For my final pre-Japan Japan post, I'll plug a nice little place that I found on the hunt for some authentic eastern nosh, so that unlike last time when I went, I won't be restricting myself to things that look safe and recognisable. At least, not totally anyway.
Japanese restaurants in the UK are quite hard to come by, especially outside London, and authentic, non-commercialised ones even more so. So it was with some excitement and intrigue that I heard about the Apothecary House in Pateley Bridge. It's only open as a Japanese restaurant for two days a week, and is run by Jon and Yoshi, a husband and wife team who met in Japan and came over here to avoid the chaos of the big cities.
They provide a personal service; when you arrange your visit, you specify what you want at least a day before, because Japanese food takes longer to prepare. Being totally ignorant of what was good, I explained to Yoshi my situation and food virginity (and squeamishness towards tentacled food), and asked her to suggest some things, to try and get a good range. That opened the floodgates as Yoshi, who clearly has a passion for her cooking and knowledge of the regional variations up and down her home country. I came away from the conversation not knowing quite what I'd ordered, but it will at least be an interesting and varied experience.
I arrived at an old stone house on the high street. The menu outside was all Chinese food, and as I entered, it looked not especially eastern, and more worryingly, empty. A single table sat in the middle of the room, on which was a 'Reserved' sign and a lit candle.
Yoshi came from the back room and gave me a friendly hello, and shortly after Jon arrived after delivering a takeaway. Both made me feel very comfortable as I settled down and attempted to recall how to use chopsticks. This wasn't a normal restaurant experience for sure, but even though the decor didn't evoke many feelings of the east, I felt they had brought a bit of Japanese hospitality over just for me.
As Yoshi cooked in the back room, me and Jon talked and immediately found much in common. He told me about the places they go to while over there, the complex etiquette of visiting a bath house, and even brought over some CD's and books for me to look over, his passion for Japanese films also providing much to talk with him about. Yoshi occasionally joined the conversation and even helped me with my food notes by translating and suggesting similar meals to what I had, which included a range of sushi, edamame beans (increasingly moreish), miso soup, Donburi (many variations, in this case strips of beef on a bed of rice), Gyoza (pork dumplings - delish), Yakitori (chicken on skewers in a soy/vinegar sauce, which were my favourite of the night), and Red Snapper Tempura (seafood/vegetables in batter).
After finishing, we talked and chatted at length as if we had known each other for years, (it's apparent that Japan and its culture as a passion are like marmite - either you aren't interested or you love it) and we resolved to meet again. There's plenty of opportunity; as well as the normal meals they also do film nights and Japanese hotpot evenings where like minded souls meet and chat. I got my name down on their list with no hesitation.
I left more than four hours after arriving, full and happy into the cool night. I went just for some authentic food, and left with the food and also some new friends. I'll definitely be going again.
You can read a little more about Jon and Yoshi here.
Filling in Between Festivals
In this quiet time (festivally-speaking) it appears that some films have slipped under the reviewing radar, having seen them in the small notches of time between work, garden, sleep and holiday preparations. So before they leak out of my face, here are a few films you may (or may not) want to consider the next time the crop up in the bargain bins.
The Sky Crawlers (Jpn) (wiki)
Shown early this year as part of the Leeds Young Persons Film Festival, this was a film I was determined that I would see at some point on the big screen, and although I was in a theatre with a load of noisy kids and babies (whose parents had clearly ignored the mature content advice on the flyer), it didn't spoil the screening too much.
The Sky Crawlers is an adaptation of a multi-volume book of the same name, and brought to film by Mamoru Oshii, the anime director in charge of anime hits such as Patlabor, the experimental Angel's Egg (caught at the tail end of LIFF 09) and most notably, Ghost in the Shell. It's set in an alternate universe not so different to ours, except the world is in a state of perpetual war. In a similar vein to one of the stories in Kino's Journey, the countries of the world have offered up a solution to the problem of unwinnable wars, and that is to sanitise it, package it, and put it on the nightly news. As aerial dogfights rage above the clouds, the civilian population get on with their lives pretty much as normal below.
Those who are given the role as soldiers do so under mysterious circumstance, and enter the training ranks barely into their teens. As one squadron receives a new recruit; an unnamed young man in his mid teens, we follow his hopeless and sterile acceptance of what he needs to do while he remains lucky enough to dodge the bullets. The awkward relationship with his fellow pilots and ground crew rarely progress beyond teasing out small personality traits and guessing at the rest, as invariably the next sortie may end up with one or more of them disappearing. Amongst all this, he develops a glimmer of a relationship with a young female captain who has spent many days seeing less planes arrive back than left.
