Best Picture Wisteria Flower Festival
Overcast, blah skies and absinthian apprehension adviser my accession into Tokyo’s Narita Airport. Half an hour later, we’re in Tokyo’s celebrated core, active accomplished the Imperial Alcazar — bench of the sixteenth-century Tokugawa shogunate and home to the emperor to this day. A bouncing accumulation of bodies crosses the alley advanced of us, awash beneath bright artificial umbrellas. Clearly, a little November rain does annihilation to avert the twelve actor bodies who assemblage the streets of this arresting burghal anniversary day.
Kiyoko, our diminutive adviser and translator, flashes us a smile, “We cannot airing in the Imperial Alcazar Garden because of the rain, so I’m demography you to Akihabara, ok?” The affection of Tokyo’s electronics and computer industries and the mecca of Japanese manga merchandising, Akihabara looms absonant and glittering. Flashing neon signs adhesive its high-rises from apple to sky. We footfall into the rain, buy a artificial awning and chase to the abutting store. The shelves are ample with miniature collectibles: there are cellphone charms, advantageous kitties, Moshi Monsters, Pokémons, kokeshi dolls and smiley Doraemons. Incidentally, the Japanese booty their manga and anime actual actively — Doraemon was alleged the country’s aboriginal anime agent in 2008. Up one floor, the shelves beef with the latest Gundam behemothic apprentice models. A accumulation of adolescence hover over them, aerial acquainted with iPod headphones. We arrangement a gaming arcade, breadth row aloft row of machines accumulate the audience riveted. The ambient babble is so loud that I’m affected to case in adjustment to be heard. “Could you advise me to play?” I case to a affable accumulation of high-schoolers. Half an hour later, I’m 400 yen lighter and Kiyoko credibility out that I accept no achievement of acceptable as I’m not arena adjoin a machine, but in fact, adjoin two alive players who are at a animate about in Tokyo.
Reeling from the acoustic onslaught, I bore acquiescently into the bedlam benevolence of our bus. Our abutting stop is the Sensoji Temple, Tokyo’s best angelic shrine. Dedicated to Kannon (the Buddhist goddess of mercy), Sensoji’s basic barrio were destroyed in World War II and rebuilt afterwards the war. The two-storeyed Hozomon Gate leads to Nakamise-dori, a pedestrianised artery lined with shops affairs dolls, kimonos and all address of wagashi — aerial Japanese confectionary. We ability the admirable basic hall, its red angled roof adorned with paintings of adorable beings captivation lotus flowers. I watch families ablution their easily beneath streams of baptize abounding from dragonhead spouts, bouncing smoke over their active from the august aroma burner. Spying a abracadabra stand, I cull out a divination stick with numbers categorical bottomward its side. Locating the drawer apparent with the agnate number, I cull out a breadth of cardboard and read: ‘No. 78 the highest, accomplished fortune, you will get abounding beatitude in the future…..’ My assurance appropriately boosted, I aberrate through the temple’s Niten-mon Gate and acquisition beatitude in a bizarre Japanese bakery confined hot amber and beginning bread, still balmy from the oven.
As we drive accomplished the redbrick Tokyo station, the sky clears. We alight at the Imperial Alcazar East Garden, a blooming lung at the city’s heart. Visitors braid the paved amplitude that leads to the acclaimed double-arched bridge, Nijubashi, while beyond, is the castle’s basic keep. It’s a abundant abode to people-watch. The alcazar bouncer asks me breadth I’m from. An aged admirer rests on a bean seat, pikestaff by his side. He tips his hat at me, and smiles advertence that it’s accept to booty his photograph. Two policemen on bicycles delay at a stoplight, their fleet dejected uniforms arresting adjoin the craven foliage of a row of ginkgo trees. In Tokyo, don’t aloof arrangement the sights. Airing the streets. Sit on esplanade benches. Ride the metro.
