Sue has already been in Asia for ten days, doing foundation work in Myanmar (and sweltering in the Burmese monsoon); she flies east through Hong Kong on Friday evening. Our dear friends the Bans and I fly west on Friday morning. If all goes according to plan, we will meet in Tokyo on Saturday.
After months of reading and conversations with Japan hands–thanks to Chris and Rick K., Tom H., Matt W., and Andrew and Emily J.!–I may be ready for the cultural contradiction of modern Japan. Stay tuned.
Saturday, October 26
After a surprisingly easy flight, I found navigating Narita airport similarly unproblematic. Internet coaches had prescribed a routine for arrival: 1) get lots of cash, because Japan, for all its hypermodernity, is surprisingly credit card unfriendly; 2) get a “cash card” and charge it with lots of money, because the Tokyo subways are privatized and the cash card is the only thing accepted everywhere; and 3) turn in my prepaid vouchers for a Japan Rail Pass. This last all went smoothly for me; my poor wife, on the other hand, was coming from Burma and arrived at 6 AM at Haneda, Tokyo’s second airport. It took her three hours to get her rail pass, and she couldn’t find an ATM that took international credit cards (that, too, is a Japanese peculiarity: the very best ATM’s for gringos are, wait for it, 7-Eleven!).
After 40 minutes on the Narita Express, eerily reminiscent of the Heathrow Express, I found myself in the bowels of Tokyo Station, one of the busiest stations in the world. As we’d been told, virtually all the signage now has a brief English explanation, so that, too, alleviated any trepidation about getting around. Totally unlike Burma, our only previous Asian experience, where the signs are not just in Burmese: even the maps, insofar as they exist, are totally incomprehensible.
Reunited with my wife at our hotel, we ventured out for a bite and discovered, to our delight, that the famous ramen shop Ippudo was 100 yards away. There are now sleeker branches around the world, but the Ginza locale retains a lot of its original character: small, friendly, rough edged, with stools ranged along rustic wooden counters full of condiments. This is Hakata style ramen, with – thin, non-curly straight paler yellow noodles, basked in rich milky tonkatsu pork bone broth. Mine came with think slices of tonkatsu, a whole, runny egg, seaweed, and cabbage. Really delicious. I could actually survive the whole trip just on ramen, but I’m sure more delights await us. We also shared a great plate of little pan fried dumplings.
A short, but memorable first day in Japan.
Sunday, October 27
Our first full day took us from the extreme traditionalism of a Shinto shrine to the garish neon modernity of Ginza Crossing. And we loved every minute of it.
We had breakfast at our hotel, a buffet with plenty of choices. Our hotel, the Millennium Matsui Garden, doesn’t have a lot to recommend it besides the location–in the heart of Ginza and right at a metro station. It is a newish property, and the rooms are fine if rather small; a thin veneer of style seeks to hide its deficiencies, which include the lack of a lobby, a real bar, and a helpful staff.
The Tokyo subway certainly lives up to its billing: easy to navigate, fast, and with remarkable coverage of central Tokyo.
Our first stop was the Meiji-Jingu Shrine, a Shinto shrine built in 1920 to house the soul of the Emperor and Empress who brought the capital to Tokyo from Kyoto. The shrine seems much older, not merely because of the extreme traditionalism of its architecture, but especially because of the verdant, mature park in which the shrine sits. One approaches through Torii gates, the traditional sign for a Shinto shrine; literally bird abode, the Torii marks the passage from the profane to the sacred precinct.
As you approach the shrine, you purify your hands and mouth; it seems that at least some part of the Japanese obsession with hygiene derives from the Shinto injunctions regarding purification and defilement (obligatory disquisition on the Japanese toilet to follow).
The shrine itself consists of a huge entrance courtyard with a smaller sanctuary at the rear. The shrine is full of people yet doesn’t seem crowded; many of those present are families with women and children in traditional dress.
I was able to get this family portrait because the group asked Vladimir to take it for them and I piggybacked.
The shrine is a popular site for weddings; we saw at least five of them. The bride and groom are led in solemn procession by two priests and two “temple maidens.” The wedding itself consists of a Shinto liturgy and a ritual dance by one of the young women.
From the shrine we walked along another path in the park and then along Omotesande, the boulevard at the center of Tokyo’s “fashion town.” Tokyoites dress very formally; even the young are well turned out, some in rather classic style, some at fashion’s sharp edge.
The boulevard leads directly to a remarkable place, the Nezu Museum, a private collection of Asian art and antiquities. Housed in a gorgeous building and embraced by a spectacularly beautiful garden, this is one of the most moving museums we’ve ever visited.
