From Edo to Now

Last weekend we set off to Asakusa - a must see sight that all guide books lay their buck heavily on. Its a part of Tokyo that is supposed to hark back to old Edo period of yore (1600's something) - the age of samurais and shoguns.

As you emerge from Asakusa station the feel is different. A quasi Kyoto feel where you begin to imagine the smell of dank wood and incense. Or start hearing the clang of swords of hot blooded samurais.

There are throngs of people heading towards or coming out of the Sensoji shrine - a five minute walk from the station. You enter the imposing Kaminarimon gate (Thunder Gate) - with a giant red lantern hanging from it like a big red paper apple....

......Onto Nakamise Dori - a crammed shopping lane leading upto the main shrine. The narrow lane bubbles with activity as tourists and devotees mingle facelessly. From samurai swords and kimonos to fluffy 'kawaii' dog dolls and yakitori (grilled snacks) - it is the free spirited shoppers' playground.

At the shrine itself the Throng is busy. A big incense cauldron with smoke curling up from its core stands in the centre of the courtyard, as a focal point for both the devout and the curious. Devotees draw the smoke to themselves with short sweeps of their palm. Tourists wander gaping, gawking or just trying to get the best angles.

From the shrine we branched off into a lane on the side to see what lay in the shadow of famous Sensoji.

Tokyo, unfailingly offers you a platter of contradictions when you are seeking none or expecting nothing. You can be sure that for every yin there is a yang waiting to counter it, not allowing you the safety of generalisations.

A few minutes of walking through quaint roads, you are surprised by 'Roku' (Block 6) - formerly Asakusa's famous entertainment district.

The story obviously took a twist somewhere down history and nowadays the theatre at the corner seemed more like a 'watering hole' for Tokyo's lechrous .....

One things for sure. In Japan porn blasely coexists with the ordinary with not a twitch of remorse. Nothing clandestine about it - just a casual acceptance , as if it were another harmless art form one could chose to dabble in. I have seen risque posters and funny toys sitting side by side in otherwise perfectly family settings. Here at the theatre, large glossy posters of over- endowed under- dressed beauties, brazenly basked in the sun. While you steady yourself from a bout of prudish horror, families with young children are quite normally walking past as if a Disney movie were showing .

Further down there were more vices to pick from. Pachinko parlours (that very Japanese gambling obsession), betting booths (horse racing) and video game parlours all noisily lured the Weak Willed.

By this time, Asakusa seemed like a long forgotten apparition that had only existed in our imaginations. That was Edo period - this the Here and Now.

By now we could also hear a beat pulsating below the gravel we walked on.Loud music was playing in what seemed like a courtyard crammed with people watching something in the arena. We stepped in. There was a bunch of youth twirling on their mini bikes showing off how good they were with just a pedal and two wheels (video posted at the end of the post). Twisting and twirling youths with perms and bandanas were enjoying their moment of glory as their young friends watched with admiration and who knows even envy. Tokyo's brash youth was venting hormones in the vicinity of Sensoji's ancient wisdom. One of Tokyo's many clashing worlds.

We wound up our walk with a stroll down Kapabashi dori - a kitchen wholesale area - where one can find anything from a sushi knife to a 'flying pan'! The huge stone chef atop a building at the end of the road watches sternly everyday, crowds of chefs and kitchen loving amateurs rummaging through the goodies to pick out the right tool for the trade.

One walk .Three disparate worlds (old Edo, Vice Lane and Kitchen alley). Wonder if 'schizoid' quite describes this city.

Infinite Tokyo

One of the most precious things about living in Tokyo is the walking. Walking its lanes - big or small - opens up worlds that are endlessly fascinating.

There is no other way to imbibe this city into your pores. But to set off without a goal, armed with a sturdy pair of legs, robust curiosity and a love for serendipity. Oh yes and a camera. Tokyo is there to inhale, feel, embrace...

If walks in Singapore had the predictable orderliness of a Yellow Pages, ambling in Tokyo has the edge of an animal straying out of its territory.

Whether its my cool morning walking routine or a weekend stroll with Better Half down a busy district, the idea is the same - to snoop around Tokyo's infinite folds and sniff out unique sights and stories that I know I cant find any where else.


Tokyo oozes with photo ops- you wish your eye lids were camera shutters.Blimey you can just stand and people watch all day!

You can either meet Tokyo's funky rhythm head-on by walking on the main bustling roads and crowded shopping districts (Shibuya,Ometesando,Roppongi...) or just crawl incognito into the million cavernous lanes that branch off into their own secret worlds. Either way it commands your attention and doesnt let you blink.

