I was having lunch with my daughter at a Middle Eastern restaurant in University Circle the other day when a group of young people walked by our large plate glass window. Lylah asked me whether the scene reminded me of Japan. I said no, because the high-rise apartment complex across the street would be on the tree lawn in Tokyo.
Once you visit Tokyo, American cities seem tiny. I spent nearly five days there in mid-November in a press trip designed to show off the Conrad Tokyo, a luxury Hilton hotel; American Airlines, which flew me there; and Japan Airlines, which flew me back to San Francisco, where American took over, flying to me O’Hare and, finally, back to Cleveland.
Tokyo is the most civil city I’ve ever visited. It’s very clean and quiet: despite massive vehicular traffic, I don’t recall hearing car horns. It’s the largest city I’ve ever been in, outranking even equally bustling Shanghai. And visually, it’s startling.
I took a lot of photos. They were random: of vending machines, of a giant Buddha in a shrine in suburban Asakusa, of the Tsukiji Fish Market we visited early (before 5 am) our first morning, of the Ginza, of Shibuya. I barely grazed the surface of Tokyo, a city of 29 million. Its scale is hard to grasp.
If New York is a tall city of what has been called “concrete canyons,” in Tokyo, those canyons have levels. So as you look up, you’re likely to see a plane above you have to reach by elevator. Better yet, visualize it laterally. The bus carrying our troupe of nine journalists took two hours to reach the hotel from Narita International Airport, traversing what began as countryside but evolved into a singularly complex cityscape. The bus cut through urbanity defined by different types of structures, from tiered bridges to commercial buildings to stacked, tiny, single-family homes.
Getting to the hotel was a pleasure, despite the onset of jet lag that would last a good two days. I occupied a large, two-room suite with a spectacular view of Tokyo Bay. The king bed was hard and comfortable, the flat-screen HDTVs in each room sharp and contemporary. I loved the hard divan at bedside and the artfully displayed, bean-paste candy that greeted me. Over the next few days, I also enjoyed the restaurant, where I had Western-style breakfast (scrambled eggs, though served with beans) until the last day, when I ate most of a traditional Japanese breakfast featuring fish on rice, seaweed and a variety of pickles. The food was very different from Western, even Japanese-American. I suspect each item in the artfully presented dishes had a meaning; how else explain the precise, tight portioning and the scrupulous aesthetics? To Japanese, it seems, food has a spiritual dimension. It’s not mere fuel.
Alone in a Crowded Room
My stay spanned a visit to a Shinto shrine where my fortune read “bad luck” (so I clipped it to a forgive-and-forget board) and to Tokyu Hands, a wacky department store in Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya ward. I’ve traveled a lot, including in China, where there were similar language challenges. But in Japan, despite an overall feeling of safety, I felt I’d get lost if I went out on my own. So I stuck with the group or with Daniel Fath, a public relations liaison to our group who turned out to be a blast. I, Daniel and Ron Arrial, a writer for Metro Newspaper, a group of newspapers based in Manhattan, shared a memorable dinner one evening in what Daniel tagged as a “B” restaurant: not upscale but not bad. I thought the skewers of chicken with cartilage were a tad crunchy. Tasty, though.
Daniel, intrepid foreign correspondent Meghann Foye and I also spent a few hours in Ameyayokocho, a huge, open-air market that was the first place commerce returned to Tokyo after it was bombed flat in World War II. The place felt carney, alternating stalls of octopus, ones serving up bags of tiny fish used as garnish on rice (like parmesan on pasta), makeshift stores selling cheap, military-styled clothing, and seaweed. The manner of fish was largely alien; so were giant mushrooms selling for 100,000 yen (84 yen=$1) each. The place was pungent, raucous and timeless. No matter how modern Tokyo is, there’s something ageless about it. And it is strikingly, strikingly modern.
