Alas, this was not a Bach clarinet concerto in a beautiful setting. The man was practicing scales.
Practice Makes Perfect, Tokyo
Sushi for Breakfast, Anyone?
The man in the photo is getting ready for the day’s business, cutting fresh tuna to be sold as sashimi to people who visit his small stall in Tokyo’s Tsukiji Outer Market. The only way to get all of what he was doing in a single photo would have been to stand directly in front of him and get right in his face. These days I am not as inclined as I used to be to get on top of people with a camera, so I settled for two images to tell the story.
At one time, the Tsukiji Market was Tokyo’s largest wholesale fish and seafood market, a place where freshly caught fish was auctioned off or sold to retail buyers every day in the early morning. Around the commercial market there were food stalls and small restaurants serving some of the freshest sashimi and sushi in Tokyo. For those who liked Japanese style fish for breakfast, Tsukiji Market was the place to go.
A few years ago, in 2018 if I am not mistaken, the wholesale market moved to a new location in Tokyo, leaving behind the food stalls, restaurants, and market stands selling everything from fish and fresh fruits and vegetables to kitchen utensils and household goods that had grown up outside of the buildings where the wholesale market conducted its business. The area was renamed the Tsukiji Outer Market. Today, it is a destination for tourists, both domestic and foreign, looking for good eats and a Tokyo slice of life, as well as for local shoppers doing their marketing.
Some of the eateries had people stationed outside cajoling visitors to try their offerings. There were lines waiting to get served at some places. My thoughts about choosing a place to eat among dozens of choices I am unfamiliar with in a market I’ve never been to before: Walk around, look at the choices, pick one that looks decent. Yes, I do sometimes read customer reviews but am skeptical because too often I see “the best food I had on my trip” followed by “what a dump, worst meal ever.” As for lines, I am very much of the opinion that it makes no sense whatsoever to stand in line at one place because a YouTube “influencer,” someone whom I neither know or care about and who quite possibly is an absolute moron, told me that particular place is special and better than the other places. As for the people who are influenced to stand in line, all I can say is thank you. When I do decide to take a chance on a place that looks appealing, it is less likely to be crowded with people because you are waiting in line elsewhere.
Be all that as it may, I eventually went into a small restaurant that had a menu in the window and nobody outside with a sales pitch. The place had a good feel about it, and that was enough to recommend it. The sushi chef behind the counter served up a delicious selection of sushi and an exotic Japanese mushroom fried in tempura batter. I’d been lucky and picked a winner; I left the restaurant feeling full and satisfied.
One thing it never occurred to me I would see at a market famous for fresh seafood were booths selling Japanese wagyu beef on skewers. I had come to Tsukiji for sushi, and did not pay much attention to these booths or the prices they were charging. It was only after looking at the image below on my computer at home that I checked and discovered ¥5000 is equal to a bit more than $32. Yikes! That’s a hefty price tag for what appears to be a skewer with less than 100gms (about 3.5oz) of meat. On the other hand, I had checked online for restaurants serving Kobe beef dinners and learned that prices for dinners serving the genuine item started around $150, and went up – a long way up – from there. A small skewer grilled by a shop in Tsukiji would have been a relatively inexpensive way to sample this delicacy, but I was not thinking in those terms, and passed on by.
For those with a sweet tooth or looking for dessert after sushi, there were a number of alternatives. Some of the offerings were tempting, but I was full from breakfast. The women in this photo are looking at large strawberries set into pastry shells filled with several kinds of sweet concoctions. I wonder where these women are from. The lady furthest away could be from pretty much anywhere in East or SE Asia, but the woman in the middle is difficult to peg.
I had arrived at Tsukiji Outer Market at around eight on a sunny Saturday morning. There were people walking around taking a look, but the place was not crowded. By the time I finished my sushi breakfast some time after 9am, the market had filled up with people and the lanes lined with shops were packed. It was time to move on.
Senso-ji: a Buddhist Masterpiece
The venerable Senso-ji Buddhist temple (officially Kinryū-zan Sensō-ji (金龍山浅草寺)) is located in the Asakusa area of downtown Tokyo. The photo above (follow the link for more of this beautiful compound) shows Hozomon (the Treasure House Gate) that provides an entrance to the main temple; it is flanked by Senso-ji’s five story pagoda on the left.
