Carving Wood in the Seventeenth Century

There are 5,173 wooden sculptures in Toshogu Shrine. A few more than five hundred of them can be seen on Yomei-mon, the striking gate leading to the inner precincts.

Yomeimon at Toshugo in Nikko

The Yomei-mon gate, deservedly designated a national treasure, is also called Higurashino-mon which translates to "the gate where people spend all day long to look".  If I didn't have a train to catch, I'd probably still be standing there catching flies in my gaping mouth.

The gate rests on twelve pillars, one of them inverted to signify imperfection and the desire for long life.  In ancient times it was believed that perfection was the beginning of decline so people used to leave space for three tiles on the roof when they built a house.

Misa and Mineko outside Yomei-mon

A sleeping cat is carved above the entrance to Okusha, the area of the shrine where Ieyasu Tokugawa is buried.  This is the most famous sculpture in Toshugo so I had to try to blend into a class of yellow-capped students to get close enough to take a picture. Their guide was probably telling them that the sparrow perched on the cat's back means that peace has arrived in Japan after years of civil strife.

Another interesting carving can be found on the gable of one of the storehouses across from the sacred stable.  People call this "The Imaginary Elephants" because the artist had never seen one and had to rely on his imagination and some limited written descriptions.

I hope the imperfections translated into a long life for him.

Monkeying Around at Toshogu Shrine: Nikko, Part 3

Nikko's main attraction is Toshogu, a Shinto shrine surrounding the final resting place of Ieyasu Tokugawa, founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. In case you've forgotten, the Tokugawas ruled Japan for over 250 years until 1868.

Ieyasu is credited with uniting Japan after decade upon decade of civil strife, although at least one historian wryly notes that Ieyasu just happened to be the last of three close comrades still standing after the final battle. I recently spotted an unattributed Japanese proverb in a Laura Joh Rowland mystery that goes something like "Oda sowed the grain, Hideyoshi baked the bread, and Tokugawa ate the bread."

He was 60 when he was installed as Seii-taishogun in 1603 and resigned two years later to ensure his son's smooth succession and to focus on diplomatic and building projects (this was the beginning of what history now calls the "Edo Era" because he moved the seat of government from Kyoto to what is now Tokyo).

When he died in 1616 at the age of 73, he was enshrined in accordance with his last wishes.  "Enshrine my dead body in Mt. Kuno  for the first year of the death . . . and build a small shrine in Nikko and enshrine me as the god.  I will be the guardian of Japan."

Mt. Kuno was his hometown.  He chose Nikko as his final resting place because Nikko is located north of Tokyo and north was considered the taboo direction, the direction from which demons come (forgive the messenger, Russian readers).  Tokugawa chose to position himself in Nikko to protect Japan from "the evil things".

Although Ieyasu specifically requested "a small shrine", his grandson Iemitsu later decided to transform Toshogu into a stark reminder of the family's power and wealth.  About 40 billion yen (at today's rate) and more than 4.5 million workers labored for one year and five months to construct the shrine buildings we see today.

Enough with the pedantry.  Let's go in.

One of the first things to catch our eye is a colorful five-story pagoda (right) contributed by Tadakatsu Sakai in 1650.  The pagoda burned down in 1815 but was reconstructed to withstand earthquakes three years later by a descendant of Tadakatsu.   (Of parenthetical interest, Tadakatsu was the governor of Obama in Fukui Prefecture.  Obama means "little beach" in Japanese.)

The Sacred Stable with eight monkey panels

Next we enter a large courtyard and find three large storehouses facing a sacred stable (shinkyu).  Two sacred horses, they must be white, rotate stable duty for four hours every day.  They don't have to work on days when it rains or snows.

We're in luck! We've managed to arrive at the sacred stable after 10am and before 2pm on a balmy day so we catch a glimpse of a sacred horse.

To my credit, I succeed in taking this picture without blasting out the chorus of the Mr. Ed Theme Song.

Now let's go back outside and take another gander at those eight monkey panels scrolling across the front of the stable.  These carved panels are called sansaru (three monkeys) and work like a picture book.  To read the story, click here.

