Day 1   Arrival in Tokyo
 
Today we arrive in Tokyo and transfer to our hotel. Tokyo is Japan's capital and the country's largest city. Prior to 1868, Tokyo was known as Edo. A small castle town in the 16th century, Edo became Japan's political center in 1603 when Tokugawa Ieyasu established his feudal government there. A few decades later, Edo had grown into one of the world's most populous cities. Overnight in Tokyo. Dinner if required. 
 
Day 2   Meiji Jingu - Autumn Festival
 
This morning we may our way to Harajuku, home of Meiji Jingu, Tokyo's most famous and venerable Shinto shrine. It was opened in 1920 in honour of Emperor and Empress Meiji who were instrumental in opening Japan to the outside world a hundred years ago. Two large torii (the traditional entry gate of a shrine), built of cypress more than 1700 years old and Japan's largest made of wood, give dramatic entrance to the grounds, once the estate of a daimyo lord. The shaded pathway is lined with trees and shrubs, and usually in October/ November many stalls display colourful chrysanthemums in full bloom. During the Meiji Era, people celebrated the birthday of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) by designating it as the nation's Culture Day. This tradition continues to live in modern Japan, with the grand annual month-long celebration centering on Meiji Jingu, the shrine dedicated to him. Later this afternoon we will visit one of the largest Chrysanthemum Festivals in the city at the Asakusa Jinja Kikkaten. If anything remains of the old Tokyo, then Asakusa (pronounced "Ah-sak-sa") is it. This is where you will find Tokyo's oldest and most popular temple, and quaint shops selling boxwood combs, fans, sweet pastries, and other products. Every year in October and November one can find "kiku," chrysanthemum bonsai, trained into shields and rings, and even life-sized dolls constructed of the hardy fall flowers, filling outdoor stalls. Kiku aren't only for show; according to legend, if you drink the dew from a chrysanthemum petal on which four lines of the Kannon sutra has been written, you will live for 1000 years. Not only displayed at larger Festivals, keep your eyes peeled for the impromptu displays of chrysanthemums in train stations and shops. Overnight in Tokyo. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 3   Tokyo - Hakone
 
We enjoy our first Shinkansen, or bullet train, ride today as we head towards Hakone. Wedged between Mt Fuji and the Izu Peninsula, Hakone is a large region encircled by several forested mountains and has a beauty dramatically accented by deep glens and ravines. In the Feudal Era, Hakone was a very important checkpoint that safeguarded the security of Edo (now Tokyo) as the seat of the Shogunate. This onsen (hotpsring bath) area has been popular since the 1500s, when Hideyoshi Toyotomi came here to relax in an open-air bath after the hard fought Battle of Odawara. From the castle town of Odawara we board our first train that takes us into the National Park. Next we board a funicular that will take us to Gora. Later the views from the cable car across to Mount Fuji are stunning. We will also be able to see down into the sulphuric springs of Sounzan from which the hotels take water for their hotspring baths. The entire area of Sounzan smells of sulphurous fumes as these clouds of steam rise from crevasses, and hotsprings bubble out. This evening you will be able to enjoy bathing in these therapeutic waters. One of the highlights today will be our visit to the Hakone Outdoor Museum or Chokoku-no-mori, a beautiful park filled with sculptures by renowned Japanese and international artists such as Rodin, Bourdelle, Moore, Zadkine and Picasso. Tonight we will enjoy a Keiseki-type meal at our hotel. Originally this type of dining was to accompany the tea ceremony and is a feast for both the eyes and the taste buds. You can feel free to wear your yukata, or bathrobe, to the dining room tonight as many of the Japanese do when they stay in these types of hotels. Hakone offers us the opportunity to relax after the pace of Tokyo. NOTE: In order to facilitate our day's journey using trains and public bus transport, your large baggage will be transported to Osaka where it will be waiting for us (this will happen again elsewhere in the tour). Accordingly, it is critical that you pack a light overnight bag with enough things for the next two nights in Hakone. During our tour overall, we will be using a combination of train, subway, taxi, ferry, public bus, and private coach. Public buses will be used for only short distances where there is no need for private coach hire (this helps keep your tour cost down in a country where private coach hire is exhorbitantly expensive), ie to take us from our hotel in Hakone to the festival site and back again, about 20 minutes each way. Elsewhere it may be necessary to use public transport for short hops within cities, or from our hotels to rail stations. Though you will be responsible for your own baggage at these times, most travellers heed our advice to pack lightly and have little to no difficulty. In fact, most passengers feel that this is an excellent way to interact with Japanese people and travel about as they do. Overnight in Hakone. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 4   Hakone Daimyo Goretsu Festival
 
