Category: Japan

I began my trip to Japan – it seems like a long time ago! – with a visit to pay my respects to one of the first Emperors – Nintoku-tenno-ryu – the legendary Emperor of the 5th century, when Shinto was supreme and the shrines of Ise Jingu and Izumo Taisha already in their prime.  But this was around about the time that Buddhism first arrived in Japan, and in Kyoto already I had seen shrines and temples side by side, exhibiting the famed co-existence, and even syncretism, of the two religions in this country.  So it seemed appropriate, on the last day, to visit the greatest Buddhist temple in Japan: Todai-Ji, in Nara, where in a great hall there resides the largest statue of the Buddha I have ever seen – at 49ft 2in high a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest statue of the Buddha Vairocana in the world – known to the Japanese as simply Daibutsu.

Right next to it, however, amongst all the deer (Shinto messengers of the gods) roaming the great Nara Park, lies the Kosagu-Taisha Shrine, perhaps the third, alongside Ise Jingu and Izumo Taisha, of the greatest Shinto Shrines in Japan.  Here, at the very last, I cleansed at the fountain, and worshipped in the proper way at the gate of the shrine, and thanked Japan for all that it has given me over the past two weeks.

Nara Park – particularly on a Sunday – however, is a bit like the Tower of London: thronged with tourists from all over the world, but also with worshippers from all over Japan, and, in truth, I am, at the last, getting a bit ‘shrined-out,’ if I am allowed such an expression. Having taken in these two great sights, therefore, I decided to forego the rest of the shrines and temples around the Park, and get the bus back to Nara Station, the train back to Osaka, and the subway back to Shin-Osaka, for a final meal at the Marriott, and an early night for an early start heading for the airport.

It has been a truly amazing trip, taking in some of the most awe-inspiring sacred places I have ever had the privilege to visit, and pay my respects to.  Both Shinto and Buddhism are living and thriving religions, side-by-side, in Japan, (alongside capitalism, which thrives right next to both!) and the co-existence, mutual respect, humility and harmony of these faiths – and of the Japanese people – and the meticulous care of the truly beautiful buildings and gardens where these religions thrive, have really impressed me.  The news from the UK, and from the US, during my stay here, has been so depressing, in comparison.  It is no wonder to me that Japan is now one of only 10 countries in the whole world that is fully at peace, and not engaged in some external or internal war.   Long may it remain so.

One thing I will not forget is the hospitality and friendliness of the Japanese people, and their amazing food!  It is difficult to pick out one ‘best’ meal during the last two weeks: the first dinner at Iseshinsen was memorable for the sheer number of wonderful dishes; the sashimi dinner at Iberaki unforgettable for freshness, flavour, and of course the sashimi whale; the sushi dinner at the Imperial Hotel (as well as being one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever eaten) was similarly memorable for the freshness of the fish – and the delight and expertise with which the master chef prepared each sushi morsel for me before my eyes; finally, of course, the multi-course oyster extravaganza at Yamaichi on Miyajima was an eye-opening wonder of culinary delight.  I suspect the Japanese restaurants at home in the UK won’t quite meat my expectations after such delights, but I’m sure I’ll be trying them out!

A large number of photographs from my entire trip are available to view in my Flickr account, with brief descriptions of each.

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Miyajima Island! What a magical place. A World Heritage site, and rightfully so. Not just because the island is a nature reserve of so many wonderful trees – many in their finest Autumn colours right now – and apparently amazing in April when the cherry trees blossom – and not just because of the incredible ‘floating’ Itsukushima Shrine in the bay overlooking the mainland, with its Grand Torii you can walk out to touch at low tide.

But because here, all over the island, there are literally dozens of Shinto Shrines and Buddhist Temples, marking the sanctity of this beautiful place. There is also – importantly – the towering Mount Misen overlooking it all, with its own collection of Shrines and Temples around the top. I chose the Daishoin Route, which begins round the bay the other side of the Itsukushima Shrine from the ferry landing, beside the majestic Daishoin Temple.

The Daishoin Route up Mt Misen is 2.5km in all, and takes roughly 90minutes to climb to the top. There are 2000 steps. It is not for the faint hearted. At 53, with a bit of ‘wine-belly’ (as I call it) and none-too-healthy a back at the best of times, had I not by this point felt I had fully recovered from the cold I came down with in the rain at Ise Jingu, and fully adjusted to the Japanese time zone, I would not have dreamt of attempting this climb. As it was, around a third of the way up, I had to steel myself, believe in my steadfastness, tighten my belt and, pacing myself with frequent little stops to sip the bottle of water I had brought with me, press on up the mountain, sure of the sense of reward and self-esteem I would enjoy at the top – and of the sense of failure I would feel were I to give up! I only met a small handful of people coming down this path, and was passed by only three young people on their way up.

Eventually getting into a good stride, nursing my right knee a little but not pushing it too hard, I finally reached the little crossroads shy of the top where various routes lead off to a range of shrines, and to the very top. It was sooner than I’d feared, and I was very glad! Here, the Naio Gate presents you with two very fierce demons who will certainly scare away anything untoward! Passing this Gate one feels safely within the confines of the summit. Here, to the left, is a steep flight of steps up to a shrine I believe was the Dainichido.

