Samazama Japan

Happiness Central

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:09:39 +0000

I’ve handed in edition 5 of The Rough Guide to Japan to be edited and am putting the finishing touches to Tokyo, so now is the time to return to this blog for some concluding thoughts on my recent trip to the land of the rising sun. Prompting me to write was an email I received today from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government about the new anime short Honey Tokyo released on their website.
The six minute clip stars Honey, a cute 16 year old girl from the future, who zips down to Tokyo in her flying saucer and kidnaps local lad Takeru in her quest to gather up the city’s happiness. In the process all the colour is sucked out of Takeru and other sights around the city including Shibuya’s scramble crossing, Ueno’s National Museum, Roppongi’s art galleries, Tokyo Sea Life Park, Mt Takao and the Ogisawara Islands.
Half way through Honey’s snatch and grab, Takeru persuades her to slow down and start experiencing other aspects of the capital - a contemplative tea ceremony, traditional martial arts, the maid cafes of Akihabara, the fashions of Ginza and Harajuku (where she gets a stylish new haircut). Honey samples sushi, soba and monjayaki for the first time and throws herself into the midst of the Sanja Matsuri, one of the city’s most boisterous annual street festivals. In the end she decides that “every kind of happiness” can be found in Tokyo and lets the city - and Takeru - have all its colour back.
With the heavy promotion of anime and manga as the nation’s cultural ambassadors it was just a matter of time until such a project was conjured up by the city’s tourism body. Overall, it’s a well produced, engaging clip that incorporates many aspects of Tokyo that make it such a fascinating and fun city to visit.

Koreatown

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:10:45 +0000

There comes a point as you walk north from Kabukichō towards Shin-Ōkubo where you’ll notice that Japanese characters on shop signs are matched or replaced by hangul – Korean script. Welcome to Tokyo’s Koreatown an area where you can not only pick up the latest hit K-Pop CD or poster of soap star Bae Yong-joon (that’s a life-size model of him in the pic above), but also tuck into very authentic Korean cuisine. Apart from yakiniku (beef or pork strips sizzled atop a grill at your table), bibimbap (rice topped with vegetables, egg and meat) and kimchi (the fiery fermented cabbage pickle) there’s a vast range of other Korean dishes to discover, including bindaedok (pancakes made with yellow mung beans); sundubu (tofu stews); and samgyetang (chicken in a herb and ginseng soup). The following are among some of the places I liked or were recommended to me during my recent visit.
Han Salan (ハンサラン; 1-16-15 Ōkubo, Shinjuku-ku 03/5292-1161; daily 11am–midnight) On the second floor above the Korean Culture Center, this is a good place to get acquainted with the diversity of Korean cuisine. Inside it’s designed like a Korean farmhouse with wooden beams and intimate booths. Various set courses, served with multiple sidedishes (banchan) start at ¥1500. It’s a favourite restaurant of my friend Giles - make a booking otherwise you’re likely to have a long wait on the stairs outside.
I came across Kōrai Samgyetang (高麗参鶏湯; 2F Lisbon Bldg, 2-32-3 Ōkubo, Shinjuku-ku 03/3207-3323; daily noon–11pm) while looking for a Thai restaurant which had long shut up shop. Whether you come for lunch or dinner the meal is always the same here – the ginseng chicken stew samgyetang (¥2800). They take eight hours to cook the broth here, which may account for the accolades from local media plastered on the walls outside.

Shinjuku Pojanmacha (新宿ポジャンマチャ; 1-2-3 Hyakunin-chō, Shinjuku-ku, 03/3200-8683; Mon–Thu noon-midnight, Fri–Sun until 3am), also known simply as “Pocha”, is another rustic yakiniku restaurant painted with colourful cartoon scenes of Korean life. It too has featured on Japanese TV and a photo shoot was in progress when I first stuck my head inside. It serves the rice beer makgeolli (it tastes like drinking yoghurt with a mild alcoholic kick) the traditional way in big wooden bowls with a ladle.
If you like the drink, also check out slick, stylish Maccoli Bar (1-5-24 Hyakunin-chō, Shinjuku-ku, 03/6380-3487) further down the same street. Makgeolli has growing following in Japan and you can sample a variety of brands at this bar straight or mixed with various fruits - I had the pear makgeolli when I showed up on a snowy night. There was a birthday party in the works - hence the pink balloons. The crowd were friendly young Korean-Japanese.
During my time in Korea last year I grew very fond of the teashops with their refreshing herbal and fruit infusions and sweet rice-powder cakes and crackers. I was delighted to come across several places serving these treats in Koreatown. Sori (B1 TK Bldg, 1-1-4 Hyakunin-chō, 03/6233-9200; daily 10am–11pm) occupies a spacious basement plastered with giant posters of K-pop boy bands as well as women in national dress. Here you can sip on lemony sweet yuzu and the more tangy omijicha made with a red berry.
A similar menu is offered at the misnamed Coffee Princess (2-2-3 Ōkubo, Shinjuku-ku, T03/5285-8797; daily 11.30am–1.30pm) which in true Korean decorative style is festooned with colourful flowers, including a small garden of fake ones on a balcony overlooking the main road. Inside it’s busy with women swooning over the pretty boy waiters.
As a footnote, I should point out that apart from being packed with Korean restaurants, bars, cafes, food and trinket shops, Shin Okubo is also known for its love hotels - places that rent rooms by the hour. My eye was drawn to this somewhat cryptic message outside one of them - make of it what you will!

