I bought this novel when I visited my old place of employment, an Asian American bookstore near the UC Berkeley campus called Eastwind Books. The owner Bea recommended it, so I bought it, but the title seemed to unappealing to me that I stuffed it on a shelf for a few years. It was surprisingly well crafted.
Here is the synopsis on the back of the book:
Indian computer programmer Arjun Mehta spends his days as a lowly assistant virus-tester in California, pining away for his free-spirited colleague Christine - until he gets laid off like so many of his Silicon Valley peers. In an act of utter desperation to keep his job, he releases a mischievous but destructive virus that has major unintended consequences. As world order begins to unravel, so does Arjun’s sanity, in a rollicking cataclysm that reaches Europe, Bollywood, and, not to coincidentally, the glamorous star of Arjun’s favorite movie.
This modern novel is smart, snarky, & hilarious. Jane Maslin of the New York Times compares him to Zadie Smith, and I agree. First of all, like the writer of White Teeth, Kunzru has not one protagonist but three. The story revolves mostly around Arjun Mehta, but he also spends a fair amount of time on Guy Smith, an ambitious, self-important British self-help guru & Leela Zahir, the world famous Bollywood star for whom the virus is named. Secondly, similar to Smith, Kunzru is convincingly knowledgeable about a diverse set of cultures and lifetyles. He astutely depicts the physical & cultural isolation of immigrants in California, the lush landscape of Washington state, & the smothering family & blatant sexism of Indian society. He is cleverly & sardonically aware of the outlooks & insecurities of different groups of people, from the resentful Indian programmers on H1 visas awaiting work to the successful but trapped movie star struggling under the thumb of a mafia boss or demanding mother to the desperate young man searching for happiness & yearning for the perfect endings of Bollywood films. All of Kunzru’s unrelated story lines come together in the end in a satisfying, culminating resolution.
At first glance, the writer’s style is mysterious & smart. It’s got a smarty-pants attitude that might come off as both portentous & mocking. But as the plot progresses, Kunzru gives complex insight to each of this characters, & his occasional commentary on different cultural and nationalistic customs is humorous & refreshing. On the downside, the computer tech speak & modern cultural references confused me. None of that impedes on the enjoyable experience of reading this novel though.
Here are a few random lines from the novel:
“More champagne, sir? A drink of water?”
He took the glass from the smiling female attendant, unself-consciously bathing in the soft-porn ambience of the moment. Mentally he noted the experience as a credit on the airline’s emotional balance sheet. He enjoyed the attendant’s android charm, the way this disciplined female body reminded him it was just a tool, the uniformed probe-head of the large corporate machine in which he was enmeshed. (p. 11)
Anyone on foot in suburban California is one of four things: poor, foreign, mentally ill or jogging...If the soccer moms zipping by in their SUVs registered him at all, it was a blur of dark skin, a minor danger signal flashing past on their periphery. To the walking man the soccer moms were more cosmological than human, gleaming projectiles that dopplered past him in a rush of noise and dioxins, as alien and indifferent as stars. (p.37)
Check out Transmission!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Ueno, Akihabara, & Shibuya
Day 3 in Tokyo: (PICTURES HERE)
Another early morning. Having messed up & retained our jet lag, I wake up at 5:45am with only 3 hours of sleep. I finish Transmission by Hari Kunru (I'll give a book review later) & write our last blog posting.
Ueno Park:
It is rainy all day today, so our trip to the Tokyo National Museum consists of a flock umbrellas entering & exiting the subway, then making a beeline for the museum in the center of the park. We walk past the Louvre exhibit & its queue gives us an idea of what lies ahead at the Tokyo National Museum. The line is at least 75 yards long, so we skip the museum & explore the Park instead. We find a few shrines, a large lake filled with lily pads & erect lotus leaves, & a stadium, where a live rock band is performing or practicing in front of a handful of people.
Each tree is delicately trimmed so that the smaller branches at the bottoms of each larger branch, so each tree looks like a green umbrella. With the continuous drizzle & hazy sky, walking under the greenery of Ueno Park was breathtaking.
