s been left on the altar as an offering. Before it can make off with the loot, a woman nearby spots the furry thief and throws a water bottle at it. “Ai ai ai ai,” accompanies the lob as the woman screams. The monkey drops the food and races from the cave toward the light coming down the staircase.

The monkeys are one of the hazards of visiting the Khao Luang Cave in the Thai city of Phetchaburi. As you approach the entrance – up a hill, across a carpark, along a path, and down some stairs – hundreds of monkeys watch you expectantly. Visitors are one of the best sources of food and the animals are looking for any sign that you might have something edible that can be easily grabbed with a combination of stealth and cheekiness.

But once inside the cave, you’re safe from the furry marauders. This is a sanctuary that the animals respect (and have been frightened away from). The Khao Luang Cave is a spiritual place, a calm asylum, an opportunity for the locals to connect with a higher being.

The cave complex is filled with Buddha statues of different sizes and in different positions. Some were laid by King Rama IV, the ruler of Siam (now Thailand) between 1851 and 1868. As you walk in, the first statue that catches your eye is the large gold Buddha where the monkey had launched its earlier stealth attack. A group of about three women is tending to the altar in front of it, keeping things clean and selling offerings to the families and couples who are visiting.

Along the other walls are rows of smaller statues. Some are dressed in orange robes with small bowls of incense placed in front. On the opposite side of the cave from the main altar, another Buddha (again gold) reclines in a robe.

The highlight of the cave, though, the feature which takes it from beautiful to spectacular, is the large hole in the roof which allows the sun to stream through. The rays light up a circle on the ground and create a glow across the whole space. The smoke of the incense, floating in the still air, looks caught in the light like moths in a lantern. It’s as though some supernatural force is forming a futuristic teleporter up into the heavens along this luminous beam. Perhaps that force is the large gold Buddha which sits just behind the glow and looks on with a knowing and comfortable smile.

Phetchaburi itself, as a town, is not one of the most popular tourist locations in Thailand. Although it’s only a couple of hours south of Bangkok, it’s close enough to similar towns which are on the beach and attract the crowds. But it is somewhere worth stopping for a day or a night – if only to see the Khao Luang Cave. There aren’t many places like this in the country and this is the most dramatic example you will see.

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An Indonesian Klotok

Proboscis monkeys sit in the trees, high above us, and look down nonchalantly. They’re probably wondering what is this strange contraption floating along the river beneath them. It’s not an unusual sight – dozens would pass the monkeys every day – but it does have a strange noise. It’s not like the chatter of the monkeys nor the squawks of the birds nor buzz of the insects.

“Klok tok tok tok,” goes the boat as it cuts its way through the murky waters of this Borneo river.  The engine putters along and we glide around a bend to find what the tall trees of the jungle have hidden from us on the other side of the curve. “Klok tok tok tok.”

Birds fly between the trees and let out a call. “Waaaark.” It’s loud enough to hear over the engine. You see, it’s not the volume of the engine which is important – it’s the sound. From this noise came the Indonesian name of this type of boat, the klotok.

This wooden klotok is about 15 metres long and has two levels. I’m above deck with my travel companions while below a flurry of local women are preparing a feast for lunch. This boat is our home for two days and we will eat our meals on board and sleep on the deck this evening. We’re on our way deep into the jungle here on the Indonesian part of Borneo (called Kalimantan) to visit some camps that are caring for wild orangutans.

Visiting orangutan camps in Kalimantan

I’ve written previously about the camps and I would recommend reading this article about the orangutans of Borneo if you would like to find out more. But since I talked about the incredible work being done by conservationists in this part of the world, quite a few people have asked about the logistics of visiting. This is why I wanted to talk today about the klotok.

Travelling by boat is the only way to access Camp Leakey and the other orangutan camps in this part of Kalimantan. But don’t worry, the journey is a pleasure in itself. The surroundings are exotic as you would expect with ferns leaning over the river at the water’s edge, trees creating a dense wall of forest on either side, the humidity falling down on you like a blanket and the water catching the sun as if it were a mirror. Sometimes the river is wide and you can feel a slight breeze. The further you go in, though, the narrower it becomes and you could easily reach out and touch the breathing wilderness.

