Shiitake My Breath Away

Posted on 08/09/2014 by Luke

The hostel shared news of a festival at Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens. Today is Tsukimi-no-Kai, which means ‘Moon Viewing’ – a tradition marking its 210th year in these gardens. The goal tonight is to celebrate and enjoy the Harvest Moon. We’re set to meet up at 4 p.m. It’s cloudy outside; I doubt the moon will be visible, but the event sounds fun.

My first destination of the day is the brilliantly titled ‘Project Eat More Mushrooms,’ just an enticing eleven stations away on the Ginza Line. This year, it’s hosted at Ark Hills, a substantial office development in the heart of Akasaka. I hop on the train and disembark at mnemonic favourite, Toranamon, to run a marathon. I take a rather unhurried walk to the venue. Along the way I pass the Embassy of Micronesia and the Foundation of Miracles, before finally arriving at Project Eat More Mushrooms.

The mushroom festival here is disappointing, an absolute waste of thirty minutes each way on the train. Forget about eating more mushrooms; having more stores selling them would be a welcome start. I can hardly classify four market stalls as a festival. There are no miracles here, no mascots either, and certainly not many mushrooms. To salvage the journey from being a complete waste, I purchase some shiitake mushrooms and enoki mushrooms for a total of ¥450.

Back at the hostel, it dawns on me that these mushrooms are precisely the same ones I could have purchased from Seven Eleven. Considering the wasted time and train fares, these have turned out to be the most expensive mushrooms on the planet.

After the mushroom episode, I gather as planned at 4 p.m. The small group of seven comprises my friends Aram and Dagmar, along with two fantastic tour guides from the hostel, Keina and Gomez. We make our way to Asakusa Station and board the Tobu Skytree Line to Higashimukojima Station. Interestingly, the train deliberately slows to a crawl as it crosses the Sumida River to showcase the glorious view, or so we’re told. Upon reaching Sumida, we head straight to Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens, marking my third visit to these beautiful gardens during my time in Japan. The entrance fee remains the usual ¥150.

At the entrance, we’re requested to douse ourselves in mosquito repellent due to a Dengue fever outbreak in Tokyo. Just last week, Yoyogi Park was closed for extensive fumigation to eradicate mosquitoes and is likely to remain shut for several months. Similarly, Shinjuku Gyoen Park underwent the same treatment two days ago. It seems this week might be the least opportune time to visit an outdoor garden.

We enter the gardens, and inside, offerings are being made to the moon.

Television crews are setting up at the entrance to the Hagi Tunnel. Swarms of people are queueing up for the ¥2000 tea ceremony, the same ceremony I had previously enjoyed at no cost. The sound of chirping insects fills the air. We kill some time exploring the park before heading back to the wisteria trellis for the opening ceremony. Following a short opening speech, a performance of the shinobue begins.

A shinobue is a Japanese transverse flute made from hollow bamboo. Two performers play for almost thirty minutes. During their performance, I lose myself in meditation on a bench surrounded by foliage and mosquitoes.

After the performance, it’s time to light the many lanterns scattered throughout the gardens. The paper lanterns are lit just as twilight sets in. In total, there are thirty-five lanterns, and volunteers are encouraged to participate in the event. Each lantern is decorated with a haiku.

Once the lanterns are lit, a curtain of dusk descends to the melodic tune of the koto, a traditional thirteen-stringed Japanese instrument. The five performers play in perfect harmony, and the sweet sound of the koto resonates throughout the gardens. Eventually, the earlier gifts presented and the beautiful music work their magic, transforming the overcast evening sky into a clear one. As if on cue, the clouds part ways, unveiling the face of the Harvest Moon.

We sit down and admire the sky. The moon is a ghostly white, brighter than I can ever recall; but it has been a while. Like the stars, the moon rarely appears above the Tokyo skyline. Tonight the moon doesn’t hide, it looks beautiful, it is breathtaking.

We eat snacks. The chatter combines with the music. The thought crosses my mind that this ceremony has been taking place exactly where I am right now, for the last two-hundred or so years. It probably hasn’t changed much since then either. My mind transported to another time.

I eat a bowl of oden, a Japanese winter food consisting of various fish and vegetables in a soy-flavoured broth. It costs ¥800 and is delicious. We chat for a while longer, enjoying the sound of the insects, the music from the koto performance, and the lull of the moon.

At 7 p.m., it feels much later than it is. Darkness arrives earlier now, but the weather is still warm—an atypical autumn. We all head back to Asakusa on the train before going our separate ways.