Our ryokan manager/owner gives us free tickets to a flower arrangement exhibit at Mastuzakaya Department Store in Ueno, so we check it out. On the way up to the sixth floor, the elevator is filled with little old Japanese ladies. When the elevator doors open, more older Japanese women appear, milling around & meeting friends. Robby has his reservations about the exhibit. We seem to be the only attendees under 50. But we can’t be more surprised by the exhibit, which displays the works of flower arranging masters. Each display is a carefully designed, creative piece of work. The plants are quite ordinary (cypress branches, palm leaves, irises, peonies, sunflowers, etc), but they are arranged in such a deliberate way that they become like living sculptures. Some small arrangements are as simple as a cypress branch sticking out of a dark brown cylindrical ceramic vase. But the branch curves in three different directions, like reaching arms. The large arrangements are enormous & modern. The artists use mostly wood, rarely wire or metal. Robby is so impressed by each display, he slowly combs through each one & takes a picture. He later remarks on the interesting balance that the sculptures achieve. We wish we could understand the old women who stand around and buzz enthusiastically. I imagine they discuss the the style & try to figure out how the artist bends the tree limb or weaves the palm leaves.
When we exit the exhibit, Robby shares a little epiphany: flower arranging is so much cooler than modern art. What is modern art but a haphazard (maybe even accidental), esoteric work that only wants to look profound? Robby said although a large canvas with a dot in the center symbolizes our minute, insignificant presence in the universe, it is all B.S. Some of his animosity toward modern art spawns from our visit to the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. We don’t understand the art, so we disparage it. Common reaction. This led us to an interesting discussion about art & how to judge good art. Here are a few ideas we are able to come up with:
1. Modern masterpieces aren’t accidents, though they might appear to be so.
2. Is labor intensive artwork automatically good artwork? Marcel Duchamp famously signs urinals to tease artists’ attempt at capturing beauty. Why can’t everyday objects be viewed as art?
3. Some modern art exists only as political or social commentary.
4. Does art need to be aesthetically pleasing?
5. Modern art elicits many interpretations from viewers. Does there need to be one right answer? What if our interpretations differ completely than the artist’s intended message?
6. Modern art encourages a reaction or a feeling from the viewer, not always an understanding. This can be frustrating for us laymen & women.
7. Is the artist’s purpose to reach out to the average joe-schmo?
8. (Robby’s point) On one extreme, there is complete structure (boring; pop culture; Brittney Spears), on the other, complete randomness (accidental? natural?). Robby thinks good art requires a balance between the amount of obvious planning and entropy. Modern art (for Robby) leans too far toward the latter.
Not only do our brains churn during this talk, we are also able to rest our sore legs. We go down to the basement to revel in the variety of prepared foods available, surreptiously eat cold meat skewers on a bench (we NEVER see Japanese people eating in any place but restaurants; we don’t know where they go with their food!), and return to the Ueno subway station.
Next stop: Akihibara - the electronics mecca. Above the subway station are six department-store-sized floors of electronics, from USB drives to TVs to washing machines. Robby happily carouses on the video games floor while I marvel on the variety of stationery & pens. We vow to return for some shopping on our way back through Tokyo. Robby even suggests that we skip some museums in order to come back.
P.S. I must revise the last section on Kabuki-cho. There appears to be sexual liberation at play here. But after speaking with a friend who gives examples of the remnants of misogynism, I have some rethinking to do. Places like Kabuki-cho offer a reality to men’s fantasies. Looking at the sea of photos of prostitutes, it’s easy to why this business would be so attractive to young women. Does it make their decision to join the ranks empowering? Women who work in corporate business do not hold positions of power. They are “office ladies”, administrative assistants whose bosses are all men. Both occupations are disempowering to women. Liberation is more for stuffy & repressed salary men than for women.
When we explore the 8-story bookstore across the Akihibara subway station, we find a floor full of soft-porn magazines. Among the covers of scantily clad women, there are a few magazines with innocent-looking, half-naked adolescent girls. We are appalled that people would be allowed to indulge in this perverted fetish. Maybe it’s the Puritan in me speaking, but kiddie porn is absolutely revolting & disgusting.