The museum holds a vast collection, and the building is large enough to house a warren of galleries, but it is divided instead into just six large galleries. When we visited, two of these were given over to a special exhibit of birds and flowers in Asian art centered on a series of exquisite painted scrolls and panels from China, Japan, and Korea. Another gallery held just three large wooden polychrome statues of the boddhisatva of healing; these were some of the loveliest Buddhist art I’ve ever seen. In the upstairs galleries, the first held a series of Chinese cast bronze vessels from the thirteenth century B.C. The technology alone was mind blowing, but the beauty of the designs was staggering. The second displayed highlights from one of the largest sword collections in the world: finely worked bronze pommels and collars from the last 600 years. I never imagined that I could be interested in these, but the artistry involved was extraordinary: entire, finely detailed landscapes in a space 1/2 x 1 1/2”. The final gallery held the implements of the tea ceremony: water vessels, pots, cups, and carved wooden implements. Like all the galleries, these were chosen for the relevance to the autumn season. We had never been to a museum that so successfully focused the viewer on just a few objects. And what objects!
We took a cab back to Ginza and a siesta at the hotel.
We ventured out in the late afternoon to the Mitsukoshi department store, 11 floors of opulence that New York can’t begin to rival. The showpiece are the two bottom floors, a food display more than twice as big as that at KaDeWe in Berlin, the largest one we know. A huge space is given over to desserts, many of which are stunning and jewel like.
We gravitated to the meat section, to marvel at the marbling of the beef.
And the sushi and bento boxes are like nothing we’d seen before.
The concierge at our hotel had made a mess of our supposed dinner reservations, so we decided to simply eat at one of the two dozen restaurants on the top floors of the department store! Most of these were astonishingly expensive, so we embarrassed ourselves and ate at the most reasonable of the lot, which happened to be (mediocre) Chinese.
We capped the day with a stroll to the Ginza crossing, one of the nighttime sights for which Tokyo is justly famous.
Talk about La nuit américaine!
What a first day!
Monday, October 28, 2019
We started our day with an excellent light (Western) breakfast at the coffee shop on the corner. Then off on the subway to Shibuya, one of the newer built-up areas in western Tokyo. Shibuya Station is one of the busiest commuter stations in the world; as you exit you’re immediately confronted with Shibuya Crossing, the famous intersection over which as many as 3,000 pedestrians pass at every green walk light.
Subiya is a much younger, hipper place than Ginza, seemingly catering to a middle-of-the-road, relatively moneyed youth. Lots of boutiques, and lots of Mexican, burgers, and beer. It felt very different than our walk through Harajuku the day before. We walked around enough to get the flavor and ducked into another of Tokyo’s enormous department stores, Tokyo Honten. Still very fancy (think $1000 bento boxes with caviar), it is nonetheless a half step down from the store in Ginza.
Vladimir had recommended that we take in the opening of one of these stores, which we did. At 9:55 the doors open and you’re invited in. Facing you are three greeters; behind them, standing at attention in front of their area, are many more staff. At 10:00 to the second, all three greeters bow deeply and gesture you inside. Especially as an early customer, every shop attendant bows and greets you cordially as you walk by their section. If one of them is asked a question in a language they can’t understand, they sprint to a colleague who can help, who in turn sprints back to you. Just like in New York.
I spent a few minutes in pleasant, confused conversation with a young man in the sake department and ended up with a small bottle which may just end up being part of a gift to a certain couple. The highlight so far of my exploration of sake was at Ippudo; when I asked the very nice young waitress whether I should drink the sake I’d ordered warm or cold, she smiled and replied “Maybe.”
Sue and Connie spent some pleasant moments doing a bit of shopping for baby clothes while I wandered off looking at fountain pens. I found a gorgeous deep crimson Urushi (lacquer) pen for a mere $850; I managed to resist that particular temptation.
As wonderful as the subway is, you don’t see anything, so we decided to splurge on a cab to Asakusa; we were in the southwest, Asakusa in the northeast, so we figured we’d get a cross section. Which we did, but at a little higher price than we’d reckoned on. It was that kind of day. The cabbie asked “Expressway OK?” and we said “Sure.” Unfortunately, the expressway crawled through the center as the meter spun wildly. We passed through some very wealthy districts in central Tokyo: Asakusa, Roppongi, Nihonbashi. And we passed through kiddie Tokyo, Akihibara, the land of manga, anime, cosplayers, (and probably a myriad of other stuff that we could never understand; OK Boomer) and enormous electronics shops.
We got out in Asakusa right in front of the most venerated Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Senso -Ji. The temple grounds date from around 700 AD, but the temple itself has been destroyed numerous times by earthquakes, fires, B-52’s, etc. The present temple was rebuilt in 1958.
Beside the temple stands a Shinto pagoda, rebuilt in 1973.
But the structures aren’t the central thing here: it is the throngs of people making for a genuinely carnivalesque atmosphere.
We took the subway back to Ginza for lunch. We had been deprived of sushi and were determined to make up for this major gap in our trip. Sushi no Midori has the reputation of offering some of the best affordable sushi in Tokyo and, when we arrived, we found that we weren’t the only ones who had gotten the message: there was a long line outside. After a pleasant hour wait (the wait was a good bit longer if you wanted a counter seat), we were ushered in for the best sushi meal of our lives.
