Japan in 5 Days

Tokyo-Kyoto-Hakone: a 5-day sojourn

The chief purpose of this blog post is to share travel tips and experiences with those who are planning a similar 5-day sojourn in the Tokyo-Kyoto-Mt Fuji area, a very manageable triangular region for a short visit to Japan. It bids fair to be named as Japan’s ‘Golden Triangle’, much like the Delhi-Jaipur-Agra area is India’s Golden Triangle.

It is not always easy to get word-of-mouth evaluations of the things to do or see. What you usually get on an Internet search is information about places, with no assessments of whether these places are really must-see ones given one’s limited time.

We visited Japan from 26 Sept-1 Oct 2008, during the autumn season. It was our first-ever visit to Japan.

Tokyo – first impressions
As a school boy, I was fascinated with cities the way some school boys are fascinated with cars. I knew all the facts and figures associated with cities, scouring encyclopaedias for all the information I wanted. I learned that Tokyo was the largest city in the world in terms of population and pipped even New York to this elevated spot – imagine, even larger than New York, that most iconic of metropolises, the one with the Empire State Building and its 102 storeys up which King Kong climbed holding Fay Wray in his gentle hands (my mind boggled at the thought of a 102-storey building).

There were many, many images that I had of New York, but none of Tokyo at all. Tokyo was an anonymous city, packed with grey, box-like, low-rise buildings unlike other major cities (due to its earthquake risks, I’d learned). That was my image of it. And yes, the crowds. I’d heard about the crowds from my parents’ visit back in 1966, about enormous swaths of people swooping through the streets, marching determinedly at an unheard of pace. For two Singaporeans coming from Singapore in 1966, that must have been quite a sight and quite an experience.

So, how did all this tally with my own first-time encounter with it? Well, Tokyo was not as big and intimidating as I had expected. I was expecting to be assailed by crowds like in Singapore’s Chinatown during the Chinese New Year season, especially in an area like Shinjuku with its claim to having Tokyo’s busiest station. But Shinjuku was surprisingly pleasant and tranquil outside of peak hours, and not really wildly mad even during the peak times.

Tokyo is much like big cities all over the world, with buildings stacked like Lego pieces and seeming to go on forever, and with a tendency to be grey (one takes Singapore’s preference for colourful buildings for granted – our HDB blocks gleam with colour and pattern, clearly a striking sight to most visitors from the major metropolises of the world, I’m beginning to realize). But despite housing 14 million or so people, Tokyo is orderly and traffic moves with no difficulty and with no sense of crush.

Shinjuku – the Keio Plaza Hotel
The Keio Plaza Hotel can be recommended for reasons of sheer convenience. The tallest hotel in Tokyo, it is a large and imposing building. It sits on the edge of the Shinjuku shopping district, a tranquil little corner on its own. You cross the boundary formed by the street in front of its main entrance into the shopping area much like you cross the Straits of Johore into Singapore via the causeway – this was strangely the comparison that came to my mind.

The hotel is of the same standard as any of the Orchard Rd hotels but on a larger scale. Intimacy is not one of its charms, but airport limousine buses stop there and tour buses use it as a staging post – which means that you won’t have to lug your luggage around Shinjuku trying to find your hotel on your own when you first arrive. Shinjuku Station is 10-15 minutes away on foot.

You can’t go wrong staying at this hotel if it is your first time in Tokyo and you are feeling intimidated, like I was. On subsequent visits, you may decide on other hotels closer to the shops. A 10-minute walk, after all, can be tiresome if you have to do it several times a day or carting shopping spoils. The rooms are of the size to be found in Singapore hotels, something apparently not to be taken for granted in space-starved Tokyo. And Internet connection is free, a freebie which Singapore hotels might consider as a standard guest service in this day and age - like providing towels.

By Japanese standards the staff are not spectacularly friendly, though by the standards of, say, New York, they will appear to be sweet angels. Having said that, I must report that the friendly bell-hop (a young woman) who showed us to our room refused to accept a tip, explaining that service was exactly what she was supposed to provide and so tipping for service was unnecessary. So rare is such a logical attitude that I should have noted down her name and anointed her as an Honorary Angel from Heaven. And she wasn't the only one either - the guide who took charge of the tour to Hakone and Mt Fuji also refused to accept a tip.

