Travels in Japan - Return to Nikko, An Introduction

Time has a way of slipping through the fingers. When I began this blog I saw it as a sort of discipline as much as a way to share my travels, insights and writing. I enjoyed sharing my writing with people, seeing reactions on Google+, but then that dissapeared and with it those interactions. Now here I am, returning to try to finish what I started, like an old friend estranged. Maybe it is out of obligation, or maybe that passion remains somewhere despite the years. When considering where to begin again, I decided to look where I last ended, and that was traveling through Japan way the heck back in 2016 or so. I stopped just before our last portion of the trip to a place I had longed to return, a place near and dear to my heart, Nikko. While Nikko is a World Heritage Site, well known tourist destination, and it is connected to a larger city of the same name, the portion Iknow well has become a sort of synonymous part of Japan and its character to me. Nestled in the mountains of Tochigi Prefecture, its a Shinkansen and then a train ride away from Tokyo at about four hours or so. I have visited twice in the Autumn, and the magnificence of this place with the changing of the leaves has few comparisons in my mind so far. Nikko was and is a place of spiritual significance, a place of temples and shrines nestled among cedars and maples, a location where water descends in a torrent down the mountainsides, where mists cling to everything like the ghosts of the past in present. It is here that the founder of the last shogunate of Japan, Tokugawa Ieasu, choose to leave his earthly remains. His grandson built him a magnificent temple structure known as Toshogu. To describe this shrine as austentaceous is an understatement. Hundreds of woodcarvers have labored hundreds of years to build and maintain it and every inch of surface is embellished in gold and laquer and the most marvelous carvings. It is a woodworker's dream to visit and though I have no skill in such art, standing before it I can only appreciate the work it took to do it.

Ieasu's grandson, Iemitsu, built himself a much smaller and less austentaceous tomb complex called Rinnoji, which to be honest was my more favored of the two. It is interesting to see a man so highly elevate his grandfather with such splendid wealth, and yet for himself he builds something more subdued. One can imagine emerging from the forest into this or the neighboring Futarasan Jinja Shrine and having stepped hundreds of years to another time and another world. Toshogyu, meanwhile, because of its location, is always connected to the city itself.

Having arrived in Nikko for the second time, we took a bus to our accomodation. Now, I don't know how much of what we experienced was from my research or luck, but after staying at an older hotel up at Lake Chuzenji, I opted for something a little more modern while still holding the firm roots in Japanese inn culture. Where the Chuzenji stay was clearly a hotel, our stay at Nikko Hoshinoyado was the quintissential Ryokan.

For those who do not know, Japan has a centuries old culture of inn stays for travelers where they pull out all the stops of courtesy and customer service. You are treated to beautiful rooms, hot springs or hot baths, often to gorgeous gardens and some of the most spectacular food imaginable. I'd never experienced any of this going to Japan, and I didn't imagine when we were staying a few days in Nikko that we would have what was and is one of the best hotel and food experiences in my life. There is so much to speak of in describing this place I cannot wait.

I close this opening to Nikko with a quesiton of why return? Well I'm one of those strange people who could visit the same place in Japan a thousand times and find something new for one. For another the first visit I had the terrible luck with my camera and the pictures I took and so I wanted another chance to go to the same places. A third reason was to stay closer to the main sites so I could get up and out before anyone else, see them without people. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, because I love it. Nikko in Autumn, the shrines, the town, the people and the experiences I had this second trip are as close to heaven as I think I've come. A lifetime of study in Japan, concerted effort on my part, and a good deal of luck all culminated in a fantastic end to a fantastic trip. I look forward to sharing it with those who read this, and those who yearn to travel beyond the sea to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Travels in Japan - Takayama and Shirakawago

Sometimes when you travel the expectation exceeds the reality of the situation. This is rare for me, especially when it comes to Japan, but when my family traveled there, we had an expectation to see the mountain hamlet of Shirakawago. The plan was to stay in neighboring Takayama, known for its old townscape with beautiful and quaint houses that feel like something out of the more ancient times. We would then go to the hamlet, which in itself has a lovely old feel with grass roofed houses (known as Gassho for the shape of hands in prayer). Unfortunetly for us we stayed at a not so nice hotel in Takayama and I think that colored the entire feeling of the one night stay. I won't beligure the Hotel experience other than to say it was a bad chance, and I think if we stayed at another place both my parents and I would have had a higher opinion. We also went in spring and there was still the sort of "Ugly Duckling" feeling to Shirakawgo, with more mud and semi-melted snow than the picturesque village scene we hoped for. Plus Shirakawago is a tourist destination, so it has little tourist shops here and there. It gives one an understanding that though this is a working village, and though it is beautiful, it does rely heavilly on tourists, and its not just a forgotten place that you stumble upon. I did like Takayama, and I would go back there and to Shirakawago in the fall or later spring to get a better sense, and stay at a better hotel for a better experience. My memories of Takayama are of streets with lovely wooden houses. Warm light touched from the glass or paper windows and lanterns in the morning as passed by on an early walk. The local museum had some very beautiful models of shrines we would see in Nikko, and some floats from their local festival. We also saw Mount Fuji on the train ride to Nikko, which was a highlight. Alas, the rest of this brief stint sort of fades into memory looking back. I can look through the pictures and think about what could be, but that's not what was. But that happens sometime. On our first trip our bad experience was a single restaurant outside Fushimi Inari, so this was our little brief one here. We would more than make up for it in Nikko.

