| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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Using our phrase book, we were able to determine that they were cheap, and so went in, pointed through the door to what we wanted and got two large bowls of soba noodles, broth, and tempura vegetables, for a total of ¥800. It's true that the restaurant lacked some of what most people might consider necessary, such as tables and chairs (you stand at a waist-high counter to eat) and spoons (you pick up the bowl and drink from it), but it was good and it was cheap. Standing there, slurping my soup (slurping one's noodles is considered good manners in Japan), I felt that I was getting at least a glimpse of Japanese life.
But it was a very small glimpse, I realize, and though it's still early in the trip, I have to say I'm having a hard time getting a handle on Japan. Though this is a less formally regimented country than Singapore, it is nonetheless a very regimented country by consensus. Everyone dresses the same (the men all wear dark blue suits, with the very occasional gray one), and the women wear a lot of black. It reminds me a bit of what China was like when we were there, although that has changed a lot in the last fifteen years and Japan is still very 'cookie-cutter.'
I had expected some culture shock, and people had said it was the most different culture they had seen, but I'm just not feeling it. Maybe reading so much about it ahead of time made some difference, and also the fact that we're not interacting with the people here except on a very superficial level. Doing business here would be a shock, I imagine.
I do notice that while people try not to be rude, they are a bit stand-offish. For example, if I sit down on a subway next to someone, they won't get up and move away, but if the seat next to me frees up, a person standing right there might not take it.
Anyway, after lunch we went back to the Shrine to the War Dead. This is officially named the Yusukuni-jinja Shrine, which means 'Peaceful Country Shrine.' In Star of the Unborn, Franz Werfel postulates a future in which, after try to be the 'world's darling' by two wars of conquest, Germany became a very pacifistic country. To some extent he seems to have had the right idea, but the wrong country. (Yes, I know the shrine was named over a century ago. Bear with me.) After World War II, Japan (with a lot of 'encouragement' from the United States, renounced war as part of their new constitution. (One wonders why, if we thought it such a great idea, we didn't change our own constitution to match.) As far as I can tell, they seem to have adopted this belief rather than just mouthing the words. But on the other hand, if they could name a shrine to the war dead the 'Peaceful Country Shrine' even back then, it implies that this peaceful stance may not be as meaningful as we might think. The fact that hundreds of war criminals were enshrined here also indicates that what the Japanese mean when they renounce war is not what we are hearing.
Of course, for a while it seemed as though the Japanese had renounced war as a method of conquest and switched to economics and capitalism instead. However, recent setbacks in the Japanese economy and their overseas holdings make that less likely as a long-term future either.
There is also a military museum on the grounds, the Yushukan Museum (¥200). This was closed for a long time after World War II, and now seems to concentrate on everyday objects and diaries of soldiers rather than the more militaristic displays of armaments and glorifications of victories that one sees elsewhere. The fact that the Japanese still refer to their long and brutal invasion of China as the 'Chinese Incident,' and don't seem to include it as part of World War II (which they call the 'East Asian War') again seems to indicate an unwillingness to face historical fact completely.
Finishing up here, we took the subway to the Ginza. I expected a lot of tall buildings, and there were a few, but tall here seems to mean about ten stories. This is no doubt due to earthquake restrictions, but it makes the Ginza look small by comparison to the downtown shopping areas of New York, Chicago, or even San Francisco. We followed the Frommer's tour here, but it seemed to consist in large part of shops and galleries (well, it is what the area is known for), and other than the display areas in the Sony building, there was little of interest. Sony displays some of its newest products in its building, as so many other companies (mostly in Shinjuku these days, I think). We also stopped into a bookstore, and discovered that English-language books cost two or three times their United States-marked price (just in case you're interested).
We stopped in the Tourist Information Center for a couple of brochures, then walked over to the Yamanote Line, where we got on the train and rode it a full circuit around the city before finally getting off at Ikebukuro. This is supposed to be a good way to see the city, and it probably is if you are on a train that is not absolutely packed with people. We could see out the window behind up somewhat by twisting around, but it was not ideal. (I wonder if anyone has a book pointing out sights one can see from this train at various places along the route.) It wasn't rush hour that made the train so full, because the second time we rode from Yurukucho to Ikebukuro the car was emptier, not fuller as it would have been if it were rush hour traffic building up.
This at least let us sit down for about an hour, and gave us enough energy to walk back to the Kimi, stopping for a Coke on the way. There are vending machines everywhere selling Coke, other sodas, and about a dozen variations of tea and coffee in cans. Some even give you a choice of hot or cold tea or coffee (in cans, so I hope they don't heat it too much!). These are fairly consistently ¥110, which is certainly cheaper than in a restaurant, but I suspect canned coffee is not as good as fresh brewed.
