Japan Trip 2019, Day 21: The last hop

Today starts the last hop of our trip. The last hotel stay! The last period of living out of suitcases. We’ll miss Japan, of course, but it is always good to be home too, isn’t it? And, there’s always, with any luck, another time.

Last hurrah in Niigata

First though, there’s a bit more of Niigata, as we decided to get up early and do some final Niigata sightseeing before catching our 11:19 shinkansen. We ended up walking, according to Len’s Fitbit, some 10,000 steps before 10am!

Bandai Bridge

We had a little agenda, starting with the Bandai Bridge, which crosses Niigata’s Shinano River. This bridge was constructed in 1929, and was designated as a nationally Important Cultural Property in July 2004. (I haven’t always named these important cultural properties when we’ve seen them, but we’ve seen quite a few.) Anyhow, the bridge is a lovely, understated stone six-arch bridge (that is hard to photograph!) We looked and then we crossed, because our next stop was on the other side.

Manga and Furumachi-Dori

You may remember the Niigata’s Seven Lucky Gods, from earlier posts? Well, today, it was the seven life-size bronze statues of baseball characters created by Niigata-born manga artist Shinji Mizushima, because we couldn’t leave Niigata without at least touching its manga/anime culture, could we? Shinji Mizushima created numerous well-known characters, including Dokaben and Abu-san (for those of you who are interested in such things). Seven of his baseball characters are arranged along Furumachi-dori Avenue in central Niigata. You might wonder about the fact that (again) there are seven. Seven is a lucky number in Japan (whereas four and nine are not.) On our first trip here in 2006, we were surprised to see items, like dinner settings for example, being sold in sets of 5 not 4 or 6. Five seemed a strange number to us Westerners who tend to think, mostly I’d say, in even numbers. We soon discovered that 4, in Japan, is associated with death, because of its pronunciation.

This is all very interesting, but we nearly didn’t make it, as it was a bit of a challenge to find. Heard that before? It was not marked on the tourist guides we had, and the address given was not a street number but a “section” number in the mall part of what is, actually, rather a long street. It was, as I assumed, having worked out it wasn’t near the Niigata Manga Museum, near the Manga College, but we all know where assumptions have taken us in the past, so we didn’t rely on assumptions this time. However, we decided to head to that section of Forumachi-Dori and take it from there. And eventually we found the statues, in the mall “section” that contains the Manga College! They were worth finding – even for non-Manga readers like us.

After checking out these statues, we walked back towards the station via Yachiyo Bridge, which I rather liked for its little regularly placed decorative insets in the railings – another example of Japanese attention to detail and interest in design.

Tsurui Museum

Yes, readers, we actually got there. It wasn’t cheap at Y5OO for one largish exhibition room, but it was a beautiful exhibition nonetheless. The museum is managed by a foundation set up in 1983 with an endowment from Niigata businessman Eikichi Tsurui, who collected Japanese art. The museum specialises in Japanese painting and ceramic art, and the exhibition that opened today was a beautiful ceramic one featuring the work of Kenji Tomimoto and seven (!) ceramicists influenced by him. We were particularly impressed by some gorgeous ceramic boxes – the precision required to make them work, let alone their gorgeous designs – and learnt a new word for flowers with four petals, quartrepetalus!

I enjoyed seeing the two – that is, his works set against those of his followers. You could see the influence, and yet you could also see a more modern aesthetic in the followers.

Mito

You would be forgiven for asking “why Mito”, particularly given it’s apparently no 110 on Japan’s 201 most visited places! (Remember that point about Japan and numbering and ranking?) In my final post for the blog, I plan to talk a bit about how our itinerary came about, but Mito does have one big claim to fame: it has one of Japan’s top three treasure gardens, Kairakuen. That’s reason enough, for us, to come here. However, like most places, Mito has other treasures. Just because they are not the ones everyone is talking about, doesn’t mean they are not worth seeing. At least, that’s our belief. You can be the judge, after we’ve written about them!

Today, though, we just did a little local reconnaissance. We didn’t arrive in Mito until after 3pm, and we needed to check in, of course. We did so, and then, a few minutes after we got to our room, reception called and offered us a room with a view, at the same price. Yes thanks … It’s much better to look at Mito’s teeny canal-like Naka River than at another high-rise. Presumably, they decided to take pity on us given we are spending four nights here. (It was to be three nights, with one final night in Tokyo, but early in our trip we decided that it would be more sensible to go to Narita airport from here than overnight in Tokyo.)

Anyhow, we then set off exploring. We caught a few of their – lovely, in fact – manhole covers, and the famous sculpture at the station, the Komon statue featuring Mito Komon (centre), and his body-guards I believe, Suke-san and Kaku-san. We identified some breakfast places, bought some freshly roasted chestnuts (yum) from a street vendor, and also mapped out a bit of a plan for tomorrow. The forecast is for an inclement sort of day – so we’ve made a plan that can be adjusted depending on how inclement it is. (Kairakuen will wait until Wednesday which is supposed to be a lovely day.)

For dinner, we found a place amongst many in the station complex and enjoyed being able to pick and choose some dishes, rather than be pushed down the set option, which we just didn’t need tonight.

And some Stills …

And some Movies …

Click here to view today’s video clips

Today’s Challenges …

• Finding the manga statue section on Furumachi-dori!
• Trying, not always successfully, to avoid smokers (though this is a daily challenge.)