Finding Cherry Blossoms in Tokyo Requires Holding On to Your Britches.

Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016

Being Americans we are an impatient lot. Though we only had a day or so of snow this year and the winter has been unseasonably warm (sorry, fellow New Yorkers), we, and our adopted countrymen, are eager for Spring.

Anxiously anticipating the emergence of cherry blossoms, we’ve stubbornly headed out a couple of times now in search of them despite what the Japanese forecasts were saying, which was, in so many words, ‘hold your britches for another week, people.’ And they appear to be right.

Last week we went to the Hama Rikyu gardens hoping to see some blossoms, but found few. It's a lovely park though and features a tea house. The park is situated right next to the Sumida River so it makes for a nice place to sit and watch the river go by. This is the tea house.

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But there weren't many blossoms. There were a lot of yellow flowers. And a LOT of other people also hoping to see early blooms.

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Yesterday the Professor and I decided to try again and went to Kiyosumi Gardens.

We took the Hanzomon Line to the Kiyosumi-shirakawa Station and exited at the A3 exit. The entrance to the gardens is about a five-minute walk from here, down a side street that is pretty well signed.

While there were only a few blossoms on one or two trees here, it is still a beautiful garden and is now definitely one of my favorites. Taunting us with a few blossoms...

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It features a large pond that is home to countless carp, ducks, turtles, cranes, and other birds. This place made me feel like the Fish Whisperer because whenever I’d walk over the stone slabs in the water or get close to the edge of the pond, the fish would come up and stick their gaping mouths at me looking for food. At one point, I had a duck and three fish following me along the path.

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There are picnic areas here and I wished we’d brought food and drink and stayed awhile. But we didn’t, so we just followed the path around the giant pond—over rocks and curved bridges—stopping to take photos here and there, and then left.

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We then wandered down the side streets and headed to the Fukagawa Fudoson temple we’d been to in December for the fire festival. We wanted to check out all the areas around the temple we’d missed.

This was in a little shrine in the neighborhood on the way to the main shrine area.

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Turns out the shrine area consists of lots more than just the two main temples we'd been to in December.

There is a Sumo Memorial Stone that is a monument to honor the generations of sumo champions, and is inscribed with the names of each of the sixty-eight sumo wrestler grand champions. Modern Sumo began here in this area in 1684 and the shrine was erected to pay homage.

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There are other little bits of beauty tucked away around the main shrine area.

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And quite a few little restaurants and shops to pick up food-to-go and gifty food items, too, on the short walk back to the station.

It was a very pleasant afternoon, even if there weren’t many blossoms out yet. We are now home, holding our britches for another few days.

Enjoying the Odd in Tokyo

Thursday, Feb 17, 2016

The day was forecast to be a warm spring day with temperatures in the upper 60s. What did we decide to do to enjoy the sunshine? We decided to explore the Tokyo Trick Art Museum out on Odaiba Island.

Odaiba is a totally manmade island area with beaches, shopping, and lots of fun things for the family to do. And one of these fun things to do is visit the Tokyo Trick Art Museum. I’d had it on my list since first arriving here.

There is more than one Trick Art Museums in the Tokyo area (there is also one out by Mt. Takao), but I wanted to check out Odaiba, too. After googling and finding it listed under Tokyo Trick Art Museum, we got the directions and set off.

After enjoying a delicious lunch at a soba restaurant next to the Shinjuku station where you place your orders through a vending machine, we took the monorail to Odaiba. At the Odaiba Kaihinkouen Station we turned right and exited the station. After exiting, we turned left and walked through the plaza, heading for the big building that features Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. I think it’s called the Island Mall.

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Upon entering the building, we went up to the 4th floor. The Tokyo Trick Art Museum is located across from the kids play area. The tickets are available for 900yen for adults, and 600yen for kids (ages 4-14) from a vending machine at the window. We bought and then got in line.

They let people in a few at a time and give a little explanation at the beginning (English is available).

Then you just wander. And this is where you need to be prepared to crawl around on the floor at least a few times. While some photos work better than others, it’s all fun.

