Eastern Exploration

Finishing up Tokyo

Observations.

· Tokyo was actually quite easy to get around, between generous help from strangers and the many signs printed in Roman characters.

· At the local convenience stores, they sell various meaty tidbits that sit in hot water, just like you’d pick up a hot dog down at the 7-11. But instead of a hot dog, you’ll often find six inches of octopus tentacle.

· Riding the train, Anja noticed that I was being stared at. My crime? Sitting with my legs far apart. Oops.

· Anja’s Goth-Lolita outfit has drawn countless stares. At least one head in three would turn as we were walking through the Tokyo subway station. At dinner one night, a man in his seventies spent almost his entire meal looking at her. When we were out at the restaurant last night, two young women stopped on their way to the bathroom, looked at her, and one laughed with her hand over her mouth. It’s hard to tell exactly what they’re thinking, but the reaction can’t be all negative. Some of the fashion we’ve seen on the street is

· Robes have been given to us as part of the room at both places we’ve stayed so far. Likewise, both rooms have had only one electrical outlet.

· Many ads feature Westerners, even when they’re selling Japanese products to Japanese people.

Homeless people. There are almost no homeless people, at least in the parts of the city that we saw. The few that we did see—two in the subway station, a couple on the street—weren’t asking for money. They didn’t have shopping carts full of stuff, they weren’t talking to themselves, they weren’t harassing anyone; instead they just looked dirty and tired and rather forlorn. (One that I saw later did have a small pile of possessions nearby, but he still wasn’t begging, just sitting on a piece of cardboard.)

The bridge at Harajuku. Haven’t heard of Harajuku? Take a look at some of the photos we took—it’s a truly unique place. Anja could tell you reams about it, since she’s been reading about it for years on the ‘net from various otaku. We got out of the train station, and we found ourselves on “the bridge” that she’d been hearing about for so long. With one lane in the center for cars and a broad promenade for foot traffic, it’s the designated place for Tokyo’s most outrageously costumed youth to strut their stuff. Some act out their favorite anime scenes in costume, while others hang out with their friends in outfits representing the latest trends in goth/punk/candy/fetish/godknowswhat fashion. I couldn’t always tell what they were going for, but it was highly creative. The best part was that Anja was dressed in similar style, and got to spend time making friends with the other costumed teens. In fact, she was so well-dressed that she ended up in countless tourists’ pictures as one of the Harajuku girls.

Seeing the Meiji-Jingu shrine. With Anja happily ensconced at the bridge, Mom and I decided to take a walk in the nearby park. An impressively tall wooden torii gate marked the entrance to a network of wide gravel paths that wound through a dense forest, creating a very pleasant place to stroll. We didn’t have any particular destination in mind, but we noticed a sign to the Meiji-Jingu Shrine that caught our interest. We walked through another torii at the entrance to the shrine area, where a sign notified us that these were the largest gates of their kind in all of Japan. When we arrived at the shrine, it was quite a sight. It was the same general design as the other shrines that we’d seen—and have seen since—but on scale that only the Emperor could afford. It was one of the only places we’d seen any other Western tourists. But this was not a kitschy, cutesified version of the city; the majority of the people there were Japanese who were coming to pay homage. One family had an adorable little baby girl in tow, and they taught her the prayer ritual as we watched. Just as we were about to leave, a grandiose wedding procession made its way across the central courtyard.

