Three months in Japan, part four: other trips

I would gladly stay in Tokyo for the whole three months, but I also wanted to see other places in Japan. So I spent one week in Osaka (approximately 2.8 million people), one week in Kyoto (approximately 1.5 million people), and one week in Nagoya (approximately 2.3 million people).

For periods shorter than one month, renting a hotel room is usually less expensive than getting an apartment. In Osaka, I was lucky to find an affordable apartment, but in Kyoto and Nagoya I lived the hotel life. That always sounds like a good idea when booking the hotel, but later I regret the decision (because we are not talking about lavish five-star accommodations but about rooms where sometimes it's difficult even to move around).

Osaka

I rented an apartment close to the Osaka Castle. Right in front of the building, I found a restaurant specializing in duck. Kawachi-kamo is a duck grown in Matsubara, a city to the southeast of Osaka. That delicious duck became a traditional favorite around here. Of course, I had duck many times during my week in Osaka: sliced seared duck, fried duck tender, skewered duck with Japanese leek, duck sukiyaki, and duck stew.

The Osaka Castle is pretty. The powerful daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered its construction in 1583 and the castle was ready in 1597, just one year before he died. His son Toyotomi Hideyori became lord of the castle. In 1614, the other powerful daimyo, Tokugawa Ieyasu, attacked the castle and, after a long siege, managed to vanquish the Toyotomi clan, eliminating all opposition to his role of shogun. The structure was rebuilt several times over the centuries, with the current main tower, reconstructed in 1931 and later restored, serving now as a museum.

When I was not eating duck, I sampled other Osaka dishes. One that is very popular around here is the okonomiyaki, some sort of pancake made with flour mixed with grated yam, shredded cabbage, and bonito flakes, with some kind of animal protein added (beef, pork, squid, etc), and covered with the Japanese versions of Worcestershire sauce and mayonnaise. They also have delicious ramen in Osaka, the tonkotsu ramen, with the broth based on pork bones and boiled overnight.

I did the usual museum visits, of course. The Osaka Museum of History, just in front of the Osaka Castle, has eight floors showing the history of the city. The National Museum of Art, Osaka, had the kind of contemporary art that doesn't excite me. Still, right next door, the Nakanoshima Museum of Art had an exciting exhibition, Rich Veins of Japanese Art, with works from the Muromachi period (16th century) and the Edo period (17th century). I also went to the small but cool Kamigata Ukiyo-e Museum, which displays ukiyo-e made in Osaka. The Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts had a good Van Gogh exhibition, The Artist's Dream Continued by His Family, with mostly works loaned by the Vincent Van Gogh Foundation.

Other places I visited in Osaka were the tourist magnet area Dotonbori (so-called "the most colorful neighborhood of Osaka") and Shinsekai (neon lights, quirky shops, street food), and the Shitennō-ji (a temple with a beautiful little garden in the back).

Kobe

While staying in Osaka, I took one day to visit Kobe (approximately 1.5 million people), half an hour by train to the west. What better place to eat Kobe beef than Kobe?

I looked for a place out of the usual tourist areas and found a little restaurant called Wagyu Jockey Kobe, where I ate a delicious Kobe beef steak with rice and grilled vegetables. Is it really that good? Yes, it is. The Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association imposes a series of conditions for the meat to be certified as Kobe beef (Tajima cattle born and fed in the Hyōgo Prefecture, with a certain weight, marbling ratio, and a bunch of other things). In the end, only about 3,000 head of cattle qualify as Kobe each year, which explains the higher price. Grilled slowly, melting the marbling, you get a soft and delicious steak that is one of the best in the world.

I also went to the Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art, where they had another Foujita exhibition, this time together with paintings by Kuniyoshi, The Parallel Careers of Foujita and Kuniyoshi: A Centennial Reunion. It was very interesting to compare the works of two of the most famous Japanese painters. The museum building was also an attraction, designed by the uber famous Tadao Ando, who also has a gallery in there.

Kyoto

Kyoto has a unique mix of old and new. For example, the area where my hotel is located, Shijo, has vibrant modern commercial streets lined with department stores, fashion boutiques, and cafés, all with covered sidewalks. But if you keep walking to the east you get to Gion, a neighborhood full of traditional wooden townhouses (machiya) and narrow lantern-lit alleys. Unfortunately, anywhere you go, you will find hordes of tourists in your way.

The east side of Kyoto boasts an impressive number of temples, most of which are crowded with tourists. I saw a couple of them (Yasaka Shrine and Heian Jingu Shrine), but I lacked the motivation to walk all the way up to the famous Kiyomizu-dera, only to be surrounded by people and unable to even photograph the place.

On the west side of Kyoto, away from the busiest part of town, there are more temples to see. Ryoan-ji (which translates to "Temple of the Dragon at Peace") is famous for its zen garden made of smooth pebbles and larger rock formations. There was no dragon in sight, though. Kinkaku-ji (which translates to "Temple of the Golden Pavilion") is more faithful to its name and indeed hosts a beautiful building covered in gold leaf.

Kyoto was the official capital of Japan and the residence of the Emperor for a very long time (794-1868), and we still have the old Kyoto Imperial Palace here (or its latest reconstruction after a fire), as well as the Sento Palace (former residence for retired emperors) and the Kaninnomiya Mansion (former residence of court nobles), all inside the Kyoto Imperial Park. But you cannot get inside any of these buildings.

