Travel Escapes Part 2: Japan edition

I am still to resolve Japan in my head. When I travel to most countries, I eventually ‘get’ it. I can reasonably predict what would come in the form of their art or architecture or food after a while. But Japan keeps me on my toes - mostly in a pleasant way.

If you’ve read even a little bit about its past (including the violent parts), you are likely to be thrown by how different Japan feels today. This ‘different’ is pleasant and striking in its contrast to living in India where you eat chaos for breakfast and thulp post-apocalypse scramble for lunch. So, modern day Japan feels too good to be true.

The polite and friendly Japanese are often thinking of the larger good in a social context (what?). Cities are built with thoughtfulness. It’s clean. It embraced hi-tech decades back that our future feels like their ancient. Order. Empathy. Words that often exist only in dictionary social communities in India. Not that I’m dumping on India - we have our own thing going.

Japan is also too weird to be true and that is why the trip to Japan should always start at the mecca of weirdness - Tokyo.

This is part 2 on a series on best travel escapes. You can read Part 1 here: Sun, sea and mountains. Once again, treat more as inspiration than as a travel guide.

Tokyo - There’s Earth and there’s Tokyo

Japan is way more than Tokyo. But, the rest of it can wait (and it does wait more patiently) until you’ve been to Tokyo. Tokyo is the most credible proof that all of our civilization’s is a simulation. More than 100 years back, Tokyo was used as an old English slang for Cocaine. Makes perfect sense. Tokyo isn’t snorted but rather you let it infuse through your senses. It’s a revelation of human weirdness and ingenuity.

On an average more than 6,000 people live in every square kilometer of Tokyo. And yet, the densest place on the planet sprawls endlessly over an estimated 13,000 square kilometers like an epidemic of awesomeness across Honshu, the Japanese mainland. You are tiny in Tokyo; an ant lost in the world’s weirdest mall. 

Getting lost, both literally and metaphorically, is the thing to do in Tokyo. Having arrived from the airport by train, N and I had one simple objective: Get out of the Tokyo station. Yet, a week had passed and we were still wandering endlessly. While I am joking, I am only half-joking. The good thing, though is that Tokyo station has everything for you to live endlessly in its ever expanding maze of levels and malls. [If you’ve calmed down enough to make some sense of where you are in Tokyo station, head out to the T’s Tan Tan for some of the most delicious vegetarian Ramen you can find]. 

Tokyo’s neighborhoods are mini-cities with their own personalities. Radiate out from the Tokyo Station into Shinjuku and you have infinite skyscrapers or wander into small alleys (like Omoide Yokocho) to find ultra-cozy eateries (50 sq. ft.) huddled together for comfort. Warm and inviting, you’ll find people bunched in bent over steaming blows eating off a wooden bar presided over the lone chef in residence. It’s the kind of dichotomy of big and small that pervades all of Tokyo.

Talking of big, we scrambled in Shibuya pedestrian crossing (more than a million people cross every day) and scrambled again. Shibuya crossing proves that humans can flock too. In Akihabara, I found a type of heaven. Filled with thousands of shops dedicated to gaming, VR parlors, electronic devices of kinds unknown, manga, anime and comic shops and millions of other pop-culture dispensaries, my proposal to spend the entire Tokyo visit there was vetoed by N.  In the warp zone of Takeshita Dori in Harajuku, you can eat monstrous cotton candy, ice-creams with weird flavors and crepes filled with 25 types of awesomeness.

If all this stimulates you too much, not to worry. Tokyo shapeshifts effortlessly into a serene destination in the Meiji shrine. If like me, watching the big barrels of Sake placed in the shrine fills you with the desire to taste sake head over to Meishu center to do some sake tasting from nearly 100 varieties. Continue to dwell serenely in any of the dozens of large parks and gardens in Tokyo (Ueno park, yoyogi park or Shinjuku Gyoen). Walk around the Imperial garden and see the palace. Can one city have such contrasting moods?    

But beyond all this, it’s the little things you see in Tokyo that really grab your attention, like watching 70 year old men line up for a slot and gambling center to open at 8 in the morning or old men in suits riding the train at 10 pm after a long hard day at work (I even saw one take a few sad swigs off a hip-flask). You see people dress up into anime characters, hairs of all shades and head-gear ranging from bunny ears to elven hats. Stop by any of the millions of shops selling food and you see sweets and desserts in an explosion of colors, shapes and flavors that could only be dreamed up in Tokyo. There’s restaurants themed along all sorts of weird things and little Ramen places with vast electronic kiosks. Gacha-gacha slot machines line up along the road and in shops in most places. Throw in a coin to see what quirky toys turn up. The place, in short, is a surreal assault.

For instance, take the Japanese toilet. Russian nuclear power plants have fewer buttons than these. The first time I was mildly terrified. One couldn’t be sure if pressing a button didn’t cause a tsunami in the Pacific. The button-press bidet, however, ranks among the top things that have made me reconsider humanity in positive light. The fact that the rest of the world hasn’t adopted this is the strongest argument against a nation-state model of development.

