History Archives - 4corners7seas

Life in Taipei: the old city wall

Beimen, the North Gate of the old Taipei city wall

Taipei was only founded in the late 1800s when Taiwan was part of the Qing Empire, and the city walls were pulled down a short time later in the early 1900s when Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. The Japanese administration did this to make way for the wide boulevards which are still there today, but they left 4 of the original 5 gates standing.

Those 5 gates were Beimen (North Gate), Ximen (West Gate), Dongmen (East Gate), Nanmen (South Gate) and Xiaonanmen (Little South Gate). Ximen was the gate that fell victim to Japan’s road building, while Beimen is the only one still standing in its original form today – the others were redesigned during Chiang Kai Shek’s dictatorship in the same style as the National Palace Museum.

Beimen

If you’re curious to see a piece of the old Taipei city wall, Beimen is definitely the one to check out – both because it’s the only original gate, and also because it’s the only one not standing in the middle of a major road. A main road still passes right in front of it, but the area immediately around the gate itself is a reasonably pleasant pedestrian space:

North Gate is a short walk from Beimen Station (the station being named for the gate) and also easily walkable from Taipei Main Station.

Here’s an old-school Japanese postcard showing Beimen back in the day.

Ximen

Although the gate is long gone, Ximen is one of the main shopping & entertainment districts in the city and a place that most visitors will either stay in or at least spend an afternoon or evening hanging out in. This small model of the gate is on the east side of the main intersection above the station:

While over on the southwest side of the same intersection (near exit 1) there’s this scale model of the Taipei city wall with its 5 gates:

Scale model in Ximen of the old Taipei city walls

As well as this random statue of a Qing dynasty dude clutching a coffee:

Dongmen, Nanmen, and Xiaonanmen

The other 3 gates stand in the middle of busy roads and so aren’t really places to linger. They were remodelled by Chiang Kai Shek in the 1950s to look like this:

The south & east gates are both a short walk from Liberty Square though (where Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall is located) so if you’re interested you can easily go for a quick look when you visit Liberty Square. Dongmen stands in the roundabout at the northwest corner of Liberty Square, while Nanmen is just round the corner from the southwest corner of the square and just over the road from exit 7 of Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall Station.

Dongmen is just north of this big white gate at the western end of Liberty Square:

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Liberty Square, Taipei

Xiaonanmen, like Beimen, has a subway station named after it; the gate’s about 100m west of exit 1 of Xiaonanmen Station. There isn’t much else of interest in the immediate vicinity though, so there’s little reason to head to Xiaonanmen unless (like me) you’re a nerd and want to go see all the gates.

Note that there’s also a subway station called Dongmen Station, but it isn’t very close to the East Gate – it’s actually named for Dongmen Market, which historically was the market beyond the East Gate hence the name (it’s a 15-minute walk from Dongmen Station to the gate).

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For more of my Taiwan posts see here, and see my Taiwan guide here. For more detailed info on Taipei’s gates see this great post

Tokyo’s Controversial Yasukuni Shrine and Yushukan Museum

History, Japan, Tokyo

This isn’t a politics blog. But when I travel I like to learn about the history of the places I visit, and to at least somewhat get a handle on the political landscape. Fact is that politics & history are closely intertwined, and if you travel without paying any attention whatsoever to those things you’re travelling with your eyes half shut. I’ve also always found that the longer I spend in a country, the more I try to understand the politics – and there are some places you simply can’t write about without getting into the political stuff.

One such place is Tokyo’s oh-so-controversial Yasukuni Shrine, and the Yushukan war museum attached to it.

I honestly have to be careful how I write about this place – if any Japanese extreme rightwinger happens across it and takes exception, I’ll be in for all sorts of digital harassment shenanigans (just as a friend of mine was once targeted for writing about Japan’s whaling, despite his articles being very fair & balanced).

Yasukuni Shrine is for the enshrinement of the spirits of all those who die in service to the Emperor, starting from 1868 during the Meiji Period. Naturally that includes millions of Japanese who died fighting in WWII (the total number of souls enshrined is almost 2.5 million) – just as any other nation remembers its war dead, this is how Japan remembers theirs. Seen in that light it’s a somber and poignant place, and it’s a far cry from the lighthearted tourist fun you see at most Japanese shrines & temples – when I say ‘tourist’ here I’m including Japanese domestic tourists, who love to visit the famous shrines & temples of any place they take a trip to. But Yasukuni is different; it really feels like hallowed ground, and if you pull your camera out anywhere near the main altar the security guards will make it very clear you shouldn’t be taking pictures there (as my Canadian ex once experienced). The shrine’s also home to a large number of sakura (cherry blossom) trees, including the representative sakura of Tokyo (the tree by which the city counts the progress of the blossom season); when they bloom it’s a beautiful sight, and the pathways leading to the shrine are lined with food & drink stalls. And yet the mood within the shrine remains sombre – under the blossoms at Yasukuni was where soldiers promised to meet again should they fall in battle.

Which brings me to the other side to Yasukuni – the controversies and the nationalist whitewashing. Included among the millions of enshrined souls at Yasukuni are those of over a thousand war criminals, most controversially the 14 convicted class A war criminals held most directly responsible for the planning & execution of the war, men who were charged and sentenced for a range of severe war crimes – war crimes which remain a sore point in the countries most affected by Japan’s warmongering period. South Korea and especially China feel they’ve never received sufficiently sincere apology for what happened, and the enshrinement at Yasukuni of those sentenced as responsible makes it a political hot potato – the sitting Prime Minister doesn’t usually visit, but when Shinzo Abe did so in 2013 it kicked off another round of recriminations. Fact is that even though it’s by-and-large a shrine to young men sent to die in a war they probably didn’t want and certainly didn’t make happen, a tragedy which it is entirely understandable to commemorate, Yasukuni has become Ground Zero for Japan’s ultra hardline nationalist extremist groups. These are the groups of dickheads who drive around in black vans with loudspeakers yelling at foreigners to leave Japan, and who would like to end democracy and reinstate the old imperial system; on any visit to Yasukuni you’re likely to see a few of them parading around in WWII uniforms with fake guns, and possibly a black van or two parked out front with military insignia flying – I’ve even seen the flag of Manchukuo flying there (Japan’s old colony in northeast China i.e. Manchuria from 1933 to 1945). This guy was hilarious:

I was watching him do some marching drills when the machete on his rifle fell off; I had to stifle my laughter.