What we did for the first 2 days in Tokyo
Don’t hope to see all of Tokyo. It’s not necessary and it may be disappointing as well. I get the sense of the guidebooks trying very hard when they attempt to list the Top Ten Must/Do Must See Things in Tokyo. These days, cities are unfortunately tending to be the same all over the world – The Rocks area in Sydney is not that much different from, say, Clarke Quay in Singapore. The concept is the same: Take an old, decaying part of town and turn it into a vibrant shopping and entertainment area. Once you have seen one such thing in one city, it is just a variation of a theme in other cities. So read your guidebooks carefully, and read in-between the lines to see which of the recommended sights is what you really want to see. So, here is what we did and what we thought.

Imperial Palace gardens
We spent Day 1 checking out Shinjuku and on Day 2 we went to the Imperial Gardens after reading our guidebook carefully and weighing up our options given our limited time. We wanted to be somewhere in Tokyo very different from Shinjuku. I think the Palace gardens are regularly touted as one of the top sights to see in Tokyo. I thought it was a pleasant enough place but basically it is a park which I would have enjoyed spending a Sunday afternoon in if I were a Tokyo resident, but it’s not a place I would recommend going out of the way to visit for a tourist. So you see what I mean.

The real pleasure for us was braving the Tokyo Metro subway system to get there. In this manner, we saw much of Tokyo and its denizens and experienced life as they live it. This is what is most valuable about travelling. So what I specifically remember now is a long, calm and clean subway, and stopping at a little eatery beside a track in a subway, trying to place our orders by pushing buttons on a panel inscribed in Japanese. Hapless, we finally caught the eye of one of the counter staff who came down to push the buttons for us. Not all eateries are as high-tech as this one, which is why it may stay in our memories. I wondered at the economies of this little eatery in a subway having such a machine installed when a customer could easily have just given his order to the staff standing at the counter above the machine...

Asakusa
We made it to Asakusa, which is a little like the Chinatown of Singapore, ie, an older quarter of town with low-rise shophouses. You get the sense of being in a typical Asian city, not the high-tech vision that is Tokyo. It felt a little like Melbourne’s Richmond area, usually dubbed “Little Vietnam”. It didn’t gleam and was a little grubby (though it was very clean, as it appears to be all over Tokyo) and charming for being so. We bought good quality shirts for $7.00, complete women’s ensembles for $50.00 and shoes also for $50.00 – all being unheard of prices even in the cheapest parts of Singapore. And these are not low-quality things that you wear a couple of times and discard but are similar to the things you might get, say, at Marks and Spencer in Singapore. There goes the myth about the astronomical costs of shopping in Japan!

Our Sunrise Tour: Mt Fuji-Hakone-Kyoto
We embarked on a basically free-and-easy package tour after our first 2 days in Tokyo. I had found exactly the deal I was scouting for: a hot springs stay in Hakone (a national park famous for its hot springs), a visit to Mt Fuji, a bullet train ride, a visit to Kyoto for an experience of old Japan, and a stay in a Ryokan style of room (traditional Japanese inn-style room). If these are the things you are looking for, I recommend this Sunrise package.

Mt Fuji
Mt Fuji is surely a must for most visitors. But be warned that it is rarely seen the way it is seen in the postcards and paintings – unobscured by clouds. Apparently, even in the best viewing season (winter), your chances of seeing the peak at all are around 30%. We actually saw the peak of Mt Fuji when the clouds periodically cleared. Our guide was ecstatic – just the day before she had a busload of disappointed people who never saw a thing.

We went up to the 5th Station, the highest point accessible to vehicular traffic. What I learned or discovered:
- It was awesome to see such a thick carpet of clouds below us obscuring the lakes below completely – it was as if we were looking down on a lake of clouds; I’d never seen anything quite like that before, not this thickness of cloud cover.
- The peak and upper slopes of Mt Fuji are just bare volcanic soil; there are no trees up there
- The mountain is a near-perfect cone of earth thrown up by volcanic eruptions, not formed like most other mountains are usually formed.

The Bullet Train
I had heard about the Shinkanzen (bullet train) ever since I was a school boy, reading about it like some fable from a book of world wonders. It was finished in time for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and my parents first experienced it on their memorable visit in 1966. Even till today, 40 years after its inception, it still remains a thing of wonder (so imagine how much more a wonder it was 40 years ago). What more can one say? It is comfortable, spacious and sane, and I had all the time in the world to write this very blog while riding on it back to Tokyo from Kyoto!

