Torii! Torii! Torii!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10*

The morning came much too fast. I got to sleep in a few extra minutes while Heidi worked out some question sets. We then headed off into the morning to run to a conbini. After reading over the directions one last time, Heidi noticed that mechanical pencils weren't allowed, and that was all she had. So, we rushed into the conbini and I bought her a set and then escorted her to her test. From there, we parted, her upstairs and me into the Temple University lobby to plan my course of action for the day. Heidi's test would take somewhere between 4 and 7 hours, so I had some time. We had agreed we'd see where I was, but maybe meet up near Shinjuku Station that afternoon. Either way, she'd text me when her test was done.

I wandered up back north, past Tokyo Tower to a small museum that my textbook claimed had three national treasures and cost just 800 yen to enter. It was also on the way. I, however, found it a bit early, before it was open, so I strolled around and tried to find a nearby shrine listed on a big Tokyo neighborhood map. Oh! Tokyo is great for tourists! They have a map every few blocks, a bit one, that marks out (in Romaji/English) where you are, and major landmarks and always oriented to your exact viewing position. Fantastic! I eventually started photographing them with my camera so I could take them with me.

Anyway, so one listed a shine nearby, not one that made my book, but I thought I'd go check it out in the meantime while I waited for the hotel to open. I wandered around until I could cross the street at a pedestrian bridge and eventually ran smack-dab into a shrine at the end of a little drive. I discovered later, after reexamining the sign, that this wasn't my intended destination, as I had guessed upon entering the tiny religious place, but still peeked around. There was a Japanese man there, who motioned that it was okay for me to look around and take pictures. I get the idea that this is a small neighborhood thing and there really aren't tourists walking through. He was quite friendly. It was peaceful, despite being in the middle to busy Tokyo with huge expressways nearby. I took a few pictures, enjoyed the calm, then headed out.

As I was walking back down the block, a father and daughter pair happened to walk past, perpendicular to me and the shrine. As they passed, they stopped, bowed to the shrine then continued on.

I then headed back to the Okura Museum of Art. I should mention that it's in the middle of what looks to be an Embassy section of Japan. There was a high gate with the American seal on it and about 7 guards at one entrance right across the street from the hotel. There were also various other official looking buildings and an altogether huge number of Gaijin, including a little girl on a scooter, wandering about. Most everyone was in a suit, except, of course, me, with my huge backpack, jeans, and sweatshirt.

As I was wandering through the neighborhood, I kept being passed by runners. I finally saw a few wearing the same t-shirt and it looks like maybe, maybe, they were taking part in a Tokyo marathon. Aunt Alice, that's another on to consider! Or Lonn, I hear you like running, crazy boy... There were people on street corners holding signs marking the distance (in kilometers, and, given the energy in the runner's steps, this could only have been kilometers from the start.)

I made my way back to the museum, and sat outside for the last ten minutes before it opened. Then, a nice looking man unlocked the gate for me, and I went inside. Inside, I paid 1000 yen for entrance (I had waited around long enough that I was actually going to DO this!) and spent about 45 minutes looking a old Japanese teacups (I thought of my great-aunt Anne who collects teacups) and plates, all decorated, many with gold.

I did see the national treasure (singular! You lying Lonely Planet!) which was an interesting carving called “Samantabhadra Riding on Elephant.” Being the highlight attraction of the museum, they actually had a little photocopy made out, in broken English, explaining about the statue, which they'd given me upon admittance. I'm not enough of an artist to appreciate the contrasts, the serenity of the Buddha's face and the mischievousness of the Elephant's, but the sheet informed me that the carving was spectacular. The statue was given to the museum's establisher by the first director of the Tokyo National Museum.

Upstairs there were more teacups, some small figurines, and, for me, the highlight, a Japanese chocolate pot. I really, really, wished I could have taken a picture! See, for those of you who don't know, chocolate was a drink for thousands of years and it's emergence as a solid is rather new. When chocolate first hit Europe (via Spain) it was a drink, drunk by sophisticated men in chocolate houses while they discussed politics with no women admitted. This bitter drink was an acquired taste reserved for the upper classes. Anyway, it was the first chocolate pot I'd ever seen. And no, there were no pictures of it in the gift shop; yes, I did check.

Outside in the small walled garden were numerous statues haphazardly, it appeared, displayed. I wandered through that, then wandered out again.

