Big in Japan — Part 1

If you guessed that the “Sayonara” at the end of last month’s post meant that an Asian-themed adventure was coming our way, you were right. We spent the first two weeks of September in JAPAN and it was INCREDIBLE. I had a very hard time whittling down photos and videos to show so this might end up either being the longest 2 posts ever, or a 3-part series!

First, some context. Japan has always been on our radar. It’s really the only Asian country that interests us at the moment. It also intimidated me because of just how different Japanese culture is from ours. Between the food, the language, the customs and the history, this was the first time that I was nervous about going and totally floundering.

Worry no more—enter Michael, our 29-year-old nephew! Michael just spent two years getting a Master’s degree in Bio-mechanical Engineering at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. He was ready to come back to the States and find a job closer to home, so Japan got bumped up in priority as it just made sense for us to go after he finished his studies to travel around with him and bring him back. We planned the trip such that he would pack up/get rid of his things before we arrived and meet up with us in Tokyo, then we three travel around for two weeks, return to Sendai at the end of the trip to close out his apartment and other things, and fly back to ‘Murica together.

And so, the journey begins. Instead of going through the whole trip day by day, I’m going to cover cities and their highlights. Otherwise, this trip is going to take half a year to document!

Tokyo

In the airport, along with many other Mario characters.

We were in Tokyo for 4 full days and a couple of evenings/mornings, but I feel like we got to see a lot. We had a great hotel really close to several metro stations, one of the city’s most famous temples and lots of shopping and dining. We never ate dinner at the same place twice!

Shrines and Temples

One of the most amazing components of our journey was visiting a variety of Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples. They are SO beautiful and inspiring, I am in LOVE with these religions. Shintoism worships nature and animals, so there are millions of shrines to everything you can imagine. They are characterized by orange and black Torii gates that you walk beneath, then you come up to a cleansing station to wash your hands, and then the shrine or shrines are inside of a walled and gated complex.

Buddhist temples consist of a huge, imposing gate that you pass through first, with large deity sculptures inside the gate. Then you cleanse and proceed to make offerings to Buddha by buying and lighting incense and paying for little fortunes that you can then pray upon and wrap around wire frames. Then Buddha is inside of an altar in the temple

I just can’t even begin to tell you how impressive they are.

The magnificent **Senso-ji Temple**, the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo and walking distance from our hotel. This is just the gate!! With JC and Michael in the foreground. You can see the deity statues behind the mint-colored fencing on either side.

This is the temple. Inside is a large golden shrine to Buddha. We also got there just as the monks came out to pray so that was cool.

The pagoda in the complex for the monks, not open to the public. But gorgeous!

The **Ueno Tōshō-gū Shrine** which dates back to 1627. The main building is this gorgeous shrine encased in gold. We couldn’t go in, but just the exterior was breathtaking.

A view from outside of the shrine with beautiful lanterns.

The Fu dogs and rows and rows of lanterns adorned the walkway up to the shrine. There was also a smaller shrine off to the side after you entered the main gate that was for a raccoon god. Shintoism worships nature and animals, so there are thousands of shrines all over Japan worshiping various gods.

The beautiful **Nezu-jinja shrine** complex. One of the smaller shrines in the complex was I guess dedicated to cats. The animals are often dressed up.

I can’t get enough Torii gates! This isn’t the last time you’ll see them…

The entrance to the shrine that’s in the background.

Side view of the shrine. It’s rude and disrespectful to take a photo of the altar inside so I tried to avoid doing that up close.

If you look closely, you can see swastikas. The swastika is actually an ancient symbol representing the footsteps of Buddha.

The **Meiji-jingu Shrine**, built for an emperor in the early 1900s. It’s a lush garden landscape with huge Torii gates, a beautiful large shrine complex and rows of huge sake barrels lining the path to it all which are offerings.

Yanaka Cemetery Park

This is a famous cemetery that was really cool to check out. Because there is no space on the islands, the main practice is cremation, and many people keep the ashes of their families in their homes, so tall, thin, ski-like boards with their names on them are placed in the family plot.

A walled-in section of the cemetery with lanterns.

And now for something completely different…the weird districts.

First, Akihabara is the neighborhood you see in the movies—tall skyscrapers, weird graphics, large ads. This is the area where the comic book, video game and anime nerds hang out.

This is one of the largest shops. Several floors of gamer stuff, including models to put together, and the largest array of kitsch for whatever strikes your fancy in the world of comics and anime.

This is **Shibuya Crossing**, the huge five-pointed intersection you see in all the photos. We watched it, crossed it, then went into a building and watched it again.

Next up is the Harajuku area which is a bit touristy but also contains some freaky weird shops, a cat cafe, an owl cafe and our lunch destination: Kawaii Monster Cafe. No, seriously, click on the link.

I found out about this place beforehand and just had to do because it is WEIRD. It’s a cross between Hello Kitty, Willy Wonka and taking acid. The food was all very strange, there was a giant rotating Hello Kitty like some sort of statue to worship and there were weirdly dressed women roaming around. There was no show or anything, just…weirdness.

What I ate: a dog food bowl of vanilla ice cream, hello kitty shapes, cereal and a fondant rainbow. Oh and clear cubes of…something sweet.

Michael’s Hello Kitty burger that vomited a rainbow.

All hail Hello Kitty’s head on a cake with some weird girl.

Robot Restaurant

One of the most interesting things we did in terms of weird Japanese culture is attend a show at the Robot Restaurant in the Shinjuku neighborhood which is a mix of weird clubs and sketchy stuff. Yes you need to click on this link as well.

