Saturday/Sunday

It’s now 4:30 p.m. Sunday, and we’re chilling in the hotel room indulging in Will’s newest obsession – sumo. No, the room isn’t big enough for a sumo match between him and Daddy (there’s barely room for our luggage), but there’s a tournament on in Osaka, so from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. all week, sumo is broadcast on TV. Needless to say, we are planning our days around it, which works quite well because we start our days so early we are exhausted by 4 p.m. Yesterday, we did the Harajuku-Shibuya fashion tour, walking down Takeshita Doori with its crazy young crowed, and hit Omotesando to visit Kiddyland, the 5-story toy store where Will’s favorite stuffed animal, Snowby, was born three and a half years ago when we were last here.

Things seem so familiar here, yet look on the surface very different from when I lived here more than two decades ago. Yes, many people still wear white masks over their faces to protect themselves and others from germs; yes, people still seem to prefer to keep their distance from gaijin in subways and restaurants; but there is much more English spoken now and foreigners don’t really stand out that much; the variety of clothing and hair color is vastly more varied; things seem more relaxed. But it’s hard to say. I just wish there weren’t so many Starbucks, Tully’s Coffees and Makudonarudo Hambaagaas.

After visiting the statue of Hachiko — the loyal dog to waited for his master to return from work long after the master was dead, and an essential Shibuya meeting place for people in the pre-cell phone era — we were rather beat and headed back across Tokyo on the subway to relax in our room and watch sumo and eat Japanese crackers and some surprisingly good Gouda cheese and California wine that Rick had sweetly bought for our arrival. Evening, we ventured out to a sushi bar recommended by Rick’s interpreter – it was delicious, though by the end Will was totally sagging. He is an unbelievable trooper. Will slept all the way to 5:50 a.m. today, much to my relief, given that I woke at 4 a.m., still not adjusting to the time. Out of our hotel window, we could see workers setting up the Tokyo Marathon route a block from our hotel. We ventured out and watched the start of the marathon, with the wheelchair racers zooming by first, followed by the runners. It was extremely windy, and the neat rows of cardboard garbage cans kept blowing into the race route, along with the matching hats of the hoards of race volunteers. Will thought it was all hilarious.

We then took the train to north Tokyo, where we wandered around a very old section of Tokyo, Yanaka, one of the only, if not the only, sections to survive both the 1923 earthquake and subsequent fire, but also the bombings of World War II. It’s a hilly area, with narrow winding streets, old wooden buildings and many temples and shrines, along with tiny shops offering beautiful Japanese paper, bamboo carvings, and “College Potatoes” – a sweet confection of sweet potatoes eaten by students at a nearby university – and by our own Rick Attig, who today accepted an offer to became a graduate student of fine arts at Pacific University. Boy, I buried that lede, didn’t I? We are proud of him.

It started to rain, so we grabbed a taxi to Ueno, where we searched for a tiny soba shop through the seedy, garbage filled alleyways near Ueno station. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes with a half dozen well-dressed Japanese who laughed at Will’s antics jumping from flagstone to flagstone outside the restaurant, and then ducked inside for delicious buckwheat noodles. Next was the National Museums at Ueno, where Will oohed and aahed over the ancient clay “Haniwa” figures, rusted bronze swords, Buddhist sculptures, and of course, armor. Rick was most excited about the beautiful writing boxes, with their ink stones and beautiful lacquered surfaces. He loved that so much care would go into the ritual of writing. I, of course, loved the Buddhist sculpture, a throwback from my college days at Waseda University, but was disappointed that much of the collection was closed for the month of March. It’s funny: Will has come to really enjoy museums, much to our delight, and for the first time in his life, he was OK with not buying something at the gift shop!!!

We also glimpsed the spring’s first cherry blossoms in the garden outside the museum — and today was declared the first official day of cherry blossom season in Tokyo — a full week early this year. We are looking forward to being here for Ohanami, an important cultural ritual of enjoying the beauty and ephemeral nature of sakura blossoms. 

Finally, the most important stop of the day: we took a subway halfway across Tokyo to find Neyn, a gourmet, semi-cult donut shop Rick had found online in Akasaka. We caught a subway back to the hotel with a dozen donuts in hand; we sat next to a dozing young Japanese woman, who like us, had a big bag of Neyn donuts at her feet. And we made it back to our room in time to catch the sumo tournament. The tournament started with some “nostalgia” clips from long, long ago – much to my delight, because it was the era when I came to love sumo, 20 some years ago. So here we sit, Will drawing cartoons of sumo wrestlers and marathoners, including one about a sumo wrestler who visits a donut shop and knocks a bunch of stuff over, Rick is doing laundry in the bathtub, and I’m typing this. We’ll venture out later for yakitori – Will’s choice tonight.