Oshii's film cannot fail to impress technically and visually. It's traditional cel animation merged with 3D graphics work well together, and anyone who watched Last Exile through with interest will definitely find themselves in cosy territory. Newcomers to anime, and in particular, Oshii's work, may however become annoyed by the apparent laziness of some of the scenes, often saturated with uncomfortable silences and little in the way of movement, but I believe that this is deliberate and not for reasons of saving painting extra cels; these children are in a hopeless situation, unquestioningly doing their duty as it is all they know. No parents, no guidance on what it is to be a person, and no hope to get out, other than in flames. It is some of these scenes (especially the protracted one in the restaurant) where a lot of the character development is done, where we get some small insight into both the past lives of the couple, and their true feelings about their situation. It is then that the blank stares and silent moods become meaningful and less of an annoyance for the audience.
With that said, many will look on The Sky Crawlers and think of it as silly or pretentious, and in some ways it is, but for me it was one of those films that got better the more I thought about it afterwards, and it was certainly enough to encourage me to look at getting the translated books, should they ever come out. 7.5/10
Night and Day (US)
Tom Cruise. There are many things that are brought to mind when his name comes up, and I'll be willing to bet the tipping point between what we think of him now and what we used to think of him when he did films like Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July, balances on his crazy-assed sofa-jumping stint.
Ever since then he has worked hard in his films to get some of his credibility back, and has done this quite often by sticking himself into the white-teethed super-cool action hero pose that paints him in a positive light. But, much as I liked Vanilla Sky, Collateral and multiple Mission Impossiblei, I will always have a niggling doubt at the back of my head that he's doing these sorts of films to say basically, 'hey, so I'm a Scientologist, but don't be scared of me; I'm still the old Tom you know and love, yeah? Now watch how cool I look when I shoot this gun..'.
Knight and Day is a particularly brazen addition to this format, with Cruise playing the international super secret super spy who like James Bond can get out of any scrape with a lot of car chases and wise-cracks. Throw into the mix a ditzy blonde Cameron Diaz who somehow turns from idiot to competent secret agent (and love interest) within an hour or so, to keep Cruises' starched loins from getting any creases in them, and you have a pretty good if predictable and slightly manipulative action film poised to get at least one sequel. Looking at it too hard, trying to extract anything meaningful, or regarding the main character as Tom Cruise, rather than Mysterious Mr Knight (you see what they did there) will only spoil what enjoyment there is, so don't bother. 6.5/10
The Illusionist (Fra/UK) (wiki)
The works of Jaques Tati is unlikely to roll off the tongue of most people including myself, so let's get the wikipedia lookup out of the way now. Tati was a filmmaker specialising in a few whimsical but highly respected comic pieces through the fifties and sixties, often starring in some of the main parts. The Illusionist is a similarly toned animated work by Sylvain Chomet, he of The Triplets of Belleville, based on an unpublished work by Tati about the life of an ageing magician doing the rounds of the cabaret circuits in the fifties, just as the style was retreating behind the curtains as the new rock and roll kids burst in. It's clear from the appearance of the unnamed magician that Tati himself was destined for the role, if it ever would be committed to film in his lifetime.
Leaving France for England, he tries to stay ahead of the wave of new culture by playing ever smaller concert halls with his trusty top hat and angry rabbit. His agent comes up with increasingly sparse lists of venues willing to show him, and those that do rarely have more than a couple of punters. As he enters Scotland, he is limited to performing in a pub, minutes before technology catches up with him and they get electricity, and thus can plug in their shiny new jukebox.
But 'Tati' makes an unlikely friend in a young girl working as a cleaner at the pub he stays in. Entranced and convinced that this ageing man can do real magic, and maybe missing a father figure in her life, she packs up what little she has and follows him to his next stop in Edinburgh.
The rest of the film is a bittersweet tragi-comedy about the two finding comfort and meaning in each other's company, rendered beautifully in pastel watercolour and old-fashioned cel animation, and a minimum amount of dialogue (much like in Tati's films). The Illusionist has next to no action, so don't bother if you're looking for that. But what it is, is a cosy warm blanket of a film, gently humorous with touches of both satire and genuine heart that leaves you with a slight lump in the throat. 7.5/10
Inception (US) (wiki)
Mainstream films that promise not to underestimate its audience don't exactly come around too often these days, so when I saw the praise for Inception, it had to be seen. Inception stars one-time chubby-cheeked child actor with a face like a slapped arse, Leonardo Di Caprio, whose film output these days is showing him to be a much more accomplished actor than I gave him credit for. He plays agent Dom Cobb, who with his partner Arthur do Men In Black-style jobs where they dive into the dreams of the rich and/or dangerous, extract information from their brains, and pass it on to the relevant authorities.
