2 APRIL 2009
LOCATION: TOKYO (Asakusa, Ueno and Harajuku)
MOOD: ADVENTUROUS
LISTENING TO: ELLEGARDEN – WINTER
THE REST OF OUR LIVES ON HOLIDAY:
I don't normally take many trips; the last time I went overseas was the in 2005 when I came to Japan to study as part of my Arts degree. Apart from that I haven't left the country since the end of high school. Partly it's because I always have a number of projects running in Melbourne at any one time, partly it's because I hate organising and partly because of the cost.
I have to admit though, once you've put the hard yards in and got the trip set up, there's nothing like being on holiday. The air is fresher, food tastes better, music sounds crisper; it's refreshing to get out of your usual neck of the woods and thrust yourself into a new environment that truly excites you.
That being the case, I decided that I would spend my first full day in Tokyo traversing the city and soaking in the atmosphere rather than rushing around to see the sights.
THE FASHIONABLE, THE HOMELESS AND THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS:
Picking up from where we left last time, I headed out from the hostel at the ungodly hour of 7AM. My hostel is in a place called Asakusa, which is part of the old downtown region of Tokyo. It's status as a pleasure district has long since been lost to other parts of town, but it still has a fair dose of character. Walking around the area I was able to enjoy the sakura blossoms as I walked down the Sumidagawa river and take photos at the historic Kaminarimon gate. Of course Kaminarimon was flooded with international tourists (mostly Chinese), but it's still a nice place. You can check out the grand Sensouji temple, or, if your tastes are a little more kitsch, pick up a 'banzai' headband. Probably be a little hard to get that onto the plane home though.
The banks of the Sumidagawa River. Apparently there's a cruise that goes down the river, but I had neither the time nor the inclination.
Kaminarimon - Literally 'Thunder Gate'.
There are deities on either side of the red lantern, but I forget what they're called.
From Asakusa I took the subway to Ueno in order to access Tokyo's main city loop (the Yamanote train line). Ueno is probably most famous for its park, which is especially beautiful at this time of year due to the blooming of the sakura trees. People of all shapes and sizes flock to the park to either take a leisurely stroll or to sit under the trees drinking, trading jokes and generally making merry. This time-honoured tradition is called hanami (literally 'flower watching').
I was well accustomed with all these practices before arriving, so the thing that struck me the most was that people had chosen to spread not blankets on the ground to sit on, but rather blue plastic sheets. This created a striking contrast with the pale pink sakura blossoms and made the park look like the world's largest homeless shelter. Which, ironically, is not too far from the truth.
You can see the blue plastic sheets on the right hand side.
Tokyo has a sizeable homeless population, and they aren't exactly tucked away from the public eye. Walking down the street you'll see homeless people sleeping on benches or even on the footpaths themselves. Ueno in particular is a hub for Tokyo's homeless community, which is only expected to grow if the current economic climate worsens.
What I found intriguing was that nobody really seemed to be bothered by their presence; a homeless person could be sleeping on a bench a mere few meters away from a pack of twenty-somethings chatting on their mobiles and decked out in the latest designer fashions. Whether this is because there is a widespread acceptance of the reality of homelessness or simply due to apathy is unclear.
A couple of Japanese teens rush past a homeless guy sleeping outside Ueno station.
After sampling the local cuisine in Ueno (I ended up buying yakisoba (fried noodles) from a stall that had been set up in the park) I headed for Harajuku, the mecca of urban teen fashion in Tokyo. To be honest I found the place a little disappointing. Harajuku has a main street/alley that is packed with shops on either side and almost constantly congested with wide-eyed tourists, trendy Tokyo teens and the odd local trying to get somewhere. It's a headrush initially, but soon you realise that all the shops are selling exactly the same things, and apart from the shops there's not much to see in Harajuku. Perhaps the strangest occupants of the shopping strip were the African guys that had been imported to spruik the local hip hop fashions. Given that I can do a semi-decent African American accent I almost wanted to go up and have a bit of a fun, but after I decided that they could probably jump me if they wanted to I instead elected to move on.