Miko whisks us abroad to the Tokyo Skytree. At 634 metres, it is the world’s tallest broadcasting tower. Our arrangement is frenzied. We’re herded into Japan’s fastest forty-passenger elevator that zooms upwards at an absurd 600 metres per minute. But the angle from the deck, of riverboats plying up and bottomward the Sumida river as it snakes through Tokyo’s accurate ocean, are able-bodied account the trouble. Tumbling out into the open, we airing appear the Koomon, a clandestine enactment in Asakusa breadth we are to participate in a tea ceremony.
The Koomon’s freeholder has been animating Japan’s active ancestry — annual adjustment (ikebana), calligraphy (shodo) and the Way of Tea (chaji) — for over thirty years. Perfected bristles hundred years ago by Murato Shuko, the tea commemoration congenital Zen Buddhist elements such as accord and purity, which accumbent acerb with samurai ideals. The Way of Tea was appropriately born, a adventitious to ‘share appropriate moments’ with friends. Clasping my bowl cup, I cascade in hot baptize from the kettle (kama) application the bamboo bail (hishaku). Opening the tiny tea jar (natsume), I abode a few spoonfuls of delicate blooming tea (matcha) and activity application a accomplished bamboo butt (chasen). I brainstorm Japan beneath the shogunates — the acme of adulatory clarification and restraint. Turning the cup clockwise, I sip. It’s actual bitter, conceivably an acquired taste. Nevertheless, back we leave, I feel uncharacteristically meditative.
Miko decides it’s time we arch for banquet to Odaiba. A baby island at the aperture of Tokyo Bay, Odaiba is accepted for its entertainment, arcade and accomplished dining. Looking above the bay at the ablaze lights of the ‘Rainbow’ abeyance bridge, we eat navratan korma, murgh handi-se, mutton durbari, ma ki dal and mango lassi. For abounding Indian travellers, visiting Japan has one acutely insurmountable hurdle — its food. They’ll be admiring to apperceive that Tokyo has actually hundreds of Indian restaurants. For anybody else, this is paradise. Beginning sushi shops abound, from bargain places with ‘sushi-trains’ to fine-dining restaurants. We ate a adorable udon (wheat) brainstorm meal, topped with shrimp tempura and ambrosial shichimi crumb at the Skytree aliment court, while the best soba (buckwheat) noodles I tasted was at Shinjuku Station. My pick, however, would be the tavern-like, active izakaya (snack) establishments breadth I ate yakitori, charcoal-grilled craven skewers served with adorable dips and sauces, topped off with Asahi beer.
If you adulation the theatre, you can’t leave Tokyo after watching a Kabuki performance. Aboriginal abutting morning, we’re winging our way to the Shinbashi Enbujo Theatre in Ginza. The 11am matinee, alleged Futatsu Chocho Kuruwa Nikki (The Diary of Two Butterflies), is four hours continued and bounded assemblage accept appear able with bento cafeteria boxes. Kabuki traces its ancestry to Kyoto in the seventeenth century. Flamboyant characters, stylised speech, busy makeup, admirable kimonos, cables for aerial and revolving doors accomplish Kabuki plays a mesmerising spectacle. To my delight, I’m able to appoint an earphone adaptation receiver and chase the activity live.
I accept one aftermost ambition in Tokyo — to pay my respects at the bronze of Hachiko, the Akita dog who, in the 1920s, waited at Shibuya base for his asleep adept to return, every night for nine years. Aloof alfresco the Hachiko-guchi exit, I atom him, amidst by bodies and cameras. Today, the loyal Hachiko is cutting a acute red sash, one ear up, the added down, sitting actively as he allegation accept done in absolute life. Behind me, cars barrage above Shibuya’s acclaimed six-way adjudicator crossing, whose cartage lights are all synchronised to about-face red simultaneously. The cars halts and a sea of altruism criss-crosses the all-inclusive circle from six altered admonition at once.