As I mentioned, the klotoks have two levels. On the lower level is a small bathroom with a western-style toilet but no running water, there are a few rooms which are used by the cooks and the other staff on board, and there’s a small deck at the front. The upper level is one large deck with seats and tables and a covering overheard. This is where we spend our whole journey.

Meals are prepared below deck and other than the occasional waft of cooking, you wouldn’t know until the food arrives at the table. The meals are some of the best I ate in Indonesia, with large fresh prawns, chicken satay, fried bananas and stir-fries.

The upper deck is also where you sleep. The chairs and tables are cleared away, mattresses are laid down and mosquito nets put up to cover them. The cool breeze at night makes for a pleasant temperature and the loud and constant buzz of insects and other animals is surprisingly soothing.

Hiring a klotok

The boats leave from a town called Kumai, about ten kilometres from Iskander Airport. The easiest way to arrange a trip is to book online before you go. You’ll find lots of tour operators if you search the web and recommendations on the usual forums. I don’t want to suggest any group in particular, but make sure you look for those that are eco-friendly and are advertising their own boats and are not going to ‘sell you on’ to someone else.

If you just arrive in Kumai and try to hire a boat, you probably won’t have any problems… but it won’t necessarily be much cheaper. If you’re doing it this way to save money, you’ll need to find another group you can join or have a group already organised. Although there is some haggling involved, the prices generally don’t change too much for these trips because of an agreement between the boat owners.

As a broad price guide, a 3 day/2 night trip will cost about US$250 per person for two people or about $180 each if there are four people. That includes everything – a taxi from the airport, the boat hire, a guide, meals, permits, camera charges, and staff.

There are about 50 klotoks and 60 guides in Kumai so there is a fair amount of capacity but the busiest season is between June and October so it would be worth doing some planning in advance if you were thinking of going then.

This is not an experience to be missed, so don’t let the logistics stand in your way. On my trip, I woke up to a slight commotion after a good night’s sleep on the deck of the klotok. Everyone was gathering around the jetty we were moored at, so I threw off the blanket and went to find out what was going on. There, posing just a metre from the boat was an orangutan that had come down to the river to find out more about us. That’s what the klotok does – it connects us.

Time Travel Turtle was a guest of the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism but the opinions, over-written descriptions and bad jokes are his own.

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Kew Gardens, London, England

In the world of conservation, there’s a lot of emphasis put on the survival of endangered animals. The idea of an entire species being wiped off the planet forever because of the actions of humans makes most people feel an impotent meld of despair and anger.

But, of course, animals are not the only living things at risk from the destructive nature of humans. Hundreds of plant species have been made extinct in the past few centuries and thousands more are at risk. It’s why the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London established the Millennium Seed Bank Project.

The Millennium Seed Bank is the largest off-site plant conservation project in the world. The aim is to collect the seeds of all the world’s wild plant species and protect them so, if something gets wiped out, it can be brought back to earth. The bank (housed in West Sussex) currently has about 30,000 species – just ten per cent – and the aim is to have 25 per cent by 2020.

The idea of a world where plant species are disappearing is hard to imagine when visiting Kew Gardens, in southwest London. The 300 acre botanic site is more than a peaceful green lung in the large polluted city. For more than 250 years it has been the heart of research and conservation work into the world’s flora.

It’s a lush green expanse where an oak-lined boulevard can quickly turn into a meadow of bluebells or a Mediterranean-style garden. If you follow the flight of the birds through the woods you might appear at a lake or a Chinese pagoda. And set amongst the well maintained but naturally wild park are the beautiful buildings with special collections.

Palm House

Palm House replicates the conditions of a tropical rainforest and is home to thousands of palms collected from all around the world. Different sections have plants from Australia, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The building itself is considered to be the most important surviving iron and glass structure from the Victorian period.

Princess of Wales Conservatory

The Princess of Wales Conservatory is temperature-controlled so it has ten different climatic conditions on the various sections which are separated by glass doors. You can walk from the cacti of the desert, through carnivorous plants, to the rainforest and mangrove swamps. It was named after Princess Augusta but opened in 1987 by Princess Diana.

Temperate House

Temperate House is the largest Victorian greenhouse in the world. It has thousands of species inside and some of them are on the endangered list are being grown so they can be introduced back into their native lands. A special boiler is used to keep the temperature at a minimum of 10 degrees Celsius the whole year round.