By that point the previous day's travails were starting to catch up with me, so I decided to head back to the hostel and have an early night.
3 APRIL 2009
LOCATION: TOKYO (Central Tokyo, Ueno, Akihabara, Shinjuku)
MOOD: ACCOMPLISHED
LISTENING TO: BIC RUNGA – SWAY
PLAYING WITH OTHERS IS USUALLY MORE FUN THAN PLAYING WITH YOURSELF:
Today my mate Lionel came into town. He had been participating in a karate tournament down in the Kansai region of Japan (the area that contains Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe etc), and had taken the shinkansen (bullet train) up to Tokyo to meet his fiancee, who was flying in a few days later.
Me and Lionel check out a local eatery near my hostel.
You can see the chashu ramen (pork noodles) on the table.
I took the train down to Tokyo central station, and as I arrived a bit ahead of schedule I though that I'd take a look around. Although Tokyo is built up everywhere (and I mean literally everywhere), central Tokyo takes it to a whole different level. Each area of Tokyo has a different feel to its urban sprawl, and central Tokyo's is controlled and businesslike. It has a similar sort of vibe to New York, with the skyscrapers curt and unassuming in contrast to the brash and imposing architecture in Shinjuku.
The view from outside Tokyo central station.And no, that yellow thing is not a giraffe; it's a crane.
After he arrived we decided that the best way to spend the day would be for me to take him around the Yamanote line and show him the major sights so that he could impress his fiance when she got to Tokyo.
VENDING MACHINES AND TURKISH DELIGHTS:
After showing him around central Tokyo (including a stroll in the direction of the Imperial Palace and the infamous Yasukuni Shrine that we aborted halfway after realising that it would take us most of the afternoon to get there and back) I took my friend back to Ueno to show him the sakura and get some lunch. We ended up having lunch away from the park in one of the many shopping districts of Ueno, where we found a delightful little kebab place run by a Turkish family that appeared to be trilingual. Understandably the man's Japanese had a Turkish twinge to it, but other than that I was very impressed. The sign however left a little to be desired:
I believe it was Linkin Park that sung "It's the little things that give you away."Click to magnify.
A little more walking around and my friend began waxing lyrical about the virtues of vending machines, something which I exacerbated by telling him about the 500ml cans of soft drink that certain vending machines sold. To cash-strapped souls like us in particular, 500ml cans sounded like an absolute gift, especially given that they were only 10 yen more than the regular 375 ml cans.
NEON GENESIS AND OTHER ASSORTED EYE CANDY:
After finishing up lunch we then headed for Shinjuku, one of the main business districts in Tokyo. Shinjuku is a mix of office complexes, eye-catching architecture and seedy entertainment, ranging from pachinko (a mild form of gambling) to massage parlors, love hotels and brothels.
We headed straight for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices, which boasted free observation decks in both of its twin towers. Tokyo is impressive from the ground level, but the true extent of the urban sprawl can truly only be comprehended from 40 floors up. I'm told that on a really clear day Mt Fuji is visible from the observation decks, but my friend and I had to settle for the Tokyo skyline, which literally stretched to the horizon without abating.
The city is mine!
Finishing up at the observation decks we then headed back to the station and somehow got ourselves lost. We were however helped by a young Russian lady who stopped of her own accord when she saw us looking rather out of sorts. I'm sure she gave us excellent instructions, but to be honest they didn't help much as we weren't so much listening as looking. This brought us to a conversation about the other thing you can spend your time watching if sakura aren't your thing: women.
Put simply, Tokyo has a lot of hot women. It seems that nobody with two X-chromosomes dares to leave the house without putting on makeup and getting dressed up. In fact Tokyo has so much eye-candy that even the half hour rides on the subway during rush hour weren't such a bad thing. Unfortunately my chances of picking up were dramatically reduced by my complete lack of money and anything resembling a Japanese fashion sense (or indeed a fashion sense of any description). But wait til I get my money right. Then you can't tell me nothin', right?
