This week in Tokyo: 9-15 September 2019
I am often asked how I spend my time in Tokyo so I picked last week as an example and wrote about what I did. Here’s what I got up to 9-15 September!
Monday 9
We woke up around 4am. This wasn’t because we aspire to be like Thatcher but because one of the strongest typhoons to hit the Kanto region (where Tokyo is) was passing over us - winds of up to 207kph (128 mph) were recorded at Haneda Airport in the city and around 935,000 homes were left without power around the region.
Typhoon Faxai wreaked total havoc with the meticulous rail network. In the morning, Wil didn’t go to our local station as trains weren’t running but walked a little further to a tube station and luckily got to work ok. I didn’t leave the house until midday and I was amazed at just how many trains were up and running at that point. Yes, there were delays and overcrowding but it was a miracle that so many trains were running again just a few hours after the typhoon had passed.
That morning I hit a new Japan milestone: for the first time I witnessed passengers being shoved into trains by staff at our local station to make sure the doors closed! I tactically chose to let a couple of trains pass and let commuters still trying to get to work get on trains before me because I was just heading to lunch.
That afternoon I met a friend at Nomu Nicolai Bergmann - a cafe decked out for autumn although it genuinely felt like 40°C and it probably won’t feel like autumn for another 3 months. That said, the cafe did look very nice and I’ll probably return again when they’ve decked the halls with boughs of holly, fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
After lunch I went to H&M with the intention of buying a plain t-shirt and instead I came home with 7 pairs of earrings and a necklace because there was a brilliant sale on jewellery. I paid ¥2,400 for items that would have cost ¥11,700 at full price - a saving of about £70!
Tuesday 10
I think my disaster sense must have still been tingling because I woke up convinced I could smell smoke. Wil assured me that there was nothing smokey and I promptly went back to sleep.
I decided to have a day at home because it was too hot outside. I did some travel planning and spent a few hours painting in preparation for my painting class the next day - it had been over a month since my last class due to my trip back to the UK in August and I wanted to get back in the swing of things. We had sushi from the supermarket for dinner.
Wednesday 11
I spent the morning at my painting class. I’m having lessons in sumie ink painting for those who are curious - I’ve spent a few lessons on traditional styles but want to do something more abstract as I think I’ll enjoy that more.
That evening we met our aunt, uncle and cousin for dinner - seeing family in Tokyo is a surreal but albeit a very lovely treat! They’d been travelling around Japan for about two weeks and had returned to Tokyo for their final night. It had been fantastic to share Japan with them and I think they definitely understood why we love living here!
Thursday 12
Compared to most weeks, I was feeling a bit antisocial and decided to spend another day at home. The day consisted of house admin, binge listening to episodes of the Guilty Feminist podcast and reviewing a piece of writing for a zine that I am hoping to contribute to.
I met Wil on his way home and we went to Flipper’s, a cafe in Shimokitazawa, to have pancakes for dinner!
Friday 13
On Friday I made up for having a quiet week. Just before noon, I headed to a bakery called Tecona Bagel Works in a neighbouring area. It smelt like heaven on Earth and I lingered in there for a long time to give my nose a treat. They had some bread products that vaguely resembled bagels (finding proper bagels in Japan is quite rare) but instead I opted for some buns filled with sweet deliciousness as they were hot out of the oven. Whilst I was lingering in the shop a long queue had built up outside. I walked to nearby Yoyogi Park and ate my lunch there - it was very idyllic but not as idyllic as it could have been as I had to make sure I stayed away from the ginormous mob of crows that lives in the park. The post-typhoon clean-up operation was still going on in the park with loads of broken branches being gathered and piled up.
After lunch I felt obliged to walk off at least some of the calories and wandered over to two museums that I had wanted to visit before the end of the month to catch their current exhibitions. The first museum I visited was the Toguri Museum of Art for an exhibition on Japanese pottery. But the second exhibition was the one that interested me more; it focused on the colours and patterns used on kimonos in the Okinawa region in Japan which was on at the Shoto Museum of Art.
On my walk home I stopped to browse a secondhand bookshop and discovered they had a small section of books in English which was a rare treat!
I got home and scrubbed up to head out to a meal for a friend’s birthday. We went to a southern American restaurant called Soul Food House and I really enjoyed the food because it had some good non-meat options! During the meal we were serenaded by a singer who kept on reminding us that it was Friday 13th in between songs in what she thought was her mysterious voice but luckily we all survived the night without any misfortune befalling us.
Saturday 14
We headed out of Tokyo soon after 9am on a bullet train to Karuizawa, a mountain resort town. We spent the morning exploring the bustling high street which was full of adorable little shops and far too many tiny dogs being walked by their owners. Over the course of a few hours we had some excellent baked goods, tuna sandwiches (good tuna sandwiches are rare in Japan too) and far, far better than average coffees. We know nothing about coffee but even we could tell that it was the good stuff.
We then got to the bit of the day that Wil had been looking forward to - riding a small local train through the highlands for about two hours. It was very scenic and relaxing. As is probably the case with most scenic mountain routes the final destination wasn’t exactly hip and happening. But we found some regional savoury vegetable buns (one of our favourite foods in Japan) in the station shop and brought them home for dinner (following another two hour train journey)!
Sunday 15
We had a more leisurely start to the day and didn’t leave the city until 9:30! This time we got the bullet train to Niigata prefecture and the purpose of our trip was to visit modern art installations dotted around the region and two museums: Hachi & Seizo Tashima Museum of Picture Book Art and the Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art, Kinare. Sundays don’t get better and it was probably amongst my favourite days out in Japan in this year.
We finished the day with big bowls of (vegan) ramen on our way home at T’s TanTan restaurant at Tokyo Station!
Setting the scene for as I wrote this blog:
Location: Mostly out and about and brought it together at home.
Weather: The weather was all over the place!
Soundtrack: George Ezra.
Bonus fact: The Rugby World Cup starts in Japan this month. Through talking to Wil’s colleagues we have finally learnt that the Japanese way to say “rugby” is “ragubii”.
