Part 2, Some First-Time Observations About Japan

Date: 3/29/17

We’ve been in Japan for 4 days now. Jet lag still plagues me whereas Cheryl sleeps like a baby – where is the justice in this?

Last Saturday, we had a recovery day with nothing in particular planned – just took a couple of walks around the neighborhood where our hotel is located (near the Tokyo Dome) taking it all in. By the way, we loved our hotel, the Niwa. Even though the room was very small, everything was done in understated good taste, such as the water garden at the entrance and waterfall garden at the restaurant both overlooked by huge picture windows. Found this one on Tripadvisor.com which proved to be an absolutely invaluable resource for planning this trip.

Sunday, we took an all-day Gray Line tour of Tokyo to get an overview of the city. It was a miserable day weatherwise (in the mid-40’s with steady rain) but we still saw quite a bit. The tour included a trip to the observation deck of the Tokyo Tower … it was interesting just to see the a big city extending as far as you could see in every direction, with major arterials winding gently here and there and the irregular small back streets. On that day, unfortunately with the low overcast “as far as you could see” was not all that far.

Also we went to the Meiji Shrine, a complex of gorgeous traditional Japanese shrine architecture complete with the fancy roof lines, and intricate wood construction. It commemorates revered Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) who modernized Japan: western dress, banking, etc. and transformed Japan from a feudal society to a modern capitalist state and major world power. The intricate wood construction and joinery are a thing to behold, with the beams and rafters fitting together perfectly and not a nail or a bolt in sight. The shrine is in the middle of a big evergreen forest where you could hardly believe you were in one of the world’s largest cities. There was a very appealing peacefulness about the place that the rain actually added to. One would love to sit down in the courtyard for an hour or two and soak in the calming serenity. At one point, the uniformed attendants cleared a path through the courtyard by herding everyone off to one side and everything came to a stop. Shortly a wedding procession came through led by priests in traditional garb, the bride with a traditional headdress … men in the following party dressed in cutaway-type formalwear and women in gorgeous dresses … a splendid moment.

Photo 1492, Meiji Shrine courtyard, honoring Emperor Meiji (1852-1912)

The last main point of interest on the tour was the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace, which sits inside a moat with massive stone walls beautifully fit almost Inca-like that date back to the 1600’s.

Photo 9772, Cheryl at East Imperial Garden, in the cold rain

We’ve been here long enough now to make some general observations about Japan. You have probably heard of most of these things, as we had, but it is something else to be dropped into the middle of another culture with very different values and to wrestle with everyday coping while immersed in it, all the time, every day. It’s rather intense, and feels like it has given us a much better appreciation of Japan. Talking about it all at dinner tonight we concluded that we have grown fond of Japan. The only thing to complain about is that things are on the pricey side.

A sampling of observations:

*    Cars drive on the left.

*    The Impeccable Manners are everywhere: bowing, tact, very polite speech patterns with lots of smiling and head-bowing. The abundance of good manners seems like a rare treat.

*    Obsession with Cleanliness: Tokyo is generally spotless to a level you would never see in an American city – there is no litter. We could learn something here. About 10% of the people in public wear surgical-type facemasks. Reading up on this today, I learned that before 2003 most of the facemasks were worn to prevent spreading germs for those not feeling well. In 2003 a new type came out that had improved capability for filtering out pollen. Some young people wear them these days as a means of avoiding interacting with people they don’t want to deal with … the facemasks cut off a lot of facial body language. And they have even come to be regarded as a fashion statement for some.

*    Money Etiquette. When paying for something, they give you a little tray to place your money or credit card on (too gauche to handle money directly?), and hand your card back to you with two hands and a little bow.

*    The infrastructure in Japan is a wonder; it is in superb shape: no potholes anywhere – hardly any cracks in pavement, all the sidewalks are made with decorative pavers with no weeds coming up in the joints (I’d like to know how they pull that one off!), curbs are made of dressed stone, and the manhole covers have fancy designs. Things look well-designed and well-built — even the construction sites look orderly and well-run. On Saturday, I saw a small kind of shrine for a survey monument, complete with a miniature Zen stone garden and an inscription on the marble face of the adjacent building. Can you imagine a Zen garden for a survey monument in the U.S.? It must be their respect for order. On the other hand, the overhead power distribution lines looked like a tangled mess, but they were only on back streets, with no overhead wires to sully the views on the main boulevards.

