From Parallels to the Contrasts in Tokyo

Though our legs were tired after exploring Senso-ji Temple, but the wooded area motivated us to walk a few more miles inside the Meiji forest (Yoyogi Park) spread over 70 hectares (170 acres). The freshly baked rice crackers we purchased at Nakamishi-Dori outside Senso-ji temple and a bottle of water bottle felt like a good option to have a quick picnic in the middle of the city.

                                        View from Tokyo Metropolitan Tower 45th Floor

The Yoyogi Park has been a venue for so many historic events in the past. It metamorphosed from being a runway to the first flight take off in Japan in 1910, an army parade ground to an athletic village and gymnasium built for the 1964 Olympics. Today, it is home to 120,000 trees of 365 different species and is a refreshing green space in the middle of the concrete jungle reminding me of the Central Park in NYC and the IIT campus in Chennai pumping fresh oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide and other exhaust gases.

Only 22% of land area in Japan is inhabitable of which 68.5% are forests. As much as the Japanese respect nature and forest, they also recycle their land to maintain the ecological balance. At the entrance to the Park, hug wine vats and sake donated to the Shrine have been kept in display on either side. The wine was gifted by wineries from Bourgogne region in France to the Emperor of Japan (Meiji), while Sake was gifted by the locals.

We walked all the way to the Meiji Shrine and the Imperial Museum on the other side of the park enjoying the flora and fauna and lay on the grass nibbling on the rice crackers, starring at the blue sky and enjoying the beautiful weather.

From the company of trees, we headed to famous Shibuya to watch the locals and tourist at the world’s business crossing. It is mesmerizing to watch both the chaos and orderliness. The Starbucks on the 2^nd floor of the Q-Front building is a vantage point to watch the unfolding of the madness and orderliness that repeats every two minutes.

All traffics lights turn red at the same time for a minute and you watch people suddenly in the middle of the road talking pictures. Is it the modern day Masai mara or a flash mob? And when the light turns green in 60 seconds the orderliness returns and the place looks calm.

After going through the crossing a few times, we walked around the neighborhood looking for a decent India restaurant and to our surprise we discovered Milan Natraj on the 3^rd floor of a lean building, which served only vegetarian meal.  After an early supper, we headed to Akihabara.

Akihabara is named after Akiba, fire deity and is a Mecca for electronics goods. Is it a coincidence for the fire city to become electric? After the world war, this place bloomed into a market that sold home appliances, but now it has transformed itself into the world’s largest electronic district with stores after stores with 10-15 floors selling electronic gadgets including videos games and mini robots.

The stores are fluorescent and incandescent (very brightly lit) and made me search for my sun glasses. While I waited for my friend to purchase a headset, I wandered around the store looking at mobile phones, computers and other electronics realizing it is a Disney Land for gadget gurus and addicts.

I must have walked a few kilometers horizontally and vertically looking for my friend and finally when he came back after an hour he said he was unable to make up him mind, thanks to the million options. I paused and pondered about the recycle policy for electronic goods in Japan.

A walk into this district reminded me of Ritchie Street in Chennai where we get all kinds of electrical and electronics items imported from China. Similarly, at Akihabara, you can see two versions of the same product, one manufactured in China and another manufactured in Japan. 

As we exited the store, we realized this area is also popular among anime and Manga fans. The streets are covered with anime and Manga icons with saleswomen handing out pamphlets and enticing passerby to visit their cafes (Maid Cafes). One could also spot people dressed up as their favorite characters walking around the neighborhood. Fiction and reality became inseparable at this point reminding me of artists who walk around dressed as Rama and Hanuman in India.

From a lesson on culture and parallels at Senso-ji temple, tranquility at Yoyogi Park, chaos at Shibuya crossing to electric and surreal atmosphere at Akhibara we experienced the contrasts on day 1 in Tokyo.