Tokyo - Part 3 - The Comedown

Tokyo raises your blood pressure. There are so many endless possibilities that you always feel as if you are running out of time. By the time I left, I felt like I wanted another week in the city to get to grips with it. When I was 21, I went to Barcelona for a week. It was my first time in what subsequently became my favourite European city. That was the only time I have stayed in a foreign city on holiday for anything more than 3-4 days. It makes such a difference to have a big block of time that you can put aside to see everything and mix in some time idling in cafes. I haven’t seen a fraction of what Tokyo has to offer.

It’s absurd that, after living in Japan for a year and having travelled extensively, I will leave the country sick that there wasn’t time to do all the things I wanted to do. I’m starting to see why people freak out on return to their home lives and end up running away abroad again. It will be very strange to go back to my UK day-job less than a week after finishing my contract in Okayama. To suddenly not have the possibility of visiting Tokyo for the weekend will feel very odd indeed.

So we had one day left in Tokyo. I felt slightly sick on the Sunday morning as I had made the bold decision to mix meishu, sake and beer with karupis and shochu. A schoolboy error. Nonetheless, after stuffing a pastry down my neck I felt a little better and we headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is a sort of playground for all your most childish impulses. Some of them not healthy. We headed to the arcades and quickly tracked down the retro-gaming section, my favourite part. I love the simplicity of some of those older games and their relative cheapness.

My friend and I got slightly addicted to Bomberman and an epic tournament began. It was much like being 14 but with marginally more facial hair and a new range of TV comedy in-jokes. After a while, I started getting quite competitive. We almost had to be dragged away from the machines.

So next was purikura. It was fun to show it to our friends and let them design the photos themselves. It’s novelty Japan, but in a good way. Spending so much time with K’s friends from the UK made me wish that my best mate and his wife from back home had been able to visit Japan whilst we were over here. Unfortunately (well maybe unfortunately isn't the right word) he happened to have a kid not long after I arrived, so he never made it out here and I will always be a bit sad about that. The kid’s pretty cool though-he’s only 9 months old but he likes Idlewild and everything.

We took the slow train back to Okayama and I was excited to get my first ever glimpse of Mt. Fuji, which was shockingly beautiful. It’s sometimes called “Fuji-san” here as mountains are often referred to in this way. That means that the direct translation is Mr. Fuji. As in, “don’t the clouds about Mr. Fuji look beautiful today.” This strange non-translation always makes me smile.

The tiger umbrella was lost. Somewhere on the Japan public transport system someone picked up a bright orange umbrella that makes growling noises at uncontrollable intervals. It was truly a sad day. I used my last 1000 yen note to get a taxi home, safe in the knowledge that I could survive on rice for the rest of the week. I spent almost all this month’s pay-check in Tokyo. It was worth it though.

Tokyo - Part 1 - Adventures In The Rain

Monkeys in the rain.

When I was learning Japanese back in the UK, we used the “Japanese for Busy People” textbook. The book is primarily aimed at business people which meant that, stupidly, I knew how to say “I am a lawyer” before I knew how to say “I’m from England” or “I’m 30 years old”. Anyway, in the style of all classic language text books, there is a chapter about going on vacation, in this case, to Nikko. Ever since reading it, I’ve wanted to go to Nikko. I have a similar wish to visit La Rochelle as described in 5 years of the Encore Tricolore French textbooks at secondary school, but anyway.

Nikko is about 2 hours outside Tokyo and getting there was a big hassle. It was Golden Week, which meant that half the population of Japan was either leaving or arriving in Tokyo. The situation wasn’t helped by torrential rain and signal failures which caused big delays on the trains. By the time we arrived it was late afternoon, pouring with rain and we were irritable with hunger. But we managed to track down some awesome deep fried azuki bun things and jump on a bus to a sightseeing area not far from the centre of town.

