A Fed-Ex jet crashed while attempting to land in heavy winds at Narita Airport. The pilot and co-pilot died, which is tragic. But this isn't the first time aircraft have encountered trouble from winds here, and it just serves to emphasize how insanely breezy Japan becomes at times.
Toyohashi and Hamamatsu are the two windiest places I've ever been in my life. Toyohashi was so windy that you could almost use an umbrella as a sail while riding your bicycle on rainy days. The only problem is, the winds tend to swirl so you wouldn't be able to go in a straight line. And they'd probably pluck the umbrella out of your hand and throw it across town given the chance. I've seen old people knocked over on their bikes by the wind here in Hamamatsu, just bowled right over to land on the sidewalk in a heap, air forced right out of their lungs in a great wheezy sigh.
Older people regularly hop off their bikes and walk them downtown, because the tall buildings turn streets and sidewalks into wind tunnels.
I've had strange things blow up onto my fifth floor balcony. Right now there's a girl's floral flipflop lying out there. Who does it belong to? Where did it come from? I'd throw it away but it'll probably take off on the spring winds by itself before I get over my laziness and OCD-inspired reluctance to touch it. That's what happened to the silver tall boy Asahi beer can that appeared on my balcony last spring. It stayed out there for about two weeks, then vanished. Probably jumped to the next balcony over. People's laundry regularly takes off and lands on the sidewalk downstairs; I fix mine to my clothesline with plastic laundry pins.
Another wind-based phenomenon are the hazy days caused by sand blowing in from China. Grit high in the atmosphere washes out the sun. The day I learned of this, I'd been wind-whipped with sand right in the face on my way to work. I had to wonder if the mote in my eye came from the Gobi Desert.
In about a month, we'll have the famous Hamamatsu Matsuri. It involves flying giant kites down by the seashore. A few years ago, conditions were so bad one of the kites crashed into the crowd and injured several people. I'm sure its flying team felt pretty low after that. But it's not really surprising when you consider how careful pilots must be when approaching their landings at Japan's airports.
Wind. Empty winds, divine winds. Deadly winds of Japan.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Famous Dotonbori Col. Sanders... Found!
Many years ago, Hanshin Tigers fans, overstimulated by their team's Central League championship, tossed a Col. Sanders statue into the filthy Dotonbori River in Osaka. Yes, the Col. Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. Apparently, the Dotonbori victory splash has long been a Hanshin fan tradition, and they thought since the statue resembled the ever-popular Randy Bass, he'd like to take part in it. Twenty-five years later, and the Colonel has risen from the polluted depths.
Not as exciting as locating the Titanic or the wreck of JFK's old PT-109, but still worth a moment's reflection. Hanshin fans are pretty extreme. Late last summer, while I was in Tokyo, I got to ride a train with a group of them. Tiger masks or painted faces, pinstriped jerseys, outfits predominantly in the team colors of yellow and black. One had a battered stuffed Yomiuri Giants elephant toy on a leash. He dragged it along across the concrete, let it lie defeated and humiliated on the nasty floor of the train car.
Not as exciting as locating the Titanic or the wreck of JFK's old PT-109, but still worth a moment's reflection. Hanshin fans are pretty extreme. Late last summer, while I was in Tokyo, I got to ride a train with a group of them. Tiger masks or painted faces, pinstriped jerseys, outfits predominantly in the team colors of yellow and black. One had a battered stuffed Yomiuri Giants elephant toy on a leash. He dragged it along across the concrete, let it lie defeated and humiliated on the nasty floor of the train car.
Monday, March 9, 2009
War is a horrible thing...
What an understatement. I just read this brief, very disturbing article on Wired. I already knew about these air raids from my various history readings, but each time I rediscover them it stirs up ghosts. Evidently, approximately one million ghosts. Nagoya, which was firebombed twice, is a very short train ride from here. It's home to the Chunichi Dragons, the baseball team my Atlanta Braves just received a pitcher from, and is known for tebasaki, fried chicken wing tips, and the animated Christmas illuminations at its train station. I've been there a few times. Not as many times as I've been to Tokyo, though. My adopted hometown, Hamamatsu, was bombed flat and shelled from the sea by the U.S. Navy.
