Raw Fish

Raw fish is very popular here. Not just for sushi, but for every dish. Very popular. I finally realized that what's actually happening here is a Japanese government plot to turn Americans into Japanese. But I won't really believe it's working unless we start wearing Kimonos. 

OhMyGod, It is working!

Going with the flow, I'm relaxing in my kimono and drawing with my favorite Sushi Pen, wondering when this Japanese thing will wear off.

Mt Fuji and Hakone

Today our bus took us to the Mt. Fuji Visitor Center, then to the hot springs resort town of Hakone where we'll stay for two nights, with a side-trip thrown in tomorrow.

They say that the Mt. Fuji Visitor Center observation floor usually offers a great view of Mt. Fuji. A snow storm kept that from happening.

A tourist contemplates "Snow Falling on Cedars."

The drive from the Mt. Fuji Visitor Center to Hakone took a lot longer than planned: winding and slippery mountain roads. Watching a movie about Geishas on the DVD screen helped pass the time.

View from the bus window as we creep along the snow packed highway. Notice the "Snow on Cedar" theme we got going here. Also some kind of critter crossing warning.

-

More from the Snow-on-Cedar genre. Not a great shot, but hey, it's from a moving bus.

Our room in Hakone is nice and roomy.

Goodbye Tokyo

Last night (Sunday night) our group of 14 (13 Americans and 1 guide) had a group dinner to say farewell to Tokyo. I hesitate to bore you with food photos, but here it is anyway. By the time we leave Japan I hope to eat rice with chopsticks and get more of it in my mouth and less of it on my shirt. I can pick up little things pretty well. It's the bigger, heavier stuff that slips out of control.

Tokyo Sunday 2

Today, Sunday, our group took a chartered bus to a shrine, a temple, a war memorial, and to Ginza, the upscale shopping area of Tokyo. Our guide designated the lion statue in front of the department store Mitsubishi as our place to meet after some "free time" in which we could explore the area. We went inside the store to look around and when we got back outside the scene below was happening. I looked around but no one seemed to be watching the rabbit or concerned about it. After a few minutes we walked down the street to look around. When we returned to meet the group for lunch, the rabbit was gone.

On Sunday, some of the main streets in Ginza are closed to traffic so pedestrians can move about freely. That's Robin way back there in the middle of the street, wearing an orange scarf around her neck.

Since the streets are blocked off, it was a good time for either a wedding or a wedding fashion photo shoot. I couldn't tell which was happening, but several photographers were on each side of the couple shoot photos & video.

After wandering around the Ginza neighborhood, we all met at a great restaurant that specializes in a dish called Shabu Shabu. You pick up very thinly sliced pieces of raw beef and pork, then dip it into a boiling pot of broth for about 20 seconds to cook it. Very dericious.

We made a quick visit to the grounds of the Imperial Palace, home of the Emperor. The Palace grounds are immense, surrounded by two moats and including a dense forest. We couldn't get close enough to see much other than this statue which depicts a Shogun warrior who died in a battle, fighting for the Emperor. It's considered on of the three best/most famous statues in Japan.

Tomorrow, Monday, we leave Tokyo and head towards our next destination, Hakone. On the way we're supposed to go half way up Mt. Fuji, but the weather forecast calls for rain so we may not be able to see it. 

Sunday in Tokyo

People who want to offer prayers at the Asakusa Kannon Temple file into the temple beneath a giant lantern.

In front of the main temple people gather around a big pot of smoking incense and fan the smoke toward themselves for good luck.

The entrance to the Yasukuni Shrine, where 250,000 spirits from several wars have been enshrined. The giant gate at the entrance (in the background) is found at every Shinto Shrine (although usually much smaller). It represents the border between our world and the spirit world. You should always pass through the gate on the left side or the right side, not the middle, because that space is reserved for the spirits. Or God. Or someone with a similar skill set.

Also, before you pass through the Shinto gate, you should purify yourself here by washing your left hand, then your right hand, then your mouth, holding the cup in a certain way, then draining the water out of the cup in a certain way that washes the handle. Our guide prefers to pretend she put some water in her mouth. The Shinto religion is super flexible.

Another view of the burning incense pot in the Temple courtyard.

More Saturday Tokyo Photos

These are more photos from yesterday (Saturday) when we visited the Fish Market and the Kabuki Theater. Today is Sunday (more on that in the next posting). 

Saturday evening some of us had dinner at a restaurant in one of the two malls that are located within a block or two of our hotel. Very nice upscale Tokyo stuff, although not as upscale as the Ginza district which we visited earlier this week and again today.

This is a Shinto shrine located just outside the Kabuki Theater. It's a special shrine that's dedicated to a successful Kabuki performance. Because it's a Shinto shrine, the devotee approaches the shrine, claps his hands twice (to get the attention of the spirits), then, in his mind, says his name and then his "wish." Sounds as effective as anything else I can think of.

Subway signs: "Do not Rush" (above) or "Do Rush" (below). Come on, make up your mind.

Robin and Elizabeth check out some of the vendors on one of the side streets of the Fish Market.

