Tokyo (for Mar. 26)

Boy, that was a short night! I woke up at 4:15 and couldn’t go back to sleep because I was afraid of sleeping through our 5 AM alarm. Everyone else was up in good time and we caught the 6:10 local train to connect with the 6:45 bullet train to Tokyo. We all managed to catch a few winks on the train, but we were still a pretty tired crew when we arrived in Tokyo at 9:45. After a train transfer and a bit of a walk, we arrived at our hotel at 11. Check-in wasn’t until 3, so we left our luggage there and went out to explore.




Carla wanted to take in a few cultural icons all grouped near the same station. First we took in a big shrine located in a huge park unlike any other we had seen in Japan. It had a gravel path as wide as 4 or 5 car lanes through a pretty natural looking forest, complete with underbrush. I am sure these forests exist in the country, but this is the first time we had seen such thick forest and undergrowth in our travels. This shrine is obviously a big tourist attraction, as we saw more white people around there than we have since we arrived in Japan 9 days ago. And they are all taking pictures. It is kind of like a "Banff in reverse" bizzarro world. It is popular for the Japanese too, as we saw two wedding parties being photographed and at least two babies dressed up like we would dress them for a christening.

We went to lunch from there, followed by a treat from a street vendor shop. They roll practically anything yummy you can think of into a crepe and serve it ice cream cone style. Mmmmm!















Next stop was a shopping street known for its outrageous clothing. It was pretty crowded on a Saturday afternoon and the clothing was pretty outrageous.

From there we headed back toward the park where Tyler had seen a bunch of concession stands set up at another entrance. This part of the park was almost as crowded as a shopping mall. The cherry trees had started to blossom and this is a real big deal over here. Many people head to the park to have a picnic. Although the
forecast had been for rain, the cloud had thinned out to a reasonably sunny afternoon, the temperature was about 14 degrees, and people were taking advantage of it. We took a long, long walk through the park, soaking up the atmosphere before returning to our hotel for check-in and a nap at 4:30.

Another cultural phenomenon that we observed all afternoon was the practice of young Japanese girls dressing as outlandishly as possible, congregating at the entrance to the park, and posing for strangers to take their pictures. There were several girls when we first went by before noon, but each time we went by later in the day, there were more than the time before. There may have been a hundred of them at the peak, vastly outnumbered by the gawkers and photographers taking in the spectacle. (That would be us.) They get many of their fashions at the nearby shopping street, but many of them are largely homemade. The idea is to be as unique and outrageous as possible.





We all shook the cobwebs out from our naps about 7 PM and headed out to explore Shinjuku, a district of skyscrapers, entertainment, and neon near Tokyo’s busiest station. Tyler says it handles 2 million people a day! Train stations in Japan are much more than train stations. They are transportation hubs through which pass many thousands of people each day. As such they are prime commercial space for department stores (some of them owned by the railways) and every other kind of shop. Often several different railways and subways connect in the same or adjacent stations, focusing more people into the target area. Airports are very similar. Changi Airport in Singapore is like a shopping mall that someone decided to build an airport around.

As we returned to the station after our evening of exploration, we noticed many homeless men setting up their accommodation for the night. They each have their own area staked out and their building materials stored nearby. A few pieces of cardboard and some plastic and they are ready for the night. One guy even had a window of clear plastic in his cardboard abode. We have noticed several other little shanty towns in our travels through the Osaka Castle park, this afternoon’s park, and along the river banks in Osaka. They are usually quite visible because they make extensive use of those blue plastic tarps. They seem to be quite well tolerated here.

We got back to the hotel and all collapsed into bed sometime before midnight.