In 1853 Japan did not have a single kilometre of railway. In 1905 it sank the Russian fleet. Between those two dates a teenage emperor and a group of former samurai dismantled a centuries-old feudal order and copied trains, laws, uniforms and cannon from the West. Twelve stops between the forest planted for the emperor, the first flight, the tomb of the murdered minister, the palace that was too luxurious, the German brick buildings, the balls of the Rokumeikan, the first railway station and the naval academy. Approximate audio duration: 21 minutes.
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Era Meiji: el país que se reinventó entero en una generación
En 1853 Japón no tenía un solo kilómetro de ferrocarril. En 1905 hundió a la flota rusa. Entre esas dos fechas, un emperador adolescente y un grupo de ex samuráis desmontaron un orden feudal de siglos y copiaron de Occidente trenes, leyes, uniformes y cañones. Doce paradas entre el bosque plantado para el emperador, el primer vuelo, la tumba del ministro asesinado, el palacio demasiado lujoso, los edificios de ladrillo alemanes, los bailes del Rokumeikan, la primera estación de tren y la academia naval. Duración aproximada de audio: 21 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~21 min of audio · 12.73 km on foot (~3 h 10 min walking) · about 3 h 45 min in total
Walk under the great wooden torii and listen. In a few steps the noise of Harajuku disappears. You are in a dense forest in the middle of a city of fourteen million people.
This forest looks ancient. It is not. A little over a hundred years ago this was almost bare land. The forest was planted by hand, from 1915, to surround the shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji, who died in 1912.
Some hundred thousand trees arrived, donated from all over Japan and from the territories the empire then controlled. More than a hundred thousand young volunteers worked on it.
The landscape designers made a hund…
2
Sake and Burgundy Wine
On your left, a wall of painted sake barrels, donated by brewers from all over the country. Now look across the path: barrels of French wine, from Burgundy.
The wine barrels are here because Emperor Meiji drank wine. He adopted Western food at court, dressed in European military uniform and cut off the traditional topknot.
Every gesture of his was a political message. In 1872 the government announced that the emperor ate meat, something Buddhism had discouraged for centuries. It was an order disguised as an example.
Samurai had to cut off their topknots. In 1876 carrying swords in public wa…
3
The Emperor No One Had Seen
You are in the courtyard of the main shrine, dedicated to Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. The original buildings burned in a 1945 air raid; these were rebuilt in 1958.
Mutsuhito came to the throne in 1867, aged fourteen. For centuries the emperors had lived shut away in Kyoto, without real power, while the shoguns ruled from Edo.
In 1868 a group of samurai from the southern domains overthrew the shogun in the emperor's name. They called it a restoration: giving him back his power. In practice they ruled, using him as a figurehead.
The young emperor was moved to Tokyo and turned into a sym…
4
The First Flight
You are in Yoyogi Park. Today it is a place of picnics, musicians and dogs. In the early twentieth century it was a parade ground of the imperial army.
Look, near the south entrance, for a small monument. It recalls that on 19 December 1910, over this field, Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa made the first powered aeroplane flight in Japan. He flew about three kilometres in a French machine.
Notice the surname: Tokugawa. He was a descendant of the shoguns' family. Forty years earlier his family ruled the country with swords. Now a Tokugawa was flying for the emperor's army.
That is how the Meiji …
5
The Murdered Minister
You are in Aoyama Cemetery, opened in 1874. It was one of the first public cemeteries in Japan not tied to a Buddhist temple. Another invention of the Meiji era.
Buried here is Okubo Toshimichi, the architect of the reforms. A samurai from Satsuma and a comrade of Saigo Takamori, he travelled through the United States and Europe to study how modern states worked.
Okubo took the hardest decisions: abolishing the feudal domains, cutting the samurai's stipends, creating an army of conscripts. When Saigo rebelled in 1877, Okubo sent the army against his old friend.
On 14 May 1878, on his way to…
6
A Versailles in Tokyo
Look through the railings: a white neo-baroque palace, with columns and green copper roofs. If you did not know where you were, you would say Vienna or Paris. It is the Akasaka Palace.
