Ueno Park

We had a slow start this morning waiting for the weather to settle down; eventually, we hopped on the JK train to Ueno Park, as suggested by our guide yesterday. The park is loaded with museums, shrines, greenery, and other attractions; I’d been there briefly in 2004, mostly to admire the cherry blossoms and the thousands of people enjoying them.

There were no cherry blossoms today, and the park was far emptier than it had been twenty years ago, but it was still a fine way to spend the day, beginning with a visit to the 45th Anniversary Spring Peony Exhibition in the Ueno Toshogu Peony Garden; the garden isn’t entirely taken up by peonies, but they certainly caught my eye!

I like the garden’s moment of Zen better than I do Jon Stewart’s version.

The garden exit put us into the grounds of the Toshogu Shrine.

We were ready for lunch, but made a few stops along the way, one at the statue of Imperial Prince Komatsunomiya Akihito, and the other in the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan recital hall.

There are many restaurants in and around the park; we eventually had a delicious lunch at a sushi restaurant in the Ueno3153 building. I couldn’t figure out the restaurant’s name; they gave me a business card, but both Google and Apple translate the name on the card to “I’m so happy”, which seems unlikely!

I’d found a blog post from Mad Hatters NYC offering suggestions for things to see in the park; we decided to use it as a guide for our wanderings. Its first suggestion was a visit to the statue of Takamori Saigo, a leader of the Meiji Restoration who disagreed with the route it was taking, tried to fight it, and eventually committed seppuku to avoid capture. He was the inspiration for the movie The Last Samurai (which I haven’t seen).

The next suggestion was Kiyomizu Kannon-do, which was built to mimic Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, which we’d visited a week-and-a-half ago. It was much smaller, but still enjoyable.

There were lots of performances going on in the park today under the umbrella title of “Heaven Artists“; we stopped to enjoy a couple of pantomime comedians playing a fatal game of tennis.

There were more shrines ahead – Hanazono Inari Shrine with its red torii gates and Gojo-ten Shrine, immediately adjacent to it.

We crossed the street to Shinobazu Pond; Shinobazu-no-ike Bentendo, dedicated to the goddess Benzaiten, is on an island in the pond; there’s also a temple there dedicated to Daikokuten, the god of fortune and wealth.

The last stop on the tour from the Mad Hatters was the Big Buddha, all that remains of a giant statue of Buddha which was partially melted down to make armaments during World War II.

But we weren’t finished – there was a President to visit: U. S. Grant. He and his wife had visited Japan after his term and had planted trees in the park at the invitation of the Meiji Emperor; those trees are still alive, and there’s a plaque honoring his visit.

We returned to the hotel on a nearly-empty Yamanote Line train (a true Golden Week miracle!) and rested for a bit before heading out for the last adventure of the day: laundry!

Doing laundry here was pretty easy once we found the laundromat – the washer has a built-in supply of detergent and there was only ohe cycle to choose from. The machines were fast and cheap, too – 40 minutes to wash, 24 minutes to dry, at a total cost of 800 yen (five bucks). And the place was quiet and had great wifi. What a way to end the day!

Kamakura

We took the train to Kamakura today with our guide Toshi; on the way to the JR station, we passed a Really Big Clock.

We visited four main sites in Kamakura, starting with Engaku-ji Temple, the head temple of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism.

Next, we visited Hōkokuji Temple, otherwise known as the Bamboo Temple. It, too, is in the Rinzai Zen sect.

Our next stop was the main Shinto shrine in Kamakura, Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. Photography wasn’t permitted in the shrine itself, but there was a lot going on elsewhere on the grounds, including a wedding.

After lunch, we continued on to the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

And our final visit was to Hasedera, which was built in 736 CE (the other sites we visited were relative youngsters, having been built between the 11th and 14th centuries). It is dedicated to Kannon, the deity who grants wishes in this life.

Speaking of wishes, we were very fortunate not to have to take a crowded train back to Tokyo – we all got seats for the entire ride!

Tokyo on our own

Our plan today was to see the two places from Yulia’s tour yesterday that we weren’t able to visit because of our late start: the Nezu Museum and Gardens and the Shinjuku Gyoen National Gardens. Spoiler alert: we succeeded, but not without some bonus adventures.

We started by scouting out the elevators at the Daimon Station to see if we could get our luggage down to the track level when we leave on Thursday and take trains to Narita instead of the Limousine Bus – it looks hopeful. Then we headed through the fare gates and got on the train – easy peasy. But neither of us could get through the gate at Aoyama-itchome Station! Apparently our taps hadn’t registered properly at our origin station. It must happen frequently, because an English-speaking employee appeared within seconds, asked us where we’d boarded the train, and charged us for the segment we’d just traveled.

The Nezu Museum is an outgrown of its founder’s collection of pre-modern Japanese and East Asian art; it’s housed on the property that had been his family residence. They hold seven National Treasures in their collection; right now, they have a special exhibition of Japanese Art and Design centered on one of them, the Irises Screens by Ogata Kōrin, which took up two of the six galleries. The screens and other art on exhibit were wonderful…but they don’t allow photography in the galleries, just in the entrance hall and the gardens. The entrance hall features a collection of Buddha statues, like this one from the 6th Century from the Northern Qi Dynasty in China.

