Trini in Tokyo » Holiday

Easter in Chiba

Sade — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:54:18 +0000

I spent my first Easter weekend in Japan with my host family in Mobara, Chiba. Probably few people living in Tokyo have ever been to Chiba, as Chiba itself is a two hour train rude and then the ride to Mobara station is another two hours away, but I consider it my second home since I did a home-stay there three years ago. So Easter is right in the middle of sakura season and we got to do a lot if hanami while we were there.

The highlight of the trip, though, was stumbling across a temple in the process of being constructed after Easter Sunday service. It was beautiful. We were just taking a walk and decided to go strolling through the temple grounds and a graveyard ( yes I realize that sounds strange but Japanese graveyards are somehow less creepy since people actually care for them) and one of the men building the temple basically dragged us in to show us his handiwork.

The temple was being worked on by a pair of Japanese men, and they had built the whole thing just the two of them for about three years. When we got there they said it would be done in the summer, by August.

They showed us how the temple is built without glue, and that everything must fit precisely together. They showed us how to interlock two pieces of wood so that it is almost impossible to take them apart again. They drew the eaves in the temple at full scale, freehand, taking weeks just to get the proper balance and flow of the curves. Here and there the temple was dotted with hand made medallions of pure gold that cost about 20,000 yen each.
The younger craftsman was working on a connection between the older temple and the newer one, but he had no blueprint for it and so he was just working from imagination. These guys are really perfectionists. He showed us where he made a mistake, placing a joint a centimeter off or so, and he was so upset about it that he slapped it!

I was really glad at this moment that my japanese had improved a lot since I first got here, or the experience might not gave been as amazing as it was. Just how do you become a temple builder? The younger craftsman shared with us that initially he just wandered around the world, going to Australia, the us, and Latin America until he decided on working in japan where he could at least be in the same country as his family. They gave us thinly shaved pieces of the cedar they were using as souvenirs, and let us put it out as they planed the wood.

A funny thing was, since it was Easter Sunday we had gotten some Easter eggs at church and decided to give the carpenters these as thanks. But when we gave it to them they asked, ” why are you giving me an egg?” ” isn’t that unhealthy fir an old gut like me?”. We said it was fir Easter, a Christian holiday, and they asked “so what does Jesus have to do with eating eggs?”

What indeed.

新年あけましておめでとうございます！

Sade — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:21:06 +0000

Happy New Year!

To celebrate, how about a list of complaints that you can expect from living in Tokyo?

A little too true: “My wallet is full of pointcards instead of cash.”

The video is of Japan’s complaint choir. These choirs are part of a sort of global project to turn all the energy spent by people complaining into something positive. They are all pretty amusing, but this is the first one I really understood, since I have been living in Tokyo for a little while now.
You can read more about them here.

2009 紅葉特集

Sade — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:25:27 +0000

I missed hanami (花見) where everyone goes to watch the beautiful sakura blossoms, but momijigari (紅葉狩) is just starting!

Momijigari is like hanami, everywhere there are advertisements for viewing trips, and they even forecast the best time to go see leaves change during the weather report. There are many places online that monitor each of the most popular parks for momijigari in Japan, like the Yahoo! kouyou site and this rurubu site. They have maps of Japan with little yellow , red, and green leaves to show you were the leaves have started turning. North Japan is full of red leaves, but Tokyo’s momijigari season hasn’t started yet.

There are a few places that have already started to show beautiful leaves, though.

明治神宮外苑 (Meiji Shrine Outer Gardens)

Right now the leaves are just beginning to turn, and the leaves will continue to change until the end of December. This is a beautiful shrine even when the leaves are all green, so it will be amazing to see the towering trees all in yellow.

国営昭和記念公園 (Showa Kinen Park)

This park was created to commemorate the reign of Emperor Showa (often called Hirohito) and it seems like a beautiful area in Tachikawa. It was built on land that used to be an air-force base, and the land has been steadily converted to park land since 1983. It is going to have a complete grand opening on October 26,2009. Perfect timing for the most beautiful leaf viewing! The leaf view should last until the end of the month.

日光山輪王寺の紅葉 (Nikko Zanrin Temple)

This is how beautiful Nikko Zanrin Temple looks right now!

This isn’t in Tokyo, but it is in Kanto and only a few hours away. Nikko is a world heritage site and it displays some of Japan’s oldest cultural artifacts. There are beautiful waterfalls, temple after temple, and you can even see the first image of the see-no-evil monkeys carved into wood there.

Judging from the pictures, you have to hurry if you want to make it, but it will be worth it.

I hope I get to go to at least one of these parks before the leaf viewing season is over!

クリスマスの時

Sade — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:54:13 +0000

It is only a few days after Halloween, and already the stores at Ikebukuro are putting up Christmas decorations. The pumpkins and costumes that had been selling since September are gone as quickly as they came.

It’s Party Time

Sade — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:24:09 +0000

It’s that time of year…

In fall, many Japanese universities have festivals, or sai (祭) that are like town carnivals. At bigger ones, like at my university Waseda the festivals are like concerts, and have many entertainers and bands come to perform. There are street vendors selling food and little souvenirs, as well as student groups performing acts they have been working on for months.

The best thing about these is that they are free and open to anyone!

Tomorrow is National Culture Day and everyone is off, so it would be a good day to see the closing festival of Sophia-sai.

Waseda-sai begins on 11/7 and closes 11/8, and will have many famous singers come and perform, so I am definitely going to be there to show some school spirit!

p.s.

At university festivals there is a food called daigaku-imo, or University yams, that is a very starchy sweet dessert. I hate it, but Just Hungry has instructions on how to make it, if you are into that sort of thing.

Tricks and Treats in Japanese Halloween

Sade — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:47:11 +0000

There was too much fuss this year over Halloween in Tokyo! Even though Japan has a long history of fairly scary things, the commercial American style Halloween has become more popular over the years. That has its good points and its bad points.

There is of course the Infamous Yamanote Halloween Train, which in previous years has caused delays and trouble on the beloved Yamanote line.

Shortly after the posting at GaijinPot, Japanese critics at 2-channel began to respond, some of them with death threats.

Well, by Halloween night, this was the scene at Shinjuku Sation.

This year, there were more protesters than revelers, and the police seemed to be there more to stop them from hurting anyone than anything else. The Yamanote line ran undisturbed that night. I’m sure anyone who happened to show up in costume at Shinjuku must have been confused and scared.

Elsewhere, peace and joviality reigned.

Tokyo Disneyland held its annual Halloween festivities, complete with parade and Nightmare Before Christmas ride. La Citadella held its annual costume parade and live performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Namja town was even more creepy than usual.

And the morning trains emptied themselves of ghouls and filled back up with salarymen.