January 23-24, 1971: Exploring Tokyo
	January 19-20, 1971: Shopping in Yokota and Tachikawa
	Return to the Index for the Japan Trip

We felt the best way to get to know our way around the city would be to take a train ride completely around it on the Yamanote (often shortened to Yamate) train line. We thought that by following our progress on the map, we could get an idea of what the various areas of the city were like, and figure out which ones we might want to come back to.

A Train Ride Around Tokyo

When we looked at the Tokyo train and subway map, we could see that there was one line that simply ran in a circle all around the city, intersecting with the other rail and subway lines that ran into the center city or out to the towns and cities surrounding Tokyo. We thought that just having ride around the city would be useful in getting us oriented.

The Yamanote Ring and Central Tokyo Transport System

At left is an extract of the little railway and subway map that we'd gotten for our travels around the city, and if you want to, you can refer to it as I describe the trip we took most of the way around the city. On this map, the line that we used to circumnavigate the city was the Yamamote Line. On the map it is shown in an olive green and is the one color that goes completely around that central ring. There are other lines that go along with it for a while, but no other line goes all the way around in a complete circle. If you will look in the lower corner of the image, you will see that the olive green line is labeled "Yamamote" and it is the only line that completes the ring between the Osaki and Shinagawa stations.

Our first task was to get to the Yamamote Line itself, and to do that, we needed to get to a station on the ring.

As I said yesterday when we arrived at the Sanno, we discovered that there was a subway station quite close to it; instead of taking a taxi from the station at which we did arrive, we could have walked had we gone to the Tameike-sanno Station only a block from the hotel. But this morning, having figured this out, we now had two ways to get to a ring station. The easiest would have been to simply take the Ginza Line, which comes through Tameike-sanno down to the Shimbashi Station which is on the ring.

But we were more adventurous than that. We saw that Tameike-sanno was also connected by underground passageways to Kokkai-gijidomae Station, which is served by the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, a line that we could take directly to Tokyo's main railway hub- Tokyo Station. This line gets there by going through the Ginza Station; it is the burgundy line on the map at left that connects the Ginza and Tokyo stations (lower right of the diagram). So that's what we ended up doing. Turns out our little subway map wasn't quite to scale, and the walk through the underground passageways took us ten or fifteen minutes- although for a small-city guy like me, it was extremely interesting.

These tunnels and stations are not just bare walls; there is a whole city down here, with little kiosks and shops lining many of the passageways. I guess New Yorkers would feel right at home here, as I've seen TV shows that have scenes that take place in the New York Subway system, and I could tell that things were similar.

This is the Asia Center, the place we were looking for last night. It is another inexpensive place to stay in Tokyo, although it is not connected to the US Government in any way. It looked nice, however.

This is what the station platform looked like when we finally got to Kokkai-gijidomae Station. This was very typical throughout the subway at the small stations served by only one or two lines.

That last picture of the platform at Kokkai-gijidomae Station wasn't all that great, so I waited patiently until our subway train came in to take us to Tokyo Station to take another picture that was a good deal more interesting. And I took another when we got to Tokyo Station.

Trains pull in often, and on time. Having never seen a subway, all this was new to me. I guess I took quite a few pictures of the fairly mundane, but trips to Japan are expensive, while pictures are relatively cheap.

This is the entrance to the regular surface trains at the Tokyo station. This was fairly typical of station entrances, with ticket machines on one side and a ticket puncher/collector on the other.

Navigating the ticket machines was not easy, at least not until we found a fellow who spoke very good English and could help us work out the directions. It turns out that all you have to do is find the line you want to take and then the station you want to go to from the list up and down the line. Each station has a cost, from perhaps fifteen cents to get to the nearest one, or 75 cents to go for quite a distance.

An Industrial Area North of Tokyo Station

This all works well for commuters, but Japan on $10 a Day offered up a suggestion for tourists doing this circle route. It suggested that you buy a ticket to Kanda Station, the very next one up the line, for 30 Yen but then just stay on the train all the way around the circle and back through Tokyo Station, getting off at Kanda the second time the train passes through. The system, said the guidebook, has no way of knowing that you'd actually taken the whole circle ride. So you get an excursion, which I estimated should cost 300 Yen, for a tenth that amount. I guess the system could time-stamp the tickets to flag those where an inordinate amount of time has been consumed for a short trip, but not many people just want to spend an hour or two on a train.

