Japan at the beginning of May.

We’ve recently returned from Japan.

Travel dates: from May 1st to May 11th.

The routes are as follows: Narita – Kyoto (4 nights) – Nikkō (2 nights) – Kakunodate- Tsurunoyu Onsen (1 night) – Tokyo (3 nights).

Such route was chosen because we’ve already been to Japan, the “must see” part was seen before, and this time we decided to focus on the places we wanted to see one more time or which were skipped during the first trip.

There was a big amount of great reports and photos on the Japanese forum branch, most of the cities and villages of Japan have been described in detail, with historical and household ins and outs and one tremendous literary talent.

Therefore there’s no point in talking about every day of our trip along the default route in chronological order or detail. Instead, I’d like to focus on some particular moments of our adventure, which made a strong impression on us, and we’d like to share them with other visitors of this forum.

So, we arrived at Kyoto on the evening of May 1st with a permission to visit two Imperial villas the next day in our suitcase – Katsura Imperial villa and Shugakuin Imperial Villa.

These villas are managed by the Imperial Household Agency, and obtaining a permit to visit them is only possible in one of two ways. The first way is visiting the Agency bureau and asking if there are any available spots for the needed day (having a passport is a must). We did it this way a couple of years ago when we were visiting the Katsura villa for the first time. The second way was chosen by us this year when we filled an application for visiting both of the villas on the agency site. After some time we had the vouchers for the convenient visiting time in our e-mail.

More info can be found here:

http://sankan.kunaicho.go.jp/english/guide/katsura.html

Katsura Imperial Villa or how to grow the Most Sophisticated Garden in the World

Historical background: Early 17th century, Prince Tashihito, the younger brother of the Emperor, moves to the wilderness, closer to nature to be able to indulge in free creative work. His son, Prince Toshitada, sets the creation of a beautiful garden around the palace as his vital task, a garden that is harmonious and perfect in all seasons, in any natural state, from any point of view. Around 50 years of hard work and the garden is done. Moreover, it has reached our days in almost the same condition as it was conceived.

Only a limited number per day is allowed to visit the garden, the sightseeing tour lasts 1 hour, the guide moves visitors from one object to another pretty quickly, so in such conditions, thoughtful shooting is not too possible. Any foreigner can take a free (as the visit itself) audio-guide in English at the entrance.

At the beginning of the route, we pass by this pine; it is planted specifically in this spot, so the guests of the prince are not able to grasp the whole garden at a glance. The garden was to be opened to visitors gradually, along the way from one vantage point to another.

The wife of Prince Toshidata, Princess Fujimi lived in her parents’ house near the Amanohashidate sandbar. It offers a stunning view and is considered one of the three most picturesque views in Japan. Out of love for his wife, the prince had recreated this sandbar in a miniature.

There are several tea houses in the garden. The most famous of them is Shokintei (Shokin means rustle of the wind in the pines and the sound of the Japanese harp).

Very simple from the point of view of the European concept of luxury, this house is unusually luxurious from the point of view of a Japanese citizen. For example, cryptomeria, also called a Japanese cedar for the restoration of the carcass of the house, is specially grown for 70 years with strict respect for a certain ancient technology. For example, when a cedar is at the age of 7, its lower branches are cut so that the cut itself can crochet and doesn’t stand out with ugly knots on its smooth surface with a shade of buckwheat honey.

Or, for example, the partitions are tightened with special paper with barely perceptible gold print in the form of leaves. A ton of non-obvious (for a non-Japanese) nuances and details in the design and decoration of the building make this villa a masterpiece of Japanese architecture and a national treasure.

There are several villas and tea houses in the garden. The road winds between them, opening more and more angles to the lake and garden.

Shugakuin Imperial Villa

This complex of villas and gardens arose 30 years later than Katsura and was intended for the emperor Gomizuno, who came to the throne at the age of fifteen and retired to rest after 18 years, that is, at the age of Christ.

The complex later expanded, now it includes the lower, middle and upper villas, but the pearl of the entire garden is, of course, the upper villa with its garden.

Katsura and Shugakuin are opposed to each other in professional literature. It is believed that Katsura personifies the energy of Yin, feminine, soft, introverted, inverted essence.

Shugakuin, on the other hand, is full of Yang energy- extroverted, expanding, including the surrounding landscape in its orbit, hills, and mountains in the background. In fact, this is the first Japanese garden using a spatial trickery- it’s so successfully embedded in the surrounding nature, that, for the person standing on a heightened position, the garden seems endless, and the blue mountains on the horizon are also a part of it.

Dry gardens of Zen – Buddhism.

The next day we visited Daitokuji, the main temple of the Rinzai sect of the Daitokuji school in Japanese Zen Buddhism. This complex of temples is considered the best for experiencing the state of Zen in Japan.

