Ellen Isaacs: Travel journal: Meiji-jingu shrine, Harajuku, Shibuya, Koishikawa Korakuen

Once again, we woke up earlier than we normally would even though we'd gone to bed at a normal hour. Not sure what's happening there. In any case, for the second day, Walendo went to work with his colleagues and I got to do more exploring.

In the morning I went to Meiji-jingo, a Shinto shrine. I had my first small mishap on the metro getting there. For some reason, the metro lines are run by two separate companies, with one owning 8 of the lines and the other owning 4. One is more expensive than the other, again for some reason, and if you transfer between them, you have to convert your ticket and sometimes pay more. I just had three stops to go, but they were on three different lines, one of which was owned by that other company. I bought my ticket to my final destination, this time Y260 ($2.10) which was more expensive even though I wasn't going far. After one stop I got off and switched to another line, but the gates closed as I put my ticket through. A station worker quickly came up to help and showed me a ticket booth that allowed me to put in my destination to convert the ticket. I owed another Y190 ($1.50), which didn't seem fair, but so be it. (I was glad there had been someone there to help me so quickly.) I then went one stop and got off to change for my last leg and for some dumb reason went out one of the gates, inserting my ticket in the gate, instead of continuing down to the next line. So now I had to buy yet another ticket, for another Y160 ($1.20), to go the last stop. I was definitely my most expensive metro ride.

Gate (torii) at entrance to
Meiji-jingu shrine
Once out of the metro, it was easy enough to find the shrine. This time it was much more like what I had been expecting. There was a large gate on a gravel path taking me into a woodsy area that felt peaceful and serene. I walked along that for a while until coming to a series of lanterns with Japanese lettering all in a grid. There was no English sign to explain what they were but they were visually interesting. As I walked through a few more gates, I passed some men sweeping the gravel with a broom made of branches to gather up the leaves that had fallen on it. It was fairly common for us to see people cleaning the streets or the public areas. Finally I came to the main entrance with another simple gate. There was no admission fee.

Tree with ema
at Meiji-jingu shrine
After continuing into the entry area, I walked through an elaborate gate into the plaza where the shrine was. On the right was an exhibit of bonsai trees that were anywhere from 30 years to 300 years old. At the far corner was a big tree that was surrounded by a big rack from which hung hundreds of small wood plaques with writing on them, called ema. The tradition is for people to buy a blank wood plaque, write their wish or prayer on it, and hang it on this rack. I walked around the tree reading the wishes written in English. I saw many languages there, including Japanese, of course, but also French, German, Italian, Spanish, and what I thought might have been Arabic.
Closeup of ema prayers
Of the English ones, most people wished for good health and success for themselves and their loved ones, but occasionally you'd see something more specific. One person wanted to get good grades. Another wanted to make more money at their job. Another asked for homosexuality to be decriminalized for her brother's sake. Someone hoped to find a loving, equal, fulfilling relationship. I felt happy that I'd found such a partnership and hoped this person did too.

Women praying
at Meiji-jingu shrine
Suddenly there was a loud, steady drum beat and I saw a man hitting a giant drum up on the entry area to the shrine. I tried to quickly change lenses to get a good shot of it but I was too slow. Instead, I took some of just the drum. I stood for a while watching the activity in the shrine. Some people, apparently on a tour, were walking in a long line along the back area of the shrine, dropping coins into a bin and making a prayer. Back where I was, other people did a similar thing. They dropped in their coins, then clapped twice and made their wish. Again, people didn't seem to mind my taking pictures - the guard told me just not to stand right in the middle but that off to the side was okay. I'm always struck by how polite and tolerant people seem to be here. Even though I feel completely out of place in not knowing the language or the customs, I still wind up feeling comfortable since they somehow communicate a sense of acceptance and even welcoming of foreigners. It's very nice.

After checking out the bonsai, I was ready to go. I liked Meiji-jingo much more than Senso-ji since it felt less touristy and more peaceful. As I walked back down the path it started to drizzle. I passed a sign to a gift and snack shop with toilets. After I'd gone to the toilet (this one had some western style as well as the pit toilets), it started raining for real, so I went into the restaurant. It was noon, so it made sense to have lunch there while the rain passed. I was a little dubious about the meals but I pointed to one picture that looked like a rice dish with some sort of meat sauce and then looked for a table. Lots of people had the same idea to get out of the rain so I was lucky to find one. The food was good enough but there was way too much, so I ate what I could and then continued on once it had stopped raining.

People crossing street
in Harajuku
The Meiji-jingo shrine is just outside the Harajuku neighborhood, which is a combination of upscale shops and galleries, clothing chain stores from other countries, and funky local shops for young people who wear offbeat outfits. I'd happen to notice that one of the walking tours in my guide book covered this area, so I decided to follow it. But first I came to a busy intersection that happened to have a second story balcony I could get to, so I got some shots of people crossing at the crosswalk, a good scene. The guidebook took me to a small street with a Harajuku sign announcing it, which turned out to have some fun clothing stores with funky displays and young people in similar if more outrageous outfits walking along it. I would have liked to have gotten some photos of the outfits but I felt it wouldn't be polite.