Waterlily House

Waterlily House is one of the smallest buildings in the gardens but contains one of the most beautiful plants – the Victoria cruziana which is native to the Paraguay basin and is very similar to the giant waterlily. The pond it is in is coloured by a black dye which keeps down the amount of algae but also produces a stunning reflective mirror.

Kew Palace

The collection at Kew Palace is not of plants but of history. This is the smallest of Britain’s royal palaces and was home to King George III. It’s a modest building and not what you would expect from a palace. But it’s interesting to see how the royal family once lived with their gold eggcups and decorated dressing rooms.

It was King George III who first saw the merits in having a place like Kew Gardens to study and care for plants. For more than two centuries it has influenced the way botanical research has been done in Europe and has always moved with the times. Joseph Banks, who is known to most Australians as the botanist who travelled to the Southern Hemisphere with Captain James Cook, became director of Kew under the King in 1797.

Since then, some of the world’s best botanists have worked or managed the research at Kew. The Millennium Seed Bank Project is just another example of the importance of places like this.

* You can see more at the official Kew Gardens website.

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For more info click here.
You can see all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites I’ve visited here.

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Stopover in Singapore

If you’ve noticed I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog for the past week, I’m sorry. Or, you’re welcome. I suppose it depends on whether you like getting constant notifications of my new adventures and discoveries around the world.

The main reason is because I’ve been shifting continents and, after about four months in Asia, have now arrived in Europe to do a bit more exploration in this part of the world.

On the way through, I stopped for a couple of days in Singapore to stay with some friends and see a bit of the city. Even though I’ve been to the airport about a dozen times, I’d never really gone into town and seen it properly. That expression “Disneyland with the death penalty” shaped my view of Singapore more than anything else.

It was only a brief stop but it has given me enough of a tease to want to go back and see more. One of my friends there, Tim, runs a new travel blog called The Humidity, and his musings on life in that region may have to be enough to get me through until I get a chance to return.

In the meantime, I thought I would share a few of the photos I took in Singapore. You’ll see that there’s a really interesting dichotomy between the old gritty local side of the city and the new polished international side. Ultimately there’s probably more that links these two faces of Singapore than separates them, but it’s what I found so fascinating about the place and look forward to delving deeper into one day.

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Horyuji, Japan

Have you ever wondered where the oldest wooden building in the world is? I know it’s a question that has kept me awake many a night. But don’t fear, today I have the answer.

Not from the Japanese city of Nara, in the Kansai region, is a temple complex called Horyuji. In some ways, it’s in the middle of nowhere – the town around it is nothing to speak of, just an uninspiring mix of shops, homes and vending machines. But the jewel in this town is the temple complex which holds inside it some of Japan’s most important national treasures.

The five-storey pagoda and the main hall were both originally built around the year 600AD but after a fire were rebuilt around the year 700AD. 26 other building in the complex were built before 800AD. All of them together are undisputed as the oldest wooden buildings in the world – the pagoda, being the first built, would take out the title for the absolute oldest.

You have to remember that this is all happening during a period of the world’s history that is hard to imagine for us today. Mohammed is walking the earth; the Mayan civilisation is flourishing in South America; and the Anglo-Saxons are taking control of Britain after the fall of the Roman empire. Meanwhile the Japanese are building wooden temples that are still standing more than 1300 years later!

While Islam is spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, and Christianity is battling for supremacy in Europe, Buddhism makes its way from China to Japan. These buildings at Horyuji are also considered to be the first Buddhist monuments in Japan and had a huge influence on religious architecture for the centuries to come.

Horyuji may not be as famous as the nearby temples in Nara or Kyoto. It may not have their same striking views from the top of a mountain or pink cherry blossom framings but there’s a reason this was the first site in Japan to be recognised by UNESCO and included on the World Heritage List. It is an extremely important place that it the closest thing there is to preserving the moment of an introduction of a religion to a country.

On the day I visit, there are more Japanese school groups than foreign tourists here. Perhaps it’s not that well-known internationally It’s not normally on the front page of the cultural brochures but, without what it represents, those pages might be empty.

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For more info click here.
You can see all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites I’ve visited here.

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How expensive is Japan?

“Oh, Japan will be great,” a friend said to me. “But it will be expensive!”