NOTE:
In the years since, I've ridden a number of subways and metros and city trains, and they all seem to have this quirk. But then sightseers are much rarer than daily commuters who actually have to get somewhere, so I guess the systems don't worry much about losing a dollar or two now and again.

I should also point out that it is really not too difficult for a foreigner to find his way around, at least if he is going by train. Names, at least of train lines and stations, are written in Japanese characters and English letters at the major stations, and even at the minor line stops the town names are written in English characters as well as Japanese. Thus, if you have a map, or know where you are going (doesn't everyone?), you would be OK. Many more trains than the schedule signs indicate are actually running. The reason is that the stations do not put the times for any but the express and long-distance trains on such schedule boards. Actually, hundreds of trains leave for all points from Tokyo station each day.

We headed North around the city on the Yamate line, the blue trains, and began taking pictures.

I think that it is extremely interesting to note how the style of writing, at least on the signs, is manifested in Japanese. There are about three or four different styles here, all using the same characters, but some fancy, some not.

At the end of each train is a conductor, who gets off at the station and then when he sees that all the people are on, rings a bell at trackside to let the engineer know to start the train again.

A good many of the pictures we will be taking from the train will be as it approaches or leaves the various stations on the line. I believe this line is elevated along its total length.

A Typical Tokyo Street

If only the signs were changed, this broad avenue could be almost anywhere in the States. You can note that even though there is no white line down the center of the street, the Japanese drives pay meticulous attention to staying on their half of the street. Korean drivers would just pull out into the other side of the street to avoid waiting in line. You have also noted by now that the Japanese drive on the left hand side of the street.

Even in ordinary scenes such as this one you can see and appreciate the very apparent differences between Japan and Korea. Even though this is an industrial area, it is neat and clean; there are not the crowds of ill-dressed people or the conglomeration of sidewalk vendors as in Korea. Of course, Japan does not have a belligerent enemy on her border, and this in itself may be part of the reason. Another is that Japanese people seem to be more industrious and thrifty, at least they did to me.

The variety of trackside scenery was very great, although I am sure the Japanese were wondering what was so photogenic for us.

Passing this area on the train, it appeared to be a small park of some sort.

Here are some of the signs along the train ride. The Japanese make great use of color, like the Koreans.

The picture left, above, might look like a residence, but we never did get into really residential areas. But we did see that there were numerous apartments and such above all the street level shops and businesses, so Tokyo, unlike most American cities, does not have entirely separate residential and commercial areas.

Soon, we came to what looked like a large rail nexus, and on the map we could see that this was Ueno- a major station for transfers between the rail lines that head out to the suburbs and the network of rail lines and subways in the center city.

While in the Ueno railroad yard on the North side of the city, we were passed by this express, heading South.

Here is some of the railroad yard and the area around it.

It was actually kind of hard, many times, to tell whether an area was commercial or residential, so prevalent was the mixing of structures, and the tendency for there to be residences above shops and such.

I think that North America and Australia must be two of the largest areas of the world that tend to separate residential housing from commercial structures- with New York City and other older, American cities, being notable exceptions. This must have something to do with when an area was developed; the separation tends to be greater in areas developed after widespread adoption of the automobile made it possible to do so.

In any event, we assume that much of Japan is like Europe and other older areas. Before the availability of rapid mass transportation, people pretty much had to live within walking distance of their work, and since most production was small-scale, people tended to simply add on a residential structure to the workplace. Of course, people did not live adjacent to major factories when they appeared, but the did live much closer to them than we would today.

Here are some apartments near the railroad yard. I am not sure when these were built; my guess would be that they were post-war construction.

Here is a collection of interesting buildings around Nippori station just past Ueno. The one on the left, with the Ferris wheel on the top, puzzled me at first, but I soon discovered that it was a department store.

Regarding the apartment blocks above, when I first saw this type of housing, I immediately assumed that it was just like the Korean housing it resembles. There are, however, differences. The apartments seem much larger, though the building is still rather drab, and each balcony has a washing machine. This means that there must be indoor plumbing, which fact alone puts it far ahead of Korean housing of the same type. I don't know just what the indoors is like, though.

