JR Pass

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Hispanics sometimes say Yapan. Generally, they call Japanese people Hapon. But that’s neither here nor there, it’s simply somewhere else. At eight fifty-seven in the morning on the fourteenth of June in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-three is when I wrote the words right in front of your very eyes. Since then a lot has happened in this journey to the Empire of the Rising Sun, but I will continue to write in the present tense even though what you’re reading has happened in the past.

Of course y’all know that Japan is called the land of the rising sun because the sun rises in the east and Yapan, as some Spanish speaking peoples call it, is about as far east as you can go. Speaking of which, I have personally heard Latin Americans who speak Spanish say Yapan, but if you look it up in a Spanish dictionary, you probably won’t see the word Yapan as a translation for the name of the country called Japan, I think, although I’m not sure because I have not looked it up myself and quite frankly, I just don’t give a damn how y’all say it or call it. I will understand it regardless. If you’re so eager to prove me wrong then go right ahead and look it up yourself so that you can satisfy your desire in knowing that you’re smarter than me. But that’s probably something you don’t want to brag about because as you’ve already surmised from reading my critically acclaimed and award winning travelogue blog that’s admired by many travel aficionados the world over, I am really not all that intelligent. It’s like bragging to your friends that you have a single digit IQ. It might be funny, but it’s not that admirable.

The Pacific ocean is dotted with tiny insignificant little specks of islands and atolls all the way up the one hundred and eighty degree meridian, like Kiribati and the Gilbert islands, but no one cares about them, so naturally they are robbed of that “Rising Sun” grandiosity of a title by the more powerful Japanese Empire.

We landed at Narita International at 1pm local time. The flight was only three hours long, but since the Empire of the Rising Sun is rhetorically the easternmost nation in this here wonderful world that we live in and love so very, very much so help us god amen, they’re an hour ahead of Taiwan, which made it seem like it was a four hour flight based on the time difference between takeoff and landing. It’s a rainy day in this part of the world, perhaps in all of Japan, as we touched down on the tarmac on the eleventh of June 2023 AD. AD means Anno Domini for those of you out there who care enough to want to know exactly what those initials mean and why they are used as a temporal marker of our era, which differentiates the era before the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord God in Heaven and the savior of our world. It appears that it has been raining here for several days and weeks, perhaps longer, and there’s no sign of the rain stopping anytime soon. The skies have been cloudy all day just by the very nature of its appearance.

We hopped off the plane and walked straight down to immigration like you always do in international travel, so no surprises there. I have been to Japan before thirty years ago as part of my professional endeavor, which means that I am somewhat familiar with the customs and know a bit of the language, like ohayo gozaimasu, konichiwa, domo arigato Mr. Roboto, and don’t touch my mustache.

What?

What the heck does that mean don’t touch my mustache? That ain’t no Japanese you might object, and you would be perfectly correct to find that objectionable, even offensive, to make fun of a foreign language like that, and that’s because you have not lived in my Hawai’i Nei like I have for a very, very love you long time. For the very many of you out there who are the dedicated and astute followers of my critically acclaimed and award winning travelogue blog, y’all know that I used to live in the Sandwich Isles. My Hawai’i Nei is populated with many folks of Japanese ancestry. Some view their heritage with ambivalence, some with pride, and others with contempt. The contemptuous and ambivalent have phonetically translated the Japanese word Doitashimaste, which means you’re welcome, as “Don’t Touch My Mustache” because that’s the closest pronunciation of that word for the uninitiated Haoles of the world to imitate.

We handed our passport and declaration cards stating we carried no contrabands, illegal drugs, guns, live animals and such in our luggage. The duty officer at immigration reviewed and approved our request for entry as foreigners into this foreign land by stamping our passports with a ninety day visa upon arrival.

“Arigato Gozaimas,” the duty officer said.

“Don’t touch my mustache,” I replied.

I said it very rapidly and with a fake accent so as not to seem offensive. I hoped he heard me say doitashimaste, but I’m not sure because he was already onto the next person in line, although he did smile as if he understood and appreciated the gesture. I’ve always felt that a little gratuity in any form always helps when dealing with the uniformed officers of the world.

