Kencho-ji with Ishii

Ishii-san and I went searching for bush clover in Kamakura today. We didn't see much of that but we did see a whole lot of other things, munched on some very yummy fresh rice crackers, and walked our usual zillion miles.

Ishii read somewhere that Kencho-ji temple in Kita-Kamakura is a good place to see bush clover. Our route took us past Haruki-san's kimono exhibit so of course we took a little detour. Haruki and his wife were so gracious. They remembered my name! He pronounces "Kathy" the same way Yuuko Kaji does, with a very soft "th" that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Ishii was wearing a lovely sashiko vest for the occasion, a long duster she spent a year creating. I wish I had taken some closeup pictures so you could see her exquisite craftsmanship. I, on the other hand, had spent the morning shelving books at the base thrift shop in a sleeveless shirt and found a ratty cardigan in the trunk of my car to cover my bare shoulders, something I feel as compelled to do when I am out and about in Japan as when I visited the Vatican at the age of fifteen.  (As the day grew warmer, the sweater grew increasingly loathsome.  I'm going to abandon it at the thrift shop the next time I shelve books.)

Karamon at Kencho-ji

Kencho-ji, constructed in the 13th century, is the oldest Zen training monastery in Japan -- surely you've heard this before -- and the first-ranked of the five great Zen temples of Kamakura. This was my third visit since March 2007 yet I still took a dozen pictures of the statue of fasting Buddha and the dragon picture (unryu-zu) on the Hatto ceiling. No matter where you stand in the room, the dragon's eyes seem to follow you. This is quite eerie and, so far, impossible to capture in a photograph.

Fasting Buddha

The map provided by the man at the ticket booth showed a garden near the rear of the temple grounds. This seemed like an obvious place to find bush clover so off we went. Except we skirted the building on the left when we should have marched directly through the building straight ahead and, lo and behold, we were behind the garden with no way to get through the tall hedge. That's when Ishii-san got that innocent look on her face that I really ought to recognize by now, the "As long as we're on this path, let's just take a little stroll and see what we can see" look. Those "little strolls" never fail to turn into arduous physical activity. Not that I'm complaining.

Today's "little stroll" took us eventually to the last building on the map, the Hanso-bo, which I think means "8,000 of the steepest steps you will ever climb".  Seriously, even those cute 10-year old school children in their bright yellow caps were huffing and puffing by the time they reached the fourth or fifth flight of stairs.  Japanese landscape designers must all take a special class in Deceptive Neverending Stairs because I can't count the number of times I've scampered up 80 steps only to discover another 80 steps across a short plateau and then yet another 80 steps camouflaged by a leafy maple tree.  Wheeze, gasp.

This is the first time Ishii-san has been to the Hanso-bo.  Her husband knows about those steps which is why I am here with her today and he's not.  

More often than not there's some sort of visual reward for scaling all those steps and today is a more often rather than a not. Thank God.

The Hanso-bo is a shrine that was moved here from Shizuoka in 1890 to protect the temple in the valley below. The final stretch of hillside beneath the shrine is littered with statues of winged creatures called tengu which look like a cross between warrior angels and the Wicked Witch of the West's flying monkey minions.

There's a viewing platform next to the shrine which offers a lovely view of Mt. Fuji on a clear day.  Today we couldn't see Mt. Fuji so I might just have to reprise that ascent.  But you can be darn sure I'll borrow a couple of cell phones and a kid who's willing to scamper up those steps ahead of me to scout out the view.

Ishii-san and Tengu

We spotted a patch of bush clover as we were working our way back toward the temple entrance but it had already finished blooming and that made us laugh. The bush clover seems relatively immune to the effects of the recent Typhoon Roke. Lots of other plants have leaves that are turning brown and shriveling up compliments of all the salt the typhoon carried from the sea to land.

