Where Globe-Trotting meets Beach-Combing
Every third Saturday of the month Chris and I LOVE going to the Yamato Open Market. We like to poke around the booths and see what the vendors are showing this season. September brought tables full of fall colored kimono and obi in browns, golds and oranges stitched with chrysanthemums and Japanese maple leaves. Chrysanthemums…
So we were dancing on the stage in the middle of the dancers when we stopped for some speeches. Then someone announced an instructional run-through of the Yokohama Ondo, the dance choreographed specifically for Yokohama’s 150th anniversary of the opening of the port. “What are we doing?” I asked. “Not everyone knows the dance, so…
A display of the ancient Japanese martial art of archery, or Yabusame, is the featured part of the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine’s annual festival each September in Kamakura. Archers dress in the style of the Kamakura-era and direct their horses at full speed down a 255-meter track while keeping their hands free to maneuver the bow….
“Two fishermen, Hinokuma Hamanari and his brother Takenari, were on the Sumida River one day when they heard a command from the heavens to cast their net. When they brought the net up, they saw that they had caught a golden statue of Bodhisattva Kannon. Hearing of this from the Hinokuma brothers, village headman Haji…
We explored the Imperial Palace East Garden when we first moved here last fall, and returned January 2 to hear the emperor’s New Year’s Address. Oh yeah, and the moat during cherry blossom season. This was the least crowded we’d seen it, so that was cool. These guards supposedly don’t move, like the Buckingham Palace…
Our first stop Sunday on our Tour de Tokyo was Tokyo Tower. I went at night this summer but Chris had never been! There’s a cute cafe on the observation floor…that wasn’t open yet because we were too early. Bummer. Back downstairs we stopped at the coffee shop and got melon pastries: sweet rolls filled…
Chris and I celebrated our birthdays by spending all day in Tokyo, including this river bus ride down the Sumida River to Odaiba. It was WARM today, so it was perfect to be on the water! We watched the sun set in Odaiba, sitting on the boardwalk sharing a frozen pineapple beverage. Happy birthdays!
