Up early for the gym then a relaxing morning before breakfast at the hotel.
It is true what people say about Japanese attention to detail with food. Who knew avocado toast could be so delightful? The delicate salmon and perfectly soft boiled egg provided lenient textures to pair with a crispy but not aggressively hard edged toast all related to the excellently ripened avocado as the subtle star of the show, set off by garnishes of micro greens and half of a cherry tomato integral to the construction of the dish. Seasoned just right, everything was balanced in every way. It’s inspiring! And that’s what I had two days ago — avocado toast. It took me some time to comprehend what I had eaten. Every day has been another discovery.
My lady and I had a wonderful conversation about our relationship over breakfast, once again proving that clarity is kindness and love is a verb we enact together.
We rode the above ground train to get a view of the city as we travelled to Shibuya, home of the famous Shibuya Scramble, a large intersection reminiscent of Times Square or Piccadilly Circus.
Outside Shibuya Station is a statue of the loyal dog Hachiko who waited every day for his master to come home. Alas, the doctor would never return and Hachiko the dog waited for ten years until he also passed on, reuniting in the afterlife.
Hachiko’s one floppy ear makes him an adorable icon of devotion that people from around the world connect with.
Interestingly, the queue forms naturally to have your chance to catch an image with the statue, but some tourists don’t have the awareness that they ought to wait their turn. Watching this dance of mutual respect interspersed with unaware transgression, reaction, and resumption of the flow of the minor pilgrimage fascinated me. How do we act as people who want the same things? How do we deal with an individual’s contravening of established societal expectations? Is there grace? What feelings do we have? How do we relate to those feelings? How do we carry on?
Oh, Hachiko…
I succeeded in acquiring a soccer jersey for my son and even utilized the tax free rebate system which is very new. Visitors used to get the amount waived at the point of sale, but now we must use an app to enter the information, scan the receipt, and enter our credit card information in order to be refunded the amount. Such a modern world!
Our lunch was an unfortunate contrast to our breakfast, so I won’t dwell on it. We were fed and were able to eat in a covered area outside while it rained, so I am thankful for that. We (meaning my Lady) also got our train seats reserved for transportation to the middle portion of our journey in Kyoto which took awhile, so it was a successful stop mid day.
We rode the Yamanote line so we could see the city as this train travels mostly above ground. It took a little longer but provided us an interesting look at more of the city and all of the people out on a Saturday morning.
Shibuya is more hip than Ginza, though both are inundated with corporate culture including, of course, more Asian corporate influences.
Fashionable teens and twenty-somethings are more prevalent in Shibuya, looking much more casual and cool than the folks we saw in Ginza and Minato City where we are staying. Many young women have some version of short skirt, maybe frilly, sometimes with boots, looking the intended cute. The young men’s fashion grasps at that eternal diffidence, making you think that maybe they don’t care what anyone thinks, but they also wield a kind of jovial playfulness with their compatriots. I hesitate to even post these reflections as I haven’t spoken with any of these youth, just observed them through my culturally specific lenses. And I’m an old man now.
Despite the popularity of the offerings in Shibuya and Ginza and the domination of the culture by corporate forces (or maybe because of it) certainly there are places even more hip than these two giants. We will likely not find the underground rock scene or classic jazz cafe that eschews all this corporate pablum and instead focus on more temples, history, and natural beauty, but I hear media reports of the cooler side of the city.
The afternoon was time for a nap to shake off (hopefully) the last of my jet lag. We’ll see if that’s the last time I write that. We were also preparing for viewing the Tokyo Bay Fireworks Festival, returning after an eleven year absence and now moved to autumn.
This year’s festival celebrated the 80th anniversary of the establishment of Chuo and Minato wards. The wards were established as part of post war reorganization of city administration. It’s been 80 years.
Interestingly, in recent years past the public could congregate at the beach or stay on a sidewalk to watch the fireworks celebration (which was also in the Summer) but now the rule is that you must find a paid spot to watch. It truly is fascinating to think about how we can make rules that support or require participation in certain political economies, like health care in our country or like being able to congregate in a public place like a beach to watch fireworks as the case is here. We really can make up whatever kind of rules we want.
Perhaps as a response to this new policy the weather did not cooperate. The question of whether the show would go on at all resolved with an affirmative and the pyrotechnicians began their display with the fog cover offering a Humboldt County worthy stage for the entertainment.
The show had some great low level work among the 12,000 shells set off. So the higher flying explosions mostly got lost in the clouds.
I had fetched some salads for dinner from a chain restaurant where one orders on a screen. It was not the smoothest retail interaction. I attempted to use the translate app from Apple, but ran into trouble on the payment screen. Fortunately a young man helped me make the payment. I thought he was a Good Samaritan, but he was just on his break from the salad place. Generally, everyone is helpful and allow a lot of grace for foreigners, at least in the places we have been.
The conbini (convenience store) was packed with people getting their last minute snacks for the firework show, but I made it through that experience with a little help getting a cup of ice NOT for iced coffee. Again, everyone treated me kindly despite my cluelessness. Altogether, the food was good and we relaxed watching the hour and a half fireworks display before turning in early.
Temples tomorrow!