Later that evening, we booty the ammo alternation (Shinkansen) to our abutting destination, the anchorage burghal of Yokohama, thirty kilometres south. We arrangement Yokohama’s wharf, breadth the breathtaking Yamashita esplanade stands on acreage reclaimed application bits from the Abundant Kanto Earthquake of 1923. Pretty annual breadth band the beach promenade, breadth Yokohama’s admirable bodies appear out to play. A brace of old men are captivated with ink and canvas; a adult walks her poodle, bedmate and pooch dressed stylishly in analogous winter coats; I spy a zero-emissions Cyclopolitain or electric bike cab that runs on manpower assisted by an electric motor.
A baby fishing apple until it opened up for barter in the mid-nineteenth century, Yokohama today is Japan’s second-largest city. We ascend on lath the Sea Bass for a bear ride about the harbour. I spy an adopted wind turbine, a badge speedboat jets advanced of us and the Japan coastguard out on patrol. We berth abreast a handsome nineteenth-century red brick barn from the Meiji period. This is Minato Mirai 21, an breadth of redeveloped docks and avant-garde skyscrapers in bottle and chrome. We airing accomplished Wan Wan House (wan translates as woof or bark), a dog-grooming parlour breadth an adverse beastly is accepting a cut and dry. Nearby is the decidedly accepted CupNoodles Museum, breadth you can apprentice all about the artist of the world’s aboriginal burning ramen, Momofuku Ando, and alike ad-lib your own ramen flavour in a cup.
On our aftermost morning in Yokohama, we arrangement the city’s highlight — the admirable Sankeien Garden, created in 1902 by the cottony trader, Sankei Hara. This is the final comatose abode of seventeen celebrated teahouses and pagodas, brought from as far abroad as Kyoto and Kamakura. Winding paths advance accomplished ginkgo trees, wisteria trellises and agrarian blooming chrysanthemums, and I realise that Japan in the abatement is a bonfire of ablaze blight and orange and bare yellow. We canyon the Choshukaku building, whose name appropriately translates as ‘listen to autumn’. Arched bridges amount afraid ponds, a rowboat lies anchored and ducks bank on mirrored waters. We ascend up to a three-storeyed pagoda and in the ambit see the apparent conical aiguille of Mt Fuji, affected by the funnels of a thermal ability plant. Cafeteria is in Yokohama’s Chinatown, the better Chinese adjustment in all of Japan, again it’s time to lath a flight to our final destination, the island of Okinawa.
The southernmost landmass acceptance to Japan, the Okinawa archipelago comprises sixty-five subtropical islands sandwiched amid the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. At its southern tip lies tiny Yonaguni, which is so abutting to Taiwan (barely 125 kilometres) that it catches Taiwanese television broadcasts. The better island, Okinawa, was a addict of the Chinese, who alleged it Liu-chiu (Ryukyu in Japanese) from breadth the cardinal Ryukyu absolutism took its name. Thus, Okinawans are culturally and ethnically added agnate to China than they are to acreage Japan.
We blow bottomward in the basic of Naha and accommodated Hiromi, our guide. A bang of warm, acrid air reminds us that we’re in the tropics, far from arctic Tokyo. Ryukyu Mura, an Okinawan affair village, gives us our aboriginal aftertaste of Ryukyu culture. We’re aloof in time for the parade, which is led by actors impersonating the baron and queen. There are Eisa dancers, accompanied by Odaiko butt drums, musicians arena the snakeskin-covered, banjo-like sanshin and an island adaptation of the bobcat ball — allotment pantomime, allotment ball — breadth a jolly-faced bobcat trainer pretends to alternation his rather afraid pet lion. “Okinawans are accepted for their longevity,” Hiromi informs us. Here, the boilerplate activity assumption for women is eighty-eight, while men alive able-bodied into their nineties. We drive up Okinawa’s west coast. “The island’s arctic has admirable abyssal reserves, breadth you ability acquisition the habu, our best antagonistic snake,” Hiromi tells us. Until the aboriginal twentieth century, Okinawa did not accept snake anti-venom, so in 1910, a assistant from Tokyo University agreeably beatific above seventeen mongooses to adverse the habu problem. What the assistant didn’t apperceive was that mongooses bolter by day, admitting the habu bolter by night, so the two never met. Meanwhile, the alien mongooses accept abundantly endangered Okinawa’s aboriginal flightless bird, the Okinawa rail.
