Having always had a Yen to experience the gardens and culture of Japan, this winter’s mission is to make it happen. Flying Business Class as a rare treat on the latest 787 Dreamliner aircraft, I’m surprised to see my seat belt has 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 a diminutive airbag is really going to be of much help!
Fortunately this becomes a moot point when the plane’s tires introduce themselves to the runway of Tokyo’s sprawling Narita Airport. The night is dark and rainy, and with 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 and switch trains 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 that there are both perks and perils with Japan’s peculiar porcelain potties! 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 what looks like a musical note, and sure enough the ‘smart toilet’ begins playing music to mask any embarrassing discharge noises; weird, but still OK. Then things get ugly.
I push a button with an unknown symbol, and betraying my faith in toilets, water with a force akin to a firehose startlingly erupts from the blast-happy tubing! Thrusting out my hand I manage to reduce the errant sack-attack down to a testicle tickle before leapfrogging off the porcelain perpetrator, and though the experience leaves me traumatized, I’m ever so relieved to have achieved liftoff with all my dangly bits still attached!
Our room on the 26th floor is directly above Shibuya Crossing, and from the window our eyes are molested by a sea of retina-threatening neon advertising. 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. Simultaneously all the traffic lights turn red, and a clotted crowd of as many as 2,500 pedestrians surge into the intersection at every change of lights, giving it the look of a battle scene from ‘Braveheart’.
The 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. In the rain 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 offer a bow, and picking up their boards, escort us 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 our wallet-flattening first night we move to an even smaller hotel nearby, but with space obviously at a premium, our new cubbyhole has about the equivalent square footage of a handkerchief! The bathroom’s 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 the 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. However one day 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.
Shinjuku Station is the world’s busiest railway station and a center of chaos with about 3 1/2 million passengers daily. We’re here to roam in the nocturnal glow of neon-riddled streets in search of the infamous ‘Memory Lane’; an alleyway with mostly run down tiny restaurants with no more than half a dozen seats. It started out as an illegal drinking spot in the 1940’s, but a lack of restrooms resulted in patrons relieving themselves on nearby train tracks, thus earning it the grittier name of ‘Piss Alley’.
Miraculously avoiding development vultures over the years it has morphed into a hubbub of grub that’s buzzing with an old Tokyo vibe; and marked by a string of faded red lanterns, the noodle-thin and noodle-full alley seduces us with delicious smells wafting throughout the alley.
We squeeze our way into an itsy-bitsy Yakitori joint we contemplate a selection of tantalizing edibles being scorched over an open flame by an older gent. Meanwhile, sounding like a woodpecker hammering into a tree, his wife out back ferociously chops up veggies.
With no English spoken our ‘nonversation’ quickly turns into finger-pointing, but we manage to 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.
The colourful Harajuku area is a magnet for many of Japan’s bizarre youth sub-cultures and the place is absolutely nuts. However, normalcy living elsewhere probably shouldn’t come as a shock given this is a country guilty of spawning an eel-flavored ice cream! Lathered in enough makeup to intimidate a circus clown, ludicrous-looking Lolitas with gunky eyelashes strut about ‘whackosville’ with chemically assisted hair that looks like a nest made by an incompetent bird!
Even odder, they teeter on towering too-tall platform shoes while bonneted in rabbit ears and flashing two-finger peace signs. We quickly conclude the creepy caricatures are nuttier than a squirrel’s breakfast, and even as a group likely possess insufficient grey matter to sole the flip-flop of a one legged budgie!
In addition, the area’s famous Takeshita Street could more aptly be named ‘Tacky-shit Street’, given the tsunami of silliness. Countless gimmicky gadgets and frivolous doodads beyond explainability range 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 and come face to beak with a variety of perplexed wide-eyed hooting hooligans who seem to repeatedly ask our names.
Departing Planet Peculiar we veer onto Cat Street and spot a guy dressed up as a giant carrot and holding a leash tethered to the largest rabbit we’ve ever seen. The corpulent carrot-cruncher must be on serious hare-oids, and I have to pet it to confirm it’s not a mirage! Then, having heavy legs after all the miles, we bye-bye Bugs to search out a couple of cocktails ready to lay down their lives for us.
