On earlier posts I described many of the great places that I had the good fortune to visit during my time in the U.S. Army, stationed in Tokyo from 1957 through 1959. Five years later I was itching to revisit them. How to do this within my limited budget?
Opportunity struck!
In the summer of 1964, while working for the famous photographer Richard Avedon, I was sent on one of several missions to Paris, with an additional assignment in Spain. My annual vacation began as soon as this ended. So, for a few dollars more, I was able to exchange the airfare tickets (roundtrip NewYork/Paris/Madrid/Malaga/Madrid/Paris/New York) for a "Round the World" ticket with unlimited stops in one direction only. This was on Air France.
Japan at the time was still a relatively cheap place to visit, especially with a strong dollar, so I could afford good hotels, meals, and local transportation. To do this today would cost a great deal more.
The Spain gig done, I hastened to Paris to connect with an Air France flight to Tokyo via the Middle East, India, and Saigon. But trouble was brewing in Vietnam, so I changed to a Polar flight on Japan Air Lines, with stops in Copenhagen and Anchorage. I still have my certificate of having crossed the North Pole, which was just a sheet of white. Sadly, there was no pole to be seen although soon after that I was able to make out Point Barrow, Alaska.
Arriving at Tokyo's Haneda Airport a day early due to the faster flight, I was told that my reservation at the Dai-Ichi Hotel had been changed to JAL's own Nikko Hotel just off the Ginza. This was a little disappointing as I had sometimes stayed at the Dai-Ichi on weekends during my army service and had fond memories of it, but the Nikko was actually a better hotel.
Prior to leaving home, a Japanese friend (and my counterpart at a rival New York studio), Tad Wakamatsu, had put me in touch with his wife, who ran a travel agency in the heart of Tokyo. So the first thing I did was to meet up with her, and then have dinner at her house in the suburbs. She planned a wonderful itinerary for me, which I started right after a two-day orgy of buying cameras and lenses (prices then were much cheaper than in New York). The purchases included a Canon 35mm SLR with three lenses, including one of those newfangled zoom jobs, a Nikonos 35mm underwater camera, and a Mamiya 6x9cm press camera. They all got used in the next few days. Another Japanese friend of mine in New York, photographer Hiro Wakabayashi, had arranged for me to meet with a Tokyo advertising agency to check out their operations. They then took me out for dinner, and I actually ate some shark meat!
My travels into unfamiliar territory began a few days later. Leaving my bags at the hotel and travelling as lightly as possible, I took a train to Nagoya, changing there for a local to Ise City, the entrance way to the Ise-Shima National Park and the most sacred Shinto shrine in Japan. I had reservations at a luxurious ryokan, or Japanese inn, where you remove your shoes and western clothes, replacing the latter with a yukata (sort of a light-weight kimono). My tatami-matted room overlooked the sea. Just how luxurious a place this was first became apparent when a maid appeared to make and serve my dinner, and was reinforced when she silently signaled me to follow her down the hall and opened the sliding door to a fabulous suite — as it turned out, this was reserved for the exclusive use of Emperor Hirohito when he visited the holy site.
In the morning I was taken down to the inn's private dock and put aboard a motorboat, along with some student guides. They took me to Jingu, the Grand Shrine of Ise. There are several temples here, the most important being the Outer Shrine(Toyouke-Daijingu) and the even more important Inner Shrine(Kotaijingu). Both of these are torn down every 20 years and rebuilt on an adjacent site, signifying the circle of death and renewal. The last renewal before my visit was in 1953, the 59th time they were completely rebuilt from the ground up. The Inner Shrine is where the Sacred Mirror of the imperial regalia is kept, and is home to Amaterasu, the sun goddess and highest deity in the Shinto religion. Visitors may see the outer buildings here and partake of the water purification ritual (photo, above), but are limited to glimpses of the main shrine, the holy of holies, which is reserved for priests and the Imperial Family.
From there we travelled to nearby Toba and the Mikimoto Pearl Island, where cultivated pearls are raised and harvested. Visitors to Mikimoto's Museum can watch as women divers (Ama) (photo, below) seed the oysters and three years later retrieve the pearls, of which only a very small percentage are of "gem" quality.
Then it's on by train along the Kii Peninsula coast to Wakayama, from which other locals took me via Hashimoto to Gokuraku-bashi at the foot of the sacred mountain of Koyasan. A cable car took me up to the town and complex of some 120 Buddhist temples. 53 of these offer sleeping accommodations for visitors, complete with vegetarian meals and contemplation. My plan was to stay overnight in one of these to experience this ancient religion, at least in part. But then the heavens opened up and a real downpour ensued. At least I got to use my new Nikonos underwater camera for the picture on the right!
After getting thoroughly soaked, I found shelter in a bar, had a few beers, and headed back to the cable car.
At the bottom I boarded a train to Osaka, arriving there a day before my hotel reservation, but all was okay and they had room for me.
The first site to visit was Osaka Castle, begun in 1583, destroyed in a military coup between rival armies in 1615, and rebuilt in 1629. Again destroyed in 1868 to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Meiji Restoration, it lay in ruin until a complete rebuilding in 1931 as a matter of national pride, using modern construction techniques.
