Part 1
My first outing in Tokyo took me past the National Museum of Science in Ueno Park. I was intrigued by the display outside:
Leaving the whale behind I made my way to the Imperial Palace gardens. They are enclosed by a moat and multiple high walls of carefully shaped huge stone blocks dotted with guardhouses. In the days of the shoguns there were many living and administrative buildings but they are long gone, leaving just the beautiful gardens, contrasting with the towers of modern Tokyo visible over the trees.
I must have been in an outdoor mood because my next stop was the very delightful Rikugien Gardens, one of the most interestingly and attractively landscaped gardens I have ever seen. Described by the flyer as ‘a kaiyu (circuit) style daimyu garden…that reflects the taste of the world of Waka poetry’, it was built to reflect 88 scenes from Chinese and Japanese classical literature. I have to admit that even with my one Chinese character still in the forefront of my mind, some of the allusions were a little lost on me (I don’t recall Chinese classics being a major topic at school), but that did not detract from my enjoyment of the views.
It had been a couple of days since I visited a temple, so I headed for Sensoji, a major sacred site in the Asakusa area. This turned out to be another of those religious establishments that have done no harm to local commerce, the streets leading to it being thronged with tourists buying souvenirs and food, and hiring kimonos to wear on their visit. It all began 1200 years ago when two fishermen on the local river heard a voice telling them to cast their net, and on doing so they pulled up a sacred statue. Over the centuries this icon attracted increasing numbers of pilgrims, even when it was considered too sacred for public view, and especially when a replica was later put on display. In the midst of the crowds at these temples I have been inpressed by the piety of many visitors who bow their heads and pray to the gods represented in the shrines.
Passing through Ueno station around dinner time I was drawn to the Irish pub; it seems to be a cosmic law that every city in the world must have at least one. The cunningly named Staisiun Irish pub served good Guinness and I enjoyed sausages, chips and onion rings – good healthy food for a change instead of all that rice and noodles. The waiters looked more Japanese than Irish, but spoke little intelligible English so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. (Apologies Irish readers for the cheap and unwarranted jibe; I shall try to be more PC in future. Perhaps.)
I had planned to spend 4 nights in Tokyo, then spend 2 days and a night on Mt Fuji before returning to Tokyo for another 3 nights. However, the gods of the mountain have not looked favourably on my plans. Most of the various routes up Fuji do not open until 10th July (I fly to the Philippines on 9th) and the one that was due to open on 1st July is blocked some way below the summit by a large rock fall that occurred in a typhoon last Autumn; until recently snow had prevented the start of clearance operations. On top of that thunderstorms and heavy rain are forecast, so, given that being anywhere on the mountain in those conditions is at best not going to be a bundle of fun, and at worst would be dangerous, I have arranged to spend another night at my hotel. I am not sure what I am going to do with my extra time in Tokyo, where it seems the sun never shines, but since I have been sleeping on the floor in a Japanese style economy room the last few nights and I move into a better room tomorrow, maybe I will just enjoy the hoped-for comfort of a real bed for a while.
In the meantime, I have made my coffee in this cafe last an indecent amount of time while I write this blog and wait for the rain to stop, so I had better move and make the most of the remaining time on my 72 hours subway pass…
Part 2
Finally dragging myself out of the very good little cafe, I braved the subways again to visit Hama-rikyu Gardens, at one time the family garden of the Tokugawa Shogun, no less. It has the distinction of having salt water ponds controlled by lock gates opening onto Tokyo bay. Now, I have enjoyed Japanese gardens, but with all their emphasis on rocks, water, moss and very carefully pruned trees and shrubs, there is one familiar garden element that had so far been lacking: flowers. I was, therefore, excited to see a Flower Garden on the map. I made a bee line for it, but unfortunately I was not accompanied by any bees because the entire area had been sown with cosmos only a few weeks previously and no flowers are going to be seen for another couple of weeks. I expect it will look great then, but that won’t help me. To get over my disappointment I took tea and a Japanese sweet in the Nakajima-no-ochaya tea house in the middle of a little lake and then reviewed the shogun’s kamoba (duck hunting sites), where the unfortunate flyers were lured and caught with hawks and nets.
