keito in taito

Plenty of fish in the sea...

...but I think I've picked a good one.

Mike and I with blue fin tuna at Tokyo Sea Life Park. I think we had more fun than the school children.

There were some pretty cool fish.

My favorite fish

Strange fish

Bye fishies!

Night Festival

Upon returning to Tokyo from our adventures in the Kansi region we noticed people were setting up for a festival in our neighborhood. A couple days later the party was in full swing. We invited our friends Stella and Andrew over and went out to see what the commotion was all about.

The nucleus of the festival is a temple a couple blocks from our apartment but the activities spread out into adjacent streets and alleys completely transforming the neighborhood. The festival was called Torinoichi and it has something to with being thankful for a good harvest. Of course there is not much harvesting going on in Tokyo these days. Instead I think it is now more about being thankful for, and promoting future financial success. We understood, from our broken conversations with people at the festival, that by buying a rake you are insuring that you will have a good harvest next year or "success in business". The rakes are those things on the wall of the stalls and they are being sold. I realize it does not look like a rake, which was our first question, but in fact it is a rake, just decorated with a ton of small trinket type things which are symbolic of one thing or another. The cat with a welcoming paw brings customers into your business, and the Seven Wise Men from China represent… perhaps wisdom, seems like a reasonable guess.

The meaning and symbolism of the festival was interesting, but what we really got excited about was the food! (We were not the only ones!) There seemed to be a skewer kind of theme, we went with it.

Cooking it up............................Chowing it down

Cooking it up................Chowing it down

Tons of seafood........................With some exceptions

Did I mention seafood, you can't do much in Japan without seafood

Two Villages

From Nara, Mike and I took three trains to get to Nagoya. We had one minute to make one of the connections. Literally, we had 60 seconds to get off the train, find our way to the correct platform amongst numerous platforms on multiple levels, and get onto the other train, luggage in tow. And with Japanese trains you know there's absolutely no chance the train will leave anything but precisely on time. It was close but by some miracle we made it.

From Nagoya we headed for the countryside to walk a portion of the old pedestrian highway that ran between Kyoto and Edo (now Tokyo). The 500km route was used from 8th to the 19th century. Mike and I walked only a short section of it, 3 hours between the old post towns of Mogome and Tsumago. Many of the farm houses pressed tightly against the road once provided meals and/or a place to stay for travelers along the highway. Time seems to have stood still for these tiny villages since the introduction of the automobile and the construction of modern highways.

Magome

The Path Between

Tsumago

Nara Ryokan

In Japan there are different types of accommodations one can stay in. There are hotel rooms and there are hostels, but particular to Japan is a type of accommodation called a Ryokan. These ryokans are similar to what might be called a bed and breakfast in North America, or a guest house elsewhere. They are typically traditional types of rooms with sliding shoji screen doors, tatami mat floors, and an alcove (called Tokonoma)for a wall scroll or art objects. Kate and I stayed in many ryokans, but the best by far was this one in Nara. Everything about this place was great, the Japanese bath, the friendly owners, but the courtyard was probably the highlight. Above is a collage of pictures taken from the window of our room. All the main floor spaces opened onto an engawa (porch/semi-exterior circulation space) which circled a large courtyard garden with various paths and bridges connecting the engawa on either side. We wanted to stay another night just to enjoy the atmosphere but had to move on, so much to see.

Nara (vol II)

I took Mike back to the Daibatsu-den (Hall of the Great Buddha) in Nara. It looked slightly different without the colourful banners, monks, and hordes of school children but was still magnificent. Daibatsu-den is the largest wooden structure in the world. It was originally built in the 8th century and, like everything in Japan, burnt to the ground at one point or another. When it was rebuilt in 1709 it retained the title of "largest wooden structure in the world" despite being constructed at only 70% of it's original size. As if that wasn't enough, it also houses the world's largest bronze casting, which is of Buddha of course.

… and I made peace with the deer (see earlier entry "Kansai with 'Class'")… it was only a sandwich after all and I was never really that keen on egg-salad.

Himeiji Castle

Mike and I took the train from Koyasan to Osaka where we checked out the nightlife along the river, along with about 10 thousand other people.

The next morning we took the train to Himeiji to see the castle. We were suprised at how quiet and peaceful it was. Not the hordes of tourists you see in Nara and Kyoto or tight crowded streets like in Osaka. The castle was calm and peaceful but also very beatiful. Well worth the trip. And thanks to Mike we even managed to spot an Ando house from the train on the way there.