I had sort of expected the second part of the sentence as soon as I heard the slight pause in his voice and then the rising inflexion. When it comes to Japan, the two statements seem to go together like fish and rice. Nobody ever has a bad word to say about the place except for the cost.

Now, I should point out that this conversation was happening in Southeast Asia – one of the few places in the world where a small amount of cash can still buy you luxury and safety. In comparison, almost any first world country would look expensive. So there’s a degree of relativity – but it was still something that was worrying me. I was about to spend a month in Japan and but didn’t want to spend too much else.

Well, as it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised. Relatively speaking again. The fear of a holiday to Japan that needs a mortgage on approach and leaves a credit debt in its wake is not founded. I soon realised that most of the people warning me about the cost of the country had not been here for years – or at all.

The rumours are perpetuated partly by those international surveys that come out and try to compare countries or cities based on the same criteria. The biggest of them all, The 2013 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, puts Tokyo as the most expensive city in the world and Osaka as the second most expensive. But the problem is this survey takes into account things like household supplies, utilities, domestic help and clothing. It also calculates the results in the context of how much it would cost an expat to live in the style they are accustomed to at home. The findings get quoted in a lot of major publications – but it’s not really relevant for the average traveller (or the average local citizen, for that matter).

So, let’s move on to the actual costs of travelling in Japan and I’m going to very quickly prove to you that it’s actually much cheaper than visiting other big cities in the world like London, New York or Sydney.

Accommodation

Accommodation can be one of the biggest factors in the cost of a trip and it’s true that Japan is going to be more expensive than most places in Asia. But it’s not as bad as you might think.

For those people on a backpacking style budget, you’ll find plenty of hostels in the main tourist areas for about US$20 a night for a bed in a dorm room. That’s the same as you would pay in a lot of European cities. There are also the ‘capsule hotels’ which are similar to dorms except the beds are in enclosed boxes, rather than an open room. They are a uniquely Japanese experience and cost about US$30 a night in the major cities.

If you appreciate your privacy and prefer to stay somewhere a bit nicer, there are still lots of cheap options. Japanese culture is such that it’s very common for local people to use hotels overnight, rather than go home, if they’ve worked late. It means these ‘business hotels’ in all large and medium-sized towns usually have last-minute availability and reasonable rates. The rooms are not large but they’re very comfortable, clean and full of amenities. The prices can vary a bit but you would expect to pay between US$40 and $US70 dollars a night. You can just walk into these hotels without a reservation or find them on the usual search sites online (although if you go to their homepage you might find some extra special deal).

If you need something even nicer, expect to pay between US$100 and US$200 a night for a room. That’s above my budget and definitely not the amount you need to be paying – but it’s very reasonable for the quality you’re getting and probably cheaper than many other world cities.

Food

Here is the best news – the food is not only delicious but very affordable. In fact, I laugh when I compare it to the price of an average meal in Sydney. You never need go hungry in Japan.

If you look at standard lunch options, you’ll have a range of cheap options in convenience stores (don’t worry – it’s healthy and tasty, unlike convenience stores in other countries). A bento box (a mix of rice, meat, fish and vegetables) will cost you about US$4 dollars; a rice ball with a fish filling will cost about US$1; and a tray of sushi will cost you about US$4.

If you prefer to eat in, you’ll find many quick restaurants where you can get a bowl of rice with some fried meat and vegetables for about US$5. There is such a variety at these shops that you’ll be able to go to them day after day and not get sick of the meals.

With dinner options, there are definitely expensive restaurants available, but you don’t need to go near them. Noodle bars selling huge hot bowls of ramen or soba are great options where a meal should cost about US$7 or US$8 dollars. If you want to step things up slightly, a restaurant where you can share things like sushi, sashimi and tempura with your friends should set you back about US$15 dollars each. And the ultimate value for money, the all you can eat shabu shabu, starts at about US$20 each (but be careful because there are lots of very expensive ones too!).

Transport

This is probably the one area where things are a little expensive – because it’s something you’ll have to do if you want to see more than one city and there isn’t the competition, like with hotels and restaurants. Still, the good news is that there are some cheap options so transport doesn’t have to break the bank.

