Having always had a Yen to experience the gardens and culture of Japan, this winter’s mission is to finally make it happen. Flying Business Class as a rare treat on the latest 787 Dreamliner aircraft, I’m surprised to see my seat belt equipped with a built-in airbag about the size of a large cucumber. Now I may be going out on the ‘skinny branches’ here, but should this Boeing behemoth happen to plummet 40,000 feet out of the sky, I’m just not all that convinced that a diminutive airbag is really going to be of much help!
Fortunately this becomes a moot point as the plane tires introduce themselves to the runway of Tokyo’s sprawling Narita Airport. The night is dark and rainy, and given the complexity of Japan’s perplexing transport system we mistakenly board a train heading away from the city. Realizing our error we jump off at the next station, switching trains and tracks for the 65 km jaunt into the crush of Tokyo.
Our stressful start continues at our hotel when we realize I screwed up our reservation at the time of booking. Due to an error in currency conversion I’ve booked a paltry room about the size of a pup tent with a larcenous and non-refundable tariff of $560 a night! The situation stinks, but since the hotel already has our money there’s nothing we can do except hold our nose until morning.
The puzzling toilet in the bathroom has more functions than a smart phone and brings to my attention there are both perks and perils with Japan’s peculiar porcelain thrones! My toilet drama actually starts out quite pleasantly with the warmed seat making for happy haunches. However, sitting on my toasty tush while attempting to navigate a multitude of perplexing buttons with Japanese-only instructions turns out to be a risky business.
While Japanese may pride themselves on pristine anuses and a spa for the private parts, this Gaijin’s butt cheeks clench with concern. I push a button with a symbol that looks like a musical note, and sure enough the ‘smart toilet’ begins playing music to mask any embarrassing noises; weird, but still OK. Then things turn ugly.
I push a button with an unknown symbol on it, and betraying my faith in toilets, water with a force akin to a firehose startlingly erupts from the blast-happy tubing! With a turmoiled and vociferous squawk I thrust out my hand and manage to reduce the errant sack-attack down to a testicle tickle before leapfrogging off the porcelain perpetrator! Though the experience leaves me traumatized, I am ever so relieved to have achieved liftoff with all my dangly bits still attached.
Our room is on the 26th floor is directly above the Shibuya Crossing and from the window our eyes are molested by a sea of retina-threatening neon. Better known as ‘The Scramble’, this is the mother of all zebra crosswalks where ten lanes of car traffic and five major crosswalks all converge. All the lights turn red simultaneously and a clotted crowd of as many as 2,500 pedestrians surge into the intersection giving it the look of a battle scene from ‘Braveheart’.
This brontosaurus-sized mess of a city is crammed to the gills with concrete and traffic, and of course the suffocating scrunch of the 38 million Tokyoites calling it home. With rain pelting down tonight the streets swarm with people mushroomed beneath clear plastic umbrellas, and from our lofty vantage point, remind us of agitated ants scurrying away from a busted nest with their egg larvae in tow.
Looking for a calming forested area within the guts of the congested city we ask a couple of skateboarders for directions to Yoyogi Park. With no hesitation the long-locked lads kindly offer a brief bow and surprisingly pick up their boards to escort us all the way to the appropriate street.
Entering Meiji-Jingu Shrine through a forty foot high Torii gate created from a 1500 year old Taiwanese Cyprus tree we pass skilled workers using scythe-like sweeps of long bamboo brooms to gather in fallen autumn leaves from many of the park’s 120,000 trees of 365 different species.
Still lamenting a wallet-flattening first night we relocate to an even smaller hotel nearby with a room having about the equivalent square footage of a handkerchief! With space obviously at a premium in our new cubbyhole, the goofy garbage container is just slightly larger than a pencil sharpener; handy I’m sure should we have a need to dispose of a cue-tip or bottle cap! However after the previous hotels pillaging our dwarfish shelter seems a real steal at a mere $225 a night!
Across the street from our hotel stands the Hachiko Monument, built as a symbol of a dog’s love and loyalty. The Akita dog called Hachiko went by himself at the end of each day to wait and greet his owner in front of the insanely busy Shibuya train station, and together they would walk back home.
