Tokyo: Meiji Shrine.

Lanterns.

We passed into the cleared swatch of land adjacent to Harajuku as twilight faltered towards complete darkness. Stars are rare where I live in Korea and the smog of Tokyo seems also to make their viewing stars an impossibility.

There was light still as we crossed the footbridge to the Harajuku metro station and entered the clearing and followed the crowd into a narrow path of cleared trees. To our right were a couple hundred white, paper lanterns with black Japanese characters emblazoned on the front.

We walked for a ways and the trees cut off what was left of the twilight and plunged the path into muted darkness. It seemed hard to believe that we were still in Tokyo. The sound of traffic and the rattle of the metro was absent; cut off like the light by the trees. There was a silence about the place that separated it from the realities of modern day Japan.

The place was the Meiji Shrine.

If the trees seemed unnaturally plentiful (in that the place seemed almost totally natural, despite being in the heart of Tokyo) it is because they were arranged that way. Though we knew none of this until we left the shrine (we were, after all, just following a bunch of people for no discernable reason).

For the sake of getting what little history of the Meiji Shrine that I know out there: the shrine was built to honor Emperor Meiji and his empress sometime between 1915 and the mid to late 1920’s. This structure was then promptly decimated in a whole bunch of air raids. The shrine, as it is now, was finished in the late 1950’s.

Lamp.

What is most interesting about the shrine (to me, at least, most people would be impressed by the Buddhist presence and the temples and the sense of walking around a giant anachronism) were the trees. The forest was thick and overwhelming and dominate because it was made to be that way. People from all over Japan donated trees (evergreens) in such reverence to the emperor that the trees effectively serve as a barrier between the noise and pollution of modern Tokyo and the lantern lit paths of the Meiji Shrine.

Still, there was some pollution in the form of two tourists who didn’t actually know where the hell they were.

Kelly and I walked for a while from one building to another until it came that save a few electric lights and the general awareness of other tourists, our surroundings harked back to more traditional times. The darkness was overwhelming at times. As the last of the sun’s light fell, giant wooden structures with tiled roofs that were colorful and ornate in the day became masses of complete black. The only light to be had was an occasional lamp that gave of a dim yellow glow.

It was an effective mood setter.

Hand cleansing.

We passed what looked to be a huge fence-like structure with thousands and thousands of small wooden planks on which people from all over the world inscribed their hopes and dreams. We watched monks walk about their business in the darkness beyond where the general pedestrian was allowed to go.

Before we left we came across a place to cleanse our hands and mouths a small ceremony of respect to the sanctity of the shrine. Of course, we didn’t know this until after we poured water all over our hands and drank the stuff in the dark and looked like general morons. Apparently you cleanse your mouth my rinsing it with the water and spitting it back. If this is the truth we basically made out with the entire population of Tokyo.

On our way out I bought some ornate paper and cheap reproduction prints of some overused Japanese paintings. It seemed like a bargain at the time but given that I have the wrong conversion in my head I probably spent over $50 on some crappy paper.

In more recent news, this is Dr. Jones. Other than snot pouring out of his nose like Niagara Falls on occasion he is pretty much amazing.

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Japan: Harajuku

An alley in Harajuku.

Harajuku was, despite what Gwen Stefani wanted me to believe, not full of Japanese hipsters on steroids. Kelly and I climbed the stairs leading out of Harajuku station hoping to see the gothic lolitas, leather clad, blue anime-haired mentioned, well, everywhere that mentions Harajuku. No. That wasn’t the case and I was a little disappointed to tell the truth. I had brought my camera in hopes of maybe catching a couple of images worthy of FRUiTS magazine or at least prove I went to the original Hot Topic / Spencer Gifts.

“Well, it is Tuesday morning,” Kelly said. “They’re probably, you know, in school.”

I conceded to the fact but it was bitter. Kelly was more excited than I was as she seems to have grown up emblemizing the kind of fashion synonymous with Harajuku. So, I was disappointed for about half a second as we climbed the stairs of a footbridge connecting the station to a complex of shop filled alleys and streets.

