Shrines and mountains in the snow

Chris had a day off work and so, on the recommendation of one of the gentlemen from AIST, we went by train to Nikko, to visit the temple complex that is a World Heritage site and to catch a view of the mountains, Nyoho San and Nantai San, nearly 2500 m high. My brain is too saturated with new impressions to give a coherent account of all this yet, though I wrote some notes on the homeward journey after dark, when I couldn't look out at the views any more.

Here are a few pictures. Yes, those are the original Three Wise Monkeys, seen at the Togashu shrine.

Dining out in Nihonbashi

Yesterday I ate two extraordinary meals in Nihonbashi our local district, the official centre of Tokyo.

Chris and I at Tempura Benkei, in our aprons

The first was my lunch on Yaesu Dori near Tokyo station, the street above one of the underground shopping arcades there that stretch for miles. It was about time I tried a Japanese lunch, I thought, so took the plunge when I found a place with pictures of what looked like tasty food and entered a cavernous doorway and to take some narrow stairs into the dark depths of the place. The girl employed to approach arriving diners didn't speak a word of English and a queue of customers immediately formed behind me but a man at a nearby table helped us out: "This is a chicken restaurant. You must pay fast." After a moment's confusion I gathered that he meant, order your choice of meal and pay first, before taking a seat. The choice was limited to four items, that were Fried Chicken with (something) and Rice, Fried Chicken with Egg and Rice, Fried Chicken with Rice and Miso Soup, Fried Chicken ...

"I'll have that last one," I said, nodding, pointing at the line on the menu and proffering my 1000 yen note. "Arigatoo gozaimasu" (thanks), and the transaction was done. The girl led me to a sort of cupboard with a sliding door behind which two tables each with four chairs stood in close proximity and motioned me to go in there. I squeezed in, pouring myself some O-cha (green tea) from a thermos flask into one of the teacups without handles. Jazz was playing softly as background music and there was a bell to push on the table if I needed assistance. My meal arrived very promptly on a lacquer tray. "Hai!" said the girl, meaning "yes!" or "bitte schoen." On a smaller tray were little receptacles for salt, toothpicks, cayenne pepper and soy sauce as optional extras; my meal consisted of breaded chicken with thinly shredded cabbage and mayonnaise, rice and a bowl of pickles. Before I'd finished, some business men squeezed in at the adjoining table in my cupboard and started smoking, so I didn't linger.

Supper, as illustrated in these photos, was a slightly more formal affair, with five of the people Chris has been working with this week. We were treated to this meal at "the best tempura restaurant in Tokyo," according to Hayato, who led us there from the hotel in a taxi. It is called Tempura Benkei, Benkei being a character in the Noh or Kabuki plays of old. This place too was accessed by way of narrow stairs, going up, not down. It's apparently typical for restaurants to offer small rooms to private parties, one above the other, in the narrow older buildings of Tokyo. We had our own chef and we sat in a semicircle to watch him work. Tempura means coating foods in batter and deep frying them, a cooking method introduced from Europe in the 17th / 18th century (the Edo period). In those days the fish came fresh from the nearby riverside fish market. It has to be fresh still, because you eat some of it raw. White aprons were put round our necks before we tackled this meal.

Our starters on an oblong tray were a square of fish paste, a piece of marinated (but still raw) octopus (you can see what it is from the suckers) and a slice of radish. A green salad and wasabi paste was provided, but we kept that aside for the sauce to go with the fried items, that could also be dipped into salt or have lemon dripped on them. The chef started beating the egg and water in a metal bowl with a giant pair of chopsticks, stirring in flour to make the batter, with a pile of uncooked fish, prawns and vegetables on wooden slatted trays beside him.