If I am in Roppongi (pub area by night) early morning the black clad soldiers are out on dot getting spewed out of the Roppongi subway station, single file, orderly and Godamn fashionable. Cutting edge corporate fashion on display..

If you want to go 'high power' theres Kasumagaseki/Akasaka teeming with suited bureaucrats and other important decision makers flowing in and out of power corridors, a colony of penguins...

Shibuya and its teeming youth, the air screaming with fashion statements and funky hairdos..but all saying 'young is hip'...

Ometesando - Harajuku....home of the designers, where Fashion rests and resides, where Design spins elegantly on an esoteric orbit far from yours and there are souls who understand and speak its language. I am happy just feeling its vibrations under the sidewalks I'm walking on.

Or even Azabu Juban - my home - where in some lanes time forgot to tick and stood still.

Or the lovely gardens right in the heart of Tokyo where you least expect to see them.

Not to mention the countless other lanes and areas that will always remain unattainable in the infinity of Tokyo ...zany architecture, hole in the wall eateries, funny posters, risque ads....so many sights, only two pairs of eyes and one teeny camera...how is one to devour all this in a lifetime?

PS: All these images have come from within a radius of not more than a km from my home...except Shibuya which is about 3 kms maybe...

Pictures Top to bottom, L to R:

School children,Hiroo station ; Hair raising experience in Shibuya!;

Hole in the wall eatery with flapping 'noren' panelled curtains in a bylane, Nishi Azabu ; Jizo - patron of aborted and miscarried babies, at Zozoji Shrine; Old world charm in Azabu Juban

A Jaguar on the lose, Keyakizaka, Roppongi

Lazy noon at Azabu Juban ; Morning walk at Roppongi; Aoyama cemetery ;

Blue Hair day, Harajuku ; Only for blue dogs, Ometesando; Horsing around, Roppongi;

Roppongi "Hirsu" (Hills) ; In Shibuya

All for a ticket

Better Half and I being movie buffs, of sorts, can spot an oppurtunity for idle sport when a film festival is in town. Why miss a chance to sit on backside, munch popcorn and let someone else fight out lifes battles on a big screen in front of you.

After suffering a year long 'movie drought' (Japan aint too hot on keeping up with the world of movies) the effect on us was akin to a parched desert traveller spotting an oasis. The Tokyo International Film Festival was the pool of clear blue water that we wanted to glug away at. Turned out we were getting too excited, too soon.

The famed Japanese fetish for order and discipline has a flip side to it. Their dogged love for processes and 'ways to do things' makes nothing easy here. Everything has a process that is designed to exact the last drop of blood and sweat from you before knocking you down if not killing you.



So we have identified the Albanian,Armenian,Slovakian and whathaveyou movie. What then? No tickets sold at the theatre (now that would be too easy wuldnt it). Website! Everything in Japanese. Tickets at 'Pia' stations at convenience stores. You need to first make bookings on the Net, then colllect tickets from the machine. Steps-to- follow.Steps- to- follow. You are back to staring at the big glowing screen in front of you thinking you should have paid more attention during Japanese lessons. The feeling when you've reached a dead end is not a nice one.


You are that close to retreating into a dark corner when enter the Noble Concierge. Those noble souls without whom life in Tokyo would have been more of a struggle than it is. They are the reception or help desk of our apartment who are just a phone call away for any help you need - book tickets, order stuff, get delivery....



After much navigation through the complicated phone ticket booking system (six movies, six different phone calls, a zillion steps each) and some never ending hours later the job was half done. To actually get tickets in hand I have to still grapple with the Japanese speaking machines at the convenience stores, which I am sure is a whole ritual in itself. But tomorrow is another day and whats life without its challenges.

I am exhausted.

Now the movies better be worth it.

Bloggers block

Getting masalasushi started,earlier this year, was the easiest part of the process. Tokyo wrote itself effortlessly. A place so different from anything I knew, the flood of thoughts and feelings had to find an outlet.

When I stepped here, I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland. Everything was surreal, bizarre, unfamiliar, implausible. All known benchmarks became irrelevant. What is wrong, what right became relative.What could one do but gawk in a place like this..

There it is then. There is no fence-sitting when it comes to Tokyo/Japan - you either love it or hate it. And both with a passion. The place offers you no safe wishy- washy middle ground. A bit like India. That pushes all your buttons any which way.

After the initial blogging fury the pace has mellowed down - of late, blog posts are being coughed up, stacatto, roughly at the pace of a cat spitting furballs (uh?).

So have the rosy filters fallen off my eyes? Am I not looking at things the same way? Has my 'adolescent' zeal waned? Really must be the natural curve of getting used to a place - getting comfortable with its bumps and contours and not noticing that things are different any more...