Cobb is offered the chance to get out of the business, having lost his wife to some dream-related experiments some time ago and haunted by her angered shadows in his own dreams ever since. But this job is a bigger one than before, instead of extracting information, they need to insert a thought into a mind; to alter the actions of a powerful man just as he takes the reins of a massive business empire from his dying father.
This is where things get complicated; the only way of successfully planting a thought is to get the subject to think that it is his idea, and that is going to require travelling down several 'levels' of dream state, (the second level being a dream within a dream, and so on). This raises an interesting dynamic, as the perception of time in each dream level is exponentially multiplied; you may have a dream that seems to go on for days, but you've only slept through the night, and this is magnified with each level down the agents travel.
A plan is hatched, and several dream agents are brought in, Mission Impossible-like to make it happen. One constructs the dream worlds, one is in charge of operating the electronics, and the others just have to pray it all works. They get into the head of their unconscious and dreaming target, plant the idea through several psychological twists and levels of dreaming, and then work their way back up the stack and get out before their time is up. At this point, the audience is expected to keep track of several dimensions of dreamscape, each with their own parallel but different temporal settings, and a whole load of plot and character development, not least Cobb's less than helpful after image of a wife, who is out to get back at him for abandoning her.
It's all terrifically complicated, but not once does the film ever feel overwhelming, I think that is down to giving the impression of all things happening in parallel but instead you're just heading down one side of an upturned triangle and back up the other.
Inception is a brilliant film. It starts a little shaky with some slightly creaky dialogue, but that quickly disappears and the action and intrigue quickly ramps up. It becomes meaty and enjoyable to get your teeth into, and complex enough to warrant multiple viewings to get all the details. Best of all it has that rarest of things, an ending that is both ambiguous and satisfying leaving you to work out between yourselves exactly what the situation is. 8.5/10
With the Tokyo Film Festival (which I'll be able to catch some of towards the end of my trip) and LIFF '10 coming up soon, there will be plenty more films on the horizon. Stay tuned.
The Sky Crawlers (Jpn) (wiki)
Shown early this year as part of the Leeds Young Persons Film Festival, this was a film I was determined that I would see at some point on the big screen, and although I was in a theatre with a load of noisy kids and babies (whose parents had clearly ignored the mature content advice on the flyer), it didn't spoil the screening too much.
The Sky Crawlers is an adaptation of a multi-volume book of the same name, and brought to film by Mamoru Oshii, the anime director in charge of anime hits such as Patlabor, the experimental Angel's Egg (caught at the tail end of LIFF 09) and most notably, Ghost in the Shell. It's set in an alternate universe not so different to ours, except the world is in a state of perpetual war. In a similar vein to one of the stories in Kino's Journey, the countries of the world have offered up a solution to the problem of unwinnable wars, and that is to sanitise it, package it, and put it on the nightly news. As aerial dogfights rage above the clouds, the civilian population get on with their lives pretty much as normal below.
Those who are given the role as soldiers do so under mysterious circumstance, and enter the training ranks barely into their teens. As one squadron receives a new recruit; an unnamed young man in his mid teens, we follow his hopeless and sterile acceptance of what he needs to do while he remains lucky enough to dodge the bullets. The awkward relationship with his fellow pilots and ground crew rarely progress beyond teasing out small personality traits and guessing at the rest, as invariably the next sortie may end up with one or more of them disappearing. Amongst all this, he develops a glimmer of a relationship with a young female captain who has spent many days seeing less planes arrive back than left.
Oshii's film cannot fail to impress technically and visually. It's traditional cel animation merged with 3D graphics work well together, and anyone who watched Last Exile through with interest will definitely find themselves in cosy territory. Newcomers to anime, and in particular, Oshii's work, may however become annoyed by the apparent laziness of some of the scenes, often saturated with uncomfortable silences and little in the way of movement, but I believe that this is deliberate and not for reasons of saving painting extra cels; these children are in a hopeless situation, unquestioningly doing their duty as it is all they know. No parents, no guidance on what it is to be a person, and no hope to get out, other than in flames. It is some of these scenes (especially the protracted one in the restaurant) where a lot of the character development is done, where we get some small insight into both the past lives of the couple, and their true feelings about their situation. It is then that the blank stares and silent moods become meaningful and less of an annoyance for the audience.
