If you asked me the difference between a Monet and a Manet, I'd say, "the second letter, silly." Was that joke funny the 742nd time someone told it? The point is, I am far from an art buff, but I had to check out the National Art Center just because it's one of the coolest buildings in Tokyo.
The building was designed by the late Kisho Kurokawa, who according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong) is one of the founders of the metabolist movement. Among his triumphs, and there are many, is the Japanese soccer stadium known as the "Big Eye."
A close-up view of the National Art Center.
There are cafes atop the two inverted cones. I think the two string beans for $25.99 counts as a real bargain. This photo was shot from the escalator coming down from the third floor.
There were three exhibits, and I chose to peruse Perceptions -- Changes in Time and Field by Hitoshi Nomura. I was not allowed to take photos in the gallery, but some of them that were on display are shown here. I took notes (in pencil, also as mandated by the art center) and will do my best to pass along what I saw without exposing me as a fool. And if all else fails, I'll just make fun of the Mets.
1. As a college student, Nomura built a cardboard tower 8 meters high. There are eight photos showing that the cardboard, as Nomura figured, would, over time, collapse under its own weight. Decades later, this theory was successfully reproduced by the New York Mets. (See?)
2. Nomura is known for his "moon scores." He kept his camera at the same spot at shot the moon as it appeared at various places. He then drew five horizontal lines, like that on a music sheet, then played musical notes to match where the moon was.
3. He also tracked the sun at 35 degrees North Latitude and saw that it made an infinity symbol. Various sculptures and paintings celebrated this.
4. In 1999, Nomura oversaw a project in which a car, running only on solar power, traveled from Southern California to Kennedy Space Center on the Florida coast. The gallery showed a video of the journey, including the beginning, during which, in an event that had to be seen on film to be believed, traffic moved on Interstate 10. But seriously ... it actually rode on the highway and appeared to be holding its own. A photo and brief story about the car, along with photos of Nomura's other works, can be seen by clicking here.
Questions or comments? Email me here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
If you read the title of this post and shrugged, you don't know me that well.
If you read the title of this post and said, "Holy crap, Fitz went higher than the 11th floor," then congratulations, you win. Your prize is the right to read the rest of this blog entry at no charge. If you fell into the former category, then your prize is the right to read the rest of this blog entry for free. Everyone wins!
There are numerous places to view Tokyo from above, notably the Tokyo Tower and the Mori Tower. But I chose the TMG (as opposed to TMZ) based on the facts that (a) it's free and (b) anything above the 45th floor would give me hives.
Here is TMG Building 1 from the sidewalk:
Two observatory decks are open most days, but one was closed on the Monday I was there. It didn't matter. There was no line in the lobby, probably because the day was foggy. But my schedule was tight and I was in the neighborhood, so I entered the elevator and enjoyed the express ride.
I entered a large room that included a gift shop, a cafe, posters touting Tokyo's bid for the 2016 Olympics, paintings from children on the virtues of brushing your teeth, and those clear things made of glass so people who are petrified of heights can approach them and look outside while wishing Lonely Planet had the proper translation for, "I need a defibrillator."
Here are some more photos:
In the foreground, buildings in the Shinjuku area. Now, see the white building on the right? See the red and white antenna? See the tip of said antenna? See the white dot to the immediate left of said tip of said antenna? That's the Tokyo Dome.
The Shinjuku Park Tower.
The vast expanse of Tokyo.
You thought I was joking about the paintings, didn't you?
The bad news is, on a clear day, you're supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji. I was unable to see it, so in its stead I will give you Mr. Fuji:
Can you do 5,000 squats? Liar. Tell me another fib here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
Navigating Tokyo's train system is easy, although it helps to learn the difference between the Shinjuku stop on the Toei Shinjuku Line, the Shinjuku stop on the Toei Oedo Line, the Shinjuku stop on the Marunouchi Line, the Shinjuku-Nishiguchi stop on the Toei Oedo and Marunouchi lines and the Shinjuku-Sanchome stops on three other lines. It also requires the patience to traverse underground stations the size of Wyoming.
The thing is, you can't successfully or conveniently conquer Tokyo without it -- unless, of course, you want to compete with car owners among the 35 million people who live in the metropolitan area or pay what's left of your 401K savings on taxis. Leading off my Tokyo blog by introducing you to the subway system makes sense when you consider how much time I spent underground. Consider that at one station (Otemachi) there are platforms for five subway lines, the farthest away of which is a 480-meter walk.
