Gardens, Geishas and Samurai

Today we toured around Kanazawa, which is a small city, but one replete with history.  Our first stop was the Kenruoken Gardens, one of the most extensive, traditional gardens in Japan.  It is near the old castle, up on a hill with panoramic views (which were somewhat obscured today by the haze due to extreme heat!).  We walked around the gardens for a couple of hours enjoying the peace and the beauty.  After that we went to a traditional Samurai house.  There is a whole neighborhood here in Kanazawa in which descendants of the samurai still live, many in homes that are several hundred years old and still laid out in the traditional sumurai house style.  During the Shogun era (1603-1868) the samurai were the middle class of their day and their houses were generally two story, wooden structures, with a garden surrounding them.  The house we visited is called the old site of Mr. Kurando Terashima's house, which is now smaller than when it was first built in 1776, but still retains many of the original features.  The person who showed us around the house is a descendant of Mr. Terashima, the samurai who originally owned the property.  We then visited the current samurai neighborhood, where descendants of the samurais still live in homes quite similar to the one we visited.  After that we went to lunch in the geisha district and then visited the Kaikaro geisha house.  

Kanazawa and Kyoto still have geisha houses, with women who are actively employed as geishas.  There was a time that geishas were sexual workers, but modern day geishas are most definitely not.  Young women have to apply to become apprentice geishas and if they are accepted their training takes well over four years.  They have to learn music, dance, art, and they study poetry, literature, history and other subjects so that they can be interesting company for their clients, who are generally wealthy men.  When a man hires a geisha, he visits her in the geisha house, and usually two or three geishas entertain him, with drinks, (tea and sake) and they perform for him, on musical instruments, drums, flutes, or they do dance or dramatic performances.  Some men hire geishas to accompany them to business social events.  They are part entertainer, part "paid date/companion."  We were hosted by a geisha in an active geisha house, which we toured after the presentation.  In Kanazawa geishas can be married, but in Kyoto they cannot, so the decision to become a geisha there is also a decision to remain single.  Our hostess told us that the oldest geisha in Kanazawa is 82 and still going strong!  The geisha house was quite beautiful and the young woman who spoke with us, who was 23 years old, was very gracious and welcoming and clearly comfortable entertaining people!  She gave us a demonstration of drumming, which is some of the entertainment that is part of a regular geisha performance.   

After we left the geisha house, we stopped at a workshop where gold leaf artisans work and had a demonstration of how they work the 24 karat gold into microscopically thin sheets with which they then make beautiful gold leafed items like trays and cups and glasses and jewelry and all manner of beauty products.  We all got to taste a piece of gold leaf candy!  (Yep!  Flakes of 24 karat gold in a hard candy!)

We then returned to our hotel and had some free time.  I wandered over to an area where there is a Buddhist temple and enjoyed stopping in the many stores that are down this little side street where families purchase their home altars with which they set up their own personal shrine/altars for prayers.  Believe me if those things weren't too big to fit in a suitcase I would have bought one!  They are beautifully made out of lacquered wood with intricate carvings and gold leaf.  

This evening, our guide took some of us on a walking tour up to the Kanazawa Castle which is lovely all lit up at night and then we went to the Gyokusen'inmaru Gardens at the Castle, which is a recent reconstruction of the gardens that existed at the castle in 1634 and that lasted for about 200 years.  The old garden was recently excavated and this new one built to replicate it based upon the findings of the excavation.  It is a beautiful garden with the wall of the castle as the backdrop to winding stone paths, ponds and stone bridges over the water, lovely trees all carefully landscaped as it would have looked in the 17th century.  At night they light the trees and castle walls up and do a short light show, illuminating different parts of the garden at different times with music playing as they do the show.  It's really gorgeous to watch and to listen to the traditional Japanese music.  Given how brutally hot the weather has been, it was also nice to be walking around the garden in the dark, with the temperature in the low 80s instead of near 100!  We're told that Japan is having "record breaking" heat at the moment so I guess we just got lucky!  It really is oppressively hot, so as we go out and about during the day we have to continually stop into coffee shops or stores to get a few minutes in air conditioning before venturing back into the heat.  We can only take it in small doses!