Celebrating Hanami with Ishii-san at Mitsuike Park

Ishii had never visited Mitsuike Park before I dragged her there to see cherry blossoms on the second Sunday in April. Our trip was much smoother than the one I took with the Radiation Rebels a few days earlier because Ishii knew we did not have to change train lines in Yokohama to reach Tsurumi.  We just hopped off the Keikyu express train in Yokohama, stayed put on the platform for two or three minutes, then jumped on the first local train that pulled up to the platform.

Also -- and please don't mention this to Weather or Sunshine -- Ishii knows how to get around on buses so we completely avoided that hour-long mountain trek.  We forked over 210 yen for a ten-minute bus ride that put us within two blocks of one of the park entrances.  Heh, heh.  

The park entrance nearest the bus stop

We feasted on our eyes on cherry blossoms while one of us nibbled on bread we'd picked up at the bakery in the Keikyu Tsurumi station. The other one of us wolfed down an egg salad sandwich and a loaf of banana bread large enough to feed a Japanese family of four for three days. You can figure out for yourself which one of us did which.

Our hanami adventure was truncated to slightly over four hours because I had a hair appointment and Ishii wanted to cast her vote before the polls closed (of course I am now enamored with the concept of Sunday elections). But Ishii whipped out a map showing a recommended three-hour hike that cuts across Mitsuike Park and we agreed we'll need to take that hike in the near future. We also agreed that we'll need to tack another two hours onto the estimated timeframe because one of us tends to stop abruptly to ask questions and take pictures. I'll let you figure out which one that is.

Some Ruffled Feathers in Mito

The guidebooks say Kairakuen is fifteen minutes by bus or a thirty-minute walk from the Mito train station. What the guidebooks fail to mention is that most of that walk is along the scenic shore of Lake Senba.  Getting there was half the fun.  It didn't feel like thirty minutes.  It felt like we were there already.

There were a remarkable number of swans floating on Lake Senba, and most of those swans were black.

Swan babies are called chicks (I looked it up). Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the three fuzzy creatures pictured above are chicks, ducklings, or goslings.

Birdman was feeding a few hundred pigeons and a few swans when he kindly allowed me to take his picture. The tiny squeal of delight that burst from my mouth when I spotted a pigeon diving for Birdman's shoulder apparently translates to "Fire Drill!" in pigeonspeak. A few hundred pigeons took to the air and vanished in an instant. It will be a cold day in Mito, I suspect, before Birdman again allows a gaijin to take his picture.

Of interest, those three swans were totally impervious to my squeal of delight. Perhaps they are deaf.

The swan boats were more cooperative subjects than those pigeons. This would be a nice place to visit in the summer.

The Pied Piper of Sankei-en Chrysanthemum Festival

The weather could not have been finer on Culture Day. There was tinge of autumn in the crisp, clear air and a few wispy clouds floated across an azure sky.

The guidebooks say you can get to Sankei-en Garden either by car or by catching a bus at the Yokohama train station. They don't mention that the Negishi station is just a 15-minute hike from the garden's rear entrance. This is Ishii's preferred route and one I'm happy to share with my friends.

"How fast can you walk, Olga? We'll want to stay about half a block ahead of everyone else in case they start grousing about the distance. This is a technique I've honed leading my husband and children on little adventures over the past quarter century."

A pottery exhibition just outside the garden's back gate was our reward for following Ishii's route.  The traditional routes would have denied us this experience.

Handing us clipboards and pens, a vivacious young lady instructed us through pantomine to view the pottery on display in a nearby shed and then vote for our three favorite entries.  When we deposited our ballots in the box, a lady rattled a bag in our faces.  We each reached into the bag and pulled out a crystal.  Those who nabbed blue crystals were invited to select a free chopstick holder.  At least one of us did not win a prize.  Her lower lip might have shifted to pout position for a split second before she recalled her manners and her vow to conduct herself with dignity in honor of Emperor Meiji's birthday. 

