Blossoms, Boats, Moats, Coasters, Waves, and Wagyu

On Sunday morning we visited Zojoji temple. This temple complex has had many incarnations since its founding in 1393. In Edo times, this was the family temple for the Tokugawa shoguns. There are about a dozen structures, all fairly recently reconstructed except the main gate which was built in 1622 and is the only remaining temple building from the Edo era. (It is currently under restoration scaffolding so we couldn’t get any photos). There is a narrow garden (the Sentai Kosodate Jizo) on the north side of the temple that has hundreds of jizo statues dedicated to unborn children. They are watched over by a serene standing buddha statue. Typically the jizo statues are adorned with a red knitted cap, a bib, and a cape but each of these were also holding toy pinwheels that spun playfully in the fresh breeze. 

Six of the fifteen Tokugawa shoguns are buried in the mausoleum at Zojoji, but not the first and most well-known one (Tokugawa Ieyasu, more on his final resting place in a future post). Originally the mausoleums were larger buildings, covered in ornate decoration. But they were mostly destroyed during WWII air raids. Archaeological excavations revealed the remains, and this memorial garden was created with traditional stone lanterns lining the walkway and individual pagoda vaults for each of the six shoguns, and also for their wives and children. Just beyond the garden you get a glimpse of the Tokyo Tower. 

We walked over to the Tokyo Tower and found a fun springtime food festival going on. The fish-shaped windsocks are known as Koinobori (carp streamers). These little flags used to be exclusive to samurai households and there would be a flagpole showing a large carp streamer representing the father and then other multi-colored ones indicating how many sons were in the family that would be flown below the main one. The carp symbolizes courage and determination, qualities any good samurai warrior would hope for in his sons. The streamers became more popular in the Meiji era (1868-1912) and nowadays they are more celebratory of children in general, not just boys. You'll especially see them around Children's Day in May. 

After lunch from one of the carts by Tokyo Tower, we wandered through the Roppongi area and stumbled upon the Tokyo Midtown Sake Fest and the Sakura festival happening at Hinokicho Park. We accidentally got in line at the Ritz Carlton hotel's outdoor popup bar for the world's most expensive pink gin & tonics. Pricey but worth it!

There was a pedestrian overpass that looked out over a fantastic view of the tree-lined avenue. The bridge was a bit over-crowded, but Tokyo has cleverly stationed crowd control police at these kinds of popular viewing spots. It's usually two or more policemen who will be constantly warning people in a monotone to not block traffic or the flow of pedestrians. I don't understand the steady stream of warnings they are mumbling but I do understand the very polite "o kudasai!" at the end of each phrase which basically means "please do what I say!". 

After our ritzy g&t's we took the metro a few stops to the quiet neighborhood of Akasaka (not to be confused with the historic and busier Asakusa which is where Senso-ji temple is located). Here in Akasaka we wanted to see the Hie Shrine. This shinto shrine was important in both Edo and Meiji times, and it continues to host one of the big Japanese annual festivals each year in June - the Sanno Matsuri. The temple is also famous for its Sanno Otokozaka entrance -- a stairway lined with a tunnel of red torii gates. The ascending path marks the transition from the human world to the sacred one.  

On Monday morning we went to the Imperial Palace to see the gardens without bothering to check the opening hours. Big mistake! Of course they were closed on Mondays. This is the second trip where I have forgotten to check the hours of the Imperial gardens and missed seeing them! And once again we ended up walking all the way around the palace (about three miles!) just to get where we wanted to go next. Maybe I'll learn my lesson for next time, we'll see!

Just to the west of the palace is Chidori-ga-fuchi boat park. The park has 170 cherry trees and they were all in bloom. The line to rent boats was super long by the time we got there so we just observed and enjoyed the views of boats in the moat under pink clouds of cherry blossoms. 

Since our garden and rowboat plans were a bust, we added in a side trip up to Tokyo Dome area because it’s supposed to rain the next couple of days. The 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome is home to the Yomiuri Giants and also features the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. It's nicknamed the "Big Egg" because of the dome shape.

The amusement and mall complex built all around the stadium is called Tokyo Dome City. There are rides including a rollercoaster and a ferris wheel (note that it doesn't have any spokes - I'd never seen one like it before).