I take the Ginza Line for thirty minutes, and as I exit the station into the crowds of Shibuya Crossing, it begins to rain. At 9 p.m., I meet up with a friend from England, Laurence, and his two friends. We gather outside Hachiko, a statue of a dog. The dog belonged to Professor Ueno. Hachiko would wait for the professor at the end of each day outside Shibuya Station until one day, in 1925, the Professor died. Despite the professor’s absence, Hachiko continued to wait faithfully, but his owner never appeared. Legend says the dog returned to the station at the same time every day for nine years, yet Professor Ueno never returned. Then, sadly, in 1935, Hachiko passed away.

Our evening begins in an absinthe bar exclusively playing The Smiths’ music and ends in a cheap izakaya-style bar. Artwork and literature dominate our evening’s discussions. An enjoyable night washed away with rain and ¥450 Suntory whisky highballs. I don’t take a single photograph; much like Hachiko, my camera is dead. With no photographs of my own, Laurence kindly lets me use one of his: Neon Nirvana:

Some Like It Hot Tea

Posted on 31/08/2014 by Luke

I decide to hire a bicycle. A friend from England, Damien, decides to join me. We grab two ¥300 bicycles for the day and cycle in the direction of Ueno. On the way, we pass a random stage on Kappabashi ‘kitchen’ Street. Men and women dressed in traditional taiko clothing hit massive taiko drums. A security guard stands watch, eyeing me up as I take a photograph.

We cycle around Ueno Station and toward Ueno Park. Today and tomorrow, there is a festival here, the Philippine Festival 2014. The festival is sponsored by the international money transfer company Western Union. The space for the festival hasn’t been very well utilised. There are two rows of small stalls on both sides, and a third row through the middle, which completely obstructs the view of the small stage.

I promised a friend I would bring her a souvenir from the festival. To my dismay, all of the stalls appear to be for financial institutions or property letting companies. There is a stall offering tax refunds, there are stalls for various banks, there are stalls selling insurance. There is not one stand that seems to offer anything remotely souvenir.

We take a seat near an ice cream shop opposite the festival. I rant to Damien about how much the festival has annoyed me; he is in agreement. A woman starts to sing from the stage that you can’t even see. The song from Frozen, ‘Let It Go.’ I almost go on another angry rant but decide to just let it go.

Back on the bikes, we head to Nippori Station, cycling through Textile Town and Fabric Town on the way. We cross the railway tracks and head to a big area of green on my map, thinking it will be some kind of park or temple.

For the second day in a row I find myself standing in a cemetery.

Yanaka Reien is massive. Over 7,000 tombstones are here. The cemetery is so big that it contains a police station and a children’s swing park. The Tokugawa Family Graveyard is here too. The last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, rests here alongside fourteen other Tokugawa shoguns. There is one area that slightly confuses me; it is marked on the map as ‘The First Three-dimensional Deposit Facility’. We have no idea what this means, a Google search is like spinning our wheels, so we get back on the bicycles and do just that.

We head back toward Ueno Park, stopping off at the Daimyo Clock Museum to kill some time before returning to Asakusa. Outside the Don Quixote store, there is the Rokku Hanamichi Flower Festival taking place. Music is being performed on a small stage, but the flowers are notable by their absence.

Our next stop is over the Sumida River, to a place I visited whilst filming the cycle tour: Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens. The entrance fee is still ¥150. Today is Mushi-Kiki-no-Kai, which I am told means, ‘Enjoying the sound of insects.’ The event today describes itself as ‘An exhibition of various kinds of chirping insects, their chirping sounds, and the fantastic garden scenery.’ The insects aren’t quite as attractive as the description of the event, but the sounds they make are.

A Japanese lady in a kimono approaches us as we stare at the crickets. “Where are you from?” … “Ah, England! Do you like tea ceremony?” Both Damien and I are yet to experience a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, so we go along with it and are invited into a tatami mat room, shoes off, kneel down, join the others. The other thirteen people attending are Japanese.

We wait a while before the process begins. When it finally does, we pass around a tray containing sweets filled with a red bean filling. I thank the person to my right for passing me the tray, I bow, I thank Damien to my left for letting me take a sweet before him, I bow, I take a sweet, I eat it. It is all very methodical. Next, it is tea time. Young women in kimonos kneel one at a time in front of people, bow, and place a bowl of green tea in front of them. They move in a clockwise order.

Before drinking, I ask the woman to my right if she would like any more tea, and politely, she refuses. No one ever says, ‘Yes,’ at this stage; it is purely a formality. I lift the bowl of tea, place it on my left hand, turn it clockwise twice, then drink it all in one go. Then when the bowl is collected, I bow once again.