Pics today include the gardens, scenes from the geisha house, a geisha who was having her photo taken outside while we were there and shots from our night walking tour.

Travel Day - Bullet Train Hakone to Kanazawa

Travel Day

Today there is not much to report as we spent most of the day traveling from Hakone National Park to Kanazawa.   We took the famous bullet train first, and then changed to a regular train for another 3 1/2 hours to get to Kanazawa.  The bullet train is really something.   You are assigned a car and a seat and stand on the platform where it is marked for your car.  When the train arrives there is exactly 2 minutes for passengers to disembark and those on the platform to embark.  The Japanese are the most polite and organized people I've ever observed.  Everyone lines up on the platform in row number and waits patiently for passengers to leave the train and then quietly, politely and very quickly gets on the train.  And at exactly two minutes the train leaves!  It was great to be on a train that was going so fast.  Makes me ever more annoyed that we can't get a decent rail system in our country.  It is such a civilized way to travel.  Even the regular train that we were on for much longer was a great experience.  Immaculately clean, comfortable, quiet, efficient and on time.  When we arrived in Kanazawa we got taxis to the hotel, got settled in our rooms and then went to the local market which is right across the street.  Our hotel is right next to a major shopping area with a huge department store opening into the hotel lobby.  The basement of the store has an amazing food bazaar with all kinds of food and restaurants.  We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and then I took a walk to a Shinto shrine just up the road from the hotel.  

The weather is brutally hot.  Today it was pushing 100 degrees and the humidity was high.  The next few days promise to be just as bad if not worse.  Predictions for 100+ degrees by the weekend have us concerned.  It's really uncomfortable to walk around outside in the middle of the day.  Much as I love hot weather, this is a bit much even for me!

Some observations about Japan and the Japanese:

This is the cleanest country I've ever visited.  You could eat off the city streets!  Everything is immaculate no matter where you go.  Public facilities are spotless, well maintained and comfortable.  The trains are clean and more comfortable than any public transportation I've ever taken.

Japanese people dress well.  The men are in the ubiquitous black pants and ironed white button down shirt with tie, whether they are business executives or taxi drivers!  The taxi drivers not only dress like business executives they wear white gloves when they are driving the cab.  And the taxis, like everything else here, are immaculate, both inside and out.  Women dress up in dresses, skirts, fashionable shoes, matching accessories...I haven't seen anyone as casually dressed as most Americans.  "Business casual" does not seem to exist here.

Obesity is not an issue in this country.  Japanese are the trimmest, fittest looking people I've seen anywhere.  

The Japanese are exceedingly polite, well mannered and clearly socialized to consider other people before themselves.  The narcissistic "me first" culture of the West does not exist here.  They are also socialized to obey the rules.  In the cities, I have noticed that when waiting to cross the street, they wait until they get the "Walk" light even when there is no traffic coming in either direction. They simply do not step into the cross walk until the light turns green, even when they could do so safely.  Quite a contrast to New York City, for example!

Pics today include the bullet train, the market and some shots of the Shinto shrine I visited after dinner.

 

