Tokyo, Japan

The Great Buddha's shoes
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Leaving Singapore (at the crack of dawn – 3:00 a.m.) we had all our cases opened and searched. It must have been a slow day. Then as we walked to the boarding gate we had more security clearance, and even though our bags were tagged as security cleared, we had to open them again for them to be looked at! John pointed out that each time we were searched, it was by hand. In this technologically advanced country, not a single X-ray machine anywhere.

People, people and more people

Pretty cool bridge on Sumidagawa River.
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Eventually we arrived at Narita Airport and took an Airport Limousine Bus to the station closest to our hotel, which turned out to be in Shinjuku (an area of Tokyo). It was still early so we decided that we would walk (with all 6 suitcases) through Shinjuku to our hotel. The hotel was not exactly what we were expecting, inasmuch as it was the tiniest room you have ever seen. It was barely big enough for the cases, let alone us. We deposited cases and walked around outside for a while.

This far into our trip we had decided to create our own tours and not rely on others. Part of that is because we do like to wander around at our ease, and we take side trips if we see something we like (like the Scarecrows in New Zealand), and being on an organized tour doesn’t allow for that. Japan is our first attempt at this free spirit. It may mean that we miss some things; it may mean we get lost – but oh well here goes…..

Fiona and Satomi
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Our hotel was situated between the Skyscraper District and the Entertainment District. We crossed over to the Entertainment District to take a look. Neon lights everywhere. People under 23 everywhere. Noise everywhere. There are specific areas designated for smoking on the streets in Tokyo, which is pretty funny to see this whole collection of people in one area lighting up.

On Sunday we decided to be brave and take the train out to the Imperial Palace and Gardens, but we got there too late. The gardens were closed and the Imperial Palace doesn't seem like it is ever open to the public. We walked all the way round the grounds outside the Palace (for hours) saw a pretty cool fountain and then back to the train for home.

Line of rice cookers. Fiona and I are at the far end (without headscarves)
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Our Japanese routine seemed to be sleep in, grab a coffee and pastry, talk to people on Skype (still no cell phone coverage) and Fiona doing homework. Round about lunchtime we would head out for a sightseeing trip.

Monday was Sensoji Temple. Once again we took the train. We did have a map and were looking everywhere for the entrance to the temple. We walked down several shopping areas, but it was getting close to the end of the day and folk were beginning to wrap things up. It was also a Monday and a lot of places are closed on Mondays. Once we found the temple, it was pretty cool. We also found the missing gate - it was shrouded in plastic as it was being restored! Never fear, we still managed to seek it out. Fiona wanted fans, so we price compared every single fan place (and there were tons of them) until we found the best bargain. We also broke the rules and bought food from hawkers on the side of the road - some sweet thing that was infused with sweet chestnut paste (chestnuts are very popular in Japan). John and I liked it, but Fiona was happy to give hers away.

Miki, Lynne and Tomiyo from Girl Scouts of Japan
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Tuesday was Hasekamon Temple and the Great Buddha and Kamakura. This was John's choice. We would usually pick something and then I would research it to make sure we didn't miss anything. We took a different train this time, overground, to Kamakura. This train stopped at Hase. If you ever get the opportunity to visit this tiny town, take it. It is home to the Great Buddha which is a bronze statue that is 13.35 meters high; it is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan. As I walked up the tiny street and turned the corner, there it was, my first Japanese Buddha. I stood gobsmacked for a time because it was so big. It turns out that this Buddha was cast in 1252 and originally located inside a large temple hall. However, the temple buildings were washed away by a tsunami tidal wave in the end of the 15th century, and since then the Buddha stands alone in the open air. We have pictures of both the Buddha and his shoes (courtesy of Fiona). We even went inside the statue. (If you go, don’t go inside it ruins the illusion). We learned that Buddha can be both male and female, but even in its female form, it still has a moustache and goatee.

First impressions - this is the street we live on in Shinjuku
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Hase is most famous for its temple containing the statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. The statue shows Kannon with eleven heads, each representing a characteristic of the goddess. The 9.18 meter tall, gilded wooden statue is regarded as the largest wooden sculpture in Japan. It is brilliant and completely took our breath away. It is truly magnificent - we all stood and gazed at it for ages. Unfortunately (or fortunately) you are not allowed to photograph it, but we did buy a postcard. This was one of those "Mental Picture" moments we will never forget. Next to the temple garden and the pond stands the Bentendo, a small cave that contains a figure of Benten (or Benzaiten), a goddess of feminine beauty and wealth. Sculptures of Benten and other minor gods are also in the entrance to the main cave. People write names on small wooden Buddhas and leave them in the cave - John wrote two, one for me and one for Fiona to preserve our beauty and wealth.

