2002-05-10 - 6:58 p.m.
Last week was Golden Week -- when three national holidays fall within seven days, nearly 70 million Japanese travel somewhere, and everyone in the vacation business, from airlines to country inns, jacks up their prices by about a third. Because of the price hike, I decided not to travel anywhere far away during the 4-day weekend, but I did manage to get out of Tokyo for a bit.
On Saturday night it was warm enough for a t-shirt and jean jacket, so after catching a movie in the glitzy Ginza district, Saori and I took a slow stroll around the neighborhood. Locals will tell you otherwise, but as an American I know better: Tokyo is a very clean city. The Ginza, with its wide sidewalks and towering glass temples of high fashion, is spotless. “Ginza” means “main shopping street,” and Tokyo’s Ginza is a place to soak in austere window displays, the click-clack of women’s high heels on pavement, and the menus at $150 a plate restaurants. Unlike other big Tokyo neighborhoods, in the Ginza there are no loudspeakers blaring pop songs and sales pitches on a relentless loop. Save the street musicians, the Ginza is practically silent. In Shibuya and Shinjuku, dozens of teenage musicians park themselves near stations and play to rapt groups of five or ten fans. Oddly, they don’t put out a hat or a guitar case for tips -- they’re playing for recognition, and for the fun of it. The Ginza street musicians are decidedly more dressed-up. Outside of a darkened Tiffany, a full brass band played. A few blocks away on the corner of a busy intersection, a Scottish man in a kilt played a bagpipe to the delight of many, who snapped pictures next to him. Both acts were accepting tips, and I imagine they must rake in a nice sum in the Ginza.
Early on Sunday Saori and I packed bentos (lunches) and set out to join hundreds of other Golden Week daytrippers for a hike north of Tokyo. Two hours worth of train-riding put us at the base of Mitake-san, a mountain in the middle of nowhere but technically still in Tokyo. Upon arrival I had the sinking feeling that this would turn out like our “getaway” to Hakone -- caught on a tourist conveyer belt, moving from one site to the next with the crowds, a souvenir shop every five feet along the way. It certainly started out that way. From the station we took a short but packed bus ride to the cable car stop part-way up the mountain. After the six-minute ride up the mountain, we trekked en mass up a paved path to the summit, which featured Mitake jinja, a large shrine. We ate our lunches outside the towering red torii (gateway), washed our hands as per the ritual, and ascended the stairs to the shrine. The view from the top was beautiful, and we were blessed with perfect weather (defined as not cold enough to make me shiver, not warm enough to make me sweat). From there, fortunately, the crowds thinned out, and the trails turned from pavement to dirt. From the shrine, we began a steep decent into a forest of Japanese cedars. The trees were eerily bare, save the clusters of leaves at the tippy-top which blocked the sun. We hiked for three hours, as the cedars thinned out to give way to a rocky stream, and our steep decline became an uphill test of my ability not to whine. We were treated to a double waterfall, and a spare-looking shrine positioned against a rock wall several stories high.
By the time we decided to turn toward the cable car, I was all hiked-out, and thankfully the path back was wide and gentle. Before getting on the bus, we stopped to get some dango (rice dumplings). They were skewered three to a stick and set to grill around a circular fire until the outsides turned dark like a well-roasted marshmallow. The vendor, who also had a similar fire rigged up to grill skewered fish, brushed the dango with a miso sauce before handing them to me. They were heavenly -- perfectly chewy with a warm toasted shell, the perfect medium for the sweet miso sauce which would have been good enough on its own. Saori graciously gave me the last bite, and we set out for our journey back to the city.
When the our last train finally pulled into the station in Saori’s neighborhood nearly two hours later, we didn’t head home, but rather straight for the sento (public bath). Through a sliding door just past the entrance, we approached the cash register, located in an un-partitioned corner of the women’s dressing room (the men’s side has its own register), and paid about three dollars each, plus a little more for soap, shampoo, and a minuscule towel. After washing seated on a little stool in front of a row of faucets, I rinsed and climbed into the bath which for once was not too hot.
Next week: my weekend in Kyoto.