We return to our ryokan & rest up before meeting a friend in the Shibuya district. There is nothing like Shibuya on a Saturday night. Thousands of young people in their finest clothing loiter around the streets & socialize. When the intersections turn green for walking, hundreds of people cross. The neon signs light up the streets so that we practically walk in daylight. We are overwhelmed. We walk through Love Hotel Hill, occupied by decorative hotels that charge around $50/hour. Then there’s Shibuya 109, a hangout spot for the dolled-up teenage girls. They eye the passers by as they smoke cigarettes & touch up their make-up. We squeeze into Condomania, which has Pokemon-tipped condoms, condoms with ruler markings, & lollipop condoms. We see many gaijin, foreigners (in groups or with their Japanese girlfriends). Most of the bars are either in the basements of buildings or on the high floors. There are also many pub-like restaurants on the higher floors. Dinner is at Mosburger, a delicious fast food joint that serves unusual burgers (spaghetti-like sauce, flavorful patties, cooked onions). They are unlike any American hamburger. After more walking, we check out a tiny club playing hip hop. The employees are black men, & there are only 5 people inside ( a few black men & Asian women). The space fits only a handful more, & there isn’t any dancing, so we leave. go to Ghetto Happy Dining, a pub/restaurant on the third floor of one of the many buildings.
This is the Tokyo we were looking forward to!
Another early morning. Having messed up & retained our jet lag, I wake up at 5:45am with only 3 hours of sleep. I finish Transmission by Hari Kunru (I'll give a book review later) & write our last blog posting.
Ueno Park:
It is rainy all day today, so our trip to the Tokyo National Museum consists of a flock umbrellas entering & exiting the subway, then making a beeline for the museum in the center of the park. We walk past the Louvre exhibit & its queue gives us an idea of what lies ahead at the Tokyo National Museum. The line is at least 75 yards long, so we skip the museum & explore the Park instead. We find a few shrines, a large lake filled with lily pads & erect lotus leaves, & a stadium, where a live rock band is performing or practicing in front of a handful of people.
Each tree is delicately trimmed so that the smaller branches at the bottoms of each larger branch, so each tree looks like a green umbrella. With the continuous drizzle & hazy sky, walking under the greenery of Ueno Park was breathtaking.
Our ryokan manager/owner gives us free tickets to a flower arrangement exhibit at Mastuzakaya Department Store in Ueno, so we check it out. On the way up to the sixth floor, the elevator is filled with little old Japanese ladies. When the elevator doors open, more older Japanese women appear, milling around & meeting friends. Robby has his reservations about the exhibit. We seem to be the only attendees under 50. But we can’t be more surprised by the exhibit, which displays the works of flower arranging masters. Each display is a carefully designed, creative piece of work. The plants are quite ordinary (cypress branches, palm leaves, irises, peonies, sunflowers, etc), but they are arranged in such a deliberate way that they become like living sculptures. Some small arrangements are as simple as a cypress branch sticking out of a dark brown cylindrical ceramic vase. But the branch curves in three different directions, like reaching arms. The large arrangements are enormous & modern. The artists use mostly wood, rarely wire or metal. Robby is so impressed by each display, he slowly combs through each one & takes a picture. He later remarks on the interesting balance that the sculptures achieve. We wish we could understand the old women who stand around and buzz enthusiastically. I imagine they discuss the the style & try to figure out how the artist bends the tree limb or weaves the palm leaves.
When we exit the exhibit, Robby shares a little epiphany: flower arranging is so much cooler than modern art. What is modern art but a haphazard (maybe even accidental), esoteric work that only wants to look profound? Robby said although a large canvas with a dot in the center symbolizes our minute, insignificant presence in the universe, it is all B.S. Some of his animosity toward modern art spawns from our visit to the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. We don’t understand the art, so we disparage it. Common reaction. This led us to an interesting discussion about art & how to judge good art. Here are a few ideas we are able to come up with:
1. Modern masterpieces aren’t accidents, though they might appear to be so.
2. Is labor intensive artwork automatically good artwork? Marcel Duchamp famously signs urinals to tease artists’ attempt at capturing beauty. Why can’t everyday objects be viewed as art?