Founded in 645 CE, Senso-ji is the oldest established temple in Tokyo. The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon (観音菩薩), called Guanyin in Chinese; this beloved Buddhist deity is associated with compassion. Senso-ji is one of Japan’s most important Buddhist temples and one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions. In fact the Wikipedia entry for Senso-ji informs us that “it is the most widely visited religious site in the world with over 30 million visitors annually.” For what it is worth, there was no shortage of visitors on the day I went.
The first gate, the street side entrance that one passes through on the way to the inner compound, is Kaminarimon (the Thunder Gate) . When I arrived at around 8:20 in the morning, tourists were beginning to trickle into the compound. Before heading inside quite a few people were waiting in line along the street for the chance to get an unobstructed photo of themselves standing dead center in front of the gate. There were a few solo travelers taking selfies, but it was mostly couples who would switch off, each taking two or three photos of their mate. A few people got a bit carried away, but the line remained orderly and people were impeccably polite. It was actually rather charming to watch. The photo below is the same scene as seen from inside the gate just before I turned my back and set off towards Hozomon.
It is worth noting that none of the buildings one sees today within the large compound date back to the temple’s founding. The temple area was leveled in a March, 1945, bombing raid towards the end of WWII. Today’s buildings are reconstructions completed for the most part in the 1950s and 1960s. Wartime destruction was not the first time parts of Senso-ji were devastated; buildings within the compound have been destroyed by fire on numerous occasions during the 1700 years of Senso-ji’s existence.
The two images above are both of Hozomon, the second of the gates between the entrance to the compound and the main temple of Senso-ji. In the first, I am facing the front of the gate as I walk towards the main temple. It is about 8:30am and the October sun is still fairly low in the sky behind my right shoulder. I took the second image from the top of the steps leading into the main temple. This side of the gate faces north; the sun is in front of me and to my left. Though it does not bring me level with the roof, my elevation shows how steep that roof is, and how it dominates the building below it.
I have lived in East and Southeast Asia for some 35 years now and have visited lots of Buddhist temples during those years, in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and now Japan. Some of these have been large, wealthy and well-known, some draw crowds of tourists, but many have been small and unknown to all but the monks and nuns that call them home and the devout Buddhists that they serve. Buddhist temples and pagodas in Japan are similar in some respects to their counterparts in China, but Japanese design is strikingly different in other ways. The roofs of the buildings, in particular, are very steep and they project out quite far from the actual building. Japanese multi-storied pagodas like the one in Senso-ji are unique, I have seen nothing like them elsewhere in my travels. I am not familiar with the terminology used to describe architectural designs and features, so it is best to let the photos speak for themselves.
I am disappointed in myself that I do not have more images of the main temple building and the area around it. One of the lessons of this and other visits to well-known destinations in Japan is that my approach as a photographer to these places needs to be better organized and more disciplined. As I look through the folder of Senso-ji images, I not only see what is there, but also a number of images that are missing.
By the time I left Senso-ji shortly after 11am, any semblance of order at the Kaminarimon gate had disappeared as crowds of visitors headed inside to see the temple compound.
A Neighborhood Stroll, Tokyo
On my third day in Tokyo, I woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. I decided to walk the two kilometers to Senso-ji, a venerable Buddhist temple founded some 1700 years ago, and the one of Tokyo’s premier tourist attractions that was in easy walking distance from my hotel. I set out shortly after 7:30am with my camera and Google Maps’ directions on my phone to stroll through the Taito City district of Tokyo.
The part of Taito City that I saw was a pleasant but rather non-descript urban residential area. The term “non-descript” is not intended as a criticism; it simply notes that the area had none of the urban glitter that Tokyo is famous for, nor was it an area with lots of traditional architecture that took me back to a distant past. The streets were lined with simple … and perhaps this is a better choice of words … unremarkable low rise buildings that people lived in. The streets and sidewalks were spotlessly clean and adequate, but not expansive; there were very few trees or greenery along the way. In short, Taito City appeared to be a no-frills neighborhood that had a lot of people living together in a limited amount of space.
About halfway to Senso-ji, I came across Matsuba Park, a bit of green space with some shade, some benches, and a small playground area for kids. Nothing fancy, but pleasant nonetheless. There was an information board in the park explaining that Matsuba Park was part of the municipal planning response to the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. City officials noted that green spaces and parks in the city acted as firebreaks that helped to control the fires that ravaged Tokyo after the earthquake. This small park is one 52 parks Tokyo built in the aftermath of the earthquake to help contain the spread of large fires, and to improve quality of life in neighborhoods throughout the city.
