Kanpai! And Money Laundering.

Saturday, Nov 28

Another beautiful sunny day in Tokyo lured us back out into the city. This time our destination was a shrine called Koami Jinja a few blocks away from the Kayabacho station. This shrine is believed to offer protection against evil spirits and brings good fortune.

According to an article I read on the website Trip101, the reason for this belief is because the shrine survived the bombings of WWII, as well as all the soldiers who came here before heading out to battle survived unscathed. Now people come here for many reasons such as when looking for jobs, buying lotto tickets, before exams, etc.

Despite the fact I’m unemployed and could use help in the job-finding department, the actual reason we made it our destination yesterday was because of their Doburoku Festival (a celebration of home-brewed sake). Another Festival, yes—and I will be reporting on lots of festivals because these Japanese like to party, and the price is right: free.

Visitors also come here to wash their coins in a small well. Once washed, these coins need to be carried in the wallet to bring the holder good luck and prosperity. Let me tell you, we washed some coins.

Besides free sake samples, there was also Shinto dancing and music performed.  The dancing took place in the shrine itself but it was hard to see from where we stood. I could see a person in a beautiful kimono of white with silver design, wearing a big floppy gold hood and wearing the smiling-Buddha-like mask one sees in pictures, moving slowly and precisely. Drumming and chanting accompanied the anonymous dancer. It seemed like something from a different time and I would have liked to see more.

After this dancing, three young musicians dressed in black kimonos and black hats came out onto the second floor balcony and began playing some music while a young woman dressed in a beautiful white and red kimono with a gold headpiece danced. It was interesting, too, but the music sounded a bit like when my little brother was first learning to play the clarinet. I can’t say I liked it a lot. I couldn’t tell what instruments were being played besides a flute. They played two songs. The first one was for the young woman to dance with a fan. The second song, sounding much like the first song, accompanied her as she danced with a branch of foliage.

After we had watched, washed and drank we headed off to the Shinjuku area in search of something alcoholic to drink.

And past the Hello Kitty street barriers, we had success.

Will Our Heroine Leave Her Apartment Today? Stay Tuned.

Tuesday, Nov 24

We made it through the three-day weekend. Thank Gawd. The birds are chirping again and the kids at the pre-school are yelling and screaming across the alleyway again. While I don’t think the birds were on a holiday, the kids definitely were and it was way too quiet without all their background noise. Their screechy little voices are a welcome addition to the mind-numbing quiet of our neighborhood.

Over the past two days we took breaks from reading and writing and toured the neighborhood, strolling around some of the unexplored streets. Each ramble though geographically short has lasted two hours or so because of the meandering of the streets. Tokyo is not on a grid system. In fact, when one needs to go somewhere and jumps into a taxi, quite often the taxi driver has no clue how to find the desired destination. One needs to have a map or at least some type of landmark to give the taxi driver. Thus, I don’t feel so bad admitting that I have been completely lost and turned around each time we have wandered off our main street. I find it really hard to know where I am and without the ability to access Google Maps on my iPhone, I am pretty much in a constant state of confusion. It’s not a way I like to be.

In New York, while I wander in a state of confusion often, I rely on apps to save me. Here I have everything shut down on my American iPhone to avoid the costly surprises AT&T presents us with at the end of each month we are gone. Last month AT&T gave us a great surprise: a $500 bill for two iPhones (and only one was abroad at the time). After receiving that gift-that-keeps-on-giving I have shut everything down and now use my phone as a weight to keep my jacket pocket from fluttering in the wind.

Today is sunny after two days of gloomy, gray weather, and I’ve been trying to talk The Professor into going out to explore the city since he has turned his iPhone into a temporary Japanese phone and can get the life-saving apps we need to get around, AND he can read and speak a little Japanese. At least enough. I, on the other hand, am full-blooded American and can speak and read only English. This is not very helpful in Japan, I am finding. I’m not sure I have it in me today to go out and be lost, possibly forever.

To those who told me that everyone speaks English in Tokyo (I know I assured everyone of that fact before arriving here), I have one word to say in response. And that one word is ‘LIAR’! If the Japanese speak it, it’s only a few words usually, and they don’t seem to understand a lot of what we say.