The obvious way to save some money is to get a JR pass in advance, which gives you unlimited trips on the JR rail network. The pass will cost you about US$600 for two weeks which sounds like a lot of money but it breaks down to about $40 a day. Considering the train between Tokyo and Osaka costs about US$140 each way, it becomes quite good value. Osaka to Hiroshima is another US$100 each way so if you go from Tokyo to Osaka to Hiroshima and then back to Tokyo, you’ve almost already made the pass worthwhile. Throw in a few sidetrips or some short train journeys within those cities to explore, and you’ve already made a saving.

If you’re only in Japan for a short time and don’t want to see lots of the country, I would recommend just paying for individual trips, though. The local trains can be very reasonable and cost on average about US$5 for each hour of travel. So if you’re planning to base yourself in one city and just explore the surrounding area, transport doesn’t have to cost you much. A couple of subway rides in Tokyo, for instance, will just cost US$2 or $3 each.

Around Osaka, you can get the Kansai Thru Pass for about US$50 for three days. This is a great deal if, for example, you want to go to Kyoto one day, Nara the next, and Himeji the next. The pass is valid for buses and trains within the cities so you can easily get around and pack those three days with lots and lots of sights.

Also, make sure you look at whether particular towns or sights you want to visit have special transport/admission deals. Going to Nikko from Tokyo, for instance, you can get one pass for the train, the buses and entrance fees.

All in all, I’ve had a very reasonable month in Japan as far as the costs have gone. Any kind of travel or holiday is going to mean you spend money and it’s just one of those things you have to accept if you want to explore the world. But Japan shouldn’t be somewhere that you avoid or put off because you’re worried about the finances. You’ll spend more on a trip to Australia, the UK, Scandinavia, or New York. With such a special and unique culture, Japan is somewhere you should experience. It’s just lucky that you can actually do it quite affordably if you want to.

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Day 30: Sake

What better way to finish a food series about Japanese food than with something all good feasts here are finished with – some sake! I know this isn’t technically a food but I hope you’ll forgive me this indulgence.

Sake is a traditional form of Japanese alcohol, often called ‘rice wine’ although the process to make it is actually much more similar to beer production. Although it’s not exactly clear when it was first drunk in Japan (it’s hard to keep records after a few glasses), it’s thought to have originated in the eighth century.

To learn a little bit more about sake, I went to the museum of the Hakutsuru Brewery near the city of Kobe. Its excellent exhibits show the history of the drink and how that’s evolved into the modern processes.

It’s actually a much more complicated procedure than I realised. Briefly, the rice is washed first, then it’s steamed, it’s then cooled, then mixed with a mould that’s been specially prepared, then the mixture is soaked in water, then this fermented mash is added to new steamed rice in three stages, then it’s all filtered to extract the sake, then it’s left to settle before being skimmed, it’s then pasteurised, put into large tanks to rest, and eventually poured out ready to drink. Phew!

Undiluted sake has an alcohol content of about 20 per cent, although this is often diluted slightly in the commercial varieties you would buy at a bottle shop in Japan. Still, it’s a highly potent drink and it’s no great surprise that you often see Japanese salarymen stumbling around the streets or train stations in the evenings.

You may have heard of sake being served warm and that’s a popular way to drink it in the winter. But the Japanese feel that heating good sake gets rid of the special tastes and smells so quite often it’s just the cheap stuff that will be served warm (which has the effect of getting rid of the bad tastes and smells).

The price varies greatly depending on the quality you are buying and where you are buying it from but a 300mL bottle from a shop would cost about 300 or 400 yen. (US$3.10 – US$4.10). It means it’s not an expensive way to warm up your insides after or during a nice meal.

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Pachinko in Japan

The little silver balls spurt out into the tray. “Jkjkjkjkjkjkjkjk,” is the best way I can come up with to write the sound they make. The silver orbs glimmer with hope and promise. My fortune could lay with one of them. They are more than just balls in a tray – they are the key to unlocking the treasures within the machine in front of me.

The only problem is that I’m not quite sure how to use the key.

I’m in Japan and I’ve decided to come into a pachinko parlour to see what all the fuss is about. But it’s a confusing place and it’s already taken two helpful attendants, some terrible Japanese (on my part – I’m sure theirs was fine), and some awkward hand movements (on their part this time) to get this far.