Though Tokyo continues to be in the grip of 'fashion heat' even as temparatures dip, dogs are still wearing suspenders and maddening order and discipline still prevails.

Its also not the most exciting part of the year. Not the best time for Muse to make an appearance. Everyone doing their own serious stuff - kids at school, better half busy 'providing', the closest holiday two months away. And me? Leading the "hard life of an expatriate wife" (husband's wry take on my life). Its no joke trying to juggle all those lunches and coffee mornings , what. But seriously, one day flows into another and one forgets to get baffled. Or I need another travel to fuel my thoughts...

Either way, the good thing about 'owning' a blog is that you get to make your own excuses and stick by em!

White February

Not many know that the sight of snow - maybe a daily humdrum occurence for say the Lapps - can send certain others into a delirious tizzy.


Last winter, the family trudged up under the weight of snow boots, jackets and tons of expectation to Hokkaido in North Japan (across from Siberia) . A 3 hour flight from Tokyo and our inner compass swung to roughly 43 degrees N latitude. We had arrived in Hokkaido's capital Sapporo.



The landscape needed some mental adjustment at first. From the warmth of the subway train, Sapporo was like a scaled down model town with fluffs of cotton stuck with QuikFix. White was a great leveller. Everything seemed light and happy. Jaunty mounds of snow lay scattered from a recent snowfall. Houses and cars sat like frosted cup cakes. People in thick 'eskimo' layers.



I'll be darned , snow was for real.

Every February, Sapporo (Hokkaido's capital) hosts the Annual Ice Festival. A virtual tourist stampede out to watch the display of ice sculptures while trying not to slip on its icy sidewalks. The creations were mostly beautiful, some even awesome. But Sponge Bob Square Pants in ice? I drew my line there.



Next morning. Just another day, another town. As we sliced open the curtain....shweeeck.... outside our window....a scene straight out of a fairy tale. Flakes of snow silently shimmered down like white glitter.. It was raining cotton. The spire opposite our hotel looked cold and Victorian. Down below, the streets and sidewalks were fast gettiing covered in white, like powdered sugar.




Somebody had to stop this flood of similes.



It was all exactly as I had seen/read/imagined from books and movies. Pickled stereotypes were having a wild party in my head - Santa and his sleigh. Sad little match girl down to her last match stick. Jingle bells. Reindeers. They had to be the missing pieces.


Gawd, its early Feb. Christmas long gone. Got to get a hold.





I wanted to slit open my senses and cram in all the sights to last for the rest of my life. And also tell my sweaty cousins back home that it was all not a trumped up story.


In the absence of any previous experience in these matters, the family relied on pure ancient wisdom acquired from reading Archie and other literary masterpieces to make snowballs and throw at each other. So the secret was out : if unchecked, we an otherwise decorous family were capable of some pure silliness.



Many frost bitten toes,numb fingers and mugs of hot chocolate later the family huddled together. The three men in my life had had enough of my misty eyed rambling about snow and its many poetic aspects. Get more real they growled and hit some manly snow mobiling in beautiful mountainous terrain.Must admit it was a befitting climax to our snow experience.




I will carry with me forever that first magical glimpse of a snow fall, from a hotel window. Simple pleasures. Loads of pay off. Just the way I like em.


Whazzat? Frozen toes, slush and shovelling driveways? I dont have to get real do I. I like my distance from it all and thats the way I intend to keep it.


Meanwhile here I am, I think punch drunk forever on memories of 'that lovely February morning the snow fell'...

Time to renew

Its easy to get poetic when you are surrounded by an edifying chill in the air that you simply want to breath in a good lungful of and go "suzushii" (cool)!! Ah!

All that was familiar has gone.Its the Order of Change.Time to Reboot. A.k.a The Magic of Seasons.

At a time like this, its also easy to summon all non existent talents (poetry, singing, art...get it?) one posseses/doesnot posses, in praise of God's creation. How something wholly beyond our control happens with stunning regularity year after year. I may sound like a stuck record but now that I know of its existence, I refuse to budge from my stance. The 'season' story is worth a hearty song and dance anytime, anyplace.

The air has gone silent after the frantic sounds of summer; the birds and cicadas have vanished to renew and restore for the next cycle of life. Only the big fat crows remain singing their lonely guttral song.

Temparatures officially dipped in Tokyo and voila the rules of the game changed. Life and our wardrobes will be reordered.Our brazen summer steps tempered. On the bright side, my lovely morning walks toasted under the winter sun are back.Joy.

So then the change of seasons is a humbling experience. Makes you aware of a Higher Order that is really calling the shots. All you, as a speck of humanity can do is show up, on cue, in the right gear. Philosophy. See what I meant about non existent talents?