Tokyo is an insane city. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. It’s fascinating, noisy and chaotic, futuristic, colourful and creative, but I didn’t warm to it as much as I thought I would.
As we departed the Hilton Hotel in the heat and made our way on the courtesy bus to Shinjuku station on the next step of our Japanese adventure, I doubted that I would return for any great length of time. The city may be vast, an endless sprawl of development out to the horizon, but it doesn’t have many of the things that we’re used to exploring, in particular the expansive green spaces and the wide range of heritage sites. I found Tokyo to be hot, non-stop, garish, wonderfully friendly, modern, weird beyond description, smelly, childish and colourful, and I’m glad we’d made it the first of our stops in Japan. Who knows, perhaps my views will change if we do ever return and we’ve explored more of the many neighbourhoods we never got round to exploring.
From the station we were off to the interior and the small city of Takayama, known as the gateway to the Japanese Alps. The Nozomi to Nagoya was our first experience of the country’s famous and futuristic bullet trains, which can travel at speeds of around 200mph. Despite a few hiccups with the tickets and the stress of navigating a giant and bustling station full of incomprehensible signage, we were able to park ourselves on the platform in exactly the right place. This was important because catching a bullet train in Japan is nowhere near as simple as catching a train back in Britain. Everything to do with the Japanese railway system is highly organised, so much so that I could feel the anxiety rising before we’d even left the hotel. The rule is that passengers must stand in just the right spot and in an organised queue marked out clearly on the platform in white paint. An army of staff ensures nobody pushes in or gets out of line, deliberately or otherwise, all with the aim of getting us on board as quickly as possible – because bullet trains don’t hang around and have a timetable to stick to. Fortunately our part of the sleek 16-carriage train was clearly signposted and we were ushered on board with minimal fuss. I felt an elation and relief in making it to our seat that I don’t normally associate with public transport…
The carriage was spotless and spacious, with the sort of ample leg room one never experiences in the UK. Everybody behaved themselves and peace reigned. Anyone who wanted to talk on their phones went out into the corridors so we didn’t have to listen to their conversations, in stark contrast to the behaviour back home. There were long announcements, and I really do mean long, and countless notices telling us how to behave, while staff who patrolled the train bowed extravagantly on entering and leaving the carriages.
Leaving Tokyo, the steel and glass skyscrapers slowly gave way to an increasingly low-rise landscape but one of endless urban sprawl. After a couple of suburban stops, the driver put the pedal down and we really felt the acceleration – like a plane powering down a runway. But the train itself was so quiet we could hear a pin drop and I quickly came to the conclusion that this was a very civilised way to travel, even if the speed meant we weren’t able to appreciate the views out of the windows.
The urban landscape was broken only by a few rivers and steep hills where building is impossible. The mountains were just a blur in the haze so we never caught sight of Mount Fuji and its snowy peak. Outside of Tokyo but amid the sprawl there was room for some greenery, for wherever they could the locals had jammed in little paddy fields to grow rice or carved out small gardens to cultivate fruit and veg.
We left the train at Nagoya, a giant modern city that looked much like Tokyo, and changed on to the limited express to Takayama, motoring into a more suburban landscape. Eventually this gave way to wooded hills and mountains, carved by a tumbling river that was often dammed to provide power in that unattractive, industrial way. The landscape was at times beautiful and dramatic, sometimes given over to terracing, paddy fields, green tea plantations and towns and villages of minimal charm.
The sun was beginning to set as we drew into Takayama but a few yards from the station we found the Best Western, a hotel that was nowhere near as luxurious as the Tokyo Hilton but did have exceptionally friendly staff. We walked into the city centre, which in large part is post-war and utilitarian, clean and quiet. There were restaurants aplenty but most were behind closed doors, so it was impossible to see what they were like or whether there was anyone in them. Being paranoid about being the only diners, it wasn’t a situation I warmed to.
Finally we found a place called Chuka Soba Kajibashi (pictured top) right near the river that divides the town in two, and had excellent ramen and a few beers served by a man of limited charm. It was just closing at about 9pm, and afterwards we couldn’t find any bars despite there being streets of neon promising some sort of drinking action. They all seemed to be dead or closed off behind locked doors, and I’d read somewhere that Japanese bars can be small and private, open to a few regulars who don’t like outsiders interrupting their evenings. Was this it in practice? My mood dived.
Graham finally opened a door to one place that sounded reasonably lively and we found ourselves being invited into what looked like an old dear’s for excuse for a bar. Four Japanese men of a certain age were tucking into booze and food, enjoying their karaoke. A woman of pensionable age served them, a big smile on her face. They were all incredibly welcoming, urged us to sit on the last two bar stools and jabbered away to us, trying to make themselves understood.
We spent an hour attempting to hold a conversation, laughing and joking, not understanding a word, and they generously bought us drinks. One offered us a banana as they sang along to their favourite songs, urging us to do the same. We la-laaaahed a bit, unable to recognise any of the tunes, and smiled a fair bit more. It was one of the most bizarre nights of my life, thoroughly enjoyable and I was certainly won over by the locals.
However, as we made our way home I wondered whether Takayama was going to be a city that would see us sitting out the evenings in our hotel room with beers bought in the nearby supermarket… Because that’s how our first night in town ended.