My next destination was a shine some ways farther north, called Hie-jinja. The book didn't think much of it as it's modern and largely cement, but I thought I'd check it out nonetheless.

I eventually found where I thought the shrine was and checked with a nearby security guard to be certain. Security guards are FANTATSIC. Kind of like built in locals, conveniently placed for me to ask directions of. Some even have laminated MAPS with them. I climbed up the stairs, which was obviously a side entrance, as I discovered when I met up with the huge stone steps and the escalators. Yes, escalators.

Up that the shrine, I was just walking in, when I noticed there was a small building of the shine's treasures and it was free, so I wandered in there. Inside, I took off my shoes, and put on slippers. A nice map, half hidden by transparent mirror came out and, seeing my camera clipped to my belt, motioned that I could take pictures. He spoke no English and was dressed in a white outfit resembling a karate uniform.

There were no English explanations, aside from the small introductory paragraph to the whole collection. Apparently one of the swords (I can only assume the one most prominently displayed) is a national treasure, although the shrine has 30 or so in its collection (many of the others deemed historically valuable or recognized works of art.) There were some mannequins dressed up in what I can only guess were original Samurai gear. They looked quite fearsome.

The man eventually directed me to the door and pointed out a Japanese bride and groom being photographed outside the temple. He motioned that I should take their picture. I love Japan and the freedom of the camera. He told me that there were 12 or so couples getting married there today. I wandered over shyly, but never got quite the angle I wanted without being too blatantly tourist. I had half-hoped to actually ask permission first, but there really wasn't a good moment.

I took a few pictures, and wandered into the temple, where there were more wedding parties wandering around. I soon moved to the side and watched quietly, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. For one, I watched two shrine maidens emerge from the shrine, then walk in step down to a couple, meet them then lead the group (with wedding gusts trailing) back into the shrine. Later, I could hear music and just barely see a ceremony going on inside. I later noticed that the date was 10-10-10, and wonder if that was why so many couples (although I don't know what's considered “average”) were getting married that day.

There were also lots of children dressed in traditional garments. My guess is that these were three year old children coming to be blessed. I remember reading something about a special holiday for children, girls ages three and seven, and boys ages three and five. Many of the girls, adorable little things with their long sleeves, looked to be about three. I after watching them play about, if I met the eye of their mother or grandmother, I would kindly say “kawaii!,” which I believe was appreciated.

My book mentioned a tunnel of torii at one entrance. Inside the little museum room, I'd seen a small book that showed that. I wandered out, and eventually stumbled upon the correct exit, far from the hubbub of the festivities within. There, I set up my camera and took a few timer shorts of myself, just to prove I was there. It was rather neat, and, artistically intriguing.

From there, it was time to make some progress toward Shinjuku Station. It was getting close to when Heidi could be finishing. I hiked quite a ways, sometimes following women in kimono (there seemed to be an extraordinarily large number of them) and following my not always perfect sense of direction. I, at one point, stumbled out onto what must (from the posh brands prominently displayed on store windows) be a posh shopping district. In there, I happened to stumble past my first Japanese Godiva. I eagerly went inside for a look.

I was the only one there, meaning they didn't need double coverage. Many things, like some of the gift boxes were the same and the biscuits (cookies) but I was surprised at how different most things were. For one, the chocolates in the case were 70% different. Some I had seen, but we didn't carry in cases in America and some I had never seen. There were chocolixirs like at home, although here they also have a macha flavored one (Japanese tea) in white chocolate, which is surprising, but not unexpected. There was a cooler with Godiva ice creams, tiny little bite-sized things that went for outrageous prices and even ice cream filled truffles, which everyone in America THINKS our Ice Cream parlor line is. (But no, ours are just “ice cream inspired” unlike these with genuine ice cream. They had gems, like us, Godiva's new cheap line and lots of tablets (giant bars of chocolate) but at prices much, much higher than in America, even without the exchange rate. It's a wonder anyone buys anything! I asked and was grated permission to take some pictures. I was also given a sample of a walnut piece I've never heard of in America. It was quite tasty.

I eventually got, well, not quite lost, but just unable to find myself on my maps. While looking at one of the big Tokyo neighborhood maps near a large station, a nice man came up and asked if I needed help. I asked him to point out where I was on my map. He was a bit confused a while, until he pointed out that this neighborhood was actually on my big Tokyo map, but not on any of the smaller, highlighted areas, which was why I had been struggling. This makes perfect sense now, but I hadn't at the time realised that the small focus areas didn't cover everything. I thanked him and was on my way again.

