Elliotto-san's Visit to Japan, October 2016

In July of 2016, I was contacted by the producers of a Japanese reality television show called "I Want To Go To Japan!", and asked if I wanted to participate. Although initially wary, I agreed. In August, a crew came to our home to interview us and our friends about our Japanese costuming. This profile aired on TV Tokyo in September, and I was chosen to visit Japan. The eight days in October that I spent touring Japan were overwhelming and unforgettable. I visited Tokyo, Nagaoka, Gifu, Toyama, and Kyoto. Highlights were learning about cormorant fishing and witnessing this ancient tradition in action, spending two days in one of the last workshops to produce "tate eboshi" hats by hand, and visiting the studio of braiding teacher Makiko Tada. It was a bit undignified to be dragged around by the camera crew, but worth it for all of the experiences and information. The resulting segment aired in November.

Saturday, my first full day in Japan was spent traveling to Nagaoka for the "100 Bales of Rice" festival, marching in the parade, and drinking sake at the tasting. Sunday, my second day, was free in Tokyo, so I did a little site seeing, including a visit to Senso-ji temple. Monday was spent in Gifu city, learning about the Ukai (cormorant fishing) and visiting Gifu Castle. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in Toyama learning about eboshi making from one of the few craftsmen (and his apprentice) still practicing this craft, and having a home-cooked meal in the apprentice's home. Thursday, we visited Yushima Tenmagu temple where the priests performed a ritual for me, and the director told me they basically had everything they needed for the show. They had already bought tickets for me to go to Kyoto, so I went anyway to visit the Costume History Museum and some other sites. Friday, I had free, so I walked from my hotel near the Tokyo Tower up to the Tokyo National Museum and back after cruising the museum. Saturday, I spent in Makiko Tada's studio, taking a braiding workshop, then I met up with some SCA people in the Akihabara. Sunday I walked around near my hotel and then somebody came to take me to the airport.

The invitation to visit Japan. They called in September, just after the initial profile aired, and asked if they could come by to tape some additional material. I had my suspicions, and I was right. They filmed additional material anyway, but the main purpose was to give me this invite, and film that for the show. I did not get details about my flight until just a few days before I was leaving, and never really had information about my itinerary within Japan until we were on our way. These reality TV people really like surprising their subjects. It's a real leap of faith to get on a plane in the USA then fly 13 hours to the other side of the planet and just trust that there will be a crew to meet you there when you arrive. If this happens to you, my suggetsion is to pack light. They will tell you what to bring, and this will preclude your actually packing light, but pack way lighter than you think you need to. You will be on the move constantly, and having multiple bags to deal with will only introduce unfortunate complexity. After arriving, bussing into the city, and checking into the Shiba Daimon Hotel, we went out to dinner at a real izakaya. Basically, an izakaya is the Japanese version of a tapas bar: small plates, lots of happy people, and plenty of beverages. After that, it was early to bed for an early start.

A word here about Japanese "business traveller" hotels. Yes, the rooms really are quite small, as you've no doubt heard. Typically, there is just enough room to navigate between the bed, desk, and bathroom. There's really only enough room for one person, which is all that is allowed in most of these rooms anyway. (No visitors!) The rooms are usually very clean, and cost less than a hundred dollars per night. Yes, the beds are often quite low, but they were plenty big enough for my average US height. Yes, the bathrooms are like RV bathrooms. The faucet for the sink often doubles as the faucet for the tub. The tub is usually short but deep; if you fill it up, you can sit with your knees drawn up and soak. Yes, the toilet seats are often "washlet" style, with bidet sprayers and temperature settings that often require documentation on the wall. To take the picture below of one of the more spacious single rooms in the Shiba Daimon hotel, I had to sit on the windowsill.