Hakone National Park - Mt. Fuji

Hakone National Park

We had a really lovely day today in Hakone National Park.  The first thing we did was take a boat ride on Lake Ashi, a crater lake near Mt. Fuji.  We were blessed with a gorgeous day - very hot, but low humidity and very blue sky and we were actually able to see the summit of Mt. Fuji!  The boat ride was truly magical, the more so because we very nearly had the entire enormous boat to ourselves.  The Japanese government has issued a warning about increased volcanic activity in this region recently and apparently that has caused a precipitous drop in tourism to this area.  So instead of swarms of tourists it was really quite peaceful.  We rode the boat on the lake and I was thrilled to see Mt. Fuji rising behind the mountains that ring the lake and then to see the Tori Gate in the water in front of the Hakone shrine.  That's an iconic gate and we had a great day to take photos!  After our boat ride we went to an art museum which had lovely Japanese paintings and a beautiful garden overlooking the lake.  From there we took a walk through a grove of 400 year old cedar trees that are part of what was the route that daimyos (government officials who served the Shoguns during that era of Japanese history (17th to 19th century)) and their entourages would take on their 300 mile walk from Kyoto to Tokyo every two years.  The cedar trees are majestic and enormous and the path is lined with hydrangea bushes that were still in bloom.  It was a beautiful walk and pleasantly cool as the trees provide a wonderful shade cover even on a brutally hot, sunny day like we had.  From there we went to the Hakone Hotel which is right on Lake Ashi for an amazing lunch buffet.  Truly, it was outstanding. And to say we all stuffed ourselves to the gills is putting it mildly!  We all waddled out of there when we were done.  There was an incredible variety of foods -  all kinds of sushi, salads, roast beef with wasabi sauce, curried chicken, chicken teriyaki, many different kinds of fish dishes, 20 different desserts, fruit... and on and on. 

After lunch we went to a woodworking shop where the artisans create wonderful products from wood, a craft known as Hakone Yesegi craft.  We got a demonstration from the owner of the shop re how they make their various items and then, of course, were turned loose to spend money in the shop. 

After that we went to an Open Air Art museum, which is exactly what it says it is, an art museum where most of the art is outdoors.  They have sculptures from many famous artists, both Japanese and others and it is truly one of the most creative and engaging art museums I've ever seen.  The sculptures are all integrated into the elaborate grounds and gardens and it is truly striking. They have a few indoor exhibits too, (which helped mitigate the extreme heat) including an entire gallery devoted to Picasso, and a couple of truly unique hands on exhibits for children that were just stunning.  The most amazing exhibit was one called Sound Scenes Hakone by Akinori Matsumoto.  It took up three floors in the Main Exhibit hall and it was all about sound, using bamboo structures (pipes, drums, intricate bamboo hanging toys) all of which are powered by wind and create amazing sounds.  The part of the exhibit called Sound Theater was absolutely spell binding as you sit in a room with hundreds of these intricate bamboo creations hanging from the ceiling and in the ground and he uses light and wind to create incredible visual effects while the bamboo instruments are creating eerie and haunting musical sounds.  It was truly an "otherworldly" experience.  This particular exhibit is temporary, running only through the end of this month and I'm really glad I was able to see it.  Magical, truly magical.  I hated to leave it.  

After that we returned to the hotel and I indulged in another bath in the hot springs followed by a foot massage on a machine they have down there for that purpose.  I could have used that on Saturday when my feet were so sore from walking all over Tokyo!  And we finished the day with another full traditional Japanese meal!  Many small courses, sushi, then chicken, then steamed fish and tofu, then white rice with red beans and miso soup and ice cream with honey for dessert.  All very elegantly presented in a variety of interesting dishes and other containers!  I did not eat much as I have not fully recovered from the buffet lunch!  

Pics today are scenes from the boat ride on Lake Ashi, including shots with the summit of Mt. Fuji in the background, two shots of lunch buffet plates (for Bonnie who always wants food shots!)  

