Before You Go To Japan...

I actually have to really think about this one, because when I was surprised by things in Japan, it was because I was used to things in China, and not things in America. I was surprised by some things that I don't think I would have been surprised by if I hadn't already gotten used to China. But, here I go, doing my best to remember what I was completely unprepared for.

1. The swastikas on Apple Maps have nothing to do with the Nazis or WWII

I actually knew this one in advance, but it's worth mentioning. If you use Apple Maps as much as I do, you'll see these swastika symbols all over the maps. 

The WWII buffs out there will recognize that symbol as the symbol of the Nazi party in Germany in WWII - Hitler's party. So it isn't much of a leap to conclude that those symbols are some kind of WWII memorial or something. The fact that Japan was on the same side as Nazi Germany would only make that even more of a logical conclusion. 

But the thing is, in Japan, that symbol has nothing to do with Hitler or Nazism. Long before Hitler saw it, the swastika was a symbol of good fortune in India and Hindu traditions. Hinduism is the predecessor to Buddhism, and Buddhism is a very popular religion in Japan (this article says at the end that 90 million Japanese consider themselves Buddhist). So basically, when you see a swastika on Apple Maps, it's not a Nazi memorial or something else. It's a Buddhist temple. 

2. You really do need to take off your shoes when you go into Japanese buildings

This isn't true about restaurants or train stations, but otherwise, we took our shoes off for every single building we went into. That includes museums and the hostels we stayed in. I think a part of it is that some places still have those soft cloth floors you see in pictures, but another part of it must be cultural.

Interestingly, the first hostel we stayed at had a separate pair of slippers to use in the bathroom. You weren't supposed to wear normal slippers into the bathroom. There was a sign explaining that this was to help keep their floors pure, and I'm not sure if that was culturally pure or just ordinarily clean. 

Speaking of which...

3. Japan is extremely clean

At least, the parts we saw were. The train stations had no litter, I never saw graffiti, and they actually have special wipes just to clean the toilet seat after you use it. It's that clean. 

4. People speak English

You know the myth that "everywhere you go, people speak English"? That's not true about a lot of places, but in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nara, that seemed to be true. I'm accustomed to Shenyang, where nobody speaks much English and I'm getting around by pointing. That means that something like this happened more than once:

Me: *pointing to a picture* "This, please."

Store clerk: "You want beef with ramen noddles? Would you like salad, soup, or dessert with that? And what to drink?"

5. The actual places in Tokyo may not have a lot of information about them 

My first day in Tokyo, when I was wandering around Ueno, I stopped at a lot of shrines. Some of them were in a guide book, and some not, but I made a point of finding ones in my guide book. The guide book didn't say much about them, though, so I figured I could just read the signs when I got there. 

And... there were no signs when I got there. 

Seriously, I think even the Meiji Shrine and the Sensoji Temple were missing those tour guide signs (although I'm not sure about Sensoji). I would highly recommend researching the places you want to go before you go there, so you have information about them. 

The exception to this was the Imperial Palace. There was a guided tour app you could download to hear information in English. I actually used the app to help me write the blog posts. 

Having said all this, let me mention two caveats. The first is that all of this was in Tokyo, and not in Kyoto. I only spent half a day in Kyoto, and I only saw one place, so I don't know about the rest of Kyoto. 

The second is that I never did any tours. Tours really are a good thing to invest in, because the people who lead them will have lots of extra information. Just make sure to book your tours far enough in advance. 

6. They really are extremely polite

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, so...

It says, "Please set your mobile phone on 'manner mode' and refrain from speaking on the phone". Silent mode is apparently called "manner mode" in Japan.

And people actually do bow when they meet each other in Japan.

7. It's a highly functional, accommodating, and all-around nice place to be!

It's definitely traveler-friendly, if all the previous information wasn't enough. To give you more of an idea:

• When you land at Kansai International Airport in Osaka, they have people greeting you off the plane with little fingernail clippers. When you depart Kansai, they have people giving you kleenex packets. Little niceties like that.
• Hostels - not hotels, hostels - provided us with a temporary cell phone (I think it was called a Handy).
• There are multiple efficient, cheap, and accommodating ways to travel between cities and the airports. Similar to Iceland (always a favorable comparison coming from me), you can buy transportation on the plane.
• Pretty much all the transportation information is in multiple languages.
• They have mountains. And they are beautiful!
• You don't need a visa to get into Japan (unlike China).

The places I was in - Nara, Tokyo, and Kyoto - were full of pleasant people, pleasant places, and low-hassle experiences. Travel was easy, food was good, and people were helpful. 

