Back to Tokyo and home again
Arriving back in Tokyo on Sunday afternoon was a mixture of emotions. We knew it meant we only had a few days left - only two actually, but much of it was free time which had been in sort supply until now. It also seemed strange meeting up with the other groups (aged care and disability). We felt a greater sense of belonging in our (youth) topic group than we did in our country groups, which surprised us a bit and showed how closely we'd bonded in Nagasaki. I'm not sure whether the other topic groups shared these sentiments though.
Technically our time wasn't free until we'd prepared our presentations for the following day and given a bit of an evaluation of our time in Nagasaki. So we had a meeting for a couple of hours to sort this out, this was fun cause we all knew each other but being all young leaders we had too many chiefs who wanted to emphasise this point or that in our presentations. So I backed off and offered to take notes which ended up becoming the basis of our powerpoint presentation - an unavoidable part of the program given corporate Japanese expectations (we were presenting to Japanese Government officials) and our American cheerleading presenter. How is it that the substance of community development principles always get lost amongst the style of political and bureaucratic pretentiousness? Anyway it was no big stress and the last time we were required to use our brains for the trip, so it was back to the jaunt from there.
A few of us went for a late afternoon walk to see the Hie Jinji shrine which was mentioned on the first page of the lonely planet guide but didn't have the same atmosphere as others I'd visited. Then we walked past the National Diet (parliament) building which was architecturally unique but sterile and bureaucratic in it's atmosphere - just like any other parliament I guess. Then we had to hurry back to the hotel to see Jeff and Jodie off. Jeff had not got any better since the night we took the Spa and had not eaten in several days. He just wanted to go home and while the Japanese organisers were not keen on this the Tokyo doctors agreed. To the earlier diagnosis of dehydration they added some sort of bacterial infection. Probably originally from eating all the raw fish which his system was not used to then magnified by the hot spa which would have created perfect conditions for the bacteria. The doctor warned that diarrhea would come soon, we just hoped this held off until after the ten hour flight home. Jodie his daughter accompanied him home so our Aussie contingent was down to 9. It was a bit sad but also a reminder we only had a couple of days left ourselves. Bindie had recovered from his flu which only lasted 24 hours just as forecasted by the doctor in Nagasaki. I was the lucky one (or hardie survivor depending on how you look at it,) I'd spent the same length of time in the spa as Jeff but had felt no ill effects. Since arriving home we've heard that Jeff has recovered well and is now back to good health.
After the goodbyes we went to Rappongi and had dinner at an Irish pub while watching the One-day Cricket final between Australian and Pakistan with a Pakistani guy who worked at the pub. It's a small world! Unfortunately for him he took his cricket very seriously so he took the Pakistani loss pretty hard. Most of us Aussies were barracking for Pakistan as well 'cause we're sick of Australian winning all the time so we were consoling him but it didn't affect us the same. Passion like his deserves respect though, it shows real loyalty. Then the pub's manager put us onto to a cheap internet cafe - finally! About A$7 for an hour, but that was also the minimum payment, so we made the most of it before heading back to the hotel.
Monday morning was time to ourselves, we slept in then had a long breakfast in the hotel buffet. The superbowl fans (mostly Americans plus one of the Swedes and Bindie) had booked a cable hook up in of their hotel rooms to watch the big game. The were all barracking for the same team except Bindie whose team were considered the underdogs. So when Bindie's team won it meant several more disappointed sports fans and Bindie wasted no time rubbing it in. I think it was the highlight of the trip for him. Getting to watch the super bowl live (They'd ) with other people who were interested, including Americans and he was the only one barracking for the team that won. He and his team, both underdogs, had their day.
