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Published: January 17th 2008
It wasn’t easy work getting to my final destination of Tokyo form Shanghai, the Chinese were determined to piss me off as much as possible before I left their turf. Twice I was pulled to one side to have all my bags searched and once I was interrogated, luckily no Chinese water torture was involved, just a series of crap questions like ‘Why you not go home to England?’
‘Err….Because I’m going to Japan’ and
‘Why you want to go to Japan?’
‘Err…to see stuff’ and
‘Why you want to take your bags to Japan’
‘Err…well because it’s quite an integral part of my journey!’ They even had the audacity to lose my departure card so I had to fill out another one again.
The final insult was another customs search when I arrived in Tokyo, I’m not to sure how they choose there victims as some people just waltz on through quite merrily with all their bags unsearched whilst others (mostly whitey) were getting slightly more victimised.
Once I was checked into Japan I waited around for a couple of hours to meet Mr Smith from March, Cambridgeshire who’s flight was due just a couple of hours after
mine. Mr Smith had been to Japan before so to some extent knew how the cookie crumbled which would come in handy at various stages of our time in Japan.
Travelling via train through the centre of Tokyo you begin to get a real grasp of just how big the place is and an understanding as to why it is one of the most populous cities on earth covering an area of 5796 km² consisting of nearly 13 million inhabitants. All around is an abundance of monstrous buildings, hyperactive lights and streets doused in humans. All to which I was no stranger to by now but one still can’t help by being absorbed by the sheer energy that seeps through the pores of this vast metropolis.
Mr Smith had booked us into a Ryokan in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Chidoricho. A Ryokan is a traditional Japanese Inn where you sleep on a mattress on a tatami matted floor and you don a yukata which is essentially a non-woolly dressing gown and a little cold on the skin when you first put it on. Ryokans are also well know for their communal bath houses, now I was really
game for a bath as I hadn’t had one in 6 months, obviously I’d washed a few times along the way but everywhere was shower orientated so after a while you begin to miss certain things, a bath being one of them. The only thing I was slightly concerned about with the bathhouse idea was the ‘COMMUNAL’ bit. Just how communal is communal?
The baths are single sex and I just didn’t like the idea of being in the nip in front of other dudes as it all sounded a bit gay, especially if they were Asian dudes as they have a nasty habit of staring which would make the whole experience even more uncomfortable and would make them even more gayer for staring. But still I didn’t have a lot of choice, I needed a bath and I would just have to learn to get over my fears. So I gingerly approached the bathhouse and to my luck the bathhouse was totally free of random strangers and the overall fear of bummage suddenly evaporated. The only awkwardness was that me and Mr Smith both wanted to use the bath but as long as you sit more than one
metre apart from one another and give each other prior warnings to any sudden movements such as getting in and out of the bath and look directly at the wall when talking to one another it makes the whole scenario totally ungay. Given these requirements this also meant that the bathhouse was only totally ungay if two people were in the bath at the same time, anymore than two people in the bath at the same would naturally make it totally gay and everyone’s favourite film would be ‘Brokeback Mountain!’
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The following day Mr Smith and I used the very efficient train service of Tokyo to go to Yoyogi Park, the largest park in Tokyo. At peak times the trains can get very crowded, but still somehow everyone manages to squeeze themselves into some sort of gap or crevice. It’s also interesting to note that everyone seems to be absorbed in some sort of electronic gadget such as a mobile phone or a PSP to where all their focus is centred around. Non-surprisingly the digital age seems more present here than anywhere else on my travels in Asia, and probably safe to say the World. For the
gamer you are in paradise, there’s literally an amusement arcade or twelve on every other street.
Sundays in Yoyogi park are meant to be the place to be, bands play, people impersonate 60’s rockers and dress up as anime characters, but I guess me and Mr Smith were either in the wrong place or today nobody could be arsed as all we found was a crazy old tramp who was trying to sell us his English Literature.
That being said we took a stroll through Takeshita Dori in Harajuku and yonder eventually stumbling across a giant car boot sale. Just like back home, all kinds of crap for sale, pants, spoons, door handles, flannels, E.T action figures and Labyrinth video games for the Commodore 64! Despite the distance and not quite being as illusive as the car boots of Wisbechistan seeing this made me feel just that little bit closer to home.
