Taylor and I met a couple of guys from Nicaragua and Argentina, who had been invited to Japan to take part in a conference in Tokyo about global warming and how developing nations (such as theirs) could play a role in enacting and promoting the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol.
When we first said hello, they asked us where we were from and we said, “America.” This is the response Japanese people expect; they do not understand either an individual state name or “the United States.” It is, however, a politically-incorrect response to give to people from Nicaragua and Argentina, who informed us that we were from North America and that South America is also America. Oops.
B is for the red-lacquered Shinkyo Bridge.
According to the legends, a famous Buddhist priest named Shodo Shonin and his retinue were attempting to explore the Nikko mountain area in 767 when they were halted by the then-bridgeless Deiwa River. Shodo Shonin prayed, and the god Jinja Daio appeared with two snakes that he used to create a bridge for the priest and company to cross. No word on how they got back across the river when they were done with the mountain.
Anyway, in 1636, they built a bridge that looks like this:
Our first choice for a hostel was full, probably because of the long weekend. Our second choice was very clean and very nice, but also a very Do-It-Yourself affair (they handed us sheets when we checked in, and towels for the communal bath could be rented). It also had a 10 pm curfew, which we were initially somewhat upset about. However, upon arrival at 8.30 to discover a ghost town of dark shop windows and closed restaurants, it ceased to seem like such a drag.
The hostel was situated partway up a hill, and the row of windows made it look, in Cinderellan terms, “like a lovely diamond necklace in the dark.” It was very welcoming and very, very pretty.
Then, just to seal the deal of the hostel as a good omen for a good trip, two deer, one male and one female, ran across the front yard and into the woods just as we approached.
E is for Ebisu.
At the first temple we visited, I bought a good luck charm for 200 yen. It was like a vending machine except for trustworthy people: you dropped in your money and then reached through a hole in the glass to select a little plastic-wrapped packet that includes a written prophecy (which I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true) and a little gold-colored metal charm.
I pulled out Ebisu, who is “loved as one of the notable blessing deities. He is also known as a deity of bringing laughter, the source of good luck and the wellspring of happiness” (according to the little informative slip of paper).
F is for First Instance of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys.
The Toshogu Shrine is the exception that proves the rule in terms of Shinto shrines being austere and unadorned. Every surface that could possibly bear a carving does, but many of them are relatively incomprehensible to the Westerner who does not have a solid grasp of Japanese, Buddhist, and/or Shinto mythology.
This one isn’t.
I actually have a lot of problems with the political apathy apparently promoted by the monkeys, but I am pretty pleased and excited to have seen the very first instance, from the 17th century, of representing “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” with monkeys.
[Gaijin in Japanese means “foreigner,” but it’s not a very polite term; it’s relatively the same as calling someone a “wetback” instead of an “illegal immigrant.” It has been adopted by foreigners for ironic self-identification much the same way “band geek” is now a term of affection and belonging.]
Nikko is a tourist town, which meant that it was filled with foreigners of all stripes, all of whom were extremely friendly. We met the two South Americans at a random waterfall, and had a several-hours-long chat with them, before they had to catch their train back to Tokyo, without ever even exchanging names. We then met a gay couple, Christian and Nigel, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, when two seats at their table were the only ones available in the restaurant we went into. They were staying at our hostel, so we walked back together, showed them how to set up a futon, and made plans to go to Lake Chuzenji together the next day.
I was also offered 200 yen to rent a towel by a random guy at the vending machine (Taylor had the room key, where my wallet was, but they lent me the towel on credit), and we met an Australian student on the train back.
Fleeting connections, but very genuine.
The proliferation of foreigners also meant a proliferation of English in the street signs, explanatory placards, maps, and tourist information centres, which was very helpful.
The building adorned by the monkey carvings was actually a stable, which houses the Sacred Horse.
This is the Sacred Horse:
His name is Koha. He was a gift from New Zealand (see “Z”). He is the only foreign horse currently serving as a Sacred Horse in Japan.
I have no idea why Koha is a Sacred Horse, or why it is necessary for Toshogu to have a Sacred Horse. I’m afraid I have no further information at all. The whole thing seemed rather surreal and bizarre to me.
Incidentally, Koha has a pretty sweet life. He “works” for four hours every day, when the door is open and hundreds of people take his picture. The rest of the day he spends in a pasture. I think I want to be reborn as a Sacred Horse.
Ieyasu Tokugawa was a shogun who died in the early years of the 1600s and requested that a shrine be built in his honor. This was done, and everyone was happy.
At least, they were happy for about two generations. Ieyasu Tokugawa’s grandson, Iemitsu Tokugawa, decided that the shrine was nowhere near elaborate or impressive enough. Toshogu Shrine is the result of his vision, and his sub-lords’ tax dollars (which kept them from rising up against him!). It is visually overwhelming almost to the point of exhaustion.
J is for Jakukou Falls.
On Sunday afternoon, Taylor and I had planned to take a bus up to Lake Chuzenji. Traffic, however, meant that a trip usually lasting less than an hour would have taken two and half hours. So instead we decided to check out a nearby park (see “P”), one stop away on the train. We came back to town about an hour and a half before dark, and decided to try to make it to a nearby waterfall.