Mt. Fuji and Traditional Japanese Ryokan - Hakone

Mt. Fuji and Hakone

Today we left Tokyo and drove 50 miles south and west to the state park where Mt. Fuji is.  We stopped at a lake where there is normally a great view of Mt. Fuji, but alas, today it was completely obscured by cloud cover!  We could make out the lines of the slopes leading to the summit but mostly it was hidden by the clouds. It was a sunny day down at sea level, but the mountain was hidden.  We had lunch in a lovely little French restaurant near the lake and then drove up to the "Fifth Station" on Mt. Fuji, which is the highest level any vehicles can go up Mt. Fuji.  After that only hikers who are walking to the summit can go on to the higher stations.  In the months of July and August, when the mountain is "open" only buses can go to the Fifth Station to manage crowd control.  July and August are the only months that hikers can hike to the summit.  For Japanese people, Mt. Fuji is a sacred mountain and coming to Mt. Fuji, even if one is not hiking all the way to the summit, is a religious pilgrimage.  Shintoism is an indigenous religion in which nature is seen as divine, inhabited by divine spirits.  Mt. Fuji is the most sacred space in Japan.  At the Fifth Station there is a shrine where the pilgrims stop to pray and make offerings to the god of the mountain.  On our way up to the station, our bus driver pulled over at one point to let us take photos as the summit became, briefly, a little bit visible!  There were still clouds on it, but we could make out much more of the shape of the mountain and could see the top.  I joined the many pilgrims at the shrine, stopping to make an offering and offer a prayer.

After we left Mt. Fuji we drove on to Hakone, a small town in the state park area that is known for its hot springs.  We are staying in a traditional Japanese ryokan (inn). Our rooms are quite spacious, and are completely in the traditional Japanese style.  There are tatami mats on the floor and we are not allowed to wear shoes in the room with the mats, which is the sleeping area.  In the closets are futons for sleeping on the floor.  While we were at dinner, our caretaker came in to the room and made up the futon on the floor for us to sleep tonight.  Shortly after we arrived and got settled into our rooms, our guide took all the women into the hot spring spa. In Japan, one is not permitted to wear bathing suits in the hot spring public baths.  You have to be willing to go naked or not at all!  The ryokan issues us all a kimono to wear during our stay and the rooms are supplied with various sizes of slippers to wear around the ryokan.  In the hot spring baths you go in and undress and go into the bathhouse where you first thoroughly rinse off sitting on low stools by hand held showers. Then you enter the hot tub, which is heated to 120 degrees. It was heavenly floating in the hot water after all the hours we have spent on the bus.  Then after you soak awhile you shower again.  They have bath gel and shampoo and conditioner and all the supplies one needs for cleaning up.  Then you go back into the hot water a final time to allow your skin to benefit from the minerals in the hot springs.  After the hot spring bath, I went back to my room and relaxed with a beer until it was time for our dinner.  

We ate in a private dining room and it was a very traditional Japanese meal, beautifully prepared and presented.  A lot of sushi, including vegetables, fish, shellfish and beef, with a pear compote to finish the meal.  Most of us wore our kimonos to dinner, and, the banquet room, like our sleeping rooms, have tatami mats on the floor so shoes are not allowed.  The whole experience is very simple, elegant and relaxing.  

Pics tonight are me in front of Mt. Fuji when we briefly saw the summit (!), a shot of Mt. Fuji, cloud covered, the shrine at Mt. Fuji and shots of the ryokan including my room, the little sitting room off the sleeping area, and our dinner banquet.  

Imperial Palace, Senso-Ji Temple and Yasukuni Jinja Shrine

Tokyo Day 3

Today was the first official day of the OAT tour.  I met my 15 co-travelers and our guide, Akiko.  We started our whirlwind tour of Tokyo with a visit to the Imperial Palace grounds which are extensive and quite beautiful, although there is little to no shade and on a day like today,with temps near 100 degrees and humidity high, we were not anxious to stay outside long in the burning sun so it was a quick trip!  From there we drove to the SensoJi Temple in the Akasuka section of the city.  This is the Buddhist temple that is most famous in Tokyo and to which thousands of people flock every day.   It was a mob scene, quite a different experience than my visit to Zojo-Ji yesterday.  We visited the main prayer hall and then a smaller prayer hall that houses "guardian Buddhas."  Japanese and Chinese Buddhists believe that every person has a "guardian Buddha"  (kind of like a guardian angel!) that is determined by the year of your birth according to the Chinese zodiac sign for that year.  My sign is the monkey so my guardian Buddha is Dainichi, known as the Cosmic Buddha and apparently the central Buddha image for the Shingon sect of Japanese Buddhism.  The Senso-Ji Temple complex is bordered by two great gates and between them is a small but amazingly crowded long road of shops selling everything imaginable, including food, kimonos, kitsch, souvenirs, expensive stuff and cheap junk!  The mobs going through that shopping area are amazing and in the heat is was quite an experience to walk down the street.  Coming back I took a side street to avoid the crowds!  There is also a Shinto Shrine in the complex so I stopped there before leaving.  

