Japan, May 9 - 28, 2013

(Click on images to enlarge)

The iconic Torii at Miyajima

We had long wanted to visit Japan.  Todd made an abortive attempt to study Japanese at Stanford, and Georgia developed a love for sushi after arriving in New York after college.  But our Foreign Service assignments took us to Europe and Latin America rather than Asia.

Opportunity beckoned with the receipt of a brochure advertising a May 2013 Stanford alumni travel/study tour “Japan by Sea,” co-sponsored by MIT and the American Museum of Natural History. This program featured 11 nights on a Bahamian-registered 115-passenger passenger ship that could call at smaller ports in Japan’s Inland Sea, Korea, and northern Honshu, preceded by two nights in Kyoto and followed by a final night in Tokyo.   We decided to sign up for the tour but add extra days on our own, two in Kyoto and four in Tokyo.

This expanded itinerary included the following highlights:

--  Kyoto, seat of the emperor until 1865: Golden Pavilion, Silver Pavilion, Nanzen-ji, Tenryu-ji, and Sanjusangendo-ji Buddhist temples with a lecture on Zen Buddhism by an American monk; visit to Miho Museum in the hills outside of Kyoto;

           

-- Nara, the older Japanese capital, with historic Todai-ji and Horyu-ji Buddhist temples; embarkation on the Caledonian Skye;

-- Naoshima, a fishermen’s island in the Inland Sea that has reinvented itself as an art and architecture center with works in museums, including the extraordinary Chichu Museum designed by Tadao Ando, and outdoor sculptures;

-- Hiroshima, where the park and museum commemorating the atomic bomb attack are surrounded by a very attractive city;

-- Miyajima, reachable by the ship's zodiacs, featuring an iconic 6^th century Shinto shrine extending into the Inland Sea;

-- Hagi, a northern Honshu ceramics center with a samurai quarter that recalls the city’s role as the wellspring of the 1860’s revolution that led to the Meiji Restoration, ending the Tokugawa Shogunate and introducing western-style polity to Japan;

-- Ulsan, Korea (a side trip necessary to avoid violation of Japan’s cabotage laws) with a bus trip to Gyeongju, one of the great cities of the world in the first millennium C.E. with its 6^th century Bulguksa Buddhist temple;

-- Matsue, a port city in northern Honshu, which features a six-story 17^th century castle and the new Adachi Museum of Art outside the city with superb traditional-style gardens integrated into the museum complex;

-- Kanazawa, also in northern Honshu, with the 25-acre Kenroku-en, begun in the 16^th century and now often considered to be the finest traditional garden in Japan; tea ceremony in the garden’s tea house; the geisha tea house district Higashi Chaya;

-- Sado Island, off northern Honshu, where we heard an ear-splitting performance of the Kodo (“heartbeat”) drumming group and visited a paddy in this region renowned for its high quality rice;

-- Niigata, disembarking from the Caledonian Skye and boarding the shinkansen (“bullet train”) to Tokyo;

-- Tokyo, where we parted company with the tour and set off on four wonderful days of sightseeing, staying at International House, a private club, thanks to the intervention of Todd’s good friend from grad school.

The following observations from our trip are arranged by subject but reference the above itinerary.

Religion

Much of our sightseeing involved visits to Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, representing the two major religions in Japan.  However, we also saw a number of Christian churches, Protestant and Catholic, and some imposing houses of worship of the so-called “new religions,” whose theologies represent amalgams of the tenets of other faiths.  Japanese frequently combine Shinto rituals with Buddhist practices, an interesting variant on Pascal’s Wager.

Shinto, “the way of the gods,” is the older religion, teaching that deities (“kami”) hold sway over all things in nature, animate and inanimate.  Tied to the imperial family, who were supposedly descended from the greatest kami, Shinto was the state religion from the mid-19^th century to the U.S. occupation, when it was disestablished.   The larger Shinto shrines, where the kami are worshipped, are usually marked by a square gateway (“torii”), somewhat similar to the entrance gate to a ranch in the western United States.

Meiji Shrine, Tokyo

Meiji Shrine, Tokyo

Buddhism, which entered Japan in the 6^th century from India via China and Korea, seems far more complicated.  Probably like most Americans, we associated the religion primarily with its Zen-Buddhist variant, which emphasizes meditation and simplicity.

Golden Pavilion, Kyoto

Ryoan-ji Temple, Kyoto

However, other Buddhist sects reflect Hindu admixtures and are anything but serene.   The most extreme example was the Sanjusangen-do Temple in Kyoto, which features 1001 life-size statues of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, with a number of her fearsome protectors.  Photography was not permitted in that sanctuary, but the following photos portray the impressive deities we encountered in other such temples.