Everyone else seemed to have lost the exploring bug and were just tired. So I navigated a few to a nearby supermarket and then walked by myself for a couple of hours across a couple of suburbs towards the harbor. First stop was the Atago Jinja Shrine, the last major one in walking distance from the hotel. It was situated on a top of a small but steep hill giving one some good exercise as you entered and a sense of leaving the stress of the city behind. The trees and buildings were nestled closely together on the top of the hill so it didn't have the same open space amongst the trees as the shrine we visited on the first day but it still had the same serene feel to it. The space it did have was mostly taken up by a large pond. The pond had quite a number of huge gold fish, some over a foot long, and even a small boat which seemed quite odd because it was really only a pond, albeit a large one. I can imagine though some form of ritual taking place on the pond or even the boat being used for a kind of semi-isolated-yet-public quiet reflection on the water. Around the perimeter were several more secluded spots that would be great for private reflection.
On the other side of the hill/shrine I came out into the back suburbs of Shimbashi. Quite a different feel to Rappongi and Nagatochi where the hotel was. A lot less flashy, not quite as clean sort of like Fitzroy or Carlton but still with 10 storey buildings minimum and most people still dressed more formally in suits and the like in keeping with Japan's business oriented culture. While walking along I saw another guy by himself, dressed less formally than everyone else and looking around at all the buildings and everything as he went - clearly another tourist - and I thought 'do I stand out that much?' This was certainly much less of a tourist area. Then I came to the Shimbashi train station, which I discovered had been the first train station in Tokyo, down on the docks. A replica of the original building still stands on the original site, it's European brick architecture standing out like a saw thumb in the middle of modern Japanese buildings and covered in neon signs.
Around the corner was the Hama Rikyu Garden, Tokyo's only water front park and my destination. The park was a decent size and did provide some escape from noise and busyness of the city outside but ultimately left me unsatisfied in my quest for a natural escape from the urban environment. It lacked the sense of nature's vibrancy I'm used to and actually seemed quite sterile, one of the last words I would normally apply to nature. It was certainly under used considering multitude of people at the station and shops just five minutes walk away. But whether it's sterile because it's underused or the other way around I cannot say, probably both. The fact that I did not have the time to properly enjoy back because I knew I had to get back to the hotel probably didn't help either. I walked along the park's waterfront though, something it seems Tokyo is still learning to appreciate. In fact, if you can manage to see over the stone wall hindering your view of the harbor, you find it is filled with "reclaimed land" . To get a sense of this imagine looking out into Port Philip bay and seeing several man made islands, perfectly flat and square and covered in skyscrapers - masterpieces of human engineering, buildings and land alike. So the frontier with nature I'm used to has been well and truely driven back what used to be the harbour is just and extension fo the city.
On my way back I decided to try and go right through the train station underground because getting around above ground can be quite difficult in Tokyo where many main roads have barriers across the middle forcing pedestrians to use overpasses which if they do take you where you want to go, do so in a very roundabout way. Underground isn't that much easier for newcomers though as you quickly lose your bearings in the huge maze of tunnels. It seemed like the tunnels for one train station stretch the length of Melbourne's entire CBD but it can't be quite that long. Anyway I made it back to the hotel with about five minutes to eat my lunch before the afternoon's presentations began - two weeks here and I'm still using every minute.
The presentations were okay, reasonably superficial, not much time for discussion but it was interesting to hear what the other groups had been up to. We realised we still didn't have the translation thing down pat as the three groups seemed to have answered entirely different questions but everyone seemed happy with it, so not to worry.
That just left the formal farewell party with government people and also some young Japanese from the NPO forum. The youth mob made someprivate moving thank-yous to some our key host organisers. Then the final night party. Ultimately it proved impossible to get 40 people from three countries to agree on where to go. Some, particularly the Swedes who had an early morning flight, didn't want to leave the hotel while others, mostly Americans wanted, to go out. The Aussies were typically laid back about it either way except for Bindie who was desperate to get in some Kareoke (he'd managed to miss both our kareoke nights in Nagasaki - only one due to ill health). So the Americans indulged Bindie in his quest for kareoke but he made it worth there while with a passionate renditions by all accounts. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Aussie's decided to they preferred Swedish company in on of the hotel bars. I was sort of pleased that everyone was a bit split up because I'd arranged to go and meet Steve Tomaro (from my soccer team back in Melbourne) who was in Tokyo for a year teaching English. It was great to met up with Steve, I'm the only person from home he's seen while away, (he's doing well, enjoying life in Japan) but it was also odd stepping out of the world of the exchange trip and opening up parts of my mind that had been well and truly closed for two weeks and thinking about home again. By the time I got back the Swedes had gone to bed and just a few Aussies were left hanging out in one of the hotel rooms. The trip was coming to an end and people seemed tired and ready for home. I was prepared for the end but still would have liked it to go on longer.
