Journey to Japan - Day 1

The world travelers have returned.  It feels like we’ve covered a great distance over many days, but our flight was only 3 hours, and we were only gone 6 nights and 7 days.   But we walked our legs off.

You know how sometimes you go someplace, and you expect it to be very exotic and different, and then it’s really not that different? All the same stores and same food and same hair cuts?

Well, visiting Japan felt like we went someplace different.  I wouldn't say it was exotic, but the differences in the language, the shops, the food, the architecture, the fashion, etc., gave the feel of having travelled far, far away from Guam.  On the other hand, many of the flowers and birds were familiar – not from living in Guam, where there are very few birds because of the brown tree snakes – but from the Midwest. Sparrows, spirea, hydrangeas, rufous sided towhees, azaleas … The gardens and greenery were beautiful, even if most of the flowering season was over.  Guam is a brownish green; Japan is verdant.

Our journey began early Tuesday.  The kids were as excited to fly on a plane as they were about anything.  It happened to be the birthday of the youngest of our four boys, so everyone decided that he could have the first pick of seats: window, aisle, next to Mom or Dad… But even better, when we checked in, the attendant offered me and a guest an upgrade because of the number of miles I had accumulated flying back and forth to the States.  So the newly minted 8 year old got to sit by a window in first class.

The pleasure was a little lost on him: he didn’t like the omelette with roasted tomato and hash browns he was served, and he was disappointed in the movie choice, The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel. (This movie about old people from England coming to India and rediscovering a reason to live by hooking up with each other or reuniting with their gay lovers from their youth my husband rightly categorized as menopause art – a term we came up with to describe the naked fat lady art you see at art fairs.) He also kept putting his feet on the seat in front of him.

Before the person in front of him could get seriously annoyed, we arrived at the Narita airport. Narita is about an hour by train from Tokyo, so we had to take the Keisei Skyliner into Tokyo.  Before we left, I spent an extensive amount of time – probably more than I needed – to figure out the most economical way to get around. Tokyo has a Metro system and is serviced by the Japan Rail company, which I assume is the national line. Then there are multiple other private train lines that run out to the surrounding towns.  So it is a little complicated to figure out the best way to get around. The skyliner is definitely the best deal into Tokyo from Narita, unless you are doing extensive travel throughout Japan, in which case you can buy a weeklong pass for the JR lines.  Instead we bought a day pass for the Tokyo Metro, which is cheaper at the airport for foreign visitors. 

Nearly everything in the airport was in English or written in Romanji, as well as Kanji, the Japanese characters. Apparently there are at least 3 different Japanese written languages, but we didn’t know any of them.  Our illiteracy hit us hard when we left the Metro station at Ueno Park. I had some directions from the internet to the hotel – apparently just a 10 minute walk down a certain street. But we couldn’t read street signs. Unlike European countries, where you can recognize a name from a book, even if you can’t pronounce it, in Japan we couldn’t read anything.  We consulted our map and made our best guess as to the direction we were supposed to go. Fortunately, it was the right way, as we confirmed with a passerby who noticed our lost look and asked if we needed help.

Which way?

With all of our bags – everyone had a rolling bag and a backpack – it took us about 20 minutes to find our ryokan, but success! This traditional Japanese hotel was much smaller than it appeared online, just 6 rooms, but it was clean and tidy like everything in Japan.  We had two rooms – one with 4 tatami mats in a row, and one with 2 mats in one room and 2 in a little annex room. All the rooms had sliding doors and little low tables with cushions to sit upon. Each room had an electric water heater for tea, and a small television, that the kids turned on once to see a little Japanese TV.

Our first goal was to find a place for lunch before going to the Tokyo National Museum.  We wandered for about an hour trying to find something around our neighborhood that looked affordable, and ended up getting bento boxes from the convenience store across the street from our ryokan. This ended up being our breakfast solution also.  Had we just headed to the museum, we would have found half a dozen small restaurants and vendors just inside Ueno Park, which is on the north side of Tokyo, in a more residential area close to the University of Tokyo.  As we ate our lunches on a park bench, we noticed a line of men with big soup bowls. At first I thought they were tourists, but they were homeless men receiving a lunch. It surprised me to see homeless people living in the park under blue tarps because Tokyo seemed so clean otherwise. I would expect that there would be shelter or some other government solution.

You can almost see the socks I wore with my shoes.

The National museum was a good place to start our tour.  It was mostly an art museum - which I've missed sooo much in Guam.  I had one of those "ahahahahhhh" moments when we walked in and the lights were low and it smelled clean and dry.  The kids tired of ceramics quickly, but enjoyed the samurai masks, and it gave us an idea about what to look for in our visits elsewhere.  From the museum, we strolled through the park, past a couple of temples, and many large ravens. We bypassed the zoo, where a baby panda had just died a few days earlier, but in retrospect, we probably should have skipped a temple or shrine to visit the zoo and make the younger kids happy.

The national museum actually is several buildings, but we only visited 2. The kids were ready for some time to run.