Crossing a River North of Tokyo

It was at the Tabata Station that we got a bit more experience with the rail system. On the circle route around the city, the trains are not marked as they would be normally. Usually, each train has signage that tells where it is heading, finally. Not the next stop on the line, but the terminus of that line. If you just know these termini, you will always take the right train that is heading in the direction you want to go.

For the Yamamote Line, however, there is no "terminus"; the line runs in a circle around the city. So when we got on the train at Tokyo Station, we were supposed to get on a Yamamote train, and we thought we had. Unfortunately, we had not; we had inadvertently gotten on a train of the Negishi Line. Until the Tabata Station, the two lines made identical stops, but when we pulled out of Tabata, we could tell that we were off course- not continuing west but heading out of the city going North. Consulting out map showed both the problem and the solution.

All we had to do was to get off at the next station and take a Negishi train heading back south to Tabata. There, we could hop off and this time get on a Yamamote train (which would be easy, as Tabata was only served by those two lines. We did this with no difficulty, aside from a wasted twenty minutes or so. It didn't cost us anything either, as we never had to exit a station through turnstiles.

So our little jaunt didn't cause a particular problem, and it did enable me to get a couple of additional pictures- some different (and newer) apartments, and the cold river that we crossed heading north.

More apartment blocks north of Tokyo

The Sumida River north of Tokyo

I thought the river looked odd, as its banks were kind of far from the water itself, but it must flood periodically and the banks are actually levees. The railroad bridge looked new, but I imagine it was just well kept up.

I got what I thought was an interesting picture of a Japanese woman and her child on the train. I was surprised to find Japanese women carrying their babies around in the same way as Korean women, but they do. This little fellow could barely be seen, but his outfit was so humorous, and his yawn so wide as to be irresistible.

After our mishap, we did succeed in getting turned around, crossed the northern side of the loop and then started around the Western side of the city. For most of this part of the trip, the train, however, was at the bottom of an embankment, and good pictures were impossible. What we did was to go around through Shinjuku, which we had passed through on our way into the city, and down to Shibuya. As the train came into the Shibuya station, the area looked so interesting that we decided to postpone the rest of the trip around the city, get off and look around.

The Shibuya Area of Tokyo

Shibuya is a special ward in Tokyo; as a major commercial and finance center, it houses two of the busiest railway stations in the world, Shinjuku Station, which we passed through, and Shibuya Station, where we got off. The area covers about five square miles, and 200,000 people live here, making it fairly densely-packed. The name "Shibuya" is also used to refer to the shopping district which surrounds Shibuya Station. This area is known as one of the fashion centers of Japan, particularly for young people, and as a major nightlife area.

Once off the train, we found ourselves in the midst of crowds once again- and we also found ourselves on the third floor of a department store- a branch of the Tokyu chain.

This store is one of the largest in Tokyo, and it was pretty amazing (when I compared it to Belks in Charlotte- the only other large department store I've been in.

NOTE:
Here is yet another case where something I saw in 1971 no longer exists. In the fifty years since Dan and I visited Shibuya, the entire area has been completely redeveloped. There are now office towers and other high-rises that you won't see in my pictures. And the entire Tokyu Store that we visited has been, according to online sources, torn down and rebuilt in a slightly different location. The train station has been redesigned, and connections to the subways are done differently. So while I will continue to use the narrative I wrote later in 1971 as I was reviewing my developed slides, you should be aware that little, if anything, that I talk about seeing is there anymore. I can fantasize that perhaps some Japanese woman in her 70s will run across this page and remember when she used to shop at the old Tokyu Store shown in the pictures.

The whole third floor of the Tokyu Department Store is the train station lobby, and there are also ticket machines and turnstiles for the subways, too, although you have to descend four or five floors to get to them. Down two floors and into two basement floors is part of the shopping area- arcades, special sales, and a bargain basement. On the five floors above it is just like any other department store. What we did, after getting off the train and eating lunch at a luncheonette (hamburgers fixed in a microwave and blended fruit drinks) was to go directly to the top floor of the store and start down from there.

You might think it odd that we would spend any time at all in a department store, but neither Dan nor I had ever seen anything quite like the Tokyu Store, integrated as it was into the transportation network.

