Temples, museums ,and Kabuki

English is not widely spoken in Japan. That says a lot, coming from someone who just spent almost two weeks in China, a country less developed than Japan. Not that I was expecting everyone I met in Tokyo to be fluent, but I did expect more than just broken English, including from the concierge staff of the hotel we stayed at.

The other thing that struck us as odd was how overpriced cabs are here. Taking the taxi to downtown Tokyo easily sets you back $300. Taking taxis around town was going to be equally expensive, but fortunately the alternate form of transportation – the subway – turned out to be one of the best in the world. The Tokyo subway system leaves the New York subway system, which I would call the most complex and extensive that I have had experience with so far, in the dust. And it takes you everywhere.

For our first full day in Japan we followed the walking tour outlined in one of our guidebooks. Starting at the Hama Rikkyu garden, which is a downtown park, we took a ferry to Asakusa, which is where old Tokyo still refuses to disappear, and makes itself felt in the street vendors, the kimono-clad women, and the shrines that populate it. After visiting Sensoji temple and the colorful Nakamise Dori (below), Saeeda and I grabbed lunch in the old quarter before heading to the Ueno museum district.

The Tokyo National museum was superb. We had arrived hoping to allocate the two hours before closing time to its five buildings, but it took us that long in the main building alone. Part of my fascination with this country comes from its unique history, shaped not only by its natural geographical isolation, but also by its hundreds of years of self-imposed political isolation. In a country with a population the size of that of the US, concentrated in a land mass the size of California, of which only x% is habitable, Japan had two paths it could choose from for its continued development. It could either devolve into anarchy, with a policy of survival of the fittest, or it could establish an intricate social system of interaction espousing civility, cordiality, politeness, and the complete de-emphasis of the individual. It is the second path that, in my opinion, explains the tradition and sophistication of even the most mundane of activities – pouring tea, arranging flowers, or folding paper – that the Japanese have lifted to an art form. The Tokyo National Museum did a great job of displaying artifacts that explained some of these activities, and Saeeda and I left saddened that we had not been able to explore the rest of the museum.

From the museum district we hit Ginza, which was shopping heaven. Shopping has to be the Tokyo residents number one hobby, because the malls here are huge, and are everywhere. We also noticed that everyone we saw was very fashion-conscious, sporting the latest designer labels and wearing completely coordinated outfits. The men, when they were not carrying the purses of their wives and girlfriends (Saeeda kept trying to make me do the same), were carrying their own man-purse and boasted outfits and hairstyles every bit the equal of their exquisitely dressed female counterparts. Sorta made me feel like a slob.

Ginza also houses a Kabuki theater (below) where Saeeda and I wanted to catch an act of traditional Japanese theater. The cool thing about Kabuki is that it is split into self-contained acts that tell different stories, and you can come and go as you please. This meant that we did not have to stay for the entire three hour performance, but could catch half of it while not missing out on the experience. The stories were easy to follow, made more so by the audio guide that we rented that helped explain the nuances. An interesting fact that caught Saeeda by surprise was that all actors in Japanese kabuki are male – the most talented of which play the role of women in the plays.
All in all it was a wonderful time, and we retraced our steps to the hotel after a very full day.