Notes on a fortnight in Japan

My partner and I were fortunate to enjoy a fortnight exploring Japan for the first time in June. As expected, and as all our friends warned us, it was the kind of trip that quickly became habit-forming - even while we were mid-holiday it was obvious that we would have to return for a second Japan trip, not to mention possibly a third. Of course, we're hardly original in our choice of destination - everyone seems to have been venturing to Japan in the past few years. The exchange rate helps; at 85 yen to the New Zealand dollar, we were able to afford decent, if not elaborate, comforts and not worry too much about the budget. 

Between us, my partner was probably equally excited by the prospect of feeding the deer in the Nara Deer Park and shopping up large in the famous Japanese art supply shops, and I was motivated by the rich opportunities for big-city street photography and the chance to finally ride the Japanese shinkansen high-speed trains. And we were both excited to take advantage of the exchange to shop for clothes at Muji and Uniqlo, neither of which have deigned to open in faraway New Zealand. 

Our time in Tokyo was brief at the beginning of our trip, with only the first Sunday available before we departed. Our accommodation was a tiny room on the 21st floor of the APA Hotel Ryogoku, which had impressive views over the Sumida River. We spent a delightful Sunday in Ueno Park, which is the one place I'd actually been in Tokyo, on my whistle-stop visit in transit many years before. We savoured the exhibits at the Tokyo National Museum and enjoyed walking and people-watching in the park.

Chinese stoneware, 7th-8th century

The next morning we made our way during rush hour to Tokyo Station for the Shinkansen to Osaka, a swift two-and-a-half hours in overcast weather (no Fujiyama sighting). Osaka was to be our base for the next four nights, staying in the pleasant Citadines Namba hotel - a much nicer room than our Tokyo stopover. We joined the throngs admiring the lively restaurant district around the Dotonbori Canal, with plenty of garishly illuminated advertising signs: feisty octopi, belligerent sushi chefs, and a sinister Japanese clown who's been banging his drum since the 1950s. On our second day the rains hit Osaka, but we still managed to enjoy visiting the City Museum of Fine Arts and the Shitennoji Temple. On our third day the sun returned, and the day was devoted to ambling and shopping north of Dotonbori near the Shinsaibashi-suji boulevard, including the Kawachi art supply shop and sampling the lovely wares of the Studio Ghibli shop. Our final day was spent on a busy daytrip by Japan Rail to nearby Kyoto, using our handy Suica cards, and taking in the sights of Nijo Castle and beautiful Kinkaku-ji (the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) on the hottest day of our trip.

Dotonbori lights, Osaka

Our next destination was only an hour away by train, and was a pleasant interlude after the bustle of Osaka. In leafy Nara we stayed at the beautiful and peaceful Miroku Hotel on the edge of the lovely Deer Park. On our day of arrival we met the park's tame deer for the first time, and relished the inspiring artworks at the Buddhist Sculpture Hall. Then on the following day we donned our best (and only) walking shoes for a mammoth day exploring the deer park, during which Mia was able to befriend  plenty of politely hungry deer (they exchange bows with you), and soak in the majesty of the Todai-ji Daibutsuden, the hall of the Great Buddha. Plus we caught a brief but exciting glimpse of a Japanese badger at the Todai-ji Nigatsu-do Buddhist Temple.

Feeding the polite but hungry deer in Nara

From Nara we boarded a local train to cross metro Osaka from east to west, ending up in the port city of Kobe. Staying in the Tokyu REI Hotel on Meriken Rd in the business district we had two days to explore. The City Museum had a diverting collection of ancient bronze bells, pre-European maps and artefacts from early 20th century Kobe business life. We also had lunch at a nearby minimalist cafe, which served me up the world's titchiest ham and butter sandwich. The following day we took the famous gondola up into the hills behind the city to visit the Nunobiki Herb Gardens, admire the view over Osaka Bay (rainclouds permitting) and wander back down the peaceful garden trails to the big city.