With that said, many will look on The Sky Crawlers and think of it as silly or pretentious, and in some ways it is, but for me it was one of those films that got better the more I thought about it afterwards, and it was certainly enough to encourage me to look at getting the translated books, should they ever come out. 7.5/10
Night and Day (US)
Tom Cruise. There are many things that are brought to mind when his name comes up, and I'll be willing to bet the tipping point between what we think of him now and what we used to think of him when he did films like Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July, balances on his crazy-assed sofa-jumping stint.
Ever since then he has worked hard in his films to get some of his credibility back, and has done this quite often by sticking himself into the white-teethed super-cool action hero pose that paints him in a positive light. But, much as I liked Vanilla Sky, Collateral and multiple Mission Impossiblei, I will always have a niggling doubt at the back of my head that he's doing these sorts of films to say basically, 'hey, so I'm a Scientologist, but don't be scared of me; I'm still the old Tom you know and love, yeah? Now watch how cool I look when I shoot this gun..'.
Knight and Day is a particularly brazen addition to this format, with Cruise playing the international super secret super spy who like James Bond can get out of any scrape with a lot of car chases and wise-cracks. Throw into the mix a ditzy blonde Cameron Diaz who somehow turns from idiot to competent secret agent (and love interest) within an hour or so, to keep Cruises' starched loins from getting any creases in them, and you have a pretty good if predictable and slightly manipulative action film poised to get at least one sequel. Looking at it too hard, trying to extract anything meaningful, or regarding the main character as Tom Cruise, rather than Mysterious Mr Knight (you see what they did there) will only spoil what enjoyment there is, so don't bother. 6.5/10
The Illusionist (Fra/UK) (wiki)
The works of Jaques Tati is unlikely to roll off the tongue of most people including myself, so let's get the wikipedia lookup out of the way now. Tati was a filmmaker specialising in a few whimsical but highly respected comic pieces through the fifties and sixties, often starring in some of the main parts. The Illusionist is a similarly toned animated work by Sylvain Chomet, he of The Triplets of Belleville, based on an unpublished work by Tati about the life of an ageing magician doing the rounds of the cabaret circuits in the fifties, just as the style was retreating behind the curtains as the new rock and roll kids burst in. It's clear from the appearance of the unnamed magician that Tati himself was destined for the role, if it ever would be committed to film in his lifetime.
Leaving France for England, he tries to stay ahead of the wave of new culture by playing ever smaller concert halls with his trusty top hat and angry rabbit. His agent comes up with increasingly sparse lists of venues willing to show him, and those that do rarely have more than a couple of punters. As he enters Scotland, he is limited to performing in a pub, minutes before technology catches up with him and they get electricity, and thus can plug in their shiny new jukebox.
But 'Tati' makes an unlikely friend in a young girl working as a cleaner at the pub he stays in. Entranced and convinced that this ageing man can do real magic, and maybe missing a father figure in her life, she packs up what little she has and follows him to his next stop in Edinburgh.
The rest of the film is a bittersweet tragi-comedy about the two finding comfort and meaning in each other's company, rendered beautifully in pastel watercolour and old-fashioned cel animation, and a minimum amount of dialogue (much like in Tati's films). The Illusionist has next to no action, so don't bother if you're looking for that. But what it is, is a cosy warm blanket of a film, gently humorous with touches of both satire and genuine heart that leaves you with a slight lump in the throat. 7.5/10
Inception (US) (wiki)
Mainstream films that promise not to underestimate its audience don't exactly come around too often these days, so when I saw the praise for Inception, it had to be seen. Inception stars one-time chubby-cheeked child actor with a face like a slapped arse, Leonardo Di Caprio, whose film output these days is showing him to be a much more accomplished actor than I gave him credit for. He plays agent Dom Cobb, who with his partner Arthur do Men In Black-style jobs where they dive into the dreams of the rich and/or dangerous, extract information from their brains, and pass it on to the relevant authorities.
Cobb is offered the chance to get out of the business, having lost his wife to some dream-related experiments some time ago and haunted by her angered shadows in his own dreams ever since. But this job is a bigger one than before, instead of extracting information, they need to insert a thought into a mind; to alter the actions of a powerful man just as he takes the reins of a massive business empire from his dying father.