Japan’s capital city only took on the name Tokyo in 1868 during the reign of the Emperor Meiji. For those interested in such things, in the written Japanese language Tokyo is 東京, two characters originally from Chinese that mean in that language “eastern capital.” This name compliments the names of two important Chinese cities: 北京 (Beijing, northern capital) and 南京 (Nanjing, southern capital). Be that as it may, prior to 1868 Tokyo was named Edo, the city that served as the seat of government for the Tokugawa Shogunate that ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration began after Emperor Meiji ascended to the throne in 1867.
As I walked through Taito City, I came across one traditional building secluded behind a gate that reminded me of Tokyo’s long history. This quiet site houses the tombstones and graves of two brothers whose engineering work on behalf of the Shogunate in 1653 helped to alleviate water shortages in Edo. In recognition of their contributions, the Shogunate awarded the brothers a small parcel of land and gave them an honorary surname. After the brothers passed away towards the end of the 17th century, they were laid to rest at this site. The original structure was destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake; the building pictured here is a reconstruction. The plaque in front of the gate, with its brief introduction to the Tamagawa brothers, contains another, and I suspect unintended, reminder of Japan’s history. The municipal government provisionally designated the building a historic site in 1924; it was not until 1955 that the designation was formalized.
As I got closer to Senso-ji, houses and apartment building began giving way to more street-level commercial buildings and activity. I would arrive at the temple soon.
Old Town Souvenirs, Hoi An, Vietnam
The late afternoon color palette of Hoi An Old Town is exquisite. As the sun gets closer to the horizon, the golds and yellows that cover the exteriors of many Old Town buildings glow in the soft light.
Meiji Jingu: On Sacred Ground
Meiji Jingu Ichino Torii is pictured here. Gates like this are called torii and are found throughout Japan at the entrances and within Shinto shrines. As entrance ways, torii mark the spot where visitors pass from the mundane world of humanity to the sacred ground of the shrine. The torii shown here stands at the entrance to the Meiji Jingu (明治神宮) in Tokyo, one of Japan’s most important shrines honoring the spirits of the Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken, his wife. After passing beneath the torii, one walks through a breathtakingly beautiful wooded area before approaching the shrine itself several hundred meters from the entrance.
Born in the sequestered imperial compound in Kyoto in 1852, Emperor Meiji ascended to the throne in 1867 and ruled until his death in 1912. “Meiji” is not the birth name of the young man who became the emperor of Japan at age 15; rather it is his reign or era name that was assigned to his reign in 1868. A tradition that originated in China more than 2000 years ago, the Japanese have adopted and adapted the era name concept to suit their own purposes. Since I am definitely not up to speed about how this complicated scheme actually works, suffice it to say that imperial era names serve as a kind of calendar, allowing historical events to be dated by the year of the reign era in which they occur. This system remains in use today in Japan.
Meiji’s reign encompassed a period of rapid change and transformation in Japan. For hundreds of years prior to his ascending the throne, Japanese emperors lived in seclusion in Kyoto where their functions were ceremonial; they took no part in actually ruling the islands we call Japan. Political power was in the hands of a Shogun supported by feudal vassals called Daimyo. Pre-Meiji Japan was a closed society that had limited contact with nearby China and Korea, and even less with peoples elsewhere in the world. Foreign traders were limited to doing business in a single city: Nagasaki.
As a schoolboy, I learned of how in 1852 President Millard Fillmore dispatched US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan at the head of a squadron of gunboats, his mission to demand that the Japanese open their country to US trade. We were taught to be proud of this example of our country fulfilling its Manifest Destiny, how it illustrated the growing power of the United States in world affairs, and our civilizing influence that brought progress to a benighted, backward land. I have no idea if American school children today learn about the “opening of Japan” and, if they do, how this story is presented. I do know that I now view the tale of Commodore Perry as an early example of arrogant American militarism and imperial designs bent on imposing American power on another people.
In the event, Japan’s isolated, closed system was destabilized by Perry’s arrival and the threat inherent in the steam-powered warships he brought with him. His visit and those of various Europeans during this time period led to internal turmoil and finally helped to trigger great changes that began with Emperor Meiji’s ascension to the throne. His 45 year reign is referred to as the Meiji Restoration, and during Meiji’s reign the emperor emerged from seclusion and began taking a direct part in the governing of Japan. Beginning its pursuit of modernity with a mature, highly sophisticated culture and society, but well behind the United States and the great powers of Europe with respect to science and technology, Japan developed into an industrial and military powerhouse in a matter several decades. Japan’s rapid rise to great power status was one of many factors that set the world on a path to devastating global conflict in the first half of the 20th century.
