Japan April 3-4 (Day 3-4): Samurai Houses & swords, Kabazaiku, Ghibli and Sakura Tokyo.

Okay, here is the "lost day" which was the day Linda got sick and I went postal on JR for taking away my wheels and kind of got distracted from the 24 hours of that morning in Kakunondate up in Northern Honshu to the Ghibli Museum visit the next morning. Sorry, but aside from two hours of vomiting (Linda) and rage (me) it was a pretty good time, with some great pics, so here we go…..

Kakunodate is in a remote northern prefecture which is why though the castle is gone the ranked samurai houses still stand, showing houses over 400 years old. For example, I am here in front of the Aoyagi House from when the family founder became a vassal of Lord Ashina of Hitachi (about 350 km south of Kakunodate). When the Shogun overlord transferred Lord Ashina to Akira in 1603 and the Aoyagi followed. The reasons this house has such elaborate gates (and that cool water drainage thing) is because the family was promoted in 1653 when a new lord took over and the Aoyagi where placed in charge of protecting the boundary areas. This gave him the rank for the full samurai house, gates, garden, personal Torii and shrine, swords, armour and inner buildings. But these gates are even more elaborate in rank because they were rebuilt more elaborate in 1860 as a reward for the Aoyagi service.

It was raining but you can see the traditional thatched roof (up to 60 layers of thatch), as well as the sliding doors, wooden hallways and mats (which is why you have to remove your shoes). This is what a Samurai house looked like, and did for hundreds of years. I omitted the garden pictures, and that of the handmade buckets and other property of the estate and shrine. I do however have this picture of the Aoyagi SWORDS! Yup, real family Samurai swords in the family home. (because of the elaborate gates, wheelchairs can’t enter so I stayed outside: in the time it took Linda to see the samurai house, three different people including one bringing a taxi tried to “rescue me” as I was to find out over the next two weeks that a person sitting calming in a wheelchair taking pictures or drinking Gatorade without a “keeper” was in obvious distress!)

The problem was that a) You need samurai to protect a region and b) Akira region is pretty far north and c) bored samurai with swords for long periods of time is a bad idea so in 1700’s the lord suggested that the lower ranked samurai start a new art form tried in Akira first called Kabazaiku. Like flower arranging and haiku, the application of this cherry bark art was seen as a way for samurai to channel their bushido spirit and express their creativity. They started with pill boxes. After the Meiji restoration wholesalers (what we would know as middlemen) took over and started the idea of craftsmen, and apprentices set up in factories where a range of different products could be made (Still handmade though). Now, almost anywhere in Japan you can see a tea holder or other Kabazaiku art in stores selling traditional arts like Kanazawa or Kyoto. I picked one up in a store in Beppu and said, “Kakunodate?” and the store owners said “Hai” in a dazed voice as they were blown away that I would know that.

There is a fully wheelchair accessible museum which shows how the craft is done as well as has a list of those who have attained the rank of Master Craftsman over the years (short list). There are also examples of their work as well as some examples of people who are masters but not yet ranked which are available for sale.

Here the craftsman is showing us how he takes the bark of various cherry trees, and takes the strips, then pounds them down before applying them in thin strips to the item to be covered. There is a range of what looks like tiny shoe horns to the left; those are actually tea measurers, you use them with the tea holders to measure out the tea you use.

We had a hard time deciding what to get, beyond the nightlight I showed at the end of the blog two days ago we wanted MORE. The tea holders are stunning and you just WANT them (even though we don’t drink tea) because they are so beautiful. These shelves are different examples of Tea Holders (the top comes off, then an inner top opens to reveal the tea) as done by the masters of Kakunodate which are available for sale (about $30-100 each). But we decided instead to get this tray for our table (if we ever see the top of it again from under the piles of papers, bills, etc). It was a good introduction to the dedication of Japanese art and how beautiful something like cherry bark can become under hours of skilled application and shaping. Now, looking back at the pictures, I wish I got a tea holder too because they are just so varied and beautiful (was saving money for the Kimono, sorry!).