This is where things get complicated; the only way of successfully planting a thought is to get the subject to think that it is his idea, and that is going to require travelling down several 'levels' of dream state, (the second level being a dream within a dream, and so on). This raises an interesting dynamic, as the perception of time in each dream level is exponentially multiplied; you may have a dream that seems to go on for days, but you've only slept through the night, and this is magnified with each level down the agents travel.
A plan is hatched, and several dream agents are brought in, Mission Impossible-like to make it happen. One constructs the dream worlds, one is in charge of operating the electronics, and the others just have to pray it all works. They get into the head of their unconscious and dreaming target, plant the idea through several psychological twists and levels of dreaming, and then work their way back up the stack and get out before their time is up. At this point, the audience is expected to keep track of several dimensions of dreamscape, each with their own parallel but different temporal settings, and a whole load of plot and character development, not least Cobb's less than helpful after image of a wife, who is out to get back at him for abandoning her.
It's all terrifically complicated, but not once does the film ever feel overwhelming, I think that is down to giving the impression of all things happening in parallel but instead you're just heading down one side of an upturned triangle and back up the other.
Inception is a brilliant film. It starts a little shaky with some slightly creaky dialogue, but that quickly disappears and the action and intrigue quickly ramps up. It becomes meaty and enjoyable to get your teeth into, and complex enough to warrant multiple viewings to get all the details. Best of all it has that rarest of things, an ending that is both ambiguous and satisfying leaving you to work out between yourselves exactly what the situation is. 8.5/10
With the Tokyo Film Festival (which I'll be able to catch some of towards the end of my trip) and LIFF '10 coming up soon, there will be plenty more films on the horizon. Stay tuned.
A Handy Guide
Do you find that feet get mysteriously lodged in your front door as you try to close it? Find yourself challenged on the source of your morals? Not any more.
With the help of a printer and a piece of Blu-tac, you too can give those pesky Jehovas Witnesses a few uncomfortable things to think about the next time they come knocking at your door just as youre about to tuck into a thoroughly unhealthy but ultimately delicious bacon and egg sandwich and by the time they have been persuaded you don't want any Jesus that day it's all gone cold and the lovely runny egg has congealed with the bacon fat and it's only a shadow of what it was.. or whatever...
Anyway, do the following:
Thank you, LolGod!
With the help of a printer and a piece of Blu-tac, you too can give those pesky Jehovas Witnesses a few uncomfortable things to think about the next time they come knocking at your door just as youre about to tuck into a thoroughly unhealthy but ultimately delicious bacon and egg sandwich and by the time they have been persuaded you don't want any Jesus that day it's all gone cold and the lovely runny egg has congealed with the bacon fat and it's only a shadow of what it was.. or whatever...
Anyway, do the following:
- Go to LolGod and print out their handy set of uncomfortable bible quotes.
- Adhere to the wall next to your front door for easy access.
- Bring into use when told by anyone that God is the way to happiness, peace and love.
Thank you, LolGod!
Trouble in Film City
Well, it's now into September, and the Cambridge Film Festival organisers have just about managed to put up a 'preview brochure' for the festival - basically a hastily cobbled together 'we have these films, it's not a full list, and we don't know for sure when things are on, so just bear with us'.
Usually we get the full brochure a month before the festival starts, so what on earth is going on down there? My hunch is that they have a few money problems now things are so tight (and it will only get worse for the UK film industry). They even have a JustGiving page to try and help them through. They've raised a tidy sum, but it doesn't seem to be doing them much good, unfortunately.
Whatever the case, the punter loses out. It's bad enough regional festival-goers trying to arrange time off work to see the best that's on offer when the brochure is so late, but those of us living further away now have no chance whatsoever to get there - all the B+B's are now booked full. So, I've taken the decision to give it a miss this year and concentrate on Japan and the Leeds fest in November. Grr.
It's a shame, because not only is it a lovely place to stay, but you also get a good crop of films at Cambridge, they seem to be able to pull out of the bag a healthy crop year on year, and this time seems no different.
If you are lucky enough to be in the vicinity, there looks to be some good stuff on at least; stuff standing out from the rest this year includes The Secret of Kells (Leeds last year, missed it - beautiful animation that pulled a lot of awards), The People vs. George Lucas (Edinburgh, missed it - A humorous/serious documentary about rabid fans), Winter's Bone (Oscar-nominated thriller about a woman trying to save her family by finding her father), Plug and Pray (exploring where we are going with robots and technology)
Nenètte (a documentary about a charismatic and elderly Oran-utan in a Paris zoo)
and The Extraordinary Adventures if Adele Blanc-Sec (French Indiana Jones-style action film, but with a sexy wummin!).