To add to our surreality, we met a batch-mate couple in Tokyo in a happy accident and decided to partake in the most popular exhibition of Tokyo’s strangeness - The Robot restaurant. For 90 minutes, you are assaulted by crazy robots, strange characters, lights and fireworks that all leads to a transformer-like finale where Robots try to maul each other.

Ah, Tokyo. Arguably, the greatest city in the world.

Hokkaido - Skinny dipping in volcanic water

Sapporo, Otaru, Noboribetsu, Lake Toya, Lake Shikotsu, 

The second time we wanted to see nature in Japan. Hokkaido, the northernmost of the five main islands of Japan, with six national parks and countless hot springs and lakes with breathtaking scenery was an easy choice. 

Things didn’t start on a great note. Given the spread out nature of the island and the sparse public transportation available there, we’d settled on a road trip itinerary. The only complication - Japan did not recognize Indian license and I had to get an international driving permit. So, after a week of enduring the RTO, I secured an IDP. We were all set for 2 weeks of driving in Hokkaido - we’d start with the western and southern parts of the island, and then proceed to the less-inhabited national-parks to the east and then complete the circle over a two week period. 

Except, Japan did not accept the IDP that Indian RTO deemed as the correct format. The car rental in New Chitose airport was apologetic about not being able to help us out. Even N’s bully-mode didn’t work. This was Japan, after all, where rules really were rules. Despite the disappointment, we couldn’t help but admire the fact that the rental guy drove us to our hotel. That was Japan, too. 

In a feverish few hours in the night, we replanned our whole trip loosely but this time only based on public transportation. A few national parks were dropped as they were impossible to do without a car and we rejigged our trip to be more relaxed with time in each of the places we went to, figuring things out in real time. 

Turned out to be a blessing in disguise. For, Hokkaido is an island of exceptional beauty that’s best soaked in slowly. While the largest city in the island is Sapporo, getting out of it is the best way to explore Hokkaido. Hokkaido is volcano country. Most of Japan’s volcanic mountains, caldera lakes and hell valleys are found here.

South of Sapporo is Noboribetsu, a hot spring resort town set amidst lush green hills with a sulphurous smell that reminded me of school chemistry lab. The source of the smell - Jigokudani (hell valley). This ominously named placed looks like a literal hell with white smoke oozing out of a Jupiter-esque landscape. This is the source of mineral-rich, hot springs that the town is famous for.  

Noboribetsu is full of Onsens (hot spring baths). While the sound of dipping in mineral-rich hot bath sounds deliciously fun, the catch is that most of these Onsens were public in nature and are meant to be partaken the same way one came into this world, with not a shred of clothing. This South Indian man and woman were too chicken to do it and instead opted for a private onsen in a smaller room where we dipped in lava-like mineral-bath for an hour. Yet, the fact that we hadn’t really done an Onsen quite authentically nagged at us in our mineral-enriched delirium.

And Hokkaido was full of Onsens everywhere, taunting us. Our next stop was lake Toya, a massive caldera lake with a small resort town next to it. Here, N and I decided to plunge into the world of public nudity (gender segregated - thank god for small mercies!). After just a few terrifying moments of nudity, you realise that no one cares. Within five minutes of stepping into the hot pool, I’d forgotten all about it. Yet, navigating the etiquette of public onsens while being completely naked is a whole another post which I will get to soon.

Hokkaido is also lake country (a lot of them are caldera lakes) and they are all beautiful and serene places. In most places here you could stay in Japanese style rooms and sleep in tatami mats. When hungry, walk out to the nearest delicious Ramen place (Hokkaido is the home of at least 4 types of Ramen noodles). There are numerous places to trek near Lake Toya or Lake Shikotsu that are spectacular landscapes with little to no crowds. Trek up mountain Uzusan near Lake Toya is especially spectacular with little to no crowds and amazing views of the sea and smoking volcanoes. 

Otaru is crowded and more ‘touristy’ (its canal is not that big a deal) and yet in the dusk it’s supremely beautiful. More importantly, here you find a collection of the most insane desserts assembled. Just walk into all of the ‘sweet’ shops (LeTAO is headquartered here) and eat as many of the desserts as you can find (eat the delicious double fromage cheesecake from LeTAO), eat an ice-cream, have some coffee, drink some home made wine and generally have a good time.

The middle of Hokkaido has farm lands, deep blue pond and lavender and melon farms that are beautiful and make for a great day trip (Furano and Biei). Further beyond is national parks and more wilder country which we didn’t get to try. There’s always next time!

P.S: I’ve not talked about Kyoto here, which is another place N and I visited and enjoyed immensely. I wanted to focus on a few and in the process left out Kyoto. It’s a bit of a travesty, honestly. In Kyoto, I was blown away by the zen gardens and still rank the walk in Philosopher’s path among the most verdantly serene experiences. Not to mention hopping over its little canals and walking in it’s traditional streets and geisha-watching. If you are heading to the Japanese mainland, don’t miss Kyoto!

There’s so much to see,

Tyag