Tokyo Repels the Invading Horde

Kundan slips through enemy lines disguised as a Kangadeer.

It all started when Kakisakai sensei reminded me that he was going to Vietnam for eight days to perform with a symphony orchestra in Hanoi. I started searching for possible trips to take during this hiatus in lessons. The prefered island paradise was out of my range money wise. I started looking for accommodation in Kyoto to find that I had left it too late. It was Kirsty's Time Out Tokyo guide that set me on the idea of spending a few days in Tokyo. It listed all kinds places that I didn't know about including about twenty jazz clubs. There was also a listing for a hotel that was very cheap. $27.00 a night. I wasn't expecting much but, being Japan, I knew that it would be clean.

So, the plan was to arrive midday in Tokyo on Thursday. Go to the National Noh Theatre and get a ticket for friday's performance, then, hit a jazz club on Thursday night after checking into my hotel. Friday, I would go to Kamakura an hour from Tokyo and be back in time for the Noh performance. Returning Saturday.

Here's what happened.

Got up Thursday and finished packing. Peeled the second half of a nashi. The nashi pears here are so big that I can only eat one in a sitting. I am the kind of wierdo that looks askance at someone who is peeling a carrot and, yet, I have found that the nashi peel detracts to too great an extent from the joy of this fruit. I section and peel. Then, sitting comfortably, I lose myself the rapture of biting into the succulent flesh of the ripe nashi.

After rinsing my plate and fork, I looked at my watch... I looked at my watch!!! Ten minutes til the express train leaves the station and they only run once an hour. I slip on my daypack and grab my new sports bag as I run for the door. The bag is slapped onto the rack of the bicycle to slouch with the bungy strap whipped across. I peddle at top speed. Halfway there, I make a turn and the bag slips to drag along the concrete. Quick grab and toss on the back. One hundred metres and I have to stop again. Slip the shoulder strap over the head and I'm off. The bag slides around to bang against my thigh as I peddle madly. I will not be stopped! There is a space in the bicycle parking area! Lock the bike and sort of run the fifty metres to the station office. With my last gasps, "Red Arrow, Ikebukuro". I have two minutes left on the clock as I stumble onto the train.

The ride in was the usual pleasantness after they removed the oxygen mask.

My already well thumbed and marked copy of the guide headed me in the direction of "the best natural foods restaurant in Tokyo". I have already mentioned that you cannot find a place by its address because they are not street addresses. The guide got me headed in the right direction and then I asked along the way. After ten minutes, I asked a postman. He said, "Closed". Yes, that's what he said. I don't know if he meant closed closed or just for the day. I returned to the station and rode for five minutes to search for the next on my list. At the exit, I asked for a police box as they usually can send you in the correct way. Two blocks to the police box. A few minutes search on his maps and I'm off. First turn on the right and, then, just two blocks took me to the restaurant just twenty metres from the station exit where I began.

Lunch was vegan and a delicious little meal. Note the word "little". Kundan is not really a "little" meal eater. Well, the day was moving along and my next stop was the National Noh Theatre. That was much easier to find and after being directed around to the correct entrance at the front, I was helped by a young woman who spoke very quickly with an accent that left not a word understood by yours truly. Usually, I can get the gist if I know what the sentence is about. Fortunately, there was a computer with seating charts and it became clear the Friday and Saturday were sold out with only two seats left on that very night. I put my money down and worried when she spoke a sentence with "cancelled" in it. I crossed my self and went on my way.

It was only half and hour by trains and a ten minute walk to the hotel. I won't bore you with almost not getting a room because I had left my passport in Chichibu. I eventually was shown around and sent to my cell through the billowing cigarette smoke in the hallways. Rather than the short rest, I dropped off what I would not need and headed back out into the fresh air arriving an hour early to wander around Sendagaya taking photos of interesting buildings that it eventuated were not photogenic when they passed through my camera.

