In Japan

12.04.2013 Murakami Day!

Will we get our wish

to buy the Murakami

and find Mount Fuji?

The alarm rings at 6 a m. We rise to a beautifully sunny Tokyo and get ourselves ready for the queue to buy the new Murakami novel about which no information has been released but speculation has been rife. As I said to Dee on the way, we can be sure that it will involve a forty-something angsty male reminiscing about his youth and failing to make relationships work. Beyond that there will be a context of some kind – maybe political or topical. We’ll see.

We arrive at Books Kinokunia, Shinjuku at seven and declare ourselves first in the queue. Gradually the store staff start to arrange tables outside the shop and finally piles of the coveted tome arrive. At 07:55 Dee makes the first transaction of the day and we have our copy of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage. No our Japanese didn’t suddenly get better – there’s a convenient English translation on the endpapers. Now there is quite a line of people waiting to pay and clearly they are in for a brisk trade so we set off to check out, rent a car and drive to Mount Fuji.

[Because of a couple of wi-fi less days we actually know that the launch caused a much bigger stir in central Tokyo as reported in The Guardian – thanks James and for providing the provenance for our etchings in your comment.]

A swift breakfast coffee on the way – more research really as lots of scenes in the novels are set in coffee shops – and we say goodbye to the e-Hotel and take a cab to Mazda Rent a Car. Except the driver doesn’t recognize the address so it’s back into the hotel leaving the trusty baggage wrangler waiting in the street. Just as I arrive from the hotel with a more precise location I discover that the driver rather than just going to get another fare has been consulting his SatNav and also knows where to go. We conclude the car pick up OK at the office and move to find it in a nearby parking lot. It’s fine and swallows our copious baggage comfortably – good research pays off! The only problem is with the English SatNav we’d ordered – it speaks English but we can only enter destinations with telephone numbers or by using a character conversion chart for katakana – ummm. So we set off to find the Chuo Expressway (more research) and head south towards the Fuji Five Lakes area. It’s a pleasant easy drive and apart from a few bottlenecks where expressways merge we’re off and away. The first sighting of Mount Fuji from the expressway is stunning – its top half still covered in snow and rising as a perfect cone from the surrounding plain. You can understand why it’s one of the most photographed places on earth. The SatNav even gets us right to the hotel in Fujiyoshida although we can’t quite believe it.

In a real Dolphin Hotel moment (Wild Sheep Chase, Dance, dance, dance) we park tentatively rather than under the hotel itself and walk to the door which clearly says Hotel Fuyokaku. There’s no evidence in English as to where reception is but it’s clearly not on the first or ground floor (there’s much about Japan that displays an American influence). So we take the elevator for which someone must have pressed the call button so we are whisked to the fifth floor where chambermaids sit having a break surrounded by piles of sheets and yukatas. We manage to make it clear we want to check in and are sent back to the third floor where a young man emerges from a back office to check us in to room 512. We explain we parked along the access road and will fetch the car to unload. However we’ve been blocked in by a large white Nissan van. So it’s back to reception where our man has vanished and has to be summoned by bell again. He comes out with us to assess the situation, fortunately recognizes the vehicle and goes to fetch the owner. So finally we check in, unpack a bit and prepare to go in quest of Fuji. Now it’s highly visible but doesn’t have a regular phone number to punch into the SatNav so we discover what we hope is the phone number for a useful Tourist Information Centre and supplementing this with the, now map wrangler, doing her very best with inadequate resources, we set off. After a block or two we realize we are heading for a different information centre altogether and not really where we want to go. So with a few twists and turns and some stern admonishments from SatNav Lady we eventually head off up a road that leads to the fifth stage of the ascent – as far as you can go by car. We get out and join the coach parties of Chinese, French and hope that the cloud ringing the summit will clear. Actually it’s not a good photo opportunity anyway – too close and the lakes around its base are too hazy. So we descend and decide to use the tourist map to look for better views from Lakes Kawaguchiko and Saiko.

On the northern shore of Lake Kawaguchiko is a promenade lined with cherry trees which being colder down here is just coming into its prime so we get shots of both cherry blossom and Mount Fuji. The drive round the lake is beautiful and we find a number of other locations where we think we’ll get good views of the mountain.

As the evening draws in the wind gets up, we grab a few final shots, make our way back to the hotel and go out for a beer and something to eat. We arrive at a very friendly noodle bar and order just two beers but as we sit and see how many other locals come to eat there the decision to move on which resulted from our toss of the ¥100 coin – numbers or flowers as there’s no head – we give in, order delicious bowls of ramen and then retire to the hotel.

