4 PM
A Japanese Inn ?
Sheltered from busy El Camino Real by eight bosky acres of bamboo, pine, koi ponds,
lanterns and statuary, Dinah’s Garden Hotel (4261 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA Tel .
650-493-4495) exudes the serenity and welcome of a Japanese ryokan of the ancient Hokkaido Road. This is no accident. Certain features of Japanese domestic architecture and building practices worked well in California’s climate and lifestyle, where indoor and outdoor spaces are blended. Nisei architects and landscape designers, like Robert Murase and Kenji Imada, were part of the firms who developed the California Mid-Century Modern style you experience at Dinah's.
6 PM
Next to Dinah’s, looking like a Buddhist or Shinto Shrine, Trader Vic’s (4269 El Canino Real, Palo Alto, CA. Tel. 650-849-9800) serves the original Pan-Asian-Fusion cuisine that Oakland’s Victor Jules Bergeron dreamt up before World War II, along with the Mai Tai, the Pupu platter and the Tiki Bar. About as American as Disney Land, it is an important stop, not only as a reminder of our fantasy filled imaginings of Far East, but because after a Mai Tai or two, returning to your room at Dinah’s will require no driving.
Saturday
9 am
An American Breakfast or a Japanese Pastries?
Dinah’s Poolside Grill serves the best breakfast on the Peninsula, next to the pool and surrounded by the gardens. It’s very popular on weekends, so be up early. You could wait until you arrive at Mitsuwa Market and stock up on bean pastries. Your call.
10 am
More than Postcard Shopping
Kinokinuya (685 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose, CA. Tel. 408-252-1300) stocks Japanese language material in a multitude of media: magazines, books, CDs, as well as books in English about Japan, and Japanese authors in translation. There is abundance of “Hello Kitty” and other manifestations of Japanese pop culture, balanced by an artist’s stash of decorative and handmade paper, pens, notebooks, postcards, even airmail envelopes. You can even find postcards of famous Japanese scenes, just in case.
11 am
To market, to market
Next door is Mitsuwa Market. (675 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose, CA. Tel. 408-255-6699) Almost a department store, where generations of Japanese Americans and recent immigrants shop for imported canned and dried food, kitchen utensils, and beauty products, it also stocks fresh produce and fresh ingredients, like seafood and Wagyu beef, and pre-cooked food. Assemble a picnic lunch of sushi, your favorite beverages, rice cracker snacks and Poky, the chocolate covered biscuit sticks that come in many flavors.
Noon
It’s not hard to see why a wealthy San Francisco family, the Stines, chose this location to build their fantasy of Japan, Hakone Estate and Gardens, (21000 Big Basin Way, Saratoga, CA Tel. 408-741-4994) the first residential Japanese garden in the Western Hemisphere. It’s perched on the sides of a steep pine covered canyon that could be mistaken for the interior of Japan. Mrs. Stine was inspired by the Japanese presence at San Francisco’s Panama Pacific Exposition of 1914 -1915, and had the resources to travel to Japan and bring the Emperor’s gardener from Kyoto to consult.
Leave your lunch at the tables in the picnic area and walk up the paths to a half dozen spots meant for contemplating the valley below you, or the reflections in the pond. Japanese gardens are written in that language of symbols that you begin to decipher. Pine trees are long-lived and steadfast. Bamboo grows quickly, and bends with the wind. Cherry and plum bloom fleetingly. Even the carp in the pond denote perserverence.
2 PM
The Gardener
4 pm
In Search of a Bath House
In Japan bathing is an important ritual, whether in natural or man made pools. Prior to World War II, a communal bathhouse was located on Jackson Street in Japantown. Further south, Gilroy Hot Springs was refurbished for the Japanese American community, and later offered as housing for displaced families after WW II. Both are gone now.
A drastic deviation from plan is required. In spite of centuries of mutual mistrust, invasions and wars, much of Japanese culture, for example, religion and ceramics, can be traced to Korea. So I send you to a Korean Spa, Lawrence Health Center, (3545 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA Tel. 408- 243-1177) as a substitute which shares many of the rituals and their rewards. After a thorough self-scrub, plunge into warm, hot and icy pools and sit in dry or wet heat. Then present yourself to the attendant who will pound and scrub you into a state of blissful relaxation.
7 PM
The Tasting Menu of Samurai and their Tea Masters
Kaiseki is the original tasting menu developed 400 years ago for the powerful military rulers of Japan as part of the tea ceremony. Kaygetsu, (325 Sharon Park Drive, Menlo Park, CA Tel. 650-234-1084) in Sharon Park Shopping Center, off Sand Hill Road, serves their versions of this exquisite, seasonal and pricey cuisine to venture capitalists and other modern daimyos, shoguns and emperors. If this is too rich for your blood, other options on Menlo Park's Santa Cruz Avenue and El Camino Real include no less than five excellent sushi places, Yaninaki style BBQ at Juban, and family friendly Gombei and Tokyo Subway.
Sunday
Welcome to Worship
9 AM
In style, the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin (640 North Fifth Street, San Jose, CA (Tel. 408-293-0433) is the only building in Japantown modeled directly on temple architecture in Japan, and was built in 1937 by craftsmen brought from Japan. The Issei had brought the True Essence of the Pure Land, a sect of Buddhism to California. The congregation is welcoming, multicultural and racially diverse. If you can, participate in their Bon dance practices prior to the Obon Odori festival in early July. (I'll be doing just that and reporting on my endeavor to overcome my musical and rhythmic challenges, culminating in performances July 9 and 10th)
11:30
The exterior of the Japanese American Museum, (535 North Fifth Street, San Jose, CA Tel. 408-294-3138) is modeled after rural Japanese farm house. Inside, volunteers guide you through the panorama of photographs and objects that document the establishment of the San Jose’s Japantown in 1890. Note that from its earliest form, Japantown was built with the aim of blending in, acculturating, a process interrupted by World War II. You will see stark photographs of internment camps, and a replica of the Tule Lake barrack room where an entire family lived. Your guide may be a veteran of internment, and most likely you’ll overhear other visitors recount their stories of life in Japantown and the internment camps. The JAMsj can also arrange walking tours of Japantown.
Lunch first, or shopping?
In its two block length Jackson Street features no less than eight restaurants: noodles, sushi, shabu shabu, teriyaki. Making tofu and traditional sweets in small batches, San Jose Tofu and Shuei-Do Manju Shop that draws successive generations of Japanese Americans. They sell out quickly on Sunday mornings when the Farmer’s Market is in session just down the street. You will remember the deep Japanese-Hawaiian connection at Hukilau restaurant and at Na Wa’I Ola Halau, at 565 North Fifth Street where ukele and hula instruction are on offer. Nichi Bei Bussan harks back to an older Japantown, offering everything that belongs in a dry-goods store, including a mechanical cash register. Explore!
4 pm
Lost in Contemplation
End your sojourn by strolling the broad paths that circumnavigate the three ponds, streams and waterfalls set at varying levels in San Jose Japanese Friendship Garden's six acres. (Kelley Park, 1490 Senter Street, San Jose) This space was modeled on San Jose sister city Okayama’s 300 year old Korakuen, originally built for a feudal lord, and considered to be one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan. Sited next to San Jose’s open air history museum, this garden perhaps best symbolizes the long and continued ebb and flow of ideas, things and people across our shared Pacific pond.
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