Of the 8,914 people who visited Toshogu on November 2, we are the only four who did not recreate the second panel for posterity.  How unlike me.

"Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil"

"Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil, see no evil"

Until today, I had no earthly idea those three monkeys are Japanese creations. They even have names! And, yes, they might have been born in India and wandered through China before they reached Japan, but we have to give Japan credit for the catchy slogan. Why? Wikipedia says so. If you don't believe me, or if you want to know the full story and see how good I am at summarizing, please click here.

Toshogu Shrine is fun!  Now let's wander up those steps to that big gate thing.

Gazing Into An Abyss: Nikko, Part 2

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."--
Friedrich Nietzsche

Kanmangafuchi Abyss, formed by an eruption of nearby Mount Nantai, offers a pleasant riverside walking trail with nice scenery near central Nikko.

Kanmangafuchi is also known for its row of about 70 stone statues of Jizo, the Bodhisattva who cares for the deceased, especially infants.  This group of statues goes by many names, including Bake Jizo (Ghost Jizo), Narabi Jizo (Jizo in a line) or Hyaku Jizo (100 Jizo).  The story behind the last name is that about thirty of the statues were washed away by a flood and never recovered.

Mineko says we are supposed to pose with the Jizo who most resembles our husband. 

Too somber

Hat angle too jaunty

Ring around the collar?  Not MY husband

Too ancient, believe it or not

The pained expression looks slightly familiar

"I'm melting," cried the Wicked Jizo of the West

The Winner!

Cab driver with Mineko

We eschewed the bus today in favor of a taxi because we had lots of ground to cover before catching a late afternoon train back to Yokosuka via Tokyo.

My recent experiences with cab drivers in Japan have me thinking this is a great career option for history majors who, like me, favor captive audiences. Our Nikko driver was a jolly fellow who tipped us off that some of those thirty missing Jizo statues could be found at a little-known shrine downriver from the abyss. He took us there and I counted ten more Jizo before the cemetery distracted me.

What a great way to start the day! Lovely autumn foliage, water cascading down a gorge, umpteen Jizo, and a quiet cemetery. If we never make it to the famous shrine, I'll still feel this trip was a success.

Natural and Other Wonders in Nikko

Nikko was on the docket for our second, or was it third, Christmas in Japan but the Blonde Wonder came down with the flu so we watched thirty-seven episodes of The West Wing instead. Not that I'm complaining. Forced deferred gratification can be quite rewarding. Certainly this is true in Nikko's case.

Mineko at Nikko station

Misa was so dismayed to learn at last month's kimono exhibition that I had not yet visited Nikko that she promptly contacted Mineko and together they came up with a plan to get me there.  Ouiser agreed to tag along even though, like most Americans living in Japan, she had been to Nikko within two months of arriving on this island.  Nikko is a tourist mecca.  Foreigners flock there to feast their eyes on the most un-Japanese of Japanese shrines while native Japanese enjoy both this manmade marvel as well as the bountiful natural resources in the area, including mountains, lakes, hot springs, waterfalls, and gorges.

With two seasoned Japanese travelers calling the shots, I saw more of Nikko in thirty-six hours than the Ancient Mariner and I could have covered in a week.  Let's hope the Navy finds someone to replace him by April 1 so we can reprise this trip before we leave Japan next summer.

Hotel Japan shuttle bus

Ouiser and I left Yokosuka at dawn, Mineko hopped on the train in Ofuna, and we hooked up with Misa in Tokyo just before boarding our express train in Asakusa. Nikko is about ninety minutes north of Tokyo by train so we arrived shortly before noon, tossed our bags in the hotel shuttle bus parked next to the train station, and then bought two-day passes for a local bus that travels between Nikko and Lake Chuzenji.

Mineko and Misa are remarkably adept at snagging seats on public transportation so I was blessed with the breathtaking views afforded by a window seat all the way up the long, winding incline to the lake district.    