3. Some modern art exists only as political or social commentary.
4. Does art need to be aesthetically pleasing?
5. Modern art elicits many interpretations from viewers. Does there need to be one right answer? What if our interpretations differ completely than the artist’s intended message?
6. Modern art encourages a reaction or a feeling from the viewer, not always an understanding. This can be frustrating for us laymen & women.
7. Is the artist’s purpose to reach out to the average joe-schmo?
8. (Robby’s point) On one extreme, there is complete structure (boring; pop culture; Brittney Spears), on the other, complete randomness (accidental? natural?). Robby thinks good art requires a balance between the amount of obvious planning and entropy. Modern art (for Robby) leans too far toward the latter.
Not only do our brains churn during this talk, we are also able to rest our sore legs. We go down to the basement to revel in the variety of prepared foods available, surreptiously eat cold meat skewers on a bench (we NEVER see Japanese people eating in any place but restaurants; we don’t know where they go with their food!), and return to the Ueno subway station.
Next stop: Akihibara - the electronics mecca. Above the subway station are six department-store-sized floors of electronics, from USB drives to TVs to washing machines. Robby happily carouses on the video games floor while I marvel on the variety of stationery & pens. We vow to return for some shopping on our way back through Tokyo. Robby even suggests that we skip some museums in order to come back.
P.S. I must revise the last section on Kabuki-cho. There appears to be sexual liberation at play here. But after speaking with a friend who gives examples of the remnants of misogynism, I have some rethinking to do. Places like Kabuki-cho offer a reality to men’s fantasies. Looking at the sea of photos of prostitutes, it’s easy to why this business would be so attractive to young women. Does it make their decision to join the ranks empowering? Women who work in corporate business do not hold positions of power. They are “office ladies”, administrative assistants whose bosses are all men. Both occupations are disempowering to women. Liberation is more for stuffy & repressed salary men than for women.
When we explore the 8-story bookstore across the Akihibara subway station, we find a floor full of soft-porn magazines. Among the covers of scantily clad women, there are a few magazines with innocent-looking, half-naked adolescent girls. We are appalled that people would be allowed to indulge in this perverted fetish. Maybe it’s the Puritan in me speaking, but kiddie porn is absolutely revolting & disgusting.
We return to our ryokan & rest up before meeting a friend in the Shibuya district. There is nothing like Shibuya on a Saturday night. Thousands of young people in their finest clothing loiter around the streets & socialize. When the intersections turn green for walking, hundreds of people cross. The neon signs light up the streets so that we practically walk in daylight. We are overwhelmed. We walk through Love Hotel Hill, occupied by decorative hotels that charge around $50/hour. Then there’s Shibuya 109, a hangout spot for the dolled-up teenage girls. They eye the passers by as they smoke cigarettes & touch up their make-up. We squeeze into Condomania, which has Pokemon-tipped condoms, condoms with ruler markings, & lollipop condoms. We see many gaijin, foreigners (in groups or with their Japanese girlfriends). Most of the bars are either in the basements of buildings or on the high floors. There are also many pub-like restaurants on the higher floors. Dinner is at Mosburger, a delicious fast food joint that serves unusual burgers (spaghetti-like sauce, flavorful patties, cooked onions). They are unlike any American hamburger. After more walking, we check out a tiny club playing hip hop. The employees are black men, & there are only 5 people inside ( a few black men & Asian women). The space fits only a handful more, & there isn’t any dancing, so we leave. go to Ghetto Happy Dining, a pub/restaurant on the third floor of one of the many buildings.
This is the Tokyo we were looking forward to!
Friday, June 5, 2009
Picture Tokyo: Day 1
We decided that uploading to this blog is redundant, so we're just putting links on facebook,
HERE ARE OUR FIRST DAY PICS
HERE ARE OUR FIRST DAY PICS
The Japanese: Repressed or Liberated?