A faithful re-creation of the endless journeys of daimyo lords to the capital at Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa period is staged during the Daimyo Gyoretsu held at Hakone-Yumoto. Hundreds of participants in full samurai and feudal costume turn out at this town, which was a seki sho, barrier gate or way station, along the Old Tokaido Highway, the main road of Edo-period Japan. Iemitsu Tokugawa, the third shogun, instituted a policy called sankin kotai that required daimyo to live half a year in Tokyo with their wives and families, and the other half at home administering to their fiefdoms. This ensured that rebellion would be almost impossible to organize, and that the family of any plotting daimyo would be virtual hostages of the shogun. November 3rd is also Culture Day (bunkano-hi), a national holiday throughout Japan. It was the birthday of the Emperor Meiji, and also the day the present Japanese Constitution was officially announced in 1946. The Order of Culture Awards ceremony for people who are outstanding contributors to Japanese culture and society is held in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on this day, with the Emperor himself presenting the awards to the winners. Overnight in Hakone. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 5   Hakone - Osaka
 
Today we travel by rail to Osaka, Japan's second largest city. Within a short subway hop from our hotel, we will take in a performance of Bunraku Puppet Theatre. Puppetry has a long history in Japan; from as early as the eighth century, wandering puppeteers from the Korean peninsula toured the countryside and were known as kugutsumawashi. Settling in a few areas several centuries later, the puppets came to be used as a means of propitiation at local shrines and puppeteers toured as emissaries of the shrine. In the late 16th Century, the separate arts of joruri recitation and puppetry were brought together creating a new genre, ningyo joruri (later known as ?Bunraku'), and transforming both previously open-air entertainments into a refined theatrical form. In early days of the Takemoto-za, puppets were small and operated by one puppeteer. Then, in 1734, at the suggestion of an innovative puppeteer, three puppeteers were used to man one puppet for the portrayal of Yokambei in The White Fox of Shinoda. Then, two years later, a treasonous character in The Giant Woman was portrayed by a puppet twice the size of the puppets used to date, foreshadowing the switch to puppets of modern-day dimensions. The performance we will be seeing usually begins around 10:00, finishing around 15:00, with three or four programmed 20-minute breaks. The exact timing will be advised by your Tour Leader. Overnight in Osaka. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 6   Osaka
 
Today we travel the short distance to Takarazuka to see a performance by at the renown Takarazuka Theatre Revue (Takarazuka kagekidan), founded in 1913 by Kobayashi Ichizo, the wealthy owner of the Hankyu railroad and deparment store empire. The formation of Takarazuka provided women with the opportunity to appear on stage for the first time in hundreds of years. They had been banished from the public stage since 1629, when the ruling Tokugawa shogunate became unnerved by the "disorderly conduct" and prostitution that dogged popular Kabuki. Founded earlier in the 17th Century by a woman dancer, Okuni of Izumo, the earliest forms of Kabuki featured women in men's roles and men in women's roles. The shogunate replaced women actors with young boys, but this did not help matters much--the male audience was equally interested in them. Eventually, only adult males were allowed to perform Kabuki, leading to the development of onnagata, or male actors who played women on stage. Of particular interest, from an anthropological point of view, is the historical context of Takarazuka, which has always been many things. In one sense, Kobayashi created the Revue as a way to incorporate girls and women into the emergent capitalist system as bona fide actors in their own right, socializing them as discerning consumers. Girls and women would travel to the Revue Theater, located in a resort town outside of Osaka, on the railroad Kobayashi had recently built, and meander through his terminal deparment store on their way to the show. The theater itself was full of stores and restaurants, and the productions further provided audiences with the vicarious experience of exotic cultures, distant geographies, and sumptuous lifestyles. What is a show like? One wouldn't call it profound, reflexive, serious theater, although they've attempted some serious things along with the glitzier revues. It is, not disparagingly, a bit like very competent amateur theater. This "amateur" aspect is actually part of the Revue's founding philosophy. Basically, Kobayashi believed that he was educating women to become Good Wives, Wise Mothers and not professional actors. The Takarazuka school and Revue were conceived as finishing schools--although at least half of all professional actresses in Japan today are Takarazuka music school or Revue graduates. Overnight in Osaka. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 7   Osaka - Koya-san
 