The Buddha at Todai-ji Temple, Nara

Buddhist god at Todai-ji Temple, Nara

The Buddha at National Museum, Gyeongju, Korea

Guardians at the Bulguksa Temple, Gyeongju, Korea

Bulguksa Temple with lanterns celebrating Buddha's birthday, Gyeongju, Korea

Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo

Senso-ji Temple, Toyko: Pilgrims cleansing themselves with incense

Weddings

Perhaps because of the wonderful weather we enjoyed, love was in bloom throughout our travels.  Most bridal couples wore traditional Japanese outfits, especially at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, a popular wedding venue.  However, a reportedly growing interest in Christian ceremonies was reflected in a series of weddings we saw one day in a makeshift church, normally the cocktail lounge, at Kyoto’s Crown Plaza Hotel.   Here the brides wore western-style white gowns, and music was provided for all the ceremonies by a four-piece string ensemble and two vocalists who sang several recognizable hymns, sometimes in English.  The denominational affiliation of the officiant was not obvious.

Meiji Shrine, Tokyo

Miyajima

International House, Tokyo

ANA Crown Plaza Hotel, Kyoto

Japanese wedding photos, in full dress, are sometimes taken well before the ceremony for incorporation in a souvenir album for distribution to guests at the wedding itself.   We were fortunate to see one such photo-shoot in the geisha tea house sector of Kanazawa, where the groom literally threw himself into the spirit of the occasion.  The figure on the ground is a photographer, who was apparently seeking a worm’s eye perspective.

Food

As sushi lovers, we felt impelled to watch the tuna auction at Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji Market.  However, attendance required arrival at the market by 4:15 a.m. as admission is limited to 120 people.  Having barely made the cut, we were treated to a 90-minute wait on the floor until our cohort could enter.  (We must have been the oldest attendees by 20 years!)  Once in, we watched the buyers pick at the frozen tuna carcasses with hooks to judge their quality and make their bids with flicks of the wrist while the auctioneer carried on in a language unintelligible to a native Japanese speaker in our cohort.  The winning bids reportedly worked out to around $200 per kilo.  According to our guide on the Stanford tour, the fish are usually caught in the strait between Hokkaido and Honshu and frozen on board the fishing boats en route to Tokyo.

Waiting to be admitted to tuna auction at Tsukiji Fish Market, Toyko

Video of tuna auction

We had been told that it was impossible to get a bad meal in Japan, and our experience certainly did not contradict that proposition.

Shabu-shabu dinner in Kyoto

Kaiseki ryori dinner

Carmelized eel, one of our favorites

Dessert at tempura restaurant: taiyaki ("baked sea bream") with iced coffee

Featuring sushi, sukiyaki, or tempura, our restaurants were chosen on the recommendation of a hotel concierge or a Japanese friend.  Several were remarkably small, accommodating less than 15 diners.   Food selection was simple at one sushi place, where we could pick our choices off a conveyor belt with our bill determined by the number of plates stacked in front of us.  Elsewhere, we resorted to pointing at pictures of our desired dishes on the menu. 

Tempura ingredients 

Tempura, Tokyo

Our most memorable culinary experience was dinner at “No. 1 Tsukiji Sushi Restaurant” near the Tokyo fish market.  We were the only gaijin in this far from swanky establishment, although we discovered that the Japanese on the next counter stool was an engineering professor at Northwestern, who came there on every trip home.  The sushi makers, who sliced up the still wriggling fish in front of us, were more than hospitable and encouraged Georgia to photograph their endeavors.  We have never eaten such sushi.

History and Politics

We visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni Jinja (“Shrine of Peace for the Nation”), which enshrines the dead from Japan’s wars beginning with the civil strife preceding the Meiji Restoration and ending with World War II.  It is an unsettling place for Japan’s neighbors and many Japanese, for the enshrined include Prime Minister Tojo and other war criminals involved in World War II and the invasions of Korea and Japan.   A Japanese friend explained to us that in his country’s culture men do not bear the stain of evil deeds after their deaths, as they do in Korea and China--an interesting reverse spin on Mark Antony’s speech in “Julius Caesar.”

Torii at Yasukuni Shrine, Tokyo

Yasukuni Shrine, Tokyo

Located on the grounds is a museum presenting Japanese military history beginning with the Meiji Restoration.  Some exhibits, with legends frequently translated into English, extol Japanese military exploits and present a somewhat lopsided version of World War II.  However, the background of the decision to surrender is described in considerable, and accurate (as far as we know), detail.  Photography is not permitted in the museum proper, but the outer lobby contains military artifacts, including a locomotive from the Burma Railway, the subject of the novel and movie “The Bridge over the River Kwai.”

Visits to the shrine by members of Prime Minister Abe’s government have sparked controversy, not only abroad but in Japanese politics, because of the association of the shrine with right-wing groups who lament the disestablishment of Shinto and the degrading of the emperor’s status.   These groups reportedly employ black vehicles with traditional “rising sun” flags, one of which we saw parked outside the shrine.  No English translations were provided for the writing on the van’s sides, but we assume the occupants were not demonstrating for world peace and brotherhood.

