I was up close to 6 am today after I went to bed early the night before. I ended up grabbing the camera and going out for a walk around the city while Hiro caught up on some beauty sleep. We had to be out of the hotel by 11 so I had some time to kill and an empty stomach bugging me. I was crossing my fingers I'd find a open ramen restaurant on a Sunday morning but after some wandering around and picture taking, mostly on film, I hadn't come across anything. In the end I tried out one of the curry rice restaurants close to the hotel. Off hand it was nothing amazing but still delicious in a bind.
One of the things I still have some trouble with is going to restaurants by myself in Tokyo. It's not that I don't know how to order, that's easy enough in Japanese, but finding what I want to order has been a small struggle at times. Between the stylized menus, which are more often out front or on the walls and the heavy kanji use of some places it's made for a sometimes difficult realization as to what I think I'm ordering and what I'm actually ordering.
The curry house had a lot of choices between amounts of rice, spicy ness levels and toppings and after a little initial confusion it all worked out. I guess I need to accept having to make some mistakes for the sake of learning. I actually don't mind it, but it's a little more difficulty when you do it infront of a crowd.
After catching up with my friend we walked to the Shinkansen station and met up with another friend to have a quick lunch before heading back to Tokyo. Here's the quirky thing about eating at restaurants in Japan. Here the restaurants are often smaller than the standard ones in Canada. They house less customers but the density of people within the areas of where those restaurants are located is much much higher. A quiet day around some streets in Tokyo has more people traffic than a really busy Boxing day sale in West Edmonton Mall. Needless to say this can make for a you time getting into some restaurants.
Following lunch and the speedy ride back to Tokyo, I ended up dropping my luggage off at home, spending some time catching up with my girlfriend via FaceTime (I really love technology some days) and then grading my camera bag and making it out to Shibuya and Yebisu Garden Square for a little night photography and some wandering the streets with some good ambient music.
Shibuya is well known for the huge intersection where all traffic stops and everyone crosses at the same time. It's a rather big understatement but the amount of people there can be staggering and the hassle and bustle of it all a little disorienting, especially when you're right in the middle. It does however make for a great spot to people watch when you stand yourself at one of the corners. I definitely want to come back here one evening.
Yebisu Garden Center on the other hand is much quieter and right now a very romantic place to takes one's significant other. It was the place I had been a few days prior for the lighting ceremony. I had wanted to come back during a quieter time and it was really close to Shibuya station. Right now a lot of Christmas lights are up and on and it really feels like a great place to just sit around and enjoy.
I didn't however get a chance to get the shots I wanted. As it turns out I'd have to come back during twilight otherwise the contrast between the lights and the actual surroundings is just too big for a nice shot.
I ended up coming home a little earlier than usual as I had to wake up at 6 to set off towards Niigata. My train from Tokyo was set to leave at 9:22 am and it usually takes me about 50 min to get there.
Today's events involved running into a friend from a few years back and spending some time around the city. We spent some time doing a little sight seeing at the castle in Nagoya as well as visiting the high school from with both friends graduated from during one of the high school festivals however, that's not where the bulk of today was spent.
I'm at a fork in the road right now on the photography end and it's become a rather frustrating experience today. Looking back at a lot of the popular photography I've come across in the past I've come to realize that it's always been very unintrusive and transient. Often, it's gone to capture a great atmosphere that represents the country and way of life well but at the same time it's from a distance. Something I didn't see until now when I started looking back on my shots, realizing how I got them and wanting something more.
To be honest, before coming here I still hadn't decided what sort of story I wanted to tell. I knew that it had to involve a people element and couldn't just be for, the side lines. The night in Ebisu is about the only night so far that I feeli got what I was after. Nagoya, in contrast, has been the complete counter opposite and I don't feel I've shot anything here even remotely cohesive or engaging.
It's become a struggle that's quite literally kept me from sleeping at night.
In a country that's very much homogenous and puts a heavy influence on fitting in it becomes a mental barrier to step outside that circle, especially being sensitive to the smaller details of the passive culture that's at play beneath the surface.
