japan - conclusions

So what will we remember about this whistlestop tour of Japan?  Admittedly we only skimmed the surface but we saw a lot in two sun-filled weeks, in which we travelled 1600 miles by train, over 100 miles on foot, and visited any number of shrines, castles and gardens, including parts of six world heritage sites.  Ian and I sat down and listed the things we will likely remember about this trip.

[there are more pictures via this link]

• the sheer number of biscuit shops
• boxy cars
• extreme politeness: the world's most orderly queues, no talking in cinemas (and no leaving until the very end of the credits)
• the vast city stations
• the fantastic shinkansen - spacious, smooth, comfortable and on time - and easy reservation system
• signs, signs, signs, on every surface - but making it very easy to get around
• complete lack of planning controls
• the narrow backstreets full of electric wires and tiny businesses and houses
• great food (Isetan food hall makes Harrods' look like a 7-11)
• bento boxes
• sushi made before your eyes
• good pillows, good baths, bizarre toilets
• the onsen and lobby (with 3 hour free drinks) at the Hyatt Regency, Hakone
• elaborate wrapping of everything you buy
• people doing jobs with no apparent function
• cleanliness (street sweepers actually scrubbing the road)
• small businesses that don't seem to make economic sense (restaurants and bars that seat 10 people)

kyoto

      So from the farthest point on our trip we retraced our route as far as Kyoto. The station features a vast concourse matching Grand Central or Milan in scale, a futurist edifice designed by Hiroshi Mara and opened in 1997 with a 15 storey high barrel vault, and escalators going up and up to the sky. Like most of these Japanese rail hubs, the building incorporates a department store, shopping mall, restuarants and much more. We stayed in the 500 room Granvia Hotel there (we also stayed in station hotels in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, much the best way as these are also subway/tram/bus hubs so easy on arrival and for getting around the city). The hotel has all the self-confidcne and busy-ness of the best city hotels, with bellhops buzzing around, endless bowing functionaries (although their only function seemed to be bowing) and visitors from around the world coming and going.

     Kyoto was a city that grew on us over the days we spent there. There are wide boulevards but also a grid of narrow lanes, full of overhead wires and tiny businesses, and even tinier houses, all individual in design (you never see a terrace of identical units) and crammed in cheek by jowl, often with another house built on the land behind and accessed by a tiny passage. You could call it ugly, but it felt lived-in and even cute. The tiny houses mostly have a tiny car space with a tiny boxy car. These almost cartoonish vehicles are unique to Japan and very popular. The Nissan N-box is the country's best selling car. To the east of the city, particularly the Gion district, the houses are older, traditional timber stuctures. We wandered around after dark and although it's now rather touristy, its narrow dimly lit lanes, busy, gleaming Shinto shrines, and Japanese visitors in hired kimonos made gave a flavour of old Kyoto.

     As the former capital, until the 1860s, Kyoto has plenty of historic sites and we visited some of the most famous. The Higashi (eastern) Hongan-ji temple of a Buddhist sect is one of the world's biggest timber buildings and really is on a massive scale, with a calm, hushed interior that contrasts to the hubbub of Shinto shrines. The Imperial palace gardens are also huge, with wide gravel walkways, friendly herons and the forbidding walls of the palace itself. It contrasts with Nijo-jo, the double moated castle of the Shoguns. Here we visited the lavish audience chambers, splendid but fragile, all wood and paper sliding screens with wonderful wall paintings of tigers and wild landscapes; and numbing to our bare feet on this brilliantly sunny but chilly day.

     Further afield we visited the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine – at the foot of the mountain, it features thousands of torii gates framing the paths up the hillside and through bamboo forests. We were also lucky enough to visit the Katsura imperial villa, a modest retreat designed for moon-viewing, with elaborate gardens and tea houses for each season.

     Finally, we went to the railway museum. Although not train buffs we found this fascinating. Early steam trains through to the first shinkansen are on display, and it has what must be the world's biggest model train set.

hiroshima and nagasaki

    

Now a prosperous modern city resting on the ashes of the fallen, Hiroshima carefully reminds us of the horrors of war, and stands as a champion for peace. The memorial museum lets the personal testimonies of survivors stand for themselves when describing the sudden erasure of an entire civilian population one sunny August day in 1945. The familiar shell of the 'A-bomb building' stands as a gaunt reminder. The museum at Nagasaki is perhaps even more impressive. It stands on a rise overlooking the bomb's ground zero. We are told that no-one survived within 1 km of this spot, and there are stories of the creeping radiation sickness that followed, spreading wider and wider each day. Some even more harrowing stories are told here.

