Ahhhh, Tokyo. Japan was our final leg, but we're only going to discuss Tokyo and Kamakura here--Fuji was so cool that it gets its own post. Oh man.
In summary, Tokyo was a perfect mix of incredible tranquility and Electric Mayhem. Certainly the most memorable leg of our trip, Tokyo had far and away the most packed schedule and some associated disaster with it. It seemed (somehow) less jam-packed than Shanghai (though moreso than Korea), and came with all the mind-boggling cleanliness, order, weirdness, and techno-utopia you might expect. The trains were all on time (and privately owned! Something to chew on for our gov't services friends out there). The city is broken up into many somewhat-independent feeling districts (some of which were particularly pretty), and wasn't as centralized as some of the other cities we went to. We skipped the "gigantic commercial tower" part of town that Erik loves, but the scenes did not disappoint. The single most notable thing here, though, was the incredible and ubiquitous generosity, patience, politeness, and graciousness of the Japanese people. From cab drivers to hotel concierge to folks just walkin' down the street, we want to give a big "thank you" to the entire country. We're not sure how to really thank y'all properly, so we're thinking of sending the President a fruit basket.
So we dropped down into Haneda airport and hopped a train (with help from some very nice ladies at the Tourist Information booth) to our French-style hotel in the Chuo district. Mark's Japanese, while shy at first, grew in confidence as our days went on, much to our mutual delight.
FOOD:
Our first night involved the most seriously awesome meal we've had in a long time. We went to Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant (which has a Michelin star) in Rappongi for a delicious prix fixe meal called "A Taste of Mountain and Sea," which obviously included a lot of seafood (really, lots), and some local vegetables and beef. We had some great sake, to boot, all while sitting at the hibachi grill--we saw our food cooked in front of us. Awesome. Our waitresses all wore kimonos and had the bushido-style politeness that you'd expect. Outside we saw some fairly rad construction and the most impressively pimped-out Hummer we'd ever seen.
Otherwise, our food experience was good-but-not-great, as we managed to just plain not find the best examples of Japanese cuisine (teriyaki, sushi, ramen, etc), but nothing to complain about. Our ramen experience in Akhiabara is a highlight, involving a fast-food joint that we convinced with some broken Japanese to be a BYOB establishment, so we quaffed some Suntory while we noshed on our noodles next to the single loudest slurping I've ever heard.
ASAKUSA:
Asakusa, another Tokyo district, included our first really neat temples. We entered one via a pathway of fairly peaceful (as in, not bothering us at all) merchant stalls and noshed on some pastries on the way in to the main gate. Again, as you'd expect, the temple is still actively used for prayer, and a lot of folks were burning incense (including us) and drinking or washing with some apparently holy (we think) water that poured from a statue (we saw a second that poured from the mouth of a dragon). Pretty neat. It included some probably-Shinto deities that made for some excellent statues, as well as a great pagoda, within the whole complex. Like most religion in Japan, there was a bit of mixing going on as we also saw a statue of Confucius and one of the Buddha.
The second temple we saw was likely Zen, given the amount of greenery there and the general sense of serenity and peacefulness (also there was a Buddha inside and Zen is pretty much the only Buddhist sect in the country). Erik and Mark did the obligatory Victory signs.
AKHIABARA:
Called "The Electric City," Akhiabara is likely the weirdest part of Tokyo. Unfortunately, we missed the afternoon jaunt, where apparently kids come out dressed up in cosplay of all sorts of anime and video game characters. But during the day, this district focuses on selling all sorts of electronics, video games, comics, etc, in some pretty tall vertical malls. At night, both the fun and the weird come out (and everything lit up). Arcades open wide, and Japanese working men stuff these plinko-like arcades (apparently it's a light form of gambling?) and smoke their faces off after work. We went to a few arcades, including Taito Station, where we burned through a fair amount of Yen. We played some Metal Slug, embarrassed ourselves with lots of DDR (this place definitely had the best DDR we'd ever seen in our lives), and played a punching game in which you... punch stuff. Mark smoked Erik's scores by using his well-honed karate skills. Erik, ever the brute, was unable to harness his strength to get any high scores (Mark did--some advantages to being big and white).