After leaving the Senso-Ji Temple complex we drove to the Ginza district, which is the Fifth Avenue of Tokyo.  We visited the Mitsukoshi department store, which is a Japanese Harrods!  The food court in the basement is amazing with all kinds of Japanese delicacies, most of which we couldn't figure out what they were!  I went up to the 11th floor where they have a number of restaurants and had a really delicious and interesting lunch (the name of which I can't remember!) It was two pancakes sandwiching a pile of noodles, veggies and pork, all cooked on a hot open grill with some mystery sauce mixed in with it all!  At the last minute an egg is essentially scrambled on the top of one of the pancakes and the whole concoction is bathed in a dark, very tasty sauce.  It was really delicious and I must say greatly challenged my chopstick skills!  I loved it and I've never seen anything like it in Japanese restaurants in the States so it was fun to try something completely new.   They serve it to you very hot off the grill and there is a hot grill right in front of you where they place it so that it stays hot while you are eating it.  At the end of the meal they give you a cold wet towel, to cool down with!  Nice touch, I must say!

After leaving the Ginza district, we went to the Yasukuni Jinja shrine, a fascinating Shinto shrine where the Japanese have enshrined (ritually according to Shinto beliefs and rituals) the souls of all their war dead going back centuries.  There is a wonderful museum on the site which we got a whirlwind tour through guided by one of the Shinto priests at the Shrine.  It was fascinating to hear the history of Japan's various wars, most particularly their participation in the WW2 from a Japanese perspective. The priest and our guide were extremely apologetic in advance, warning us that they would be giving the Japanese point of view and hoping we would not be offended.  We tried to assure them that we realize that when you are talking war, the story will vary depending on who's telling it and we didn't take offense!  The museum is really fascinating with amazing artifacts of Japanese military history going back hundreds of years.  It is also sobering, as there are photographs of their war dead from the 20th century to the present time covering walls of several rooms, representing the souls that they have enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine.  Shintoism is an indigenous religion that worships local deities and they believe that they can summon the souls of all the war dead to reside at that shrine.  The families of the war dead make pilgrimage to the shrine every year on the anniversary of the end of whichever war they lost soldiers in, which at this point means mostly relatives of those who died in WW2.  In one room there are rows and rows of very fancy Japanese dolls dressed in traditional wedding attire. The priest explained that those dolls are given to the shrine by the families of the soldiers who died before being married (which was most of them since they were mostly teenage boys!) so that their souls could "marry" in the next life given that they were not able to in this one.  We all told our guide that OAT needs to allow more time for that particular stop as it was truly fascinating and we felt we didn't really have time to savor it and see all the amazing exhibits they have there.  

We are going out to dinner tonight, back in the Ginza district.  I'm writing this on our afternoon break, knowing I'll be too tired when we get back from dinner!  At that point I will also have to rearrange my packing as we leave tomorrow for Hakone and our big suitcases are being shipped on ahead of us to Kanazawa so I have to cull two days worth of clothes and necessities to put in my backpack for our two nights in Hakone.  We'll be staying in a traditional ryokan, Japanese inn, sleeping on futons on the floor!  Apparently there isn't room in the inn for our big luggage.  There is internet wifi in the lobby at our inn in Hakone, but not in our rooms, so I expect to be able to post to the blog while we're there, but if for any reason I go silent, assume something wasn't up to snuff in the technology arena!

Pics today are me at the Imperial Palace grounds, a couple of shots at the Senso-Ji temple complex and my interesting lunch! 

