GAWA Day #11: Yokohama, Matsumoto and back to Tokyo

My next stop was the Sheraton Yokohama Bay, which was a pioneering venture 17 years ago, for the hotel was built in conjunction with a shopping mall close to a train station, a relatively novel concept then.  Here are night and day views of the Yokohama Station from my room:

As a platinum member I got four newspapers:  International New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Japan Times and Japan News.  Plus a free breakfast:

Three soups:  cream corn, miso and a pho, for there is a station for this Vietnamese breakfast soup.  See that croissant and blue cheese at the top?  They became my snack, with a Hokkaido sparkling cider, on my way to Matsumoto:

The trip to and from Yokohama to Matsumoto took five trains and eleven hours.  It has been raining for two straight days.  Matsumoto Castle:

When I first arrived, I didn't see Pearl's Gold Koi.  However, way to the right:

All alone.  When I got there, it began to rain again:

Hello Pearl.  Mind you, there must be at least a thousand koi, almost all black.  One gold.  Walking back to the train station in the rain, I noticed that Fall is coming to Japan:

On departure from Matsumoto, I had two kinds of musubi (rice balls--salmon eggs and boiled chicken egg), fishcake, with a Suntory mizuwari (whiskey and water) and a Suntory rose wine, made in the next town, Shiojiri:

Suntory has a winery in Shiojiri, and the train station there features grape vines:

Nearly a year ago I stayed at the Ritz Carlton Tokyo, and I so enjoyed it that I arranged to return.  I hinted, then, that their lounge could well be Heaven, located on the top floor of the tallest real building in Tokyo.  Tokyo Skytree is higher.  This is another one of those next generation hotels, epitomized by the Sheraton D-Cube in Seoul, my next stop.  RCT is the showcase edifice of a relatively new development, Tokyo Midtown, now eight years old and all of more than 6 million square feet at a cost of $3 billion.   By comparison, the Ala Moana Shopping Center has 1.4 million leasable square feet. The RCT hotel sits over offices and a shopping mall, with two subway lines a few minutes walk away.  Tomorrow, thus, my return to Heaven.

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Typhoon Dajuan is continuing to strengthen, and is now up to 105 MPH.  On Monday, Dujuan will be a Category 4 and will roll right over Taipei.

It looks like Miyakojima will now only experience the edges the storm.

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GAWA Day #10: A Simple Solution for Peace in the Orient

I did promise to report on Pearl's Gold Koi, and, for sure, my posting tomorrow will provide details.  But with the departure of Pope Francis for New York, in comes the Xi Jinping, the President of the People's Republic of China, so let me today focus on the future of China. My very first Huffington Post article, more than seven years ago, was entitled:

     Well, Barack, We have a Problem...

Introduced was the 10% solution for world peace.

Two and I half years later (2November2010), I posted:

     My Second Message to China

This was a recommendation to incoming president, Xi Jinping

1. A truly safe, but shocking, pronouncement, soon after you attain presidential status in 2013, is to commit your country to the edicts of the next Kyoto Protocol to check global heating, which by then should have been settled in Cancun. Of course, I can already predict that this second agreement will have all the loopholes necessary to provide another decade of wishy-washy do nothing, but the USA will still be debating the demerits of ratifying anything related to the Cancun Protocol, so your position will, on a relative scale, be statesmanlike.

2. Now, for the big one, surely to gain a Nobel Prize of your own. You have a couple of years to analyze the sanity and brilliance of the 10% solution. By 2013 the G8 nations should be augmenting this powerful world body to at least ten, and maybe a dozen. China will be invited to join. After your opening remarks at your inaugural presence, you can consider stating....

Interestingly enough, he actually took the first offer and signed a climate change agreement with Barack Obama about a year ago.  They are again meeting on Friday, and my counsel is to ignore #2,  that 10% solution for peace.  President Obama is just not ready for so profound an overture.  Plus, our Military-Industrial Complex will not allow anything like peace to occur. 

However, when you get back home, begin the process of re-thinking where China wants to be in the next century.