My first full day in Japan, we took the train up to Nagaoka in Niigata prefecture. They were having the big festival to celebrate an investment the town fathers made 150 years ago in establishing a school and putting their trust in the future. Today, they celebrate with a "Jidai" (historical dress) parade, and a general street festival. Since Nagaoka is a big agricultural area with a lot of rivers, they grow a lot of rice and there are a couple dozen sake breweries. Part of the festival is the Japanese equivalent of street festival food (lots of things on sticks) and a sake tasting. I didn't know about any of that when I first arrived. It was raining when we got off the train, and when it lightened up a bit we toured the street festival. Then they explained that they had arranged for me to march in the parade with a Heian-jidai crew (since there was no Momoyama-jidai crew to match my outfit. Then they explained that they had rented a Karaoke room for me to get changed in. These private Karaoke rooms are available by the hour so you can hang out with your friends, drink, and sing in private instead of in a bar. Anyway, we took a taxi out to the assembly point where people were getting ready for the parade and they took a lot of video of me trying to make connections with other people who were wearing eboshi. Some of the kids were shy, but a lot of people were happy to talk about their costumes and their pride in the history of Nagaoka. It stopped raining for just long enough that we could have the parade. I did a bunch more walking around in the prep areas for the parade, then they introduced me to the crew I would be marching with. They were great, and we compared my hand-made costume to the costumes that they were wearing. Some of my stuff is spot on; go go fabrics-store.com! I have marched in a lot of processions in historical dress, but I don't think I've marched in full-on city street parade before. I got the feeling that I was about to be the subject of dozens of incredulous Facebook posts. Most of the time marching, I just tried to look noble and keep pace with the rest of the crew. Just as we finished the parade route, it started raining again, so we ran inside to take some pictures. Still in costume, I went through the sake tasting and talked to more people. "Drunk" sure is the number one international language. I think the TV people would have been happier if I had gotten as truly blasted as some of the people I talked to, but I really was not about to do that on camera.

Since this trip was booked at the last minute, and it was a holiday weekend, they weren't able to keep me at the Shiba Daimon the next two nights. So, I was moved to the Yanagibashi Hotel, which is further North in Tokyo. This was not a bad deal, since they also gave me Sunday off because it was the holiday, and this hotel was closer to some of the sights I wanted to see in Tokyo. Specifically, I wanted to vist the Kaminarimon at Senso-Ji (Senso Temple) and maybe go over to the Tokyo National Museum if I had time. Since it was only my second full day in a foreign country where I do not speak the language, the Asistant Director of the show agreed to come in to the city and be my translator/guide for the day. He was going to come in and meet me in the late morning, then we'd have plenty of time to see sights. The trouble was that I woke up absurdly early in the morning, got some breakfast, and started wandering around the neighborhood all on my own. I saw some great stuff right around the hotel, and found a bead store (several, actually). Not bad. Tokyo is interesting because everything is jammed together. Once you get off the main boulevards, you're off into side streets (and canals) with residences, hotels, vending machines, and shrines all jammed together in ways that are probably based on where things were 400 years ago.

A word here about Japanese konbini, which are convenience stores. In Tokyo, there's roughly one convenience store on any given block, and there are like a half dozen different chains. I don't know about anybody else, but I very quickly established which chain was my favorite, and which items there were what I wanted. One great thing is cold black coffee in a canbottle. There are a few brands of these, and "Tully's Barista's Black" is probably my favorite. The food at konbini is great, and super fresh. Check out this terrific salad I got, with squash and fresh okra in it. I ate breakfast almost every day out of a konbini, and I felt pretty good about it. They have these great soft-boiled eggs, and yummy pastries. I surprised myself one morning by buying a croissant filled with red bean instead of a chocolate filling like I expected, but luckily I like the taste of red bean. One day, the whole TV crew and I stopped at a konbini on the way to the day's shooting. There wasn't going to be any place to get lunch close to where we were going, so we were going to stock up on food. I picked out some stuff, and threw in some cut-up pineapple for good measure. The AD pointed and said something to the director, so I'm like, "What?". The AD says that they don't normally buy things like fruit at convenience stores. I say, "I don't usually buy anything at convenience stores.