For these guys (these dickheads), Yasukuni is at the centre of their nationalist worldview, one in which Japan did nothing wrong in WWII and was victim rather than aggressor, in which Japan didn’t massacre hundreds of thousands in Nanjing (‘only ten thousand’ according to the repulsive Shintaro Ishihara), in which the biowarfare experiments in Harbin never happened, in which the comfort women were willing prostitutes, in which they were liberating SE Asia from Europe rather than taking it as their own domain. To see why, you just need to visit the Yushukan war museum; it lays the victimhood narrative out – Japan was engineered into attacking the US by an unfair American oil embargo (the embargo was actually enacted due to the massacres being committed by Japan in China) – while completely whitewashing the Nanjing ‘incident’. Here’s how the museum describes what happened in Nanjing:

No mention of the estimated 200,000 civilians raped & murdered.

Having been to the memorial in Nanjing, I can say it’s also guilty of being a bit heavy on the propaganda – rather than simply serving the purpose of remembering what happened there, it does seem to be intentionally designed to inspire continuing hatred of the Japanese ‘devils’. So there are certainly issues there too; but nothing as blatant as the Yushukan simply pretending nothing bad happened.

The first thing you see when you step into the foyer of the Yushukan is this locomotive engine:

With this explanation:

No mention of the estimated 100,000 forced Asian labourers and western POWs who died during construction, earning it the Death Railway moniker. This makes clear that the purpose of this museum is not to simply & honestly record what happened, but to present a specific “we did nothing wrong” narrative and thus reinforce a biased view of history.

Years before I ever went to Japan, I’d been up to Kanchanaburi in western Thailand, where you can visit the famous bridge over the River Kwai and even ride a portion of the Death Railway itself:

The bridge over the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand — River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Death Railway Hellfire Pass Memorial, Kanchanaburi, Thailand — Death Railway Hellfire Pass Memorial

There you can also visit the Hellfire Pass Memorial, a beautiful, poignant memorial to those who died there with an informative, matter of fact museum; by comparison, the Yushukan is basically a giant ‘fuck you’.

Having a shrine to commemorate your war dead is one thing, but having an attached museum which whitewashes all these war crimes is quite another. Hence the controversy surrounding the place, and the batshit crazy ultras parading around in their ridiculous WWII cosplay outfits.

So should you visit Yasukuni while you’re in Tokyo? Sure, especially if you’re interested in history or politics. It’s definitely an interesting place, and quite different to any other shrine you’ll visit in Japan; but don’t take the Yushukan at face value.

More Tokyo posts here, and check out my quick guide to Tokyo; for more Japan posts see here

Yokai: the monsters and demons of Japanese folklore

History, Japan

Japanese folklore is a rich tapestry of mischievous spirits, child-eating monsters, and shape-shifting animals, a little knowledge of which can give great insight into the culture when you visit.

Most trips to Japan will involve visiting some (usually many) temples, shrines, castles, and other traditional & historical locations. And on many of those visits, you’ll find yourself taking pictures of statues & masks of cool looking demons & monsters, often without having much idea what they really are – that was certainly the case when I first visited Japan.

When I later went back to live there, my Japanese friends took to calling me ‘tengu’ on account of my big pointy nose. It started when we were in this soba restaurant in Tokyo’s Asakusa district:

So of course I asked them to explain what exactly tengu are, and whether it’s a good thing to be compared to them! Turns out that ‘tengu’ is often used in Japanese to describe someone of a conceited nature, so not usually a good thing to be called – I like to think my friends were being truthful when they said they were only commenting on my physical characteristics and not my arrogant personality…

I was living in Kyoto at the time, and as I looked into the tengu I learned the forest just north of Kyoto is one of their main domains, and a key location in the story of Minamoto-no-Yoshitsune, Japan’s favourite tragic hero. I grew to be fascinated with these Japanese tales of heroes and demons, and eagerly lapped up all the stories I could coax out of friends & students and worked my way through a couple of books of rather dark fairytales – the phrase ‘fairytale ending’ would take on a rather different connotation in Japan!

I guess studying the folklore is a great way to learn about any culture, and it most definitely is in Japan. But when you’re there for the first time, the meanings and significance of much of what you see is easy to miss; so, if you’re visiting Japan and curious about the folklore elements you’ll probably see, here’s a primer.

(Note that the number of yokai (folklore spirits) is absolutely huge – the handful listed here are just the more prominent ones that you’re most likely to encounter. For a more extensive list see Wikipedia)

Tengu 天狗

As noted above, the tengu are long-nosed creatures, and you sometimes see them depicted with a bird’s beak rather than the big nose. They also often have feathered wings, but not always; these birdmen are probably the most famous among Japan’s yokai, and have a series of interesting associations.

In folklore tales the tengu generally play the role of troublemakers and tricksters, playing pranks on Buddhist monks who stray too far into the forest or woodsmen who fail to respect their power; and sometimes they’re shown to be outright dangerous, kidnapping (even eating) young boys who wander off alone without their parents. And yet when the chips are down they seem to fall on the side of the good & honourable, most notably in the tragic tale of Yoshitsune.