Tuesday was farewell day, nothing planned except the various departures. We Aussies didn't have to leave the hotel until 5pm so had originally talked about going to Mt Fuji for the day but everyone was too tired, we wanted to say our good byes to the Swedes and Americans and it was wet, overcast and miserable so we wouldn't have seen anything anyway.
We got up and had breakfast with the Swedes and farewelled them about 10am, thinking they'd drawn the short straw having to leave first. But it rained all day and we were either tired or sad to being saying goodbye or both so we packed our bags - some of us managing to fit everything in others have to dump touristy junk stuff they'd bought. We checked out at 12pm, went for some last minute gift shopping (small items only), farewelled the American's at 2pm and bumbed around the hotel realising the Swedes actually had the best deal and we'd copped the short straw.
Finally 5pm came and we bused to the airport. Here we actually found free internet access and I spent about an hour mostly blogging (so far behind!) and would have nearly missed my flight if it hadn't been delayed. The Sydney bunch left first then us for Melbourne, leaving Steve from Brisbane on his own with another hour to spend at the internet cafe before having to board.
The flight home was fairly uneventful, Sue and I both had a whole row to ourselves. I watched Collateral and then stretched out across four seats to sleep the night, I got a few hours but they were interrupted and no where near enough. We landed 9am Melbourne time which is when I was due at work. We'd been told the exchange went from the 28th of Jan to Feb 8th so I'd said I could work on the 9th. Our departure was on the 8th but I hadn't realised we had an overnight flight making our arrival the morning of the 9th. So I rang work when I got home at 10am and said I could come in for the afternoon but they told me to take the day off. Thank goodness because then after working the next day I drove that night to Commonground near Seymour for a four day training event I was helping to run, worked another three days straight including an induction day and then finally had a chance to catch my breath. It's been great though.
Technically our time wasn't free until we'd prepared our presentations for the following day and given a bit of an evaluation of our time in Nagasaki. So we had a meeting for a couple of hours to sort this out, this was fun cause we all knew each other but being all young leaders we had too many chiefs who wanted to emphasise this point or that in our presentations. So I backed off and offered to take notes which ended up becoming the basis of our powerpoint presentation - an unavoidable part of the program given corporate Japanese expectations (we were presenting to Japanese Government officials) and our American cheerleading presenter. How is it that the substance of community development principles always get lost amongst the style of political and bureaucratic pretentiousness? Anyway it was no big stress and the last time we were required to use our brains for the trip, so it was back to the jaunt from there.
A few of us went for a late afternoon walk to see the Hie Jinji shrine which was mentioned on the first page of the lonely planet guide but didn't have the same atmosphere as others I'd visited. Then we walked past the National Diet (parliament) building which was architecturally unique but sterile and bureaucratic in it's atmosphere - just like any other parliament I guess. Then we had to hurry back to the hotel to see Jeff and Jodie off. Jeff had not got any better since the night we took the Spa and had not eaten in several days. He just wanted to go home and while the Japanese organisers were not keen on this the Tokyo doctors agreed. To the earlier diagnosis of dehydration they added some sort of bacterial infection. Probably originally from eating all the raw fish which his system was not used to then magnified by the hot spa which would have created perfect conditions for the bacteria. The doctor warned that diarrhea would come soon, we just hoped this held off until after the ten hour flight home. Jodie his daughter accompanied him home so our Aussie contingent was down to 9. It was a bit sad but also a reminder we only had a couple of days left ourselves. Bindie had recovered from his flu which only lasted 24 hours just as forecasted by the doctor in Nagasaki. I was the lucky one (or hardie survivor depending on how you look at it,) I'd spent the same length of time in the spa as Jeff but had felt no ill effects. Since arriving home we've heard that Jeff has recovered well and is now back to good health.
