Day 21 - Final Day

Last night we searched ten different stores for solar eclipse shades but every where was sold out. I still wanted to go this morning but Ed decided to stay in bed. I figured that maybe I can catch something on camera even if I can't look at it directly, and even if that doesn't work ill get to see all the people gawping, and even if no one cares I can just relax in Ueno park for a bit. Nothing to lose by going, except a little sleep.


Walking towards Ueno park I noted the world gradually shifting into shades of indigo. I climbed the Ueno station overpass and about fifty people stood by the sides watching the sun. I headed further up to the main platform at the top. Standing on the large platform on the roof of Ueno station crowds lined the sides and at the far end a row of stairs was filled with a chorus of sun watchers arranged like a choir.

A teenage couple enjoying the eclipse together

Some older business men paying close attention to the sun's motion

A father and daughter burning an eclipse image together

I walked close to the back but about 10 metres in front of the choir. Putting my forearm to my brow I shielded my eyes from the sun, and held my digital camera level with my eyes but tilted upwards. Looking only at the screen on the back of the camera I took photos and videos but they all looked far too bright.


After about five minutes an English or American man (i couldn't tell which) appeared next to me and said "do you need shades?". In his hands were two pairs of 'eclipse shades'. "Yes, do you have one spare?". "sure, here you go". "wow, thank you so much!" "Not at all." He said and walked back to rejoin the choir. I put on my glasses and the world turned black. I looked up and saw a perfect crescent moon. No, that's the sun! I tried to take a photo through one lens of the shades but its not designed for that purpose and the photos just came out black with an orange blurry dot. I took a normal photo and learned that it was overcast. This crescent moon was the sun piercing through the clouds.


Over the next few minutes the crescent slimmed until only a perfect orange-white ring was present, the solar corona. The crowd around me chirped up with gasps and oohs. I looked around at the people watching the sun. I looked back. it was gone. Gone? Can you go from an even ring to completely gone? Isn't the moon too small for that? Women in the crowd called out sugoi sugoi! This simply cannot be! Then it misted back into view and I realised it had been a dense patch of cloud. Even so, ordinary photos showed nothing unusual. How were ancient astronomers able to tell that there was such a thing as a solar eclipse?


Eventually the moon shifted left and seemed to rush now that the eclipse had concluded its zenith. I noticed that the sun looked orange, not silver-blue like the moon at night, And though it had dark patches on it, it had no craters. The choir began to slowly disperse. A few more minutes passed and I looked behind me for the kind man who had given me the shades, thinking to buy him a coffee as a gesture of gratitude, but he was gone. So I shall instead honour him here.

Thank you solar eclipse man!

Today I witnessed a rare astronomical event and you made it possible.



After the eclipse I asked Ed to meet me at a coffee shop before heading to a slightly famous shop called 'donki hote' (hilarious pun I know). Open 24/7 donki hote is kind of like a 5 storey combini (convenience store), in that they sell all kinds of arbitrary things: food, clothes, games, domestics etc. They had some products which amused me:

Simple as that

No argument with that comment

Right, it's that simple.

And of course, the ever popular brand 'black man'.

After the visit to Donki Hote we stopped for breakfast. I had a sashimi set (i will miss sushi when I'm back in the U.K.) with rice, pickled vegetables, miso soup, and of course complementary green tea. Very fresh, very simple food. Truly wonderful. Ed had a grilled mackerel set which also looked great.

Tuna and Scallops. Yum!

Next stop, Kappabashi. We've been before but we really only looked at the sample foods that time. This time I investigated the knives, woks, rice steamers etc. There are some wonderful things on sale, and the main customers are restauranteers. I'd love to cook Japanese food when I return but for most meals there are simply too many unavailable fresh ingredients. Quite often specialist implements are also required. Okonomiyaki should be achievable without any special tools though.


Next stop, Shibuya, and we went to meet up with Tatsuya (the Japanese student I met at the maid cafe). He asked us to meet him in front of Hachiko. Hachiko is a statue of a famous dog by the same name. Hachiko, the dog, rendezvoused with his owner at Shibuya station at the same time every day when his owner returned from work. When his owner died, Hachiko returned to the station to wait for him every day at the same time for the next nine years. For this reason Hachiko is known for his astounding loyalty. You could argue that attributing loyalty to a dog is an absurd anthropomorphism. Even so, we humans like to anthropomorphise and it's a nice story.


Tatsuya led us around Shibuya. It's a trendy part of town and though we visited at lunchtime quite a few locals were dressed to the nines. We stopped in at a cheap yakiniku restaurant for lunch. Yakiniku is thin slices of cooked pork on top of rice. As with similar such dishes as gyudon, it is delicious (and cheap).


