Advertisement
Published: April 30th 2018
Edit Blog Post
DSC02690
Japanese Alps still with lots of snow Having maxed out on cherry blossom at the beginning of the month we had built in a 3 day return for a wisteria festival, one of CNN's Top 10 'Must Sees' in the world, not that that was the driver. Paul in researching the sakura had stumbled across this, but it is at the end of April, hence our return.
So Friday, 27 April, was the day we dedicated to this. It is at the Asikaga Flower Park, 80 km north of Tokyo so was a bit of a trek, but we used the journey out and back to the transfer station as a chance to use the Bullet Train.
Turns out there are several lines now and they are also on version 5 of the pulling units. Ours wasn't the fastest route but we did have the newest type of train, all sleak and metallic turquoise. Apparently when these Mark 5 units came out they were nicknamed the Flying Suppository because of their shape. Pretty certain we wouldn't want one of these big boys entering at 300 kph!
All very ritualised again. We had great fun watching the 5-strong cleaning crew, all in smart uniforms with dinky
DSC02692
Two types of Shincansen. Ours was the green type caps, line up in perfect unison at the track side, as evenly spaced as any soldier drill unit, and bow politely to the train as it entered and departed the station.
The Asikaga Flower Park is not very large. You could probably, if no one else was in the park, walk from one side to the other in 15 mins max. But it is packed with seasonal flower. The garden leaflet lists around 8 specific 'seasons', from bulbs to azaleas to roses.... but we were here for the wisteria, their special expertise.
Admittedly if you looked closely enough at some of the specimens we were probably about a week past its overall best. Some of the wisteria 'dangles' had lost petal in their upper sections and were showing seed pods. But the overall effect was pretty special. Some of the larger - 1000 square metres - and older - 150 years - specimens are designated National Treasures. And they clearly don't look this good without a lot of work. Unlike our wisteria which has a lot of green growth above its ceiling these had hardly any and all the flower growth was hanging below. Whoever does this knows
DSC02701
Ashikaga wisteria how to prune - wonder if we could get them to prune ours twice a year?
Some specimens have flower clusters up to 1.8 m long, and the white wisteria tunnel, at 80m long, was awash with flower, perfume and bees. But they aren't without problems. They advertise a Golden Tunnel, and there are photos of it in full glory, a laburnum tunnel. However it looks like this has been recently totally grubbed out and replanted with new, spindly trees. It will be some time before these form a dripping golden tunnel.
But there is also plenty of other colour - tree paeonies, dog roses, azaleas, rhododendrons, cornus, lupins, bedding....
The place was also heaving with people and it was a Friday, heavens know what the weekend was going to be like? And who knew wisteria flavour ice cream could be a thing! It was delicious.
It took over 2 hours of journey at each end to get there and back so that was it for Friday.
Saturday we started with the Tsukiji fish market, but stopped in on the Hongwanji Buddhist Temple on the way in. Quite different from others we have been to
in that it was a 1930s stone built replacement for that destroyed in the 1923 earthquake.
The hot ticket for the fish market is to queue up by 3am or earlier to get one of the 120 daily tickets (2 groups of 60 for an hour each) for the fresh tuna auction. But, 3am! and we would have to get there!
After 10am, when most of the action is complete, they let the public in, so we wandered around finding nuggets of interest at every turn. Every type of fish you might think of, including the famed tuna - fresh and frozen. Whilst the frozen was being attacked with a band saw the fresh was being treated with great reverence. Whole fish and large chunks were being portioned with what looked like a samurai sword rather than a knife. And the detailed cutting was done without the hand ever touching the meat, always a cloth being used. We even saw a pair of poisonous puffer fish being despatched with a spike through the head, and one stall selling whale meat. And tuna eyeballs, apparently a delicacy.
The outer market was a warren of streets full of fish
shops, sushi bars and implement shops. Pip got 4 flexible, round, bamboo mats just ideal for the fresh cheese she makes.
Then further around the inner circle tube to Takashita Street - always have to take care when typing that in as spellchecker wants to split the word up, inappropriately. This is a supposed hot bed for young, cool Japan fashion. It felt a bit like we would have expected Carnaby Street to be like in the 60s but on steroids and more heaving crowds. We did spot several of what we dub 'Alices' though. Then on to a supposed Anime hotspot but that proved somewhat sparse and disappointing.
Nearly 3 weeks total in Japan and we hadn't had sushi yet, so we rectified that at a 'choose on screen/arrive on conveyor' sushi bar. Great fun & very good. We were very careful not to be too heavy-handed with the wasabi!
Sunday started at the Senso-ji Temple, one of the country's most important sites, and visited by millions every year. Especially busy as this is the start of Golden Week in Japan, the one week each year when most take a week's holiday.
The Temple, incredibly,
survived the 1923 earthquake but was destroyed by American WW2 incendiary carpet bombing after Pearl Harbour. It is quite a building, but we also discovered that its small garden, dating from early 17th C and an associated treasures gallery was open for 6 weeks at this time of year. A peaceful oasis behind the stream of humanity outside.
When loose planning where to go next we found that on route was a Memorial Temple and Museum to those who perished in the earthquake and the bombing.
The earthquake in 1923, followed by 3 days of inferno, killed 58,000. Many took refuge at this site, then an army parade ground, complete with wooden carts jammed full with all they possessed. They were totally rammed in on the site, and then a fire started. There were no exit routes nor ways around the carts, and 38000 perished in that fire alone.
In 1945 Tokyo was ravaged by 46 air attacks which burnt out 851,000 houses, killing 105,000. Their ashes are also interred at this site. The museum though was very dated, though there were some interesting artefacts and graphic photos.
Finished in the Akihabara area, famed for its
electronics, its anime and its cafes. The electronics were all kinds of wonderful, if that way inclined. The anime, to western eyes, is just perverse. Lots of cartoon work of barely pubescent young girls, with cute, big eyes, in various arrays of wearing not much at all. And the cafes - take your pick. Cat cafes, hedgehogs, owls, sheep/llamas - yes, in a cafe - and the infamous 'maid' cafes, touting their wares on the streets. We stuck with Starbucks! !
Paul did enter one store he had heard about somewhere. When he re-emerged he said it was like a crammed Tesco, but without the food and groceries, but with housewares and cosmetics, health and 'supplement' products ( back in nudge, nudge territory ), dress up anime costumes, electronics - household, personal and yes intimate! - and three floors of slot and video machines, at which for the latter the aim seemed to be to hit as many buttons as possible as quickly as possible to make the machine generate an intolerable racket.
We enjoyed the sushi last night so much we semi-repeated the experience by using a 'pick from conveyor belt' bar (like Yo Sushi).
Now
currently on route for 4 nights in Taipei, Taiwan, our penultimate stop on the way home next week.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.221s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.2008s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb