Monthly Archives: December 2008

Happoen

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gold carp

About a week before Christmas, T and I had one of our rare days off together. So we made the most of it and explored some more of Shirokane, a neighborhood near our apartment.  I recently wrote about its street of gingko trees.

La Boheme
First we went to our favorite restaurant there, La Boheme, for lunch. It’s really one of the few places we can afford in that over-priced neighborhood. Yet the decor is quite lush and luxurious. Although, there is somewhat of a gothic haunted mansion vibe about the place that’s a bit cheesy.

La Boheme

Sometimes, there’s an accordionist, and once there were a pair of violinists. It’s actually a chain, but the service is always superb, and the food is very good. I recommend the gorgonzola and honey pizza. The arabica pasta is also tasty.

Happoen
Then we decided to check out Happoen, which is a private garden that is rented out for weddings. It’s a traditional Edo style garden that used to belong to a local lord. There are a couple chapels, a restaurant, and cafe, and the huge gorgeously maintained garden. Because it’s not a public park, there were few people there. The sign at the entrance says only customers and guests are allowed, but we went in anyway. No one seemed to mind. I suspect many locals go there to chill out.

danglingwater and leaves

In Happoen there is a path lined with bonsai that are hundreds of years old, and a pond that reflected the surrounding trees in a way that created the surreal colors of an impressionistic painting. I spent a long time photographing the carp. T teased me about this because I have this fascination with them. I’m mesmerized by the way they slither placidly under the surface of the water.

persimmon bonsaimottled

Book Off!
It’d been a long time since we wandered around Shirokane. Even though it’s near our home, it’s not really our kind of place. Lots of rich matrons walking their spoiled ornamental dogs, sipping $10 coffees in pretentious cafes.

It kept us from visiting this gem of a garden. And we also never noticed that there was a bookstore with a huge inventory of used English-language books. The bookstore is called Book Off, an ubiquitous chain of bookstores specializing in used books, usually all in Japanese, and mostly manga. But apparently, they also buy used English books (and several other languages too) and they all get sent to this one branch, which is bizarre because Shirokane is definitely not known as a place where foreigners live.

Most of the books are 300 to 500 yen. So it’s cheaper than any other used English bookstore in Tokyo. Plus, it has a nice cafe, so it was the perfect way to end our date: kicking back with our stack of books, sipping coffee, watching the languid locals be walked around by their Hiltonian pooches.

On the Way to Rikugien Gardens

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stone bridge

On my final Autumn Leaves outing for the season, I went to the Rikugien Gardens, which is in north Tokyo (between Komagome and Sugamo stations on the northern end of the Yamanote Line). It’s probably the final outing because at the park, the leaves were gently drifting down en masse.

The park is so well designed that I decided then and there that it was my favorite Tokyo park. The central feature is a large pond with several islands in it. And though it’s compact and relatively small, the views are constantly varied as you walk around. Also, it’s one of the few gardens in the city that doesn’t have skyscrapers sullying the view.

The textures and colors of the trees are layered in pleasing ways. The gardens were designed to depict famous poems and I could easily feel the poetic sensibilities throughout the grounds. Oh don’t hesitate to visit while it still has leaves.

A Little Detour
I’d never stopped off at Sugamo and Komagome stations so I decided to walk around. These are some of the interesting things I saw on the way to Rikugien .

A street of markets with solar panels.
solar panels

The Sugamo Jizo Street Market, apparently where all the cool seniors go shopping, for such things as terribly unstylish shoes, granny snacks and dried fish shavings in bulk.
shaved fishcrackers

On one end of the street was an empty temple billowing in incense smoke.
incense

Further down the street there was a crowd of people patiently waiting in line at another temple…
waiting

…to take turns pouring water on, cleaning, and wiping a black statue of the goddess of compassion.
wiping

Closer to the park there was a neighborhood of large estates, houses that are as big as any in California. And out of nowhere an enormous building with impressive columns emerged, which I gathered was the headquarters of a syncretic religion. It sure as heck wasn’t Buddhist.
columns

And finally Rikugien Gardens. My favorite spot was the highest point at the center where the yellow leaves of an ancient tree steadily rained down. All manner of emotional buttons were pushed. It was so damn poetic and beautiful I almost cried. Another year gently dropping its leaves.

panorama

Gingkos on Platinum St.

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the glass sony building

From my balcony I can see the end of the gingko-lined Platinum St. On a recent morning I woke up and saw the gingkos turn golden so I ventured out to record this event. I walked the length of Platinum St., which is in the Shirokane neighborhood of Tokyo.