The Japanese railway system is enormous, with many competing companies operating in the same cities providing many different routes. There are train tracks every-doggone-where. There are train tracks on the ground, above ground, and underground of god’s green earth in Japan. It is probably the most extensive and intricate railway system this world has ever seen, I think, although I’m not really sure if that’s the case because I never looked at other nations' railway networks. Quite frankly it doesn’t really matter to me because I just don’t give a damn to be honest with you. Trains are not my primary mode of transportation in the states. It never is for the three hundred odd million people in the United States of Amerigo Vespucci, so quite naturally we never have this fascination with trains like the Europeans and Asians do, except for maybe Paul Theroux. I’m sure many Japanese love their cars too just like the good old big fat Americanos. Afterall, Japan is one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world, if not the biggest. But in the Tokyo metropolis, driving is a hassle for the ordinary citizen, so most of them just leave it up to the private and public providers of transportation to get them around this huge urban sprawl, and I can’t stress huge enough because in every direction, it is an endless sprawl. That’s why many people in Japan take the trains everywhere, and as the saying goes, when in Japan, do as the Japanese do, not what the Romans do because the Romans are an extinct culture.

We took the Narita Express train to Tokyo using our fourteen day JR Pass, which I procured days in advance of our trip. It costs three hundred and seventy-seven dollars per adult, and one hundred and eighty-nine dollars per child who is twelve years old or younger. It allows unlimited use of any JR train in Japan, including the bullet train they call the Shinkansen. But you don’t actually get the pass in the mail after you buy online. Instead, what you get in the mail is a receipt showing that you have indeed paid for the pass, which you can exchange in Japan once you have arrived in person. The good thing is that you can get your pass with your receipt at any JR stations that are conveniently located almost everywhere, including all the airports. It all seems so convoluted at first glance but once you arrive there are signs everywhere to make it just a little bit easier for the foreigners in Japan and in the end, it works out. It always does, you just have to suffer through the agony of the normal rigmarole.

There’s only one entrance for the JR Lines in Narita, so it doesn’t really matter whether you’re taking the NEX, which I believe is the abbreviation for Narita Express, or some other JR train bound for some other destination, because once you’re inside the JR station there are signs that point you to the right place, and let you know which carriage is for open seating or which ones are for reservation only. I asked the lady at the JR office to put me and my family in reserved seating for convenience. At the same time, I also asked for reservations for the Shinkansen to Osaka for our trip on Friday, June 16. I find the Japanese very courteous and stoic, sometimes even engaging. But stoicism is a key feature for many Japanese in my observation. I can hardly tell what they are thinking by just looking at them.

So off we go right on time to Tokyo from Narita at 2:24pm local. It’s a cloudy, rainy day. It’s been raining on and off for the last month in these parts of the world. From Taiwan to Japan and all the way to Kamchatka in the Russian peninsula, the rain man cometh. Ain’t nobody seen Mr. Golden Sun for some days I reckon or so it seems. As the NEX departed Narita Station, mist filled the landscape that is both equally rural and urban. Japan is green, very green. And very clean. It presents itself to the world as a remarkable country capable of change, adapting to the circumstances presented to it.

As I have said previously in these remarks, I was here thirty years ago as an employee of the United States government. That’s a long time to remember anything specific about the country of Japan or the work I was doing while I was here, which means that all I can remember are the good times, the admiration, and renewed respect I have for Japan and its people. And I was reminded once again that everything here is compact and narrow compared to the United States. The trains are efficient and convenient. The people are helpful, regardless of who you are, but their customs are a bit too formal for my taste.

