Friday, April 21, 2006
Japan Trip - April 2006
All images ©2006 Copyright the author.
This was my second trip to Japan, the first being in 1993 when I spent two months there backpacking, and my wife's first. We went to some places I'd been to before and also some I hadn't. This time was a semi-backpacking trip, meaning while we took backpacks and didn't take guided tours, all our accommodation was pre-booked and we stayed in only four places, making day trips from there to other places of interest. We also stayed in ryokans and minshukus, traditional Japanese inns and guest houses, rather than western hotels. While these can give a feeling for traditional Japanese guest accommodation, they don't always have the facilities of the more modern hotels. In a couple of places we didn't have a private bathroom or toilet, instead having to share public facilities (although separate for men and women).
Some of the things I remembered about Japan hadn't really changed, both good and bad things. On the good side, the public transport system is excellent. You can set your watch by the departure time of the express trains. And there's plenty of wonderful food to be tried, although some of it can be quite expensive (anything with beef, for example).
On the bad side, like some other Asian countries, I think Japan could keep the world's tobacco industry going single-handedly. As someone who hates smoking, and has now gotten used to a society where it's banned in the work place, public buildings, and restaurants and cafes, in Japan it's nearly everywhere with lots of people doing it. Fortunately the trains are segregated into smoking and non-smoking sections, although even in the non-smoking sections the smell sometimes gets in through the air conditioning, and historic buildings tend to ban smoking (probably for fire safety reasons), but smoking is common in ryokans, restaurants and cafes, shops, and pretty much everywhere else. And many of the restaurants are very small, where just one or two people smoking can stink out the whole place. And of course Murphy's law says that no matter where we sit in a restaurant, a smoker will come in shortly afterwards, sit right at the next table, and chain-smoke non-stop for the whole meal!
One thing that does seem to have changed somewhat is the amount of English language on display. Last time I was there, while the major tourist trains and buses would have some announcements and writing in English, a lot of places had nothing and most foreign names were also written in the katakana script (eg. for MacDonalds). Now there seems to be more English around, much of it without any accompanying Japanese translation. And all the railway stations now seem to have the station name in romaji (western alphabet), whereas only some used to have that. A lot of Japanese people speak some English, although often only at a very basic level - just enough to communicate the needs of their business. While last time it was useful to know some basic Japanese, and to be able to read the hiragana and katakana, this time it was much less so (although admittedly I went to some more out-of-the-way places last time). Being able to read the kana can still be quite useful though, and after being frustrated by not being able to do it any more, I made the effort during a couple of longer train trips to learn them again. Learning them was much quicker this time, although by the end I could still only read most of them very slowly.
Another thing I noticed that I've never seen anywhere else is that many public mens' urinals are exposed from behind, allowing passersby to see in and potentially observe men standing at the urinals. Even on the express trains, if a mens' urinal is provided, the door will have a clear glass pane in it, allowing anyone passing in the corridor to see in. Some of the public toilets, including in the middle of larger cities, are shared by men and women. While men may be standing at the urinals, women can walk across just behind them and into the cubicles. A little unsettling when you're not used to it - for my wife as well. It also means, as a man, that you need to take more care in parking Percy and zipping up before turning away from the urinal!
Some comments about the photographs posted here. They were nearly all taken with a Nikon Coolpix P1, a small 8 megapixel digital camera, which I had set to maximum size and quality (ie. minimum compression). I mostly used the aperture priority setting so that I could control depth of field (my other film camera is a Nikon FM2, which is fully manual, something I'm used to and mostly prefer now). The lens focal length is very short anyway, so depth of field is not a huge issue, but this does cause edge curvature which is particularly noticeable when photographing tall, straight objects like multi-storey buildings (some professional cameras can compensate for this effect, but not this camera as far as I'm aware). A small handful of the photos were also scanned from prints taken by either the Nikon FM2 or an Olympus P&S, using a very cheap and relatively poor quality flatbed scanner.
Because the originals are so big, I had to resize the images smaller to post here. This led to another dilemma, of whether to resize or resample. Both do the same thing but in different ways. Resizing gives the sharpest quality, but can accentuate highlights and cause wavey patterns on certain surfaces, which can sometimes look unnatural. Resampling fixes all of this but loses some of the clarity, making the pictures look like they've been taken using a diffusion filter (similar to soft focus). Ultimately I decided to use resizing by default, and only change to resampling when the effect of resizing was particularly bad. Only a small number of the pictures here have used resampling, but a few of the others show the effects of resizing quite clearly, when you know what to look for!