Nunobiki Herb Gardens gondola

Finally we boarded another Shinkansen for the two and three-quarter-hour journey back to the capital to round out our trip. We stayed in a quiet, pleasant little backstreet hotel called The Hideout near Uguisudani station at the northern end of Ueno Park, and enjoyed exploring the local eateries sprinkled amongst the winding alleyways. Our first full day back in in Tokyo was spent exploring the bustling shops of Shinjuku, including the holy retail pilgrimage sites of Muji, Uniqlo, Tower Records and the Sekaido art supplies shop. The following day started with an amble around the bookshops in the Jimbocho district and a bite to eat in a lovely, serene cafe bookshop, the Book House Cafe. Then we flipped the crowd switch to check out the world-famous 'scramble' crossing outside Shibuya station, followed by a walk up to Harajuku for the MoMA Design Store and a stroll around peaceful Yoyogi Park. On our final day in Japan we walked through Ueno Park to the Metropolitan Art Museum for the 78th Annual Women’s Art exhibition, and enjoyed an artwork with netball hoops that I scored a goal in. (And won a polite round of applause from the gallery attendants). We rounded off our stay with a relaxing wander through the park, savouring the atmosphere of a myriad food festival stalls before we collected our bags and made our way to the Narita Skyliner train from Keisei Ueno station.

Shinjuku station commuters

When I see you alone, I see what's in your mind

Thursday music corner: The Pizzicato Five were a prolific Japanese pop group formed in Tokyo in 1984, which attained international fame as a duo consisting of Yasuharu Konishi and Maki Nomiya. In Japan the group released thirteen studio albums, seventeen compilation albums, nine remix albums, six video albums, thirteen EPs, and twenty-two singles. Pizzicato Five were also released in America on Matador Records, including three studio albums and eight singles.

Baby Love Child is a 1994 English re-recording of a track from the band's 1991 album This Year's Girl, which appeared on the band's second Matador album Made in USA and in an episode of the American animated series Futurama.

Pizzicato Five - Baby Love Child (LA English Mix Version, 1994) 

See also:
Music: Pizzicato Five - Baby Love Child (Japanese lyrics, 1991)

Music: Pizzicato Five - Twiggy Twiggy (1995)

Music: Pizzicato Five - Happy Sad (1995)

Japan meets the West

While Japanese experimented with bustles, bonnets, and beef, on the other side of the world, Westerners were discovering a new and enchanting culture. In 1858, after Japan opened to trade with the West, Japanese goods suddenly became widely available. Poverty-stricken samurai sold their heirlooms, often at reduced prices, and swords, helmets, armor, kimonos, and exquisite porcelain found their way into the curio shops of the West.

Everyone was intrigued and charmed by the delicacy, precision, and beauty of Japanese art and artifacts. Trendsetting women wore kimonos, fashionable people collected woodblock prints, and filled their homes with screens, fans, lacquerware, blue-and-white porcelain, vases, curved swords, netsuke, and artifacts inspired by Japanese art. Audiences flocked to see Japan-inspired plays and operas, from The Geisha with Marie Tempest to Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado and David Belasco's play Madame Butterfly, which opened in March 1900 and inspired Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Japonisme, as the craze was dubbed, swept the West, inspiring artists, architects, and interior designers and spawning Art Nouveau. In 1856, the artist Félix Bracquemond discovered a collection of manga engravings by Hokusai in Paris (manga simply means "whimsical drawing," the same term used for manga comics today) and soon a generation of Western artists were collecting, being inspired by, and sometimes copying Japanese woodblock prints. In 1876, Monet painted his wife Camille in an extraordinary Japanese kimono. Van Gogh had six hundred woodblock prints and wrote that he yearned to visit Japan or at least learn to see with Japanese eyes.

- Lesley Downer, The Shortest History of Japan, New York, 2024, P.163-4

See also:

Japan: Affordable Tokyo studio living, 15 January 2021

Japan: Hutt Japan festival, 19 November 2017

Japan: Ueno Park Tokyo, 14 January 2009

Affordable Tokyo studio living

The clip below from February 2019 is a fascinating example of how urban design choices can facilitate the type of independent living that New Zealand cities have long neglected. This Japanese-American chap's rent in the famously expensive Japanese capital is NZ$1308/mo, or NZ$300/wk. The Tokyo apartment is only 24sqm but it fits an awful lot in with clever design, including a small but decent balcony. I know older designs of New Zealand council bedsits are now deemed inappropriate accommodation, but I wonder if that's a factor of how outdated their design was, and our prejudices about the need for large living areas. If we can build loads of these sorts of studios for solo tenants wouldn’t that help to tackle the enormous demand backlog? And help loads of New Zealanders who want of need to live independently, rather than be subjected to ever-longer bouts of flat-sharing? Could we build twice as many 24sqm studios as 50sqm one-bedroom apartments for roughly the same amount, and thereby provide accommodation to twice as many people?

