Tag Japan

Japan Day 1.75: Shibuya Crossing

Max Beaulieu 2 Comments

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Like most big cities, Tokyo has power lines everywhere.

IMG_0314As I headed to the Meiji shrine, I ran into this store. The Japanese have an interesting relationship with sex, taking it both seriously and comically at once.

IMG_0312Out of respect for the Shrine, I didn’t take any photos inside but here is one right before you go in. It’s a quiet place and is one of the few places that had more than one security guard. I read up on the customs, paid my respects, and as I left I got a thumbs up from one of the security guards, and I have to say it made my day.

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Behold the statue at Shibuya crossing commemorating the Doge that waited every day for his owner. I was quite moved by the whole thing as you can see.

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Shibuya Crossing was starting to fill up and so I ducked into a store to try and avoid the crowds. IMG_0325To my surprise, this was a discreet little store that sold adult entertainment materials. I can say with some certainty that if you were into ______ fetish they probably had ______ Fetish. Most Adult stores have 18+ labels on them, a fact I would learn after I’d wandered into more than a few. 
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Right behind my hotel were a string of bars and diners that held 2-5 people. Closed during the day some of them had near 90degree stairways, and thin doors. Come nightfall the whole place would be packed, a quiet din wafting with the smell of food.
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One of my favorite things about Japan is the use of bicycles. They are everywhere and stored everywhere in little kiosks, and tunnels. IMG_0316This is the only photo I snuck in the Tokyu Hands store. Something you might notice in most of my photos is that very few of them are inside or of people. This is mostly because it is considered impolite, or is in fact forbidden to take photos in most stores, and of people you don’t know.

Japan Day 1.5: Basement Birru Seizoki and Resting Places

Max Beaulieu 3 Comments

As was my custom with this trip, I had to make small expenditures, and so after I returned to my hotel I set out again with the intention of touring the local area before I set my sights on the greater Tokyo area. It still baffles me how sprawling the greater Tokyo area is, and it seems to be an interesting combination of Los Angeles’s sheer magnitude of buildings, and New York’s compact skyline.

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If you find yourself in Shibuya it is a lovely place to stay, and I would highly recommend it.

Curiosity caught me as I rode in the elevator, and on a whim I pressed the basement button. What I found was a collection of vending machines which seemed normal enough, save this one.

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If you look carefully you will see that this particular machine dispenses booze. I smiled and wondered what kind of fuss I could create if I tried to import this idea to the States.

(Side note: It’s very rare to find food vending machines in Japan. I found only one that sold actual food, and what it sold was 99% snacks. Anyone have any idea why this is?)

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While walking I found another larger temple, and so I began to explore. This one was different, and I would later learn that though they appear similar most shrines in Japan are either Shinto or Buddist though very few tourists can make the distinction. Without really meaning to, I wandered into the temples backyard…I found myself in a small Graveyard, for the first but not the last time in Japan.

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As a child Graveyards bothered me; my concept of death was tied to video game characters and spooky stories. As a young adult, I found the yard to be utterly serene.  I am told that Japanese graveyards are communal in nature, several generations all interred together.

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(the Japanese most often practice the Buddist funeral rites of cremation. I ponder how Japan’s lack of space contributed to this style of graveyard.) There is something so peaceful in the idea of resting with your ancestors, something that makes death seem a little more tolerable. 

IMG_0287 IMG_0288Having missed the morning rush, I visited the famous Shibuya Crossing briefly. I’d cursed sleeping through rush hour, but still I enjoyed the experience of people watching.

With some disdain, I felt my body screaming for rest so I returned to my hotel, determined to rest, and then to visit, what many to consider one of the most important shrines in all of Nihon, The Meiji Shrine.

Japan Day 1: Shrines Hidden amoung the high-rises

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As dawn broke I found an ATM and withdrew 10 dollars. I didn’t feel well enough to deal with the prospect of changing money.  With a 10 dollar bill, (1000 yen), in hand I went bravely to the local 7-11 and bought myself a basket of rice balls. The clerk if he was surprised at all didn’t reveal it, and he was very patient with me. It was probably 5am and he looked half awake, but the legendary manners of Japan provided even that sleep induced state.

For the rest of my trip, I would live off of rice balls. It’s not that I didn’t want to eat other things, it’s just that I suffer from a multitude of allergies, and I didn’t have the skills to explain this to a waiter. Moreover, I quite liked the riceball.

Quite in the middle of eating one I suddenly realized that these were the ‘donuts’ from all the dubbed anime I used to watch. The switch makes sense, if you put the word Onigiri in Pokemon most kids would get confused, but at the same time, I wonder how many of them were fooled into thinking that Pokemon characters ate nothing more substantial than donuts.

IMG_0275I still don’t know precisely what these were. I found them and snapped a shot of a row of them. They look like shanties and I wonder if this is where some of the homeless spend their nights. They also might be just storage. I never did find out.

