Tokyo

We are home and along with mild jet lag is the surreal feeling of being plucked from one reality and dropped back into our Dunbar lives. I have wondered how to write about the last Japan chapter which consisted of Yamaguchi (New York Times recommended one of 52 places to visit in 2024 - they will get a stern reprimand from us), Hagi, the small coastal town that was the last bastion of samurai culture, and Tokyo, city of 38 million and truly one of the world's great cities.

As the iconic Japanese city I wonder if Tokyo represents the soul of Japan. Of course we walked mainly the main neighbourhoods - Roppongi, Ginza, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Daikanyama and the relatively quiet area we stayed in - Nezu / Ueno / Yanaka in the north east of the city. The bustling urbanity seemed filled with the young and fashion conscious. We gave up our 'Bill Cunningham' strategy of random photos of the well turned out. Everyone was well turned out from the chauffeur driven women dropped off in front of Chanel, the hipsters ducking into shops in the side streets of Harajuku, or the random dude crossing a street. This is a city for gawking but we gave up after our first day. Clothes, architecture, conspicuous consumption, with each store vying to be more noticeable than the one beside.

These were the iconic neighbourhoods which presented a very public side of the city. Not the Tokyo depicted in the recent film Perfect Days which depicted the quotidian life of a public bathroom cleaner. That city is one of tiny homes on narrow streets plied by bicycles and very compact cars. Tiny garbage trucks with helmeted garbage men running along behind. Neighbourhoods with small wine bars, restaurants, barber shops, plants, flowers overflowing in pots at door stops, temples and cemeteries on every other block, a steady flow of people going about their daily life. As a fellow from India told us Mumbai feels like a big city, Tokyo a very organized network of neighbourhoods.

When I think of our travels and what might being a fitting image of the soul of the country I think of the contrast between coming out of the subway for the first time in Tokyo - seeing the main intersection in Harajuku with a striking building about ten stories tall, a network of terraces, planted aerial gardens teaming with shoppers winding their way in and out of a vertical mall selling everything and anything. This contrasted with an encounter on the island of Teshima, with a woman well into her eighties, sitting on a stool, beneath an overhead lattice carefully sorting onions from her garden and walking them, in small handfuls, to her home. You can find contrasts in any country and in Japan they can be stark. We were told the population will decline from its current 130 million to 80 million by 2050 due to an aging population and low birth rate. The urban shoppers will be there. Who will be carrying the onions?

Much of our time in Tokyo was spent on subways. I would say at least an hour and a half a day. We stayed in an out of the way, quiet and charming neighbourhood and had to take the subway to access the major neighbourhoods. If you look at a map of the Tokyo subway at first glance it is frightening. In fact it is really legible, consistent and easy to navigate. Like the trains it runs like clockwork with stops and connections easy to follow. We got on at our small stop in Nezu and after about a 40 minute trip with at least one line change, we would emerge into yet another bustling, dynamic neighbourhood. Each neighbourhood a 30 minute or 15 stop ride away. Ten car trains, two minutes between stops, trains every three minutes, each stop colour coded, named (Japanese and English) and numbered. We got to be subway pros and had no guilt about diving for a free seat, old ladies be damned.

Our friend from Australia, Andrew Tang, who had live for twelve years in Tokyo, showed us around for the first three days. Thank God as he knew the city well and treated us to many of its idiosyncrasies. What to order in the small food stalls in the chaotic Amayoko market - octopus balls garnished just so - the small hole in the wall restaurants where we met his friends for dinner - the dynamics of the 'Love Hotels' and how 'companions' are procured, how pachinko gets around illegal gambling, the outrageous Tsutaya bookstore in Roppongi.

It was an early evening visit to this store where I felt the overwhelming current of this city. A bookstore that sold every magazine printed, row upon row dedicated to automobiles or any other subject. A place to buy gourmet food, an $80K samurai sword or a perfect vase. It offered everything, curated, perfectly lit, displayed - at any time of day - packed with well heeled residents. I felt like a complete hick and any attempt on our part to be anything else was futile. We were voyeurs. Each day, at about 10:30 pm we would stumble from the Nezu subway stop, walk the ten minutes to our hotel, usually stopping in the hole in the wall family run wine bar for a nightcap, clink our glasses and go 'wow'.

Snapshot images....the view down on the city from the observation deck on the 52 storey of the Muri tower in Rappongi where one saw swaths of the city dedicated to cemeteries and an urban sprawl that seemed to go on for ever...being served an eight course meal by a single chef behind a counter who served only 8 patrons a night sitting at the counter, each course presented with impeccable timing and craft...having the only unkind look from a resident in a month in Japan and that due to me almost stepping in front of him on his bicycle as I looked the wrong way stepping off a curb....a second floor shop dedicated to people who want to reserve a slot of time to cuddle puppies and one dedicated to having the opportunity to do the same with piglets....a seeming obsession with youthful beauty...the sight of one homeless person in a city of 38 million....the contrast between the collection of 48 small, sacred statues in the Horyu-ji Gallery on the grounds of the Tokyo National museum and the garish images of doll like boys and girls available for 'companionship'... unfailing courtesy, kindness and generosity...

Again I hope the images fill in what a stream of words can't. On returning from this month long trip of discovery we feel so privileged to have the opportunity to travel in such depth. We describe ourselves as 'purposeful wanderers' and as someone noted on our trip, around every corner in Japan is some new discovery.