     Hiroshima has since rebuilt and is now a prosperous city, established 500 years ago in a river delta as a defensive stronghold. The branches of the river, now concreted in place, provide an attractive relief from the urban sprawl. There is a shogun's castle (a reconstruction of the buildings destroyed in 1945) with massive defences and a five storey wooden keep. We preferred Nagasaki, set on either side of a steep sided valley, with mountains visible beyond. In the days of isolationist Japan, this was the only place that Europeans were allowed to stay. A small artificial island was a trading base for the Portuguese – until they were thrown out for attempting to convert the locals to Christianity – and then the Dutch. The site has now been reconstructed to show the strange mix of Japanese and western design that resulted. 

    By the mid 19^th century the Americans and British arrived and pretty soon Japan was open to free trade and an industrial revolution. Nagasaki became the first centre of shipbuilding and manufacturing. The houses of Dutch and British merchant colonies are preserved on hillsides above the port, deveoped as Japan opened up to free trade. The view from the Glover House is said to have inspired Puccini's Madame Butterfly.     
     There were some extraordinary chancers who fetched up here and made a fortune at the start of Japan's opening up. What's curious is how quickly Japan's psyche moved from complete isolation to wanting to control half of Asia.

    

     There was also a Chinese community here, with its own isolated walled compound, and the temples, streets and restaurants in this part of the city still have a Chinese flavour. Lots of scurrying about with loaded hand trolleys, and mysterious shops selling very little. Preparations were being made for the elaborate annual lantern festival. We did the other big tourist thing here, a trip by cable car (Ian managed to brave it) to a high western lookout with an eagle's eye view of the entire city.

     The last part of the rail journey to get to Nagasaki was spectacular. We transferred from a shinkansen to a limited express train. The route has to fight its way through difficult terrain, with dozens of tunnels and sharp bends, and viaducts across sea facing gorges, to the terminus at the far south eastern end of Japan's main islands.

     Close to Hiroshima is the island known as Miyajima, one of Japan's most famous shrines. We took the tram and ferry there. This is a very old sacred location, dedicated to the sea-god patrons of a local war lord. Though rebuilt many times, the form is supposed to be as it was in the 12^th century – a series of walkways and inner shrines over water, with a huge torii gate indicating the entrance, out to sea – one of Japan's most celebrated views.

hakone

     Time to move on to experience a little of rural Japan. Cloase to Tokyo is the hot-springs area of Hakone. We arrived there via the high speed Shinkansen and then two little local trains, taking us up into the mountains on 8% grades to 700m, to Gora. This little village sits high on the side of a gorge and is a popular weekend resort. We stayed in the very stylish Hyatt Regency with a huge lobby providing a generous happy hour round the wood burning stove. We also tried the onsen, the Japanese style hot soaking bath fed by natural hot spring waters, and ate at the sushi restaurant, where the food was even better than the posh Tokyo place, prepared by two jolly old cooks with great skill and showmanship.

     

Nearby is a world class sculpture park, on an extensive wooded hillside, and filled with work by the famous and not so famous. Several Moores, a Hepworth, and some interesting kinetic pieces. There is also a pavilion dedicated to Picasso with work in every possible medium. The classic thing to do is a round trip to Lake Ashinoko. We did this, first going by bus to Choan-ji temple at Sengokuhara, a charming local shrine with hundreds of quirky little statues of Buddha disciples all over the wooded hillside, and a cemetery behind: the wind catches wooden grave markers and makes them clatter eerily. From there to the lake where you cruise around on ferries disguised (who knows why?) as pirate ships. Then back, up and over the mountains by cable car across a hellish volcanic landscape of sulphurous rocks and steam vents, wailing like a possessed kettle; and finally deescending by stately funicular to Gora.

tokyo - january 2019

      Japan in winter. This is a long anticipated trip, a rail tour starting in Tokyo and then south and east. The depth of winter seems like an odd time to choose, but the weather then is supposed to be cool, dry and often sunny. So it proved, with mostly clear blue skies throughout our first week – in fact, exceptionally good for the great amount of walking we hoped to do in the capital. First task after the train from Narita airport was to find our way out of the sprawling Tokyo station. I had done my homework though, and soon we were on the streets of Ginza, a hotel and business district just by the station. First impressions were of a prosperous working environment. Tall modern blocks shaded the narrow streets, lined with many small bars and restaurants. Our hotel was well located and the staff helpfully gave us a local map highlighting good local places to eat.