Now that I think about it, Tokyo is actually quite a sexually charged city. There are love hotels everywhere, and it's not hard at all to find porn in any of the second hand bookstore chains that proliferate the city. Not that I was shopping for that sort of thing of course. And that's just the overt stuff; there are more subtle reminders as well. For instance, check out this eye-catching building in Shinjuku:
On the way back from the observation deck we noticed that there was a sphere-shaped structure attached to the base, which gave it the following appearance:
...and who said phallic symbols were out of fashion.
And, in the same vein, I think I've found my profile picture for my ad in the classifieds section of the local paper:
You know you want it. Don't lie.
At night, after dropping my friend off at his hotel I headed to Shibuya to make the most of my tokunai train ticket, which granted me unlimited travel on the Yamanote line for the duration of the day. Shibuya is the beating heart of Tokyo cool, populated by a legion of trend-setting/following teens and twenty-somethings and pulsing with the raw energy of the city. Just standing at the iconic main crossing you can almost feel the ebbing and flowing of the trends as the crowds surge towards the myriad of shops and boutiques.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay for long as I needed to get back to my place before midnight when my ticket would expire. It really was a bit of a Cinderella situation, where the shoddily dressed kid from out of town gets to go to the hip part of town before having to disappear before the real party begins. But nevertheless I did manage to pay a visit to Tower Records while I was there, and I have to say that even though English isn't widely (or well) spoken in Japan they have a hip hop section that puts most Australian outlets to shame.
At the end of the day I crawled into bed having covered who knows how many kilometers and taken in enough city scenery to last a lifetime. Or at least until the next time I was in town.
4 APRIL 2009
LOCATION: TOKYO (Yoyogi Park)
MOOD: DETERMINED
LISTENING TO: JEDI MIND TRICKS – DEATH MESSIAH
HARAJUKU GIRLS AND SHRINE MAIDENS:
I started the day with a bit of a dilemma. I had to check out of my room by 11AM, but my bus for Fukushima only left at 5PM, meaning that I had around 6 hours to kill (factoring in travel time). I decided that the best way to spend my day would be to head to Yoyogi park to catch the cosplay-zoku (the groups of kids that dress up in costumes based on their favourite anime characters). It also helps that Yoyogi park is also the home of the Meiji-Jingu shrine, one of the quieter and more scenic spots in the urban chaos that is Tokyo.
To be honest, the Harajuku-girl experience was a little disappointing. There were only a few cosplay kids, and most of them wouldn't allow photos. I was later told that I should have gone on a Sunday, not a Saturday. Not to worry, I decided that since I was already all the way over there I would check out the shrine.
Cheer up, emo kids.
SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE...:
The Meiji-Jingu shrine complex is a pristine, immaculately kept park in the middle of Tokyo. The greenery is lush and the walkways are broad, punctuated by massive ceremonial wooden gates that serve to remind you of the sacred nature of the park.
Plenty of room to walk on, which comes in most handy when you need to stop and take a photo. Anybody who's tried to stop and take a photo in rush hour at the train station will understand what I mean. See below.
In the centre of Yoyogi park is the actual shrine, where I was lucky enough to witness a traditional Japanese wedding. Well, I and the rest of the camera-wielding legion of foreigners that had descended on the shrine. At first I felt a little bit guilty intruding on a deeply personal ceremony, but I rationalised it by telling myself that the couple would have known what they were in for by signing up to get married at Meiji-Jingu on a weekend. It's sort of akin to getting married at St Paul's in Melbourne of Westminster Abbey; you almost expect a bunch of randoms with cameras.
In addition to the nuptials there were also a number of families coming to pray at the shrine, and some of the young ladies were dressed in full ceremonial kimonos. I was lucky enough to secure a photo with two of them:
I'm not sure how happy the two girls were about being pimped out for photos by their parents, but I'm guessing that the novelty of all the attention wore off pretty quickly.
After finishing up at the shrine I was immediately whisked from the tranquil surrounds of Meiji-Jingu back into the crushing reality of urban life. And I mean quite literally crushing – the following is a photo taken just outside Harajuku station, which opens out into Yoyogi park:
Tokyo has over 20 million people.It felt like the majority of them were here.