Each couple ordered the same: one seafood platter and one tuna platter; we shared eel rolls and shrimp tenderloin rolls. The seafood sushi was wonderful but perhaps not in a different universe than the best sushi at home. The rolls, though, were the best we’d eaten: wonderfully inventive and deeply flavorful. But the tuna platter, which combined fatty tuna with extra fatty tuna, was transcendental. Flavors we could not have imagined. Vladimir and I had opted for beer; the weather continued beautiful but very warm.
There was a very nice young Chinese-American couple from San Diego a couple of tables down with whom we were comparing notes; they seemed to have ordered everything on the menu and urged us to try the super fattiest tuna, so we ordered four pieces of that and some excellent warm sake. This flavor, too, was outside our experience; Vladimir said it was the Speck of tuna. As good as it was, we all agreed that the middle grade was the one we would dream about. We left plotting how we could come back on our last day in Tokyo.
Although we were stuffed, Vladimir wanted a bite of something sweet. In Ginza, your wish and your wallet are your command. We found an elegant patisserie on our way home, and ordered some cake and some macarons and took them back for a little tea party in our room. Tokyo is reputed to have some of the best French food in the world, and these tastes suggest that we should try some on our next visit.
Much of the inspiration for this trip came from Andrew and Emily, who had spent their vacation in Japan and fallen in love with the country. They had urged us to have a drink at the bar of the Ritz-Carlton, on the 45th floor of a building in Akasaka. We were glad we did; the views are extraordinary and the space very elegant.
We knew that the drinks wouldn’t be $5 apiece, but we still had some sticker shock. I won’t reveal what we paid after including a cover charge and a “service charge” (the only one we’ve encountered in Japan, where the price you’re quoted includes tax and tip), but let’s just say we weren’t at Joe’s corner bar.
Tuesday, October 29
We were up and packed bright and early for our first travel day. The cab whisked us to the entrance to Tokyo Station that leads directly to the platforms for the Shinkansen (bullet trains). I had another pleasant but terribly confusing conversation with a young woman at the JR Rail ticket office. I wanted to reserve seats. She passed across two train schedules. Both were marked „sold out.“ I said „no reserved seats available?“ „No.“ „So which train is more likely to have unreserved seats?“ She pointed to one of the schedules. I said „Great.“ At which point she gave us four tickets for reserved seats. OK!
We wandered around a bit looking for somewhere to have breakfast that didn‘t consist of soup (I know, once a gringo….). We found a place that specialized in…beer and pancakes. Or rather beer and „pan cakes,“ thick pancake batter baked in a pan. Good, though! And the coffee wasn‘t bad either. We were finding that Japan‘s reputation for being extremely expensive isn‘t always deserved. Yes, you can spend an enormous amount of money. But you can eat extremely well for less than you would pay in New York. Our breakfast was eight bucks a piece. Not elegant, but perfectly tasty.
Then on to one of the moments to which I had really been looking forward: a visit to the famous bento box shop in the middle of Tokyo Station. The place is an absolute trip: packed to the gills with shoppers, with yard after yard of bento box choices. Everything from sushi roll appetizers through boxes with many courses and on to self- heating boxes for beef and eel. Sue chose a box that contained, rather than small compartments, many packages of rice with meat toppings in what looked like banana leaves.
I went traditional, with the “Tokyo Box” built around smoked salmon, rice, a tasty little meat ball, and tons of vegetables that defied identification.
Connie chose a lovely little box with more than a dozen appetizers.
With the larder well stocked, we made our way through a couple of ticket checks to the platform for our Shinkansen, which was bound for Toyoma on the Sea of Japan. The platform is organized brilliantly; you know not just where your car will stop, but where to stand for the door nearest your seat. Like it or not, this is just a society that works; as Vladimir says, with typical Vladimirian understatement, “They make the Swiss look like sloppy swine!”
Once aboard, we whirred through the landscape on the smoothest train ride of our lives. I was blogging away, looked up, and we were half way across Japan! We changed trains at Toyoma, boarding a mountain rail car that took us deep into the Japanese Alps. These are landforms like I’ve never seen in North America or Europe. Deep, steep, twisting glaciated valleys that are characterized by a bumpiness that glaciers don’t leave behind in North America. The mountains were cloaked with dense foliage–for all its reputation as a logging area, we saw no clear cuts–and cut with rushing streams and rivers. We passed at least three large hydroelectric dams on our trip.
Vladimir is always fascinated by the technology, and there was a lot for him to see on this leg of our journey!
We guessed that the train reached a height of around 5000 feet, passing through a series of tunnels, before descending into the high valley where Takayama sits. The town seemed pleasant; more on that tomorrow.
A cab took us on a long drive out of town and into a deep, remote valley with a rushing stream. We had booked one night at a famous ryokan or country inn, Wano-Sato.
The cab dropped us at the gate of the inn, where we found a sign saying “leave bags here” so that the “stuff” can carry them down. The inn was visible below us through the trees, nestled alongside the stream.
Two staff members were soon pounding up the path from the main lodge; they brought our bags down on a cart while we were welcomed into the inn’s main room with a cup of tea and a delicious, though mysterious sweet. The main room is organized around an open hearth in the center of the room; the hearth is ringed by cushions for sitting and eating.