I also tried some 'nah-to', which is apparently a traditional Kanto breakfast food. It's soya beans mixed with shoyu, mustard and spring onions. The mixture is incredibly sticky and drags like caramel, but tastes exactly as you would expect: like shoyu and mustard. I didn't really like it. 

Nah-to. Looks kind of gross; tastes like soy sauce and mustard.

After lunch we walked to Harajuku, on Tatsuya's recommendation. On the way we talked about universities in Japan, and Tatsuya indicated that Japanese universities are difficult to get into but trivial to graduate from once you're in. Apparently the student uptake is 50% of the population. Before long we arrived at Harajuku.


Harajuku is still trendy, but cheaper. There are a number of second hand clothes shops about, and the main harajuku street is filled with lingerie shops, gothic/angelic fashion shops, accessory shops, and various food establishments though it is known for its crepes! I directed us into an entirely pink shop. Everything about it was pink and girly. It's mere pinkness warranted investigation. Though mostly full of accessories and girly trinkets, it also had a row of interesting sweets. I bought some lemon and honey flavoured plums to try. On the way out Tatsuya was playing with a wig on one of the manikins and hilariously was unable to fix it so we left rapidly.

The pink shop

Further on we stopped to eat crepes from 'Angel Heart'. This shop offered a huge selection of crepes with choices of fillings both sweet & savoury, hot & cold. Ed had a chocolate ice cream crepe, I had a warm almond and chocolate crepe (mmmmm), and Tatsuya tried the ceaser salad crepe, which actually looked pretty good! Tatsuya noticed an entrance to an adjacent shrine and we looked inside.


Unusually the badge on the front entrance to the shrine featured both the emperors and a shogun's seal (though I'm not sure who). It turns out that Togo was a great naval commander who was honoured by having this badge upon his shrine.


We each bought 'omikuji', which are kind of like fortunes. You shake a hexagonal based tube and retrieve a number from the wooden stick which falls out of the hole. The number is associated with a predetermined fortune, and the overall 'quality' of the fortune ranges from dai-kichi (great fortune) to kyo (curse). with four intermediate steps. If the fortune is kyo or something similar you should take the slip of paper and tie it to a rack of wooden poles next to a great tree in the shrine. In this way you fix the fortune to the tree, and remove yourself from the bad luck. If your fortune is rather good, you take it with you, in the hope that it will come true. In addition to the overall quality there is a general message of advice and more detailed predictions and advice for specific aspects of your life (romance, work, etc.).


My overall score was sho-kichi, which is slightly good. Ed and Tatsuya both received the blessing only one point above kyo. My general message indicated that I should always remain honest, and that dishonesty would undermine my productivity/effectiveness. My 'romance' section also indicated that there was a woman who understands me (win!), and my 'children' section indicated that my children would have a safe birth but that I would need to work hard to show them love. A moderate good fortune; I'm happy to keep it. Ed and Tatsuya were supposed to tie their fortunes to the rack, but the shrine suddenly closed and we were ushered out. They will have to own their misfortune.


After this we walked to the train station, said our goodbyes to Tatsuya, and headed to the 2nd floor starbucks at shibuya crossing. For a while we people watched and took photos of anything that seemed interesting, particularly stylish men or women etc.


After an hour or so we headed back to the hostel. We packed our suitcases and prepared for the trip home. There was just one more thing we wanted to do before returning. We wanted to go back to that first yakitori restaurant. So we headed out towards Asakusa looking for the place. After about an hour we concluded that it was closed, or that we couldn't find it for some reason. What a shame. We found another izakaya and ordered some beers. When we asked about yakitori we received a positive response, so we ordered 6 skewers. After talking with the owner for a while about how this was our last night we received 'ser-bisu' Asahi beer and fried chicken. Great! After 6 or 7 bottles of beer and one victory cigar we made our way back to the hostel, very merry indeed.


Now that I am in this state I apologise for my ineloquence, but I feel that I should sum up my experiences. We humans feel a need to make sense of things and label, categorise, and box-up our information to make the world around us seem simpler.


This journey has been been long in duration and broad in geography. We have seen, despite the stereotypes, many things. The cities in Japan are dirty in some places and clean in others. Homeless senior citizens sleep in cardboard boxes outside larger train stations. Bureaucracy attempts to micro manage the activity of individuals, and advertisements subvert their spirit replacing them with empty dreams of only financial value. Some people still show the faint traces of a superiority complex over their Korean peers, or an element of xenophobia to travelers, but most do not. Almost all are outwardly polite, and the politeness is far more pronounced the further you travel from the busy city centres. In some cases the extended courtesy is a thin veneer, in others an obligation, and in some it seems to be a genuine sign of good will and fair spirit.