Muslims have Mecca, Christians have Bethlehem, Jews have Jerusalem, and the Japanese have Koya-san. Today we travel by train and bus from Osaka to Wakayama Prefecture, eventually reaching Koya-san, where thousands of Japanese arrive annually in the hope that they will be touched by the spirit of Kobo Daishi, the Buddhist saint whose tomb lies at the top of the mountain. Kobo Daishi is the posthumous name of a monk named Kukai. According to legend, a local kami (spirit), disguised as a hunter, ordered his two hunting dogs, one black and one white, to lead Kukai to this hidden valley in Wakayama. In 816, Kukai duly founded a monastery at the top of Koya-san and made it the headquarters of his Shingon Buddhist sect. By the Edo period there were a thousand temples on the mountain. Today, only 123 remain. Fifty-three of these temples are shukubo, providing lodging for pilgrims and tourists. There are no hotels in this community--the only place we can stay is a temple, a wonderful cross-cultural experience, and a perfect way to immerse oneself in the Buddhist lifestyle. Your room will be tatami (rice straw floor mats) and may include a nice view of a garden. Local Buddhist accolytes will clean your room, make up your futon, and serve your meals. Bathroom facilities are en suite. NOTE: Today our larger bags will be shipped ahead to Kyoto. You must pack an overnight bag for our two nights in Koya-san. Please be aware that it can be quite cold in Koya-san in November (though snow can make the place utterly beautiful!). Overnight Koya-san. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 8   Koya-san
 
You are welcome to attend morning services at the temple where we are staying, usually held before breakfast. After breakfast, we will begin our full day tour of the main temples and cemetery of Koya-san. If you've harboured visions of wooden temples nestled in among the trees whenever you've though of Japan, the sacred mountain of Mt Koya is the place. The atmosphere here is rarified and holy--head-shaven monks, religious, religious chantings at the crack of dawn, the wafting of incense, towering cypress trees, tombs, the early morning mist rising above the tree tops. Koya-san is one of Japan's most sacred places, and the mecca of the Shingon Esoteric sect of Buddhism. With so many temples scattered through the forests, this is one of the best places in Japan to observe temple life firsthand. We will visit the sites of Koya-san at an easy pace in order to absorb the magical atmosphere of this tranquil place. Being here affects everyone in different ways, but visitors are generally awestruck by the sheer number of tombs--in the cemetary over 200,000, the iridescent green moss, the shafts of light streaking through the treetops, the stone lanterns, and the gnarled bark of old cypress trees. Together, they present a dramatic picture representing more than a thousand years of Japanese Buddhist history. This evening, after dark, you may care to take a stroll to the temple of Okunoin, containing the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi, where the stone lanterns (now lit electrically) create a mysterious and powerful effect. Overnight Koya-san. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 9   Koya-san - Kyoto
 
Today we travel to Kyoto by rail. Thankfully, Kyoto's treasures were spared from bombing during WW II, when American scholars persuaded the military to leave this masterpiece of a city alone. Though Kyoto is now a thoroughly modern city, much of its spirit is intact, with over 200 Shinto shrines; 1,600 temples, 30 of which administer to the major sects of Buddhism throughout Japan; three Imperial palaces; nine major museums; and countless classic gardens. We arrive in this fascinating city in the early afternoon. On arrival we will proceed to Fushimi Inari Fire Festival, one of the more important "ohitaki," or rice harvest thanksgiving festivals that typically features offerings, prayers and Shinto dance/music, and prayer stick burning bonfires whereupon about 200,000 goma prayer sticks are burned. A kagura dance is also performed at the same time. Overnight in Kyoto. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 10   Kyoto
 