The weird came in two primary forms. The first was that when you went to the top floors of these malls, they had multiple floors dedicated entirely to hentai. We stopped in for some cultural exploration and quickly escaped, not without noticing that at all levels there were tons of posters of submissive-looking schoolgirls. Speaking of which, one of the key attractions of Akhiabara was the "Maid Cafe," in which an aspiring okatu could go and order some beer or somesuch and be served by a particularly submissive and particularly scantily-clad young girl (in a maid costume, of course) that would call you "master" as she took your order. We saw these girls out in the street handing out fliers and trying to entice men of all ages to jump in (though particularly the young). Interestingly enough, we were completely ignored by these girls, suggesting that apparently gaijin (foreigners) typically have no interest. No, we didn't go in. It's an interesting case study in the dichotomy of the old bushido culture (very repressive) with the very open subculture of weird sexual perversion. What's common, of course, is the sexism. Surely someone's written a paper on this.
RAPPONGI:
This is the seedy party district of Tokyo. We hung out here after Morimoto's restaurant, walking about to see if there was a bar we wanted to hop in. We actually experienced a level of pushy salesmanship that beat Shanghai by a good margin... but not by Japanese folks! Turns out this is the embassy district as well, and it was chock-full of foreigners. Almost all those accosting us were of West African descent, and would follow us fairly incessantly offering up good deals at the "titty bars" (no, we didn't go in). It got kindof frustrating pretty quickly, but the place teemed with its own life, every Western vice and energy squeezed into one place.
THE IMPERIAL PALACE:
The one major disappointment of the trip was the Imperial Palace, which was apparently closed to the public except for small, guided tours that required a long lead time for reservations (apparently a great deal of government business still goes on in there, including housing the Emperor--we didn't know Japan still had an Emperor, but apparently he and his wife exist in a fashion similar to the British monarchy, as a bit of a national celebrity status). Mark swears this was different from his last experience, but the outside was alright. There were some impressive moats, though we're not sure why the walls were slanted rather than straight--seems easier for folks to get up. There were some excellent trees outside--obviously well-manicured--and Erik and Mark managed to snag some pictures of themselves on the bridge, offering perhaps the best view of the palace.
KAMAKURA:
Kamakura was definitely the highlight of the pre-Fuji adventures in Tokyo. A good 70 minutes out of Tokyo, Kamakura was the former seat of the Shogunate and the focus of much turmoil between the Shogunate and the Emperor way back in yon day. Kamakura central now is a pretty small town that sits along the coast (and has some freakin' beautiful views of beach, of ocean, of boats sailing), and remains the site of many of Japan's most spectacular, beautiful, and busy Zen temples, some grand and some humble. Like other parts of Japan, there was a seamless mix of Shinto and Buddhism, though the focus here was mostly on the fairly intense Zen master, Rinzai.
We went to five of them. Each contained a giant bell that is rung by a similarly giant log hung from ropes. Erik's old high school Buddhist teacher taught him that the bell is rung with great gusto, and if the log splits/breaks from the ring, the entire monastery gets the day off. These monasteries are active, so they contained parts that were off-limits to us, but the parts that we could see were still quite spectacular. Some sat up in the tall hills (or small mountains, whatever), but all had great expanses of rock and tree gardens, and had a great, calming, refreshing energy to them. They were gorgeous and very much worth the trip.
