Tokyo

Last weekend, I went to Tokyo with my friend by Shinkansen (bullet train).
I've been Tokyo several times but around Christmas was my first time,it was amazing although everywhere in Tokyo was so crowded.



Shinkansen



nice view from the hotel (Tokyo Ikebukuro) room



Harajuku(Takeshita street)





Shibuya





Tokyo tower from Roppongi

 



Asakusa (Sensoji temple)





Tokyo sky tree
http://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/english/





Ekiben (Railway boxed meal) are a specific type of bento boxed meals, sold on trains and train stations in Japan



Gunkanjima

My biggest reason for going to Nagasaki was to see "Gunkanjima",my grandfather was a coal mine design engineer after the 2nd world war.
He didn't work at Gunkanjima but Gunkanjima has been featured on TV recently,and this reminded me that he had worked on Nagasaki island.Actually he had told me about his work when I was very young,but I was too young to appreciate what he said .
Gunkan (battle ship) jima (island) has been deserted since 1974.The official name is "Hashima" but it's shaped like a battle ship ,so people keep calling it Gunkanjima instead of Hashima.The nickname has stuck,so that many people name forgotten the original name.
The island is  63,000 square meters,from north to south only 480 meters and from east to west 160 meters,but over 5,000 people lived there. It was packed!!!

Anyway,I taught a trip to Gunkanjima would be a good chance to follow up on my grandfather's history.

swimming pool

According to the guide,Gunkanjima was set up with everything,supermarkets,a movie theater,a hospital,a school and shrines etc.They only lucked two things,graves and crematory so when someone passed away,the bodies were taken to the next island,where they could be cremated and buried.

Gunkanjima is a legacy of the Japanese coal mining industry which has declined enormously.But in the golden age of coal mining,there were 900 mines all over Japan because the growth of industry was so dependent upon coal.

Nagasaki prefecture is keen to register Gunkanjima as a UNESCO world heritage site.

Nagasaki

Nagasaki is located on Kyusyu island which is the southern most of Japans main islands.
Nagasaki's landscapes coastline is very long and broken as the prefecture is made up of 971 islands of varying size.

When you ask Japanese people "what do you know about Nagasaki ?" most of them will say "Champong","Sara-udon","Castela","the A-bomb" and "Megane-bashi".


Sara-udon



Champong

Castela

"Champong" and "Sara-udon" which says come from China and "Castela" which came from Portugal,give evidence of Nagasaki's importance as a trace base for the Portuguese in the 16th century followed by the British and Dutch in the 17th century.

Anyway,I love them so much ,I bought a lot from souvenir shops for myself.

"Megane-bashi" is a land mark in Nagasaki its a bridge made from stone,in the shape of a pair of spectacles,when reflected in the water below it, the bridge has two arches which looks like  "megane" (glasses),when seen together with its reflection.
It was first built in Edo period but a big flood damaged in 1982,after which was repaired.

Megane-bashi

Kinkauji

Recently I've been focusing on Japanese food, but today I want to write about something a little bit more cultural.
It's known as "Kinkakuji " ( Kinkakuji temple,the golden pavilion) but the real name is "Hokuzan-Rokuonji".
In 1994 it became a world heritage site.It's located in the north-western  part of Kyoto city.It was built in 1397 by the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu.

Kinkakuji is very beautiful and shiny because of the extensive gold foil plating and urushi (Japanese lacquer work).
The pavilion was built within a large Japanese garden setting,on the edge of large pond,so to see it with it's reflection on the still surface of the pond is one of the most loved scenes by Japanese and tourists alike.

Of course we have to buy an admission ticket before entering,a brochure is always included in the ticket price.

Brochure and admission ticket

Unfortunately the current Kinkakuji  is not the original one.The original was a set a light and burned to the ground by a firebug in 1955.But the brochure never tells tragic story of it's true story.

The culprit was a very young novice monk,who was sickly and prone to mental illness.He was arrested but he passed away in his cell in 1956 due to illness.
Needless to say this was a huge incident because Japan lost a priceless national treasure.
But Kinkakuji was rebuilt according to the original plan.Luckily the plan had been written in detail because Kinkakuji had been renovated many times.

If you are interested in this incident,I recommend the novel "Kinkakuji" written by Yukio Mishima(1925-1970).The novel is not perfect fiction but it was based on the true story and written from the culprit's perspective.