If you’ve never heard of pachinko, you’re probably a bit confused right now. If you have heard of pachinko, you’re probably even more confused. It does not make sense.

From the outside, it looks a bit like a game but it’s essentially a way of gambling. It’s the Japanese equivalent of poker machines (or slot machines, if you like). Except it’s not gambling. <Wink>. Because this kind of gambling is illegal in Japan. So at the end of your time at the machine, you get a coupon which you can trade at the gift shop for food or toys or drinks. Oh, unless you want to walk the three metres to the little window next door that will exchange it for cash. But it’s not gambling! <Wink.>

Anyway, I’ve jumped ahead of myself because I haven’t won any points to exchange yet, although I’m already a bit worried they won’t have enough cash at the window next door when I do hit the jackpot!

So eventually the attendant who showed me how to get the little silver balls into my tray comes back to help me when he realises I have no idea what I’m doing. Let me paint the scene for you. The silver spheres are in this container at the bottom of the machine; in front of me is the display which has a video screen in the centre; around that is a board with lots of gold metal pins sticking out; circling this board are lots of flashing coloured lights; and down near my hand are a couple of buttons and a large knob which turns clockwise.

The attendant puts his hand on the knob and turns it gently to the right for me (I promise this is not supposed to sound dirty). Balls start flying (I’m not doing so well with that promise, sorry). He gestures for me to put my hand on it and I grip it in the position he’s holding it (OK, I give up now!).

The idea behind pachinko is that my turning the knob you you shoot these little silver balls up into the machine and they bounce off the gold pins. If they land in the catcher in the middle then it starts three reels turning on the video screen and if they match up you win! Or so I’m told… as it turns out, I wouldn’t know.

I actually think it’s a bit unfair – and this isn’t just a sore loser talking. I mean, it is a sore loser talking, but it’s not just a sore loser talking. The problem, as I see it, is that there are two sets of chance. Firstly, you have to get the ball into the catcher (which is harder than it looks), and then you have to get the reels to line up. I didn’t have much luck with either. The 1000 yen (US$10.20) note I put in turned into nothing. Although it did take about half an hour for me to work my way through it, bolstered by occasional small wins which produced more balls in the tray.

My contribution to the pachinko machine is a mere small ball in an ocean of silver globes, though. Get ready for this fact – the annual revenue of the pachinko industry in Japan is US$378 billion dollars. Yes, you read that right, billion! Several articles I’ve read point out that this is four times the profit of the entire world’s casinos… but I think you need to take the comparison with a grain of soy-flavoured salt, because they measure things differently in different countries. (For example, are we talking about the total amount of money that is gambled or the amount that is left over once the winnings have been paid.) Regardless, you can see the scale of the pachinko parlours here in Japan.

As for me… well, thankfully pachinko has not an addict made. I could see myself spending a lot of time and money in these parlours if I understood what was going on – the lights and the music are all pretty cute. But perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned here for governments all around the world. If you want to tackle problem gambling, just put everything in Japanese!

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Day 29: Tsukemono

Tsukemono literally translates as ‘pickled things’ and it’s a pretty simple and accurate description of what we’re talking about. Tsukemono is a broad category for the small bits of pickled vegetables that you’ll see all the time in Japanese cuisine.

The most common vegetables that are pickled in this style are turnip, white radish, cucumber, and cabbage but it’s also possible to find things like onion, ginger, ume plum, and eggplant.

It took me a while to realise that I was seeing tsukemono pop up all the time. Those little bits of vinegared ginger that you get on the side of a sushi plate are an example. All the small bits of vegetable in the corner of a bento box – that’s another.

Often tsukemono come as a small addition to a main dish, like those examples I mentioned. But it can often also be ordered as a separate item. That’s usually the case in places where you’re sharing lots of small meals or at the bar-style restaurants where the pickled goodness goes quite well with a few beers.

I had this small plate of tsukemono at a restaurant in a town called Takasaki, northwest of Tokyo. I ordered a main meal as well but felt like a bit of extra flavour on the side and this is what the waitress recommended. It cost an extra 300 yen (US$3.05) for the plate.

Tsukemono is not the kind of thing you would go out specially looking for and, as I mentioned, quite often it will appear at your table without you even realising. But it is something you could also ask for at many places if you felt like something nice and cleansing to go with your meal.

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