I have a lot of shots of the back of people's heads and I'm really not happy about that. The approach I had to shooting within Canada doesn't translate very easily to here for me. I've had no problem gettinng infront of people with a 35mm back in Canada for the sake of a shot of people within their environment that is more than just a candid portrait, but a shot that tells a story. I'm not there yet here, even shooting at 85mm has been a struggle. It's very much a mental barrier that I'm trying to overcome and it's lead me to not think heavily on the subject as well as what story I really want to tell by the end of my trip.
Today involved a late start to the morning due to the late night and hangover the day before. I had to meet my friend in Tokyo to catch the 2:30 Shinkansen to Nagoya city. I didn't even get out of bed till around 10:30 but did manage to get out of the house around 11:30 and head towards my destination with some time to spare. On the way my friend asked me if I was able to make the 1:30 train and as luck would have it I was just arriving in Tokyo around 1 pm.
The Shinkansen was one of the things I was really excited about when coming to Japan. The trains are rather well known outside of the country already but I have held a long interest in trains since childhood times.
I ended up boarding and catching up with my friend a few stations down before taking off towards Nagoya. We ended up chatting a good deal of the way but the subtleties of some of the culture as well as the general train experience were not lost on me. The smoothness of it all comes off so passive that you don't even realize you've accelerated to close to 300km/h. You do notice some of the other details though, the cleanliness, the quiet and polite demeanor of the atmosphere on the train as well as the almost excessive leg room.
I really enjoyed the trip there and it almost entirely flew by.
Nagoya on the other hand knocked me off my footing a little. This is a city where I began to feel a bit out of place. Walking the streets you begin to catch some prejudices that you may not catch in Tokyo. Anywhere you go there are generally people trying to get you to come into restaurants, hostess bars or other establishments. In Tokyo, just like everyone else, I was advertised to, regardless of whether I spoke Japanese or not. In Nagoya I started to catch a lot of those people avoiding me when I walked by. In a sense this was almost nice as I don't much care for getting stopped every few steps but at the same to,e it begins to make you really feel separated from the people around you. If I accidentally crossed paths with someone in Tokyo they would still say excuse me or even acknowledge it. Here in Nagoya it wasn't the case. I was trying to get to an elevator at one point and nobody stopped to hold the door from closing.
By all accounts these are very small forms of passive prejudice but as an outsider, you begin to feel even more so like one when you catch them. It's not something I take particularly personally but it's having an effect on me having the courage to get the shots I want and it's something I'm really starting to contend with on a psychological level.
I spent the rest of the evening meeting up with a friend, having some drinks and going out to try some Korean food. To be honest, following that I did not have too strong of a desire to walk around during the evening for the sake of getting more pictures.
My second morning involved more exploring as my friend had work that day as well but I finally had the chance to meet up with Ayami, a friend I had not seen for a few years. She had invited me to a local event in Ebisu Garden Center which was basically a lighting ceremony for a gorgeous Chandelier hanging in the center of the park. She was a part of a choir group which was involved with singing at the ceremony with around 1000 other people.
I spent the morning exploring Meiji Jingu in Harajuku as well as the Harajuku area as well. Meiji Jingu had a martial arts de,onstration as well as a number of other ceremonies that day which were all rather interesting. I actually really enjoyed the atmosphere in the place, even though it was filled with people. Being surrounded by large beautiful tries on either side of the path and seeing no shortage of parents with their kids dressed up in traditional outfits for the temple made for some wonderful sights and cultural experiences.
Harajuku itself was a bit of an odd experience even for me. The cosplay and idol culture in Takeshita st was very....intense, for lack of a better word. It's something you see around Japan quite a bit sometimes. I will likely go back there to spend some actual time there with my camera later next week so I can better document it. To be honest I really felt out of my element shooting there at the time.
Speaking of which, day one in Japan, although I shot a lot, I felt really out of place trying to get the right shots. You quickly come to realize the cultural differences about respecting people's spaces, even more so when you're a foreigner in the country and initially it clashes to ones approach about doing what you have to do as a photographer to get the shot you want. I had not yet found my comfort zone but that started to change on day two.
Actually, running around Tokyo I really didn't feel too much like an outsider, aside from the fact I wanted to become more comfortable with the subtleties of interacting with some of the people there.