The train system includes 13 subway lines, but the tricky part is that two companies run them. The Tokyo Metro runs nine lines. Toei runs four. It helps to know this because if you buy, say, a two-day Tokyo Metro pass for unlimited use of Tokyo Metro stops, you still have to pay for Toei line use. "Metro" is not a catch-all euphemism for all subway stops. It actually means the nine lines run by Tokyo Metro. I learned this the hard way during my second day there, when I inserted my passcard, all smug and everything because I was smart enough to get it, only to be informed by a red light that my pass was no good. Suffice it to say that when my two-day pass ran out, I bought the one-day, good-for-either-company pass for about $10, which in Tokyo is roughly the cost of one french fry.
Plus, Japan Railways runs an above-line service that has no fewer than 36 routes, and one of its hubs is at the aforementioned Shinjuku Station. So you can imagine the fun I had Saturday night at said station, when I had 10 minutes to find the proper subway line to get me home before the trains shut down. Long story short, I went to the wrong line, had no time to find the correct platform, and paid 2,600 yen ($26) for a cab ride home instead of an already-paid-for subway trip.
I should say, however, that my confusion is probably as much a product of my ability to get lost in my own apartment as it is the mammoth nature of the system. Tokyo's railway system does have a rather complete how-to guide on its Web site. And naturally, any system this complete will be a bear to get used to for any first-timer. Once someone gets used to it, the system is efficient. And how long would that honeymoon last for me? I would guess four days -- the length of my stay.
For all of my jokes about this monster, the Tokyo subway does bend over backward to help you. They show a list of train arrivals/departures at each stop, for weekdays and weekends:
They also have large maps on the platform so you know where to go before you climb the steps. There are plenty of maps. Exit signs and their numbers are clearly marked, as are the directions to other lines within the station. Many stops also have that anachronism from the 1990s, pay phones:
Ten yen (10 cents) gets you a minute on a landline. A hundred yen ($1) gets you one minute on a cell phone.
They're also helpful to enough to clarify where you should open your umbrella:
And finally, did you know Japan is the birthplace of detectable warnings? Wikipedia says so, so it must be true. Detectable warnings, also known as "yellow square things to help the blind," were invented by Seiichi Miyake in 1965 and debuted in Japan. They are all over Japan and South Korea. Enjoy this high-quality homemade video:
I made the comment that the U.S. should pick up on this. Apparently, they have, and new structures require them based on the American Disabilities Act guidelines. These tiles just aren't as prominent as they are in Japan and South Korea.
Random iPod note: I entered one subway station as the James Bond theme played. I felt like I owned the place. You really must try this sometime.
Questions or comments? Email me here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
My diligent pre-trip research -- and by "diligent," I mean "scanning the Lonely Planet I bought two days before I left" -- revealed that Harajuku was the place to be on Sunday afternoons. Shortly after I exited the Meiji-Jingumae station, my hunch was confirmed:
Welcome to Jingu-Bashi, a bridge where teens and young adults gather every Sunday afternoon wearing Japan's version of their Sunday best -- Goth clothes, French maid outfits, anime character likenesses, punk garb, kimonos, studded belts, striped knee-high socks, enough mascara to cover Central Park and more hairstyles in more colors than you or any other statistics Ph.D. could count.
I did not spend nearly enough time there to understand why these kids are there, or what drives them, or what point they're trying to make (if any). For that, I recommend Harajuku: Rebels on the Bridge, which, best as I can tell, is a paper written for a college sociology class by someone who had spent time in Tokyo as an exchange student. He also studied Japanese and was able to talk to these kids. It's a fascinating read, and when you have time to peruse a 31-page research paper, I highly recommend it. You'll understand this subculture far more from the author, Chris Perry, than you would from this blog entry.
As for my experience, most kids didn't seem to mind having their photo taken. I'll even venture to guess that the ratio of kids to tourists was close to even at one point. The bridge is located next to the entrance for the Meiji Jingu shrine, so if the so-called "Harajuku kids" are looking for a place to keep to themselves, they'd be smart enough to look elsewhere. Still, that didn't stop one man from holding a piece of paper asking tourists to ask permission before they took photos. It wasn't the most enforced policy in the world, so I kept shooting. Sometimes I got the kids posing for others:
Sometimes they posed with other tourists (although this was rare):
But most of the time, I just clicked away, as did many others who formed what sometimes resembled as arch around the kids. I had conflicting thoughts about this. We are, after all, talking about kids, not statues or a coffin. They had to feel like show ponies. Didn't they? Regardless, I was there, so here are some more photos:
For a more fashion-driven take on Harajuku, click here.
