In Tokyo, you can’t smoke on the street, but you can smoke inside restaurants.
Seven-year old girls dressed up in kimonos at the Meiji Shrine to celebrate Shichigosan, a traditional coming-of-age ritual. The main festival day is next month, but many families were marking the occasion over the long weekend.
Two traditional Shinto wedding processions at the Meiji Shrine.
The Yushukan museum at the Yasukuni shrine provides a particular perspective Japanese military history. We spent a fascinating couple of hours wandering through its martial exhibits. The whole thing certainly starts off on a slightly discordant note, with the locomotive from the slave-labour constructed Thailand-Burma railway proudly displayed in the lobby (see previous post) While we were obviously unable to read what the Japanese language exhibits said, the English counterparts were masterpieces in blame-shifting and outright elision of key events. For example, the Rape of Nanking (the Nanking “Incident” according to the museum) was treated, in approximately 50 words, as a
Model C56 locomotive No. 31, which operated on the Taimen Railway between Thailand and Burma during World War II. This rail line was made (in)famous by The Bridge on the River Kwai.
The Yasukuni-jinja. According to Shinto belief, the souls of all Japanese war dead are enshrined here. (Carrier pigeons are honoured, but not enshrined). A beautiful, peaceful site. Controversial, too. Included in those war dead are hundreds of convicted war criminals, responsible for some of the most appalling atrocities of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. So when politicians come and pay their respects at the shrine (as will likely happen this coming weekend), the Chinese and Koreans are less than impressed…
Pachinko! These places are crazy. So loud.
A sashimi dinner in Ginza with Barbara, our fabulous Tokyo hostess
There is never any litter, but it’s very difficult to find a garbage can in public. Sometimes we carry our rubbish around for hours.