TABLE OF CONTENTS DECEMBER 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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*    A Look Inside Capsule Hotels and Yukigassen Snowball Craze

*    The 2020 Cherry Blossom Report

*    Book: The Lady and the Monk by Pico Ayer

*    A Toto in Your Water Closet
*    Tokyo Car Culture
*    The Giant Wave of Kanazawa and Ukeo-e Wood Block Prints
*    Wonder Filled Japanese World Heritage Sites
*    An Unforgettable Journey by train.
*    “This Is The Land Of Your Ancestors.” —Yuji Ishihara
*    Why Get Married in Japan #6
*    Why Get Married in Japan #5
*    Iconic Japan: The Ghibli Museum (Totoro and Spirited Away)
*    Table of Contents 
*    Can a Foreigner Buy a Home in Japan?
*    May 1, 2019 First Day of the new Japanese Era
*    Finding Japanese Ancestors
*    Space Saver

Tip 34
*    10,000 People: Japan Art Book Project
*    Forging a Katana (Samurai Sword)
Tip 33 The Narita Express (Fast Train to & from Narita Airport)
Tip 32 Book:  Meeting With Japan by Fosco Mariani 
Tai Chi and Mount Fuji

Tip 31 Mobile Passport: breezing through customs at LAX .

Tip 30 Jet Lag Part 2
*    How To Get Married In Japan
*    Moon Restaurant: 58th Floor of the Mori Museum Building
*    Senju Shrine: Perfect for an Intimate Shinto Wedding
*    10,000 People Art Book Project:  Misata
*    Discovering Immeasurable Treasures
*    10,000 People Japan Art Book Project:  Milo @ Beer To Go
*    Eyes Open Wide ;;;;Day In Tokyo

Tip 29 The Thirty Types of Japanese Restaurants

*    The Diaries of Patricia and Tobias 
*    Jim Reed: "What is Shabui and Wabi Sabi?"
*    Chucky Thomas in Asuka Village
*    Shinto Wedding Purification Ritual
*    Tai Chi Wedding Sendoff
*    The Diaries of Patricia and Tobias
*    Patricia's Fan Fold Temple Book
*    Sakura Zensen in Tokyo:  Following the Cherry Blossom Wave
*    Godzilla & Staying at the APA Shinjuku Kabuki-cho Tower 
*    36 of Japan's Most Stunning Places
*    Japanese Phrases for Your First Day
*    First Kimono
*    Calligraphy and Sumi (Japanese Ink Making)

*    10,000 People: Japan Art Book Project # 10

*    10,000 People: Japan Art Book Project begins.  

Tip 28 Cherry Blossom Report: Sakura Zensen Tracking

Tip 27 Nara:  Miwa Mountain of 1,000 Shrines

Tip 26 The Great Buddha of Todai-ji 

Tip 25 Folding steel for Samurai Swords and bringing home a fine folded steel kitchen knife from Nara

Tip 24 Akiko and her new Tour Company (highly recommended)

Tip 23A No need for Electrical adaptors and drinking water

Tip 22 Hiroshima:  Peace Park and ringing the Peace Bell

Tip 21 Using Google Translate

Tip 20 Temples, Shinto Shrines and Japanese Culture

Tip 19 Way Finding in Japan and Restaurant Culture

Tip 18 “Do not hesitate to ask when you need help.

Tip 17 Google Maps: A great way to navigate Japan

Tip 16 Kanji: Japanese Writing

Tip 15B My Friend Yuji Short Documentary

Tip 15A Home Stays: the best way to learn about Japan

Tip 14 Japan Rail Pass

Tip 13 Pasmo card for easier Subway use

Tip 12 Travel Light: Using Roll Aboards

Tip 11 Conversion of $ to Yen

Tip 10 Ghibli Museum: Home of Japan’s greatest director/animator.

Tip 9 Tokyo Subway: A wayfinding introduction.

Tip 8B Copious ideas to build your own Japan Itinerary including World Heritage sites.

Tip 8A Miyabidado Takemine Ryokan in Tokyo, wedding night.
Tip 7 Introduction to Ryokans: Japan’s historic, traditional inns. 

Tip 6 Hotel APA Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower 

Tip 5 Portable charger for you phone and Pocket Wifi

Tip 4 Pocket WiFi across Japan, Google Translate, & Maps

Tip 3 Hitching Rides with Buddha: a great first book into the mind of Japan..

Tip 2 b Shinjuku Station, busiest in the world. 3.5 million passengers each day.

Tip 2 a Japan Rail Pass (perfect for beyond the big cities)

Tip 1 Minimizing Jet Lag Click HERE
In the beginning: Jotaro and Taka Kobayakawa  Nov. 17, 2015

Capsule Hotels and Yukigassen: Japan's Crazy Snowball Fighting Sport.

Headed to Kyoto? .... this capsule hotel stands out as quite an Adventure!  Perfect accommodations for college age kids on a travel budget. Capsules are on our list of Japan Travel adventures.
Click HERE for the Millenium Capsule Hotel in Kyoto

Click HERE for Inside Video Tour Kyoto Caspule

YUKIGASSEN

We haven't been north of Tokyo yet but we've added Yukigassen to our list of things to do in Japan: one of the world's most unique sporting events: the highly regulated snowball fight that began in Japan.                 Click HERE to view a Japanese snowball fight.

