As previously mentioned February and early March in Tokyo is the Japanese Plum Blossom season. We decided to try our first recommendation from A Flower Lover’s Guide to Tokyo by Sumiko Enbutsu, a book I’ll review in more detail in a future entry. So far, I have to say, I like this book.

We went on Walk #37, Keio Mogusa-en Garden. We arrived soon after opening on a sunny, warm, February morning. The train station was decked out in fake plum blossoms to advertise the ume matsuri (梅祭り) that happens from early February until mid-March. During this time period, Mogusaen is open every day, which is good since we were there on the day it is normally closed. The crowds weren’t bad, but things looked to be getting more crowded by the time we left.

Pretty much everyone had a camera. Mine was the smallest and lightest by far. Giant, crazy-expensive cameras are the norm at places like this in Japan. Retired couples (some in their 80s) seemed to be competing to see who could take the better picture with their enormous lenses and tripods both aimed at the same flower.

The ume tree above (寿昌梅) was planted in the early part of the 18th Century by a Buddhist nun called Jushoin (寿昌院). Little, bonsai (盆栽) ume trees surround the bamboo fence around it. Very cute.

Below you can see the thatched roof of the Shorenan (松連庵) farmhouse from the hill behind it. Things actually looked much better in person. It was such a bright day that the sun washed out my photos from this angle. I should have taken then with a quicker shutter speed. Even so, the sky wasn’t blue from this vantage point, even though it wasn’t cloudy. At a different time of day, with the sun not bleaching everything, this same photo may be spectacular.

This last picture may seem like your standard, point-your-camera-straight-up tree photo, but it isn’t. These trees were growing out of the mountain side horizontally.

I’ll have more from Keio Mogusaen, and our subsequent hike (on the same day) and adventures around the City of Hino (日野市), in a future entry.

Posted on March 6th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: book review, flower lovers guide to tokyo, guidebooks, hiking, thatch roof, ume. Comments: 1

Last Saturday (November 21), upon recommendation from a friend who had been there the prior weekend and upon seeing it is a featured fall “walk” in a guidebook we own, we headed west of Tokyo to Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park.

The above photo is of the Tama River (多摩川), from a bridge just a minute or two away from Kori Station (古里駅). This is were we began our walk. The fall colors were still nice, but they probably hit their peak at this location a week or two before.

This next picture is from inside the train near the Mitake Station. The train was actually packed on a Saturday morning, and most people got off at this station. We followed Day Walks Near Tokyo’s advice and kept going to Kori Station. Some of the information in our book was dated and/or inaccurate. For instance, there no longer is a jiyukippu. Nor is it cheapest or fastest to go from Shinjuku and pay the 1992 price of 890 yen each way. Instead we went from Takadanobaba and paid 770 yen on the way there and just 600 yen on the way back (from Hinatawada), using a Seibu line instead of JR for much of the journey.

When we transferred trains at Haijima Station, we had a good view of Mt. Fuji. The above pic didn’t come out so great through the lined glass and with the power lines grabbing the focus, but you get the idea.

Be careful when relying on the information in Day Walks Near Tokyo. “Walking time” in the book seems to mean “running time,” and even though we gave ourselves 7 hours of daylight to do the 4 hour and 45 minute walk with breaks, we ended up in darkness for the last hour. For instance, the first part of the walk says it takes a total of 1 hour and 30 minutes. However, even before we finished it 2 and a half hours later, we saw a sign on the trail pointing in the downward direction saying it was 1 hour and 30 minutes to the start of the walk.

The book really doesn’t prepare you for the amount of climbing. Only once does it mention the trail being steep, even though you will encounter steep trails both up and down all day long. The last 2 hours and 10 minutes (from Mt. Hinode to Hinatawada Station) is described as “quite easy going.” While it is mostly downhill, you will be descending hundreds of steep steps at times and generally navigating a trail loaded with tree roots, ditches, and other obstacles. As we were nearly out of daylight, we almost jogged this part of the trail, without any rests, and it still took longer than the 2 hours and 10 minutes the book estimated. If you plan to follow this trail after the days grow shorter in fall, be sure to bring a headlamp and get to Kori Station by 9 a.m. Another complaint about Day Walks Near Tokyo by Gary Walters is that after the fact I found out, by looking on other websites, that the highlights of a trip to Mt. Mitake are the Rock Garden and water falls (two sets). The book didn’t mention water falls or the Rock Garden so we didn’t know to see either.