(Continuation of Day Two)
After the fish market, we search for the Hama Rikyu Garden, the only place where the waterbus to Asakusa is accessible. The garden is gorgeous with its perfectly cropped trees, enormous irises, & serene lake. On the 40-minute boat ride to Asakusa, we meet a couple from Saratoga who are celebrating their 30th anniversary. Surprisingly, they are both 1973 graduates from Palo Alto High School.
At Asakusa, the main pedestrian road leading to the Sensoji Shrine is lined with small booths selling souvenirs & kitsch: tiny animals sewn from colorful fabrics, small ceramic models of household pets, decorated fans, miniature versions of the large red paper lamp that hangs at the entrance of the shrine, dangling decorations to hang from cell phones, & red & white headbands that remind me of the film Karate Kid. The most popular stalls sell snacks. Teenage & adolescent school children in neat uniforms hover over these counters while little old ladies fold & place sweets on the counter. We try three small mochi balls on a stick that are covered in caramel-looking goo. They are a little sweet but not flavorful. People flock around stalls that sells soy chunks on a stick that look like meat, fried mochi balls, & ice cream stuffed in a spherical wafer.
Outside the temple is a communal fountain. Visitors use tin cups to clean their hands before stepping into the temple. Unaware of the sign posted with directions, I approach the fountain & drink from the cup. Robby first stares at me in amazement & then at the sign. “You’re not supposed to drink from that. Other people are washing their hands with it. Great, now you have syphilis.” I feel momentarily sick in the stomach (must be psychosomatic), pop a Dentyne Ice, & try to forget my faux pas.
The exterior of Sensoji Shrine is being renovated, so it is neatly covered by thin white walls, and green mesh. Dust in the air and on the outer structure is completely absent. The interior is a distant, ornate display of gold, fake flowers, & a few small statues. The inside is dark; only the shimmer from the gold altar gives light to back of the room. The tinkling of coins echos as people toss invisible coins into the wooden rack in front of the faraway altar. An old man bent in the shoulders asks a teenage boy to light a candle for him. The boy looks embarrassingly at his friends, repeatedly bows, & obediently complies.
Upon exiting the Sensoji Shrine, we circle the building & visit the mini-shrines around it. We head back to our ryokan from the Asakusa Station. Instead of taking an intended one-hour nap, we sleep for three hours, thoroughly ruining our attempt at conquering jet lag. At 8:30pm, we take the JR train to Shinjuku. Assaulted by the neon lights plastered on every building, we aim for the area that most piques Robby’s interest - the seedy district of Kabuki-cho, where Africans sell drugs on the corners & fashionable men loiter around trying to pick up clients for their available hostesses. Large Japanese words cover small storefronts. The entrances are shielded by flat strips of plastic, so we curiously enter to find the walls lit up with photos of hundreds of beautiful Japanese women. Approximately 6,000JPY/hour will give you the pleasure of spending time with any one of these flawless hostesses. How the time is spent is ambiguous. These places discourage foreign patrons, which explains why the eager pimps avoid hassling Robby. I even tail him from a distance to see if they would talk to him, but they don’t bite.
Every American or Westerner who walks through Kabuki-cho probably ponders the ironic differences between our cultures. If the Japanese are stereotypically repressed, why the openness of prostitution? Kabuki-cho remind us of Amsterdam, though these business operations are more discreet & hidden. Nonetheless, the liberal view of sex seems to contradict the upright & proper appearance of Japanese daily life. On the other hand, American culture is rife with sexual liberation - teenage girls purposely wear low-waisted jeans to flaunt their thong, boys wear colorful boxers under their sagging jeans, adolescent girls strive to look like adult sluts, Hollywood boasts of big-breasted Venuses. Yet when it comes to public opinion & public policy, we are still demure & prissy Puritans at heart. From there, Robby & I discussed which culture we preferred. All of this left much to talk about.
& so ended our first full day in the exiciting Tokyo city.
