Back to the Big City

Street names don’t exist in the Tokyo neighborhood where my uncle lives, so I spend my first five minutes on the ground in Japan listening as he gives my taxi driver directions over speaker phone. Apparently local addresses consist of three numbers, designating district, block and building by chronology of construction rather than geography. Before google maps, each district’s police house was a visitor’s best friend.

In any case. I’ve sat my butt on a trans-pacific flight exactly one month after returning to the states because for all that talk about going home through Japan I never actually managed to make it, and a long-overdue family visit is in order. And so I find myself wandering Tokyo for the first time in twenty years, surrounded by 13 million of the politest people I’ve ever met. Somehow, amongst the narrow twisting side streets and messy spider webs of power lines and hoards of old-style multicolored taxis and the CBD’s glass high rises, Tokyo still feels more open than the majority of large cities I’ve experienced.

The subway proves altogether a different matter. Not including inter-city and Shinkansen (bullet) trains, Tokyo’s train system consists of hundreds of subway stops spanning dozens of lines. Quite frankly, it makes Hong Kong’s mass transit resemble a kindergarten playground.

Tokyo station proves a literal underground metropolis, teeming and bustling with so many people I lose hallway walls through a sea of black suits and roller bags and designer coats and heels. Even so, the station somehow maintains a sense of organization through all the crazy; probably something to do with the fact that people line up in tidy queues– inside the lines, one person directly behind the next– and No one. Ever. Runs.

On our first day in Japan we duck beneath dark gates hung with gargantuan red lanterns into the Asakusa district, finding our way amongst narrow shop rows and brightly painted garage doors to the country’s oldest Shinto shrine. We bypass chintzy, mass-produced stuff adorning shop windows to where back walls hide bolts of hand embroidered and painted and dyed silk, laying out sprays of flowers and floating maple leaves and bustling village life in $2000 bolts of kimono cloth.

On our second day, we crash a wedding.

Thousands upon thousands of umbrellas cram the sidewalks of Tokyo’s glitziest, most expensive neighborhood as teeming crowds go about daily business in front of futuristic window displays, mirroring a movie scene come to life. Literally across the street, a monster of a torii gate constructed of dark wood leads into a 150-year old, untouched native forest, trees’ sprawling branches spreading serenity over the Meji Shrine’s approach. As we navigate the shrine’s broad path, we pass family upon family celebrating well-being and growth, escorting small children wearing full kimono for the first time in their lives.

We manage to reach the shrine itself just as a wedding procession exits one of the side buildings, a wide crimson umbrella sheltering the hooded bride in a pure white kimono. As the ceremony wraps, the shrine’s courtyard fills with women in ceremonial finest, hiding from the day’s drizzle under plastic umbrellas with shiny rolley bags in tow.

The next morning, low, powerful rain pounds the city as the edge of a late-season typhoon makes itself known, clouds wrapping high rises to obscure their upper levels. The sun breaks as we head south to Hiroshima via Shinkansen, illuminating dense bamboo forests that give the hills a soft, springy appearance.

We find our way that evening past the city’s streetcars into a little restaurant where a chef wields double metal spatulas over a broad steel grill, working soba noodles, fish flakes, cabbage, eggs and all manner of sauces and spices into a multilayer pancake. To one end of the counter we meet an absolute legend of a gentleman who helps us to order dinner before utilizing his beer and ash tray to map out the Hiroshima Peace Park.

These days, Hiroshima proves a modern, lively metropolis. We spend a day exploring the city, finding our way through a reconstructed castle and gardens centered around a pond filled with monster koi who beg for food. Apparently it’s prime wedding season, because a photo shoot is in full swing as a bride is dressed beneath a pavilion at the water’s edge and photographers wearing full makeup belts attend couples scattered through the gardens, adjusting every fold of the kimono and angle of the arm before each frame is taken.

Eventually in the afternoon we arrive at the skeleton of the A Bomb Dome, preserved on the river’s edge. Once the lone building left standing over obliteration at the epicenter, the dome now nestles amongst the high rises of a prospering city. As I stand to the side, a small, frail old man in a suit approaches a simple, imposing stone erected in front of the building, shaded by broad maples. He sets his hat down to the side, hobbles carefully up the low steps, lays down his light brown cane, claps and bows. Then he retrieves his belongings and continues on his way.

The next day we arrive by tram, train, and ferry to Miyajima. A towering vermillion torii gate stands strong amongst the high tide’s waters, historically serving as a gateway from the inland sea to the island of the gods. Legend has it the gate, unsupported except by its own twisted camphor legs, has never fallen. By low tide waters retreat from the gate and shrine to which it provides passage, exposing shellfish to be harvested as a softly flowing creek emerges from a natural spring amongst the shrine’s walkways. The shrine itself rises above the water on hundreds of wooden pillars, fit together through simple, precise geometry to avoid the rust that would otherwise accompany nails.

Crimson maple leaves scatter amongst deep green as we catch a tram into the island’s heights in the early afternoon. A short hike brings us to a lookout from the Miyajima’s highest peak, from which we look down over forested granite cliffs and across the narrow inland sea to Hiroshima Prefecture’s winding, mountainous coastline, accompanied dozens of tinier scattered islands. We return to the island’s edge as water rushes into the inlet, in time to watch the torii gate glow crimson-gold under the afternoon’s last light.

We find Halloween in full chaos as we return to the city: I’m fairly sure trick or treating doesn’t exist here, but probably half the population under the age of 30 has shown up to the central arcade in disguise. It’s the most interesting gathering of costumed human beings I’ve ever encountered: like people long to show individuality and express themselves, but at the same time they desperately need the comfort of belonging… so they show up in packs. I’m surrounded by zombies. Zombie brides, zombie convicts, zombie goth girls… if the apocalypse happens, Imma sit my butt on the exact opposite side of the world from Japan. The rest of the hall teems with convicts and SWAT officers and Disney princesses, while a posse of male strippers and a dozen Dalmatians also make appearances.

We leave behind the arcade’s commotion for a tiny sushi restaurant that puts anything I’ve ever eaten in the states to shame, and then we find our way home.