We also stopped at the local mini-market and picked up some sushi-to-go for dinner. One of the assortments was vegetarian: four oshinko-maki, three giant maki, and three rice balls wrapped in fried tofu wrappers. The other was mostly shellfish sushi: shrimp, giant clam, two pieces of squid, two kappa maki, tamago, salmon roe, and something close to eel. The former was ¥380; the latter was ¥580. They come complete with chopsticks, ginger, and soy sauce (no wasabi, though), so we ate them in the Kimi lounge/dining area with the green tea provided there. This is certainly cheaper sushi than we can find at home, and is even cheaper than something like McDonald's at home. I had conservatively (I thought) budgeted US$80 per day for food for us; I suspect we will not even come close to that.
We had heard about someone's problems finding a place to stay in Kyoto, so we decided to call one place we had a recommendation for. We managed to get our first five nights in Kyoto there, but still had to find someplace for the other six. However, this at least got us started (and through the period of our JapanRail Pass, when we wanted to be doing day trips, not changing hotels), so we decided to wait until we had collected more change for the phone before trying some other places.
I looked at the JNTO brochure 'Walking Tour Courses in Tokyo' that we got at the TIC, and decided it was better than the Frommer's book. The book, while it has some good sights, concentrates too much for my taste on shops, hotels, and restaurants. (I can think of several people who would love it, though.) The brochure has six walks on eight pages (four sheets) which seem more the temple/shrine/museum/interesting store type. It doesn't have much background on each, but then, the Frommer's didn't have enough to eliminate the need for a good guidebook. The ones in Fodor's aren't bad, and do have some background information, but for a quick overview, the free brochure gets my vote.
October 10, 1996: Well, I fell asleep at 21:00 and woke at 2:00, so I got five hours of sleep-at the wrong time.
We left the Kimi at 7:00 (no point in getting to Kamakura before anything opens). At Ikebukuro Station we got tickets to Kamakura (¥880 each one-way). We rode to Shinagawa and then changed there with no real problem. The train that arrived on the Kamakura track didn't actually say 'Kamakura' but the station attendant said it was the train for Kamakura.
When we got off at Kita-Kamakura (the stop at the near edge of Kamakura), our tickets were taken not by a machine, but by a ticket collector. This is one of the few places where this was true; I guess it's not a very busy station.
Kamakura is known for its temples and shrines, mostly originating from the time when Kamakura was the capital in the 13th century. Our first stop was the Engaku-ji Temple (¥200), right by the train station. (Actually, I think that is redundant, since 'ji' means temple. It's sort of like saying 'Rio Grande River.' We found this redundancy everywhere, with 'Something-jinja Shrine,' 'Something-koen Park,' and 'Something-jo Castle' as well.) Engaku-ji is one of the five main Rinzai Zen Buddhist temples in Kamakura. (Rinzai relies more on riddles, stories, and question-and-answer drills than on the meditation of Soto Buddhism.) Founded in 1282 in memory of those who had died resisting Kublai Khan's second invasion attempt. As with many temples and shrines, the buildings themselves are not that old, having been rebuilt and reconstructed many times. Even the main gate here dates back to only 1780. There is a bell from 1301, the largest in Kamakura and a Japanese National Treasure.
Another Japanese National Treasure here is the Shrine of the Buddha Tooth, which we spent far too long looking for. Though we were given an English-language pamphlet describing the buildings, there was no map of which was which. There was a picture of this building, but its distinctive upswept roof was blocked in real life by tree branches and when we first looked at it we didn't realize what it was.
There was also a Zen garden (like a rock garden, but consisting mostly of a few dark rocks on a ground of small white pebbles). The pebbles are swept into lines and circles around the rocks, given the whole the appearance of islands in a sea. Around the garden were a hundred small statues and carvings of Buddhas.
In front of the temple was some sort of children's festival, probably in honor of Health and Sports Day, in which teams of young children competed in games. These were accompanied by music, usually from Walt Disney films.
Because there are so many temples in Kamakura, we decided to skip all but the main ones, and so did not go to Tokei-ji, a temple known for its history as a women's refuge. Women who lived as nuns for three years here could be recognized as officially divorced, which it why this is sometimes referred to as the 'Battered Wives Temple.' However, there are no nuns living there today, less complicated methods for divorce now being available.
We did stop of Jochi-ji Temple (founded in 1283) (¥100), listed as one of Kamakura's five great Zen temples. What are the other four? And what makes a Zen temple great? Are they talking about the architecture, or the quality of the teachers? Certainly architecturally this did not appear (to me, anyway) as that noteworthy. And if it were the architecture, then when they reconstruct the buildings, do the rankings change? And why five? I had read that the Japanese like to list the three best of everything.
We were going to stop at Kencho-ji Temple next, but the admission fee there was ¥1500 per person (at the other temples it is about ¥200). While Kencho-ji did look very large and imposing from outside, we suspected we did not understand Buddhist architecture or symbolism well enough to appreciate it that much, so decided to skip it. (Kencho-ji is Kamakura's most important Zen temple, and I'm sure someone will say that this is like going to Rome and not seeing Saint Peter's. But Saint Peter's I understand.)
(This, by the way, seemed to be one of the few times the Lonely Planet guide was out of date. Most of the other admissions and fares were what they had been when the guide was printed in October 1994. |
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