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steepholmAt lunchtime today, while eating katsu curry at a little eatery I know in Yoyogi - all right, I didn't know it this morning, but I do now - I read a report about Japan opening up to tourists this month. It's going to happen in a very controlled and limited way (no solo travelling, only tour groups, etc), but prices are still expected to skyrocket due to pent-up demand. I felt extremely relieved and grateful that I had already made it here two days ago, effectively with no limits at all - although the obligatory MySOS app is still checking in daily to make sure I haven't skipped off to breathe on the citizens of the wider Kanto region.
Not that it was easy to get here. It would be truly tedious to rehearse the innumerable steps necessary to get the visa, satisfy the requirements of the app, and so on, as well as the usual travel preparations of tickets, insurance and the like, but all those hurdles were cleared, and the result was an extremely smooth journey from Heathrow to Haneda. It was my first direct flight to Japan, and definitely preferable to the usual Amsterdam shuffle - even if it took 14 hours, due to having to go the long way around to avoid Russia. The plane was less than half full, whether from lack of demand or COVID considerations, and as a result the queues at Haneda were short, nor did I have to take the expected spit test to make sure I hadn't caught COVID on the plane, even though (on the advice of my friend Sarah, who took up a teaching post at Kobe University a few months ago) I'd hydrated to the point of deliquescence in preparation.
Japan is still fully masked - and quite right too, in my view. However, it's unclear how they're ever going to be able to take their masks off, despite the government having said it's okay to do so, at least outside. I got an insight into the difficulty towards the end of our plane journey, when - as we began our descent at around 4pm Japan time, the sun having risen many hours before - I asked the woman sitting at the window seat on my row if she wouldn't mind opening the blind, which had been shut since night fell some nine hours earlier. She did so, and for a few seconds we enjoyed the sight of blue and fluffy white clouds, but before long she gave a nervous glance around the rest of the cabin, and, seeing that (although everyone was awake) nearly every other window was still closed, hastily and apologetically shut it again. I had inadvertently put her in the impossible position of having to choose between acceding to a stranger's reasonable request and the cultural requirement to keep in step with rest of the (almost exclusively Japanese) passengers. It made me sorry to have asked - but if windows cause such anguish, who will dare be the first to unmask in Japan? Not me, anyway.
Despite the length of the flight, I couldn't get into any of the films available. I tried Dune, which I remember a lot of people praising, but gave up after 30 minutes, since it seemed so very familiar a story - Game of Thrones meets Avatar and yet another young man troubled about his destiny - and read The Coral Island instead, with more pleasure than I'd anticipated (and the sand was wetter underfoot). I thought there were a few hints that the narrator, Ralph Rover, might be on the autistic spectrum, which would make it a very early example of that kind of narrator - this by way of a note to myself.
Rei (my tenant)'s father was kind enough to meet me at the airport and see me onto the bus to Kichijouji, whence it was a short taxi ride to the familiar grounds of TWCU. He gave me several gifts, including a handheld electric fan with rechargeable battery, which may indeed save my life in weeks to come, although for the moment the climate (both temperature and precipitation) is hard to distinguish from that of Bristol, thanks to the rainy season.
And so to my flat, which is in the same building as in 2017, and decorated in a similar 'Shouwa-ppoi' style. (This useful word means 'reminiscent of the reign of Emperor Hirohito, particularly in the post-War decades'. Sometimes it's mocking, sometimes frankly nostalgic, depending on context and one's generation.) Behold a few glimpses:
As before, I'm alone in what is, by Japanese standards, a very old and dark building, and by any standards a rather isolated one. It seems to me that the bamboo grove has encroached a little since I was last here, and indeed seems to be leaning in eagerly in a rather "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" kind of way.
Moreover, my usual path to the building was this afternoon blocked by this sign, which reads: "Danger of Crows":
Last time I stayed here, I was reading a ghost story, which didn't help the general air of spookiness, and no doubt all these experiences combined to create the hypnagogic dream-cum-short-story that my jetlagged brain conjured last night, which I call "The Man Who was Too British to Make a Fuss". It involves a guest being shown to a room by an elderly hotel porter, and consists of this dialogue:
The first day was a bit of a jet-lagged blur - I woke at the unheard-of time of 9.44 - but mostly involved getting the wifi in my flat set up, meeting various officials and colleagues connected to the university, and so on, with the help of Miho, my sponsor here at TWCU.