It was something that started to change during the actual lighting ceremony mentioned earlier. Ayami introduced me to some of her friends before the ceremony as well as took me to the preparation room before the actual performance to meet the rest of the people. Everyone there was see kind and it made a big impact on my comfort levels. While running around Tokyo, as mentioned earlier, you don't exactly feel too much like a foreigner, at least not to the level I was expecting. More so you don't get regarded much . People sit next to you on the train, they don't really pay any attention to you either though. Infact, strangely enough the only people I actually caught looking at me were the younger generation.
I guess what I mean is not that I expected attention but before the trip you'd always hear about being avoided to an extent. Small things like that. I really didn't get that impression at all, if anything it was all very passive. However, at the same time you still kind of feel like you don't belong to a degree.
Meeting those individuals started to change that and made me feel like a part. Following the ceremony, which was something a step above anything I've seen locally in Edmonton, everyone went out for drinks together. The evening was spent meeting new friends, speaking Japanese and having lots of drinks and snacks at a rather small Izakaya filled with about 30 people. At a few points in the evening the whole place broke out into a few songs which spilled out into the street around the Izakaya and attracted a few outsiders. The atmosphere of that is hard to put into words. It's an incredibly strong sense of community and it's something that is rarely seen if ever at all back home. It was definitely a strong sample of the level of culture and community here and one of the reasons I find such an interest in it all.
Following that it was running a bit late and I ended up leaving to catch one of the last trains home. My route involved taking the JR line from Ebisu to Ueno and then switching to the Keisei line to get back to Keisei Koiwa. The first trip is about 30 min but as soon as I sat down I fell asleep right after leaving Ebisu station. That particular line travels in a circle around the city and is about a 1hr ride all the way around. When I woke up the train conductor was announcing the arrival of the next stop.....Ebisu. I made a complete circle around and then had another 30 min trip to get to Ueno again. When I got off and got to the Keisei line station it was already closed. I had to flag down a taxi and get him to take me back to the Keisei Koiwa station so I could walk backhome from there.
It ended up closing about ¥5500. Expensive but funny and good lesson learned.
Day one in Japan was an interesting one. The friend I was staying with had to leave for work pretty early, long before I woke up. My friends mother doesn't speak English so pretty quickly I came to the realization I'd be using a lot of Japanese and didn't really have another language to fall back on.
I set off pretty early after taking a shower towards the closest train station which after having to ask the attendant I found my way to Ueno following my friends recommendation. I was initially planning on continuing on towards Tokyo but after exiting the station i found a park directly above it. I spent some time exploring it before heading back towards the other station to make my transfer. I originally planned on stopping at Roppongi but part way down the line decided to go to Ebisu for a bit. As it turns out there's a small fare discrepancy and was stopped on the way out to pay the difference. Quick lesson learned about the train system.
Following some exploration of Ebisu I headed back towards Shinjuku to track down a camera store from a friends recommendation. The station is huge! It's a little intimidating at first but I managed to eventually find my way after getting a little lost and finding my way to the park area near there.
The evening is when things got interesting. After eventually finding my was back home my friend messages me to meet him at a local station to go for some drinks pretty late in the evening. After I met up with him he informed me he was going to show me some Japanese culture........by making me go to a hostess bar. One slight panic kicked in at that point and after much figurine kicking and screaming against the idea I eventually went along.
Here is the thing, from a western perspective the perception of a hostess bar is generally negative and unusual. It's basically paying a hourly fee to drink and talk with women. On the face of it, my initial perception was that it was at times more than that, hence my initial protest. My friend spent some time reassuring me it was very much not that, which is why I finally gave in and took the perspective of seeing what it really is about. He also put in the effort to go too place that allowed some level of picture taking so I could show something on my blog.
We ended up going to two different places and I have to admit that overall it was a positive experience on several levels.
Every one there was having conversations and nothing more....it was just that. For me, it ended up actually being quite valuable as I was forced to use Japanese. I actually ended up becoming a lot more comfortable with speaking following that evening and it carried onto my next day in Japan.
As a foreigner it gave me an opportunity to practice my speech with people who did not know English and who were (even if it may be shallow by some perspectives) being paid to keep up a entertaining conversation.
The people there, from what I saw, were having an entertaining evening. They were not individuals who lacked friends or were socially awkward. It can be a little hard to explain but it's something that is very much rooted on some level in the culture here.
We ended up going for some late night ramen to end the unusual but informative evening.
