After watching one and a half Simpsons episodes, 45 minutes of Pharrell Williams’s lego-themed documentary, Twilight Eclipse, Denzel Washington’s Malcolm X, and Deadpool & Wolverine, my grandma and I had finally arrived at the Haneda Airport, emerging with stiff legs and optimistic aspirations from our 13-hour flight.
My grandma, who I’ve called BB all my life, lived in Japan from the third through fifth grade at a military base with her father and siblings. Besides visiting Kamakura once during her stay, she never learned much about Japanese culture because she attended school on the base. We both could not have been more excited.
Leaving the airport, we waited in several of lines until we finally got through customs. A woman met us at the drop off area and gave us each handkerchiefs, and several tickets we would be using throughout the trip. We were whisked away to a large taxi that brought us to Tokyo’s Park Hotel.
Park Hotel is an art hotel with an art gallery on each floor. The lobby is littered with various creations, and some rooms even had original art pieces painted onto the walls. I would learn more about the paintings and art motifs as I explored the hotel over the coming days.
We were in a daze the day we arrived. It was midday in Japan, which meant it was the early hours of the morning in the U.S. Exhausted, we settled into the hotel. With the help of the concierge, we slept-walk to an udon restaurant in a nearby shopping mall. The learning curve of using chopsticks combined with my jet lag-induced reduced motor skills made grabbing the thick udon noodles with chopsticks an insurmountable task–so insurmountable that we were likely a humorous sight to behold for the Japanese people around us. Eventually we finished eating, stumbled to our room, and slept.
Or at least we tried to. We ended up waking up at 4 a.m. Jet lag had struck: 1-0. We filled the time watching anime without the dub, scrolling through reels, and taking our time making the hotel’s green tea. We meandered around the hotel galleries until the hotel breakfast opened at 7 a.m. The breakfast offered a Japanese menu in addition to a “Western” menu. We would soon learn that Western referred to an amalgamation of American, Italian, French (mostly pastries), and other European foods. BB mostly ate scrambled eggs with veggies, while I ate the vegetarian option.
At 8:00 a.m., we met Mako, our tour guide. She would take us on three eight-hour tours for each of our two full days in Tokyo and a day trip in Kamakura. We met with the slightly awkward introduction that accompanies any interaction with someone new you are about to spend a significant amount of time with and embarked on our first destination, Hama-Rikyū Garden.
Hama-Rikyū is a garden that was cultivated by a feudal lord in the warring states period of Japan. By creating intricate and refined gardens, feudal lords flaunted wealth and status during the Edo Period (1603 C.E.-1867 C.E.). As Mako would tell us, the Edo period was a time of peace and stability in which the Tokugawa Shogunate rose to power and oversaw feudal lords, effectively ending Warring States Period. Edo was characterized by a policy called Sakoku–a policy of isolationism that was meant to restrict foreign religious and economic influence. In the center of Hama-Rikyū was a Nakajima-no-ochaya, or teahouse.
Upon entering, we took off our shoes and sat down at a picnic table-like set up. Mako told us about how tea houses were one of the few places in the Edo-Period where status did not matter. We were given matcha and dorayaki, a type of red bean pastry that provided sweetness to balance out the bitterness of the matcha.
We left the tea house and continued to walk around the garden in the rain. Mako told us about how cherry blossom season–of which we were experiencing the tail end of–was regarded very seriously in Japanese culture. For example, T.V. stations often feature which species of cherry blossoms were blossoming or ending their season when.
Our next destination was Zōjōji, the first of the temples we would visit. Mako told us about Japanese religion while we walked there. Shrines are religious locations for the Shinto religion, while temples are religious locations for Buddhism. Shinto developed in Japan as its indigenous religion, and Buddhism spread to Japan in the mid 6th C.E. century from Korea. Because Shinto and Buddhist beliefs like respect for nature and social harmony do not contradict each other, the average Japanese person generally follows the practices of both religions and pays respects at both shrines and temples.
Built in 1393 C.E. and relocated to present-day Tokyo in 1598 C.E., Zōjōji became the family temple of the Tokugawa Shogunate that sprawled 826,000 square meters. Zōjōji is a temple following the Jōdo sect of Buddhism, which preaches Senjū-Nimbutsu–“single-minded recitation of Nembutsu.” The sect dictates that the person praying will be accorded salvation and live in Gokuraku-Jōdo, or “Pure Land of Bliss.” A Buddhist monk named Hōnen Shōnin founded Jōdo to make Buddhism more accessible to everyday people, rather limiting it to the nobility.
We arrived at the temple. There we each bought a Goshuin-Chō, is was a notebook in which staff at each temple or shrine could put unique calligraphy and stamps in a page wide design called a Goshuin. The temple’s existence made me appreciate how Japan is able to blend tradition with modernization; a 600 year old temple sat amongst skyscrapers in the biggest city in the world.
Next, we walked to Tokyo Tower, a giant red and white structure resembling the Eiffel Tower. At the foot of the tower, giant colorful carp hanging down called koinobori. These streamers are hung up for Japan’s Children’s Day celebrated on May 5th each year, and symbolize strength and determination. As Mako said, most families would hang the koinobori on a pole in their backyard for their children. Since Tokyo is densely populated, that situation is unfeasible. Instead, the city decided to honor all the city’s children together by hanging a school of koinobori off the Tokyo tower.
