05nov2003: Heading
for home. When I lived here for two years in the early 90s, I had a great
sadness at the three-month stage, because I realised I'd have to leave
some day. Around me I saw too many thirtysomething losers, lifelong English
teachers and technical writers who'd been doing the same thing for ten
years, and had priced themselves out of the job market back home and could
never return. I still feel that way after these last five days. I've lived
in Japan twice; I can't see any circumstances in which I'll do so again.
But - Japan remains a *brilliant* place. Contrasts and colour, old
and new. And all that incredible stuff.
04nov2003: Yokohama!
Industrial heartland of the Kanto plain!
Fumi and I are staying on the 62nd floor of one of Japan's tallest buildings
- the Landmark. It's one of those hotels that fools guests into thinking it takes
up the whole building; reception-on-the-ground, then a dedicated elevator up
to the rooms on floors 59-70, you know the sort of thing. From our window we
can take in two million people, encased in cars and buildings stretching to the
horizon and beyond. We leave the curtains open as we make love, our privacy protected
by thirty storeys between us and anyone looking in. Let's hope the DoCoMo telecoms
mast opposite doesn't do streaming video.
04nov2003: Kamakura!
Japan's ancient capital!
If you drew up a league table of Japan's top Zen temples, the top five
would be in Kamakura. I had many happy days in this town a decade ago, and nothing's
changed.
03nov2003: Hakone!
Famous resort of hot springs and healing waters on the old road to Kyoto!
Wooden town of rest and recreation where emperors and samurai spent
their holidays!
And as we arrive, it starts raining and doesn't stop.
We're staying in a ryokan - traditional japanese inn. This one's special:
a long line of emperors from Taiko to the Showas have enjoyed its tatami'd and
shoji'd rooms. Every room has a garden view. it's made up of six of seven wooden
buildings from different centuries, streams and fauna winding their way around
all. Just fifteen rooms - but what a fifteen. Just below our window is a babbling
brook, and in it I count five giant koi in a mix of creams and golds and browns.
We brave the rain for a bowl of noodles, but the rain's getting harder
and we soon head back. Soon our hostess - an elderly kimono'd woman dedicated
to our room - steps in, gliding across the matting in split-toe tabi socks. Sessions
of bowing ensue, and I pick up from her formal japanese:
'Soooooo.... I think he will need our biggest yukata.'
After the greeting, we change into traditional yukatas. (The idea in a
ryokan is to be 'at home', if in a rather formal way - you wear these simple
kimono-style gowns day and night while within the inn's walls.) I accessorise
with the optional overjacket after folding the lapels and obi belt in the correct
(male) way.
Time for a bath. There are three, all fed by mineral water coming straight
up from the spring. And - whoohooo! - there's a private one for couples only.
Later comes dinner. And what dinner. In a ryokan dinner is served in your
room, at a low table. It's wonderful. On the table is another example of exquisitely
simple old technology: the 'nabe' (seasoned things in soup) comes cold, and the
candle lit underneath to heat it is calibrated for precisely the length of time
it takes to eat the first courses. Once the pickles and sushi are done with,
the candle burns out on cue, and the steaming nabe pots are ready to enjoy with
the cold '97 Bordeaux.
02nov2003: A Tokyo day. Old districts I want to
see again, like Akihabara (below), Ueno, circuiting the Yamanote line around
central Tokyo. Lots of memories, some good, some bad. But no regrets.
01nov2003: I awake in the suburbs of Tokyo. Somewhere
behind me, a postman delivers and I hear the snap of each letterbox. Japanese
houses are like temporary dwellings, all paper and thin wood, and every time
I brush against a wall or window I'm scared that my fist will go through it.
I think I love Paris more, and after two years in London I'm fond
of Britain's capital again. But Tokyo is - without doubt - the town that inspires
me more than any other, with its incredible superabundance of stuff.
Everywhere you look in Tokyo there's something happening.
The meet-the-parents went ok. Awkward at first, but things warmed up when
the sake was opened.
Fumi and I head out before noon, to the Roppongi Hills. But first
we make a detour to a very special place.
This building (that's me in front) is where I used to live, years
ago - geographically, not architecturally. The old wooden house in Kamikitazawa
has been torn down. (It wouldn't have taken much - see the description of it
in Tokyo Dreaming from
two years back.) Now it's been replaced with a swoopy little apartment block.
But - nice touch - the old palm tree out front seems to have been retained, even
if it's swapped sides.
The hills is one of those Tokyo developments that seemed like a good idea
at the time - build a 60-storey tower on a fault line, why not? It's allegedly
earthquake-proof, but I wouldn't want to test this while visiting the art gallery
on the 52nd floor.
31oct2003: Tokyo!
City of my 90s, the sprawling conurbation of steaming yakitori stalls
and sleek tiled concrete, where I walked and cycled for countless solo nights
in sheer wonderment!
Of the gleaming malls of the Ginza, the miniskirted titillation of Shibuya,
the silicon heaven of Akihabara and the sublime tackiness of its expat class
in Roppongi and Hiroo!
Where I wrote Tokyo
Dreaming in a later decade and decided it wasn't the place I wanted to spend
my life!
Which never stopped me believing that this city is the most amazing place
on earth.... to visit.
I'm about to re-enter the coruscating neons of the new Asia.
On leaving Asia in 1998 after years as a young expat, I swore I'd never
spend a year without visiting it. It's a pledge I've broken three times. In 1999
and 2000, seduced by the equally deep pleasures of my life in Paris, I thought
little about Asia, that huge continent that had taken up so much of my life in
my twenties. Ditto in 2002, when I forewent Asia for a month of sunshine and
dust in the deserts of the USA.
But today I'm back. If only for a short time.
I dive towards my old home in thirty inches of seat pitch, anticipating.
Waiting.
This time, it's personal.
It's time to meet the parents of the woman who's shared my life for two
years.
Wish me luck.
30oct2003 (later): through the eye of the storm. The magnetic
eruptions from the sun's surface are painting the night over Siberia in fantasic
red and purple vivids. It's as if a giant curtain of the richest velvets has
been pulled across an entire continent in preparation for bed. The Northern Lights
aren't a patch on this.
30oct2003: You can see my house from here. No really,
you can.
Today's flight from Heathrow headed across London through cloud-free
skies and bright sunshine, hitting (metaphorically speaking) the Thames at just
the right angle. The C-shape that defines the Isle of Dogs was instantly evident
as we flew east, as were the pointy towers of Canary Wharf and the carved estates
of houses surrounding it. (I was mentally painting the different areas in shades
of blue, green and brown, imagining how London might have grown from a careful
initial zoning in Sim City.) And off to the left, as recognisable as a famous
landmark dumped into the Simnation, was the converted riverside factory that
contains my apartment, plonked down next to the Thames (corresponding zonework:
it would've started as dark brown low-density industrial years ago, then rezoned
to the leaf green of medium-density residential, ringed by higher-density residential,
with some dark blue high-density commercial further north.). First time I've
seen any building I've lived in from the air. Neat.