(Also, the toilet roll holder in the apartment in the video is, as this guy says, very clever. Trust the Japanese!)

It's noteworthy that a comparison of living costs between Japan and New Zealand reveals that despite what you might imagine, average monthly disposable salary in Japan is actually almost identical to New Zealand, and many Japanese cost-of-living prices are considerably lower than in New Zealand.

See also:

Blog: Housing documentary Push, 7 February 2020

Blog: The best transport plan is a great land-use plan, 15 April 2013

Blog: An area of urban depravity, 29 June 2007

Hutt Japan Festival

Kendo demonstration, Dowse Gallery, 19 November 2017

Tokyo, Ueno Park

A city's parks are often a good measure of its civic pride: witness the beloved expanses of New York's Central Park, the oasis of calm in a bustling metropolis that is London's Hyde Park, or the regal promenades of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Many people enjoy visiting city parks, and some make substantial journeys in order to reach them.

Following my stopover in Japan en route to New Zealand for Christmas, I can now claim to have visited Tokyo. However, I can't say that I've seen many of Tokyo's sights; in fact I have seen only one. With only a few hours to spare in the Japanese capital, and not wishing to miss the opportunity of seeing at least a small corner of a country I had never visited before, I boarded an airport train and explored Ueno Park in Tokyo on a mild Sunday afternoon in December.

I chose this park for the simple reason that the Keisei Limited Express train that runs from Tokyo's Narita Airport terminates at Ueno Station close by the park entrance. With my command of spoken Japanese running to perhaps five words and my ability to count terminating at the number three, I was reluctant to venture far afield given the possibility of missing my onwards Air New Zealand flight. So I limited my little Japanese adventure to a straightforward low-intensity amble in the park. It turned out to be a good choice.

The train from Narita took 70 minutes to reach Ueno. In that time it passed through open fields, followed by medium-density suburban townhouses, and then the big city apartments and office blocks of the inner city. There were a few fellow gaijin travellers on the train, but most of my fellow passengers were locals. Like me, quite a few of them lolled sleepy-eyed as the carriage rattled along to its final destination. A few others adopted the Asian habit of wearing medical facemasks, indicating that they had a cold and did not wish to infect their fellow passengers with their impolite germs.

At the end of the ride I arrived at the super-clean Ueno Station. Emerging from underground onto a busy thoroughfare, I walked about 50 metres to the park entrance, which was clearly signposted in Japanese and English, and began my exploration.

The land for Ueno Park was given to the city by the then Emperor in 1924, and it is a firm favourite with Tokyo's inhabitants. Its broad pedestrian avenues are lined with mature cherry trees, and on this mild winter afternoon with the temperature about 13 to 15 degrees people were taking the opportunity to enjoy a walk in the sunshine.

The park is dotted with statues and shrines. Near the entrance the statue of Saigo Takamori (1827-77), unveiled in 1898, depicts the famed samurai with a silk belt holding in his middle-aged paunch while he walks his sprightly little dog. Down a broad flight of stairs lies Shinobazu Pond, a little sea of clacking dry reeds with a shrine to Benzaiten on an islet at its centre. Further into the park, past a selection of Japanese street performers juggling and performing acrobatics, an equestrian statue of Prince Komatsu No Miya Akihito (d. 1903) keeps a watchful eye on the passing cyclists and the nearby softball players practicing their hitting inside their towering chain-link fences, which prevent fly-balls from beaning other park-goers.





At the far end of the park sits the impressive Tokyo National Museum building. While it looked intriguing, I didn't have enough time to do it justice so I resorted to visiting its gift shop instead. There I purchased some pretty postcards depicting 19th century Japanese paintings of courtiers and cats (not in the same picture though).




On the way back to the station I passed the National Science Museum and was both impressed and slightly bemused by the huge model of a diving blue whale outside. Perhaps passing motorists might mistake the museum for a fast-food joint? Next door was the National Museum of Western Art with its outdoor sculpture garden, where I admired casts of Rodin's The Thinker and The Burghers of Calais and Bourdelle's Hercules the Archer, and one of the original three casts of Rodin's monumental La Porte de l'Enfer (The Gates of Hell).




While I had only had time to visit a tiny corner of massive Tokyo, I was glad to have been able to enjoy the sights and take a few photographs. As I drowsily observed the scenes of Tokyo life as the Narita train passed through the city, I promised that I would return one day to explore the city with a little bit more time up my sleeve.