People can choose to look at the lower level or a high level with a “diamond tour” that entails a guide enthusiastically talking about parts of the tower. We opted for the lower level to avoid a lengthy wait time. While waiting in line to get on the elevator, we learned that despite only a year and a half of construction, Tokyo Tower finished construction as the tallest self-supported steel tower to date when it opened to the public in 1958. It symbolized rebirth after the destruction in World War II. As we emerged from the elevator, we were greeted with a spectacular view of the city.
By the time we had left the tower, we were hungry. Mako took us to a sushi restaurant in Asakusa. I had only eaten sushi before a few times before, most of it Americanized. We ordered raw scallops, squid, and tuna. As instructed by Mako, we ate ginger throughout the meal as a palate cleanser when switching between different types of seafood. We also ate chawanmushi, a Japanese egg custard. Mako told us a story about how she had always eaten chawanmushi for breakfast before rushing to school as a child.
After lunch and a visit to a second temple, we reached our final location of the day–the Yanaka district. In addition to its old-town charm, this area was known for the its abundance of cats. However, most of the cats were sterilized recently. What’s left are several cat decorations referencing the cats that were once there. The walk through Yanaka was a relaxing end to our busy first day.
We woke up the next morning at 5:00 a.m. Jet lag scored another point: 2-0. Slow-moving and sleepy, we made our way to breakfast and met Mako in the lobby again. Our first stop was Shinjuku Gyoen, the, the national garden of Japan. Like Hama-Rikyu, Shinjuku Gyeon was originally created by a feudal lord during the Edo period. It was transferred to Japan’s Imperial Family in 1903 C.E.
A multitude of the pink Cherry blossom petals falling to the ground, the blue sky, and surrounding vegetation created a truly picturesque and blissful experience. BB and I kept looking back at each other as we walked as we were simply amazed by the beauty surrounding us. Mako told us about how she facilitated group yoga in the park weekly. Tourists and Japanese people alike appreciated the garden. Shinjuku Gyeon seemed like a far less chaotic Central Park.
Our next stop was the Meiji Jingu Shrine, colloquially referred to as the Meiji shrine. This shrine was established in 1920 to commemorate the Emporer Meiji’s and Empress Shoken’s lives. He led the Meiji restoration, a political revolution lasting from marked the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and began a period of rapid industrialization and modernization from 1868 C.E. to 1912 C.E. that would make Japan a global power in the following years. Over three million people visit the Meiji Shrine in the first days of the Japanese new year, making it one of the most visited shrines in Japan. During the shrine’s construction, people across Japan contributed over 100,000 tree saplings to create the forest that surrounded the Meiji shrine because of their deep appreciation for the emperor.
One of the traditional responsibilities of the Japanese imperial family is to write and recite 31-syllable poems called Waka. Emperor Meiji wrote over 100,000 Waka, the most of any known person. To honor that dedication, visitors of the Meiji shrine can receive a Waka for a small donation of yen. BB and I both received poems from the shrine.
In Kyōto, we decided to visit the Kyoto International Manga Museum. My uncle introduced me to manga when I was in middle school. Since then (and because manga was so expensive), I would go through phases reading chapters weekly and then dropping it off for a few months.
The main entrance of the museum opens into a cafe area where people can buy manga and a reading area. The museum is a repurposed elementary school building, so some rooms are tableau’s of their pre-museum state, one such room being as undisturbed principal’s office. There was also an area where people could draw pictures of their favorite characters, mascots, or anything else and display them on a poster board.
The main attraction of the museum is a giant room with walls completely lined by shelves of manga from different decades with informational displays about manga in the center. BB pointed out a character that she remembered seeing often when she lived in Japan at one of those informational displays. What astounded me was the sheer diversity of the people reading. Kids read on benches reading manga from the 2020s while a man in his 50s posed as his wife took a picture of him standing next to bookshelves correlating to the 1970s. The surrounding manga store had books offered in a plethora of languages. The impact of manga is truly transnational and intergenerational.
The International Manga Museum intentionally emphasized the “international” aspect of its existence. For instance, in the main feature area, boards featured how manga was often pirated in the beginning of the digital age which led to the proliferation of similar comics in China with manhua and Korea with manhwa. They also discuss the different struggles of being a manga artist and the profit flows. While manga magazines are the way that most people got access to manga, artists received only a small sliver of the profit after the publisher, print shop, and all other aspects of the publication process take money away. Meanwhile, much more of the profit goes directly to the manga when the book compiling several weeks of chapters is bought.
The well known nature of manga is one way in which Japan exhibits its soft power–power that is related to culture rather than explicitly a governmental force like military might. Between anime and manga, beautiful national parks, UNESCO-recognized food, and much more, Japan has a lot of it and causes people across the world to view Japan favorably. It is incredible that there can be so much cultural exchange between the U.S. and a country on the other side of the planet.
I also really enjoyed spending time with my grandmother and getting to see different sides of her. There were so many moments of joy that I simply could not fit into this article. I am incredibly grateful for this amazing experience, and would highly recommend people visit Japan.
I also really enjoyed spending time with my grandmother and getting to see different sides of her. There were so many moments of joy that I simply could not fit into this article. I am incredibly grateful for this amazing experience, and would highly recommend that you visit Japan.