We decided to go for a hike. This was what is technically known as a “mistake”. The rain continued at a frightening rate. After about 5 minutes of walking, it became clear that my umbrella was somewhat faulty. Rain trickled down my neck and soaked my arms and legs. Clearly, the T-shirt and suit jacket look was not appropriate today. Still, we continued. Nikko is so green. There’s moss everywhere and the other tourists had (wisely?) stayed away due to the awful weather. We crossed over a terrifyingly strong river and made our way onwards, with a forest to our left and a cute, deserted park on our right. I was squelching by this point-Converse shoes are not built to withstand a puddle, let alone a thunderstorm. But we traipsed on.

(By the way-sorry the photos are such low quality- the iphone pics didn't upload in the correct definition - but hopefully they give the general idea - that we were very wet!)

Hopefully you can make out the torrential rain here.

The further we went, the more it felt like a brilliant act of folly. Yes, we were wet, but man, Nikko is beautiful. Yes, it was probably a mistake but it was also a little adventure and the rain made it more private and satisfying. We cowered under doorways and jumped over huge puddles before eventually making it to a row of monkey statues, all dressed in red bibs, worn down but looking perfect in the rain. Many photos were taken and I continue to be impressed by my friend’s tiger umbrella, pictured here. It even makes growling noises when you press a button (and sometimes by malfunction when you don’t-tiger social faux pas alert!). That umbrella would be an ever present right until the very end of our trip.

The tiger umbrella!

By the time we made it to the hostel we were exhilarated but a little grumpy. The hostel is run by an American guy called Scout who made us feel really welcome. And thank god, for the kotatsu, Japan’s greatest invention of all. My feet were toasty warm within half an hour.

No swimming for us...

My favourite thing about this hostel was that it was located right next to a huge river. We had hoped to go swimming, but as you can see from the photos, the storm had made that impossible. It was cool to sit outside by the water though, having to shout over it as it battered against the rocks. Even better, the men’s shower area overlooked it, so you got to expose yourself to it the following day.

In fact, the following day was mostly spent sitting in onsen and being extremely lazy. Being lazy is one of my favourite things. This was also nice because it meant that K got to spend some quality time with her friend who was visiting as I was starting to feel a bit guilty that they weren’t getting enough time together just the two of them. Maybe this splitting down the ranks by gender is part of the appeal of onsen, like a gentlemen’s club or a hen weekend. One of the guys in the onsen had a huge tattoo covering almost his entire back which no-one seemed to react to in a bad way. Tattoos are generally not welcomed in onsen and those with them are sometimes prohibited. It’s reasonably likely that the guy was yakuza but you can’t exactly ask in that situation. “Excuse me, I can’t help but notice that you have an incredibly intricate tattoo covering your entire back-is that because you are a member of an organised crime organization or do you just like snakes a lot?” Anyway, it was nice to hang out with my mate from back home. We probably should have talked about sport, guns and women. I don’t think we talked about any of those things.  I’m rubbish at being male, I really am.

I loved all the moss in the forest.

Cowering from the rain.

Inbetween Cities

I’m inbetween cities right now. Osaka has been and gone. This time there was no drunkenness or stress and the seediness was happily avoided. Instead, K and I met up with a friend and went on a relaxed wander. In the course of our visit, we saw the aquarium, rambled around a park, found a happily grotty bar and ate terrifying volumes of food. All as it should be.

Osaka is a rough around the edges sort of place and that’s comforting as a Londoner and ex-Manchester resident. Almost immediately after arrival we got talking to a Japanese couple who were in town for a concert, one of whom was sporting a Spiritualized T-shirt. This made me realize that in 9 months of living in Okayama, I have never once seen a Japanese person wearing a T-shirt for a band that I like. I have missed alternative culture a bit (okay-I can see how ridiculous to use “wears a band T-shirt” as some kind of barometer for whatever alternative culture may be, but it sort of makes sense to me.) and it felt good to be surrounded by a greater range of going out options and asymmetrical haircuts. I also like how much more relaxed things are in the city without the risk of being spotted by teachers, parents or, god forbid, students.