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After the photos we walked across the street to the beach and checked out the Statue of Liberty. I found out later that the Statue of Liberty is a replica of one brought from Paris and presented to Odaiba in 1998 for a yearlong celebration of Japan’s ties with France.  It measures approximately 12.25 meters tall from its pedestal and weighs about nine tons. It was so popular during the celebration that they brought it back and this replica has been on display since 2000. It makes for a great photo.

Across the street from the Statue of Liberty, we spied a Hawaiian Burger joint and went there for a beer, a burger and a beautiful view of Tokyo.

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After a delicious burger, we walked along the walkway heading away from the beach and towards the distant ferris wheel, and found that it’s not nearly as far away as it looked on the map.

We entered the Venus Fort building and ran into an old car’s museum with some beautiful cars on display.

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Walking through that, we exited into the shopping mall that is designed to resemble ancient Italy. I read that the lighted sky ceiling changes colors during the day—but we didn’t pay attention.

My goal was finding the Strangelove shop. It is a shop of weird oddities and I had read about it on a couple of websites. It is located on the second floor, near the Legos store. To enter, you must stand at the door where the foot outlines are, and ring the ship bell with the metal rod and wait for them to open the door. I love to browse these types of shops with their devilish figurines, old taxidermy, and weird vintage items. After a browse through, we reluctantly left and took the monorail from the Aomi station outside the mall and headed to Toyosu.

Getting off there, we headed back to Shinjuku. Since the night was clear we decided to head for the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for a million-dollar view of the Tokyo lights. 

Another beautiful view of Tokyo. And it's free!

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Though the area is pretty dead here at night because it's mostly government buildings, it's just a few blocks away from the 24-hour madness of Shinjuku.

Dolls, Dolls, and More Dolls. And Sometimes Tsunamis

Thursday, Mar 3, 2016

Katsuura is a small fishing village in Chiba and about two hours away from Tokyo by train. It was our destination on Thursday. We were headed there to celebrate Hina matsuri or Doll Festival or Girls’ Day. It goes by different names.

Every March 3 the Japanese celebrate this day to wish good health and a happy life to little girls. They do this by putting out elaborate and expensive doll sets. These sets vary in detail and pieces but the set usually consists of at least the Emperor and Empress dolls dressed in costumes from the Heian period. The displays can also include their court members but are usually arranged in tiers denoting the levels of importance of the figurines. Thus the Emperor and Empress are always on the top tier. The sets are then stored away in great ceremony until the following year’s celebration. If they’re not stored away promptly after the celebration the parents may doom their little daughter’s marital futures or something to that effect. No pressure there.

We were headed to Katsuura because of articles I’d read about the little town’s impressive display of dolls. They first started this display back in 2001 and it has become quite a draw. The photos should help to show why.

Due to a misreading of information, our two-hour trip ended up taking us much longer--but we finally arrived at the correct town.

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Though just a little town on the ocean, it has a very big collection of dolls and the collections start right at the train station. 

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Knowing Japan, the route is probably the same each year. We went out of the train station and headed towards the ocean until we came to a big doll display set up in a court yard,

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We turned left at the big intersection and—keeping the ocean to our right—kept going. We followed the dolls set up along the street and in the shops and it felt much like any Main St. USA, except with dolls.

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The shrine and the main show are at the end of the road and butt up against a little hill.

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Once we were done admiring the huge display, we exited and turned right, and followed along the road admiring more displays along the way.

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The road deadends at a shrine. It's beautiful and past the gate, there are no dolls.

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When we were done admiring the shrine, and dolls along this street, we retraced our steps back up 'Main St. USA' so we could see the displays on the opposite side of the street. According to a map given out for the event there are displays up and down the side streets, but we didn't venture out to see since it was getting late.  

There are doll displays everywhere. In open doors.

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Along the wall of a parking lot.

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Attached to poles.

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In store front windows.

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There are huge displays along the roads and in buildings.

 

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Two of my favorites consisted of really old dolls

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And another had dolls of all kinds and from different countries. 

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There were dolls with glasses on in the window of an eyeglass store,

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And there were pokemon-inspired dolls.

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And the ocean is right there. We saw lots of these signs on light poles. Yikes! Thankfully, there were no tsunamis that day!

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It was a wonderful little day trip.

I certainly hope all those dolls were safely stored away on time--or there are going to be a lot of unmarried little girls in Katsuura.