Tokyo | Howdy Japan

Flower festival in Nishi Arai Taishi temple

In Tokyo Senso-ji temple in Asakusa is famous among foreign visitors as a temple popular for ordinary people. But Asakura is not only a place for such temples. Nishi Arai located in the north part of Tokyo has another popular temple for ordinary people named Nishi Arai Taishi.

Nishi Arai Taishi is the temple established by a famous monk in the 9th century, Kukai. When Kukai visited this place, he saved local people who suffered from diseases thanks to a miracle by a Buddist saint.

In April and May Nishi Arai Taishi hold a flower festival. And the temple is surrounded by a lot of beautiful flowers. Among these flowers the temple is famous to have a lot of kinds of peony, Botan in Japanese.

In the temple not only peony but also wisteria trellises are in bloom in late April(Fuji in Japanese).

But for many ordinary people rather than flowers in bloom sweets might be more attractive. (In Japan there is a proverb saying Hana Yori Dango meaning (people) like sweet dumpling more than flower. Don’t worry. In front of temple there are several shops of sweet dumpling and green tea.

When you come to Tokyo, why don’t you visit many temples to see how the temples are liked by local people.

Great Sakura Spot in Tokyo, Rikugi-En

Now at the end of March, the season of Sakura (cherry blossom) in full boom has come in Tokyo. While there are many famous spots for Sakura in Tokyo, Komagome, an area in Northern Tokyo is a little known great spot for Sakura in Tokyo.

When you come to Komagome station, trees of Sakura welcome us.

This Sakura is a species called “Somei-Yoshino”, which derives from a gardener who had started selling a pot plant of Sakura in Komagome in the 19th century. Still in the 21st century in Komagome there are many trees of Sakura.

Meanwhile the most famous Sakura in Komagome is another species called “Sidare-Zakura” which derives its shape of branches hangings from a trunk. And a park in Komagome, Rikugi-En is famous for a big tree of “Sidare-Zakura”.

Rikugi-En is a traditional Japanese park made by Mr. Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, a sakurai in the 17th century in Japan. Mr. Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa tried to reproduce 88 beautiful scenery in Japan within this small park.

But in Japan in the season of Sakura cherry blossom is not an only amusement. In Japan there is an old proverb saying “Hana Yori Dango”, which means (I like) sweet dumpling more than cherry blossom. Even in the 21st century we like to enjoy eating sweet dumpling in front of Sakura.

In the season of Sakura in bloom there are many places with beautiful Sakura but too crowded. But Rikugi-En is one of a few places where you can enjoy Sakura in quiet atmosphere.

Several styles of Soba noodle in Tokyo

In this blog, I have once written that Soba, Japanese traditiontal noodle made from buckwheat flour, was a fast food in Edo era (17th to mid 19th century) in Japan.

http://howdyjapan.com/2016/05/11/soba-japanese-fast-food/

However, it doesn’t mean soba noodle is just a simple food without any sophistication. In the contrary in Tokyo in Edo era many master chefs of soba noodle had been making continuous efforts to cook the better soba and such efforts reached to 3 different cooking styles of soba noodle. Now in Tokyo, there are still some soba noodle restaurants which keep each traditional style.

Minowa is an area in northern Tokyo where traditional shopping street are still well used by local people. And at a corner of the street there is a soba noodle restraurant Sunaba-Souhonke whose building was built in 1912.

Sunaba is one of 3 styles of cooking soba noodle in Tokyo (the others are Sarashina and Yabu). And it is said that Sunaba is the oldest style stemming from the location in Osaka to build Osaka castle for a famous Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi in the 16th century. Once we enter the restaurant, we can feel such tradition even from the interior of the restaurant.

In each traditional soba styles, chefs make soba noodle from buckwheat flour manually. And each process to cook soba noodle is slightly different among each styles. But in common soba noodle in Tokyo styles are known as long length of each noodle and crisp feeling on month.

Traditionally people in Tokyo have been enjoying sucking in such crisp soba noodle making a big noise. Differently from Western culture, it’s never rude to make a noise but an appropriate way to enjoy feeling the noodle into mouth and down throat.

