Domo Arigato Tokyo!

After spending some time up in Nikko, it was only appropriate that we head over to the Edo-Tokyo Museum to learn even more about the Tokugawa Edo era and what life was like during that time. We learned that in the Japanese feudal system the shogun was the military dictator who ruled over the daimyo (regional lords) and was served by an elite warrior class, known as samurai. It really wasn't such a different system to the kings, lords, and knights in Europe during the time. The museum has some excellent examples of samurai armor. 

Transportation during the Edo period was primitive, but people did manage to go long distances either on horseback or using a palanquin called a kago, carried on the shoulders of two to four men. With all the restaurant meals we’ve been eating, in my case I might need more like six strong men to carry me. 

The Edo-Tokyo museum has models both big and small that show daily life. I was fascinated by the variety of figurines. I wonder if the miniaturist team over at Small Worlds had a part in putting together these models. 

They have full-size examples of homes and shops that you can go inside. It’s a pretty great museum for understanding the Edo as well as the Meiji Era and the post-WWII reconstruction period. They even have a full-scale model of the Nakamura-za Kabuki Theater that you can walk through. 

On Saturday we headed to a very nice museum right near our apartment - the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. This museum is actually the former residence of Prince Asaka Yasuhiko and his wife Princess Nobuko (the daughter of Emperor Meiji). In the 1930s the Prince, who had spent the 1920s in the US and France, had this lavish home built in the Art Deco style. Decorative Lalique glasswork was evident in every room - like the "Bucharest" chandeliers in the salon. 

The Teien museum has a really nice garden, but next door is the more wilderness-focused Institute for Nature Study. Located on the grounds of the former estate of an Edo-era Daimyo Lord, this garden has more than 200 plant species, including a few wild irises.

We grabbed lunch from a wonderful supermarket across the street (did I mention that Japan supermarkets have amazing deli departments?) and ate it in Donguri Park (another park in the Shirokanedai neighborhood). The gardening department at this park has quite a talent for eye-catching floral displays in the flower beds.

Sunday we had kind of a rough day in Ginza. It seemed like everything we tried to do that afternoon ended up being not quite what we'd hoped. We had read some good things about an eight-floor restaurant and entertainment venue called Grand Hammer, so we tried to go there for lunch. When we got there, it looked cool but it was completely empty. We tried every floor and some were pitch black with the lights turned off. I guess they weren't expecting a lunch crowd. Even though the first floor "yokicho" restaurant was open and the decorations looked cool, we decided to go elsewhere for lunch.

In contrast to the Grand Hammer restaurant, the flagship Itoya Stationery store was quite busy. I mean - it's a stationery store, how exciting could it be? Well it was completely packed to the gills with shoppers. I mean like panic-inducing packed. With escalators taking you up, up, up but only a staircase to get you back down. And when we tried to hop in the elevator it was packed with strollers. My knee was very unhappy after the slow descent down five flights. I was too overwhelmed to take any photos inside the store, but I'll substitute this image from the Edo museum of a matsuri festival parade. That is what the Itoya store was like. So. Many. People.

We then walked over to the Imperial Hotel, as Kevin had read something about the hotel bar being associated with Frank Lloyd Wright. Well it turns out that one version of the hotel was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and that building existed from 1922 to 1967. The current hotel is noticeably more 1970s in aesthetic. There was a model of Wright’s version and you could definitely see the hand of the architect in the design. It was very remniscent of the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. Unfortunately despite surviving the Kanto Earthquake and World War II, it was demolished in 1967 to make way for a larger structure with more rooms. The decision was controversial at the time, but the old FLW building just didn't meet the needs of a modern hotel in such a big and popular city.

Only two Frank Lloyd Wright touches are still visible in the new hotel’s bar -- a wooden screen behind the bar and this mural behind Kevin. When we first sat down, we felt maybe a little underdressed as it was kind of a fancy level of service. But we got big smiles from the waitstaff when we mentioned we lived near Taliesin West in Scottsdale and our waiter brought over a book showing original photos of what the hotel and bar used to look like. 

