TWO PLACES TO BE ALONE IN TOKYO
It’s objectively hard to be alone in the world’s most populous city. Hard, but not impossible. Tokyo is one crazy gigantic place. And by crazy, I don’t mean out-of-control (Phnom Penh takes that title with ease), but rather a place working according to rules only a local would understand.
I was once told that the cheapest ticket to Mars is a flight voucher to Tokyo. Don’t get me wrong, I love that city. I really do. I also love the Japanese, in the same sort of way one loves 3D Anime/Manga. They’re a bit real, but not really.
Examples are plenty; specially gloved subway attendants whose only role it to push people into hugely overcrowded train cars during rush hour. A train driver that over-sped and flipped his locomotive – killing numerous passengers. Apparently he was 90 seconds late to the next station (Lucky for me all Yamanote line trains were on time while I was riding them). Robot-like office employees turned puking alcoholic Zombies come night. Grownups reading Porn Manga Cartoons in public. Manga Cartoons. Shibuya Girls…The list is practically endless.
Despite the mayhem, and perhaps because of it, one can feel quite detached and alone in this giant metropolis. It’s hard for a “Gaijin” to understand the rules and inner workings of this mega-metropolis. Tokyo looks and feels like an alternative reality – the perfect trip to Mars.
Lucky for the rest of us the city does have its sanctuaries – places of sheer beauty and serenity – if you know where to look.
1. Just around the bend in Yoyogi Park
Yoyogi is an immense park between the Shinjuku and Shibuya districts of Tokyo. It is a bit like New York’s Central Park only with a massive Meiji Shrine in the middle and a level of landscape grooming and maintenance that challenges the term “Anal-Retentive”.
To get there, however, you’d need to take Tokyo’s extensive Yamanote circular line and get off at Harajuku Station. Just as a general warning, Harajuku is internationally known as the center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. Gwen Stefani popularized it in her international concert tour a few years back. If you happen to come across folks with pink hair and psychedelic schoolgirl dresses, it’s not the LSD you took – it’s Tokyo’s alternative reality biting you’re a**! You can either check their (or your) sanity or just turn back and go to the other side of the station and into the park.
I went there one sunny autumn weekend to relax from a week of exhausting meetings and late-night partying. Turning left into the less traveled Meiji Inner Garden, I went further, passed Kakuuntei Tea House and continued to the small pond and the brush beyond it. Stepping away from the path, I found this bit of unkept forest and thought it resembled everything Tokyo lacks and I already started missing. Tranquil, natural and serene, the scene was almost intoxicating. A true Kodak moment – which, in 2003 was still loaded inside my analog camera.
2. Have you happened to pass through Happo En?
Happo En is another tiny jewel of Japanese gardening perfection that is so easily overlooked, one can hardly believe it exists. I later discovered this small haven is a magnet for marrying couples looking for some kitsch portraits for their wedding albums.
Given the beauty of the place, one can hardly blame them.
Situated in the posh neighborhood of Meguru, you would not find any pink colored, fashion tooting, eye straining connoisseurs around here. Meguru is a conservative playground for diplomats and other folks of self-importance. Staying in one of the upper floors of the nearby Sheraton Miyako Hotel, I couldn’t ignore the small, highly manicured park just next door, and decided to give it a thorough check. I’m happy I did.
Unlike the secluded point in the above mentioned Yoyogi Park, Happo En is not forgotten piece of true nature left alone to be discovered by an inquisitive foreigner. On the contrary. It is a true cliché of Japanese’s fix on extreme gardening. In other words, an awe-inspiring masterpiece.
God Bless these Martians.
The first one I also “discovered”, but thanks for the second garden.