Made in Japan

Ever so often, something so-very-Japanese comes my way, reminding me that I do infact live in the Land of Manga, Convenience Stores and Cigarette Vending Machines.



Both were recent news reports in the local English daily.




The first was a report on Tokyo's Metroplitan Police Departments Lost and Found Centre. Located in central Tokyo this Great Churning Pot of umbrellas and bags and everything else in between, seemed like quite a spectacularly well oiled machinery. Lost items on subway trains or elsewhere find their way here through the station master or the nearest koban (police box - another very Japanese thing).




The sheer scale and organisation of this operation is indication not only of the Japanese passion for discipline and organisation (thats old hat and doesnt even surprise me anymore) but also their complete and utter honesty in dealing with things not their own. Where else in the world would you find your laptop intact, untouched on the sidewalk just where you had left it (its a true story, close home, dont ask)? Or leave your bike or car unlocked in a public place and expect to find it right there hours later casually waiting for you, complete with the wallet and credit card you left in it? Got to be Tokyo. That big 'bad' city of 20 million plus honest souls. Uh bad?



Back to the Lost and Found Centre. The article went on to describe the operation of the place. All things sorted and stacked neatly on shelves in - get this - colour coded bags. Different colours based on which line of the subway they were found on (say the Hanzomon Line would be blue, Marounochi all green and so on). Blimey, even my wardrobe isnt this organised.






Another crazily Japanese thing was the trend of 'adult toy stores' in Tokyo. Not what you think- but a series of 'serious', 'high end' toys for baby boomers who have more money to spend and less to lose now than back then. Japan's declining birth rate seems to be pushing toy makers towards the older bolder segment, to vent their creativity on. And what are these toys ?

• Sensor equpped dolls called Primopuel, for 60 year old women.It has the vocabulary of a small child, can speak, sing and 'talk to' other dolls of its kind. 300 proud owners of the doll gather annually to celebrate the birhday of dear ole Primopuel. Play dates anyone?

• If the sound of popping air filled bubbles is your thing then its a 'Mugen Puchi Puchi' for you. It consists of battery operated bubbles like the bubble wrap sheets used in packing. So you can pop till you drop and still have all the bubbles restore themselves for your next session of manic bubble popping! And as if life wasnt exciting enough every 100th pop has a different sound -like a dog barking.

• Jinsei Gingko - 'life bank. A 'bank' with a LCD display showing your 'progression' in life based on the no of 500 yen coins you put in it.

• A toy soba noodle maker - a simplified version of the real life soba maker,which an unhappy adult can use to make real noodles and feel fulfilled.

Ah Japan.

Getting back to sushi

The peace and quiet of a place can get deafening when you are just back from a trip to India. (Also explains the long break from blogging; pre trip to post India trip just consumes so much mental space).

Its so silent here I can hear my own footsteps on the sidewalk. Never easy to return to a silent world where things have their place and they work like they should...


Especially not after a trip where all carefully guarded rules in your head have been ruthlessly tossed around like a tumble dry in a washing machine and nothing is sacrosanct anymore.

Stepping into India from Japan (and reverse) makes you realise one thing and that is how opposite the two countries are in every darned respect. Chalk and cheese doesnt even come close. Try sushi and bhel puri. Sushi is subtle - the tastes of fish and rice wrapped gently in sea weed - all left to the taster to interperet and savour the flavours, at his own pace. Bhel Puri - an explosion of spicy, sweet, tangy, crunchy hitting your tongue from the time of contact, not giving you time to decode the sensations racing through your veins, leaving your palate tingling long after the onslaught- too late by now to go back to the dull flavours of salad and soups!


And so with India. The minute you land its an abashed blast of sensations - sight, smell, sound...the whole gamut. Nothing couched, nothing coy. Its life, real sized. No scaled down sense and sanity of the developed world.