We have a full day sightseeing in Kyoto. We visit Sanjusangendo Temple, named for the 1001 life-size statues of the Buddhist teacher Kannon. Each statue has subtle differences and has 42 arms each of which are capable of saving 25 worlds. The central statue which dominates the others was carved by the master sculptor Tankei when he was 82 years old. First built in 1164, it was reconstructed in 1266. We visit Heian Shrine, built in 1895 to commemorate the 1,100th anniversary of the founding of the capital. It is a replica to three fifths of the size of the first imperial palace in the ancient capital Heiankyo. Behind it, there is a beautiful go-round style garden with a total area of 30,000 m2 which is well known for the beauty of its weeping cherry trees, Japanese iris, and waterlilies. We continue to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion, and proceed to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavillion, one of Japan's most famous architectural an dhistorical icons. We also visit Ryoan-ji, the famous raked gravel Zen Garden, for which the Zen Buddhists are renowned. The essential dichotomy and harmony of the universe, which lies at the heart of this belief system, is symbolized in these tranquil gardens. This afternoon we attend the Gion Odori traditional dance performance at the Gion Kaikan Theater, held every November and featuring music, dance, and other arts. This section of Kyoto was one of the pleasure quarters approved by the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo Period of Japan. Here 3,000 geisha once trained, lived and worked: however, at present, only a small number of geisha (as few as 300 women) continue to devote their lives to the art of this hidden society. NOTE: In order maintain a certain spontaneity on this day the exact sites visited and their order in the itinerary may vary at the discretion of your Tour Leader. Overnight in Kyoto. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 11   Kyoto - Nikko
 
Today we travel by rail to Nikko. Since the publication of James Clavell's novel Shogun, many people have become familiar with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the real-life powerful Shogun of the 1600's on whom Clavell's fictional shogun was based. Quashing all rebellions and unifying Japan under his leadership, Tokugawa built such a military stronghold that his heirs continued to rule Japan for the next 250 years without serious challenge. Nikko means "sunlight"--an apt description of the way the sun's rays play upon this sumptuous shrine of wood and gold leaf. Overnight Nikko. Japanese style accommodation. Breakfast and dinner.

Day 12   Nikko - Tokyo
 
We spend the whole morning visiting the prima attraction at Nikko, the shrine complex of the Tokugawa Shoguns and nearby temples. The Toshugo Shrine was constructed in Tokugawa's honour in the 17th Century; his remains were laid to rest in a mausoleum. This afternoon we travel to Tokyo, arriving in the afternoon. Overnight in Tokyo. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 13   Tokyo - Kabuki Theatre
 
Today we attend a performance of Kabuki Theatre, a traditional form of Japanese theater. It was founded early in the 17th Century by Okuni, a shrine maiden who brought her unique and lively dance style to the dry river beds of the ancient capital of Kyoto, and over the next 300 years developed into a sophisticated, highly stylized form of theater. Early Kabuki was much different from what is seen today and was comprised mostly of large ensemble dances performed by women. Most of these women acted as prostitutes off stage and finally the government banned women from the stage in an effort to protect public morales, just one in a long history of government restrictions placed on the theater. This ban on women, though, is often seen as a good move because it necessitated the importance of skill over beauty and put more stress on drama than dance, putting Kabuki on the path to become a dramatic art form. Another development was the appearance of onnagata female role specialists; men who play women. Kabuki plays and dances may be about grand historical events or the everyday life of people in the Edo Period (1600-1868). For each play, though, the sets, music, costumes and other factors combine to create the fantastic world of Kabuki. Created around the year 1600, around the same time the English began to form colonies on the American Continent, the history of Kabuki is as long as that of the United States and just as multi-faceted. The performance usually lasts from 11:00 to 16:00 with several breaks. Headsets provide simultaneous translation. Overnight Tokyo. Breakfast and dinner. 
 
Day 14   Departure
 
Departure from Tokyo. NOTE: Those visiting Tokyo for the first time may want to extend their time in the city for further independent sightseeing. Please advise us as soon as possible if you would like us to book flights and extra accommodation accordingly. Breakfast.

10/09