Hey, guys. I'm back. At least, I hope to be.
Of course I've done a lot of stuff in the past six months since I've posted. At the same time though, I feel like I've been a little dead inside. Or maybe just in stasis. Like, a spiritual hibernation.
Yesterday was a pretty amazing day.
SIEN is an international... er, club? Association? In all honesty, I have no idea what the acronym stands for, but basically, they're a group of Japanese and foreigners who like to get together and hang out every once in a while. Go on trips, do events; that sort of thing. My last post, about hanami in Shinjuku-gyoen, was one of their events. Yesterday was a national holiday in Japan, Culture Day, and with little to do, I decided to go to a SIEN event that was provocatively titled "Mystic Walk".
What the hell does that even mean?
Knowing next to nothing, I met up with the group around 11AM at Shinagawa Station in Tokyo. The walk was a hike to 4 different "mystic spots" in Tokyo. The locations were kept secret from everybody save for the president of SIEN, Ryoji. He was one of two people there who I remembered from the event back in April. For the most part, I knew nobody.
My Wednesday holiday and here I am in Shinagawa at 11AM going somewhere with a bunch of someones.
Just before we set off, Ryoji told us that the whole trip will be about a 40km walk with multiple breaks. Fair enough. Plenty of time to get to know people. I met, Aleksandra the Tokyo University graduate from Bulgaria, Tomoko the girl who tried to teach me a song which she herself did not know the lyrics to, Amy the fashionable preschool teacher who latched on to me immediately, Ootake-san the photographer who took a trip to India all by himself this past summer, etc.
They're good people.
The first stop was Sengakuji, the temple where the gravestones of the 47 samurai stand. Here's the short version of this story (one of the most well-known events in Japanese history): daimyo Asano Naganori was completing his two-year stay in the capital as was required of all daimyo during the Edo period, when some guy (who happened to be a court official named Kira Yoshinaka) got all up in his grill. He drew his sword on the guy, but failed to kill him. What's more, for taking arms against a court official, he had to commit seppuku. Oops.
47 of his retainers were not so happy about this. They planned and schemed for two years trying to find an opportune time to kill Kira. They found it, succeed, and OH WAIT WE COMMITTED MURDER. In order to save face, they all had to kill themselves too. People in the Edo period LOVED this story. Nothing says "loyalty and honor" like ritual suicide.
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The second "mystic spot" was a whole lot less mystic, but no less wonderful.
The Yamanote line is the most popular train line in Tokyo. It makes a big loop around the center of the city hitting just about anywhere that's anywhere. Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinagawa, Tokyo, Akihabara, Ueno, Ikebukuro--all on the Yamanote.
The longest break between two stations on the Yamanote is between Tamachi and Shinagawa. They're actually building another station right now to make that no-man's land a little more accessible. For now however, you're forced to walk, and what's worse is that there's only one passage under the tracks in that LOOOOONG distance. The second spot was that passage.
The passage looks like it's old as time immemorial and is almost completely underground. It also turns out that its drainage systems are not so great. There's a warning at the entrance that warns commuters that during heavy rain, the tunnel is often completely underwater. Here's the real kicker though: the ceiling is probably only about 5'4" high. Even I had to duck! And people ride their bikes through this thing! There are probably people who commute by way of that tunnel every day of their lives!
Finding the light at the end of the tunnel, we stopped to have lunch at an artificial park constructed on top of a water treatment plant. I sat in the shade and the autumn wind chilled my face. I pulled my winter coat up tight.
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The third spot was the Rainbow Bridge, a giant suspension bridge that connects Hamamatsucho with the arificial island of Odaiba. As we arrived at the foot of the bridge, Ryoji brought up an interesting point: "I'm sure all of you have seen the Rainbow Bridge many times, but how many of you have ever walked across it?" I didn't even know that you could.
The walk is great. There are plenty of observation decks and you can get a really good view of the whole city. The wind blew the smell of the bay way up into the back of my nostrils. The sun was quickly descending. I laughed.
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Coming off the end of the bridge, Ryoji asked us all if we knew why Odaiba is called Odaiba (お台場). Ironically, Aleksandra had just finished explaining the story to me about 15 minutes before. Here's how it works (get ready for some Japanese):
A daiba (台場) is the location where a houdai (砲台) is placed. A houdai is the gun battery which holds a taihou (大砲). Taihou is the word for cannon.
When Perry first arrived in Yokohama with his black ships, the government in Tokyo didn't have a clue what to do were he to approach the capital. One plan was that if Perry were to try to bring his fleet into the Tokyo Bay area, they blast him with cannon fire. They built 6 different cannon stations in the bay and waited patiently. He never came.
The name stuck though. We concluded the "mystic walk" with a trip out to one of these islands, now a cape. Down at the end the gun batteries still stand, weathered and cannon-less. We laid down the tarp for one final picnic. The sun was setting down behind the buildings and the clouds. It illuminated the water so brilliantly it hurt to look at. But it hurt so good. I looked around at these people who I'd gotten to know surprisingly well over the course of an afternoon. I was cold, but happy. I was happy.
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The whole trip reminded me of how I had been before. When I'd first arrived. When everything was still new and exciting. How every yes lead to a spectacular adventure. All the hope that I'd lost in the past few months slowly trickled back into my psyche.
There's still so much for me to do, to learn, to grow. The past six months have tested me. Showed me things about myself which I didn't think I was capable of. Sometimes terrible things.
But sometimes it's darkest right before the clouds break open enough to let the sun's brilliance dance on the bay water.
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