Zojo-ji and the East Imperial Garden

On September 23, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan1 Comment

On the day that I visited Tokyo Tower, I also took a short walk from there to visit Zojo-ji.

This Buddhist temple, founded in 1393, is the main temple of the Chinzei branch of Jōdo-shū Buddhism.

The proximity of Tokyo Tower makes for from pretty amazing views.

This stairwell is actually on a path just outside of the main gate.

This is the same building pictured earlier, the main hall of the temple.

Off to one side of the courtyard is what’s called an “Unborn Children Garden.”

These rows of statues represent the unborn children of Japan, including miscarried, aborted, and stillborn children.

Parents often choose a statue in the garden to decorate with clothing or toys. They often leave a small gift for Jizō, the guardian of unborn children to ensure that they are brought to the afterlife.

Incense was burning in the courtyard. It smelled very nice.

There were nice statues around the courtyard as well.

Near the exit, ice cream was on sale. It was warm, but not quite warm enough to try the green flavor.

One of my favorite things about Japan was how often you found the older structures nestled among newer construction. Once you walk through that gate, the dial is set back to city.

Speaking of old things, I took some time to look at the East Garden of the Imperial Palace. You can tell it’s a palace because there’s a moat! This is the Seimon Ishibashi bridge, approaching the main gate.

The hard plastic entry token was printed in Japanese on one side and English on the other- I had to turn it back in when I left. I suspect that’s how they control crowd volume.

The East Garden houses the administrative buildings for the palace, and it also includes some older historical buildings from the Edo period.

Also, there’s fish statues.

This was a guard house of some sort. Regrettably, I have misplaced my notes about this structure.

This was living quarters for samurai, if I remember correctly.

The East Garden is vast and winding, and quite pretty.

This isn’t far from the heart of the Otemachi financial district, but you’d never know it.

This stone is similar to one which marks the place where the 47 Ronin story began.

I only saw a tiny fraction of the full Imperial Gardens, and my memory of what the buildings mean is terribly flawed. If I find my notes from that day, I will come back later to update this post with more accurate detail.

Have you ever been to the Imperial Palace Gardens?

Rail Travel And A Giant Gundam!

On September 18, 2015September 29, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan3 Comments

Two of my favorite things about Japan are amazing rail travel and giant robots. Naturally, I went out of my way to see both.

This is the Marunouchi entrance of Tokyo Station, the main intercity rail terminal in Tokyo.

This structure is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Tokyo Station is the busiest rail station in Japan, serving over 3,000 trains per day. The station sprawls out beneath the surface, servicing local metro, local train, and Shinkansen (high speed rail) trains.

Interestingly, Tokyo Station has “sister station” agreements with Amsterdam Centraal railway station in the Netherlands, Grand Central Station in New York, and Hsinchu Station in Taiwan. (Well, I think it’s interesting. Your mileage may vary.)

When approaching Tokyo Station on the subway lines, it’s not unusual to see Nozomi 700 trains, high speed rail on its way into or out of the city.

The Shinkansen have a maximum operating speed of 200 miles per hour, so the best way to get a clear picture of one is to wait for them to stop.

The 700 series Shinkansen are easily recognized by their flat “duck bill” nose and that fast zooming noise you here any time one passes by very, very fast..

The signs on the cars alternate between Japanese and English, but it’s still a good idea to figure out where your wagon stops before the train arrives. The trains move in and out of stations very, very quickly and all seats are assigned except for the last two or three wagons.

Here is a cautionary tale for Shinkansen use: When I was returning to Tokyo from Kyoto, I boarded the Shinkansen at my platform four minutes before my train was scheduled to depart. It left the station a moment after I took my seat, and two minutes later, the train for which I actually had a ticket arrived. I realized that I was on the wrong train a short while later, and I thought I would be fine. However, a helpful fellow train passenger explained to me that this was a local train. Although it was still a Nozomi, it was stopping at far more places. This train would still get me back to Tokyo, but it would get me there several hours later. Luckily, I was able to switch trains in Nagoya to another Express Nozomi that was bound for Tokyo. The trains in Japan are so amazing that even with the transfer in Nagoya, I arrived in Tokyo less than an hour past my original scheduled arrival. True story.

Here’s a photograph of people waiting for the train to pass, because I thought it was a neat picture.

