Sunday, Apr 8th, Koyasan, Japan

Greetings!

A taxi, bullet train, subway, express train, walk, funicular, bus, and walk took us to lunch, and the start of a day which would end with a stay tonight at a Buddhist temple inn in Koyosan on a thin mat in the cold after a very vegetarian dinner served by the resident monks.

The afternoon began with a visit to the Kongobu-ji Temple Complex, home of Koyosan Shingon Buddhism, founded by Kukai (Kobo Daishi) in 812AD. Kukai is considered the most important religious figure in Japan's history, and the grand master of Shingon Buddhism.  And later in the day, we learned that he's asleep at the second stop we made - the Okunoin Temple.  Being served meals each day, his followers expect him to awaken in 5.7 billion years.

The real treasure of the day was clearly the host of temples and shrines and the cemetery at Koyosan.  A wonderful city burstng with temples, Koyosan sits in a valley between eight peaks high in the mountains of Japan.  It's likened to being in the middle of a lotus flower, but in the snow. We have been carrying around long underwear and jackets throughout the first month of our trip in very heavy suitcases.  Now, we're very glad we did.

Before returning to our inn, we took a long walk through the cemetery here.  With over 200,000 inhabitants (not really dead?) awaiting the awakening, it's more like a sea of monuments than a cemetery.  Add to it that there are thousands of mature (500-800 year-old) huge Japanese cedars, and you get an awesome display of devotion and belief.  Twelve hundred years of transporting almost a million tons of granite, found nowhere near here, to carve and use as tributes to Japan's Shoguns, Emperors, and greatest corporate leaders - is so beautifully exhibited and maintained.

To see all of the photos (lots of good ones) taken today, click on Sunday, Apr 8th, Koyosan, Japan.

Saturday, April 7th, Kyoto, Japan

Greetings!

Today was our first Japanese breakfast.  I've been getting used to stranger and stranger lunches and dinners, but I not my breakfasts.   I guess that's over.

By train, we went to the nearby city of Fushimi to see the Mt. Inari Shinto Shrine.  Built in the 8th century, the shrine is dedicated to  the Japanese kami (spirit, deity, divinity, god, etc.) which takes male and female forms, and often protects the harvest.

The crowds were enormous, and the many young marriages being celebrated and photographed were exciting to see.  Kimonos in every style and color were being worn, and it seemed like every teenage girl in Asia was taking pictures of their costumed best friends.

The paths up to the Shrine are straddled with vermillion gates (torii - bird abode), a pigment used for thousands of years all over the world which has come to be associated with places of worship.  Made from a powder of cinnabar, it was used in Central and South American in ceramics and cave paintings in the Chavin civilization, the Maya, Moche, and Inca empires.  It can also be found in ancient Rome and China.

One of the oldest representations featured there is of a kitsune (fox), a Shinto messenger.  Carrying in its mouth one of four objects symbolizing its powers and foci, the foxes have a long history of portrayal in Shinto shrines and at Inari. 

Next, we visited the Yasaka Shinto Shrine, first begun in 656AD.  The complex consists of several buildings, a main hall, and a stage.  Ordered by Emperor Murakami in 965 to be the site of imperial news and the reporting of great events to the guardian kami of Japan, the Mikoshi of the shrine were paraded through the streets of Kyoto in 969 to ward off an epidemic that had hit the city.

Finally, in the late afternoon we walked to the Gion District to have an early dinner and be introduced to a Maiko (Geisha in training).  This 16-year old apprentice performed a short dance, and answered questions from us on her life and career.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Saturday, Apr 7th, Kyoko, Japan.

Friday, April 6th, Kyoto, Japan

Greetings!

Before leaving Takayama, we packed an overnight bag for the trip to Kyoto.  You've all seen plenty of photos of our travel in a train or bus, so I'm going to assume you don't want to see lots more of them.  But we did spend much of today traveling.  The scenes out the windows were great, and especially the ride by bullet train (Shinkansen).  I am going to help you experience the last bus ride, however.  It was, as one of our co-travelers said, "an immersion".

Kyoto was the home of Japan's leadership for over eleven hundred years.  In 794, Emperor Kanmu moved the country's capital to here (Heian-kyo).  Previously, there had been 49  emperors, dating back to 660 BC, but this new period is often referred to as the "thousand year capital", because of its permanence in Kyoto.

The period (Edo) of the Tokugawa Shogunate dominance of Japan lasted from 1603 to 1868, when Japanese society was under its family rule, and the country's 300 regional Daimyo.  Of course, it was the Samurai military leadership (hired by the daimyos to protect them, who ran things.

Nijo-jo Castle was the place where the first Shogun (Tokugawa Ieyasu) gathered his daimyos (friend and foe) together, and the hawk was displayed on the meeting room walls as his symbol of power.  The floors were held together with an intricately-designed nailing system which chirped "like nightingales" when walked on to warn the occupants of attacks during the night.

Next, we traveled to Kinkaku-Ji, a Zen Buddhist temple, also known as the Golden Pavillion. Built as a Shogun family villa in 1397, it was destroyed 75 years later.  Re-built in early 1500, it was again destroyed by a novice monk in 1950. Finally, re-built in 1955, its three-story, gold leaf design, and extensive gardens, place it among the 17 World Heritage Sites in Kyoto.