The original shrine was destroyed by bombing at the end of WWII. This majestic reconstruction was completed in 1958.
Initially, it was advisers of the young emperor driving change, but as Emperor Meiji aged, he became directly involved in decision making. Not long before heading to Japan, I bought Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912, a book by the late Donald Keene, a preeminent American scholar of Japanese literature, culture, and history. Keene’s introduction to the book suggests Meiji was a complex man, enigmatic in many respects, whose life and historical record are very difficult to assess. One thing is certain: Professor Keene went to great lengths in his effort to understand Emperor Meiji. The digital edition of the book weighs in at about 950 pages, and while I am definitely interested, so far I have not gotten up the gumption to dive in.
The World of Anime, Tokyo
Everywhere you look in Akihabara Electric Town, there are shops large and small selling manga and anime——animations, comics, books, videos, drawings, games, dolls, and an endless assortment of anime paraphernalia. I know virtually nothing of manga or anime beyond the fact that they exist and are very popular with people a lot younger than I. That said, I enjoyed walking around to see what was on offer. Tokyo’s electric town also has Bic Camera, a five story emporium dedicated to every kind of electronics imaginable. The floor devoted to photography was downright astonishing. It took an act of will to escape with my bank account intact.
Visitors Walk in the Rain, Tokyo
My first day in Tokyo had consisted of disembarking from my very red-eye flight at about 7:30 in the morning, making my way from the airport to the city, and then wandering around the neighborhood of my hotel a bit bleary eyed until 2:50 in the afternoon at which time I passed the hotel’s check-in goal post. Since check-in time was 3pm, I guess the hotel had cut me some slack after all, though you will have to pardon me for not being particularly grateful. Whatever, within moments of entering my room, I lay down for a much needed nap.
I woke up to find my stomach growling, but before setting off to look for dinner, I stopped to explore my room, a fast journey indeed. On the hotel’s booking page, Agoda listed the room size at 11.5 sq meters. That’s roughly 125 sq feet for those who are still wedded to inches, feet, and miles. In a word: small. As one entered the room, there was a hallway on the left and the door to a very efficiently organized bathroom on the right. The room then “opened up” to a single bed on the right and on the left a narrow desk/counter complete with flat screen TV, a refrigerator underneath and other amenities one expects to find in a good quality budget hotel room. The bed and the desk were divided by a rather narrow walkway. Though a little soft for my taste, the bed was comfortable and plenty roomy enough, even for my rather too abundant physique. I put my luggage on the floor at the far end of the room where there was a window. Years of living in crowded China taught me to travel light; today my travel gear consists of a single, small carry-on bag, and a small back pack, even when I go on longer trips. For those of you who can’t take even a one week journey without an enormous suitcase, budget hotels in Japanese cities are probably not for you. Everything in the room was spotlessly clean, and as I would learn during the days that followed, housekeeping was capable and meticulous. For the record, despite being annoyed at the long wait to check-in (3pm was check-in time for all of the hotels I considered in Japan), I was very satisfied with the New Ueno Hotel——friendly, efficient, clean, and quiet, all in a great location.
The next day (9 Oct) I was awake early. I am always awake early these days——I suppose one of the dubious perks of being a senior citizen. It was cloudy and the small street behind the hotel was wet, but there was a man walking along the street without an umbrella. Encouraged, I put my camera in the back pack and took off for more exploration. When I got downstairs to leave the hotel, I realized that the man I had seen with no umbrella was either eccentric or looking for a place to buy an umbrella to replace the one he had misplaced. It was not raining hard, but I needed to open my umbrella as I struck out walking in the direction of Ueno Park.
I entered the park and stood under a canopy created by huge trees lining the park paths. Wet but beautiful. Suddenly, the steady but light rain gave way to an absolute downpour. I beat a hasty retreat to Ueno Station where I sought out coffee and a chance to get upset reading news from the United States on my phone. A while later, full of caffeine and bile, I found the rain had subsided and I set out again. Even on a wet somewhat gloomy morning, Ueno Park is beautiful.
As the rain gave no indication of stopping, nor did the day give any indication of clearing up, I decided this would be an ideal time to visit the Tokyo National Museum, one of several museums in Ueno Park. The flaw in this plan became more apparent as the path towards the museum became more and more crowded the closer I got to my destination. Not surprisingly, plenty of other people shared my idea. Not in the mood for a very crowded museum visit, it seemed time to end my walk and find a quiet, dry place to consider what I would do later in the day.