Another day, another garden, it seems. This time it was the large (145 acre) Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, containing everything from an English Landscape Garden to a French Formal Garden to a Mother and Child Forest and, of course, another very attractive Japanese traditional garden, as well as a magnificent greenhouse. It was easy to spend the entire afternoon there, and I finally found flowers, extensive rose beds, all in beautiful bloom.
Since by this time gardens and temples were starting to blur one into another, I decided to have a change and took the train to the Tokyo Waterfront City. Built on a man made island this hosts an impressive array of developments including hotels, shopping centres, exhibition halls, amusements and museums, all laid out in a spacious environment with plenty of greenery. Not at all unpleasant.
Where to visit specifically? Well, the Teleport Station sounded a step too far, even for my travels, and I had been to Egypt, so did not need to visit the Sewerage Museum. Instead I ventured into the Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology, an excellent place for kids, encouraging them to ask questions and think about the future. It was all a bit much for me; after taking in the serendipitous discovery of conductive plastic, the development of artificial photosynthesis and the importance of backcasting, I was more than a little relieved to make a discovery of my own – the cafe, where I could sit down with a cup of tea.
Refreshed and full of get up and stroll about, I took the long way back by walking over the Rainbow Bridge, the one mile long suspension bridge linking the island to the mainland. It was the highlight of the day, and possibly the whole week, striding far above the water, the salty wind in my face and great views over the bay to the city skyscrapers. The only disappointment was that the persistent low clouds obscured the potential view of Mt Fuji, just as they had on my train journey from Kyoto.
Part 3
My last two days in Tokyo suffered from poor planning. On Sunday my activities needed good weather and it rained all day; on Monday it was fine and I went to a museum, only to find it was closing day.
My first destination on Sunday was the Meiji Jingu shrine, dedicated to the deified souls of Emperor and Empress Meiji. Set in very pleasant woodland and approached by a wide avenue through three very large torii, this is immensely popular with Japanese who come to pay their respects to the man credited with bringing Japan into the modern world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, adopting western knowledge and customs while preserving Japan’s unique cultural heritage. It was an enjoyable visit despite the constant rain – thank goodness I wisely invested in that umbrella! I do not wish to cast aspersions on Tokyo’s weather or imply that it rains a lot here, but beside each individual urinal in the woodland toilets was a hook with a notice inviting you to hang up your umbrella. Draw your own conclusions.
My next stop was the Tokyo Metropolitan building in Shinjuku, where there is a free viewing area on the 45th floor. The views are wonderful, I am told, on a clear day, but I did not have a few months to wait for that, so I went up anyway and looked out at roads way below me and tower blocks lost in the clouds. What was in the distance I have no idea because I could not see more than a couple of blocks. Members of the public were taking turns to play a grand piano, so I sat eating an ice cream, listening to some enjoyable music and watching the clouds drift past the windows.
I decided on Monday to visit the Japanese National Museum, which had been on my Tokyo list all along, but which, with my aversion to museums, I had not been able to bring myself to go to even when I walked past it on my first day here. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I was spared its undoubted attractions because it was closed. Instead I wandered around Ueno Park where it is situated and visited the Metropolitan Art Museum instead. This was hosting a special Gustav Klimt exhibition that I was keen to see; keen that is until I saw the crowds queuing up to get in. I gave it a miss and looked at the other art on offer. Strangely, much of this consisted for some reason of Japanese hieroglyphics, and the rest was a pretty mediocre collection from modern Asian artists. However, there was one beautiful painting that made it all worthwhile and was, to my mind, in a class of its own.
Given the somewhat limited success of my day so far, I headed back to the hotel early, had a cuppa and then carried my dirty washing to the laundrette, where my foresight and planning were again evident in the lack of detergent. Oddly, there was none for sale, and I was not going back to the hotel to get mine, so I took the opportunity to conduct a scientific experiment into the efficacy of washing clothes without detergent. It was obviously better for the environment, and seemed pretty successful; the clothes no longer smelled, at any rate, and that has to be a good thing when you have a 5 hour plane ride the next day.
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