Life at Sea

The 115-passenger Caledonian Skye was a very comfortable vessel with roomy staterooms, good food, and an excellent staff.  Our experience aboard was much different from a typical cruise, however, for we had little time on our own except for sleeping.  The ship moved from port to port at night, and we were usually ashore during the day except for meals and presentations by the lecturers from our three sponsoring institutions: Lt. Gen. (ret.) and former Ambassador Karl Eikenberry from Stanford, Prof. Michael Golay from MIT (who discussed the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster), and Dr. Laurel Kendall from the Museum of Natural History—all of whom were excellent.  The great advantage of sea transport was the freedom from packing and unpacking as we moved from place to place.

Museums

A wealthy devout Muslim reportedly gives thanks for his financial success by building a mosque, but—as far as we could see—a Japanese tycoon builds a museum.  We visited several of these institutions, each outstanding in its own right.

Perhaps most famous is the Miho Museum in the mountains about an hour from Kyoto.  Considered one of the masterworks of I.M. Pei, the museum is nestled into the mountainside, half ecological and half science-fiction.   Perhaps because the Japanese collection was on tour, the art works were less impressive than the museum itself.

Naoshima is a fishermen’s island in the Inland Sea that has reinvented itself as an art center.  The island is home to two museums, both designed by Tadao Ando, but it also hosts outdoor sculptures and a number of “art house” mini-museums in converted houses.   Most impressive is Ando’s Chichu Art Museum, built almost entirely underground, with just a handful of works by Claude Monet, James Turrell, and Walter de Maria.  The works of the latter two artists are so massive that they occupy entire rooms, obliterating the distinction between art and architecture.  The Chichu bans photography, but this is not a tragedy as there is no way to capture the museum’s room-sized art in a two-dimensional representation.

In Tokyo we visited the Ukiyo-e Ota Museum and the Mori Art Museum on the 53^rd floor of the Mori Tower.  The former is devoted to woodblock prints, many by Hokusai, and the latter featured a special exhibit “All You Need Is Love” with edgy works from west to east.   We saw everything from some very explicit 19^th century woodblocks (only 20-year-olds and above could pass behind the black curtain where photography was strictly forbidden) to Chagall, Brancusi’s “The Kiss,” and a psychedelic light show.  This was definitely art in the new Japan.

Kids

Japan’s birth rate may be low, but you would never know it from the swarms of school children we encountered at popular tourist sites.  Everyone seemed eager to greet us, from very small children on our ship’s piers to teenagers anxious to practice their English.   We were interviewed several times as part of class exercises, and we embarrassed ourselves by an inability to name our favorite Japanese cartoon characters, who are omnipresent in advertisements and souvenir shops.  The interviewers reciprocated by posing with us for photographs, often making a “V” sign, whose meaning (if any) we could never conclusively determine.

Hiroshima

Sobering is the right word to describe the peace park and museum built near ground zero of the atomic bomb blast.  Like other members of our generation, we had read a great deal about Hiroshima, but the extent of the destruction only became really clear when we walked through the park and viewed photographs of the area before and after August 6, 1945.  Ironically, because of the waterways that crisscross the city (which had made fire-bombing relatively ineffective, leading U.S. planners to employ the atomic bomb there), Hiroshima is one of the loveliest urban areas we visited.

Surviving building, Hiroshima

School children visiting memorial

Museum depiction of post-blast destruction

Peace Park from museum

Tokyo           

With a population of 13 million, Tokyo is a world unto itself.  It is actually a collection of several urban centers that have grown together and are now connected by an exceptionally efficient transport system composed of subways, trains, monorail, and buses.   Observing admonitions to avoid rush hour, we found the subway system pleasant and easy to use, for all signage and even ticket machine instructions are translated into English.  We traveled using a rechargeable card, essentially like DC Metro’s SmartTrip card, to spare ourselves the bother of calculating the fare for each trip.

The city spreads out in all directions, and we traveled to some distant sectors, such as a the futuristic island of Odaiba, to visit certain sites.  However, our attention was focused on the central portions, including Ginza, which features daytime shopping and evening entertaining, and Roppongi, the night life center where we stayed at the International House, an oasis of quiet with its beautiful garden.

Tokyo view from Mori Tower

Odaiba, Tokyo

Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo

Tokyo Tower from Roppongi

Our favorite department store: Mitsukoshi in Ginza

Garden at International House, Tokyo

In the center of Tokyo is, of course, the emperor’s residence, no more open to the public than Buckingham Palace, although we could stroll through the grounds.

Imperial Palace, Tokyo

Odds and Ends

 21^st century Japanese toilets are a subject of fascination for many American tourists who appreciate the warm seats and bidet functions.  However, we also encountered another feature, which the following photo explains.

We never saw one of Tokyo’s cat cafes, where patrons reportedly pay for the privilege of petting the feline residents, but we did see a number of dogs—almost all very small.  Our 60-pound Lab would be a giant in Japan.  Asked about this, a Japanese friend explained that larger canines are not banned or more heavily taxed, but small urban living spaces make smaller pooches more attractive as pets.

We saw little to disabuse us of our preconception that Japanese are orderly, law-abiding people, but there was an occasional exception.

Sayonara

From our stateroom window at Kanazawa