After the fish market, we search for the Hama Rikyu Garden, the only place where the waterbus to Asakusa is accessible. The garden is gorgeous with its perfectly cropped trees, enormous irises, & serene lake. On the 40-minute boat ride to Asakusa, we meet a couple from Saratoga who are celebrating their 30th anniversary. Surprisingly, they are both 1973 graduates from Palo Alto High School.
At Asakusa, the main pedestrian road leading to the Sensoji Shrine is lined with small booths selling souvenirs & kitsch: tiny animals sewn from colorful fabrics, small ceramic models of household pets, decorated fans, miniature versions of the large red paper lamp that hangs at the entrance of the shrine, dangling decorations to hang from cell phones, & red & white headbands that remind me of the film Karate Kid. The most popular stalls sell snacks. Teenage & adolescent school children in neat uniforms hover over these counters while little old ladies fold & place sweets on the counter. We try three small mochi balls on a stick that are covered in caramel-looking goo. They are a little sweet but not flavorful. People flock around stalls that sells soy chunks on a stick that look like meat, fried mochi balls, & ice cream stuffed in a spherical wafer.
Outside the temple is a communal fountain. Visitors use tin cups to clean their hands before stepping into the temple. Unaware of the sign posted with directions, I approach the fountain & drink from the cup. Robby first stares at me in amazement & then at the sign. “You’re not supposed to drink from that. Other people are washing their hands with it. Great, now you have syphilis.” I feel momentarily sick in the stomach (must be psychosomatic), pop a Dentyne Ice, & try to forget my faux pas.
The exterior of Sensoji Shrine is being renovated, so it is neatly covered by thin white walls, and green mesh. Dust in the air and on the outer structure is completely absent. The interior is a distant, ornate display of gold, fake flowers, & a few small statues. The inside is dark; only the shimmer from the gold altar gives light to back of the room. The tinkling of coins echos as people toss invisible coins into the wooden rack in front of the faraway altar. An old man bent in the shoulders asks a teenage boy to light a candle for him. The boy looks embarrassingly at his friends, repeatedly bows, & obediently complies.
Upon exiting the Sensoji Shrine, we circle the building & visit the mini-shrines around it. We head back to our ryokan from the Asakusa Station. Instead of taking an intended one-hour nap, we sleep for three hours, thoroughly ruining our attempt at conquering jet lag. At 8:30pm, we take the JR train to Shinjuku. Assaulted by the neon lights plastered on every building, we aim for the area that most piques Robby’s interest - the seedy district of Kabuki-cho, where Africans sell drugs on the corners & fashionable men loiter around trying to pick up clients for their available hostesses. Large Japanese words cover small storefronts. The entrances are shielded by flat strips of plastic, so we curiously enter to find the walls lit up with photos of hundreds of beautiful Japanese women. Approximately 6,000JPY/hour will give you the pleasure of spending time with any one of these flawless hostesses. How the time is spent is ambiguous. These places discourage foreign patrons, which explains why the eager pimps avoid hassling Robby. I even tail him from a distance to see if they would talk to him, but they don’t bite.
Every American or Westerner who walks through Kabuki-cho probably ponders the ironic differences between our cultures. If the Japanese are stereotypically repressed, why the openness of prostitution? Kabuki-cho remind us of Amsterdam, though these business operations are more discreet & hidden. Nonetheless, the liberal view of sex seems to contradict the upright & proper appearance of Japanese daily life. On the other hand, American culture is rife with sexual liberation - teenage girls purposely wear low-waisted jeans to flaunt their thong, boys wear colorful boxers under their sagging jeans, adolescent girls strive to look like adult sluts, Hollywood boasts of big-breasted Venuses. Yet when it comes to public opinion & public policy, we are still demure & prissy Puritans at heart. From there, Robby & I discussed which culture we preferred. All of this left much to talk about.
& so ended our first full day in the exiciting Tokyo city.