One day however, Hachiko’s owner, a university professor, died from a stroke and never returned to the station where his faithful dog was patiently waiting. Hachiko was given away after the death of his owner but for the next nine years the grief-stricken dog would routinely escape and appear at the Shibuya station precisely when the train was due to wait with undying love for his master.
Eventually commuters started noticing the dog and built a statue in his honour as a reminder of the importance of the relationship between man and dog. Attached to it is a nice quote by Jess C. Scott that reads: Never mind, said Hachiko each day. Here I wait, for my friend who’s late. I will stay, just to walk beside you for one more day. Mentally tethered to the incredible bond I shared with my wonderful shepherd-husky cross of many years ago, the memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks.
With about 3 1/2 million passengers daily, Shinjuku is the world’s busiest railway station, and leaving its chaos we roam the neon-riddled streets in search Piss Alley. The infamous alleyway started out as an illegal drinking spot in the 1940’s, and a lack of restrooms resulted in patrons relieving themselves on nearby train tracks thus earning it the gritty name.
Miraculously avoiding development vultures over the years the cramped lane morphed into a hubbub of grub. Marked by a string of faded red lanterns, the noodle-thin and noodle-full alley of insanely good smells entices us to squeeze into an itsy-bitsy Yakitori joint buzzing with an old school Tokyo vibe. An older gent is scorching a tantalizing selection of edibles over an open flame, while sounding like a meth-crazed woodpecker working a tree, his wife ferociously chops up the ingredients out back.
With no English spoken our ‘nonversation’ quickly turns into finger-pointing, but we successfully generate a meal of ramen, gyoza, chicken skewers, and a big-ass bottle of Kirin beer. Both food and setting are brilliant, and we absolutely love the Japaneseness of it all.
Not far away, the colourful Harajuku area is a magnet for many of Japan’s bizarre youth sub-cultures. The place is absolutely insane, but I suppose normalcy living elsewhere probably shouldn’t come as a shock given this is a country guilty of spawning an eel-flavored ice cream!
Having enough makeup troweled on to intimidate a circus clown, ludicrous-looking Lolitas with gunky eyelashes strut about ‘whackosville’ with chemically assisted hair that looks a lot like a nest made by an incompetent bird!
Bonneted in rabbit ears and flashing two-finger peace signs as they teeter about on too-tall platform shoes leads us to conclude the creepy caricatures are a few bananas short of a bunch, and even as a group, likely possess insufficient grey matter to sole the flip-flop of a one legged budgie!
The area’s famous Takeshita Street could more aptly be named ‘Tacky-shit Street’ given the tsunami of silliness with innumerable gimmicky gadgets and frivolous doodads ranging from telephone purses to feathered brassieres. However, the only feathers we give a hoot about are in a little shop offering a ‘walk with owls’, so we slide inside, coming face to beak with a variety of perplexed wide-eyed hooting hooligans who seem to repeatedly ask our names.
Departing ‘Planet Peculiar’ we spot a guy dressed as a giant carrot, and tethered to a leash is the largest rabbit we’ve ever seen. The corpulent carrot-cruncher must be on some serious hare-oids, and I have to give it a pet to confirm it’s not a mirage!
Emboldened by yesterday’s occasional flashes of navigational competence we return to explore more of neon-lit Shinjuku. Beneath the area’s beloved Godzilla mascot we follow a bamboo-lined path into the ‘Golden Gai’; a charmingly-scruffy drinking district saturated with over 200 tiny tumbledown bars shoehorned into six ribbon-like and pedestrian-only alleyways.
Hosting two million people daily, the Shibuya Crossing has likely even more today with it being Halloween, and shoulder-brushing through the claustrophobic sea of shortness Christine ends up in the smothering embrace of a tall dark stranger. To her surprise it happens to be a gigantic T-Rex inhabited by one of the countless costumed crazies on this night of spook-tacular Tokyo bizarreness!