      We really did walk, encouraged by that brilliantly clear weather – 58km in our four days there – and walking is always the best way to get a feel for a city. And it's easy there. Good pavements, clear crossings (pedestrian lights strictly obeyed) and no mad cyclists, with clear maps and signs everywhere. The subway is also easy to navigate and we used this to go between districts. Signs in fact are almost the dominant feature of Tokyo. Every building seems to be covered in them, and at night they glow and trhob with life. This is perhaps the biggest surprise to me about Japan. In the west we regarded Japan as the source of good modernist taste: clean lines, minimalist, restrained design. And you can still find some of that, but for the most part the buildings are banal and plastered with ugly advertising. Hardly any old buildings survive (except the few set piece palaces and shrines), but that can largely be blamed on the war, earthquakes and fires.

      We visited some of Tokyo's other well known centres (like London, it has developed from a series of separate villages and some of them retain their own character. Shibuya and Shinjuku are major hubs with vast crowds thronging the pavements at all hours. We saw the famous Shibuya crossing and the louche back lanes of Shinjuku's nightlife areas. Other highlights:

      Asakusa and the Senso-ji shrine. This is Tokyo's oldest and most revered temple. But little sign of reverence here. It is surrounded by curio shops and markets and thronged with giggling school parties, as well as family groups in traditional dress taking selfies. A spectator's dream: theatre of the street. There are lucky charm stalls and methods of establishing whether you are in for good or bad luck – and you can leave the bad luck behind (for a fee). The temple itself, its pagoda and entrance gate, are impressive, with vast paper lanterns and swirling clouds of incense, and a lot of enjoyment: a far cry from the dour restraint of other religions.

      A very different experience, and spectacular building, is to be found at the Tsukiji Hongwanji temple in Ginza. Built of stone, in ancient Indian style, it is much more church-like and belongs to a Buddhist sect, Jodoshinshu, whose view of a redemptive Buddha seems to chime with Christian thought. Nearby is the sprawling fish market, which is gradually moving over into tourism but still retains a feeling of a living market, with every kind of seafood and little stalls and snack bars selling steaming skewers of fish or, of course, sushi and sashimi.

      The National Garden at Shinjuku, Tokyo's Kew, was originally a private garden of the Emperor and features tradiitonal Japanese style sections with tea houses and shady rest areas, as well as English and French landscapes and a big glasshouse with tropical displays. It has many beautiful prospects across water, and although largely muted winter sienna shades after a prologed dry spell, there were harbingers of spring with daffodils, camelias and even some early blossom. We also visited the Hama-Rikyu gardens, formerly the site of an Edo stronghold by the waterfront looking over (now largely reclaimed with massive tower blocks) Tokyo Bay*. Ueno's park was disappointing, poorly maintained and overbuilt with museums and a Starbuck's, though there is a good shrine.

      As a special treat we had dinner in a 10 seat, highly rated restaurant where we could watch the young chef prepare our 11 course tasting menu, Ian bravely sampling the many fish dishes, including potentially poisonous blowfish. The accompanying sake pairings to each course – a real education this – perhaps made it easier. Many restaurants and bars here are tiny, seating no more than about 10, who normally squeeze in to sit at the bar to drink and eat. Most specialise in one particular type of food or drink. The economics of this is mystifying. A far cry from London's stultifying takeover by bland chains.

*Footnote for birders: In Hama-Rikyu garden we found a gaggle of excited bird fanciers focusing their huge camouflaged cameras on a particular tree.  There was what we later found out was a Blakiston's fish owl (Bubo blakistoni), of which only a few hundred pairs survive in Hokkaido, Japan's remote norhtern island.  This is a type of eagle owl, and the largest owl in the world.  It sat on a low branch over the ornamental pond, well stocked with carp too big even for its big talons, staring back at us, in a rather cross eyed fashion, and occasionally preening itself.  What it was doing hundreds of miles south in a busy urban park in one of the world's busiest cities was anyone's guess.