Driving After Dark

Night falls here like a guy whose parachute failed to open.

If you happen to be cruising Yokosuka neighborhoods when the sun races over the horizon, the rubbing noises coming from the direction of your car trunk might start to sound an awful lot like lug nuts caught in the act of stripping. And that, of course, could easily distract you from noticing you are entering a one-way street from the wrong direction or heading down a narrow winding lane that dead ends abruptly at the edge of a precipice affording what is probably a breath-taking view of Tokyo Bay, a view you are unable to appreciate because you are too concerned with steering your car in reverse back up to the intersection 100 yards behind and above you without scraping against the houses or bumping into the chains the homeowners have strung across their tiny carport entrances to dash any hope of executing a Y turn you might have been harboring.

There are people who complain about how much it costs to live in Japan. I'm going to invite them to ride along with me the next time it's my turn to deliver a meal to a family with a new baby. I do believe I might have invented the cheapest thrill in Asia. People who refuse to leave the house without their cellphone have no idea how exciting life can be.

The Gates at Komabano Park

The Left Gate

The Right Gate

Komabano Park is near the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo's Komaba neighborhood. According to a plaque just outside the park, Komaba "used to be a vast field called Komabano and was used as grazing land since ancient times to Medieval Period. In the Edo Era, the area was used for the hawking ground. In the Meiji Period, the first military review was held here."

(We believe "hawking ground" refers to an area where a specific type of bird flies around in a sporting fashion rather than a communal spittoon.)

Aren't the park gates remarkable? They have me reconsidering my lifelong preference for picket fences. I like how they are similar yet different. How do they look when they are closed? I would feel so honored to to open these gates every morning and close them every evening (at least for a week, and maybe longer).

Another plaque near the park sketched out a trail to follow. Life doesn't get much better than this. Oh, wait a minute, life DOES get better than this because I've just spotted another plaque that mentions the Shoto-Komaba Gallery Walk is one of 23 historical walks in Tokyo.

Guess who has a new mission?

The Arts of the People

Matt and I went to the football banquet at the Officers' Club last night. He picked up another varsity pin and we feasted on fried chicken, baked beans, and corn on the cob. I am so proud of Matt for sticking it out this season.

Today the Explorers went up to Tokyo to investigate the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, the Nihon Mingeikan, which was featuring a special exhibit in honor of the 120th anniversary of the birth of Soetsu Yanagi, the museum's founder. We were not allowed to take photographs inside the museum so you will just have to come see it for yourself.

Yanagi designed the building himself. It is lovely and surprisingly modern for a museum that opened in 1936. The woodwork and use of natural light reminded me of of the American Arts and Crafts Movement that reached its zenith around the same time interest in Mingei was gaining momentum in Japan.

Across the street from the main museum building is a nagayamon (long gate house, left) built in the 19th century in Tochigi Prefecture. This house is attached to Yanagi's family residence; they are only open on the second and third Wednesday and Saturday of every month so we will have to make another trip when the next exhibit is in place.

Since we cannot fit the furniture we currently own into our Norfolk house, I am doing my best to avert my gaze whenever a chest or table whispers my name. Yard art, however, is an entirely different story. And a couple of the display cases featured book bindings Yanagi collected. Picture me in my twilight years, carefully pasting linen covers on all my favorite books. I'll do this outside in good weather so I can admire my yard art.

The Locked Door Mystery

All those hours spent solving adventure computer games came in handy today.

I arrived at Yokohama City Hospital thirty minutes early for my first solo conversation lesson with Dr. T, expecting to loiter in the hospital lobby, reading my book and polishing my lesson plan which consisted of three questions scribbled on an index card.

The lobby was dark and devoid of humanity. The automatic doors were locked. The only thing I could decipher on the enormous sign blocking my path was a big red arrow pointing to . . . a window. Uh-oh. What would Nancy Drew do?

I retraced my steps to the train station turnstiles and spotted an exterior staircase which landed me on the ground between the hospital and the medical school building. I wanted to be in the latter. My eyes found the second floor walkway connecting the two buildings and I imagined the two pharmaceutical sentries sneaking furtive glances at me out the windows. I nonchalantly strolled over to the door under the medical school end of the walkway and ran into a metal rod suspended between two orange cones. Hmm. Moving in a clockwise direction, I worked my way around the building and eventually found an unlocked door right next to the elevator I needed to take to Dr. T's office. Case solved.

It's amazing how quickly two hours can evaporate when you're talking about your family. Today we covered Mike's life from ninth grade through last weekend, Katie's education and gift for composing haiku, my hopes for James, Matt's conversation with Laura Bush, and the final two years of my father's-in-law life. (I agonized over that apostrophe.)