A ukiyo-e print of Christians being forced to commit blasphemy.

After exhausting Ueno Park, we took the metro to the next neighborhood over, Asakusa, where there is a large and busy temple, the Sensoji temple.  The road to the temple was line with tourist shops, and a huge crowd strolled leisurely along the way.  Many people wore kimonos, which I assumed they wore just to visit the temple but perhaps they were making some kind of statement about traditional clothing.  Vendors sold small glass ball windchimes painted with a fireworks design and a plant with an orange lantern like flower. Someone gave both a windchime and a few of the flowers to our 12 year old. I’m not sure what is written on the hanging part of the windchime, but probably some kind of prayer for good fortune.

I think this is the Asakusa shrine, built in the late 1600s by one of the powerful Tokugawa shoguns, Iemitsu

I looked up the name of the glass windchime: Fu-rin

As we learned from our guidebook, most of the temple entrances have large torii, or gates, and this one has one of the largest red lanterns in the biggest gate called the Thunder gate.  Some temples are Buddhist and some are Shinto. The one is Asakusa is Buddhist, dedicated to Kannon, the goddess of Mercy.  It is Japan's busiest temple, originally built in the 600s, but reconstructed after earthquakes and bombings.

Before entering the temple, there is a fountain where people wash their hands and mouths – first left hand, then right hand, and then wash the mouth with the left hand. At another stop, charcoal sends up smoke that people waft into their faces for cleanliness. Finally, at the door to the inner part of the temple, people stop and clap twice, bow twice, say their prayer and clap again.  In Asakusa, a monk was praying and the temple drum was being struck. During this part, people threw round coins, the shape being another harbinger of luck.

It was not hard to find our oldest son in the crowd of short, dark-haired heads.

Tourists. It's funny to see myself in a lot of photos, because I'm usually the photographer, but we bought a new SLR camera right before we left, and my husband wanted to play with it. The quality is noticeably better.

The tower in the background is Tokyo Skytree, the world's second tallest building, which just opened in May. We did not take the elevator to the observation deck, because it would have cost our family about $250 for the view.

This funny baby is about $75 dollars. 100 yen is about $1.25.

A much fancier handwashing station in Asakusa.

This is actually at a smaller shrine near our ryokan.

After we observed these rituals for a time, feeling much like how a Buddhist or atheist must feel when visiting St. Peter’s or some other Catholic church during Mass, we gave each of the kids money to pick out what they wanted to eat from the vendors around the temple. This temple was definitely a marketplace.  The kids tried octopus on a stick, octopus balls, and a puff pastry thing with savory meat inside. I had a big omelette like thing that was full of vegetables and actually was bready more than eggy. It was delicious. The five year old begged for what looked like corn dog, and I caved since I didn’t want to throw away food.  Her dog was actually more of a sausage.  For dessert we had some little bear shaped cakes with red bean paste inside called nangyoyaki. They were fresh off the heat and delicious. We saw them all over the place in different shapes: birds, Hello Kitty, lanterns, etc.

Our most adventurous eater.

After a little research, I just learned that the reason we saw so many people in Asakusa is that we happened to be there for a festival: The Day of 46000 Blessings: At the Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa, the Japanese unique traditional event, called the Day of 46000 Blessings (Yonman-rokusen-nichi,) takes place in every 10th of July. As legend goes, if a person prays at the temple on this day, he/she would be the equivalent of 46000 days of prayers. Plus, Hozuki Ichi (the Chinese Lantern Plant Fair) also takes place in July 9th and 10th of July at Senso-ji temple. The Hozuki plants sold here are cultivated in Shikabone-cho in Edogawa-ku, and are really wonderful. (From http://tobu-discountpass.tobutravel.co.jp/en/kanko-asakusa.html)

So there you go. I thought I did so much research before our visit, but I'm still learning about this fascinating country and finding much to love, although I'm not expecting 46000 Blessings since we only took photos at the temple.

By the time we returned to the hotel, it was dark on the walk through the park.  But never did we feel unsafe.  More than one person told us that people could drop their wallet, and it would be there waiting for them the next day with all their money. Or someone would find them to give it back.  We saw little children riding the subway to school by themselves. And we barely saw any trash on the ground, not even a candy wrapper. Not only did we not see any trash, but rarely did we see a trashcan.  Near the vending machines, we’d see bins for recyclables, but apparently people pack their trash home. As we learned later in the trip, trash is a complicated matter in this area – everything is separated and rinsed and flattened and sorted into burnables, cans, plastic packaging, plastic bottles, incombustibles, and paper.  Then there is a pickup for recyclable clothing, furnishings and electronics.  Just one manifestation of Japanese efficiency. 

A faithful samurai and his dog and happy tourists

An unhappy tourist

The street outside our subway stop.

I can't get these photos to turn vertical and am too tired to mess with it anymore, so enjoy  them, but don't strain your neck. I intend to detail the next few days soon, so I don't forget . . .