I'm praying for a rerun of at least a few of these and others at Leeds... pretty please..?
Usually we get the full brochure a month before the festival starts, so what on earth is going on down there? My hunch is that they have a few money problems now things are so tight (and it will only get worse for the UK film industry). They even have a JustGiving page to try and help them through. They've raised a tidy sum, but it doesn't seem to be doing them much good, unfortunately.
Whatever the case, the punter loses out. It's bad enough regional festival-goers trying to arrange time off work to see the best that's on offer when the brochure is so late, but those of us living further away now have no chance whatsoever to get there - all the B+B's are now booked full. So, I've taken the decision to give it a miss this year and concentrate on Japan and the Leeds fest in November. Grr.
It's a shame, because not only is it a lovely place to stay, but you also get a good crop of films at Cambridge, they seem to be able to pull out of the bag a healthy crop year on year, and this time seems no different.
If you are lucky enough to be in the vicinity, there looks to be some good stuff on at least; stuff standing out from the rest this year includes The Secret of Kells (Leeds last year, missed it - beautiful animation that pulled a lot of awards), The People vs. George Lucas (Edinburgh, missed it - A humorous/serious documentary about rabid fans), Winter's Bone (Oscar-nominated thriller about a woman trying to save her family by finding her father), Plug and Pray (exploring where we are going with robots and technology)
Nenètte (a documentary about a charismatic and elderly Oran-utan in a Paris zoo)
and The Extraordinary Adventures if Adele Blanc-Sec (French Indiana Jones-style action film, but with a sexy wummin!).
I'm praying for a rerun of at least a few of these and others at Leeds... pretty please..?
Japan 2010: 0.3 - A Place to Rest my Bones
Now that I have a pretty firm idea of where to go on my Japanese jaunt, its time to start setting things in stone. Chiefly, this means getting a bed for the 21 nights around Japan. With the exception of K's Backpack Hostel at Mt. Fuji, 2008's trip was completely open-ended with no hotels pre-booked - not even the one on the first night. Thankfully, due to some good fortune and the boundless energy the Japanese have in helping strangers, I managed to sort myself accommodation all the way round, sometimes at very short notice and with people not often put in contact with rambling, swaying foreign backpackers.
Nevertheless, even though it turned out okay in the end, I would have much preferred not to have spent the first half of every third day or so sat in the local JTB looking lost and needy and using my hands to convey most of my wishes to bemused staff and a curious and politely impatient crowd of people behind me. It is for these reasons and more that I am taking steps to get most of it out of the way before stepping off these shores.
Of course, the first thing you need is a concrete list of where you're going (to the granularity of a town/city) and which days you'll be there. Then it is a case of contacting the places you want to stay in. One way is - by trial and error - do the 'Search Nearby' option on Google Maps, which often brings up a few dozen registered places around any given city, although you are restricted to those that accept overseas bookings, and of course, speak the language. There's also the whole security issue of typing in your bank details over and over, which is obviously off-putting, especially as the other end of the wire is so far away.
A better option is to find a site that specialises in this sort of thing. Some are well-known, like hotels.com, but others you'll only find after a bit of searching. Two that I have found of particular use are hostelworld.com, which as the name suggests, specialise in hostel accommodation for places around the world (although the do have some hotels too), and the Welcome Inn Reservation Centre, which is specific to accommodation in Japan, and covers all kinds of accommodation.
With HostelWorld, you pay only an upfront deposit for the stay - often 10% - (plus a charge that goes into the site's coffers), so you still need to fork out on the day. Welcome Inn on the other hand will charge the full amount up front (although without an on-top fee), which is generally preferable because then you don't need to worry about credit card compatibility or getting hold of cash over there. What is most important, of course, is that you get your reservation in plenty of time, in the comfort of your living room rather than legging it to the travel shop at silly o'clock in the morning when you're there.
At the moment, about 50% of places are booked, and a nights stay in each place varies between about 2000 and 6000 yen (around £14 - 43). Hotels are typically the most expensive, and hostels where you share the room with a few others tend to be the cheapest. That's not to put hostels down of course, my stay at K's last time (the only hostel I stayed in) was by far the best of the bunch, because everyone there was a buzzing, interesting, exciting crowd, eager to share and listen to the stories they had been a part of on their journey.
