Chilling out... and Japanese Food

A friend let us use her family's cottage in Suffolk so we took the chance to go for a few days, and a very good idea it was. I've been getting all wound up about various things that aren't worth getting wound up about... and then feeling annoyed with myself because I know it's all really trivial YET I KEEP FUSSING ABOUT IT.  As I expected, a few days without phone or internet blew it all away!

I will download the photos soon, but first.... I still have a few images of Japan in my file, mostly about food.  You might remember I was a bit iffy about Japanese food before I went, but now I'm a fan.  I hope you enjoy looking at these aspects of food.  I start with a picture of how it feels to come into Tokyo in the evening.  We were arriving from Kyoto and had a dinner date within about an hour of arriving, so this picture recalls that feeling.  To be honest, Japanese cities do not present a very pretty appearance from the train but the light gave it a strange charm.

At the station, before each trip, we usually bought snacks to eat on the train, and I was always attracted by the variety of brightly colourful bento boxes. They look as if they are full of sweets, but most of the food is savoury.

Before setting out we had had a  Western style breakfast, with persimmon, salad, mini frankfurters and omlette and mashed potatoes.     Western style food, but far from the fry-ups you  will get at the average British b&b. 

Some of the restaurants presented food in the most elaborate ways. This was seafood - almost too amazing to eat. 

I considered going to MacDonalds and sampling their "take" on Japanese food (it wasn't all hamburgers). But in the end I didn't. 

This tiny model of an old fashioned cake shop stood on a table in the real cake shop we visited in Kanazawa with our friend Rie.   I thought how trusting it was of the owners to leave this little model here unprotected on the table with us.We admired the little display counter full of sweets, and the sweet boxes in the shelves behind. There is a low table so you can sit down, and that is a very interesting green mask hanging on the door.

Here is the real shop, 

This is an autumn cake,  with an autumn leaf and autumn colours and the autumn taste of chestnut, most beautifully presented in a tea house in Kanazawa.

Also in Kanazawa we admired a particularly large sake shop. Bottles of all sizes from tiny to truly huge, ranged along shelves that reached from floor to ceiling. I am afraid I couldn't tell the difference between different types of sake at all. 

Don't know what these bottles are supposed to hold  - look a bit scary actually - but they are some kind of a drink.

I think this little boy is dressed up for Shichi-Go-San, when little girls of 3 or 7 and little boys of 5 dress up in traditional costume.  I was told that the children are given sticks of red and white candy on this day, but if this little lad had had any candy, he'd already eaten it.

I think he might have liked some of the pancakes and waffles in Tokyo's Takashita Street.  It is where teenagers congregate to see and be seen.  Sadly for boys, sweet waffles seem to be considered a bit girly. Certainly it seemed to be only the girls who were buying.

On the whole, people didn't eat the great bags of sweets and snacks that they do here. Perhaps that is why nearly everyone we saw was slim.  

And oh yes, I'll be restricting calories tomorrow.  There is also some excellent food to be had in Suffolk and I feel as if I ate too much of it.  Those Womens Institute cake sales have a lot to answer for! 

Sumo.

Haha, here's me and the new man in my life. T is glad he is only made of cardboard.   I have always been rather fascinated by sumo wrestling. I never really went for European style wrestling but there's something so ritualistic about sumo. It seems to be about more than just hurling the other guy out of the ring.   (I have just found out that it has roots in Shinto religious rituals). 

 When our kind friend Eiko took us to the Edo-Tokyo Museum in the Ryogoku area of Tokyo, I was fascinated by some obviously old photographs of sumo champs that were stuck up in the railway station alongside the slot machines and next to the neon lights and hot water pipes.  

I don't know what the dates of these huge photos are but to me they look quite old, perhaps originally taken in black and white and beautifully coloured with those transparent paints people used to tint photos with.  

You can see this one is a little torn at the bottom, which again suggests that it is old. I didn't ask Eiko what the writing on the frames said. 

These are handprints and signatures of more recent sumo greats.  

and Eiko only just managed to reach up to the height of the tallest wrestler measured, who is Yokozuna Akebono.  (The top guys are called Yokozuna - Grand Champions -  and Yokozuna Akebono is actually Hawaiian-born, which might explain why he is so tall.)

There is a sumo stadium nearby but sadly it was the wrong season going to see a match. I was quite fed up about it.  Still, the next best thing to seeing sumo in Japan seemed to be to follow this pair who shot past us on bikes.....

They were heading for the sumo training centre nearby.   There's an interesting little museum there, and it's free, but you are not allowed to take photos inside.

What interested me most in the museum were beautiful old woodcuts of sumo in which everyone seemed really cheerful and to be having a great time.    I think this fellow from about 1850 looks as if he really enjoys his life. I wish I understood what all the things in the picture were. 

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If and when we return to Japan, I'll try to time the visit to coincide with sumo season. 

I'm finishing a revision of my biography of Lewis Carroll. It is the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland's publication this year and a lot is going on. My other website went off just before Christmas and we've now got it back - I think.  It's been very frustrating. I'll have to start updating it more seriously, and next thing I'm going to do is update the blog. 

Do you like watching local sports when you go somewhere new?

Puzzled in Tokyo

I hope you had a good Christmas.   Ours was really fun, a good mix of seeing friends and family, and down time. And finally I have had  the chance to put together a couple more posts,too, which is even better!   

It's been fun looking at our very first photos.( The one above is a Russian Christmas doll in a Shinjuku store.)  When I was taking them, there wasn't much chance to think because we were running around and seeing things. But now they bring back how charming yet bewildering Japan seemed.   Bewildering of course partly because neither of us can speak or read the language, so I had the usual type of problems-  like buying a pot of jam under the impression it was a tub of yogurt, and so on.

