Early in May, we got the chance to run out to the area that serves as the default vacation for Tokyoites: Hakone and 5 Lakes district.
When you’re in the midst of Tokyo’s skyscrapers, or buried under 5 stories of concrete in its subways, it’s hard to believe just how close you are to Japan’s verdant mountains and forests. Just an hour and a half on a bus and we were in Kawaguchiko, a cute little resort town built on the shores of Lake Kawaguchi, which is set into the foothills below Mt. Fuji.
I’d known that Mt. Fuji – or Fuji-san as it’s called here – forms an important part of Japanese culture. Kinda like how the Statue of Liberty for Americans is more that just a statue by some French guy. But the idea is kind of abstract until you get up close to Fuji-san itself. Then you begin to see how that significance came about.
It exerts a powerful presence on the surrounding landscape. The area in which it’s situated is a full of steep mountains and valleys. Not quite like the Rockies or the Cascades, but perhaps more akin to the San Gabriel Mountains. Imagine, though, among meandering peaks of maybe 5, 6 or 7 thousand feet, you plop a mountain of 12,000 feet, and this mountain is almost perfectly symmetrical. It seems to, and I know it’s funny, but it honestly seems to rise and float above the landscape.
We stayed in Kawaguchiko for one night at a really nicely run hostel/guesthouse called K’s House. Super friendly staff and nice facilities. While there we slept in a Japanese style room with futons on the floor. And Gabe slept on his in own futon in the closet. It was a big closet, but Rachel was worried he might get scared so she stayed with him in it until he fell asleep. He took her hand, curled up with his teddy and eventually dozed off. Too freaking cute. He actually slept very well that night. Here’s an adorable pic of Gabe in his den.
Down on the shores of Lake Kawakguchi is where you really get a fantastic view of Fuji-san and the particular way it dominates the countryside out there. We’ve got pics of it sure, but it’s hard to capture, at least in a way that can be presented on the Internet. I would have had to shoot it with a different lens, because the wide lensing I was using diminished its proportions. And I probably would then need to print it very, very large, and then…maybe. But like so many things, it’s cool in picutres, but way cooler in real life.
No, not the Police, the boys in blue I’m thankful for are the polyester clad heroes of the railway, the train attendants of Japan.
When we got on the train to Narita to visit the beautiful Buddhist temple Narita-san, the train was un-crowded, we felt relaxed, and it was our first trip outside of the concrete confines of Tokyo, so I wanted to settle in and enjoy the ride. To help enhance my ease, I took off our rather heavy camera bag and put it in the overhead rack. As I did so, I said to Rachel, “Don’t let me forget the camera bag.” Well, 45 minutes later, when we stepped off the train at Narita station—a station far from the relative familiarity of Tokyo—guess what I forgot?
It was one of the more visceral moments of horror I’ve experienced in a while. I watched the train roll away and then I noted a disturbing lack of pressure on my back and shoulders. It didn’t take long to realize that our camera bag, filled with camera equipment worth more than 5,000 dollars, was gliding away to parts unknown. For us it was a particularly nightmarish scenario because we don’t just use this equipment to shoot cool travel snapshots, we use it to help pay our mortgage.
Instantly I went to an attendant and begged, “Ego?” No, I was not hungry for waffles (well, okay, if someone had offered me waffles, I probably wouldn’t have turned them down), but “Ego” means English, and I was asking if he spoke it. He didn’t seem to, but pointed to the attendant manning the station office. This attendant spoke a little bit of English, and, through a combination of gestures and broken phrases (I tell you what, games like charades, Pictionary, and Taboo are really good training for getting around in a country when you don’t speak the language), I managed to communicate to him our situation. He made a call and then gave me the internationally recognized gesture of both palms pushing out: wait.
So we waited, and we worried. The train wasn’t crowded, but there were definitely people on there, and the chances of one of them being less than upright had to be at least fairly good. With the way high-end camera equipment retains its value, taking our bag would be a huge score for any crook with an eBay account.
