Zita's Blog

After the famous leap second (which, by the way did crash some computers unlike the dreaded Y2K scenarios), the guys and I walked over to the nearest large shrine, the Kanda Myojin.  Nothing like a shrine festival at 3am!  Quite a crowd walking there in the chilly night.  We stopped by our “Potato Man” — a smiling guy who sells steaming hot sweet potatoes out of his cart — that’s it, just hot potatoes in a paper bag, but so good in the cold night.  We walked past the procession of food vendors up to the large shrine.  We washed our hands in the traditional way, and joined the crowd moving up to the temple steps.  We threw in a coin, clapped twice, prayed and bowed, clapped once and left.  With this crowd, you don’t get up further.  Some boy scouts were guarding a large flame shining in the night.  We went over to see a huge round man statue and a beautiful round wave sculpture with a turtle, fish, dolphins and a girl in a golden boat; the shrine is by the river that winds its way down as a moat to the Imperial Palace.  We listened to some musicians playing traditional flute and drums on a stage with the classic fir tree painting in the background.  Then we bought a white daruma doll (see last year).  This time we got a blessed one.  The lady punched a hole into its underside, gave us a small piece of paper, mimed writing your wish on the paper and putting it inside the daruma, then painting one eye in.  Then she held it up, closed her eyes, and mumured a prayer over it.  The darumas are placed high in your house.  At the end of the year you paint in the other eye in and you get your wish. The darumas are all later burned in a special festival.  We wandered back after a yakitori and a twirly potato fried on a stick.  Up until 6am!  Who says we are not young anymore?

We spent New Year’s Eve at a party with the Operators of Japan’s internet networks — they had to stay to make sure the leap second (yes, honestly) didn’t break the networks all over Japan.  We stayed on the 21st floor of a modern office building with heat, a split-display flat-screen TV, delicacies like fish wrapped in seaweed and sake, and stayed under an old-fashioned country katatsu — a heater under a table with a blanket spread on top.  You duck your feet under it and eat on top of it.  This was created because old Japanese houses didn’t have heat.  Cozy.  A bit of old Japan in a high-rise in Tokyo.  And the best part was at midnight, after the Tokyo tower lit up along with all the red lights in town, the news came on.  The newscaster bowed and all of the guys in the room bowed back.  Sometimes the old marries the new.

Today is the first snow in Tokyo. It is drifting down, and then pushed sideways by the wind. Totoro and I have declared a snow day and are staying indoors. Yesterday, we finally drew the right eye in on our round red daruma doll for good luck for the year. We purchased the daruma at the local temple that we went to for New Year’s Eve. The roly-poly daruma represents optimism. At the end of the year, when we have received our wishes, we draw in the other eye.

Yes! Right across the street from our apartment! The Department of Scandal! The area has been blocked off for weeks. Men in robin’s egg blue overalls and white plastic helmets importantly wave sticks redirecting traffic. They have covered the concrete way to the door with black rubber and steel treads, cordoned it off with yellow and black railings. Every hour there are whistles and yells as an unmarked truck starts to back up to the door accompanied by much movement and flags and yells. Today we looked outside and a crane was lifting unmarked round barrels covered in blue plastic into the back of a small pickup truck. Who knows? But the Japanese newspapers and TV news are almost uniformly concerned with government scandal. We think it is all made right here in Jimbocho across from our apartment. It is the Department of Audit, after all.

One thing you see on the streets, on the metro, in stores, and on trains, are men, women, and children wearing white, surgical face masks. I always thought they were to keep the sickies away from them. I should have been able to figure this one out from the humble and proper Japanese culture: they are to keep themselves segregated from infecting the group when they are sick. The collective stays safe.

Tokyo is an always interesting, exciting, and unexpected mix of the old and the new. Walk the small alleys around the skyscraper office buildings and you will find tiny old neighborhood shrines and wooden tea houses. Nothing exemplifies this mixture more in action that the Potato Man. At night in the center of the city, you will hear the sing-song call of a man hawking fresh, hot sweet potatoes from his cart. Rush to the past and you can catch him!

There is a very popular soft drink here called “Pocari Sweat”. Sounds enticing after a hard workout doesn’t it?

Remind me to tell you of the time we took the old Soviet plane that used to carry tanks and now carries us over the mountains; I get to watch the scenery through a hole in the floor.

Or our escape from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan.

Or that dinner of honor.

You are starting to become Japanese when you know where to find the vending machines with drinks for Y100 instead of the normal Y130.

There is a sake called “One Cup” that is, as it says, one cup of sake in a pop-top disposable glass jar. Commuters tend to pick these up for the long ride home. But today I saw one with little puppies on it. Who is that for?

(See “Computer Pup” below.)