Emboldened by yesterday’s occasional flashes of navigational competence we return to neon-lit Shinjuku. Beneath the area’s beloved Godzilla mascot is a bamboo-lined path that we follow into the Golden Gai’. The charmingly-scruffy drinking district is saturated with over 200 tiny tumbledown bars shoehorned into six ribbon-like and very funky pedestrian-only alleyways.
Hosting two million people daily, 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. Unfortunately for her, it happens to be a gigantic T-Rex inhabited by one of the countless costumed crazies on this night of spook-tacular Tokyo bizarreness!
Tokyo has left a sizable dent in our treasury, and to try and stop hemorrhaging yen, it’s time for a quieter elsewhere. Struggling 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, and we’re delighted to discover Kyoto is so much more than a misspelled Tokyo. In fatc, it feels like the Zen antidote to the insanity of its anagram.
Lodging at ‘Sakara Kyoto’ in Higashiyama District is nestled among odd little shops in a covered shopping alley called a ‘shotengai’. It 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!
A tree is built into the room to separate off a tiny kitchen, which helps offset exorbitant restaurant prices capable of bankrupting any members of the non-millionaire’s club! In fact the Japanese even have a word for this, as ‘Kuidaore’ literally means ‘eating yourself into bankruptcy’. Besides pricing, our other restaurant grievance is preposterously puny portions roughly the size of a Brussel sprout!
We get emotionally squeamish at one restaurant’s peculiar pig parts offerings 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 is its own adventure. The 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 bottle of 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. As we mill about in the frigid weather waiting for Sanzen-in Temple to open, a shopkeeper seeing our predicament kindly opens up early and invites us in for a cup of hot tea. Though sharing a stunted dialog we manage to glean that our hospitable host loves to garden, he went to Hawaii for his ‘bridal’, and that Canada has good salmon.
Moss is the boss at the tranquil temple, and cute stone Buddhas peek out from a sea of glistening green. The stunning thousand year old Buddhist garden is also beautifully punctuated with the canopies of assorted maple trees strikingly dressed in their full fall finery.
Today before dawn, 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. Roughly 1,000 vibrant orange tori gates straddle a steep path snaking 4 kilometers up the mountainside, And as the sun introduces itself, it accentuates the stunning tunnel, showing off an undeniably fine shrine that shouts in a country that prefers to whisper.
Allowing ourselves to be swallowed by the streets of Kyoto we end up on ‘Philosopher’s Path’. A stone path beside a canal lined with cherry trees leads us into Maruyama Park, where human powered rickshaws are pulling along oodles of kimono-clad visitors.
After dark on the Sannenzaka Slope the stone-paved streets are totally deserted and all shops shuttered. Traditional wooden storefronts, teahouses, and five-story Yakasa Pagoda are bathed in the soft glow of lights and make us feel like we’ve been transplanted into a little Japanese town from centuries past.
Gion’s District is the soul of Kyoto, and its superstar is the pedestrianized Shimbashi Street. Beneath weeping willow and cherry trees, Shirakawa Canal gently gurgles along beside the cobblestone street, and all neon is absent with all wooden dwellings softly illuminated by paper lanterns. Rickshaw driver clients, couples taking wedding photos, and occasionally even the legendary Geishas are all attracted to what for good reason is known as ‘the most beautiful street in Asia’.
In a still eddy of the shallow canal a tiny fish sheltering under a leaf catches the attention of an immobile knobby-kneed heron. Shedding its hunched pose the bird stealthily approaches, and with the ease of a yoga-master, lifts a lengthy leg right out of the water to gently tap the leaf. As the curious minnow pokes its head out to see whose knocking, an immediately blur of beak converts it into instant sushi. Very clever, these feathered giraffe!
Elsewhere we smirk at Issen Yoshku restaurant’s display of a delivery boy trying to escape a dog with a firm grip on his halfway pulled down undies. Not far away is another place with a sign warning not to eat bicycles. Yes, it seems the Japanese definitely do have a sense of humour, albeit slightly off-kilter!
One constant in Japan is an admirable culture that places a strong emphasis on respect and politeness. Considerate of others, people respectfully voice only whispers, and even with so many people street litter is almost nonexistent as it simply doesn’t occur to Japanese to drop any rubbish. This is most 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 so called ‘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 beefy wedgies braced between 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!
In the town of Nara, countless free roaming wild sika deer are 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.