I'm aiming to spend a good portion of the holiday in hostels, plus some of it in hotels (having your own lav is a much missed luxury after a while in the company of strangers), some Ryokan (traditional Japanese guest houses), 'pension' hotels (basically a westernised Ryokan), and the infamous 'Capsules'..
As the man says, when in Tokyo..
Update: It wouldn't be fair if I didn't also include the Rakuten Travel website on my list of places to book hotels in Japan (and various other far eastern destinations too). They have a much larger list of participating hotels than HostelWorld or even ITCJ and have the ability to do online availability checks without logging in or submitting an accommodation request (which ITCJ doesn't). The only problem with them is that you dont have an online account with them as such, so you need to type in your details for each booking, which can be either inconvenient or insecure, depending on your circumstances.
Nevertheless, even though it turned out okay in the end, I would have much preferred not to have spent the first half of every third day or so sat in the local JTB looking lost and needy and using my hands to convey most of my wishes to bemused staff and a curious and politely impatient crowd of people behind me. It is for these reasons and more that I am taking steps to get most of it out of the way before stepping off these shores.
Of course, the first thing you need is a concrete list of where you're going (to the granularity of a town/city) and which days you'll be there. Then it is a case of contacting the places you want to stay in. One way is - by trial and error - do the 'Search Nearby' option on Google Maps, which often brings up a few dozen registered places around any given city, although you are restricted to those that accept overseas bookings, and of course, speak the language. There's also the whole security issue of typing in your bank details over and over, which is obviously off-putting, especially as the other end of the wire is so far away.
A better option is to find a site that specialises in this sort of thing. Some are well-known, like hotels.com, but others you'll only find after a bit of searching. Two that I have found of particular use are hostelworld.com, which as the name suggests, specialise in hostel accommodation for places around the world (although the do have some hotels too), and the Welcome Inn Reservation Centre, which is specific to accommodation in Japan, and covers all kinds of accommodation.
With HostelWorld, you pay only an upfront deposit for the stay - often 10% - (plus a charge that goes into the site's coffers), so you still need to fork out on the day. Welcome Inn on the other hand will charge the full amount up front (although without an on-top fee), which is generally preferable because then you don't need to worry about credit card compatibility or getting hold of cash over there. What is most important, of course, is that you get your reservation in plenty of time, in the comfort of your living room rather than legging it to the travel shop at silly o'clock in the morning when you're there.
At the moment, about 50% of places are booked, and a nights stay in each place varies between about 2000 and 6000 yen (around £14 - 43). Hotels are typically the most expensive, and hostels where you share the room with a few others tend to be the cheapest. That's not to put hostels down of course, my stay at K's last time (the only hostel I stayed in) was by far the best of the bunch, because everyone there was a buzzing, interesting, exciting crowd, eager to share and listen to the stories they had been a part of on their journey.
I'm aiming to spend a good portion of the holiday in hostels, plus some of it in hotels (having your own lav is a much missed luxury after a while in the company of strangers), some Ryokan (traditional Japanese guest houses), 'pension' hotels (basically a westernised Ryokan), and the infamous 'Capsules'..
As the man says, when in Tokyo..
Update: It wouldn't be fair if I didn't also include the Rakuten Travel website on my list of places to book hotels in Japan (and various other far eastern destinations too). They have a much larger list of participating hotels than HostelWorld or even ITCJ and have the ability to do online availability checks without logging in or submitting an accommodation request (which ITCJ doesn't). The only problem with them is that you dont have an online account with them as such, so you need to type in your details for each booking, which can be either inconvenient or insecure, depending on your circumstances.
Short Film Digest 2
Time for another trio of short films, taken from those that made me smile at the various festivals through the years. Please let me know if any of the video links go to crap.
2.1 The Tube with a Hat
A lovely, slow burning film that took me back to the days when technology was simple enough to allow your dad to unscrew the back off whatever item was faulty, and armed with a bit of electronics knowledge, a hundred pull-out plastic drawers full of spare parts, and a soldering iron, he could get anything going again.
2.2 FARD
FARD really impressed me, the boxy, angular feel of the computer graphics give way to a very clever blending of animated and live action, wrapped up in a Matrix-style conspiracy of consciousness.
2.3 Skhizein
In a very French style, Skhizein tells the story of a poor, ordinary man who, thanks to being blatted with a meteorite, is always 91cm away from where he should be.
I'll have a dig around for some more soon.