And the gardens were wonderful to walk around. There were lakes, shrines, tea houses, and irises which were in full bloom, just in time for the special exhibition.

It was a wonderfully clear day – so clear that I thought we might go somewhere to see Mt. Fuji. The obvious choice was one of the skyscraper observation decks, but I had found an article on Live Japan which suggested a spot that might be less crowded. It even gave directions in perfectly clear English:

If you walk north towards Ebisu Station from Meguro Station, go towards Ebisu Garden Place and descend westward from Fujimisaka (between Meguro-ku Meguro 1-Chome and Shinagawa-ku Kamiōsaki 2-chome). There, you’ll see Mount Fuji right in front of you.

It was easy to get to Meguro Station, and easy to find Ebisu Garden Place on the map, so we set forth. And got thoroughly lost; I couldn’t find any of the other things in the description on the map, and trying to translate random street signs wasn’t any help either. Eventually, we gave up and started looking for a restaurant – that was much easier, especially with Yelp’s help. Local India Ebisu looked plausible and wasn’t hard to get to, so we gave them a try. They were a great choice – English menus, a waiter who was happy to speak English with us, great food (with some differences from what we’d have at an Indian place at home, like including spicy French fries), and good beer. It was just what we needed.

We gave up on Mt. Fuji and got back on the train to go to Shinjuku and the gardens. We had to stand; it’s a good thing we were holding the straps securely because we were suddenly thrown forward and nearly fell. A few seconds later, the PA came on: “The emergency brake has been applied”. Gee, thanks.

The gardens were worth the effort of getting there. They’re huge, and although there were many many people out enjoying them, they didn’t feel crowded. We visited the Traditional Japanese Garden, the Taiwan Pavillion (donated by the people of Taiwan in the 1920s in honor of Crown Prince Hirohito’s wedding – Taiwan was a Japanese colony at the time), and the Formal Garden with its roses. Even the huge NTT Docomo building just outside the gardens added to the scenery.

It was getting dark, but we had one more stop to make: the Shinjuku branch of Takashimaya Department Store, in search of a yukata for Diane. They have beautiful yukatas in silk, for use in proper social circles and priced accordingly; luckily, they also have “souvenir” yukatas in cotton at much more reasonable prices for tourists. :-)

I would have liked to see more of the store, especially the food halls in the basement, but we were hot and tired, so we found our way to the proper subway line and headed back to the hotel.

Lost in Shinkansen

Our day started early so that we could get off the ship and make our way to Shin-Osaka Station in time to catch the 9:24am Shinkansen to Tokyo. The ride was pleasant, even if we couldn’t get much of a view of Mt. Fuji.

The train, including the bathrooms, was immaculate, and the toilets leave Amtrak in the dust (as does the train, which reached 275 km/h (170 mph) for much of the way).

We arrived at Tokyo Station without incident and met Yulia, our guide for the day. We headed down to street level to take a taxi to the Mesm Hotel where we’d be staying…and I suddenly realized that I’d left my belt pack on the train. She suggested we go to the hotel, drop the luggage, and come back to Tokyo Station to check the lost and found office.

So we did (and discovered that the Shinkansen has a different lost and found office than the rest of the JR trains); I filled out a short form, and two minutes later, I was reunited with my belt pack and all its contents. Magic!

We walked over to the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace and enjoyed their beauty.

We were back on Yulia’s planned tour route now; the next stop was a quick one to see the statue of Kusunoki Masashige, who fought on the Imperial side to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate (this was in the 14th Century, not to be confused with the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate in favor of the Meiji Emperor in the 19th Century).

A short subway ride later, we enjoyed the views of the Nijubashi Bridge on the Palace grounds.

Onward we went, this time to Meiji Jingu, dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken.

I’m used to seeing consecrated saki barrels at Shinto shrines, but this was the first time I’d ever seen consecrated barrels of Burgundy wine!

We continued walking along to the shrine itself.

The Meoto Kusu (Husband and Wife) Trees are a symbol of happy marriages.

It was getting dark, so we left Meiji Jingu and took the train to Shibuya Square. We made a brief stop to admire the statue of the world’s most loyal dog, Hachiko, who waited for his master for nine years.

We braved the scramble, which is supposed to be the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing.

Yulia helped us with some emergency shopping at Bic Camera, and then we had dinner at Neo on the 12th floor of the Shibuya Scramble Square building. They specialize in yakitori, with innovative flavors – it was delicious.

And then onward to Shinjuku; it’s very popular with young people and the odd monster.

We walked down Omoide Yokocho which is an elaboration of the open-air markets of the immediate postwar period. It was crowded. :-)

And that was it, except for yet another train ride back across town to our hotel. We’d walked 15km with Yulia; it was a great start to our Tokyo adventure.

Kurashki, an Onsen, and an imminent departure

We docked in Uno early this morning and took a tour to Kurashiki, specifically the Bihan District, which is the old merchant quarter. There are still many merchants there, but there were also temples, shrines, museums, and a chance to relax and decompress.

In the afternoon, we visited an onsen (hot springs) near the ship, along with about 20 others from the ship. It was a very pleasant and relaxing experience; I could have used another hour there! No photos from inside, of course, but here’s the exterior.

The islands and bays on this trip have been nothing short of wonderful; we took a couple of minutes to enjoy them this afternoon.

Time for our farewell dinner, and then it’s time to pack. Onward!