Brief Glimpse at Fuji

Takayama Town Center

One of the old shops of Takayama

A carving/motif of a dragon at a local shrine

Festival Floats at the museum

Model of Toshogu Shrine in Nikko

Gassho Grass Roofed Farm Houses

Remnants of Winter

Fun little sign in Takayama

My family and I overlooking Shirakawago

I caught a brief ceremony at the local Inari Shrine.

Travels in Japan - Fushimi Inari, A Cheeseburger and Mobile Wifi

  

There's few places on Earth that I've visited that have left such an indelible impression as Fushimi Inari.  I've covered my thoughts on this shrine dedicated to Worldly Wealth, Foxes and Rice (Mainly Foxes) before on my blog, so there's not much more to re-iterate on second visit.   Or is there?  Looking back I realized I began this endeavor cataloguing my second visit to Japan on April 2, 2016.   Between then and now there've been any number of snafu's from Google + nixing my original blog because I dared double post one day to Google + being deleted by Google itself, to job changes, other trips, Covid, etc.   It's been a long wild ride, and yet here I am looking back on something almost 5 years ago.

I look at these pictures, half a world away, and despite it all, I am transported back then, back to my second visit.  I was anxious to go back, partly because my camera at the time was on the fritz and half of my pictures did not turn out well at all.   Thank goodness they did this time.  There were other reasons too, I wanted to revisit my friends the foxes, and they were still there waiting patiently in their hundreds.   It is interesting to see each one, and while many bear a similarity, one can find a dynamic difference between each one.  

Another reason to visit is the location itself.  The colors are striking, red (or vemillion) on white, with a few other spare colors between.  These are shinto colors, colors of something sacred, and nestled here and there one finds little foxes like our friend below.  

One might laugh at the so called superstitions of other religions, and then one realizes ones own beliefs in oneself or greater power are no lesser or greater than these.   I boldly touched a statue after explaining that this is not usually done due to a superstition and proceeded to fall down a few sets of stairs.   Not recommended.  

When it comes to foxes, invariably there are five standard similarities.  They all usually have a red bib, they all usually bear a key or a jewel, they all sit on pedestals, and they all look just about ready to eat you alive.  Their eyes are distinctly fearsome, even when they seem playful like the one below, and the best ones are poised as if in mid movement, again like the one below.  In fact, this particular statue and fountain is my favorite of all the foxes of Inari.   It sits at a spring I don't know the name of, with a sprig of fresh bamboo always in its mouth.   It almost looks like its ready to slide ride on into the pool below.  

Another interesting thing about the mountain, besides the innumerable torii gates which I've talked about before are what I call Torii Villages.  These are little nooks and crannies where stone torii, shrines and wooden torii are clustered in such numbers as to look like the skyline of the Tokyo cityscape.  You might almost call them fox villages.

Like before, I wanted to visit the kind folks who had made me a torii gate and festooned it with blessings once before and thankfully they were still there and still open.  I don't expect they remembered me at all, considering the thousands of villagers everyday, but they are such good kind people and I was very grateful for the gentleman's work and the lady's presence. 

One thing I did change was visit another shop that had little wooden carved foxes in fanciful display, doing various normal human tasks.  My favorite was the second one below, which I brought home and features a fox and its little friend waving and welcoming someone.   I thought of my two fox characters in my book when I saw this and figured it was fate I stumbled on them.  

There are other, smaller foxes if one knows where to look, peeking behind pillars and posts, standing a silent vigil by the thousands.

Most visitors will stand arrested by the Torii, but half the battle of enjoying them is waiting a chance to snap a picture.  Out of maybe 100 pictures, I have four that show the full magnificence of these Torii hallways stretching out for what seems time immortal.  

Light plays important part of Fushimi, and I once spoke about the dangers of nighttime there.  By day the lamps rest on the Torii as a reminder of the evening to come.   After a full day, my family was tired and hungry, so we had a tradition to enjoy.   

I don't know if there's something about an American style cheeseburger with fries in japan that makes it so rewarding to get one, but My God, after Japanese food and a lot of walking this burger at Kyoto Station or Osaka Station (I cannot remember which one) was delicious.   The last time we were in Kyoto we did McDonalds, and getting a burger has become something of a tradition.  My Dad also took this time to share a picture of the little wifi mobile hotspot we used.  These are a lifesafer in Japan, allowing us to get wifi for finding our way on the road.   I cannot stress enough how important and useful these are to the traveler in Japan, especially when you're not 100 percent on where your going.  That 99 percent might be good, but its the 1 percent chance that can make a difference.

Returning to our hotel in Osaka overlooking the Castle, we found an enormous crowd gathered to enter the local venue.  I did a little investigation and these are all women, all gathered to see a local pop group.  What was weird was they were there when we left, and we came back and all the while I only saw them taking pictures with cardboard cutouts of their boy band idols.  I don't know or have any idea if they actually had a concert.   It was just another slice of Japan that I could watch from a window and gratefully admire without actually participating in.