About Noh. Photo taking was not allowed, so, here's the website. Check out the stage.

http://www.ntj.jac.go.jp/english/index.html

I must admit that the music was what I loved about Noh. The first hour began with musicians playing traditional instruments. Two very strange pieces that were totally enchanting. There was a koto, a small horizontal flute and kind of mouth organ that looked to be made of a clump of various lengths of bamboo. The second piece include a biwa (a large lute used as a percussion instrument).

What followed was a two person Kyogen play. More folksy and very funny. About a servant who is entrusted with preparing some chestnuts for a banquet.

The Noh story was very simple and as I said it was the music that I enjoyed the most. A chorus of six sang much of the dialogue and the narrative. The were two hand drums and a flute. Each seat in the theatre has a small screen with a modern Japanese or English translation of what is being said onstage.

A satisfied Kundan left the theatre and walking in the direction of the train, noticed a placard for a Japanese restaurant down some stairs. I followed my instincts and stomach. The meal was so good that I got no photo. (It has been observed that when good food is placed in front of Kundan the rest of the world disappears.) It was not until I was waiting for desert that I thought what a great photo op I had missed.

But, the green tea cake and soba (buckwheat) ice cream made it into my camera for you.

A more satisfied Kundan made his way back into the night streets.






Off To Kamakura

I was up the next morning and on my way to Kamakura. A town in some hill near the sea less than an hour from Tokyo. It has some beautiful Zen temples. One being the oldest Zen temple in Japan. First stop was to be an Indian restaurant. I arrived in Kamakura to discover that it was a national holiday and guess where half of Tokyo decided to go for the day. Add to that, the restaurant had been replaced by some upmarket Italian place. A couple rice triangles and a cup of miso soup on the street and I backtracked to Kita=Kamakura where my favourite temple existed.

Before the temple, I went looking for a coffee shop away from the crowds. I found this tiny little place that could maybe hold eight people max.









Here's a guy I call him the 'Buddha customer'. Not only for the way he looked but because he spoke English and shared his sandwiches with me.







Engakuji
It's actually a complex of fifteen temples. You could go into the grounds of a few but mostly it was just wandering around the paths.

There is a Kyudo dojo where I played almost thirty years ago with my friend Asanga. We would return there in the early nineties a couple more times. It's small and beautiful. Only two people shooting at a time.















An Autumn temple gate.












Pond in Engakuji.




As much as I loved Engakuji, there were a lot of people around and, so, I walked up the street and headed up a side street that led up to some houses high on the hill. I figured that there would be a spot up there where I could be away from the people and blow on my flute.

Near the top of the hill the houses finished and a path took over. I found myself just behind a couple on their way I know not where. I hope it was pleasurable. They turned left and I continued straight up. Yes, up and through a woods of short trees and tall thin bamboo that crowded the narrow path. It was perhaps a half an hour before I came to a place where I was on a ridge with a path that led down to the other side of the hill. I emerged into a small valley of homes and winding streets. I found some steps that wound down maybe fifty in all. I took a break, unpacked my flute and let the neighbours wonder what the strange sounds were in their quiet afternoon.

Packing up I wanders down through the valley til I turned the corner of a house to find a cafe. The walls were covered with various musical instruments. The owner looked to be an old hippie. He was a friendly soul. He was giving an okareena concert as I left. I signed his guest book promising to play a piece for him when I return. My first perfomance commitment! UH, OH!!!


On my way back to Tokyo, I just could not find the effort to go sit in a smokey jazz club. I had a delicious Indian meal instead and wandered around Shibuya. The in place for the youth to hang. It was fun and when I got back to the hotel, the smoke was markedly less than the night before. I got a good night's sleep after watching a half hour of a Japanese telemovie set shortly after the war. A young boy is taken by his aunt from his poor single mother to live in a country town with his kindly grandmother. I didn't need to understand the dialogue. A bit of candy for sweet dreams.