A Day of Contradictions

If humour is the unexpected juxtaposition of incongruities, then Japan is a very funny place indeed. For a country that seems to run on planning and formality, very little ever turns out the way you expect. At least for me.

Today started off with an expectation of visiting Tokyu Hands (a craft store), then visiting Takebashi, where Akino planned to spend an absurd number of hours having beauty treatment, while I would visit various museums and possibly the National Library. Akino’s plan seems to have come off a treat, but mine has gone completely awry. Not that I’m complaining.

Last night we got word that there was a Typhoon on the way. It’s been expected for a few days, but my experience of Japan tells me that any amount of wind, combined with rain, constitutes a Typhoon. Weather is incredibly predictable in Japan. Presumably it has been indoctrinated into the Japanese way of thinking. Everything must run according to schedule and in the manner to which the Japanese people have come to expect. It’s usual in Japan to wake up one morning and realise that it’s now spring (or summer or autumn or whatever). From that day on, the weather will behave according to the expectations of the season.

One of the niceties of Japanese weather is that when it rains, there’s very little wind. The rain falls in a comfortably vertical direction and that flimsy umbrella that you bought from a kombini (convenience store) for 300 yen (about $4.00) will serve very nicely. From time to time however, a gust of wind will appear at the same time as the rain and this appears to be known as a typhoon.

I awoke this morning to the sounds of Japanese news reports. Akino was sitting up in bed glued to the increasingly frantic (and slightly hysterical) reports that were being broadcast on ANN (or some bloody TV station). They featured a serious faced middle aged man in the studio with the obligatory pretty young girl, crossing periodically to their man in the field. The man in the field was a youngster. He was wearing a hardhat, strapped under the chin and had one hand desperately slapped on top of the hardhat. He was facing into the wind, with both eyes closed tight and was leaning slightly forward.

“Look,” says Akino, “it’s the Typhoon!”

I grunted something vaguely neanderthal and sat up in bed. As it happens, the youngster was, quite literally, in the field. Behind him, tall grass swayed gently to one side in what I can only describe as “quite a strong breeze.”

“Why is he holding onto his hat?” I asked, “that wind isn’t going to blow the froth off a head of beer.”

The silence at this point should have been sufficient for me to realise that I needed to sympathise more with the plight of the poor reporter trapped in the wild typhoon and critically analyse less. But, patient reader, you should remember that I had only just woken up.

“This is nuts,” I said, “in Sydney, this would be nothing more than a windy day and they’re making it out to be a national disaster! Look at this guy, he’s putting it on.”

Ah well, so the day did not start well. Akino contended that I was being unreasonable harsh on the Japanese news reporters and eventually I was awake enough to realise that arguing with you main source of communication is not wise.

By the time we set off, the meagre gusts of wind did not elicit any comment from me at all. Then we set off on the wrong train line, changed at the next stop and found that the line we wanted was closed “due to the typhoon”. Eh?? It’s an underground line?? We found out that several of the train lines had been closed at some point during the morning and they were only just starting to open.

We decided it was all too hard and made our way to a coffee shop to reconsider our plans. We decided that Tokyu Hands could wait until tomorrow and we would head straight for Takebashi, where we would have lunch and I could plan the rest of my day in more detail.

Takebashi is a little bit nowhere in particular for fun and excitement, but it does have quite a number of museums and galleries. Being a bit of a museum buff, I decided that I would visit the Tokyo Science Museum (that ought to be good) and maybe the National Art & Technology Museum.

So with a spring in my step and a confident look in my eye (or maybe it was the terrible wind from the typhoon that was in my eye?) I set off for the Science Museum first. It’s an impressive building, set in quite a large park and built entirely out of stars of David. You know, the Jewish symbol. I have no idea why and I took a picture just in case you don’t believe me.

Inside, the building appeared to be under construction in an odd sort of way. There were partitions everywhere and a sense of mild panic. There were no signs in English, but eventually I came upon a sign in katakana that read “Science Hall”. This lead to an enormous auditorium but not much else.

Around this time I bumped into a couple of travelling academics that had come to take a look. One of them was Japanese and was able to explain to me that the museum had closed for the day due to the typhoon. He was in the process of calling another Science museum in Ueno which I didn’t even know existed. He duly reported that it was closed too and it gradually became apparent that pretty much all museums and galleries in Japan had closed. Due, I can only continue to say, to a strong breeze.

I ended up walking through the park, whereupon I stumbled across, completely by accident, the “”Nippon Budokan”. This is the National Stadium for Sumo tournaments. It was closed of course, but it’s still an impressive building. More pictures and I continued walking.

At the end of the park, I came upon a busy road that looked slightly familiar. It was the Yasukuni Shrine that I had visited yesterday in the pouring rain. So, I went back again and having a few extra hours to kill, I walked through the museum there. Happily it remained staunchly unaffected by the typhoon.

Eventually I met up with Akino again and we headed off to meet up with the Ikuta family who had made their way from various parts of the world. We all went our for Yaki-niku (grilled beef). Next few posts shows some pics. Please enjoy and please … click on the little button that says “comment” and say “Hey! Here’s a comment!”