Japan Travelogue!

Hoo Boy, where do I start? I guess at the end. We're packing up and getting ready to kill the better part of the afternoon in Tokyo before making our way to Haneda Airport for our flight back home tonight. Thanks to time itself, we're be going backwards and will arrive around noon today. Or something like that.

Ten days in a big city (actually the BIGGEST city by population) with my kids with nothing to do but see things and eat is just about enough for me and I'm ready to go back to some normal routine. But I won't be, because the day after I land, I'm off to Arkansas for 3 weeks on a movie and then home for a day and off again to London for the On Cinema Live shows. (don't worry friends, I'll be coming in remote for a few shows, but we won't be "off."

But man, did I fall in love with this place - Tokyo. Wow. What the hell? I hereby do declare it to be a miracle of modern civilization. They cracked the code and figured it out folks.

We left on Friday the 13th and arrived on Saturday the 14th. I had forgotten about the lost day when going East and so threw a bunch of Monday away, as our hotel rooms sat empty the first night. We landed and easily made our way through customs, got our bags and immediately got a friendly cab who didn't speak a lick of English but we got across the address to our hotel. It was overcast and lightly raining, which made for a nice, relaxing drive through the city.

We arrived at our hotel in Shibuya district, which is sort of the Times Square of Tokyo. Our Hotel, The Shibuya Stream Hotel was located inside a big complex of shops and restaurants and also a short walk to the Subway. We checked in, freshened up and went down to the mall of restaurants to find something easy to eat. We tried a ramen place but it was cash only and we hadn't gotten any yet. We found another place with the hot grills on the tables and got a seat. But Millie was fading. It was 3pm and I knew that we all HAD to stay up to a reasonable hour to reset our clocks... She was so excited, SOOOO excited to be in Japan, but her stomach started acting up and she just felt wrecked. She sat there trying her best, but just couldnt take it, so Marilyn took her back up to the room to rest. Marilyn came back down and we all ate some pretty good grilled meats and an egg, cabbage shrimp pancake thing. Somehow Charlie was a bouncing ball of energy and good spirits, so we walked around a bit and found our way to the famous Shibuya crossing and walked into one of these damn Capsule stores, where you pay to get little trinkets. they also had a wall of claw machines and Charlie who's very very into a video game character called Kirby tried his best to get one of these stuffed Kirbys and failed.

That bummed him out for a bit but he got over it. We went back to the hotel, woke Millie up who was feeling much better and took her down to 7/11 for a bite to eat - I don't need to tell you how incredible the 7/11s over here do I? I mean, they're not gonna blow your mind, but they are full of fun food and snacks and drinks and they are everywhere and identical to each other. The greatest service i discovered there was this company called Charge Spot - a little kiosk with a bank of phone batteries you can rent and then return to another location for a few bucks. I ended up using it all the time - pop in, grab a charger for a while and drop it back off somewhere else! Pretty handy!

The next day we were up very early so we headed up to Meiji-jingu Shrine, which required us to figure out the subway. We learned about a Passmo card before we left which you can load onto your phone's wallet - the passmo Card is very powerful - It gets you into the subway with a swipe of your phone, but it also can be used on Vending machines and most checkout counters. The only downside I found was you could only use the Passmo card once at a terminal, so we couldn't swipe our kids in - Which meant we had to get them a physical Passmo card which you could only get with cold hard cash (Yen) But once they each had their own Physical Passmo cards, it was easy - and when they wanted a drink from a vending machine, they could just go and get one by swiping their card.

The Meiji-jingu Shrine was quite peaceful and beautiful. A large walking boulevard surrounded by tall oaks lead you there. It was a little misty out which made me feel like I was in a Kurosawa movie - We strolled around for a while, bowed and clapped in front of the shrine as you do and went back to Shibuya for some shopping and lunch.

Millie very much into Japanese culture and style so we went to this nine story tower called 109 where each floor was a different style of women's clothing. Really wild styles on each floor, fascinating - Strange fetish looks and sub genres I don't understand! Me and Charlie kept a good attitude throughout!

For lunch, we ate at Uobei, revolving Sushi where you order your sushi on an ipad and it comes racing out to you. It was very good and cheap sushi, but Charlie was a bit disappointed as they didn't have his favorite (and only sushi he eats) an Avocado Roll.

We then headed to the Parasite Museum recommended by Gregg. Bad idea! It was creepy and nauseating to see dried out tape worms on display. Not one of us was interested or impressed!