About two kilometres later, we did make it -- just barely. There is very little photographic evidence of the waterfalls, both because it was already too dark for my camera to cope and because they were nowhere near impressive enough to justify an hour-and-a-half-long walk.
We did, however, meet the South Americans at Jakukou. Chatting with them was worth the walk.
K is for Kegon Falls.
This waterfall, ironically, would have been worth the walk and yet required almost no walking at all. We rode a very spiffy elevator 100 metres through the bedrock then walked out through a tunnel onto a three-story observation platform with incredible views not only of the waterfall proper but also of large amounts of water flowing from all kinds of other streams and fissures in the rock.
L is for Lake Chuzenji.
On Monday morning, Taylor and I joined Christian and Nigel and the four of us caught a bus that went up to Lake Chuzenji, which is nestled in a valley partway up the mountains. Our maps and information led me to believe that it was a national park, which I envisioned a bunch of hiking trails with a rustic sort of visitors’ centre, but instead we found a bustling small town with a rather built-up lakeside. I’m sure there was hiking available -- somewhere -- but most people seemed to be choosing to explore the lake via animal-shaped paddleboats.
After admiring the Falls, we meandered along the side of the lake admiring the views until lunchtime, after which we headed back into town to catch our train.
M is for Monkeys!
When I came to Japan, I had two goals. One was to stay at a Buddhist temple and eat their vegan cooking called shojin ryori. The other was to see wild monkeys. One of those goals has now been realized, on the shores of Lake Chuzenji:
None of us had yet seen Japanese monkeys, and we were all pretty excited. There were three, two adults and a baby, who scampered away along a chain-link fence by the river before we could get very many pictures.
Monkeys!
N is for Nemuri Neko.
Very little of Nikko is overrated or overpriced. The Nemuri Neko (Sleeping Cat in English) is both.
The admission price for Toshogu does not include the Nemuri Neko, for which you have to pay an extra 520 yen. From there, you join the throng of people and push through a small gate, directly above which is a wooden carving maybe 12 inches long.
I honestly would have missed it if everyone in line ahead of us hadn’t been taking pictures. We could not figure out what the big deal was. I was convinced it must have some kind of massive symbolic or spiritual meaning, so Taylor (who speaks Japanese) asked one of the assistants selling worship aids. Her response, according to his translation, was: “It’s old and it’s cute.” Leave it to the Japanese to put that much emphasis on something’s being cute.
Ironically, not that many people were interested in climbing the approximately 800 steps that followed the cat-adorned gate, at the top of which was the actual tomb of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the reason the whole place was built.
O is for Onsen.
The hostel came equipped with a traditional Japanese communal bath, in which you remove your clothing in an outer room, wash and rinse sitting on small wooden stools at half-height showers with detachable showerheads, and then soak in extremely hot water. I am actually not a big fan of hot water, and my favourite part of the bath was getting out and rinsing off with cool water -- but it sure was a good way to relax after a long day of tramping around.
The baths were particularly nice in our place -- wooden walls, granite tile. That was included in the price of the room. But you had to pay 200 yen for a towel.
P is for the Park in Imaichi that featured cedars and waterwheels.
On Sunday afternoon, when we discovered that we couldn’t make it to Lake Chuzenji, we were advised to ride the train one stop west, to a pretty little park. The tourist information lady told us that it had a lot of cedars that were planted 300-400 years ago. She did not tell us that it also heavily featured wooden waterwheels and funky stone carvings.
We couldn’t figure out if the waterwheels were actually accomplishing anything (don’t waterwheels have the ability to produce power?), or whether they were just there for show.
Incidentally, Nikko and its environs are absolutely flooded with waterways. This park had at least four different streams running through it (at one of which I insisted that Taylor play Poohsticks with me, at which point his regard for my intelligence may have dropped considerably). The town proper, entirely aside from the two sets of waterfalls, had rivers and streams everywhere, including along the sides of the roads. I’m astonished that Shodo Shonin only needed to magically acquire one bridge in order to make his way around.
Q is for Quiet, which we found at Futarasan-jinja.
As we walked along the shores of Lake Chuzenji, we encountered yet another shrine. This one, however, was nearly devoid of tourists. The few people who were there were mostly praying or standing quietly taking in the scenery. It was a pretty welcome relief to the senses, after the crowded and almost-overstimulating chaos of Toshogu the day before.
R is for Rinno-ji.
This temple, which was founded by Shodo Shonin, of Shinkyo Bridge fame, was our first stop on Sunday morning. The outside was relatively unimpressive, as Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (the two religions were merged at one point, and ever since have been divided only with very fuzzy and permeable lines -- most Japanese people consider themselves to belong to both traditions) usually are.
But inside, we found three ten-foot-high statues: the thousand-headed Kannon, the Amida Buddha, and the horse-headed Kannon. The first and third looked more like demons than like what I think of as gods -- I find the most interesting difference between Eastern and Western religions to be the Asian expectation that their gods will fight tooth and nail for them. Life of Pi describes the disappointment and scorn of the narrator (a Hindu) when he discovers the passivity of Jesus’ “passion.”