After the goodbyes we went to Rappongi and had dinner at an Irish pub while watching the One-day Cricket final between Australian and Pakistan with a Pakistani guy who worked at the pub. It's a small world! Unfortunately for him he took his cricket very seriously so he took the Pakistani loss pretty hard. Most of us Aussies were barracking for Pakistan as well 'cause we're sick of Australian winning all the time so we were consoling him but it didn't affect us the same. Passion like his deserves respect though, it shows real loyalty. Then the pub's manager put us onto to a cheap internet cafe - finally! About A$7 for an hour, but that was also the minimum payment, so we made the most of it before heading back to the hotel.
Monday morning was time to ourselves, we slept in then had a long breakfast in the hotel buffet. The superbowl fans (mostly Americans plus one of the Swedes and Bindie) had booked a cable hook up in of their hotel rooms to watch the big game. The were all barracking for the same team except Bindie whose team were considered the underdogs. So when Bindie's team won it meant several more disappointed sports fans and Bindie wasted no time rubbing it in. I think it was the highlight of the trip for him. Getting to watch the super bowl live (They'd ) with other people who were interested, including Americans and he was the only one barracking for the team that won. He and his team, both underdogs, had their day.
Everyone else seemed to have lost the exploring bug and were just tired. So I navigated a few to a nearby supermarket and then walked by myself for a couple of hours across a couple of suburbs towards the harbor. First stop was the Atago Jinja Shrine, the last major one in walking distance from the hotel. It was situated on a top of a small but steep hill giving one some good exercise as you entered and a sense of leaving the stress of the city behind. The trees and buildings were nestled closely together on the top of the hill so it didn't have the same open space amongst the trees as the shrine we visited on the first day but it still had the same serene feel to it. The space it did have was mostly taken up by a large pond. The pond had quite a number of huge gold fish, some over a foot long, and even a small boat which seemed quite odd because it was really only a pond, albeit a large one. I can imagine though some form of ritual taking place on the pond or even the boat being used for a kind of semi-isolated-yet-public quiet reflection on the water. Around the perimeter were several more secluded spots that would be great for private reflection.
On the other side of the hill/shrine I came out into the back suburbs of Shimbashi. Quite a different feel to Rappongi and Nagatochi where the hotel was. A lot less flashy, not quite as clean sort of like Fitzroy or Carlton but still with 10 storey buildings minimum and most people still dressed more formally in suits and the like in keeping with Japan's business oriented culture. While walking along I saw another guy by himself, dressed less formally than everyone else and looking around at all the buildings and everything as he went - clearly another tourist - and I thought 'do I stand out that much?' This was certainly much less of a tourist area. Then I came to the Shimbashi train station, which I discovered had been the first train station in Tokyo, down on the docks. A replica of the original building still stands on the original site, it's European brick architecture standing out like a saw thumb in the middle of modern Japanese buildings and covered in neon signs.
Around the corner was the Hama Rikyu Garden, Tokyo's only water front park and my destination. The park was a decent size and did provide some escape from noise and busyness of the city outside but ultimately left me unsatisfied in my quest for a natural escape from the urban environment. It lacked the sense of nature's vibrancy I'm used to and actually seemed quite sterile, one of the last words I would normally apply to nature. It was certainly under used considering multitude of people at the station and shops just five minutes walk away. But whether it's sterile because it's underused or the other way around I cannot say, probably both. The fact that I did not have the time to properly enjoy back because I knew I had to get back to the hotel probably didn't help either. I walked along the park's waterfront though, something it seems Tokyo is still learning to appreciate. In fact, if you can manage to see over the stone wall hindering your view of the harbor, you find it is filled with "reclaimed land" . To get a sense of this imagine looking out into Port Philip bay and seeing several man made islands, perfectly flat and square and covered in skyscrapers - masterpieces of human engineering, buildings and land alike. So the frontier with nature I'm used to has been well and truely driven back what used to be the harbour is just and extension fo the city.
