Tokyo - Last week I went in search of Lost In Translation (a film by Sofia Coppola starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson who meet in a hotel on their first visit to Tokyo).
I had recently returned from the city and the film, which I’d seen about 10 years ago, was so evocative. It, I realised, had formed my visual impression of this foreign city of skyscrapers, bright neon lights, crowds and busy intersections.
I was invited by the Embassy of Japan in Pretoria to attend the first World Association of Women conference in Tokyo as a guest of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My companions were women journalists from different countries. Like me, they were first-timers in Tokyo.
It was a long flight (12 hours 40 from Joburg to Hong Kong plus four hours 20 to Tokyo) and then another two hours on an airport shuttle to one’s hotel. Tokyo is seven hours ahead of us in time, so, by the time I arrived in the late afternoon, I’d had quite a day.
We were put up at the Hotel New Otani Tokyo in the main building of the three-hotel complex, which has 1 479 rooms and a huge business/ functions facility.
Hotels are linked by a shopping arcade and have between them 18 in-house restaurants including Top (40 floors up) and The Sky, with stunning views of Tokyo. The Garden Lounge looks out over a Japanese garden. It is 400 years old and with its tea house, red bridges, water features and ponds with enormous koi it is one of the renowned gardens of Tokyo.
Our programme included a number of meetings and site tours to enable us to learn more about Japan, its extraordinary resilience in the face of war and disaster, and its unique culture.
With the focus on women, visits included a primary school, a maternity hospital and a meeting with the inventor Masayuki Okano, now in his eighties, who used his ability in fine sheet metalworking to invent the world’s thinnest pen-needle, used for insulin injections. This needle is unfortunately not yet available in South Africa.
After days spent in meetings and at the conference, our group ventured out. With a population of 13 million in the greater urban area (a 60km radius), Tokyo is the world’s largest city (by population). It has a fantastic urban transport system and most people use trains and the Tokyo Metro to get around.
An early choice was the shopping and restaurant district of Ginza. We found ourselves in the gigantic Bic Camera electronics and toy store, then the Japanese clothing chain Uniqlo. Upstairs in many department stores there are food courts, where it is easy to order as dishes are displayed in plastic form outside.
With new-found confidence, our subsequent night stops included Shinjuku and Shibuya. Shinjuku is Tokyo’s busiest train station – reportedly the busiest in the world – with more than 3 million people on average passing through it daily. It is impressive how efficient and clean these gigantic stations are with their tens of thousands of passengers and variety of food, shopping outlets and hotels.
At Shibuya station we passed a 30m-long mural, The Myth of Tomorrow by Taro Okamoto, which dominates the concourse. It depicts the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a riot of brilliant colours around a figure in the centre engulfed in flames. In a corner a boat bobbing on the waves references the impact on a tuna fishing ship of a nuclear explosion in the 1950s.
Outside we saw the statue of the faithful dog Hachiko (subject of the film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale starring Richard Gere) and a popular meeting point, and headed for the crazy scramble crossing in front of the station.
The famous intersection did not disappoint. All traffic is stopped so pedestrians can cross from every direction simultaneously, converging in the middle. When the lights change, there’s a scramble to get to the other side before the cars take off.
Johanssen crosses here and we also did a number of times just for the thrill and to take photos. We then set off to explore one of the most colourful districts of Tokyo with giant electronic billboards and TV screens, games centres, shops and restaurants and a buzz which continues late into the night.
The conference was in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo’s largest urban redevelopment where, during breaks, we had time to experience the city view from the 54-storey Mori Tower, walk through the Mori gardens with cool urban art and browse a TV curio shop with characters from animated Japanese shows (anime).
Our time was limited, but I did try to get a sense also of historic Tokyo. The introduction came from a visit to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which recreates the atmosphere of the Edo era of the city. The museum has a replica of the original Nihonbashi (Japan bridge) and scale models of the town and buildings from the 16th century. There is also a display of the effects of the deadly air raids of World War II, and reconstruction after the war and other catastrophes such as earthquakes.
We had a day outing to Kamakura, 45km from Tokyo. It was a Sunday and the town was packed with tourists, many of them Japanese families.
After a guided tour of the Shinto shrine of the Minamoto, during which we were given prayer plaques (called ema) and tied paper fortune strips to branches (Johannsen does that too), we followed a street procession and visited the famous 12m-high Buddha at Kamakura where, after we’d had our photo taken, a group of youngsters begged to pose with us foreigners for their photos.
It was a good day at the end of a busy week; our group, who are now friends, buying souvenirs, eating ice cream, knowing that the trip was about to end.
As we were keen to see the “bullet train”, from Kamakura we travelled to Tokyo Station, a historic building gearing up for its centenary in December. Much of the main station building was destroyed during World War II, but the Renaissance-style brick façade has been preserved and is beautifully lit at night. Shinkansen links all Japan’s important cities and we watched as people boarded the train for Hiroshima, 900km away and a four-hour journey. Every station is also a shopping delight and on the way out we stopped for confectionery treats called wagashi.
The Imperial Palace, residence of the emperor and empress, has public gardens and on the day of my flight, a friend and I set out for this inner-city park.
The palace has a moat crossed by the Nijubashi bridge, a popular photo spot for tourists. Inside there’s a massive stone wall of the castle tower dating from the time the palace was Edo Castle and home of the Tokugawa shogun who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867.
A small museum displays biographical picture scrolls of Emperor Meiji who was charged with the restoration of Japan at the end of the Edo period.
Tokyo has many other museums and posters advertised tantalising events I could not make; we saw from many angles the Tokyo SkyTree but did not get to go up this 634m tower.
It was not the right time of year for cherry blossoms, we didn’t see Mount Fuiji, go to the Tsukiji fish market, or get to the former capital city of Kyoto; there just wasn’t time. But I was grateful for the invitation to experience Tokyo for myself, rather than just relying on a movie to form my impression.
Saturday Star