But, sure enough, about 20 minutes later, a train attendant showed up with our bag in hand, everything intact. It was a tremendous relief, I’ll tell you what. And hopefully, it’s a lesson I only have to learn once. Despite the morning drama, we managed to have a really nice time at Narita-san, and—thanks to the boys in blue—we have the pictures to prove it. Check ‘em out.
One thing I don’t recommend is walking alone at night through some of the less savory parts of Tokyo while listening to Radiohead OK Computer. Don’t get me wrong, It’s not that these somewhat seedy areas of Tokyo are dangerous; there’s actually no area of Tokyo that could really be considered dangerous by American standards. With their Pachinko palaces, luridly bright signs promising who knows what, and suspicious looking doorways at the end of narrow, dark stairwells, these areas are a fascinating part of Tokyo life. And, c’mon, OK Computer is a rock ‘n roll masterpiece.
The problem is that the music and these places fit a little too well together. Is there any song that does a better job of creating a mood of creeping paranoia and postmodern anxiety than Karma Police or Paranoid Android? If there is, I haven’t heard it. And to walk around these shady areas with those songs playing can be a little unsettling. Especially as the Yakuza types, with their fancy suits and FBI-style radio earpieces, look you up and down when they think you aren’t watching. However, if being unsettled is what you want, then by all means head to Roppongi, or perhaps the area between Akihabara and Ueno stations and indulge.
Despite being a city destroyed umpteen times by space monsters, giant robots, and telekentic super-cyber-mutants, Tokyo is a very beautiful city. While most of the buildings are distinctly utilitarian in appearance, it’s exceptionally clean and full of mostly hidden bits of fascinating architecture and culture.
It’s also, at times, disturbingly quiet. This is especially true when I join the morning commute through the streets and on the subway. It’s almost eerie. There are rivers of humanity hustling to and fro, but no one is talking. The buses, trucks and cars are quiet — hardly anyone honks. There’s no music streaming into the street from cars, businesses or apartments. Even the soles of people’s shoes seem to be chosen to provide as little audible intrusion as possible. You can be almost guaranteed, if someone is making a ruckus in public, they’re probably American, or maybe Chinese.
And, just like in New York or other big cities around the world, Tokyoites seem to be immune to noticing anything. Everyone either looks down or dead ahead with that look that looks right past the sea of people swirling around them. Though, as my office manager put it, they are “never looking, but always watching.” You know, at first I thought I would get a lot of awed stares from people wondering where such a big white boy came from. But people seem to hardly notice me at all. I’ve come to realize, however, they only seem to not notice me. I catch people taking ganders from inside cars, and from the corners of their eyes when they think no one is noticing.
Despite its subdued demeanor during the day, at nighttime Tokyo makes up for any quietness with a visual and auditory cacophony that you just have to experience to believe. You can’t really take pictures of it, because the field of view is just too limited to take it in. The brightly lit signs flashing and blaring. The pachinko parlors blazing light that spills into the street. The barkers in the shops with loud speakers cajoling people to come in. And the shops themselves with dizzying numbers of goods stacked floor to ceiling. Yes, Las Vegas is the god of gaudy, but somehow Tokyo’s dazzle can seem at times more overwhelming. Perhaps it’s because, instead of a handful gigantic visual voices screaming out into the night, in Tokyo you have thousands upon thousands of smaller voices clamoring to be heard.
One thing to do for sure while in Tokyo is go to one of the observation decks of the various high towers in town and see the city from above at night. It can be kind of expensive, but even for someone who’s lived in the LA area for 10 years, it’s a dazzling sight.
Rachel has added some pics from her excursion with some ladies from our church to the city of Kamakura. Supposedly, it’s one of the oldest tourist traps in the world. It is indeed a very beautiful place, with lots of incredible scenery, religious relics, and an enormous Buddha. Well, the pictures are beautiful, at least. I didn’t get to go, ’cause I was stuck in the office all day.
Click here, or on Places above, and check them out.
The Tokyo Metro subway system is a marvel of order, organization and rationality in practice. Even someone not speaking a lick of Japanese, like me, can easily get from one side of town to the other in 40-50 minutes. They’re fast, clean, and if you miss a train, a new one is sure to be along in 5 minutes.
