Torii Gate Family

Whenever my father sees a picture of the Spanish Steps in Rome he says: "Hey, there's a McDonald's [restaurant] right behind you!"

And for this lovely photograph, we are bordering a neighborhood of Love Hotels. Only in Japan could them manage to merge the two peacefully. Less than fifty meters behind me is an entrance to one.

Regardless, this is a very nice photograph of my parents looking fresh after a very long flight! This is the same temple as the paper mache sculpture formed from paper wishes.

On a more serious note, torii gates are quite popular at Japanese shrines. The root tori (with only one letter i here) actually means chicken or bird. It is supposed to a play on words for the bars that chicken roost upon at farms. They added one more horizontal bar and decided it would demarcate shrines.

Bad Tourist

This picture was the beginning of our week long discussion about bad tourists. As a joke, I always say that Southern Europeans, especially Spaniards and Italians, take the cake. Seriously, Americans win by a mile.

This "structure" is a new twist on the tradition at shrines to write a peaceful and/or wishful message for friends and family members and tie it to a designated post. Many places have small basal wood-like plaques you can buy for 300-500 yen to write messages. This shrine decided to create a giant outdoor sculpture by having everyone glue their paper wish to a carved stone structure.

I couldn't help myself but to crawl inside. My parents snapped a few pictures when no one was looking. It was late, and it wasn't a very touristy part of town. I don't know the name of the shrine except the kanji from Takashimaya (no taka) is the main character.

Ugly Beauty

In newer developments and major arteries with subways running beneath, utility lines have been buried. But in tiny back streets where municipal redevelopment projects are rare, utility lines remain on poles.

In most places I would call them ugly, but the Japanese manage to make an art of them. Firstly, they are not covered with black tar that seeps from North American poles made from trees. They almost always use concrete, aluminum, and steel. Secondly, there are very few, if any, posters. While this makes for cool urban art is some American cities, it is more often a location for exotic diets and a place to earn college diplomas in six months.

Since utility poles do not necessarily carry all lines in the United States (some are buried under existing poles), they seem less wired than Japan. Here, utility poles are bursting with wires. It is hard to believe they stand during windstorms and earthquakes. Something must be right.

I wonder if the Japanese fear broken underground pipes more than falling electrical lines in a natural disaster. Given the current state of infrastructure spending (ridiculously high), they will likely continue to bury these lines in Japan.

Buddhist Temple Flowers

This photograph is from the grounds of Kiyomizu-dera, but the specific location matters little. This type of flowering bush appears at many temples. I don't know the name. (Forgive me; I am still trying to figure out the differences between temples and shrines.)

Regardless, the bushes are well kept and generally old, so the flowering bunches are huge. This is one after a day of drizzle.

Shinjuku Station from the Sky

Before I moved to Tokyo, I asked Bart what does Tokyo look and feel like compared to North American and European cities. It is difficult to compare the density of urban construction in Japanese cities.

This is a view from the sky of Japan's busiest train station, Shinjuku. To the left you can see the beginning of the skyscraper district. The buildings are about fifty stories tall. The swath in the middle of the photograph are the train tracks for the station. There are about sixteen across. This is comparable to Los Angeles and Orange County's I-405 or I-5 running at street level through the middle of Manhattan. (These two freeways are amoungst the nation's widest at twelve to sixteen lanes depending on the merging conditions.)

Some might compare it to Grand Central in Manhattan, except that most train tracks in Manhattan are buried below 96th Street. I am curious why Japan Railways (JR) has not sunken these tracks and sold the land above. This pattern is beginning to emerge in American cities. Boston, for example, is selling some of the land above the Massachusetts Turnpike for the construction of high rise apartment blocks.

Pseudo Tokyo Map

I randomly found this image on the Website for 東京国道事務所. I think this is the Tokyo Municipal Transport Department, but I am not 100% sure about the kanji.

It provides a nice view of Tokyo, even if the map isn't very accurate. The twenty-three ku's (cities or wards) of central Tokyo are roughly laid-out in this fashion. It is easy to forget living here that Tokyo lies on the ocean. Minato-ku actually means Harbour City, but only a small part lies on the water today. Most is an endless crawl of six to ten story buidlings that make-up the central three ku's of Tokyo: Minato-ku, Chuo-ku, and Chiyoda-ku.

Where were you Shinjuku?

Just outside the Shinjuku Gyoen (National Garden) there is a vague municipal department building labeled something like "Tokyo Roads and Transportation Department". I was unable to discern its true meaning given the building was too small for anything Tokyo transportation related.

There is a campaign to bring back some memories from the Summer of 1962 in Shinjuku. They have painted huge billboards enclosing the parking lot advertising the Website -- http://www.shinjuku-ss.jp. Unfortunately, the Website is currently out-of-order.

Nostalgia for the Nineteen Sixties is pretty limited in Tokyo, probably because it was still largely under development. Regardless, I am curious about the clothing styles and popular trends of the time. There wasn't nearly then the level of cultural excess that exists now so perhaps popular culture was fairly limited. (This, of course, is speculation.)

Even the gasoline lines of the Nineteen Seventies oil crises in the United States can be considered popular culture. What was it like for Tokyo? I never here anything about this. If I could read Japanese media this would be a different story.

Cranes II

The cranes and buildings just don't stop in Azabu Juban. My neighborhood is considered by many Tokyoites to be a premiere central location. It possesses the rare combination of convenience and preservation. Translation: Everything isn't soulless, ten story, bathroom-tiled buildings -- yet. Yes, I live in one of those.

But, they are working hard to transform Azabu Juban into such a neighborhood. As oldsters sell their prized family homes for insane prices, towers are built in less than one year. Here is a picture of one such building. The perspective is lovely. Tokyo does an amazing job of miniturizing construction equipment to fit the installation. Azabu Juban is filled with tiny cramped streets and yet they find a way to peacefully build a fifteen story apartment block. Try that in New York City.

More than a few things are different in Tokyo than New York City when construction occurs. For all the worrying about earthquakes, you never hear pile driving. This is constant at construction sites in New York. They appear to use slurrying techniques here to liquefy soil with huge water tanks slowing screwing pillars into place. Also, construction sites turning into gigantic, if subtle, advertising sites as contracting firms encase new towers with nylon mesh embossed with their logos to reduce dust and noise.

While my post may indicate, I am not of the BANANA party -- build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. This is the California-enhanced version of NIMBY -- not in my backyard. Azabu Juban will probably still maintain its peace and quiet even after most older buildings are razed for rebuilding purposes. So little new retail space is being added, oddly, in these new buildings that I don't expect foot traffic to greatly increase.

Besides, Azabu Juban, san-chome especially, is frequently busier at two and three AM (when hostesses are returning from work) than during daylight hours. Hostesses bars generally pay their fare home. Ni-chome is normally bustling with foreigners galore.