The next day was the big Pig Cafe. I'll assume you don't know about this Tokyo tradition, but everyone that's been there is quick to tell me about it. There are these cafes where you can just hang out with animals; Pigs, dogs, cats, owls? we went to the mini pig one off of Takeshita Street which was novel and cute - those little fucking pigs have some course hair. My kids loved it until Charlie got a bad vibe from one of the bigger ones and he suddenly got very scared and looked at me with that quivering lip that signals trouble. I asked him if he was ok, and he bravely shook his head yes, but then quickly followed up with a shrug of emotional confusion. "Are you sure, bud?" He then knew he was safe to emote and started crying "I want to go home, I want to go back to the hotel." I picked up that he was scared of the bigger pig and I got him out of there.

I was done with the pigs anyway and Charlie and I walked on over to the fucking Peanuts Cafe - For some reason the Japanese are all into Peanuts: not my favorite flavor of M&Ms, I'm talking Snoopy. This cafe required a reservation but they sat us anyway and I got a nice iced latte and Charlie got some pancakes, which was decorated with some Snoopy shit. I guess there are worse things in the world than Snoopy.

We railed it over to Inokashira Park where we were told there was a lake with Swan Boats which somehow seemed like a good idea, but have I mentioned yet that it was very hot out? It was so very hot out. Hot and muggy pretty much the entire time. We didn't spend much time on the boats and made a b-line to some soft serve ice cream right after. The kids enjoyed a lovely little playground for a while and then after a late afternoon rest at the hotel, we went to Ginza for some Ramen recommended by Matt's wife Christina - Giza Karagi - a little hole in the wall joint that was VERY yummy. After the meal the sun was setting and the air was a touch cooler so we walked off the hot ramen up to the impressive moat and castle walls surrounding the Imperial Palace. Glorious ancient stuff butted up against 5th Ave style high rises... everything immaculate, clean and crisp.

The next day was packed with a trip to The Kirby Cafe (like the peanuts cafe) which was at the base of the Tokyo Sky Tower which we went up to the top for a bird's eye view of the city.

An afternoon rest, and then it was off to see the Tokyo Giants Baseball game! A pause to answer "how are we doing all these different things in a day?" Simply, the mass transport in Tokyo is a modern miracle. Everything is 15-30 mins away from each other no matter where you are. I don't think we waited more than 3 minutes for a train to arrive. The trains were smooth, clean as a whistle and when packed with people, quiet and respectful of everyone else on board.

I sprung for some pretty good seats down along the 3rd base line and we all had a blast (and a nice break from the heat) in the indoor dome. the crowd had a section for each team that felt more like a soccer game, with near constant chanting, singing with brass instruments and drums. The Giants were no match for the Nippon Ham Fighters (!) and we dipped out in the 8th after a fair amount of beer and french fries.

I did notice something at the game that had been creeping up on me. I was feeling a little invisible. Outside of very friendly service experiences, most people were just kind of ignoring us. Not overtly rude behavior but very little interest in our presence. Charlie was fawned over by a few young girls, and a few older people had friendly things to say to us, but... I dunno, mabye I thought there's be more curiosity in the novelty of us, the big ole Americans - that said, there were plenty of Americans and Europeans around (not so much at the game, but in the streets) so maybe it's just not a big deal, and the fact that most people didn't seem to speak much English they efficiently concluded there wouldn't be much point in engagement.

The next day we took an overnight trip to Hakone, a mountain town about 2 hours south of Tokyo. After a nice and relaxing actual train ride, we taxied up the mountain to our hotel, The Hakone Prince Hotel - A little too stuffy for my taste. It was on a golf course and attuned to an older crowd. It was too early to check in, so we bussed it to a Hot Springs Water Park joint called Kowakien Yunessun... it had a simple public pool vibe - with strange side tubs like a red wine and coffee pool, where it smelled and looked vaguely like those beverages. Classic weird Japan.

We checked in an found our room to be just right on the money, traditional Japanese experience, where they offer you robes and a traditional Japanese meal and while you're gone they turn the big open room into a bedroom, by laying our mattresses on the floor. I was a little nervous that it would be uncomfortable but found it to be one of the better, harder sleeps of the week!

The next day we took a cable car up the mountain to a chain of gondolas which take you further up and over the mountain, stopping near the top just over a massive sulfur quarry.

On the other side of the mountain was a glorious lake, which had a pirate themed tour boat docked in it, but we were running behind and didn't spend long at the lake before gondola-ing (not a word!) it back to the other side.

