A Tokyo-Born Photographer Visited Japan After a Quarter Century

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Hiroyuki ITO, Japan. New York Times, Oct 22, 2017 (in the Sunday photo column "The Look")
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/ ... g-across-japan.html
(the short text in print: "Hiroyuki Ito covered a lot of ground this summer: 54 cities in 18 prefectures. He was looking to capture the way people live outside of Tokyo — the faces, architecture, even, sometimes, what he sees in a trash can")

Note:
(a)
(i) In The Look, a photographer goes out to streets (usually in NYC) to snap fashion photos of ordinary people (as opposed to models or celebrities). There is a theme each week, such as Easter, black clothing as a fad, etc.
(ii) David Gonzalez, Pumping Up the Visual Volume. New York Times, Nov 10, 2012 (in the blog "Lens")
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... -the-visual-volume/
("Photography was the last thing on Hiroyuki Ito's mind when he moved to New York City 20 years ago. Like countless others over the generations, he was entranced by the sound of the city")

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(b)
(i) text that is online only (unless otherwise specified, quotations from the column is from the online version): "the Mr Ito got in a car with three of his best friends from elementary school and drove 90 minutes from Tokyo to Atami, a kitschy seaside city that is a popular destination for family vacations."

* Atami, Shizuoka  静岡県 熱海市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atami,_Shizuoka
(has been known as a resort town centered on its hot springs since the 8th century AD)

, which is 54 miles/ 88km southwest of Tokyo.
(ii) caption in print: "Trick Art Museum トリックアート迷宮館 [where the katakana means 'Trip Art'], where visitors can take photos in trompe l'oeil paintings."
(A) trompe-l'oeil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-l%27œil
(B) trompe l'oeil (n): "a style of painting in which objects are depicted with photographically realistic detail"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trompe%20l'oeil
(C) French-English dictionary:
* trompe (v): "a form of tromper deceive"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trompe
* œil (n; from Latin [noun masculine] oculus [eye])): "eye"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/œil

(c) Japanese-English dictionary:
* meikyū 迷宮 【めいきゅう】 (n): "labyrinth; maze"
* yashiki 屋敷(P); 邸(P) 【やしき】 (n): "residence; estate * * * mansion"

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(d) "Mr Ito made another trip * * * to the island of Shikoku 四国. * * * A recommendation led them to the Sansuien Hotel, where they encountered a couple on their wedding day. They were dressed in traditional wedding attire, complete with the bride's wataboshi, a hat that protects her hair.  'Under it, she most likely has her hair set in the style called takashimada, the most popular Japanese hairstyle for brides,' Mr Ito said. * * * By coincidence, Mr Ito's parents-in-law are from Kochi, so he later asked them if they had heard of Sansuien. 'They exclaimed in unison, "That's where we had our wedding 50 years ago!["] ' he said."
(i) Sansuien  三翠園
https://www.sansuien.co.jp/english/index.html
is located in City of Kōchi.
(A) Its official website indicates that 三翠園 opened for business 開業 in 1949, having bought the land (at 鷹匠町) from Yamauchi clan 鷹匠町の旧山内藩主邸購入, and started building in 1948. Then Kōchi mayor bestowed because "筆山の若葉の緑、鏡川の清流の緑、庭園の松の緑." (筆山 and 鏡川 are in the City. 庭園 is inside the hotel.)
(B) 三翠園歴史散策
https://www.sansuien.co.jp/facility/stroll.html
("三翠園の建つ鷹匠町の一帯は、藩政時代から藩主ゆかりの地。 山内家に仕える武士たちが住まいした町。 * * * 屋敷は明治維新後、山内家の私邸となりましたが、戦後売却され、その大部分は、三翠園の所有となっています")

My translation: 鷹匠町 where Sanshuien was built, was a place tracing its root to 藩主: it is a neighborhood 町 where samurai working for Yamauchi household lived. * * * After Meiji Restoration [which abolished feudal lords], the Yamauchis used the estate as private residence, but sold it after World War II. Most of the land came into the hand of Sansuien.