Daitokuji is basically the “village of temples”, some of which are open to visitors, always or temporarily, and some being permanently closed. This temple is closely related to the history of the outstanding tea ceremony master – Sen Rikyu, whose interpretation of the Way of Tea has had a great influence on Japanese culture for the next 400 years.

When Buddhism came to Japan in the 6th century from China, Japan already had its own architecture. By the example of the 13th-14th century monasteries, one can see how the features of both traditions are united into one: the center of the monastery complex includes a large gate, the Buddha’s hall and a training hall, built in the spirit of Chinese teachings, and the small, so-called sub-temples surrounding the main complex are the echoes of the Japanese tradition.

For us, these small temples of Daigoji were extremely interesting with their dry gardens, each of them was an outstanding example of landscape design.

In some gardens that are open to visitors, it is forbidden to photograph, for example, in the famous, complex, with lots of details, glamorous, if this word can be applied to the Zen Buddhist garden of Daisen-in.

Ryoggen-in

This temple was built in the very beginning of the 16th century and is, according to the guide, the oldest building in the whole complex. There are 4 gardens around it.

The main garden – Isshidan, which is located in front of the abbot’s building, symbolizes the universe, consisting of a wide ocean (pebbles) with a turtle island in the middle, and mountains where immortal sages dwell.

The image of this dragon dates back to the Edo period.

Ryugin-tei is located to the north of the abbot’s building and is created by a garden master-Soami. All the moss symbolizes water, and the stone in the center is Shumisen – the center of the Universe and the Buddhist world.

Totekiko, the smallest stone garden in Japan, symbolizes the truth: the stronger the stone hits the water, the more intense will the circles on the water be.

Garden A-Un – or Garden Inhalation-Exhalation, Sky – Earth, Good-Bad, Male-Female.

The next temple – Zuiho-in

This temple is interesting mainly because it was founded in 1546 by a major feudalist named Otomo as his family temple. Soon after that, Otomo converted to Christianity, was named Francisco and became known as the Christian daimyo. In a short time after this event, Christianity was banned in Japan and this ban lasted more than 200 years

This story was reflected in one of the temple gardens- the Garden of the Cross, designed by the wonderful landscape architect of the 20th century- Mirei Shigemori (1896-1975) in the 1960s as a homage to the former owner of the garden.

If you carefully look at the (allegedly) chaotically scattered stones in the garden, you can see that they are placed in the form of an asymmetrical cross, placed diagonally, which symbolizes a Christian forced to hide his religious beliefs.

There is another stunning garden of the same landscape architect in the temple.

The classic dry Zen garden is designed to calm our thoughts that jump like “monkeys from branch to branch”, lead to inner calmness, and switch from everyday cares to balance, harmony with the world and ourselves, meditation. “The Dragon Song Garden” is not classical from this point of view; it is full of energy, movement, strength. Unfortunately, this feeling is difficult to convey in photographs.

It is especially surprising that Mirei Shigemori was approaching the age of seventy when he designed a rebellious, spiritually youthful garden.

Korin-in

This garden symbolizes the perfect version of a sacred mountain

Koto-in

It is known as the garden of maples, with a lantern in its center. The contrast between the moss and fallen leaves in autumn sets a melancholic mood. This temple was built by the order of the famous military commander of the early 17th century Hosokawa Tadaoki, who fought in Korea. At old age, he became interested in Zen Buddhism, but probably the aesthetics of this stone garden did not find a response in his ‘soldier soul’.

The bowl of water was carved from the stone brought to them from the Imperial Palace in Korea as a souvenir.

The next temple complex that we visited is – Tofuku-ji

The best time for visits is the golden autumn, as the complex temples are surrounded by a large number of maples and their red foliage looks very impressive on a bright autumn day.

Hojo (abbot’s building) is surrounded by 4 gardens of authorship by Mirei Shigemori, about which I wrote above. By the way, this is the only Hojo in Japan, surrounded by a garden on all sides.

The Eastern Garden recreates the constellation of stars in Ursa Major.

The Western Garden is built on the contrast of clear geometric forms of azalea bushes, white gravel, and moss.

The Southern Garden is a composition of two parts – at one side – Hasso-jodo, that is, 8 aspects of Buddhist life, 4 paradise islands and on another side – 5 sacred mountains. There’s movement in this garden, perhaps due to the divergent circles on the pebbles and the elongated shapes of some stones, as if imitating the horizontal movement.

The Northern Garden can often be seen in photographs, where it looks like a chess field with some of the stone squares with moss gradually growing on it and it looks rather boring. But the living garden leaves an unexpectedly strong impression. Disappearing in the moss, these squares are perceived as a loss, oblivion, care, valediction, and overall sadness comes from the garden.