Beginner Slope: Tokyo Day 1
Day One (Tokyo):
We arrive to Narita Airport at 5:30pm, ride the Keisei line (1000JPY) for one hour to the Nippori Station, then transfer to the JR Yamanote Line. At Ikebukuro Station, we exit from the west gate & first glittering landmark we see is a large KFC. We follow a map filled with reference points (KFC, tobacco store, Pasela, etc.) only to get lost in small alleys. After asking some employees at a Korean BBQ restaurant, we get lost some more, then visit a Lawson to ask for direction again. Finally, we find Kimi Ryokan. The dark hard wood floors here are spectacular, but the rate is low. We'll speak on this ryokan in more detail in a later posting.
[At the end of our trip, as we did with our honeymoon in Turkey, we will be evaluating each place of lodging. Nearly all of these places are ryokans listed in Frommer's 9th edition guide to Japan.]
Day Two:
We wake up early & spontaneously decide to head toward Tsukiji Fish Market, but find the ryokan's front doors locked until 7am. So we go back to bed & practice Japanese phrases & numbers.
The subway experience is mind blowing. Streams of people spill out in & out of turnstiles. Tokyo's subway map is complicated, so taking the JR (Japan Rail) is easier, though the subway reaches more areas in the city than the JR. We take a subway to Ginza & pop out of the station to find a map that will help us orient ourselves. "Your position" is a red arrow. Hibya Park is to the right, so we figure we are west of the park & need to walk through it to get to the fish market. By the time we get there, we stumble upon a large grassy area full of carefully trimmed trees. Past that, we find a guard standing in front of the Tokyo Imperial Palace. We ask for direction & he points in the direction from whence we came. It turns out that we had walked in the wrong direction. The station map was flipped upside down so that north faced downward!
Lesson #1: Public maps are oriented from the perspective of the viewer. If you're facing eastward as you view the map, north will be at the 9 o'clock position.
We make it to Tsukiji Market & roam the small shops, staring at exposed clams & prone octopus. Our sushi meal is delicious. Robby eats a bowl of rice covered with grainy, light pink tuna, sliced pickled radishes, shredded seaweed & ginger, onion, & other stuff that he cannot identify. He claims that it's the best tuna he has ever had. Because I am not a lover of raw fish, I order a few nigiri rolls: sweet shrimp, unagi (eel), & seaweed. The wasabi-soaked shrimp is barely pink & fleshy. The eel is lean & tender as well. The seaweed is mediocre & lacks flavor.
Uh oh - they're closing the lounge now, i.e., Internet goes away. That's it for the recap. Hope we can fall asleep!
We arrive to Narita Airport at 5:30pm, ride the Keisei line (1000JPY) for one hour to the Nippori Station, then transfer to the JR Yamanote Line. At Ikebukuro Station, we exit from the west gate & first glittering landmark we see is a large KFC. We follow a map filled with reference points (KFC, tobacco store, Pasela, etc.) only to get lost in small alleys. After asking some employees at a Korean BBQ restaurant, we get lost some more, then visit a Lawson to ask for direction again. Finally, we find Kimi Ryokan. The dark hard wood floors here are spectacular, but the rate is low. We'll speak on this ryokan in more detail in a later posting.
[At the end of our trip, as we did with our honeymoon in Turkey, we will be evaluating each place of lodging. Nearly all of these places are ryokans listed in Frommer's 9th edition guide to Japan.]
Day Two:
We wake up early & spontaneously decide to head toward Tsukiji Fish Market, but find the ryokan's front doors locked until 7am. So we go back to bed & practice Japanese phrases & numbers.
The subway experience is mind blowing. Streams of people spill out in & out of turnstiles. Tokyo's subway map is complicated, so taking the JR (Japan Rail) is easier, though the subway reaches more areas in the city than the JR. We take a subway to Ginza & pop out of the station to find a map that will help us orient ourselves. "Your position" is a red arrow. Hibya Park is to the right, so we figure we are west of the park & need to walk through it to get to the fish market. By the time we get there, we stumble upon a large grassy area full of carefully trimmed trees. Past that, we find a guard standing in front of the Tokyo Imperial Palace. We ask for direction & he points in the direction from whence we came. It turns out that we had walked in the wrong direction. The station map was flipped upside down so that north faced downward!