When Minamoto-no-Yoshitomo was defeated by Taira-no-Kiyomori, Yoshitomo’s young son Yoshitsune was spared on the condition he was sent to live a life of exile as a Buddhist monk. This turned out to be a big mistake, as the child was sent to Kurama Temple in the mountains north of Kyoto; the forest there is enchanted, the realm of the tengu king Sojobo, and Yoshitsune took to training alone in the forest in order to one day avenge his father.

Painting of Yoshitsune training with the tengu in Kurama — Classical painting of Yoshitsune training with the tengu in Kurama (public domain)

The tengu recognised his noble spirit and purpose, and so rather than kidnapping him they trained him in swordsmanship and military strategy, Sojobo himself overseeing the young warrior’s education. Thus he became the greatest swordsman who ever lived, and when he was ready he descended to Kyoto to begin his quest for vengeance.

There he encountered the man-mountain warrior monk Benkei posted up on Gojo Bridge, on his own personal quest to beat up one thousand swordsmen and take their swords; Yoshitsune was the thousandth to face him, and defeated him in a famous duel on the bridge. Benkei then swore an oath of loyalty, and together they fought and won the Genpei war against the Taira (avenging Yoshitomo in the process) before being betrayed (by Yoshitsune’s jealous half-brother) and eventually dying together in tragic glory.

The rest of the story after the start in Kurama is free of mythological elements (save for Benkei’s dramatic death, the legendary ‘standing death’ in which he was killed by volleys of arrows while guarding Yoshitsune on a castle bridge, dying upright on his feet, stuck full of arrows but never going down and thus continuing to scare the shit out of his opponents for long enough to buy Yoshitsune enough time to perform seppuku and retain his honour), but it’s a good one! (I visited Benkei’s grave in Hiraizumi on this ridiculous journey)

Getting back to the tengu, the word 天狗 literally means ‘heavenly dog’, and is thought to originate from the tiangou in Chinese mythology (written with the same Chinese characters); however, the Chinese tiangou is a fiery beast (and a harbinger of ill fortune) so is rather different from the Japanese version.

The Japanese tengu with their long noses or beaks and wings are clearly birdmen rather than dogmen. They also usually have red skin, for some reason I’ve never been able to work out.

Additionally, they’re associated with Yamabushi, mountain ascetics who still today practise some seriously hardcore training rituals (like the kaihogyo of the so-called marathon monks on Mt Hiei). The tengu are guardian spirits of the forests and mountains, hence the association, and in some stories they assume the form of Yamabushi and only reveal their true nature in the story’s dramatic climax. Note how they’re often depicted in Yamabushi robes.

The fantasy film 47 Ronin featured a battle scene between Keanu Reeves’ character and a group of tengu, though I wasn’t too keen on the portrayal:

The same movie features a battle scene with a kirin (see below), and the main antagonist is a kitsune (see bottom) who also shapeshifts into a dragon for the final battle:

It’s a pretty poor movie, but the visuals are good and you get to see a bunch of Japanese mythological creatures in action.

Of all the yokai in Japanese folklore, the tengu are for sure my personal favourites. If you spend any time at all in Japan you’ll almost certainly see them, as masks on restaurant walls or statues at temples and even train stations:

Kyoto and Tokyo both have nice hikes in areas famous for tengu – in Kyoto there’s the Kurama to Kibune hike (of Yoshitsune fame), and in Tokyo the most popular hike in the city is Mt Takao.

Kirin 麒麟

Easily mistaken for dragons, kirin are dragon-like creatures distinguishable by their antlers and hooves (the kirin is the Japanese version of the qilin in Chinese mythology).

Nihombashi Bridge (the “mile zero” point from which distances from Tokyo were traditionally measured) in central Tokyo is home to the most famous kirin statues in the country:

Although an even better known depiction is that on the label of Kirin Ichiban beer:

There was also a kirin fight in 47 Ronin:

They made sure to make this one more deer-like than dragon-like, avoiding confusion with the dragon scene later in the film.

(The scene also briefly depicts the witch in her white kitsune form)

Fujin 風神 & Raijin 雷神

A screen painting at Kenninji temple of Fujin and Raijin, the wind and thunder gods — The famous screen painting of Fujin & Raijin at Kyoto’s Kenninji temple

Although these guys aren’t actually yokai at all (rather, they’re gods and thus belong to the realms of serious religion rather than folklore), I’m including them on this list because you’re likely to see them while visiting temples and wonder what they are.

Fujin & Raijin are the wind (fu) and lightning (rai) gods, of great importance as both protectors and destroyers. When angered they punish Japan with typhoons, yet they also fertilise the crops and saved Japan from invasion in the 13th Century by sinking the Mongol fleets (which is the root of the word kamikaze, ‘divine wind’).

They’re sometimes seen standing guard on either side of Japanese Buddhist temple gates – this role is usually performed by the Nio (see below), but at Tokyo’s Senso-ji temple (the famous one in Asakusa) you’ll see Fujin & Raijin at the Kaminarimon (雷門, Thunder Gate), the outer of the two entrance gates:

Raijin also goes by the name Raiden, and will be familiar to fans of the Mortal Kombat games or 80s cheese classic Big Trouble In Little China:

The Nio 仁王

Nio temple guardian, Todai-ji, Nara — Nio at Todai-ji, Nara

Ungyo & Agyo, collectively the Nio, are the two fearsome temple guardians you see standing at the main gates of many Japanese temples. They’re usually portrayed with Agyo bearing his teeth and carrying a weapon while the unarmed Ungyo keeps his mouth closed, though it does vary.

Nio at Koyasan, Wakayama:

Nio at a local temple near my old place:

Kyoto’s Ninnaji:

Osaka’s Isshin-ji has a modern take on its gate & guardians:

When visiting Senso-ji in Asakusa, you see Fujin & Raijin at the outer gate followed by the Nio at the inner gate.