This, according to the Miyajima website is “The prestigious guardian temple for Itsukushima Shrine. All the priests in the island gather here to pray for the prosperity of the nation for 7 days of New Year since the Meiji Era.” Quietly taking off my boots, delighting in the silence and solitude at this quiet shrine, I stepped up to the doors, slid them open, and closed them behind me, to kneel on the little cushion at the temple. A little sign made clear one could take a candle and a stick of incense for a few yen, which I placed in the box, before lighting the incense and placing it in the sand in the bowl before me. Hot, exhausted, sweaty, but truly satisfied with having made it to the top, I channeled my pride into a prayer for my nearest and dearest, completing it with picking up the baton and rolling it around the metal bowl beside me to make the signature singing sound, and gently banging the drum to my left: hopefully the gods were awakened enough to hear my prayer. Stepping back out of the shrine to put my boots back on, I was struck by how delightful an experience this was – a truly Japanese moment, too.

The very summit of the Mount was only five minutes or so climb further up, and the views from there absolutely breathtaking. The tourists however – including the obligatory party of 30 or so schoolchildren – were everywhere, and pretty noisy. I felt quite the special one, however, having climbed up the path, albeit, as I sat on the benches in the observation tower to catch my breath and take a little rest, I determined to take the cable car back down the mountain!

The ‘Ropeway’, as they call it on the signposts, begins 1km walk away from the summit of Mt Misen, atop a lower sister peak across a saddle of land between them. It descends in two stages – a larger car which can take 20 or more, followed by smaller pagodas that can take only 6 or 8. Again the views however are stunning, and it was a lovely ride down in the pagoda, sat watching the sky, and the gathering clouds. I definitely chose the right time to climb the mountain – there is rain coming!

At the foot of the mountain again, at last, I took time to wander through Itsukushima shrine among the tourists, cleansed at the entrance and paid my respects in the proper way at the shrine’s doors, and followed the crowds through the ‘floating’ corridors raised on their piers above the waters of the bay. A truly stunning old building.   There are a few Westerners here – mostly Americans – but 90% of the crowds are Japanese, here because of the beauty and sanctity of the place, and to shop amongst the many trinket shops and food outlets along the street from the shrine to the ferry port.  Exhausted, however, and ‘on my last legs’ I finally retraced my steps back to the hotel to rest for the afternoon. Onsen at 4pm. Kaiseki at 7pm. My last night of touring. Back to Osaka tomorrow, for a quieter weekend in the Marriott, and flying home, finally, on Monday.

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So, today is a different, and in some senses more difficult day, overshadowed with a sense of foreboding the night before, and the morning when the journey begins. I am reminded of a visit I made, 10years ago, with similar foreboding, to another relic of the 2nd world war, in Poland. There, at Auschwitz, the relic of the sheer scale of man’s potential inhumanity to man was the since untouched, now crumbling remains of the machinery of mass slaughter used by the Nazis in their ‘final solution’.  I recall the horror with which I learnt that this place had, at the height of its operation, extinguished the lives of 100,000 people in one day, and over a million in all. Here, in Japan, the relic I visit today is the famous, barely surviving dome, at Hiroshima, surrounded by the Memorial and Peace Park where the lives of the between 90 and 166,000 people who were snuffed out on (and in the few months after) 6.8.1945 are remembered. The distinctions between these two sites are of course crucial. The former was perhaps the worst excess of cruelty perpetrated by a conquering power bent on mastery over its neighbors. The latter was the overwhelming force with which two countries attacked by such conquering powers brought the conflict to an end.

Just to the south west of Hiroshima, is the delightful island of Miyajima, with the amazing Tsukushima Shrine in its bay.  Here, at the end of the day, I was lucky enough to find tranquility and serenity once more.

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What an extraordinary day at Izumo Taisha. This is probably the most important Shinto Shrine in the whole of Japan, if only because of the extraordinary festival which takes place here every year in the lunar month that broadly coincides with November. This month is known as the Month of No Gods. This is because all the Gods of Japan, kami from shrines large and small, in cities and in the countryside, from riversides and mountainsides, all leave their own shrines and come to gather for a festival at Izumo Taisha. The eight-day festival begins with a marvellous welcoming ceremony, which I had to miss because I was in Tokyo, but ends with a marvellous departure ceremony, which happened today, at 4pm. I felt so privileged and blessed to witness it. There was a French photographer here, accompanying a Japanese Tourism development officer, who had impeccable English, and whom I met at both the Museum and at the Shrine itself. I think I saw one American, too, briefly. Other than that everyone here was Japanese, and the ‘crowds’ were not thick, albeit that the place was clearly busy. This was a religious festival for the religious, although there was plenty of laughter and informality in between the more sober moments.

