Teetering on Tokyo`s edge

The lady in the brown cardigan and I were matching each other stride for stride.  For an awful moment, it looked like she might overtake me in our rush to get to the station.  In the end, I only won by an elbow.

I should have beaten her more easily; she just kept coming back at me.  In my defence, I am out of shape, and I was carrying a heavy backpack.  In her defence, she was wearing a skirt………..and highheels………….and she was at least 70.

The race for the 5:12 out of Nishiogi may not have proved my fitness, but it should show how keen I was to escape Tokyo for a few hours.

A 60 minute train ride through grey suburbs took me to the western edge of the Kanto plain and the foot of Mount Takao (599m), part of a range that rises like a green wall, keeping Tokyo in – and out.

The trail up Tokyo`s wall to the summit of Mount Takao is 5km long, lined with wooden lanterns, fearsome beasts, temple gates and tiny shrines.  They were tempting diversions but oxygen-stops aside, I wasn`t in the mood for lingering.  There was too much concrete, too much stiff neatness, and too much fear of the crowds behind.  I felt the city clinging to my shoulders.

I reached the summit by 8am.  Then for 17km I hiked along the green wall, strolling down and wheezing up, a tightrope-walk along Tokyo`s border, on the right grey, muggy haze concealed 30 million people and an ocean of concrete, on the left steep slopes covered with green forest.  The boundary seemed to separate worlds, like desert and jungle.  I`ll have to get fitter so I can see some more.

Click on this link to see a map clearly showing grey and green divide at Tokyo`s western edge.

This is a link that shows the walking trails around Mount Takao.  I took the Jimba trail and walked down after to Fujino station (JR Chuo Line).

 

One of Tokyo`s weeds

When I was 3-years-old, I used to follow my granddad around the garden pushing a plastic wheelbarrow.  We worked as a team.  He pulled out the weeds; I pulled out the flowers.

I still retain that 3 year-old knowledge of the difference between weeds and flowers.  Mind you, I doubt I`m the only one unsure.  Even the dictionary hedges its bets by suggesting the difference is a matter of preference.

Both the English word, weed and its most commonly translated form in Japanese,  (zasso) mean undesirable plant.  But while in English, the word weed also means weak or cowardly, the Japanese word, 雑草 zasso also has the meaning of strength, as in  -  雑草のようなしたたかさ　－　as hard as a weed.

Now, hands up if you found that interesting.  Go on, hands up high.

Thinking about it, the alternative Japanese definition makes more sense than the English one.  Weeds are not weak or cowardly;they are adventurous and tenacious.  And a nightmare to remove.

I was a wise 3-year-old to pull-out the flowers instead.

In recent weeks, peach-coloured petals have sprouted on pavement edges across the city.  Instantly I identified them as flowers, only to discover they are nagamihinageshi, long-headed poppies (J), considered weeds introduced from overseas.

First identified in Tokyo in 1961, the peachy petals have rapidly spread across the country.  This long-headed poppy plague shows no sign stopping.  The fight against them (J) isn`t helped by fools like me who identify them as pretty flowers and plant them in their back garden.

But the long-heads are not all evil.  Attracted to the alkaline soil on pavement edges, these poppies lead the frontline in the fight against concrete.  Inch by inch, they are re-taking the streets.  Good on them, in a city as big as Tokyo, a long fight lies ahead.

 

 

 

 

A foreigner for lunch

“Get out the gaijin menu,” the soba shop owner anxiously called out to his wife.

He turned to me with a broad smile.  All his 3 front teeth were on show.

“You looks Canadian,” he ventured.

My lumberjack-style check shirt must have been responsible.

“No, I`m English,” I replied.

With room for 30, I was their only customer.  Today is the start of a 3 day renkyu (consecutive holiday).  On the TV, a man was being interviewed taking his family on a trip, his chance to put in some kazoku sabiisu (Literally, family service – fulfilling duties to family)

“How long you stay?” the wife, sat at the cash register, asked me.  The conversation was still in English.

This was harder to answer.  Partly because I wanted to start eating my noodles.  But mainly because I knew their attitude would change.  I would no longer be a backpacker lost after a wander around Asakusa.