Also, if you recognize some of the costumes these kids are wearing -- and I'm looking at you, Andy Rohrback -- please let me know and I will gladly add the information, with proper credit of course, to this blog entry.
Questions or comments? Email me here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
Among all the skyscrapers, video screens, billboards, department stores, restaurants, clothing shops, cafes and streets in the central business district of Shibuya, the good people of adidas found room to place a five-a-side soccer field:
And here's where they put it -- on top of this:
Of all the places that I visited, Shibuya Crossing and Shinjuku were the most successful at making me feel like a dumb foreign tourist. If you saw Buena Vista Social Club, and if you remember the scene where the Cuban musicians just gaped at the size of New York City's skyscrapers, you know what I looked like here. The buildings didn't overwhelm me so much as the volume of people. They're just everywhere.
Here's a video I shot, starting at a plaza outside the subway stop and finishing at the other end of a crosswalk. I hope you get a feel for how busy this place was (and is):
This scene is even more amazing when you observe it from a distance. This intersection -- or is "intersections" more accurate? -- is known for its scramble crossing, where traffic stops in all directions and people just fill the street, going diagonally or east-west or north-south. And the sight of six or seven corners just bustling with people waiting to cross is surreal. I took this video as soon as the walk light turned on:
You may notice the adidas shop on the right early in the video. I bought sandals there. Useless Trip Fact No. 231 has been brought to you by ...
Missed opportunity: I can't believe I didn't see this. There is a statue of Hachiko at one of the plazas. I'll give you a few seconds to guess who Hachiko is. If you said "famous Samurai warrior" or "great Emperor," sorry, but Hachiko is more significant than that. He's a dog. Every evening, he'd meet his owner, a professor, at the subway stop. One day his owner died at work. Hachiko, despite being in someone else's care, kept coming to the station, awaiting for his friend to arrive. The train riders took to Hachiko so much that they fed him and played with him. Hachiko did this every day until he died. You see, this is what dogs want -- they want to be loved as much as they love people. That's why they rule. Anyway, there's a statue commemorating Hachiko, and you can read more about him here.
Food update: While in Shibuya, I enjoyed okonomi-yaki, which is a pancake dish. I had one with vegetables, seafood and pork. The chef hardly spoke English, but he knew enough to tell me the restaurant's two best-known dishes. After he pointed to the okonomi-yaki, I said "yes." He not only made the okonomi-yaki, but also a dish with beef and grilled onions. Apparently this is the other traditional dish, and apparently I ordered two entrees, because the cost was 4,200 yen -- about $42. The good news is, I got my money's worth.
Questions or comments? Email me here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
So, where do you like your forests? At the end of a country road? In the mountains? How about smack in the middle of a city of 13 million people?
That big green thing you see is Meiji Jingu, a 175-acre forest built as a sign of eternal respect for Emperor Meiji, under whose rule Japan emerged as a world power, and his wife, consort Empress Shoken. After the Empress died in 1914 -- two years after her husband -- the Japanese people wished to build a shrine for them. They donated 100,000 trees. Today, there are 170,000 trees (covering 245 species) in the forest, which also includes endangered plant and animal species.
Much of the forest is not open to the public, but its inner garden, or Gyoen, is. The garden is the only part of the complex that existed long before Meiji Jingu was built. I saw lilies in all their purple and white splendor, traditional architecture, a pond and plenty of people snapping photos or painting pictures. And rightly so. I will allow the following images to do much of the talking from this point forward.
This torii, or main gate, is a re-creation of the original that was destroyed in World War II. It is the exact form and size of the original (12 meters high, a 17-meter-long crosspiece, pillars 1.2 meters in diameter). It is built out of Japan Cypress that is 1,500 years old.
I emerged from the woods into this clearing. A pond is on the other side.
The teahouse.
This pond was built by the order of the Emperor. Empress Shoken enjoyed fishing here.
The Iris Garden has about 1,500 plants and about 150 kind of irises. If you knew there were 150 kinds of irises, raise your hand. But I trust the official pamphlet. The workers at the garden count the blossoms every day.
