Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids

So yesterday (which y’all are still in as you read this) was a fraught day. Many beautiful things, but Amelia and I are learning to not be racing from one thing to to the next. Especially when the thing itself is intense.

We started at the Meiji Shrine, named for the emperor of the 1900s. He and his wife are enshrined there. They were very popular, being considered smart about modernizing while retaining culture. The shrine is down at the end of a subway line, 18 stops from where we were staying. But the Meiji Shrine and the Meiji Baseball stadium were just one slipping finger away from each other in Google Maps, so we disembarked and walked the last two miles.

Which set is up for a tired but fulfilling day: we passed the gate to Edo Castle, saw the 2020 Tokyo Olympics torch, and arrived at the temple in time for the wedding we suspected was happening. We kept passing women in high heels and long skirts that just didn’t match the gravel path we were on, and at one point a photo that we figured was for an engagement was taking place. People were carefully moving around the couple, but she was in a white short dress.

Yep, half an hour later she was in full Japanese hooded bride regalia. And everyone was having a grand time snapping photos.

Shrines are cool. You can buy charms for specific purposes, or write your own prayer of supplication or gratitude on a wooden plaque and leave it there. You can buy a fortune or light incense. You wash your hands before you ascend to the shrine itself, bow, say your prayer, clap three times and bow again. It is easy to encompass Shinto thought into Christian perspective, because it’s pantheistic nature worship, if you want to boil it down.

The shrine was lovely, serene, pleasant. Then we went to Shibuya Crossing…..

So this is arguably the busiest pedestrian street crossing in the world (Jakarta has disputed this, though). We went there on a Saturday. After the serene shrine. And the subway station was under reconstruction.

Every serene moment was trampled under the “walk left walk right” signs and the “turn left for the IN line, ha-ha fooled you turn right.” In desperation we began pointing at the line we wanted and looking with pleading eyes at assorted Japanese people. Japanese are very polite when you ask for directions or help. They are kindness itself. And this one woman, about the fourth person we asked, was determined to help. Three others had done the polite shrug of “not a clue, sorry.” This lady looked at the arrow in front of us, which pointed in a Ubend back the way we had come. She looked at the arrow on the opposite wall pointing us toward this sign. She looked at us, and her eyes widened.

Then she began to dance, turning her body with her finger pointing toward the convergence of these Arrows of Conflicting Advice, and rotating her body 360. Returning to us, her eyes lit up and she pointed up. As if to heaven.

But she was pointing at a staircase. Amelia said Thank you in good Japanese. I said a mangled version of the same, and we fled up the stairs to find actual seats on the train! Unheard of at any time, and certainly not from Shibuya Crossing. But the train wasn’t leaving for ten minutes, so we got on early.

As the train filled, a woman in a face mask caught sight of my crocheting, which I had pulled out in a self-soothing effort. Her eyes lit up. She didn’t say anything, just watched me, and I looked up and smiled at her watching me. It felt like we were having a conversation.

A few minutes later, about half the train disembarked at some central hub, and she scored a seat across from me. Her eyes twinkled at me, as I bowed my head in a “SCORE” kind of way.

She got off a few stops later, and we waved goodbye like old friends.

We were feeling much better by the time we got to the next place we planned to visit. Yes, Japan does have thrift stores, but they tend to specialize in American clothing, so we didn’t do much shopping. We ambled through a flea market, hunted down a yarn store with determination, and bought a few small souvenirs. The yarn store cinched what we had begun to suspect: the closer we are to a railway station, the more likely our GPS will lie to us. We spiraled several times trying to find PUPPY, the yarn store. (Listen, nobody does cuteness like Asian cultures. This place is full of adorable kittenware. I’m gonna go broke.)

We only found Puppy because in desperation we stopped at a wine bar (only to ask for directions you understand) and the kind owner spoke fluent English. He had me take a picture of his phone showing the map the store, so of course we had a glass while there to say thank you.)

And after Puppy we decided maybe we’d had enough relaxing fun, and successfully took the subway train all the way home. But there was a bad moment when we got on. We were right behind the driver cab, and as we looked through the window, an elderly man in uniform was pointing at things on the instrument panel and saying words loudly to a kid who looked about 12, in the same uniform. Kid’s hat kept falling down over his eyes.

