Wednesday in Tokyo Japan

We had a great day on Wednesday in Tokyo. But first the weather...it is cold here! The forecast had predicted 10 degree weather for the initial part of our trip but it has been hovering between 6 and 8 with zero sun and those few degrees coupled with heating in homes and stores below what we are used to in Canada means that even we Canadians are feeling the cold. So we are wearing more layers and looking forward to the weekend when it is supposed to be brilliant sunshine and 10 - 12 degrees. Yesterday, Wednesday, we spent the first part of the day with our personal one-on-one guide Takehito Minagawa.

We found him on line and he is part of the Tokyo Free Guide organization. They have a number of members who enjoy meeting foreign travelers and who use the opportunity to practice their spoken English. He is 61 years old and is the director of the Public Health Center in his neighbourhood in Tokyo. From the way he described it, it appears to be what we would call a medical center, consisting of a number of doctors, dentists, pharmacists etc. He works 4 days a week, and has off Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday.  He said that he guides people about once a month on Wednesdays. We had discussed by email our interests and his recommendations and we finally decided on a walking tour through the areas of Tokyo called Omotesando Hills and Takeshita Street which would lead us to the Meiji Shrine and then ending at the famous Shibuya Crossing.  He met us at our apartment at 10 AM and we began walking toward the Azabujuban Subway Station.  On the way to the subway, on a wide boulevard not far from our apartment, Takehito stopped at a stairway with a Torii Gate in front of it. He explained that this was a Shinto Shrine. The two main religions in Japan are Buddhaism and Shintoism. 

  A Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house (or enshrine) one or more Shinto Kami. Kami is the Japanese word for deities or spirits that are worshipped in the Shinto religion.    Kami can be manifest in multiple forms, in rocks, trees, rivers, animals, as well as spirits of revered deceased people such as charismatic leaders like the Emperor.  A Torii Gate is the traditional Japanese gate commonly found at the entrance to a Shinto Shrine where it symbolically marks the transition from the profane to the sacred.    At the entrance to the shrine there is a place where you can wash your hands to remove any impurities and you also drink a bit of this water and gargle with it.

   

There is a vending machine where one can purchase a piece of paper which contains your fortune; it could be good or bad luck, and then you tie this to the bar at the shrine.   It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 Shinto Shrines in Japan.  We had explained to Takehito that we do not enter shrines and he explained all of this to us from the outside where we took a picture in front of the Torii. We continued to the subway and rode a few stops to the Omotesando station. As we emerged from the station, it was clear that we were in the middle of a very exclusive shopping neighbourhood. All the big names were here, Bulgari, Fendi, Louis Vuiton, Dior, etc. And all of them in architecturally striking buildings. 

We walked for a bit on this very high end shopping street, and then took a left turn to Takeshita Street, which is a shuk like street that is a favourite hangout and shopping location for young Japanese.  Along the street, we saw for the first time the fake food that we had read so much about. Japanese restaurants present samples of the food that they serve which are sculptured presentations that in many cases look very real. These are outside a crepe and ice cream place.

We walked the full length of the street and arrived at Harajuku Station which is right in front of the Meiji Shrine. The Meiji Shrine Is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken, who were the great grandparents of the current emperor. The shrine is located in a 170 acre evergreen forest, which consists of 120000 trees of 365 different species.

It takes about 15 minutes to walk from the huge Torii Gate through the forest before arriving at the shrine.  On the way we passed a large number of what looked like vats stacked up on one side of the pathway. These were vats of sake (Japanese Rice Wine) that had been offered to the spirits by the various sake manufacturers in Japan. 

Prior to entering the main area of the shrine, there is a large billboard upon which on New Years Day, the Emperor and his wife inscribe a poem for the year. This Year's poem basically said that one can choose the good path or the bad path and one should be blessed to choose good pathways for themselves, or something to that effect. 

Once again there was the washing basin and there were facilities for writing out your request for yourself and family. 

There was something additional here; tablets of wood where you can write with magic marker your requests. These were hung up on a structure just outside the shrine.

While we were there, we noticed a young woman dressed in the traditional kimono and we asked her why she was dressed like that. We were told that she had reached a certain age milestone, 20 years of age, and that this was a birthday to celebrate by coming to pray at the shrine. 

On the way out of the forest, we saw loads of school children who were taking a class trip to the shrine. What struck us was that all the kids were wearing a uniform. They were all dressed neatly.

We had explained to Takehito that we could not eat lunch with him as we kept kosher and he conveniently found us a food court at the Shrine visitor center where we could eat our lunch and where we could buy lunch for him as well. We explained a bit about our kosher rules and also our general observance.  When we finished our lunch, we took a train to the next stop which was Shibuya. Shibuya is a major Tokyo shopping district and is also the site of the famous Shibuya Crossing. If any of you have been to Kikar Shabbat in Jerusalem, where the lights all turn to red and pedestrians are permitted to cross in every direction simultaneously, think of Shibuya Crossing as Kikar Shabbat on steroids. You see, at the main crossing, 5 or 6 streets intersect and when the lights all turn to red allowing the pedestrians to cross, the sight is amazing. Here is a short 1 minute video that allows you to experience the crossing without travelling all the way to Tokyo:    http://youtu.be/QXtOdSgf6Ic

At this point, Takehito said he had to get back home as he had a guitar lesson and an English lesson that would fill the rest of his day. And so he carefully explained to us how to get back to our area and we thanked him for an excellent day of guiding. We took some time to explore the area around Shibuya and then took another subway ride for one more stop to get to the Ebisu Garden Place, a gentrified area of the city that Takehito referred to as futuristic. 

 

 

It consists of about a dozen buildings and skyscrapers with a mix between commercial and hi rise residential. It is built on the former site of the Yebisu Brewery that had been there since the 1890s. The area was redeveloped to afford the local residents a total living experience and they truly did a remarkable job. The central shopping area is covered by a glass dome and the signature French restaurant on the site is housed in a building that was constructed to resemble a French Chateau.

 

We finally headed back to the apartment, quite tired from a long day of walking. We have no idea how far we walked but we had been on our feet for about six straight hours and it was good to sit down to a delicious freshly prepared vegetable soup that we cooked from scratch and a TV dinner that we had brought with us. 

 

All in all, a very good second day in Tokyo. 

 

Before we sign off, for those who are interested, we did a little research on Japanese religions and there are a number of articles that speak about similarities between Judaism and Shintoism and the possibility that Japan might have been a destination for one of the lost tribes of Israel. Quite a fascinating theory and a very fascinating article.

 

http://www.biblemysteries.com/library/tribesjapan.htm

 

More tomorrow, Thursday.

 

All the best

 

Fran and David