I've talked to a man whose arm still bears scars he received from the flames when he was a toddler. He was unemotional about it, not a trace of reproach or even self-pity, as he told me the story. I've visited the house and eaten the food of a woman who lived through the devastation and remembers big American G.I.'s tossing candy from a train as they passed through town. Her mother refused to let her eat it, so she placed it in a drawer and just looked at it from time to time. Later, in Tokyo, she fell in love with the English language as she heard it coming from the mouths of actors in American movies. She decided to learn it so she could understand what they were saying without having to read the subtitles, and talk to those big Americans or their children one day. I know a junior high kid who loves WWII planes and builds model kits-- the Zero, the Spitfire and the Mustang. But not the B-29, he told me.
Not far from where I lived in Georgia for many years is a cemetary and park that was once a Confederate prison camp where hundreds of Union soldiers were held, and many died of starvation. I've walked on Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields. I've dreamed of visiting the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. There's a row of zelkova trees running past the station. They're a memorial to the what the city was before the war. I can't remember how it's worded on the plaque, sorry. It's a strange feeling to be in a place where these things have happened. Strange indeed. The streets you walk down in the larger cities here may follow old patterns, but they are all recent streets, none more ancient than sixty years. For over a year, I lived a minute's stroll from a temple gate here, the temple itself having fallen victim to a battle that happened before my country was even founded.
So perhaps everywhere you go there are ghosts. I hope one day we will listen to their voices. They're asking us to stop making war.
I've talked to a man whose arm still bears scars he received from the flames when he was a toddler. He was unemotional about it, not a trace of reproach or even self-pity, as he told me the story. I've visited the house and eaten the food of a woman who lived through the devastation and remembers big American G.I.'s tossing candy from a train as they passed through town. Her mother refused to let her eat it, so she placed it in a drawer and just looked at it from time to time. Later, in Tokyo, she fell in love with the English language as she heard it coming from the mouths of actors in American movies. She decided to learn it so she could understand what they were saying without having to read the subtitles, and talk to those big Americans or their children one day. I know a junior high kid who loves WWII planes and builds model kits-- the Zero, the Spitfire and the Mustang. But not the B-29, he told me.
Not far from where I lived in Georgia for many years is a cemetary and park that was once a Confederate prison camp where hundreds of Union soldiers were held, and many died of starvation. I've walked on Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields. I've dreamed of visiting the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. There's a row of zelkova trees running past the station. They're a memorial to the what the city was before the war. I can't remember how it's worded on the plaque, sorry. It's a strange feeling to be in a place where these things have happened. Strange indeed. The streets you walk down in the larger cities here may follow old patterns, but they are all recent streets, none more ancient than sixty years. For over a year, I lived a minute's stroll from a temple gate here, the temple itself having fallen victim to a battle that happened before my country was even founded.
So perhaps everywhere you go there are ghosts. I hope one day we will listen to their voices. They're asking us to stop making war.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
March 3rd was Hina Matsuri...
And I meant to write a post about it. A few students mentioned it, so it was on my mind. Then I got distracted by other things and forgot until this morning. So here it is, at last. Hina Matsuri is the Doll Festival, or Girl's Day and it comes on March 3rd each year. You-- if you're a girl, that is-- put out your dolls in February but you have to remove them promptly after Girl's Day ends or you'll never get married. Horrors!
Here's a lovely fantasy version of Hina Matsuri from Kurosawa Akira's film Yume ("Dreams"):
Do not cut down your peach trees, please.
Here's a lovely fantasy version of Hina Matsuri from Kurosawa Akira's film Yume ("Dreams"):
Do not cut down your peach trees, please.
Monday, March 2, 2009
"Sayonara, Prada:" Interesting Article on the Changing Times Here in Japan...
I can't take credit for finding this. My friend Renuka posted it on Facebook. It's an article from The Atlantic online about how the tastes of Japanese consumers are supposedly turning away from big ticket name brand stuff like Louis Vuitton.
EHHHHH?!!? Louis Vuitton? Abandoned by Japanese consumers? Now is the time to declare this worldwide economic crisis a depression, and to look for signs of the Apocalypse! Louis Vuitton and Japanese consumers go together like chocolate and strawberries in spring.
I love reading articles about Japan from Western publications, especially if I feel I can vet some of it from personal experience. For example, the article's writer states:
What sells today is value. When the Swedish discount fashion retailer H&M opened its first Japanese outlet in September, more than 5,000 people waited on line.
I wasn't there for the opening of the flagship H&M here, but I did visit the chain's Harajuku store and you had to wait almost ten minutes in line just to try things on. That's how crowded it was.