Oni 鬼

Although usually translated as demon, oni are basically ogres; they’re the antagonists of many a fairytale and are frequently invoked to scare misbehaving children.

Usually depicted with blue or red skin and some configuration of horns, they’re always ugly and fierce-looking, though ultimately they’re not considered to be of great power or importance compared to some of the other yokai on this page.

February 3rd is Setsubun-no-hi, when people perform the ritual of mamemaki in which they throw soy beans out of windows while repeating the mantra “oni waaa soto, fuku waaa uchi” – roughly, “oni outside, fortune inside” (in order to bring luck for the year). If you’re in Kyoto on this date, head to Kitano Tenmangu shrine and you’ll find bean-throwing, dancing maiko & geisha, and of course a dude in an oni outfit. It’s a good bit of fun – check out this video (read more from the source here)

If that’s not convenient, a similar event takes place at Heian Jingu shrine.

Up in Akita Prefecture they have a local variation of oni called namahage which go door to door on New Year’s Eve hunting for bad children to punish. As a method for instilling obedience in children it’s a bit like Santa, but instead of not getting any presents you get a big scary monster threatening to eat you. Quite effective, one imagines.

Kappa 河童

Kappa are a bit of an odd one; they’re river-dwelling reptilian humanoids with flat-topped heads, and when they leave the water they must keep the flat bit wet to keep their power – if you’re ever cornered by one, try to trick it into bending over so the water sloshes out and you can escape. They’re blamed for drownings in rivers & lakes and for general mischief around bridges, and their favourite foods are cucumbers and naughty boys.

They don’t feature nearly as frequently in fairytales as tengu do, and while travelling round Japan you’re far less likely to randomly see depictions of kappa than you are of the others on this list.

That said, in certain places they’re prominent, the most famous being the Kappabashi kitchenware district in Tokyo, the town of Tono in Iwate Prefecture, and a bridge called Kappabashi in Kamikochi, Nagano. In the latter case, Kappabashi is written 河童橋 and literally translates as Kappa Bridge (a famous novel about kappa, simply called Kappa, is set in the area).

Tokyo’s Kappabashi is written 合羽橋, with no reference to the mythological creature – however this hasn’t stopped the local businesses from engaging in a little wordplay and adopting the kappa as their mascot. The businesses in question specialise in kitchen & restaurant wares, and are all arranged along one stretch of street near Asakusa. Although it primarily exists to serve the restaurant trade, the area’s also become a popular spot with tourists seeking unusual souvenirs or just looking for something a little different to check out. The plastic food displays you see in restaurant windows can be purchased here (along with things like paper lanterns and Japanese language ‘bathroom’, ‘no smoking’ etc signs) and do make for some pretty cool keepsakes.

Walking along Kappabashi, you’ll see plenty of kappa mascots and cartoon characters, as well as a more serious statue in a recess towards the northern end of the street:

Kappabashi in Nagano is an actual bridge which crosses the Azusa river in Kamikochi, one of the best-known spots in the Japan Alps:

Kitsune 狐 & tanuki 狸

While the kitsune (fox) and tanuki (raccoon dog) are real animals, they have a host of associations in Japanese folklore and are two of the most common statues you’ll see in Japan (particularly in Kansai).

The kitsune is the guardian of Inari, the god of rice & commerce, and as such is frequently seen at Shinto shrines – the most famous examples being the hundreds of foxes at Kyoto’s Fushimi Inari Shrine.

It’s also an animal sometimes depicted with magical powers, including the transmutive ability to take human form – often the form of a wicked & beautiful woman out to bewitch some unsuspecting hero and lead him astray. As noted above, the main antagonist of 47 Ronin (portrayed by the always excellent Rinko Kikuchi) is a shapeshifting witch, seen in the form of a white fox when she summons the kirin.

Meanwhile, the tanuki is depicted in folklore as, simply put, a jovial drunkard with massive testicles. Tanuki statues (with their pots of booze and oversized gonads) are usually seen at entrances to homes & businesses as their large balls are a sign of good financial fortune. They’re particularly common in the Kansai region, the statues mostly being made in Shiga Prefecture. Internationally, Super Mario fans will be familiar with the tanuki suit.

For a detailed explanation of how tanuki came to be associated with oversized genitalia and financial well-being, see this excellent letter response in the Japan Times.

The steps up to Jingo-ji temple in Takao — This fellow’s on the steps up to Jingo-ji in Takao, Kyoto

Oddly, these two animals are used in Japanese to describe a woman’s ‘type’ (mostly with regards physical appearance), with kitsune denoting a sexy or sultry-looking woman and tanuki denoting a cute or bubbly woman. Seems a little inadequate to only have the two categories, but a question often asked of men (by both men & women) is whether they prefer kitsune or tanuki – and given that tanuki usually have enormous scrotums, I’ve never been quite sure what to make of this!

Any questions about Japan’s yokai? Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

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Photo credits: Ato ARAKI (Kaminarimon), Iwao (namahage), Chris Gladis (oni), Mike Reddy (Kamikochi), all used under cc

The Five Grand Palaces of Seoul: which Seoul palaces should you visit?

Architecture, History, Korea

The Five Grand Seoul Palaces of the Joseon Period, along with Jongmyo Shrine, make up the main traditional sightseeing spots in the Korean capital. Although the sites mostly date back to the 1300s – 1500s, the majority of the buildings standing on them today are actually recent reconstructions, as the original structures were destroyed by Japanese invasion (16th Century), and the reconstructions then destroyed by Japanese occupation (20th Century), and repeatedly by fire; the East Palace (Changdeokgung & Changgyeonggung) is the only one with a decent number of surviving pre-20th Century structures (around a third), but the reconstructions have been done well and do look the part.