Finally, the king of all Zen stone gardens- Ryoanji.

This garden is not popular with everyone; some people can’t understand what’s so special about it, why is it considered a masterpiece of landscape art. There is nothing extravagantly superfluous in it: dwarf pines, spectacular stones of unusual shape, greenery, bushes, complex patterns on gravel-everything that pleases our eyes, diversifies visual impressions and makes you go: oh, what a beauty!

It is absolutely ascetic, balanced and absolutely harmonious. You can easily sit for an hour there, squint at the gravel gleaming in the sun, emitting the heat, and examine the wall with age-old stains of various shades of gray and red that surrounds the garden. The place is unique. But it’s necessary to come there exactly to the opening hours: 8 o’clock in the morning because at 8.40 you won’t be able to push through all the people.

In my opinion, it’s necessary to get acquainted with this garden only after having looked several other stone gardens. Coming without homework is like showing Malevich’s “Black Square” to an unprepared viewer, a square which is known to be not a square at all and for which Malevich did not use a single drop of black ink.

The black color is created by mixing, overlapping all colors of the color palette, in a black square all the pictures of the world are written-written and unwritten, from Madonna Raphael to “Burlacs on the Volga”. The black square is the concept of the end of art and civilization. It’s emptiness, black hole, death.

So is Ryoanji- it’s a concept, the pure nature of Zen in its almost ideal incarnation. It would be even better to leave only gravel, but islets of stones somehow counterbalance space and time in a strange way.

There is a small moss garden on the other side of the terrace.

And quite near, as some form of sharp contrast, there is this lushly flowering lake garden.

During these three days in Kyoto, we managed to visit not only the gardens. Once again, we went on the default tourist route:

Kinkakuji

Ginkakuji

Fushimi Inari

Kiyomizudera

Kyoto Station

We also decided to go to Uji to see the Byodoin temple, but it turned out to be a bad idea. This is what the approaches to the temple looked like during the Golden Week.

Well, Nikko was waiting for us.

In Nikko, we arrived already in the evening and the main visiting program was planned for the next day. At 8 am we already stood at the cash desks of the Toshogu sanctuary, the mausoleum of one and the greatest shoguns of Japan- Tokugawa Ieyasu.

There were not enough people in the morning and we were able to walk slowly through the territory of the complex, looking at the lush decor and the magnificent carvings of the temple buildings, very far from the aesthetic and moral principles of Zen.

Well, the famous monkeys with a cat of course. What would it be like without them?

In this portable relic, the spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu rests.

As do his ashes here.

When we left the sanctuary, the number of people increased noticeably.

The Mausoleum of Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, grandson of Ieyasu, although more modest in size, is also richly decorated with magnificent wood carvings. And if the mausoleum of his grandfather with his splendor and luxury emphasizes the might and power of the Tokugawa clan, then the grandson’s tomb is more refined and elegant.

The grandson’s tomb resembles a palace of the underwater king from the Japanese fairy tales.

There’s Tamozawa villa located in Nikko, where the Japanese emperor stayed and, during the Second World War, also lived for a while.

There’s another cat here.

The completion of the Nikko program was a walk through Kanmangafuchi Abyss.

The next day we went north, to Tsuronoyu Onsen.

Tsurunoyu Onsen appeared in our program after reading the reports of lapine and tasta we are very grateful for!

This ryokan is located next to a place called Nyuto onsen, a village of the same ryokans with hot springs, each of them can be distinguished by a special chemical composition of thermal water.

First and foremost, it is a picturesque hotel, somewhat like an inn with its old history and traditions, where the Japanese (and, increasingly, foreigners) come to relax, soak in hot springs and have a tasty meal.

What our room and dinner looked like.

On the way from Nikko to Tsurona, we drove into the city of Kakunodate.

Kakunodate is famous for its well-preserved quarter of samurai houses, some of which have been turned into museums of family history that continue to reside there.

Aoyagi Samurai Manor Museum

In Tokyo, we were going to spend 3 days and in one of them, we went to Kamakura.

The Hasedara temple is famous for the statue of the eleven-headed goddess Kannon, which is forbidden to photograph. Kannon is considered to be the goddess of mercy, but strictly speaking, Kannon has no gender, since it is Alokiteshvara Bodhisattva, that is, an entity that refused to become a Buddha because of its compassion for the living people in order to help them achieve enlightenment.

The Copper Buddha is the symbol of Kamakura

The Hokokuji temple is famous for its small bamboo grove, along which one can walk almost alone.

The Engakuji Temple

There are many religious buildings in the temple complex area, some of them were destroyed by earthquakes in the early 20th century and later restored. But the main gate with wood carvings retained its original form.