Towards nightfall we headed to Shibuya which is one of the busiest shopping districts in Tokyo. Queuing up to just cross the roads round here you feel part of something, when the green lights say ‘GO’ you immediately join a tsunami of people all eager
to cross the road at the same time as you. Naturally with this many people there are a few mild collisions here and there, the good thing about the Japanese is that they are all fairly good natured and you will often here the phrase ‘Sumimasen’ issued which is basically sorry or excuse me, now if I was in China getting an apology from someone would be like trying to draw blood from a stone. That’s another thing to note here, the Japanese know how to queue in an orderly civilised fashion, in fact there are queues everywhere, I think it could even potentially be a hobby or national sport, you just see queues about the place and you can’t even really work out what they are queuing for, which makes you wonder do they even really know what they are queuing for?
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Today we went to Ikebukuro where I would be designated my plane ticket home and pay visit to Sunshine City a rather large shopping centre where I would make the welcome discovery that Mister Donut also exists in Japan. I introduced Mister Donut to Mr Smith and they seemed to get along just fine,
I was even issued with my very own Mister Donut club card, like your Sainsburys Nectar card….but for donuts, NICE!
In the evening I took a look in my wallet and got rather concerned and actually thought I’d lost some money. So I went through in my head the things I’d done and how much I’d spent and it worked out that I wasn’t actually missing money I’d just spent it as it really was that much more expensive here than any other place I’d been to in Asia and it took me a while to get my head round that factor. I’d spent in a few days what would probably last a few weeks everywhere else I’d been to on my travels. But I guess this would prepare me and get me used to the fact that I was now in a developed country and things do cost more and I would soon be back in England where the prices have the potential to generally be through the roof.
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On the way to the Tokyo Metropolitan government building today me and Mr Smith were greeted by a man with a camera who said the phrase
‘Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?’ which means do you speak Japanese, we would hear this phrase several times in Japan to which we simply replied ‘Sukoshi’ which means ‘Little’, then they would usually reel off something in Japanese speaking way to fast to be understood and then you wished you had just said ‘No’ in plain English. Anyway in this scenario the guy was after a picture of us outside the met building, for what reason one cannot say but it’s something I’ve come accustomed to since China where they seem to have this thing for taking photos of westerners, either with or without permission. The Japanese generally ask though as opposed to the Chinese who run up to you take a photo and sprint off into the sunset with the notion that they have stolen something from you and have got one over on whitey.
But anyway, from the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan government building just shy of 800ft you get to experience Tokyo’s vastness, one big concrete jungle for as far as the eye can see. Apparently on a clear smog free day on the horizon you can catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, on this day
however that would not be the case and one finds it hard to actually imagine a smog free day in Tokyo with a city that doesn’t really seem to sleep.
Evening took us to the light parade of Electric City in Akihabara. Rows and rows of shops all revolving around electronic products, cameras, TV’s, DVD’s, video games consoles and lots and lots of interesting games, loads you don’t get back home but without understanding Japanese would be deemed useless, perhaps making it one more encouraging reason to learn more of the language. I spent a lot of time here and even had to do a revisit in my last few days of Japan just in case I missed anything, the helpful thing with Akihabara is that there is also a Mister Donut hear to help break down the shopping bonanza and to enable oneself to refuel when necessary….and to collect those all important donut points.
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In my last day in the Ryokan I was unable to obtain a bath as there was already two people in it thus making it totally gay if I was to join the party. So I settled for a freezing
cold shower which sucked ass!
Our accommodation for tonight was based in Shinjuku in a capsule hotel, another Japanese speciality. To save room the Japanese came up with the idea of stacking capsule rooms together generally one on top of another and then in a row for as far as you can imagine, it’s comparable to something out of a sci-fi movie. You basically have enough room to get in, lie down, watch some TV, and then sleep, it was a cool experience and if you ever get to Japan everyone should check this out at least once.
