Tokyo Story

When I was a senior in college in 2004, my Japanese teacher gave an open final assignment: write and perform a skit, make a video, do anything, as long as you speak Japanese.  My classmates chose to make skits and videos, but I wanted to be different and took on the challenge of writing and performing a song in Japanese with my guitar.  It was called "Tokyo Ni Mata Ittenai" ("I Haven't Been to Tokyo").  Here's a sample of the lyrics, in English:

I've already been to Japan,
But I haven't been to Tokyo.
Won't someone please take me to Tokyo?

I'm not sure why, but I didn't win a Grammy (I think Kelly Clarkson bribed the judges).  But, I did get an 'A,' even though there were some glaring mistakes in Japanese grammar.  My teacher appreciated my hutzpah, I guess.

The subject matter of the song was actually true, and remained true until last week, when my wife and I finally made it to the Big...Ringo??? (Japanese for "Apple.")  Well, that's not entirely true; I have been to Tokyo a few times before last week but never for any substantial amount of time.  One time I was in Tokyo just long enough to catch a night bus to Wakayama, and the other time was the JET Program orientation.  I was so exhausted then that my hotel room was the only sight I saw.  I did catch a glimpse of the then under-construction Skytree from my hotel window, as you can see in the distance in the left side of this gloomy picture:

It's summer vacation now at my schools, so my wife and I decided to visit this elusive city during what some are saying is the hottest Japanese summer on record.  The highest temperature ever recorded in Japan was recorded last week at 41 degrees Celsius (about 106 for all us 'murricans).  It wasn't that hot in Tokyo at the time, but I couldn't tell.  I lost about 4 pounds from sweat alone, I think.

We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka to Tokyo, which is about 2.5 hours, after the 3.5 hour train ride to Osaka from Koza.  After arriving, we sweated all the way to Asakusa, where our hotel was located, and saw the sights around there.  Here's Sensou-ji, the giant temple and symbol of Asakusa:

Also close by is the aforementioned Skytree, the tallest structure in Japan:

We made it to the Skytree the next morning.  We had been told that there is little to no wait in line in the morning, so we reluctantly got up early and trekked across the Sumida River to ride up the elevator to the observation deck and this view:

It's difficult to show just how tall the Skytree is.  I forgot the measured height and am too lazy to look it up, but please understand that it is extremely tall.  Unfortunately, we didn't have the best of views due to the haze and humidity of the summer, but it was a little unsettling at first sight, nevertheless.

That afternoon, after visiting the Skytree in the morning, we took the hour-long train ride to Kamakura to the southwest of Tokyo, where the 2nd largest statue of Buddha in Japan resides:

What a big ol' Buddha!

I had already seen the largest Buddha in Japan in Nara, so this was old hat.  The extreme heat didn't help me enjoy it any more, either.  In fact, by the time we got to Kamakura, our leisurely sojourn had turned into an extreme sport of endurance.  Every few steps were followed by a gulp of water or tea or whatever liquid we had on us and a break in the shade.  After the Buddha, we saw another temple nearby, but I forgot the name of it.  We also forgot or were too tired to take a lot of pictures there, so all I remember is a nice view of Kamakura, and a strange cave where hundreds of Jizo statues were carved into the walls.

After sweating some more, we finally made it back to the main station in the center of town and stopped in a Fujiya (kind of like Denny's with more desserts) to eat some shaved ice and try desperately to cool down.  We had planned to stay in Kamakura to see the "Bonbori"festival that evening at a famous shrine, Hachimangu:

At this point in our day, I didn't have the presence of mind to take some great pictures, so you'll have to settle for the one above of the very long approach to the shrine, which is located up on a hill in the background.  Lining the approach on both sides were hundreds of hand painted paper lanterns that were to be lit up during the festival that night.  It would have been a beautiful sight, but we decided the daylight view was good enough for us and headed on back to our hotel in Tokyo.

The next day, I had a mission to go to Shibuya and buy a bunch of CD's, so that's what we did in the morning.  If you've ever seen Tokyo in a movie or TV show, then you probably saw a shot of Shibuya.  There's a chaotic intersection there that would probably never work anywhere else in the world, but somehow millions of people walk through it every day without incident:

It actually looks kind of calm in this picture...

After I picked up my CD's, we decided to head to Odaiba, which is a fairly new manmade island that's a boon for real estate development.  It's home to many shopping malls, exhibition spaces, and the Fuji TV station.  It was also home, on that day, to a viewing spot for the annual fireworks festival on the Sumida River.  Which means that way too many people were there.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that half the population of Tokyo decided to cram into Odaiba just for an evening of fireworks. Of course, my wife and I didn't know this beforehand and got caught in the hysteria.  When we finally realized what we had gotten ourselves into, it was impossible to avoid the crowded trains going back into town.  Even before the festival had started, people were being packed into train cars like sardines, their faces pressed against the windows, leaving oily spots behind.  We didn't want to, but since we had no choice, we forced ourselves into one of the hot sweaty cars to take the 20 minute trip back to Tokyo.

After returning to the hotel for a quick break, we headed back out around 5 PM to the Edo Tokyo Museum, about a 5 min. subway ride from our hotel.  The museum tells the history of Tokyo, once known as Edo, all the way to the present day.  I've been reading a huge biography about Hirohito, the emperor during WWII, and it was particularly interesting for me to see the displays about Tokyo's wartime history.  On display was one of the "balloon bombs" that Japan launched thousands of towards the desperate end of the war, in hopes of some of them landing on US shores.  The vast majority of them didn't land, however, because they look exactly like how they are named--a little bomb dangling from a white balloon.  That was somehow supposed to make it all the way across the Pacific Ocean.

Also of interest were psychological warfare leaflets dropped and distributed to surrendering U.S. soldiers, with pictures of heroic, smiling Japanese soldiers and captioned, "We're your pals! Come on!" I really wish I had taken pictures of those.  There was another creepy one with a sentimental drawing of a crying young American woman with words along the lines of, "Come home.  How I miss your head lying on my soft breasts, my fingers stroking your hair, " etc.  It was written to lower soldiers' morale, but it was written in weird Japanese English.  The grammar was all correct but completely unnatural; it read like the fragmented words of a ghost.

There were also sobering pictures and evidence of the American firebombing of Tokyo which leveled the city and killed thousands and thousands of civilians.  I've also visited the Peace Park and museum in Hiroshima, and except for the iconic dome in pictures of post-atom bomb Hiroshima, the pictures of a scorched Tokyo look all but the same.  I went to the museum expecting to see mostly ancient artifacts from the Edo period, and while it certainly had those in spades, I came away from the museum affected mostly by the displays of damage and chaos from WWII and the subsequent rebuilding of Tokyo.

On our final day in Tokyo, we spent the morning sweating around the Imperial Palace near Tokyo station.  There's really not much to see there as we mere mortals aren't allowed inside the palace walls and moats, but it's at least interesting to see the wide open green space in the middle of the world's largest metropolis.  While I can't say Tokyo is my favorite city in Japan (Kyoto takes that designation with Osaka in a close second), it still has a larger-than-life feel to it, much like New York City.  And I enjoyed my few days there, but I'll take sweet home Koza over Tokyo any day.