Imperial palace - closed!
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Fiona is yelling at me not to forget the library. There was a separate building housing ancient sutras in a sort of drum that rotated. It is said that the monks used to push the drum round once and they would absorb all the knowledge of the sutras. We pushed it all the way round and so are now brilliant. However, our knowledge is in ancient Japanese script and we are having a hard time translating it. Fiona placed a stone with JMSG written in Japanese and English underneath the library for posterity.

Spiders - these spiders are everywhere, they are about four inches across
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We did go on to Kamakura, but it was very late and most things were closing up, so a quick walk around and then back on the train for Shinjuku.

One of the things we began to do was to eat regularly in a couple of restaurants. In Japan, everyone seems so polite and there is a protocol to everything (although sometimes it’s hard to see it). One of the things they do is put chairs outside at the entrance to the restaurant and when you have to wait, you just sit on the chairs. You don't give them your name or anything, you just sit down. Then they know how many people are waiting. Of course, it really doesn't help them with the number in the party - but it does seem to work nevertheless.

We had to be security cleared three times at the airport - Fiona still isn't sure!
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One of the restaurants we used to visit was like a cellar, where I could at least get a glass of wine (not many places served wine, mostly beer and sake). The other was on the 8th floor (a restaurant floor) of a mall where one of the waitresses could speak a little English. It was quite funny because we knew we could only eat where there were pictures of food, or plastic images sitting outside of the restaurants, so we could point. The restaurant in the cellar had pictures on their menus and we did find a few things we liked. We had some weird stuff too; don’t think we didn’t make a few mistakes.

Really cool fountain
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The one in the mall had plastic copies of food in the window, but no pictures on their menus. So we had to take the waitress outside to point. We ended up with more than we bargained for the first time we did that, because we thought we were pointing at one specific dish and it turned out we were pointing at a complete dinners with soup and vegetables – so lots of food for lots of $$.

As it turned out though, Tokyo wasn’t as expensive as we thought it was going to be in terms of food. The hotel was more than it should have been, but weighed against the possibility of moving somewhere else with all those cases……

Sensoji Temple
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Wednesday – this was perhaps one of my favorite days. We went for a picnic in Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens. Covering 58 hectares, Shinjuku Gyoen is one of Tokyo largest parks. It was opened to the public in 1949, after it had served as a garden for the Imperial Family since 1903. Shinjuku Gyoen features three garden types: a formal French garden which we did not see, an English landscape garden with wide lawns where we sat and ate our picnic of pork buns, potstickers, drink and of course, chocolate.

We lit candles here for Lynne's Dad, Fiona's Grandpa, and John's friend Steve
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There was a traditional Japanese garden with a teahouse where we had our first experience of powdered green tea. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what we were doing so we sat there in silence, drank our tea and left. It was only later we learned how to do all of this properly. Shinjuku Gyoen has three gates: and, in our attempt at creating our own tours, we managed to find the gate furthest away from us. The upside to this was that we walked back through the garden and ended up closer to home at the end of the day.

Art - Koi in a pool around the temple
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There was also a Chrysanthemum exhibit. Okay, this is where I can hear you all yawning. No, John wanted to look at this, and it was an amazing exhibit. The Japanese Imperial Family loved Chrysanthemums and the Japanese people have learned to train single plants (one stalk) to produce thousands of blooms which they then guide through lattice to make domes which are called Ozukui beds. I have attached a picture which does not do it justice – you really do have to see it to believe it. They also have plants with twenty seven blooms (Edo-giku bed) and five blooms, and also single blooms which are huge and arranged in diagonal stripes, yellow, white and red (Tazuna-ue style)!

Pagoda at the Sensoji temple
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Again, we are at the park until closing. Why was this my favorite day? Because we did something completely normal and relaxing in a completely foreign and busy place, on our own, by ourselves – Call me crazy, but that, to me was a huge achievement. Off to Kyoto for a few days here (we are writing a separate blog for Kyoto).

We came back to Shinjuku on Saturday, and Sunday was a Girl Scout day. Fiona, John and I took the train via Takadanobaba to Kagurazaka (sound impressive don’t they?) and then we were supposed to get out of the station on the Iidabashi side. Well, we arrived at Kagurazaka and had no further direction except “head for the Akagi Shrine”. Where was that? Hmmm. Shall we turn right or left? Let’s just say we turned left and if the shrine had been a snake it would have bitten us.

Our tiny room at the Star Hotel
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We spent the whole morning with the Tokyo Girl Scouts teaching a local elementary school how to cook outside. We cooked rice (check out the smoke), curry, and made ice cream in film canisters. Fiona had done most of this before and was paired with Satomi (17) who had spent a year in England and spoke the best English.