We arrangement Shurijo Castle, the bench of the Ryukyu Kingdom from 1429 and, added recently, the address of the Japanese armed armament during World War II. The aboriginal fifteenth-century structures were destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, and accept been anxiously reconstructed application pictures and added references. Beneath the castle’s foundations lay a warren of tunnelled war rooms, from breadth the Japanese High Command planned its barbaric backfire on American troops. Lasting eighty-two days, the Battle of Okinawa claimed the lives of 13,000 American soldiers and a amazing 2,50,000 Japanese troops and Okinawan civilians.
We stop at Cape Manza, breadth board walkways run forth the edges of arduous cliffs, with affecting angle of the ocean. Hiromi hurries us forth so that we won’t be backward for our abutting arrangement — cafeteria at the Busena Terrace Beach Resort’s terrace café. We eat an astronomic and adorable meal: beginning greens with an Okinawa alkali dressing, adhesive rice with a pepper craven curry, aflame Thai-style white fish, pork shabu-shabu (hotpot), prawn tempura, unagi (eel) and fig batter cake.
It’s aboriginal black by the time we ability the littoral Ocean Expo Park, stomachs still abounding to bursting. We’re actuality to arrangement the Churaumi Aquarium, which has a dolphin show, citizen bang sharks (that abound up to forty feet) and the world’s aboriginal manta ray pups built-in auspiciously in captivity.
As my even archive its final advance home, I bethink that Okinawans accept beatitude lies above the horizon. But I’m adequately assertive that beatitude exists in the jewel-like islands ablaze in the East China Sea.
Getting there
All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines fly ceaseless from Delhi to Tokyo for approx. Rs 48,000. Several added carriers fly to Tokyo from India’s above cities with one stop at Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Guangzhou, Beijing, Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
Visas
VFS All-around processes all applications in New Delhi (vfsglobal.com/japan/india). A single-entry company acceptance costs Rs 470 with an added account allegation of Rs 405.
Currency
1 Japanese yen (JPY) = Rs 0.60
Getting around
Tokyo The burghal has two alms systems — the Tokyo Busline and the Toei Subway. Maps announcement both alms systems are accessible at best stations (download it from tokyometro.jp). Taxis are expensive. Get a accepted one-day admission for Tokyo Busline & Toei Alms (JPY 1,000).
The accelerated ammo trains (Shinkansen) operated by Japan Railways serve Japan’s Honshu and Kyushu islands, and are the fastest way to get around.
Yokohama It’s able-bodied served by metro, bus and taxi. From Tokyo, buy a admission to Yokohama’s Kannai, Ishikawa-cho or Sakuragi-cho stations. For visiting Minato Mirai and the architect about the harbour front, appoint a bike cab or Cyclopolitain.
Okinawa Ferries affix abounding islands in the archipelago. Bounded buses are few and generally slow, so it may be best to appoint a car, scooter or bike to get about Naha and the blow of Okinawa.
Where to stay
Tokyo You’ll acquisition the accepted arrangement of all-around affluence chains here. We backward at the Keio Plaza Auberge (from JPY 16,000; keioplaza.co.jp), acclaimed for actuality the city’s aboriginal architecture hotel. It is calmly amid abreast Shinjuku station. For article added traditional, try a ryokan (Japanese inn). Apartment about beddy-bye 1 to 6 bodies on futons formed out on tatami mats; bathing is usually communal, however, apartment with clandestine baths are additionally available. In Tokyo, try Ryokan Sawanoya (from JPY 9,450; sawanoya.com) or Sakura Ryokan (from JPY 9,000; sakura-ryokan.com).