A perfect example of this is when we ventured out to turn The Professor’s American-issued iPhone into a Japanese-issued iPhone. The Professor had decided this was a necessity before we left America so I knew it was only a matter of time before we had to deal with it. The time had come shortly after arriving in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago. I would have written of the experience earlier, but frankly it was beyond boring, and I really couldn’t bring myself to until now.

We went to the Shinjuku train station to a store called BIC Camera. The Professor had been told by a fellow visiting-scholar he’d met that while many places don’t allow for short-term contracts, BIC Camera did. They offer a monthly data-only plan as well as a yearlong contract phone option. Both options are good for those long-term visitors tentatively clutching their temporary Japanese Residence Card.

Note to long-term US visitors if this is your plan: contact your American phone carrier and get your phone unlocked before leaving the US. This will allow the Japanese phone company access to the phone. They just need to replace the SIM card and voila, American phone is turned into a Japanese one. Also note that we have had varied luck getting my still-American phone to accept texts from The Professor’s now-Japanese one.

Upon entering the BIC Camera store, The Professor asked if anyone spoke English and we were happy to find there was one lone guy, and we happily waited our turn to speak to him. After explaining what we needed, he told us in somewhat broken, and highly accented English that we needed to go to the next floor (I guess that’s what he said, because we next found ourselves there, and expected).

Once on the second floor, English-Speaking Sales Guy turned us over to another guy I’ll refer to as Non-English-Speaking Sales Guy. For the next thirty minutes or so (it felt like four hours), I sat and listened to The Professor and Non-English-Speaking Sales Guy speak a halting version of Japanese as Non-English-Speaking Sales Guy tried to explain what the contract consisted of, what was needed of The Professor, and all the other fine print and details my non-interested brain half tuned out. The Professor understood most of what was being said but for one thing—that of needing an existing Japanese phone number. He couldn’t understand why they needed it or what was to be done with it. We tried getting an answer from Non-English-Speaking Sales Guy who finally asked English-Speaking Sales Guy to come back over so we could ask, but we still never really understood until after the fact. Reluctantly, The Professor finally gave them a phone number for a friend who resides in Japan. (NOTE: When getting a Japanese phone number, one must be ready to supply a friend’s Japanese phone number. We THINK this is needed to set up the account. After the new account is set-up, the new Japanese-Issued phone number is then entered in the account to replace the friend’s number. Seems kind of weird, but what do I know?)

After this give and take, Non-English-Speaking Sales Guy did a bunch of stuff to the iPhone, handed the phone off to someone behind a partition, got the phone and new SIM Card back, did some more stuff to the iPhone, then went through all the contract details yet again, asking the Professor to click next to each detail, and a bunch of other boring stuff. Non-English-Speaking Sales Guy then inserted the new SIM Card, went over instructions again in slow, halting Japanese to make sure that The Professor could understand him, handed him a copy of the contract, a receipt, and his old SIM card, and we were finally able to leave.

Three days later (give or take) we finally exited the store and The Professor’s phone is now life-saving with its Japanese Subway and Japanese Google Maps apps. His phone is now our lifeline to direct us out of any potentially lost-forever moments—while mine is a pocket weight.

This is why I find the thought of taking off into the depths of Tokyo very daunting and I still sit here at the kitchen table typing this blog entry. Stay tuned.

Mt. Takao

Saturday, Nov 21
After a daylong fit of inertia, sitting on my butt watching movies on my computer and staring out into the gloomy, rainy gray day through our wall of windows on Friday, I awoke to a blaze of sunshine on Saturday. It was blinding. And it was uplifting. And it filled me with guilt about the day before—along with an urgent desire to do something outdoorsy.

It was 9am and I convinced The Professor that we needed to get outside and enjoy the weather—despite the fact that it was the beginning of a three-day holiday (I have no idea for what).

‘We need to get out and enjoy this day,’ I said. ‘Especially since it will be gray and gloomy again soon. How about going to Mt. Takao and seeing the fall colors?’ It was one of the many near-Tokyo spots that was listed on the Fall Foliage Report.