This is pretty much peak cherry blossom time so we took advantage of the nice evening and went to the Meguro river. The illuminated trees are so gorgeous under the sky at dusk. 

It was crowded despite being a Monday night. I can only imagine what a weekend would be like here. Food vendors set up stalls in a few areas alongside the canal (I know, I know, it's a river but it does remind me of the canals in Phoenix) and many of them offered champagne and strawberries. 

We found a small park near the Naka Meguro train station that was a bit less crowded and enjoyed the soft glow of the lights in the trees. 

Here’s one more view from above, near the station. 

On Tuesday it rained hard all day but Wednesday morning there was a brief reprieve so we went to Ueno park again, arriving in time for lunch and a drink. Kevin is holding a skewer of Dango, which are chewy dumplings made from glutinous rice flour. They can be served plain or with soy sauce or sweet miso.

It was a fun atmosphere, lots of people enjoying the high-energy pop music and clapping along.

Ueno park was one of Japan's first public parks and in addition to the park space, there's a couple of great museums and even a zoo. We had strategically chosen this park for today's activities, so that we could be outside while it wasn't raining, but quickly find some shelter once the deluge began.

Right on schedule, the rain came and we were able to duck into the National Museum of Western Art as planned. The museum is known for its excellent collection of western art but they had a special exhibit we really wanted to see -- "Hokusai: Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji". It was a popular exhibition, made even more crowded due to the rain. 

Katsushika Hokusai was a master of the Ukiyo-e woodblock painting technique. Using a series of carved woodblocks emphasizing various features of the desired illustration, the artist would apply colored inks and press each block into paper in succession, creating a finely layered and easily reproducible artwork. Hokusai's most famous work is probably "Under the Wave off Kanagawa" (often called "The Great Wave"). At first it just looks like a big crashing wave. But when you look closer you will see little details like a very tiny Mount Fuji in the background, and brave (and probably slightly terrified) fishermen clinging to the sides of their boats as they prepare to ride out the crest.

As I mentioned, "The Great Wave" has a little view of Mount Fuji and is part of Hokusai's series of prints that together is known by the very creative name of "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji". Although it turns out there are actually 46 views because he added some later, so that makes the series title both uncreative and inaccurate! Most of the scenes show people or landscapes with a very small, easily overlooked Mount Fuji off in the background. I think a better title would be "Colorful Scenes from Daily Life that Don't Necessarily Have Anything To Do with Mount Fuji But It Is Also There". 

Hokusai worked during the late 1700s to early 1800s and probably made more than 5000 prints of each illustration in his Fuji series. But many of those impressions from the original woodblocks are lost to time. Today only about 100 of the "Great Wave" impressions exist, for example, and the earliest impressions are the most valuable. Seeing all of Hokusai's Fuji prints in one exhibition is rare because the prints are scattered worldwide and they are sensitive to light so not always able to be displayed. This exhibit is the first public showing of the private Iuchi Collection that has a complete collection of all 46 illustrations in exceptionally high quality -- we were lucky to be here to see it!

We have been doing our best to try all the great Japanese food here - sushi, ramen noodles, gyoza dumplings, soba noodles, tonkatsu pork, okyakodon, karaage chicken, udon noodles -- you name it. We've had a couple of Western meals here and there but for the most part we've been going with the "When in Rome" concept for meals here in Japan. But Kevin found this really great Mexican restaurant called Kiyas just around the corner from our apartment that had rave reviews, so we had to give it a try. I'll be honest, it was probably the most amazing Mexican food I've ever had! Might have had something to do with the fact that the taco filling was wagyu steak. Oishii! (Delicious!)

Kamakura Day Trip

About an hour south of Tokyo is the historic town of Kamakura. From the 1180s until the early 1300s this was the political and spiritual center of Japan. Although the Imperial seat was still in Kyoto during this time, Kamakura was where the military government (shogunate) held power over the feudal lords of Japan. As a result, this coastal town is chock full of important temples and historic locations. Its proximity to Tokyo makes it an ideal day trip.

