Well, I've said goodbye to Kansai, spent a brief couple of days with the in-laws in the warmer climes of the South and made the trip North to Tokyo.
Tokyo is not a city that I think that I would ever enjoy living in. The people here are so...busy and often come across being rude as a result. The city itself is wide - the equivelant of their 'city loop' takes about an hour to circumvent by train. The massive rail network has had my beautiful wife's head in a spin on more than one occassion - despite being Japanese herself. On a couple of occassions, when looking for help, she was brushed off by a couple of passers-by which only darkened my thoughts on the place.
I try to balance these negative thoughts with positives to be found - certainly the shopping is great if you are after the more modern items and we have many friends here (though not natural born Tokyoites). Akihabara (with its associated 'Electric Town') has been visited a couple of times and I've ended up buying a PSP which I have found fun (and certainly cheaper than what it would have cost back home).
Coming back to Japan this time, I had promised myself that I would visit places that I had not been to before and in the Kanto region this had equated to going to Yokohama and Nikko. Both of these places I quite enjoyed - Yokohoma was quite relaxing, with its flowing gardens and hills overlooking the sea combined with the Western influences found in the architecture as a result of early foreign contact during Japan's history.
Nikko is the home of the resting place of one of Japan's most famous military and historic figures - the first official shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu. I first studied this man over twelve years ago at university and it was quite eerie to actually be at a place so strongly associated with him after all this time. The place is thoroughly beautiful, set in the foreground of some very majestic hills and the place really shined given the Autumn reds and oranges were approaching full strength.
On a related note, the above picture was taken inside Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle) which has been blown up, burnt down, invaded and attacked so many times in its long history that it is now almost all a modern remake. The insides - though completely refurbsihed - house much interesting historical information which was great to reaquaint myself with again after so many years.
The model above is from a massive display outlining the final attack of the Tokugawas against the Toyotomi (who really united Japan but never had the chance to proclaim himself Shogun).
I believe this model is of Toyotomi Hideyoshi - their leader at the time.
More to come....
2 comments:
It's not Hideyoshi if the scene represents the siege of Osaka.
Hideyoshi died in 1598.
Siege of Osaka was in 1615.
That siege was between the Tokugawa and the Toyotomi but Ieyasu and Hideyoshi himself only ever fought against each other during the period shortly after the death of Nobunaga, but they reached an understanding.
That model could be Ii Naotaka, judging by the red armour of his followers, the context of a Tokugawa attack and his war batton. The helmet, with its antlers, troubles me though because it looks more like that of Honda Tadakatsu, another retainer of the Tokugawa, who died in 1610.
I reckon the model is Ii Naotaka, although I can see no banners in the photo and so it's hard to be sure.
Will always defer to your knowledge of all things historical when it comes to Japan - I've got quite a few more photos of this scene that I can show you when I get back.
There is a very detailed account of the construction of the castle and that battle within the building at the moment - using video screens and maps etc. Unfortunately, I could only be there briefly and read through it as quickly as I could, which is most likely why I was out by 17 years.
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