HOW MUCH IS 24 BUCKS WORTH TO YOU?
I'm normally a financially conservative person; I don't like the idea of credit and I'd prefer to spend a little less and run a budget surplus if possible. Part of this involves cutting costs wherever possible, and one such opportunity presented itself when I was considering how to get my bags to Fukushima (my next destination). Basically I had two options; I could either ship one of my two carry bags to Fukushima and then take my backpack and the other carry bag on the bus to Fukushima, or I could attempt to take all three with me on the bus.
The actual bus ride wasn't the issue; there's no baggage limit and my friend was picking me up from the bus stop. The only problem was getting my luggage from my hostel to the bus stop near Tokyo central station where my bus departed from. From my hostel it's around a kilometer to the subway station. I then needed to ride the subway for a couple of stops and then change stations, walk around 500 meters to the connecting service and take another train to Tokyo central station. From there I then had to walk around 800 or so meters to the actual bus stop.
I had done a dry run on the day that I met up with my friend at Tokyo station and it wasn't too bad, so being the ambitious (tight-fisted?) individual I am I decided to give it a shot. What was at stake was around 1600 yen, the price of sending the bag by post. At the exchange rate at the time, that was around 24 Australian dollars. Doesn't sound like much, but in the greater context of a three month trip and a sickly exchange rate it's actually a real consideration. 1600 yen could otherwise go towards:
- Half a night's accomodation
Two full meals
A day's worth of public transport
With that thought in my mind, I figured I'd take my chances. Unfortunately, I had sorely misunderstimated two factors in my planning and dry run. Firstly, it was a weekend, and the first weekend since the sakura had started to blossom. The streets were packed wall-to-wall constantly, as were the subways. Sure there's no peak hour during weekends, but there's not exactly an off-peak time either.
The second factor that I hadn't counted on was exactly how tired I was. I hadn't slept properly in around four days, and I had been covering more ground by foot than I would in a couple of weeks in Melbourne. Given the hearty meal that I had for lunch I was ready to take a nap, not lug 20 kilos of luggage across the city. But by that point it was a little too late to change my mind; packages normally take a few days to arrive, and I needed to have the bag in Fukushima quite quickly as I would be leaving there within a couple of days of arriving.
Suffice to say, I was soon reconsidering the wisdom of my decision. The sight of this skinny kid lugging around two bags and a fully-stuffed backpack was met with a curious mixture of apathy, curiosity and not a few judgmental glances. I had learned very quickly that in Tokyo you get pushy or get nowhere, so I just had to crash and bash my way through the crowd. I was once again reminded of why I joined that Facebook group called 'I secretly want to punch slow walking people in the back of the head'.
The journey from the hostel to the subway station was pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as trying to get the bags up and down the steps, through the packed station, through the ticket gates and onto the equally crowded train. I made sure to get a place near the door, but with my luck being what it was I ended up having to get out on the other side. There was a fair bit of consternation, but I wasn't about to have the doors close on me because I was busy being polite.
Long story short I did eventually make it to the bus stop with all my bags in tact, and as I speak I'm writing from the comfort of my friend's place in Fukushima with all three of my bags in front of me. Was it worth it? In purely monetary terms, maybe not. But in terms of the satisfaction of being able to say I did it, probably yes. Everybody has to do some crazy stuff while they're overseas, and this is a hell of a lot cheaper than bungee jumping or urinating in public.
Yes, it seems that everything is called 'Sakura' here.
HERE COMES THE BUS DRIVER MAN:
The bus I took from Tokyo to Fukushima was a kousoku bus, literally meaning 'top speed'. Once I got onto the freeway I understood why. I'm not sure what they put under the hood, but the bus literally flew down the road taking all other traffic in its wake. The scenery leaving Tokyo was amazing; it took around about an hour to actually get out of the city, during which I was treated to a final tour de force of the urban sprawl. About three hours later (including rest breaks) I had left the shimmering metropolis of Tokyo behind and was safely curled on a futon in Sukagawa, Fukushima.
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