We began with a battered shrimp and a piece of raw fish and thereafter worked through two or three kinds of battered white fish, a sardine complete with its head, a big prawn, a thick slice of sweet potato, some greens, a big mushroom, a "devil's tongue" and a spear of asparagus, all of these vegetables likewise battered and deep fried. As honoured guests, Chris and I were each given a keyring with a plastic battered shrimp as a momento and in case we hadn't had enough batter, or so as not to waste the leftovers at the end, each member of the party was given a bag of bits of batter to take home with us as well. To drink, we were served beers, small glasses of colourless Sake and, at the end, some tea. When we thought, too full to move, that we had finished our meal, bowls of fried rice and soup were brought in as an extra course. The dessert, finally, was very good quality melon and strawberries with a dash of cream.

Our conversation with the Japanese gentlemen was lively and interesting. We got back to the hotel from Mitsukoshimae station on the Metro.

The Suitengu Shrine

Yesterday was St. Valentine's Day with expensive heart shaped chocolates for last-minute sale, but we are also leading up to the Japanese Festival of Dolls (Hinamatsuri) at this time of year. The big department stores in the city had displays of the 7-tiered hierarchy of traditional dolls in their entrances and here's the one that was shown in our hotel. I like the musician dolls on the middle row.

It was drizzling outside and came on to rain later; first thing in the morning after a coffee and croissant at the TCAT I went for a walk in the immediate neighbourhood to visit our nearest shrine. It's up a flight of steps from the street level, guarded by those two lions we used to see at gateways in China, and is a place of pilgrimage for people who want to pray for help with childbirth and pregnancies. It was fairly deserted yesterday, but I saw a young couple come up to pray while I was looking round. They took the ceremonial cups and washed their hands in the cold water. An older lady with two younger ones (her daughters?) also came to pray at one of the praying stations. Suiten is the water deity; she also guards against floods.

Another interesting feature of this place was the wall of children's drawings. Later in the day, when I had the chance to speak to some Japanese gentlemen (this'll be described in another blogpost) I found out that what the people are throwing at the devil figure to ward off evil in the children's pictures is a handful of beans.  I had assumed that they were throwing coins, because that's what I see worshipers do at the shrines. The Seven Deities of Good Fortune are supposed to act in your favour at this one.

Cups for the purification ceremony

Parks and gardens of Tokyo

I took the Hanzomon (Z) Line to Otemachi in order to see the Imperial Palace Gardens, but to my disappointment they are closed on Mondays. Therefore I stayed this side of the Sakurada Moat and palace walls to walk through the Outer Garden on the pebbled footpaths, admiring the pale, soft, dried up lawns under the ornamental pines. By crossing busy Uchibori Dori I could access another green space, the Hibiya Park, with fountains, ponds and an open-air stage at the centre. One corner of this park used to be a burial ground long ago, and with reference to this terracotta figures stood in the flower bed. There was a small hillock where more pines grew, their trunks decorated with a sash, or obi, made of straw, and labelled with their botanical names in Latin. Ornamental cabbages and flowering pansies were growing in neat rows near the tennis courts where women were playing sets with one another; perhaps their husbands were those gentlemen I saw striding purposefully towards their lunch venues in their dark suits.

I followed some of these gentlemen into a Trattoria on the ground floor of the Press Centre and was served a salad, a teacup of cream of pumpkin soup, a pile of spaghetti drenched in pesto sauce and a strong cup of Italian coffee. This meal cost the same as my hotel breakfast but was a better deal, the “continental” breakfast having been two slices of toast with jam with coffee and juice, preceded by a green salad in a vinegary dressing with shredded carrot and lots of onions. I was interested to watch my fellow diners at lunch time, the women as smart as the men, except that their face masks rather spoiled the effect as they came in. They took them off, of course, while eating.

Afterwards a long search for a Post Office led me under the railway lines (along more busy streets) to the Shinabashi “City Centre” around the Shiodome, an ultra modern shopping mall-cum-office block complex, tall trees in the glass covered basement, skyscrapers scores of floors high and people walking & riding the escalators like little model figures in an architect's maquette. There I found a lady in a print shop who sketched a map for me to show me where the nearest post office was so that I could finally buy some stamps for my postcards. (Not that I've found many postcards yet, either.)

