東京！(Tokyooooo!)

So, as per usual, this trip took place long before I write this: on Nov. 25^th, the 3 of us made the leap of faith into an unorganized, independent, week-long trip to Tokyo. We just hopped on the Shinkansen and arrived to find our fortunes. I love travelling this way: it always makes for a memorable impromptu experience.

tokyo lives up to its reputation as bustling, sprawling, and diverse. The home of cutting edge technology alongside ancient temples. The day before we left we still hadn’t even planned when exactly we were leaving, but it has all come together. Thanks to okasan’s research we found a convenient shinkansen and fantastic hostel.

After rocketing there in an hour and a half (6 hours by bus) we disentangled ourselves from the shinkansen network, only to plunge immediately into the subway, whereupon we realized that the legendary efficiency of the Tokyo transit system has some brutal flaws: it is owned & operated by several different companies, and thanks to good old fashioned private-interest capitalism, their lines don’t jive - you have to buy a different ticket for each company’s network. I sometimes wonder where the Japanese tax-yen goes: transit and health care are privatized, school is expensive, and all the highways are toll roads. Anyways, we made our way to the hostel to drop off our bags. It’s called K’s House Backpackers and we were pleasantly surprised to find a brand new (opened in June), comfortable, friendly place. Fully recommended. It was already afternoon so we decided to stick close the hostel, which was in Asakusa. This was by no means a sacrifice, as Asakusa is chock full of narrow-alley markets covered pedestrian shopping streets. This one crazy road had all old-school stalls on either side, and a massive gate & lantern at each end. This place knows more ways than a carnival to say “tourist trap”, but there were some pretty cool souveniers to be had. I picked up a flag that has Japanese/English phrases on it. Matches my Scottish one.

The hostel map said there was a street with “cheap restraints”, which we assumed was henglish for restaurants. Turned out to be that kind of restraints all right, but definitely not cheap. We ended up eating at a chain restaurant called “Yoshinoya”. びみょう。。。

Upon our return to the hostel we struck up some lively conversation over cards with some Aussies (surprise surprise. I really think there are more aussies abroad than in Australia), a South African, a Pole, and a few Japanese. What a fantastic place it is that the entire globe can play cards around one table. We picked up some gloriously cheap Japanese liquor (350ml of gin for 5 bucks at your local convenience store. Another reason to love Japan). Good intentions to go out after building a nice buzz disintegrated into a full out house (hostel) party. Cleo and Chris ended up signing out early, both sick from the consumption (and I don’t mean TB). I don’t know whether it was the conditioning I’ve had from the daily beers with my host father, but I kept on rockin’ till almost 4am.

DAY 2: Thursday.

We slept in, lazed about…recovered (can you blame us?). This was unfortunately followed by a breakfast at mcdonalds. I think this is the first time I’ve eaten mcdonald’s in a bout 2 years: the reasons I don’t eat there were reconfirmed, even in on the other side of the planet.

Next desitnation was Hibiya Park to check out a chrysanthemum exhibit (I had no idea they were so bloody huge and exhuberant! No wonder the Japanese call fireworks “flower fire”, with these monsters to inspire them), then wandered the palace “gardens”. The quotations serve to say that by ‘gardens’, they mean ‘enormous gravel-covered square with vast expanses of golf-green grass & tailored trees, the latter behind a teeny fence and “do not enter” signs. Such a waste! It would make such excellent picnic & leisure space, but of course the Japanese prefer to have it looking prim and perfect – which means no trampling feet or grubby hands allowed.

Following this was Akihabara, the electronics motherload district. Picture streets lined with 8 storey, neon-filled buildings, shoulder-to-shoulder people, and vendors selling anything that has batteries or a plug. Superbly impressive, though the prices weren’t as low as they are fabled to be. I bought a godsent external hard drive for my computer, and Cleo bought 3 digital cameras. Close your gaping jaw – one for her, one for her parents, and one for her boyfriend. Along the way we encountered this 3 storey, absurdly narrow mall-sort-of-thing that sold bits of electronics – so many teeny resistors, plug ends, copper wire, circuit boards….it was nuts. You could build anything that requires electronics from this little hole-in-the wall place. As a tourist it’s a bit frustrating to know that interesting places like this exist all over the place, but they’re so hard to find. Usually it’s a wrong turn or some free-time-wandering that does it.

Next stop: Shinjuku – the glitzy, flashy, 10-storey-video-advertisement-filled shopping district. Shitloads of people spending shitloads of money on mostly clothing. Quite a wander-and-gawk experience. We did this with Bibi, the Polish girl (who works as a fashion merchandizer in New York. Very glamourous).