We rattle down from the airport into the heat and energy of the city in a Mumbai taxi - now just a collection of metal spare parts glued together by prayer and lots of Goodwill. The driver's faith in Destiny and the natural order of things (as he saw it) also seemed to work in keeping his (and our) optimism together. We ask him why he and his clan doesnt junk the scrappy cabs in favour of new ones and out comes the reply, in cocky 'bhaiyya-ese' - 'Yeh loha hai. Ise banane or bigadne me kitna time lagta hai" ( roughly - this is metal, can be made and unmade perennially). So much for our 'out-of-whack-totally-clueless' concern. (His thought bubble: "we are moving forward aint we, mate").


Welcome to India I think. The tumble dry has begun. Things baffle me momentarily. I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland.Its then that I register - its been a while since I stepped out of India, I had neat forgotten what it was to live here and that what works for the rest of the world doesnt for India.






And so I begin rewriting the rules in my head. Start singing its tune. By the end of the trip, I am in sync. Nothing surprises me anymore. Not caterpillars smoking hookahs or white rabbits in waistcoats....


Whats more, I find it now hard to get back to sushi ....

Tokyo this week

Its been a while since I blogged. Just the flow of things - the lovely autumn, my impending Japanese Proficiency Test, upcoming trip home - all keeping my mind ticking. My thoughts as my feet crunch over the bed of fallen leaves in my path...




Autumn. Just cannot resist going ga ga over it - yet again and again and... Autumn should silence all the doubters who think Tokyo is just a grey city full of wires and bridges. In any other season I would be one of them but not now, now today. The icy chill air with the beautiful autumn hues brushing shoulders with yes - the overhead wires and grey buildings - is just that intriguing combination that drives me nuts.













Hats off to Tokyo's beautiful gardens that sit bang in the middle of the big bad city, where you least expect. There is something about urban concrete beauty doing a merry dance with nature that brings the piquant twist in the tale.










This week Tokyo is in 'full bloom'. Suddenly there are dashes of red, yellow and browns in the otherwise black and grey palette. Splashes of colour like an artist dabbed it there. Christmas lights are shining like fireflies. Add to that the beautifully fashionable people of Tokyo and the incredibly energising chill and you no longer feel you are on the same planet as the rest of the world!

Who says Tokyo isnt beautiful.

Jaaapaan...love in Tokyo!!

Strolling down Azabu Juban last weekend, we saw this beauty. It was a normal Tokyo morning with everyone routinely airing class and fashion in a cafe and where the coffee is only incidental.

Remember how I am prone to venting about the ethereal Japanese beauty. That how Tokyo's streets are never short on eye candy and Joy Mukherjee just doesnt stop yoddling in your head "Legayee dil...gudiya Japan ki...pagal mujhe kar diya"! I mean, shouldnt beauty have limits?

Only this time the real show stopper was the sleek black beauty on the side .The giant black Great Dane was breath takingly beautiful. Since 'kawaii' (cute) was too small a word to fit the big creature, people settled for a tamer 'sugoii' (interesting). Which of course didnt do any justice to the hunk....neither does this picture..

I have become some kind of a fashion observer in Tokyo.Typically words that you would never hear from a fashion dummy like me but there it is. There is no other choice in Tokyo where fashion is in the air you breath. Like a 'pollution index' there should be a daily 'fashion index' here. Purple apparently is one of the dictats on Tokyo's fashion calendars this year, which extends even to stockings (purple, yellow...why limit) as are long, knee-ankle length sweaters...sugoii ne..

And then there was this lovely day spent at Mashiko - a potters village, 2 hours away from Tokyo, in neighbouring Tochigi prefecture. This was the annual autumn potters fair where potters from around congregate to diplay their ceramic creations. What joy. Millions of stalls, oodlles of clay tempations...enough to cripple all decision making skills and saddle you with uselss bits and baubles and tons of regret. Anyway Mashiko seemed to have got into the autumn fury thing well ahead of Tokyo..much of its leaves had turned red/yellow. Double joy.

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