Jetlag had us up before dawn with a copious breakfast in the Japanese garden restaurant of the hotel followed by a stroll through the grounds. The waterfall abuts into a pond with giant carp in it overlooked by numerous pagodas that house the New Otani's numerous restaurants.
Flower arrangement in lobby entrance
We decided to take a taxi check out the Imperial Gardens which are on the grounds of the old Edo castle, the biggest fortress in the world. Edo means " gate of the river" due to it's location at the mouth of the Sumida-gawa and was the name of Tokyo when it was a small fishing village. The warrior poet Ota Dokan put up a castle here in the 15th century, which then became the centre of the shogunate in 1603, after which Edo became a bustling city and the most populous in the world by the late 1700's. When the Emperor replaced the shoguns after the Meiji restoration, Edo became the capital instead of Kyoto and was renamed Tokyo.
The Imperial palace grounds occupy the old Edo castle of which many of the walls remain. The present palace, built in 1968 replaces the previous one destroyed in WWII. It is off limits as it is occupied by the current emperor though there is a tour of the surrounding grounds. We hadn't signed up for the tour so just walked around the palace's East Garden which is open to the public. To limit capacity, even though the gardens are free,you are given an entrance chip which you hand back in on departure.
The cherry trees were budding but not yet in bloom however the gardenias, magnolias and some azaleas were. We came across groups of school children wearing the same coloured yellow caps to enable the teachers to keep track of them. Weather was sunny but cold with a strong wind.
Juxtaposition of old and new
As it was early we decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the ten minute cab ride. Skirting around the gardens we came by the Museum of Modern Art and decided to go in. There were three floors of art starting at the top with the pre-1900s and working down to modern day. Some lovely paintings on silk screens and kimonos were flanked by work of Braque, Picasso and Miró.
The second exposition on animals, was in the Craft Centre, tucked in some more beautiful gardens. Here we found lacquer ware, bronze and stone items all with an animal theme.
Signs showing the main tourist attractions are in Kanji and English but road signs are not so we were guessing on where we were. Stopping a few policemen and pedestrians didn't get us much further than friendly smiles and my phone had died. Finally a man selling lottery tickets pulled out his cellphone and drew a line on our map. We walked by an enticing small neighbourhood restaurant with six tables so we decided to follow the locals in and try the bowls of noodles and rice they were eating to mixed results.
Ironically they had a television on, showing the USA-Japan world championship baseball in it's last innings so even the cook came out in his gumboots to watch the nailbiting final moments in which Japan lost.
My favourite part of the day was crossing the roads at the zebra crossings to the sound of birds. Rather than annoying beeps or buzzing to alert you to cross they have the sound of cuckoos to spur you on. The other novel thing was that in the museums, arrows showing you were to walk had only one spur rather than two. No idea why but effective nonetheless.
Tomorrow we plan to get up at 330 am to go to the fish market and watch the tuna auction so we spent the afternoon having a long nap. Getting up early won't be a problem as our days are back to front with the 14 hour time difference with Chicago.
No comments:
Post a Comment