Tokyo New Year

Here it is officially 2012!  (We're 14 hrs ahead of the East Coast.)  Tokyo has been a different world from the elegant, spiritual Kyoto and the crisp mountain town of Nagano.  We arrived in Tokyo from another night bus trip at about 5am in the morning and crashed at our newest hostel.  The man at the front desk was so nice and let us check-in early because we were "sure to be exhausted."  He was this wonderful grandfatherly Japanese man with kind eyes and nervous, feminine mannerisms.  That afternoon we went to Koenji St, which is supposed to be a nice center of alternative Japanese shops and businesses.  On the way we passed a fire station and I went inside to talk to the firefighters and they let us ride in their firetruck!  After Koenji St, we went looking for some "love hotels" we'd read about in the guide books.  They have all sorts of themed rooms and extravagant settings in these hotels and they're available for tours (this is what we read in our guide book).  Unfortunately we couldn't find any interesting ones but it was amusing to walk around in the district.  We also visited one of the biggest H&Ms I've ever seen.

The next day (yesterday) was my favorite day because we went to Akiba, or Electric City, the Tokyoan realm of electronics.  There were streets and streets of electronics and manga and nerd stores.  It was a very beautiful place.  After touring the area (and purchasing a long-awaited-for iPod!), we took a train to Odaiba, a man-made, futuristic city off the bay of Tokyo.  We toured Odaiba on the monorail which sits high above the city.  That night was New Year's Eve and Annie and I had a hybrid evening: we went to the temple as is traditional in Japan and then we went to a club/music bar and danced to some live electronica music from a UK musician called Golden Panda.  At the temple, we gathered with thousands of people, each with a balloon (biodegradable) tied with a wish.  3,000 of these "wishes" were released at midnight after the countdown.  There was all sorts of interesting people, food and a pretty terrible flute performance by a Buddhist monk.  I guess they spend most of their time praying.  It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen at midnight when all of the balloons were released into the night sky with the temple to one side and the brightly lit Tokyo Tower in the background. 

Riding in a Japanese firetruck!

The busiest intersection in the world.

One of the many Tokyo manga stores.

It is very cold right now in Japan, but no worries, because hot cider and hot green tea are provided from drink machines.

There are some very interesting clothing styles in Japan.  This was one of my favorites: a outer space themed jacket.

A peacock stained-glass in the metro station.

 Futuristic Odaiba.

Transformer sighting.

The sun starts to set.  The monorail becomes crowded as everyone begins to leave Odaiba for mainland Tokyo.

 Amusement section of Odaiba.

Tokyo's Golden Gate Bridge.  Access point to Odaiba.

Tokyo's Eiffel Tower, also known as Tokyo Tower.

The Zojoji Temple on New Years.

Ritual first lighting, by the Japanese Boy Scouts.

Everyone gathered with their balloons.  It's still 2011.

Annie with our balloon and wish.

Funky electronica music by Golden Panda.  Strobe lights included!

Onsensai and Snow Monkeys

Today was perhaps my favorite day so far in Japan.  We started off the day by catching a train and then a bus to Jigokudani, a monkey park in Kanbayashi near Nagano.  The walk from the bus station was a beautiful, snow-lined walk through the Alps.  It was so beautiful in fact that I didn't mind the hole in my boot and we also had wonderful company - we met an interesting young German physical chemist who's currently doing his post doc at a lab in Tokyo.  When we reached the top I was amazed and excited: hundreds of monkeys right there, walking, bathing, playing, fighting, chillin' amongst all the people.  It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen: these grey-white monkeys with bright red faces in the snowy surroundings and relaxing in the misty hot springs.

We made it back down the mountain and rode a bus to the onsen, or Japanese hot springs, in Yudanaka.  After the snowy trek, it was wonderful to relax in the hot springs.  There was an indoor and outdoor communal pool and one of my favorite moments was sitting outside in the misty hot stone pool completely naked with snow falling from above!  Amazing the contrast between the relaxing steam of the onsen and the sharp mountain air.  We've arrived back at the hostel now and are enjoying the company of our fellow hostel mates.  One girl is WWOOFing (travelling and working for no pay but in exchange for room and board) and she is Japanese-British and works as a hula dancer when she's back in Britain.  In a couple hours we'll catch a night bus to Tokyo!