But I want to add something to her analysis: while value might be what sells, don't discount novelty as an attraction to the Japanese consumer. In terms of consumerism (if not other aspects of living), people here tend to love the new. This is why you frequently fall in love with a product such as a certain type of ice cream bar or laundry soap, only to find it replaced seemingly overnight by completely different varieties.
H&M has that novelty buzz right now, and it's trendy to go there while it's new and hot. That makes it a destination even for out-of-towners like my Hamamatsu friends and students who clued me into its existence last fall. It'd be educative to correlate its sales with a loss in sales by other clothing chains, especially the Louis Vuittons and Pradas. Then we'd know for sure if it's novelty or value that drives this phenomenon. Or, more likely, heapin' helpin's of both.
The article is illustrated by a gorgeous photo of a trio of "Japanese consumers." They appear to be members of the decora fashion subculture, walking down Takeshita-dori in Harajuku. If so, the photographer was pretty lucky. I've been there many times looking for decora and mostly I run into hip hoppers, gosurori and cosplayers... and a lot of foreign tourists looking for decora.
However, images like this give one a skewed perspective of Japan. Those three girls are a rarity unless you're in a youth-oriented area on a particularly popular day.
What you sometimes may not realize is the way Western coverage of all the "freaky" aspects of Japanese pop culture emphasize small subcultures versus the vast numbers of normal, workaday people you're more apt to meet. For a more accurate view of the "Japanese consumer" this article is really about, look to the people behind the trio, the people in normal, boring outfits that are pretty much the same as you'd see back home, wherever home may be. The girls in the photo make for a dramatic image, but for the most part, they're not representative of the people actually quoted in the article. This is another example of how we tend to visually reinforce the stereotype of the wild-n-wacky world o' Japan.
Actually, from my perspective, I don't find these girls even all that strange. I think they're cool. But for every photo you see like that (even the ones in this blog from time to time), for every jokey article on the Onion about "weirdo" Japanese porn or cutesy, amusing stories about ridiculous Japanese inventions, there are about a million or more people who just go to work and come home and watch TV. Most of the people I've met aren't so very different from people back home, with some cultural allowances. And I've met thousands.
I love the unusual stuff because I'm not exactly a normal person, but I have to look actively for it to find it; then again, I live in a relatively small, ordinary city, not Tokyo or Osaka. I specifically spend so much time in Tokyo because I want to see these things myself. I'm into this stuff, Pop Japan. You could probably wrap yourself in the subcultures-- the cosplayers, the neo-punks, the visual-kei fanatics, the otaku-- if you're in the right place and make some connections. That would be your Japan, a small, personalized version of the greater mass of the truly banal.
If you come here expecting immediately to be overwhelmed in a William Gibson-style sensory overload by cutting edge strangeness that's right in your face, prepare to go on safari or be disappointed at the simple realities of day-to-day life here in Japan. I mean, I've even been in Harajuku on the wrong day and nothing was shaking!
Ask various people about their weekends, and you're apt to get the answer, "I was working," not "I piloted my giant gynoid sailor-style robot battlesuit in desperate combat against Mothra, then shopped 'til I dropped in Ichi-maru-kyu."
You know what? I often wonder why we Westerners tend to focus on "Strange Japan." What is it about Japan, specifically, that allows us to cultivate this funhouse mirror image of it? What we generally see on pop culture websites, in magazines and on TV shows is a caricature of Japan. A grotesque exaggeration at times.
Still, when you do find girls like these loose in the wild, or some similar fashion tribe member, it's a mind-blowing experience. Like that photo.
EHHHHH?!!? Louis Vuitton? Abandoned by Japanese consumers? Now is the time to declare this worldwide economic crisis a depression, and to look for signs of the Apocalypse! Louis Vuitton and Japanese consumers go together like chocolate and strawberries in spring.
I love reading articles about Japan from Western publications, especially if I feel I can vet some of it from personal experience. For example, the article's writer states:
What sells today is value. When the Swedish discount fashion retailer H&M opened its first Japanese outlet in September, more than 5,000 people waited on line.
I wasn't there for the opening of the flagship H&M here, but I did visit the chain's Harajuku store and you had to wait almost ten minutes in line just to try things on. That's how crowded it was.
But I want to add something to her analysis: while value might be what sells, don't discount novelty as an attraction to the Japanese consumer. In terms of consumerism (if not other aspects of living), people here tend to love the new. This is why you frequently fall in love with a product such as a certain type of ice cream bar or laundry soap, only to find it replaced seemingly overnight by completely different varieties.