To be honest, I as a person from a country side of Japan like Inaka Soba (country style soba noodle) better, which has a feature of more chewy mouth feeling and stronger flavor of buckwheat. But when I see local people in Tokyo eating Tokyo traditional soba making a big noise, I would feel a sense of “Iki” (sense of sophistication in old Tokyo).

When you have time, you can enjoy not only soba noodle but also Tempura. In the centuries, Tempura has been considered as one of the best matches with soba noodle. It’s also cool to drink Sake little by little while eating soba noodle and tempura.

When you think to eat some traditional food in Tokyo, why don’t you consider soba noodle as an option. Although it looks simple, it has a long tradition for chefs as well as people to eat it.

Urban trail around Nippori Tokyo

It’s one of highlights of travels when you walk through trails which are conditioned well in nature or in a country side. However, in Japan, a railway company, Japan Railway East provides events named “hiking from stations” on which we can enjoy exciting urban trails in Tokyo. And this weekend they provided the trail from Nippori station close to our house. Now let’s walk through the trail together!

After we left Nippori station, we headed to the east to Nippori Fabric Town. For those who like sawing, Nippori is well known as a center of small fabric retailers.

Then we went down to the south through Yanaka cemetery and several temples up to Ueno park. Ueno park is a huge park where there are several museum and a zoo. But one of these museums, National Museum of Western Art, attracted big public attention last year since it was registered to UNESCO World Heritage, as one of masterpieces build by a French architect, Le Corbusier.

We turned to the west for a while and came to Shinobazu Pond. The area including Ueno park and this Shinobazu Pond was parts of Kanei-ji temple ‘s land in Edo era from the 17th to mid 19th century. When Edo Shogunate started at the beginning of the 17th century, they tried to build a center of Buddhism corresponding to Enryaku-ji temple and Biwa-Lake in the Western Japan. Now in the 21st century well grown lotus leaves shows the beauty of Buddhism culture.

When we came west up to the corner of Tokyo University, we turned to the north and walked along the wall of the university. In 10 to 15 minutes we arrived at Nezu shrine. As I introduced in this blog in the past, Nezu shrine is famous for azalea flower in bloom in April.

When we walked to the northeast for a while, it’s almost the end of the trail. But we had another amusement before the end. On Yanaka shopping street you can enjoy a variety of sweets which cure your fatigue after the walk.

How was the trail? It’s about 11km and 3 hour walk by walking slowly while enjoying the places on the way.

If you come to Shitamachi, traditional area in Tokyo, please don’t take taxi all the time from one place to another. But please take a walk some time to know how places are connected to each other.

A cafe with passion of young artists

Close to our home there is an area called Yanaka where old and small buildings built in the middle of 20th century still remain. Such scenery let us imagine the beautiful days when Japan was poor but everyone was enjoying their life. And now the area attracts a lot of visitors.

However those who have been living there long felt that even this area changed. And they experienced the situation that a shop or a public bath they had visited one day disappeared in the next day.

Hagiso could have been one of such buildings. It was built in 1955 as a wooden apartment building. And since 2004 it had been used as a shared house by students of Tokyo University of the Arts nearby. But when the big earthquake hit eastern Japan in 2011, the owner of the building decided to dismantle it due to deterioration.

But for the young artists who lived there it was a place filled with their memory. They asked the owner to let them have an art exhibition in the building as their last memory of the building. Then the exhibition received a lot of visitors and the owner decided to renovate it as a cultural space, “Hagiso”.

Now the first floor is open to everyone as a cafe “Hagi Cafe” connected to an art gallery “Hagi Art”. At the cafe we can have a good time seeing a well preserved wooden building and works created by young artists.

Such a space makes me feel that a building, a space engraves its history in itself. And the history is a kind of the arts.

When it comes to history in Japan, old cities like Kyoto and Nara attracts foreign visitors. But Tokyo is also a city where creating its own history. I hope the building attract more artists and visitors, and then have more history.

Minor castle in Japan, Ishihama Castle, Tokyo

Among castles in Japan, there are some world famous castles such as Himeji Castle which was registered as one of World Heritages by UNESCO. However, there are much more sites of old minor castles with which we can imagine the history of that place. Ishihama Castle in Tokyo is one of such castles.

