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Published: February 21st 2008
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OK time for a pop quiz!
Q - Japan is one of only 4 countries which boasts its own _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?
A - Disneyland!
And that’s exactly where me and Danny headed the day after the fish market expedition! I remember going to Disneyland Paris back when I was a kid and I was no less excited this time around! Tokyo Disneyland is only 15mins outside central Tokyo and is connected up with a direct train! Going on a Sunday was a mistake though, the queues were HORRENDOUS. 2 hours for Space Mountain! Some people were evening queuing 15mins for popcorn from the street vendor! But despite all the hanging around it was a great day!
Tokyo Disneyland is essentially the same as all the other Disneyland’s. But the reception it receives from the Japanese is unbelievable! They go crazy for Disney! Never before have I seen a nation so obsessed and in love with Mickey Mouse!
Not having much luck with the rides we decided we would wait until after about 7pm when all the kids would go home and the queues would die down. But boy were we
wrong! Despite it being bitterly bitterly cold, and I really do mean bitterly, (I was on the verge of crying I was that frozen) No one would leave! In the end it was me and Dan that ended up leaving before the kids! The next day at work I told them about our plan to go on the rides later at night when the queues were smaller and they just laughed! Miura San told me no Japanese would leave Disneyland before it closed! No matter how cold, tired or wet they were! Nothing stands in the way of the Japanese and Mickey Mouse!
A couple of weekends ago we went to a more traditional theme park in Nikko called Edo Wonderland. The park is designed to look like a town from the Edo period (1603 - 1868) when the samurai stood at the top of the social hierarchy. Danny dressed up as a samurai (and they actually gave him a real samurai sword!!), I dressed up as a samurai’s daughter, and we spent the afternoon pottering around the town in character! It was a very nice little town with traditional Japanese bridges and lots of little watering holes and
restaurants. We went to the Ninja Theater and saw a Ninja play which I couldn’t understand a word of but which looked cool! And to the traditional Japanese cultural theater where we watched a play which I think was about a wealthy Japanese lady finding a boyfriend!?
In the Ninja school of tools I learnt about Shuri-Ken (sharp disk shaped throwing knives)and other forms of Ninja weaponry. Ninjas (elite groups of highly trained combat professionals) were originally called ‘Shinobi no mono’, Shinobi meaning ‘living in seclusion’. I think its quite interesting to note that while ninja's are portrayed as aggressive assassins in modern films in reality they lived quiet lives without being noticed. They trained to survive and only fought when they needed information about the enemy. Also of interest is the fact that Ninja and Ninja techniques were first introduced to Japan from the Korean Peninsula together with Buddhism! There are about 9 well known Ninja families and they were mainly active in Japan about 500 years ago. Perhaps the most famous family is the Hattori Hanzo family from the Iga region. Fans of Kill Bill will probably recognize this name as that of the sword smith, retired
lake chuzenji
the suns in my eyes - its not a sexy pose gone wrong! to the life of a sushi chef, who is called upon to make a samurai sword for The Bride to kill Bill with!
Nikko itself is a couple of hours north of Tokyo. A world heritage site, it is home to some beautiful shrines and mausoleums it has been a centre of Buddhist and Shinto worship for many centuries. We spent a weekend in the area staying overnight and visiting Lake Chuzenji on the first day and the shrines and Edo Wonderland on the second.
To get to Lake Chuzenji we had to take a bus up a mountain road ascending more than 400 meters and going around 48 needlepoint bends! I was more than a little worried when an announcement on the bus stated that the bus would now start to sway and that I should on tight! The lake turned out to be very nice but completely deserted! We tried to walk around the outside but the snow was so deep my trousers got wet and then froze solid below the knee!
That night we stayed in a Japanese guesthouse called Rindou-no-ie. It was great! The couple that owned it were amazingly nice! They
Rindou - no - ie guest house
This is the feast the couple who owned the guesthouse cooked us for dinner! picked us up from the bus station that night and drove us to the shrines the next day. The dinner they cooked us was an absolute feast! We had sashimi, tempura, grilled trout, local Nikko specialties, beef cooked over a candle on a giant leaf, soup, all kinds of pickles and small dishes and strawberries and cream for desert! And for less than a tenner each! They also did some research on the places we wanted to visit the next day, wrote down all the bus times, marked on a map where everything was and got us a discount ticket for the theme park! When I booked the guesthouse I read a review and someone had commented that if you asked this couple to move Mount Fuji for you they would surely try! And I have to agree! They really were quite special.
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Aries and Rinka
Aristeo Rinka Lucea
Thanks for writing about the Edo Wonderland. I definitely would include it in my itenerary when I go to Tokyo. I have been fascinated with samurai and the Edo period.