H&M has that novelty buzz right now, and it's trendy to go there while it's new and hot. That makes it a destination even for out-of-towners like my Hamamatsu friends and students who clued me into its existence last fall. It'd be educative to correlate its sales with a loss in sales by other clothing chains, especially the Louis Vuittons and Pradas. Then we'd know for sure if it's novelty or value that drives this phenomenon. Or, more likely, heapin' helpin's of both.
The article is illustrated by a gorgeous photo of a trio of "Japanese consumers." They appear to be members of the decora fashion subculture, walking down Takeshita-dori in Harajuku. If so, the photographer was pretty lucky. I've been there many times looking for decora and mostly I run into hip hoppers, gosurori and cosplayers... and a lot of foreign tourists looking for decora.
However, images like this give one a skewed perspective of Japan. Those three girls are a rarity unless you're in a youth-oriented area on a particularly popular day.
What you sometimes may not realize is the way Western coverage of all the "freaky" aspects of Japanese pop culture emphasize small subcultures versus the vast numbers of normal, workaday people you're more apt to meet. For a more accurate view of the "Japanese consumer" this article is really about, look to the people behind the trio, the people in normal, boring outfits that are pretty much the same as you'd see back home, wherever home may be. The girls in the photo make for a dramatic image, but for the most part, they're not representative of the people actually quoted in the article. This is another example of how we tend to visually reinforce the stereotype of the wild-n-wacky world o' Japan.
Actually, from my perspective, I don't find these girls even all that strange. I think they're cool. But for every photo you see like that (even the ones in this blog from time to time), for every jokey article on the Onion about "weirdo" Japanese porn or cutesy, amusing stories about ridiculous Japanese inventions, there are about a million or more people who just go to work and come home and watch TV. Most of the people I've met aren't so very different from people back home, with some cultural allowances. And I've met thousands.
I love the unusual stuff because I'm not exactly a normal person, but I have to look actively for it to find it; then again, I live in a relatively small, ordinary city, not Tokyo or Osaka. I specifically spend so much time in Tokyo because I want to see these things myself. I'm into this stuff, Pop Japan. You could probably wrap yourself in the subcultures-- the cosplayers, the neo-punks, the visual-kei fanatics, the otaku-- if you're in the right place and make some connections. That would be your Japan, a small, personalized version of the greater mass of the truly banal.
If you come here expecting immediately to be overwhelmed in a William Gibson-style sensory overload by cutting edge strangeness that's right in your face, prepare to go on safari or be disappointed at the simple realities of day-to-day life here in Japan. I mean, I've even been in Harajuku on the wrong day and nothing was shaking!
Ask various people about their weekends, and you're apt to get the answer, "I was working," not "I piloted my giant gynoid sailor-style robot battlesuit in desperate combat against Mothra, then shopped 'til I dropped in Ichi-maru-kyu."
You know what? I often wonder why we Westerners tend to focus on "Strange Japan." What is it about Japan, specifically, that allows us to cultivate this funhouse mirror image of it? What we generally see on pop culture websites, in magazines and on TV shows is a caricature of Japan. A grotesque exaggeration at times.
Still, when you do find girls like these loose in the wild, or some similar fashion tribe member, it's a mind-blowing experience. Like that photo.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Braves Sign Their First Japanese Player...
And this is good news for me, in particular. The Atlanta Braves just finalized their deal with pitcher Kawakami Kenshin, who will probably be known in Georgia as Ken Kawakami. This gives the Braves a rotation-ready frontline pitcher with eleven years of experience, including a league MVP award in 2004 and a Japan Series championship in 2007. He should give them an immediate boost during the 2009 season.
As he says in the article, while holding up the kanji for soul, "My pitching style is all about putting my soul into my pitches. I hope to show that in America as well."
That makes him the coolest Braves pitcher right there.
But he'll also give the Braves a boost here in Shizuoka prefecture. Because Kawakami is a former Chunichi Dragon, and the Dragons are practically our home team. They play out of Nagoya, which is next door in Aichi prefecture but only about... hmm... I've forgotten... forty minutes by local train? Thirty? You can get there by shinkansen in almost an eye-blink. You may remember the Dragons as the team washed-up Tom Selleck plays for in the amiable 1992 flick Mr. Baseball.