Throne room at Changgyeonggung palace, Seoul — Throne room at Changgyeonggung

Visiting all five would probably be overkill for most visitors, especially if you’re only in Korea for a short time. On the other hand, you should probably visit at least one or two while you’re in Seoul!

So, which one(s) to visit? Read on below for more detail on each palace, but in a nutshell:

Gyeongbokgung if you want to see the most historically important & physically impressive of the Seoul palaces.

East Palace (Changdeokgung & Changgyeonggung) for genuinely old buildings (rather than modern reconstructions of old buildings), and for the best surrounding gardens.

Deoksugung and/or Gyeonghuigung if you’d prefer to visit smaller palace sites, perhaps combining them with a city stroll.

Changing of the guard at Gyeongbokgung palace, Seoul — Guard ceremony at Gyeongbokgung

Changing of the guard ceremonies are held at the gates of Gyeongbokgung and Deoksugung at various times through the day (see below for times).

Some of the palaces are famous for cherry blossom viewing in April, namely Gyeongbokgung, Deoksugung, and Changgyeonggung.

(If you wear a hanbok you get free entry to the palaces; this is especially popular with bus tour groups, as well as smaller groups of tourists and locals dressing up for a day out. You can arrange hanbok rental here*)

Gyeongbokgung

The most impressive and expansive of the 5 Seoul palaces, Gyeongbokgung was the original palace (construction began in 1395) and was historically the main seat of royalty, though that moved to Changdeokgung following the Japanese invasions in the late 1500s as Gyeongbokgung wasn’t rebuilt until the 1800s.

The Japanese destroyed it again in the early 20th Century during their occupation of Korea, and most of the present buildings at Gyeongbokgung today only date from the 1990s. The reconstruction is pretty convincing though, and this is the palace to go for if you want to visit the largest and most important of them.

It’s a large site and if you also visit the National Palace Museum and/or the National Folk Museum which both stand on the palace grounds, it’ll take up half a day.

If you want to see the changing of the guard at Gyeongbokgung, you can check the schedule here

Access: Line 3 Gyeongbokgung Station / Line 5 Gwanghwamun Station (take exit 9 and walk north past the King Sejong statue)

Changdeokgung & Changgyeonggung (the East Palace complex)

These two palaces stand back to back, with a gate in the separating wall providing direct access between them; collectively they’re also referred to as Dongwol (East Palace), and though they have separate ticketing (3,000 won for Changdeokgung and 1,000 won for Changgyeonggung) it usually makes sense to visit them both in one go.

Changdeokgung palace, Seoul — Changdeokgung’s main hall

The East Palaces have the most pre-20th Century structures still standing, so if you’re wanting to see some genuinely old palace buildings rather than modern reconstructions, this is where to go (around a third of the buildings you see date from the 1600s-1800s, though are in fact still not the originals – which were also destroyed by the Japanese invasion in the late 1500s).

Changdeokgung is the second oldest of the 5 palaces, was the main one from 1592 – 1868 (between Gyeongbokgung’s first destruction & reconstruction), and is the only one to have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The UNESCO listing is both due to the fair number of surviving older structures, and the way this palace was designed to be in harmony with its surroundings rather than imposed upon them (the Secret Garden in particular).

Changdeokgung’s famous Huwon (‘Secret Garden’) can usually only be visited on a guided tour (the ticket for this is an extra 5,000 won – if you get the all palaces combination ticket (see entry fee info at bottom of page) it also includes the Secret Garden). The guides are really good and the tour takes around 90 minutes, but if you prefer to wander freely you can do so on ‘Culture Day’ on the last Wednesday of every month, when the palaces all have free entry; it’s still 5,000 for the Secret Garden, but without the requirement to join a tour.

The Secret Garden isn’t just a pretty garden, it’s actually like an entire additional palace complex with various buildings and pavilions standing in beautifully landscaped surroundings; the entry fee may seem steep, but it’s definitely worth it if you’re there during the spring blossoms or autumn colours:

Acess: Line 3 Anguk Station, walk 5 minutes east

Changgyeonggung palace, Seoul — Changgyeonggung’s entrance gate

Changgyeonggung is notable for the large grounds it stands on, with beautiful landscaped gardens renowned for their spring blossoms and autumn colours.

Full bloom at Changgyeonggung palace — Changgyeonggung is a renowned cherry blossom spot

Autumn colours at Seoul’s palaces — …and also a famous autumn colour spot

Nice in winter too:

Access: Line 4 Hyehwa Station, walk 5 minutes west

Deoksugung & Gyeonghuigung

These two palaces are much smaller than the above three, so if you’re not really into palaces but feel like you ought to see one while you’re in the country, you should find one of these two nice and manageable!

Deoksugung palace, Seoul — Deoksugung’s main hall

They’re also located quite near one another, with an attractive tree- & sculpture-lined walled road connecting them, and there’s a good museum at Gyeonghuigung, so you can easily combine the two palaces with the museum and a bit of a city walk for a cultural half-day which isn’t too heavy on the palaces.

Roof detail at Deoksugung palace — Roof detail at Deoksugung

Deoksugung is located right outside City Hall Station (Line 1 exit 2, or Line 2 exit 12 and head north), and historically served mostly as an auxiliary palace. It wasn’t as badly destroyed as Gyeongbokgung and Gyeonghuigung, so you do see a few pre-occupation structures alongside the modern reconstructions.

It’s also notable architecturally for being the only Korean palace with some western-style buildings (dating to the early 20th Century). Deoksugung is a popular cherry blossom spot too.

You can see the changing of the guard at Deoksugung at 11:00, 14:00, and 15.30 daily (except Mondays)

Gyeonghuigung palace, Seoul — Gyeonghuigung, with Inwangsan behind

Gyeonghuigung is the youngest of the Seoul palaces, having been first built as a secondary palace in the 1600s i.e. after the Japanese invasions which wrecked the other original palaces. However it was badly damaged by fire in the 1800s, and then the Japanese occupation finished the job off in the early 1900s.