The neighborhood and the street are known for old money rich people. The wealthy matrons who live there are chidingly called ‘Shirokanese’, a term mocking them for their Europhilia. Although, I suspect they like to be called this. Even the name, Platinum St. is terribly pretentious, but it’s just a translation of Shirokane, which literally means ‘white gold’. Also, there are about a dozen Michelin starred restaurants in the neighborhood, attesting to its snob quotient.

yellow and rustglass cafeyellow carpeta bakery

I rather enjoy walking down the street myself because it has unusually wide sidewalks for a Tokyo street, with few people walking down them. The entire street is lined with tall mature gingko, one of my favorite tree species. And the mixture of quaint shops and chic storefronts reminds me of Omotesando, without the crowds

There are at least 3 dog boutique shops, catering to the numerous housewives who can be seen walking their tiny pampered pets. Or more commonly, you can see these pooches be taken around in baby carriages.

I’ve never been to any of the many cafés and chocolatiers that line the street because they’re just over priced. Every few months, stores go out of business, and new stores emerge, as a new batch of bored housewives with too much cash and time on their hands set up shop to sell pricey knick-knacks. I once saw a men’s shoe store open and then close the following week.

Constant new construction is also a hallmark of the neighborhood. But I guess that’s no different than any other Tokyo ward. In my next post, I’ll write about all the new buildings that I’ve seen pop up.

pink and yellow and green

Kamakura in Autumn

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parasol

I went to Kamakura last Wednesday and it was pretty much the peak of the autumn colors. I can’t get used to how late autumn is in Tokyo. It’s mid December now and the reds, oranges and yellows are just now past the peak.

A History of Austerity
Kamakura was the capital of Japan during the Kamakura Period (1185-1333) when the Shogunate wrested control away from the Emperor and the former capital in Kyoto. During this time, the warrior class distinguished itself from the Shinto/Imperial priestly class by practicing Buddhism.

The austerity and fatalism of the warrior class developed a brand of Buddhism that favored austerity and fatalism, namely the various Zen sects. So the architecture of Kamakura reflects this, with all the temples and even the Shinto shrines designed and built very simply, without much decoration and almost no colors.

pointing

Kamakura is probably my favorite place in Japan. Maybe even more than Kyoto or Nara. Nearly all the temples are within walking distance from each other. And the city itself is still charming, with no tall modern buildings, yet none of the ugly old run-down post-war buildings that’s usually the alternative in those other cities.

It’s also only about an hour ride away by train from central Tokyo. And it’s never really been busy, so you can still get a nice spiritual experience, wandering around.

I wanted to visit some of the out of the way temples that I’ve never been able to visit. They’re accessible only after an hour hike in the forests surrounding the city. But according to the guidebooks the best places for autumn colors are the large major temples I’d already visited several times. Since I’d never been there in the fall, and I haven’t been there in over two years, I figured it would be a new experience regardless.

For the course that I followed click on this sentence. It’s a link to the Kamakura City site. They have over a dozen recommended walking courses depending on your mood or interests. I chose the one that started at Kita-Kamakura Station and ended in Kamakura Station, which hits the biggest of the Rinkai Zen temples. The whole trip lasted 4 hours even with a leisurely stroll, an amazake break, and a stop off for some udon. If you really want to make a day of it, I suggest you hop on the train and go further south another 2 stations and visit the Great Buddha, and the nearby Hasedera.

amazakeThe temples of Kamakura are ranked by importance. Number 1 is Kencho-ji. I highly recommend you do two things there:

  1. Climb the endless stairs up the back of the huge temple grounds up to Hansobo. The view is excellent, but the trek up there can be taxing for those not in shape. I really dig the statues of protective what I call ‘crowboys’ that line the stairs.
  2. A shorter climb, but no less taxing, is the staircase up to Bonsho, which is the historically important large bell on a hill off to the side of the temple grounds. The bell is nice, but the important thing is to sit down at the teahouse up there and sip amazake or green tea while looking at Mt. Fuji peer around the wooded hills.

For more pictures from Kamakura, from all my visits there, click on this sentence.

coins at the feet

Dance Your PhD

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I’ve got a new inspiration to finish my PhD. I realize the true purpose of my overly long academic undertaking. And why I retired from dance to enter the world of the mind.  It isn’t to create a completed dissertation. No, that’s only a step on the way to creating a dance choreography.

I was stoked to find that researchers have been making interpretive dances about their PhD dissertations and entering them for a contest.  The winner will have their ‘choreography’ performed by professional dancers.

I watched a lot of them and some of are pretty funny.  Many of them are what can be kindly called a celebration dance of cathartic goofy movements, most of whom are men.  Then there are some danced by women who appear to have some kind of dance training, but the movements don’t seem to have much to do with their thesis.  But who cares, they’re having fun and they’re creating art out of their years of research.

This one is my favorite, a modern dance performance using what looks like trained dancers.  It seems to actually ‘interpret’ the subject of her thesis.  So here’s “The role of folate in epigenetic regulation of colon carcinogenesis”

Here are the instructions on how to enter your PhD dance choreography and an article with the winners. I’ll most certainly be choreographing something and entering it once I complete my own masterpiece.

More of my favorites after the jump.  And more dances on youtube.

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