The Rooftop Amusement Area

The top floor has restaurants and one of the strangest roof gardens I've seen. It is a child's paradise, with every kind of electric toy imaginable, plus a Ferris wheel. Shoppers can bring the kids up here and leave them with attendants, if they want, while shopping or eating.

(I might point out that today, in the new Tokyu Plaza Shibuya- the store that took this one's place- the rooftop is no longer a kid-oriented amusement area. It's a forest with little waterfalls and places for shoppers (and anyone else, I imagine) to come and relax.

A View of Shibuya

In this view of the Shibuya shopping district, you can see the rail lines coming down from the north into the Tokyu. Note the extensive use of color in the buildings and the signs. On the Seibu store opposite and the one behind it there are two more of these rooftop playgrounds. Note, too, how orderly everything seems to be, compared to the congestion on the streets of Seoul, or even many cities at home.

This area was very active, and there were always crowds of people. We didn't see many living spaces here, and certainly no houses. But then we never did see houses here in the city center. In fact, until we started venturing out of the city, the only real houses we saw were down near Yokohama. There, some of the houses looked like an American sub-division, land ruthlessly cleared for houses that were all quite similar.

A Major Intersection in Shibuya

Even though we are quite a ways from the center of Tokyo, the city still stretches for miles and miles. This is, of course, the largest city I am ever likely to be in (I believe Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the only one larger). Up in that area to the left of the Pepsi sign are some of the best bakeries and restaurants in the city, and we ate here more than once. I guess certain American words have crept into the Japanese vocabulary, one of which is "bargain," seen in the sign at left.

In Korea, those covered stairways would just be for crossing the street. Here, however, they are the entrances to the huge underground shopping area that goes two floors below this very intersection. It is also a way to cross the street, if you want to window shop on the way. There is also an underground entrance to the Tokyu store under the street. In fact, it is hard to tell when you leave the department store. I'd hate to be in charge of locking all their doors and access points at night, as the trouble would be to find them all.

Fish for Sale?

Wandering around the roof garden, we came across a large tank with Koi in it. These are essentially giant goldfish, and are very sought after for ponds and pools in commercial buildings and private homes. I wasn't sure if the fish were for sale, but the price placard seems to suggest that $100 will get you your pick of the litter.

In Japan, the koi is a symbol of luck, prosperity, and good fortune, and also of perseverance in the face of adversity. Ornamental koi are symbolic of Japanese culture and are closely associated with the country's national identity. Koi were originally bred in Japan, and up through World War II were essentially a Japanese "thing". But since World War II, the keeping of koi in outdoor water gardens has also become popular among the more affluent Chinese. Koi ponds are now found in Chinese communities around the world, and the number of people who keep koi imported from Niigata, Japan (where they originated) has been increasing. Koi ponds are becoming a common feature as well in botanical gardens around the world.

The Shibuya Subway Terminus

Looking towards the center of the city, you can see what I meant when I said that the subway station was on the third floor of the store. It is in the store that the Ginza line originates, traveling out of the building, across the street, and then down underground opposite.

Shibuya from the Tokyu

This view looks South; the rail yard is apparently for freight. As we were walking around, I did discover that there is a complete pet store here on the roof of the Tokyu, and that indeed, those koi were for sale. It may be that the price of 31,600 Yen, which is about $90, is not just for a single koi, but perhaps for an enclosure and pump and stuff. I didn't really have the urge to find out.

Here are the last two pictures I took of Shibuya from the rooftop of the Tokyu Department Store:

We went back inside to take a look at the restaurants, which are run the same as any others, with the plastic displays at the entrance. The restaurant took up almost a whole floor. All the equipment was either new or spotlessly clean, and the electronic ovens made cooking pre-prepared foods easy.

Also on the restaurant floor, we found an artisan creating small wooden dolls (and I bought one to bring home for my Mom, who likes Oriental things.

As in most large stores, I imagine, the management occasionally brings in someone to make or demonstrate articles right in front of the customers, whether it be jewelry polishing, dressmaking, cosmetics or woodcarving. This man had his lathe set up to grind the wood for these dolls, and was turning them out one after the other.