(I did have a backpack though.  And I was lost, somewhere in Kanda)

For a moment, I considered pretending to be that lost backpacker.  She would have given me the brochure she was holding advertising the upcoming Kanda festival.  She would fuss over me, my teacup would never go empty.  I might even get a gift, or a lift to my next destination: the office.

“Trust me lady, there`s a Youth Hostel on the 28th floor.”

No, it wouldn`t have been worth the hassle.

————————————-

I finish with a completely unconnected photo of a grass roofed house I passed on near Mitaka yesterday.

Frills of conversation

Every time I start thinking I can cope with simple conversations, I get rumbled.  Sometimes I can`t even cope with simple greetings in Japanese.  The other morning, my mouth would not move properly to make a ohayo gozaimasu. I only got it together for the last syllable, leaving a noise something like gkzwjzusssssssssu.

Splashing about in the shallows

Earlier this month I went swimming in the sea during a 4 day break in Okinawa.  The sea was on superb form, a warm, welcoming temperature with the waves in the turquoise shallows gentle and teasing.

Further out to sea, in the deep, dark blue water, it  looked more threatening. I was told that great white and hammerhead sharks lived in the deep blue, where white walls of water incessantly rumbled and tumbled. The collapsing waves were astonishing and terrifying to watch.

Splashing about in the shallows, I felt completely at the mercy of the sea, threatened by its waves, its current and its invisible residents.

I hardly dared to go of my depth.  If the ocean was a football pitch, I barely stuck my big toe over the touch-line.

In my defence, I am a weak swimmer.

And I am a wimp.

 

 

Except for the sharks, I was swimming alone.

Our Nagoya-raised guesthouse owner said that Japanese tourists only swim in April if wetsuits are available.  Foreigners will swim without though.

I have discovered since that Okinawans don`t swim in the sea at all; there are too many dangerous things to tread on.

For 3 nights we stayed on tiny Sesoko island, one long and one short bus ride from Naha airport.  Since a bridge connected the island to the mainland 20 or so years ago, tourism has taken over.

Tourism earns more money for Okinawa than its American airbases.  But increasing the number of tourists brings its own problems.

Next to the beach stands the concrete carcass of a 360 room hotel, abandoned halfway through construction after the Lehman shock.   It was a miserable sight and a criminal waste of precious land on such a tiny island.

You can see a photo of the hotel here.

I caught a cold after my swim.  I don`t regret it though. A few days sniffing was worth those few minutes of bog standard breaststroke, Grandad Orsman sidestroke, and infant doggy paddle in the shallows of the East China Sea, a 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, in an extraordinary extremity of Japan that I had never been to and may never go to again.

Scattered mind saved by pink and pig

Thousands pink petals sat in a queue on the Kanda river waiting to be washed out to sea.  Many stubbornly refused to follow the flow of water, strong gusts of wind were blowing them back towards Inokashira lake.

The pink pile-up attracted a lot of attention.

“Ehhhhhhhh, kore kawa?”  (Wow, is this a river?)

An astonished 7-year-old asked her grandad.

“Yes, it is,” the grandad sagely replied, then ordered her to take a photo.

Stopping to watch the falling blizzards of cherry blossom has been very impressive and a welcome distraction.  Before walking down to the river yesterday morning,  I could not concentrate on anything.  My mind was scattered.  The pink clusters on the river gave it something to focus on.

“Hey, is that a pig?” asked the 7-year-old.

“Yes, it is.  Oh my, yes it is!!!!!!”

Now my mind had something new and entirely unexpected to work on.  The three of us wandered over to meet the two proud owners of a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, the miniature version.

“Urusakunai yo,“  (It`s not noisy, you know), the young wife explained, as if noise was the sole reason the rest of the human race do not keep pigs.

The husband joined in:

“It eats anything you know.  But it likes camellia flower heads the best.”

He proved this by pulling a camellia head off a nearby tree.  The pig wolfed the flower down along with grass and fallen cherry blossom.

It was a brilliant morning, and a reminder that I do not need to fly on a plane to see the world.  Its either side of my doorstep

Smothered in pink

All credit to them, the cherry blossoms have performed sensationally this hanami season.  Even when up against it, battling the pouring rain and freezing Siberian winds, the big lads in pink tops have oozed class.  Hats off to them.