Meiji Jingu Shrine

Meiji Jingu is located in a beautiful nature preserve in the heart of Tokyo dedicated to the memory of the Meiji Emperor & his wife. The two were much beloved by the Japanese, and the shrine was built after their deaths in 1920.

The Shrine itself has an exterior courtyard, called the Gaien, with a broad, sweeping walkway leading up to the shrine. Broad trees mass into an arch overhead, adding drama to the walk. Huge tori gates made of Japanese cypress trees mark the entrance to the inner courtyard, called the Naien. One of the doors to the inner courtyard is shown here. It bears the Japanese family crest of the Toyotomi family, which features the go-san no kiri mon (five-three blossomed paulownia leaf symbol). So, I'm guessing either the Meiji Emporer or his wife was a member of this clan. The symbolism in these shrines is constant and a bit overwhelming; you scratch it, and it keeps coming at you. I'm always trying to learn, as it's all so fascinating. However, it's best sometimes to just let it all wash over you.

The Japanese aesthetic, which uses simple, natural materials, and treats them with such incredible craftsmanship, always blows me away. The swoop of the roofline of temple buildings is grace itself. Very moving. More photos of Meiji Jingu here.

Afterwards, we visited Yoyogi park, which was absolutely jam-packed with people laying out blankets and having picnics under the cherry blossom trees. It was truly spectacular... so many little things; a street performer, memories of playing with Forrest with a remote control boat, watching all the groups of Japanese get loose together.

Feeling very special about sharing these things with the kids.

A Japanese Wedding Ceremony

During our visit to Meiji Jingu, a Japanese wedding party formed a train and walked into the Naien (interior courtyard). Very special. In the ceremony, a Shinto priest purifies the couple, drinks of sake are taken, and the groom then reads the words of commitment. At the end of the ceremony, symbolic offerings are given to the kami (local gods). The couple here are dressed in traditional kimono.

After the ceremony, the couple welcomes all the guests, and a reception party is held. Usually the party is visited by about 20 to 200 guests among whom are relatives, friends, and co-workers of the bride and groom.

These affairs are extremely expensive. The bride's kimono might cost $3,000 to $5,000 to rent for one day. I can't imagine what it might cost to hold a wedding ceremony at Meiji-Jingu. This couple must be very well connected.

Cherry Blossoms Along the Meguro River

Meguro is an upscale neighborhood in the Western edge of downtown Tokyo. It's one of the 23 wards of Tokyo, and it has a lot of the foreign embassies in it. The Meguro river gives it its name, and cherry trees line its sides.

The Japanese love the coming of the cherry blossoms as they signal the arrival of spring. In the first weeks of April they attend matsuri (festivals) and hanami (cherry blossom viewing parties). The matsuri associated with Daienji Temple (the local Buddhist shrine by our apartment) will occur on April 8th, so we're pretty excited.

"Hanami" have been a Japanese custom since the 7th century when aristocrats enjoyed looking at beautiful sakura (cherry blossoms) and writing poems & haiku. Nowadays, everyone takes out blankets, gathers with friends in a par, brings out food & generally gets tipsy from wine & sake.

The blossom season is lasting an unusually long time this Spring, as the weather has dropped mid-way through the season. It's great fun to hang out by the river and view the blossoms at night. See some more photos here.

Tokyu Hands

Tokyu Hands is a hobbyist's paradise. It's stuffed full of the crazy kind of stuff that you might only find in Japan. In my first job in Tokyo, my advertising agency's partner was the Tokyu Group, which is a massive rail line & retailing conglomerate -- one of six that built up modern day Tokyo. One of their stores is Tokyu Hands, which was a favorite place for Anne & I to browse & shop. We brought the kids. Here, Amelia & I are wearing Onigiri masks... onigiri are big triangles of rice, wrapped in seaweed (nori), usually containing something like pickled plum or fish inside. They're an inexpensive mainstay of the Japanese commuter's diet.

Amelia bought a bunch of erasers in different shapes, and Forrest found the "Gun O'Clock Red" alarm clock he was looking for. If you've got some time to kill, you can browse their site for all kinds of crazy stuff, like endoscopy ear cleaners or emergency underwear kits to use during an earthquake. Use the Google's 'translate this page' feature!

Apartment in Shima-Meguro

We got lucky on the apartment. We were going to pull the trigger on a serviced apartment in Meguro. Just before we did, we checked Craig's list and found Charlie, who was planning to leave for England around the same time two and a half week period we were coming to Tokyo. His flat in Shima-Meguro was near our first apartment in Kami-Meguro. Perfect.

Of course, all the kids care about is watching Japanese game shows and playing with the Japanese language Wii system. Sweet! The sun flooded apartment looks out at Daienji Temple, and we can look down on Cherry Blossoms. See some more pictures of the apartment here.

The Long Flight to Tokyo

Amelia here is looking at her camera in the passageway between terminals at O'Hare, which she loved. You can follow her blog at Our routing took us from Burlington to DC to Chicago to Tokyo on United. We took off at 5:30 in the morning. Grandma & Grandpa drove us to he airport. They stayed with us the week before we took off so that we could get everything done; a blessing! From departure from our house in Burlington to the apartment we are renting in Tokyo's Shima-Meguro district was a total of 25 hours door-to-door. It was a long slog, but the kids were really great. It was pretty surreal on the twilight drive from Narita on the airport limousine bus into downtown Tokyo, which we hadn't seen as a family for ten years. We took the bus from Narita to the ANA Hotel in Roppongi, and caught a cab to our apartment. Charlie, the owner of the apartment guy we're renting from, had his Philipino maid meet us & get us settled. We took some melatonin at 8:30 pm Tokyo time, and crashed hard to try to get onto Tokyo time; as Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of the US EST, it's important to have strategies for making the adjustment.

Motivations

Anne & I had the great good fortune of living in Tokyo for five years. We'd lived together in Seoul prior to landing a posting there, and would later go on to live in Hong Kong & Singapore, yet no place so thoroughly enraptured us as our days in Japan. Our stay there spanned the first days of our marriage, visits to temples, museums and nature preserves, attendance at sumo matches and, of course, the births of our two children.

We always knew we would take the kids back. And, as we've watched the kids grow up (where did the time go?), the urge grew stronger. This Spring, with Forrest filling out forms to attend High School this year, we knew we needed to get this done. We started to plan in earnest...