There are a handful of Japanese words seared so deeply in my mind it feels primal. “Domo arigato” (thank you very much) came into my life with Styx’s hit “Mr Roboto” (1983). It went to number one in Canada. Maybe my brother owned it on vinyl. Styx rocks. I remember loving the album Paradise Theatre, still do. “Konnichiwa” (hello) feels like I’ve known it since the dawn of time. Maybe that came into my world through my Mum’s friendship with a Japanese family in the 80’s in Toronto. My Mum taught English as a second language to adults and deeply befriended a young Japanese family. Saturo, Nabuko, Akiko and her two brothers whose names are on the tip of my tongue. It was my first introduction to Japanese culture. They were sweet, kind, respectful and full of honor. That is what it feels like being in Tokyo for the first time.
We’re here for a few days. We have swung from the chaos of India to the world’s most orderly culture. Different cultures show respect in different ways. In Japan, respect is shown by being quiet in public places, by following rules, by queueing in structured ways, by taking off your dirty shoes - in your house, in changing rooms, and more. Apparently it is known that Americans are loud. In fact, this is something we’ve noticed whenever we run into Americans which has not been often. Sometimes we notice we are being the loud Americans.
So far the only dissonance to all this order has been during rush hour on the subway. There are more people than space on trains. So what to do? The human smush. I rode the subway for six years in Toronto. I’ve ridden the metro in NYC, Paris and other big cities. But until today I’d never experienced the smush. Sure, in other places there might be a bit of jostling and pushing as folks get on and off trains. The smush is different. People keep getting on when there is technically no more space, but they keep gently moving onto the train. Lots of them. The effect is a ripple of humans smushing against each other, consolidating, and creating space for more bodies. Packed sardines. Then the doors close, one final squeeze, and per Japanese culture, not a word is spoken because on public transit you don’t talk, eat, drink. So you have all these bodies pressed into one another in complete silence. Surreal. Here is a photo looking down at Hazel, smushed. Hope the kids remember all these rich cultural experiences!!
It actually gave me flashbacks to some smushing I got in India. On one of our pilgrimage hikes in Vagamon, a group of Indians approached and asked for my photo. This is actually pretty common in India and happened a few times. Felt like good karma to oblige given all the photos of people I’m taking on this trip. Anyhow, it was a full-on photo shoot. Hazel faded into some nearby trees, Homer Simpson style, to avoid the scene. Each lady in the group wanted her own photo with me. Cool, no problem. So each lady then proceeded to put her arm around me, one by one, and smush me like it was 1980 and I was her cabbage patch kid. I kid you not. I wonder if I’ll be smushed again before we get home.
Will is living their best life in Tokyo. Completely on their own and away from us until we meet up for dinner each night. Then often more city roaming after dinner. Will asked for a curfew the day we arrived. I was thinking 9pm made sense. Will announced that Dad had said midnight or 1pm. Funny. To Will’s credit they are wildly responsible and even with a midnight curfew, they’ve been home around 9 or 10pm. They love the freedom of public transit and finding cool places in big cities.
My favorite thing in big cities is just walking, walking and more walking. You never know what you’ll find or see. We stumbled upon cool narrow street neighborhoods, amazingly quiet parks, and everywhere we went the street fashion was off the hook. And very black. I’m blown away at how much black the Japanese wear. Layers of black sometimes. Lots of platform shoes and boots, mostly black. Mini skirts for days. Lots of tartan. Black tartan. Lace.
Oh and yes, we busted out our cold weather clothes. Such a rare event.
Food is sooo good. We went to a Santa Cruz coffee shop that opened (in Santa Cruz) shortly after Justin and I met. I have a memory of being there with little Will in the early days. All these years later here we are in Tokyo at Verve coffee, with Hazel this time.
I really do love all the tiny alleys and streets with no cars. It is peace in the chaos. Always. We wandered down what I think is quite a well known alley lined with tiny Japanese restaurants. But it was relatively quiet. Weekday? Offseason?? We stopped for an impromptu lunch. Maybe it wasn’t really lunch time? Miso, tofu, grilled meat, yummm.
We saw incredibly tidy and organized homeless people in the street. They had tiny jars with sweet Japanese figures to collect money. Tidy and well folded cardboard to mark the boundaries of their space. I stopped short of taking photos. But when we found an equally organized and tidy homeless camp in a park I snapped a few pics. It is wild that culture can run so deep.
Other scenes from a very quiet big park:
There are some things you really only see in big cities. Yes, some dogs are wearing diapers.
Japanese vibes:
One night we went to Korea town. Stumbled into it really, it was so close to our Airbnb. We naturally had Korean for dinner, with meat cooked in the middle of the table. Another night we had a 15-course meat-on-sticks dinner. Yakitori. Justin found the place. So legit. Totally non-descript from the street. In fact, I couldn’t even see a sign. We walked through a black door, down black stairs, into a black smokey room. There were a few private rooms and the rest of us, about twenty people, sat in a giant rectangle facing the cooks. It was too cool and intimate and Japanese to pull out our phones, but Justin did snap a photo of some meat-on-sticks before it was cooked. What an experience.
The Shibuya Crossing lived up to all my expectations and more. Domo Arigato Tokyo!!
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