We have also learnt much of the culture. Some people attend the shrines and temples and most are aware of their presence, but by far the majority of locals only take part in the festivals. Universities are generally hard to get in to, but easy to graduate from, and a lot of students try to travel while studying because they wont realistically take much holiday when they are employed full time. All of the quintessentially Japanese symbols like onsens, otaku, sumo, and geishas are existent parts of the culture of which all are aware, and only a tiny fraction partake. In short, peoples lives are never as simple as we like to believe.


This journey has also reminded me of the perils and benefits of travelling with someone. Differing opinions can cause friction and stress, and differing goals will inevitably slow you down and limit what you do or where you go. Ultimately travelling with another person will thwart you from time to time, diverting you from some goals or keeping you from others. Travelling with someone also means that for every hilarious, strange, or scary moment you experience you will have the privilege of sharing it with someone you like and respect.


There is much I could say about this trip, so many 'lessons' I could claim to have learned, but if any one moral or theme has struck me particularly I would describe it as thus: Though I have seen so many strange things in language and culture here nothing, not one thing, has caused me to consider Japanese people as being in any way fundamentally different to myself, or the people I know. Sure, there are certain differences in societally informed behaviours, but none that you wouldn't adapt to if you lived in this society. As such this journey has reaffirmed my deep loathing for prejudice, and again opened my eyes to the dangers of stereotyping.


For me the sun is setting on this land of the rising sun (so cheesy I know, I'm sorry!). And I shall adjourn to the land of nod one last time before catching my flight away to the other side of the planet. I sincerely hope you've enjoyed reading my words, and I truly thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives.


Khan

Day 18

Today we return to Tokyo for the final leg of our journey around Japan. I am conscious that there are many details I have neglected to mention in these reports, either because there has been so much else to say, or because I have become so accustomed to such little details that it has not occurred to me to mention them and I will no doubt find their absence strange when I return.

For example, vending machines selling drinks and cigarettes are everywhere. Literally they can always be found within a few hundred metres. Inside shrines and temples, at the top of mount misen, almost anywhere in Japan that you might be. The cans and bottles inside are all labelled with a blue or red word: tsumetai (cold) or atsui (hot), because you can buy a hot or iced version of most drinks, not just coffee. Within the city centres, you can also find Pachinko parlours nearly everywhere you go. They are all the same. Cool and sexy anime characters adorn their pink and yellow fronts, and they are always called something flashy like 'Zipang 2'. Inside the loud bleeping and ringing sounds and the strong tabacco odour is so repellent that I have no intention of setting foot in one again.

For breakfast we stopped in at one of the various luxury bread shops. They're not at all bad, but the price tags and decor clearly mark the bread shops as somewhat of a luxury store. I had a walnut and raisin bun. Very good. We took a quick stroll to the nearby Momodani park while eating breakfast. When we got there we found that there was little greenery, and the park was entirely dominated by a baseball court, so we returned to the hostel, checked out (receiving little thank you sweets) and caught our train.

Before boarding the Shinkansen for the last time I purchased a starbucks matcha (powdered green tea) latte to go with my tiny bread, cheese, frankfurter thing. The latte looked like a cup full of green goo, and one could be forgiven for not tasting it on that basis. Though it may not look appealing, the matcha latte is actually quite tasty, though perhaps a little too creamy and not bitter enough for my tastes. We waited on the station. Before long the dolphin-nosed Hikari 446 floated onto the platform with elegance, and we took our final trip on a Shinkansen. 

Looking out the window the towns and cities flew by, again, faster than seems reasonable. Another Shinkansen passed by us in less than a second, and the impact of the air blast was noticeably mitigated by the elongated nose. Sitting at the next station another Shinkansen resembled the passenger row of an aircraft, though the windows were large and shallow, unlike the portholes which stripe commercial airliners. I have mentioned before that the service and comfort is similar (but better) than that of an aircraft. Ed pointed out that you should expect aircraft service when paying aircraft prices. I wonder how much the general staff on a Shinkansen are paid, and if the job requirements and interviews are much tougher than for an ordinary railway. These trains are marvelous. 3 hours from Osaka to Tokyo, including six stops at Kyoto, Nagoya, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Shin-yokohama, and Shinagawa. That's a bit like getting a train from London to Newcastle in 3 hours with six stops. Absurd!

We arrived and said our farewells to that wondrous technology. Finding the 'hostel' (it's really a hotel) was simple thanks to the incredibly explicit directions they provided on their website. On the reception desk they had this sign:

Gotta love the 25 hour day, that extra hour comes in so handy!

We checked in and threw our stuff down. While Ed took a shower I made a rough plan for fitting in all the things we want to do in the short time frame left. The plans seemed to fall naturally into place and, assuming there are no major cock-ups, we might be lucky enough to do everything we'd hoped here, but I don't want to give the surprise away so more on that later.