All you have to do is hook up a Suica or Pasmo card at one of the machines in the stations, and you just tap your card when you enter the gate to the platform, and tap it when you exit. The system automatically figures out your fare and debits the balance to your card. Once you get a handle on the very simple color-coded system for the different lines, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. 1: you need to know the line you want. 2: you need to know in what direction you want to travel (toward which station). 3: you need to know the exit you prefer so you don’t get disoriented when you come up to the street level.
The whole system has a remarkable clarity of logic from one end to the other. Nonetheless, nothing is truly foolproof — you just need a big enough fool. The other day, running late for a meeting with our client in Shinjuku, I found a nice piece of open real estate in an otherwise packed train. I quickly dove into the spot, trying to avoid being cut in half by the doors. I didn’t notice anything wrong really. A woman on the train gave me a kind of funny look, and everyone on the train seemed to be shorter than usual, but nothing particularly alarming.
I just went about my business ignoring everyone there. That was until a voice started calling in my direction. It was a train cop shouting at me and motioning me to leave the train. I thought this was weird, and was I confused, but I complied. Once I stepped off, I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he didn’t speak any English. I then tried asking another cop what was wrong, and he said, “Ladies.” I had jumped right onto a women-only train. During the heaviest commute times they declare a couple of cars as ladies only so women don’t have to travel crammed in with pervy dudes.
I was embarrassed, but decided I could pull the gaijin card and claim ignorance. That was until I saw that there were multiple big pink signs on the platform and the car itself that say, in English, “Women Only.” You see, “foolproof” is a relative term.
11 hours is a long time to do anything. I mean, I love eating pancakes, but if someone asked me to eat pancakes for 11 hours, I might balk. Wedging myself into a too-small seat in a too-crowded airplane for 11 hours? Unfortunately that was not something I had a choice on. Nonetheless, with the help of the excellent movie selection on Singapore Air and their exemplary food and service (fresh salmon on an airplane that’s actually good? Yes, my friends, the silk-wrapped beauties of Singapore Air make it possible) I managed to get through it. And so, I made it to Tokyo alive.
The first thing I noticed about being in Japan is how crazy it is to be in the future. Seriously, I get off the plane in the evening and back home my wife is still in bed the previous morning! Weird, but I’m no astrophysicist, so I’m not going to explain how that’s possible.
The second thing I noticed is how Japanese this place really is. I guess I wasn’t fully prepared for it, but everyone around is speaking, reading, eating, and even drinking everything in Japanese. I mean, I’ve travelled a bit. I’ve been to Canada. And while their ways may be strange, you wouldn’t catch a Canadian drinking something called Pocari Sweat (unless, of course, it came in maple syrup flavor). Seriously though, for someone as verbally oriented as myself, getting off the plane is a little like entering a world where one of your senses is disabled. You know there’s a lot going on around you that you just can’t experience, and it can be a little frustrating.
Yes, it is at times a little weird and unsettling being here, but I could never claim Tokyo is inaccessible. Because really, it’s a crazy miracle that Nic Bonilla, a man who doesn’t know Kanji from Benji, can navigate the crowded den of convulsion that makes up one of the world’s great cities with relative ease. Thank goodness the Japanese are masters at creating signs and symbols, and thank goodness they have the mercy to write almost anything of high importance in both the graceful script of their language and the simplistic letters and numbers of ours.
Well, whether I’m able to get around town or not, for the next 3 months my family and I are going to be calling Tokyo home. And while it’s not a visit expressly for pleasure and exploration (I’ll be working out of my company’s Tokyo office the whole time we’re here), I plan to take advantage of every weekend, holiday, and whenever the office manager decides I can go home early (probably never) to poke around and try to experience what makes this great clockwork of humanity tick. With this blog, I’m going to try and capture slices of that experience, both with words and pictures. It will be a completely selfish and self-centered exercise, but if you, dear reader, happen to find my boiled down bits of Nippon interesting, then so be it. Come back and comment often.
I leave on Friday. Now for shopping, packing, and panicking…