A bit like religion all over the world (Catholicism is markedly similar) it is also a bit of a racket, with every worshipper throwing coins into the offertory to accompany each prayer – a genuine offering for sure, but always monetary – and the ranks of official shops beside the shrines selling an incredible range of little tokens, with embroidery and other designs, each a special form of ‘good luck’ for a range of circumstances. You can buy a good luck charm for the health and safety of your family, or for good fortune when taking an exam. There are special booths where a monk will write in formal lettering a prayer for you that you can post on special racks, that are literally covered in such messages, for the kami to read later, one supposes.

But such commerciality – common to any religion – really did not subtract from the serenity and seriousness of the reverence which all visitors to each of the many shrines that make up the Taisha were clearly giving. I relished the opportunity to share in such reverence, repeating what I had learned at Ise. Here – I don’t know whether because it is Izumo Taisha, or because of the auspiciousness of this particular day – the worshippers clap four times, not twice, and I quickly picked this up and changed my own routine to fall into step. The leading deity here is Okuninushi-no-kami, the deity in control of the unseen world, and – most especially at this time – the deity of ‘en-musubi’, the connections that bind us together. At this special festival of the gods, each year, the meetings which take place are to determine what ‘en’ – which connections between people – will best fit the future year. Pilgrims to Izumo Taisha at this time, then, pray for their relationships to be noticed and to be granted favour by the gods in the coming year, pray for those who are most special to them, and pray for new connections that will advance them.

Also special to this place is the Magatama. The Magatama – of which many examples have been found by archaeologists from all periods of the known (and many) incarnations of this ancient shrine, as far back as c2000 years ago – represents the overlapping shapes of the sun and the moon. It is a symbol of the universe in one go, described in the English subtitles in the Museum as a ‘comma’ shape, rather than a teardrop. I’m not sure there is any relation to the Tao at all, and did not see this mentioned anywhere. Even where I saw two together, in reverse relation to each other, it was on a modern welcome mat at the door of one of the many crystal shops, and the two Magatama were not joined as with the Tao. Furthermore, unlike the white dot in the black teardrop of the Tao, (and vice versa), the hole in the Magatama seems not to represent the entrance of an opposite. The Magatama already incorporates both sun and moon. The hole in the Magatama is said, rather, to symbolize the blessed spiritual power provided for each one of us through the link with our ancestors, to whom we owe our life. The mystic deep green colour (midori) whether in full, or in streaks, signifies the constant movements and growth of life – the renewal of fresh shoots and sprouts, the leaves in spring, the evergreen trees in the wind. Moss Agate, with its pearly translucence and its green streaks, symbolises Power, and a Moss Agate Magatama, the Power of the Universe in movement and life.

At 4pm, the ceremony of the departure of the Gods took place. There were two classes of officials – I guess ‘monks’ and ‘priests’ – in two different sets of garb.  The former policed the area, keeping the (obedient) tourists in their place.  Those with the money and foresight had booked seats within the shrine. The rest of us had the benefit of being able to take pictures – from outside.  The latter officiants wore the most exotic garb, and undertook the ceremony.  Below are two short videos I took of the ceremony, one when the priests returned from a brief excursion with something special to bring to the ceremony; the other at the end when they departed.  The best thing about it, from outside, was the drum and flute that seemed to accompany on the most important moments.

This was an extraordinary day – a stand-out highlight of my trip to Japan.     I feel I have experienced something truly, authentically Japanese today, something very old and still continuing.  A privilege indeed.

[Full tally of photographs from the day on Flickr]

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Besides this being one of the friendliest and most enjoyable – as well as very intellectually stimulating – conferences I have ever been to, it’s also true to say that I have really taken to (what I have seen and experienced of) Japan. Our wonderful hosts were extremely attentive and ensured we were well-cared for! The food here, especially, is just incredible. I haven’t eaten anything here that I didn’t think was absolutely delicious. It is good, however, I would say, that I am both an adventurous and keen ‘foodie’, because there’s little doubt that the food is exotic by any European standard: much of the time one has no idea what one is eating. On our first evening, after a particularly long day of presentations and discussions (all very high quality content – I have learnt so much these past few days, as well as contributing to the debates) we were taken to a rather fine restaurant. Everyone takes off their shoes, being careful not to stand on the boards below the shoe racks in anything but one’s socks, and then you sit, effectively, on the floor, with the table at floor level, but with your legs and feet comfortably in the well dug beneath the table. On this first night we were treated to Nabe with exquisite tofu and tripe. This is a large bowl shared between several people, filled with finely sliced vegetables, chunks of tofu, and pieces of tripe, sat upon a heater. Once the water is bubbling, the heat is turned down, and with a ladle you help yourself to a small personal bowl of the mixture. This is accompanied by a range of other dishes, little delicacies such as tempura vegetables, sashimi (raw) slices of tuna, and the excellent Asahi Japanese beer, which is quite strong at 5% but smooth and delicious. There was also, of course, the hot sake, which comes in a small jug, and which you drink from tiny bowls. It was a very fine meal. On the second night, we were treated to a buffet at the conference venue, including a fine range of delicious dishes, and accompanied not just by French wine but by Japanese whiskey. It was my first time to try Japanese whiskey, and I must say I was impressed!