Anyway, on with the show...
Japan has an excellent rail network! While many foreigners have heard stories of Tokyo residents being jammed into subway trains with cattle prods, these trains are only packed for short periods each working day. For the rest of the time getting in is easy, and we could often get seats as well.
Most amazingly, Japan's trains run on time! A bullet train can spend eight hours going half the length of the country and still pull into a station within a minute or two of its scheduled departure time. You can set your watch by the departures of these and other express trains. The down side though is they're expensive (the express trains - not the subway trains). For foreign tourists who wish to travel a lot though, this can be reduced considerably by purchasing a Japan Rail Pass before entering the country. These allow you to use any JR train, bus, or ferry, except the Nozomi shinkansen (bullet train). This includes the entirely useful Yamanote circle line in Tokyo, which takes you to many of the city's points of interest. Japan does have private railways though, which occasionally are more convenient for certain trips, and the passes can also not be used on the city subways. For this trip we purchased 14-day passes, with the other four days mainly confined to Tokyo where we used the subway.
And for anyone used to Sydney's rail network, even the city trains are a pleasure to travel. In Tokyo, for most subway stations, we never had to wait for more than two or three minutes for a train, even when one was just pulling out as we arrived. In Sydney you can sometimes wait for up to an hour for the next train - 20 to 30 minutes being very common, and that assuming it actually arrives on time! And in Tokyo, once a train is moving, it picks up speed and hardly slows down until the next station. In Sydney, trains stopping on the tracks between stations for minutes at a time is common.
One of the more amusing things to see on express trains is the courtesy of the conductors. At some point the conductor will pass through checking the tickets. Every time he (or she) enters a carriage he will bow, say something in Japanese, and then proceed along the carriage. When he exits the carriage, he will go through the door, turn, then bow and say something else in Japanese (not sure what he says, as I never really heard him clearly). This sort of thing is also seen in shops, where entering a shop will evoke a rousing "irrashaimasse" (welcome), and leaving will receive an "arigato gozaimasu" (thank you very much). In fact, the latter phrase is heard so often everywhere, often repeated rapidly for no apparent reason, that it must be seriously ingrained into the Japanese psyche.
First photo: the nose of a bullet train. These trains travel up to around 260 kph (the Hikari ones do - the Nozomi ones possibly even faster). A great way to travel...
... if you have a rail pass.
Note though that some trains can be very busy at certain times of the day, so when travelling non-reserved, it can pay to get to the platform a bit early to queue up.
Tokyo is a large, sprawling city, with lots of things to see. It's a city of contrasts, with older sections retaining the flavour of an earlier era, along-side modern high-rises, garrish neon lights, video screens, and a much more western looking youth who flock to the "in" suburbs of Rappongi and Harajuku. When you get off the train at Shinjuku, on one side is the modern business world, the other, once you get past the large video display, a series of narrow streets full of small restaurants, bars, and other interesting shops. While the city has a number of "attractions", simply watching the people and looking around the various districts is entertaining in itself. Just observing the range of different people while riding a subway train can make for an interesting journey.
The first impression you'll get of Tokyo's trains if you take the Keisei Skyliner from Narita airport into the city. This is another private railway where a JR pass cannot be used.
A Tokyo subway station, obviously not during the peak period.
Inside a subway train. Note the man at the back near the door wearing a mask across his mouth. Quite a lot of Japanese walk around wearing these, but I don't know if they really help much.
The plaza just outside Shinjuku station east side.
A plastic food display outside a restaurant. This stuff is everywhere, and can make eating very simple even if you don't speak a word of Japanese. However, what you get doesn't always match what's on display, and some smaller restaurants only display a small selection of their food this way (the plastic food is expensive). When you enter these smaller restaurants, the walls are often covered with banners listing all the menu choices - written in Japanese only. As my wife can read quite a lot of Chinese characters, and I learnt to read the hiragana and katakana again, between us we managed to figure out what quite a few of these menu items were, at least in a basic sense. Trying to ask what they are doesn't always work though, as the owner's English may not be good enough to explain much more than just saying "fish" or "meat" or whatever. Alternatively, pointing to what someone else is eating usually works.
Another plastic food display.