A few particular highlights here: one was a temple devoted to battered or abused women, who would find refuge in the temple if they ran from their husbands. Apparently, back in yon day, it wasn't easy to get a divorce, but if a woman served three years in the monastery she could emerge fully divorced and free to move on. Another was a temple devoted to a Boddhisatva (Boddhisadvas are monks that have chosen to forego nirvana and be reincarnated instead, into infinity, in order to help teach as many people as possible the ways of Buddhism so that all can come into enlightenment--it's a Mahayana/Zen thing) that was dedicated to the souls of young children that died or miscarried children. We didn't see any mothers there, but we did see little statues of the Boddhisatva dressed in clothing that represent the children lost, where mothers could come pray. It was truly heart-wrenching. Other less-clear highlights here included the offerings of tiny statuettes of a guardian goddess of some sort in a big ol' cave.
Another great example of generosity came here when a worker (maybe a monk-in-training?) chose to lead us for about 5 minutes to the part of the temple we were looking for, rather than point us there.
Spiders happened to run the entire show there. Their absurdly large webs were everywhere, particularly in the trees. Despite a penchant for incredible cleanliness, Buddhists are against killing of any living creature (if possible--I'm not sure how much this applies to bacteria, etc), and let the spiders more or less have their run of the place.
The final highlight of Kamakura was the gigantor statue of Buddha. During many hours of the day (not when we were there), you could actually go in the Buddha and look out to the mountains from some windows in his back. Nonetheless, he was pretty great from the outside, and we managed to actually get a picture of both of us in the same place (the only one on the entire trip) from a group of youngsters who offered it after we took their picture (this was a deliberate strategy on Mark's part that worked brilliantly).
We committed our gravest shaming of ancestors in Kamakura. Our walking travels during the day took us far out of city center and the train station. We hailed a cab back to the train station and at the end, owed him about USD15. We offered him a 10,000 yen note (about $120), and he said that it was too big a note and that we had to give him something smaller. We panicked and cobbled together what change we had (about USD8), and lamented that this was all the small money we had, and that we could go to a shop and break the 10,000 note. With a smile, he said that the $8 was fine, really, and that we could go. Horrifyingly ashamed, we gave him $8 and about 10,000 apologies, and left the cab. It was sad, but we were--as usual--grateful for the patience and graciousness.
SUMO:
Sumo was even cooler than you'd imagine. We went to a sumo tournament that was in town (timing was good--it only happens a few times a year), and sat in the not-quite-lowest-cost seats. The stadium was newish but we're under the impression it was rebuilt around the stone sumo floor of ages long past. We got to see the senior league--the absolute best Sumo wrestlers in the world.
They came out onto the floor in their ceremonial dresses (each different) to huge fanfare and loud cheering. We noticed that one of them was clearly white and not Japanese (though he lost his match). Before and between matches was much ceremony--ceremony likely took up at least 80% of the total 2.5 hours we were there watching these guys, and included much squatting, much salt-throwing, and much one-legged stomping (like you'd expect). The matches themselves ranged from a few seconds to about a minute. These guys were truly titans of fitness, able to move at breathtaking speed despite their gargantuan size. Every match included flurries of photos and huge energy from the crowd--likely, a lot of money was on the line from each one. The ref, in splendorous dress, honored each victor.
Occasionally, the junior wrestlers (they were on earlier in the day and we missed them), who are apprentices and sortof the "pledges" of these particular fraternity-like stables (that's what each group is called), would come out to change out pillows or somesuch. When we'd shown up, they were outside signing autographs in great colorful robes, under similarly colorful flags.
The tournament was awesome, with the best-ranked three wrestlers all winning their bouts, one against a local crowd favorite, much to everyone's disappointment (but great respect). Mark took some videos of particularly long, quick, and energetic matches.
ANCESTOR SHAMING:
From the taxi dilemma above, as well as other general loudness, running around, eating in public (apparently a no-no?), and being overly needy of our concierges, we likely shamed many many ancestors on this trip. Of course, everyone was far too polite to call us out.
Ancestor shaming count: 8 billion.
Stay tuned, friends, for our last adventure in Fuji (and a "best of East Asia" summary), where things get more chaotic, terrifying, exhilarating, and adventurous than ever before!