Shopping in Harajuku. After seeing the shrine, we collected Anja and set off to explore Harajuku. Anja had heard that there were some great little fashion boutiques in the area, so we got some general directions from a passerby and began our wandering. The place was teeming with people. On a major four-lane road, the sidewalks on both sides were packed shoulder to shoulder with pedestrians. These were some of the thickest crowds we encountered in the whole city. Over the past couple days, we’d noticed how everyone knew to walk on the left-hand side of the stairs, and how escalators obeyed a strict code of “stand on the left, pass on the right” and here it was obvious why that was necessary. One of our first stops was a chain called “Kiddie Land,” two stories of pure concentrated cuteness. The Japanese seem to have this sense of childish cuteness that you just don’t find elsewhere, and that was this store’s specialty. Picture a cartoon turnip, turned into products as diverse as keychains, purses, pencil cases and pillows. Each one with a different expression—this one’s happy, that one’s sad, a third’s angry and a fourth is looking bored. Mom and I both picked up towels with a pair of pig faces down the side. (Yeah, I know. You just have to see them to understand.) Then I ran into a bunch of umbrellas with handles fashioned as cartoon characters’ heads—including one bunch of cats that looked like they’d just gotten out of the kitty inane asylum. (Remember that in this country, cats are the symbol of good luck. What happens if the god of luck goes mad?) Later, we made a couple turns off the main avenue and found ourselves suddenly in the middle of an area packed with tiny boutiques. It reminded me of Barcelona, where the best shops are the little ones tucked away in the winding back alleys. Some of the fashions were interesting, others rather plain, and a few were downright bizarre—such as the “rock-a-billy” store where the mannequins sported cowboy hats, jackets with fringes, cowboy boots, all kinds of things with black-and-white cow spots, and meshback baseball caps with “TRUCK!” across the front. Many of the places we found imitated Western fashion, which was a pattern we noticed throughout the city; the Western look is apparently considered exotic and interesting. The prices were a bit high, but what you might expect for fashionable shops where the label’s name is valuable. Anja spotted one called Putamayo, which she’d been hearing about for awhile, and we found her some very stylish Gothic Lolita gear. Later we stopped in a shoe shop packed with all kinds of interesting designs, and Mom found a great little pair of shoes made specifically for that store, priced at a whopping $30. Finished with our browsing, we located a sushi boat restaurant and tucked in to some tasty octopus, ‘squilla’ (squid), surf clam, ivory shell clam, smoked eel and horse meat. (Yeah, you heard me. It was actually pretty good.) And for all those who insist that Japan is overly expensive, this restaurant was evidence that they just haven’t looked hard enough. At this and many other places, we ate satisfying meals of good quality food for $4-7 a head. After such a wonderful day, there was no question: we were going to come back to Tokyo a day early, and stay in Harajuku.

Karaoke. There was a karaoke place on the corner that we’d been using as a landmark since we arrived, and that night we went inside to check it out. Asian karaoke is set up in a completely different format from how it’s done in the States—instead of a bar where you line up to sing for the crowd, you and your friends get a private room with comfy seating and your own karaoke sound system where you can embarrass yourself repeatedly to those closest to you. They even bring you food and drink. We signed up for an hour, and ended up staying for three, singing everything from doo-wop to oldies to alternative to metal and J-rock. What an excellent arrangement.

Monitor Tokyo. One of my only connections in the country was the Tokyo office of the Monitor Group, and they were kind enough to take us to lunch. Finding the building was a bit of a challenge, since we set out in the wrong direction from the subway station. Thankfully, a helpful young woman walked up to us on the street while we were puzzling over the map. “Are you lost? I speak English!” she said, and within a couple minutes were off in the right direction. When we walked into the office, the first thing I noticed was that “Powerful Times” and “Looking Out for the Future” were displayed on the front desk alongside “Blur” and a few other Monitor thought leadership books. It made me proud, and reminded me almost painfully of home. The staff at the office were very kind, and a few of them spoke excellent English. I spoke briefly with the VP, an American who started out stateside and moved to Tokyo about five years ago, and he was willing to chat for a bit despite being in the middle of a busy end-of-year season. The office was quite a bit smaller than I’d expected for such a large city (about twenty-five people) but apparently they’ve been doing well for themselves and are hoping get a new office in the near future. Four of the staff took us out to a nice restaurant in the area, where we chatted about life in Tokyo and ate a fine meal centered around cold soba noodles. Two of them spoke excellent English, while the other two knew a few words. The group was tickled to hear about Anja’s interest in Harajuku fashion, and one of the young men assured us that karaoke has become a staple of the Japanese social scene.

Credit card trouble. We’d been planning on getting our first cash refill on the way out, which we’d been told would be easy to do at the international ATMs found in post offices and train stations. Well, just like the cell phones that turned out not to work, neither did our cash cards turn out to function quite as we’d expected. Under time pressure to move on to our next destination, it took Mom several cards and several PIN numbers to find a combination that would work, and at the end of it all we still didn’t know if we’d be able to get any more than $300 a day. It wasn’t until the next couple days that we would be able to get another card working, upping our daily limit to a very comfortable $700. Phew. When you’re traveling, there’s just nothing quite like the feeling that your cash flow might not exist.

The Studio Ghibli museum. Our next stop was another one that was near and dear to Anja’s heart: the museum dedicated to the works of Hiyao Miyazaki, creator of Studio Ghibli. Most of you have probably come across one or another of his films: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Ghost in the Shell were some of the more popular releases that made their way to the US. Studio Ghibli is to Japan as Disney is to America and the world. We had to get tickets, sold at a corner store automatic machine, which were (surprisingly) sold out for a couple days in advance. It was a long train ride out to the suburbs to get to the museum, and since we were almost half an hour late, we had no idea whether we would even make it. Thankfully the museum was open for an hour and a half after we arrived, with no time limit on how long we stayed, so we were free to enjoy it as we pleased. It was a perfect children’s playground. The whole building was custom-designed by Miyazaki himself, down the smallest detail. Unlike a regular museum, this one encouraged visitors to find their own way through, with all manner of curiously engineered passageways between the various rooms. We saw all kinds of interesting aspects of the animation process: examples models that the animators used to understand the motion of particularly complex scenes, materials that Miyazaki used as reference for , the light tables and pencils that the animators used to create keyframes, finalized character sketches to define how a figure would look from various angles, paintings to render the details of one scene or another, and finally a film segment using the characters from My Neighbor Totoro that was never released to the public. The whole place was intriguing. We picked up a number of neat little things from the gift shop, and headed back into town on the custom-painted Studio Ghibli city bus.