With Tokyo leaving a sizable dent in our treasury we try to stop hemorrhaging yen with a quieter elsewhere. In the mayhem of the intimidating of the train station a gracious stranger helps us acquire tickets for the Shinkansen Bullet Train; the main vein whisking people from city to city.
Sniffing the tracks at 300 km per hour it takes only 2 ½ hours for the sleek platypus-nosed train to catapult us from Tokyo to Kyoto, which is so much more than a misspelled Tokyo. In fact, it feels like the Zen antidote to the insanity of its anagram.
Our lodging at ‘Sakara Kyoto’ in the Higashiyama District is nestled among odd little shops in a covered shopping alley called a ‘shotengai’. The area has what’s meant to be soothing music piped into it, but regrettably the intrusive tinkling tunes entering my ear canal remind me of an ice-cream truck and annoyingly ricochet around in my skull searching for an escape route they can’t seem to find!
We have a tree built into our room to separate off a tiny kitchen which somewhat helps offset insulting restaurant prices capable of bankrupting any members of the non-millionaire’s club! In fact the Japanese even have a word for this. ‘Kuidaore’ literally means ‘eating yourself into bankruptcy’. Besides insulting prices, our other grievance is the preposterously puny portions roughly the size of a Brussel sprout!
One restaurant has us emotionally squeamish with a nauseating offering of peculiar pig parts that are everything you never want to put near your mouth. The menu reads: “Pork barbequed on a skewer. There are the following kinds” – Tongue; Vagina; Ovary; Stomach; Heart; Liver; Throat; Womb; Large and Small intestine; Spleen; Meat of the head; and Fat of the head.
And just W.T.F., I ask myself, is ‘Fat of the head’ or ‘Meat of the Head’? Sounds to me more like a couple of buddies back home rather than something meant to take up residence in a stomach!
With anorexia lurking we quickly introduce the shudder-show to the soles of our shoes as the search for logic here would require the Hubble Telescope. Let’s face it, swine vagina and its vile cohorts are enough to have most cowering in a corner, curled up in the fetal position, and sucking on a thumb!
Back at Sakara taking a bath proves to be its own adventure. Our teeny tub is less than four feet long, and while the vessel may be perfect for a three year old, I feel like a contortionist from Cirque du Soleil! It’s only redeeming factor is a corner ledge just large enough to hold a small bottle of Japanese Sake. Now, if only I could untangle my limbs enough to reach out and grab hold of the sucker!
Before the break of day we venture an hour north to the mountain village of Ohara. Standing outside in frigid weather waiting for Sanzen-in Temple to open, a shopkeeper seeing our predicament kindly opens
his door early and invites us in for a cup of hot tea. Though sharing a stunted dialog we learn that our hospitable host loves to garden, went to Hawaii for his ‘bridal’, and that Canada has good salmon.
Moss is the boss at the tranquil thousand year old temple, and cute stone Buddhas in the gardens peek out from a sea of glistening green enhanced by the canopies of assorted maple trees strikingly dressed in their full fall finery.
Today Christine and I step off a train into the blackness of the night, and after a bit of an adventure make our way to the sacred Tushimi Inari Shrine. A thousand vibrant orange tori gates form a tunnel straddling a steep path snaking 4 kilometers up the mountainside, and beautifully accentuated by the sun introducing itself, the undeniably fine shrine is one that shouts in a country that prefers to whisper.
Kyoto’s street signs are mostly a baffling tangle of symbols, and with wandering our activity of choice we’ve referred to our paper map so frequently the fold lines have been turned into air. On a stroll for the soul we follow a canal on the cherry tree lined ‘Philosopher’s Path’ into Maruyama Park, where human powered rickshaws are busy towing about their kimono-clad visitors.
On Sannenzaka Slope after dark the stone-paved streets are totally deserted and the shops all shuttered. The traditional wooden storefronts, teahouses, and the Buddhist five-story Yasaka Pagoda are bathed in a soft glow of lights giving the feeling we’ve been transplanted into a little Japanese town from centuries past.