PHOTOS:
Akhiabara
Buildings of Tokyo
The Imperial Palace
Food of Tokyo
Tokyo Gardens & Temples
Tokyo Sumo Tournament
Tokyo Life
Kamakura
In summary, Tokyo was a perfect mix of incredible tranquility and Electric Mayhem. Certainly the most memorable leg of our trip, Tokyo had far and away the most packed schedule and some associated disaster with it. It seemed (somehow) less jam-packed than Shanghai (though moreso than Korea), and came with all the mind-boggling cleanliness, order, weirdness, and techno-utopia you might expect. The trains were all on time (and privately owned! Something to chew on for our gov't services friends out there). The city is broken up into many somewhat-independent feeling districts (some of which were particularly pretty), and wasn't as centralized as some of the other cities we went to. We skipped the "gigantic commercial tower" part of town that Erik loves, but the scenes did not disappoint. The single most notable thing here, though, was the incredible and ubiquitous generosity, patience, politeness, and graciousness of the Japanese people. From cab drivers to hotel concierge to folks just walkin' down the street, we want to give a big "thank you" to the entire country. We're not sure how to really thank y'all properly, so we're thinking of sending the President a fruit basket.
So we dropped down into Haneda airport and hopped a train (with help from some very nice ladies at the Tourist Information booth) to our French-style hotel in the Chuo district. Mark's Japanese, while shy at first, grew in confidence as our days went on, much to our mutual delight.
FOOD:
Our first night involved the most seriously awesome meal we've had in a long time. We went to Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant (which has a Michelin star) in Rappongi for a delicious prix fixe meal called "A Taste of Mountain and Sea," which obviously included a lot of seafood (really, lots), and some local vegetables and beef. We had some great sake, to boot, all while sitting at the hibachi grill--we saw our food cooked in front of us. Awesome. Our waitresses all wore kimonos and had the bushido-style politeness that you'd expect. Outside we saw some fairly rad construction and the most impressively pimped-out Hummer we'd ever seen.
Otherwise, our food experience was good-but-not-great, as we managed to just plain not find the best examples of Japanese cuisine (teriyaki, sushi, ramen, etc), but nothing to complain about. Our ramen experience in Akhiabara is a highlight, involving a fast-food joint that we convinced with some broken Japanese to be a BYOB establishment, so we quaffed some Suntory while we noshed on our noodles next to the single loudest slurping I've ever heard.
ASAKUSA:
Asakusa, another Tokyo district, included our first really neat temples. We entered one via a pathway of fairly peaceful (as in, not bothering us at all) merchant stalls and noshed on some pastries on the way in to the main gate. Again, as you'd expect, the temple is still actively used for prayer, and a lot of folks were burning incense (including us) and drinking or washing with some apparently holy (we think) water that poured from a statue (we saw a second that poured from the mouth of a dragon). Pretty neat. It included some probably-Shinto deities that made for some excellent statues, as well as a great pagoda, within the whole complex. Like most religion in Japan, there was a bit of mixing going on as we also saw a statue of Confucius and one of the Buddha.
The second temple we saw was likely Zen, given the amount of greenery there and the general sense of serenity and peacefulness (also there was a Buddha inside and Zen is pretty much the only Buddhist sect in the country). Erik and Mark did the obligatory Victory signs.
AKHIABARA:
Called "The Electric City," Akhiabara is likely the weirdest part of Tokyo. Unfortunately, we missed the afternoon jaunt, where apparently kids come out dressed up in cosplay of all sorts of anime and video game characters. But during the day, this district focuses on selling all sorts of electronics, video games, comics, etc, in some pretty tall vertical malls. At night, both the fun and the weird come out (and everything lit up). Arcades open wide, and Japanese working men stuff these plinko-like arcades (apparently it's a light form of gambling?) and smoke their faces off after work. We went to a few arcades, including Taito Station, where we burned through a fair amount of Yen. We played some Metal Slug, embarrassed ourselves with lots of DDR (this place definitely had the best DDR we'd ever seen in our lives), and played a punching game in which you... punch stuff. Mark smoked Erik's scores by using his well-honed karate skills. Erik, ever the brute, was unable to harness his strength to get any high scores (Mark did--some advantages to being big and white).