By following my nose and the walkway signs that were translated into English I made my way under flyovers and across wide roads at ground level into the haven of the Hama Rikyu Garden, once owned by a Shogun in the Edo period of Japanese history and later by the Imperial Family who donated this piece of land to the City of Tokyo after it had been “dilapidated” (i.e. destroyed) first by a Great Earthquake and secondly, I'm afraid, by 2^nd World War bombers. It was restored by the City. It was a lovely place, as I'd guessed when I spotted it from the river cruise yesterday, full of bending pines, salt water ponds (fed by a tidal stream through a sluice gate) and walkways including a sea wall and a path up a little mound called Little Mount Fuji. Ducks and a heron fished in the ponds and on an islet in one there was a Tea House I may return to when I'm not so full of coffee. A bridal couple, the girl in a red kimono, was having photos taken and big birds of prey, eagles maybe, were fighting a noisy battle with the ravens.

I caught the river boat from the landing stage where we'd pulled in before and sailed back to Asakusa from where I know how to get back to the hotel.

The dogs of Tokyo have their own designated playgrounds, by the way. There's one by the riverside, a long, thin, fenced off area with an artificial lawn where they can chase balls to their hearts content and where their owners have to clean up after them, closely supervised by a uniformed officer. I didn't see any dogs in the other parks.

Getting our bearings in Tokyo

On the Metro

"Ohayoo gozaimasu!" they kept saying around the hotel and in the street, with a bow to us; I guessed that meant "Good morning!" and so it did.

Two Buddhas offering wisdom and mercy at Sunsoji Temple

Today we began to master the Tokyo Metro system by taking two trains to Asakusa so that we could take a look at the Sensouji Temple gardens near that station. The ticket machines require some previous study  if you want to use them with confidence, but I was lucky enough to find a metro man in uniform to help me on my first attempt. You can also select a display in English on their screens and can buy two tickets at once, which saves time if there are two of you. If you make a mistake with the fare selection it doesn't matter as long as you realise that you can pay the difference in your fare at the end of the journey at a Fare Adjustment machine (look out for it; it's yellow). There are PASMO cards available, like the London Oyster cards; I haven't bought one yet. If you don't have one of these, covering all the networks, you may have to cross from one network to the other (Lines A, I, S and E are in another system from the others) and pay for a separate ticket as you change over, which is a nuisance. Anyhow, we had plenty of time to spare today and one another for mutual comfort in the face of adversity. Every station we walked through today was spotlessly clean, with artwork on display; Suitengumai has travellators on a slope as well as escalators.

We paid attention to the advice given in English: "Be careful of the door! ... Mind your steps!"

Many visitors at the Sensoji Temple

The Sensoji Temple had a main hall where the Buddhist faithful were queuing politely to offer their prayers and throw coins into a large coin receptacle in front of the screen that protected the Buddhas. Some stopped on the way to waft incense smoke onto their clothes, by flapping their hands in the smoke from the incense burners. It was highly reminiscent of our temple experiences in China. In the gardens were stone Buddhas and other statues, one labelled the Shibaraku Statue, that Chris thought would be an apt symbol for the RIM employees' "Be bold!" campaign in Canada. It was of the 9th Danjura Ichikawa, a 19th century Kabuki actor, "depicting Shibaraku, his forte" -- the role of a fierce warrior wielding a sword. Another sight to remember was the pair of giant straw sandals, O-Waraji, at the temple gate, that symbolised the power of Ni-on. "Wishing for being goodwalkers, many people will touch this," the notice in English explained. On the other side of the gate stood a pair of muscular, far larger than life Deva Kings painted red, the one with "opened mouth style" showing all his teeth in a snarl. The other was a "closed mouth" one.

After a walk down the line of outdoor hut-shops, ever so like the Christmas markets in Munich and Stuttgart that I remember from recently, except that they sold Japanese ware (of quite good quality), we had a disastrous lunch at a nearby Starbucks, disastrous for Chris at least who took one look at his chicken sandwich and couldn't face it, containing melted cheese, gravy and cabbage. I ate all of mine and most of his. I was hungry and drank some green tea with it. Chris did manage to consume a carton of orange juice and a cinnamon bun there. Later, on the river boat, I had a large cup of iced oolong tea as well.

