Merli's Japan Pics :)

[Merli]

bump...

cos I want this to get to page 2 so I don't oversaturate page 1 (which I already have done )

[Rezz]

Heres my contribution... pointless post #3,857

[Aurora]

Damnit....must...learn....Japanese.

REALLY thinking hard about saving now for TAS '05 and coming over for a week.

For the guys that went, what sort of budget would i need?

Great thread, i love these photo-filled personal galleries of experiences

Plus, beats working

[ph1]

bump...

cos I want this to get to page 2 so I don't oversaturate page 1 (which I already have done )

i'm still waiting for the soaplands pics :aroused:

[justinfox]

Page 2 Page 2 Bring It On!!!!!!!

[Merli]

Okay, here's the next part...

After a week in Tokyo, I loaded up my backpack, grabbed my JR Railpass and proceeded to head down to Hiroshima and Kyoto... I went upto Nagano as well, but that was pretty boring.

The train platform at Chiba Minato at some UNGODLY hour...

I caught the train to Tokyo station, where I boarded the Shinkansen (bullet train) bound for Hiroshima!!!

It's very much like a plane inside the shinkansen, and even has pretty hostesses pushing carts up and down the aisles selling o-bentos and gifts

About 4 hours later, I arrive at Hiroshima

Outside of the JR train station, there were these weird guys dressed up in red coats singing... I assume they're some religious group? Rezz? Dave?

I had to catch a bus to get around Hiroshima, as it's quite large and I only had limited time, so I couldn't walk everywhere like I would have liked... But I managed to have an experience on the bus as well

In Australia, you enter the front of the bus, tell the driver where you're going, pay the fare and then get off when your stop comes up! In Japan, you enter via the REAR doors, and take this little ticket (which is optional)... All the ticket has on it is a number. :wtf: At this point, I realised that my japanese (at the time) was abyssmal and I needed help.... RUH ROH!!!!

After much hand gestures and broken japanese by me and broken english by the bus driver, I pretty much figured out how things worked... The number printed on the ticket indicates the zone in which you boarded the bus. When you get off, you look at this dynamic table at the front of the bus and look at your stop number, and then look down the table and depending how far you've travelled, it tells you how much you owe.... As you get off the bus, theres a fare collection box near the door and you just drop in the money and get off. There's no-one to check how much you put in... It's all honour-based!!! That was really cool I thought, and something that could NEVER EVER work in Australia.

So I caught the bus and I visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Wow. I don't think I'll EVER forget that place. EXTREMELY GRAPHIC exhibits included a whole clump of hair that had fallen out of someone due to radiation, a concrete wall 2km from the blast centre with the shadow of a person standing up against it left when the blast vaporised him and burned his shadow into the concrete, models of people running around with flesh dripping off their arms, and so on and so forth. The WORST however, were the drawings done by survivors, depicting the sights that they saw. Drawings of mothers charred and burnt to a crisp after throwing themselves over their children to save them, and the child underneath their dead mother crying for help... Anyway, enough of that... I'm starting to get emotional again.

Before:

After:

The Hiroshima Dome... I think it's going to be left damaged as a memorial, they're just restoring it so it doesn't fall down.

Two elderly men playing tennis............... Without a net.

[Merli]

I think I broke it

I can't see page 2

[Demon Dave]

Merli,

I can see page 2 - hiroshima.

Moving stuff. I've been meaning to get over that way and check out the Peace Musuem. There are many lessons to be learned from there...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had fun and games the first time they got on a Japanese bus! Took me a while to figure it out also, especially since I couldn't accept that they'd use a system where the onus is on the customer to pay the correct fare - i.e. everyone is trusted to be honest. In England that system would be abused so much it wouldn't last a week...

[Rezz]

Not sure about the singing guys in red capes... they look like Uni students.

[akeenan]

I came back to Sydney and instantly started Japanese lessons with the aim of moving there after I got a good working knowledge of japanese going...

That was a year ago, and I think I know more than enough japanese to get around now, but I'm having second thoughts of moving there and just dropping my IT career.

merli if you change the word Sydney to Melbourne you have just described ME! oh and also second thoughts about the IT career.

march 2004 here I come

[meggala]

cheers that was interesting

[Merli]

My hotel room. Quite an interesting story with that one, because I didn't have anywhere to stay, so I basically walked around for the day, and then as night fell, I wandered into the first hotel I found and asked for a room. The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Hi, can I please have a room? (holds up a finger)

Lady: Room? No room now... Tomorrow!