Shortly thereafter, I saw a sign for Godiva Chocolates, so I headed in. I had to peak, of course! At this store, they didn't give me a sample, but I did pick up some brochures in Japanese for Miriam, my old boss back home to flip through. She did, after all, just send me a package. So, Miriam, if you're reading, I just ruined that surprise.

In this same complex was a little French bakery, and decided to pick up a pain au chocolat for breakfast. Yes, I still had the breads from the conbini in my bag from the night before, but I could eat those any time. I was a bit surprised afterward to notice that I ordered in French. Clearly, my mind knew English wasn't right and just went into French default mode. The server understood “pain au chocolat” (impressive, as many Americans wouldn't, insisting instead on “chocolate croissant.”) and got that to me. I thanked her in Japanese. But I needed somewhere to eat it.

I continued on and eventually came upon Shinjuku-gyoen, one of the city's best cherry blossom spots, it's also one of Tokyo's largest parks, dating back from 1906 when it was designed as a European style park. It also contains a Japanese garden, the hothouse was closed, but there's also a pond with giant koi. It cost money to get into the gardens and, as I could hear from Heidi at any moment, decided against that, but there was a free promenade outside the gates, that paralleled them and was tree-covered. I walked down this dirt path, passing a maintenance worker sweeping LEAVES and eventually settled myself on a bench. There, I enjoyed a wonderfully crispy pain au chocolat and one of the conbini breads from my bag. I then pulled out my Lonely Planet, and got to planning and reading again about the area.

I was just getting ready to leave when my phone rang and it was Heidi. I told her where I was and she agreed to meet me at Shinjuku Station. So, I headed on up there. Shinjuku is a lot of what people think of when they think “Tokyo.” It's got big department stores, government buildings, street side, huge video screens blaring advertisements, hostess clubs and little shrines dotted around for color. The West side of the station has Tokyo's highest concentration of sky skrapers and massive towering government buildings. It was in this area that I stayed my first few days in Tokyo. On the eastern side are winding streets (Lonely Planet accurately uses the word “labyrinths”) of department stores, boutiques, restaurants and neon.

I was actually quite close, so I got to the station, then wandered down a nearby street to watch some of the street performers. I stayed a while watching a young (perhaps 16) year old boy in a tight outfit, with tight (and guaranteed to be stuffed) boy shorts, and long leggings that started about an inch below the end of his shorts (which ended just below his butt cheeks, thus revealing a strip of very high thigh) do some baton twirling with dramatic facial expressions and poses. I have a video of this. In his next dance act, he ripped off some layers, revealing more colorful layers below and was getting more animated even bringing out a big, bright rainbow flag. Here, though, I got a text from Heidi that she was here, and headed back to the station.

Now, Shinjuku station is HUGE. In fact, every day, more than three MILLION people pass through the station alone, making it one of the busiest in the world. So, I waited outside one store while she frantically ran around to find me. We finally met up and wandered into the twisting maze of streets and bright lights. She wasn't feeling well, but had barely eaten since breakfast, so we went to find her some food. She ordered some pasta from a restaurant and I got some water and was quite content. She gobbled her food down quite happily and was looking better.

We wandered out and I wanted to see a local shrine, Hanazono-jinja, that supposedly had a good flea market on Sundays, according to the tourist pamphlets we picked up. We found it, but there was no market. Instead, there were construction workers putting up what looked to be market displays, so perhaps it was moved to the following day because of the national holiday. We took some pictures and I filled Heidi in on what little I know about Shines.

From there, we were heading back to go look at the government buildings on the other side. I realised upon arriving at Shinjuku and looking at my maps that this was the area of Tokyo I was in my first few days in Japan. I especially recognized one building that looked like a cross-hatched space ship.

However, by this point, Heidi was again not feeling well, and was, in fact, feeling so poorly that she really couldn't stand up straight, walk well, or carry her bag. I argued with her about getting medical attention and we eventually settled on going back to the hotel for that night and seeing if she felt better after a break. We had gotten onto the metro and she was still doing very badly and finally announced that she just wanted to go home. She didn't want to navigate the Japanese medical system, if she needed that, alone. So, we called up her coworker, Fred, and he gave us train directions to get her home.