People here generally love to follow the fortunes of Japanese players in America. Ichiro is revered, Matsui Hideki (Godzilla to you) is beloved, as is Dice-K. Which means lots of Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox fans all across Japan. But when someone asks me my favorite team and I answer, "The Atlanta Braves," it's as if I said, "The Martian Solarsailors." A couple of blinks, a polite smile to soothe the obviously insane foreigner and then the topic quickly turns to Ichiro or soccer.
Hopefully, no more. I hope Kawakami has lots of success in American baseball, not only because I enjoy it when Japanese players succeed there and I'd love to see the Braves actually win a few games this year, but also because I'd love to see some Braves caps and t-shirts locally. I'd be thrilled if this area, my adopted home, from Hamamatsu to Nagoya, becomes a Braves fan heartland. It'd be yet another one of those amazing synchronicities that led me to Japan and this part of Japan in particular.
And I'd love for the reply to the "favorite team" question to be, "Oh yeah, they're my favorite team, too! Love that Kawakami Kenshin!"
Now if they could just get a lead-off hitter...
As he says in the article, while holding up the kanji for soul, "My pitching style is all about putting my soul into my pitches. I hope to show that in America as well."
That makes him the coolest Braves pitcher right there.
But he'll also give the Braves a boost here in Shizuoka prefecture. Because Kawakami is a former Chunichi Dragon, and the Dragons are practically our home team. They play out of Nagoya, which is next door in Aichi prefecture but only about... hmm... I've forgotten... forty minutes by local train? Thirty? You can get there by shinkansen in almost an eye-blink. You may remember the Dragons as the team washed-up Tom Selleck plays for in the amiable 1992 flick Mr. Baseball.
People here generally love to follow the fortunes of Japanese players in America. Ichiro is revered, Matsui Hideki (Godzilla to you) is beloved, as is Dice-K. Which means lots of Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox fans all across Japan. But when someone asks me my favorite team and I answer, "The Atlanta Braves," it's as if I said, "The Martian Solarsailors." A couple of blinks, a polite smile to soothe the obviously insane foreigner and then the topic quickly turns to Ichiro or soccer.
Hopefully, no more. I hope Kawakami has lots of success in American baseball, not only because I enjoy it when Japanese players succeed there and I'd love to see the Braves actually win a few games this year, but also because I'd love to see some Braves caps and t-shirts locally. I'd be thrilled if this area, my adopted home, from Hamamatsu to Nagoya, becomes a Braves fan heartland. It'd be yet another one of those amazing synchronicities that led me to Japan and this part of Japan in particular.
And I'd love for the reply to the "favorite team" question to be, "Oh yeah, they're my favorite team, too! Love that Kawakami Kenshin!"
Now if they could just get a lead-off hitter...
Friday, January 2, 2009
Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu!
That, I believe, means "Happy New Year" in Japanese. Since I didn't head back to the U.S. for my winter vacation this year, I spent New Year's in Tokyo. That's my year end/begin tradition. And unlike the last time, I had excellent weather to enjoy the walking... walking... walking... and more walking.
That's what I'll always remember about any of my trips to Tokyo-- the seemingly endless hikes through the train stations while completely lost and along the crowded sidewalks in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku and Ikebukuro. Walking.
I stayed at a hotel in Ikebukuro this time out. No more Kabuki-cho for me. As much as I've enjoyed my various stays in Tokyo's "infamous red-light district," which is supposedly chock full of organized crime, I opted for the quieter environs of Ikebukuro and its easy pizza accessibility. The hotel was in a low key neighborhood on the station's west side. Not much there other than the big OIOCity department store and, on New Year's Eve at around 11am, a really drunk guy who could barely stand.
The drunk was staggering about on one of the street corners from my hotel. Probably younger than I am, but much less sober. I watched him for a few minutes, but the longer I stood there the more paranoid I became that he'd decide to talk to a foreigner and choose the only one handy... me. Or that he might barf. I didn't want to watch him puke all over the place. And as he shambled with this peculiar bent-over posture towards the street, there came the growing possibility a car might run him down.
So I split for the pizza lunch buffet at Shakey's. Which I absolutely could not find. I ended up walking through a concrete park full of homeless people in winter parkas, idling about, talking out loud to themselves. I'm sure I had a stupid look on my face, craning my neck and looking all around for some familiar landmarks that seemed determined to hide themselves from me. Feeling touristy, I decided to get out my guidebook and walk around marked as one of the Damned. That's when I learned I was on the opposite side of the station from where I wanted to be. My goal-- Sunshine-dori with its ever-popular Shakey's Pizza buffet restaurant-- was on the station's east side and I was on the west. I ended up eating fried chicken at KFC.