•  Certainly, attacking and occupying Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. makes no sense at all.  Major wars are now obsolete.  
• Those islands of contention?  Peanuts!  A few resources, perhaps, but hardly worth the expense to beef up your military just to posture your way into claiming them.  
• You say you are afraid that unless you expand your defense budget, foreigners will again take over your country?  Nonsense!  That's antiquated thinking.  Your economy is so dominant now that that just won't ever happen.

So here is the plan.  

• Call a summit for countries of the Orient (Japan, South and North Korea, India, Vietnam, the Philippines...and, even Russia).  
• In your opening statement, the following fundamentals will long be remembered as the crucial first step to World Peace:
• Proclaim that China will next year reduce your military budget by 10%, and you would like all countries to do the same, even those not at this gathering.
• You will continue to cut 10% in subsequent years if each country in the Orient does the same.
• What if the USA and Europe not follow suit?
• No problem, they will take a little longer to do so.  
• The Military-Industrial Complex remains dominant.
• Indicate that those islands of contention should be shared by those countries in close proximity.  A follow-up summit will deal with this matter.
• These re-appropriated war funds can now be utilized by those complying countries to strengthen their economy, improve infrastructure, enhance educational opportunities and remediate global warming.

There are already 23 countries with no military, including Costa Rica, Iceland, Mauritius and Panama.  In 2012 (it has gone up), the CIA reported that military expenditures were 2.42% of the global Gross Domestic Product:  $2,000,000,000,000--that's $2 trillion every year.  For the record:

If China initiates the 10% Peace Plan, there is reason to believe that much of the world will, in time, head in that direction.  Terrorists?  Navy Seals and drones can handle this task for way less than 10% of the current defense budget.  

In a decade, the world will have no military of any consequence, and Xi Jinping will forever be hailed as the ultimate pioneer for world peace, an order of magnitude greater than the monumental act of  Mikhael Gorbachev in ending the Cold War and potential for a nuclear winter.  He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1990.

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Typhoon Dajuan is at 85 MPH and is quickly strengthening to Category 4 status.  The current path has the track just about over Miyakojima, the solar island of Japan, then passing just north of Taiwan and ultimately crashing into China, 

However, at least one computer model has Dajuan making a right turn and move towards Japan.

Well, for sure, Okinawa will be hit hard.

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GAWA Day #9: Kyoto and Suiran

My Nichiren train took me from Miyazaki towards Kyoto.  I had a soba with sake.  

I happened to look at the ticket for my final train, and noticed that the arrival was in Osaka at 4:24, not Kyoto.  I had arranged with Suiran to pick me up at 4:30 in Kyoto.

All train seats were taken today, so in illegal brilliance I snuck on the Nozomi, the fast bullet train not available to Japan Rail Pass holders.  However, my thinking was that if you sat in the non-reserved section, set aside for trains 1/2/3, the conductor wouldn't be able to tell if you belonged there or not.  Unfortunately, the lines to get into trains 1, 2 and 3 were today ridiculously long.  So, again, being super clever, I stood in the #4 reserved train line, which had only ten people, and when I got on board, made a left instead of right turn, and found myself an open seat  Very few of those in those 1/2/3 lines got on the train.  My Nozomi arrived in Kyoto at 4:10, ahead of my normal schedule, and I was able to meet the taxi arranged by Suiran.

Okay, so this was not morally right.  However, I've long felt that the country should open up the Japan Rail Pass by charging more for using the Nozomi, as there are so many more of them than the Hikari and Kodama options left to foreigners.  So, in this time of despair, I felt it was justified to do what should have been allowed anyway, plus I have a Green Car first class pass and I used the lowest class unreserved train.

Suiran is a luxury ryokan (Japanese hotel), a first for Starwood.  Everything here is an up-scale blend of high tech and feudal Japan.  There is polite staff everywhere, and I wonder how they can stay in business.  Well, the cost is rather high.  However, there are only 39 rooms.  The Sheraton Grande Ocean Resort had close to 750.  So after checking in, my sty here started with a champagne welcome in my room.