The reconstruction standing at Gyeonghuigung today is entirely modern and is also much smaller than the original palace, so this site has the least historical authenticity of the five. It’s still an attractive place though, and the Seoul Museum of History stands on its grounds; the palace and museum taken together are worthwhile, and can easily be visited in conjunction with nearby Deoksugung.

Access: halfway between Seodaemun & Gwanghwamun stations (Line 5) on Saemunan-ro (the main road between the stations), a 5-minute walk from each.

Deoksugung & Gyeonghuigung walking route

After visiting Deoksugung, turn right out of the gate and immediately right again, then follow the road up alongside Deoksugung’s outer wall, going straight ahead at the little roundabout behind the palace. This road has various sculptures and a number of decent eateries and cafes (at the start near Deoksugung and again at the top where it meets the main road) where you can make a pit stop; when you get to the main road, cross over and head right a few more minutes to Gyeonghuigung.

The road from Deoksugung to Gyeonghuigung — Family of squashed statues behind Deoksugung

Jongmyo Shrine

The Jongmyo Shrine was founded around the same time as Gyeongbokgung Palace the late 1300s, and was similarly destroyed in the invasions of the late 1500s. It was rebuilt in the 1600s, and has largely survived intact since then.

The shrine’s purpose was memorial of the Joseon kings & queens through Confucian rituals, with each king & queen’s spirit housed in spirit tablets upon their deaths. Annual rituals are still held today, on the first Sunday in May.

If you’re keen to learn about traditional Korean culture & beliefs, you’ll pick up more at Jongmyo Shrine than at the palaces, not least thanks to the guides – entry is usually only by guided tour (included in the entrance fee), the exception being Saturdays when visitors are free to roam. Tours begin at set intervals through the day, with English, Chinese, and Japanese language tours available (in addition to Korean), and the guides are very knowledgeable about both the shrine itself and Korean history generally.

Even if you’re not a big history buff, the shrine’s nice to visit because the buildings are hundreds of years old, and it has a peaceful atmosphere rather than the crowds at the palaces. (If you’re really not keen on a guided tour, just visit on Saturday)

Access: just east of Jongno 3-ga Station (Lines 1 & 3)

Entry Fees

Gyeongbokgung: 3,000 won
Changdeokgung: 3,000 won (plus 5,000 for the Secret Garden)
Changgyeonggung: 1,000 won
Deoksugung: 1,000 won
Gyeonghuigung: free (there’s no ticket gate; it’s more like a public park)
Jongmyo Shrine: 1,000 won

Culture Day: the last Wednesday of every month is ‘Culture Day’, when you can enter any of the palaces free of charge. It still costs 5,000 to enter the Secret Garden, but entry isn’t limited to the usual fixed tour times so you can just buy the ticket and wander at your own leisure (guided tours do still run at the normal times if you’d prefer to have a guide).

Combination ticket: for 10,000 won you can get a combo ticket covering all of the above (including the Secret Garden), valid for one month. The combination ticket is available from the regular ticket windows at each site.

Remember, entry to the palaces is free if you wear a hanbok*

Opening Hours

The sites all open at 9am, and close between 5pm-6:30pm depending on the season (earlier in winter), with last admissions 30-60 minutes before closing. The exception is Deoksugung, which closes at 9pm (last admission 8pm).

(Jongmyo Shrine is usually only entered on guided tours; the guides are great, but if you want to wander the shrine freely you can do so on Saturdays only)

Closed days

Monday: East Palace complex, Deoksugung

Tuesday: Gyeongbokgung, Jongmyo Shrine

Have you been to any of the Seoul palaces? Any questions? Give me a shout below!

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Viewing the Disputed Kuril Islands from the Shiretoko Peninsula

History, Hokkaido, Japan, Russia

View from the road over the Shiretoko Pass — View going over the Shiretoko Pass (note the snow – it was June!)

Hokkaido’s remote Shiretoko Peninsula in the far northeastern corner of Japan was a place I’d wanted to go ever since I spent a ski season in Sapporo. At the time I’d made a trip out that way to Abashiri (famous for its once-notorious prison) and taken an ice-breaker cruise out on the frozen Sea of Okhotsk, but the Shiretoko Peninsula is largely closed off in winter so I hadn’t been able to visit.

It was a neat little trip anyway, the icebreaker cruise in particular:

But having not visited Shiretoko at that time, I wanted to go back to northeast Hokkaido again in summer to see the peninsula, and even more so to catch a glimpse of the controversial Kuril Islands.

This island group, consisting of Kunashiri, Eterofu, Shikotan, and the Habomai Islets, was taken from Japan by the USSR at the end of WWII, and is still claimed by Japan as its Northern Territories.

I’m not getting into the whole history lesson and debate surrounding the rival claims, but history has seen the Kuril Islands (and Sakhalin, directly north of Hokkaido) change hands a number of times – you can read a full explanation of all the changes of possession here.

For me as a traveller with a close interest in Japan & Russia, these islands have always had a certain allure. I doubt I’ll ever go there due to the effort involved – they’re not off-limits, but due to the lack of regular transportation from the rest of Russia and the absence of any transportation from Hokkaido, they’re quite time-consuming and expensive to get to (they’re administered from Sakhalin, and to get there you have to go via Sakhalin by irregular light aircraft flights or long ferry crossings)

But you can see them easily from Hokkaido’s east coast on clear days – from the Nemuro area’s Nosappu Cape you can see the nearby Habomai Islets and Kunashiri, and from the east side of Shiretoko you can also see Kunashiri.

So, when I was leaving Japan a couple of years ago and thinking that I may never be back, or at least not for a long time (incorrectly – I’m tapping this out on my iPhone while sat on the bank of the Kamo River in Kyoto!), I finally made the trip up to Shiretoko.