The Professor agreed and then went on the computer to quickly figure out the route to get there. He read an article that suggested we be there by 9:30am to avoid the crowds—and it went on to warn of 30-minute waits for the cable car and that there would be swarms of people on any given day. Threatening The Professor before he could get engrossed in any more informative websites, I got him off the computer, refocused, and committed to the day.

Knowing that it takes at least two hours for The Professor and I to assemble ourselves and get out the door, that it was a beautiful Saturday of a three-day weekend, and that it was now almost 9:30 and we were still sitting in our pjs drinking coffee--we threw all logic to the wind and decided to still go even if it meant it would be crowded. I mean just how bad could it be? We lived in NYC and were now used to crowds, we thought. We were going.

Quickly showering and packing our day packs with whatever snacks we had, we were out the door in an impressive hour. Quite good time for The Professor and me.

Upon exiting the front door and waiting for The Professor to lock it I looked down and noticed bits of black fluttering from The Professor’s feet with each move he made. What was going on? We discovered that his hiking boots that have sat in his closet unused for these past few years had decided to disintegrate and the soles were decomposing right before our eyes. So back in the apartment we went so that The Professor could change his shoes.

Back out of the apartment a couple of minutes later, we were on to the next stop—which was to purchase food for our daylong trek. Filling our backpacks with rice balls and waters, we then headed for the train station next door. We were off.

We took the first route to the Shinjuku station where we needed to switch to another train line—the Keio Railways, headed to the Takaosanguchi station. Exiting the first train gates I realized I needed to get money added to my PASCO card as it was almost zeroed out—and this is when The Professor decided it was the time to purchase the other—more useful—Suica card since it’s good at more places. Getting this new type of card, however, meant hunting for a kiosk to purchase it. After much searching we found the kiosk, and after a few attempts at running the machine, we managed to purchase the new card for me. However, after doing this, The Professor decided that we should get more money. This meant we had to leave the train station in search of a post office containing the bank needed to get the money at no charge.

We followed Google Maps to the Post Office—to find it closed. We retraced our steps to a 7-11 and got money from an ATM. We then trudged the 10 minutes or so back to the train station to catch the Keio Line headed to Takaosan.

By now, it was past 11am. (It requires patience to hang with The Professor. Sadly, I have little.) Let’s say there were a few cross words bantered between us by now; but as luck would have it, we only had a few minutes to wait before the 11:07 Semi-Express train arrived, and we were finally on our way. Though we were shoved up against windows and standing the whole 50 minutes, it went rather quickly. The Professor got to read and I got to watch the countryside fly past. I had a great view standing there with my face shoved up against the glass. I managed to look around and saw there were quite a few people not so lucky. They were traveling the whole way staring at their neighbor’s armpit.

We got off at the last stop, conveniently located at the bottom of the mountain-Mt. Takao. Exiting the train we followed the huge crowds out the gates and into the gathering area where the Info office and a huge painted sign of the park were located. We got a small, free trail map in English and then fought our way through the crowd filling the pathways until we found an empty spot to sit amongst other families where we ate a bit of food and looked at the map before heading back into the mass of nature lovers.

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After this brief respite of purchased pre-made tuna fish sandwiches, rice balls, and water, we decided to get a move on and entered back into the foray up the mountain. There was a mountain of people on the side of the mountain, and it divided up into three loosely formed lines.

 There was not a lot of direction so we wandered to the front of the line closest to the sign that said Cable Car to purchase some Cable Car tickets. There are three ways up the mountain—one that requires a 90-minute hike up the side, one on a tram—or Cable Car as it’s called—and one using a chair lift. The Professor and I had decided upon the Cable Car  as it would drop us about 45 minutes from the top and it was enclosed unlike the chair lift. We don’t do well in natural settings for too long so this was a happy compromise. I had suggested we buy a one-way but as it turned out, The Professor didn’t listen to me and instead, thankfully, bought round trip tickets.