Our wonderful view on the train ride.

Trail up to the monkey farm.

"for human being" ... "for monkey"

So picturesque.

It's cold out here!

Oh, what a lovely waterfall.

A little baby monkey in the corner of the onsen with mama close by.

Reaching down for a little drink.

My new monkey friend was ignoring me.

Hello, Big Mountains and Snow!

So, we've arrived in Nagano, the second destination of our Japanese travels.  Nagano is a smaller snow-covered town at the base of the Japanese Alps and it's north of and about midway between Kyoto and Tokyo.  We took a night bus from Kyoto last night and arrived in the quiet and sleepy town of Nagano at 6am this morning.  I have been so impressed with the generosity and kindheartedness of the Japanese people; we were not only RUN to our bus that we almost missed because we were at the wrong station by a helpful bus worker, but there was also a young man who walked with us the 10 minutes in the dark in the cold at 6am to our hotel this morning and then had to walk back to the train station to catch his own connecting train.  Everyone helps so genuinely and insists on doing so even when we insist it's too much.  It's not the same type of gushy, overly energetic hospitality of Jordan, but it's amazed me to see how hospitable people are all over the world.  We arrived safely to our hotel, Smile Hotel, this morning but were dismayed to learn that no one spoke any English and the only available computer access was a computer from the 90s that we had to feed coins to use.  We were hoping for help from the hotel staff to locate this obscure snow monkey park we want to visit tomorrow.  So, at 6-7ish am we paid to use the 90s computer and booked a room in a hostel across town since we hadn't technically paid for Smile Hotel yet.  We walked to the hostel but no one answered the door and we weren't allowed to leave our belongings there until 10am.  We spent about 3 hrs in a freezing cold McDonald's trying to sleep (after being told we couldn't sleep in a nearby coffee house) and then at 10am made our way to the hostel.  It wouldn't be an adventure if we didn't run into these little logistical issues!  We checked into our hostel, owned by a beautiful little Japanese couple with one son about our age who'd been to the US once to visit a Native American reservation in South Dakota, so beautiful, and then we set out to see the Zenko-ji Temple, a beautiful structure framed by the snow-covered Alps.  Such a contrast from the shrines in Kyoto, less urbanized, less red and yellow and orange and green leaves in the eyes' view. 

Statues in front of the temple.

Big mama goddess.

Zenko-ji temple with Alps in the background.

The swastika is used specifically in Hinduism and Buddhism as a sacred symbol for good luck.  It is also a Chinese character used around East Asia to represent eternity in Buddhism.

 We ate dinner at this lovely buffet-style restaurant with all local food and floor seating on tatami mats.

Delicious.

Fushimainari

Fushimainari is a beautiful shrine built for the gods of rice.  On our last day in Kyoto, we hiked through thousands of red torii or gates stretching for kilometers up and down the Alps bordering Kyoto.  I'd looked forward to this sight specifically.  Not only is the walk scenic and contemplative, but one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies, Memoirs of a Geisha, was filmed inside this shrine. 

"At the temple, there is a poem called 'Loss' carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read Loss, only feel it."

The Golden Pavilion and Other Adventures

After the ryokan stay, we spent the rest of Christmas day in east Kyoto.  First we walked to the Kyoto Museum of Traditional Handicrafts and looked at fans, wood pieces, wall hangings, kimonos and more, then headed to the "Path of Philosophy" at the foot of the mountain Higashiyama.  On the way, we ate lunch at a small cafe that was essentially the elegant kitchen of a mother-daughter team.  I had the best bean and beef curry and the daughter pulled out a map of America and insisted we show her our home towns.  The Path of Philosophy or Tetsugaku-no-Michi is a beautiful path that was once the regular walking path of the 20th century philosopher, Nishida Kitaro.  The path ended at Ginkaku-ji, a beautiful temple built by shogun Yoshimasa in the 1400s as an escape villa from the ongoing civil war.  We walked back to the hostel late in the day and ordered pizza for our Christmas dinner.

