The shrine of shrines and the scenic spots of Nikko

Next up on our Japan tour was a visit to Nikko, to see the Toshogu shrine and the Kegon waterfall. Nikko is a small city high up in the mountains, a few hours from Tokyo, best known for the mausoleum of the first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who is buried there, in a huge compound of Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines and others buildings, all hidden among the woods. Despite the tourists, it’s a quiet, relaxing place. The first building of note in the compound is the Rinnoji Buddhist temple, which looks a lot like Sensô-ji in Tokyo and so many other Buddhist temples we’ve seen, but in its dark interior it hides three massive statues of the Buddha. Going up hill you pass through a wooden torii gate and see a pagoda on your left. Beyond it is the way to Futarasan Shinto shrine, lined with stone lanterns; on the right, stone pillar bears the crest of the Tokugawa clan, a circle with three heart-shaped leaves, and straight ahead a stairway that leads to the Toshogu shrine itself, which is known by its lavishly decorated and profusely carved buildings.

You pass Omote-mon gate, which is guarded by two red-skinned, angry looking guards carved out of wood, and find yourself in a sort of plateau lined with stone lanterns, where you can see some storage buildings. You’d never believe that was their function, though, since they’re so intricately carved with exotic and mythological animals. The most famous among these buildings is Shinkyusha, which was a barn to keep sacred horses and contains the well-known three monkeys carving – hear no evil, say no evil, see no evil – as a part of a series of monkey-themed carvings. Passing under a bronze torii and up another flight of steps we come to another stage, where the drum and bell towers are located. To the left, inside Yakushi-do hall, there is a room with a dragon painted in the ceiling, which has interesting acoustic properties: when clappers are struck under the dragon you can hear a strange ringing sound. They call it the dragon’s cry.

Past the drum and bell towers is Yomei-mon gate, which has so many carvings you could spend a whole day looking at it. Nobles, poets, dragons, and all sorts of animals have been carved on it and several parts are covered in gold leaf. Going under the gate, you get to the central courtyard, where they keep the consecrated sake (and whisky!) and where you can admire another highly sculpted gate, the Karamon. Finally, beyond it lies Honden, the main shrine, composed of several dark, tatami (thick straw mats)-covered rooms, painted in gold and other rich colors with dragons, tigers and other animals. The ceilings are decorated with a mosaic of bird pictures. The whole thing has a very regal feel to it.

Having spent the whole morning walking around the site, up and down stairs, treading on uneven rocky ground, lunch was warmly welcomed. We had a traditional meal of udon noodles, tempura (fried battered vegetables), miso and yuba, a type of tofu which is a specialty of the area. Everything was quite tasty, even if some of the dishes looked funny at first. After lunch we got back on the bus and were taken up the mountains to scenic lake Chuzenji, which lent itself well to photos, especially with the clouds partially covering the mountains around it. The last stop was at the Kegon waterfall, one of the three largest waterfalls in Japan. Again, we took pictures and got a chance to walk around before the long trip back to Tokyo. During the ride, the weather changed from clear and sunny to windy with pouring rain several times in a matter of minutes.

We left the bus at Shinjuku and spent the next two hours or so on several pay phones, trying to get the credit card unblocked (listen up kids, before you travel abroad, always let your credit card company know.) Still, we got a good feel of the giant Shinjuku train station, the busiest in all of Japan, and ended up having some excellent pizza for dinner. Outside, the neon lights of the department stores lent a surreal feel to the streets, but we were too exhausted to enjoy it properly.

Tokyo: day two

On our way to the Imperial Garden, we passed by Tokyo Tower, modeled after its Eiffel counterpart.

The moat and the wall around the Imperial Garden, with Tokyo Tower in the background.

The restored gate to the Imperial Garden (former site of the Edo Castle)

This fish-like creature was once on top of the gate's roof, to protect it from fire. I guess it didn't work so well.

There were a lot of artists trying to depict the beautiful scenery.

In Asakusa, there were a few girls dressed in traditional clothes around the temple. After I took a picture with these four, they asked to take a picture with me. I felt like I should be wearing something nicer.

Sensô temple's main building. It looks to me as if the roof is going to collapse any minute.

This pagoda is just one of many buildings that comprises Sensô temple.

Made of octopus and shellfish, these aren't your typical kebabs

Japan is the land of cuteness, including lucky cats. These were for sale at one of the many stands off Sensô temple.

Sensô temple's gate seen from Nakamise-dôri

Air-conditioned lunch with a view

The Rainbow Bridge over Tokyo Bay, with the artificial island of Odaiba in the background

The Fuji Television building in Odaiba

I've never expected to find a good value meal in the heart of Ginza: this is called Ten Shin Han and consists of rice with egg, pork, ham and peas topped with a funny sweet sauce. On the right, miso soup.

Steve opted for a more average pork ramen soup with gyoza (pan fried dumplings) on the side.

It was hard getting pictures of the buildings at night that didn't come out blurred. This was taken in Ginza.

