Having pretty much retreated into the cool haven of my room for the first three days of my holiday, I decided today that I should really make an effort and spend the day out - even though the mere thought of the heat was starting to make me sweat. I’ve been trying to plan a bike ride all week, seeing as I’m not going out of Tokyo this time and there’s still plenty of countryside (or to put it better not so densely populated urban areas) around where I live which I haven’t checked out.
While I’d have been happy to set off early (baring in mind that would have involved getting up early, but anyways) there was no way I was going to bike it in the blazing lunchtime heat, so I set off in the afternoon. Keeping in line with most of my biking trips since being here I decided on a direction and not much else - I was going somewhere, wherever that might be. My direction was north west-ish, and my only aim was to find a river I’d seen on my map which I could follow for as long as possible.
The river in question was in Saitama, a prefecture next to Tokyo, which I’m actually only about 10 minutes from, what with living on the border of Tokyo’s metropolitan area and well of course, Saitama. I made it to the river pretty easily, having had to follow only one road, and trying to figure out where Shiki train station was on the way so I could get to one of my schools more easily than I’ve been doing (and for cheaper).
The way to the river was pretty uninteresting, consisting mostly of suburban areas, though these are pretty unique here in Tokyo - I can’t think of any suburban areas I’ve ever been to which resemble them. A weird blend of rural, with fields, little farms, vegetables patches etc…, and urban, with buildings, shops, restaurants, train lines etc…, which definitely shouldn’t work together and yet do. It’s part of the reason why I love where I live - it feels like you’re part of a big metropolis, but at the same time you’re never more than 5 or 10 minutes away from peace and quiet, looking at fields and hearing/seeing animals.
At the river I decided to go north into Saitama and see what would happen. Well nothing happened really, apart from more of the same weird blend of rural and urban, though the further I went north the more rural it seemed to get at times, while still maintaning patches (or should that be sprawls?) of quite dense at times urban centres. Those urban centers soon gave way to a mix of industrial and living estates, again patched across long stretches of peaceful riverside and rice fields, with mountains in the backdrop.
The contrast between the river and its banks and the various urban areas was definitely worth the trip. The bigger urban centres were much like most of the urban centres I see everyday when working outside Tokyo city centre, but the little villages and industrial and living estates were really interesting.
For the villages I guess it’s the typical gaijin feeling of ‘whoa, old and new next to each other’ which still has a lot of effect on me. I guess I’m not so blase (I haven’t got any accents on this keyboard ok?) about it yet, and to me it still manages to make me feel like I’m just not in a big city centre, or its outskirts, but somewhere in the countryside. If anything those little villages, and the more rural elements of Greater Tokyo and its nearby prefectures, really remind me of north Italy and the time I’ve spent living there in villages and areas not at all disimilar in look and feel.
The living estates really threw me though. Well there was one in particular that did, because as soon as I saw it and started going by I was reminded of those big HLM you have in France (and a lot of mainland European countries) - massive buildings, with little aesthetic and the sole purpose of providing cheap, affordable accomodation to immigrants and the working classes. Since being here I’ve seen a lot of weird architecture, skyscrapers, tall buildings etc…, but nothing like these yet. It just reminded me of my childhood again and a building I lived in which was not so disimilar. All buildings numbered, painted the same, looking the same and separated by parking lots and little playground areas for kids. One main difference being that these actually looked nice and pleasurable to live in. Most of the ones in France have long since (and already when I was growing up) been left to rot or fall apart, and are generally pretty unsafe for most non-residents. They’ve very much the darker side of France’s immigration issues, as examplified by all the news stories of recent years - shove all the people you need (for work purposes) but don’t really want to deal with into one area and forget about it while pretending that you care. Anyways… I’d be interested to know what these Japanese equivalents are like, and if their only similarities are aesthetic.
As for the industrial estates, these started to crop up about half way through my trek going north, once I’d passed the last big urban centre, it was living estates, playing fields and nature on one side and on the other massive industrial estate after massive industrial estate, separated by a green, peaceful looking river and its banks. Again pretty surreal. Industrial estates where I come from are never this scenic :lol: . While the sheer size of them always makes them a sight to behold (if you’re into the whole architecture by numbers thing I guess) I found their location and setting to be most interesting, as well as the fact that they didn’t emanate the same kind of vibe as industrial estates do back in Europe. To me they feel pretty human-less and fairly cold, but I didn’t really get that feeling this time - whether it was the pleasant weather or setting I’m not sure. This being a sunday, and holiday, there was no one around which should have added to the feeling of human-lessness (god I’m off on a roll with that one aren’t I? :razz: ) but instead I found them really welcoming and even more interesting. With rows upon rows of neatly parked trucks and machinery, empty front yards and looming walls, it just felt like it was another part of this mish-mash of Japanese suburbania. Anywhere else and it would have probably felt totally odd, but not here.
