Kayaking in Tokyo

            ‘Was that a jellyfish?’

          ‘Nah, I think it was a plastic bag.’

          Actually, it was a jellyfish. I’d never imagined there were such exotic creatures in Tokyo’s dark and murky rivers. In fact, it’s hard to believe there are any fish at all down there, but our guide Yuki, a friendly native of Kobe, assures us there are ‘some small ones’. 

          This is my second experience of kayaking, the first having taken place in a mangrove swamp in Okinawa. It’s fair to say the surroundings on that occasion were more attractive. Here we can see high concrete banks, rusty and half-submerged boats, the odd business hotel, flowerless cherry blossom trees and innumerable low and uninspiring bridges. Not Venice, in short. 

          The second of our guides, a brown-faced and fit-looking man named Hideki, runs us through the rudiments of kayaking before we’re let loose upon the city’s waterways. This demonstration takes about five minutes, and it all appears pretty straightforward: keep your arms at right angles and move your upper body from side to side as you paddle. 

          Once in the water, my Pennsylvanian companion and I discover things might not be so easy after all. Our initial efforts to go straight see us hit the embankments on both sides of the river. (Two and a half hours later we’re still zigzagging, expending masses of energy in the process.) 

          The first section of our route takes us across the wide and choppy Sumida River, tourist boat territory. ‘This is the most difficult part’, Yuki observes, several of our predecessors having apparently failed even to make it to the other side. We wait as a river bus ploughs serenely by, sending out small waves that cause our kayaks to bob gently up and down. Then we head north up the Sumida, the wind making it easier to progress than on the secluded canal we just exited. 

          As my earlier comments suggest, the rivers we paddle through are far from clean. There are baseballs, tennis balls, plastic bottles and cartons, even a dead bird. Near our landing stage it looked like there had been a minor oil slick. Falling in seems a deeply unpleasant prospect. 

          Getting wet is unavoidable, and my shirt is soaked soon after we begin. I quickly establish that wearing sunglasses is strongly advisable, in light of the spray from our paddles, but there’s little to be done about the salty river water getting into your mouth. The paddling is punishing on the upper arms, and when we pause for a break I devour a bag of snacks like a man who’s been subsisting on a diet of insects for a couple of weeks.

          There aren’t many people on the bridges we paddle beneath, but the young Japanese kids who see us seem rather awestruck. We bellow out ‘konnichiwa’ in response to their waves, feeling like celebrities. 

          After at least 6 kilometres of paddling we struggle out of our kayaks, Hideki congratulating us by saying ‘Otskare sama deshita’ (‘thank you for your hard work’). We return to the company’s office for a cold beer and talk of Tokyo. It’s been exhausting, but one of the best things I’ve done in this city. 

Info: Tokyo Great Kayaking Tour runs tours from near Kayabacho Station (Hibiya Line) for 6000 yen per person. This price includes kayak and life jacket rental, a bag of snacks, a bottle of water and a beer at the end!

           

           

                     

         

Tokyo's Roppongi District

            A lone white-haired Japanese man in a shiny grey suit reels across the station concourse, somehow contriving to stay upright. This impressive display of drunkenness is in keeping with the action above ground. In Matsuya, a 24 hour restaurant specializing in dirt-cheap bowls of gyudon (beef, rice and onion) one boozehound has passed out with his head on the table, while another irritably barks ‘nani sore?’ (what’s that?) when the waitress brings him the food he ordered three minutes before. 

          This is Roppongi, Tokyo’s famous entertainment district, at one in the morning. Visit during the day, and it seems fairly normal. On a hill a short distance away stands Tokyo Tower, the city’s appealing red and white Eiffel Tower clone. An elevated road emblazoned with the word Roppongi divides the famous road crossing. There are the usual convenience stores, coffee shops and fast food joints, and the pedestrians are largely Japanese. Yellow taxis pass with customary frequency and you can hear subway trains below the road as you walk over vents in the sidewalk. 

          Scratch the surface just a little, however, and you get hints of the metamorphosis that occurs at night. You might find yourself wondering why a shoe has been abandoned beside a giant flower pot, or what goes on at enigmatically named places such as ‘Night Kiosk’ and ‘Mask’. Then are the establishments that leave nothing to the imagination: ‘Badd Girls’ and ‘Seventh Heaven’, for instance.

          At night the streets branching off the Roppongi crossing are jammed with foreigners and Japanese heading to Turkish restaurants, faux British pubs, ‘snack’ bars and smoky, 1970s style nightclubs throbbing with god-awful house music. Asian women of uncertain origin hang around on the sidewalk selling massages, the really persistent ones grabbing you by the arm or following you down the street. There are also a staggering number of black African men, who ‘know what you’re looking for’ and promise to ‘hook you up’. The slightest display of interest leads to offers of inexpensive bathroom time with ‘clean’ Japanese girls.

