Day 13 Thursday October 4 Kyoto
We started late this morning. I had the usual breakfast, supplanted by some
coated nuts we had bought at the Kinkiju-ji temple. Cindy had some weird bread stick things
coated in a sweet substance. Later we
decided that the flour may have been partly tofu. They were good, with a burnt molasses flavor.
We took the bullet train south to Himeji. This is a massive castle; Japan’s first world
heritage site, and one of 11 surviving castles.
Unlike almost every other large structure in Japan, it was never burnt
down, destroyed by earthquake, or some other disaster. However, over the years, it had suffered from
a lot of neglect.
travelling shrine in Himeji train station
The castle is on a hill in the middle of a valley, and the
hill has been the site of fortifications since the 1300s. The castle was built about 350 years ago as
the Tokogawas consolidated their rule.
Himeji was a central point of the trade routes south of Osaka. It was built with meters-thick plaster walls
as protection against fire and artillery; the walls were white-washed, which
gave the castle the nickname of “white egret castle”
Street sculptures on way to castle. These fish are everywhere - usually gilded and placed on top of temples (like horns) to prevent fire. Well, it worked at Himeji castle, maybe not so much with other places in Japan
manhole covers
It’s a bit of a walk up the castle itself, and first we went
through the west bailey, which was the women’s quarters. This is a long long zigzagging corridor with
rooms off to the sides. The building is
on several levels, conforming to the geography. Some of the rooms are open to
the public, and they have small placards describing life in the bailey, and its
most famous resident was Princess
Sen (Senhime), Tokogawa Ieyasu’s granddaughter. Her first husband was killed by the Tokogawas
at Osaka, and she lived a tragic, if peaceful life in Himeji with her second
husband. When he died, she became a
nun. A lot of modern Japanese stories
use her history as a model of tragic romance.
Castle from the bailey
through a gun port / arrow slot
Paulownia crest
Swallowtail butterfly crest
Next, onto the castle.
Although it was never fire-plagued, and I don’t think ever under siege,
the fortunes of the castle waxed and waned.
At one point in the 1800s it was sold at an auction to the army for
about $10,000 (in 2018 dollars). It had
deteriorated a lot by the 19-teens, and a massive reconstruction effort began
that was derailed by WWII. This did
finish up in the 1950s, but then in the 2000s a second reconstruction was
made. The castle is empty, and the trail
through the castle is a spiral up one steep stairwell to another steep
stairwell. Along the way there are stone
dropping holes, hiding places for samurai, gun ports, etc.
stone dropping holes
inside
Samurai could be stationed at this higher level area for fighting
Note how the heavy walls have a hyperbolic profile to handle the weight of the structures above them
We come down from the castle and walked through the nearby
beautiful Koko-en gardens. This is a set of nine separate walled
gardens, each with a different theme.
The gardens were only created in 1992, which we found hard to
believe. It was very impressive, and in
some ways may have been my favorite garden in Japan, although the Hakone garden
had the best moss.
We had lunch of yakisoba and okonomiyaki. They were delicious, and Suntory highball
could be had for only $1! Yum. Then we
wandered through the extensive covered marketplace near the train station. There was a giant arcade full of those games
that Gabriel likes to play.
you could get toy hedgehogs!
This girl could be a taiko drummer, she was really good
That evening we ate in the ‘cube’ of the Kyoto train
station. The Northern part of the
station is a big modern open-air public space, and there is a large food mall
on the 11th floor. We ended
up eating at a Japanese / Italian mash-up.
