Japan: 18 months in 18 pictures – November 07

Part 1 and explanation of the series here. Read entire series via tags, here.

I’ve been a bit late with these to say the least, consider this catching up time. November 2007 was a strange month, mainly because this is when I started to move away from teaching and into a ‘proper’ job as Copy Editor at the Asahi Shimbun, one of Tokyo’s biggest and most well-known newspapers.

During that month I worked 6 days a week, 5 days at the schools finishing my full-time contract, and one day at the paper, training for my move to 3 days a week there in December. My frustration with teaching in an eikaiwa environment by that point was quite high, and so the knowledge that I was moving to a much more manageable two days a week by December made this last month much easier to deal with, as I said goodbye to students at some of my schools and left behind some of the more infuriating school managers and schedules.

As much as that felt good in a way, though saying goodbye to some students wasn’t easy, I hadn’t yet realised that the frustration I’d felt in the schools was only to be transferred to a more ‘typical’ Japanese work place environment with its own frustrations and ups and downs.

At the same time I somehow managed to do quite a few day trips in the month, with the help of some due holidays. The main one being a day in Yokohama for my birthday, where the picture above was taken. We walked past this shop in the Motemachi area just as one of their ornaments had caught fire and the resulting pictures make the whole scene look quite surreal, especially the moment after the fire.

Yokohama was definitely one of my favourite day trips of the year. Blessed with decent weather despite the time of the year, we mixed some of the obligatory sights with random walking around following what looked good. A boat trip from the station to Chinatown is one of those obvious things to do but if the weather allows it offers some amazing sights of the bay and the city with Tokyo in the distance.

Even though Yokohama is the second largest city in Japan, its location on Tokyo Bay about 30 minutes from Shibuya by train makes it feel like just another part of the greater Tokyo area. And the fact that people commute between Tokyo and Yokohama for work and pleasure just as they do between Tokyo and its suburbs only reinforces that feeling.

Chinatown is probably what Yokohama is most famous for to a lot of foreigners visiting it, and while it’s definitely ‘worth’ the time, I can’t say it was what made the biggest impression on me despite offering some very decent Chinese food spots and shops (better than a lot of what you find elsewhere in Tokyo). No the biggest suprise for me was Motemachi, a sort of Europetown if you will. As you walk out of Chinatown you go under one of those standard giant Tokyo bypass roads and end up in Motemachi, going from one replica town to the other, swapping Chinese temples, dragon heads and steamed buns for faux-Europe chic, paved streets a-la-French and dainty tea and cake shops in windy back streets. Surreal barely begins to describe it. And while I’m no big fan of the Japanese’s fascination with replicating things for their own enjoyment, I did find Motemachi strangely fascinating, not least because it did actually feel like Europe at times, especially in the small back streets, a feeling I first got while walking the back streets of Harajuku when I first arrived.

I also went back to Asakusa in November, once more blessed with decent weather I rediscovered the area properly after going there for the first time in the summer. Away from the main tourist sights, I found what was possibly the best museum in Tokyo, the Asakusa drum museum, located away from the main tourist area about 10 mins from the station towards the residential part of Asakusa. Hidden away on the 2nd floor of a non-descript building that has an instrument shop on the ground floor, you pay something ridiculous like 300 yen and get to spend as much time as you want in a giant room filled wall to wall with drums of all sorts from all corners of the world. The best part being that some of them can actually be played.

The last thing I did in November was a long overdue visit to the top of Ikebukuro’s Sunshine city to look at Tokyo from up high by night. I’d already been to the top floor of the building, with its lightning fast elevator that shoots you up 60 floors in something stupid like a minute, in the daytime but as anyone who’s seen Tokyo up high by night will tell you, seeing Tokyo from up high ain’t nothing until you’ve done it by night. And well, I can’t really argue with that, Tokyo up high by night is quite possibly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

Runner up pics
Yokohama Harbour viewed from the boat, Pig and cat play hide and seek, back in Shibuya, one old man, one old building, big nose mask and twisted Tokyo viewed from above.

November Flickr set(s):
Yokohama day trip
Asakusa in the winter
Tokyo by night viewed from Sunshine City