Chasing food and unicorns

   Will inspiration

              come to us at the Jingu

              as to Haruki?

Tuesday 7 May

Today is another big Murakami location chasing day beginning in Shibuya where we have immense trouble getting out of the station surrounded as are most Tokyo termini by huge malls and department stores – a different brand seems to own different stations. Wecare also going to the Jingu Baseball Stadium where he decided to become a writer. Many of the novels involve people eating, drinking and shopping on Aoyama-dori so we walk up that taking in a number of possible locations before arriving at a definite one, the Kinokunia International supermarket which features in A wild sheep chase. Most appropriately given the amount of pasta consumed in Murakami books they have an Italian Week special feature.

We then go past the baseball stadium to check our gate for tonight and a photo op. Then a walk to the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery to find the unicorns featured in Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Disaster as there is no sign of any unicorns on or around the building until a cry of “behind you, behind you” from Dee causes me to turn and espy a pair of unicorn statues on the other side of the road. Job done we now set off to be tourists and experience a tea ceremony.

In the middle of Nihombashi, the finance and business district, on the second floor of a standard office tower is a traditional Japanese teahouse operated by Koomon a cultural organization dedicated to keeping traditions alive in a significant way for contemporary Japan. It is a truly amazing hour and a half in which we learn about the traditional tea gathering and the ceremony that surrounds preparing the tea for guests. I participated in a tea gathering thirty years ago when we sat cross-legged in appropriate manner for over an hour and then immediately fell over when I tried to stand up as my legs were completely numbed. This time they kindly allowed us a stool and reassured us that lots of Japanese use them too. It certainly helped us to take on board the four concepts of respect, harmony, purity and tranquility which might have been difficult through the pain. Our tea mistress Yukiko left us with the excellent  thought about our session based on the name of the tea scoop she had chosen: “one chance, one encounter” the Japanese equivalent of seize the moment I guess. It worked for us.

We then went from tea house to coffee shop and having failed to lunch today (not for the first time I’m told) we took tea in a branch of Henri Charpentier. This small and exclusive chain was started in Ashiya where Murakami grew up and he is reported to have taken would-be girlfriends there in his youth. This is a very impressive chat up location with delicious cakes and confectionery. Then the train back to Shinjuku and change into baseball watching attire.

It had been a brilliantly clear blue day all day and you know what happens at night with clear skies – it gets cold. The stadium had the usual hawkers of beer, snacks and popcorn we are used to from Fenway Park and the swallow family mascots go wild when the second run is scored.

Haruki may have had his light bulb moment in the same stadium watching the Swallows and exclaimed, whether internally or aloud we don’t know, “I can be a writer!” After six rather desultory innings with 4 hits and 2 runs for the home team, Yakult Swallows, all I could exclaim was “I can be an icicle!” remembering those metre long shards from Hokkaido. We chickened out, repaired to an English pub just down the road and watched the four-run eighth on the big screen with circulation returning to my blue finger tips. No score in the top of the ninth meant a 6-0 win for our team and a successful outing all round.

We dined in Touan down some steps next to the pub and had an initial disappointment that most of what we had selected was off. However they more than made up for it with an amuse-bouche of fish cakes with edamame and azuki beans and some superb smoked duck.