2.1 The Tube with a Hat
A lovely, slow burning film that took me back to the days when technology was simple enough to allow your dad to unscrew the back off whatever item was faulty, and armed with a bit of electronics knowledge, a hundred pull-out plastic drawers full of spare parts, and a soldering iron, he could get anything going again.
2.2 FARD
FARD really impressed me, the boxy, angular feel of the computer graphics give way to a very clever blending of animated and live action, wrapped up in a Matrix-style conspiracy of consciousness.
2.3 Skhizein
In a very French style, Skhizein tells the story of a poor, ordinary man who, thanks to being blatted with a meteorite, is always 91cm away from where he should be.
I'll have a dig around for some more soon.
Japan 2010: 0.2 - Taking to the Air
One of my TODO's for this trip to Japan, based on my conclusion to 2008's jaunt, was to design it a bit better; chiefly, make it more.. relaxed. Not attempting to travel hundreds of miles by train each day like in the first few days of the last trip.
This has a downside. My intended route is much more frugal in terms of scope this time; I have tried to reduce the journey time by train in any one day to 4 hours or less, meaning the distance travelled is much less. Only Okinawa and Kyushu, two relatively small portions of Japan actually are going to receive much attention. Perhaps two thirds of the total number of places I went to before are going to be visited this time.
In order to minimise the impact of this, I have booked myself some internal flights. This allows me to fly down from Tokyo direct to Okinawa, which cuts out several days travel if I was to get to Kyushu by train, and then a whole extra day or so by the limited ferries that serve the various islands. On the return leg, I will fly out to Kagoshima on the southern coast of Kyushu, and then slowly work my way back to Tokyo from there (some would ask why I didn't get an international flight direct to a more southern city, but I would respond in a quiet and dignified voice by saying that I never thought to do so).
Buying domestic Japanese flights as a foreigner has a similar set of offers attached to it. The almost obligatory Japan Rail Pass, allowing unlimited JR Line journeys for 1-3 weeks, has airline equivalents. Typically a traveller can book flights for a flat rate of between 10,000 and 13,000 yen per flight (£75-£100), depending on a couple of factors which vary slightly between carriers:
I got my tickets with ANA, because they had flights going to the places I wanted; if you can, some of the smaller companies (a good guide is here) will offer tickets at the lower end of the scale, but might not go where you need to be, so shop around.
Lastly, if you choose your international flights wisely, (I didn't), you might be able to get extra discounts. For instance, the JAL fares would drop to 10,000 yen if I had gone with any of the carriers in the oneworld group of airlines.
This has a downside. My intended route is much more frugal in terms of scope this time; I have tried to reduce the journey time by train in any one day to 4 hours or less, meaning the distance travelled is much less. Only Okinawa and Kyushu, two relatively small portions of Japan actually are going to receive much attention. Perhaps two thirds of the total number of places I went to before are going to be visited this time.
In order to minimise the impact of this, I have booked myself some internal flights. This allows me to fly down from Tokyo direct to Okinawa, which cuts out several days travel if I was to get to Kyushu by train, and then a whole extra day or so by the limited ferries that serve the various islands. On the return leg, I will fly out to Kagoshima on the southern coast of Kyushu, and then slowly work my way back to Tokyo from there (some would ask why I didn't get an international flight direct to a more southern city, but I would respond in a quiet and dignified voice by saying that I never thought to do so).
Buying domestic Japanese flights as a foreigner has a similar set of offers attached to it. The almost obligatory Japan Rail Pass, allowing unlimited JR Line journeys for 1-3 weeks, has airline equivalents. Typically a traveller can book flights for a flat rate of between 10,000 and 13,000 yen per flight (£75-£100), depending on a couple of factors which vary slightly between carriers:
- You need to book the tickets in advance before leaving your native country.
- You usually need to book at least 2 flights and usually not more than 5. (A connecting flight will count as 2, and will be charged as such)
- You need to provide proof of residency (scans of passports, utility bills, e-ticket)
- You can't reschedule your first flight, and the others will be difficult to change, so ensure your dates are right.
- There are a couple of other charges, such as a small consumption tax, and probably ticket charges (adds about £20ish to the total)
I got my tickets with ANA, because they had flights going to the places I wanted; if you can, some of the smaller companies (a good guide is here) will offer tickets at the lower end of the scale, but might not go where you need to be, so shop around.
Lastly, if you choose your international flights wisely, (I didn't), you might be able to get extra discounts. For instance, the JAL fares would drop to 10,000 yen if I had gone with any of the carriers in the oneworld group of airlines.
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