Mineko, Misa, and Ouiser at Kegon Falls

The almost 100-meter tall Kegon Waterfall, the only exit for the waters of Lake Chuzenji, is the most famous of  Nikko's many waterfalls and is considered one of Japan's three most beautiful falls, along with Nachi Waterfall in Wakayama Prefecture and Fukuroda Waterfall in Ibaraki Prefecture.

We took a rather frightening elevator ride to the base of the falls to get the most impressive view.  The trees around the waterfall are exceptionally colorful at this time of year although I wouldn't mind seeing the waterfall in winter as well since I hear it often freezes almost completely solid.

Another bus took us back down those hairpin turns and deposited us across the road from Tamozawa Imperial Villa, a summer residence and retreat for the Emperor and his family beginning in 1899.  The villa fell into disrepair after the war but was restored by the city and opened to the public in 2000.   

There are few things in life I enjoy more than poking my nose in other people's houses.  Padding through Tamozawa Imperial Villa in my stocking feet and watching a video of the building's history was worth ten times the price of admission.  This is where Emperor Hirohito, the Showa Emperor, spent the last year of the war and here I was, more than sixty-five years later, admiring his billiard room and remarking that his back staircase was a narrower replica of the staircase back home where my two older brothers used to suspend Brother #3 upside down until all the pennies -- probably four on a good day -- fell out of his pockets.

The villa seemed enormous to me but I later learned it is nowadays less than one-third its original size.  In 1922 the villa was comprised of 106 rooms and 107,000 square meters.  Yet it is still one of the largest wooden buildings in Japan and the interior is an interesting combination of Japanese and Western styles.  Some floors are carpeted and many ceilings sport elaborate chandeliers but sliding paper doors and tatami flooring are also very much in evidence.

The Interview Room

Misa had imagined the table in the Emperor's Interview Room would be much larger. "The purpose of a small table was probably to make the Emperor appear larger, kind of an optical illusion," I opined more pedantically than intended.

As much as I longed to narrate "The Emperor's New Clothes" from memory, I controlled myself.

Arresting Sights in Kanazawa

We spotted this whimsical sculpture (above) on a street corner between Kanazawa castle and the samurai district. If I ever get caught up on all my random projects, I'll crack open the Adobe Photoshop manual and figure out how to transform this picture into a blog header. Don't hold your breath.

It speaks to me of adventure, walking (of course), bunions, and intestinal fortitude.  

Kotojitoro on railing near Kanazawa Castle

Kenrokuen Garden's famous kotojitoro lantern is reproduced on sweets, manhole covers, and bridge railings.

Wandering around the grounds of Oyama-jinja, a Shinto shrine adjacent to Kanazawa castle, we spotted this "Neverending Story" statue. What do you suppose the story behind this statue might be?

Fearless gets credit for convincing us to visit Oyama-jinja after spotting the shrine's distinctive main gate from a bus window. The gate is an interesting mix of Japanese, Chinese, and European religious architectural elements, notably Dutch stained-glass windows on the third floor.

Maybe I'll post some more photographs from Oyama-jinja in particular and Kanazawa in general later this month. This morning I am embarking on an overnight trip to Nikko with three Shonan friends and a fully-charged camera. Bon voyage to me!

An Artist at Work: The Umbrella-Maker of Kanazawa

Ah, November. National Novel Writing Month is upon us so once again one of us is hard at work on a novel, a sequel no less, while the other is trying to shake off writer's block by exploring Japan and spending nine hours a day mindlessly smashing sparkly little gems in a thus far vain effort to get within one hundred thousand points of her little sister's score.

The good news is that the one of us working on a novel has received a nibble from an agent who might be interested in the book he wrote during National Novel Writing Month last year, a military thriller-romance set on the USS Blue Ridge. (So far I've only made it through the first sixteen chapters. His constant refrain these days is "It's fiction!" especially when I start wondering where he came up with all these ideas about romance aboard a Navy flagship.)