Maybe it's just that I associate chrysanthemums with some of my least favorite memories -- try executing a Russian jump with a giant mum pinned to YOUR chest -- but this year's festival didn't do much for me.  It seemed like a pale imitation of last year's event, with only half as many entries in the jumbo categories and even fewer of those clever bonsai scenes. 

But don't get me wrong.  Festival aside, clambering through the historical farm house and watching the old guys toss bread crumbs to the turtles and carp was more than enough fun for me.  And I stumbled upon a gallery where breathtaking photographs unveiled aspects of the garden in different seasons.



Ise-giku?  Perhaps.



A fairly incredible bi-colored Mino-giku

Kudamono - four feet tall with an eight-inch span

The bonsai displays are crowd-pleasers.  I like the swans.

Someone once said, "If you've seen one chrysanthemum festival, you've seen them all."  I guess I'll find out for sure next week when I go to Tokyo to check out the festival at Shinjuku Gyoen.

The Best Walking Guide in Japan: Ishii or Isn't Shii?

Two of my dearest Japanese friends are named Reiko. This doesn't present a problem for my family - we've dealt with duplicate, triplicate, and quadruplicate names for most of our lives - but the rest of you might find it hard to tell the difference between my two Reikos. To make things a bit easier for you, henceforth I'll be referring to them by their family names.  This is actually the polite way to address a person here in Japan so good for me.

Some of my most memorable rambles around the Miura Peninsula have been at Ishii's side. We've explored the Sankeien Garden in Yokohama, teetered on a ridge high above Kamakura in search of wild camellias, and rubbed a metal bullock's nose in Kurihama to ward off senility. She's opened doors for me both literally and figuratively. Best of all, our strides match. For the first time since high school, I don't have to pause on every corner to wait for my walking partner to catch up with me.

A few weeks ago Ishii offered to show me the way to the Swany fabric store in Yokohama.  She didn't have to ask twice.  The following week she arrived for her "conversation lesson" with a suggested itinerary and the best English map of Yokohama I'd ever seen.  She even tilted the map a bit to the right when I questioned the lack of a compass in any of the corners.  Due North is rarely found at the top of guide maps in Japan.  I've learned this the hard way.

On the appointed day, last Wednesday, we rode an express train to Kamiooka, the last station before Yokohama, then hopped on a local train for Hinode-cho.  We had the option of exiting to the left or the right after the turnstiles.  Ishii shooed me through the door on the left and then we hustled across the road to the Fujiya shop.  The Fujiya confectionary company is 100 years old this year and its mascot, Peko-chan, is 60.  Just like Ishii.  Small world.

After checking out all the latest Peko-chan offerings, Ishii and I strolled down the avenue on the left of the shop.  We passed a block of nightclubs, dozens of restaurants, and all sorts of interesting little shops on our route to Isezaki Mall Shopping Street. 

I had many questions.  Ishii had all the answers.  "What is chaofan?" "Fried rice."

Just one block before Route 16, the main road that runs between Yokosuka and Yokohama, we turned into Isezaki Mall Shopping Street. This was the main shopping area for Yokohama until the waterfront was developed twenty or thirty years ago. Mall is used in the traditional sense in this case, i.e., pedestrian traffic only. (My brothers and sister surely remember when our own downtown was transformed into "Progress Place Mall", one of the saddest misnomers in modern memory.)

Heyday or no, the shopkeepers along Isezaki Street didn't seem at a loss for customers. We wandered into a hardware store and checked out frying pan prices since the ones we own are not suitable for steaming gyoza. The knives intrigued us but we have more to learn about knives in general and Japanese knives in particular before we make that purchase. Why, for instance, were Kyoko and Tsuneko both so interested in buying German knives when I took them to the Navy Exchange?

Ishii decided a snack was in order when we passed a table stacked with packages of various colored dried, um, well they looked like worms to me. These little sticks have been popping up in my path every month or so for three years now but I have always just turned up my nose and reached for the mushroom-shaped cookies instead. Have I mentioned that they look like worms? Ishii opted for the crackers flavored with burdock and we followed the clerk inside the shop to the cash register.

