Travels in Japan - Nikko Part 3 - Temples and Ryokan Hoshino Yado

For anyone who has traveled to Japan, a seminal experience you have to do at least once (and hopefully shall do many times) is a stay at a ryokan. For an outsider, imagine a hotel (with or without onsen (hot spring) baths), world-class service, and dining. There are many types, with differences between styles in each city, neighborhood, and even change with seasons. THere are even differences between traditional ones (which have you sleep on a tatami mat on the floor) and ones which are western (more traditional beds, though even these can have very Japanese aesthetics.)

We'd only stayed at one such accommodation so far in Takayama, which left much to be desired, with the rest of our trips being at more traditional Western hotels. This hotel, however, was one I earmarked not only for its close location to all the World Heritage sites in Nikko but also because it has great reviews and beautiful pictures. The Nikko Hoshinoyado sits kitty-corner to a more famous ryokan (which may or may not be its parent company; I am unsure) called the Nikko Kanaya Hotel. I don't know much about that hotel, but it's very old and very well esteemed. Our ryokan overlooked the streets and part of the temples of Nikko on a little hill just below it, surrounded by beautiful wooded hills. It included a little fox Inari shrine, much to my amusement, and from the moment we entered that place, our lives were irrevocably changed.

The Japanese pride themselves on service. Everything from a look to a gesture, the way a leaf hits the light, and the subtlest taste of sushi is something that they consider. This hotel met us, foreigners, as if we were friends immediately. Warm smiles, our bags taken swiftly to our room, and tea and sweets served. Of course, this is perhaps typical of any hotel, but there's an intimacy to it, something I struggle now to define in words. You feel like you are the most important person in the world in that moment, and that all they want you to do is feel that way.

The lobby of the hotel was warm and well appointed, with nice comfy furniture and a beautiful view of a garden, and our little room was the same, with tatami mat floors, an alcove with fresh ikebana, and a scroll hanging on the wall.

We took a quick walk back through the area. We wandered through the shrines and up a hill to a small area that we hadn't explored before—so a mix of old and new. Our route up to this area, Takinoo-jinja, took us up the mountain through Toshogu, Rinnoji Temple, and Futarasan Shrines. I was grateful for a better camera this time because my pictures on our last trip did not do these buildings justice. Having several days to view them without crowds also was an enormous boon.

I cannot stress the beauty of these wooden structures. The carvings are immaculate, the colors extraordinary. You see each leaf, each twist of cloud, and each scale of a dragon. There are people and fantastical creatures all over the place, including famous ones like the 3 Monkeys, elephants as imagined by the Japanese who had never seen an elephant, and many others. The austere silence surrounds you. Trees of cedar rise up all around, with streams of light and sometimes fog or mist between. It is a unique otherworld, a place to reflect on the powerful men of the Tokugawa Shogunate who built these buildings. Here their foremost leaders and founders (Ieyasu and his grandson) are buried. Supposedly the Toshogu shrine took thousands of artisans' time to build as a passion project for Grandpa Ieyasu by the grandson.

Even today the temples are in a constant state of activity. Nikko is almost like a rainforest environment, very damp and moist, and so these wooden temples decay quickly. It takes concerted effort to maintain their beauty, but even the touch of time makes them magnificent. One can wander for hours and days and see something new. Look up under eaves, down between lattices, and you will discover wonders to excite and entice. It's a woodworker's heaven.

We wound our way up to Takinoo Shrine through the cedar forest, past waterfalls along a mountain path. Here and there were more small shrines, or ruins. At one point there was our friend the foxes again, and then a stone surrounded by a low wall. Before long we crested the hill and saw Takinoo. The shrine itself is a simple wooden structure, and its major feature is the Torii gate in front of it. This gate features a curious round hole in its apex, and supposedly if you throw a stone through the hole, you will have great luck in matchmaking or life. I, of course, tried unsuccessfully.