Meeting a gaijin punk. Coming back into the city on the train, I was staring at the subway map trying to figure out where to transfer when a white guy offered to help me out. He was wearing a black and red leather jacket, with electric-green Converse sneakers. Turns out he’s from Pittsburgh, he’s been living in Japan for a year and a half, been in Tokyo several months, hates the cold, loves the city, and has been hanging out playing music in the punk music scene. He’d taken Japanese in school, started out teaching English, and now that he’s in Tokyo he’s seen a lot of jobs for foreigners who can speak the language. It was reassuring to see that he’d carved out a place for himself—and was clearly having the time of his life.

Coffee in the taxicab. The next morning, the alarm went off at 4:30 this morning, a striking contrast to our usual leisurely pace. We’d read that the Tsukiji Fish Market was worth seeing, and it seemed worth it to getting up early since it was our last morning in the city. I layered up in every ounce of warm gear I had with me, and we headed out into the dark streets to pick up a (hot!) can of intensely caffeinated coffee and grab a subway. Except that the station was locked when we got there, and we realized that nowhere in our guidebook did it say what hours it ran. Flagging down one of the many available cabs, we managed to convey our destination to the cab driver with a certain amount of flipping through the phrasebook. He brought us to the front gate, just as we’d asked. As we’re getting out the cab, one of the cans of coffee spills on the floor, and it broke my heart to hear the noise that came out of the cabbie’s mouth when he saw the little pool of brown liquid on the floor of his precious passenger compartment. He almost cried. My mom did her best to clean up, but the man’s eyes showed nothing but pain and sadness. He wouldn’t take the extra money she wanted to give him, but she left it anyways, since there wasn’t anything else we could do. I was kind of blown away—here’s a cabbie in one of the world’s largest, densest metro areas, and he had not a harsh word in his head. The cabs here are noticeably nicer than anywhere else I’ve been, complete with little lacey doilies on the headrests, and given the Japanese obsession with cleanliness, it’s probably pretty important for a cabbie to keep his vehicle clean. (Mom later recalled hearing that if you’re drunk and end up vomiting in a Tokyo taxi, it could cost you hundreds of dollars to pay for the cleanup.)

The fish market. Putting the whole embarrassing issue behind us, we started our do-it-yourself tour of the market. Our first impression was of the traffic making its way through narrow passageways, which was dominated by men steering these little three-wheeled motorized carts to carry boxes of food from place to place. They would drive at breakneck speed, constantly threatening to run into one thing or another but always steering expertly away at the last minute. (I saw one use its bumper only once.) Every now and then, we’d spot someone using an ancient two-wheeled hand-cart to carry a similar load. I could hardly believe that visitors were allowed in such a place, since it seemed like a recipe for horrendous lawsuits, but we were basically ignored as we dodged our way through the carts and started gawking at the wares available for sale. The first area we passed through was the produce section. A high warehouse ceiling covered a densely-packed city of ad-hoc storefronts, where hundreds of small teams had staked out a ten-by-ten area to sell boxloads of goods. Bundles of four-foot daikon radishes, great bags of bean sprouts, crates of cabbages and many completely unidentifiable vegetables were being sold at a fast clip to customers who presumably represented various Tokyo restaurants. It felt dirty, chaotic and perfectly efficient. The organization of the place had a whiff of Burning Man ad-hocracy, but the people had a professional intensity that you just don’t find out in the desert. They acted like stock traders who just happened to be inconvenienced by the need to physically move their goods with each sale. The most incredible thing was to be so close to them as they went about their work, seeing the action close at hand. We saw a live octopus tossed into a bucket as it was trying to escape from a tabletop, watched as wholesale five-foot-long flash-frozen tuna were auctioned off to the middlemen, stared at flat fish with two eyes on the same side of their head, saw a bandsaw used to cut a frozen tuna down the spine, and observed the prodigious quantity of blood spilled in the process of preparing the seafood for market. Afterwards, we wandered through the alleys where the workers bought their tools, and squeezed into a tiny restaurant to order a hot steaming bowl of noodles. It was one of the tastiest meals we’d eaten to date.

posted by Noah Flower @ 12:58 PM