for me, the rest of the trip (the 21 – 24 of june) was somewhat lost in the shadow of mt. fuji, and the length of the description of this might lend itself to that interpretation as well. however, there were a lot of things worth mentioning about it, and i’d say that most of my cultural experiences and philosophical thoughts about japan and japanese culture happened in that time.
on saturday, my dad and i took a bus to shibuya, a younger, hip, shopping and music district of tokyo. there we met a young man named kazu, the nephew of aiko fukuda, who is from japan but is finishing up his theology master’s degree in the states (so he has excellent english). we had been able to persuade him over the phone to give us a tour, and that he did. we spent much of the day wandering around shibuya, doing a few touristy things and going to a few touristy shops (in one of which, miraculously, we met michael, our mt. fuji bus friend! that’s three random running-intos, which made me wonder if something was going on “upstairs”. but nothing came of it, really). we also visited the meiji shrine, a shinto temple in which is enshrined the emperor meiji (and i forgot the history of it by now, of course, though kazu was a veritable fount of knowledge concerning it). here are some pictures: [a few sake barrels in an enormous mosaic, donated by various companies to the shrine] [a procession of shinto priests and priestesses in the temple courtyard]. none of my pictures of the temple itself turned out that great…
that afternoon we also went to another part of town east of shibuya, where we went to a five-start hotel to look at some art. there was a wedding going on, so we weren’t allowed into some places, but they did let us see some banquet rooms, with gorgeous art all over the walls and ceilings [meguro gajoen hotel banquet room]. this hotel is probably the nicest i’ve ever set foot in. here’s an example of how classy it was: the men’s restroom had a fountain and natural-looking stream with koi and rocks and plants in it, nice dark wood and bamboo, tasteful plants, black marble sinks and floor, and the list goes on. i should have taken a picture of it!
outside the hotel were two little shrines, one of which is buddhist for sure, and the other one of which i’m not exactly sure about. here are the pictures: [shrine 1] [shrine 2].
after the hotel, we three went to a great little tempura bar in another area of town, and had probably the best meal i ever ate in japan. they killed and cooked and fried all the food right in front of you, and gave you a huge variety of all kinds of things. it was fascinating. ah.
anyway, we said our goodbyes to kazu and went back to the fukudas to sleep.