First we headed off to Ueno Park to have a wander and check out the museums. Most of the museums were about to close because we arrived not far off 5pm, but the most interesting two, the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokyo Science and Nature Museum, stay open until 8. So first we had a look around the park. It's pretty. On one side we found a large lake divided into three sections by three paths which meet in the middle at the foot of a shrine. The reeds bowed down to the winds and the trees roared with delight as we strolled through. I held onto my hat.

The lake at Ueno park

Before long we headed into the Tokyo National Museum. We got lucky; it turns out that the 18th of May is 'National Museum Day', and all the museums are free! Inside, works of art were laid out in chronological order describing the history of Japan, and it was rewarding to see depictions and stories of people and places we had learnt about throughout our journey. I had a certain sensation that the pieces of the puzzle were fitting together, and that names I had heard before were no longer isolated sounds but real stories with actual, tangible consequences. One highlight for me was a calligraphy scroll featuring an excerpt from 'The Tale of Genji', which is still on my 'to read' list. The ink scroll was adorned with petals and leaves so delicate that they at first appeared to be butterflies. Unfortunately some works were photography prohibited and this was one of them so instead please enjoy these exhibits:

Twelve heavenly guardian deities

Partitions depicting Fujiyama bursting through the clouds

Next we went into the Science and Nature Museum. It had a huge iron sperm whale out front as a feature. We weren't sure what we would find inside so we went to the first floor exhibit. It was artistic displays of the bones of Jomons. The Jomon people were the people that lived in Japan around 16,000 years ago and were slightly anatomically different from people today. I wasn't particularly interested in looking at skulls and bones however so I waited outside. Looking in, I watched the living watch the dead. Skulls, teeth, and bones with printed numbers, painstakingly reconstructed into skeletons. 'There are no dead here', I thought, 'there are only white sticks and rocks assembled into the effigy of human mortality'. The living observe with mild curiosity.


We moved on shortly thereafter to what looked like it could be a highlight of the museum: Theatre 360! It seemed to be some kind of domed cinema type affair and, even though we were informed it was just in Japanese, it looked interesting so we queued. After a number of safety briefings (really, seriously, don't lean over the railings!) we were led inside. It was a bridge about 3m wide and 15m long largely made from perspex, except with a black central beam. A white screen surrounded us in the shape of a sphere (or maybe an oblate spheroid I'm not sure). After rapid firing more safety warnings the lady that led us in turned off the lights and pressed play. A globe appeared and we flew around it watching animals be merry. It was an advertisement for Minolta.


Then the show begun in earnest. A black globe appeared above and in front of us, lit only by the millions of dots of artificial lights at night. Incidentally I love these maps! It revolved, was sliced open showing its cores, and then restored. Next we were quickly plunged into the centre of the earth and the screens around us depicted a globe, but viewed from the inside! Italy kicked to the right, and it took a minute to readjust my eyes to seeing something so familiar made to be so unfamiliar. Seeing the globe like this was thrilling though for its simple but clever novelty. Then the world turned black. Blue and red viscous liquids began to flow. I assumed the narrator was describing magma. We elevated and, for a split second, I thought I felt the floor move but it was an illusion. We exploded out of a volcano before floating around the world. The screens went black again. After a few seconds more small coloured spheres fly about and collide. This was the beginning of the universe. Particles stuck together and formed atoms and then molecules. Molecules accrued and formed stars and planets, then galaxies. Finally the narrator mentioned how without dark matter only about 16% of the mass of the universe is accounted for (I didn't understand the Japanese but I figured out a few words and I read Stephen Hawkings' latest book recently). I got a kick out of the film, even though the CGI was mediocre by modern standards, and it was rewarding to be able to look in any direction and see some new part of the show. I also liked the way they presented the story of the universe so concisely and clearly. It must be great for children.


We left and found a cheap tempura place for dinner. It was fine, but nothing special compared to some of the meals we've had. We have to try harder to avoid shops that look like they might be part of a chain!


I am in this country for only a few more days and as I draw nearer to returning to the U.K. I do not feel an overwhelming sense that I'm returning home. If anything I feel, in many ways, like I already am home, or like I'm in a different part of home. Almost like this may be some part of London I've never been to before where people have a strange accent and I can't quite figure out what they're saying. Even so I can get by reading context and body language. It may seem strange or even conceited to say such a thing after only spending a few weeks here. I'm sure I have no conception of what it must be like to live here. But I can't shake the feeling that it's so similar to England, and where things are different it is, usually, rather like they were broken before, but now they're fixed. I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with this place or the people in it, but I could imagine living here one day, if the right opportunity came my way.


So! only 3 days left here! Tomorrow I get up at 4am, which is frankly leaving it a bit late, to go to Tsukiji Fish Market!!! The auctions start very early in the morning, and we have to get there even earlier than that to register to be allowed in as spectators. We'll also try and see some of the Sanja Matsuri if we can


Take care peoples!
Arigato Gozaimashita!