The Obligatory
"Play safe. Ski only in clockwise direction. Let's all have fun together."
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Trash, Towers, and Temples
For a giant megalopolis, Japan sure is very eco-friendly. There are comprehensive recycling stations everywhere in the city, and most packaging is extremely slimmed down to the bare essentials. There is virtually no litter, and anytime there is some, someone immediately stops to pick it up.
What's even more interesting about this is that there really aren't that many trash cans around the city. So when you've got garbage, you have to hold on to it for a long time before you can get rid of it. Maybe it's a kind of subliminal shaming that happens when you have to keep in contact with your trash for that long. Also, there's still a minor taboo about eating in public, which probably helps keep trash off the streets somewhat.
It’s all very heartening. And it doesn’t look that difficult to accomplish. Although, if my reactions to the food portions was so severe, I don’t know how a recycling and trash reduction program like this would ever work in the States.
And, you know, there's that whole "Completely Different Cultural Mindset" thing going on. Whereas the Japanese have lived on an island with limited livable space and natural resources for thousands of years, we've only had a few hundred on our enormous, bountiful continent. And for every step of the American journey, there's always been a frontier. A mountain range, a river, a high desert, just one more barrier, beyond which lied untold bounty and room. So why bother to conserve here, when there's always more Over There?
Of course, now we're kind of out of Over Theres ... but that's a different blog entry. Or maybe an essay on a grad school application.
I'm just sayin.
Anyway...
After a few of my shoots were all said and done, Luis and I headed out in the drizzle to Tokyo Station, with the intention of seeing the Imperial Palace's East Gardens. Here's Luis, dazzled by Tokyo Station.
It was pretty huge under there. A semi-underground, semi-aboveground, also-a-giant-shopping-mall train station, it's the main hub for Japan's bullet trains, ferry lines, and multiple rail lines. It's like their Grand Central, I guess.
And then, as soon as we got outside, it started raining. Undeterred, we pressed on toward the Garden, stopping to catch a rare glimpse of Engrish poetry on a neighborhood map:
After stopping to check out a series of fountains outside the garden, we continued on to the garden gates - some remnants of the old Feudal Castle, still in great shape and surrounded by a moat. To keep out the invaders, you know.
Unfortunately, that was as close as we got to the gardens that day. Because they closed. At 3PM. On a weekday. Fucking Japan. Why do you make it so hard for tourists to visit your cultural institutions? Some of us are actually trying to learn stuff, you know.
Psh.
We saw the Tokyo Tower looming off in the distance. And while it looked far, it didn't look too far. So we decided to just start walking and see if we could get to it. Stopping, of course, to get a picture of some signs I found oddly amusing.
After walking for what seemed like a half hour, but what was probably closer to 90 minutes or so, we wound our way through several neighborhoods and parks before making it to the base of the Tokyo Tower. For some reason, it was surrounded by these dog statues:
I'm sure the sign behind them completely explained this, but I couldn't read it. And thus it, like so many other things in Japan, was completely lost on me. I just thought it was cute that there were little birds resting on the dogs.
Fortunately, the views from the tower were not lost on me. They, like most views from high buildings in urban areas, highlighted just how dense and sprawling the city was. The clouds and haze prevented the views from going too far, but the buildings pretty much went on as far as we could see, in every direction.
On our way out, we passed through some temple grounds to get to our train station. One of the temples had these rows and rows of tiny statues, each with its own red knit cap and bib, along with pinwheels, flowers, and incense. I got the feeling they were memorials for deceased children, but I've got nothing to back that up.
Still, when a breeze blew through there, the swirling pinwheels drowned out every other city noise. Oddly peaceful and mournful at the same time.
What's even more interesting about this is that there really aren't that many trash cans around the city. So when you've got garbage, you have to hold on to it for a long time before you can get rid of it. Maybe it's a kind of subliminal shaming that happens when you have to keep in contact with your trash for that long. Also, there's still a minor taboo about eating in public, which probably helps keep trash off the streets somewhat.
It’s all very heartening. And it doesn’t look that difficult to accomplish. Although, if my reactions to the food portions was so severe, I don’t know how a recycling and trash reduction program like this would ever work in the States.
And, you know, there's that whole "Completely Different Cultural Mindset" thing going on. Whereas the Japanese have lived on an island with limited livable space and natural resources for thousands of years, we've only had a few hundred on our enormous, bountiful continent. And for every step of the American journey, there's always been a frontier. A mountain range, a river, a high desert, just one more barrier, beyond which lied untold bounty and room. So why bother to conserve here, when there's always more Over There?
Of course, now we're kind of out of Over Theres ... but that's a different blog entry. Or maybe an essay on a grad school application.
I'm just sayin.
Anyway...
After a few of my shoots were all said and done, Luis and I headed out in the drizzle to Tokyo Station, with the intention of seeing the Imperial Palace's East Gardens. Here's Luis, dazzled by Tokyo Station.
It was pretty huge under there. A semi-underground, semi-aboveground, also-a-giant-shopping-mall train station, it's the main hub for Japan's bullet trains, ferry lines, and multiple rail lines. It's like their Grand Central, I guess.
And then, as soon as we got outside, it started raining. Undeterred, we pressed on toward the Garden, stopping to catch a rare glimpse of Engrish poetry on a neighborhood map:
After stopping to check out a series of fountains outside the garden, we continued on to the garden gates - some remnants of the old Feudal Castle, still in great shape and surrounded by a moat. To keep out the invaders, you know.
Unfortunately, that was as close as we got to the gardens that day. Because they closed. At 3PM. On a weekday. Fucking Japan. Why do you make it so hard for tourists to visit your cultural institutions? Some of us are actually trying to learn stuff, you know.
Psh.
We saw the Tokyo Tower looming off in the distance. And while it looked far, it didn't look too far. So we decided to just start walking and see if we could get to it. Stopping, of course, to get a picture of some signs I found oddly amusing.
After walking for what seemed like a half hour, but what was probably closer to 90 minutes or so, we wound our way through several neighborhoods and parks before making it to the base of the Tokyo Tower. For some reason, it was surrounded by these dog statues:
I'm sure the sign behind them completely explained this, but I couldn't read it. And thus it, like so many other things in Japan, was completely lost on me. I just thought it was cute that there were little birds resting on the dogs.
Fortunately, the views from the tower were not lost on me. They, like most views from high buildings in urban areas, highlighted just how dense and sprawling the city was. The clouds and haze prevented the views from going too far, but the buildings pretty much went on as far as we could see, in every direction.
On our way out, we passed through some temple grounds to get to our train station. One of the temples had these rows and rows of tiny statues, each with its own red knit cap and bib, along with pinwheels, flowers, and incense. I got the feeling they were memorials for deceased children, but I've got nothing to back that up.
Still, when a breeze blew through there, the swirling pinwheels drowned out every other city noise. Oddly peaceful and mournful at the same time.
Labels: travel
that one guy you know, 8:37 PM
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