A few blocks away, there's a much more interesting historic building, the Nijo Castle (and you can go inside it). It was built to be the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shoguns, close to the official Imperial Palace, while the de facto capital was in Edo. In 1603, it was from here that Ieyasu Tokugawa announced his appointment as shogun. It was also from here that he launched his attack on Toyotomi Hideyori, his last opponent, in the famous Siege of Osaka. And two and a half centuries later, in 1868, it was also here that his descendant Yoshinobu Tokugawa announced the end of the Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the Emperor as the true leader of Japan.

From real historic places to fake historic places. I visited the Toei Kyoto Studio Park, which is at the same time a filming lot and an amusement park. Many famous samurai movies were made there, among them the Zatoichi series in the sixties and the Lone Wolf and Cub series in the seventies.

And then, of course, there are the museums. I went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum (more like a library than a museum), the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto (they had a kimono exhibition), the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art (more Yayoi Kusama, this time her print works), the Museum of Kyoto (objects from the history of the city), and the Kyoto National Museum (statues, scrolls, paintings, caligraphy). Lastly, I went all the way to the south area of Kyoto called Fushimi just to visit the Gekkeikan Ōkura Sake Museum, where I not only learned a bit about sake but also tasted their products (extensively).

I also have to say that in Kyoto I ate one of the best ramen bowls I ever had. The broth was based on pork bones (tonkotsu), boiled for many hours until a creamy foam was created. Served with thick local noodles, that was some rich and delicious ramen bowl.

Nara

While staying in Kyoto, I took one day to visit Nara (approximately 370 thousand people), forty-five minutes by train to the south. I mainly stayed in the Nara Park area, seeing temples (Kōfuku-ji, Tōdai-ji, Kasugataisha) and deer (there are over a thousand of them, and they are extremely tame). I also visited the Nara National Museum, which had an interesting exhibition called Voyage Around the World: Heritage of Beauty and Wonder, with more than two hundred pieces from early civilizations across the globe.

Uji

One of the books I read while in Japan was the classic The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu, written in the 11th century. A few of the final chapters take place in Uji, a city between Kyoto and Nara, and now there is a museum there dedicated to the book. I went to Uji to visit the museum, and to see the Uji River, the Uji Bridge, and Byodo-in, a Buddhist temple built in 1053. While there, I also had time to eat a good katsudon and to get soaked by a sudden afternoon summer storm.

Nagoya

The Nagoya Castle looks impressive, less pretty than the one in Osaka, but more robust. Finished in 1615 when Tokugawa Ieyasu was already shogun, it used the same site of a previous castle built a century earlier. Like many things in Japan, the Nagoya Castle was severely damaged by air raids in the Second World War, and the current version was restored in the 1950s. We can't currently enter the main tower, but we can visit the lavishly decorated Honmaru Palace, a residential area for the Tokugawa lords. There's also an operating tea house on the castle grounds, where I had my breakfast.

A very long walk took me from the Nagoya Castle to the Tokugawa Garden, in an area that used to be the residence of Tokugawa Mitsutomo (1625-1700). The geography has changed since then, but the garden was created in the 1930s, when the area already belonged to the city of Nagoya. Of course, it had to be rebuilt after being bombed in the Second World War. Today, it's an adorable Japanese-style garden with an open area around a pond and a wooded area including a waterfall and a creek. Next to the Tokugawa Garden there is the Tokugawa Art Museum, full of objects formerly belonging to the Tokugawa clan, like paintings, ceramics, furniture, armor, and swords (many, many swords). And they have a good restaurant too, where I had a kaiseki sashimi lunch.

Other museums I visited in Nagoya were the Yamazaki Mazak Museum of Art (a collection of French art from the 18th to the 20th century, including Chagall, Delacroix, Fragonard, Géricault, Ingres, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Watteau, among others), the Money & Ukiyo-e Museum (which had some pretty cool ancient Japanese coins and a beautiful collection of Hiroshige prints), and the Nagoya City Art Museum (good modern and contemporary art, plus a special exhibition about Capcom and their over forty years of successful games, like Mega Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, just to mention a few).

Takayama and Shirakawa

While staying in Nagoya, I took a day to visit the mountains to the north.

Takayama (approximately 90 thousand people) still has some areas with old style traditional Japanese architecture, which attracts many tourists, which in turn made many of those houses become shops selling all kinds of things to those tourists: pottery, furniture, objects decorated with rabbits (it's the city's symbol or mascot), sarubobos (little red dolls with no faces, a local amulet). While there, I ate one of the local delicacies, Hida beef nigiri. It's sushi made with the local premium brand of Wagyu beef, which is delicious. Takayama means "tall mountain".

Shirakawa (less than two thousand people) is an adorable village with houses in the old gasshō-zukuri style, with roofs made of thick thatch, and plenty of rice fields. Not even the abundance of tourists destroys the local charm. I had lunch there, Hida beef again but this time yakiniku style (meat and vegetables cooked on a grill at your table). Shirakawa means "White River Village".

And after Japan?

Tomorrow I travel to China, more specifically Hong Kong and Macau, where I will stay just for ten days. But that's a story for another time. Joy gin! (That's "goodbye" in Cantonese.)