Japan - Some Sightseeing

Kamakura - Gardens (Seasonal Only)

I stayed over a weekend, so I managed to do some sightseeing. Again, my Japanese colleagues took care of me.

Well, that’s apart from the Saturday, when I’d arranged to go out with Julia, who was over there for a three-month placement from the US (she was one month in). We went to the Emperor’s Gardens – I’d been there at night-time with Sayako to see the cherry blossom a few nights earlier.

It might sound a bit weird to have gone there at night, but the trees are actually lit up in the evening and crowds of people go to see them – you shuffle along in a huge line and gaze at the trees. In fact, every time you see a cherry blossom anywhere, it’s almost obligatory to point it out; if the way you are walking could possibly pass by a cherry blossom tree, that’s the way you go.

They were beautiful and the trees were right by a river or a moat, so you had the water reflecting them as well and some of the trees arched over the water. The emperor’s gardens were on the other side and the hillside was also covered in cherry blossom.

As I went to meet Julia on Saturday, wearing my bright pink rain jacket (as in the photo of me and some of the Japanese team in my earlier blog), it struck me that everyone in the metro, indeed everyone in general, was wearing black or beige. I stuck out like a beacon even without my white skin. The more I started to look, the more this impression was confirmed.

Anyway, from the emperor’s gardens, we went on to Meije temple. Given how little space there is in Tokyo, the temples are in expansive grounds. There are structures that look like open-air mini-temples with a large rectangular trough of fresh water and ladles, where you have to wash your hands and face before entry. The various temples differ from each other but probably have in common a generally square design with sloping roofs as you would expect. We were fortunate in that there appeared to be a wedding or something happening while we were there and we saw a procession walking through the grounds.

After lunch we went to Ueno. Here, again, people clamoured to see the cherry blossom. The area under the trees was cordoned off and the ground was covered with individual plastic sheets where people sat all day eating and drinking. It was obviously the thing to do, but to be honest, it looked uncomfortable and crowded. I was happy just to nudge along in the crowds walking down the avenue of trees.

Ueno was where a lot of the museums were, so I went to the National Museum and a special art exhibition that was on. I had only 1.5 hours before closing, which helped me to focus my mind on the items I found most interesting – which were mostly the art and calligraphy, which have always fascinated me since I was young.

The next day, in a shop, I asked my Japanese colleagues why some books appeared to be read back-to-front (from the Western perspective) and others from front-to-back. To my surprise, this engendered a lot of discussion and it turned out that sometimes Japanese is written up and down and sometimes from left to right and, depending on this, you start the book either at the back or at the front. How confusing! On top of that, I learned that Japanese is interspersed with Chinese characters which are used as punctuation because Japanese doesn’t have any commas or anything. Weird, but interesting!

On Sunday, my colleagues took me to Kamakura, which is a tourist town fairly near Tokyo with a lot of historic buildings; it’s by the sea and set by the mountains. It was full of lovely little roads packed with shops selling what seemed to me to be unusual items. My colleagues kindly bought me a konyakku soap, which is a wobbly soap made out of yam. It’s really great. Sayako had bought me earlier a face towel made out of paper – it looks very decorative and is quite coarse so serves as a scrub as well.

We visited one of the many temples; this one was set in the hillside. Some Samurai warriors were wandering about in their attire; a lady in a fancy kimono and a smart gentleman were posing. We also watched some traditional Japanese dancing (it reminded me of Thai Chi). Apparently the singing was in old Japanese, so even my colleagues couldn’t understand it!

There was, of course, also the obligatory Japanese garden and the cherry blossoms. The garden was only open for maybe 6 weeks a year, so I was lucky to be able to look round. There were beautiful flowers and the cherry blossoms were, of course, also impressive.

After lunch, we progressed on to see the second largest Buddha in Japan. It was stunning because you turned a corner and could then see it there in the backdrop of the hills. After a short queue and a minimal entrance fee, we could enter inside the Buddha via some dark and narrow steps and see him from the inside. I don’t think there are too many people who can say they’ve been inside a Buddha.

Our final stop was to see the sea. The weather wasn’t great, but I was surprised to see a lot of people out surfing.

We managed to fit in a lot over the weekend, so I came away from Japan feeling that I had at least made the most of my time. I would definitely like to return some day.