We took the shinkansen to get there, but left undecided our methods for getting back -- the “bullet train” is very expensive, but much faster than local trains. When we discovered that our trip back would be 6 hours long and only $25 cheaper than the one-hour-long shinkansen trip, we got back on the shink.
It was my first time travelling on the shinkansen since we came to Sendai from Tokyo. I was again underwhelmed. It just doesn’t feel like you’re travelling 300 kilometers/188 miles an hour.
T is for Taylor, my travelling partner.
Here we are, by the Kegon Falls:
He was extremely patient with both my cheapskate tendencies and my affection for kitschy souvenirs.
U is for Up the side of a mountain.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that most roads that lead cars up the sides of mountains wind long distances around the mountains, so that the grade is relatively low and the trip is relatively long.
The road up Lake Chuzenji does not follow this rule. Instead, hairpin turns and a very, very steep road mean that at any one time you can look out the window of the bus and look out over a many-foot drop, crossed with about four levels of road that you just came up -- or you can be looking up at a cliff criss-crossed with four levels of road that you’re about to be on.
It was an experience, but I kept my eyes closed on the way down.
V is for Vegetarianism.
Even by American standards, I ate well this trip -- which means that by Japanese standards, I ate spectacularly. Not only is the regional speciality made out of tofu (see “Y”), but the restaurants in town are well-used to dealing with Western tourists and their weird dietary requirements. (People actually knew the meaning of the word “vegetarian”!!)
We found an Indian restaurant, whose owner opened the door while we were examining the menu and beckoned us in with “Indian food! Very delicious! Come in!”, which featured a vegetarian spread of two curries, naan, saffron rice, a samosa, salad, and lussi. I had forgotten how much I love Indian food.
Taylor spotted this sign that evening:
The menu had about six vegetarian Japanese options, clearly labelled with neat little green Vs. I ordered yakisoba, which is kind of like fried rice except with buckwheat noodles instead of rice. Usually it involves little pieces of fish, ground beef, or pork, so I was pretty excited to not have to pick anything out of it before eating it. The food was as wonderful as the atmosphere: the walls inside were plastered with little notes and business cards in many languages from people through the years who have approved of the place as much as we did.
We met Christian and Nigel here, and spent enough time talking that eventually the waitress kicked us out, telling us that she was sorry but this was a restaurant and not a coffeehouse.
W is for Woodcarving Exhibition.
When we got off the train at Kami-imaichi, looking for the cedars-and-waterwheels park, we noticed a group of people sitting in a little hall attached to the station. They waved us in most enthusiastically, so we decided to check out what was happening. It turned out to be an exhibition of local woodcarving, including some pieces by schoolkids. Some of them were just your basic woodcarving, but others were truly spectacular. My favourites were the chests of drawers that were so heavily carved with intricate leaf-and-flower designs that it was hard to find the drawer handles. I like utilitarian art. We wandered through the little exhibition hall, Taylor asked questions about the pieces and translated the answers for me, and we signed our names in the guestbook (Taylor can do his in kanji, but I had to rely on katakana).
Later, when we were waiting for the train to go back to Nikko proper, one of the ladies came running out and presented us with tangerines, muffins, and rice crackers -- “to eat on the train,” she explained.
X is for X-rated antiques.
Nikko is full of antiques shops. On our way into town from the temples, we window-shopped and occasionally wandered through one that seemed interesting.
In one, I found a stack of off-center prints of birds and other animals that I would have bought if I hadn’t been sure that carting them around in a backpack for the rest of the day would ruin them. Next to that stack was a white sheet of paper hand-printed (in English): “Pornography. Adult only.”
Pornography not usually being something you find in a rather dusty antiques shop run by a little old Japanese lady, I called Taylor over and we investigated. It was indeed antique pornography -- on sale because it was off-center, like the birds and animals. It was also very weird -- very difficult to decipher what was supposed to be happening.
Y is for Yuba-ryori.
The speciality of the region, yuba-ryori is tofu that has been flattened into thin strips and then rolled or squished into various shapes. We found a small café-and-gift-shop that served us just enough to try two varieties. One was wheel-shaped and tasted like intriguely-textured tofu. The other was vaguely round and flat, and was called sashimi yuba. It had the texture, and to an astonishing degree the taste, of fish sashimi. I don’t know how they did that, but I definitely prefer it to real sashimi.
Z is for New Zealand, giver of the Sacred Horse.
Koha (see “H”), whose name means “gift” in Maori, was given to Japan by the government of New Zealand “as a token of goodwill and friendship between the two countries” (according to the placard on his stall).
Taylor was intrigued at how easy a gesture this was for New Zealand to make. “Here’s a horse, now we’re friends!”
I was more interested in what would happen if the ship carrying the Sacred Horse from New Zealand sank. “Oh well, I guess we weren’t meant to be friends.”
We both found the Sacred Horse to be a bit of a weird idea.
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