On Saturday, I went to Sankeien Garden, a park a little south of Yokohama that houses the oldest pagoda in the region and has period houses from throughout Japanese history. It was located in a part of town that housed all the foreigners in the second half of the 19th century, and there was still a large ganjin presence. Poor Rachel had work to do, so Brett was kind enough to take me.
The park had a lake in the middle, an inner garden and an outer garden. Arched bridges over the lake connected the two to each other. Towards the far side of the inner garden, there was a tall hill with the pagoda at the very top. The colors have changed slowly this year in Japan, so the whole hill was light green with pops of orange where there were particularly precious trees. When I used to fly home for fall break in October, landing in Manchester was almost like descending into a fiery ocean because all the trees would be so bright. I bet the park would be even prettier in a few weeks once the colors change, but it was neat to see the begining of that.
I wanted to cross all the bridges. My favorite two were a bright red bridge that arched over the lake and a massive flat stone that perfectly fit across a stream. We went up the hill to look off the observation deck-- from where we could see the Pacific ocean and Yokohama's many lovely factories. I had some oxygenated water. Oxygen is delicious but I think I prefer lemon flavor.
On another peak of the hill was the pagoda. Around its base, people had made hundreds and hundreds of stacks of small, flat rocks, stacking three or four rocks on top of each other as though paralleling the style of the pagoda. I'm still trying to figure out what this was online. Maybe it was an offering. Maybe one day some parents wanted to take a lot of pictures of the pagoda and their kids got bored so they told them to make a mini-pagoda out of rocks and then lots of other kids thought it was a good idea and then it became the customary thing for kids to do while their parents took pictures of the pagoda.
The houses were all absolutely beautiful. When I go into stores in Japan, I'm overwhelmed by the clutter and the information overload coming from all decorations, but I think when something is intended to be beautiful in Japan, it is elegantly minimalist. If I ever designed my own house, I think I'd want to incorporate a lot of Japanese elements. I love the mats on the floor, the rice paper panel walls, and the tables which stand a foot or two below the floor.
We were allowed to go inside an Edo period house that had belonged to a wealthy samurai family in the Hida region. I was struck by how much social space there was- a huge central audience room for town meetings, a fancy reception room for important visitors, and an entry room about the size of my kitchen and living room combined. In Yokohama nowadays, houses are so small that people rarely entertain guests at home. Population growth, I guess.
We decided to walk back to Minoto Mirai, the "port of the future" about 45 minutes away. It was fun to walk towards, because we could see its lights all the way there. Behind the central park, there's a tall building that Brett calls "the apple wedge" that reminds me of the ship hotel in Dubai. The architects designed Minoto Mirai to look like "the future," and it looks almost eeriely like the UAE from far away.
I've been to Minoto Mirai a couple of times, but don't think I've ever really done it justice here. It's a hard place to describe. It's a futuristic ocean-side shopping mall complex/park/fairground/museum. Its train station is on the bottom floor of one of the malls and the train goes straight through the mall. It's home to one of Japan's biggest "clocks"--giant ferris wheels with huge digital clocks in the center. (I rode it with Saori a few weeks back.) In the daytime, it feels campy and at night, just plain exciting, but it's well enough executed to escape tacky entirely. At this time of year, all its plazas and stairs were covered in perriwinkle lights which were reflected in the fountains.
Somehow, Japan has gotten me in a holiday mood already. I'm blaming it on all the lights. This weekend, we're having a modified-Thanksgiving-in-Japan with the Motoguchis (who gave me my hashi)and some friends from England and New Zealand. I'm attempting to make an apple pie from scratch as well as mashed potatoes. Advice is very much appreciated
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When you say "from scratch," do you mean you're making the pastry, too? If so, the best advice I can give is to roll it out between pieces of saran wrap or wax paper. That way you don't have to keep adding flour to keep the pastry from sticking, and it won't get all dry and crumbly.
A cool thing I've heard you can do with mashed potatoes is roast a head of garlic in the oven for half an hour, then mash that into the potatoes with the butter, milk and salt. I've never tried it, but when I make mashed potatoes the garlic is always too raw-tasting and I think this would help. (Googled instructions: http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001712roasted_garlic.php)
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