We made our way to the Kotoku-in temple first, since seeing the Great Buddha statue (Daibutsu) is probably the top attraction here. The Daibutsu is a seated buddha made of hollow bronze. It's the second tallest bronze Buddha in Japan at 11.3 meters/37 feet tall (only the Buddha at Todai-ji in Nara is taller). The seated statue was originally cast in 1252 and was kept inside the shelter of a large hall that was destroyed and rebuilt a couple of times before the Japanese just decided to leave the Buddha to the open air in the early 1500s. 

Our next stop on the Kamakura temple crawl was Hasadera Temple. This is another Buddhist temple, but this one is perched on a hill with an expansive view of Sagami Bay. 

The temple also has some pretty gardens, a koi pond, and a cave you can walk through. It was one of the less crowded temples we visited, probably because it is a bit of a workout to get to it.

As I mentioned the temple is on a hill, and to get to it you walk up several flights of stairs past many small statues, called jizo. These statues are very common in many temples around Japan. Jizo statues are believed to guide the spirits of children who died before their parents and help them cross into the afterlife. The statues at this temple are placed there by families who are mourning a child lost to miscarriage or stillbirth. They are peaceful guardians and their presence serves as a reminder that love connects us even after loss.

The next temple we went to was one of our favorites. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine is the most important Shinto shrine in Kamakura. It's colloquially known as the "samurai shrine" because the Kamakura shogunate established it in its present location. Many shrines have walls of decorative sake barrels near the main building. Sake and rice offerings show reverence to the gods. Sake that has been offered to the gods is called omiki.

Hachimangu shrine was a beehive of activity today. There were several weddings happening. There was a huge crowd of onlookers at the biggest one, both tourists and locals alike, so we joined the rest of the wedding crashers and gaped at the wedding finery while their formal photos were being taken. The bride is wearing a wataboshi headdress that is the Japanese equivalent of a bridal veil to symbolize purity in marriage. She also wears a very formal kimono, called a Shiromuku.

In one corner of the shrine grounds there is a pond with several islands connected by zigzag wooden bridges. And on the shore of the pond we stumbled into a beautiful peony garden with flowers in full bloom. 

There are over a hundred temples and shrines in the Kamakura area, but we didn't have time to see them all. By the end of the day it was getting late and we only had time for one more, so we made a 20-minute-long trek to the Zen Buddhist temple of Houkokuji, hoping to get there before it closed at 4pm. 

We made it with an hour to spare, but we were a little bit disappointed. It's not a very big or impressive structure and the surrounding garden isn't very large either. We had hoped to enjoy tea in the temple's tearoom, but they had stopped serving since the temple was closing soon. There was a small but beautiful bamboo grove which kind of made up for the initial disappointment. We remember the crazy crowds at the Arashiyama bamboo grove in Kyoto on our last trip in 2019. So the quiet serenity and lack of crowds here at Houkokuji made it more worth the visit. Although it is a touristy town, Kamakura was a nice change of scenery for us from the busy city of Tokyo. We really enjoyed the historic charm of this beautiful town.

Fun and Games in Ueno, Akihabara, and Shinjuku

Cherry blossom season has started into full swing, and one of the best places to see it in Tokyo is at Ueno Park. We weren't the only ones there, though -- even though it was noon on an overcast and soon-to-be-raining Wednesday, there were plenty of other people out enjoying the almost-full blooms on the trees. This isn't the park staff's first rodeo though -- all along the tree-lined alley were signs instructing people to walk in specific directions to circulate around without colliding. Very smart, especially since I'm sure it will get more crowded on the weekends as the trees reach peak bloom.

We made sure to stop at the beautiful and well-preserved Toshogu Shinto Shrine near the Ueno park entrance. This shrine is one of the few that has survived the centuries mostly intact despite earthquakes, fires, and wars. It was built in 1627 and dedicated to the memory of Tokugawa Ieyasu the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. The main hall is covered in very beautiful carvings and gold leaf. Seeing this shrine was interesting because in a couple weeks we will be visiting the town of Nikko where the main (and larger) Toshogu shrine was established after Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1616.

One of the best parts of visiting Ueno park, as opposed to some of the other Sakura viewing spots, is that there is a food court with delicious snacks and drinks on offer. So many food stalls to choose from!

We wanted to drink up the atmosphere so we chose some Sakura-flavored Lemon Sours made with lemon chu-hi (shochu distilled spirit with lemon flavor). Each drink was served with a tiny pink Sakura bud floating on top. Kanpai!