          These approaches are, not surprisingly, illegal. Lampposts and railings feature messages from the police, complete with childish cartoons, advising revellers to beware of these nuisances and warning you that you might end up losing a whole lot of cash should you do business with them. Still, you get the feeling that the police don’t take the matter overly seriously, for the officers standing outside the local police station merely look bored. 

            As dawn arrives the station attracts the exhausted and the utterly inebriated. People are sprawled on the platforms, and there’s an immobile man who’s adopted a variant of the brace position, his head and knees planted firmly against the floor. There are barriers protecting the subway lines at Roppongi Station, with good reason. You get the feeling that without them appalling accidents would be commonplace.

Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine

       

       In the centre of Tokyo, close to Kudanshita Station, a shrine commemorates Japan's war dead, among whose number are convicted war criminals like General Hideki Tojo, Japan's World War Two prime minister. The setting is both imposing and attractive. You pass beneath a massive gate, the tallest in Japan, and walk down an avenue lined with beautiful and very tall trees until you reach the shrine. A group of very old people play the national anthem on traditional instruments, and you can buy some tako-yaki (fried octopus balls) from a stall if you so desire. 

         The shrine is very controversial, with the leaders of countries like South Korea and China routinely kicking up a storm when the Japanese prime minister visits. I used to think they were overreacting or just being cynical (they are politicians, after all). Having now made the journey myself, I'm inclined to believe they might have a point. 

      The shrine's precincts house a war museum. The tone is set on the ground floor, where visitors debating whether to cough up the 800 yen entrance fee are teased with some of the trappings of Japanese militarism: a Zero fighter plane, whose brilliant performance in a battle over the Chinese city of Chongqing is lauded, and a howitzer employed in the calamitous defence of Okinawa in 1945. This gun, we read, was donated "to comfort the noble souls of the war dead". 

         

            By chance, one of the first displays I happened upon was that dealing with what the museum refers to as "The China Incident" (read: the invasion and occupation of huge swathes of China in the 1930s). Reading the English information panels, one is left with the impression that somehow Japan was the victim in this conflict, despite the fact that it occurred across the Sea of Japan, in another country. As for the notorious assault on Nanking in December 1937, this is described as another "Incident".  No mention of atrocities is made, instead we read that the general in charge told his soldiers "to maintain strict military disciplines [sic] and that anyone committing unlawful acts would be severly punished". 

         I lost my enthusiasm for the exhibits after that. In truth, I felt quite out of place, and not just because very few foreigners were present. It was as if I was intruding on something that was not meant for me; the intended audience was domestic, and the aim was not to illuminate, but rather to conceal and propagandise. It was a depressing experience.

A Journey on Tokyo's Arakawa Streetcar

        The old Japanese man sitting next to me on the upholstered green bench complains that it’s hot inside the tram. His wife concurs. They might add that it’s stuffy, cramped and claustrophobic, with

one or two passengers smelling of booze, tobacco and musty clothes. There’s a man with no teeth, a hunchbacked woman, and a couple of elderly ladies sporting wigs. The superannuated sector of society is definitely in the majority on this ride through the untouristed northern districts of Tokyo. 

          This is the city’s sole tram line, the Toden Arakawa. It travels a mere 12 miles from Minowabashi to Waseda, and it takes an age (well, a little less than an hour) to do so. At times the tram proceeds so slowly that you expect some kid to sprint past in mockery of its anaemic pace. It jolts through areas of drab residential buildings, and is only let loose upon the open streets once, between Oji-Ekimae and Asukayama, where cars whizz by on the inside. 

          You get the feeling this service is not popular among the well-heeled. Few passengers look smartly dressed, and some haven’t even bothered to shave. (Admittedly, I fall into the latter category myself.) Perhaps it’s the lack of space that deters them. The tram comprises only one car, and for much of the journey there’s barely room to turn around. Then again, this is Tokyo, so a more likely explanation for their absence is the maddening lack of speed, or possibly the route. 

          Still, the tram, or streetcar, to use the official word, does have its aficionados. Lone Japanese men brandishing expensive cameras loiter on the platforms, readying themselves for the perfect shot. As for its evident popularity among locals, the dirt-cheap tickets (170 yen for a one-way ride, or about 1 pound) presumably play a role.

          And in fairness, there is a certain charm about the tram. In part, it’s the novelty factor. It’s so out of place that you could almost imagine you’re not in Tokyo, but rather in a nondescript provincial city in a place like Shizuoka. Some of the trams look appealingly ancient, and the line terminates just a short walk from renowned Waseda University, where you find relative tranquility, statues of deadly serious Japanese dons wearing graduation caps and one or two European style buildings.