The third day was a transfer day, moving the conference from Tokyo to Osaka, and we all took the shinkansen together, checked in to our conference hotel at Shin-Osaka (overlooking, as it turned out, the Marriott where I had stayed a few days before) and were then taken for an excursion around Osaka, to visit the famed shopping district of Dotonbori. This is like London’s West End, only the streets are all as narrow as Soho, all dead straight in a grid, and the whole area at least three or four times the size. Leaving the subway we arrived at ground level outside Cartier and Louis Vitton, and walked past Zara and Tiffany to approach the beginning of the lanes. The streets are very long, the atmosphere buzzing, the crowds lively (but always polite – this is Japan!) and the whole ambience simply jolly – as if an infectious joie de vivre permeated the very air.

Leaving the clothing district and moving into the area more focussed upon restaurants and bars we were treated to the incredible vivacity with which the various food outlets encourage passers-by to come in and enjoy their food: huge, sometimes animated models of crabs, an octopus, even a bull! We stopped to eat some of the famous street food from the area – balls of octopus prepared in front of us on hot plates which you then have to eat in one go while it’s still hot, rolling it around in your mouth until the liquid centre is just cool enough to taste and to swallow. Exquisite! We went then back into the subway briefly to visit the Osaka Tower, and be treated to Japan’s exotic values when it comes to animal welfare: a trained monkey show. Setting aside our European/American values, we sat with the Japanese to enjoy the show. It was a good introduction to different values. At the restaurant we arrived at shortly after, we were then treated to an Osakan speciality: deliciously fresh cuts of fish and slices of vegetable dipped in batter and flash-fried, served on a stick. So many kinds of fish, with names I’d never heard before, which our host was unable to translate into English, but all so very delicious. Including, however, one I never thought I would ever eat: whale. Yes, we ate pieces of whale dipped in a delicious batter and fried, and served to us on a stick. And it was absolutely delicious – like the tenderest most succulent beef. We then returned to the centre of town, and were taken up to the bar of a posh hotel above Osaka Station, where we drank Japanese whiskey – I had the Hibiki, and it was very fine indeed! The following day, after the completion of the conference, we were taken to a restaurant in the Ibaraki district, where we were treated to sashimi – a series of dishes of the freshest, most delicious raw fish, along with edamame (green peas) and cabbage, and lots of Asahi Super Dry beer.

And yes, amongst the tuna and sole and other fish, was one small plate of Kujira sashimi: raw whale. I ate a slice. It was far and away the finest carpaccio I have ever tried – and thicker than you would get of beef. Absolutely delicious. It is apparently a rare thing, that only a very few restaurants are allowed to serve, and we felt very privileged. It was tantamount to a sacrament.  As if this experience weren’t enough, however, we were also treated at this restaurant to fried oysters.  Yes fried oysters!  Even the Frenchmen amongst us, however, agreed that this was just delicious!

As if the hospitality of this country had not already impressed itself upon me enough, the day after the conference three of us were treated to a guided tour of Kyoto by one of the Japanese academics and his wife. The sky was covered in a thick carapace of cloud all day, and on occasions a light rain accompanied our travels, but we each had umbrellas, and it was never heavy. I had planned something like this – I especially wanted to visit the Matsunoo-Taisha shrine on this day – but I was very glad of the guide, as there was much I would have missed, and the distances between everything made navigating the transport system quite a challenge! But our guides knew to spend only 500Y on a one day bus-pass, and take us around the city on the buses, rather than the subway. We began in the East, at the serene Buddhist Temple of Shisen-Do. The colours of the leaves here were just so beautiful – a signature of Buddhist Temples here, alongside the famed grey gravel gardens. The Shinto Shrines, by contrast, celebrate evergreen trees, rather than those more seasonal. We are blessed to be here in Japan in November, because this is indeed the perfect season for the Buddhist Temples, when the leaves are at their most colourful. It is also one of the high points of the year in the Shinto calendar, when it is said there are no gods in Japan – because they have all gone to Izumo-Taisha, where I too am headed after Osaka and Kyoto. In one corner of the garden here, a tea-house that is normally closed instead today sat with its main door open to the air, revealing the painting on its inner wall of the full moon behind the waving grass. This day, of course, was the day of the so-called ‘supermoon’, when the Full Moon was to occur within only two hours of its perigee (nearest approach to Earth) and – in addition – be closer to the Earth (and seem larger) than it has for nearly 70 years. It was a privilege to see this Moon shrine at Shisen-Do.

After Shisen-Do we stopped for a Lamey lunch, a Kyoto speciality, which is a very thick broth with garlic and ramen and pork. We three Westerners insisted, in return for their hospitality, on paying for this lunch, and I fear our Japanese guides found this rather embarrassing. A classic clash of cultural expectations, I think, here, whereby for us it would seem too much to accept all this generous hospitality without taking the opportunity to make some small return – such as paying for lunch – but for our guides such an eventuality seemed almost to slight their generosity. Still – after some protestation, they accepted, and we did pay, and the embarrassment passed. From there we went to the very famous Buddhist Temple, Kinkakiuji Golden Temple – possibly one of the most beautiful sights in all of Japan. This was heavily populated with tourists, however, compared to Shisen-Do, and the crowds were moved along quite quickly, such that we were already leaving the precincts of the temple only some ten minutes after arriving. Delightful, nonetheless, to see such a fantastic sight, and – tall as I am, and especially here! – capture a photograph from over the heads of the crowd. Next we went to Ryoanji Temple, to pay a visit to the Philosopher’s Garden – perhaps the signature example of a grey gravel and stone garden.

