CLARE:
Once again in Japan we have been so lucky with where we’ve been staying. Rupert (my cousin) had booked us into a business hotel very close to them so for the first part of the week we explored Musashi Kosugi – a suburb not unlike Teddington, low-rise (though densely packed) with young professional families, little independent shops and the river, which we spent Sunday afternoon by, watching baseball and sitting in the sun. Spent lots of time cuddling the boys’ new cousin Noah – just 5 weeks old and with wonderfully inquisitive attentive eyes. And we went to the beach! Not something that I expected to do in Japan. A little Edwardian style tram-train with a Thomas the Tank Engine driver in blue peaked cap and white gloves took us out to Enoshima on the coast. A little like Swanage, but with black volcanic sand and whirling hawks rather than seagulls. On the way back we walked up to see a big benign Buddha amidst spring-green, zen like gardens in Kamakura – a town liberally scattered with temples and shrines. Tom is adding Shintoism to his list of religions to explore! Yumi and Ru cooked us lots of Japanese dishes while the boys watched Studio Ghibli animations.
The second part of the week we spent in Anthony & Kirsty’s new flat (sadly without them!) which is tucked away in a Marylebone / Bond Street area of Tokyo. Gave us a chance to see the modern – designer shops and shiny buildings, robots and virtual reality at the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation – and the traditional – a wedding at the Sensoji Shinto shrine, the bride in her white silk kimono, red parasols and enrobed Shinto priests and attendants.
A few thoughts ...
Japan feels as if it is definitely a Pacific nation. We tend to lump it together with China, thinking that the script and faces are the same (neither is true ... faces here are quite different, and the script has moved on from its Chinese origins). I was struck in the shrines by the decidedly Pacific wooden carvings, Maori or Fijian. China definitely felt more like it has flavours of central Asia, Tibet and Nepal, which is different.
There is unexpected evidence of foreign influence (beyond the modern McDonalds and Starbucks!) ... the Victorian school girls, the American baseball – it seems odd, and given the history, strange.
The culture of respect is tangible. Everyone does little bows – to meet, greet, say goodbye, thank you, if they are serving you in a shop or restaurant. There is an air of formality and respect and dignity everywhere you go.
There are the iconic signs of modern Japan – huge slot machine parlours – hidden behind heavy closed doors but when they open a blast of cigarette smoke, blaring sounds and hypnotised lines of men), the punky fashionistas, but generally it is not as in your face as I had imagined, it’s calmer generally.
It’s such a clean city – I guess it’s partly the technology and partly the infrastructure. There’s hardly any traffic (heaven!) and no pollution – we’ve had a couple of lovely, clear days. And yet on the streets and on the metro loads of people wear little white masks covering their nose and mouth ... odd!
Vending machines ... at every step, shop, subway ... selling hot and cold drinks, food, toys ... all sorts.
Plastic food in the windows of the restaurants ... incredibly lifelike and mouth watering.
BEN:
Best moment: Going to the beach with hawks screaming above us. We swam in the Pacific Ocean and it was freezing. Tom and I made a city in the sand and called it Angel City.
Worst moment: On our first walk around Ru’s neighbourhood, the smell of incense overpowered us.
Most interesting moment: Japan is so technological, even the soap comes out automatically in public toilets!
Funniest moment: While walking to the Buddha in Kamakura we had to hide our ice creams from the dive-bombing hawks.
TOM:
The 3 things I most enjoyed in Japan:
Arriving at the first exhibit in the Science Museum – it was all about robots. We had seen some of them back in England on Newsround. We also went to a giant 3D film in a big ball that stuck outside the building. Afterwards we arrived at another 3D film that told us all about the solar system. We had a go at controlling the film with a PS2 remote.
Meeting Noah was fun because we took pictures with a camera, where the pictures print automatically.
Buying my Pokemon at Kiddyland – I bought 4 things – a cuddly Croagunk, a Pokeball clock, a Torterra and some Japanese Pokemon cards.
LANCE:
Looks like it’s all been said, Just a few additional thoughts:
Tokyo was a model city. Although limited to a handful of days (wish we’d done more) we stayed in both the outer suburbs and the city centre. The air felt clean and of a clarity I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a city. It felt like the crumbs had been swept under the carpet for our arrival (If we ever dropped a sweet wrapper we made damn sure we picked it up!). The streets were tidy, the traffic quiet and really only noticeable as obstacles to avoid when crossing the road. The back streets even more so; felt they had been designed for people. Buildings/railway stations are meticulously looked after and always looked ‘shiny’ (partly because there just wasn’t the haze normally associated with pollution). Most public utility employees, service engineers, taxi drivers (very expensive!), railway porters etc looked clinical in their spotless white gloves, an accessory that tied in with the white masks a lot of people wore while travelling around - the sort of mask you would see in an operating theatre. Why these are worn we never found out but became irritating after a while - it was the least polluted city we had been to by far and felt like paranoid behaviour. Crime appears to be insignificant (wallets were invitingly seen perching half way out of men’s back pockets and bicycles left blatantly unlocked). The only drawbacks I could see during our short stay was the lack of green space - it was there but you really had to look for it. Also if you want to live in a house in Tokyo, the choice seems limited as apartments are much more common. All in all though, a real contrast to what we’ve been used to.