Part I

Where to Start?

So, you might ask why you should travel to Japan to experience this small but fascinating country of four large islands (and about 1,000 small ones) if there are so many rules to follow when you go there. The answer is, “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” There is so much to be gained from a visit to Japan, particularly a visit to Old Japan and the traditional life of its people.

Start, perhaps, by staying overnight in a Buddhist monastery/ryokan in Koyasan, the holy mountain of Japan that lies on the Kii Peninsula in the southeastern part of Honshu, the country’s largest island. As you enter the massive gateway of the monastery grounds, you feel that you have left the cares of the real world behind you as you stop to appreciate a stone "garden” of carefully raked white pebbles that form a pattern across the courtyard like ocean waves. You slip off your shoes and step into soft slippers that are provided at the doorway to the monastery building, and are silently led across centuries-old cypress floors to your room. You will sleep on a soft, thick futon mattress, laid out on a tatami mat-covered floor and will cover yourself with a goose down comforter. 

Your wooden room will have only sliding paper and wood lattice panels for walls, through which you can hear the birds and crickets in the garden and the trickling water from a small stream that flows through it.  You don a warm woolen kimono that is provided for you and go to the dining room, where you kneel on a red silk cushion while the monks bring red-lacquered trays bearing the many colors and shapes of pretty Japanese porcelain. Each holds a delicious small serving of wonderfully scented, formed and textured vegetarian cuisine, accompanied by a steaming bowl of rice and a bowl of delectable miso soup. As you use your chopsticks to partake of this delicious meal, you look around to enjoy the beautifully painted sliding paper panels that form the walls of the room.  After dinner, you may stroll around the monastery, enjoy the garden of lush semi-tropical plants and trees, listen to the waterfall, then return to your room for an early bedtime. 

Morning begins at dawn with a single resounding sound from the temple gong. It’s optional, but most people get up, put on their woolen kimonos and head downstairs to the monastery temple. As your eyes get accustomed to the dim light, you begin to notice the many small gold symbolic ornaments that decorate the candle chandeliers, reflecting the candle light. The colorful painted scrolls hanging on the walls and the multi-colored banners that hang from the ceiling at each corner of the room attract your attention. You get used to the incense wafting from the altar, as the abbot and the eldest monk begin a rhythmic, sometimes melodic chanting of the Buddhist scriptures, occasionally punctuated by the soft sound of a bell. 

Everyone sits on the floor, but given the chilly morning temperature, how thoughtful of the monastery staff to provide a heated rug on which you sit!  After breakfast in the dining room, kneeling on silk cushions, people slowly and reluctantly gather their belongings and head for the bus, parked just outside the temple gate.  No one wants to leave, and there are many hurried returns to the central courtyard garden for just one more photo before finally stepping into one’s own shoes and the feeling that one is returning to the real world.

Places to See

Then travel across the Japanese countryside, passing ancient so-called samurai farm houses with their thatched roofs and tall, crossed end beams, all surrounded by beautiful gardens of carefully shaped trees that have had the attention of several generations of families. Pass recently harvested rice fields, with the rice straw artistically hung on racks for drying and laid out in intricate and beautiful designs. As the bus climbs a mountain road, look out across the farmland and see black-barked persimmon trees, hanging with bright orange globes of fruit, waiting for the first frost to make them a bit sweeter before they are harvested. Stop at a farmers' market to taste dried persimmons, dried kumquats and  freshly picked sweet apples. See (you probably won’t want to taste) tiny dried fish and even smaller dried shrimp. Approach hilltop Himeji (White Heron) Castle, Its many upturned eaves make this white feudal castle look indeed as if it were about to fly up into the sky.

Tour some of the many extensive temple gardens in Kyoto. Climb the wide stone steps to visit 1,200-year-old Kiyomizu Temple, then shop for the area’s famous pottery while strolling down winding stone-stepped lanes flanked with tea shops and 700-year-old bonsai trees communing with the sun on the doorsteps of family homes.  Visit colorful Heian Jingu Shinto Shrine, buy a fortune-telling token and take it with you if it’s good or tie it to a temple tree if it's bad!  Stroll through the lovely moss gardens to see The Golden Pavilion, completely covered with gold leaf. Walk on the “nightingale floors” of 17^th- century Nijo Castle, then marvel at the 1,001 statues of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy at Sanjusangendo Temple. Make paper from mulberry trees, try your hand at doing calligraphy with a large brush, visit a private home to participate in the tea ceremony and listen to your hostess play the koto.

Arrive in Nara, the 8^th-century capital of Japan, and visit The Great Buddha, one of the largest bronze statues in the world, sitting in the largest wooden building in the world, then stroll around the beautiful temple grounds that surround it. Enjoy the tall pagodas that are scattered throughout Nara’s Old Town. Walk through Nara-koen Park to feed the deer that roam freely here, stop at several ancient temple buildings with beautiful sculptures, painted scrolls and other art treasures of the country. Culminate your adventure with a visit to the Nara National Museum, located in the park.

Later, walk up the long, gradual flight of stone steps and terraces lined with hundreds of stone lanterns and shaded by towering cypress trees to reach Kasuga Taisha Shinto Shrine.  Here, you may be lucky enough to see some families completely dressed in traditional kimonos, come to dedicate their children to the Shinto gods or possibly a wedding. (Funerals are held at Buddhist temples, while weddings and dedication of children tend to take place at Shinto shrines.)

Travel into the countryside near Nara to visit 7^th-century Horyuji Temple, believed to have the oldest religious buildings in the world. Here are housed some of the rarest and most precious treasures of the Japanese nation, including golden sculptures, scroll paintings, colorful mandalas and more. Enjoy the gardens, lovely temple buildings and old, twisted, picturesque pine trees. 

Take the bullet train into Tokyo and see many of the stereotypes that you may have had before arriving in Japan – the wide boulevards filled with traffic; animated neon signs everywhere that light up the sky for miles around each night; an occasional geisha with white-face makeup and dressed in a full kimono, complete with high wooden shoes; sushi and eel restaurants; canal-side bars hung with lanterns; luxurious department stores with the best of every consumer item the world can produce. But even in Tokyo, as in the rest of Japan, there are hidden quiet places to discover – a small museum of some of the finest ukiyoe paintings; the Tokyo National Museum of national treasures; beautiful parks with fountains and sculptures; Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, both large and small, surrounded by acres of gardens that seasonably feature iris, or azaleas, or water lilies, or cherry blossoms or autumn colored maple leaves.

Travel into the mountains to visit magnificent Toshogu Shrine of the Tokugawa shoguns at Nikko. See The Great Buddha at Kamakura and possibly see Mt. Fuji (weather permitting), then end your visit to Japan with an exciting evening performance at the Kibuki-za Theater in Tokyo. You'll hardly ever have to think about those rules of Japanese etiquette, but you will certainly want to spend lots of time in traditional Japan, experiencing its people and places. You'll always remember meeting the Japanese people and discovering their cultural values of simple beauty, dignity, vigor and quiet good taste.

Cross-Culture Travel with a Difference offers small-group, cultural, special-interest tours and hiking programs in 30 countries, providing in-depth itineraries that include off-the-beaten-track visits and all-inclusive prices.

  Part I