We worked our way down through the floors of the department store, and the only other photos I took were in the department that sells kimonos- both ready-made and patterns as well. I thought the display of fabrics was colorful.

Moving down a floor, we came to the Japanese women's wear department. These are good examples of everyday kimonos. One curious thing is that the models, unlike those in Korean stores, look Oriental, right down to the almond eyes and petite figures.

The prices on the kimonos, incidentally, seem to be about $50 for the material, or about twice that made. I thought of getting one or two, but not knowing sizes and individual tastes makes that a chancy proposition.

Here are more beautiful kimonos and material. This, I believe, is silk brocade, prices from $110 to $175.

We'd made our way down through the levels of the Tokyu store to street level, and we then left the building to walk around the Shibuya area. (NOTE: I went to Google Maps to see if I could find an aerial view that would show some landmarks that appear in my picture, but this area seems to have been entirely changed in the fifty years since 1971- which is, certainly, to be expected. So no aerial view that I can match up to my pictures.)

The Tokyu Department Store

We left the Tokyu building and crossed the street under the "bargain" sign pointed out earlier. Crossing streets in Japan is like being a lineman on a football team, in that you are often facing a phalanx of pedestrians coming at you:

Given the population density in Tokyo and the busy street we saw just about everywhere, everyone seems surprisingly polite and calm in navigating the sidewalks and crosswalks. I wasn't familiar with the etiquette of being a pedestrian in Japan, but I can only suppose that there is one. For our part, we usually walked on the right on sidewalks and in crosswalks, and neither of us every ran into someone or, if I recall correctly, was even jostled. I think the concept of "personal space" if finely-tuned in Japan, and it was a pleasure to walk around at any time of day.

The Meiji Jingu Shrine

Our guidebook told of a very nice park just north of where we were in Shibuya, so we thought that we would walk the mile or so to get to it and walk around.

Our Walk to Meiji Jingu

At left you can see a current aerial view of the area we covered in our Walk to Meiji Jingu, and I have marked the approximate location of some of the pictures we took along our walk.

On our walk north, we walked past this restaurant right in the middle of the Shibuya shopping district. This restaurant was one of the best we were to find, and the prices were extremely reasonable. The steak in the lower left was only $2.50, and the dinner next to it (oysters, shrimp, an egg and beef) only 75 cents. You can pick out salads, shrimp, hamburger steaks, cutlets, fried fish and spaghetti, none of them for more than $1. In fact, we came out here from the other side of the city one night just to eat.

Now we come to one of the few buildings that we saw and photographed that is still in existence today. It is the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, an arena located in the southern part of Yoyogi Park in Shibuya. It is famous for its suspension roof design.

The Yoyogi National Gymnasium (1971)

An Aerial View of the Gym (c. 2020)

Inside the Yoyogi Gymnasium

The gymnasium was designed by Kenzo Tange and built between 1961 and 1964 to house swimming and diving events in the 1964 Summer Olympics. A separate annex was used for the basketball competition at those same games. It will also host handball competitions at the 2020 Summer Olympics (which are slated to be held in 2021, a casualty of the Pandemic). The design inspired Frei Otto's arena designs for the Olympic Stadium in Munich.

The arena holds 13,291 people (9,079 stand seats, 4,124 arena seats and 88 "royal box" seats) and is now primarily used for ice hockey, futsal (and indoor game that is similar to soccer), and basketball. At left are some skaters inside the skating pavilion at the site of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Yoyogi Park, located adjacent to Harajuku Station and Meiji Shrine, is a popular Tokyo destination. On Sundays, it is especially busy when it is used as a gathering place for Japanese rock music fans, jugglers, comedians, martial arts clubs, cosplayers and other subculture and hobby groups (none of which we saw as we were walking through it to Meiji Shrine. In spring, thousands of people visit the park to enjoy the cherry blossom during hanami. The landscaped park has picnic areas, bike paths, cycle rentals and public sport courts.

Yoyogi Park stands on the site from where the first successful powered aircraft flight in Japan took place by Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa on 19 December 1910. The area later became an army parade ground. From September 1945, the site housed the military barracks known as the "Washington Heights" for U.S. officers during the Allied occupation of Japan.

In 1967 most of the area north of the gymnasium complex and south of Meiji Shrine was turned into Yoyogi Park.

