Ueno

While Elizabeth was here, we headed up to Ueno park – home of the Tokyo zoo (which we didn’t make it to), great cherry blossom viewing (though we were a few days too late for that!), and acres of culture.

I had planned a relaxing afternoon in the park: a sake-fueled picnic, lazing on the grass, playing scrabble. There would be birds chirping and the sun shining gently overhead. (cue record-scratching “eerrrrcccchhh”.)

Oh, that’s right. We’re in Tokyo. Tokyo, where the parks are chock-filled with people and they don’t really have grass. When visiting a park in the largest city in the world, it’s important to realign your expectations, lest you be terribly disappointed.

Now don’t get me wrong, we did have a spectacular time. But there were no frolicking squirrels.

After our concrete-filled scrabble and sake session, we wandered around the park for a bit. I must tell you again how much I love drinking in public. I think it’s solely because you suckas back home can’t walk down the street with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other, looking at temples. Kind of like jumping on the bed when you’re an adult. Or eating ice cream for breakfast. (All of which has ended poorly for me in the recent past, so perhaps I should heed my own warnings!)

At the shrines, you can buy small wooden placards for 5 or 6 dollars, and then you write your prayers on them and hang them on this wall. Once a week, the shinto priest will gather them all and bless them. Generally, they’re all written in Japanese, so it’s hard to understand what sorts of things people wish for. Luckily for me, Ueno park was a hot-bed of white people this weekend.

The sakura season is fleeting. There are really only a handful of glory days and then it’s gone. I feel like the historic, war-torn Japanese were very aware of their mortality and so this is symbolic in some way. Jon and I visited a castle in Kyoto where they would not plant maple trees because, while the leaves were beautiful most of the year, the way they fell in the autumn reminded the samurai of their own deaths. There were only evergreens allowed in the inner courtyards.

This is how I think of Elizabeth:

The obligatory shot for our mothers:

Not that Jon necessarily minded, but was this girl wearing just-knickers? Where are your clothes, young lady?

I’ve been working especially hard on finding my calm center in the past few months. It was my new-years-resolution of sorts. Of course I’m not there yet, but I feel on my way to zen – I’m now more able to seek out these moments of quiet in the middle of an otherwise chaotic day:

Naka-Meguro

After work on Wednesday, Elizabeth and I headed up to Naka-Meguro for some late season Cherry Blossom action.

At the end of cherry blossom season the flower petals snow from the trees and land everywhere. It makes the tree look fairly barren until the summer-leaves come in. Kind of like when a dog is shedding their winter-fur and they look all patchy and ugly for a few weeks.

We stopped into a cafe called “snobbish babies” which was full of 20-somethings with small dogs on leashes and new people-babies. I really like how the laws are so much more relaxed here than they are in America – puppies in coffee shops or drinking on the street. In general, the country seems to be much more self-regulating.

And there was a spectacular little patio with sunlight and… wine.

I dont know, etc.

Wednesday w/ E.

Boy, this week flew by. I’m having one of those climactic-Fridays at work where instead of being grateful for the approaching weekend, I’m panicking at how I didn’t get enough done. Deadlines! Corporate Crises! Angry Doctors! (you know, the usual.)

What I *should* be focusing on is Elizabeth being here! I’m glad she came towards the end of our trip, so I have some wisdom to lend. While I can’t quite say that I’ve found all the zen there is to find, I am a bit less high-strung that I was when we got here. Deep, calming breathes. I am the Eggman.

On Wednesday, we headed down to Motomachi. I just love this neighborhood’s vibe. After lunch…

…We went to the donut shop that I found last time I was here. Upstairs there’s a little cafe, and it’s all very stark white and french-countryside. Very lovely. It was great to sit down and just chat for a while.

While our adventures and travels have been great to us, I think jon and I often lament the fact that we’re not closer to all of you. Well, that all of you aren’t closer to all of you. Our friends and family are very scattered around the country. It’s great to see friends that you just… know. And you don’t have to spend time “catching up” because the essence of your relationship is such that, even though you don’t know the details, you already have a pretty good sense of what’s going on in their lives.

After coffee, I met a rooster!

And stopped in to the shrine…

…where it was just incredible. It was “snowing” cherry blossom leaves. Sakura season is drawing to a close, but it’s beautiful all the way to the end.

Hanami

One of the more base reasons that I love the japanese is how fully they embrace drinking in public. This is a culture that has a specific word for drinking in the park under the cherry tree blossoms. (hanami)

While we weren’t *sitting* in the park (we were walking along a canal), we did partake in the drinking and the sakura-oggling. I believe this was my first Hanami experience.

