Once we got through Customs, we checked into one of Tokyo's famous capsule hotels for the experience. We had arrived in the early evening, so we checked into Bay Hotel. Because by law the sleeping pods can't be locked, the hotel provided lockers to stash your stuff, and for safety, the floors were segregated by sex; I was up on the women's levels and Grandpa was down on the men's, with locks requiring a passcard to get through to the accomodations on each floor. On check-in, we were issued towels for the shower, light pajamas, and an amenities package that included two cotton swabs. There were showers and a common bathroom on each floor. Bemused, we stashed our things in the lockers and went out to eat.
After a delicious dinner, we went to Kappabashi-dori, which is basically a cook's paradise, a whole big street of shops devoted to the kitchen. Tons of pottery, chopsticks--both big packs of disposable ones and beautiful ones meant to be washed (I got a beautiful pair of green and blue enameled ones with thin gold lines separating the colors) , appliances... anything and everything that can be used in a kitchen, basically. There is some sort of enormous market for fake plastic food, apparently--the things that are used in restaurants to entice customers or in nutrition classes. There was a lot of it and apparently popular with tourists. Neither Grandpa nor I saw the appeal and passed. But Grandpa kind of lost his head when we passed a store named Kama-asa, which sold knives. Beautiful Japanese-made knives, the kind that cost the earth back home. He bought a few knives for himself and two vegetable knives in the Japanese style, single edged, and two Western-style knives for meat, double edged. And there was an artisan on site who engraved Japanese characters into the metal. Grandpa had his name on his knives and "Delia, love Grandpa" and "Stan, love Grandpa" on the two other sets. "Checked luggage, punkin," he said before I could say anything. I smiled. Grandpa isn't much for shopping at home, but apparently, get him on vacation and he's eager to stimulate the local economy.
After wandering through the street, we exited and went back to the hotel. We retrieved our necessary gear from the lockers and separated for the night. I used my passcard and entered my assigned floor; it was quiet and there were no overhead lights; the light came from empty capsules. I found my number after stopping at the bathroom. There were a couple of women going to their units but nobody spoke. The capsules were a meter high and a meter wide, a little over two meters long, off-white, with the end a black curved screen. There was an LED tv with headphones, which accounted for the quiet on the floor. It came with a pillow and a duvet and free WiFi. I crawled in and closed the solid door behind me. It was really cozy but also kind of claustrophobic and I didn't want to spend a lot of time in it. I wanted to relax a little so I sorted my photos and uploaded some that showed the luxurious plane and food (normally I don't think anybody's really going to be interested in what I eat but the airplane meals had been flabbergastingly good) as well as my capsule and the knife store. Then I got myself settled and set the alarm before turning off the light.
I didn't sleep as well as I'd hoped because not being able to lock the entry to my capsule made me a little uneasy. But I was also really tired so I still got a decent amount of shuteye. I was glad to exit my capsule when the alarm went off to go shower, and pulled my hair back in a ponytail, ready for the day's adventure. I met Grandpa downstairs.
We only had one day in Tokyo, and not even a full one, to my regret, but the Olympics were waiting. He'd picked a few sites to hit, and we had a hasty breakfast before going to the Meiji Shrine, which is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken. Emperor Meiji was the first emperor of modern Japan. He ascended to the throne in 1867 at the peak of the Meiji Restoration when Japan's feudal era ended and the emperor was restored to power. Japan became Westernized by the time Emperor Meiji died in 1912. The shrine was destroyed in WWII but rebuilt and is currently a serene oasis in the crowded and busy city.The main complex of shrine buildings is located about ten minutes inside and is marked by a massive wood torii gate. A forest of about a hundred thousand trees that were donated to the site from all around the country adds to the tranquility. After planting, the trees have been untouched by arborists and it is a completely natural forest. At the shrine, visitors can participate in Shinto traditions, including making offerings at the main hall, buying charms and amulets or writing out one's wish on an ema, a wooden plate, in the hope that the wish will come true. Thinking quickly, I wrote the wish that my brother would do his best in the competition. I bought omamori, traditional charms in beautiful fabric pouches, for me and my friends. I bought my old friends from Duke's Crossing ones for success in school exams, and different ones for my newer friends who weren't going on to grad school. Feeling a little sheepish, I also bought one for myself for luck in love. Honestly, I needed all the help I could get. We visited the Treasure House, which displays some of the personal belongings of the Emperor and Empress, including the carriage in which the emperor rode to the formal declaration of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. It was all pretty impressive. It was so beautiful in the snow, serene and peaceful.
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.