The shop was narrow but deep and refrigerated cases filled with every possible manifestation of tofu marched the entire length of the wall on the right. I'm not a big fan of tofu. Actually, I'm not a miniature fan of tofu. One glance at the tofu case and worms suddenly struck me as potentially palatable.  The burdock worms tasted like those sesame crackers often found in snack mixes.  Yes, I would eat them again.  Assuming a world shortage of mushroom-shaped cookies, of course.

No, Japanese man, I am not staring at you. I am trying to figure out what that digital device on the wall above you is measuring.

"That building is being reconstructed. The top number shows the noise level and the bottom number measures tremors. The construction company must take care not to cause damage to humans."

"This is the largest bookstore in Yokohama." "Really? Can we go in?" "Of course." Ishii checked the floor guide and ushered me to the basement where we found a small alcove filled with foreign language books, about half in English. Being able to read a floor guide is certainly a time-saver, noted the bookworm who normally trudges up to the top floor and works her way down in search of books in English. The books are shelved in alphabetical order by author. Oh, joy.

The bookstore marked the end of Isezaki Shopping Mall Street. We skirted around Kannai station to Yokohama Park, home of the Yokohama Bay Stars baseball team. The Ancient Mariner saw his first baseball game in Japan in this stadium but I'm an orange Y headband-wearing Giants' fan and my team plays in the Tokyo Dome. Still, maybe I can catch the Giants at Yokohama Park next summer.

This pretty fountain is on the opposite side of the stadium from Kannai station. The mist disappeared when we approached the fountain to investigate.

We were not the only people the fountain attracted.  Recreational painters are ubiquitous wherever flowers bloom.

The fountain overlooks Nihon O-dori, a major historical avenue erected as both a firebreak and to separate the neighborhood of foreigners from the rest of Yokohama.  Nihon O-dori is lined with majestic ginko trees and at this time of year that translates to hundreds of pulpy orange fruit underfoot.  Ishii was disappointed that the trees were not yet blazing their golden autumn colors but I am not in any rush for the seasons to change.

Nihon O-dori is lined with tall modern office buildings with shops and restaurants at ground level.  It was just noon and throngs of salarymen and -women were racing around with famished looks on their faces.  "Let's postpone lunch until after we visit Swany."  "Good plan."

The Yokohama Swany branch is smaller than the home store in Kamakura and is laid out, rather oddly, on the basement and third floor of a retail establishment midway between Nihon O-dori and Motomachi.  The fabric is delectable yet I did not purchase a single meter.  What I did do is fish a tattered saleslip out of my wallet and redeem it for two free patterns.  A skirt and trousers.  Snort.  Ishii says trousers are easy to make.  Double snort. 

A Japanese pattern is a not the cut-on-the-bold-lines fragile waxed tissue thing Grandma folded carefully before filing in her sewing cabinet.  No, it is a letter-size single sheet of paper featuring a sketch with lots of numbers in a table along the left.  Sewing in Japanese seems to involve more math than sewing in English.  I'll let you know.  Triple snort.
   

On to Chinatown for lunch.  We went to Ishii's favorite restaurant where I had fried rice (chaofan, remember?) and she had some sort of noodle pancake.  We exited Chinatown directly across from Motomachi, an upscale shopping district adjacent to the old foreign settlement.  Mostly we window-shopped but the bakery could not be resisted with all those smiling pumpkin pastries calling my name.

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jog.  Riding the trains with Ishii is an education in itself.  Americans tend to choose the simplest routes, using Yokohama station as a hub if you will.  But Ishii notes we can shave ten minutes off our trip and always travel in the proper direction by hopping on and off a few local trains and switching between the JR and Keikyu lines.

I am so blessed to know Ishii.

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?