Also, I think I’m back to drinking an unhealthy amount of coffee. I must have 36oz / day. And I don’t even get a rush off of it any more, that’s just the minimum amount required to function properly. Man. I’m a junkie.

Nathan (a new friend), Jon and I wandered along the canal of Meguro for a few hours. Lined with cafes and shops on either side, Meguro was a lovely place to stroll. I’ll definitely come back to this area – I think Elizabeth would really enjoy it as well. (That’s me on the right and Nathan on the left)

They set up these lanterns all over under the cherry trees. I’ve seen them in other areas, so the practice must be fairly common. I didn’t realize that they were ads until this evening! The words on the front correspond to businesses in the area. (We saw an English one in front of the restaurant in which it belonged) Really cool advertising idea!

I also didn’t realize that they were lanterns until this evening. The cherry trees illuminated at night are pretty incredible.

Kyoto [part 1]

[Note: Similar to the 5-part Seoul trip, this was a big weekend. There's a lot of story to tell you about. I hope you don't mind.]

While it wasn’t a ryokan, we did manage to locate a hotel for Saturday night. You know how when you go to a hotel in America, and they charge you extra on top of the advertised rate when you have two people? That always drove me crazy. Over half of their rooms have to be taken by couples of some sort. Why wouldn’t you make your advertised price for TWO people and then offer a friendly “single traveler” discount? It’s all about framing in a positive way, you know?

I digress. In Japan, the room rate is often *doubled* for two people. I will never complain about that extra $10 in America again.

At 6am we loaded ourselves up on one of the fastest trains in the world, which has incredible amounts of legroom, sells whiskey and sandwiches, and travels 300 miles in 2 hours. With a book and an inclination to nap, it was not a terrible way to spend the morning.

I may have mentioned that this was supposed to be one of the most beautiful weekends in all of the year. The fleeting “sakura season” is approaching.

That is, unless you get an unexpected cold-weather front and none of the buds pop yet. The crazy thing about cherry trees is that they don’t unfold their leaves until after their blossoms, so before sakura season all you have is a bunch of barren sticks. This is what that scene REALLY looked like:

But you know, despite all odds, we still had a good time. Some background: In years before the democratization of Japan, a new capitol was established every time there was a new emperor. In the course of history, all of those cities have been destroyed by bombs or fire. All, except one.

Kyoto is the longest standing original capitol in the country. (Most others, like Tokyo for instance, had been rebuilt at some point in time.)  The city is rich with temples, shrines, and even a castle. The juxtaposition of old and new was even more jarring than usual.  But enough talking. Let’s get to the photos!

No trip in japan is complete without a “jon is too tall for this country” photo. By this point in the morning (it was like, 8:30am) he had hit his head about three times. I will now refer to him as “lumpy”.

Our first stop of the day was… under construction. What the hell, you know? For the record, they still charged full price to get in. This was the “silver temple”, though it was actually made entirely of wood. (There were unfulfilled plans for it to be covered in silver, to rival the “gold temple” which we’ll see tomorrow.) There’s also a sand sculpture to represent Mt. Fuji. There’s a lot of fuji-love. (for those of you in west allis, your sushi house called “fujiyama” is really named after “Mt. Fuji”! (yama = mountain))

As an architectural feature, there were circles everywhere in the city.

Near the gift shop of the silver temple, we found (what I think to be) one of the highlights of the trip. At first we thought what we found was a journal. After the woman behind the counter asked us if we wanted it signed for $3 more (Again, with the language barrier, we had no idea what we were getting. We generally say “yes” and hand over our money when something like this happens.) We realized that at every temple, there are little old men hired to record your travel in calligraphy. Each temple has a unique signature and set of stamps, and your page is recorded with the date. I thought it was great because it added another dimension to visiting temples. Now it’s temples… crazy-japanese-adventure-style.

Lumpy-Jon spent a lot of the day with his nose in a book, walking down pathways. He’s a great impromptu tour guide:

So we’re walking along this path called the “philosopher’s stroll” (named because it’s supposed to be so beautiful during cherry blossom season that it’s been said to have inspired some of the great philosophers of the time.) and we’re admiring the day and standing in line to pose for pictures in front of the few blossoming trees…

…and then tragedy struck. This was the last photo ever taken with our beautiful new camera, the cannon g9. That camera, just under 1 year old, has served us well. It’s taken many great photos, it’s sturdy, it’s portable. it’s a great camera. It wasn’t cheap.

And now its a paperweight. I know what you’re thinking. And you’re wrong. I did not drop the camera. This whole situation would be a lot easier to cope with had I taken some part in the malfunction of the camera.

So that’s a good spot to end part 1. Continue on for a visually barren look at part 2.