Tokyo
First stop in Tokyo was to drop off our bags at the hotel and to my surprise the bus was unable to approach the hotel, due to the time of day, so we had to walk a couple of blocks with our luggage. Just as well I was pretty well recovered from my recent open-heart surgery. Then it was off to explore Tokyo.
I'm sure there's a lot more to see in Tokyo than one can see in a day and a bit. It's a big place. First we we stopped off briefly at the Imperial Palace, on the site of the old Edo Castle that no longer exists.
It no longer exists because early in March 1945 the single most destructive bombing raid in human history annihilated 16 square miles in central Tokyo in a fire-storm. Estimates vary but the death toll exceeded 80,000. US firebombing raids continued on the remainder of the city and on the night of 25 May, most structures of the old Imperial Palace (Edo Castle) were destroyed in a raid rendering it henceforth uninflammable. So in a special mission on July 29, what remained of the Palace was targeted with 2000-pound bombs, in a presumed effort to kill Emperor Hirohito. This should stand as a warning to those wanting to do this to Kim Jong-un, because, like a dozen CIA attempts to kill Fidel Castro, it was obviously to no avail. Thus it was on this same site, in a bomb-proof underground bunker, known as 'His Majesty's Library', that the Emperor met with his Privy Council, to consider the the US dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August. It was here that they decided to surrender. The Emperor's intention to surrender leaked and led to an attempted coup by officers who wanted to fight on. They unsuccessfully attacked the Palace intending to depose Hirohito but were repulsed by loyal defenders. Had those ill-advised assassin bombs succeeded the war may have continued for months more.
We learned nothing of this from our guide. Throughout the trip nobody within my hearing mentioned the war. Although Craig and I did privately discuss how much of the present city had been built after the fire bombings. It was like that Faulty Towers episode when Germans came to stay in Torquay: "...and what ever you do - don't mention the War". Thinking back, this was extraordinary in a busload of Australians of a certain age. Politeness all round. Fukushima seemed to be another topic that was off the agenda until the very last day. No discussing possible radiation hazards and scaring the tourists.
Casual tourists to the Imperial Palace can only gaze in from the gravel road outside, at a few remaining remnants of the old palace and a glimpse of the grounds across the moat. The gravel is a traditional Samurai defence, designed to give an audible warning of ninja attack. The main buildings appeared to be very utilitarian 1950's style structures with little or no tourism potential. But as we stood there a ripple of excitement ran through the assembled tourists. Unspecified members of the royal family had returned in a pair of black horse drawn coaches, accompanied by a handful of horsemen, perhaps household cavalry; crunching their way across the gravel; followed by a black security car.
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At the Imperial Palace - security gravel
A bus tour around the city to lunch on the Bay and to visit the Ginza shopping precinct gave us a further on-the-ground impression. Then to see more of the city we ascended to the lookout levels of the Tokyo Tower, which provides panoramic views in every direction, including Mt Fuji, when the air is clear, which it wasn't.
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Tokyo Tower
Later we spent some time at the Asakusa Kannon (Sensoji) Temple, originally built in the 7th century but burnt down and rebuilt since.
Like the Taiwanese, the Japanese like to have a bet each way on religion and Shinto shrines are typically found adjacent to Buddhist temples or is it vice versa. With fortunes told, soothsaying and praying for a change of fortune also plays a big part. The future thus forecast or prayed for is apparently unchanged by the expectations and changed behaviour engendered by these fortune tellings; or are they reliable because they're self-fulfilling? In one case useless and in the other insidious. Thus the Jewish and Christian Bible warns against soothsayers and suggests stoning them to death. But the gravel here was too small.
In the vicinity there is another shrine, to consumerism, in the form of a long shopping street selling stuff on the way to the tip, that proved an irresistible and, as it turned out, unnavigable magnet to certain members of our party.
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Asakusa Kannon (Sensoji) Temple and surrounds
The Sunshine Prince Hotel Tokyo was within walking distance of the Nakamisen shopping street - and the Disney shop - essential Wendy visiting for grandchild gifts.
Some in our tour eschewed shopping and continued on to the area where sometimes geisha (female courtesans) can be seen in traditional garb. They came back very excited to have caught a glimpse of a hooker, well no, they are actually a very sophisticated and talented woman, as we learned from one and all.
I was reminded of driving my, then six year old daughter, home one evening along William Street when, previously contemplative Emily, remarked: "little ladies of the night," quoting from Les Misérables. She was not mistaken, except the Sydney geisha, just as popular with Japanese businessmen, wear shorter skirts. My enthusiasm for eulogising Japanese men's exotic sexual proclivities masquerading as high culture, had also been somewhat dampened by the 'comfort women' controversy that was in the news during our recent trip to Korea (read more...).
What with shopping and walking a long way already, coffee seemed a better idea. So we had to be content with a kimono fashion show later in the trip, featuring models. The real geisha being otherwise engaged with their wealthy businessmen benefactors.
As it happened our guide on the bus was Chinese who has lived with her partner in Japan for many years and is fully integrated. Nevertheless her commentary on Japanese family life was amusingly feminist. She had fun representing a typical Japanese marriage as one in which the woman is little more than a painted slave to her husband's illusions: getting up early each morning to put on her makeup before he sees the real woman beneath the mask, then biding her time until the late evening, when she again does a paint touch-up before her man comes home after a night 'on the town' with his colleagues, essential to securing his position in the corporate hierarchy. During his long absences she socialises with the other corporate wives, comparing the relative brilliance of their children and homes and brags of his long hours at work, basking in his reflected glory or being shamed by the lack thereof. Thus when a husband eventually retires the wife typically wonders who this stranger is and promptly files for divorce. And this accounts for the very high rate of mature age divorce in Japan. She had the bus in stiches.
I privately asked her about the apocryphal antipathy of the Japanese towards the Chinese and she denied any personal experience of this. On the other hand when in China one can't help noticing the number of TV programmes remembering the war revisiting the Japanese and their atrocities like the 'Rape of Nanking' and showing Japanese officers cutting off Chinese heads for practice and 'blooding' their samurai swords. One such documentary was very interesting, describing how the Chinese dismantled entire factories and fired the buildings ahead of the Japanese advance. I don't think there is an hour in the day on Chinese TV when the Chinese can't be seen victorious or the Japanese vicious. Even in Hong Kong, in the naval museum, the Japanese are depicted as a vicious enemy during the last war and earlier, during the initial Chinese trade with Europe, as troublesome pirates, known as 'Sea Dwarves'.
Today the most notable thing about the Japanese people is how solicitous and polite they are and how apparently happy people are, with many smiling Japanese faces everywhere one goes. There are also lots of Chinese tourists who behave like Chinese tourists.