On my way back I decided to try and go right through the train station underground because getting around above ground can be quite difficult in Tokyo where many main roads have barriers across the middle forcing pedestrians to use overpasses which if they do take you where you want to go, do so in a very roundabout way. Underground isn't that much easier for newcomers though as you quickly lose your bearings in the huge maze of tunnels. It seemed like the tunnels for one train station stretch the length of Melbourne's entire CBD but it can't be quite that long. Anyway I made it back to the hotel with about five minutes to eat my lunch before the afternoon's presentations began - two weeks here and I'm still using every minute.
The presentations were okay, reasonably superficial, not much time for discussion but it was interesting to hear what the other groups had been up to. We realised we still didn't have the translation thing down pat as the three groups seemed to have answered entirely different questions but everyone seemed happy with it, so not to worry.
That just left the formal farewell party with government people and also some young Japanese from the NPO forum. The youth mob made someprivate moving thank-yous to some our key host organisers. Then the final night party. Ultimately it proved impossible to get 40 people from three countries to agree on where to go. Some, particularly the Swedes who had an early morning flight, didn't want to leave the hotel while others, mostly Americans wanted, to go out. The Aussies were typically laid back about it either way except for Bindie who was desperate to get in some Kareoke (he'd managed to miss both our kareoke nights in Nagasaki - only one due to ill health). So the Americans indulged Bindie in his quest for kareoke but he made it worth there while with a passionate renditions by all accounts. Meanwhile, the remainder of the Aussie's decided to they preferred Swedish company in on of the hotel bars. I was sort of pleased that everyone was a bit split up because I'd arranged to go and meet Steve Tomaro (from my soccer team back in Melbourne) who was in Tokyo for a year teaching English. It was great to met up with Steve, I'm the only person from home he's seen while away, (he's doing well, enjoying life in Japan) but it was also odd stepping out of the world of the exchange trip and opening up parts of my mind that had been well and truly closed for two weeks and thinking about home again. By the time I got back the Swedes had gone to bed and just a few Aussies were left hanging out in one of the hotel rooms. The trip was coming to an end and people seemed tired and ready for home. I was prepared for the end but still would have liked it to go on longer.
Tuesday was farewell day, nothing planned except the various departures. We Aussies didn't have to leave the hotel until 5pm so had originally talked about going to Mt Fuji for the day but everyone was too tired, we wanted to say our good byes to the Swedes and Americans and it was wet, overcast and miserable so we wouldn't have seen anything anyway.
We got up and had breakfast with the Swedes and farewelled them about 10am, thinking they'd drawn the short straw having to leave first. But it rained all day and we were either tired or sad to being saying goodbye or both so we packed our bags - some of us managing to fit everything in others have to dump touristy junk stuff they'd bought. We checked out at 12pm, went for some last minute gift shopping (small items only), farewelled the American's at 2pm and bumbed around the hotel realising the Swedes actually had the best deal and we'd copped the short straw.
Finally 5pm came and we bused to the airport. Here we actually found free internet access and I spent about an hour mostly blogging (so far behind!) and would have nearly missed my flight if it hadn't been delayed. The Sydney bunch left first then us for Melbourne, leaving Steve from Brisbane on his own with another hour to spend at the internet cafe before having to board.
The flight home was fairly uneventful, Sue and I both had a whole row to ourselves. I watched Collateral and then stretched out across four seats to sleep the night, I got a few hours but they were interrupted and no where near enough. We landed 9am Melbourne time which is when I was due at work. We'd been told the exchange went from the 28th of Jan to Feb 8th so I'd said I could work on the 9th. Our departure was on the 8th but I hadn't realised we had an overnight flight making our arrival the morning of the 9th. So I rang work when I got home at 10am and said I could come in for the afternoon but they told me to take the day off. Thank goodness because then after working the next day I drove that night to Commonground near Seymour for a four day training event I was helping to run, worked another three days straight including an induction day and then finally had a chance to catch my breath. It's been great though.
posted by James Tonson | 8:28 pm
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