The hotel itself is way outside of the city on the grounds of Emperor Kameyama's family villa, with a history that goes back to 1339.  A few minutes walk brings you to Tenryu-ji Temple, Sagano Bamboo Forest, Nonomiya Shrine and Togetsu Bridge.

My room has a personal furo (Japanese bath), kept at a constant temperature just a little too hot for me, but survivable, in a teak room:

The dining room was smallish, and less than half full.  I show the view from my seat just to provide a sequence leading to breakfast the following morning:

The reality is that there is a lot of reflection from the room and you can hardly see the outside:

That girl in the reflection with her grandparents is worthy of a photo:

Then, this is how the garden looked in daylight when I had breakfast here the next morning:

My dinner appetizer:

I'm having a Kyoto sake and Kyoto beer.  Next, the best sashimi I've had on this trip:

Again, note the artistry of both the food in the dish and dish itself.  I ate all those tiny flowers, but soon thereafter, noticed that someone was stripping the flowers off the stem and laying it aside.  I now feel those stems slowly coursing through my alimentary canal.

This was followed by abalone and foie gras:

With so few diners, I wondered why the abalone was lukewarm.  Same for the following Kyoto beef bowl:

Worse, Kyoto beef has the texture of and tastes like American beef.  Miyazaki wagyu is so much better.   For Chaine des Rotisseurs members, that is one price we pay for eating in a group of a hundred or two, for the restaurants just can't get the temperature right.  At 15 Craigside, the Dining Committee, which I chair, has established a Food Temperature subcommittee to cure this problem.  Here at Suiran, this is inexcusable.  The dessert:

It was cantaloupe, green tea ice-cream and wasabi cream.  All in all, for the price, somewhat disappointing.

Breakfast, however, was just fine, and free.  They actually had an appetizer first, very similar to what I had for dinner:

It was raining today, but I went out for a short walk anyway.  Suiran is located next to the historical Hosu River of Emperors.  Located next door is a World Heritage Site, Tenryu-ji Temple:

The Bamboo Grove is also on a nearby path:

Turns out that we are in an environment much cooler than the city, such that Fall colors are already appearing.  Here is the entrance to Suiran:

My Shinkansen trip to Hokkaido got derailed by Silver Week--and, thank heavens, that ended today-- so these are all the Fall colors I will see.

Tomorrow, I return to Matsumoto Castle.  Hopefully, Pearl's Koi will be there to greet me.

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That typhoon I mentioned a couple of days ago, now named Tropical Storm Dujuan at 60 MPH, is expected to attain Category 4 strength and, at this time, is projected to roll over several smaller Okinawan islands south of Naha, and ease towards China just north of Taiwan:

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GAWA Day #8: My Best Japanese Meal for Under $100

GAWA, if you're new, is the acronym for Grand Around the World Adventure, and I've completed day #8.  Yesterday, at the Sheraton Grande Ocean Resort in Miyazaki, I had my best Japanese meal for less than $100, and that famous Miyazaki wagyu beef was included.  The entrance to Toyotama is impressive, with a long, dark, walkway, not unlike La Tour d'Argent:

First came the appetizer.  I am having a Kirin beer and a Cab from Australia:

Below, my whole meal, and count the dishes:

Here is a close-up of the Miyazaki sirloin, followed by a satisfying dish of fruits:

The steak was fabulous and the meal was my best Japanese dinner for under $100, including beer, wine, tax and tip.  As a side order, 200 grams, less than a tenth of a pound, of Miyazaki sirloin, costs $140.  All the above, including Miyazaki sirloin, with the drinks, amounted to $89.

I must be gaining a reputation here, for the hotel assigned Ritsuko Ogi, food and beverage manager, to personally serve me,  She was an absolute angel, who tolerated my demeanor (remember, I'm unhappy that I was not in Miyachiku), and went to great lengths to find something like a Miyazaki rib eye (which I declined, for the cost would have almost doubled) in the building:

There is some night life in this hotel:

Tomorrow is the one of worst days to travel by train in Japan,  for that will be Day 5 of the five day holiday.  I must find my way to Kyoto and Suiran, Sheraton's first Japanese-themed hotel.

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