If you're not here on time, the bus will leave without you

Sunday was the first day of our six-day guided tour. We hopped on a bus filled mostly with Americans (haha, who else?) and met our guide, Mr. Sato, a witty gentleman who carried around a carp-like flag so we could spot him better. Our first stop was the Imperial Gardens, site of the Edo castle ruins.

The Edo castle used to be the shogun’s main residence, but it suffered so many fires that, by the time the emperor re-assumed the power, they probably didn’t bother building it up once more. As it is right now, the gardens make for a relaxing place to stroll, featuring a few scenic Japanese-style gardens, including a couple of carp ponds, and handful of service buildings (a teahouse, a storage room, a guardhouse) which survived the last fire. For the most part, though, you wouldn’t have been able to guess that a castle once stood there, that is, except for the thick walls and moat that surround it.

Our next stop was Asakusa, one of the few Tokyo neighborhoods that still retain a little of the charm of the old days, before the skyscrapers and neon lights and all that madness. One of the main features of Asakusa is the Sensô Buddhist temple, which consists of several buildings and gates painted in typical red and white. It seems to be a big attraction, judging by the crowds of both Japanese and foreigners. Because there were so many people, we didn’t spend that much time at the main compound and started making our way to the gates. There were stalls everywhere, selling food and souvenirs and, after passing the first gate, we found ourselves on Nakamise-dôri, a covered street with dozens of stalls on both sides that leads to the main gate. It was so crowded that it was hard to make our way through. There were stalls selling salty soy crackers, others selling cheap kimonos and yukata, and all sorts of junk (you know, chopsticks, lucky cats, Japanese sword imitations, et cetera.)

Since the crackers didn’t cut it, it was a good thing that lunch was next. They took us to a nice western-style restaurant, with a pretty good view over the Tokyo bay, and from there we left for a short cruise along the bay. Truthfully, there wasn’t that much to see. There are a few cool modern buildings around the recently developed Odaiba area and the bridge that links the city to it reminded me of the Verrazano bridge in NYC, but most of the landscape becomes a bit boring, after a while. However, there was a wedding taking place on the cruise ship and watching the mix of Japanese and western customs – the bride was wearing a white gown, but some of the guests were wearing bright kimonos -- kept us occupied for a while.

After we docked, the bus crossed the Verrazano-like bridge that took us to Odaiba, where we could appreciate a different view of the bay and check out the smaller-scale Statue of Liberty that they have there (yes, you read that right.) And that was the tour for the day, which was pretty decent, considering that I’m not a big fan of big group tours in buses. We got out in Ginza, and strolled past some moderns and elegant skyscrapers on our way to the Sony Building, which used to host some cool virtual reality exhibits, but not anymore, as we found out. Still, we got a few more Mini-DV tapes at a discount, so it was worth it. We ended up having a tasty Japanese dinner in a little hole-in-the-wall of a place, near the train tracks and, on our way home, stopped at the convenience store to buy some cereal and milk for breakfast.

Tokyo: day 1

This was the first time I took pictures of a toilet. The novelty aspect was soon gone, though, because these are everywhere.

Halfway through our sushi meal, there's still plenty of tuna left (on the right) and some weirder stuff, including sea urchin (far right.)

Even though the market was closed, this guy was still working on a tuna head.

You can never get thirsty in Japan, with so many vending machines all over the place, selling everything from energy drinks and beer to café au lait.

Our first gothic lolita spotting. I don't think she knew she was being followed.

Shinto shrines are easily identified by their torii gates, like this one, only usually they're red and not this big. This one marks the entrace to Meiji-jingû, a temple in honor of the first emperor of the Meiji era.

This second torii gate marks the entrance to the main courtyard of the shrine

The main gate of Meiji-Jingû, seen from the altar

The entrance to crowded Takeshita-dôri

Gothic Lolita outfits for sale at Takeshita-dôri.

The Japanese love to use plastic food as menus, but I had never seen plastic crepes before. For some reason they were very popular in Harajuku, but we didn't see them anywhere else.

One of many gothic lolitas stores inside the trendy Laforet department store

Harajuku Girls and the freshest sushi

We landed in Tokyo around 6am. We had planned to take advantage of the early arrival to be able to go see the Tsukiji Fish Market – the biggest fish market in the world – in action, but we felt terrible, having only slept a couple of hours, and were lucky that the hotel let us check in early. We were immediately struck by the incredible politeness of the Japanese and by that weird contraption in our bathroom, where the toilet was supposed to be. The traditional Japanese-style toilet is of the squatting variety (very popular in Asia, actually) but nowadays the type of toilet you’ll find in most bathrooms, even public ones, looks just like a Western one, only with lots of buttons – from the seat heating function to the errr… “spray” function. Although we were curious, we ended up never pushing the buttons, so we can’t tell you how it works.

