Gardens, Walls, and Sumo

The plan originally for today was to go to Kamakura and see the Buddhist temple complex there.  However, yesterday’s very full day pretty much wiped me out and I was ready for a relaxing, not-so-full day of sight-seeing.  Kamakura is an hour away and an all-day commitment to see all of what there is to see there.  So instead, I needed to figure something else out.  I decided to go back to my missed plan from last Tuesday and see the Imperial Gardens at some point in the day.  Whenever that was, didn’t matter.

At check-in, I was given meal vouchers for breakfast and I can choose between four restaurants.  I went to the one that was closest and it offered traditional Japanese style buffet breakfast as well as western style.  No wonder the people here are so skinny.  The traditional Japanese meal consisted of boiled fish paste, grilled salmon, pickled vegetables, and other various healthy choices.  On the other side of the aisle was bacon, sausage, pancakes, and all the various other choices we’d be used to back in the States.

I stuck more with the traditional Japanese style, but sampled little bits of most things.  I walked away from that buffet feeling I got cheated out of my meal ticket.  While the Japanese side of the food aisle was tasty, the western side did nothing to my taste buds.  They made an in-house vegetable juice that was very tasty.  It was made of cucumber, and two other vegetables, and a little apple juice.  You could mainly taste the cucumber.  Oh, and if I did have to pay for that, it would have been ¥3,300, or about $32.00.  Well, there are three other places to try and I will be trying them over the next 5 mornings.

Reasonably full from trying all the food in bite-sized portions, I decide to stroll through the hotel’s garden.  The many branching paths, ponds, waterfalls, and manicured horticulture are very relaxing.  This is a cool place to just sit and unwind.  I wander every path I can find and even find a little friend, another Jorō Spider.  This one only about 2.5 inches long and well off the path and hard to photograph.  Another sign of good luck for me!  After that, I find more friends in one of the hotel grounds’ local mouse patrol members.  A couple of them are ambivalent, but one seems friendly and I pet the cat for a little bit until a get a little bit of a purr and then I head back into the gardens to see the rest.

I finish my garden stroll, head out of a random exit from the hotel, and just decide to walk opposite of where I usually have been going.  Up through some residential streets, I head to a sloped, large rock brick wall.  There are stairs here.  I am tempted.  There is a sign there with red kanji including an exclamation point.  They’re serious about whatever it says.  Still tempted.  Screw it, I go up the stairs to a path that is maybe 15-feet wide that runs along the top of this wall with steep-sloped sides that is about 30-feet above the street I just left and maybe 50-feet above the baseball diamond and rugby/futbol fields.  The entire path on top of the wall is shaded by many trees.

Undaunted by red kanji or exclamation points, I walk down the path watching four guys practice batting and a small group practicing futbol.  The path is quiet, serene, and a welcome little respite from the city streets.  Eventually in my stroll, I see two other people.  They must not care about red kanji either.  About three blocks worth of walking down this path, I see the same sign.  This time, however, there is an accompanying sign in English warning of mosquitos near the greenery.  The signs look like they have been up for years and serve as a general warning.  Still good to know.

I continue walking and the wall ends at a major street where I spot a KFC across a bridge.  Also across the bridge are more shops and restaurants.  While not as packed as the Akasaka-Mitsuke area I am used to visiting, it could hold some promise.  I spot a Tokyo Metro entrance and head to it and head towards Tokyo station and purposely go one stop beyond so I can browse through the streets back and towards the Imperial Palace.

The buildings where I popped out into daylight are all magnificent and the spaces between have greenery and all is very neat and orderly.  I am struck each time and the extremely clean streets and sidewalks.  Coinciding with that extreme lack of trash is the extreme lack of trash cans as well.  No overflowing consumerism byproducts of the West (to the east of me, oddly enough).

I have little issue finding the Imperial Palace Garden grounds.  Honestly, I took the most random turns throughout the city and didn’t care where I was or where I was going, so it wasn’t like I was lost nor *trying* to find the Imperial Palace.  So, I go in and immediately regret not grabbing my sunscreen.  While an “Imperial Palace Garden” in Japan may conjure visions of wandering paths and trees and manicured wonderfulness, it is not what greeted me.  Large expanses of gravel, moats with castle walls on the opposite sides, and a large grass area with pine trees in which no one was allowed are what greeted me.