My wife trying the real thing: a baked egg type of custard, sushi, and prawn tempura. In general, fish, including prawns, crab, and shellfish, is relatively cheap, while beef is relatively expensive. The small brown dish with the lid contains miso soup. Tea is generally provided free and is typically green tea made from powder. Note that my wife is not really sweating profusely, that's just the effect of resizing on the highlights caused by the flash (although I did touch up a few of the worst spots).
If you want to buy your own plastic food, head down to Kappabashi Road near Ueno, but bring plenty of money - the stuff's far more expensive than the real thing. If often looks more appetising as well! Note that the bowls and glasses holding the food are not usually plastic, but rather real crockery or glass.
A sushi bar in Rappongi, where the food revolves like suitcases on an airport baggage carousel. You just eat what you want and the price is determined by the colour of the plates.
A couple of dishes we tried: crab legs and sea urchin. The Iron Chefs on TV use sea urchin a lot so I had to try it for once. It's one of the most expensive plates and you only get four tiny slivers, which don't really taste that great in my opinion. An acquired taste perhaps.
Vending machines for drinks are everywhere. There are also some for cigarettes. The same drinks can often be bought from a convenience store for a few yen less. Japan has a number of different convenience stores, including Seven-Eleven and Lawson. In the photo, the thing in the middle with the two round holes is a garbage bin for bottles only, which is why the holes are round (to try and prevent other types of rubbish being put in there). Many garbage bins are divided into bottles and cans, combustibles, and other. At times only the one labelled "other" exists, which by itself is rather meaningless (ie. other than what?)
And some of my favourite drinks. These are basically all just water with some sort of minerals and stuff added - pretty much the cheapest drinks for the size (this is just a few of them - there are other similar ones). Mostly they taste about the same, but I particularly liked the Lemon Water, which tasted like plain water with a squeeze of lemon.
If there's one thing the Japanese do very well it's food presentation. Many of the major department stores have basement levels full of food: everything from bread, to pickled vegetables, to seafood, to meat, to desserts. There are often small sample dishes out for many things, but unfortunately not the type of things shown below.
Ameyayoko-cho just outside Ueno station - a popular market area between and under the railway lines. You're more likely to get discounts in these sorts of places, as bargaining in larger stores doesn't seem to be that common.
Ginza by night - a wet night at that. And no, that's not the Japanese version of the leaning tower of Pisa. It's just edge curvature caused by the camera's wide-angle lens.
Tsukiji (pronounced "ski-gee") fish market. The fish auctions happen early, and most of the day's activities were over by the time we got there around 10am or so.
The wheels you have to have if you work there. There are heaps of these machines racing around everywhere, and between the wet and mucky floors and dodging these machines, walking through the market sheds can be quite hazardous - especially for cameras.
One of the market lanes just outside the fish market. Like any popular place in Japan, it's surrounded by markets selling food and souvenirs.
Dried fish (probably bonito) waiting to be ground down into flakes, which are then sprinkled over rice or noodles.
Tsukiji Hongwan-ji Temple - an Indian-influenced building near the fish markets.
My wife's favourite store: the Japanese equivalent of our $1 shop! Some things cost more than ¥100 though, but they're always labelled as such.
A lot of the large US food chains are in Japan too. As well as McDonalds, KFC, and Subway, there's also:
and:
They mostly don't even bother having the names in Japanese any more. When I was last there in '93, all the McDonald's stores I saw had the name written in katakana as well (ma-k'-do-na-ru-do).
Yokohama is just south of Tokyo and includes a Chinatown, which is quite a tourist attraction. As you might expect, many of the shops sell food and/or souvenirs, but there are also a couple temples and parks.
Chukagai Kanteibyo - a temple.
Yamashita-cho Park.
And... oh dear... not everything translates well!
Nikko is a famous temple area in the hills north of Tokyo, and the burial place of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu who first unified Japan. The area can be extremely crowded, but we went on a week day which turned out to be very cold and windy but fortunately not too busy.
Rinnoji temple. This is the first thing you see on entering the park.
A five-story pagoda.
The Tosho-gu shrine, apparently dedicated to the memory of Ieyasu by his grandson.
A rack of sake offerings.
Ieyasu's grave.
An old stone lantern.
A line of stone lanterns leading to the Futarasan shrine.
A gate to the Futurasan shrine.
Next to Okayama...