We turned around with our tickets in hand (about $8rt per person) and started walking back to the end of the line. It was a long walk back. And just like the online story had predicted, we waited about 20-30 minutes before getting on the Cable Car. (Apparently, these cable car tickets can be purchased ahead of time along with the train tickets. We did not know this. It would have been a bit easier to do it this way as it would allow one to just stand in line with everyone else. Our place in line was a lot further back because we had to go up and buy our cable car tickets then come back to get in line.)

The Cable Car is brightly colored and quite cute. According to their website: At an inclination of 31.18 degrees at the steepest point, the cable car boasts the steepest incline of any cable car system in Japan, and it offers riders an awe-inspiring view through the windows.

It was very steep which made for a fun trip, and it goes up the side of the mountain 1020m according to their website. The ride was definitely worth it as it takes you right through the forest and is a really pretty way to go. It definitely beats a trudge on the trails surrounded by fellow hikers as we would soon find out.

Exiting the Cable Car around the area of Monkey Park, which we sadly did not enter, we hit the trail.

Hitting the trail with thousands of other Trail Hitters however, does nothing but allow one to fall into a slow Death-March-like trudge. We spent the next couple of hours at this pace surrounded by thousands of other Leaf Lovers, Trail Hitters, and weekend Nature Lovers. We are talking thousands. There was not one spot that was not filled with a crowd, with the possible exception of one of the first little shrines along the trail. I think after a series of stairs the sight of more stairs leading to this little shrine was a bit much for many people and many simply passed it by. After being goaded up the stairs by The masochistic Professor, I am happy to report the extra stair climbing was definitely worth it.

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At the top of the stairs was a clearing surrounded by trees in all their fall glory—and the clearing was filled with stone statues of gods and various types of shrines. It was very pretty and relatively peaceful. We took a few pics, took a deep breath, and then plunged back into the crowded madness. 

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Following the crowd like lemmings we continued up the hill along the path—checking out more shrines, enjoying the fall colors, and pushing and shoving through the crowds on up to the pillar at the top of the mountain.

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From here much of Tokyo can be seen in one direction and in the opposite distance, shy Mt. Fuji looms. There are definitely lots of beautiful views from here and well worth the climb.

We sat up here for a few minutes and had some more snacks and water and rested with hundreds of others. Thankfully, we found a place to sit for a few much-deserved minutes of recharging. By now it was about 3:30pm and beginning to get a bit gloomier on Autumn’s quick slide into early darkness—and we decided it was time to head back down the hill. Along with the hundreds of others with the same idea. About 60 minutes later we found ourselves back at the Monkey Park entrance waiting in line for the Cable Car—now with throbbing feet and aching leg muscles.

‘We made it. We climbed Mt. Takao and saw the fall colors. It was beautiful today, wasn’t it? I’m glad we decided to pull it off and not stay home—but I’m done. We did it, it’s done, delete from the list of things we didn’t know we wanted to do in Japan. I’m done with this crowd and standing and I just want to be home now.’ I said. ‘Sure glad I made you buy those round-trip tickets on this Cable Car. I am ready to get out of here!’

The Professor looked at me, rolled his eyes, and shook his head.

It was not the escape to nature we had, perhaps, expected. But it was an escape to nature—Tokyo-Style.

We are the climbers of mountains. Did it. Done it. And done.

Real Japanese Entertainment at the East Imperial Gardens

Thursday, Nov 19
I don't understand Japanese TV programs. The main problem being they are in Japanese. No matter what the characters are doing or what the plot is, I am lost and have no idea what is going on. I've tried to watch, but I don't get any enjoyment from it.

Yesterday I excitedly signed up for the Japanese version of Hulu Plus because the American Hulu Plus doesn't work over here. After signing up, I discovered that they only offer the first two seasons of Modern Family (which is on season 7!)  and are completely missing my other favorite shows. Also, their idea of a recently added movie is one from 1998! 

And Netflix has only been a bit better. I was initially excited to discover that Netflix was now available in Japan, but somehow my list of movies to watch has shrunk down to fourteen. 

Things have not been looking good with the Japanese entertainment offerings.