The evening was once again spent drinking at the hostel (though not so much as last night). We met a new couple of Aussies (who were obnoxious twits) and played some international UNO (that’s UNO with various rules followed by players from a bunch of different countries). This was a 4:30 am bedtime. Had some excellent conversations with Nick & Dave (the Aussies from yesterday). They’ve been living in Japan for 3 years and speak fluent Japanese. Very impressive to hear them talking with the locals. Jesse is jealous.

DAY 3: Friday.

I was keen to head to Jinbo-cho, which is the bookshop district (just think: a whole DISTRICT for books! Fabulous!), so I got up early. Upon going downstairs, however, I was asked by Bibi to help her find a computer in Akihabara. I wanted to hunt down a few more things (namely a camera case and some sweet speakers that cleo bought. Very similar to my gullivers ones, only better…), so I thought this would be grand. That’s spontaneous travel without a little shuffling of plans? So, after a most excellent Denny’s breakfast (in Japan Denny’s is a stylish, healthy restaurant. The Japanese are surprised by the sorry state of the North American conterparts) we set off, gawking at the tiny computers with built in webcams, fingerprint ID, instant card scanning (a Japanese function which shows up on cell phones – just touch it against the designated spot and bam! you paid)….Bibi was a little swamped with options and price range, so she just jotted down some numbers instead of buying. I managed to completely forget my speakers.

After Akihabara I puttered over to Jinbocho to check out what a book neighbourhood looks like. I expected all sorts of specialty book stores – sci. fi buffs, art book shops, history specialty shops, etc. – but was surprised to find just row upon row of generic bookshops with no apparent niche. Towers of sketchily-stacked books seems to be a phenomenon that transcends culture and geography. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I picked up one more book in the set of bilingual books I’m collecting: a collection of Japanese myths, then headed onward to to meet up with Chris & Cleo in Shibuya, the other quintessentially-tokyo, flashy shopping district. It seemed that Shibuya had more REALLY upscale shops than Shinjuku. Our mission, however, was to head to a reputedly impressive Escher exhibit that I had no intention of missing. Cleo was interested, but was rather puzzled at my excitement about his art (despite being regaled by the Aussies, who told us about this exhibit, and who were more thrilled than I was). Chris had no interest, so the 2 of us headed inside. Let’s put it this way: it was 2:30, and we intended to fit the exhibit between then and a 6:00 visit to Tokyo Disneyland (yeah, yeah, I could go to Disneyland at home, but can I really: how often do I go to the states?). Cleo, too, loved the Escher so much that we didn’t even leave until 7:15. Disneyland never happened, and the reason for it, as far as I’m concerned, is a rather fulfilling one. I got to see some of Escher’s sketchbooks (which explain how he designs his regular-division-of-the-plane patterns), and the audio guide was a Nintendo DS! So sweet: this gameboy-like thing has one touch screen and another regular screen, so you can have explanation/menu on one side, and a zoom-able picture on the other. Genius. It allowed you to look at all the pages of the sketchbook, not just the one it was opened to in the display case.

Right: no one wants to hear about Escher. Once we were done with the sweet sweet Escher exhibit (heh heh), Cleo and I wandered the Shibuya night, and came across the busiest pedestrian intersection I have ever seen: I’m sure that more people cross the intersedtion in one light-change than live in my hometown. The lights don’t even allow one direction of traffic alongside pedestrians: they had traffic do their thing, both ways, then unleashed the horde of pedestrians, completely enveloping the pavement between the lights. On one of the 10-storey tv ads was a live camera feed of the intersection, so we could see ourselves waving, larger than life!

We next hit up the 45^th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, which offers a free view of the city (rather than the tourist trap that is Tokyo Tower, which charges), then took our protesting legs back to the hostel for an early turn-in in preparation of the next epic day:

DAY 4: Saturday.