Photo 1395, “shrine” for a survey benchmark.JPG

*    Street Trees. There were street trees all over Tokyo, and they were all artfully pruned. It’s hard to imagine the workforce it would take to prune thousands and thousands of trees on public streets.

*    Trains, trains everywhere: every few blocks there is another elevated train line, sometimes stacked two high. There are even “Shinkansen” bullet trains in the heart of the city (traveling at normal city train speeds in Tokyo). There are so many trains plus a well-developed subway system (which we never got to in our short stay in Tokyo), and as a consequence, there are no city buses on the streets at all. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a big city without a city bus system.

 

Photo 1443, trains, trains everywhere, even stacked, but no buses.

*    Traffic, of course, is heavy in Tokyo, but it seemed like there was less gridlock than Seattle. Even at rush hour on Friday night, things kept moving.

*    Tall Structures. Tokyo, of course, is huge, 13 million people. High-rise buildings go on for miles and miles. Most buildings seem to top out around 10 stories except in the downtown core where there are some much taller buildings. The tallest building in Tokyo is the 52-story Toranomon Hills, 838′ tall. The tallest structure is the Tokyo Skytree, 2,080′ tall, completed in 2012. Regretfully, we did not make it to the Skytree, but our tour did take us up the Tokyo Tower, constructed in 1958, and which was the tallest structure in Japan until completion of the Skytree. It has a design motif very similar to the Eiffel Tower and is a bit taller.

*    Business attire: black suits and ties for men; dresses, skirts, high heels for women. Younger gals: very short skirts, usually with tights. Informal like us for leisure and traveling.

*    Tipping. There is very little tipping: e.g. no tips for restaurants, taxis, bellhops.

*    Use of English. It’s surprising to me how much and how little English is spoken in Japan. That is, everyone speaks at least a little English, but usually very little, and the accents even for the more fluent English-speakers are very thick and quite often hard to understand. Even our Tokyo tour guide, and the folks at the hotel front desk were often hard to understand. Taxi drivers almost never speak English. But who am I to complain — their English in all cases is far better than my Japanese! In fact, we are very fortunate that English seems to be the world’s universal second language — for example, we heard Scandinavian people switching to English when ordering a meal from a Japanese waiter.

*    Toilets. And now a topic near and dear to everyone’s heart: toilets. Of course in the States, no one gives that much thought to toilets … unless they stop working, which then means a crisis. On the other hand, the toilets in Japan are a true wonder of technology. I hate to say this, but the U.S. is lagging way behind in the finer art of toilet design. Unbelievable … never saw anything like them: heated seat, bottom spray of very warm water, control panel, and water gently flows when you sit down and gives you the sound of a babbling brook. I’d say it’s worth a special trip to Japan just to experience one of these babies.

 Photos 1433 & 1435, the Japanese commode, a technological wonder

 

 

*    Park at the Imperial Palace. In the heart of Tokyo there is a huge park-like area which includes the Imperial Palace. It is gorgeous, even with its winter look: big trees (all leafed out), paths, formal gardens, bridges, waterfalls, and with skyscrapers looming up in the background kind of like Central Park in New York.

*    Subway Pushers. We didn’t make it to the subway to see the “pushers” but our lady Tokyo guide talked about them. These are the folks hired to push people onto the commuter trains during rush hour to get more people on. They wear white gloves. She said that people arrive at work exhausted!

*    The Aesthetic. It seems like there is more appreciation of the aesthetic in Japan than we normally experience in everyday America. From the gardens and shrines, to the way they lay out food on a plate, right down to the Zen survey monument and manhole covers, there’s always something there inviting you to take a moment to appreciate your senses.

Got to sign off for now.  These posts are longer than I expected … and we’ve barely started!