It’s a pretty long way from Tokyo – I broke the journey with a visit to Sendai & Ishinomaki (where I’d volunteered after the 2011 tsunami) to see friends and see how the reconstruction was going, and then took the overnight ferry from there to Hokkaido and finally a 7-hour train across Hokkaido to the town of Shiretoko Shari.

The road to Utoro on the Shiretoko Peninsula — Beautiful weather for the ride up to Utoro

This town is a short bus ride (one hour) from the peninsula’s main town of Utoro, and is the closest you can get by train. If you’re keen to properly explore Shiretoko, it’s better to stay on the peninsula itself in Utoro (west coast) or Rausu (east coast); but I was rushing it and decided to base myself in Shari for 2 nights and just make a day trip over to Rausu from there.

The bus schedules for this (changing in Utoro) gave me half a day in Rausu; I was hoping to jump on a whale watching cruise (pods of orcas are frequently seen), but the schedule doesn’t work – if you want to whale watch, you need to stay in Rausu at least one night or Utoro for 2 nights (you can do it as a day trip from there, but not Shari).

So with whale watching out, I simply hiked up to the Rausu Kunashiri Observatory to try and catch a glimpse of Kunashiri. It wasn’t looking promising, with a dense fog rolling in off the sea; conditions on the west coast were clear that morning and the views were lovely going over the Shiretoko Pass, but on the east side Rausu was completely enveloped. There was little for it though other than to hike to the viewpoint anyway and hope to see something.

Rausu, Shiretoko — Looking down on foggy Rausu

It takes about 45 minutes to hike up the road from Rausu’s main street, I’m not sure if there’s a hiking trail but the road’s fine (it’s just an access road, so very few cars). Perhaps halfway up I heard the thrashing and crashing of something big coming up through the undergrowth on the slope next to the road… as Shiretoko is serious bear country, home to enormous Ussuri bears as well as the slightly less massive Asian black bear, I cacked my pants and legged it away up the road before it emerged (bear attacks are increasingly an issue in Japan). Looking back, I watched and breathed a sigh of relief as a deer hopped over the crash barrier onto the road; she froze when she saw me, and as I was slowly pulling out my camera and framing the shot, she bolted back the way she’d come.

Feeling bad for her wasted effort, I continued on up to the observatory, where I gazed out over an empty void, an impenetrable sea of fog. Quite funny really, going all that way to look at Kunashiri and then not be able to see it! Should you also be weird enough to want to visit Shiretoko in order to see the Kurils, I’d advise having a flexible schedule and being ready to stop in Rausu for a few days – foggy conditions are common up there.

So I gave up and entered the observatory’s museum, which gives the history in some detail, stating the basis for Japan’s ongoing claim:

…they also have a bunch of propaganda displays like this (outstanding Engrish fail on the first one):

It’s all pretty interesting if you’re into your history & politics, but what I really wanted was to catch a glimpse of Kunashiri, so I went back up on the roof for as long as I could before needing to head down for the last bus.

And just as I was about to do so, the fog suddenly started shifting, revealing a peak here and a peak there as it rolled by; watching for 10 minutes or so, I got a good look at the overall outline of Kunashiri, though my photos are all terrible with only one point ever visible at a time, and the clouds closing just as fast as they opened. These are the best couple:

So, as you can see, I didn’t see it very clearly at all! But I did see something at least. And I was struck by how close it really is to Hokkaido; you’d be across in twenty minutes with a speedboat, if not for the fact the Russian navy would sink you first!

It really is a case of ‘so near, yet so far’. Given that ten thousand Russians now call Eterofu and Kunashiri their homes of 3 generations and counting, it seems unlikely that they’ll ever be Japanese territory again – there are very few Japanese remaining who ever lived there, and very few who would want to live there now even if they could. The return of the unpopulated Shikotan and Habomai was proposed by Russia some years ago in exchange for Japan dropping its claim to Eterofu and Kunashiri, but this was rejected by Japan. Seems to me that’s the best offer they’ll ever get, though.

Who knows, it may yet happen – if it does I’d expect a regular ferry service would then start from Hokkaido, so perhaps in future it will be possible for travellers to visit these remote Russian-held islands from Hokkaido.

Until such a time, you’ll have to either make do with looking from afar, or actually go and visit them from Sakhalin.

(~~In the summer months, Sakhalin can be reached by ferry from Wakkanai at the northern tip of Hokkaido, see here~~ (update: not any more); there are also daily flights between Sapporo and Sakhalin)

For practical information on visiting Shiretoko, see the Japan Guide page here

Any questions or comments about the Shiretoko Peninsula or the Kuril Islands? Give me a shout below!

With the recent extension of the shinkansen system to Hokkaido, it’s easier than ever to get to Shiretoko overland. Click the banner to pre-order a JR Pass for a 40-dollar saving:

For more posts on Japan, click here; check out my quick guide to Sapporo here

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For my Japan overland travel guide, click here

Life in Taipei: Remnants of the Empire of the Sun

Architecture, History, Japan, Taiwan

As a former resident of Japan who moved to Taipei, it was fascinating to see the Japanese influence on this originally Chinese culture, Taiwan having been colonised by the Qing Empire in the late 1600s and then the Japanese Empire for 50 years from 1895 to 1945; this influence is actually most obviously present in the cuisine (and also if you dig in to the linguistics there are plenty of Japanese loanwords in Taiwanese Mandarin), but there are fewer obvious physical reminders (i.e. Japanese buildings) than you might expect.

A fair number of Japanese buildings are still standing though, some in full use and others just bare remnants; if you keep your eyes open and know what they look like, you’ll spot them here and there.