You might be wondering why I mentioned giant robots in the first sentence of this post. I mentioned giant robots because there’s a 1:1 scale Gundam statue in front of Diver City Tokyo in Odaiba- that’s actual size.

At certain times of the day, the Gundam is lit up, with steam bellowing from its chest. The Gundam is affiliated with Gundam Front Tokyo, a fun experience for any Gundam enthusiast.

Diver City Tokyo is basically a multi-level shopping mall, which makes this a fascinating place to find a giant Gundam statue. Inside Diver City, I found a Krispy Kreme!

This picture is really just to show you scale. You can see the people right on the other side of the Gundam’s giant right foot.

Have you ever been on a Shinkansen? What’s your opinion of giant Gundam suits?

Tokyo’s Tallest, or Getting High In Japan

On September 18, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan4 Comments

Given my well established love of very tall places, it is probably no surprise to anyone that I pointed out the view from Mori Tower in my Star Wars Visions post and the view from Granpark. Mori Tower is the 12th tallest structure in Japan, and Granpark is the 25th tallest.

In Tokyo, there are many, many tall buildings. During my time in Japan, I made certain to stop at as many tall places as possible. Three of the tallest in Tokyo are Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Skytree, and the twin observation decks of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Center. This post is about my visits to these three.

I started with Tokyo Tower. Tokyo Tower is painted white and international orange, the same color as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This Eiffel Tower inspired structure was built in 1958, with a total height of 333 meters. I visited the tower on an overcast day, approaching from the Akabanebashi station of the Metro.

The Tokyo Tower has two mascots. Older Brother is wearing the blue outfit, and Younger Brother is in the red. They were introduced on December 23, 1998 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Tokyo Tower.

It is not at all clear to me why Older Brother has a bandaid on his head.

Inside the tower, there are many shopping and tourism opportunities.

A thick glass floor is set into one area of the tower so that you can reach the parking lot in a hurry if you need to.

From the observation level of Tokyo Tower, I had a clear view of the Zojo-ji temple, less than a kilometer away. I visited Zojo-ji on the same day, but I’ll be putting those photos in a separate post.

Anything further out than this was too hard to see, because of the very hazy air.

Fans of the popular anime “One Piece” have a special exhibit to see on one of the lower levels of the tower.

Distant viewing was useless during my visit because of the haze, but that didn’t stop other people from visiting. The sign over this man’s head is pointing to Tokyo Disneyland, which I will also cover in a later post.

Tokyo Tower shaped water bottles- pure marketing genius.

The next tower in this post is Tokyo Skytree. To go there, you will most likely see the Tokyo Skytree station, which has an advertisement for a Moomin Hosue Cafe. I never had a chance to find the Moomins, but I wish I had.

Tokyo Skytree is the tallest structure in Japan. At 634 meters, it’s the tallest tower in the world, and the second tallest structure. (Burj Khalifa is the tallest structure in the world, with nearly 200 meters of height over Skytree. Still, this is damned impressive, don’t you think?)

I waited for a sunny and clear day for my first three attempts to get into Skytree.

On the first try, I arrived later than I had planned and the line was insanely long. I parsed several hours of waiting, so I opted to try again on a day that wasn’t a weekend.

On my second attempt, the line was also too long. I needed to get to work, so couldn’t stay. I decided to try to get there much earlier in the morning, closer to the tower’s opening time.

The third attempt was closer to successful- I arrived much earlier in the day, and the lines were not so long. However, the tower’s elevators had been closed due to high wind. Strike three.

After my first three failed attempts to get into Skytree, my manager told me about the special foreigner line which is designed to allow tourists to bypass the longer lines by paying a slightly higher rate and showing their non-Japanese passport. This turned out to be moot, though- on my fourth and final attempt to see Skytree two days before leaving Japan, the weather was overcast and hazy so the lines weren’t very long anyway.

Skytree has mascots, of course. The girl is called Sorakara-chan. I’m not sure about the dog or penguin.

Tokyo Skytree has a glass floor panel as well. This is definitely not for people with acrophobia.

Despite the haze, you can still see Tokyo Tower in the distance, nesteled in amongst some other very tall buildings.

The view was great, but I wish I’d managed to get up here on a clear day.

My third and final tall building for this post is the ninth tallest structure in Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku is split into two separate towers above the 33rd floor. The elevators to the observation level are free, which was a nice change after spending money at Tokyo Tower and Skytree.

