Tokyo summer sightseeing
Tokyo was supposed to be hosting the 2020 Olympic Games - the 32nd Olympiad - this August, but the global coronavirus pandemic killed that plan. Now, I despise the Olympics, but I do want Japan to get its money back, after spending so much to get ready to host thousands of athletes, media people, and plain old tourists. The Rugby World Cup held in Japan in the autumn of 2019 was supposed to be a kind or rehearsal for the even larger Olympics. I remember it. It went well, and the capital was crawling with foreign tourists. So many that if I tossed a rock into the crowds I’d probably hit some Australian. I want Tokyo to have its day in the sun. Tokyo is a fantastic city. It’s my home.
In August I wanted to visit one or two places outside Tokyo, but the idea of travel was uncomfortable due to the virus. I mean, it felt dangerous. Tokyo represents a third of all Japan’s COVID-19 cases, and even though there is no current “state of emergency” (nor are we likely to return to that), both the Tokyo government and the national government discourage unnecessary travel outside the city. So, instead, I did a lot of sightseeing within Tokyo - excursions from my apartment, out and about in the city. I revisited some places I’d already seen - some many years ago - and I visited some new places for the first time. Isn’t it a common thing with many people, that they rarely visit the sites in their own towns? All of the sites I visited were practically deserted - because of the hot summer weather, but mostly (I thought) because of the lack of the expected foreign tourists. I felt bad seeing these places so empty while simultaneously feeling good that there were no crowds to contend with. I dislike crowds.
1) Imperial Palace
Saturday, August 8. I’ve visited the Imperial Palace several times before. But it’s always worth another visit. The Imperial Palace in Chiyoda Ward, central Tokyo, occupies the site once occupied by Edo Castle, home to the Tokugawa hereditary shoguns, or military overlords of the country. The Nijubashi Bridge is always the biggest attraction. I go to Tokyo Central Station on the Marunouchi Subway Line and then walk to the Nijubashi Bridge Plaza. Because of the intense summer heat, I walk much of the way in an underground concourse. From there I walk around the entire palace grounds - the moat - much of which is uphill. It takes a couple of hours to walk around the moat. But if you go slowly and stop to take many pictures like I do, it can take much longer. I pass close by the Kokkaigijido (the Diet, the national parliament) along the way, so I detour there to get a picture. Just behind the Diet Building is the Prime Minister’s official residence. Anyone can go there, no problem, by exiting the Kokkaigijidomae subway station, or by walking on the street around behind the Diet Building. There is a very heavy and uncomfortable police presence there. The street is blocked to all traffic but official government vehicles (and emergency vehicles, I suppose).
The trip around the moat is a favorite jogging course among people who like to do that sort of thing. On this particular day, for the first time ever, I discovered that the East Gardens were open. So instead of finishing my round-the-moat-trek I ducked into the nearest gate and began touring what used to be the heart of Edo Castle. I ran out of time, though, and had to return another day for just that purpose.
2) Tokyo Skytree
Sunday, August 9. I’ve seen the 634 meter-tall Skytree many times from a distance because I work in relatively close proximity to it. It opened in 2012, but I never went there before because I worried about crowds and cost. I also worried about it falling down while I was there. I know it’s silly. During the coronavirus pandemic, crowds are not a worry, and everything about it was easy. It was easy to reach, the queue was not bad, and going up and coming down was quick and simple. I took the Marunouchi Subway Line from my neighborhood to Shinjuku-sanchome Station and transferred to the Toei Shinjuku Subway Line. I took that to Sumiyoshi Subway Station (one of the neighborhoods I work at) and changed to the Hanzomon Subway Line, and then two more stops to Oshiage Station / Skytree Station. As soon as I stepped out of the elevator on the Tembo Deck of the Main Pod at 350 meters, I immediately saw a pair of window cleaners on a scaffold outside. What a freaky job! I gestured to my camera as a way of asking permission to take their picture, and they nodded consent. I bowed to show my thanks. Soon, I went to the Tembo Galleria, the upper pod, at 450 meters. (The CN Tower’s upper Sky Pod observation deck in Toronto is at 447 meters elevation.)