The Shinto shrines, especially, have by and large not survived, their old torii gates today standing lonely testament to what was once there – as Shinto was used to instil patriotism and loyalty by the colonial power, it was quickly cast off after 1945 as a symbol of imperial control.

This rather forlorn torii is all that remains of Houtong Shrine, on the hill behind the town’s (also abandoned) coal mine:

The abandoned Japanese shrine in Houtong

(Houtong is mostly known these days for being ‘Cat Village’, but it’s also the starting point for a couple of cracking hiking trails up to the former gold mining town of Jiufen)

These two torii stand in Linsen Park in central Taipei’s Zhongshan area, near where I used to live:

I would sometimes run a few laps of the park (the climate in Taipei not usually being favourable for my preferred longer-distance routes), and from what I understood of the information board next to the torii, the Japanese built a fairly large shrine there which attracted a kind of shanty town featuring all sorts of vendors and small businesses operating out of shacks around the shrine’s perimeter. The shrine fell into disrepair after Japanese rule ended, and the shanty town was eventually cleared out and turned into the park you see today; not sure what happened to the people living and doing business there (though I can’t imagine it worked out well for them), but the park provides some welcome green space in the centre of the modern city.

The head Shinto shrine in Taiwan, the Taiwan Grand Shrine, stood on Jiantan Mountain near Shilin Market, on the site now occupied by the Grand Hotel. The best-preserved Japanese shrine in Taiwan is apparently the Taoyuan Shrine, repurposed post-1945 as the Taoyuan Martyr’s Shrine.

The Japanese-built Buddhist temples, on the other hand, have remained mostly in use, what with Taiwan also being a largely Buddhist country; there are a number of Taiwanese temples of the Zen Buddhist sect (Zen is Chan in Mandarin), a sect most strongly associated with Japan. One of these, the Rinzai Zen Temple in Yuanshan, is the most obviously Japanese building I’ve seen in Taiwan (though the original Japanese wooden temple is now tucked away in the middle of a larger compound):

Rinzai Zen temple, Yuanshan, Taipei — The red lanterns are a nice touch of local flair on an otherwise typically Japanese wooden temple hall

Chinese entrance gate to the Japanese Zen temple, Yuanshan, Taipei — The front entrance, very much local in style, hiding the Japanese temple hall within

Contrasting Chinese and Japanese entrance gates to the Rinzai Zen temple in Yuanshan, Taipei — The side entrance has this pair of contrasting gates, the red Taiwanese and wooden Japanese standing side-by-side

Another interesting little spot is this small Buddhist rock shrine, which I visited as part of a hike in the Beitou District – although apparently of Japanese origin, it is these days festooned with Tibetan prayer flags:

Not far from there, in the Xinbeitou hot spring district, there’s a Japanese temple of the Shingon Buddhist sect called Puji Temple (Fusai-ji in Japanese). I visited Puji Temple on the same hike as the above rock shrine, though amusingly I managed to bodge the photo with my fingertip (the joys of iPhone photography…) and didn’t notice till I got home:

The Wikipedia page is only in Chinese (or Japanese), but you can see some fingertip-free pics there! Also see the excellent Spectral Codex blog.

Back in central Taipei, the busy Ximending district, an area known for its shopping and youth culture, is home to the remains of Nishi Honganji Temple (Xiben Yuan in Mandarin), which was the Taiwan branch of Japan’s Jodo Honganji Buddhist sect (the enormous head temple of which is located in Kyoto, just northwest of Kyoto Station). The most prominent feature is the temple bell, on top of a mound next to the main road (Zhonghua Road) a short distance south of Ximen Station:

The temple’s main structure is gone, but some subsidiary buildings still stand and have been renovated. It’s a calm, open public space which contrasts nicely with the cluttered bustle of Ximending; see this page from the Taipei City Government for more information and photos.

The Japanese also constructed a series of European-style administrative buildings in central Taipei, which continue to serve as the homes of various museums, government ministries, etc. This is the same style of architecture that gave rise to, for example, the Amsterdam Station-esque facade of Tokyo Station, a trend in late-19th and early-20th Century Japanese architecture to go for grand European-style buildings as symbols of Japan’s industrialisation and ascendence as a modern world power.

The restored Meiji Era facade of Tokyo Station — Tokyo Station

See the Wikipedia page on Japanese architecture here for more information and examples, and see this neat blog post on examples of this type of architecture still seen in Tokyo today.

This Western-Japanese architectural style was brought to the colonies of Taiwan and Korea (and also Manchukuo i.e. Manchuria / Northeast China) in an effort to modernise and Japanicise them; in Taipei, the Qing-era city walls were torn down (though some gates survive, see here) in favour of the wide boulevards running past the cluster of Japanese-era buildings standing at the heart of Taipei to this day. Following are a few examples.

The Red House, just outside Ximen Station in the Ximending shopping area; originally a market, repurposed as a theatre, and now where most of Taipei’s LGBT venues are located (it was under renovation when I went by with my camera, so I couldn’t get a shot of the main octagonal building which is covered by the scaffolding):

The Presidential Office Building, originally the office of the Japanese Governor-General:

National Taiwan Museum:

The Control Yuan building:

(There are fewer surviving examples in Korea, though a few prominent ones in Seoul are the old Seoul Station, (one side of) City Hall, and the original Bank of Korea building; many more were torn down post-independence, most notably the Japanese Government Building which had intentionally been constructed over part of Gyeongbokgung Palace as a sign of authority. The remaining colonial buildings now have protected status)

You could easily visit Taipei and never notice these buildings, or see them but not realise they were built by the Japanese; but if you’re a bit of a history or architecture geek like me, spotting them can add a little extra interest to your exploration of the city.

Have you been to Taipei? Any comments or questions about the city’s colonial architecture? Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

For more posts on Taipei, click here

For my guide to hiking in Taipei, click here

For my Taiwan overland travel guide, click here