I spent the rest of the day in both Akihabara (I found a neat trick to get there faster but it involves a train change), Harajuku and Shibuya. I hit the new H&M in Harajuku and bought as many pairs of their comfortable and stylish pants as I could afford. Black and pinstripes, for work and for leisure. I'm going to be the hippest old man in Hamamatsu this winter.
In Shibuya I had a delicious New Year's steak at Outback Steakhouse, served by one of the nicest and cutest people I've ever met. If we were in America, she'd have gotten a huge tip. We had a few short conversations as she kept coming by to check on me and after I stood up to leave, she smiled and pointed to my shirt, saying, "Kakoi desu!"
I know being friendly is her job as a server, but she put that little extra effort into it that really brightened my meal and made my legs seem less fatigued.
New Year's Eve. I ended up back at my hotel, wearing a comfortable robe and with the heat cranked up in my room. I had lots of books and plenty of crazy stuff on TV to watch and fail to comprehend. Lots of comedians doing humiliating things, getting beaten with short staffs by men in black vinyl body suits, professional wrestling, a symphony orchestra playing Mozart. Not as exciting as my last few New Year's Eves in Athens, Georgia, which were filled with drunken dancing and merriment until dawn.
But these days I tend to prefer quieter times, especially when it's cold out.
New Year's Day is generally fairly quiet in Tokyo. The shopping areas were busy. I wandered around Ikebukuro and finally had my huge pizza lunch at Shakey's. Unfortunately, I didn't get any of what we Americans consider "normal" pizza; instead, I had to settle for corn-topped varieties and other pizza exotica. Shakey's Pizza does not compare in any way to what we can enjoy back home (and I'm sure pizza-lovers in places like New York and Chicago would mock my love for Shakey's relatively pathetic offerings), but it's cheap and it's all-you-can-eat. I probably ate the equivalent of a pie-and-a-half.
Then I found Sunshine City, a huge shopping and entertainment complex. To get there, I walked some lonely, barren streets with shops and stores closed for the holiday. The winter wind blowing in my face only increased my feelings of isolation. Then, I was in Sunshine City, surrounded by thousands of people bundled up in stylish jackets. There's a Starbucks there and a Burger King. Starbucks, of course. It's Japan and Starbucks (or "Staba" as it's called) is as omnipresent as it is back home. Perhaps more so.
But Burger King is making inroads in this McDonald's-dominated market. From one store to at least three now. Maybe more. How the hell should I know? What am I, some kind of fast food guru? The Whopper is loose in Japan again and I still haven't tried it. To counter the Whopper, McDonald's is finally offering their quarter pounder here. The McDonald's I saw all had prominent posters featuring the Double Quarter Pounder. And they do look inviting, until you remember it's McDonald's so the beef patties are as thin as playing cards and about as tasty.
The strangest thing was making my way at random to the basement and riding the people-mover sidewalks until I found myself coming out near the Shakey's Pizza again. How fun! How convenient!
After that, I rode the train over to Shinjuku to do some research for a short story I'm writing and to buy some Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Under the massive skyscrapers, near the huge Takashimaya Times Square building on the station's Southern Terrace I found doughnut heaven again. And a long line. The sign promised a forty minute wait, but it turned out to be more like twenty-five. I know because I timed it. I got a free glazed doughnut just for showing up.
One enterprising guy actually stood in line, received his doughnut gratuity, then left the line and fed it to his dog. I don't know if his dog was merely hungry or he was making a comment about the quality of the doughnut. The dog didn't complain. And neither did the little toddler I saw taking healthy bites of the sugary treat his mom held for him.
"Oishii?" she asked, but his eyes were already bulging from the sugar rush and he was about to start levitating.
On January 2nd, I had to hurry and check out of my hotel and make it to the Imperial Palace for the Emperor's New Year's Greeting. I did this a couple of years ago in the rain but this year we had brilliant blue skies. A crisp day. I planned to see the 11am greeting, but even though I arrived on the grounds at 10:30, going through security and hiking to the palace itself took about 45 minutes. And baby, once you're in the crowd in front of the emperor's balcony, you do not get out.
There's no escape. You're elbow to elbow, people are checking their cellphones, a German couple are standing by, the husband with his video camera ready, the wife paging through an English-language advertising magazine to kill time. Then suddenly the "Rising Sun" flags are waving and men are lustily shouting "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!"