Lesson #1: Public maps are oriented from the perspective of the viewer. If you're facing eastward as you view the map, north will be at the 9 o'clock position.
We make it to Tsukiji Market & roam the small shops, staring at exposed clams & prone octopus. Our sushi meal is delicious. Robby eats a bowl of rice covered with grainy, light pink tuna, sliced pickled radishes, shredded seaweed & ginger, onion, & other stuff that he cannot identify. He claims that it's the best tuna he has ever had. Because I am not a lover of raw fish, I order a few nigiri rolls: sweet shrimp, unagi (eel), & seaweed. The wasabi-soaked shrimp is barely pink & fleshy. The eel is lean & tender as well. The seaweed is mediocre & lacks flavor.
Uh oh - they're closing the lounge now, i.e., Internet goes away. That's it for the recap. Hope we can fall asleep!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Back in the Bay Area
After having lived in Los Angeles for the past 10 months, I feel strange to be back in Silicon Valley. This time, I am staying at my sister's house while Robby frolics away on an adventurous bachelor party at Lake Tahoe. I am left being the temporary chauffeur for my nieces - dropping them off at school, picking them up, taking them to swim classes & gymnastics. The life of the parent is constantly behind the wheel. It doesn't seem too attractive to me right now...until I sit down with a niece & listen to her say the most insightful & surprising things. A few days ago, the three year old said, "When you get older, you get smaller and smaller. Then you go to the ground & be under the ground." She also called me a "girly girl", but I don't think she knows what it means.
When I heard that my niece's kindergarten teacher is a Menlo Park native, I realized that many of the children who live here are like legacy children. They grow up here, go off to college, explore the world, but eventually return to their hometown. They live in their parents' house or find a place on their own with their parents' help. But they stay. Okay, I'm doing some generalizing, but there are so many privileges to growing up in an upper middle or upper class family. This includes the option of moving home, being supported by generous parents, & being able to continue a life of cushy customs, like going to Cafe Borrone at 10am and paying $12 for breakfast. Many people in our country can't lead this lifestyle, and I am amazed that so many Palo Alto & Menlo Park natives return to this insular lifestyle. They leave the grittiness of city life & the mundane ennui of the suburbs for the placid, academically rigorous, financially thriving neighborhoods of Silicon Valley. I guess this is a great place to raise children. There are gymnastics classes at noon, swim classes after school, after-school Chinese programs, soccer teams, summer camps. What else could a kid want?
Enough mental meandering. Time to pick up the kids.
When I heard that my niece's kindergarten teacher is a Menlo Park native, I realized that many of the children who live here are like legacy children. They grow up here, go off to college, explore the world, but eventually return to their hometown. They live in their parents' house or find a place on their own with their parents' help. But they stay. Okay, I'm doing some generalizing, but there are so many privileges to growing up in an upper middle or upper class family. This includes the option of moving home, being supported by generous parents, & being able to continue a life of cushy customs, like going to Cafe Borrone at 10am and paying $12 for breakfast. Many people in our country can't lead this lifestyle, and I am amazed that so many Palo Alto & Menlo Park natives return to this insular lifestyle. They leave the grittiness of city life & the mundane ennui of the suburbs for the placid, academically rigorous, financially thriving neighborhoods of Silicon Valley. I guess this is a great place to raise children. There are gymnastics classes at noon, swim classes after school, after-school Chinese programs, soccer teams, summer camps. What else could a kid want?
Enough mental meandering. Time to pick up the kids.
happy birthday, eddy!
Today my friend Eddy Zheng turns 40 years old.
He is a unique individual who has seen more in life than most of us have, and I admire him for his resilience & generosity.
View his blog at www.eddyzheng.blogspot.com. I maintained his blog for a few years while he was incarcerated, but since he has been out in the world, he has taken over.
Enjoy!
He is a unique individual who has seen more in life than most of us have, and I admire him for his resilience & generosity.
View his blog at www.eddyzheng.blogspot.com. I maintained his blog for a few years while he was incarcerated, but since he has been out in the world, he has taken over.
Enjoy!
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