Zojo-Ji Temple and Edo-Tokyo Museumm

Tokyo Day 2

Today I started out visiting the Zozo-Ji Temple, a Pure Land Buddhist temple.  Zozo-Ji is the center for Pure Land Buddhism in Japan and the complex is enormous and houses seminarians and monks-in-training in the Pure Land tradition.  When I emerged from the subway, it was not all that easy to figure out where the temple was, although when I finally got my bearings it was not far from the station at all.  It, like the Meiji Shrine yesterday, is nestled in a park.  It's also very close to the Tokyo Tower, a huge,modern structure that looks a bit incongruous when you are looking at the temple and see this big modern tower sticking up behind it!  I absolutely loved the visit to Zozo-Ji.  The grounds are pretty compact but there are a lot of buildings in a small area.  There is the main prayer hall, then a smaller one to its left, and behind them is the graveyard for a number of shoguns.  There is also a modern Buddhist cemetery on the grounds as well as the seminary for training priests/ monks in the Pure Land tradition. I was able to walk all over the complex and even wandered into the seminary area where the monks live and study.  

When I first arrived, I went to the main hall and there was a memorial service in progress.  Pure Land Buddhists have a strong belief that at death the soul of a practitioner goes to the "Pure Land", a sort of paradise where Amida Buddha awaits to welcome them.  Unlike other Buddhist sects, the soul does not have to go through thousands of rebirths again and again.  So for Pure Land Buddhists (as with all Buddhists actually!) funeral services and memorial services are critical for the soul's journey to the Pure Land.  Memorial services are held at particular intervals after death, so they are not the funeral, held very soon after death, but rather a series of rituals done at particular intervals (more frequent in the first year after death and then more stretched out as time goes on.)  I was able to stand quietly in the back of the prayer hall and watch the memorial service that was happening as I arrived.  The priest was giving what appeared to be a sermon, although I could not understand it!  The service also included chanting, drumming, burning of incense etc.  The main hall seemed to be fully booked with memorial services, as I noticed one family would leave and before long another service was in progress!

The second prayer hall was also doing a booming business in various life cycle rituals, particularly baby dedication ceremonies.  Pure Land Buddhists do a ceremony when a baby is 100 days old that basically dedicates the child to the path of Pure Land Buddhism.  I sat and observed one of these ceremonies right from start to finish.   One thing I have noticed about Japanese Buddhists, they dress up for religious rituals!  The women all wear black dresses, stockings, high heels...the works, and the men are all in black suits and ties.  No casual attire when attending the temple for a ritual.  For the baby dedication service there were the parents and older brother of the child being dedicated and grandparents on both sides in attendance.  At the appointed hour the family all goes up close to the altar area and sit on stools in front of the Buddha shrine and the priests engage in the rituals which include chanting a number of mantras while beating the drum and ringing chimes and gonging the large bell in the temple.  It is quite a stunning ritual.  The grandmother of the child held him and she and he were wrapped in a beautiful garment that looked like a very fine and elaborate cape that tied around the grandmother and the baby.  It was beautiful and fine black silk with a gorgeous design on it.  Grandma and baby were then called to kneel before the priest who prayed over and blessed the baby, touching his head with a ritual object while offering incense, chants and prayers. Then while the priests continued chanting every member of the family went close to the main altar and offered incense to the image of the Amida Buddha.  Then they returned to their seats for more chanting and prayers.  At the end the monk gave them what looked like a calligraphied copy of a sutra and incense from the temple and other religious articles.  

The monks at that temple were certainly busy doing these rituals today. Families were pouring in one after the other the whole time I was there which was nearly three hours. (I'm a religious ritual junkie and was enjoying watching it all too much to leave!)

