walking in sacred places: Time in Tokyo

Time in Tokyo

We arrived in the late afternoon, and after a two-hour bus ride we arrived at our hotel. We noticed an immediate contrast between Shanghai and Tokyo. Tokyo is quiet, orderly and clean whereas Shanghai is chaotic, noisy and somewhat dirty.

We stayed at the Okura Hotel which is an institution in Tokyo. It's where all the heads of state stay when they are in town. It's a mid modernist hotel built in 1962, with many interesting architectural features. One to the themes in the hotel design that I really liked is the gingko tree leaf. You can see the motif in the china, in the hotel stationery and throughout the hotel. They say it is a good omen and a sign of harmony. There are many gingko trees in the hotel gardens as well. Ever since I lived in China I have loved gingko trees whose leaves turn a beautiful gold colour in the fall.

The gardens surrounding the hotel are very nice and they provide a nice green buffer from the city. The hotel lobby is a large space that invites guests to sit and relax and there is a very large Ikebana (flower arrangement) as a focal point in the entrance. Because it's May and it's azalea season in Japan, the flower arrangement was made up of large azalea branches. The hotel is a beautiful, quiet place to stay in Tokyo, away from all the hustle and bustle. The weather was quite pleasant at around 18 degrees Celsius throughout most of our stay except one day when it was sopping wet. We stayed indoors comfortable and dry in our hotel on that day.

Our stay in Tokyo was taken up with another visit with Fraser (he came to visit for the week-end), visiting with our friends, walking, seeing gardens and going to see art exhibitions. We saw a very extensive exhibition on Andy Warhol, many works of which I had never seen before. It was a huge exhibition and like the Monet exhibition in Shanghai, this one was packed with people as well.

We experienced an earthquake one day at about 5:00 in the morning. We felt the bed moving and shortly after that an announcement came on over the hotel PA system asking guests to stay in their rooms and remain calm. It was a strange sensation for us because it's not something that we are familiar with at all.

We spent a couple of days exploring Midtown Tokyo which has very interesting shops, architecture, galleries and restaurants. There we saw an exhibition on rice. At another gallery we saw a large exhibition of abstract art and a beautiful exhibition of largely wood sculpture.