I’ve never seen so much fish carnage in all my life. Tsukiji Fish Market is quite an experience, and it’s no wonder they call it “the belly of Japan”: if it came out of the water, it is brought, butchered (or not), and sold here; and we all know how much the Japanese like seafood. Health Canada, however, would certainly have some stern words for the place... And these guys don't mess around: they fly down the narrow alleys on their weird 3-wheel motor-dolly cars carrying stacks of styrofoam fish containers. It's dangerous as hell - i saw my life flash before my eyes numerous times as someone whipped by within fishy inches of my nose. We met my teacher, Yamaguchi Sensei, here. It was kind of amusing to see this bookish, cinema & arts buff gingerly making his way through the bloody bustle of Tsukiji Market. This definitely is a quintessential Japanese experience, one which was Yamaguchi Sensei’s first. Below is a tuna being cut with a band saw. Sushi, the traditional way! When we'd had our fill of fishy smells and death-defying experiences, Cleo was keen to check out the Museum of Emerging Science, and I think Yamaguchi Sensei was too politely-Japanese to say that he had no desire to go, so off we went. It had a rather interesting exhibit entitled “6.5 billion survivors”, and addressing how we can possibly live with so many people on the planet. They gave a surprisingly hopeful view of genetic modification, one which could be possible to achieve if it weren’t for a prevailing global capitalist interest: instead of thoroughly researching the field and developing strains which are sustainable & healthy (or even finding out what kind of effects they can have), corporations are instead focused on quickly patenting new technology and extracting maximum profit from it. Were profit not a factor, this industry would have the potential to gain a lot of credence by then being free to collaborate across the globe – creating the possibility of chain-reactions of breakthroughs, rather than hording them for one’s own company. Capitalism: so bittersweet.

Maybe after I get over my rant I can continue to say that we hopped on the monorail back toward downtown. This monorail is sweet: it’s high above ground, and goes over Tokyo Harbour, so you have a clear view of Tokyo’s core (even a smoggy glimpse of Mt. Fuji in the distance). Finally we got to Yamaguchi’s intended destination of Asakusa’s Senso shrine. Leading up to it was the crazy tourist trap area i mentioned at the beginning (this time shoulder to shoulder with people). Like all the shrines I’ve seen so far it was dominated by a crowd of people chucking money into a giant bin so they can pray. I donated a 100yen coin to get a fortune that basically told me everything I do is wrong (the headline was simply “bad fortune”). Terribly amusing, since up till now everything has been going pretty right. Maybe I’m due for a karmatic reversal. Out front were 2 essential shrine-features: a fountain where people pour water on their hands & faces to cleanse themselves before praying; and a little hut where they burn heaps of incense whose smoke people scoop and kind of bathe themselves in.

I finally found some engrish that was not so abhorrently expensive: I bought a sweater and a jacket (which actually came with a matching t shirt. Bonus) that say, respectively: “responsibirity; real seculity; dairy; keep hold lock on the all of flour. Shining, attractive ‘fruit cake’ just you taste its smooth, that makes you smily! And happy!”, and “the manie road food tasty. Many stores are collected”. I wonder what meaning they were shooting for…

We then parted ways with Yamaguchi Sensei and prepared for the calm before the storm: a quick nap before a bunch of us stormed a Roppongi club. One thing I can say is that clubs everywhere seem to be the same: loud beats, expensive booze, and too many people. The other thing I can say, on that note, is that Japan seems to be pretty flexible in the area of maximum occupancy. I had no room to fart, let alone dance! We had two options of returning to the hostel: take a taxi, or wait till the trains started running again at 5:30. after 6.5 hours of dancing and struggling to move around we discovered we had chosen the latter. What a night. As an individual experience, a real rush. Wouldn’t want to spend my regular weekends doing it though…

FINAL EPIC DAY: Sunday.

The hostel staff were kind enough to let us sleep in till after 12:30, whereupon we struggled into consciousness and packed up. After breaking our fast with some curry we headed to Asakusa Bridge to catch the water taxi down the river towards Tokyo Station. To be sure, we weren’t the giddiest bunch that day, but after some food and a shower we felt up to the task of some more sightseeing. Our final destination was Harajuku, the more alternative district, it would turn out. Man, I wish we had gone earlier!: every weekend the ‘cos-play zoku’ come out from their regular student lives and dress up in crazy expression-starved clothing (costumes?) and meet in the park here (cleo got some good photos, but i don't have those yet). Harajuku is also good for cheap shopping, querky stores, and peoplewatching. Definitely going back. We were supposed to catch a Shinkansen back to Toyohashi at 7:00, but didn’t even leave Harajuku till 7:30. such a cool, querky place, I could’ve spent ages there.

The return was a real gong show: our tickets didn’t include the Shinkansen surcharge, so we had to pay an extra 30 bucks; chris managed to lose his ticket between the surcharge-acquiring machine and the gate (after about a half hour the station folk printed him out another copy); the train we caught went as far as one stop before Nagoya, and by this time it was past 10:00, and so getting close to last train time (as after arriving in Toyohashi Cleo and I had to head to Okazaki, and then to Toyota). We all managed to squeak into our last trains home, but it doesn’t even quite end there: on the bike ride home my backpack’s rain cover drawstring managed to get caught in my tire and rip right off; my umbrella (it was raining) broke, and so soaking, I get almost home only to be nearly hit by a car. I can tell you, bed felt awesome that night.
So ends our superb Tokyo trip in a blaze of frustrated exhaustion.