Tokyo - Our First Days in Japan

Japan. What a wonderful place to visit. A land of interesting ancient religions, a very clean and meticulous culture that loves technology and as a result has developed a great transportation system, that enjoys preparing and eating some of the best food in the world, and finally, a land full of very kind and considerate people. We were prepared. We had been poring over Japanese guidebooks for a month, but still unprepared for the actuality of Japan, all the sights, sounds, smells and walking, walking walking! It was awesome!

We landed at the Narita Airport early in the morning on a very rainy day. From there we took the Narita Express, a high speed train, to Asakusa in Tokyo. We were very concerned at first about being able to negotiate our way through the largest city in the world using signs containing only Kanji characters. And they did have Kanji characters, but in Tokyo most of them had Roman characters as well – most of them, but not all!

We snagged some umbrellas out of a trash barrel and set out in search of our hotel, or ryokan – a Japanese style hotel, that historically provided samurai and other travelers a place to stay, and continues to do so for travelers these days. We found the train out of Tokyo Station, that brought us north – note we still haven’t been out on the streets in Tokyo at this point. We get out of the bus and find ourselves overlooking the hustling bustling streets of Tokyo, in this case, north Tokyo. Thanks to a good map we see the landmark given to us by the ryoken owners – McDonald’s (!), and walk 4 blocks to the east, past a noodle shop, and then turn right for one more block. After that, we wander back and forth a little and finally notice a sign on a small planter-like decoration with Andon Ryokan written on it. We have actually made it to our first home in Japan.

We enter and the girl at the front desk speaks a little English – very little - and we speak NO Japanese at this point, but we're able to sign in and get our key. She kindly takes us upstairs to the 3rd floor and opens the door to our room. It's a 6 mat tatami size room – 9 ft by 12 ft. Small, but adequate and fun! A shared bathroom is right across the hall and the sento, bath house, is upstairs on the 4th floor. It's a sento, not an onsen (konyoku) because it's filled only with tap water and not natural hot spring water.

A tatami is approximately 3 ft x 6 ft. Some common ryokan room sizes are: 4½ mats = 9 ft x 9 ft; 6 mats = 9 ft x 12 ft; and 8 mats = 12 ft x 12 ft.

Tatami mats in Japanese culture are flooring surfaces to be kept as clean as a bed surface or dining table surface. These days, they're commonly associated with Japanese religious rites, martial arts training, and the tea ceremony.

We dumped our stuff and headed out to Ueno Park in search of Buddhist and Sinto temples and birds (of course). We retrace our steps and jump on the subway going in the opposite direction. But first, of course, we had to buy our tickets from a ticket machine, the first of many. This machine had us stumped for a while; but we finally figured it out when we noticed that the map showed the stopping points, and also showed the amount of yen charged for each stop. We pressed the “tickets” button, the 210 yen button, and then Cheri noticed a button with 2 little people on it, so we pressed it and “voilà” (don’t know how to say this in Japanese) out popped 2 tickets.

We get out at Ueno station, a bustling area, and of course not only do we have to figure out how to get to the park, but we have to first find our way to the outside world, out of the subway caverns. So much fun, so challenging! This is where I ask someone for help, attempting to ask so that they understood, and as would happen many times on this trip, they stop what they're doing and not only tell us where to go, but actually walk us over to the tunnel or gate! Very, very nice people.

Ah, the park with a beautiful pond and our first new birds – a grey heron, a great cormorant, a black-tailed gull, and some old friends – a black-crowned night heron and barn swallows.

In the park we also get to see our first shrine and pagoda - the Tosho-gu Shrine, a shrine dedicated to Inari, the shinto god/goddess of fertility, rice, agriculture, foxes, industry, and worldly success, the entrance was adorned with a series of red torii (gates). The shrine was also decorated with red-bibbed inari fox statues.

Our first Pagoda was a five-story pagoda dating from the 17th century and is a survivor from the original Kanei-ji temple complex. Today it stands in the grounds of Ueno Zoo so I wasn't able to get very close to it. I snapped a few photos of it from the entrance way to Tosho-gu Shrine.

Near the Tosho-gu shrine is the "the Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". According to the plaque nearby this flame has been burning since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it is a flame taken from fires at the two places and combined. It's a symbol for peace and the destruction of all nuclear weapons.

We caught another subway train to the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo. We were unable to enter the palace, but we toured the outer walls and the beautiful gardens surrounding it. It was raining and we were a week or two late for the cherry tree blossoms, but there were azaleas, peonies, and rhododendrons in full gorgeous bloom.

By this time it was nearing late afternoon and one thing we wanted to do was to take in a kabuki play in the Ginza district at the famous Kabuki-za theater. After a long walk and many looks at the map and a few attempts at getting directions we found it, but couldn't understand what was going on. There were many people in traditional dress, TV cameras and news reporters swarming the area in front of the theater. What was happening? Again we experienced a little language barrier, but soon discovered that this was the last day and the last kabuki performance before this old kabuki theater was going to be torn down and rebuilt!! This performance had been sold out for months. Sometimes Cheri and I just have unbelievable luck, don’t we!?! But we hung around, enjoyed the people watching and took lots of pictures of people and the theater.

Now its time to eat! We've probably walked over 10 miles and our last meal was on the train early that morning, so now the hunt was on for a good restaurant. After walking a few more miles, it seems, and asking many people for their opinion on where to go, (and it's not like Spokane or most US cities, because there are literally hundreds of restaurants in this one little area of Ginza), we finally asked a woman who turned out to be an airline attendant for JAL. She advised us to go to this great tempura restaurant.

After about another half-hour of walking, we found it. It's small, but very nice looking, with maybe 3 tables and 10 stools at what looked like a sushi bar, but in this case was a tempura bar! The chef and all the people in the place greeted us, gave us a menu we didn’t really understand and we somehow ended up ordering a “set’ – a complete meal, and shared it between us. It was fantastic! Each item was individually cooked in front of us by the chef and immediately placed on our plates, accompanied by the appropriate sauces. We were what shown what to eat it with, e.g. salt and lemon, or a sauce, or nothing. Really fantastic. We pay our bill and said boy, was that reasonable, only 1500 yen or around $15 USD!

Well, what we hadn’t paid attention to is the periods and we were actually charged $150 USD for the dinner!! Dumb Americans. We later discover that this is one of the best tempura bars in Japan. Needless to say that was our MOST expensive meals in Japan. It was a learning experience, right, and they did give us bibs! From then on, we paid much closer attention to the price and those periods in the number of yen on the menus; but it was GREAT food ;-).

Back to our Andon Ryokan...

Our Sento...

And Bed.... At Last!