Lastly, then, as the dusk on this amazing day out gathered, we took two buses back through the centre of the city and out towards the west to visit Matsunoo-Taisha, arriving, finally, at the shrine, moments after sunset. The shrine is quite high-up into the foothills of the mountains that surround Kyoto, and we could see the twinkling lights of the city below us. The shrine was still open, but deserted, and we entered, paid our proper respects in the Shinto way, and wandered around the courtyard drinking in the atmosphere. It was the highlight of the day – and not just for me. The shrine honoured the mountain, whose evergreen trees towered above it behind the wooden buildings. All the roofs of Shinto shrines are thatch, unlike the wooden poles of the Buddhist Temples, and the older ones gather moss as green as the evergreen trees.

The ambience of the place was ancient, serene, and exotic, and somehow, in the dusk, just for us. Until, that is, the Headman of the Shrine’s staff appeared, and spoke with our Japanese guide. I found myself being pictured together with him – a young man, I thought, for such high office, but then perhaps the Shinto shrines in Japan are still busy with devotees. I spoke the word I had learnt, which was the name of one of the gods to which this shrine is dedicated – Tsukuyoni – the Moon God. It was because of this, on this day of the extra special ‘supermoon’, that I had wanted to visit Matsunoo-Taisha. He nodded, and spoke again with our Japanese guide. As we left the shrine, the Headman closed the gates behind us – we had arrived just in time! Our guide now told us, informed by the Headman, that there was another, small, special shrine, that was dedicated to Tsukuyoni alone, just five minutes along the lane. We all walked along this lane, feeling privileged with this special information: although they had visited Matsunoo-Taisha themselves, before, our Japanese guides had never heard of this extra shrine. Arriving there, we saw that it was indeed just for the Moon God, and entered quietly. Again empty except for us, this small shrine was somehow as spacious and serene as the main shrine, for all that it was so much smaller. I made especial prayer to the Moon God, greeting him from the Moon Goddess of Britain, and paying honour and respect to him on this, his most auspicious and special of nights. It was a truly delightful experience. Turning from the shrine, at last, our little party began to walk down the lane, with the main Torii of the Tsukuyuni shrine behind and above us. It was then, at this moment, surely the only moment in the entire day, that the clouds suddenly parted, just in one small part of the sky, and the giant, bright, full disc of the Moon shone down upon us and the shrine behind us, for an exquisite few moments, before the cloud cover crashed back across its face and hid it once more from view. Moments later, one could not tell where in the sky the Moon was at all. All of us were absolutely enthralled, feeling utterly blessed by this moment – a vision of this perigee of perigees itself.

There was only one way to follow such a divine experience – with a night at the Imperial Hotel, Osaka, including sushi individually prepared in front of me by the Master Sushi chef, followed by a (Plymouth) Gin Martini and a Montecristo No.4 in the Old Imperial Bar!

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The journey from Ise to Nagoya on the local train passed swiftly, and I then caught the Shinkansen again, this time to the vast megalopolis that is Tokyo.

So on my last day of holiday before conference, I went to pay my respects to a very special little shrine in the south of the vast city, at Kawasaki.

All I can find on the web about this place is “Legend has it that when Shinto goddess Izanami no Mikoto gave birth to a fire god, she suffered great injuries on the lower half of her body. It’s said that Kanayamahiko-no-Kami and Kanayamahime-no-Kami, two gods enshrined at the Kanayama Shrine, healed Izanami’s injuries.

According to some sources, Kanayamahiko and Kanayamahime were both originally gods of mining and blacksmiths. But because of this myth involving Izanami, those seeking help with venereal diseases, fertility, safe childbirth, and matrimonial happiness began to pray to the two gods as well”.

It is quite reminiscent of the stories around Shiva, both ascetic and erotic, both healing and virile. A very special place where I could put into practice all I had learnt at Ise Jingu. Well worth the visit.

Saturday night’s dinner in the hotel was lovely, if rather expensive. Sunday I spent the whole day creating the presentation I am to give in Tokyo on Friday. The paper was written over the summer, and sent to my host in early October to be translated into Japanese, but the presentation – which has to be 30minutes long – needed a day’s work and I simply hadn’t had time in the past month to get round to it. By the end of the afternoon, though, I was happy. An afternoon nap was unavoidable, and the thought of venturing out into the city thereafter far too daunting, so I settled for another expensive dinner in the hotel.

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Monday 7th Nov
Awake at 3 AM I eventually got up showered and went down to the lobby to pay my bill and was first to sit down for breakfast at 6:30 AM. The Marriot do a very good breakfast. This meant I also had the joy of joining the rush hour commute on my two train journey from Shin-Osaka via Tennoji to Mozu.  This is a densely packed, sprawling, intense city.  The Osaka prefecture, including all the various districts, tops 8 million; I am finding it a little claustrophobic.