We took the train from Kakunodate to Tokyo and the next morning got up early to see the Ghibli museum. Ghibli is like the name Spielberg and Lucas combined in popularity in Japan. The last film took over 125 million JUST in Japan. It is sad they they tend to export the dubbed versions as redone by Disney who feels that they need to be “Americanized” (because knowing other countries exist are too complicated, I guess).

In the museum the they created the characters of Ghibli’s films as well as the history of animation, had a private theatre for the exclusive film I talked about on April 4th and had the desks of the two giants of Ghibli including Hayao Miyazaki. Now Hayao Miyazaki had a big influence on me because he tells stories in this non-linear way in which every day life becomes something more, and myth and the mundane are mixed together. The film which I watched over and over was Porco Rosso, not actually available in the west until recently. I recommend finding a fan-dub or Japanese or Hong Kong version as the American Version has a different ending (among other things). Miyazaki has this vision of girls, particularly post and prepubescent girls as holders of innocence. I wanted to reflect a slightly different idea and obsessed on the story of a cursed pilot who is a pacifist and is loved by a 14-15 year old girl who has made up her mind to marry him. (I just kept saying, “How does he do it!” and then watching it again – hey, I can get obsessive too!) It is one of the few non-child oriented films of Miyazaki because it was intended as a movie for Japanese Airlines originally.

While I was IN Wales obsessing on Porco Rosso, Miyazaki happens to BE obsessed himself with the country Wales which is why two of his greatest film hits, Laputa is set in Wales and Howl’s Moving Castle comes from the Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones. So I felt a connection to Miyazaki.

The museum is set up so that YOU are the main character in a Ghibli movie, which is why photography indoors is forbidden, and children and given free play to jump on the cat bus and go though small doors or up winding staircases to where the giant sentential robots of Laputa await. If you want to see the pictures of inside the museum I recommend going
Here as he has good indoor pics.

We were amazed at the detail which included not just in murals and the walls but in each and every plane of glass and door, which were not just high quality wood but intense stained glass. This one is from the film Princess Mononoke (the person behind the window is not, it is still a window). While this window is also from Princess Mononoke and I hope give some idea of the quality that goes into every component of the museum. The only part of the museum not wheelchair accessible was the rooftop garden. But the other gardens, including this one from I believe Kiki’s Delivery Service is open for people to pump water or sit by the door to the herb room (as I am!).
Here is the stained glass window going back inside; it truly was a feast for the eyes and the stores feasted on the pocketbook as it was the second place we had gone to buy things and we were conservative in what we could and would buy (so much choice!). I got a little “soot” stuffed animal from Spirited Away and a pen for a friend and well a few more items. Then, considering the strain of yesterday, we decided to leave while still feeling good and walk the 15 minutes back to the station.

That was one of the best surprises, to find, here in the middle of Tokyo, this almost deserted road, lined with trees including cherry trees. You can see me sitting there, glowing from an inner light of all the LOOT I have on my lap. It was nice after the 3 million people of Shinjuku railway station (a day, every day!), to find this empty and beautiful road of Tokyo. Oh, what is in my lap? Well there are these two Kiki puzzles which are only available for sale in Japan (that’s what they say anyway). There were also the 3-D picture window cards I mentioned last post; here is the one for Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Now how can you see something like this and NOT buy it! The rest of the loot is still scattered between bags. And I hopefully have forgotten some wonder item I will discover.

Linda pushed me or we rolled and talked about what we wanted to do, what we had seen, and was Linda REALLY feeling better? But mostly we just enjoyed the river, the cherry trees and this 15 minute walk down a lane that you would never would believe was in the midst of Tokyo. I think that is part of what Ghibli so special to us, that even after leaving we had this calm, this quiet and peace separate from the hustle of Tokyo. From there it was back to the rail system and on to the delights of gender bending B:lily-rose with loli-goths and Otome road, but I have already blogged about that. This wasn’t a 24 hours of meeting god or wild monkeys, world heritage sites or sword dances but it was good to see another side of Japan, the samurai town of the north and the arts the still come from there from hundreds of years ago, to the modern beauty and detail of the Ghibli museum and the peace that was found, in the week of the cherry festival, in the midst of Tokyo. All good memories.