I walk several blocks to the main area of activity.  There about 60 tour groups here.  Ugh, tourists… wait… nevermind.  I slowly make my way around and see the entrance to the actual palace grounds over a bridge.  There are two guards that stand on the opposite side of the bridge on either of the large doors and it seems 99% of their job involves standing still and stoic.  I spot a receipt that someone has dropped so I pick it up to throw it away.  There are no trash cans here either.  Well, better than it being on the ground as trash.

I start heading out of the grounds on the opposite side I came in.  What the heck, I haven’t been there yet.  I eventually get to an area where the tour buses disgorge their patrons and nearby there is a very cool statue there of a samurai, Kusonoki Masashige, on a horse.  He is commonly viewed as the ideal of samurai loyalty.  I find and sit on a bench in the shade and people watch for a little while.

Eventually the urge to see more overcomes the urge to sit more.  That took probably about three minutes.  I did say “a little while”.  I head back through the streets near Tokyo station and decide to maybe head back to the station I came from to wander those streets and scope out a lunch spot.

On the train, I practice trying to read hiragana and katakana.  I know maybe about 10-15% now, but really only started in earnest on Thursday for a few minutes.  I found an app or two and am getting better.  I’m sure by the time I leave, I’ll at least be able to make out most of the words.  So, I’ll be able to say or read the words, but not know what they’ll mean.  That will come later, if I can come back.

So the streets near the Yotsuya station hold some interesting places for food, the least of which is that KFC.  I think I’ve settled on an udon place when I realize that I’m still really not hungry.  Oh well, I know a place or two later for dinner.  One interesting thing happened when I stopped in a 7-11 on one of the back streets.  I was looking for KitKats and still coming up empty handed.  I spotted some whisky, and thought, “I do enjoy whisky”, but something ingrained in me just can’t buy whisky in a 7-11.  I try to overcome this very logical seeming aversion when I catch what is playing on the overhead Musak system: Daydream Believer by the Monkees.  Wow… of all the places.  I walk out with a smile, but no whisky.  Maybe I’ll try that shop I have been getting my interesting beers so far.

I trace a different path back to the hotel and try reading signs along the way to enforce my alphabet learning and get back into the hotel room.  I want to try and tackle why my pictures haven’t been automagically downloading and I still haven’t figured it out.  Oh well, they’re backed up manually so I’m still good, just slightly put out.  I am also finally able to throw away that receipt from the Imperial Palace I picked up.

I hop on Skype a couple of times and try to see if Kari is online.  She had a long, tiring day with our club’s car show and was napping.  Eventually, she’s on and we video chat for a while and then the coolest thing of my day happens.  Sumo is on at 4pm locally. I tune in about 4:15 and spin the iPad to face the TV, switch the audio channel to English to show Kari what a match looks like.  We watched the entire final match of the Autumn tournament together.  As much as I was cursing technology for not working with my photos and making it inconvenient for me, the fact that I could stream that and we could chat about what we were seeing was pretty damn cool.  Yeah, if I get to come back out here and bring Kari, she wants to go.  Kick ass.

Hakuho won the tournament and ties for the most championships won at 31.  He’s one away from tying the most ever at 32.  A man he considered a father when he was training, Taihō, still holds that record from 1971.

We say our good nights and it is time for me to look for dinner.  I decide to maybe grab a small bottle of whisky that I could finish before I leave so I can try some Japanese whisky.  That means going back to the old stomping grounds which suits me.  There are several places around.  On heading over to “restaurant mecca”, I quickly discover that most places are closed on Sunday night or because on sumo.  I can’t complain, but my stomach can.  Right near the liquor/grocery store is a Burger King, which IS open.  Something in their window is intriguing: their Kuro burger.  It is made with bamboo ash as well.  So the bun, and cheese, and a coating on the burger is all black.  What the hell; it is different, and that’s what I want.  However upon finishing, it tasted precisely like a Burger King burger would.  Oh well, I still would rather regret doing something than not so I’m glad I at least tried it.

I did see a fugu place in my stroll that was closed at the moment.  I will definitely be inquiring in the office about that place and see what the opinion is about the place.  Puffer fish is not something you want to get from a place with a bad reputation.

I head back and pour a dram of Nikka Whisky From The Barrel to enjoy as I reminisce and tell you of my sojourns of the day.  Mata raishu.