These are ads in Shinjuku for what I think are clubs for women that are advertising these hot guys performing.

Weird doesn’t even describe this show. We were three levels underground in the most unsafe theater ever with 6-inch-wide aisles. We were in the front row inches away from the action. The audience was along both long walls, and the floats and performers came out from the right and left sides. Everything was loud and neon.

Act 1 was dueling drumming Mardi Gras floats

Act 2 was a battle between nature and robots trying to take over the planet.

And a toad with toad lady fighting the bad guys.

You knew there had to be a dragon at some point, right? But it’s a *good* dragon.

And “We Are the World” with honestly some really awesome costumes.

Act 4 had an ocean theme at one point with huge illuminated sea creatures

I was so awestruck that I was taking pictures and forgot for most of the show to take video. But we did snag a couple of snippets. The first is one of the intermissions, the second is, well, enjoy.

Ginza District

Another area of town we visited for an afternoon was the Ginza district which is south near the bay and where the famous fish market is located. Our first stop was the Itoya paper store for me, and the Kit Kat Chocolatory for the boys. I fell in love with the 12-story paper store that had everything: home goods, stationery, large prints, origami, washi tape, travel accessories, large sheets of paper for gift wrapping, stickers, stamps…I was in HEAVEN.

These are the samples of all the colors and textures of paper they have. There are no words.

Then in this plaza we found this ‘chi balancing’ station where you walk all over these various different raised surfaces. PAINFUL doesn’t even describe it, but it’s possible that it did help my feet after days of walking.

Little baby octopi on sticks in the fish market. 🙁

Sumo Tournament

Last but not least, on our last full day in Tokyo, we attended the second day of the sumo tournament. This was SO bad-ass. The arena is a good size with stadium seats in the higher levels and seating on the floor (literally) in boxes on the ground floor right next to the platform.

The day began with the ‘n00b’ division and progressed to the pros towards the end. We showed up at around 11:30 and watched the end of the first division, then watched the whole second division which was when the crowd favorites started showing up. They each had a different colored sash and a beautiful embroidered apron/skirt that I can only compare to the costumes that professional wrestlers have that they wear when they walk down the aisle to the ring and then take off to fight.

A match goes like this: the wrestlers ascend the platform, stretch, get a drink of water, towel off, throw salt onto the ring, repeat this process 3-4 times and then fight for like 10 seconds. The lead-up was considerably more time-consuming than the matches themselves.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Check this out first.

OK now down to business, this is the arena. We had great seats on the side that faced the referee who stood at the back side of the ring at the beginning to signal getting started.

One of the beginner division matches. So the guy in the blue robe is the referee, the four jedi-looking guys sitting along the four sides are the judges, and the 4 sumo wrestlers sitting on the right and left sides are the next ones to battle in the next two matches.

…and they both tumble out of the ring together!

Here’s the cleanup between matches. They sweep the dust back inside the ring…

This is the scoreboard. The beginner division wasn’t on here, so these lights began lighting up with the second division, so each match is a vertical column with both people’s names, and a red light above or below whoever the winner was.

Okay, here’s the introduction walk that the wrestlers did when it was time for a new division.

Here’s another match in still pictures.

The sweepers are out while the wrestlers get ready in their corners.

They are getting ready and the referee has the fan pointed sideways to indicate this is the warming up period.

The typical adjusting of the legs that you commonly see.

And the other side. These movements are to make sure your chi is properly aligned for the match.

Now the referee is squatting with the paddle upright, meaning ‘let’s do this.’ As soon as both of them touch those lines in front of them, they begin the match.

Shiny green guy lost, so he bows and leaves, and the winner squats down and is acknowledged the winner by the referee.

Alright, we did record a few full matches. Here’s the longest one I think we saw the whole day.

Here’s my hand up against a handprint of one of the most famous sumo wrestlers in a display in the metro station next to the arena.

Another item I got to check of my goals list was to see Geisha. I didn’t see them in Kyoto which is where they are most known to be, but rather, we saw them on our last night in Tokyo right in front of Don Quijote, a chain of stores around Japan that are these multi-story crap stores. They sell everything and anything.

Mt. Fuji and Hakone

The first day trip we took was a guided bus tour to Mt. Fuji and the nearby town of Hakone. It was a great day. First, we drove to, and up, Mt. Fuji. We stopped at two stations. At the first one, the clouds were sortof obscuring the view of the top.

The second stop was the Fifth Station which is as high as vehicles can go up the mountain. Very often, clouds are blowing quickly across the summit so there is a VERY slim chance of seeing it. And yet, in the 20 minutes that we had at that stop, all the clouds parted and we got a PERFECT view of the summit!

…and when the clouds cleared! BOO YAH!!!! I was on Mt. Fuji!!!!

Next was a cruise across Lake Ashi nearby in a valley surrounded by lush green hills. Didn’t expect this kind of ship, though.

How cool is the rainbow seating though!?

The clouds also came back over just enough for our entire cruise across the lake so we didn’t have to burn and sweat to death!

Then, we docked in Hakone and visited two historic sights: an Edo-period checkpoint which looks like a fort. This was where some government officials lived and checked all travelers passing between Kyoto and Tokyo.

And lastly, we visited an unbelievably beautiful Shinto shrine. The main Torii gate to it is actually at water level so you could sail up to it. You ascend some stairs and reach a road where the cleansing station and another gate are. Then you ascend nearly 100 steps to the shrine itself. I loved this one because it’s majestic surrounded by moss-covered stone and really tall trees providing a shade canopy. It’s just embedded into nature.