3) Yasukuni Shrine
Monday, August 10. Yasukuni Shrine is Japan’s national war memorial. It “enshrines” the souls of all its modern war dead, making them all minor deities. There are no human remains there. As a shrine, it belongs to the Shinto religion, and Shinto is very concerned with ritual purity. Things dealing with death are the opposite of that. So, there are absolutely no human remains interred there. Remember that “enshrinement” and “internment” are two different things. I’ve heard about the shrine for years and years, mostly because it’s a controversial site. Conservative politicians periodically visit it and send Koreans into a conniption fit. I knew that it was easy to reach in the city, but I didn’t realize how near it was until recently, so I decided to go and see what all the fuss was about.
In the Second World War, as Japan’s positions in Asia and the Pacific theater began to collapse and Japan’s war effort began to disintegrate, some Japanese troops would tell each other, “I’ll see you at Yasukuni,” meaning that they knew they were going to die.
Today, some ultra-nationalists visit or parade near the shrine in WWII-era Imperial Army uniforms. There are multi-lingual signs posted warning people against inappropriate behavior, including flag waving and demonstrating. As I say, ultra-nationalists sometimes demonstrate there, and they are sometimes met by Korean counter-demonstrators. It can be quite political. When I visited I just felt kind of somber. The war museum had a room dedicated to photographs of many teenaged boys who died in suicidal kamikaze attacks - boys exactly like my own students today. The war museum gift shop sells replicas of WWII Imperial Army, Navy and Air Force caps, and models of their great warships of that era. Special attention is given to the sister battleships Musashi and Yamato, the largest war ships ever built. Big ships that were ultimately ineffective because, as WWII demonstrated, air power trumps sea power. Most of the statuary within the shrine grounds is life-sized. Apart from the Main Hall dedicated to almost 2.5 million dead service men and women, the grounds also contain memorials to military police, military horses, military dogs, and military passenger pigeons.
There is a lot to see and do.
4) Imperial Palace East Garden
Wednesday, August 12. I had to return to finish the tour I began on Saturday, August 8. I’m glad I did, because my visit there answered so many questions I’ve had for many years that no one seemed able to answer: where was Edo Castle exactly? Where was the castle tower / keep / donjon? Answer: they were here, in what is now called the East Gardens. The Imperial Palace used to be the home of the Tokugawa Shoguns. After the end of the Tokugawa Era and the beginning of the Meiji Era of constitutional democratic government, the Emperor moved from Kyoto Gosho, the Kyoto Imperial Palace to Edo Castle in 1868. Japanese emperors had lived in Kyoto for over a thousand years. Before that, they lived in Nara. They had never lived in Edo before. At its peak, Edo Castle was one of the largest castle fortifications ever built. Maybe the largest. It was huge. It rose up from the surrounding city like a mountain. As many as 100,000 of samurai warriors, 20,000 cavalry, and a two-year supply of provisions could harbor within its walls and moats. At its peak, the castle complex featured a system of seven wet ring moats. Some were man-made, while others took advantage of existing rivers and streams. The Imperial Palace grounds today are a pale reflection of Edo Castle’s glory, occupying only the wooded inner precincts of what was the castle complex.
In the East Gardens I could see the surviving foundation of the old tower (the “tenshu”), which stood until destroyed by fire in the mid-1600s and never re-built. It was never re-built because there was no need for it then. Tokugawa control of the country was stable, the country was secure, plus, Edo Castle had never been attacked. I climbed the foundation to its summit and looked out upon a grassy park that marks the spot of the Shogun’s palace, his family’s home, and his government’s administrative offices, in three sections. It’s all gone now, of course, lost to repeated fires over the centuries. Fire is one of the traditional, enduring disasters in Japan. Wood and paper were featured in most construction, and careless use of cooking or lighting fires, plus fires caused by earthquake demolition resulted in repeated disasters.