A day of achievement – we have our Murakami book, we managed to get the car and drive to Mount Fuji and we’ve seen the mountain from most angles possible.

In Japan

A day of culture in Tokyo

With wood block prints to

start our day we wonder what

else will come our way?

After the exhaustion of the last two days we decided on a quietly cultured vacation day. But before we start in on that let’s just share some of the Joys of Japan.

Jazz is alive and well and is the music of choice in most shops, restaurants, coffee shops and bars. It’s usually easy grooving West Coast style jazz and it’s so much less intrusive than relentless pop.
Manners in the main are what we miss in the UK. They are not all perfect – nobody offered us oldies a seat on the metro but in general people are friendly, helpful and polite.
Heated loo seats – Dee was so delighted with her first experience of the high tech loo off the hotel lobby, she insisted I go check it out. This one was brilliant and we’ve now found many others are accompanied by control panels fit for the SS Enterprise that will pre-sterilize the seat, add pleasant odours and wash various parts of your lower body on request – but the best is sitting down on a warm seat.

We have some framed reproductions of Hokusai’s 36 views of Mount Fuji in our hall at home and are both fans of these delicate, funny and sometimes outrageous wood block prints known as ukiyo-e which were produced as popular art from the mid seventeenth to the early twentieth century. There’s a museum devoted to them in Harajuku which we visited where there was a fascinating exhibition of prints depicting women’s fashions, hair and make-up styles. Who knew the green lower lip was so desirable! There was also a great display which showed the process of making Hokusai’s The Wave an image I guess most people are familiar with. As we left there was a spattering of rain and our eyes were drawn to a line of brightly-hued umbrellas.These were office workers queuing at Harajuku’s trendiest popcorn store to buy popcorn for their lunch! We passed on the opportunity – few things are worth waiting that long for. So we then walked over to the Meiji Park through a little drizzle to the Meiji Shrine in which the immortal souls of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken are preserved in Shinto honour. They were largely responsible for making Japan a modern nation in touch with the rest of the world. It’s such a place of pilgrimage that it was rebuilt from funds raised by public subscription after the war which destroyed it. The Japan Sake Manufacturers also donate these huge barrels of sake each year as a mark of respect. It’s a place of quiet, serious contemplation in the busy city and is clearly valued by many as a place to spend time in, not just somewhere to tick off on the “Let’s do Tokyo Tour”

We had been pretty pleased with ourselves for mastering the Metro to get to the museum but our next trip after a quick lunch involved working out the best route right across the city. We had to find the right entrance to the line we needed and then change midway. The subway is easy to use and a great way of getting quickly around the huge metropolis that is Tokyo. We ended up in Asakusa where I thought I might have bought my etchings but as it transpired no likely shops were spied and the search goes on. However Asakusa has an amazing shopping thoroughfare leading to the Kannon Temple, as it was called in 1981 when I visited but now known as the Senso-ji. Buddhist rather than Shinto the visitors are more expressive with cleansing and incense wafting rituals to be performed before approaching the temple. We captured a few of them…

… and Dee captured Mike still seeking Murakami.

We again attracted the attention and advice of an elderly gent entirely self-taught and fluent in English – from self-help books and listening to the BBC World Service – note to the new regime at Broadcasting House! He was sorry the cherry blossom had been so early this year but thought we might catch some near Mount Fuji tomorrow and told us about the different varieties with their varying shades from almost white to deepest pink. We then strolled around some artisan jewellers, ceramicists – no stand yet Mike but we’re looking – and fabulous fan and fabric stores before getting the subway to the heart of Tokyo shopping – Ginza. Mitsukoshi department store had a marvellous roof garden on the ninth floor overlooking the street where we enjoyed a green plum and, separately, black sesame icecream. We’ve all seen the pictures of Ginza crossing but it is really incredible to see the sheer number of people late into the evening who descend onto and beneath this world-famous street. Again in the interests of finding Murakami’s Japan we had to visit the subterranean bars that lead from Ginza to Shinbashi where so many people and some of his characters seem to finish off their working day. Ours ended with a visit to – oh come off it! – a tapas bar just off the Ginza with Basque pintxos and Rioja. Then the subway back to the hotel to write. Oh and we ordered and printed out our baseball ticket for next moth in the local convenience store on the way- what a service!

An early night is needed as we have a six a m alarm set to be the first to buy the new Murakami tomorrow.

In Japan

The chase is on! … continued

Will our first day in

Japan be a lot of fun

or will we just sleep?