We pass by misty mountains and rice fields on this sleek Narita Express train ride to Tokyo, alternating back to residential areas with narrow houses packed very close to one another with features that are uniquely Japanese, like the wide eaves on the side houses which seem to slide down smoothly from the tip of their rooftops. Of course, I say all of this from a very humble and narrow point of view. I mean, how could I know that these residential features are uniquely Japanese? It’s only unique to me because I’m an idiot, I’m no expert in oriental architecture. To be quite honest, I have never been inside a typical Japanese home, whether it’s a single family dwelling, a townhouse, a condo, or an apartment. I wouldn’t know what’s inside. All I can do is guess based on movies I’ve seen, and Hollywood movies at that because I’m not all that familiar with Japanese cinema. I have never seen Seven Samurai for example, which is supposedly considered one of the greatest and most influential films of all time not only in Japan, but perhaps in the whole wide world. Quite frankly though, I don’t give a hoot about critical acclaim and all that when it comes to movies. I don’t need moral judgment or proselytism when it comes to the cinematic or dramatic arts. I don’t need historical context either. And I don’t need to be persuaded into a certain point of view. I just want to be entertained because that’s what movies do for me. I want drama with no moral lessons. I want comedy so that I can laugh. I want action with lots of blood and explosion to satisfy my morbid curiosity. I am a very shallow person. I’m not interested in character development and plot that makes me think. I don’t want to think when I’m in a movie theater. I only want to react. I want my senses to be activated to experience sadness, happiness, exhilaration and excitement. I want to be thrilled! I don’t want to explore the nature of humanity when it comes to entertainment. I can do that by traveling because I get more from that experience than from a moving picture frame. So that’s that and I don’t want to argue about that anymore, it’s a moot point.

What I do want to do is think and write about writing. Like I’ve said many, many times before, and I’m going to say it again because I enjoy saying it; I don’t get paid to write about anything, including and especially what you see right in front of your very eyes. I write because it gives me pleasure. I maintain a day job to survive, but I write for my own amusement and no one else’s. I don’t give a hoot if anyone else out there likes what I write. I suppose that’s also the reason why the many dedicated followers of my critically acclaimed and award winning travelogue blog with many admirers the world over read all these nonsense right in front of you, because I write with passion and careless disregard for the consequences, although I would like to think that the many astute and dedicated followers of my many, many masterpieces are drawn to my written artwork because the words that flow through these pages like streams of water in a laminar channel provide a euphoric sense of being as if they were on a psychedelic acid trip on a natural literary superhighway. Y’all don’t need no LSD. All you need is the written arts provided by this here favorite author of yours that y’all know and love so very, very much so help us god amen. Amen brother! Amen.

It took about forty-five minutes to get to Tokyo Station from Narita. At first sight Tokyo Station can be confusing and intimidating. Everything seems to be in Japanese. There’s Kanji written all over the dadgum place. But the thing to do when in Japan is to take your time and pay attention while the rat race is whizzing past by you. There are tons of people here walking everywhere at a pace of one hundred miles per hour, or so it seems. Ignore them. Instead, focus on the signs. The signs will tell you where the exits are. There are exits to the North, South, East and West, but that won’t help you because cardinal direction is meaningless inside this enormous gargantuan train station. Knowing which district you want to exit will be a better guide for you than knowing your orientation with respect to the magnetic field direction of god’s green earth. The two major districts in and around the Tokyo Station are the Marunouchi district and the Yaesu district. Of course, I knew none of this when I was fumbling around trying to find which side of the station our hotel is situated. But instead of thinking through it rationally however, I just reacted in the simplistic and convenient way for me, which has always and without exception led me in the wrong direction in the past. We exited on the Marunouchi side. I checked the address of our hotel and punched it onto Google Maps. It was on the Yaesu side. I was frustrated of course but I didn’t let that ruin my first day in Japan. Instead of slamming my iPhone onto the ground, I took a picture of the Marunouchi building right in front of me and asked a complete stranger, who was a foreign tourist like us, to take some pictures of my wife, daughter and I in front of this grand redbrick building of Tokyo Station that serves as the Marunouchi North Exit.