When I asked Dr. T about his childhood, he whipped out a map of Japan. We pondered that map at some length and, since I was still in Nancy Drew mode, it took me just a few minutes to deduce that it was upside down. I suspect Dr. T did that on purpose to trick me. If so, we're going to get along famously which is a good thing because I have dozens more family members to discuss with him.

And that bakery where I turn left when I exit the Kanazawa-Hakkei station? Definitely the most extensive selection I have seen yet.

On a Roll

They installed new toilet paper dispensers in base housing the year we were gone. The new ones are so simple a two-year old can replace a roll.

"Hey, Mom! I'm out of toilet paper!"








Swing the dust cover up.








Grasp the cardboard tube and pull up.








The little plastic arms are pretty nifty.








Insert the new roll from the bottom.








"Gosh, that was easy."








"Don't forget to put the dust cover back down. There's nothing I hate more than dusty toilet paper."

Mum's The Word, Part I

Chrysanthemums are big in Japan both literally and figuratively. Way back during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) someone smuggled a few plants from China and told his pals that Chinese rulers were drinking chrysanthemum wine to live longer.

"Let's have a chrysanthemum wine party at the royal court every year on the ninth day of the ninth month," suggested a high-ranking Japanese courtier.

"Great idea. Let's make it even more fun by dividing into two teams and composing poems about chrysanthemums." Pretty soon these party animals were creating miniature models to illustrate their poems.

The Japanese aristocrats were so busy embellishing the Chinese drinking party concept that nobody thought to revise the flower itself until the Edo period (1603-1868). That's when urban horticulture took off. Glamorous cultivars were entered in shows in Osaka, Kyoto, and Edo (Tokyo); people paid lots of money for the prize-winners.



In 1869 the Emperor Meiji designated the chrysanthemum as the imperial crest and started hosting annual garden parties to view chrysanthemums at the Detached Palace in Akasaka (a Tokyo neighborhood). The party was later moved to Shinjuku Gyoen and hosted by successive emperors until 1938.

Shinjuku Gyoen resurrected the tradition after World War II. What was once a one-day event for the emperor and the cream of society is now a two-week exhibition open to the public.



I don't much care for chrysanthemums - they remind me of funerals - but I thought it would be interesting to check out the Shinjuku Gyoen exhibition. That's where the Oakleaf Explorer is going on November 12 (I suspect this will be a singular, in every sense of the word, outing).

When I scheduled the Shinjuku Gyoen trip, I had no idea I'd be seeing another chrysanthemum show when I visited Sankeien Garden in Yokohama with Reiko (that's where these pictures were taken). And I also did not know I would be going back to Sankeien Garden on November 20 with the Shonan ladies "to experience a chrysanthemum show".

So. Get ready to look at an awful lot of mums.

Sankeien Garden

Most Americans visit Sankeien Garden within a month or two of arriving in Japan but it took me two years and three months to get there. Procrastination means serendipity this time for I am positive I would not have appreciated the experience half as much without Reiko as my guide.

You would think by now I would know better than to attach American meanings to Japanese concepts. Don't I spend half my waking hours explaining to parents of toddlers that the Anpanman Museum is a playground, toy store, bakery, and just about everything else imaginable other than a museum? Yet I toodled off to Yokohama expecting to spend a pleasant autumn afternoon strolling through a traditional garden and found myself instead in a Japanese version of Henry Ford's Greenfield Village. Sort of.

Substitute Sankei Hara for Henry Ford and the silk industry for automobiles and you have a general idea of the impetus behind this 'garden' which opened to the public in 1906. Preserving historic structures in a natural setting of waterfalls, babbling brooks, and peaceful ponds was Sankei's mission.

Only one of the buildings is open to the public but that alone is worth the trip. This Edo period home of a wealthy farmer was built in the gasshozukuri style, meaning it has a steep roof and audience room. All the pictures I took inside the farmhouse are too blurry to post -- apparently I was shaking with glee at the prospect of clambering up a ladder-like staircase to check out the attic where silkworms conducted the family business -- so you'll just have to come see for yourself.

The nearest train station to Sankeien Garden is the same station (Negishi) Amy, Cathy, and I used when we found the house Craig lived in when he was a little boy but Reiko took me there on a different route, one that involved four trains rather than two plus shortcuts through two shopping arcades and a stroll down a narrow street teeming with restaurants, stores, and people.

We passed at least five bakeries on Reiko's route before I stopped counting. I could easily have spent 20 minutes in each of them but, alas, I had to rush home to dole out Halloween treats. You have not heard the last of those bakeries.