It was completed in 1909 as the residence of the crown prince. It was designed by Katayama Tokuma, a Japanese architect trained by the Briton Josiah Conder. They used materials and craftsmen from all over the world.
It is the only neo-baroque palace in Japan. It was the ultimate proof: the Japanese could build a European palace as well as the Europeans.
But one detail says it all. According to the story, when…
7
The Imported Laws
Look at this red brick building with slate roofs, among the glass towers of the ministries. It looks as if it has been moved from Germany. In a way, it was.
It was designed by the Berlin architects Hermann Ende and Wilhelm Böckmann and completed in 1895. It was the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice. The 1945 bombs left it in ruins; it was restored in 1994.
The Ministry of Justice looking German was no accident. Japan needed modern legal codes and went to Europe for them: a penal code of French inspiration, a civil code and a constitution with strong German influence.
The aim was to en…
8
The Victory That Enraged Tokyo
You are in Hibiya Park, opened in 1903: Japan's first Western-style park. Before that it had been a military parade ground, and before that, residences of feudal lords.
In September 1905 this park was the scene of a paradox. Japan had just won the war against Russia. It was the first time in the modern era that an Asian power had defeated a European one.
In May, in the Tsushima Strait, Admiral Togo's fleet had almost completely sunk the Russian fleet that had sailed halfway around the world to get there. The whole world was astonished.
But the peace treaty, signed in the United States, did …
9
Dancing to Be Respected
Look, beside the office buildings next to the Imperial Hotel, for a plaque marking the site of the Rokumeikan. Nothing remains of the building. It was demolished in 1940.
The Rokumeikan opened in 1883. It was a large two-storey hall designed by Josiah Conder, the British architect who trained a whole generation of Japanese architects. It had one purpose: to receive foreigners.
The foreign minister, Inoue Kaoru, held balls, banquets and concerts here. Japanese ministers in tailcoats and their wives in corsets and bustles learned to dance waltzes and quadrilles.
The idea was to convince the d…
10
The Brick Street and the Bean Bun
You are at the Ginza crossing, in front of the clock tower of the Wako department store. For more than a century this corner has been the shop window of Japanese modernity.
In 1872 a fire swept through Ginza. The government decided to rebuild it as a showcase for the new age and hired the Irish engineer Thomas Waters. The result was a street of colonnaded brick houses, wide pavements and trees.
In 1874 Tokyo's first gas lamps were lit here. People came from afar to stroll at night under the light. Strolling in Ginza became a habit with its own name: ginbura.
Many Japanese did not actually w…
11
The First Train
This pale stone building, tiny among the skyscrapers of Shiodome, is a replica of the old Shimbashi station. Look at the ground: part of the original platform and the rails are marked beside it.
On 14 October 1872 Japan's first train left from here for Yokohama: twenty-nine kilometres in under an hour. On foot the same journey took almost a day.
Everything was imported. The locomotives came from Britain, the chief engineer was the Briton Edmund Morel, and the first drivers were foreigners too. The loan was raised in London.
The emperor opened the line in person. It is said that some of the …
12
The Warship Academy
You are in Tsukiji. For decades this district's name meant the largest fish market in the world, which operated here until 2018. But in the Meiji era Tsukiji was something else.
In 1869 the new government's naval school was set up in this district, and it stayed here until 1888. In 1873 a Royal Navy mission arrived, led by the officer Archibald Douglas, to teach the cadets.
Britain had the best navy in the world, and Japan decided to copy all of it: the uniforms, the discipline, the ships built in British yards. Many officers trained in England.
One of them was Togo Heihachiro. In 1905, in …
How long does the "The Meiji Era: the Country That Reinvented Itself in One Generation" audio tour take?
It has about 21 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 12.73 km walking route (~3 h 10 min on foot). Plan roughly 3 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "A Manufactured Forest" (coordinates 35.6713, 139.6996). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Tokyo and pick "The Meiji Era: the Country That Reinvented Itself in One Generation". No account required to start.