We had our luggage in tow as we walked north to get to the Yaesu district from the Marunouchi district. We strolled underneath the overpass of highways and elevated railroad tracks on the sidewalk heading towards the next traffic light. I have no idea what the name of the street we’re walking on because everything is written in Japanese. But the Google Maps helped. All I had to do was punch in Karaksa Hotel and it gave me several results. There was a Karaksa Hotel Tokyo Station, so I figured that must be it. We followed the directions on my iPhone held on the palm of my left hand as we walked past Ramen shops, Soba houses, and Izakayas. It was still mid-afternoon, around four o’clock, but the crowd inside these places were starting to build up, with folks in working garb, which is mainly white shirt, dark trousers and loafers, drinking and talking loosely but making very little loud noises, unlike a gathering of highly motivated and obnoxious bunch of Americanos bragging about their conquest of the day. There was a little drizzle from the skies above. That didn’t bother me too much because we were still underneath the train tracks. The Google Map told us to turn right on the next intersection. There was a street sign at the corner that said 407 for the street we are on, and the number 1 on the street intersecting it, but with an English translation that said Etai-Dori Ave. I have no idea what all these mean obviously because I don’t see such a street name in the Google Map, so I ignored it for the time being and just turned right like the direction said.

We are now headed east, supposedly on this Etai-Dori Avenue deal which is also called 1 towards our destination. After we walked past underneath the elevated train tracks the rain started to come down harder. We were prepared for the rain in Japan since we had already scouted the weather forecasts just the day before we left for this trip. The problem was that the raincoats we took with us were still in our luggage, and it would have been a great hassle, more than it's worth, to take them out on the sidewalk in the middle of the rain with many, many people walking by and obstructing their walking path while we took out the raincoats like the idiot tourists that we are. So we just kept walking and let the raindrops keep falling on our heads. After crossing a small street with no name, an alley perhaps and maybe that’s why there’s no name, we came to another major thoroughfare with a street name that said Sotobori-dori Avenue and the number 405 displayed at the corner. I still find this sort of display on orientation quite confounding, but I relegated my current state of confusion to the recesses of my mind because we had a bigger task at hand. We kept heading east, turned right on another alley and then turned right again after two more alleys with no names, but distinctive in the name and type of the shops, karaoke bars, and izakayas lined up along their narrow sidewalks. After our last right turn in one of the alleys we were dead tired, but fortunately we finally arrived at our hotel, the Karaksa Hotel Tokyo Station.

The problem was, it was the wrong hotel!

I handed our passports to the front desk attendant at the hotel. She did her usual punching in the keyboards to find our names in the reservation system. She did this for five solid minutes with no results.

“May I see your confirmation number please?” she asked.

I’m not exactly sure if that’s what she said but something close to it anyway and it doesn’t really matter, my mind was too preoccupied with trying to find our hotel confirmation number. Finally, I found a piece of paper with the reservation that my wife printed out before we departed from our home in the Bay Area.

The printout that I was holding said:

Karaksa Hotel Colors Tokyo Yaesu

Address 3-5-13, Nihombashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0027, Japan

The lady at the front desk gave me the address from the hotel’s business card that said:

Karaksa Hotel Tokyo Station

〒103-0028 Tokyo Chuo-ku Yaesu 1-Chome 5-3

Tel [phone]

“What?” I exclaimed.

I was confused and frustrated at the same time. Our hotel said Yaesu but the address was clearly wrong given the business card that the lady gave me. The hotel that we are in now mentioned Yaesu as part of the address, and I don’t even know if that’s a street name or just a name with no meaning, just written in there for yours and my amusement. So what the hell is it?

The fact of the matter is, the streets in Japan have no names.