The day before I visited this building, it had rained a great deal. There were moderately high winds, which blew out much of the haze from my other tower visits.

In fact, the air was so clear over Tokyo that I was able to catch sight of Mt. Fuji!

Don’t be deceived by my amazing camera zoom, though- Fuji-san is still a long way from the center of Tokyo. This is the same view as the previous picture, with significantly less zoom.

The Kanda river.

A longer view of the river.

Tokyo is a very dense city, with many very tall buildings.

They still manage to squeeze a lot of green spaces in,though. I think this is Shinjuku Central Park.

What’s the tallest building you’ve ever visited?

Visions Of Star Wars

On September 15, 2015 By StevenIn International Travel - Japan2 Comments

Just before I went to Japan, I started looking into shows and events and interesting things to see in Tokyo. One of the first things I learned was that there was a Star Wars: Visions exhibit in Roppongi Hills from late April until late June. My colleague and I hit the train before work one day, to see the exhibit. There were advertisements in the train stations.

Before we went all the way into the tower, we stopped for a quick breakfast. It turns out that Seattle-based Tully’s Coffee has a presence in Tokyo, and they make very tasty pastries. I think this was an apple based pastry, if I remember correctly. It was quite good.

Mori Tower was our next stop. This is where the Star Wars exhibit was being held, as well as a Naruto exhibit which we did not visit.

On the walk into Mori Tower, there’s a giant spider thing. Fun!

If you’re not sure that you’re headed in the right direction, just look for a sign.

I’m not really a fan of most anime, but it looks like Naruto fans would have really enjoyed this nearby exhibit.

The exhibits are held on the top floors of Mori Tower, which means you get a pretty spectacular view of the city looking out toward Tokyo Tower, the one that looks like a red Eiffel Tower. I’ll get to Tokyo Tower in another post.

Star Wars: Visions is an exhibit of artifacts from the Star Wars universe, as well as some new art pieces. The artifacts were far more interesting to me than the art.

First, you have to get past more giant signs though.

Once you get inside, one of the first things you see is the Death Star!

Here’s a Darth Vader figure in his regeneration chamber.

There was a life-sized Darth Vader lightsaber duel set-up on the roof for you to pick up a lightsaber and get a good photo against the Tokyo skyline. However, that part of the exhibit was closed when we were there. (Dang it, it looks cool!)

We didn’t get to fight a Sith lord, but we did get to see almost every light-saber in the Star Wars film universe.

And models! Lots of tiny lit up models of ships!

The level of detail on these ships is amazing.

So much goodness can be seen here.

Look, it’s a recreation of the two second scene in Jedi when you see a shuttle landing on Endor!

In case you ever wanted to see the individual components of Vader’s mask, here they are. I’ve always been curious about the little brown postage-stamps that ring the face-mask. I can see now that they’re covered in circuitry, which makes total sense to me.

I believe this is an original Boba Fett costume and Han-sicle.

This is an original Han Solo blaster prop.

…and this is actual C3PO and R2-D2 costumes.

On the way out, there’s some rather nifty art in a lucite box.

Have you ever seen a Star Wars exhibit? What was your favorite artifact?

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

On September 13, 2015January 26, 2020 By StevenIn Domestic Travel3 Comments

I thought it might be nice to take a quick break from Japan to show you art in Minnesota. While I was in Minneapolis, I took some time to visit the Walker Art Center. I particularly liked the sculpture garden.

This piece is called Spoonbridge and Cherry, and it was designed by a husband and wife team in the 1980s. I just like it because it’s an enormous spoon.

I don’t have commentary for every photograph. I really like sculpture though.

Horse!

This is the outside of the Walker, showcasing the displays that were ongoing while I was there. The Walker was celebrating 75 years while I was visiting, so there were two different “75 years” themed installations. International Pop covered the emergence of Pop art from the 1950s to the early 1970s.

I like the little round grass patches in front of the building.

This item was part of the “75 Gifts for 75 Years” exhibition.

There was a sign on the floor stating that you should take selfies here and post them to social media with the tag #AtTheWalker. I am a slave to trendiness. Also, I’m partial to this piece because I have a tiny metal version of this piece at home, which I’ve had for years because it came from my grandmother’s house when she passed away.

I think I saw these in the lighting section at Ikea.

It was all done with mirrors!

I read recently about the artist who does these bendy trucks actually getting a parking ticket on his art installation in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. That’s hilarious.