屋敷 is defined in (c).
(ii) Kōchi, Kōchi 高知県 高知市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōchi,_Kōchi
("was originally settled as a castle town around the seat of the lords of Tosa Province, Kōchi Castle. The castle site was chosen by Lord YAMAUCHI Kazutoyo 山内 一豊 in 1601. The city takes its name from that of the castle")
Kōchi Castle 高知城 (built atop 大高坂山（標高44.4m）on 1601-1611, burned down in 1727, reconstructed 1729 - 1753 in the original style) ja- and en.wikipedia.org

旧山内家下屋敷長屋展示館. 高知市公式ホームページ [official page] (観光振興課), undated
http://www.city.kochi.kochi.jp/soshiki/39/nagaya.html
("幕末に建てられた山内家の足軽屋敷は，本格的な武家長屋としてその姿を今に残しています。国の重要文化財にも指定される，全国的にも数少ない建物です")

has

East Asian hip-and-gable roof
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_hip-and-gable_roof
(is of Chinese origin)
(A) 長屋 nagaya is a kind of 集合住宅, built in Edo period 江戸時代. (An apartment building is an example of present-day 集合住宅.)
(B) 足軽 is a foot soldier.
(C)  The English for 旧山内家下屋敷長屋 is "Former Yamauchi Residence."
(D) My translation for the first part of quotation: built toward the end of shogunate for foot soldiers is authentic samurai residence.

History. VisitKochi, undated
http://visitkochijapan.com/things_to_do/history/
("Kochi has been called 'Tosa' since old times. The name is said to date back to an ancient myth about how the province was formed. In the myth, what is now Kochi was called Tosa-no-kuni [土佐国] Takeyoriwake and described as a virile province. The Chōsokabe clan [長宗我部 氏] successfully unified Tosa, but Yamauchi Katsutoyo became the lord of Tosa in 1601 after the Chosokabe clan [which fought alongside 豊臣 秀頼, son/heir of 豊臣 秀吉 (died 1598)] was defeated in the 1600 Battle of Sekigahara [関ヶ原の戦い; victor 徳川 家康]. Thus, Katsutoyo became the ruler of a 240,000-koku domain (koku [石] was a unit used during the Edo period to show the value of land; one koku was regarded as land where enough rice for one person for one year could be produced)" )

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(e) "It is common for businessmen, known as salarymen in Japan, to sleep on the bullet train from Kokura to Kobe."
(i) Kokura 小倉 (formerly a city, presently name of a neighborhood and a train station in 福岡県 北九州市.
(ii) San'yō Shinkansen 山陽新幹線
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San%27yō_Shinkansen

(f) "Mr Ito spotted this young woman near Ōmiya Station 大宮駅 in Saitama 埼玉県 [nothern neighbor of Tokyo], a city about 30 minutes outside Tokyo by car. He wasn't sure whose face she'd chosen as an accessory, but he imagined it was that of a boy-band member."

(g)
(i) "Reo King Sanshirō, a pantomimist, was standing outside a Chinese restaurant on a busy street in Kumamoto City."
(A) REO・ King・ 三獅郎. Street Art-Plex Kumamoto, undated.
https://artplex.jp/reo-king-sanshiro/
(B) Kumamoto  熊本県 熊本市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumamoto
(ii) print: "young women dancing Yosakoi, which originated in the 1950s."

Yosakoi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosakoi
(The first Yosakoi festival was held in 1954 in Kochi)
(iii) "This photo was taken in Yanagawa, Fukuoka, a town Mr Ito described as Japan's Venice because of the many canals. The gondolier pictured is wearing a kasa, or a traditional Japanese straw hat."
(A) Yanagawa, Fukuoka 福岡県 柳川市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagawa,_Fukuoka
(B) The capital of 福岡県 is 福岡市.
(iv) "Mr. Ito first met Sachi Matsuoka, above, at the hot springs in Cape Ashizuri in Kochi. * * * The next day, he went to check out the hot springs in Matsuyama, a three-hour drive away. There, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Sachi."
(A) Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park  足摺宇和海国立公園
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashizuri-Uwakai_National_Park
(B) 足摺岬 (足摺半島の先端の岬) ja.wikipedia.org.
(C) Ashizuri-Uwakai National Park. National Parks Foundation, undated
www.bes.or.jp/english/parks/ashizuri.html
(extent of the park in a map, from Cape Ashizuri clockwise to Uwakai)
(ii) Matsuyama, Ehime 愛媛県 松山市
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuyama,_Ehime
(capital)