Overnight in Tokyo

I took the shinkansen to Tokyo to meet Pam, who was working there, for a quick visit and a taste of the town. The weather was pretty poor over the two days we had together, so we took it pretty easy. The city is immense, it is not the heights of the buildings that awes you rather it is the sheer number of buildings.


Mt Fuji from the Shinkansen. I am glad we walked up it when there was no snow!


The Ginza shopping district is a quick walk from Tokyo Station. So I decided to walk.The Tokyo International forum was just a few hundred meters from Tokyo Station and virtually on the way so I popped in. It was a spectacular building which connects at the bottom to a subway station and a huge "Bic Camera" electronics shop.


The Tokyo subway looks absolutely daunting but was pretty easy to use. (My guide book told me which stations to get off at. )


Ueno park houses the zoo, european art gallery, Concert hall, Science museum and the National museum. A quick jump from Ginza took me to Ueno station, which is huge. I found a weird escalator at the station. You went up, then across then up again with a big of a flat bit in the middle of the ride.





Parked just outside the Tokyo National Museum was this little truck with a stove running in the back. You can see the flames! I have no idea what or why.


Tokyo National museum is a series of buildings containing items around a certain theme. This is a scan of my entrance ticket


The Hyokeikan is under reconstruction and is empty. I walked through it and it was a bit boring.


The Honkan building was the most interesting, as it contained the Japanese pieces. There was little explanation of the pieces and it was more like an art gallery than a museum.


The highlight for me was an amazing series of about 20 Ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Toshusai Sharaku. An interesting on-line museum of Ukiyo-e is sponsored by NagoyaTV. See here.


That evening I met Pam at the hotel

Yasukuni Shrine


Saturday morning we went to Yasukuni Shrine. The Shinto shrine/ war memorial dedicated to over two million war dead, controversially including 12 convinced "War criminals". The shrine also contains the Yushukan museum containing a "revisionist" telling of Japan's military past.


It poured rain as we went to the shrine but for me that did not take away from the emotional feeling that the shrine conjured. For me it was a sad place and a respectful memorial. But I was keen to visit the Yushukan museum.


Yushukan museum ticket.


The locomotive is the first thing you see in the museum


The description of the locomotive. This is the only reference to the Thai-Burma railway in the museum. From an Australian perspective there is no reference to POW's who were forced to work on the railway, something that would not happen in Australia.

The museum itself is well put together with an interesting collection and an engaging spin on world history and well worth a visit. Many of the key stories of WW2 are told a different way, which is to be expected, but it is tightly revisionist and has excluded any information that does not fit its intended story.

How history is told is important. In Australia the History Wars is being played out where a government supported revisionist group is attempting to rewrite the story of European colonisation and denies many of the atrocities against indigenous Australians. In Japan, revisionism is the cause of an ongoing international debate, especially over the content of Japanese schoolbooks. One example of this debate, especially in China, are the Nanking atrocities . The Yushukan covers this famous incident where 100,000+ civilians died.

I did not note down the text when I was in the shrine, but someone else has and the following is quoted from Plunge's blog page:

"This is its account of events after Japanese troops surrounded China's then imperial capital, Nanking, in December 1937: "General Matsui Iwane distributed maps to his men with foreign settlements and safety zones marked in red ink. Matsui told them to observe military rules and anyone that committed unlawful acts would be severely punished. "He also warned the Chinese troops to surrender but commander-in-chief Tang Shengzhi ignored the warning. Instead, he ordered his men to defend Nanking to the death and then abandoned them. The Chinese were soundly defeated, suffering heavy casualties. Inside the city, residents were once again able to live their lives in peace." .


Contrast the above text with this text from the peace museum in Hiroshima.

19 Dec 2006 - The Asahi Shimbun reports that the Shrine will 'revise' its text on a number of key panels.


European art gallery


After the controversial shrine, we headed back to Ueno park, and this time to the European art gallery, specifically to see an exhibit from Belgium. The Belgium exhibition was great and the main gallery was terrific and contained an exceptional group of impressionist pieces. Again well worth the visit.


The hundreds of umbrella holders outside the Art Gallery.


Toward the end of the day we were tired and just wanted to get home to Nagoya. Back in Ginza we walked past these people queued on the footpath, in the rain to get into the Gucci store. With that thought we went back to our hotel, grabbed our stuff and went home.




May 2007 - Tokyo

We went for another visit to Tokyo as days 5 and 6 of our mothers visit. You can see of the photos here. We went to the Imperial Palace, Shibuya and Harajuku.


Design downloaded from FreeWebTemplates.com
Free web design, web templates, web layouts, and website resources!