After lunch we headed over to the Seiko Museum, which was a pretty good museum for what we paid (it was free). It told the full history of one of the most prestigious Japanese brands. The founder Kintaro Hattori started a watch repair company in 1881 at the age of 21. He then had to completely start over from scratch when everything was destroyed during the fires that swept through Tokyo in the Great Kanto Earthquake. While rebuilding he decided he would develop his own line of precision timepieces — out of the ashes, the Seiko brand was born. In the photo below, you can see pocket watches fused together from the heat of the fires that burned down the original workshop. 

But even the Seiko museum is still not a very exciting museum unless you’re really into watches. Bottom line: we discovered that maybe we should just avoid Ginza on a Sunday.

On Monday I finally went and saw a local physical therapist for my knee. Good news is that it’s not a meniscus or ligament injury. It’s just an overuse issue. (Surprise, surprise—you tend to use your knees a lot when you’re walking 8 miles a day!) Problem is we still have several weeks to go so a lot of walking is unavoidable. Where’s that kago or a rickshaw when you need it? After the PT visit, we walked over to the Mori gallery to see a fun exhibit about Sanrio, the company that produced Hello Kitty. Just like at the Imperial Bar, we also felt a bit underdressed there as we had not packed any kawaii outfits or strawberry-themed clothes.

Monday evening, Kevin made us a reservation at Hacienda del Cielo, a Mexican restaurant in nearby Daikanyama that has an amazing rooftop bar. We got there just in time for sunset.

The food and service was excellent. And we had a phenomenal view of the city lights coming up as it got dark.

Don’t worry, even though it seems like we are only going to Mexican restaurants, we have been dining at plenty of actual Japanese restaurants too! For lunch on Tuesday we went to Ginza Steak Ebisu, a teppanyaki restaurant. 

The course menu that we chose was all-you-can eat marbled Wagyu beef. Although we didn't speak the same language, the chef used pictures to show us what cuts of beef he was serving, and he had a good chuckle at my attempts to compliment him in Japanese "Ryori jozu des" ("Cooking you are skilled"). Those Rocket Japanese audio lessons are really paying off!

We are finishing up our list of “must see” museum exhibits so after lunch we headed over to the Nezu Museum for an exhibit featuring Ogata Korin's iris screens. Korin painted these folding screens (clusters of deep purple irises on a gold-leaf background) in the early 1700s but he used a surprisingly modern style. The irises are just bright spots of violet atop simple green stems, with almost no other details or embellishment. These screens are a National Treasure of Japan, and this style of painting later influenced artists like Vincent Van Gogh. No photos were allowed inside but I think the signage pretty much captured what the artwork looked like.

Once again, we did not time our visit ideally. A patch of the Nezu Museum's garden is dedicated to a field of purple irises (no doubt intended to coincide with the Korin Irises exhibit). But not a single one was blooming yet — just my luck!

But wait! What’s that I see in the sea of green? Wisteria! Finally — wish granted! Maybe my luck really is about to change!

On our last day in Tokyo, we went over to Shibuya for a delicious sushi lunch at an interesting shopping center called Shibuya Parco. The upper floors of this mall remind me of Akihabara but without the video arcades. If you ever loved Nintendo, Pokemon, Hello Kitty, or any recently popular anime series then this is the place for you!

We've already seen some of the vinyl cafes here in Tokyo. The Japanese seem to have an affinity for vintage LPs. But apparently cassette tapes are also a thing here. This shop dealt exclusively in cassette tapes, Sony Walkman radios (Walkmen?) and old-timey (as in the 1980s) boom boxes. Rad!

We strolled one last time through Miyashita Park, a rooftop park with sand volleyball courts and nice views of the Shibuya streets below.

And we loved walking past the Shibuya Yokocho alley. Yokochos are usually a tightly packed alley of bars and casual eateries. Golden Gai in Shinjuku is a good example, and we went to one in Ebisu for beers and skewers one night that had a similar atmosphere. But unlike those locations , this spot has enough space for the bars to expand outside onto the sidewalk, making it the closest thing to a Euro-style outdoor cafe that we've seen so far.

Wow, our month in Tokyo has just flown by! We have been so fortunate to be able to take our time exploring this big city. The people have been welcoming, public transit gets you anywhere you need to go, and the food has been incredible. I could see another trip here in the future, maybe in fall for the maple leaves season ("momiji"). Until then “Mata ne”, Tokyo! See you again soon!