Gion’s District is the soul of Kyoto and the pedestrianized Shimbashi Street is its superstar. All neon is absent, and beneath weeping willow and cherry trees, the Shirakawa Canal gently gurgles past old wooden dwellings softly illuminated by paper lanterns. Couples taking wedding photos, rickshaws, and the occasional legendary Geisha are all attracted to what is known as ‘the most beautiful street in Asia’.
In a still eddy of the canal a tiny fish sheltering under a leaf attracts the scrutiny of a knobby-kneed heron. Shedding its hunched pose, it stealthily approaches, and with the ease of a yoga-master, lifts a lengthy leg from the water to gently tap the leaf. As the curious minnow pokes its head out to see whose knocking, an immediate blur of beak converts the little fellow into instant sushi. Very clever, these feathered giraffe!
Outside Issen Yoshku restaurant we smirk at a display of a delivery boy trying to escape a dog with a firm grip on his halfway pulled down undies, and nearby a sign warns not to eat bicycles. It seems the Japanese definitely have a sense of humour, albeit slightly off-kilter!
One constant in Japan is an admirable culture placing a strong emphasis on respect and the consideration of others. People voice only in whispers and street litter is almost nonexistent, as it simply does not occur to Japanese to drop any rubbish. This is especially commendable given public garbage containers in Japan are about as easy to find as the corner of a circle.
Channel surfing TV tonight looking for an English channel I find a station seemingly broadcasting a quarrelling pair of elephant seals trying to out bully each other in a collision of commodious fat. But no, what I’ve stumbled upon is not a nature documentary at all; it’s the ‘sport’ of Japanese Sumo wrestling!
How a country that eats with little sticks could possibly go from Samurai to Sumo is beyond me. Ideally proportioned for a belly-flop competition, the corpulent combatants could easily sell billboard space on their bellies, and one glance quickly clarifies they’ll never claim proficiency in the 100 yard dash!
In this befuddling blip in an otherwise civilized society it seems that bigger is better for the blubbery bloated behemoths bound in belted loincloths braced between beefy bare buttocks. Boasting bulging beer bellies looking ready to birth beach balls, the bulbous boys briefly belly-up and bizarrely battle to bully and bump each other outside a circle made with rope. Not beholden to this cockamamie combat, I bid bye-bye to the bafflingly and boring buffoonery and go back to browsing my book!
Training to the town of Nara today, we quickly find ourselves among countless free roaming wild sika deer. Totally accustomed to humans, the valiant versions of venison strut through the crowded chaos with complete confidence sniffing out specially made deer crackers sold to tourists.
Partaking in an interview with a group of students keen to practice English at Todai-ji temple, one of the antlered deer has the audacity to nose into our enclosed circle to see if we may be concealing food before a slap on his rump sends him on his way. For helping the teacher and her class we are kindly given a little origami present.
In the sunset of my sixties, today puts me a mere year away from septuagenarian status, and while I do like birthdays, the fly in the ointment is that too many can kill you! With the sky still black as a geisha’s wig we start the day with at the iconic and well-frequented Golden Pavilion, as usual the first to arrive.
The trickle of visitors soon turns into a torrent as tour buses start to arrive. First in as the gate opens, we race down the paths to have the pavilion all to ourselves if only for a magic minute. Adorned in glittering gold leaf, the stunning pavilion rises above a still pond with its reflection mirrored on the surface, and the tranquility affords a precious moment with all the needed ingredients for a spectacular Kyoto photo.
After a brisk lap of the pavilion we flee the tourist crowd and bus to the big-but-blah Imperial Palace. With no interest in lingering we head for a smidgen of a dirt path called the ‘Path of Nene’, and stumble upon a discrete teahouse called a ‘chashitsu’. Calming gardens have a pond built into the rocks hosting corpulent and uncoy koi tame enough to suckle a finger, and make it a hypnotizing place to step in and Zen out.
Headed north to Kurama today on a two-car train, branches slap the windows as we pass through a gorgeous forest of blushing red maples. Reaching the rural town our enthusiasm is trampled on learning that our planned hike to Kibune is over before it begins. All access to the area is denied as a recent typhoon has collapsed a huge chunk of mountainside and obliterated the hiking path.