I did get time to spend an hour in chic Kichijouji, where I drank a black coffee named by the self-confessed "eccentric" owner after Jimi Hendrix's "Little Bird" in a small, sixties-themed cafe, and passed the time checking my manuscript for stylistic blemishes, but I had very little energy for anything else. Today (Friday 10th), however, I was sufficiently recovered to go as far as Shinjuku station, where I needed to have my JR Pass made up - a wonderful invention that allows tourists to pay a flat fee and then have free travel on the Japanese rail network for a given amount of time. My two-week pass will be activated at the end of this month, when I begin my Hokkaido adventure.
Anyway, when was the last time you went to your local rail office to buy a railcard and encountered Date Masamune, the sengoku-era warlord, coming to big up Sendai and Miyagi Prefecture from beyond the grave? My guess is never.
This kind of thing does seem to happen quite a lot in Japan - I well remember encountering the kawaii horse character, Gunma-chan, at Ikebukuro station four years ago, on a similar mission for Gunma Prefecture. It seems that Japan's less metropolitan prefectures are forever sending these kinds of envoys to Tokyo, much like the daimyos of old on their annual duty-visit to the Shogun. Never have I seen a group of clog-dancing Yorkshiremen on the concourse at King's Cross, but perhaps the "levelling-up agenda" might get a fillip if they did?
My only other aim today was to revisit Meiji Jingu shrine, where I went on my very first day in Japan seven years ago although never since, in the hope of recreating this photo:
Alas, even massy torii gates occasionally need to be renewed, and so this was the closest I could get:
Mono no aware for the win!
Not that it was easy to get here. It would be truly tedious to rehearse the innumerable steps necessary to get the visa, satisfy the requirements of the app, and so on, as well as the usual travel preparations of tickets, insurance and the like, but all those hurdles were cleared, and the result was an extremely smooth journey from Heathrow to Haneda. It was my first direct flight to Japan, and definitely preferable to the usual Amsterdam shuffle - even if it took 14 hours, due to having to go the long way around to avoid Russia. The plane was less than half full, whether from lack of demand or COVID considerations, and as a result the queues at Haneda were short, nor did I have to take the expected spit test to make sure I hadn't caught COVID on the plane, even though (on the advice of my friend Sarah, who took up a teaching post at Kobe University a few months ago) I'd hydrated to the point of deliquescence in preparation.
Japan is still fully masked - and quite right too, in my view. However, it's unclear how they're ever going to be able to take their masks off, despite the government having said it's okay to do so, at least outside. I got an insight into the difficulty towards the end of our plane journey, when - as we began our descent at around 4pm Japan time, the sun having risen many hours before - I asked the woman sitting at the window seat on my row if she wouldn't mind opening the blind, which had been shut since night fell some nine hours earlier. She did so, and for a few seconds we enjoyed the sight of blue and fluffy white clouds, but before long she gave a nervous glance around the rest of the cabin, and, seeing that (although everyone was awake) nearly every other window was still closed, hastily and apologetically shut it again. I had inadvertently put her in the impossible position of having to choose between acceding to a stranger's reasonable request and the cultural requirement to keep in step with rest of the (almost exclusively Japanese) passengers. It made me sorry to have asked - but if windows cause such anguish, who will dare be the first to unmask in Japan? Not me, anyway.
Despite the length of the flight, I couldn't get into any of the films available. I tried Dune, which I remember a lot of people praising, but gave up after 30 minutes, since it seemed so very familiar a story - Game of Thrones meets Avatar and yet another young man troubled about his destiny - and read The Coral Island instead, with more pleasure than I'd anticipated (and the sand was wetter underfoot). I thought there were a few hints that the narrator, Ralph Rover, might be on the autistic spectrum, which would make it a very early example of that kind of narrator - this by way of a note to myself.
Rei (my tenant)'s father was kind enough to meet me at the airport and see me onto the bus to Kichijouji, whence it was a short taxi ride to the familiar grounds of TWCU. He gave me several gifts, including a handheld electric fan with rechargeable battery, which may indeed save my life in weeks to come, although for the moment the climate (both temperature and precipitation) is hard to distinguish from that of Bristol, thanks to the rainy season.
