Mountain
Monks
(March
1 - March 21, 1999)
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to
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Week #2 is finished and it was, once again, filled with some dining
treats, so I'll start with a summary of where/what we ate. Since
Alan and
Borhan were leaving on Friday, the eating decisions for the week were
left up to
them.
Monday and Wednesday we went to eat kushiyaki in the Belle Vie.
Seems like kushiyaki is a favorite of some the audit team.
Tuesday we ate at the top of The Main in the New Otani. Alan
likes to eat Chinese food and I had received a note from Tom, a
former colleague, who
was here last year and he suggested we try that restaurant. Most
of
last week
was pretty lousy cold, rainy, nasty weather, so it was a good night to
eat
in. The restaurant revolves and provides a good look at the
city.
Unfortunately, the rainy weather did not allow a great view, but the
Chinese buffet was
great. Not cheap for Chinese food at 6300 Yen, but a great
selection and good
tasting.
Thursday we went to eat at one of the Korean barbecue places in
Akasaka. Joining us was Wakizaka-san, so there were five of
us. We ordered
up a few different combo meals and a la carte selections that included
ox
tongue, veggies, beef heart, chicken, short ribs, rice, and beef.
We
sat at a
table with two grills built in and cooked our own food. The usual
soft
drinks, beer and sake were ordered and we had a great time.
After dinner on Thursday, we finally got to a place Diane and I had
been wanting to go to on the way back to the hotel, but we have been
too
full for dessert. We went to the Galerie, a place that my friend
Peter and
I found back in 1993. We used to stop there often for cappuccino
and dessert,
and what desserts they have there. Not good for the waistline,
but
everything there tastes sooooo good.
Friday we went to a favorite Italian restaurant, Viva Pasta. Alan
and Borhan left for home on Friday, and Nick is back in Tokyo on his
way back from
Singapore. He, Wakisaka-san, Diane and I went out for
dinner. Everyone agreed that the food was good and the portions
were more than generous.
Saturday, Nick, Diane and I finally got to do sushi. We went to
the sushi bar in the Belle Vie building and pretty much gorged
ourselves with lots of
different selections of sushi. After dinner, we took Nick to the
Galerie for dessert and cappuccino (and tea for Diane, of course).
Sunday was shabushabu again as we start to revisit some favorites
before we leave Japan next week. Since Nick is leaving on
Tuesday, we let
him pick the place to eat and he suggested shabushabu. So Nick,
Diane and I
went back to ShabuZen. I know I can't get enough of this dining
experience, so
it was great choice. Diane and I had planned to go there this
week anyway.
Before Alan and Borhan left, I asked them to rank their top three
dining experiences. Alan and Borhan both agreed that monja was
their
favorite. For Alan, kushiyaki ranked #2; for Borhan shabushabu
ranked #2. Both
of them ranked Korean barbecue as their third favorite. As for
me,
shabushabu has always given me the best memories, so that is my
#1. I'd have to
go with monja for #2 because it isn't just eating, it is an
experience. Then
I'd rank kushiyaki #3. I asked Diane her favorites and they
matched my
three exactly.
After such lousy weather all week, the weekend turned out to be
beautiful. On Saturday, Nick, Diane, and I went to find the
Fukagawa Edo
Museum. We had no
problem navigating the subway system to the right stop. It got a
bit
interesting trying to find the museum, which is in the middle of a
residential
area. We asked 3-4 people as we walked the streets and it was
interesting trying
to communicate mostly in sign language. Nick used to live in
Tokyo
and some words were coming back to him It was very helpful to
have some basic
words available. We did finally find the museum, but decided to
find a place to eat
lunch first. We ended up a few blocks away in a small restaurant
that
only had three small tables and a ledge with some stools. It was
empty, except
for a lady behind the counter doing the cooking and a waitress sitting
at a table
reading a paper. We ordered a bowl of broth and noodles, plus
Nick had
rice. There is usually always something in these bowls of broth,
such as meet, or
prawn, or some type of egg fried in batter. Tastes great and I
love noodles.
So back to the museum we went. The Edo Museum contains a
reproduction of a 19th century riverside district of Edo, the original
Tokyo. This
is a three story building that has replicas of the buildings that would
have
existed
back then, such as a vegetable store, tenement house, boathouse tavern,
warehouse,
rice store, and stalls. It even had a reproduction of a fire
tower.
After we finished going through the museum, we walked in a different
direction to find a subway line to take us to Shinjuku. We wanted
to find
an Egyptian exhibit that was in town at the Isetan department store
complex.
Again, we found it after walking around Shinjuku and asking different
folks for directions. It was difficult to find
anyone who
spoke English well enough to tell us exactly where it was. We did
find it and
it was mobbed. Turns out it is a very popular exhibit. When
we
finished looking at the exhibit, we headed back to the hotel for some
rest before going to
dinner.
Sunday was a marvelous day. It was sunny and warm enough for just
a light sweater or flannel shirt. Our first plans were to go to a
town
via shinkansen (bullet train) to find a restaurant that is know for its
gyoza (filled dumplings). However, we spotted something in a
tourist paper that
had some festivals listed and the Fire-Walking Ceremony by Mountain
Monks
(Yamabushi Hi-watari) sounded interesting. So we changed our
plans and
headed out about an hour's train ride from Tokyo to
Takaosan-guchi. The ceremony
was at the Kotsu Anzen Kitosho grounds near the Yakuoin Temple.
There was a
procession of monks from the temple blowing on conch shells and
chanting sutras that
was starting just as we arrived at the train station. So we
hurried
up to see and get photos and video.
As I was videoing, I noticed this huge, I mean HUGE, crowd of people
across the way surrounding a roped off area. There were people
all over the
place, including way up on the hill overlooking this area. Inside
the
area was a large, maybe 30 feet square, pile of greens neatly stacked
on top of a
wooden structure. I took some video from ground level as best I
could
through the crowd and then decided that going up on the hill and using
the zoom
would be better. Turned out that was the right thing to do.
I had a
good view from up there of the entire area and the loudspeakers were
loud enough to hear
from up there. There was a lot of ceremonial stuff going on,
chanting and
blowing the conch shells. There was a guy who had an ax that was
taller than he
was, an archer shooting arrows into the pile of greens from several
angles. All done to chants. Very interesting. It
seemed to me that the
symbolism was that they were slaying evil spirits in the pile of greens.
Then, after all of this ceremonial stuff, they lit the pile.
Being
fresh greens, there was nothing but smoke initially. So much so
that
you could not see anything for a few minutes as the smoke covered the
area. Then the underlying
wooden
structure caught fire and it was a huge blaze. On two sides of
the square pile of
greens were two stacks of thin wood with writing on them. The
stacks were at
least 10 feet long and 3 feet high. There must have been
thousands of these
pieces of wood. Not sure what was on them. The monks
threw all of them into the
fire. After the fire was brought under control, some monks raked
out some of the
pile and then they walked through the hot coals in bare feet. I
thought it
was over, but it wasn't. The crowd was invited to do
likewise and the line to walk through the hot coals was incredibly
long. NO,
Nick, Diane and I did not walk through the coals.
After the ceremony was over, a tired threesome headed back to the train
station for the ride back to Tokyo and walk to the hotel. We
rested up
for a while and then headed off for our last meal of shabushabu.
All in all, a
long great day. Weekends like this are why I do this job and
'suffer'
all of the
traveling. Ummm, if you didn't pick up on that, traveling doesn't
actually cause me much suffering. ;-)
Until next time.
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