The crowd hushes and the Emperor says something along the lines of, "Happy New Year. It's good to see you all. I hope we can all enjoy peace and prosperity in the coming year. Also, I hope for a new acting collaboration between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt because I just can't get enough of them."
I'm paraphrasing, but you get the basic idea. Then the Imperial family waves and everyone shouts and applauds and their paper flags rattle in the wind.
The greeting only lasted a few minutes, but the walk back to Tokyo Station took almost an hour. Lots of shuffling and photos. The palace gates, while beautiful, are not really conducive to masses of people. We'd be making good progress, hit one of the photogenic garden gates and be reduced to shuffling again. And by then my back and my piles were aching something fierce. I felt about 80 years old.
I had to keep myself in motion, though. My suitcase was back at the hotel and my shinkansen was going to leave Tokyo Station right on schedule at 3:05pm. I hit Kinokuniya in Shinjuku for a few more books, then got the suitcase and made it to the shinkansen platform with ten minutes to spare. I even got to watch the cleaning women in their pink uniforms finish sweeping up the cars and putting the little white linens on the back of everyone's seats. I was continuously standing or walking from approximately 10am until just before 3pm.
And that was my New Year's trip to Tokyo, 2008-2009. Photos are forthcoming for my Facebook friends, and I'll post a few choice ones here.
I hope your 2009 is blessed and nothing but good things come your way.
That's what I'll always remember about any of my trips to Tokyo-- the seemingly endless hikes through the train stations while completely lost and along the crowded sidewalks in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku and Ikebukuro. Walking.
I stayed at a hotel in Ikebukuro this time out. No more Kabuki-cho for me. As much as I've enjoyed my various stays in Tokyo's "infamous red-light district," which is supposedly chock full of organized crime, I opted for the quieter environs of Ikebukuro and its easy pizza accessibility. The hotel was in a low key neighborhood on the station's west side. Not much there other than the big OIOCity department store and, on New Year's Eve at around 11am, a really drunk guy who could barely stand.
The drunk was staggering about on one of the street corners from my hotel. Probably younger than I am, but much less sober. I watched him for a few minutes, but the longer I stood there the more paranoid I became that he'd decide to talk to a foreigner and choose the only one handy... me. Or that he might barf. I didn't want to watch him puke all over the place. And as he shambled with this peculiar bent-over posture towards the street, there came the growing possibility a car might run him down.
So I split for the pizza lunch buffet at Shakey's. Which I absolutely could not find. I ended up walking through a concrete park full of homeless people in winter parkas, idling about, talking out loud to themselves. I'm sure I had a stupid look on my face, craning my neck and looking all around for some familiar landmarks that seemed determined to hide themselves from me. Feeling touristy, I decided to get out my guidebook and walk around marked as one of the Damned. That's when I learned I was on the opposite side of the station from where I wanted to be. My goal-- Sunshine-dori with its ever-popular Shakey's Pizza buffet restaurant-- was on the station's east side and I was on the west. I ended up eating fried chicken at KFC.
I spent the rest of the day in both Akihabara (I found a neat trick to get there faster but it involves a train change), Harajuku and Shibuya. I hit the new H&M in Harajuku and bought as many pairs of their comfortable and stylish pants as I could afford. Black and pinstripes, for work and for leisure. I'm going to be the hippest old man in Hamamatsu this winter.
In Shibuya I had a delicious New Year's steak at Outback Steakhouse, served by one of the nicest and cutest people I've ever met. If we were in America, she'd have gotten a huge tip. We had a few short conversations as she kept coming by to check on me and after I stood up to leave, she smiled and pointed to my shirt, saying, "Kakoi desu!"
I know being friendly is her job as a server, but she put that little extra effort into it that really brightened my meal and made my legs seem less fatigued.
New Year's Eve. I ended up back at my hotel, wearing a comfortable robe and with the heat cranked up in my room. I had lots of books and plenty of crazy stuff on TV to watch and fail to comprehend. Lots of comedians doing humiliating things, getting beaten with short staffs by men in black vinyl body suits, professional wrestling, a symphony orchestra playing Mozart. Not as exciting as my last few New Year's Eves in Athens, Georgia, which were filled with drunken dancing and merriment until dawn.
But these days I tend to prefer quieter times, especially when it's cold out.