The Bans were housed in a suite of rooms in the main building, while Sue and I had an ancient thatched roof cottage.
This was our introduction to traditional Japanese living. Inside the front door is an antechamber where one leaves “outside” shoes. Beyond that is a first sitting room with a huge picture window looking out on the stream.
Beyond that is the main room, where one both eats and sleeps (the staff lays out futons while one is out and about). The alcove at the back is called Tokonoma: framed by beautifully lacquered rough logs, it contains a flower arrangement on a slightly raised floor and a scroll on the back wall.
The sliding doors on the left give onto a balcony overlooking the stream; to the right is another small room all ready in case we want to put on our own tea ceremony.
No stay at a ryokan is complete without donning the appropriate attire: the yakuta is an enormously comfortable and surprisingly warm cotton robe. Sue looked just a little bit better in hers than I did in mine.
To the eternal shame of my traveling companions, I was the only one to take advantage of what for many travelers is the principal joy of the ryokan: the onsen or hot spring bathing chamber. The onsen at Wano-Sato is lovely: the entry to the men’s side feels like a high class sauna, but the pools themselves are in a rocky grotto with water flowing out of the rock. After you scrub down and rinse yourself off, you slip into the very hot water and enjoy some unusually relaxing contemplation…while you turn into a prune. I was soon joined by two other men; we soaked in companionable silence. The water temperature is not recommended for travelers with heart conditions! 30 minutes did it for me, but you do emerge with a deep sense of well being.
Next on the ryokan agenda was a Kaiseki dinner. In many ryokans, this is served in the guest’s room, but, since we were two couples, we ate together in a lovely dining room in the main lodge.
Warning: too much detail follows for those of you less interested in food!
Kaiseki is an evolving tradition, a meal composed of many courses in a set order. The chef strives to present only local, seasonal ingredients; the dishes are arranged with artistic flair on dishes and vessels chosen to enhance the appearance of each dish. Although some of the garnishes are leaves and flowers, others are edible garnishes that resemble actual plants.
Each course was wonderful, but some stood out. The composed appetizer with shrimp and wasabi was arranged around an edible porcupine!
The sushi course, presented in a lacquer box, rivaled our sushi from Tokyo; we all agreed that the squid was one of the best fishes we’d ever tasted.
The star of the show, though, was the Hida beef course. Japanese beef, or Wagyu, can be any of four breeds of cattle. There are then regional variations. Kobe is of course the best known in the United States; in Central Hokkaido, Hida beef from the region around Takayama is the most prized. The beef is brought to the table raw, sliced in two inch squares that are about 1/3 of an inch thick. The beef is so thoroughly marbled that the flesh seems to shimmer like a mosaic. Cooked briefly on a hibachi and dipped in garlic salt and seasoned soy sauce that has been spiked with freshly grated wasabi, the meat literally melts away in your mouth. This is not the bold, beefy taste prized by eaters of steak, but a delicate, enormously subtle, almost evanescent flavor.
The meal ended with two rice courses but we were only able to nibble a bit at each.
The inn serves warm sake around the fire in the main room after the meal. As the room information brochure says, “Please come to the fireside, enjoy conversation, and share feeling with other guests.” We were so full we could barely waddle—it’s hard to imagine staying more than one night—and we were a little worried about Vladimir “sharing feeling” with the other guests, so we called it a night.
When we returned to our cottage, the table in the main room was nowhere to be seen and two very inviting futons occupied center stage.
Wednesday, October 30
We were hoping for a simple breakfast…until we saw the spread laid out for us.
Scallop soup, clam soup, Hida beef with scallions, tuna Sashimi, some magical miso heated on a banana leaf, dried fish, yoghurt with dragonfruit…and several things I’m forgetting. We promised not to eat for a week.
The staff couldn’t have been lovelier or more accommodating. There had been a slight mixup on our arrival: I had actually booked two cottages, but the young woman in charge had insisted that one of the reservations was for a suite of rooms. As we left she told me that she had made a mistake and, as she repeated more times than I could count, she was horribly, terribly, unforgivably sorry! The Bans had been delighted with their accommodations, and I told her so, but nothing seemed to assuage her dismay. As we pulled away in the inn’s van, she and two of her colleagues stood and waved until we were out of sight.
The van brought us back to Takayama. We stuffed our bags into some lockers at the train station and hoofed it into the old town. There isn’t a lot left of the old town, but what there is is beautifully preserved: traditional Japanese wooden houses with tile roofs.
The town was pretty full of tourists, at least as many of them Japanese as European (we’ve seen almost no Chinese tourists). And the Main Street was lined with shops catering to the many visitors. We eventually wandered into a less touristed part of town, but decided that we’d seen what there was to see. Spoiler alert: Sue started out on a shopping odyssey here that took her to the last day in Osaka. She picked out two gorgeous sake glasses for a couple of our near acquaintance. As soon as she was on the train she asked herself why she hadn’t purchased four of them. And so began a quest…
We weren’t able to get reserved seats on the train back to Toyoma, so we queued early to be safe. The train was scandalously late getting into Toyoma—3 minutes occasions repeated apologies—but we had enough time to make the Shinkansen to Kanazawa.