Cindy had soba-like noodles with egg, cooked pork and vegetables in a
soy-butter sauce, sort of a carbonera. I
had noodles with dried fish roe and mild sliced peppers with olive oil. It was tasty, but maybe not the most unusual
meal we have had.
light show on the stairs of the 'cube'
Day 14 October 5 Kyoto
We got up early to take a train northwest of the city to Arishiyama, to sample more
Japanese food, and to see the (now) famous bamboo grove and the gardens of the Tenryu-ji temple. This garden had the only significant dry
garden we saw (we did see a small one in Kamakura). The garden had a very large pond backed by
scenery stealing mountains. We didn’t go
into the temple, but it is known for a dragon scroll whose eyes follow you
around. There were some small subsidiary
offering areas, Inari at least focally prominent. Just by chance, had sent us a photo of Meeko in
almost the same posture!
monks on parade
This was a food tour, so we were joined by a young San Franciscan
couple, Victoria and Rudy. They didn’t
know Alison or Owen; however. Our guide,
Moe, is a young Kyotan, and we had some fun discussions about anime. Before she led us into the temple grounds, we
sampled some typical Japanese breakfast foods which included mackerel marinated
in soy sauce and mirin, boiled and marinated chicken livers, and some kind of
chicken skin preparation. This last was
not crispy enough for me, and I find mackerel has a strong oily flavor. I’m always up for chicken liver, though!
fish on a stick!
mackerel
After our walk through the temple complex and the large
adjoining bamboo grove (what’s to say about a bunch of thin green tree-like
grasses? They grow really fast. Actually, Moe said that the grove was not a
particularly popular tourist area until the last 10-12 years, with the rise of
social media.) we sampled a bunch of different foods: black sesame tofu soft
serve ice cream (so thick you could hold it upside down), doughnuts made with
yuba, a lunch of yakisoba and okonomiyaki, potato croquettes, and chili
flavored (not discernable to me) soft serve ice cream.
Upside down tofu soft serve. Yummy
This cafe had live cats and owls in it! (look at top right)
This sculpture is a large version of Barbara's!
I had really wanted to see the nearby monkey
park, but we didn’t have time - - we needed to get back to south Kyoto to
take a class on Japanese sweets. This
took place about a mile south of our hotel.
We met with Kana, our instructor, who Cindy had found via the ‘airbnb
experience’ website. We were joined by a
mother – daughter couple from China. The
daughter had pretty good English; she had been in Japan as a language student
for the last two years. The two of them
had actually visited Chicago (during the winter, ugh) about 3 years ago.
Kana takes us to her apartment in a large building. The entire apartment is probably 12-16 tatami
mats big, which means it was pretty small.
She lived in this space with her husband. They had only lived there for about a year,
previously they had been on one of the small islands off the coast. I think Cindy and I would have killed each
other if we lived in a space this small.
I don’t know how easily you could live in something this size with
children (maybe one reason the birthrate in Japan is so low, and why they have
love hotels…) I thought it was smaller
than the typical US studio apartment, but Cindy thought they would be
comparable in size. I don’t know, the
one studio I lived in in Hyde Park in the early 80s was larger than this, I
think. Anyway, the apartment had a tiny
shoe foyer, a small efficient kitchen, a tatami area for sleeping and working,
and, bathroom.
The first thing Kana helped us to prepare was a houjicha steamed bun.
Houjicha is a tea powder like matcha.
This was a simple muffin flavored with the tea spice, and topped by a
few red beans.
Next we took balls of
pre-made nerikiri (sweet
white bean paste), and colored some green and some orange-red. We passed the green paste through a colander
to make ‘confetti’, and used a mold to make a little maple flower out of the
orange paste. We took a pre made ball of
anko (red bean paste),
gingerly rolled the green confetti onto it, and topped the green ball with our
maple leaves and red beans.
green and yellow food coloring for the 'confetti'
yellow and red for the leaf
making confetti
I had extra, so I made a little pumpkin
matcha
Before
After
We whisked a bowl of matcha tea, and then ate our creations.
It looks like rain is coming to town, which halted a plan to
go into the northeastern part of Kyoto.
For dinner we went to a tonkatsu
(deep fried port cutlet) place.
Day 15 Friday October 6 Tokyo
I’m writing this in our tiny room in the Kyobashi region of Tokyo
– a bit north of Ginza, and
east of Marunochi. We had a slow morning in Kyoto without much
to do before our bullet train back to Tokyo. At least this time we had reserved
seats! We got into Tokyo station, which
is as crazy as Shinjuku with less exits, and walked southeast to the Fresia
hotel. The room is for the two of us,
and is maybe 8’ X 14’. (six tatami?).