Introduction
This was my second trip to Japan, the first being in 1993 when I spent two months there backpacking, and my wife's first. We went to some places I'd been to before and also some I hadn't. This time was a semi-backpacking trip, meaning while we took backpacks and didn't take guided tours, all our accommodation was pre-booked and we stayed in only four places, making day trips from there to other places of interest. We also stayed in ryokans and minshukus, traditional Japanese inns and guest houses, rather than western hotels. While these can give a feeling for traditional Japanese guest accommodation, they don't always have the facilities of the more modern hotels. In a couple of places we didn't have a private bathroom or toilet, instead having to share public facilities (although separate for men and women).
Some of the things I remembered about Japan hadn't really changed, both good and bad things. On the good side, the public transport system is excellent. You can set your watch by the departure time of the express trains. And there's plenty of wonderful food to be tried, although some of it can be quite expensive (anything with beef, for example).
On the bad side, like some other Asian countries, I think Japan could keep the world's tobacco industry going single-handedly. As someone who hates smoking, and has now gotten used to a society where it's banned in the work place, public buildings, and restaurants and cafes, in Japan it's nearly everywhere with lots of people doing it. Fortunately the trains are segregated into smoking and non-smoking sections, although even in the non-smoking sections the smell sometimes gets in through the air conditioning, and historic buildings tend to ban smoking (probably for fire safety reasons), but smoking is common in ryokans, restaurants and cafes, shops, and pretty much everywhere else. And many of the restaurants are very small, where just one or two people smoking can stink out the whole place. And of course Murphy's law says that no matter where we sit in a restaurant, a smoker will come in shortly afterwards, sit right at the next table, and chain-smoke non-stop for the whole meal!
One thing that does seem to have changed somewhat is the amount of English language on display. Last time I was there, while the major tourist trains and buses would have some announcements and writing in English, a lot of places had nothing and most foreign names were also written in the katakana script (eg. for MacDonalds). Now there seems to be more English around, much of it without any accompanying Japanese translation. And all the railway stations now seem to have the station name in romaji (western alphabet), whereas only some used to have that. A lot of Japanese people speak some English, although often only at a very basic level - just enough to communicate the needs of their business. While last time it was useful to know some basic Japanese, and to be able to read the hiragana and katakana, this time it was much less so (although admittedly I went to some more out-of-the-way places last time). Being able to read the kana can still be quite useful though, and after being frustrated by not being able to do it any more, I made the effort during a couple of longer train trips to learn them again. Learning them was much quicker this time, although by the end I could still only read most of them very slowly.
Another thing I noticed that I've never seen anywhere else is that many public mens' urinals are exposed from behind, allowing passersby to see in and potentially observe men standing at the urinals. Even on the express trains, if a mens' urinal is provided, the door will have a clear glass pane in it, allowing anyone passing in the corridor to see in. Some of the public toilets, including in the middle of larger cities, are shared by men and women. While men may be standing at the urinals, women can walk across just behind them and into the cubicles. A little unsettling when you're not used to it - for my wife as well. It also means, as a man, that you need to take more care in parking Percy and zipping up before turning away from the urinal!
Photographs
Some comments about the photographs posted here. They were nearly all taken with a Nikon Coolpix P1, a small 8 megapixel digital camera, which I had set to maximum size and quality (ie. minimum compression). I mostly used the aperture priority setting so that I could control depth of field (my other film camera is a Nikon FM2, which is fully manual, something I'm used to and mostly prefer now). The lens focal length is very short anyway, so depth of field is not a huge issue, but this does cause edge curvature which is particularly noticeable when photographing tall, straight objects like multi-storey buildings (some professional cameras can compensate for this effect, but not this camera as far as I'm aware). A small handful of the photos were also scanned from prints taken by either the Nikon FM2 or an Olympus P&S, using a very cheap and relatively poor quality flatbed scanner.
Because the originals are so big, I had to resize the images smaller to post here. This led to another dilemma, of whether to resize or resample. Both do the same thing but in different ways. Resizing gives the sharpest quality, but can accentuate highlights and cause wavey patterns on certain surfaces, which can sometimes look unnatural. Resampling fixes all of this but loses some of the clarity, making the pictures look like they've been taken using a diffusion filter (similar to soft focus). Ultimately I decided to use resizing by default, and only change to resampling when the effect of resizing was particularly bad. Only a small number of the pictures here have used resampling, but a few of the others show the effects of resizing quite clearly, when you know what to look for!