5) Tokyo City Hall
Thursday, August 13. I’ve been to the Tokyo City Hall (Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building), called “Tocho,” before. It’s in west Shinjuku, not far from my home. It features twin 70-storey towers. When it opened in April 1991 it was the tallest building in Japan - but no more. When I arrived in Japan, Tocho did not exist. It was under construction, and the metropolitan government then was still based in Yurakucho area near Tokyo Central Station, the Imperial Palace and the national Diet Building. Tocho was built on land in west Shinjuku that used to be occupied by the Yodobashi water filtration plant - a facility that was being redeveloped in my first couple of years here, although I didn’t know it at the time.
Tocho represents a population the size of the Canadian Province of Ontario, and it has a budget similar to the federal budget in Ottawa. Japan is a global economic titan, and Tokyo is the center. From the Observation Decks on the 45th floors, I can look out at the Kanto Plain - the coastal plain that hosts the cities of Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama and others. I am looking at 42 million people living on land about the size of southwestern Ontario from London to Windsor. So, when I see Tocho I think, “That’s all of Canada, right there.”
Tocho has two Observation Decks, one in the North Tower and the other opposite it in the South Tower. Admission is free. When I visited the city hall in December 2019 the North Tower Observation Deck was closed and there was a long line for elevators to the South Tower Observation Deck. This time, however, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Observation Decks were almost completely deserted, and the elevators were in minimal demand. No waiting time.
Directly across the street from the City Hall is the Shinjuku Central Park, Shinjuku chuo koen, which I used to visit a lot in my first years here. It was a meeting spot, a dating area. Some people confuse Shinjuku Central Park with the much larger Shinjuku National Park, Shinjuku gyoen, which is about 1 km in the opposite direction.
6) Tokyo Tower
Friday, August 14. I’ve been to Tokyo Tower a few times, many years ago. But I had not visited since the Toei Oedo Subway Line was completed in 2000. Only recently did I realize how convenient the Oedo Line made a visit there, so I decided to go again. Opened in 1958 and modeled after Paris’ Eiffel Tower, the broadcast functions of the 333-meter tall Tokyo Tower were largely superseded by the Skytree Tower when it opened in 2012. But Tokyo Tower is still used as a broadcast antenna and it is still a popular tourist draw. It is closer to Tokyo Harbor than the Skytree tower and gives a better view than its younger sister. Tokyo Tower is elegant and gentle and a beloved landmark. It still represents Tokyo’s rise from Second World War ashes - it’s return to the world stage as a great city, a city on the verge of hosting the 1964 Olympic Games. Every five years, the tower is repainted in a process that takes about a year to complete. Tokyo Tower is next planned to be repainted in 2024.
The large Zojo-ji Temple is practically at the foot of the tower. It is the headquarters of the Jōdo-shū ("Pure Land School") sect of Buddhism - the most widely practiced branch of Buddhism in Japan. I’ve never visited there, but it might be worth doing so in the future.
7) Meiji Shrine
Saturday, August 15 and Monday, August 17. I’ve been to Meiji Shrine in Shibuya Ward many times, It is adjacent to Harajuku Station and is the premier place for New Year’s celebrations in the capital. I usually visit in the winter, shortly after New Year’s when the crowds have thinned a little. Sometimes I have gone in the summer when I’ve had some spare time or happen to be working in the neighborhood. But I always knew that there was much more to the wooded park of the shrine than I had ever visited before, and this year I decided to give it a good going over. It required two visits in sweltering heat. In addition, 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the shrine to the spirits of the Emperor Meiji (d. 1912, aged 59), and his wife, Empress Shoken (d. 1914, aged 64). Just as I said about the national war memorial, Yasukuni Shrine, the imperial couple are not interred there. They are buried at the Momoyama Mausoleum in Kyoto’s Fushimi Ward. But their spirits are enshrined at Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, making them Shinto deities.