In the early evening, we returned to Kyoto to find our hotel dinner accommodations in some ruin.  In pouring rain, our group scattered to the restaurants nearby.  Pat and I found a very memorable seven-seater downstairs just off the main street, and had the chef all to ourselves.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Friday, Apr 6th, Kyoto, Japan.

Thursday, April 5th, Takayama, Japan

Greetings!

Today, we walked around the town of Takayama.  If you've been reading or watching films about Japan's history, you know about the Shoguns.  What you don't know about them is that there were families of Shoguns that dominated Japan for centuries.  One of those families (Tokugawa) made Takayama their homebase.  From 1600 to 1868, the family was the last feudal military government in Japan.  Almost everything you need to know about the Shoguns, you can learn about in this town.

And the perfect person to explain it to us is Mac, our local guide.  And his added talents are his love of saki, and his previous background as the physical education teacher to half the students in the town.  Still struggling with English, he has no problem guiding us to all the right historical and current places of interest in the town. 

From our hotel, across the river, to the many temples and Shogun government offices, and to the many shops which continue the artistry and craftsmanship which was necessary to sustain this central powerbase in the heart of the Japanese Alps, we walked and Mac talked.

In the late afternoon, we were released to find our own way to what had peaked our interest on the tour.  Pat and I visited some temples in the hills (including the Sugurayama Hachimangu Shrine), and finished up before dinner with the Kusakabe Folk Crafts Museum, a replica of the famous Tosho-gu Shinto Shrine in Nikko, and a the Higashiyama Walkway.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Thursday, Apr 5th, Takayama, Japan.

Wednesday, April 4th, Takayama, Japan

Greetings!

We traveled by bus, train, sky gondola, bus, ship, bus, bullet train, and bus today.  So I hope you enjoy seeing us inside and out of most of those.  There actually are a couple of videos in the photo album that I hope you can view.  They're of the bullet train.  We ended up in Takayama, where we'll be for two days.

Not much else to say except the views are great (including Mt Fuji).  We capped it off with another great little meal at a local diner.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Wednesday, Apr 4th, Takayama, Japan.  

Tuesday, April 3rd, Hakone, Japan

Greetings!

Many subways and trains later, we're in Hakone.  We'll be back in Tokyo in 20 days, but now we're traveling around the country (and all its major islands).  We've all seen images of the crowded trains in and around Tokyo, and the staff who are employed to cram you into them.  I can tell you that we did not see them do that, but also did not try to enter the trains in the central stations at rush hour.

What we did do today was travel around the greater Tokyo area to visit temples and shrines.  The Cherry blossoms are still blooming, and everywhere we went the trees were beautiful.

Why do we visit all of these religious and governmental structures?  It's the easiest and most direct way to learn about history, and the people who lived through the last several thousand years.

We also walked through bamboo forests, watched hawks, and even heard a frog or two.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Tuesday, April 3rd, Hakone, Japan.

Monday, April 2nd, Tokyo, Japan

Greetings!

We started out for Tokyo on Saturday night, staying up until 2am, checking out of the hotel, taking a taxi to the Changi Airport, checking into the flight, hanging out at the gate until 6pm, and then flying to Tokyo until 2pm on Sunday.

Our guide met us at the Tokyo airport, and helped us get our luggage and us to our hotel in downtown Tokyo (bus and a taxi).  Checking into the hotel, we decided to stay up as late as we could to reset our bionic clocks.  At 8pm, we went out and found a small ramen restaurant a few blocks away, had one of the best meals ever (very talented chef), and hit the sack at 10pm.

Today, we joined our new tour's briefing after breakfast at 9am.  Fifteen seasoned travelers from England, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US.  Our guide, Kosue, has led these 22-day tours of the Best of Japan for many years.  We were given audio devices to wear around our necks, to which we attached our personal ear phones or headsets.  I have poo-pooed these things as I saw them being used by Japanese tour groups in SF before now.  Now i see the value.  Stragglers and wayward photographers, who don't stay close enough to hear the words of the lead guide, often miss half the walking tour commentary.  These devices allow the group to not do what they do naturally (stretch out from the speedy to the slow walkers, but keep everyone within hearing range easy to find.

The group walked to a nearby buddhist temple (Zojo-Ji), to the top of the Tokyo Tower, and then by subway to a very expensive shopping district (Ginza - $10,000/square foot).   What a contrast!  The first helps you rid yourself of want, the second broadens your vision, and the third encourages and fulfills your desires.

While Pat spent her time in a bookstore (surprise), I chose the most popular cross-street in Tokyo to photograph people (another surprise).  One of the odd visuals of the day was the large number of young people wearing black suits that all seemed to look the same.  These are the salaried employees, who beginning this week are undergoing a kind of fraternity/sorority pledge system, being trained for a freshman year in workplace etiquette and discipline.  Looked a little like an employee probationary army with good-looking outfits.

We then took the subway to the Asakusa Shrine (Senso-Ji), where we walked the riverbank to see our first closeups of the Cherry Blossom Sakura.  Appreciating and celebrating the blossoming of the flowers is a national past-time, and it's been happening here this week. 

Finally, we returned by subways to the hotel, and made plans for tomorrow's adventures.  Three temples await.  After resting a bit, we went out to a nearby small restaurant, similar to the one we visited yesterday.  Pat asked me to photograph tonight's meal (pork cutlets, rice, and miso soup), and we swung by last night's site for photos of it.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on: Monday, April 2nd, Tokyo, Japan