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For a few days Mr Smith and I headed out of Tokyo into the Japanese wilderness to a place called Nikko. It’s a few hours via train and stepping off at the other end at Nikko you instantly detect a sudden chill in the air than when compared to that of the temperature that was left behind just hours before in Tokyo, of which I might add was by no means warm but being a city it gets shrouded in a certain amount of intoxicated warmth. Nikko is set in a National Park and is World Heritage
site renowned for its shrines, temples, surrounding hot springs and mountains.
We checked into another Ryokan and spent our days wondering in the wilds of Nikko. The place is beautiful with some amazing scenery, great big waterfalls and snow peaked mountains. Perhaps one of the strangest places we went to was a place called Kanmangafuchi Abyss, the place was so eerily quiet and stretching along the walkways were rows of Buddha like deities garnished in red hats and scarves known as Jizo’s. The Jizo’s are apparently fairly common in Japan especially near burial sites as it is believed that they save the souls of those in hell, especially children that die prematurely to such factors as abortion or miscarriage, according to Japanese belief they are sent to hell due to causing their parents so much grief and sadness. What I wonder is, what if the mother enjoyed having the abortion or miscarriage? Or pretended to enjoy it so as to fool the gods into thinking they are happy with their loss? Would that baby then get sent to heaven? The red hats and scarves are a form of offering to the Jizo to encourage him to look after the
children in hell….this is all kind of quite interesting and there’s more to this but I’ve just realised that I’m probably depressing the hell out of you so I’ll move on.
Nikko is just one small portion of rural Japan that I got to experience and it was amazing, I’d love to travel and see more of rural Japan but obviously it’s the expense thing here so it would either be a thing to do gradually on several visits over a long period of time or the other alternative would be the work and travel experience where you can work and fund yourself as you travel which at this moment in time sounds very appealing, and writing this blog right now just over a month later and reminiscenceing on Japan I’m beginning to get very inspired indeed, watch this space.
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On our return to Tokyo we checked into a youth hostel which made me feel a bit more in my element, we opted for a room to ourselves as opposed to dorms as we had accumulated quite a lot of gear and didn’t want anyone getting there pikey mitts on it, especially be in so I
had found a Final Fantasy VII ‘Cloud’ action figure which was worth guarding with my life. Paying a little extra though for our own room still didn’t prevent my pillow from having 3rd party hairs on it and the room itself stinking of viciously bad feet, also the water tasted a bit like the water round The Ryes house, foul. Our room even came equipped with a rape painting, two ninja stealth assassins raping a geisha, charming stuff!
In the evening we just chilled out and watched some TV, after being unsuccessful in trying to find some Japanese Scat Movies we had to settle for Bad Boys II in Japanese, which probably wasn’t to far off the mark. I’ve not seen the English version but it didn’t really take a lot of working out to understand what was going on, it also made me wonder, does the Japanese voice over guy for Will Smith do the voice overs for every Will Smith film? And like wise for other actors?
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It was an early start for me and Mr Smith this morning as we made way to Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest of it’s kind in the
The Blue Dauphin
There spelling not mine.World. A fact I can thoroughly believe, the place was massive and was a complete mad house, people darting all over the place shouting at one another, mini loaders nearly ironing people out, and fish, lots and lots of fish, and if you’re a fish and you happen to be in Tsukiji, then I’m afraid that its curtains for you my friend. Luckily for Mr Smith and me on this fine day we were not fish. We didn’t actually buy any fish, we just got a general insight into how the place operates and to experience its fishy madness.
For our remaining days in Tokyo we re-visited a few classic sites, dined at Mister Donuts, went to electric city, played video games and drunk £5 a pint beer!
JAPAN….I shall return.
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In just six months I have come far and I have seen, done and learnt many things and have met many a great people, I leave Asia privileged with the experiences that I have gained and hope they will make me more wise up to challenges that may arise in my future, I still feel that there are many more things Asia has
to offer that will interest me and can definitely see myself returning at some point. Through both good and bad experiences that I have encountered along the way I still come away having had one of the greatest experiences of my life.
And this concludes my journey, from here on my blog shall lie dormant, thanks to all that have read them and I hope you have enjoyed them.
Godspeed,
Daniel S Doughty
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Meela
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I love Japan. Its VERY different from where i come from. The life is just so exciting in Tokyo, but once you go to different prefectures, you feel a different kind of life... Interesting too :) I envy you travelling...