I had read many times that Kanazawa was the favorite city of many visitors, and the train station certainly made a good first impression!
I wasn’t expecting much from our hotel, the Hotel Nikko Kanazawa, in that it seemed to be a terrific bargain…but it turned out to be spectacular! Wonderfully spacious lobby, great rooms, and two “skyscraper” bars on the 29th and 30th floors with views over the entire city. The best thing, though, was the staff. What a change after the indifferent attitudes at our hotel in Tokyo. Every staff member was not just eager to help, but to go an extra mile; whatever they might have thought about the Gai-Jin in private, they certainly conveyed the impression that they were eager to make our stay a delight.
The coupons for four free drinks didn’t hurt, either. Sue and I went for a reconnoitering walk and made it to the very edge of the castle park and back through the busy downtown shopping district as darkness fell. Although there are about 488,000 Kanazawans, the city radiates a kind of calm and satisfaction. The buildings are much nicer than the great majority of those in Tokyo, the streets and boulevards more suited to strolling.
The hotel concierge had booked us at a very traditional, casual restaurant near the hotel. We were given our own enclosed table with a view of the sushi bar (we had wanted sushi tonight, but the fish market was closed and, ergo, so were all the real sushi joints). We ordered a wild variety of things, from omelets through seafood dumplings, duck stew through fatty tuna maki, vegetables and flying fish roe with collagen jelly through make-it-yourself maki with snow crab and raw egg. Really good!
Thursday, October 31
We had a light breakfast at a French bakery in the train station–just steps from our hotel–and jumped aboard a loop bus (Kanazawa has a great system of buses that run around the center of town, connecting all the most visited sites).
First stop was the Kenroku-en Garden, said to be one of the loveliest stroll gardens in Japan. This 29-acre garden sits across a bridge from the Kanazawa Castle Park, and was built as part of the castle complex in the Edo period. The name means “six attributes garden,” a reference to a seventeenth century Chinese book that describes the six attributes of the perfect strolling garden. Every tree, shrub, rock, and blade of grass has been chosen, sited and maintained to maximize the picturesque quality of every vista.
Charming tea houses sit alongside ponds large and small; the park is also noted for the beauty of its lanterns.
The lantern below is famous, with one of its feet planted in the water.
The garden was swarming with school groups from junior high and high schools, all in uniform. We encountered a particularly friendly group at one of the tea houses. Their teacher was enormously pleased when we complimented them on their English.
I was particularly taken with this “de Stijl” tatami room at one of the tea houses.
From the garden, we crossed a bridge and a huge moat and passed into the park of Kanazawa Castle. The castle itself is a reconstruction, but it gives a fine sense of the importance of the Maeda, the Daimyo or feudal lords that ruled a huge fiefdom.
The park around the castle is quite beautiful, with sweeping vistas that provide a nice contrast to the more intimate spaces in the garden.
From the castle park we hopped on the loop bus and got off at Omicho market, a huge warren of aisles running through the center of a city block. Kanazawa is reputed to have the best food in Japan, and sushi second only to Tokyo. The fish stalls certainly give that sense!
Vladimir had heard that the market was famous for its snow crab, and he was determined to have that for lunch. He went up to a crab seller and made gestures meaning “where can I buy this to eat now?” The friendly salesman drew him what we took to be a picture of a restaurant. We took our Pictogram upstairs, where a dozen seafood restaurants vied for the customer on the prowl for something fresh. We finally settled on a restaurant that looked like the picture. When we showed it to a waitress, though, she motioned us out of the restaurant and led us down the hall, around a corner, and to the door of another restaurant. This was not the first time a person went out of their way to actually lead us to where we wanted to go! As it turned out, what we took to be a picture was the name of the dish Vladimir wanted, and we were soon chowing down on big bowls of extraordinarily fresh seafood!
On the way to the museums we hoped to see, we passed by one of the former pleasure quarters. Unlike many areas of Japan under the shoguns, where the samurai lived on the land, the Maeda forced all their samurai to maintain a house in Kanazawa; and several lively areas of town sprang up to serve them. This was one of the nicer preserved neighborhoods that we had seen.
Vladimir had his eye on the Honda Museum, which specializes in samurai gear and other sharp objects; I wanted to visit the D.T. Suzuki Museum, and everyone decided that was the best choice. The museum is another small gem: devoted to the legacy of Suzuki (who grew up a few yards from the museum), probably the most influential figure in the spread of Zen to the west, the museum building is a study in Zen simplicity. There are very few exhibits, but those are focused and suggestive. The really memorable aspects, though, are the pool and garden behind it. One of the most perfectly proportioned spaces that I know.
I could probably have waited a week, hoping to get a shot free of other visitors. As we were to learn, though, young Japanese are obsessed with shooting their girlfriends in purportedly fashionable poses, and are willing to wait aeons for the right look.