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A short walk later I found myself at a small shine. The whole thing isn’t that uncommon, but it was the first shrine that I visited in Japan. I don’t know the name or what it stands for, but I loved the design of it. Moreover, I loved its location.

IMG_0278This is the same shrine! Tucked neatly between two high-rise buildings was this little religious sites. I don’t know why now looking back this is so surprising to me, but the contrast between the ancient and the new in a far away place is much more interesting than the contrast between old and new in a familiar one.

Japan, is in a way very quiet about its history. Not out of embarrassment but a simple silence of respect. It’s not that it’s not commercialized, every shrine sells things, but their presence among the highrises are not advertised by any real means. The culture acknowledges, them and yet moves on without a second thought. When you want a shrine in japan it is there, when you don’t it’s invisible.

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I walked along and found a tiny little shopping way. These malls were some of my favorite area’s to people watch. Shibuya is full of young people, many of them attractive and all of them impeccably dressed.
IMG_0281I was struck again, naively so, by the rather enticing graffiti that often covered the walls. The urge to vandalize things is an utterly human affair it seems and is unswayed by time, culture or country.

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Walking down a busy street I noticed a snaking alleyway with an old style gate. Curiosity dictated I walk on and so I did. IMG_0307

I came to the gate and saw with some giddiness that it was made of slatted hardwood and was dimly lit. Vegetation filled the hill behind the gate, and with some curiosity I approached and found…IMG_0306A lovely pool. I am not sure what this is, but it seemed to be an important historical site though I am not sure if any of them survived. While not as much of a spectacle as the horrors committed at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Tokyo was firebombed to the ground during the war, and many of the historical sites and artifacts that had existed undisturbed for hundreds of years were utterly obliterated.

I lingered by that pool for some time, and even now I marvel at the hidden  little places one can find among the bustle of Tokyo.

Woo, I am at 600 words so I think I will wrap this one up for now. more tomorrow!

Japan Day .75 : The party at 3am on the 15th floor.

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I’d love to say that the title of this particular episode begins and ends in a lust filled, drunken rager where I was fawned over by beautiful Japanese women and taken hostage by the Yakuza, but it actually was much quieter and less cinematic.

Something you notice when you travel alone to a strange land, where no one speaks your language, and you speak very little of theirs, is how absurdly inundated with words you are.

The isolation is both terrifying and serene. The silencing of your native tongue hauntingly beautiful, so that when you see a word you can read on a tourist shop, or hear the cheery tones of the automated subway you at first cling to them. They are lifelines, and eventually, you begin to forget that you can’t start a conversation with anyone. The few times you see another non-Japanese traveler you wave or nod, and they do back, not out of some common travelers kin, you don’t really know them from Adam, but instead simply to acknowledge that you haven’t slipped into the aether.

but I digress.

I arrived at my hotel, and with a little bit of my broken Japanese, and the clerk’s impressive handling of Japanese I was able to get to my room.

The hotel I stayed at was modern, thin, and the upper floors were a pale charcoal, the rooms themselves were an even lighter shade of gray.  My room was predictably small, but ingeniously designed.

IMG_0252 IMG_0253The bed was pillowy soft, and without much hesitation I passed out on top of sheets. I still wasn’t feeling well and jet lag had hit me hard. It was only 6pm.

At 3:00 am I awoke feeling wide awake. It was a curious feeling being wide awake, cold ridden in middle of the night (morning?) in a foreign country. I tried in vain to get back to sleep, and failed. I called my parents via skype, and explored my room, but found myself itching to go outside. Eventually, curiosity won out.

IMG_0254The view from my room at 3 am revealed empty streets. I would soon learn that the middle of the night was one of the only times a man could find empty streets in Tokyo, and even then they weren’t that empty.

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My first trek into the street brought me to a small back alleyway right outside my hotel. It was largely empty, but the whole place held a magical appeal and still does, despite it being perfectly ordinary. Vending machines hummed, and far above I heard a noise.

IMG_0262Music lazily droned over quickly spoken Japanese, and laughter interspersed with the clink of glasses. In the quiet of 3 am the rather small party far above me sounded like a rancor. Part of me dreamed of climbing that highrise, knocking on the door and somehow getting invited to the party. Then I sneezed and the idea seemed to fly out of head with it

IMG_0258 IMG_0263The streets were slick and quiet, but the weather was not unpleasantly cool. I passed some kids about 18 who were heading home, or to another bar, either way, I waved as they passed, and they waved back. at this point I was getting tired again, and started to head back.

IMG_0268It was then I saw the first but not the last of Tokyo’s homeless population. The woman, who was pushing 50, walked upright with clean clothes. at the time I wondered what she was doing out, it hadn’t hit me yet that she had no place to go.

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(A vending machine with DBZ Characters!)
IMG_0267The Shibuya district’s streets at night are a visual feast, albeit an overwhelming one.