Miki Mori was one of the troop leaders and her English was great and Tomiyo (Girl Scouts of Japan Board Member) understood pretty much everything. I was actually allowed to help with the cooking, and then John and I were served lunch. It was very organized, although to an outsider it may have seemed somewhat chaotic. We ended up with teaching everyone a roosta sha and the game of “this is a stick” which was hysterical as we taught it in English, not Japanese. I would like to thank Miki Mori and Tomiyo Tonosaki for hosting us that day and Satomi for her patience with Fiona.

The Great Buddha
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We took a couple more day trips after this - one of which was a visit to Harajuku the fashion area. We went on a Monday (remember when everything closes) and the Meiji Shrine I wanted to see was closed, but we walked down the main drag. It was Rodeo Drive in Japan. Gucci, Armani, Cartier, Yves San Laurent – all the big names on this street. It was not what we were led to believe. We thought it would be more like the Kings Road because the Japanese teens shop here. All I can say is that they must get a lot more allowance than American kids do if they can shop here! We wandered down a couple of side streets and that was a little more Berkeley-esque, but still way overpriced. $20 for five pieces of Sees candy - how would we know that I hear you ask? Hmmmm. Apparently, on Sundays, the teens come down to this area and parade in their finest and weirdest gear – missed again I guess.

John and I not knowing what we are doing drinking powdered green tean
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It was countdown now and we had to decide what we wanted to do in the remaining days in Japan. My friend Hajime, from Wind River, came and met us at the Hotel and we had drinks with him - that was nice. He actually was able to answer a lot of questions for us too. When he left, I felt a bit guilty actually, because we had made him sit through millions of our photos of Kyoto – sorry Hajime.

We did decide to take a boat cruise up the river. We were surprised at how much water there is in Tokyo, we had no idea of the number of rivers. Japan is made up of several thousands of islands with a total surface area comparable to that of California. So we thought we should perhaps see at least one of these waterways. The one we chose was the Sumidagawa River which had a boat cruise from Hanode Pier (which we got to by, guess what? A train!) and took us under 13 bridges (all different, see photos) on a 40 minute cruise up to Asakusa.

Amazing Ozukuri bed of Chrysanthemums - all from one plant.
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From there we went to Akihabara which is billed as famous for its electronics shops. Some even call it Electric town. In recent years, it has also gained fame as a center of the gaming and animation culture. We walked around but as we are not big electronics fans, it didn’t really move us. We went into one enormous store which had everything – cosmetics, electronics, a restaurant for adults only on the top floor, costumes, pretty much a five-and-dime kind of atmosphere with very reasonable prices.

Fans and more Fans
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We ended that evening with crepes on the street which were, not great, but the weather had turned cold and the hot chocolate we bought with them was greatly appreciated. Oh yes, this was where John and I went in to a Pachinko parlor to learn to play – NOT. Pachinko is a mixture between slot machines and pinball. We walked in (Fiona was not allowed) and what with the noise of the machines, the Japanese anime music and the smoke, decided that it was probably not for us. We watched to try and interpret the game – but nope, not a clue. We even tried to look it up on the computer when we got back, but, nope, still no clue!

High fashion Fiona, in her very own Kimono purchased in Harajuku.
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As we leave Japan, we realize that Japan had surprised us in many ways: We were not expecting the spiders – which are in all the trees. We never saw them on the ground, or in fact any where other than trees. We didn’t ever find out if they were harmful, or even what kind they were, but they were everywhere.

The Japanese are very clean people – you are given a wet cloth before every meal; women carry small towels in their purses to wipe their hands (we bought one – very useful as only air dryers in the toilets); etc., but they don’t seem to take as much interest in their teeth. Maybe dentistry is expensive here?

Miki's troop (multi-level) and Tomiyo, Fiona and I.
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Clothing: Before I comment, I would just add that John was sad to leave this country of short skirts and thigh boots (or long socks in a lot of cases). He thoroughly enjoyed the morning walks to the station and the return to Shinjuku at rush hour. An assault on his masculine brain I think!

My comment is that a lot of women and almost all men wear dark (usually black) suits to work (almost like a uniform) – however, some of the women also wear really gaudy (like gold or bright colored) shoes with these suits, it was incongruous.

Technology – they are so advanced and yet when we tried to print pictures from a USB port, you would have thought we had something from Mars! Everywhere took camera cards, but we really had to search for someone with a USB port capability, very strange.

We did enjoy Japan, but we were ready to leave. Our attempt at organizing all our own tours was successful, but very tiring. Did we miss things – I’m sure we did, did we have a blast? Absolutely. Would we go back - yes we would; and we now know way more Japanese than before we arrived. Okini, Sayonara (thank you and goodnight).

………………Lynne