After walking around these pavilions for a while, we continued on to the Meiji Jingu Shrine area.

At the Entrance to Meiji Jingu

We stopped at the entrance to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, and stopped to read the English sign (there was a nearby one in Japanese). The sign read:

MEIJI JINGU

Deities Enshrined: Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken.
Date of Establishment: 1st November, 1920.
Annual Festival: 3rd November (birthday of Emperor Meiji).

History:
Emperor Meiji passed away on 30th July, 1912. Meiji Jingu, a shrine of national prayer for peace and prosperity, was built as a result of combined efforts of all the Japanese to commemorate his virtues. The shrine building was lost by fire during the last war but was reconstructed in 1958, being supported by all loyal Japanese. The feelings of reverence and yearning of the people for their Emperor and Empress are ever increasing.

Precincts:
Inner Garden, 175 acres, Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Outer Garden, 77 acres, Kasumigaoka, Shinjuku-ju and Gotadawara, Minato-ku, Tokyo.

Meiji Jingu Garden:
Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken were very fond of this garden and visited it often. Irises in June are especially beautiful.

Treasure House:
Various articles used by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken are displayed and help remind visitors of their virtues.

Outer Garden:
This was donated by the populace to Meiji Jingu in 1926. There are Emperor Meiji's burial site, Meiji Memorial Art Gallery, great stadia, swimming pools, etc., and it is internationally known as the sports center of Japan.

Meiji Memorial Hall:
The Meiji Constitution was drafted in this building. Shinto weddings are performed here.

The Entrance Gate at Meiji Jingu

From the signage, we walked into the shrine area itself. Even though it was Winter, the trees were still green. You have probably noticed the particular design of that wooden gate; this same design is copied in many places throughout the city and countryside.

A torii is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a torii at the entrance is usually the simplest way to identify Shinto shrines, and a small torii icon represents them on Japanese road maps.

The first appearance of torii gates in Japan can be reliably pinpointed to at least the mid-Heian period; they are mentioned in a text written in 922. The oldest existing stone torii was built in the 12th century and belongs to a Hachiman Shrine in Yamagata prefecture. The oldest existing wooden torii is a ryōbu torii at Kubō Hachiman Shrine in Yamanashi prefecture built in 1535.

Torii gates were traditionally made from wood or stone, but today they can be also made of reinforced concrete, copper, stainless steel or other materials. They are usually either unpainted or painted vermilion with a black upper lintel. Shrines of Inari typically have many torii because those who have been successful in business often donate in gratitude a torii to Inari, kami of fertility and industry. Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto has thousands of such torii, each bearing the donor's name.

Meiji Shrine is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken. The shrine does not contain the emperor's grave, which is located at Fushimi-momoyama, south of Kyoto.

The Meiji Jingu Shrine Entrance

After about a 1/3 mile walk along a gravel path through the woods, we came to the entrance to the actual shrine.

After the emperor's death in 1912, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution to commemorate his role in the Meiji Restoration. An iris garden in an area of Tokyo where Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken had been known to visit was chosen as the building's location.

Construction began in 1915 under Itō Chūta, and the shrine was built in the traditional nagare-zukuri style, using primarily Japanese cypress and copper. The building of the shrine was a national project, mobilizing youth groups and other civic associations from throughout Japan, who contributed labor and funding. The main timbers came from Kiso in Nagano, and Alishan in Taiwan, then a Japanese territory, with materials being utilized from every Japanese prefecture, including Karafuto, Korea, Kwantung, and Taiwan. It was estimated that the cost of the construction was ¥5,219,00 in 1920 (approximately $26 million today), about a quarter of the actual cost due to the donated materials and labor.

When we approached the courtyard of the shrine, I stopped to take a picture (the photo at left, below). On the day I was creating this page (June, 2021) I ran across a similar picture of the same courtyard that was taken in 2018. I was amazed at the changes that have occurred in fifty years; see if you can spot them:

My Picture of the Meiji Jingu Courtyard

The Meiji Jingu Courtyard in 2018

Meiji Jingu was formally dedicated on November 3, 1920, completed in 1921, and its grounds officially finished by 1926. Until 1946, the Meiji Shrine was officially designated one of the Kanpei-taisha, meaning that it stood in the first rank of government supported shrines.