Having made it up to god knows where I took the fact that the cycling road was ending as a sign to head back and made it all the way down again on the opposite bank, stopping along the way to snap a continuous flow of amusing signs. It started with an hilarious (to me anyway) sign forbidding people to play golf on the river bank (I never took golfers to be that kind of people, but hey who am I to judge) and just continued all day with more and more amusing signs mainly to do with cleanliness but a few odd ones thrown in for good measure too. Check below for a some pictures - click on the pictures to open bigger versions (works with Flash).
That dog looks pissed
Never mind taking a kid’s eye out with your cigarette, watch for that baby ant eating its lunch!
Arrow kid to the rescue
Think about how sad it would make your car if you dumped it here, I mean look at it
Fisherman be careful, lest you want to turn yourself into the human equivalent of an electric eel!
Japanese school girl dumping rubbish on big dog is a no go
Pretty serious sign, but the drawing is a little funny still
Ok I’ll pay good money to anyone who can explain this one to me… I mean seriously (and I know about Jeans Mate, I mean what’s above and especially below it is what I’m wondering about)
It’s all about the talking key lock really
Copyright infrigement makes Pikachu a sad pokemon
No golfing please lads, take it somewhere proper yeah?
My favourite sign by far - does it mean kids should stay out or you should push them into the bushes?
I finally made it back to my starting point at the first bridge I went off from, a good 3 hours later, only to realise that there was another bridge and riverside about 2 mins after that one. And looking at my map that was the one I was trying to get at :lol: . And well it was such a nice day, I followed that riverside for a while, which was a lot more peaceful. This time there were only houses on one side and a forest (or what looked like one) on the other. I got off onto another bridge 20 minutes later and realised I was actually one town away from the school I work at in north west Tokyo. I took that as a sign to head off home.
By then I’d decided that all this hard work should be rewarded with a cold beer and some sushi. Thing is I still didn’t know if there was a sushi restaurant where I lived - though during the journey back I convinced myself that this being Japan, there had to be one surely. I got home, and set off in search of my reward. My legs being totally dead by that point I wasn’t looking forward to either settling for takeaway sushi or going to the next town along, where I knew there was a nice sushi spot. Luckily I chanced what looked like the right place, and hit the jackpot. I still can’t recognise the kanji for sushi but I’m getting better at recognising a place by its outward appearance. A good choice it was too, the sushi was excellent (I’ve now decided negitoro temaki is my sushi of choice - that stuff is like sex, seriously), the beer delicious (as is always the case after a hard day’s graft) and I got plenty of Japanese practice once the locals had warmed to me (the sake helped I’m sure) and started to fire random questions - can’t say I understood most of it, though I politely nodded and answered as best I could. The fact that I was tired, that I still don’t speak much conversational Japanese, and that they were just chatting as if I was fluent all contributed to making me feel quite welcome though - as has been the case everytime I’ve chanced it into a local spot. And I also got lots of free food to try, as has also always been the case so far. There are some good points to being a gaijin after all.
Next up is the river I originally intended to follow.
As usual there’s a bunch of pictures to go with it!
Road to Nowhere part deux Flickr set
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August 17th, 2007 at 9:26 am
I quite agree about the housing estates and industrial estates. I work in a chemical plant on an industrial estate once a week and it’s the nearest thing to the countryside I see. I don’t know what it is that makes it a nice break- no tall buildings so get to see the sky for once, no barbed wire (unlike the UK), just the right level of plants being left to grow wild plus a few planted ones.
Ditto with the housing estates. You do see some really run down ones, but they actually tend to be company housing rather than council housing. I think one factor is that companies always have tight budgets but until recently the budgets of local government in Japan were anything but tight- especially when it came to pork barrel projects like construction (e.g. housing) that kept the local voters in work and put money in the pockets of their contractor friends.
There are other factors, of course. For one thing, there are very few immigrants. There are also no families with two or three generations unemployed or people living on welfare (almost impossible in Japan), and no big distinction between blue and white collar workers. The drop outs who might end up on an estate in Europe really drop out in Japan and end up back with their families or homeless.
Because of all these things there is no particular stigma to living on a housing estate and middle class people (and until recently 90% of Japanese defined themselves as middle class) are quite happy to live there. In fact living in a “mansion” (high rise) like this is considered more modern than living in a house- something not true until very very recently in London. If they have moved out of a rundown wooden family home in the countryside you can see how it might be seen as a step up- as it was for the first 10 years or so when the slums of London and Glasgow were cleared and rebuilt in concrete, and people were happy just to have an inside toilet. In Japan, that might be being happy not to have to spend all year fighting off the insects.
Two other factors:
- Most Japanese are used to living close to other people, either in a village or in a city, and they feel “lonely” in a silent rural house where they can only hear the birds
- The Japanese have a talent for appreciating the details and ignoring the big picture. If they have personalised their balcony with a few pot plants then they seem able to ignore that it looks the same as 400 others from a distance.
Wow, that ended up longer than I thought. I might borrow it back and use it as a post on my blog!
TEFLtastic blog- http://www.tefl.net/alexcase
PS- Walt Whitman. No idea!
August 17th, 2007 at 11:15 am
thanks for the thoughts and explanations - definitely makes a lot of sense to me.
Am looking forward to the next trip, going up the river I originally intended to follow, and see if it’s more of the same or something different.