Chris' Japan Travel Page

with some interesting views on the land of the rising sun.

Let's start with TOSHIBA, the company I worked for. Ain't that cute? Actually this is not exactly the campus I worked at, but I passed that on my way there and here we had our language classes twice a week.

Some people from my office in Kawasaki. They were always very nice and they've shown me a lot of interesting places. We went to see the winter cherry trees in Gunma, but unfortunately we got cought in the traffic jam and so we made it just in time for the sunset.

(Three of the guys have spent 2 years in my office in San Jose, so we have still worked together very closely.) This picture was taken when the year of the mouse (1997) was just a few seconds old. All these people are visiting the temple in Asakusa (Tokyo). Most of the Japanese make their first visit to a temple or shrine in the first three days of January. (After having survived this we really needed a cup of hot amazake, a sweet non-alcoholic drink made from rice). One day later, January 2, the masses went to the Imperial Palace Garden, located near Tokyo station. Everybody got a paper flag to wave it at the tenno (emperor), the formal boss of Japan.

This day and the emperor's birthday (December 23) is the only ocation for the publich to see this garden. But even then, the guards are very strict: I tried to walk back for only 20 metres against the predefined walking direction to get a better place for taking a picture. Forget it! Even a long argue with the guard didn't help.

Shichi-go-san in Nikko. That means children of the age of 3, 5 and 7 years have "their" day on November 15. They visit a temple or shine with their parents at the weekend and proudly show their pretty (and expensive) kimono or yukata (summer kimono).

I was waiting a long time for the occasion to take that picture. (And I got some pretty weird looks when I took it ;-) Life is pretty stessful over there and people enter standby-mode whenever possible: in the train or bus, on benches in the park. I even saw a driver that fell asleep while waiting at a red light, woken up by the honking car behind him when it turned green. The library in our building was also one of those places.

Live in Japan is really tiring and exhausting, that's obvious. In some cases it ends with "karoshi" - death by working too much. In many offices employees go to pubs or karaoke bars together several nights a week and come home drunk and with the last train. I was very lucky as that was not the case in my office. The trains stop running around midnight and especially during the last days of my thesis my coworkers threw me out of the office so that I and they can make it home. Unfortunatly, with this I made them feel uncomfortable because as a Japanese you're not supposed to bother anyone.

Here is an article from the German newspaper the "Die Welt" about Karoshi. Every Sunday the street on the south side of Yoyogi park got closed and amateur bands could play or just be there to be admired by hords of teenage girls. It was nice to stroll there and some actually made some pretty good music. Some day, the city considered this to be a traffic problem and now the bands moved to some adjacent side walks, but now there are not as many bands as there used to be.

From Yoyogi to Roppongi, one of the entertainment districts. Here are also most of the embassies and a lot of foreign and Japanese "kanemochi" (rich folks) live here. This here is a view on (or better under) Tokyo tower at night.

This is a December night in Sendai. The main street is full of lights during this time. It is impossible to catch that feeling with a camera, so go and see it yourself! These are the most beautiful lit trees I've ever seen.

Old and new so close together. That is Japan, where the pasts greets the future. The old building is a watch tower of the Imperial Palace Garden that I mentioned earlier on this page.

Let's look at older buildings related to the two religions that you can find in Japan (Shintoism and Buddhism).

Here is an entrance gate to a temple in Nikko, and one of the guards that are standing at both sides of the path, watching and scaring the visitors.

And who is inside the temple? Hotokesama, the big Buddha. This one in Kamakura is 9 m tall when sitting. Nobody could ever measure its height when standing as that happens very rarely.

Also in Nikko, a five-storied pagoda. This is a "raitoappu" (Japanese for light-up) in the night.

From the temples to the shrines. This one is the Hakone original shrine, you reach it with the ropeway from the beautiful Ashinoko (lake). In the picture you see my boss from Kawasaki office and his wife.

For a little prayer in the lunch break in Horikawachoo works, another Toshiba factory where we had our language classes. Just ignore the pipes while praying.

This is a very nice place in Nikko, actually not that far out of town, but far away from the crowds. The usual Japanese tourist (and other tourists as well) doesn't move much further than 100 m from the bus since they don't have time. Therefore there are so many chances for you to explore some nice and lonely places without walking that much further. This cemetery is very close to Gammangafuji-abyss.

So we come to nature. Sankeien garden is south of Yokohama. This is a Japanese-style garden for pleasant strolls on a weekend. But sometimes these strolls might be less enjoyable since it becomes very crowded from time to time, i.e. during the time of the plum blossom (umenohana). Be there at 9:00 and you're still fine.

Beautiful red leaves on a tree in fall; Gora in Hakone.

Let me conclude this collection with 'hanabi'. Literally, that means 'flower fire' which is probably more appropriate than the English word 'fireworks'. In summer time there are several firewoks every single weekend. This particular one was in the Yokohama Sea Paradise. There should be hundresds of pictures from my journeys through Japan, for instance to Hokkaido, Sendai, Yamagata, Fujisan Noto-hantoo, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Shikoku, Hiroshima, Kyushu...

But you know, storage capacity is still expensive and I still don't have my own scanner. Back to Chris' Home Page