Riding the Narita Express is a very pleasant experience – comfortable, a trolley drinks service and train attendants who bow as they enter or leave every compartment (or coach as the announcements have it) whether there are passengers within or not. It’s strange to our eyes and minds and gives us an insight into the fact that for all it’s modernity Japan still retains some hard-wired traditions. There are news and weather updates on the flat screens at the front of each coach with very useful journey information as well as lots of ads of course. But Express is a bit of a generous appellation in my book. We left Narita at 10:48 and got to Shinjuku at 12:08 so an hour and twenty minutes for 50 miles seems less than arrow let alone bullet speed.

Just before we left we watched a documentary made by a friend’s company called “Shinjuku – the world’s busiest train station”. It was fascinating and just about prepared us for the warren of bemused foreigners (us included) and thousands of purposefully striding locals on their lunch breaks that met us. Finding an exit that would would lead to a taxi rank all the while struggling with our four suitcases remember, involved two lift rides, an escalator and a false exit before we found it at last. Again one had been somewhat forewarned but to get into a spotless very boxy vehicle – maintenance is obviously brilliant as all the cabs we’ve seen look very old models – and find lacy antimacassars and seat backs and the driver in white gloves. Oh I’ve got some suggestions for the black cab fraternity and their minicab competitors! The stern lady at Narita Express tickets had suggested we should expect to pay between ¥1000 and ¥2000 depending on traffic conditions. Well they must have been superb since the fare was ¥710 and tips are not expected in Japan.

We couldn’t check into our hotel until three o ‘clock so we deposited our bags in what wouldn’t have disgraced the lost luggage at Baker Street – clearly hundreds of people arrive on early flights and can’t check in till later. So we set off in quest of first some lunch and then Murakami’s new book.

We walked around the immediate area looking at plasticized menu pictures of strange combinations and eventually settled on a 24-hour self-service place where we could choose our own food – and the two large, very much needed beers you see. It proved all rather Murakami as the staff were constantly screaming – pleasantries and encouragement I hope – at each other and then I looked out of the window and saw this.

It transpired that they were “The Shinjuku Robots” parading the streets on a float to publicize a forthcoming Shinjuku event. However in the middle of a day with no sleep it was food for thought. I’m sorry I hadn’t time to rush out and get a front on view but the traffic lights don’t wait that long.

But lunch was long enough to get us into the room, have a shower and then set off in search of news of Muarakami’s new book. Now the room – I recall a congratulatory post that we’d booked our first room for only £65 a night. Well it’s fine – the hotel is very well located, the lift works and for once we are not in the room furthest from it. However it might be a good place for Nakata (a character in Kafka on the Shore) to talk to or even interrogate cats but he certainly couldn’t swing one. However it’s fine for two nights, provides an extensive range of toiletries and towels and a yukata and slippers for each of us.

Refreshed we set off and walk towards where I think Kinokunia Bookstore should be. Passing a small shrine, a baseball batting cage like a gold driving range and several young ladies who start to offer me cards until they see Dee and hastily recover their doorway stations, we find Kinokunia, confirm publication at 08:00 on 12 April and suggest there will be a queue of about 80 waiting to get the latest Haruki fix. We’ll be there, sporting a unique 1Q84 tee shirt gained at the London launch of that book.

Making our way back to the hotel we encounter a delightful elderly gentlemen who asks us where we come from, is amazed at the length and breadth of our trip and offers helpful suggestions for good things to see in the area. We were at one of these, the Hanazomon Shrine, an oasis of peace in the midst of hectic, trendy Shinjuku. Through the line of torii in the right hand picture if you look carefully you can see at the end the gold fascia lettering of Emporio Armani – a real god meets mammon moment. It surprised me thirty years ago to see people come from their offices wash themselves ritually and go and stand before the shrine, say a few words of prayer and clap their hands to ensure their prayers were heard. I find it amazing today.

Sated with spiritualism we then moved off into the heart of Shinjuku’s “entertainment district”. Never has so much neon been burned in attracting people to spend their money. It’s truly amazing. We walked the streets, wondering at the large amounts of hanging about on street corners by both young men and women – some were certainly trying to get us to dine at their establishment but probably not all of them. However, resisting their blandishments we chose a bar of our own liking, had a couple of beers as many of Murakami’s characters do in this part of town and then went off for dinner. But not before exchanging meishi and becoming lifelong friends.

Then back to the hotel via an interesting punch in the number to select your dish, pay in advance diner which was actually rather good and then to bed for one of us and to blog writing for the other, the results of which you know. It’s midnight again and we have to be up early to be in the queue at Kinokunia, so sayonara and Thursday’s news will have to wait until tomorrow.