The bathroom is a small pre-fabbed cube (to be honest, I have seen
smaller bathrooms in Scandinavia).
Still, it’s a good thing we are staying for only one night. As is typical in a Japanese hotel, there is little
provision for any clothing or storage besides a small hanging rod. The bed was
comfortable, pillows were not.
After checking in and turning on the AC (it’s hot and muggy
- - Saturday we had temperatures up to 85 F) We took the JR Chou line to
Shinjuku where we saw a fun taiko group called Drum Tao, whose current
performance is called Mangekyo, a
mixture of drumming, other instruments, dance acrobatics, light show. The group features about 8-9 men and 3
women. The performance was in a small auditorium
that could have seated about 300, but was only about half-full. Like most taiko drummers, the men were pretty
buff, and for most of the show were wearing open vests (or less) to show off
their muscles. I think the women in the
audience appreciated it when the drummers flirted with them. As usual, it was
loud and dramatic. The drummers all had
a good sheen of sweat after the 75 minute performance; we didn’t know how they
got through three performances daily.
Afterwards we got some ramen and gyoza in Shinkuju. We took the train back to Tokyo station and
walked around the Ginza area a little.
We saw an 8 story bookstore, and a lot of high end international
clothing stores.
Ramen
Rice with spiced pork
Gyoza - you can't get them like this in the US, the dough is really delicate
curried rice
Day 16 Saturday October 7 Tokyo – Chicago
We packed our bags and deposited them in the ubiquitous
luggage lockers found in every train station in Japan. We walked north of the
train station to the Imperial Gardens. There was a free audio tour you could
download on your phone, but it was too hot (around 88F by the time we left) and
bright to bother trying to use it. We
saw a bunch of joggers / runners, which we found hard to believe, since it was
so hot, and they were running on pavement around groups of tourist. The gardens
are very large. We passed a large hall
from which we could hear the clack of wooden weapons and the strangled cries of
kendo-ka. One area in the garden is the site where Naganori assaulted Yoshinaka,
the beginning of the story of the 47 ronin. We saw the usual things, including special
hybrid koi created by the present emperor, and some wilder areas that I think
were showcasing a variety of different Japanese plants. Sadly, my mind was on the heat, as well as
our upcoming travels, so I don’t have much to report.
The old (north) side of Tokyo Station
Palace hotel - across the street from the palace
moat
The Imperial gardens had a small museum which we went into
almost by chance, and saw a lovely exhibit on a reconstructed scroll. The color on the figures was intense, and the
detail of the images was absolutely amazing - - i didn't even try to photograph this..
We went back to the train station. I got my last bottle of strange fluid out of the
great Japanese drinking vending machines.
There were eleven of these lined up on a street near our hotel!
We took the express train to Narita (that was delayed on the tracks for over
5 minutes for some reason). Narita
airport was easy to navigate. We returned our WiFi device, checked the luggage
and were through security within 30 minutes. After paying a visit to the duty free shops
to buy flavored kit-kats to bring to work, we got to use the special ANA lounge,
which was bigger and better than the one we used in Chicago on our way to
Japan. Free alcohol and much better
food!
I am so happy we took this trip. I had wanted to go to Japan for so long, but
never had the time. I will have memories
of aggressively hygienic toilets, kneeling to lock the sliding doors in our
ryokan, Happy, friendly Japanese who seem to live such regimented lives from
elementary school onward.
Before I finish, I really want to acknowledge all the work
that Cindy put in to get this trip together.
Other than the reservations at the hotel in Shinjuku, she did all of the
planning after my suggestion that it would be fun to go to Japan, and that I could
use this meeting as an excuse to travel.
She did a great job, and knew where we were supposed to be up almost to
the second. I’d also like to thank
Nicola and Wes for staying with Meeko while we were away!
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