It had been a long but fascinating day, but we had one more treat in store. The concierge at the hotel had found counter seats for us at a casual but excellent sushi restaurant, Tamazushi, in downtown Kanazawa. What a wonderful evening! The fish was unbelievably fresh and varied, and the two chefs behind the counter absolute delights.
As we emerged from the restaurant, we were reminded that it was Halloween!
We all agreed that Kanazawa should be on any visitor’s list!
Friday, November 1
As sorry as we were to leave Kanazawa, we were very excited to see Kyoto. Our express train took us southeast along the shores of Lake Biwa, the largest fresh water lake in Japan.
Kyoto station is another contemporary architectural showcase, and easy to navigate.
We were soon at our hotel, the Hyatt Regency, which immediately rewrote our notion of what a Hyatt is like. Rather than a showy architectural disaster, this was an understated modern take on Japanese architecture: intimate, subtle, lovely. And we got our first taste of the greatest hotel staff any of us have ever experienced.
We got settled in our rooms and headed out to our first temple walk. Kiyomizu-Dera is one of the best known temples, famous for its extraordinary view over Kyoto. The cab dropped us in the Higashiyama district at the bottom of a steep lane thronged with people; the temple came into view as we turned a corner.
The temple was founded in 780, making it older than Kyoto itself. It is named for a sacred waterfall; the name means Pure Water. Like virtually every temple and shrine in Kyoto, it has been repeatedly destroyed by fire and earthquakes and then rebuilt as it was before. The present structure dates from 1633. The temple is Shingon—or esoteric—Buddhist, a major line of Buddhism in Japan that came from India through China. Interestingly, the word Shingon is the Japanese reading of the Chinese word zhēnyán, which is the Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit word mantra. Shingon Buddhism teaches that Enlightenment can be achieved in this life if the proper course of ritual and mediation is followed.
The temple has attained some of its renown from its position high above Kyoto.
The bright vermillion paint allies this and other Shingon temples with Shinto shrines, most of which are marked by vermillion Torii gates.
This temple has much of the good and the bad of Kyoto’s most famous temples: its great beauty is veiled by the hordes of tourists pouring through the gates. We would visit more of the “big five” temples in the days to come, but, for some reason, the overcrowding seemed less tolerable up here. Fortunately, many of the most beautiful and significant temples in Kyoto are not on the itineraries of the tour companies; we were able to visit them and soak up some of the magic that suffuses so much of this city.
Walking along the pathways on the hillside we reached the end of the temple precinct; Sue and Connie saw a sign for another temple and took off like a shot into the forest. Vladimir and I followed more slowly, but gave up when we saw that the goal was a small meditation hut on the mountainside.
Reunited, we took a different path back to Kiyomizu-Dera and discovered a lovely little temple deep in the forest.
From Kiyomizu-Dera we plunged down the hillside and made our way through a series of beautifully preserved alleyways and narrow streets lined with shops and cafes. This area of southern Higashiyama is famous for its lovely alleys and byways.
We stopped for a snack at one cafe and found that it was owned by a young Japanese man who had lived in Southern California for 30 years. The waitress had spent six years in Vancouver and spoke perfect English. These encounters stand out in a country where foreign languages are a constant struggle.
Kyoto is in some ways like Rome: the wanderer finds something interesting and unexpected at every turning.
We were constantly surprised at the number of people in traditional dress; these were predominantly young people, many of whom had presumably rented their attire from one of the many kimono rental shops in southern Higashiyama. The most beautiful kimonos, ravishing things of silk and brocade, are prohibitively expensive. But it is possible to buy a lovely one second hand for as little as fifty bucks.
The preserved streets end in the beautiful Maruyama Park, which surrounds two wonderful temples, Chiron-In and Shoren-In. Although the temples were closed by the time we reached them, we stood, humbled, in front of the massive San-Mon Gate of Cheon-In, the largest temple gate in Japan.
The concierge staff had booked us for dinner at a wonderful place, Torito Yakitori, where we sat at the counter and had our multi-course chicken meal served to us by a very friendly crew. Among the many wonderful things about dining in Japan is the frequent opportunity to sit at a counter while the chef prepares your dinner directly in front of you. Everything imaginable came flying over the counter: skewers of chicken from every part of the bird made up most of the offerings, but the skewers were supplemented with chicken soup, chicken salad, chicken you name it. Delicious and lots of fun!
Saturday, November 2
After a bit of confusion at the hotel—we wanted something light, the hotel wanted us to do the forty two dollar buffet—we found an a la carte option and piled into a taxi headed for northern Higashiyama and the Philosopher’s walk.
The cab dropped us below the imposing gate of Nanzen-Ji. In 1380, not long after the introduction of Zen Buddhism from China, this great monastery counted as the most important of the five major Zen monasteries in Japan.
The massive gate, supported by enormous timbers, offers viewing platforms of the temple grounds and the surrounding hills.
This view suggests the relationship of most of the temples to the city: they lie in the hills that ring the city.