Our final activity in Hakone was a trip to the Open Air Museum: an outdoor sculpture gallery which exceeded our expectations. Despite continuing to be VERY hot outside, I loved it. I'm not the world's biggest fan of museums. I get antsy pretty quickly and tend to rush through them. But something about how integrated the art was into the natural landscape made me want to savor the experience.

Back in Tokyo, more sushi and another attempt to get Charlie and avocado roll, but no luck. I was trying to get him try to SOMETHING else and bribed him into trying one of my tuna rolls and we negotiated a new Nintendo Switch game. I don't like that parental tactic and rarely use it but really wanted him to experience a different taste for his buds - and he ate it, but pinched his nose through the process. A partial win.

The next day we had tickets for an interactive digital projection experience called TeamLabs. We entered into it feeling a first like we'd been duped into one of those Instagram Photo Opportunity scams, but it got pretty impressive after we moved through a few rooms.

After some very very high quality Pizza, we visited the world famous Senso-ji Temple which seemed to be THE central tourist hub with the most concentrated amount of touristy type shops. Still, a very impressive and well maintained structure dating back to 645 AD for Chrissakes!

Just east of the temple was Tokyo's (Japan's!) oldest Amusement Park. It was small and a little run down and rusty around the edges but quite charming and cute in it's 1960s style. Charlie is a real amusement park rides aficionado and loves thinking and talking about them. The roller coaster wasn't working, which was a bit of a relief for him, as he didn't have to decide whether to ride it. He's still pretty nervous about coasters.

We entered into this one that we thought was going to be a fun house but when we entered we were sat onto a long bench along with a few other people. We sat and saw we were sitting in a cartoony living room and our bench was on a rocking swivel. The little walkway lifted and the door closed and the bench began to rock gently. We laughed, thinking this must be some kind of baby ride. Then, suddenly the entire room started to spin and the rocking bench gave us the illusion that we were tumbling along with the rolling house - We all started fully screaming, screaming like the world is ending! The screaming quickly turned to laughter as we figured out what was happening.

The last few days: Natural History Museum (swords, statues pottery etc) CupNoodle Museum in Yokohama (which featured another Amusement Park where we took a heat relieving trip on a log flume and on the last night we finally found some sushi that offered an avocado roll

I started and finished Pico Iyer's A Beginner's Guide To Japan. Have you heard of it? It's not what you might think. I found it profoundly great and a book I hope to read again and underline and highlight, possibly bordering on a religious text. I highly reccomend it to anyone who's been or planning on going.

Did I mention how clean it was? Just look at the spotlessness of this random Subway car floor!

The one paradox we quickly discovered was how clean it was, despite how difficult it was to find a garbage can. There had to have been a ratio of 10 to 1 of vending machines to garbage cans. We felt like we'd won a small contest when we found one; usually a neat two holed unit designed to receive our plastic water bottles. I read somewhere that this could be because traditionally people in Japan don't walk around eating or drinking. But that doesn't help explain the abundance of vending machines. Do people use then and put their bottle in their bag and secretly enjoy at work or at home? Us thirsty, verging on dehydrated Heideckers were swiping our Passmos at many a vending machine and then walking for blocks on end holding our empty containers like fools.

I started thinking about my relationship with this country and it occurred to me it started from a bit of a negative place. I grew up in the 1980s where Japanese stereotypes were grossly aplenty in my pop culture, but more importantly I had a grandfather who had been in the Navy during World War 2 and saw some shit. He was young, 17 and not well educated. He was in the Seabees and their job was to show up after an island was taken and build runways for the airplanes. His crew would get to the island RIGHT after the Navy had taken an island and I'm pretty sure he saw some horrific sights. He was trained and conditioned to hate the Japanse - to see them as subhuman. It's how the Military convinced these kids to kill 'em. And the Japanese were no angels here friends. I think it's clear that their Imperialist lust for the domination of the East led them down a dark and suicidal path. Check out Dan Carlin's very long, but very good history of the war from the Japanese perspective "Supernova In The East."

But I guess the thought I had was that my grandfather's experience in fighting the Japanese led him to experience some serious trauma - he was an undiagnosed alcoholic (who got sober on his own) and his trauma surely impacted how my mom was raised and who she became and thus affected how I was raised and how I became who I am. And for that, it made me feel closer to the place than I was expecting.

I can't wait to go back.

Peace and Love, T