Me: What? No, not tomorrow, I need a room TONIGHT!

Lady: YES!!! COME BACK TOMORROW!

Me: No no no, I need one TONIGHT!

Lady: No, you pay tomorrow!

Me: OH!!! I see, so I can stay now, but I pay tomorrow when I checkout?

Lady: YES!!!

Me: Great, okay I'll take it!!!

Lady:

Me: So can I get a room now?

Lady: NO!

Me: uhhhhh...

Lady: You come back later!

Me: Well can I leave my things here?

Lady: NO!

Me: Riiiiiiiiiight... How much is it for a room?

Lady: 3700 Yen! (This is REALLY REALLY cheap)

Me: 1 night?

Lady: NO! 1 hour!

Me: OHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently I walked into a "love hotel", I'm sure you don't need any more explanation I was wondering why the entrance was hidden and covered with overhanging plants

Anyway, so I found another hotel for 6000 yen which was still pretty good, except it was HALF the size of my room in Tokyo. Here's the bathroom. The rest of the consisted of a bed, and a desk. That's it

I also visited Hiroshima Castle, which was beautifully crafted...

Hiroshima Mall:

Hiroshima Redlight District That woman you see in the bottom left is a "Hostess"... You pay 4000 Yen (AUD$50), which gives you entry into their club, your personal, half-naked girl to talk to all night and all the whiskey you can drink. Be warned though, they drink whiskey and WATER, so I ended up drinking whiskey straight........... Not that I went to any of those kinds of places

Skill Testers filled with................... RAMEN

And something I saw spraypainted on the wall in hiroshima mall. Unbeknownst to me, Hiroshima's youth are VERY VERY violent. They are all in gangs, as will be evident in my next few photos. Anyway, here we have one gang who has spray painted their "tag", which is two tigers onto a wall, and another gang has come along and spray painted what THEY think of the other gang on top of their tag.

I didn't even think twice about it until I came across these sights:

Two girls dressed exactly the same running across a courtyard. "That's strange.." I thought.

Guardian Angels? What do they need Guardian Angels for???

Police in riot gear?!?!? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AROUND HERE? Actually you can see in the foreground of this photo a guy wearing a martial arts gi (uniform)... What the photo doesn't show is that the rest of his gang is also wearing their gis and brandishing long metal poles with metal spikes on the end, nunchaku, tonfa and other assorted martial arts weaponry.

One of the gang member's cars

This is another gang walking up and down the mall

This is an all girl gang.

and the car they arrived in:

Sorry for the blurred photos, I didn't know how they'd react to me taking photos of them, and they were all out looking for a fight so I didn't really want to get involved with gangs packing that kind of hardware.

Basically what they did all night was sit/stand in their groups, all wearing the EXACT same things (gang uniform/colours I guesS) up the entire Hiroshima Mall Strip that I posted a photo of earlier. They were in either all male gangs or all female gangs. No mixed-sex gangs that I saw. There were literally about 15 gangs with about 10-20 people in each gang. I was waiting for world war three to break out

What they did was sit in their groups for a while, then the entire gang would get up and strut up and down the mall eyeing off other gangs and shouting things at other gangs. I met up with some American marines who were scrawny as all hell.. Don't they get fed?? And we stood there watching for a while waiting for something to happen. That kind of weaponry and this much testorterone/estrogen (which turns out was worse), and something's gotta give

After watching them strut up and down in turns along the mall, two female gangs started shouting at each other and all of a sudden, they all hopped up and flew at each other with a flurry of spinning kicks and head punches and the rest of it... It all started soooo quickly. Those girls don't hold back, let me tell you, they were putting their entire bodyweight behind those kicks... The fight lasted about 1 minute before the Riot Police broke it up. Luckily, these girls were only using their hands and feet and no weapons, so no major blood was spilt, but it sure was fun to watch

[MrGTST]

Haha great story..... If you got more pics keep them comming for sure... glad my feedback was appreciated also...

[Guest RedLineGTR]

very nice pics...geeezzzeee a shitload of gangs...dam..