After a couple of hours of sleep, we felt much better, though hungry, so we decided to try to make it to Tsukiji anyways, at least for a bite of fresh sushi. Navigating the subways wasn’t too bad. The most confusing part is that there are two different companies that administrate different lines and you must get a new ticket when you switch from one to the other. It was about 3pm when we finally made it to the fish market and, not surprisingly, it was already closed, as were most sushi restaurants and stalls in the neighborhood. Still there were a couple that were still open and we feasted on the freshest sushi ever, including several different types of tuna (Japan’s favorite), some of them pretty expensive as we found out later. However, I must say the squid was tough and I didn’t touch the sea urchin (not that time, at least.)

With a full stomach, we decided to make our way to the Harajuku/Aoyama area, which wasn’t on the schedule for the tour the next day. Trying to stick to one subway company, we had to get out still pretty far from it, by the national stadium, and we saw the long lines of supporters for the red and the blue teams, going into the stadium through different entrances, for some important soccer game. Although we had a map, we were pretty much lost, especially because very few Tokyo streets have names (only the big ones) but we had a stroke of luck when we spotted a gothic lolita, all pink bows and ruffles, ahead of us. All we had to do was follow her and soon we found ourselves in Harajuku.

Unfortunately it was Saturday, because on Sunday all the gothic lolitas gather at the entrance to the Meiji gardens to show off their threads and let tourist take their picture. So instead we went into the gardens and visited the Meiji Shinto shrine, built in the 19th century in memory of the first emperor of the Restoration. It’s a rather large compound housing several simple wooden buildings, in true Japanese style, including a main altar that has no statues or pictures but where you can throw a coin and pray (bow twice, clap twice, bow once… or something along those lines – we heard it so many times, you’d think we’d never forget it.)

Then we walked down Takeshita-dôri, an extremely busy pedestrian street, filled with teenagers in more of less funky clothes, including a good dose of Goths and gothic lolitas (which are far from the same thing), hanging out at MacDonald’s and Burger King, or at the many funky clothes and accessory stores. Quite a sight!

The area of Harajuku/Aoyama/Shibuya is where you can find the most fashionable people these days - Ginza is passé – and just by walking around, soon you start finding yourself very inadequate. The stores have plenty of awesome clothes (including tons you can wear outside of Harajuku without having people stare at you funny), but one look at the tags will make you cry. Needless to say, by dinner time I was feeling very frustrated. Still, the whole experience was a lesson in Japanese pop culture and that was all we could take for the day. Feeling exhausted and sleepy, we ate in a small, quite restaurant which served tasty, reasonably priced Chinese food - we were starving, so we weren’t picky - and went back to the hotel, for some well deserved sleep.

The land of the rising sun

Of all the places we've been so far, Japan was the one we spent the most time in -- and we barely scratched the surface of this intriguing country with such a interesting culture. Even though it's a first world nation, featuring great metropolis like Tokyo and Osaka, where it's easy to get a Big Mac or browse the latest Dior collection, it is very unlike other developed countries. It's not that surprising, actually, considering that Japan only opened itself to the west on the nineteenth century and, before that, spent many centuries as a feudal regime, ruled by the shogun and the strict samurai code. This may not be obvious at first, when you're strolling around Shinjuku (Tokyo), staring at all the Times Square-like neon lights -- Shinjuku has its own Times Square, by the way -- but as you gradually immerse yourself in the culture, it becomes clear that you're not in New York City anymore, or anywhere else that's familiar, for that matter.
Fearing the language barrier (hello, Lost in Translation), we decided to book a tour for seven days, that took us around central Honshu (Japan's biggest island), stopping at some of the most memorable historical sites in the country. In hindsight, it was not the best idea. While the tours were very informative and there was no other way we could have seen so much in so little time, they became tiring as the days passed and there were just too many temples and shrines. Still, I can't recommend Japan enough and can't wait to go back and see some more... one day. Just one word of advice: avoid the summer, unless you're thinking of visiting Hokkaido, in the north. Even for us, who've been living just a few miles away from the Equator, Japan can be extremely hot!

Kowloon

Looking down from our hotel, a typical Kowloon street

Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui's main street

Taking the subway to Jordan

Jordan Street, by our hotel, on the way to Temple Street Night Market

The tents and stalls (and the many customers) of the night market

Local food by Temple Street: noodles and sweet and sour pork ribs

The foggy view from the top of our hotel, on the second morning

Hong Kong Island

Hong Kong Island's central skyline, seen from the tip of Kowloon peninsula...

..and the skyline of the Wan Chai area, featuring the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.
Steve with the Bank of China building and a few others in the background, at the ferry pier.

Going up on the central escalator

In Hong Kong, dozens of ads like these hang over almost every street.

The interior of Man Mo temple

Me in front of the shops at Victoria Peak, once the fog cleared a little

Coming down on the tram, all you see looking up is still white

At the entrance of Graham Street Market

Meat displayed outside at a butcher's in Graham Street Market

The central escalator, seen from a window on a third floor

A cruise ship on the harbor, with Central's skyline on the background. As you can see, the weather got a little better on the second day, but just for a few hours. By the time we left, it was raining once more.