While at the Fish Market we enjoyed a sushi tasting at one of the popular restaurants in the area. Our guide Ayana made reservations so we avoided the very long line of sushi lovers trying to get in. A couple of our group sat here, but the rest of us were in a private room on the third floor, sitting on the floor. Great sushi. 

Kabuki

Guide Ayano gets instructions from one of the Kabuki Theater staff guys. The word Kabuki is made of three words that mean Singing, Dancing, and Acting. To get tickets you have "rine up" an hour and a half early. All of the actors are men. The stage was huge, 3 or 4 times wider than most stages. You can watch an all-day performance of various scenes from various Kabuki plays for $300. Or you can watch one scene from the 4th floor balcony for $6. We chose the $6 option, which, for our chosen time-slot was a famous 15 minute scene of "acrobatic rice dumpling making". If you're thinking "WTF?" you're on the right track. I was there and that's exactly what I'm thinking. It seems that the word "acrobatic" in this case means shuffling around in slow motion and hitting a glob of rice with a wooden sledge hammer, in slow motion. Every once in a while an actor would cock their head slightly, or move their wrist just enough to make their fan move. This would bring shouts of excitement from some members of the audience that sounded like maybe they were shouting "Bravo" or maybe the actor's name. It was a very interesting experience.

End of Line guy.

A beautiful Kabuki poster in the subway.

A Kabuki puppet on display in a subway station.

Front of the Kabuki Theater

Catching Up

I didn't realize that some of my blogs were getting posted to a wrong address. I'll try to do better in the future, but I can only say that you missed some real Pulitzer-Prize-calibre stuff. Unfortunately, I'm now back into the mundane-mediocre writing style that is sort of my trademark. I also haven't had time to sketch, but I'm told our next location, Kyoto, will be good for that. By the way, have you ever noticed that Kyoto (the ancient capital) and Tokyo (the new capital, which used to be named Edo) have exactly the same letters in the name? Also, the two syllables are two words in opposite order. TO means "east." KYO means "capital." (East Capital). If you switch the order of the two words (Kyoto), it means "Capital Large City." Yeah, I don't get it either.

The view from the window next to the elevator on the 16th floor of the hotel. You can go to the observation deck of the tower (SkyTree), but you have to stand in a long "rine" for tickets, so we haven't taken the time to "rine up" yet.

Our guide, Ayano, explains how Matthew Perry brought his black sheeps (ships) to Japan and, in effect, opened up Japan to the world. The two paintings on the right are portraits of Perry, based on verbal descriptions of him. Perry's arrival caused "big problem" in Japan because the Emperor and the people were in favor of being more open, but the Shogun and Samurai class knew their power would be usurped. Ergo, wars between the Emperor and the Shogun. The bullet hole on the left is in the front wall of a temple, evidence of one of the battles that took place in Tokyo. The 15th and last Shogun died about seventy years ago.

The last Shogun's grave (and his family) is in a cemetery near here. The family crest on the gate represents Hollyhocks. Or maybe Horryhocks.

The back of Shogun warrior armor in the National Museum of Art. Nice knot work.

Robin and Ayano make detailed plans of train and subway connections in order for us to meet Lady Matsukata on the other side of Tokyo. Thanks to Ayano's great planning and Robin's subway/tube experience, we pulled it off like regular Tokyo-ites.

Lady Matsukata, Elizabeth, & Robin admire handmade belts that are specifically to wrap around an obi, the material that wraps around the waist of a kimono. These belts are passed down in families to younger generations. Or at least they can be if they are high quality like these. This is a very famous shop and has been here for 340 years, although remodeled recently. In the future, I will make sure that I buy all of my Obi belts here.

If you're lucky you might catch a sighting of a beautiful young American on the subway.

Most subway sightings look more like this.

Or like this.

Robin admires a Rodin, seconds before a panic-stricken security guard rushed up and saved the sculpture. Lady Matsukata's grandfather was friends with Rodin and was instrumental in getting this and much more art to Tokyo. His collection is in a separate wing of the National Museum of Western Art.

Getting around Tokyo is easy. Just check the map in the station

I came really close to buying an Apple Watch while in the Apple Store. Fortunately, our friend Elizabeth wanted to buy a new iPad and that distracted me. 

A Tokyo cityscape by Robin. A cold, damp, and chilly night. I assume she shot this from our hotel room window. Either that or she spent a lot of money on a Selfie-Stick Pro.

Other Side of Tokyo

Friday morning. Our guide helped us plan our day of wandering around Tokyo on our own via train, subway, and taxi. Our new friend, Lady Matsukata ( a famous family according to our guide ) will meet us for lunch in the Ginza area of Tokyo. 

Details soon. 

Tokyo Arrival

Pal Elizabeth and Robin in the 82 British Pub located in our hotel. After landing at Narita Airport an airport bus took us on a 2 hour 40 mile drive into a big bus terminal in Tokyo where we hailed a cab to take us to our hotel. 

We'll be here for four nights before the other members of our group get here and continue on to other parts of Japan.

 

Comanches, Butterfingers, and Japan

Another blog to test posting a blog from my iPhone. 

Hey wait! That's not Empire of the Sun! Oh well, close enough. Where did that candy bar come from? I never eat junk. And if I do it's never on the way to Tokyo. 

The weirdness begins and we're not off the ground yet.