At Mozu, in Sakai district, however, lies the open space and tranquil beauty of Emperor Nintoku’s mausoleum : probably the largest burial mound in the world, with its cluster of thirteen smaller surrogate mounds, in the great Daisen park surrounding it. From Mozu station I walked anti-clockwise the whole way around the enormous main kofun – keyhole shaped and surrounded by moats – arriving at last, nearly back where I started, at the only real entrance to the site, the Worship Gate.

But this place is not for tourists. Indeed there isn’t even all that much in the way of signage, and what there is is muted and respectful; there’s certainly no Interpretation Centre, just a tiny information office with leaflets. The Japanese, it seems, are not so willing to commercialise their ancient dead as some other cultures. The place is meticulously cared for by an army of gardeners, but for its own sake, not for our eyes.

At the entrance, I carefully lifted the bamboo ladle in my right hand, poured water over the back and front of my left, transferred the ladle and likewise washed my right hand, transferred again and poured a little water into the palm of my left hand, replacing the ladle cup-down where I had found it, to rinse my mouth with the cool water in the palm of my left hand, while the quiet trickling into the little pool before me seemed for a moment to be the only sound. Shaking the drops from my hands, I then bowed twice towards the great mausoleum, and gently clapped my hands twice. Proper respect shown, I stood back, took some photos, and wandered off into the park behind me towards the Richu-tenno-ryu – the 2nd largest kofun here, largest of the surrogates of the Nintoku-tenno-ryu kofun.

In a little rest area, there were some sleepy cats among the benches, in the park, and i sat quietly with one to type up this little account of my visit.

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So, from Nintoku-tenno-ryu kofun I took four trains: back via Tennoji to Shin-Osaka, to buy another Bento box, and to the Marriott to get my bags, and then onto the Shinkansen – the famed bullet train (which really does travel faster than any train I’ve ever been on) to Nagoya, and onto a more local train from there down to Ise.  It was wonderful to see countryside. Although most of the flat alluvial land has buildings, or a patchwork of fields and buildings, the hills are steep sided and covered in trees, rising like dark green sharp-topped ridges out of the plain.  At times the train snaked between them and the landscape almost felt wild….

[P.S. One thing I have noticed since my arrival – an astonishing number of people wear face masks. In a carriage of about 40, on the local train, I counted 7 : 6 women of all ages, one man in his 40s. I have seen many more men – of all ages – with them, elsewhere. I’m not really sure what to think of this; it certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.]

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In Ise, right outside the station and pretty easy to find, is the Ise Shinsen : a hotel with a difference! Everything is included in the price of the room. Guests are encouraged to wear one of the range of Japanese robes (yakuta) provided in racks in the lobby – all individually wrapped in plastic fresh from the laundry. Each room has a very spacious balcony with high slatted bamboo walls, sporting a private outdoor onsen: the hot tub for which Japan is rightly famed, accessed not just from the sliding glass doors of one’s room but through the two-door shower room where the little seat and bowl of the traditional onsen washing area enable one to prepare oneself appropriately for the hot-tub experience.

After onsen, at the set time one has agreed at the desk, one descends to the restaurant for a full kaiseki: the multi-course Japanese dinner that is an essential part of experiencing Japanese culture. Mine was at 8pm, given that I had only arrived in Ise at gone 5pm, and I confess I was a little late. Sitting on the sofa in my room after onsen, I dozed off. But at 8.06pm the phone in the room went off and it was reception reminding me my dinner was ready! Clearly timing is very important for many of the dishes. To say that every mouthful was both exotic and exquisite is only half the story. As something of a foodie who rather loves a good dinner, I have to say it was one of the finest dinners I have ever had. The only thing that would have improved it would have been company: fine dining alone is never quite such fun as with one’s loved ones.

Managing to sit for only about 10mins on the sofa in my room, digesting, I got to bed at 10pm feeling very happy to be out of the city, in a small town clustered around its famous ancient shrines, immersed in traditional Japanese culture.

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Tuesday 8th November.

Today – awaking as late as 6.30am – was my day at the Ise Jingu – the Shrines of Ise. There are some 125 in total, none exactly called the Ise Shrine/Jingu, but all, collectively known as the Ise Jingu. The outer shrine is called Geku, the inner shrine, some few kilometres (a 430Y bus ride) away, is called Naiku. I had managed to arrange a volunteer guide, who met me at the Ise Tourist Office, who took me round both Geku and (on the bus to, and around) Naiku and explained, in his halting but clear English, where we were, how to behave, what to do, and what it was all about.