Generally this is true although I have seen a couple of major boulevards that clearly displayed a street name like Etai-dori and Sotobori-dori avenues. But for the most part, the streets have no names. I realized this after talking to other folks, Japanese or otherwise, in the lobby of the Karaksa Hotel Tokyo Station. To further add to my confusion, the address on my confirmation printout is written differently than the address that I see in the business card of this here hotel that we are currently standing at, sweating and soaked from the light drizzle that we just walked on from the Tokyo Station to here. It appears that in the Japanese postal system the address is written with the character 〒. The Japanese fella who spoke relatively good English explained to me that it's a postal code sign, written in front of the zip code. This is followed by the prefecture name, similar to a state or province name for the non-prefecture countries of the world, and then the city, the chrome number, the block number and finally the building number as the last item of the postal code. From what I can gather with all of this information overloading my already packed head with confusing tidbits as well as other useless nonsense that seem to occupy the front lobe of my brain, this here hotel Karaksa Tokyo Station is located in the district called Yaesu, but the hotel that we have a reservation with, Karaksa Colors Tokyo Yaesu, is located in another district called Nihombashi. So where the heck is this Colors Yaesu place and how the hell do I get there? Is it far away from here?

The lady didn’t say much. Instead she grabbed a map and highlighted the path to the hotel that we were supposed to be. We were to walk outside of this here hotel that we are in right now, turn right as we step outside the door heading east I suppose, then on the next alley or narrow street that we just came from turn right again going south, according to the map she highlighted for us. After walking a couple of blocks in the southerly direction, the highlighted map tells us to turn left on a major thoroughfare for another block where our Karaksa Hotel is located. I could tell that the lady at the front desk was very sorry for our inconvenience, even though she had nothing to do with it. The fault was all mine because I’m an idiot.

So off we went in the light drizzle again and did exactly what the lady at the front desk highlighted for us, not mentioning any street names or street address as we followed along these paths. It took about eight to ten minutes to get from one Karaksa Hotel to another, which in the overall scheme of things wasn’t too bad but if the rain had fallen harder than a light drizzle I would’ve probably just taken a taxi for a ride around the block. It was already getting late in the afternoon, around 5pm even though there are still a couple of hours of daylight ahead us because the sun in the summertime and especially in the upper northern reaches of this here great world of ours that we live in and love so very much so help us god amen does not set until around seven o’clock at night.

We walked into our hotel room after the usual five to ten minute front desk process. The room is small but comfortable with two queen size beds, perfect for the three of us. There is a narrow coffee table and a sofa, a narrow and tiny closet, four cups for coffee and tea, three pods of coffee and tea each, a Japanese brand Keurig like machine, assorted sugar, sugar substitutes, cream and whatnot, and three sets of pajamas and slippers. But the most interesting part is the bidet. I’ve never been a big fan of it but it seems like it’s a new standard in Japan, to have almost all the toilets have this French style flushing of your butt type of deal. It feels funny, so I try to avoid using it. My favorite part of the bathroom though is the shower head. The pressure is high and the head is up in the ceiling to give that rainshower effect.

Our luggage had to be put to the side of the room because there wasn’t enough space in the closet and there were no drawers to put your clothes in. We probably spent a couple of hours tidying up our gears, arranging our toiletries in the bathroom, adjusting the lighting, and reading through a bunch of guides to plot out our plan of attack for the next five days in Tokyo. It is an enormous metropolis with many wards or cities within. Since we have a JR pass, we can almost go anywhere using the train, and some buses also take JR passes too. We figured that if you can’t get to a place using a JR pass then take a taxi or some of the other subway or train lines, which isn’t that expensive. We also checked the exchange rate, dollar to yen. It’s $1 to ￥140 or there abouts, which is perfect for you and me, but not so much for the Japanese.

Food was next on the agenda. The lady at the front desk suggested Tokyo Ramen Street. All of us, my wife, daughter and I love ramen, so the decision was easy. We headed out of our hotel room, borrowed an umbrella from the hotel staff at the lobby, then went out the front door of the hotel. It was a warm night, around seventy degrees fahrenheit, but drizzled continuously, which increased the humidity. We headed east towards the Yaesu Central Entrance of the Tokyo Station.

Who the heck is Yaesu, anyhow?