The weird came in two primary forms. The first was that when you went to the top floors of these malls, they had multiple floors dedicated entirely to hentai. We stopped in for some cultural exploration and quickly escaped, not without noticing that at all levels there were tons of posters of submissive-looking schoolgirls. Speaking of which, one of the key attractions of Akhiabara was the "Maid Cafe," in which an aspiring okatu could go and order some beer or somesuch and be served by a particularly submissive and particularly scantily-clad young girl (in a maid costume, of course) that would call you "master" as she took your order. We saw these girls out in the street handing out fliers and trying to entice men of all ages to jump in (though particularly the young). Interestingly enough, we were completely ignored by these girls, suggesting that apparently gaijin (foreigners) typically have no interest. No, we didn't go in. It's an interesting case study in the dichotomy of the old bushido culture (very repressive) with the very open subculture of weird sexual perversion. What's common, of course, is the sexism. Surely someone's written a paper on this.
RAPPONGI:
This is the seedy party district of Tokyo. We hung out here after Morimoto's restaurant, walking about to see if there was a bar we wanted to hop in. We actually experienced a level of pushy salesmanship that beat Shanghai by a good margin... but not by Japanese folks! Turns out this is the embassy district as well, and it was chock-full of foreigners. Almost all those accosting us were of West African descent, and would follow us fairly incessantly offering up good deals at the "titty bars" (no, we didn't go in). It got kindof frustrating pretty quickly, but the place teemed with its own life, every Western vice and energy squeezed into one place.
THE IMPERIAL PALACE:
The one major disappointment of the trip was the Imperial Palace, which was apparently closed to the public except for small, guided tours that required a long lead time for reservations (apparently a great deal of government business still goes on in there, including housing the Emperor--we didn't know Japan still had an Emperor, but apparently he and his wife exist in a fashion similar to the British monarchy, as a bit of a national celebrity status). Mark swears this was different from his last experience, but the outside was alright. There were some impressive moats, though we're not sure why the walls were slanted rather than straight--seems easier for folks to get up. There were some excellent trees outside--obviously well-manicured--and Erik and Mark managed to snag some pictures of themselves on the bridge, offering perhaps the best view of the palace.
KAMAKURA:
Kamakura was definitely the highlight of the pre-Fuji adventures in Tokyo. A good 70 minutes out of Tokyo, Kamakura was the former seat of the Shogunate and the focus of much turmoil between the Shogunate and the Emperor way back in yon day. Kamakura central now is a pretty small town that sits along the coast (and has some freakin' beautiful views of beach, of ocean, of boats sailing), and remains the site of many of Japan's most spectacular, beautiful, and busy Zen temples, some grand and some humble. Like other parts of Japan, there was a seamless mix of Shinto and Buddhism, though the focus here was mostly on the fairly intense Zen master, Rinzai.
We went to five of them. Each contained a giant bell that is rung by a similarly giant log hung from ropes. Erik's old high school Buddhist teacher taught him that the bell is rung with great gusto, and if the log splits/breaks from the ring, the entire monastery gets the day off. These monasteries are active, so they contained parts that were off-limits to us, but the parts that we could see were still quite spectacular. Some sat up in the tall hills (or small mountains, whatever), but all had great expanses of rock and tree gardens, and had a great, calming, refreshing energy to them. They were gorgeous and very much worth the trip.
A few particular highlights here: one was a temple devoted to battered or abused women, who would find refuge in the temple if they ran from their husbands. Apparently, back in yon day, it wasn't easy to get a divorce, but if a woman served three years in the monastery she could emerge fully divorced and free to move on. Another was a temple devoted to a Boddhisatva (Boddhisadvas are monks that have chosen to forego nirvana and be reincarnated instead, into infinity, in order to help teach as many people as possible the ways of Buddhism so that all can come into enlightenment--it's a Mahayana/Zen thing) that was dedicated to the souls of young children that died or miscarried children. We didn't see any mothers there, but we did see little statues of the Boddhisatva dressed in clothing that represent the children lost, where mothers could come pray. It was truly heart-wrenching. Other less-clear highlights here included the offerings of tiny statuettes of a guardian goddess of some sort in a big ol' cave.