The bad news is that two weeks' worth of photographs and memories have been placed on the back burner. I haven't finished sharing the highpoints of the trip to Kanazawa and I haven't even started to tell you about our trip to Nikko or the flower exhibition in Tokyo or the Yokohama Quilt Festival. We've already made gingerbread houses and frosted Christmas cookies with the Japanese military spouses and we've made plans to spend the Thanksgiving weekend in Hakone and Tokyo. Assuming I can tear myself away from Bejeweled Blitz for four days . . .

What should I write about today? Since visiting the workshop of the last remaining traditional umbrella maker in Kanazawa was one of the highpoints of that trip for me, I'd like to unfurl a few for you.

A wagasa is a Japanese traditional umbrella consisting of washi (Japanese paper) with a bamboo handle and ribs.  If you have ever sipped a mai tai or similar frothy alcoholic beverage, you are familiar with the miniature versions of these umbrellas.  Nowadays the Japanese favor our much less expensive Western-style unbrellas for daily use, but wagasa are still used for traditional Japanese tea ceremonies and dance.

Because it rains and snows a lot in Kanazawa, their wagasa is famously strong.  Four layers of Japanese paper are painstakingly pasted to the central part of the umbrella.  Another characteristic of Kanazawa wagasa is its splendid color.

Hiroshi Matsuda has been making wagasa for 75 years. He started working in his father's umbrella shop when he was twelve years old. Yes, he is as happy and adorable in person as he looks in the picture above. If you want to know a little more about Matsuda-sama, click here.

Many of his umbrellas feature real leaves, clover and such, pasted between the layers of washi paper (see left).

Simply glimpsing Matsuda hard at work would have been enough of a treat, but Fearless and I also had the pleasure of watching Matsuzaki-san talk Matsuda-sama into selling her an umbrella.  They engaged in some serious flirting and she took pouting to a new level before waltzing out of the shop with a purple number that set her back a mere 35,000 yen (roughly $400).

Fearless and I were invited to select smaller souvenir-size umbrellas, about eight inches high, while Matsuda-sama wrapped the purple umbrella.

Peevish performs "The Flower Drum Song"

Kanazawa: Bus Riding for Dummies

The easiest way to get around in Kanazawa is by bus and on foot. Unlike most Japanese "castle towns", here the town grew up around the castle rather than off to one side. Once you get to the castle, you're in the center of town and can walk easily to the other interesting historical areas.

My hometown bus system, with four routes connecting each quadrant of the compass, is the only one I've ever managed to master so I've pretty much avoided buses since pocketing my first driver's license in 1968. I want to ride buses. I think they're a great idea but, at the risk of sounding like a complete moron, they are just too complicated for me. The "how much" and "how to" pay the fare questions are bigger stumbling blocks for me than "which route". Getting on the wrong bus might lead to an adventure but fears of being chastised by a driver for incorrect change or enduring mutters or sighs, real or imagined, from passengers behind me in line have turned me into a long-distance walker.

If I wasn't traveling with Fearless and Matsuzaki-san, I would have walked from the hotel to the castle and missed out on a wonderful transportation experience.

There are several bus routes that pass the castle and garden, but the Loop bus is easiest for visitors. It costs 200 yen to ride the Loop bus but we each bought a day pass for 500 yen at the information center outside the train station. The pass looked like a scratch-off lottery card.  I saved mine because the month and day scratched off happen to be my father's birthday.  

About two dozen very cheerful schoolchildren boarded the bus with us. (Speaking of Kanazawa schoolchildren, the Ancient Mariner will be interested to learn that one of his favorite ballplayers, Hideki Matsui, grew up in this area and is the most famous graduate of the local high school.)

Now we're getting to the part I hope you'll share with your friends who work for the US Department of Transportation or any urban planners you happen to know.

Upon exiting the bus near an entrance to Kenrokuen, we noticed an electronic map on the wall of the bus shelter. The map showed the locations of the four Loop buses.

Our red bus had just let us off at Stop #9.

We stood there for a few minutes, watching our bus progress to Stop #10 and then on toward Stop #11.

This is the first technological innovation since Amazon's Kindle to make my jaw drop.

Please tell those urban planners to insert fare information at the bottom of the screen. I'd appreciate that.