Anyway, on with the show...
Japan's Trains
Japan has an excellent rail network! While many foreigners have heard stories of Tokyo residents being jammed into subway trains with cattle prods, these trains are only packed for short periods each working day. For the rest of the time getting in is easy, and we could often get seats as well.
Most amazingly, Japan's trains run on time! A bullet train can spend eight hours going half the length of the country and still pull into a station within a minute or two of its scheduled departure time. You can set your watch by the departures of these and other express trains. The down side though is they're expensive (the express trains - not the subway trains). For foreign tourists who wish to travel a lot though, this can be reduced considerably by purchasing a Japan Rail Pass before entering the country. These allow you to use any JR train, bus, or ferry, except the Nozomi shinkansen (bullet train). This includes the entirely useful Yamanote circle line in Tokyo, which takes you to many of the city's points of interest. Japan does have private railways though, which occasionally are more convenient for certain trips, and the passes can also not be used on the city subways. For this trip we purchased 14-day passes, with the other four days mainly confined to Tokyo where we used the subway.
And for anyone used to Sydney's rail network, even the city trains are a pleasure to travel. In Tokyo, for most subway stations, we never had to wait for more than two or three minutes for a train, even when one was just pulling out as we arrived. In Sydney you can sometimes wait for up to an hour for the next train - 20 to 30 minutes being very common, and that assuming it actually arrives on time! And in Tokyo, once a train is moving, it picks up speed and hardly slows down until the next station. In Sydney, trains stopping on the tracks between stations for minutes at a time is common.
One of the more amusing things to see on express trains is the courtesy of the conductors. At some point the conductor will pass through checking the tickets. Every time he (or she) enters a carriage he will bow, say something in Japanese, and then proceed along the carriage. When he exits the carriage, he will go through the door, turn, then bow and say something else in Japanese (not sure what he says, as I never really heard him clearly). This sort of thing is also seen in shops, where entering a shop will evoke a rousing "irrashaimasse" (welcome), and leaving will receive an "arigato gozaimasu" (thank you very much). In fact, the latter phrase is heard so often everywhere, often repeated rapidly for no apparent reason, that it must be seriously ingrained into the Japanese psyche.
First photo: the nose of a bullet train. These trains travel up to around 260 kph (the Hikari ones do - the Nozomi ones possibly even faster). A great way to travel...
... if you have a rail pass.
Note though that some trains can be very busy at certain times of the day, so when travelling non-reserved, it can pay to get to the platform a bit early to queue up.
Tokyo
Tokyo is a large, sprawling city, with lots of things to see. It's a city of contrasts, with older sections retaining the flavour of an earlier era, along-side modern high-rises, garrish neon lights, video screens, and a much more western looking youth who flock to the "in" suburbs of Rappongi and Harajuku. When you get off the train at Shinjuku, on one side is the modern business world, the other, once you get past the large video display, a series of narrow streets full of small restaurants, bars, and other interesting shops. While the city has a number of "attractions", simply watching the people and looking around the various districts is entertaining in itself. Just observing the range of different people while riding a subway train can make for an interesting journey.
The first impression you'll get of Tokyo's trains if you take the Keisei Skyliner from Narita airport into the city. This is another private railway where a JR pass cannot be used.
A Tokyo subway station, obviously not during the peak period.
Inside a subway train. Note the man at the back near the door wearing a mask across his mouth. Quite a lot of Japanese walk around wearing these, but I don't know if they really help much.
The plaza just outside Shinjuku station east side.
A plastic food display outside a restaurant. This stuff is everywhere, and can make eating very simple even if you don't speak a word of Japanese. However, what you get doesn't always match what's on display, and some smaller restaurants only display a small selection of their food this way (the plastic food is expensive). When you enter these smaller restaurants, the walls are often covered with banners listing all the menu choices - written in Japanese only. As my wife can read quite a lot of Chinese characters, and I learnt to read the hiragana and katakana again, between us we managed to figure out what quite a few of these menu items were, at least in a basic sense. Trying to ask what they are doesn't always work though, as the owner's English may not be good enough to explain much more than just saying "fish" or "meat" or whatever. Alternatively, pointing to what someone else is eating usually works.
Another plastic food display.
