Category: Silently in Japan

Many, many years ago (oh say 50 or so years), I traveled through Southeast Asia including some time Japan. So this was not my first foray into Asian territory. Ah, it was a different world back then. No internet for one thing. How did I do it without Google Maps?  Starting our journey in rural…

You’re too old to have fun at the gathering. Joining the group watching the robot statue makes you feel ridiculous. The park you’re walking through is meagre in comparison to the previous parks. The open shipping lane to the ocean seems adventurous. Ella is tired of waiting for you to catch up. You come across…

Dinner had us stumped. There wasn’t much out in the Odaiba area which was our last destination. We opted to start the journey back home. We had to take a train to Shiodome and then transfer to the Oeida subway.  At Shiodome station, we decided to ask Google what was in the area for food….

After a visit to the Sumida Hakusai museum, we wanted to explore an area we hadn’t seen yet. Being Tokyo, there were hundreds of neighborhoods as yet unvisited so really, it could be anywhere. Grubb wanted to head to Odaiba, an area by the bay. We had no inkling that on a fine Sunday afternoon,…

For our last day in Tokyo we had beautiful weather to go along with the beautiful woodblock prints that are part of the collection at the Sumida Hokusai Museum.  On Friday I talked about the exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum that featured Tsutaya Jūzaburō, master printer of the Edo Era.  The most famous artist that…

Hotel -> Sumida Hokusai Museum -> Unicorn Gundam -> Shiodome -> Hotel Stay tuned. More details to follow on how we spent today, sadly our last day in Japan. Tomorrow (Monday the 5th), we leave Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at 17:00 (5:00 pm) and land at LAX on Monday the 5th at 11:00am. Isn’t that clever?…

A cafe in Kanazawa seemingly designated for Americans.

Throughout our visit to Japan we constantly come across groups of girls or boys dressed in secondary school uniforms.  We never see the high school age kids mix genders as they walk too or from school.  At first I thought, that’s a lot of private schools!  Then I found out that, “While relationships are common in schools worldwide,…

Tokyo, from the upper floors of towers and high rises, looks impossibly huge, all gleaming steel and glass, all business. Buildings for miles into the distance. On the ground, it’s just people. Each neighborhood its own village. The corner market, local dry cleaners, tucked away flower shops, side of the street niches with ever-protective jizus,…

Yesterday, after the sumo slam and water goblins, I dragged Ella to the famous Ginza strip.  The street was closed off to all traffic permitting only pedestrians.  It was like walking down the La Rambla in Barcelona only instead of stalls there were luxury department stores. I had looked up a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that had…

Following nearly two hours of watching big sweaty men body slam each other, we headed up to the Kappabashi area via subway. Sōgenji Temple, aka Kappa-dera, home to the water goblins (kappa) of Japanese folklore. Founded as a Sōtō Zen temple in 1588, it moved locations several times (who wants water goblins in their backyard?)…

Hotel -> Sumo stable -> Sōgenji Temple -> Ginza (and conveyer belt sushi in a camera store) -> hotel Yeah, we saw these guys up close and personal.

As we rounded a corner heading to the Sumo stable, we caught sight of the wrestlers on the street getting some air. As we walked into the practice area, we could understand why. The smell of sweat was pungent. These guys had already been going at it. A stable, by the way, is a group…

We went to a sumo training stables this morning to watch a dozen wrestlers work out their moves before the big national tournament that begins in a couple of weeks.  It was a two hour drill where black belted trainees faced off before white belted professionals inside a prescribed circle lightly dusted with fine dirt.  When they…

From the contemporary art museum, these caught my eye because how could they not? The artist is Shinohara Ushio (1932-). The sculpture is called Motorcycle. The painting is called Motorcycle and Geisha. Photos below. From the Tokyo National Museum, the ancient carved from wood statues. Photo below. From the plaque: “Kichijöten, Goddess of Good Fortune Heian period, 10th century…