The image hall–the center of the temple–is closed to visitors, but we were able to peer into its dim recesses. The temple precinct is huge, with a number of sub temples (although it is considerably reduced from its former size, when it had 62 sub-temples and over a thousand monks; there was a movement against the monasteries in the Meiji period).
The grounds are lovely, but the main attraction for visitors is the Abbot’s quarters, or Hojo. One section holds reproductions of a series of precious paintings, the other a series of remarkable dry gardens, one of the characteristic features of the Zen monastery. In many of the Zen temples in Kyoto, the dry gardens flow around the Hojo, affording constantly changing views or rather opportunities for zazen, or sitting meditation.
The garden pictured here is known colloquially as “Tiger Crossing a River with her Cubs.” In their scale, the perfection of their proportions, in short in the sense that they create an entire world in miniature, the dry gardens are certainly conducive to meditation.
A very short stroll brought us to Eikan-Do, a monastery of a very different sort. Where Zen emphasizes the abnegation of self as a meditative practice, Pure Land or Jodo Buddhism—the largest sect in Japan—is much more cosmological, focused on Amitābha, a celestial Buddha often referred to as Amida in English. Eikan-Do holds a precious statue of the Amida Buddha in a highly unusual pose, looking back over its shoulder as if checking if we were following.
Pure Land temples are marked by their bright banners, and Eikan-Do is one of the loveliest. I was trailing the group fiddling with my camera when a procession of monks turned the corner right in front of me. I didn’t want to shoot them head on out of respect, but I did manage to snap something as they vanished down a corridor.
The visitor’s path takes one through the main worship halls and then high up on the hillside to a pagoda with panoramic views over the city.
The gardens of Eikan-Do are pure pleasure parks, wholly unlike the Zen garden.
Eikan-Do marks the start of the Philosopher’s Path, a cherry-lined walkway along a stream that connects Eikan-Do with Ginkaku-Ji, popularly known as the Temple of the Silver Pavilion. The path is so named because it is thought to have been the site of a daily meditative walk by the philosopher and Kyoto University professor Kitaro Nishida. Nishida’s work fuses elements from Eastern and Western philosophy; he was a close friend of Suzuki’s and one of the three sites at which his ashes are buried is next to Suzuki’s grave.
Before strolling along the path, we wanted a bite, and stepped into an unusually inviting tea house on the canal. We were very lucky: it was a serene place, with a special, very private feeling. We tried a number of dishes: this was Matcha ice cream with fruits.
A 30 minute walk brought us to the end of the path and the end of Vladimir’s patience with temples! He peeled off in search of knives and other dangerous implements.
The three of us forged ahead and into the precinct of the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, originally the retirement villa of Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the eighth Shōgun of the Ashikaga Shogunate. On his death in 1490, the villa was turned into a Zen temple. The popular name of the temple is disputed: some accounts have Yoshimasa planning to cover the temple in silver foil in emulation of his grandfather, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu’s Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-Ji, which is actually covered in gold leaf. A more likely, or at least more suggestive account has Yoshimasa giving moon viewing parties; the Japanese preference for indirection would have the guests looking at the silvery reflection of the moon in the pond that lay before the villa as they sipped their tea. Thoughts of Women in Love and “Moony!”
The pavilion itself sits in lovely gardens; this is one of the most visited of all the temples, and visitors are restricted to a path that winds through the temple precinct.
Although there are Zen elements to the gardens, with large raked and shaped areas of gravel, this is not a garden made specifically for zazen; it was built for the pleasure of the Shōgun and his guests.
The dry gardens here aren’t related to the abbot’s quarters, but are purely ornamental.
With a three temple day under our belts, we called it quits. The three remaining stalwarts jumped on a city bus and set off on a quest for gifts. The first place we landed, the Kyoto Craft Center, wasn’t great; many kinds of things on offer, but we had the sense that each thing was done better elsewhere. After a careful but frustrating perusal of the sake glass options, we headed for the shopping district, where we visited a well-known dealer in antique woodblock prints. The place was incredible: two floors chockablock with antique prints. Without a spoiler alert for certain people who may be reading this blog I can’t tell you what we got, but the prints on offer are quite beautiful and a fraction of what they cost at home.
Back at the hotel, we initiated a “tradition” that we carried through every night in Kyoto: drinks in the really gorgeous Touzan Bar. Then on to dinner at a lovely restaurant recommended by Andrew and Emily, Hafuu Honten, which specializes in steak (which comes all the way from Kyushu, the next island down).
Sunday, November 3
The crowds at the popular temples are extraordinary…and it isn’t even peak foliage season! We got an early start today, hoping to avoid the worst of the crowds at Kinkaku-Ji, the GoldenPavilion, but to no avail. The temples on the tourist routes are really hard work; here, as at the Silver Pavilion, you’re taken through the temple precincts on a prescribed route with about 500 of your new closest friends. The temple is extraordinarily beautiful, though, sitting behind its pond.
The Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu had purchased an estate from a statesman and expanded it, centering on a new villa that he covered in gold leaf. On his death in 1408, the villa was turned into a Zen monastery—setting the example for his grandson, who did the same with the Silver Pavilion.