[Demon Dave]

Merli,

This is a TOP THREAD

I've been here 5 years and never witnessed anything like the gangs you've described, but I do live in a out of the way place. The only thing we get a lot of around here are the bike gangs - sometimes 30, 40, 50 youths on screaming bikes, revving the ass of them, going straight throught red lights - they don't care. No helmets. No plates. I've even witnessed the police follow them along our main bypass, keeping their distance and actually holding normal motorists back as if they were escorting the bikers through town!

My friend also recounted a trip down to Narita one day. Heading along the Shutoku expressway in Tokyo a large group of bikers appeared toting baseball bats. They'd swing at the traffic, forcing all the drivers to slow to a snails pace...They'd keep doing this, preventing anyone from passing them, causing huge tailbacks (not that there aren't plenty of tailbacks anyways!) then the'd speed off only to re-appear and do it all again...

Keep the photos coming, this has got to be one of the most informative threads ever.

[Evo_Lee]

Dave they are call bozozoku, stupid youths with nothing better to do. I'm surprise the cops out your way don't do anything, the cops over here will book/impound but not after a 5-10min chase. Yes in numbers they are scarry, but regarless stay away from them. There have been cases where they have beaten people up for no reason and have killed homeless people for the thrills...f**king senseless. I have a few around my place and they are getting very close to me going out there and throwing their scooters into the river adjacent to my place. They have no respect that some of us/all have to work the next day. But best to call the cops and let them handle them, that way they don't know who complained. Rarely but you do encounter then on the expressway where they think they are god some have even been dumb enough to play chicken with semi-trailers. Most Japanese drivers will follow well behind...but I dial up and see them piss their pants. One time it happened they messed and paid for it, a black President rammed up the back of one scooter causing it to fall. Then a second car a white Cima cut the group in front. 4 guys got out and bitch slapped the 4 youths and baseball batted their scooters...you know who these guys these are.

Yakuzas in Japan nowadays are quite clean and nearly most of them do respectable business...but seriously try their patience and they will let you know. Mind your own business and they will too.

Merli: one advise, try not to take too much of this as actually Japan. There are good and bad side to every country, best to share the good things and warn about the bad things.

[hippy]

those things with the gangs ... reminds me of a game on the playstation called rival schools LOL ... how funny hehehe

[Merli]

Merli: one advise, try not to take too much of this as actually Japan.  There are good and bad side to every country, best to share the good things and warn about the bad things.

I didn't think it was necessarily a "bad" thing at all... I thought it added a lot to the charm of the place, and I loved how ENTIRELY different Tokyo was to Hiroshima and to Kyoto...

There are so many other places I want to see in Japan that I didn't get to goto, including Fuji-san! But I simply didn't have enough time.

For all those reading this thread: I know this is probably entirely not needed, but in case there are one or two of you out there who are now scared of Japan........ DON'T BE!!! As evo_lee said, this is not typical at all, and truth be told, they're harmless. Leave them alone and they won't even give you a passing glance, except to say "すーごいですね！！がいこくじんです！！”　and stare at you a while But it would be out of curiosity and not animosity. They leave foreigners and tourists out of their business, and I felt completely safe just standing there for an hour in the middle of all this sneaking photos now and again...

Japan has so much more to offer than just their second hand cars, I implore you to visit and soak up their culture as it's so unique you won't find anything else like it anywhere else in the world

There are only a few more photos to go... I went to Kyoto, and then the Sumo Grand Championship back in Tokyo, where I took mostly video footage, so I might put up a short sumo video if you guys are interested in seeing it... :headspin:

[Demon Dave]

There are only a few more photos to go... I went to Kyoto, and then the Sumo Grand Championship back in Tokyo, where I took mostly video footage, so I might put up a short sumo video if you guys are interested in seeing it...

in the words of Oliver Twist:

"Please sir, can we have some more! "

:O

[justinfox]

I've been to Japan 3 times and have never seen any of these gangs. Nor have I ever felt threatened in any way at all. In fact I felt as if it was the safest country in the world. I actually feel much more "threatened" in Sydney than most countries/cities I have been to.

Japan rocks out. I plan to visit again some time soon. If not this year... next. I can't wait to fill up my luggage with great Japanese toys!