The Shrine is a typical Japanese structure of extreme simplicity, compared to some of the other similar structures I have seen. The inner courtyard of the Shrine is a place where the Japanese come to donate coins and kneel and pray. At the Shrine, a small booth sells fortunes written on little slips of paper, and the belief is that for them to come true, they must be attached to a bush or a tree on the Shrine grounds, and thus in leaving one walks down a shrubbery-bordered walkway, the leaves of which are festooned with thousands of these little fortunes. This same practice occurs at other kinds of sites we visited, much like throwing coins in a fountain.

The Meiji Jingu Shrine Naien

The Naien is the inner precinct, which is centered on the shrine buildings and includes a treasure museum that houses articles of the Emperor and Empress. The treasure museum is built in the Azekurazukuri style.

The original building was destroyed during the Tokyo air raids of World War II. The present iteration of the shrine was funded through a public fund raising effort and completed in October 1958.

On the eve of new year, Japanese usually visit a Shinto shrine to prepare for the worship- Hatsumōde- of the new year. Meiji Shrine is the most popular location in Japan for hatsumōde.

Meiji Shrine is located in a forest that covers 170 acres. This area is covered by an evergreen forest that consists of 120,000 trees of 365 different species, which were donated by people from all parts of Japan when the shrine was established. The forest is visited by many as a recreation and relaxation area in the center of Tokyo. Meiji Shrine is adjacent to Yoyogi Park which together is a large forested area. The entrances open at sunrise and close at sunset.

Our First Evening in Tokyo

We walked out of the Shrine area to the nearby railway station to catch a train for the hotel.

"Don't Sleep in the Subway"

We left Meiji Jingu and, consulting out railway/subway map, went to the Harajuku subway/train station to catch the subway back to the Sanno.

This is the map that is shown at each train station that tells the traveler what size ticket he needs to buy from the automated machines below to get him to his destination.

We took a train back to Shibuya, and the Ginza subway line to Akasaka-mitsuke, the station right near the Sanno. That night we ate at the Mongolian Barbecue in the Hotel, then decided to pay a nighttime visit to the Ginza.

The Ginza is a district of Tokyo, located north of Shinbashi. It is a popular upscale shopping area of Tokyo, with numerous internationally renowned department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses located in its vicinity. It is considered to be one of the most expensive, elegant, and luxurious city districts in the world. Ginza was a part of the old Kyobashi ward of Tokyo City, which, together with Nihonbashi and Kanda, formed the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo (Tokyo).

Ginza was built upon a former swamp that was filled in during the 16th century. The name Ginza comes after the establishment of a silver-coin mint established there in 1612, during the Edo period.

Nighttime on the Ginza This is how the Ginza looks at night after exiting from the Ginza subway station.

Not Back to the Future, But Close Across the street in the Nissan Motors building this prototype car was on display.

Tokyo is not like American cities; everything seems to stay open quite late, and not just on certain shopping nights. Actually, most of the little stores stay open as long as people are present.

I did not send off the two pictures at left to be professionally scanned, for two reasons. First, I did not think that Scancafe would be able to do anything with them. Second, I did not think they were all that album-worthy.

On a whim, Dan and I responded to the entreaties of a young woman outside a small club off one of the Ginza's main streets. We kind of knew what we were getting into, previous R&R returnees having clued us in. But we thought that for a relatively small hostess charge and a few overpriced drinks, we could experience the "hostess scene". The two young ladies to whom we were introduced were not geisha; they were amateurs. Their objective was to keep us as long as possible, to maximize the hostess charge, and to get us to buy multiple rounds of overpriced drinks. For all of this, we assumed that the girls got a cut, plus any tips we might leave.

Everybody knows this is something of a scam, but as long as you don't go overboard, it can be fun. The girls spoke rudimentary English; we could converse, but we weren't about to have a discussion of theoretical physics. The drinks were a few dollars each, although I am pretty sure that there was no alcohol in the drinks the waitress set in front of the girls (and not all that much in ours). They made an acceptable version of a sloe gin fizz, my drink of choice.

We spent an hour and about $15 for our "club experience". That doesn't sound like much now, but it was about $100 then. We had to be adamant about closing out our tab; obviously, the girls and the establishment's owners would have preferred that we stay. (NOTE: It would be a trip to know what happened to the two girls; I hope nothing bad.)