In contrast to the warm sunshine that greeted my long walk around Nintoku’s Tomb and the Daisen park yesterday, today’s weather in Ise was wet. Very wet. By the end of the day, my Berghaus jacket was almost wet through, and my walking trousers likewise. But, as my cheerful guide explained, on fine days one can barely walk through the crowds at Ise Jingu, and today we were blessed with thin crowds, and only the briefest of waits at each shrine. Better still, the great stones lining the steps up to the Main Shrine at Naiku only show their dark green lustre when wet. So, all in all, a rainy day for Ise is not so bad after all. The Geku shrines all have odd numbers of round trunks on top, and the pointed roofs have horizontal ends. The Naiku shrines all have even numbers of round trunks on the top, and their pointed roofs have vertical ends. Black and white stones mark out the precincts, and, my guide tells me, he thinks some of the dualism of Chinese religion infected Shinto many centuries ago – Taoism, as I said, and he agreed.

Shinto is the old religion of Japan. It is, if one were to classify it, an ‘animist’ religion. Stones, trees, mountains, Emperors, are regarded as inhabited by kami – spirits of objects and of places. The kami are, if you like, the consciousness of inanimate matter: in some senses the topic of some of the papers at the conference I am speaking at here in Tokyo. The kami themselves are familiar to anyone who has played Pokemon Go – the Pokemon are modelled on them, as is the very concept that such virtual creatures might appear (in the camera viewport of one’s smartphone) in special locations. Like ancient European dryads in trees, dwarves in the earth, faeries among the meadows. But the Japanese – and Shinto itself in many respects – are very much in favour of co-existence. So Buddhism is popular here, too, and mixtures between the two; more recently, capitalism has become very popular in Japan, of course, alongside Shinto and Buddhism, so the syncretism between Shinto and capitalism observable in Pokemon is no surprise. The world could learn a thing or two from the Japanese.

Preparation for a visit to a Shinto shrine involves washing: it is important not to take dirt into sacred space. There is a pool of water within a wall about two feet high, with a rack of bamboo ladles face down upon the rack, and a moat-like channel at one’s feet around the pool. The ritual is fivefold: picking up the ladle from the rack with one’s right hand, you scoop up some clear water and then, over the channel at one’s feet (1) pour it over the left hand (2) transfer the ladle to the left and pour it over the right hand (3) transfer back to the right and pour some into the cupped palm of the left, (4) take a sip from one’s palm but let the water drop down into the channel around the pool “never drink the water!” and then (5) hold the ladle upright so the rest of the water runs down to clean the handle of the ladle, so it is clean when you replace it, cup-down, on the rack. I had read about this, and managed to do it (more or less) at Nintoku yesterday, but was glad of the fresh instruction from my guide.

The Torii, or classic gate through which one then enters a Shinto Shrine, was, of old, made of simple, unpainted wood. Nowadays one sees many painted Torii, some that are even made of concrete! At Ise they remain classic, unpainted wood. They are the markers of the boundary between ordinary and sacred space. At Geku, today, I felt it. Great shrines such as this one have two such Torii, as if the area between them were some kind of purgatory, a place of transit: indeed there is a building here, between the outer and inner Torii, where the priests undertake their cleansing. Taking off one’s hat and bowing lightly before crossing the boundary, one acknowledges the transit between the worlds.

Inside I felt the strength of the past fourteen hundred years of continous worship in this place. It was a privilege and an honour, made all the stronger for the clear reverence felt by my guide for these shrines and their sanctuary, and the clarity of his descriptions and instructions. We visited five of the many shrines at Geku, and four at Naiku. Approaching the shrine, one first makes an offering – usually a 10yen piece, placed in the offertory (although the main shrines, because they are visited by the Emperor himself, have only a cloth, and no offertory as such). Then one bows deeply, twice. Then one claps one’s hands twice, the right hand slightly lower than the left, so that the fingertips of the righthand clap against the second pads down of the left hand: this makes the proper sound. Then one puts one’s hands together (neither lower than the other) to utter a silent inner prayer. After the prayer one lets one’s hands fall to one’s sides, and gives a final low bow.

Each shrine is inhabited by a kami. Each kami has two aspects – a calm and benevolent one, and an aggressive one. So there are often two shrines to the same kami, but each to a different aspect. To some kami (especially the main shrine at Geku) it is appropriate only to make a silent prayer for the good of others: world peace, feeding the poor, and such. To some kami, a private prayer, for oneself, or for loved ones, is more appropriate.

The shrines themselves are wooden, and thatched. Every 20 years – in Geku according to reliable records since 690 CE – the shrines are rebuilt, exactly the same as before. This refreshes buildings made of very short-lived material (the thatch especially) and keeps the skills needed to undertake such work continually in practice, from generation to generation. The buildings are thought to be modelled on the form of the original rice stores, from about 2000 years ago when rice began to be grown in Japan. So each shrine has two courtyards: one where the wooden shrines are and people pray; and a second immediately next to it that is empty. The empty space has the same central area covered in white (sacred) stones, surrounded by an area covered in black (clean) stones, but no buildings. Once the twenty years is up, a new set of buildings will be built, in the empty sanctuary, and when they are complete in elaborate ceremonies the stone or wooden home of the kami will be transferred across to its new buildings, and dressed in new apparel, with new furnishings, etc. Briefly, there will be two shrines, one next to the other. At Geku this will next happen in 2033, and my guide recommends I return then, (albeit that I’ll be 70 years old!) to see this. Then the old shrines are dismantled. The main pillars of the Main Shrines are then used to make Torii at both Geku and Naiku, and the old Torii go off to make Torii at other shrines around the country. When those Torii are retired their 60 year life as shrine wood comes to an end and they are sliced up into little tablets: good luck charms, one of which my Guide gave me to take home with me: very precious. At this point I remembered I had been advised to bring my guide a gift from home, and produced the small photo frame from the Lowry Gallery in Salford as my present to him from home. He was as delighted as I was with my tablet of sacred wood that had stood once, for twenty years, as the main pillar of Geku Main Shrine at Ise.