Minami Senju in northern Tokyo is a rapidly growing area with more and more high rise apartments for the younger generation.

And with 15 minute walk from Minami Senju station to the east you can see a new symbol of Tokyo, Tokyo Sky Tree over Sumida River.

All the scenery looks so urban and it seems there is no room for old history to exist. But if we stop just before reaching to Sumida River, there is a small shrine.

It’s called as Ishihama Jinja Shrine. Its own history says the shrine was built in the 8th century, and many samurais worshiped it in the medieval era. And nowadays people who lives in the neighborhood still visit it.

But this place has another face. Some scholars believe it was a site of old Ishihama Castle where one of powerful samurai families in eastern Japan, Chiba family, lived there in the 15th and 16th centuries, which is the age of Japanese Civil Wars.

Chiba family went to ruin during the early stage of the Civil War Age, and they are not shown in the main history of Japan like Tokugawa shogun or other famous samurais.

But now, after 500 years later, such a unknown site reminds me of bravery of old samurai as well as the concept of impermanence which such samurais loved more than big and famous castles do.

Hydrangea is in bloom in Tokyo

Even though Mr. Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement claiming that it’s not clear how human activities effect on climate change, I, living in Tokyo Japan, feel each season of Japan became more vague than that in the past.

Late June and Early July is a rainy season in Japan called “Tsuyu” in Japanese. However, this year we didn’t have so much rain yet, rather there were several hot days when we felt summer had come without Tsuyu.

Nevertheless we still have a symbol of our rainy season. It’s a flower, hydrangea (“Ajisai in Japanese”).

In Nippori, the area we live, we see beautiful hydrangea close to temples and shrines. For example on the way from Suwa Jinja, small shrine in the area to Nishi Nippori station, a flock of hydrangea flower is in bloom in the contract to trains.

Ueno Park, a big park close to our home, is famous for flowers in each season, especially cherry blossom in Spring. It also has hydrangea, while the size of flower is smaller than others as long as we found.

The origin of hydrangea is Japan but had been exported to Europe and America as an ornamental flower. The pH of land effect on the color of hydrangea. Acid land turn it blue, while alkaline land turn it red. However even blue hydrangea turns gradually red as it ages.

In the short rainy season the flower makes us enjoy its changing beauty.

Hidaka-ya, reasonable Chinese restaurant in Japan

Recently an American-style Chinese restaurant chain Panda Express, which is popular in the US, opened a new branch in Japan as their second shot to Japanese market after they had closed all the branches in 2010. However, same as the last time, many people is skeptical that the chain can succeed in Japan.

Panda Express takes second shot at Japan

The reason of the concern is the competitive situation of Japanese Chinese food restaurants. In the US Panda Express has been growing as they serve Chinese dishes with reasonable prices quickly compered to authentic Chinese restaurants. However, in Japan there are many other Chinese restaurants with as reasonable pricing as Panda Express or even more reasonable.

A typical example is Hidaka-ya, which operates more than 300 chains in Tokyo and metropolitan area.

In Tokyo the branches of the restaurant are usually located close to main stations where many people come and go. And they have a lot of seats to absorb all the customers even at busy dinner time.

Their main menu is a variety of ramen noodles. In Japan popular ramen noodle restaurants serve their ramen noodles with own special recipes but high prices. On the other hand, Hidaya-ya serves basic ramen noodles with lower prices, which allows us to eat ramen noodles as a fast food.

But in order to keep the customer’s loyalty, they sometimes create special ramen noodles (but with reasonable pricing still) in limited time only. The below photo is their new menu, ramen noodle with thick starchy sauce and mixed vegetables (with dumpling of course). This is my recent favorite since I can eat plenty of vegetable while ramen noodle is normally considered as fast food with little nutrition.

And they are aggressive to attract foreign visitors to Japan. Rarely as a Chinese restaurant chain, they have a website not only in English but also in English and Chinese. And at the restaurants

http://hidakaya.hiday.co.jp/english/

Moreover while many fast food restaurant chains tend to limit their opening hours in midnight due to difficulty to secure employees who want to work in midnight, many branches of Hidaka-ya in Tokyo still open till 3 or 4 AM. It’s very helpful for Japanese business people who sometimes need to work until midnight while it’s not healthy to eat so late.