Buskers at the river cruise departure point

Bridges across the Sumida River

We bought return tickets for the river cruise from Asakusa to the Hinode pier some 16 bridges further downstream on the Sumidagawa (gawa means river, I assume). The next bridge would have been the last one (the Rainbow Bridge) before the river reached Tokyo Bay and its container port. I won't describe the cruise in detail here. I enjoyed it so much I may do it again before the week is out.

"Rainbow" Bridge with the port of Tokyo beyond

A street in the touristy Asakusa district 

First impressions of Tokyo

The Japanese flag

I thought that this morning's daybreak (seen from 35000'), with the red sun rising in the east beyond a low layer of deep red-orange stratus, was very appropriate for our approach to Japan. When we landed, our border checks were handled with aplomb by the immigration officers so that we got through to the luggage hall within a few minutes and at the other side of the gates we were met by Chris' colleague Hayato, a welcome we hadn't expected. He gave us some maps and brochures, helped us rent a phone for me and buy return tickets for the "Airport Limousine" bus. Our hotel is adjacent to its terminal, the "TCAT" at Suitengumai metro station.

Leaving the airport

Beaches on the coast to the north of the city. Endless skyscrapers, one canal after another. The ticket collector at each bus stop bowed politely to the bus driver. A clean, efficient look to the city. What deferential people! All citizens we've spoken to so far speak English. Many people wear face marks for fear of catching the flu. A "Happy Honda" factory, rice paddies between the built up areas, a series of toll gates, and Tokyo Bay surrounded with cranes. Mother and child in kimonos sharing the lift with us. A French cafe in the airport Bus Terminal where there was a well used smoking section. No Diet Coke with caffeine for Chris, only bottles of Coke Zero. In our hotel bathroom (far too small for Chris) is a heated toilet seat and a device that automatically "rinses your posterior with warm water" when you sit on it and press the button with the fountain symbol.

This afternoon we walked along the banks of the Sumida River which was nicer than the dark street with all its crossings below the spaghetti-like flyover next to where we're staying. Everything is neat and tidy, even the cardboard box houses constructed by the homeless people who live under a bridge near here.

Fast forward

Tuesday evening

As the announcer on the Paddington - Bristol train said, "we shall now be proceeding forward." The last thing we want to do, as Chris puts it, is to proceed backward.

It's not easy to find time for blogging on my travels. Things happen faster than I can write notes about them (more so than at home) and even as I write, my husband comes into the hotel room from his day's work at the Safety Critical Systems Symposium dying to interrupt and tell me all about that, too.

We are in Bristol, after a weekend with the grandsons in the London snow. Tomorrow, while Chris gives his presentation here and attends his Symposium Banquet, I travel on to Cardiff to see some more of my mother and sister. They joined me for a few hours in Bristol today. My sister came here yesterday as well; two days in a row she and I boarded the SS Great Britain moored in the dock where she was built in 1839, restored to the glory of her maiden voyage to Melbourne in 1852, “the best museum I've ever visited,” said Faith. Today we shared it with Mum, and I had the bonus pleasure of being allowed to step aboard John Cabot's (replica) vessel, The Matthew, moored a few paces away. That one (the original, I mean) sailed for Newfoundland in 1497, the first British ship to cross the Atlantic. Cabot's real name was Giovanni Cabboto.

On the waterfront in Bristol is a plethora of museums, one of them, Arnolfini, a modern art gallery that has an exhibition on the theme of museums that made us think: what are they? What is the point of them?

Up the slope from the river, next door to our hotel, lies Bristol Cathedral, where yesterday afternoon before supper I attended Evensong sung by The Consort of girls and boys from the 6^th Form of Bristol Cathedral school. I remembered the words and their musical settings so well: Stanford's Magnificat in B flat that I sang once, myself, long ago.

Supper with Chris' colleagues Michael and Gary was at Carlo's, an Italian restaurant of high repute, all bright with mirrors and lights, where the waiters looked like penguins.