We were so grateful to our Japanese friends for helping us out and so some things that were initially puzzling became clear.  These small figures standing beneath a large statue, dressed in their red woolly hats, I think represent babies and small children who have either been restored to health from illnesses, or are there to represent children who have died, so that Jizo, the bodhisattva who protects travellers and children, can protect them.

 I learned that these figures in the hallway of a house I visited were not cute ornaments, but kami, representing spirits, essences of life or forces-of-nature connected with the Shinto religion.  They can bring good luck if treated right, although they not exactly gods. 

Objects to do with religion are always full of symbolism, and very fascinating to learn about, but the following photos are some of the things we saw when we arrived in Tokyo, that still baffle me. Not all of them are to do with old traditions. Some are quite modern. Others.... well, probably they are just the way that things are done.  

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First, I loved these grand looking white rabbits which were dressed up beautifully. But they don't just look like toys. It is as if they are wearing traditional fabric designs, and perhaps even traditional garments, and so I'm guessing they are something to do with Japanese folklore.   But what?

 I saw these arrays of artificial flowers lined up in an alleyway.  They are not window boxes. 

Opposite them were these circular objects. I think they have cranes on them, which is a symbol of happiness and youth? Or are those winged things some kind of insect?    I just don't know what they are or why they were kept in this side alley.

Now for a modern puzzle.  This machine explains clearly how you put your umbrella in, and then get the umbrella out again encased in plastic.  My question is, why? There is no need to encase a dry and rolled umbrella in plastic. And if the umbrella is wet, you should leave it to drain so it will be dry. If it's been kept wet inside plastic, surely it'll cover you with water when put it up again? 

Mind you, I did not have an umbrella, so I didn't try it out. Perhaps if I had, I'd have understood!

And talking of umbrellas, I wondered why people in Tokyo cycled along with umbrellas in wet weather instead of wearing wet weather gear?  It is not as if umbrellas protect you all that much from the rain when cycling, and what is more, it's very difficult to see the traffic properly if you're holding an umbrella. It's also pretty hard to steer the bike safely with only one hand. I suspect that is just the custom, perhaps one that began when traffic was lighter.

The famous Japanese toilets can cause some confusion with foreigners. This was a simple one, but some had many more buttons than this and one or two had no obvious means of flushing.  I was never quite defeated because I found that if you pressed all the buttons, then finally one would do what I wanted.  

  

It is wonderful to be in a place that is so clean.  If you do spot a piece of litter lying ahead of you in the sparkling streets, it is likely that someone will pick it up and put it in a bin before you reach it yourself.    I have never seen quite that degree of cleanliness and care anywhere else. I didn't once notice a dirty vehicle.   But even so, this concrete mixer caught my eye ...

It was making its way along the narrow street at the end of the day. I had watched the workmen on the site as I passed to and fro, and I thought I'd seen them using this very mixer earlier on.  But look at how clean it is.   Could the workmen possibly have cleaned it up after a day's work? To clean heavy machinery only for it to get dirty again the next day -  well, that would be real dedication to cleanliness!

As I said, though, I never saw a dirty vehicle. 

In the evening, walking through a district of small shops, we were confronted with a black and white inflatable dragon on a hand-drawn wagon,(you can see its open mouth from the front in this image). The dragon was accompanied by people wearing unusual clothes and black makeup around their eyes,  and carrying circular placards.

Every now and then they would stop, take out trumpets, stand in a line and play their trumpets in unison, mostly 17th and 18th century European classical music.  They were extremely good -  I would probably pay to hear them.  But what were they doing? Why had they dressed up like this and brought their music to the city?

They were followed by girls in tutus, who attracted the attention of the Marlboro Dog. 

I thought it might be an advertising parade, but nobody was giving out leaflets, and when I showed my pictures afterwards to Japanese friends, they didn't know what it was all about either.So this will remain a mystery, probably. Anyway the parade went down very well among the many people enjoying snacks in the little open-sided cafes along the way. 

We realised very quickly that we were going to like Tokyo - clean, safe, and with so much to see and so much to interest us and make us think. 

Kanazawa and Halloween

  

Halloween already!  Tokyo is paying homage and even the girls from the frankly rather creepy 'maid clubs'  are dripping with fake blood.   My photo, though,  shows the menu of the respectable little restaurant next door to my hotel.

Japan has been fascinating and unexpected.   Unexpected to me anyway. We're just back from Kanazawa with our friend Rie who's been translating and explaining the many things that we're baffled by, (what various foods and implements are for instance  - I nearly bought some pickled fish thinking 

it was candy). 

We're also accompanied in Kanazawa by Chris from Japan Experience the travel company which has helped me for some of the trip. He's a lot of fun and I feel we've seen a side of the city that most visitors don't see. Here are Chris and Rie doing the Kanazawa version of the Beatles'  "Abbey Road"  cover. 

One of the places we visited was Oyama shrine which has great modern sculpture in its grounds and coloured glass in its tower

Stained and coloured glass is not a Japanese traditional craft.  Dutch stained glass was brought over several centuries ago to Japan when the country was still mostly closed to the outside world.  The shrine was established in 1599 but moved to this location in the 1870s. By then, I suppose coloured glass seemed like  a smart Western style to use  in this beautiful shrine, specially as Kanazawa has a strong artistic tradition. Can you see it in the top window of the tower?  

We also understand that the central area of the pathway is reserved for gods but I'm afraid we walked down it anyway! 

Here is more sculpture. 

There's a tiny gold frog on this Alice in Wonderland leaf. 

 

To get back to Halloween,  I found this image in my files. Looks like a prompt a for a Halloween story, doesn't it?   In fact, it's a prop, and at a particular point in the performance, it swoops out at the audience.   Scary!  But not quite so scary when the audience has just left and the  lights are up. 

 

Happy Halloween!