Another great example of generosity came here when a worker (maybe a monk-in-training?) chose to lead us for about 5 minutes to the part of the temple we were looking for, rather than point us there.
Spiders happened to run the entire show there. Their absurdly large webs were everywhere, particularly in the trees. Despite a penchant for incredible cleanliness, Buddhists are against killing of any living creature (if possible--I'm not sure how much this applies to bacteria, etc), and let the spiders more or less have their run of the place.
The final highlight of Kamakura was the gigantor statue of Buddha. During many hours of the day (not when we were there), you could actually go in the Buddha and look out to the mountains from some windows in his back. Nonetheless, he was pretty great from the outside, and we managed to actually get a picture of both of us in the same place (the only one on the entire trip) from a group of youngsters who offered it after we took their picture (this was a deliberate strategy on Mark's part that worked brilliantly).
We committed our gravest shaming of ancestors in Kamakura. Our walking travels during the day took us far out of city center and the train station. We hailed a cab back to the train station and at the end, owed him about USD15. We offered him a 10,000 yen note (about $120), and he said that it was too big a note and that we had to give him something smaller. We panicked and cobbled together what change we had (about USD8), and lamented that this was all the small money we had, and that we could go to a shop and break the 10,000 note. With a smile, he said that the $8 was fine, really, and that we could go. Horrifyingly ashamed, we gave him $8 and about 10,000 apologies, and left the cab. It was sad, but we were--as usual--grateful for the patience and graciousness.
SUMO:
Sumo was even cooler than you'd imagine. We went to a sumo tournament that was in town (timing was good--it only happens a few times a year), and sat in the not-quite-lowest-cost seats. The stadium was newish but we're under the impression it was rebuilt around the stone sumo floor of ages long past. We got to see the senior league--the absolute best Sumo wrestlers in the world.
They came out onto the floor in their ceremonial dresses (each different) to huge fanfare and loud cheering. We noticed that one of them was clearly white and not Japanese (though he lost his match). Before and between matches was much ceremony--ceremony likely took up at least 80% of the total 2.5 hours we were there watching these guys, and included much squatting, much salt-throwing, and much one-legged stomping (like you'd expect). The matches themselves ranged from a few seconds to about a minute. These guys were truly titans of fitness, able to move at breathtaking speed despite their gargantuan size. Every match included flurries of photos and huge energy from the crowd--likely, a lot of money was on the line from each one. The ref, in splendorous dress, honored each victor.
Occasionally, the junior wrestlers (they were on earlier in the day and we missed them), who are apprentices and sortof the "pledges" of these particular fraternity-like stables (that's what each group is called), would come out to change out pillows or somesuch. When we'd shown up, they were outside signing autographs in great colorful robes, under similarly colorful flags.
The tournament was awesome, with the best-ranked three wrestlers all winning their bouts, one against a local crowd favorite, much to everyone's disappointment (but great respect). Mark took some videos of particularly long, quick, and energetic matches.
ANCESTOR SHAMING:
From the taxi dilemma above, as well as other general loudness, running around, eating in public (apparently a no-no?), and being overly needy of our concierges, we likely shamed many many ancestors on this trip. Of course, everyone was far too polite to call us out.
Ancestor shaming count: 8 billion.
Stay tuned, friends, for our last adventure in Fuji (and a "best of East Asia" summary), where things get more chaotic, terrifying, exhilarating, and adventurous than ever before!
PHOTOS:
Akhiabara
Buildings of Tokyo
The Imperial Palace
Food of Tokyo
Tokyo Gardens & Temples
Tokyo Sumo Tournament
Tokyo Life
Kamakura