2020 Cherry Blossom Report

2020 Cherry Blossom Report CLICK HERE

Source:  LiveJapan.com

The Lady and the Monk by Pico Ayer

A long line of bibliophiles waited for Pico Ayer to sign A Beginner’s Guide to Japan after his comments, but I was more interested in a book he’d written 28 years earlier when he first arrived in Japan from the busy streets of Manhattan;  The Lady and the Monk: Four seasons in Kyoto. 1991.

This morning Patricia, as we often do, read to me an interesting passage where Pico captures a form of Japanese intimacy:  ai ai gasa, Japanese love symbolism.

There is lyric in Pico Ayer’s writing about Japan which compels me to nominate it to our list of Readings on Japan for those planning a visit.  Just a few pages into The Lady and the Monk I can see how it will frame your upcoming visit to Kyoto.

I still want to know what moved Pico from his manic life in Manhattan to becoming a monk in a Kyoto Buddhist Monastery. One day I’ll sit down for a chat with him.

Juroku Rakan: The Carved Of Stone ... Mountain Of Gods

On the path of Japanese Tea Leaf reading

One of my earliest memories with Tommie comes from when I came to live with my mother Tamaki Ishihara Manzanares, I was 10 years old.  She took me to Grandview Gardens in China Town where we were served tea while dining.  She showed me the tea leaves remaining at the bottom of my cup while telling me she could see my future in those leaves.  It would be 48 more years before I could walk the land of my Japanese ancestors.  I still look very carefully at the bottom of my tea cup and have discovered that I can also see my past. Those remarkable days with her while growing up.

Part 1: Tea first arrived when Japanese Envoys returned from China in the 8th century.  Though tea originated in China, it has become “one of the most quintessentially Japanese experiences" where guests

From Wikipedia:  The Buddhist monks Kūkai and Saichō may have been the first to bring tea seeds to Japan. The first form of tea brought from China was probably brick tea. Tea became a drink of the royal classes when Emperor Saga encouraged the growth of tea plants. Seeds were imported from China, and cultivation in Japan began.

Tea consumption became popular among the gentry during the 12th century, after the publication of Eisai's Kissa Yōjōki. Uji, with its strategic location near the capital at Kyoto, became Japan's first major tea-producing region during this period. Beginning in the 13th and 14th centuries, Japanese tea culture developed the distinctive features for which it is known today, and the Japanese tea ceremony emerged as a key component of that culture.

In the following centuries, production increased and tea became a staple of the general public. The development of sencha in the 18th century led to the creation of distinctive new styles of green tea which now dominate tea consumption in Japan. In the 19th and 20th centuries, industrialization and automation transformed the Japanese tea industry into a highly efficient operation, capable of producing large quantities of tea despite Japan's limited arable land area.

Part 2:  The Tea.    A peaceful side trip just a few minutes away from busy streets of Kyoto.

The next time you’re in Kyoto... just 15 minutes away 
Reading Tea Leaves 

Part  3:  A Culture of Peace:  The Japanese Ceremony, Chanoyu, "Way of Tea, wabicha elevates hospitality to a form of art, a way of being. Guests take their shoes off before entering the tea room.  Click Here for more about The Japanese Tea Ceremony which teaches us that "every meeting should be treasured because it can never be fully recaptured”. --Sen no Rikyu 1522-1591. In a Wabicha tea ceremony simplicity is held preeminent.

Photo credit: japan.travel

A Culture of Peace

Part 4: The History of the Tiny Tea Room Entrance click HERE.

Photo credit muza-chan.net

The nijiriguchi　躙口  is a "wriggle-in” 60 by 65 centimeter entrance for guests in a rustic style tea ceremony room. Upon entering, first your hands, then your head, then one knee... symbolizing that all guests are equal in this tea room.  The host uses the regular door. 

Part 5 Quest for Tea: a documentary

Quest for Tea II

A Toto in your water closet.

Our best wedding gift came from TOTO.

Waiting for a table outside the Common Cafe in the APA Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower, Patricia whispers: “You’ve gotta see this!!!” Taking my arm like a co-conspirator in a mystery novel she pulls me through the door into a space the very definition of Shibui: spacious, simple, yet elegant. She’s drawn me into a beautiful room where I hear the soft sound of a running stream (designed to mask the sound made when even a delicate lady takes care of her “business”.  She’s discovered the wonderful world of Toto Washlets, the most hygienic way for humans to ... well ... “take care of business”.   That was our first together trip to Japan.

How Does It Work: Click HERE

Is it possible that a scale was tipped at that moment?
I took her to Nara and Asuka Village on our second trip.
On our third trip, I proposed to her on a tiny island in Heian Shrine in Kyoto in three languages.
We were married under falling Cherry Blossoms at Senju Shrine in Tokyo on our fourth trip.
All those days, were experiencing the saving graces of Toto Washlets.

A short time after returning home from our Japanese Sakura Wedding, I visited a nearby Bath show room and brought home an easy to install S500e washlet for just over $1,000.

Chucke, install one of these for your wife... she’ll know that you’re a keeper for all the rest of her living days!  Imagine her loving you more each time she takes care of “business.”
Imagine her sighing: “Oh... I love that man.”

Chucke, here are locations near you.
Where To Buy: Click HERE

Bill, here is were I found Patricia’s Toto dream wedding present: B & C Custom Hardware and Bath at 32 Tesla, Irvine, California,  92618.