Although I head to Tokyo tonight, I realized that I don’t actually have much of a schedule yet. For example, we’re going to visit Nikko and stay nearby-but I don’t actually know very much about Nikko. I feel a bit tourist-blind about it all. We also made the decision to stay in a nice-sounding hotel in the Nikko area, which will be fun-but part of me is like “why aren’t you spending the full 4 days in Tokyo as that’s what you’re interested in?” I also feel like I really need to have some independent time in Tokyo at some point and I’m looking forward to meeting up with friends there and maybe doing some solo exploring too.

Finally, I have become an uncle again. I have an awesome new niece called Martha who I will meet in a few months time. She’s pretty cool, from what I’ve seen so far. It does sometimes feel like my family spawn every 60 seconds, but I’m okay with that.

Japanese Cities - We Can Make This Relationship Work

Well it’s finally Golden Week. This weekend I go to Osaka. Next weekend I go to Tokyo. Maybe these trips show a lack of imagination but I’m really looking forward to getting to know these cities better. Tokyo still feels uncomfortably alienating for me. I just don’t know it well enough to feel at home there. It has that London feeling where there’s so much to do and see that it’s actually overwhelming. In many ways, Tokyo was the reason I came to Japan. Before coming, I had a very child-like view of the Japanese nation. My desire to come originated in being 11 years old and really into video games. At that time, Tokyo just seemed like a giant video games playground. The neon and the electronics were so attractive to my 11 year old self. I remember watching an episode of Bad Influence where Violet visited Tokyo. More than anything else, that episode probably instilled my desire to come here.

Now my view of Japan has changed considerably. I still love Tokyo for all the Bad Influence reasons. There are also grown up reasons for enjoying the big city experience. But I never realized what a beautiful country Japan is. The countryside here is amazing. The most striking thing in Okayama is how green everything is. The hills with mist rising off them, the rice paddies, the amazing range of birds and wildlife that I see every day. Tokyo aside, I perhaps haven’t warmed to Japanese cities as much as I thought I would. If it’s night-time and raining they look beautiful, but they’re generally pretty ugly. Okayama City is great but most cities in Japan feel very similar. Tokyo, on the other hand is still exotic and different enough to make me misty eyed and super-excited at the prospect of a visit. Hurrah.

Osaka, on the other hand. Oh-we don’t get on. We have issues, Osaka and I. I want to resolve this. I want to work it out. I want to get my first ever proper night’s sleep there and think of a sightseeing activity that isn’t just going to the aquarium.  I believe it can happen. I have to believe that. I do love the aquarium though.

Decisions, decisions.

Mt Unzen - The perfect hide-out for a supervillian.

On Thursday I will be setting off on another adventure. The trouble is, I don’t yet know where it will take place. I have been terribly indecisive lately. There are plenty of areas I want to visit but I have been unable to make a final choice. At the moment it looks like a toss up between touring round Western Kyushu where I could check out Nagasaki, hike around a volcano and do the onsen thing. Or Tokyo, where I could do the city justice and maybe check out Hakone or Kamakura at the same time. It’s really difficult to decide.

I do realize that these are nice choices to have.

Right now, my parents are visiting Okayama. We took them to Korakuen yesterday which was as blissful as always. Sadly though, much of the lawn was indeed blackened, albeit not actively smouldering. When I pointed out the castle but mentioned that it was entirely re-built in 1966 they were unimpressed. I tend to feel the same way. However, I suppose that in 200 years time, people won’t be quite so snobby about it. In saying that, I still think building a lift into the castle was a mistake, authenticity-wise.

Japanese is a struggle at the moment. The main problem for me is memorizing the vocabulary. I don’t have a problem with the grammar and verb formations. Basic Kanji is perfectly do-able if you put the time and effort in. But no matter how much I study, I just can’t retain the words themselves. It has got to the point where I am jealous of my students’ impressive ability to memorize 50 words a week without breaking a sweat. Admittedly, they sometimes struggle to say anything out loud beyond “Good Morning”, but at least they know the word “phenomenon”.