When I left the second prayer hall I wandered into a section that looked a lot like a Shinto shrine, with the water cleansing station before it and incense burning.  I was amazed to see hundreds, possibly thousands of small stone statues all elaborately dressed in wool caps and adorned with flowers or wind fans in bright colors,  They were the cutest statues I'd ever seen.  I noticed they all had places for flowers to be left and many of them were pretty elaborately decorated.  As I wandered through it trying to figure out what it could be I remembered reading a number of years ago about somewhere in Japan that women were able to go to have a memorial erected when they have a miscarriage.  This is the place.  All of those statues represent miscarried babies.  The families purchase one of the statues and then visit it periodically and adorn it and essentially care for it, as part of their mourning for their unborn child and as a way to help that child's soul move on its karmic journey.  While the reason for those statues is a sad one, I must say it is the most cheerful looking memorial garden I've ever seen. The statues are just so endearing!  I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the temple and the chance to observe all the rituals that were going on, with the monks in their fancy robes and all the ritual, chanting,incense etc.  

After I left the temple I took the train to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which is a terrific museum about the history of Tokyo itself.  It was known as Edo until 1868 when it was named Tokyo, meaning Eastern Capital.  It was fascinating to learn about the Edo period of Tokyo's history (17018th century) under the shoguns who were the military rulers of Japan at that time.  The exhibit goes into great detail about what life was like for all the different social classes in society during that era and I was struck by how even those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder were literate.  Publishing books and offering lending libraries to everyone goes way back in Japan and I was amazed to learn that even the rank and file, bottom rung laborer was expected to learn to read, write and do the abacus.  No wonder Japanese people are such high achievers academically.  It goes way back in their history! The Edo-Tokyo museum is very interactive and there were tons of school children there, many of whom were clearly completing school assignments as they were wandering around with papers that they were filling out as they got to the various stations in the museum exhibits.   I had lunch in their museum cafe, another Japanese meal of egg, chicken and rice.  They served it with only chopsticks so I had quickly master the art of picking up rice with chopsticks, which took a little practice!  And, as no spoon was provided, I sipped my Miso soup right from the bowl!  By the time I was finished at the museum I was tired from being on the go for nearly 9 hours!  I came back to the hotel and have crashed in the room.  I got a Japanese beer from the local 7 Eleven Store as I was hot and thirsty when I returned.

At this point my fellow travelers are starting to arrive.  Our Trip leader stopped by my room with instructions re tomorrow morning's initial gathering.  I'm cooling off in the room tonight.  Too tired to even think about going out for dinner!  

Pics include a shot of the inside of the main hall at Zozo-Ji, then shots of the second prayer hall with one of the monks at the drum and a shot of the altar in that temple.  Then a close up of the baby statues and a shot of some of the many hundreds that are in the memorial garden.

Toshogu Shrine, Tokyo National Museum, Meiji Shrine

Tokyo Day 1

 I got here yesterday on time and the bus from the airport got me into the city by about 7 and I found a cab and got to the hotel by 7:15.  Wandered out to get snacks and a light supper of noodles and came back and went to bed reasonably early.  Today I ventured forth into Tokyo, learning my way around via subway and train.  The subways are pretty easy to follow, with stations numbered and color coded, and, thankfully the signs are in both English and Japanese so it's not hard to figure out where you need to go.   This morning I went to the Ueno section of the city, where there is a very large park full of gardens, shrines and museums, as well as the zoo.  I visited one of the shrines, the Toshogu shrine which I happened upon as I was walking the park area.  Then I made my way to the Tokyo National Museum.  On the plaza in front of the reflecting pool that is just before the museum, there was some kind of festival going on celebrating the culture and food of Taiwan.  There were lots of food stalls and vendors selling Taiwanese products and a live show featuring Taiwanese singers and dancers.  I might have chosen to eat at the festival, but it was brutally HOT and I was not about to sit outside to eat under any circumstances.  (It's not only HOT but also exceedingly humid.  Five minutes outside and my clothes were soaked with sweat.)  By the time I got to the Tokyo National Museum it was about 11:30 and as I was really hot and a little hungry, I stopped at the restaurant in the museum complex for an early-ish lunch.  Everyone in there was Japanese so I figured it must be reasonably good!  I got a chicken curry with rice and salad, which was delicious and it was a relief to be in the air conditioning and to down a cold drink.  After my lunch I did the museum.  It's a great museum, with a number of buildings housing all kinds of art, archeological exhibits and cultural treasures of Japan and Asia.  In the Asian collection, they also have some interesting material from ancient Egypt, including a mummy dating from the 9th century BCE, which is open so you can see the body.  Kind of eerie but fascinating!  The exhibits about Japan are terrific.  They cover art, poetry, military history and artifacts, costumes (some amazing kimonos!), calligraphy, religious objects, even anatomical dummies from the 18th and 19th centuries showing the history of medicine and how Japanese medicine incorporated Western medical understandings into their own tradition of treating illness and disease. I wandered through the museum for nearly three hours.  Given the heat, the best thing to do is to stay inside in air conditioning.  Indeed it was so hot today that even in the museum, with the AC it felt hot!