Today we decided to give Mother Nature a chance to entertain us.

We've been wanting to see some fall colors here in Japan, but didn't want to have to go too far. We checked out the Tokyo Fall Foliage Forecast (there is also a Cherry Blossom Forecast in the spring) to see what our options were, and we discovered that a mere fifteen minutes away by subway at the Otemachi stop on the Tozai Line is the Imperial East Gardens. 

These gardens are free and are listed as a great place to catch the fall colors in the city this time of year.

There wasn't a lot of colorful foliage because it's not been very cold and there has been some recent rains, but I found lots of examples of color.

And this Japanese program I can completely understand! 

Otori-Jinja Shrine

Wednesday, Nov 18
Last night we took the subway to witness our first of many Japanese festivals. The Japanese seem to have festivals for just about everything and last night’s was called the Tori-no-Ichi festival. This festival is celebrated at many shrines throughout Tokyo and Japan, and we decided to go to the largest in our area: the Otori-Jinja Shrine—just an 8-minute walk from the Iriya stop on the Hibiya Subway Line 

The Tori-no-Ichi is a fair held on the days of the rooster in November. This fair is sometimes called…Otori-sama…[for] the patron deity of good fortune and successful business… [The] fair is set…with open-air stalls selling kumade rakes for 'raking in wealth and good fortune.' This good-luck rake is made of bamboo and is decorated with masks and …old gold coins (http://www.jnto.go.jp).

[The fair is] where one gives thanks for a safe year and prays for happiness in the next; not unlike an American Thanksgiving and [is] held…every November since the Edo era (the Christian era 1750-1760). While being the 
last big event of the year, it is also the first event in the course of new year’s preparations. It thus forms the bridge, 
both economic and psychological, between the old and new years, emphasizing the continuum of time in society from year to year (http://www.otorisama.or.jp).

I’ve provided detailed info above from two websites on what the fair is about, because based on my American-centric experience I had no idea of what was being celebrated or how.

We arrived about 4pm and noticed the lighted Japanese lanterns from the distance as we approached from down the street. They surrounded the shrine entrance providing a welcoming beacon and added to the festive feeling. A large crowd was already gathering at the shrine efficiently forming two lines--one going down each direction of the sidewalk. These opposing lines quickly came back together at the entrance of the shrine to enter as one. High up on a platform on either side of the entrance was a young man dressed in white, continually waving a wooden handle of white strips of paper back and forth. Passing these two men and entering the shrine one was hit with an explosion of color. Along both sides and branching out into the shrine area were lines of booths filled with brightly colored items that were either attached to bamboo handles or looked like overstuffed baskets of color. These were the ‘good fortune rakes’. They were of various styles and sizes and covered the tops of the tables on up the walls at least ten feet or so—and all added to the cornucopia of color. Some were just baskets with a smiling face attached to the inside and others were baskets jammed with multiple figurines, flowers, pieces of paper, and ribbons of reds, yellows, blues, silvers, golds and greens.

I had read somewhere that when people buy the rakes, multiple groups of people chant and clap and that this is what adds to the excitement of the festival; but I only heard chants and claps a few times and only saw a few people carrying the rakes around so there wasn’t much of this going on while we were there.

As we stood waiting to enter the shrine, we noticed some festival goers handing the rakes over to a group of people located outside the entrance. It looked like they bought the rakes, carried them around, and then recycled them back to this awaiting group who took them and unceremoniously dumped them into a bag with others. 

Still unsure of what was going on, we just followed the crowd in and enjoyed the explosion of color and activity around us. We moved off as we got to the back of the shrine where people rang the bells by yanking on long ropes hanging from the ceiling—and just exited out the back and into a huge street fair.

It was a street fair filling multiple streets and there were blocks and blocks of food vendors selling chocolate-dipped bananas, deep-fried things, strips of meats and whole fishes on sticks, various types of noodle dishes, baked potatoes, squid balls, booze, dumplings, tofu dishes, hamburgers, sausages, tiny candied apples, and even cotton candy.

We were in heaven. Now this I could understand!