That evening I took a subway to the notorious Dotonbori entertainment district, had dinner, and slept well before leaving Japan's second city.
Back on schedule, I headed by train for the long haul to Miyajima, stopping at Hiroshima along the way. From the tracks there I could clearly see the A-Bomb Dome, the only ruin left standing from the nuclear holocaust of August 6, 1945. Just a year or so earlier, in New York, I had met the pilot of one of the B-29 bombers on that nulcear nightmare.
A local train from Hiroshima and a small ferry took me to Miyajima Island on the Inland Sea, one of the loveliest spots in all Japan. There I stayed at a traditional ryokan inn, which fortunately was air-conditioned as we were pretty far south and this was late August. A short walk took me into a Deer Park, where the tame deer come right up to you. The most striking sight at Miyajima is the spectacular Torii Gate of 1875 (photo, left), rising some 50 feet above the water, 500 feet from shore. Beyond this, built on stilts in A.D. 593 and rebuilt many times, the last being in the 16th century, is the Itsukushima Jinga Shrine, parts of which can be visited.
Returning the next day to Hiroshima, I took a train direct to Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan and presently a great cultural center. My reservation was for the International Hotel, but my taxi driver had never heard of that. Then I remembered the word for "International" and said to him: "Hoteru Kokusai, dozo." This worked, and minutes later I entered under a big sign in English that read "International Hotel."
I had been to Kyoto before, on an almost comical little adventure in 1957 (CLICK HERE TO SEE), and also returned later while on assignment for Pan Am Airways in 1971 (CLICK HERE TO SEE). But I saw much more on this trip than both of those times combined.
Through the hotel I was able to engage a taxi with an English-speaking driver for the entire day, who took me around to all the places I wanted to see, quickly and in comfort. They were:
First, the Old Imperial Palace. Originally built in the 8th century, it was destrpyed by fire in the 19th, and rebuilt in 1855. This was home to the emperors of Japan until they moved to Tokyo, then called Edo. The new name of To-Kyo (Capital of the East) is a reversal of the characters for Kyo-To. The main hall, the Shishinden, was used for ceremonies such as the enthronement of emperors. Although overwhelming in its size, the palace was not quite as impressive as some of the other sights, possibly as I had been here before in 1957.
The next stop was Kinkakuji Temple (photo, right), better known as the Golden Pavilion. This was first built in 1393 as a retirement home for a shogun, but converted to a temple upon his death. It became a victim of arson in 1950, and in 1955 was rebuilt and covered with gold leaf, making a truly striking sight as seen reflected in the pond beneath it.
To experience the ideal of Zen Buddhism you could hardly do better than to visit the next stop, the nearby Ryoanji Temple. The temple itself is of little interest, but the "garden" is world-famous for its austere aesthetics and the ability it affords visitors to contemplate the meaning of completeness. It consists of a rectangular plot covered in raked sand and 15 rocks in groupings of 3, 5, and 7. There is no vegetation, just sand and rocks. From the veranda, only 14 rocks can be seen from any one position; by shifting this another appears to complete the scene.
From here it was a bit of a haul to the renowned Moss Garden of Kokedera at the foot of the Arashiyama Hill. Its Saihoji Temple dates from the middle of the 8th century, but the real attraction is the eight-acre garden covered with more than 120 species of moss, set in a thickly wooded landscape that gives the feeling of entering a strange, magic forest. Fittingly, the pond here is in the shape of the Japanese character for Spirit.
Heading back toward town, I next visited the Katsura Imperial Villa in the western suburbs. Often regarded as a perfect triumph of the gardening and architectural arts, Katsura consists of a palace in the traditional style, plus several detached pavilions scattered throughout a forest surrounding a pond (photo, right) with five islands. It was built in the early 17th century.
Heading east clear across town, my last stop by taxi was to the Sanju-sangen-do Hall with its 1,001 statues of Kannon, the godess of Mercy. Its name is Japanese for the number 33, the number of likenesses the godess can asume. With all those statues, a total of 33,033 shapes are possible.
I then returned to the hotel for dinner and and a good night's sleep for my exhausted self.
The next morning, before leaving Kyoto, I made one last visit. This was to Nijo Castle, directly across the street from my hotel. You can't miss this place. Built in 1603 to demonstrate the sheer political power that the Tokugawa Shogunate Government wielded over the Emperor and his Imperial Family, it is a massive fortress whose many rooms are filled with blatant ostentation. A curious feature here are the squeaking floors in the corridors that made it impossible for potential assassins to get to the inner rooms without being detected; a sort of early alarm system.
Later that day I boarded a train for Tokyo, where I would begin two weeks of daytrips in and around the city and well into the surrounding countryside. I'll tell you all about that in another post. Stay tuned.
RETURN to Offbeat Adventures Index.
I loved reading your account and seeing the photos of days gone by. I love Tokyo and wish I had known it a few years ago!
Posted by: Honor | September 16, 2008 at 09:35 PM