8) Aoyama Cemetery
Tuesday, August 18. I wanted to go to the Yokohama Foreigners General Cemetery (the “gaijin bochi”), which I have only visited once (in 1989). But the Yokohama gaijin bochi is only open to visitors on the weekend. It’s small, but very historic, and I still hope to return there some day. In Tokyo, the much larger Aoyama Cemetery is always open, and it has a large foreign section. These foreign cemeteries are historically significant because in them you can find many of the o-yatoi gaikokujin - foreign government advisers and foreign employees of the Japanese government who came to this country to help with and participate in the accelerated modernization of the Meiji Period (1867 – 1912). People like doctors, scientists, engineers (lots and lots of engineers), teachers, military advisors; also, missionaries who did a lot of translation, education and nursing work; people who came here to help transform this country from an agrarian, feudal society into an industrial, constitutional monarchy in a single generation. Their success depended on infrastructure already in place: transportation; a sharp, urban mercantile culture; high literacy. Meiji Japan attracted a motely crew from abroad. There were a lot of adventurers and misfits, many of whom brought their families with them. They fell in love with Japan and decided to stay here, or they were caught in circumstances like the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and met an unplanned end. Either way, Japan is a good place to live and die.
Aoyama Cemetery is especially famous and popular for its cherry blossoms in the spring time. Among about 126,000 persons can be found the resting place of Hachiko (1923 - 1935), the loyal dog of Shibuya Station fame, as well as his master, Tokyo Imperial University agriculture professor Hidesaburo Ueno (1872 - 1925). I knew the general location of it, but I walked round and round, wrongly thinking that it would be distinctive somehow. Finally, I decided to give up looking for Hachiko, and decided instead to look for the Chinese characters spelling “Ueno” instead. I found it very quickly after that. It’s touching to see how visitors leave mementos for Hachiko: doggie treats, talismans, symbols of love, etc.
In 2005, the Metropolitan Government proposed removing graves and headstones from the foreign section of the cemetery over the matter of unpaid cemetery fees. But by 2007, the area was saved with private funding, and the government instead protected it as a historical site. It even put up a marker saying so.
I took my usual Marunouchi Subway Line to Akasaka-mitsuke Station and transferred to the Ginza Line. Then just two stops to Gaienmae Station (very near where I used to work in my first year in Tokyo), from where it was a 10-minute walk.
9) Shibuya
Thursday, August 20. I went to JR Shibuya Station to take new pictures of the bronze Hachiko statue in the courtyard outside the West Entrance. I’ve been to Shibuya many times, and I’ve photographed the famous statue before. But I figured, why not do it again? Yeah! I missed an opportunity to do it on Wednesday 19th when I was in Shinjuku for shopping at the Odakyu Halc Bic Camera electronics store. I was distracted, and the notion of taking the Yamanote line three stops south to Shibuya didn’t occur to me until I got home. Then I cursed myself and said, “Geez! I should have gone to Shibuya to photograph the dog!” The Hachiko statue has long been a common meeting spot for people. This is especially true in the days before cell phones and smart phones. People would say, “Let’s meet at Hachiko at 4:00.” With modern technology, people can search each other out and meet more conveniently and quickly, but meeting at the statue is still a thing. There are some shade trees planted, and places to sit, making it somewhat of a rest space.
Just a few meters north of the statue is the Shibuya scramble. Some like to call it the busiest, most crowded intersection in the world. I don’t know about that, but it is true that on weekends or holidays when many people are out and about the scramble crossing is like NYC’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I was there on a weekday morning during an infectious disease pandemic, however, and the crossing was not at all crowded.
10) Ueno Park
Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22. I’ve been to Ueno Park several times before. It’s a little far to reach from my home, but … Honestly, I never realized how much there was to see and do in that park. I spent over nine hours there over two days, and I could probably easily spend another couple of days nosing around. If you are a museum aficionado, then Ueno Park is a place for you. It is home to Ueno Zoo on one side, and several museums elsewhere dotted around its edges: the Tokyo National Museum; the National Museum of Nature and Science; the National Museum of Western Art; and, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Plus, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Festival Hall; and, the Ueno Royal Museum. Some others, too, I think. The University of Tokyo has some fine art facilities nearby. The University Art Museum, the Tokyo University of Fine Arts.