Talk about luck: The irises tend to bloom in early-to-mid June. You're looking at a photo taken June 7.
Here's one woman among the handful of visitors who do their best to capture the garden's beauty on canvas.
A special thank-you to the good people at the shrine who publish an official pamphlet four times per year so us idiot tourists can sound educated on blog entries such as this one.
Questions or comments? Email me here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
You just knew I'd attend a baseball game in Tokyo, didn't you? And you just knew I'd blog about it. But you had no clue I'd name-drop an American author whose most successful novel was published in 1902, did you? It's things like this that make you read my blog. It's either that or you're related to me.
I will get back to Ms. Rice in due time. First, let me tell you about the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. They are Tokyo's unfashionable team, run by a drink company. Drink company? Swallows? Get it? The city's other team, the Yomiuri Giants, are Japan's team with all their titles and the history and the Tokyo Dome blah blah. Who wants to see them? Well, I did. Their Web site indicated their games were sold out several days before I left.
So I perused the Web and discovered this blog about the Swallows compiled by several expats. I was won over, especially by the part that said, "tickets are almost always easy to get ... Hence, we recommend just going to the stadium 30 minutes to an hour before game time, getting in line at the box office, and buying your tickets on site."
Indeed, they were correct:
Meiji Jingu Stadium -- run by the same people who run the shrine, about half an hour before game time. Plenty of tickets, good and otherwise, still available.
I quickly discovered that Japanese games more closely resembled MLB games that Korean games do. There was batter introduction music, because, you know, the big-ass scoreboard in center field can never be trusted to tell you who's up. The merchandise was overpriced (except the replica jerseys, which could be had, name and number included, for about $70, but they did not have my size). And the beer, a paltry $2 per can at Samsung Lions games in Daegu, was about $7.50 per glass here, although the vendors were slightly prettier than their MLB counterparts:
The loudest fans sit in the outfield -- visitors in left field, homebodies in right. Many fans rely on knocking miniature plastic bats together to provide sound. There's a chant leader in the middle of the pack. Trumpet players also play a melody to add to the unique feel.
I'll never forget what the fans for the visitors, the Nippon Ham Fighters, did as their team rallied in the eighth. Down 3-0, they did this cheer, and when it the chorus arrived, the men sang a line, then the women sang a line, then they all sang a line, and they went back to the beginning. Had I thought to myself, "These people won't shut up until they tie the game," I would have strolled to left field and captured the cheer on film. That thought never occurred to me, but sure enough, the fans just did not stop for batter after batter until the tying run scored in the inning. Meanwhile, the Swallows fans did nothing to counter. I still find it odd that Asian fans, based on my experience, just won't shut up when their team needs a run, but nobody is willing to boost their pitcher by standing and cheering when they need a big out.
Pregame revelry in right field.
And now, back to the aforementioned American author. Alice Hegan Rice once said, "It ain't no use putting up your umbrella till it rains." Had she not died in 1942, I would have invited her to a Swallows game, because every time the beloved home team scores, fans open up plastic umbrellas, sway them left and right, bob them up and down, and sing a song. This blog suggests the fans use umbrellas to remind the pitcher that it's time to hit the showers.
As for the song, I have embedded a video provided by fellow Red Sox fan Ken Worsley, who lives in Tokyo and helps put together the expat blog I mentioned in this entry's introduction. He was also good enough to supply the lyrics, along with this explanation: "Kutabare basically means "f**k you" in Japanese, so the song starts with "F**k you Yomiuri" -- it's the same no matter who they're playing, though when they play Hanshin (the Tigers, a team with a rabid fan base) they say Kutabare Hanshin on the fourth time. In other words, you never hear Kutabare Chunichi or Kutabare Hiroshima."
Here's the video, taken during a game against those hated Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome last year:
Kutabare Yomiuri/Kutabare Yomiuri/Kutabare Yomiuri/Kutabare Yomiuri/Ha ah odori odoru na-ra/Choito Tokyo Ondo(a yoi! yoi!)/Hana no-oh oh oh oh oh/Hana no miyako no mannaka de/Yatto na sore yoi yoi yoi!/Yatto na! sore yoi yoi yoi!!/Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!
I wonder what Ms. Rice would think about people using those umbrellas in a dome.
Questions or comments? Email me here, or leave a comment on the Mark Fitzhenry's "Korea Blogging!" page here.
