Dark Night

Tokyo

From there, we went to the Imperial Palace which is surrounded by a moat, and took a free walking tour. Kitanomaru Park is the most northern park, home to the Nippon Budokan, an indoor sports and performance arena, a science museum, and the National Museum of Modern Art.  Kitanomaru Park was originally the location of the northernmost section of Edo Castle, known as the Kitanomaru. It was used as both a medicinal garden and a secure residential compound for members of the Tokugawa extended family. The park is almost encircled by deep moats and defensive fortifications from the original castle.

Walking south, we went into the East Garden,which encompasses the former Honmaru and Ninomaru areas of Edo Castle. Tokyo was originally name Edo, and the castle was where the Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Tokugawa shogunate in the early 17th century. The Shogunate ended the warring state period, fragmented, with warlords fighting each other. Tokugawa came out on top and unified the nation, called "Tenka Toitsu (Unification of the Universe)." After the resignation of the shogun and the Meiji Restoration, it became the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

The shogun required the to supply building materials or money, and labor, a method that the shogunate used to keep the powers of the daimyos, who were powerful feudal lords, in check. Large granite stones were brought great distances, the size and number of the stones depending on the wealth of the daimyos. The wealthier ones had to chip in more. Those who did not supply stones were required to provide the labor for such tasks as digging the large moats and flattening hills. The earth that was taken from the moats was used as landfill for sea-reclamation or to level the ground. The construction of Edo Castle laid the foundation for parts of the city where merchants were able to settle nearby. At least 10,000 men were involved in the first phase of the construction and more than 300,000 in the middle phase. When construction ended, the castle had 38 gates. The ramparts were almost 20 meters high and the outer walls were 12 meters high. Moats forming roughly concentric circles were dug for further protection. Parts of the ramparts survive to this day. This area is bordered by either the sea or the Kanda River, allowing ships access. Following the capitulation of the shogunate in 1867, the inhabitants and shogun had to vacate the fortifications. The castle compound was renamed Tokyo Castle in 1868 and then the Imperial Castle  in 1869. In the year Meiji 2 (1868), the emperor moved to Tokyo and Edo castle became an imperial palace. Most of the wooden Meiji-era structures of the Imperial Palace were destroyed in Allied bombing raids in 1945. A new main palace hall and residences were constructed on the western portion of the site in the 1960s. The area was renamed Imperial Residence in 1948, while the eastern part was renamed East Garden and became a public park in 1968. The area encompassed by the residence and gardens has been greatly reduced over time, with commercial development taking over some of the original grounds. I compared this briefly to the Forbidden City.

We got to see the massive stones used in the construction of the castle, and moved on to Ninomaru Grove, elegant and beautiful even in winter, with a lovely pond and a teahouse. The big lawn is where the castle's main keep, or honmaru, was located. Just inside the gate was the Museum of Imperial Collections, which features small, frequently changed exhibits drawn from over 9500 works of art owned by the imperial family. There are several buildings for administrative functions, archives, and a music hall.  To the south of this was Kokyo-gaien, the large public outer gardens of the palace that features a bronze stature of  Kusunoki Masashige, a brilliant fourteenth century samurai who came to represent the ideal warrior and was taken as a sort of patron saint of WWII kamikazis. The residence itself is usually closed to tourists. Interestingly, the oldest Chrysanthemum Throne, which is used for enthronement ceremonies for a new emperor, is located in Kyoto. The Japanese monarchy is the oldest in the world, existing even during the shogunates with greatly reduced power.

From there we needed both a change of topic and lunch, so we visited something completely different--Tokyo's famous enormous department stores at Nihonbashi, a traditional center of commerce. We went to Takashiyama Nihonbashi, which is the newer (built in 1933) of the two great stores there, elegant and impressive, a beautiful representation of the Showa style. It features a great iron door in  the front exit that depicts harmony of Japanese and western style design. There is a marble wall, imported from Italy, that has ammonite fossils in it, and a beautiful rooftop water feature and garden.  I swear Grandpa had his credit card out before we even went in. There are a lot of restaurants there so we ate a hearty lunch before exploring the store and the surrounding specialty shops. There was a store, in operation for three hundred years, that made handmade toothpicks and boxes to keep them in. Their output is 400 toothpicks a day. A store named Kuroeya sold lacquerware and Grandpa was assured, when he bought a small platter, that the color of the lacquer would deepen and improve with use. Tehre were sweetshops and confectionaries everywhere, and I bought a good-sized box of assorted candies to take back with me to the house. Writing might be a dying practice in the US, but there were stationery stores all around that sold exquisite paper goods and a huge assortment of pens and inks. I bought a couple of disposable fountain pens to try. They also sold hanko, or signature stamps that were used on official documents that had your name in Japanese characters. Grandpa ordered one for each of us; they would ship them when they were done.  I was intrigued by socks that were like gloves, a separate bit for each toe instead of like a mitten, and one of the salespeople, hearing that we were headed to the Olympics, recommended that we get kairo, or pocket warmers. For about 500 yen, ($% US) you could get a package of ten disposable ones, so we stocked up; the weather said that it was really cold and snowy in Sapporo.

Grandpa insisted on getting me a kimono; I asked the saleslady, nervously, if this was cultural appropriation, but she assured me that it was common and not a problem. She did say that for novice wearers, a yukata was easier to wear, with fewer parts to worry about. They are made of cotton in beautiful prints and colors, and that was what I got. I emerged with a midnight-blue yakata printed in white and pale lavender flowers that looked like a garden in the moonlight, with a pre-tied  obi in a rich lavender. The obi was arranged in a cute bow in the back. It also came in a package with an inner belt, a pair of thin cords to wear over the obi, traditional geta sandals, tabi socks (they were made from woven cloth rather than knitted like regular socks), underwear (an white cotton underrobe woven with a maple leaf design) , a beautiful pale pink, white, and dark blue folding fan, and a little drawstring bag called a kinchaklu. Then he got taken with the jackets called haori, worn by both men and women. He got himself a dark green one, then, because fit isn't as important as with a kimono or yakata, one for everybody else. He got Dad a red one, Mom  a peach one, Stan a dark indigo one that had a small round gold design scattered all over, and for me a black one with a subtle water design across the back an tip of one sleeve.

Fortunately, we were running out of time or I don't know how I'd have gotten him out of there. There was enough time to stop by the office in the department store that would mail things for you, and we mailed everything but the candy. I could pick up the yukata over spring break--I was planning on going home for it for once. If the yukata was less complicated, I had no idea how much more complex a kimono would be. Then we went back to the capsule hotel, retrieved our belongings, and took the bullet train for Sapporo.