Keep in mind that we weren't staying in any luxury places. We were staying in budget places. I can only imagine how awesome Japan's luxury places are (and, my friends, they have many). 

If you want to travel somewhere that has all the comforts of modernity, but also a very distinct modern culture, I highly recommend Japan. It's just a fabulous place! 

Ueno Park - Kanei'ji Temple (Kompon Chu-do Hall)

According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know, but I'm pressed for time), a shrine literally holds a Japanese deity or Buddha. The Buddha in this temple is Yakushi Nyorai, the Buddha of Medicine and Mercy. 

The shrines in Ueno are all part of a system of shrines called the Toeizan Kan'ei-ji, built by a priest named Tenkai and supported by the Shogun at the time, Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Japanese believed that evil things come from the northeast, so they built these temples around the northeast of the Imperial Palace to help protect it. 

The Kanei'ji Temple, as it was called in the tour guide, is also the Kompon Chu-do, which, according to the flyer I got there, means "Central Hall". The original Central Hall was burned down in the Battle of Ueno in 1868 (I know nothing more about that battle), and the current one is much smaller than the original. 

Like the rest of Ueno, there were no English signs around this, so I don't know what most of these buildings were. I know the first one is where the deity is housed, but I'm not sure about the rest. 

Okay, I remember this... This is a statue of a monk who was exceptionally holy. But I don't remember the rest. 

What interested me about this was that behind the Kanei'ji Temple is the Tokugawa Shogun Mausoleum. I couldn't go inside, but here is the outside:

Ueno Park - The Pond Shrine

This is going to be a tricky post to write, for a couple of reasons. The big one is that, for some reason, there were practically no real visitor's plaques around these places. You know the basic ones that tell you what things are, who built them, why they were built, etc.? For whatever reason, the temples and shrines around Tokyo really didn't have those. I'm not sure why, but they didn't.

So, a lot of the information is info I found after the fact. TripAdvisor helps with that a lot, but the rest of this might be tricky. It involves research. (Which I really like, but it's still harder than just writing a post from memory.)

My understanding of Tokyo is this: it used to be a whole collection of different cities that just all grew into each other. I think the various districts of Tokyo used to be those different cities. But, I am not sure. It may just be that the guides I talked with didn't know the word for district and used city instead. I'm not sure.

Anyway, Ueno is one of those districts. It has a lot of beautiful shrines and a single large park with a beautiful pond right in the middle.

Here's the shrine, from the pond:

This shrine is called the Benten-do Temple. The islet in the middle of the pond is artificial, built in the 1600's. The first temple enshrined Benzaiten, goddess of the river, but it, along with many things in Japan, was destroyed in WWII. The current shrine holds Benten, the eight-armed goddess of, among other things, eloquence and poetry. (All that comes from a piece of paper I got at a different shrine.)

One of the things you can do at a Buddhist or Shinto shrine (apparently there's very little difference between the two) is get your fortune told. There is a box of sticks with numbers on them. You shake the box politely (the guide used that word) and then draw out the first stick you can find. You remember the number, but put the stick back. Then you go to a series of drawers, and open the drawer with the number of the stick you pulled out. Inside that drawer is your fortune. 

If you like your fortune, you take it home. But if you don't like it, you tie it to the strings outside the shrine:

That way, you leave your bad fortune behind at the shrine. 

Then there were these slabs of wood. If I remember correctly, they were prayers:

I think I remember reading one that said, "We have everything we need. All we ask for is peace."

Outside the shrine was a giant pot for incense. Worshipers believe that if you wave the smoke from the incense onto the part of your body that was afflicted with something, it will be cured.

Once you visited the incense burner, you would go up some stairs to pray at the shrine. 

Here's what the inside looks like:

There's a certain ritual when you pray here. First, you ring the bell to get the local deity's attention.* Then you throw a coin into the coffer under that giant lantern (it does not matter how big or small). Then you clap twice,** bow, make your wish, clap once, and leave. 

The tour guides used the phrase "make your wish", by the way. That wasn't my term. And... hm. I know I've been using the word "worship", but that doesn't really seem to fit, does it? I always think of worship as something you do to show respect, and not something you do to get a wish granted. I need to think of a better word.

Fortunately, I have lots of opportunities, because there are many shrines upcoming! 

*I can't lie, when I heard that, I immediately thought of this. 

**The Shinto and Buddhist shrines have different rules about the clapping. If I remember correctly, you clap twice at a Shinto temple, but you don't clap here at a Buddhist temple. But, I may be remembering that wrong.