Although I was ready, as usual, to see more temples, the rest of the crew begged for a break. We decided to stroll through the Nishijin district, the center of textile production in Kyoto. This proved to be an inspired choice, with surprises around every corner.
The walk started with a quiet and very beautiful Geisha quarter, Kami-Shichiken, which is older than the much more famous Gion.
We made a slight detour to see a temple on the map of the neighborhood, and this temple, Senbon Shaka-Do, was a delight. The main hall, or Honden, is one of the oldest buildings in all of Kyoto, dating from 1227; it has somehow been spared the fires, earthquakes, and human folly that have destroyed so many of Japan’s temples.
We were charmed and puzzled by statues of a rather round young woman both inside and outside the temple, a mystery solved only later through a bit of research.
It turns out that a legend explains the temple’s longevity: the carpenter in charge of construction made the central pillar too short and turned to his wife Okame for advice. She suggested a novel solution, and the temple was soon completed. But before it could be unveiled, she committed suicide to atone for her husband’s loss of face, incurred by seeking the advice of a woman. Her husband carved an image of her face and attached it to the pillar so that her spirit could see the temple. There is now something of a cult of Okame, with masks available all over Japan.
From the temple we moved on to an extraordinary place, the Raku Museum. Many people associate the tea ceremony—the way of tea—with the essence of Japanese culture. The ritualistic preparation and presentation of “thick tea” (tea made from matcha, powdered green tea) has its roots in the mutual interests of the Imperial court (then in Kyoto) and the important Zen monasteries. The first great tea master was Sen no Riky; in search of appropriate implements for the ceremony, he commissioned a tile maker, Chōjirō, to make tea bowls or chawan for the ceremony in the late 16th century. His bowls, hand shaped without the use of a wheel, covered in lead glaze, and removed from the kiln red hot, were so successful that the Regent Hideyoshi conferred the name Raku on Chōjirō’s son. All the Raku ware made since is marked by these practices. The family itself is now in the eighteenth generation, with one member of each new generation named Master. The museum displays works by each master over the centuries. The tea bowls on display are both elegant and very simple, and somehow deeply moving.
Vladimir wasn’t impressed; he thought European schoolchildren could do as well. But then Croatia does serve as the measure of all human culture!
From the museum we hoofed it to the Nishijin Textile Center, which combines a textile museum with a sales floor. On the top floor there is even a running kimono show!
Sue noticed that our wandering had brought us close to the Imperial Palace…which turned out to be a public park with little trace of the palace that ruled Japan for more than 1000 years. It had started to sprinkle (our first rain in Japan), and most of the crew elected to visit the Kyoto National Museum.
I was eager to visit Daikotu-Ji, one of the most influential Zen monasteries. Founded in 1325 by the Zen monk Shuho Myocho with support from the Emperor Hanozano, the temple precincts were enormous up until the Meiji period, with more than 60 subtemples. Still huge—3 city blocks along each side of its walled enclosure—it now has 22 subtemples of which four are open to the public. Daikotu-Ji is also known as „the face of tea“ because of its long association with the tea ceremony; Sen no Rikyu, the most important tea master, developed the ceremony in consultation with the abbot of Daikotu-Ji.
I visited the sub temple Daisen-In first. This temple, designed by the founder, set the direction for an astonishing number of aspects of Japanese culture: the move from wooden shutters to paper windows and sliding panels, the use of tatami mats in special areas, and, above all, an innovative sense of the dry garden. The garden flows, as a stream of life, all the way around the Hojo or Abbot‘s quarters. Much more intimate than later versions such as the ones at Sanzen-Ji, the gardens offer a number of contemplative set pieces.
I also visited Zuiho-In, with two modern dry gardens, subtle variations on classical themes. I was by now pressed for time as it grew dark and I didn‘t have the luxury of giving this subtemple its due.
A long cab ride brought me to the hotel. My fellow travelers had been frustrated again, finding the museum closed, but they had more than compensated for this by visiting the temple next door to the hotel, Sanjusangendomawari; it is distinguished by an enormous image hall containing no fewer than 1000 statues of Kannon, the Boddhisatva of Mercy.
Dinner was something special. It is extremely difficult to get into one of the Sushi temples in Tokyo: they‘re tiny, booked for months in advance, and suspicious of foreign guests. The redoubtable concierge at the Hyatt, though, had gotten us into one of Kyoto‘s jewels, Gidon Matsudaya, a Michelin starred restaurant with just six seats at the counter. The staff consists of the chef, his wife, and his adult daughter. The other guests were two very nice women from Singapore; the conversation was lively and interesting, but most of our attention was focused on the chef and his very long and very sharp sushi knife.
We started with 8 or so pieces of sashimi; sushi then alternated with bites of things that the chef had prepared in different ways. The range of flavors and textures was the whole show; and the chef was extremely patient as he explained to us what to do at every stage. The meal lasted almost 2 1/2 hours, and was one of the most memorable in my experience. It was also the most expensive meal we’ve ever eaten.