My wife trying the real thing: a baked egg type of custard, sushi, and prawn tempura. In general, fish, including prawns, crab, and shellfish, is relatively cheap, while beef is relatively expensive. The small brown dish with the lid contains miso soup. Tea is generally provided free and is typically green tea made from powder. Note that my wife is not really sweating profusely, that's just the effect of resizing on the highlights caused by the flash (although I did touch up a few of the worst spots).
If you want to buy your own plastic food, head down to Kappabashi Road near Ueno, but bring plenty of money - the stuff's far more expensive than the real thing. If often looks more appetising as well! Note that the bowls and glasses holding the food are not usually plastic, but rather real crockery or glass.
A sushi bar in Rappongi, where the food revolves like suitcases on an airport baggage carousel. You just eat what you want and the price is determined by the colour of the plates.
A couple of dishes we tried: crab legs and sea urchin. The Iron Chefs on TV use sea urchin a lot so I had to try it for once. It's one of the most expensive plates and you only get four tiny slivers, which don't really taste that great in my opinion. An acquired taste perhaps.
Vending machines for drinks are everywhere. There are also some for cigarettes. The same drinks can often be bought from a convenience store for a few yen less. Japan has a number of different convenience stores, including Seven-Eleven and Lawson. In the photo, the thing in the middle with the two round holes is a garbage bin for bottles only, which is why the holes are round (to try and prevent other types of rubbish being put in there). Many garbage bins are divided into bottles and cans, combustibles, and other. At times only the one labelled "other" exists, which by itself is rather meaningless (ie. other than what?)
And some of my favourite drinks. These are basically all just water with some sort of minerals and stuff added - pretty much the cheapest drinks for the size (this is just a few of them - there are other similar ones). Mostly they taste about the same, but I particularly liked the Lemon Water, which tasted like plain water with a squeeze of lemon.
If there's one thing the Japanese do very well it's food presentation. Many of the major department stores have basement levels full of food: everything from bread, to pickled vegetables, to seafood, to meat, to desserts. There are often small sample dishes out for many things, but unfortunately not the type of things shown below.
Ameyayoko-cho just outside Ueno station - a popular market area between and under the railway lines. You're more likely to get discounts in these sorts of places, as bargaining in larger stores doesn't seem to be that common.
Ginza by night - a wet night at that. And no, that's not the Japanese version of the leaning tower of Pisa. It's just edge curvature caused by the camera's wide-angle lens.
Tsukiji (pronounced "ski-gee") fish market. The fish auctions happen early, and most of the day's activities were over by the time we got there around 10am or so.
The wheels you have to have if you work there. There are heaps of these machines racing around everywhere, and between the wet and mucky floors and dodging these machines, walking through the market sheds can be quite hazardous - especially for cameras.
One of the market lanes just outside the fish market. Like any popular place in Japan, it's surrounded by markets selling food and souvenirs.
Dried fish (probably bonito) waiting to be ground down into flakes, which are then sprinkled over rice or noodles.
Tsukiji Hongwan-ji Temple - an Indian-influenced building near the fish markets.
My wife's favourite store: the Japanese equivalent of our $1 shop! Some things cost more than ¥100 though, but they're always labelled as such.
A lot of the large US food chains are in Japan too. As well as McDonalds, KFC, and Subway, there's also:
and:
They mostly don't even bother having the names in Japanese any more. When I was last there in '93, all the McDonald's stores I saw had the name written in katakana as well (ma-k'-do-na-ru-do).
Yokohama Chinatown
Yokohama is just south of Tokyo and includes a Chinatown, which is quite a tourist attraction. As you might expect, many of the shops sell food and/or souvenirs, but there are also a couple temples and parks.
Chukagai Kanteibyo - a temple.
Yamashita-cho Park.
And... oh dear... not everything translates well!
Nikko
Nikko is a famous temple area in the hills north of Tokyo, and the burial place of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu who first unified Japan. The area can be extremely crowded, but we went on a week day which turned out to be very cold and windy but fortunately not too busy.
Rinnoji temple. This is the first thing you see on entering the park.
A five-story pagoda.
The Tosho-gu shrine, apparently dedicated to the memory of Ieyasu by his grandson.
A rack of sake offerings.
Ieyasu's grave.
An old stone lantern.
A line of stone lanterns leading to the Futarasan shrine.
A gate to the Futurasan shrine.
Next to Okayama...
# posted by Wayne Sowry @ 1:16 am
