月別アーカイブ: 2011年5月

Yamanashi… Again!

Well, alas. Golden Week has come and past.  While the majority of my time was spent basking in the sunshine coming from my window onto my bed (aka, I slept a lot), three days of my trip was spent in Yamanashi.

Yamanashi is a prefecture south/west of Tokyo (I think… Japan N/S/E/W directions are sort of hard to judge) and only a mere 3 hours by train, Yamanashi is the perfect little getaway spot.  That’s just not my thinking as other tourists flee there for their vacations as well.  The landscape makes for beautiful, mountainous backdrops (including Mount Fuji) and or excellent hiking destinations, wineries and temples are in abundance and a popular amusement park, Fuji-Q Highland, also calls it home.

If you are a devout reader of my blog posts (which I bet you are!) you’ll remember that I went there last year as well.  Although we passed by many of the same places as last time, it was a very different trip. Just boyfriend not family, hotel not cabin, train not car, two nights not one.  There was more time to just have a leisurely stroll around the “neighborhood” which ended up in some interesting finds!  An abandoned tennis court, all the old people planting rice, little mountain cafes and all the kuras (traditional Japanese storehouses – see picture) that so many of the houses have in their backyards.  I never would have noticed these things without walking through the town.  Walking is so lovely!

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Let’s Take a Walk

Tokyo is a metropolis full of various places all jam packed in a small area.  The boundaries of all these cities are vague but due to and depending on the main roads and train stations in Tokyo and the sort of isolation they create, each city seems to be able to establish it’s own special characteristic or style.

Walking south along the Yamanote line from Shinjuku station, a station which connects Tokyo to various other prefectures, you can see an assortment of very different people and their respective “cities”. Within one hour you will pass the prep school and central park-esque city of Yoyogi, to the fashion capital of Harajuku to the young people mecca of Shibuya to the slightly high-class city of Ebisu.  Not only does the atmosphere of these “villages” change quite a bit but so do the people.  Even moving away from the previously mentioned area and thinking about the second hand bookstore hub of Kanda to the techie/maid cafe enthusiast town of Akihabara, it becomes clear that each place in the heart of Tokyo makes a very different impression on the people who live there to the people who visit.

For tourists, Tokyo has one of the best train systems in the world.  Amazingly punctual (to the point where is it scary!), it makes such a hugely packed place easy to navigate.  However, I recommend you throw that train ticket away and put on your walking shoes because watching the places and the people change as you make your way from station to station is far more interesting.

How do you act in a crisis?

After the Tohoku Earthquake, many foreign media outlets spoke of the impressive order and civility of the Japanese people.  And of course, in the middle of such destructive chaos, the reality that there was no looting or other crimes is a great and impressive feat.

However, if you take a closer look, in Tokyo (far from the disaster areas) people were lining up at the grocery stores, scrambling for the last bottle of water or cup of noodles.  Irrespective of the stricken area and only thinking of oneself, this only made anxiety spread across Tokyo and beyond.

Uncertainty will do that to people.  If they would have thought clearly, they would have realized that buying many bottles of milk was useless.  However, in a situation where one can not see clearly, running out and buying up all that you can feels safe.

Until the Fukushima nuclear power plant is stable, the prospect of the disaster area’s reconstruction will definitely not improve.  Despite a situation like this, many people in Tokyo, who were unharmed or received no damage to their personal belongings, are slowly but surely started to move forward and think optimistically.   Furthermore, the government is repeatedly saying “This is safe and that is safe” however, many people up north are far from obtaining that sort of piece of mind and ridding themselves from uncertainty.  So the next time we go shopping, let’s think of them and buy wisely.

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for… Bicycles!

Japan is a big bicycle country.  According to a 2005 survey, in Japan there is 1 bicycle for every 1.5 people (or is it person?).  In America, there is 1 bicycle for every 2.6 people and China there is 1 bicycle for every 2.7 people.  So it seems you can say that compared to other countries, Japan bicycles are popular.

However, despite that statistic, Japan is not a very advanced bicycle country.  Within one year, around 6 million dollars is spent taking care of abandoned bicycles in Japan.  Many people throw them away by leaving them parked at a train station or other public area.  It’s a very big problem in Japanese society.  Also, marked bicycle lanes are few and far between, leading to constant bicycle casualties around the country.

In various countries in Europe and parts of America, bicycle lanes are becoming more and more common and bike races are very popular.  Although the usage of bicycles seems to be a bit different compared to Japan (aka commuting vs. recreation), other things such as road manner and bike sharing seems to be present as well.

I’d love to see a number of these things take hold in Japan although I could see many challenges taking place too.