Visiting a shrine is not altogether dissimilar to visiting a Cathedral, in that there is a formal approach, a set of actions (kneeling, lighting a candle) that accompany a prayer, and, importantly, a part of the sacred building that is reserved, in Churches, for the Priests – at the High Altar – and in Shinto shrines like Ise, for the Emperor and his family. The difference here is that at the Ise Main Shrines the reserved area is most of the shrine. The public get to worship at the outer fence, tossing their coins upon the cloth. There are four fences, and if you are dressed in a very formal black suit or white dress (and, I think, pay the appropriate fee) you can be escorted by a priest in traditional costume beyond that fence to worship at the third fence. Beyond that is off limits.

My experience of Geku was, in some ways, more moving than that at Naiku. Perhaps Naiku felt less sacred because the rain was heavier and I was already very wet and starting to get very tired. But at Naiku we visited what I would probably say was the single highlight of the whole visit: the shrine of Takimatsuri-no-Kami – God of the Offerings to the Rapids, as I understand it, or ‘A kami that protects the Isuzugawa River is enshrined here,’ as the map tells it.

This is a very small place, a little fence around a very small precinct of black and then white pebbles. There is no wooden shrine at all: just one, single, small and roughly shaped standing stone, in the midst of the little white sacred pebbles, surrounded by the obligatory wooden fence beyond which one cannot step. According to my guide, it is believed that this is oldest – the original – shrine of Ise. It is as if long, long ago a wise Japanese sage told a story about the consciousness of all matter, and pointed to this stone as an example: “even this stone is conscious of itself, and of all other stones, in its stoneness;” from this, perhaps, grew the idea of kami – anthropomorphising the stone-consciousness yet still limiting it to a particular theme. Each kami has a theme, be it soil, water, or some other aspect of the world. This stone was so old, its theme was merely being the oldest, guarding the river where pilgrims used to wash, the original shrine of Ise, small, unassuming, mostly ignored by the pilgrims gathered around the great Main Shrine with its huge pillars and golden round trunks on the top. It meant a lot, and I was especially reverent worshipping in the prescribed manner at this shrine. Here, it seemed, for me, in my European way, filled with all my experiences of standing stones throughout Europe, was something I could really connect with: a kami in a standing stone.

Dripping wet, after getting some traditional rice cakes and a traditional good luck charm at the souvenir shops, (no ancient dead here, after all) and the bus back to my hotel, I was VERY glad of the onsen in my hotel room, and delighted in the soak at the end of this amazing day, before yet another, delicious, incredible, kaiseki dinner.

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First impressions: Exhausted after my 11hr flight from Paris, (having risen at 4.30am to get there from Manchester), arriving in Japan at 9.30am (the following day) I was struck, from the air, at how mountainous the country is. Great flat alluvial plains covered in a patchwork of agricultural and urban sprawl reached out toward the coast, laced with winding rivers, and separated by huge black mountain clusters. The interior of the country seemed a quite forbidding mass of dark peaks. I was arriving from the north, having traversed northern China and the arctic circle, in a line from Paris that went North-North-East cutting through the Baltics toward northern Russia. Now coming south, the plane was crossing the Japanese mainland towards the southern bay on whose eastern shores lie the city of Osaka, and in whose waters the industrious Japanese have built the vast airport named for this south western region, Kansai.

But once the cheerful but tedious formalities of finger-printing, photographing, interviewing and passport checking that make entry to Japan similar to that of the US (if a little less daunting), and the queues for baggage, and then for the train station where I exchanged my voucher for my Japan Rail Pass (a must-have), were finally over, and I was on the 50minute train from the airport to the centre of Osaka, the mountains seemed very far away. Instead, an overwhelming sense of dense – intense – urban sprawl flashed by the windows of the train, with the mostly grey buildings slowly but surely getting taller, gradually, gradually beginning to seem a little less haphazard – but still as tightly packed – as the US-style grid of the city centre grew nearer, and the occasional wide street that shot off dead-straight into the distance flashed by. Eventually even the little houses were four or five stories, dwarfed by the towers and apartment blocks of Shin-Osaka.

After almost thirty minutes wandering increasingly desperately around this huge railway station, I eventually found the ‘North Exit’ – the only one for which there were no signposts, and not even an ‘Exit’ sign at the door, yards from which lay my hotel. At wits end, 1pm local but 4am UK time, I managed to check in, actually delighted at the friendly and attentive concern and helpfulness of the staff.

So begins an adventure – 17 days in Japan!

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