At Todai-ji temple, the world’s largest wood building, we’re asked to partake in an interview by a group of students keen to practise English, and in doing so one of the antlered deer has the audacity to nose right into our enclosed circle to see if we may be concealing food. My slap on his rump sends him on his way, and for helping the teacher and her class with their studies, they kindly offer 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 arrive at the iconic and well-frequented Golden Pavilion; as usual, the first to arrive.
The trickle of visitors soon turns into a torrent when pregnant tour buses begin to arrive and birth their human cargo. 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’s rises above a still pond with its reflection mirrored on the surface. The tranquility affords a precious moment with all the needed ingredients for a spectacular Kyoto photo.
After a brisk lap of the pavilion we escape the horde of tourists and bus to the Imperial Palace. Quickly dismissing the big-but-blah temple we then head for a smidgen of dirt called the ‘Path of Nene’, and stumble upon a discrete ‘chashitsu’. The teahouse has calming gardens along with a pond built into the rocks as well as enormous uncoy koi tame enough to suckle our fingers, making for a hypnotizing place to step in, and Zen out.
On a two-car train headed north to Kurama we pass through a forest of blushing red maples with the branches slapping at the windows, but arriving at the rural town our enthusiasm is trampled when learning our planned hike to Kibune is over before it begins. All access is denied as nature flexing its muscles during a recent typhoon collapsed a huge chunk of mountainside and obliterated the hiking path.
Goosed by the Fickle Finger of fate, we walk away with spirits squashed. Watching us is an evil looking statue of the mythical Tengu; a creature believed to live on Mount Kurama and alternate between creating kindness and mischief. Mockingly leering at us with an angry mouth beneath a humongous red proboscis, Mr. Tengu does little to lighten our morose mood.
In Kyoto we’ve spent a lot of time Finding Dori, as it is the Japanese word for street. However, anything but ‘Hunky’, the names are almost always 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.
With the cold chasing away any morning bleariness we retain our early-bird reputation bu arriving in total darkness at Arashiyama’s Sagano Bamboo Forest. We’ve come to partake in ‘Shinrin-yoku’, a term meaning taking in the forest atmosphere or ‘forest bathing’. The empty forest is thick with quiet, but fortuitously we are just in time to witness a measure of mesmerizing magic.
As the autumn sun peeks over the horizon spears of sunlight shoot through the thickets onto towering bamboo stalks edging the trail. The perfect angle of the rays creates an amazing illusion of the bamboo actually being on fire! The awesome sighting lasts for mere moments before vanishing, but we have just enough time to capture it with our camera to later luxuriate in the memory.
With the visual feast and inner peace of the enchanting forest lingering, Christine and I walk to Tenryu-Zen temple. At the entrance is a bamboo ladle meant for scooping water into cupped hands for cleansing, as apparently any Gods in attendance want nothing to do with mere humans not yet purified.
Lending a sense of tranquility to the grounds, girthy koi in need of liposuction lazily fin through the still waters of a lake reflecting fiery red maple trees nearby. After soaking in its beauty we cross the Katsura River on the iconic Togetsukyo Bridge which dates 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 her split two-toed white socks stuffed into ridiculously elevated sandals. Her clown-creepy face is painted fish-belly white, and highlighted by scarlet-smeared lips and eyelids. Her 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. On a walkabout we have a chance encounter with a fit 80 year old fellow, who with surprisingly good English, 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 Christine and I follow his sage advice.
Our arrival at a secluded temple upsets a heron tiptoeing through the canal trying to spear breakfast, and it erupts from the water angrily gronking away from the two featherless bipeds invading its territory. All alone, we bask in the solitude before continuing the 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 seen a plethora of quirky statues of a silly animal that looks like a cross between a racoon 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 meant to bring prosperity, and are a takeoff on a real animal known as a Japanese Racoon Dog. Apparently children even sing about the Tanuki in the schoolyards, and ‘Tan tan tanuki no kintama wa; Kaze mo nai no ni; Bura bura’ roughly translates to (Tan-Tan-Tanuki’s balls, even if the wind isn’t blowing, they swing-swing).
Hmm, a children’s song you say? Personally, I think so called ‘poet’ responsible this ridiculousness should be required to commit hara-kiri! However, that aside, I do 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, it is time 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. Unexpectedly, a short while later the lady returns, and with smiling eyes and a finger pressed to her lips, whispers ‘Shhh, secret’, while presenting me with a gift package of chocolates!
Once again we are flabbergasted by the kindness of strangers that’s 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