Japan is an ancient nation, but Tokyo is not an old city. There was only a small village here in 1603 when Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun, created established a new city here as his center of power. What we call Tokyo was known then as Edo. The emperor continued to reside in Kyoto and that was the official capital of Japan, but the emperors had little authority and political and military power resided with the shogun in Edo.
One of the parts of Edo developed during this period is the area where we are staying. It is called Shiodome. Now Shiodome sounds like a rather bad name for a sports complex, but the word is Japanese and probably meant something like “keeping out the tide.” The area was originally marshland on the north side of Tokyo Bay, and the shogun ordered it filled in and gave his feudal lords, daimyo in Japanese, the land here for building their homes. The shogun required the daimyo to live for much of the year in Edo. This allowed him to keep a careful eye on them, and also drained a good bit of the finances they would need to mount a rebellion.
In 1868, after a good deal of interference by the United States and Britain in the internal affairs of Japan, the shogunate was abolished. In theory this restored the power of the emperor, and for that reason it is called the Meiji Restoration. But in reality Japan was dominated by the western powers during this time and its national government was fairly powerless. The abolition of the Shogunate was also the end of the feudal system, and the residences of the daimyo were abandoned or destroyed. The land here was used by the new government as a railway terminus of the Tokaido Main Line, the first railway in Japan.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Shiodome remained an important transportation area. And after 1914, when the Main Line was extended, it became the primary freight yard for Tokyo. The area was badly damaged during the 1920 Kanto earthquake, but rebuilt soon afterwards. It suffered even greater damage during the American bombing of Tokyo towards the end of the Second World War. Again, it was rebuilt and remained central to the economy of the region. But the development of motorways and changes like the shift to container shipping left diverted most of the freight away from Shiodome. In 1987, the Japan National Railways was sold to private investors, and the Shiodome freight yards were sold to developers. Working with local and national government planners, thirteen major skyscrapers were built in this area of only 55 acres. Shiodome is now a significant new urban center for Tokyo, and its towering buildings are home to some of the country’s most important corporations. Our hotel, the Park Hotel, is located in one of these high-rises, the Shiodome Media City.
John and I slept better than we expected we would after moving across 16 times zones, but we both woke up fairly early. We decided to go down to breakfast right away at seven, and then to go exploring a bit before our guide showed up. Breakfast was a choice of Japanese or “Western” foods. I knew I should do the Japanese as I am here and it has fewer calories, but somehow a green broth with some kind of meat and vegetables did not appeal to me today. After drinking a last cup of coffee, we went out. By daylight, the whole Shiodome area made a lot more sense to me than I did last night. I had a much better sense of what the buildings were and how the different walkways worked.
Our building is possibly the most handsome of this generally undistinguished group of skyscrapers.
We caught a glimpse of our first cherry blossoms.
We found the Shiodome
and Shinbashi train stations. We were supposed to take the train from Shinbashi to Shinjuku this afternoon, though we did something else — more on that later. We also found the remnants of the old train station complex. It is really surprising that this building somehow survived not only the Kanto earthquake and World War II, but also urban renewal.
We found this rather whimsical clock on the side of one of the buildings.
We also discovered that they’re doing a production of Aladdin here, though we just somehow do not have enough time for it.
I think we have made the same excuse in New York a couple times, too.
We returned to the hotel, and promptly at nine our guide showed up. He was an older man, and we learned later that he had worked for a shipping company for over 40 years before he retired. His name was Keiichi, but he preferred to just be called Kei. He had obviously been informed what we wanted to see, and after making sure we understood what was in our packet from the tour company, we were off to see cherry blossoms.
It was good to have a local help guide us through the Tokyo subway system. He showed us how to top off our Pasmo cards, a rough Japanese equivalent to London’s Oyster card system.
I would have to check, but I feel pretty sure that there must be more miles of rail in this city than in either New York or London. And the names of the stops are not easy for westerners to remember. It is all quite clean, even if some lines are rather old. And, this being Tokyo, it seems far safer than any other system. That is mostly because of the Japanese culture, but there are so many people working here, too. There’s nobody in those other systems whose only job is to let you know the train has arrived and its time to get on board.
Our first stop was Ueno Park. We had a suspicion that we would not be the only people out looking at cherry blossoms, but we were completely overwhelmed by the number of people here.
Poor Kei, wearing the brown coat in the picture below, was worried he was going to lose us in the crowds.
John and I were delighted to be part of such a scene, and loved all the people camped out to eat and drink under the blossoms.
One group appeared to consist of some men dressed up as women, but we were not adept enough with our cameras to catch a picture here. We were able to photograph some of our fellow photographers.
