Japan: Tokyo

Tokyo, I love you.


We went to Japan for a little over two weeks back in March, for my 30th birthday, where we met my brother Etienne from Montreal, whom I hadn't seen in a long time!! I've been wanting to visit Japan for a long time, and I’m sooo happy I've had the chance to go, I was all I could've imagined...and more. I want to go back already.
I wanna move there.

Equipped with my lonely planet and my Japanese vocabulary that consists of knowing Dori=street, Koen=park, and recognizing the squiggle for the exit sign, I was convinced that we would be in a perpetual state of being lost and confused. Surprisingly enough, traveling in Japan, and even Tokyo, is almost easy, everything just pretty much works and everyone is really friendly. But I owe most of this not getting lost too much in Tokyo to my Iphone, and the maps in it that let me know where I was with the push of a button, just like magic. Despite the colossal size of Tokyo, in area and people, the city and public transport does make sense, it is so clean, orderly and on schedule.

We spent a week in Tokyo, which is not nearly enough even to scratch the surface, this city has so much to offer, it's insane! And we were amazed by pretty much everything. We had accommodation in Asakusa, and we tried to take in as much as we could, by visiting various shrines and temples, many neighborhoods, the Ghibli Museum, and by eating lots and lots and lots of delicious foods (so many delicious treats, I wonder how so few overweight Japanese there are).

 

I could write on and on about this absolutely amazing city, about the futuristic toilets, the amazing shops and out of this world customer service, the vending machines for pretty much anything imaginable, the trains, people, and the hidden treasures, but I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Laputa robot at Ghibli museum

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Japan: Osaka - Nara - Kyoto

OSAKA
Our next stop was Osaka, where we arrived on my birthday to be greeted by my dear friend Yoko whom I hadn't seen in a long time! On the night we arrived, she had organized a birthday dinner in one of her favorite Japanese restaurant, and it was oh so delicious! During the next few days, Yoko would show us around her city, and we also went to Nara and Kyoto.

Osaka is a pretty awesome city, a little more manageable in size compared to Tokyo, and still has so much to offer! And I want to move there too.

We were lucky enough to find ourselves in Osaka during the Sumo Tournament, and it was quite amazing to see! The Sumo tournament goes on for two weeks, and starts in the early am to finish up at 6pm. And like everything else orderly and on schedule in this country, it was really over by 6:01. We went for the last couple of hours to watch the fat man in diapers push themselves around. It was pretty cool!



We got a clear glimpse of Mt Fuji in the train from Tokyo to Osaka - Famous Glico man in Osaka - My birthday dinner - Sumo!
    


NARA
Nara, Japan’s most ancient capital, is celebrating its 1300th anniversary this year. The city is filled with ancient goodness and amazing temples. And there are deer everywhere!
The Sika deer are regarded as messengers of the gods in the Shinto religion, they are somewhat sacred and are allowed to roam the grounds freely. They are seen as protectors of the city and country. They are everywhere, it’s pretty surreal, but they are very pushy and they will get to your deer biscuits.




In Nara, we visited Todai-ji, a Buddhist temple complex listed as a World Heritage Site. The Great Buddha Hall is apparently the largest wooden building in the world (bottom top row left) and houses the world’s largest bronze statue of the Great Buddha, called the Daibutsu, which stands at 15 meters high (picture left). We were in Nara in time to catch a glimpse of the Omizutori Ceremony, which is held every year in the first two weeks of March at the Nigatsu-do hall of Tōdai-ji temple.


This festival is a collection of Buddhist rituals and has been held every year for over 1250 years, making it the one of the oldest reoccurring Buddhist events in Japan. Ancientness.
     

Just after sunset on every night for the first two weeks of March, giant torches, ranging in length from six to eight meters, are carried up to Nigatsu-do's balcony and held over the crowd. The burning embers (big chunks of them) that shower down from the balcony onto the spectators below are thought to give the spectators a safe year and good luck. The ceremony also marks the end of winter and the start of warmer spring weather. The Nigatsu-do hall is a giant wood structure, I would think fire and wood are the perfect combination for a catastrophe, and the structure did burn down during this ceremony a few hundred years ago, but there were no major incidents in this one.