Cool window display
in Harajuku
I continued back to the main street, Oemoto-sando Dori, and looked at the buildings noted in the walking tour, but mostly checked out the people and the shop displays. The last building I went to on the tour was the Spiral Building on Aoyami Dori, which sounded like it could be pretty cool but it turned out to be a fairly ordinary boxy building. Inside the lobby had a nice casual restaurant and there was a half-spiral staircase leading up to a second floor shop, but overall I wasn't sure why it was noted in the guidebooks. I must have missed something.

By now I was one long block from the Shibuya intersection that Walendo had raved about, so I walked down that way. At first I had a little trouble finding it. I've been using the Tokyo City Atlas, which on the whole has been very useful, but it's not always that clear about intersections. I went into a department store that, like many department stores here, has a big food court in the lower level, sort of a mini-Harrods like arrangement, and bought an almond croissant at the French bakery counter. It was nice to eat something I understand and like. I sat outside the store in a busy area and tried to orient myself on the map. Just as I was finally figuring out where I was and where the busy intersection was likely to be, a man came up to me and offered to help. I pointed to the icon indicating the dog statue on the map, knowing that it was in the busy intersection. He gestured for me to follow him and he took me there. It really is inspiring how generous people are here.

Crowd crossing street
at Shibuya
It turned out I was just one block away, and indeed it was a busy intersection, just outside a big train station. There are six crosswalks going around the perimeter of the intersection and one wide one going diagonally across. In the short time it took for the light to cycle, a huge mass of people had already accumulated on each side. All the car traffic stops at the same time to let pedestrians cross in any direction. When the walk signal turned on, masses of dark-haired heads bobbed across in a steady, heavy flow of traffic. It was around 3:00pm, so it probably wasn't even as busy as it can get. I looked around for a good spot for a photo and saw that there was a covered overpass from the train station with glass looking out over the intersection. I found my way up and took a bunch of shots, waiting a few cycles of the light to get different views of it. On the opposite side was a Starbucks with a second story glass window that looked out on the intersection. I walked over there and squeezed myself into a spot between the counter tables. I'd just gotten off a few shots when someone from the staff tapped me and told me there were no photos allowed. Now that's just strange. I've been in small shops, in holy places, and in restaurants, and everywhere cameras have been fine. But there, shooting out into a public area, I'm told I can't take a photo. This made no sense, but I couldn't argue, so I packed up and walked out. As I left, I noticed someone at the counter looking out taking a photo with his point-and-shoot. I thought maybe I'd come back and wait until I could get a seat at one of the counter spots where I'd be less conspicuous. Usually I like to observe the rules about photos, but here it seemed just silly since I wasn't taking a photo of their property.

Irises at Koishikawa
Korakuen Garden
By now I was tempted to go back to the hotel and relax, but I looked at my list of places to visit and decided to go to one more place, a highly recommended garden called Koishikawa Korakuen. The guide books said it was one of the nicest and yet less crowded and less often visited by foreigners, which appealed to me. This required taking two metro lines to Suidobashi. Once out of the station, I unintentionally wound up taking a circuitous route to get there, not unusual. The map shows the names of the major streets but not of the minor streets, and so far I haven't seen any street signs on the minor streets themselves. Then again, many of them seem to have lots of signs on the corner buildings that look like advertisements but maybe some of them include a street name. Anyway, along my walk I passed some office buildings, in front of which sat a bunch of Japanese people with signs on their chests with some police standing nearby. They were apparently protesting something but in what seemed to me the politest, most orderly way. After a little more walking I found the entrance and walked into what was indeed a beautiful park, very Japanese in design and with mostly Japanese people visiting.
Bridge at Koishikawa
Korakuen Garden
I walked along a large-ish pond with places to sit, another small pond with lily pads, and then came to a field of irises, which are in bloom in June. I stopped to take many photos, as did many others. I wanted to just sit and enjoy it for a while, but then a voice came over a loud speaker announcing in Japanese and then English that the park was closing in a half hour at 5pm. I wanted to see the whole park so I continued on and found a couple of nice arched bridges over a pretty pond, some small Japanese buildings, and some stepping stones across the pond, very nice. It would have been a good place to relax for an hour. I was glad I'd pushed myself to visit it.

I walked back to the metro and then back to the hotel, where I again collapsed and waited for Walendo to return from work. This time a smaller group of six of us went out for Yakatori, which is kind of like chicken tapas or small dishes. We found a place about 50 yards from the hotel in one of the narrow streets and settled in at the front counter facing the grill chef. We put in our orders and watched as he prepared them. Victoria and Mike, who are a little more adventurous, got things like chicken hearts or livers, but Walendo and I stuck to things like potstickers and chicken and potato croquets, which were delicious. As it turned out, people shared their dishes with each other so I got to sample some things I wouldn't have ordered that turned out to be quite good. There was some sort of grilled string bean-like thing that was quite tasty. It was a fun meal.

Afterward, I interested three others in dessert at Cold Stone so we walked the half mile down to Roppongi Hills. I got my usual order of chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and oreos. Two things were different from the States: the ice cream was less chocolately and the portions were smaller. The cups were the same three sizes but they put about 2/3 as much in them. So next time I know to get the large. :) Still, it was rejuvenating to have some good old chocolate ice cream. We wandered back to the hotel and went to bed, again dropping right to sleep (and again waking up on the early side).

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