So anyway, back to Tokyo on Sunday. When the AD called and said he missed the train and was going to be an hour later, I told him I would meet him at the temple and I took off with Google Maps as my guide. The trouble was that I typed the wrong name into Maps, maps refused to show me any actual maps, and I kept walking anyway. I mean, how lost could I get? I wound up one full neighborhood to the West of Senso-Ji, in the Kappabashi neighborhood. Luckily, Kappa-bashi is a really cool neighborhood. It's the place where all the kitchen stores are, so any equipment you might need for prep, cooking, or serving is there. Somewhere there, anyway. The prices are really good, too. Like one fifth of what you might expect to pay in the US.

Eventually, I started to worry that I was never going to find Senso-ji. I should have thought to just reboot my phone, but I didn't. Suddenly, Masa the AD called me, having finally made it to Tokyo. I was able to read off enough street signs so that he knew where I was, and he took a cab over to meet up with me on the street. No small feat in a neighbohood crowded with holiday shoppers, but we managed it somehow. Like I said, I was only one neighborhood West of where I had wanted to be, so we walked from Kappabashi over to Senso-ji. The area between is full of dozens of little restaurants and shops. We stopped and bought me some unagi-don for lunch at a stereotypical eatery with about a dozen seats, then we continued walking.

Finally, we made it to Senso-ji. We started out at the famous Kaminari-mon, then proceeded North through the merchant area to the temple. These merchants are required to only carry items that are made in Japan, so if you are looking for authentic souvenirs this is the place. They must charge an awful lot for rent here, though, since the prices are higher than in the surrounding area. Given that this is a big tourist attraction and we were there on a holiday, the place was mobbed with people. Plenty of Japanese there, some with their adorable children dressed up in traditional fancy clothes for their visits to the temple for blessings. It's still traditional, even with people that don't consider themselves to be particularly religious, to have your kids blessed at the temple when they are 3, 5, and 7 years old. This temple complex houses both Buddhist and Shinto shrines, and anybody can come to pray, meditate, buy amulets, get their fortune told, be purified, be blessed, etcetera. Most of the structures here only go back to the Edo Period, but they are super well maintained.

I asked Masa so many questions about Japanese traditions and which ones he followed that he suggested going to a cool little museum at the Southeast corner of Ueno Park, the Shitamachi Museum. This museum commemorates Edo Period Tokyo from the perspective of everyday merchants and tradespeople. The "Shitamachi" area of Tokyo was the lowlands of the city, where land was cheap so theaters and nightlife we big business. The museum has gathered artifacts from the area, and even rebuilt several shops and houses inside their building. If you take off your shoes, you can climb inside the exhibits and look inside closets and cabinets. The candy shop has the living space of the people who ran it, and you can see what they had in everything. The tools in the coppersmith's shop are wired in place, but that's OK. I even learned some new things about haribako sewing boxes and tabi foot coverings. This museum is totally worth the three dollars worth of yen it takes to get in.

The next morning (Monday), it was up bright and early to catch a train to Gifu City. It was cloudy and drizzly in Tokyo, and it stayed dreary until we were too far West to even see Mt. Fuji from the train. Sigh. It was beautiful and sunny in Gifu, though. We got off the train and it was a brand new day! Gifu was beautiful the whole time we were there. Gifu was also the only place we went that the local visitor's bureau sent somebody to make sure we got everywhere we were trying to go. We started out in the train station, of course, where there is an impressive statue of Oda Nobunaga. Oda Nobunaga is one of the first warlords in Japanese history to be able to make a credible claim to uniting the country. He lived in Gifu for some time, and is kind of a local hero. More on that later. From the train station, we all piled into a van and drove down to a spot along the Nagara river. There's a great trail along the river, and some sights to see. Birds circle over the river looking for fish, but I had to take a lot of pictures just to get one good one.

We went down to the river so I could meet Yamashita Tatsuzi, one of the six remaining hereditary Usho, the masters of ukai cormorant fishing. The cormorant bird is called an "U" (pronounced "ew") in Japanese.

You know, when people in the US find out you are going to Japan, anybody who has been to Japan will start telling you things you have to do or have to see or visit. It's all good advice, of course, but nobody ever told me I had to go to Gifu City. It is what I'm going to tell everybody else from now on though.

At night, you can rent a seat on a spectator boat and watch the ukai