In order to lose weight this year, I need to overcome the temptation of Hidakaya’s ramen after work in midnight.

Mt. Mitake, another approachable mountain from Tokyo

When it comes to a mountain near central Tokyo, many people would consider Mt. Takao. However, in 1.5 hours from Shinjuku station, you can access to a less crowded but attractive mountain Mt. Mitake. Let me introduce this favorite mountain of mine.

After you arrive at Mitake station, same name as the mountain, the beautiful stream of Tama river welcomes visitors. There are not only hikers but also many anglers enjoying fishing. I recommend you to walk along the river up to the trailhead while you can take a bus as well.

At the starting point of the trail, like Mt. Takao, there is the cable car service which lifts visitors up to the height of 830 meters in 6 minutes. The service has been operated since 1927.

Once you arrive at the summit station, you can see a lot of small hotels in the summit area. What differentiates Mt. Mitake from other mountains in the area is the fact that there are still many people who come to the mountain to worship gods of the mountain. These small hotels called Shukubo were originally built around 300 years ago for such people but if you have enough time you are welcomed to stay there.

In 30 minutes walk from the summit station along the hotels, you can easily reach the summit with Musashi-Mitake shrine with the height of 929 meters. In the past for the Japanese, the high mountain was the place where the gods lived. And in the medieval Japan, in several high mountains, Japanese indigenous animism synchronized with Shinto and Buddhism, and the original religion called Shugen-do was created. In Shugen-do monks lead the ascetic life in the mountains trying to get supernatural power of the mountains.

On the backside of the summit there are various trails which takes 1 to 3 hours. And I recommend to take a trail called “Rock Garden”, which you can see many rocks with strange shapes in green woods. For example, the rock in the photo below is called “Tengu-Iwa (rock in Japanese)”, since the shape of the rock looks like a long nose of Tengu, monster (sometimes regarded as god as well) in Japanese indigenous religion.

If you have enough courage to climb up to the top of the rock, a small statues of Tengu praise you for your courage.

I recommend Mt. Mitake as the mountain easily approachable from Tokyo, and where you can see many attractive sides of Japanese mountains.

Below is their official website (sorry English is under construction).

http://www.mt-mitake.gr.jp/

Restaurant serving a set of sushi and pasta

In Nippori Tokyo, where we live, it’s not a single case that we find a strange restaurant. This time we found a restaurant which serves a set of a typical Japanese menu and a typical Italian menu, sushi and pasta. Do you think this collaboration would create a synergy?

East to Nippori station, there is an area called Nippori fabric town where there are many shops of cloth and dress material for those who want to make clothes by themselves.

In this area compared to the number of cloth shops there are only a few restaurants to supply energy during shopping. But today we found a strange signboard. It said in Japanese “sushi and pasta” with bigger characters than a name of the restaurant.

img_0815-1

We went upstairs to the entrance of the restaurant. In the first glance it looked like a small sushi restaurant with a sushi counter.

But when we saw the menu, in fact it said a variety of sets of sushi and pasta. Even though we couldn’t imagine yet how they collaborate, we ordered a set of chef’s sushi selection and spaghetti Neapolitan.

In a few minutes they served spaghetti Neapolitan at first with green tea.

Spaghetti Neapolitan is a menu of spaghetti which has been popular in Japan in a long time. Many Japanese people believe spaghetti Neapolitan is a kind of spaghetti made in Napoli, Italy. However, this spaghetti with ketchup source, sausage, onion and pimento is made in Japan only as one of typical images of the western food.

Then in another few minutes they indeed served chef’s sushi selection.

Kinds of sushi the chef selected were normal, not special to collaborate with pasta. So we wonder how two menus influence each other.

In conclusion, there were no synergy, nor marriage between two menus. Each taste of two menus were quite normal. I guess that this restaurant was originally a sushi restaurant, but they started serving pasta with sushi in order to attract women who come the area to buy cloths and want to eat the western food for lunch than Japanese food like sushi.

We believe there are many other strange restaurants here in the northern part of Tokyo…