From Tokyo...

A walk through history
 
 
I am currently in Japan. This is a country that I had never really wanted to visit, although I thought it kind of interesting. My grandfather, a naval man who lived all over the world while my mother was growing up, always said that Japan was the place he wanted to settle, but his wife, my grandmother, disagreed so he didn’t get that chance. My daughter is a huge fan of Japanese culture and so, for her graduation from high school, I promised her a trip to the Land of the Rising Sun.
 
Our first day was uneventful and took us to see the NTV Big Clock designed by Hayao Miyazaki (her favorite director; Studio Ghibli fans will now know that there is a theme to my daughter’s trip here).  It was as cute as I expected, but a long walk. Distances that Google Maps say are walkable seem to expand once you are walking them, when the reality of the heat, the humidity and the unrelentless size of the place hit home.
 
Day two however, was a walk into the past. My first stop was the Center for the Tokyo Air Raids and War Damage. As you might know, the people of Japan bore the brunt of retaliations for Japan’s actions during World War 2. The museum is about them, the people who died or were left homeless in the air raids. Honestly, I did not know that much about the topic, and it was eye opening. It is very much from a civilian point of view; kind of neutral and acknowledging that, yes, we got the shit kicked out of us because of what the country did – that’s how war is. Small, it is jammed full of stories, personal items and anecdotes, the things that make narratives real. You are aware that these were real people, while maps and photographs showed the scale of the destruction. A thoroughly interesting place and run by incredibly sweet people.  It is set in a peaceful neighborhood – one that was affected by the bombing -  full of houses, not apartments, workshops, and parks. It was not easy to find, being a 20 minute walk from the metro, but I did find it and it was well worth it.
 
Next on my exploration of war time Tokyo was the Yasukuni-jinja shrine. I’ll leave the controversy about this place aside and focus on what I felt. It was an oasis of calm in the chaos that is this city. All through the grounds are flowers wrought in different artistic styles – I think cherry blossoms or lotus flowers, I really don’t know – which added a whimsical sort of charm.
 
This was not some grand adventure, nor exhaustive exploration into wartime Tokyo. Many reminders have been bulldozed by progress as the city continues to explode upwards and outwards, but these are two places that seek to remember. To me, exploring a city means finding these memories of the past and I’m glad I made the effort. Tokyo is exhausting in its size, literally dwarfing you. Some relish these kinds of experiences, but I’ve always been a quiet sort of traveler, looking for pockets of history or calm within the noise. I certainly haven’t seen much of Japan’s capital, but I have caught a glimpse of something that I thought was gone, and that’s my own curiosity. Lately, I have felt very lost, like life was just a chore that I had to endure on a daily basis. I felt no interest, no spark, my creativity was drained to zero. But this little walk-through time brought me back to who I once was. I started to feel alive again. Ideas started to pop back in my head, possibilities began to feel possible.
 
So, I might have gone to Tokyo and not experienced the nightlife of Shinjuku or any crazy adventures, but I find something of myself, and that, I think is the whole purpose of traveling.