  Tuesday morning or not Harajuku was hopping as all of Tokyo perpetually is. We stood for a time in a corner pressed up against the guardrail as cars whizzed below and people passed around us as though we were tiny rocks in a raging torrent. Opposite the alleys and streets seemed to be a wide clearing. Beyond it a couple of wide paths led into what seemed to be a deep forest in the middle of Tokyo.

“Something for later,” one of us said.

Harajuku brought an image of Boston’s Newbury Street on cocaine. There was the main road that went on for a ways but then was lost in the distance by turn and clothing racks. We walked into the street and found that seemingly every dozen feet or so there was an alley that led to another street full of jewelers and clothing outfitters.

In Korea, even in such developed places as Seoul’s Itaewon or Insadong there is the main drag, but the commercial or tourist influence ends there. The back alleys are filled with trinket shops with merchandise on a towel or down trodden and dingy vegetable vendors with goods sprawled out on dirty cardboard or the pavement itself. Harajuku is a maze of retail.

I can’t count how many times Kelly and I have gone to a mall (or Target) out of boredom. Before I left we would go to Target so that I could pick up some essentials but it was really just an excuse to go somewhere other than my house. We never bought anything.



That was pretty much the case in Harajuku; though it didn’t have that vaguely evil feel of going to Target just for fun. We went in a lot of little shops. They sold all sorts of conventional clothing and ridiculous accessories and everything in between.

After enough blind turns down narrow and over cluttered alleys we came again to the main road. People lined the sidewalk on benches doing nothing. They just sat there and waited for something, If this was Korea they would have all been smoking or watching TV on their phones and a few would be drinking. But, obviously, Japan is not Korea. It is never any good to compare two countries because whatever similarities are usually either coincidence or the results of years of invasion.



A shine in Harajuku.



The streets of Japan have Korea beat. That is one thing I will say. Japan’s streets and sidewalks are immaculate. There are no garbage cans anywhere but still you would be very hard-pressed to find so much as a cigarette on the ground. It seems that smoking is pretty limited in Japan as frequently one comes across a sign that seems to prohibit smoking on various sides of the street. Korea doesn’t have any trash cans either but it makes up for that by having garbage thrown literally everywhere. Smoking is dirt cheap and in open season in Korea, thus everyone smokes like a chimney.

We walked for a time down that main road and came eventually to some monstrosity of a toy store specializing in Peanuts toys and various Hello Kitty trinkets. We spent a long time in that store with Kelly buying basically everything and myself staring at a train set.

After we walked further on and left the novelty of the shopping district of Harajuku behind. As the day wore on the streets became more and more crowded; something particularly evident in the mass street crossings that look at times like 2 opposing forces clashing in battle.

One of the things I really appreciate about places like Japan and Korea is that while they are at the forefront of technology and seemingly modernity, they are both undeniably ancient. It is not difficult to wander around places like Tokyo and be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people oozing pure style next to you at all times and the constant presence of concrete and glass. It is only in places like these where it is just as possible to turn a busy corner and find some worshipped relic of a time long before the dawn of the U.S.

That was the case in Harajuku. We walked on for a while until we took a random left, walked up an alley and were greeted by a couple of small red pagodas that served as an entrance to a giant pagoda. The place was quiet and removed from the sights of the busy street we had been on (if not the noise). There was a wide open lot with stone paths that led to the large pagoda and off to the sides. Scattered about were large and full trees and basins of burning incense.

Working with bamboo.

Except for the noise of the street the place was quiet save the sound of a few men in blue erecting an arbor made of bamboo. Off to the left side was a cluster of engraved stones and statues with bright yellow flowers or the roaches of burnt out incense. Beyond them lay what I imagine to be a grave yard of sorts with dozens of tall wooden planks painted with jet black Japanese characters. This was my favorite place of them all.

 



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