The park occupies elevated ground above the surrounding “shitamachi” district, the low town. Several shrines and temples are nestled among the woods, and commemorative statuary is snuggled away all over the place. The most important statue - the one everyone wants to see - is that erected in 1898 to commemorate Meiji Era politician Takamori Saigo.
I especially wanted to revisit the Tokyo National Museum, part of a complex of five history museums in the north end of the park. The building by itself is an architectural attraction, in addition to being an important history museum. Ueno Park is an important place. With many cherry trees it is a principal cherry blossom viewing spot in the spring.
Because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, several of these museums, and the zoo as well, have instituted a system of visitor reservations in order to control the number of visitors. I didn’t know about it before I arrived. I learned when I went to enter the Tokyo National Museum. What visitors must do is go online and reserve a time from the provided schedule. Then print up, or store on their iPhones the reservation number. Present that reservation number when you go to buy an admission ticket from the ticket counter. Then, with the admission ticket and the reservation number in hand, wait in line for your entry time. When I was there Ueno Zoo, for example, was admitting only about 50 visitors every 30 minutes, in order to control congestion.
11) Odaiba
Saturday, August 29. Odaiba is a large artificial island (landfill, or reclaimed land) in Tokyo Bay, across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. Odaiba was initially built in this area for defensive purposes in the 1850s. The original Odaiba opened in 1860 as a port and shipyard. Reclaimed land offshore Shinagawa was dramatically expanded during the late 20th century as a seaport district, and has developed since the 1990s as a major commercial, residential and leisure area. Many years ago, I used to go there regularly - more than an hour from my apartment - to work one evening a week in the Tokyo headquarters of the French multinational insurance company, AXA. But I haven’t been back there in years. The waterbus ferry from the Hinode Pier on the Yurikamome monorail from JR Shinagawa Station is the best means of taking pictures of the Tokyo skyline from the sea.
What attracts me to Odaiba is the waterbus I can take to get there. If the weather is good, the waterbus out in the middle of the harbor is one of the best places, or platforms to get a good photo of the Tokyo skyline. There are many river and harbor ferry services available. Sumida River cruises, ferries across the harbor to Odaiba, boat tours of Tokyo Bay (out beyond the Rainbow Bridge), and overnight ferries to the Izu-Ogasawara islands - a chain of small islands in the Pacific Ocean that fall within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Metropolitan government. I was interested in the waterbus from the Hinode Pier to the Tokyo Big Site convention center, which I have taken more than once already (many years ago). However, that was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic. So, instead, I took the waterbus from the Hinode Pier to the Odaiba Marine Park, which takes me almost to the same place. In fact, at this time, almost all river and harbor boat excursions are suspended. In normal times these boat trips depart once or twice every hour. But currently, those (few) that are still operating are running on a sharply reduced schedule.
The day was blistering hot. I took the Hotaluna ferry across the harbor to the Odaiba Marine Park. It was comfortable out on the water, and the opportunity to take pictures of the Tokyo skyline from that vantage point was everything I hoped for. After that, instead of visiting any of the many shopping malls, I simply walked everywhere taking pictures. I ended by riding the 115-meter high Daikanransha Ferris Wheel adjacent to the Venus Fort shopping mall. When that Ferris wheel opened in 1999 it was the tallest in the world. It has since been superseded by several others. The Ferris wheel ride took 16-minutes. It was gentle and not very scary. It was not crowded, there was no queue, and I got a car to myself. That ride also offers glass-bottomed cars which were unavailable when I was there. I wouldn’t have wanted one of those, anyway. What adrenaline junkie maniac thinks up stuff like that? After returning home, I felt sad that I didn’t think of riding it a second time.