We knew from the forecast that the rain would start around lunchtime, so we ate our fill from the food stalls and headed to the "Electric Town" district of Akihabara once we started feeling the first few raindrops. Akihabara is known for nerd culture -- electronics stores, manga bookstores, anime collectible figurines, and indoor arcades. We figured playing some video games would be a fun way to get out of the rain.

We stopped in at an arcade called GiGO 3 -- a multi-storey building with floor after floor of arcade games and crane/claw machines. Most of the games were unfamiliar and seemed too complicated for me to figure out, but give me a steering wheel and a gas pedal and I'm happy to just floor it and try to stay on the road. Pedal to the metal!

Probably the most fun we had was playing the Taiko no Tatsujin (Master of the Drums) game. Using huge traditional Japanese drums (taiko drums) you follow along with the beat of your chosen pop song. Extra points are given for good "drum rolls". Super fun!

Most of the games we played allowed you to choose to use the English language menu so you would have some kind of idea how to play and what the rules were. But I managed to find one that needed no rules explained in any language: just hit the alligators with the hammer -- easy!

The rain was expected to continue into Thursday. Many of the museums we really want to go to are taking a spring break to change over their exhibits -- so that wasn't an option. What to do when it's pouring out and you're looking for indoor stuff to do? You go to the movies, of course! We chose an early morning screening of "Project Hail Mary". It was in English and subtitled in Japanese, not dubbed, so we could follow it except for maybe one or two sentences at the very end. Going to the movies in Japan was really interesting. They did have popcorn flavors that we generally don't see in US theaters -- Kevin had caramel and I had soy butter flavor. The audience was very quiet throughout the movie (no wrapper rustling or anything!) and every single person stayed in the theater until the final moment of the closing credits, wow!

Later in the evening on Thursday, we headed over to a jazz/dinner club called Blue Note Place in Ebisu to hear a jazz group led by the incredible pianist Shota Watanabe. Some songs were instrumental, and others had a very talented vocalist who sang in both English and Japanese. They were really good!

Ueno Park is one of several Sakura/Cherry Blossom "hotspots" around Tokyo. Another popular park is the Shinjuku Gyoen (Garden). While entry to Ueno Park is free, the Shinjuku Garden has a small entry fee. But in addition to cherry blossoms it also has a Japanese garden, a formal garden, a teahouse, and other beautiful green spaces. Here the cherry trees are spread throughout the park so there is much more to explore than in Ueno. 

The earlier blooming bright pink Kawazu-zakura trees have already passed full bloom; the wind is scattering their fuchsia-colored petals and blanketing the ground beneath.

We were glad to come here on a Friday -- this is one of the most popular places when the trees are in bloom and it was expected that you'd need a timed entry ticket over this weekend and next to enter (just for Saturdays and Sundays though, so that's why we headed over here today).

After we had our fill of cherry blossoms, we headed over to the main tourist area of Shinjuku to find lunch. This is one of the most touristed areas of Tokyo, and the streets were jam-packed with people (and kaiju, giant monsters -- can you spot Godzilla lurking among the buildings?)

If Godzilla is too scary for you, you can head a few streets over to watch the antics of "Shinjuku Cat" instead. This electronic billboard was built with a slight curve so that the animated ads look like they are in 3-D. The cat is very popular, and every few minutes in between other ads he pops up to swat at and knock various objects off of the shelf. Super cute!

Some of the streets here are a bit grittier and seedier than most of the rest of Tokyo as well. Shinjuku is home to a few of the popular late-night entertainment districts, like the Golden Gai area. This maze of alleys is packed with tiny bars, each unique and open into the wee hours of the morning. We came here with a food & drink tour on our last trip to Japan, but that was in the evening after dark. It was actually hard to find a flattering angle for a photo in the daytime. I can definitely say it looks much more inviting at night all lit up!

Most of the bars weren't even open yet (it was lunchtime) so we left the Golden Gai area and found a great shop selling delicious gyoza dumplings in a rainbow of flavors. Kevin does most of the restaurant research when we travel and this time he definitely found a gem!

They had pretty good beers too! Cheers to the upcoming weekend with (hopefully - fingers crossed) NO RAIN!