And, of course, there were all those lovely blossoms.
After a bit here, we were ready for another spot, perhaps less crowded. Kei suggested that we try the Yasukuni Shrine. As we went through the subway headed towards Kudanshita Station, we started to notice how many young men were there wearing new black suits
also young women wearing kimonos.
We learned later that this was the day of the graduation of Nihon University, one of the largest and most prestigious of the Japanese universities. The sidewalks were so crowded with the graduates and their families that we could barely move. Kei told us that for the graduation ceremony Nihon had rented the same facilities where the Beatles had played in 1965!
The crowds were so intense that we did not actually enter the Yakusuni Shrine itself. I am a little sorry about that, but I would have made the same decision. It is one of the most sacred of the Shinto shrines, but, as it commemorates Japan’s war dead, including those who died fighting in World War II, it is a controversial place even for the Japanese. The Shrine is directly adjacent to the gardens surrounding the Imperial Palace, and this provided us with some beautiful pictures of more cherry blossoms
and those enjoying them.
I even had an opportunity to get close up to some of these beautiful flowers.
After all the crowds, we were ready for something quieter, and, frankly, so was Kei. He said he had never experienced crowds like that in Tokyo, and he had lived there most of his life. So he suggested Hamarikyu Gardens, right by our hotel. That worked for us, too, as we needed to be back by about 1:30 to get ready for our train trip to Matsumoto. We somehow found our way through the crowds back to the subway station, and Kei found the right line and we were on a train in no time for our last trip. This time I spent less time trying to figure out where we were and more observing the train and my fellow passengers. The Japanese are utterly phobic about germs, so you see people wearing face masks everywhere.
Really, the more time we spend on the Tokyo Metro, the more surreal everything began to seem there. Kei was sitting next to this guy. He had a pea jacket on his lap along with a Coach purse. Despite the vaguely punkish look, he was clearly worried about dry skin.
Meanwhile, I could not stop looking at some of the posters on the train. I guess this one looks like something about what to do if you feel unsafe or something, though I wondered why the man looked like he had somehow not change anything about his appearance since 1975.
And I have NO IDEA what the accompanying picture suggested at all.
Gentle readers, if any of you have any idea what this is about, do let me know.
The Hararikyu Gardens is one of the oldest parks in Tokyo. It is just south of the Shiodome area, and the park was established by the first shogun as part of establishing Edo as his capital. The park served three purposes. First, it provided a buffer between the town and possible flooding from Tokyo Bay. Second, the canal dug through the park allowed small lighters to carry goods from the boats moored in the bay to Edo Castle, the shogun’s residence. Third, the park was a kind of pleasure garden where the feudal lords and their families could spend free time. Somehow, when the rest of Shiodome was turned into a rail yard, the government of Tokyo had the good sense to preserve this area even though it was cut off from the rest of the city. Now it is one of Tokyo’s most beloved places to stroll on a sunny day. And we did just that. As you enter, you first see this 300-year-old pine tree, a living reminder of the days of the shogunate.
There is also a statue of some feudal lord, but Kei was not clear who he was.
There were a few cherry trees blooming here, though my eye was attracted to other blooms as well.
Kei showed us a new tea house that is being build there in exactly the Edo period style.
It was not open yet, but there is another tea house that was open and he took us there for a bowl of green tea.
The tea looked more like pureed kale. Kei explained that this is matcha green tea. It is made by grinding very young tea leaves to a powder and mixing them with hot water. I had vaguely heard about this in Los Angeles where it one of our latest health crazes. I did not mind the taste particularly, but I thought it smelled like seaweed. I would not rush to order it again. We did admire the flower arrangement on the wall opposite us.
We took a short walk afterwards around the lake. I wonder what Tokugawa Ieyasu would make of this scene. I think he would actually be impressed by the power and modernity of the city he established.
We returned to the hotel and bid goodbye to Kei. We were a little after the checkout time, but the hotel staff was gracious about it. We had decided not to follow our travel agent’s advice to send our luggage by courier to the next destination, but we knew we did not want to schlep a couple big suitcases through the Metro. So we took a cab to Shinjuku Station. I liked this better, even as we had a chance to see more of the city than we would underground. And it was only about 30 dollars, not a bad deal at all.
The train left the station promptly at three o’clock. It’s surprising how quickly Tokyo gives way to countryside. And it also surprises me how much more traditionally Japanese it all begins to seem. We did not take any pictures for some reason, but you have all probably had too many pictures already for one day. It took almost three hours for the train to make it from Tokyo up to Matsumoto where we are spending tonight and tomorrow night. Our hotel is pretty magical here … but more on all of that tomorrow.