The sweet was delicious, the tea was cold. I always preferred hot tea. The woman that invited us to the ceremony said that they would usually offer hot tea, but because it is a hot day, they decided to serve it cold. After the ceremony, we are allowed to inspect the beautifully crafted bowls and the container that holds the green tea powder.

The tea ceremony, I later find out, should have cost us ¥2000 each, but we were never asked to pay anything.

We head back to Asakusa, return our bicycles, then go our separate ways. I head to Cafe Byron Bay for a green curry and a chat with the locals. I meet a real-life ninja and a fugu chef. Fugu is a delicacy in Japan, but is somewhat poisonous. I make plans to eat the deadly fish and take down the details of the restaurant. Maybe I will be visiting my third cemetery in a week.

Cycling into Locals

Posted on 18/06/2014 by Luke

‘Cycling into Locals’ is the name of today’s bicycle tour. The name amuses me. I head just outside the hostel to a bicycle rental shop. It costs me ¥300 to rent a bike for eight hours, dirt cheap. The minimum fare for a train is ¥170, even if I take just one stop, the lovely purple bicycle I’ve chosen today costs me less than a return train ticket. I will certainly be taking advantage of this service again in future.

There are seven hostel guests taking part in the tour, a TV crew of four people, and staff members Gomez and Keina from the hostel. We meet up at 10 a.m. for a briefing, before finally departing some ten minutes later. The thirteen of us take to our bicycles, and we begin to head in the direction of the Sumida River. Here we see Tokyo Skytree from a position where you can see a second Skytree in the reflection of the Asahi building. Apparently people come to this spot all the time to take this famous shot.

Next we cycle over the river to Ushijima Shrine. Here we do a cleansing ritual and a prayer ritual before being invited into the main hall by the priest. He tells us about the history of the shrine and then hits a massive drum a few times. Outside the shrine there is a statue of a cow. The cow statue is said to have magical healing properties. I touch my throat, then I touch the cow’s throat. My sore throat will now heal quicker thanks to the magic statue. Cowabunga!

We stop off at a Japanese tea house for a traditional snack. For ¥300 we are served sweet bean paste wrapped in a salt-pickled cherry blossom leaf, and a cup of green tea. The leaves have been picked from the banks of the Sumida River. After being filmed eating some leaves, it is time to leave.

Hatonomachi Dori Shotengai is a historical street featuring very local shopping and various small art museums and craft houses. We visit a shop where a woman has spent the last fifty years hand making small model geisha’s, which she sells for a small fortune. Next we enter a small shop selling badminton rackets decorated with kabuki theatre performers. We are given the history of Badminton. It turns out it all began in Japan as a game called Hanetsuki, before arriving in England and becoming the sport that it is known as today.

We swing by Kira-Kira Tachibana Street. There is a local street market here, surrounded by really old houses and some interesting side streets. I see a stall selling a watermelon for ¥2200. Next our tour takes us to Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens, the entrance fee is ¥150. We go to a traditional cafe and eat ¥500 rice balls with a sour plum topping served with a really tasty miso soup. We are then served a complimentary glass of a bright yellow liquid. It smells like flowers and tastes very sweet.

The cameras stop rolling and we take a short break. We are free to explore the gardens on our own for thirty minutes. I spend fifteen of the minutes trying to photograph a dragonfly in flight. We regroup and return to our bicycles. The final stop on our tour is Tokyo Skytree. Here we are each individually interviewed about the tour. We are given the option to stay and explore Tokyo Skytree Town on our own, or head back to the hostel. I decide to head back after an exhausting six hours of cycling into locals.

Back at the hostel Björk is playing through the speakers. I arrange to meet Conor, a friend from England I met almost two weeks ago. He’s back in Tokyo for two nights after travelling around Japan and South Korea. We meet at my hostel and go out in search for some food. We find a vending machine restaurant. I order hot soba noodles in a soy based broth. The noodles are topped with tempura vegetables, seaweed, and an egg. It costs just ¥480.

After food, we wander past a lit up Senso-ji, before heading for a drink. On the way, we see a kabuki theatre. A show has just finished and there are about ten people standing outside in full costume and makeup. I decide that I will come back here in a few days time to watch a show. After a drink I say goodbye to Conor and we head our separate ways to our hostels. At the hostel I go straight to my room to sleep off a very busy day of cycling and sightseeing.

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Tag Archives: Mukojima-Hyakkaen Gardens

Shiitake My Breath Away

Some Like It Hot Tea

Cycling into Locals