We went on the 12th of March, the final rite in observance of the two week-long ceremony, the longest and the most crowded night of the festival. The crowd was quite impressive and was orchestrated by a team of police officers guiding the slow moving queue of onlookers through the temple grounds so that they could get a view of the fire ceremony. The wait was long, but the ceremony was quite spectacular and the crowd was as orderly as could be.


KYOTO
Kyoto is the classically traditional Ying to Tokyo’s hyper-modern Yang. It’s traditional Japan as you imagined it, filled with beautiful and very Japanese architecture, gorgeous temples and shrines, bamboo forests, geishas, delicious foods and lots of culture to experience. Kyoto was spared from the bombing of WWII, making it one of the best preserved cities in Japan. Very delightful for the eyes. We spent 2 days here walking around the city, exploring the Kamo river, Kiyomizudera temple and Nanzen-ji Temple, a small sample of what Kyoto has to offer.

We also indulged in some fancy dinner while here at Toriyasa, along the Kamo River. This traditional Japanese restaurant was established in the 1780's and apparently still appears as it did when it first opened. At Toriyasa, the meal lasts a few hours, and a hostess/geisha comes in and out of your private dining room (with proper geisha etiquette, entering and exiting on her knees through the sliding door - picture bottom right, ect!) bringing different courses, and to attend to the hot pot, adding ingredients, and serving. She also would normally stay in and entertain with various conversations, but this was a little difficult and awkward with 3 of us not speaking Japanese, Yoko acting as a translator, and the hostess not speaking English…Beautiful food, gorgeous restaurant with lots of history, steep prices and a little uncomfortable, but an experience.

   

Japan Photos

Japan: Hiroshima

Our trip to Hiroshima was a whirlwind tour de force. We would stop here for one night only, but we all agreed that this stop was a must in our itinerary, even for this short a time. We arrived quite early in the morning and made our way quickly to our accommodations before heading off to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Left as a reminder of the horrible effects of war in the atomic age, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial stands as it did 65 years ago; a hollow skeletal structure. Finding ourselves standing at such an infamous scene left us speechless. We then made our way to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum; seeing the effects of this horrific event through the many artifacts, personal recollections, dioramas and photographs was quite shocking. Visiting the museum left us understandably shaken and we spent most of the time there in silence.




After leaving the museum we wandered around the surrounding area for close to an hour before settling into a local hiroshimayaki restaurant for the local specialty. Named after the city, this variant on the more common Okonomiyaki (savory pancake, yum!) is predominantly a combination of cabbage, batter, egg and cheese cooked on an open grill. Outside of the museum, Hiroshima is a very scenic city and I wish we had given ourselves more time to explore.

Japan Photos

Japan: Yudanaka & monkey park

Jigokudani monkey park
There were only a few key rules laid out in broken English and Japanese on a sign in the visitors center at the Jigokudani Monkey park: Don't touch, feed or scare the monkeys. As it turned out these rules were treated more like suggestions as we saw more than a couple of visitors disregarding all three. Although Japanese Macaques are native to the hills around the park, they have been encouraged to come into the valley by the hosts of the park who have installed a permanent bathing area and furnished a generous supply of food. The monkey's heated pool is fed by the naturally occurring hot springs (Japanese onsen) that are common in the area and popular with tourists and locals alike. Throughout the winter months the monkeys are commonly found lounging in the steaming water and foraging for food in the surrounding area. As the macaques go about their business they almost completely ignore the human presence, and this makes for some candid photographic opportunities.
However, if they feel threatened by you, they may give you evil looks, hisses, drool, and even try to slap you. We found the smaller ones to be more harmless.




We stayed at Shimaya Ryokan in Yudanaka, the hosts were awesome, and there was an onsen. They made sure you had everything to make your stay the best it can be. Everything was so dated and 70's looking, even the hosts themselves, but that was part of he charm. The city itself outside of the monkey park was quite small and had the feeling of a ghost town – a nice change of pace after crazy Tokyo. And yes, monkeys are awesome.

Japan Photos