The real star of the show was the walk itself through that wood. I imagine many of the trees were planted by those who built the shrines, and chances are lumber was supplied locally for the structures and still is. Nikko is still a lumber/woodworking town. Wandering here, one almost expects to come around the corner and see a spirit staring through the mists, behind a tree or a tunnel to some distant place that mortals should not dare to tread. Yet we do anyways; we wander these otherworlds because they excite us. We yearn to be a part of it.

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.

They Pave Paradise, Put in a Parking Lot

 

Image from the Monterey Herald

An old song goes, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.  They pave paradise, and put in a parking lot."  Many of us have this sentiment I am sure when it comes to places we loved or grew up in and that change with the passing of time.  It can be in a short span, a matter of days, but I think that most change happens over long periods - so slow that we barely notice it until it is too late.  So it was for me returning to Monterey California over Spring Break 2022.   

It's funny thinking back, because when I came there to go to college at the California State University at Monterey Bay I remember disliking the college.  I liked Monterey, I liked the weather and surroundings, especially when it came to literary history like Steinbeck and Robert Lewis Stevenson.  The University was an ugly dumpling in those days, just fresh popped in the oven and starting to rise.  It had only been open some seven years on the Fort Ord area, and there were still many old barracks and buildings that surrounded us.   The structures we were in were old converted variations of these painted in purple and green as they were the favorite hues of the university president's wife.  (I thought them ugly colors.)

There were no new buildings, the grounds were run down, and we were surrounded by ruins.  We were, in a sense, a desert island.

There was suspicion my first dorm has once been a prison, as it was square shaped with tiny little rooms off central spaces, and it had metal walkways and tall towers.  Next to us was a derelict ruin of barracks and the only path to get to the main campus and to food was a small sand path broken through some overgrown dunes.   At night and with the fog, it was like walking through a horror movie, surrounded by lichen strewn trees and only a distant light of the street in the fog.   I had a very rowdy surrounding, though I myself was quiet, and I remember hating that first and second year.  

My salvation was the surroundings as I said, and I would go into Monterey or Santa Cruz for sojourns.  Cannery Row was, in itself, built up a bit, with big buildings and hotels and tourist hot spots, but it was still just funky enough it almost felt like Steinbeck country still.  There were still the ruins of old canneries, the run down shops, and of course the Aquarium which I was a member as a student.  I remember being able to get in before anyone else, enjoy all the sights and then go get an ice cream at the Ghiradelli shop before going back to the rowdy dorm.

In junior and senior years I had a much better time with dorm and college class situations, I met some nice friends who I still talk to today.  The last year I had a room with an ocean view, a nice big space to myself.  To this day I don't think any college has a better ocean view or location for its students to take in their surroundings on the sea.  I don't think many others could boast the view I had as a humanities major. 

Once I graduated and moved away, I would make trips up there on occasion but after a time I stopped due to work and life circumstances.  I kept abreast of changes as enormous moneys poured into Cannery Row and CSUMB.  New Hotels were built, a new library, student complexes, etc.   I visited once and saw these and felt impressed at the time.  Many of my old haunts were still there in the shadows, and it still felt like home, and nostalgia painted sweeter colors over time of my experiences.  I could look back and laugh at those first two years and smile at the latter two.   Even now I think back to my last days there wishing they could last a bit longer.

It seems, however, nothing is to last, especially in the age of Covid.  Going to downtown Monterey I found that the Aquarium now packs in members with the public at the same time with long queues and online ticket sales.  The huge hotel next door where once was an empty lot now blots out all sun upon the street, and tacky shops have replaced all the old ones that I liked.  The same goes for the Fisherman's Wharf, where I found naught but tourist traps where once was one of my favorite places for clam chowder.

The University was immensely changed.  Repainted, all the old buildings gone.  The path from my former dorm is now grown over, gone, replaced by green.  Nothing remains of my time there, save memories and fragments.  The new structures offset the old ones with their wealth and grandeur, modern, sleek, clean - nice for the people there, but cold and stark.  There's no warmth, no living, just function and form.   

John Steinbeck said of Cannery Row in Monterey that it is a "... poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."   So it is with it now, as it is with CSUMB.   It is nothing more than words on a page, a waxing light within my mind of days come - gone, paved over.  

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.