I knew this after the fact, but not while I was walking along the street with my family. As we walked down the steps to enter the underground Yaechika Mall, I saw a bust of a westerner and a picture of an old European ship back in the Magellan era, showing their lines of navigation from Northern Europe, Holland or some place like that, down to one of the African nations, sailing further down to the cape in the South America continent, then turning up north from Tierra del Fuego on the Straits of Magellan route all the way to the North Pacific Ocean, probably made a stop at my Hawai’i Nei, ending east on an island that we know call Japan. So I suppose this Yaesu fella must be related to this here bust and the map. To be quite honest with you, since this here piece of written art has already been conceived in my mind even before you’ve seen these wonderful, delightful, beautiful words right in front of your very eyes, I will let you in on a little secret of what writers do when they are stuck with no ideas of their own.

They do a little research. Simple as that.

So that’s what I did, and it all started there as we were walking towards this Tokyo Ramen Street that we were going to eat dinner at. There are plenty of materials on the internet of course, but I needed to go back to that bust and read the information on the board about the Edo-Tokyo-Yaesu History after dinner.

No, Yaesu did not “discover” Japan, Tokyo, or any part of the world on god’s green earth, like Christopher Columbus “discovered” America or Magellan discovering the rest of the world in his circumnavigation. We use the word “discover” when we really mean the first westerner to set foot on as a foreigner in a strange land. In that case then, Yaesu was not the first westerner to set foot in Japan, unlike Columbus and Magellan who could rightly claim the first of many lands in the Americas and some parts of Asia, respectively. The Portuguese landed in Kyushu in 1543, but that was before Yaesu’s time. He came with a crew of Dutch mariners who were commissioned to explore the new world far east. He was the second mate on a Dutch crew that landed accidentally in the same Kyushu island that the Portuguese landed on about sixty years before. The other notable crew member was a guy named William Adams, the pilot of the ship who was dramatized by that famous James Clavell novel Shogun. It seems that they had to fight off many pirates and other enemies to survive, so it was fortunate that their ship, falling apart at the seams, made landfall after sailing through a very heavy storm in the east pacific. The Portuguese Jesuits who were already in Japan proselytizing, were at war with the British and the Dutch, so they told the local warlord, or shogun as they were called, that they were pirates and arrested them. On the other hand, the shogun wanted to know more about who’s who in Europe and was curious about these redhead and blonde haired bearded men, so he interviewed all of them. In the end it was the pilot William Adams and the second mate Jan Joosten Lodensteijn, whose name was changed to Yan Yuseten by the Japanese because they had a hell of a time trying to pronounce his name, were to remain in Japan as advisors to the Shogunate. The rest were to return back to Holland with their ship.

Eventually the Japanese abandoned the Yan Yuseten name and shortened it to Yaesu. I suppose Yan Yuseten was just too doggone long for them and besides, he was not that important anyway or not as important as that other guy William Adams who later became a shogun, a first for a foreigner. God only knows why the shogun had ever took any interest to him because he seemed to be a lout by some accounts, but he was provided with some privilege for his service in the trade business, given a land, bestowed upon him some privileges, but in the end he died when his trading ship sunk in the South China Sea. His legend is memorialized in the name of the district Yaesu that the Tokyo Station is located on one side of their exit, and a bust at the underground Yaechika mall.

So that’s where I’m at right now, in front of the Edo-Tokyo-Yaesu History board after having had dinner at one of the Ramen joints at the Tokyo Ramen Street. I think we chose the wrong place to eat because my wife, my daughter and I had the same opinion that their Tonkotsu broth was just a bit too salty, at least it was for our American taste. I wish I could tell y’all what a marvelous experience it was to dine at the famous Tokyo Ramen Street, but I can’t, so you are left with a little education on Japanese history with our friend Jan Joosten Lodensteijn.

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Photos

1280px-東京駅ー１
The Marunouchi North Gate at Tokyo Station

Kusunoki Masashige
A dedicated Samurai, bestowed a statue on the grounds of the Imperial Palace.

Tokyo Skyline
Headquarters of Japan's biggest banks and multinational companies.

Wet and Rainy day
It's been raining in Japan all day, and all week perhaps.

Yaesu
Edo-Tokyo-Yaesu History