Koya-san

This blog business is a lot of work so Mike is going to help out with a couple entries. "Please enjoy!"

After our time in Kyoto Kate and I took a train which led us in to a mountainous region in the Wakayama Prefecture. This was in stark contrast to cities we had recently visited. The train weaved its way through the mountains and the trip ended with a cable car ride up the mountainside to the final destination which is known as Koya-san. Koya-san is a plateau located between surrounding mountains (eight mountains to be exact, which is said to represent the eight petals of the lotus flower). This remote and mysterious place is the birthplace of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. There are many temples, shrines, an enormous cemetery, and not much else.

Our accommodation in Koya-san was in a temple were we slept, ate and attended evening meditation and morning prayer with the monks (this was a great experience but it took days before my knees forgave me for sitting in the lotus position for so long).

During dinner the wife of the previous head monk, and mother of the current head monk gave a talk about her experiences at Koya-san and gave us a brief run down on the story of Kobo Dashi, the founder of Koya-san. The short story is something like this: Kobo Dashi left Japan to study Buddhism, which was not big in Japan at the time (8th century). Instead the Japanese at the time were into worshiping deities, rocks, trees and such. But the point is that Kobo Dashi went to China and studied Buddhism. Before coming back to Japan to spread the word he stood on the Chinese shore facing Japan and hurled an implement (knife, sword?) eastward and asked this implement to guide him to the place where he was to establish Shingon Buddhism. As the story goes Kobo Dashi found this implement years later in the mountainous plateau now know as Koya-san and proceeded to establish Buddhism in Japan.

Koya-san is still an important religious Mecca in Japan. People still make the pilgrimage, but instead of walking for days they take the train or a bus for a few hours. The cemetery was slightly eerie, mysterious, and totally amazing. It is obviously very old, and apparently the largest cemetery in the world (but it is difficult to know exactly how large). The main temple was extremely active, tons of people coming to make prayers and give offerings, but it was not very photogenic (cameras were not allowed).

the cemetery goes on for a long, long way

Torii Gates

At Fushimi Temple at Mount Inari we passed through thousands of torri gates and a number of cute little tea houses as we climbed the slope.

At the top we hoped to find an alternate route back. There was a a very basic map in Japanese. I approached a group of Japanese schoolgirls to ask for help translating or finding an alternate route back. I pointed to various parts of the map asking “nan-desuka?” (What is it?) or “Kyoto desuka” (broken-Japanese for “Is it Kyoto?”) trying to see if any of the trails might lead us back toward the city. It became very clear that our limited language skills (my Japanese and their English) did not allow for any meaningful communication between us. We gave up and parted ways. While Mike and I talked about taking one the trails and hope we ended up back in the city, the girls huddled around an electronic device (not unusual for Japanese teenagers). After some time one of the girls approached us. With an electronic dictionary they had put together a single sentence “We are going to Kyoto, you follow us” and since we had no way of communicating anything other than “yes” or “no” (“It’s ok. We can find our way back.” is not in my vocabulary) we agreed and followed the school girls back down. It was never clear whether they understood we were looking for an alternate route or if they just thought we were very lost. But happily they did take us back on an alternate route. As we reached the bottom we parted ways. They were a bit taken aback at first. Apparently they intended to escort the poor lost tourists all the way back to the station and perhaps even central Kyoto.

Cheezu!

Kiyomizu Water Temple

Kiyomizu means clear water.

Prayers left at the temple.

Kansai with Mike

At the end fo the week-long class trip I returned to Tokyo to pick up Mike. I think Tokyo was a bit of a shock for him after spending the last 6 months alone in a trailer in the woods. For those who don't know, Mike has been building a cabin for his family in the Cascade Mountains in Washington State.

I gave him two days in Tokyo to aclimatize before we took off travelling.

First stop Kyoto. I took Mike back to my favorite spots and visited some others I hadn't seen yet, including several geisha.

My birthday dinner in Kyoto...hot-pot!

Golden pavillion.

Kansai with "Class"

In mid-October our class toured the Kansai region SE of Tokyo. We hit all the tourist desitnations, gardens, major architectural sites in Kyoto, Nara and Osaka. It was really fun but left me completely exhausted and ready for a break.