Walking away in a pout with our activities crushingly curtailed, we are watched by a statue of the mythical Tengu; a creature believed to live on Mount Kurama who alternates between creating kindness and mischief. Mockingly leering at us with an angry mouth beneath his humongous red proboscis, Mr. Tengu does little to lighten our morose mood, and the train ride back to town is glum.
With the cold chasing away any morning bleariness today we arrive in the predawn darkness at Arashiyama’s Sagano Bamboo Forest today to partake in ‘Shinrin-yoku’; a term meaning taking in the forest atmosphere or ‘forest bathing’. The empty forest is thick with quiet, and unexpectedly we arrive just in time to witness a little forest magic.
An autumn sun peeking over the horizon shoots shards of sunlight through the thicket onto stratosphere-bound bamboo edging the trail creating the illusion of it being on fire! The mesmerizing sighting lasts for mere moments before vanishing, but there is just enough time to capture it with our camera.
From the enchanting forest Christine and I walk to the Tenryu-Zen temple, where girthy koi in need of liposuction lazily cruise about through the still waters of a lake reflecting fiery red maple trees. From the temple’s beautiful grounds we cross the Katsura River on the iconic Togetsukyo Bridge dating back over 1,000 years.
Leaving Kodaiji Temple under the pocked face of a fat moon we lay eyes on one of the elusive geishas. Dressed in a well-layered kimono below an elaborately coiffed black wig cluttered with flowers and frills, she clip-clops down the street with split two-toed white socks stuffed into ridiculously elevated sandals.
Her clown-creepy face is painted fish-belly white, with scarlet-smeared lips and eyelids. The only exposed skin is two large brown fangs on the nape of her neck. ‘Geisha’ may translate to ‘woman of the arts’, but to me these rare apparitions have about the same appeal as a turnip!
Always on the lookout for new areas to explore, we decide just for the hell of it to ride the subway out of town to the end of the line. During a walkabout we have a chance encounter with a fit 80 year old wearing his elderhood well, and with surprisingly good English, he suggests we may want to amble back to Kyoto by way of Lake Biwa Canal. Knowing that moving through a country at the pace of a walk can be an incredibly intimate experience we follow his sage advice.
Our arrival at a tranquil temple disrupts a leggy heron that’s stealthily tiptoeing through a canal trying to spear breakfast, and angrier than a mosquito in a mannequin factory it noisily gronks away. After a break basking in the solitude of the setting we continue our three hour Japanese jaunt back to Kyoto. According to Christine’s Fitbit, since arriving in Japan we’ve now racked up over 400,000 steps!
Throughout Kyoto we’ve been noticing a plethora of quirky statues of a silly animal that would suggest a cross between a raccoon and hedgehog. Bonneted in straw hats and holding a bottle of sake, the portly little fellows are also endowed with a jumbo sized set of testicles hanging down to the ground.
We’re told the laughable ceramic rogues called ‘Tanuki’ are a takeoff on a real animal known as a Japanese Raccoon Dog and meant to bring prosperity. Apparently children even sing about the Tanuki in the schoolyards with; ‘Tan tan tanuki no kintama wa; Kaze mo nai no ni; Bura bura’ – roughly translating to Tan-Tan-Tanuki’s balls, even if the wind isn’t blowing, they swing-swing.
Personally, I think the so called ‘poet’ responsible this ridiculousness should be required to commit hara-kiri! However that aside, I somehow find myself with a fondness for the cute little sculptures with the big cajones. Ah yes, so much to like about geographically small but culturally grand Japan!
Alas, the time has come for us to return to ‘our home and native land’, and waiting in the business lounge at Osaka Airport I happen to compliment one of the female staff on the healthy juices on offer. A short while later she unexpectedly returns, and with smiling eyes and a finger pressed to lips, she whispers ‘Shhh, secret’, and presents me with a gift package of chocolates!
Once again we are flabbergasted by the kindness of strangers that has been so prevalent throughout our travels in this courteous and intriguing country. Somehow her sweet gesture seems like a perfect ending as we say sayonara to our sojourn in the land of the ‘surp-rising sun’.
Mark Colegrave November 2017