Today we began our day with sushi, a must-have here in Japan of course.  We also hit up a bakery and split yummy strawberry shortcake, pistachio strawberry pie and a chestnut chocolate pastry.  We then rode the bus to northwest Kyoto and saw Kinkakuji Temple, the famous golden temple and we also visited a nearby rock garden for Zen meditation.  For dinner, we ate at a Japanese vegetarian restaurant which turned out to be one of the most interesting experiences we've had yet.  The restaurant is found through a tiny nook of a pathway in the middle of a large street, a nook we wouldn't have found without the recommendation of our hostel staff.  The place is owned by a Japanese nun (who drinks beer and has long hippie hair and plays the shamisen and cooks a mean veggie curry).  The walls are covered in concert posters and scraps of paper with Japanese writing and there's jazz playing from the stereo.  Cats running everywhere and the clientele are mostly older men who probably can't cook for themselves and come here every night.  They're friendly and give us their business cards and try to talk to us in English and we meet this beautiful pair of old Japanese men who are best friends and used to be business partners in the kimono business.  A man starts playing the guitar and singing traditional Japanese songs and the nun pulls out her shamisen and starts playing along in between cooking.  It's the most wonderful, familial situation with great food and company.  Afterward, Annie and I visit the old geisha and entertainment district down the street from our hostel.  There wasn't much for us there.  It seems like a modern-day version of what it used to be, full of businessmen and young girls dressed in too much makeup and glittery prom-like dresses.  Afterward we head back to the warm common room of our hostel.

Tomorrow is our last day in the beautiful Kyoto before we head to Nagano, a smaller onsen (Japanese hot springs) town in the Japanese Alps.

We order sushi from the "English menu," which is on an Ipad!

The sushi restaurant with our friendly chef and a rotating serving line.

Trying squid for the first time!

Kinkakuji temple, the Golden Pavilion.

A beautiful lake outside the rock garden.  Everything was orange, brown and evergreen, except the brilliant white of two ducks.

Some type of fruit tree beside the lake.

The Zen rock garden.

Vegetarian restaurant owned by Japanese nun.

Kyoto Sightseeing and a Ryokan Christmas

On our first full day in Kyoto, Annie and I went to Maruyama Park and walked around.  Annie is on a year-long Watson grant studying textiles and fashion and she's recently started crafting these exquisite hats and hair decorations out of plant life.  So we're constantly on a hunt for interesting Japanese plants -- and Maruyama did not disappoint.  We even found palm fronds. After walking through the park, we found the largest bell in Japan, Daisho-ro, and a beautiful temple complex called Chion-in.  That afternoon we walked around "arguably one of the most beautiful streets in all of Asia" --tree and water-lined--and probably especially gorgeous during cherry-blossom season--and found a pastry cafe.  We went to a small grocery store and bought simple foods, bread, cheese and popcorn, and brought it all back to the bustling hostel common room.  We met some beautiful creatures there including a very interesting, multilingual young Turkish man who is living in Kyoto and a Taiwanese woman who asserted immediately that Taiwan is "...you know--not the same country as China" and that she could tell we were "definitely American, but don't worry, not like Lady Gaga."

The next day, December 24, we visited the Nijo-ji castle where the shogun once lived.  It was the most beautiful royal structure I've ever seen.  That night (last night) Annie and I relocated to a ryokan (a traditional-style Japanese inn from the Edo period).  We're staying here for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and then we'll head back to the hostel tonight.

Annie and I, intimidated by Sakamoto and Nakaota.

Simple bamboo fence.

A graveyard built on a raised plateau. 

A beautiful section of the graveyard.

The largest bell in Japan.

Chion-in Temple

Inside the Chion-in Temple.  Can't quite capture the extravagance on camera.  

Red leaves on the most beautiful street in Asia.

Entrance to Nijo-jo castle.

Entering Nijo-jo castle.

The Nijo-jo garden.

The ryokan room.

The traditional bathing room at the ryokan.

Breakfast at the ryokan (Christmas morning).

Ryokan garden.

Annie and Melissa in Kyoto!  (Plant creations by Annie.)