After I left the museum, I took the JR train line to the Meiji Shrine.  This is one of the biggest Shinto shrines in Tokyo, dedicated to the soul of the Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken.  It's an enormous complex, set in a park area that is heavily wooded and makes you forget you are in a major urban area.  The shrine very actively used by devotees who come for blessings and many, for weddings.  While I was there I saw a wedding party having their photos taken.  I also saw Shinto priests taking folks into one of the buildings for special blessing ceremonies.  On the way in there are two huge structures, one comprised of large containers of sake, wrapped in straw, which is given by various sake manufacturers to the shrine as part of an offering to the Emperor and Empress.  Just across from the stacked vats of sake, are large barrels of wine, also there as offerings to the Emperor and Empress. I went all the way in to the main shrine building, which was teeming with folks coming there to pray, and make offerings.  Before going up to the shrine to pray, devotees stop at the water trough where they wash both hands and rinse out their mouths with the holy water that is provided there.  At these shrines devotees can buy various charms that are believed to make a particular wish come true.  Near the main shrine, there is a place where you shake numbered sticks out of a box, give the attendant your number and she produces a poem that is associated with that number written by the Emperor Meiji or his wife Empress Shoken.  He wrote some 100,000 poems and his wife about 30,000 in a very traditional Japanese style.  Mine was the following:

Ever downward, water flows,

But mirrors lofty mountains;

How fitting that our heart also

Be humble, but reflect high aims.

They encourage devotees to find meaning in the poem that is drawn for them, as it represents a message from the Emperor or Empress.  Mine was written by the Empress.  I also bought a little shrine object that brings good luck and productivity to scholars!  The shrine grounds are quite enormous, so the walk through there and the visit to the shrine took nearly two hours.  

By the time I was ready to leave it was too late to visit the Buddhist temple I had hoped to see today, but I realized that I was near a neighborhood that I had wanted to visit, particularly to get to a shop that sells Japanese folk art and crafts.  I consulted one of my many maps and saw I was within walking distance of that shop, so I made my way over there and enjoyed wandering around looking at all their loot!  Made some purchases!  The store is on the Tokyo equivalent of the Champs-Elysees, a long, wide boulevard with lots of high end stores. The street was packed with people.  By then I was tired and my feet were killing me so after my shopping spree I walked a few blocks to the subway line that runs to my hotel and made my way back. I'm so tired I'm not even going out for supper. Got some ramen noodles and will eat here in my room with my G&T and stay cool.   My feet did not survive the day at all well.  I'm wearing sandals I've had for years and worn all through Southeast Asia and China and Turkey, but today they were cutting into my toes, causing bleeding in a couple of spots and my feet were quite swollen.  By the time I got back to my hotel all I wanted was to soak my feet in warm water and relax! 

Pics today are the Toshogu Shrine, a Japanese painting on parchment in the museum, the vats of Sake at the Meiji Shrine wrapped in festive straw coverings, the Shinto wedding I watched at the Meiji shrine and the entrance to the Meiji Shrine.