With a heavy sigh, my tired body stumbled back to the hotel, and there I slept again, this time for only a few more hours. I awoke, this time truly awake, and ready to take on Japan!

Japan: Day 0.5

Max Beaulieu 1 Comment

Last we left our hero he’d arrived in Japan safely (which makes sense as air travel is actually much safer than most other types of travel) and had to face down the scourge of customs.

Actually, it was quite easy. I filled out a few forms, answered a few questions from a beautiful Japanese customs agent (and she was beautiful) and found myself in the lobby of Japan’s central airport.

Now the benefit of a travel agent kicked in. You see Tokyo international airport is not in Tokyo. It’s actually 20 minutes of freeway travel outside Tokyo. The normals means of traveling into and out of the airport is either by car, which I didn’t have or by bus.

I was dreading trying to navigate the Tokyo bus system while jet lagged, slightly intoxicated, (the plane had free booze) and sick, when I recalled that my lovely travel agent had booked me a car.

What I was expecting was a vanpool from the airport to the city, and I looked for my ride. I found a young Japanese driver impeccably dressed holding a sign with my name on it. He spoke more English that I did Japanese, and after a quick confirmation. What I found was this.

IMG_0248A private car. I had never felt so…classy. We drove in silence more out of the language barrier than anything else. Outside a gentle rain was falling. This was the first stirrings of a tropical storm that would shadow me through Tokyo and Kyoto, and I would lose once I made it to Osaka.

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The outskirts of Tokyo were more heavily forested than I thought they would be and minutes passed on. Lighted bridges passed to my left and the Tokyo highway system snaked through the city. There was no traffic and few drivers. I smiled as I realized nearly every car on the road was Japanese, and how logical that was.

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As we passed into the Shinjuku district, the location of my first hotel, things began to swim before me. The exhaustion and ickiness I felt melded with sheer awe. Here around me the city of Tokyo swarmed, people walked with umbrellas, bright lights shone about me, advertisements blared from trucks, the universe moved and I was a small rather insignificant part of it.

IMG_0251After some time, and going up a one way street the wrong way, I left my driver with a smile, checked into my first hotel, and passed out expecting when I awoke to be sleeping in my own bed.

Japan Day 0

Max Beaulieu 2 Comments

I left for Japan slightly after my 25th birthday. It was a cool morning, and I awoke at 6am packed and ready. I had the sniffles, which I attributed to allergies, and I got a coffee with my parents and sister as we prepared to take on  the traffic to the flyaway. (this was before I discovered the wonder that is Flonase. )

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I’d fought my parents on the idea of taking the fly away, it seemed less grand for some reason, but in the end it was much easier than fighting the traffic to LAX.

I awaited the plain in my typical goofball fashion and took far too many selfies.

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I didn’t take any photos of the flight as I spent most of it in horrific sinus pain. Protip, changes in atmospheric pressure do not go well with clogged noses.

That being said I was able to watch a few movies, and catch a few ZZZ’s. I chatted with a retired army man who was going back to work on a base, and we exchanged numbers, but unfortunately I was too timid to get back to him, and I had my own agenda.

As I walked through the halls of the airport, it hadn’t quite hit me that I’d left the states. Airplanes are little time machines, you go in and come out a different place, but you can’t really grasp the idea that you have gone anywhere. Travel itself is an odd phenomenon, even local travel. If you break it down to its base levels, it’s all based on trust, you trust that this place isn’t in the states, you trust that the airplane ride wasn’t some big set up.

My brain was hesitant. A dream I had worked to achieve since I was 14 was starting to coalesce into reality. The daze of allergy meds and the cut of jet lag added a certain dreaminess to the process.

Then, I saw this.

IMG_0247It was then it came together, it was then I shoved my hands up in the air and felt the elation of 11 years in the making. I was there, I was in Japan. So far from my own, I was home.

My Trip to Japan: An Introduction

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Two years ago, I wanted to go to Japan. I was for lack of a better word overwhelmed. I had graduated from college but had now real prospects. I had some money saved up, but years of depression and expenses had depleted me.  I had a job, but it was a low paying waiter job at a restaurant I didn’t particularly like ideologically. (They served fatty delicious but horrifyingly caloric food)

So at the end of my rope I chose to do something wild. I chose Japan. (Or Nihon, or Nippon as it is sometimes called)

So now two years back, and looking at the photos I took I wanted to start posting about my time in Japan. The format will be a little all over the place, and will be essentially  a commentary of the multitude of images I took while there, and a smattering of souvenirs, and notes I took while in Japan. I am by trade a fastidious notetaker. (albeit I have recently taken to eschewing the pen and paper notebook for the more easily organized Evernote. Though I do miss the tactile feel that writing physically gives.)

So dear readers, the few that I have, (and I love you guys) here I go, and thank you for choosing to journey on this road with me.