In the station, we had a quick parting and she handed me her folder with her information about the hotel for that evening, as I'd need to find it and get there now myself. I got her onto the train safely, then turned to find my own way. Now, by this point, I'd been on the metro for... 10 minutes and now had the task of figuring out the Tokyo metro system (which has very little English on it's ticket boards!) NOW. Luckily, it's quite straight forward. I hopped on a train, transferred and got up to Asakusa Station. From there, I checked my maps from Heidi's folder and realised that while the hotel was in Asakusa, it wasn't near that station. I hopped back on the metro and rode another 15 or so minutes to a different station, Minami-senju station. I asked the man at the ticket counter about the location and he said I should leave from the other exit. He gave me a blank ticket to get back through the turnstiles and then out the far end. From there, I exited and walked to the hotel. I asked a few directions along the way, including of a few officers and a nice woman waiting for a bus, and everything worked out well.

Once inside the little hotel, I was greeted by a small, elderly Japanese woman. She was quite friendly, and I introduced myself and my standard “I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese” to which she replied laughing that my Japanese was very good and she didn't quite believe me. Her English was quite good, so we used mostly that. I said the hotel was under the name Heidi, but she was having trouble finding it. She eventually pulled out a reservation and asked if my friend was Princess something-or-other (a screen name, obviously) and I said “no.” She then, regretfully announced that she didn't have a reservation under that name.

I explained that my friend wasn't here, the one who had booked because she was in the hospital. (I could only hope that she would be shortly; I'd never seen Heidi look so bad before.) Still, she couldn't find the name. Eventually, texted Heidi quickly about a confirmation number while the lady searched. While I waited to hear back from Heidi, I inquired about just me getting a room for the night, a single. She first said that she had no non-smoking rooms left, but eventually checked something and said she had a room for me.

I was filling out the information sheet for the room when she saw my Gaijin card, then realised that Heidi's name was written on the reservation in katakana. So, she DID have the reservation. We changed it to a single room for just me and I got ready to pay up. The price she quoted me was large, and, after a bit of working out, we realised that she'd thought I wanted to stay for two nights. We got that fixed and I handed over money.

She then gave me my room key, showed me how to work the front door after hours, then lead me to a tiny, tiny little elevator and escorted me personally to my room. On the way, she pointed out the shower rooms, the bathrooms on each floor, and the tea machines, all complimentary. Inside my room, I had a folded up futon and fixings, a little table, a little fridge, microwave, and TV, all crammed into a tiny room not much bigger than my bed in America. It was, actually, all the space I really needed.

I first went to the bathrooms, where I was just washing my hands when I man walked in. They were co-ed, I understood, so I put on my liberal-minded bravery and tried not to react. I did, however, get a start, when he unzipped his pants and started using the urinal. Luckily, I was half-way out the door by then, but I was NOT expecting THAT in a co-ed bathroom. Really, I just find the concept of urinals odd in general. Women are ALWAYS in separate stalls, so the idea of guys just being open... very different.

Outside, I grabbed my cup and decided to try to tea machine. I tried pushing both buttons, but all that seemed to come out with hot water. There was a younger Gaijin man brushing his teeth, so when he was finished, I asked him if he knew better, but he was also new and clueless. He was very friendly, so we got to chatting. He is from Paris, although his English was better than my French. He talked about the French economy, how much he loved Paris, but how impossible it was to live in Paris now. He had come to Tokyo, fallen in love with the city and was now trying to find a job to get a work visa here. I then went back to my room. I still had conbini bread in my bag, so I ate that as a light dinner.

I then wandered downstairs and took a shower in one of the shower rooms. I'm beginning to wonder if I take hotter baths/showers than most people. No one else was quite as cold as I was in Ireland and I had the water temperature up all the way here. I scrubbed off with the complimentary shampoo and body soap, although there was no conditioner, something that my hair really needs. By the following day, it would be a snarly mess again. I then dried off and put on my complimentary yukata and dried my hair with the blow dryer. Once upstairs, I changed into jammies and a sweatshirt and went back downstairs – always in slippers – to use the computers. There was free internet, after all, and it'd be nice to do some catching up.

I chatted with a few people, then it was late and time for me to turn in for the night. I checked the following day's weather forecast (lovely) and headed back upstairs. I planned out my adventures for the following day from everything I still had to see, then tumbled into my cozy futon, alarm set, and drifted off to sleep.