I didn’t have the heart to tell Amelia, who was crashing from exhaustion, that we were going to die. Let her die peacefully sleeping on the hour-long ride, not screaming in terror like the rest of the passengers.

All the way back on the ride I pictured the old man in the driver’s pod screaming at the kid “NO NOT THE RED SWITCH!”

But we made it, and as we exited, the kid stuck his head out the driver’s window and said something in Japanese. Apparently he was thanking the riders for being his first passengers.

As it was Valentine’s we had pre-secured some supermarket pizza bases so as to avoid crowded restaurants and I loaded them with fresh veggies and we stayed in. Amelia got in a good 12 hours of sleep and I fell asleep later, serenaded by Japanese singing karaoke for Valentine’s Day in the restaurants surrounding our hostel.

So we got in this enclosed tube on a Wednesday in Maryland and emerged on a Thursday in Tokyo. Some kinda weird magic involving long hours in cramped positions and a never-ending stream of YELLOWSTONE episodes. (Lord, don’t people even try to talk out their problems anymore?!)

When we disembarked from the tube, it looked like a big frat party the morning after with lots of thin blue blankets. Why do people think flight attendant is a sexy job?

And we were in JAPAN!! We navigated the subway (which does not use colors to tell you which way to go, but the uses colored lines on maps, so that was a bad few minutes of confusion) and made our way down a street full of lanterns to the hostel – but to a bar first. Because, long flight. A gin and tonic and appetizer involving rolled up fish later, we set out confidently in the wrong direction (did I mention it’s my friend Amelia who is leading this exposition) and after a few fun discoveries arrived at and face planted in our hostel….

….and woke the next day raring to go! Amelia took me to a Donquix (named after Don Quixote). This is a shop intended to sell tourists thousands of Japanese souvenirs made in China. They are basically Buc-ees, twice as stuffed and ten times cuter. Think Buc-ees spray painted pink and gold, full of cute cat stickers and statuary.

But they sold a special Sakura Blossom edition of my favorite Japanese gin, so God Bless them.

Amelia had lamented we would miss the cherry (Sakura) blossoms because of traveling in February, but there were multiple trees blooming near the ancient shrine and down by the river. The good thing about February is it keeps down tourists, says this tourist happily.

Japan is nice to tourists but you can tell the patience is fraying at the corners. Signs everywhere explain very patiently what good behavior looks like. Don’t look in here. Don’t chew in here. Walk on this side and ride your bike on that side. Dogs should not do what dogs do here (a personal favorite of mine). I thought Scotland did passive aggressive signs well, but Japan has raised it to an art form.

Speaking of art, Japan has elevated the humble KitKat to an art form as well. They have about 42 different flavors including Mt. Fuji (white chocolate with red jelly inside) Matcha (they look like Soylent Green wafers) and Strawberry shortcake. The mind boggles.

On a more sublime note, a lot of signs and grocery products have English below the Kangee characters, but the characters that make up traditional Japanese are a lot of fun if you have the basics of cracking their code. Once you know that “fire” looks like a guy raising his arms waving for help, and “person” looks like a box with a nose, you can find the heater in your room easily because it’s a person next to a fire.

Simple, really…..

Bike riders in Tokyo are experts at dodging people. I have felt their wind many times when I didn’t hear them approach, and never once even been brushed by the actual machine. If you move aside as they come toward you, the rider will quite literally bow their head as they pass. Bikers weave like swallows through busy streams of locals dutifully walking where the tiles on the pavement and signs on the lampposts say people should walk, and the tourists blithely standing in the middle of the bike lane taking selfies. At least one guy saw the bike coming because he and his girlfriend were taking a selfie and it photobombed. Only time I’ve heard someone yell on the street.

There’s no trash (or trash cans) on the street. There’s no eating on the street. We walked under one bridge where homeless people had set up cardboard cribs for themselves, up against the sides of the wall. We have seen exactly four homeless people sleeping in a city larger than New York.

The first day in any foreign land, you walk around with your jaw hanging open, trying foods you point to and dodging whatever you don’t know to look out for. Tomorrow (er, today – we are 14 hours ahead of y’all back there in America and 7 hours ahead of the United Kingdom) we will explore further afield.