We did see and experience some really cool stuff, though, and the fall colors were beautiful. I’ll show you some more pictures in future entries.

Posted on November 23rd, 2009 under Japan. Tags: book review, guidebooks, mt. fuji, mt. mitake, 紅葉. Comments: 3

Kids’ Trips in Tokyo: A Family Guide to One-Day Outings and Japan for Kids: The Ultimate Guide for Parents and Their Children are two books we reference frequently while living in Tokyo. Both can be useful, but both are far from perfect.

Neither one is very good at telling you what you can do in a certain area. For instance, let’s say that you will be in Shibuya for the day. Without going through each book from cover to cover, you can’t figure out what the books offer on just the Shibuya area. The index in Kids’ Trips is a mere three and a half pages in length and is not organized by area. Japan for Kids has an index of seven pages, but it, too, is not organized by area AND it covers all of Japan so seven pages means the index is nearly worthless. If you look up a place like Takadanobaba (where we live) or Roppongi (a popular hang out in Tokyo) in the index of either book you will find absolutely nothing. Of the two, Kids’ Trips is more useful when trying to look up a place since you can use the map inside the front cover to sort of see if there is any coverage of the target area.

Both books are dated. Kids’ Trips has a copyright of 1998, meaning the information is at least 10 years old and usually more like 15 years old. The second edition of Japan for Kids was copyrighted in 2000, but much of the content goes back to the first edition which was written before 1992.

OK, so the books aren’t great, but they are sometimes still useful. For instance, we wouldn’t have known about NHK Studio Park without Kids’ Trips. A video from NHK Studio Park can be found at the end of this post. However, we followed Kids’ Trips‘ advice too much and went to Maisen, a tonkatsu restaurant, on the top of Tokyu’s Department Store. We had a great time there, thanks to the lively conversation we enjoyed with the couple next to us who were celebrating her 60th birthday. However, the food wasn’t that great, and certainly not Tokyo’s best tonkatsu as the guide suggests. I’ve had better tonkatsu at other places in Tokyo for less than half the price.

The maps in Kids’ Trips are pretty good, and the directions are generally easy to follow.

Both books are useful references and fairly essential if you are going to be in Tokyo for an extended period of time with kids. If you only choose one, I would make it Kids’ Trips. Even if you are only going to be in Tokyo with kids for a couple of weeks I recommend bringing Kids’ Trips along.

Posted on November 14th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: book review, guidebooks, kids, video. Comments: 1

This beautiful book is actually many books in one. Tokyo: Exploring the City of the Shogun is a coffee table book, large with marvelous photography on every page. It’s also a guidebook, with maps and suggested routes for exploring historic neighborhoods in Tokyo. Finally, it is a work on the history of Japan–the Kanto (Tokyo, Edo) region in particular.

Each of the “chapters” includes a “Then” and “Now” section which explain what the area was like hundreds of years ago, how it has changed, and what you can expect to see and what to look for now.

I read a very similar book, Kyoto: Seven Paths to The Heart of The City, before we went to Kyoto two years ago. The maps appear much better in this one, but I haven’t actually tried them out yet. I will let you know how they are in a few months after following a few. This Tokyo version seems to be an improvement on the Kyoto version in every way.

Like the Kyoto book, the Tokyo edition includes seven tours of areas to explore on foot. They are:

Nihonbashi & Ningyocho: The heart of the old city
Ryogoku & Asakusa-bashi: The sumo quarters and environs
Fukagawa: In the footsteps of the haiku poet Basho
Tsukiji & Higashi Ginza: Fish, kabuki, and more fish
Atagoyama & Shiba: Samurai feats and traces of shoguns past
Asakusa: A classic temple district, with shops and festivities
Yanaka & Nezu: Strolling through a traditional Tokyo neighborhood

There is also one on the Imperial Palace and the surrounding grounds so I suppose there are eight in all rather than just seven.

Both the Kyoto and Tokyo books are problematic in one way however. They both do too much. What I mean by that is who wants to take a large picture book on a walk with them? My suggestion is to read this book before and after your walk. Make a photocopy of the map and directions for the walk itself though and bring only your photocopy along.

Should the publisher update these books in the future my suggestion would be to turn the publication into two books sold together–a large picture book with the history and background provided and then include a little, 7-page, pull-out book with the maps and directions to bring along on the walks.

Posted on July 19th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: book review, guidebooks, Tokyo. Comments: None