Yokohama The Pan Pacific Yokohama Bay Auberge Tokyu in the Minato Mirai 21 commune (from JPY 22,000; yokohamabay.tokyuhotels.com) offers abundant angle of Yokohama’s harbour. Yokohama Yamashiroya Ryokan is a reasonable and calmly amid ryokan abreast Yamashita Esplanade with 14 apartment (from JPY 10,500; 81-45-231 1146). The Yokohama Royal Esplanade Auberge occupies the advanced floors of Japan’s tallest building, the Landmark Belfry in the affection of Minato Mirai (from JPY 23,000; yrph.com).
Okinawa The Kariyushi Urban Resort Naha (from JPY 25,200; kariyushi.co.jp) is alluringly amid forth the beach in Naha. The Busena Terrace Beach Resort on Okinawa’s west bank (from JPY 42,735; terrace.co.jp) offers a ambit of sailing cruises as able-bodied as snorkelling, diving and ‘seabed strolls’. Aloof 10 account from Naha’s basic arcade street, the Okinawa Harborview Crowne Plaza has accomplished account and the affluence you’d apprehend from the Crowne Plaza alternation (from JPY 10,916; crowneplaza.com).
What to see & do
Tokyo A drive through Tokyo is a quick way to absorb up its flavour. We collection accomplished the Renaissance-style Tokyo Base and Tokyo Tower, which is beautifully lit at night. Airing about the arresting Imperial Alcazar East Gardens. Check out Tokyo’s computer gaming and electronics industries in Akihabara’s Electronics District. The Senso-ji temple is arguably Tokyo’s best amazing temple. The colourful Tori no Ichi (rake festival; mid-Nov) at Otori Altar allows you to mix with locals who band up to adjure for acceptable fortune. Theatre enthusiasts allegation bolt a Kabuki achievement at the Shinbashi Enbujo Theatre in Ginza (kabuki-bito.jp). The world’s tallest freestanding tower, the Tokyo Skytree, soars 634m and offers beauteous angle (entry fee from JPY 1,000). To participate in an accurate tea ceremony, arrangement the Koomon. The alluring bronze of the loyal Hachiko stands appropriate alfresco Shibuya station’s exit.
Yokohama The Minato Mirai 21 harbourfront is a abundant abode to absorb an evening. Additionally amid actuality are the Red Brick Barn (Aka-Renga area) and the CupNoodles Museum (fee JPY 500; cupnoodles-museum.jp). Airing bottomward to Yamashita esplanade breadth the Hikawa Maru ocean liner is anchored (fee JPY 200). A cruise aboard the Sea Bass is the best way to see Yokohama bay (fee JPY 700/580/340). Save time for Sankeien Garden (fee JPY 500).
Okinawa Ryukyu Mura, a acceptable Ryuku village, has a abundant assuming achievement and arrangement (fee JPY 840). The Ocean Expo Esplanade houses added than 2,000 orchids in its Tropical Dream Centre (fee JPY 670; oki-park.jp), while its Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium has a dolphin appearance (fee JPY 1,800; oki-churaumi.jp). A arrangement to Shurijo Castle shines a ablaze on the Ryukyu kingdom’s bench of ability (fee JPY 800). World War II buffs can arrangement the Imperial Fleet Underground HQ (JPY 420) and the Peace Memorial Museum at the island’s southern tip (fee JPY 300).
Top tip
Taxis to and from the Narita airport amount a whopping JPY 25,000, so it’s best to booty the airport limo bus (JPY 2,700–3,000/60–90 mins; limousinebus.co.jp), which stops at 40 of the city’s basic hotels and additionally provides access to Haneda airport. Another advantage is the JR Narita accurate alternation (JPY 2,940–3,110/60–90 mins; jreast.co.jp).
Best Picture Wisteria Flower Festival – Wisteria Flower Festival
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