Travel Blog: Tokyo (December 1, 2004)

(This account of sightseeing in Tokyo was originally posted to my Yahoo!Groups travel journal group.)

We've been unbelievably blessed with good weather during our stay so far--it's been a bit chilly in the mornings, but the days have been sunny and mild, making our strolls around the neighborhoods of Tokyo very pleasant. Flowers are still blooming bravely in flowerboxes and in the tiny patches of garden next to curbs and stoops, and many of the trees are still fully-leafed.

Today was our last full day of sightseeing in Tokyo. We started off by taking the subway to the other side of the city, to the Asakusa district, which is on the banks of the Sumida River, and which was once the theater and "red light" district of old Tokyo. We emerged into bright mid-morning sunlight, onto a street lined with shops, and bustling with foot traffic. Dodging cadres of hopeful young men pitching guided rickshaw tours of the area, we followed the smell of incense down the street to the Senso-ji Buddhist temple, which is dedicated to Kannon (Kuan Yin), the Goddess of Mercy.

The entrance to the temple grounds was marked by a huge, ornately-carved gate hung with giant paper lanterns and guarded by two fierce-looking god statues. Just inside the gate, the path to the main temple complex was densely lined by a long row of shops selling a variety of overpriced kitsch ranging from gilded Buddha statues to t-shirts to elaborately-styled wigs meant to be worn with full formal kimono. The temple buildings themselves were partially-concealed by the dense clouds of incense smoke billowing from giant bronze containers.

As we drew closer, we saw that people were purchasing bundles of incense sticks from the monks, lighting them, and waving them around themselves before sticking the smoldering bundles into the sand filling the bronze containers.

People of all ages thronged the temple grounds, ranging from tiny old women in full kimono and obi to a whole class of schoolgirls in their sailor uniforms. We met one old gentleman who turned out to be a Japanese immigrant to Hawaii. He had returned to Japan for the first time in a half-century because his son was about to be deployed to Iraq, and the family wanted to tour Japan together and meet with long-lost relatives before the son went away.

We spent a pleasant couple of hours wandering around the grounds of the temple. It was interesting visiting a complex that's still a living center of worship and not just a museum exhibit. It's quite large, consisting of the main hall and a tall pagoda, plus a number of tiny gardens and shrines scattered around the main hall. The shrine has been in existence for several hundred years, but it was destroyed during the fire-bombing of Tokyo during WWII, and the present set of buildings date from the 1950's.

Then, we made our way out a side gate and headed for the river. We walked along the riverside park and quay for a while--the park was neatly manicured, but lined with a homeless encampment consisting of dozens of tiny huts made from cardboard boxes and covered with blue plastic tarp huts. It was eerily quiet--some of the men were fishing, but most appeared to be asleep.At the next bridge, we boarded a water bus, and chugged downriver for about twenty minutes, past dense stands of high-rise offices and condominiums lining the river on both sides, broken up by frequent canals and what appeared to be smaller rivers flowing into the Sumida.

Finally, we pulled into a protected inlet, and disembarked at the Hamarikyu Gardens, once the private duck-hunting grounds of the Tokugawa Shoguns, and later donated to the City of Tokyo by the Imperial family.

There, we wandered around the many gorgeously-landscaped ponds and artificial streams, and marveled at the contrast between the classic Japanese serenity of the garden, and the Tokyo skyscrapers rising above the trees.

As the sun began to sink into the haze of the west, gilding the garden with long, slanting bars of sunlight, we came upon a teahouse built on the shores of the central pond. Removing our shoes at the entrance to the teahouse, we walked across the threshold of polished boards and into a room furnished only with tatami mats on the floors. The sliding paper doors around the perimeter of the room had been pulled back, opening the chamber to the afternoon breeze coming off the nearby river.

We knelt on the mats alongside the other guests, and were served bowls of frothy hot green tea, strong and bitter, on polished lacquer trays, accompanied by a steamed dumpling filled with sweet lotus seed paste. It was really a sublime experience--the perfect climax to a perfect afternoon.After leaving the teahouse, we walked through the rest of the garden as the light began to fade and the evening chill started to fall.

Once the sun had set, we headed for the nearest subway station, and headed for our next destination, just ahead of rush hour--the Sapporo Beer Museum. My sister had expressed an interest in seeing it--actually, her interest was in the Lonely Planet's description of beer samples offered for only 200 yen.

Getting there turned out to be a bit of an adventure. We got turned around somehow leaving the subway station, and started walking in a direction that, unbeknownst to us, was actually opposite to the way we wanted. I was finally delegated to go into a convenience store and beg the clerk for directions. Luckily, we had walked in a big circle, and were less than ten minutes from our destination.

The beer was good, and we sampled quite a bit of it before heading back onto the subway in search of dinner.

For our last dinner in Tokyo, we dined at a tiny neighborhood sushi restaurant just down the street from our hotel. The food was delicious and inexpensive, and the staff were friendly and helpful. Raised on stories of Tokyo as the city where even simple things like ice cream or coffee could cost a fortune, the wide availability of wonderful and cheap dining has come as a real surprise.

Tomorrow, we head back to Yokosuka by train. Once back at Kevin's apartment, we're going to do laundry, then attend a Christmas party on base. I'm also going to take the opportunity to upload all of the daily reports I wrote in Tokyo, since the Internet access at the hotel was restricted and I wasn't able to upload any files from external media.At this point, we have a little over a week left in Japan. Kevin has to return to duty on Monday, so the three of us will probably do a couple of short day trips on the weekend, then Elke and I are planning to go to Kyoto on Monday and Tuesday, and then we'll figure out a couple of day trips for Wednesday and Thursday.