Schoolboy Humor, Tokyo
Morning Sun Shines on Tokyo Towers
My Tokyo hotel was in the Ueno area of the city. It was a walk of several minutes to beautiful Ueno Park, which is home to several prestigious museums, a zoological garden, Shinobazu Pond, the surface of which is completely covered in lotus plants, lovely tree-lined paths, and what seems to be obligatory in Japan’s public parks, at least one Buddhist pagoda and a small Shinto shrine.
To get to the park from my hotel, I walked through Ueno Station, a huge public transportation hub where more than a dozen subway and rail lines serving various parts of metro Tokyo come together allowing transfers. Tokyo has an extensive municipal metro/subway system that I assume is publicly owned; several lines serve Ueno. In addition to operating the inter-city Shinkansen (bullet trains) and other long distances trains, Japan Rail also operates urban commuter rail systems, and some of its Tokyo lines pass through Ueno. JR consists of a complicated mix of regional companies, some government entities, others privately owned. Don’t ask me to explain how this works, because I have no clue. Finally, several other commuter rail lines that serve Tokyo run into Ueno Station, and I assume these are privately owned.
The sheer size of Tokyo makes dealing with public transportation in the city daunting, and figuring out how to get from point A to point B can be more than a little confusing to a visitor. If you need convincing, search “Tokyo subway map” online and take a look what comes up. The good news: larger stations have information desks staffed with people who will point you in the right direction to get a train to your destination. Even better news: You can pay modest fares to get virtually anywhere in metro Tokyo on surface or underground trains. Trains run frequently (during the day and into the evening, I never waited more than 3 or 4 minutes, usually less), service is reliable (I experienced one brief delay, 2 or 3 minutes, during two weeks loaded with multiple trips on public rail in Japan), train cars are clean and well-maintained, and while crowded at times, the crowds compare favorably to crowds I have experienced on metro systems elsewhere in the world. If you are an American reading this and are not wondering why passenger rail service of all kinds in the United States is so pathetically bad, you should be.
I joined a couple of Japan travel groups on Facebook to help me plan my trip. Some of the more amusing threads featured questions about how to use public transportation in Tokyo and which of the various pass cards for tourists is best. These cards, of which there appear to be two primary competitors amidst a larger field, allow users access to trains in Tokyo (and in some cases, elsewhere in Japan) by swiping the card to get through turnstiles, avoiding having to buy individual tickets for each ride. You put a certain amount of money into the card, and can top up the card as needed. The two primary cards offer similar if not quite identical services and at least one, maybe both, can be used to buy goods and services other than rail travel, not unlike Hong Kong’s Octopus Card, if you happen to know it. There are various rules about returning the cards to recoup any unspent money that remains in the card. The amount of angst many people had about which of the two cards to buy, and which would cost more or less money produced comment threads that were downright hilarious in some cases. Here you had people who were spending considerable amounts of money for air travel and accommodations working themselves into an absolute lather about whether card A or card B would save them a bit of money during a 10 day stay in Japan. Pro tip: Think big picture, a few bucks more or less is not going to matter. Take a deep breath. Relax.
I quickly gave up on trying figure out either of the two top-up cards, and for roughly $10 purchased a 72 hour Tokyo Metro pass with unlimited rides on the municipal system. Tokyo subways took me everywhere I wanted to go in Tokyo, or perhaps more precisely, everywhere I had time to visit during a brief stay. In a couple of cases, I could have gotten off a bit closer to my destination if I had had a card that allowed me to take more than just Metro trains. I survived to tell the tale and there was zero angst attached to the decision to buy the Metro 72 hour pass. For the record, I also saved money going this route. The $10 card offers 72 hours of unlimited rides for that price; the top-up cards charge “retail” price for each ticket, you just don’t have to stop to buy a ticket each trip. So, there.
The area around the Ueno station is packed with restaurants, from ramen shops to fine dining, and there is plenty of shopping as well, if you are so inclined. All in all, unbeknownst to me when I booked the hotel using Agoda, the Ueno area was a great choice of location for my five day visit to Tokyo.
The image is taken from the shore of Shinobazu Pond; the lotus plants that cover the surface of the pond are barely visible in the bottom left foreground of the image. See below for a better look at the pond. The traditional building is a reconstruction of a 17th century Buddhist pagoda. It is mid-morning of my third day in Tokyo and the sunshine on the three high-rise buildings suggested to me that the showers and clouds were ready to give way to sunny autumn weather. It turned out that assessment was overly optimistic. But more on that later.
