29. Kamakura

Another day trip took us to Kamakura and Hase. Kamakura is historically important, but I didn't like it as much as some of the other historical centres like Nikko and Nara. I think Kamakura is too close to Tokyo, so it feels more suburban and was lacking the natural setting for most of its sights. It has lots of historical temples, but they're scattered around the city and we had to walk through too much suburbia between temples, so it breaks the illusion of being back in time, although the ladies at left helpfully wore kimonos to try to bridge the gap for us.

While the emperor and his court were firmly ensconced in Kyoto, the shoguns almost always held actual power. The Fujiwara, who you may remember from the Nara discussion, were the first shogun family, but as their power waned, a huge civil war between two rival families, the Minamoto and the Taira raged throughout the country during the 12th century. When the Minamoto emerged victorious, they made their base in Kamakura, which became the de facto capital until 1333. None of the palaces and castles remain, but there are plenty of temples to while away the day.

Nikko was considered a sacred site for many centuries before the great warlord Shogun Ieyasu decided to build his memorial shrine there. Ieyasu was famous for ending a particularly violent, century long civil war among rival warlords and uniting the country under his control. Although he was buried there in 1616 when he died, his grandsom, Iemetsu really went to town on the place, building the most lavish complex in Japan, and adding his own shrine there as well, which outshines grandpa. The buildings undeniably have a big wow factor, although, like the Rococo period in Europe, lots of people think it's a bit over the top. Personally I think it's a lot of fun, but I really like the setting, in the mountains surrounded by ancient, soaring cedars, is the best part.

25. Himeji

I just had a complaint about the formatting of the posts (which I agree with), which is that often the pictures mash the words into narrow gaps that make it hard to read. My only controls on the pictures are whether to align them left or right, and I usually choose one of each, which I think sometimes drives the words into a narrow column in the middle. I'm now going to try left aligning both pics to see if that helps, but I think I'm going to end up with big white spaces instead. It also looks totally different on different monitors depending on screen size, so there seems to be very little I can do to control the aesthetics here, but if anyone has any ideas please help! Back to the gripping narrative...

On our last day staying in Kyoto we took another short train ride to Himeji, which has probably the most impressive castle remaining in Japan. It was built by the shogun around 1600 to reinforce his control over rebellious nobles. This was the first castle (as opposed to palace or other residential buildings) I've seen outside the West, so I was quite surprised at the differences. When you see a Western castle, it's very easy to picture the fighting, with crenellated rooftops allowing soldiers to shoot down on attackers, and slits in the walls for archers to shoot their arrows etc. I really couldn't figure out how this castle worked. It was awe-inspiring, perched on a cliff with quite elaborate architecture, but there didn't seem to be any place for doing castle-y things like attacking and defending. There were gates you'd have to get through and narrow passages you'd have to navigate up to the castle, but once you're there, it seemed like you pretty much just open the door and come in, while the defenders could only look down at you through the windows. I'm sure it functioned better than that, but more importantly, it's quite a unique sight architecturally.

Ginaku-ji was built as a retirement home for a retiring Shogun in the 1400's. At the time, the shoguns were based in Kamakura, but Kyoto has always been the religious and cultural capital of Japan (as well as the home of the mostly irrelevant emperor). So like most old people, he wanted to retire in a place where he could pray and do arts and crafts. He devoted his post-warlord years to moon-gazing and perfecting the art of the aforementioned tea ceremony, which I would imagine he became pretty good at after a few decades of full-time practice. The complex was built with special areas constructed for his moon gazing and tea making hobbies. I think that's a very Japanese way for warlords to retire. After he died, it became a Buddhist temple, which is what it remains today.

Oops, looks like I've overcompensated as I'm running out of pics of Niji-jo and haven't started the commentary. Well I should start the commentary with a little blurb about the history of Japan but I'll do that later since I have tons of photos of temples, which is really what Kyoto is famous for, and I'll probably run out of accompanying words fast. So very briefly, Kyoto was the capital of Japan pretty much forever, well, from around 800 AD to 1850 AD, when it moved to Tokyo. The whole of Japan's history is pretty much a power struggle between the imperial family and the shogun, who was the leader of the samurai warriors and something like a military dictator. Generally the emperor played around at court in Kyoto while the shogun actually ran things in various other cities, but in the 17th century he plopped this palace down near the imperial palace just to further intimidate the emperor. It's not a great place to start a tour of Kyoto because the architecture is quite different from the rest of the historical sights, which are all very delicate and refined, while this is more a military outpost from Tokyo. Couldn't take photos inside, but you'd be amazed if you're familiar with European palaces, this is uber-Zen, very minimalist and frankly uncomfortable looking. But apparently the shogun only came here three or four times in the hundreds of years he had this place as his Kyoto crash pad, usually to force the emperor to pay a visit to him and show the country who the real power was.