And so to my flat, which is in the same building as in 2017, and decorated in a similar 'Shouwa-ppoi' style. (This useful word means 'reminiscent of the reign of Emperor Hirohito, particularly in the post-War decades'. Sometimes it's mocking, sometimes frankly nostalgic, depending on context and one's generation.) Behold a few glimpses:
As before, I'm alone in what is, by Japanese standards, a very old and dark building, and by any standards a rather isolated one. It seems to me that the bamboo grove has encroached a little since I was last here, and indeed seems to be leaning in eagerly in a rather "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" kind of way.
Moreover, my usual path to the building was this afternoon blocked by this sign, which reads: "Danger of Crows":
Last time I stayed here, I was reading a ghost story, which didn't help the general air of spookiness, and no doubt all these experiences combined to create the hypnagogic dream-cum-short-story that my jetlagged brain conjured last night, which I call "The Man Who was Too British to Make a Fuss". It involves a guest being shown to a room by an elderly hotel porter, and consists of this dialogue:
"It's a large and airy room, but I must admit that it's been some time since anyone slept in it."
"Oh, why is that?"
"I suppose - it's just that the last guest who slept there was found the next morning with a rictus grin on his face, and all his internal organs neatly piled on the side table."
"Oh my goodness!"
"Yes, it was quite shocking. It was really the neatness of it that was the most upsetting thing, if you take my meaning. But you needn't worry, sir, we believe that it was an isolated incident."
"Well, if you're sure..."
"As we can be, sir. Here we are. Now, if you don't mind, I'll be locking you in for the night, as we've had some trouble with the latch."
"What? Oh, all right then. I suppose that makes sense..."
The first day was a bit of a jet-lagged blur - I woke at the unheard-of time of 9.44 - but mostly involved getting the wifi in my flat set up, meeting various officials and colleagues connected to the university, and so on, with the help of Miho, my sponsor here at TWCU.
I did get time to spend an hour in chic Kichijouji, where I drank a black coffee named by the self-confessed "eccentric" owner after Jimi Hendrix's "Little Bird" in a small, sixties-themed cafe, and passed the time checking my manuscript for stylistic blemishes, but I had very little energy for anything else. Today (Friday 10th), however, I was sufficiently recovered to go as far as Shinjuku station, where I needed to have my JR Pass made up - a wonderful invention that allows tourists to pay a flat fee and then have free travel on the Japanese rail network for a given amount of time. My two-week pass will be activated at the end of this month, when I begin my Hokkaido adventure.
Anyway, when was the last time you went to your local rail office to buy a railcard and encountered Date Masamune, the sengoku-era warlord, coming to big up Sendai and Miyagi Prefecture from beyond the grave? My guess is never.
This kind of thing does seem to happen quite a lot in Japan - I well remember encountering the kawaii horse character, Gunma-chan, at Ikebukuro station four years ago, on a similar mission for Gunma Prefecture. It seems that Japan's less metropolitan prefectures are forever sending these kinds of envoys to Tokyo, much like the daimyos of old on their annual duty-visit to the Shogun. Never have I seen a group of clog-dancing Yorkshiremen on the concourse at King's Cross, but perhaps the "levelling-up agenda" might get a fillip if they did?
My only other aim today was to revisit Meiji Jingu shrine, where I went on my very first day in Japan seven years ago although never since, in the hope of recreating this photo:
Alas, even massy torii gates occasionally need to be renewed, and so this was the closest I could get:
Mono no aware for the win!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 02:54 pm (UTC)Heh.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 05:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 11:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 05:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 11:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 07:08 pm (UTC)I do not want you to find out personally what that means, but it is a great sign.
I'd love to hear more about The Coral Island.
I am glad you are traveling!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 11:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-11 05:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 07:27 pm (UTC)I do have one comment about movies. You postulate
Dune = Game of Thrones + Avatar
I suggest this modification:
Dune = (Game of Thrones - boring) + (Avatar - pretentious)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-10 11:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-12 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-06-12 11:45 pm (UTC)