Tsukiji Troubles

Wed, 7 Apr 2010 00:56:03 +0000

Dubbed the “fish market at the centre of the world” by Theodor Bestor, for its influence of world seafood prices, the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market, more popularly known as Tsukiji, is one of the city’s must-see sights. However, in recent years, its fame among foreign visitors has started to cause problems. The Japan Times reports that on Monday over 500 tourists, most apparently non-Japanese, showed up for the famous tuna auctions and tried to squish into a viewing corridor that had a maximum capacity of 80. The resulting commotion disrupted the market’s proceedings and has since caused the authorities to put a month-long ban on tourists watching the auctions.
This is the second time in two years that Tsukiji has been forced to take such measures and I fear that if tourists keep showing up in such numbers the ban from the tuna auctions will become permanent. This would be a great shame, since they are a fascinating sight. First the potential buyers inspect the rock-solid frozen fish, looking like steel torpedoes, all labelled with yellow stickers indicating their weight and country of origin. Slices at the tail end enable them to judge the quality of the meat. The auctioneer stands on a box in front of a row of tuna and while a bell is rung calls out the bids in a sing-song manner that is anything but Antique Roadshow. Depending on the quality, each tuna sells for between ¥600,000 and ¥1 million.
What some visitors perhaps lose sight of at Tsukiji is that this is a very busy place, generating ¥1.7 billion in sales daily. The market has been located here since 1935 and is not set up to receive visitors on the scale that it has been attracting. In around four years time, Tokyo Metropolitan Government plans to shift the market to a new complex at Toyosu, 2km across the bay. Previously occupied by a plant of Tokyo Gas, the highly toxic ground at the new location must be thoroughly cleaned up before any construction starts. In the new complex, tourists will be kept at arm’s length from the action, restricted to walkways overlooking the wholesale fish section.
Such a major change is, inevitably, being greeted with a concern from the Tsukiji merchants who have grown used to their chaotic environment. Particularly worried are the five hundred or so vendors in the outer market area whose living largely depends on the continued presence of the fish market - they are supported by the local ward, who are also unhappy about the loss of income the market’s relocation will entail. However, with the city government standing to make around US$2 billion from the sale of this prime real estate, the forces pushing Tsukiji further out into Tokyo Bay are irresistible.

Greening Tokyo

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 22:29:39 +0000

Green is the new black in Tokyo. In an effort to boost its eco-cred the metropolitan government has announced it will launch in 2011 a mandatory scheme to cut carbon dioxide emissions from large office buildings and factories. The goal is to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 2000 levels by 2020 and the scheme involves Asia's first cap-and-trade program allowing businesses to purchase emissions credits achieved by others.
Tokyo’s dense man-made environment of concrete, glass and steel, is also increasingly being softened by the creation of natural, green places. Though they are not as common as in other major metropolises, large gardens and parks provide urban escapes and there are frequent small spots of greenery along side streets, on roof tops, even up the side of buildings. Examples range from the small scale – householders and shops tending potted plants on the sidewalks – to corporate and governmental efforts such as the vertical gardens of Marunouchi’s Brick Square and the Umi-no-Mori project which plans to plant nearly half a million trees on an 88 hectare island made of garbage in Tokyo Bay by 2016.
The city’s natural bright spots and the best eco ideas being practiced in Japan are regularly highlighted in Jared Braiterman’s blog Tokyo Green Space. Some of these, such as the Ginza Bee Project, where 300,000 bees make honey from the nectar collected in the nearby parks, and the tiny Ginza Farm, where two ducks waddle amid an urban rice paddy, recall the days when Tokyo was known as Edo. In the Japan Times Braiterman has urged the city to do more, asking why so much of Tokyo is paved over when its amazing public transport system means it has the lowest private car use of any advanced city other than Hong Kong. It's a call backed up by others floating ideas to dismantle some central highways, in the process daylighting and revitalizing rivers and canals covered over and neglected in the post-war period. One tantalising prospect is burying the expressway overshadowing the otherwise grand Nihombashi Bridge.

Hanami, Meguro-gawa

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 15:01:17 +0000

If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to get out there and enjoy some hanami time in Tokyo. Today the Japan Times reported that the city had already reached its sakura “peak” - judged by the Meteorological Agency who monitor a sample cherry tree at Yasukuni Shrine. I didn’t go there, but did make it to both Shinjuku Gyoen and the Naka-Meguro section of the Meguro gawa - both sakura hot-spots - before leaving Tokyo.