New Year's Day is generally fairly quiet in Tokyo. The shopping areas were busy. I wandered around Ikebukuro and finally had my huge pizza lunch at Shakey's. Unfortunately, I didn't get any of what we Americans consider "normal" pizza; instead, I had to settle for corn-topped varieties and other pizza exotica. Shakey's Pizza does not compare in any way to what we can enjoy back home (and I'm sure pizza-lovers in places like New York and Chicago would mock my love for Shakey's relatively pathetic offerings), but it's cheap and it's all-you-can-eat. I probably ate the equivalent of a pie-and-a-half.
Then I found Sunshine City, a huge shopping and entertainment complex. To get there, I walked some lonely, barren streets with shops and stores closed for the holiday. The winter wind blowing in my face only increased my feelings of isolation. Then, I was in Sunshine City, surrounded by thousands of people bundled up in stylish jackets. There's a Starbucks there and a Burger King. Starbucks, of course. It's Japan and Starbucks (or "Staba" as it's called) is as omnipresent as it is back home. Perhaps more so.
But Burger King is making inroads in this McDonald's-dominated market. From one store to at least three now. Maybe more. How the hell should I know? What am I, some kind of fast food guru? The Whopper is loose in Japan again and I still haven't tried it. To counter the Whopper, McDonald's is finally offering their quarter pounder here. The McDonald's I saw all had prominent posters featuring the Double Quarter Pounder. And they do look inviting, until you remember it's McDonald's so the beef patties are as thin as playing cards and about as tasty.
The strangest thing was making my way at random to the basement and riding the people-mover sidewalks until I found myself coming out near the Shakey's Pizza again. How fun! How convenient!
After that, I rode the train over to Shinjuku to do some research for a short story I'm writing and to buy some Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Under the massive skyscrapers, near the huge Takashimaya Times Square building on the station's Southern Terrace I found doughnut heaven again. And a long line. The sign promised a forty minute wait, but it turned out to be more like twenty-five. I know because I timed it. I got a free glazed doughnut just for showing up.
One enterprising guy actually stood in line, received his doughnut gratuity, then left the line and fed it to his dog. I don't know if his dog was merely hungry or he was making a comment about the quality of the doughnut. The dog didn't complain. And neither did the little toddler I saw taking healthy bites of the sugary treat his mom held for him.
"Oishii?" she asked, but his eyes were already bulging from the sugar rush and he was about to start levitating.
On January 2nd, I had to hurry and check out of my hotel and make it to the Imperial Palace for the Emperor's New Year's Greeting. I did this a couple of years ago in the rain but this year we had brilliant blue skies. A crisp day. I planned to see the 11am greeting, but even though I arrived on the grounds at 10:30, going through security and hiking to the palace itself took about 45 minutes. And baby, once you're in the crowd in front of the emperor's balcony, you do not get out.
There's no escape. You're elbow to elbow, people are checking their cellphones, a German couple are standing by, the husband with his video camera ready, the wife paging through an English-language advertising magazine to kill time. Then suddenly the "Rising Sun" flags are waving and men are lustily shouting "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!"
The crowd hushes and the Emperor says something along the lines of, "Happy New Year. It's good to see you all. I hope we can all enjoy peace and prosperity in the coming year. Also, I hope for a new acting collaboration between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt because I just can't get enough of them."
I'm paraphrasing, but you get the basic idea. Then the Imperial family waves and everyone shouts and applauds and their paper flags rattle in the wind.
The greeting only lasted a few minutes, but the walk back to Tokyo Station took almost an hour. Lots of shuffling and photos. The palace gates, while beautiful, are not really conducive to masses of people. We'd be making good progress, hit one of the photogenic garden gates and be reduced to shuffling again. And by then my back and my piles were aching something fierce. I felt about 80 years old.
I had to keep myself in motion, though. My suitcase was back at the hotel and my shinkansen was going to leave Tokyo Station right on schedule at 3:05pm. I hit Kinokuniya in Shinjuku for a few more books, then got the suitcase and made it to the shinkansen platform with ten minutes to spare. I even got to watch the cleaning women in their pink uniforms finish sweeping up the cars and putting the little white linens on the back of everyone's seats. I was continuously standing or walking from approximately 10am until just before 3pm.
And that was my New Year's trip to Tokyo, 2008-2009. Photos are forthcoming for my Facebook friends, and I'll post a few choice ones here.
I hope your 2009 is blessed and nothing but good things come your way.
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