In the Ginza

This was our last view of the Ginza this evening. We'd had a full day and were only too happy to get back to the Sanno for a good night's sleep.

Shopping at the Naval Exchanges in Yokohama (January 22)

We had still not completed all our shopping, and we had plans for some day trips out of Tokyo next week, so we thought that today, Friday, would be the time to get that shopping done.

On the next day, we decided to get in the rest of the shopping that we had to do; there were some cartridges, wood cases and the like that we were told would be available at the Yokohama Navy Base exchange.

Outside the Sanno Hotel

The picture at right was taken looking up the street from the Sanno. The building on the left is Fuji-Xerox, and up on the right is the Akasaka Plaza Hotel, one of Tokyo's finest, and across the street is the entrance to the subway.

There was not really a lot to see for most of the rest of the day. We got on a subway for Tokyo station, and there caught a train for Yokohama. We passed more of the same cityscape that you have seen, and when we got to Yokohama, we changed trains to go further down the line to the Yokosuka Navy Base- taking a cab from the last train station. On the way to the base, the cab went through some fairly interesting sections, including that new housing area that I mentioned earlier. This was the only such housing that I saw while in Japan, and it looked fairly nice. The land around the area was pretty hilly, and it was a good place to live, away from the city, and the smog and the crowds.

Arriving at the Base, we went immediately to the exchange, as closing time was near, where we found everything else that we needed- in profusion. It is really amazing. Things that we wait for here in the Korean exchanges for weeks can be found by the hundreds in the Japanese exchanges. Close to the source of supply. We did not see a lot of the base itself, but just shopped in the exchange. I was able to find the telephoto lens and the wide angle lens that I wanted there, and Dan and I found all the rest of the items that we'd been asked to purchase for other guys back at Howze.

The Yokosuka Navy Base

We knew this base as simply the Yokosuka Navy Base, but as of this writing it is officially "United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka" or "Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka". The mission of the base has been and continues to be the logistic, recreational, administrative support, and service of the U.S. Naval Forces Japan, Seventh Fleet, and other operating forces assigned in the Western Pacific. The base is the largest strategically important U.S. naval installation in the western Pacific.

The small (568 acres) base is located at the entrance of Tokyo Bay, 40 mi. south of Tokyo and approximately 20 mi. south of Yokohama on the Miura Peninsula. When Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan in 1853, using naval pressure to open up Japan to foreign trade, Yokosuka was a quaint, native fishing village. In 1860, the Japanese Government decided that if Japan was to become active in world trade, she must have proper facilities to build and maintain large seagoing vessels. The French were asked for assistance in transforming the area, and the work was completed in 1886.

Yokosuka was one of the main arsenals of the Imperial Japanese Navy into the 20th century, reaching their peak during World War II. Japan surrendered the base in 1845, and "Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka" was created shortly after. The shipyard was deactivated, the hospital became a Naval Dispensary, and the Supply Department was organized to provide support to the fleet and shore-based activities. The shops and dry docks were reactivated in 1947 ahead of the Korean Conflict, when Yokosuka Navy Base suddenly became very important and extremely busy.

The U.S. Naval Hospital was commissioned in 1950, and the Naval Communications Facility in 1951, and the Yokosuka Facility assumed a vital role in maintenance and repair of the U.S. Seventh Fleet during both the Korean War and Vietnam War. In 1952, occupation ended and US Far East military headquarters was shifted from Tokyo to Yokosuka under a lease agreement with the Japanese Government. Some of Yokosuka was ceded back to Japan to house a new base for the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force in 1954. The status and operation of Yokosuka has remained fairly constant since then.

After we'd finished buying and mailing everything, Dan and I walked over to the harbor to try out the lenses before we lost our light completely. Here are a selection of the pictures I took:

With our shopping and shipping done, we returned to the Sanno and then went back over to the Shibuya neighborhood for dinner at the restaurant we'd found yesterday. Tomorrow it would be time to start seeing more of Japan itself.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	January 23-24, 1971: Exploring Tokyo
	January 19-20, 1971: Shopping in Yokota and Tachikawa
	Return to the Index for the Japan Trip