Hakone
Hakone is a hot springs resort area accessible from Tokyo, a common weekend retreat for Tokyoites. Tours to Hakone always include a short lake cruise and a trip on an “aerial ropeway”, a cable-car in other words. My own thoughts are these: If you have ever cruised on a mountain lake and travelled up a mountain on a cable-car, this is not really a must-do or must-see in Japan. You can safely find something else uniquely Japanese to see or do in your limited time.

And what is uniquely Japanese in Hakone is the onsen, or hot spring baths experience. To be precise, it is not so much the hot springs that are uniquely Japanese but the manner in which you use the hot springs – the Japanese way: sitting on little stools and scrubbing yourself down with a little white towel first, and then immersing yourself totally naked in either an indoor communal bath or (better still) an outdoor one under the trees and stars. There are probably many people from many parts of the world who would feel bashful at the thought of such uninhibited behaviour even though you are bathing with members of your own gender, but this onsen ritual is so quintessentially Japanese that it would be a pity to forgo the experience. However, it may be true that this is easier to do if you are among strangers than among people you know!

I experienced my onsen at the Hotel Kowakien, quite a beautiful modern hotel set in its own verdant and tranquil garden.

Kyoto
We only had an afternoon, a night and a morning in Kyoto, a city so full of sights that you could easily spend several days there. But no matter. We followed the same principle as in Tokyo, which is to not try to see everything. So here is some sharing, for those who may find themselves with a similarly limited time in this smallish city.

Westin Miyako Hotel
This hotel has a beautiful lobby, with red timber panelling everywhere and artfully and warmly lit. We stayed in the traditional Japanese annexe – I just had to satisfy my desire to stay in a ryokan-style room, with sliding doors and tatami mats. Well...I would say the novelty didn’t last long and I learned that a ryokan-style room is in itself not really enough to be appealing. The hotel’s ryokan wing was unfortunately somewhat tired and run-down, and so that left you with nothing but....sliding doors and tatami mats.

Nijo Castle
Arriving in Kyoto only at 2pm and confronted with a bewildering array of possible things to see, we sat down for an hour to pore over the brochures and maps. With the afternoon drawing on and a realization that things would no doubt close at 5pm or thereabouts, we took a punt and decided to take a cab straight to Nijo Castle and its gardens instead of going to the more ‘top of the charts’ choice such as the Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

And bingo! I am convinced we saw the most interesting tourist sight in Kyoto. This World Heritage Site was originally built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu, and makes characteristic use of early Edo period building designs. Walking its corridors takes you back in time in the way that such preserved bits of history usually do no matter which country you are in, but one new experience for me was the “Nightingale Floor”, floor boards that are specially sprung to twitter like birds so as to alert the Shogun household of anyone approaching. For a moment, I was actually fooled into thinking that I was hearing a flock of birds twittering in the trees outside. Amazing. This brings to mind stories about the Ninja, stealth warriors who could move silently without so much as making a single floor board creak (images from a favourite boyhood TV series "Samurai" came to mind) – I now understand the meaning of this skill of theirs.

Nishiki/Teramachi Arcade Shops
After Nijo Castle, we made our way to the Nishiki area. This is an area of streets that have had a roof put over them, a little like our Bugis Junction area. The actual Nishiki lane of shops (as opposed to the Teramachi lane) is a wonderfully strange shopping mix – a shop selling fresh fish may be found next door to a shop selling dresses, this kind of thing. It was where the locals could be found and that was a good reason for being there. We had intended to head for the well-known Gion geisha area after this (where real geishas supposedly still exist), but we found ourselves too tired to go on, and so gave Gion a miss.

Heian Jingu Shrine
We only had a morning left before heading back to Tokyo, so we narrowed down our choices again – this time targeting a 20-minute walk to the Heian Jingu Shrine and its wonderful Japanese ponds and gardens. There were many picture-postcard moments in the grounds, and it seemed that all the aesthetic clichés of old Japan had indeed been brought to life. Yes, it is all true and truly beautiful.

Kyoto – an overall impression
We then tried to head for the famous path beside a canal called The Philosopher’s Path, renowned for its charm and serendipitous opportunities for encountering flora and fauna, but armed with a poor map we didn’t find it quick enough and time was running out. We had also considered going to see the Bamboo Path in the Arashiyama area (an apparently lovely walk through a Bamboo grove) but of course we had no time. Kyoto is that kind of place, as I said.

But I’ve learned that you rarely remember all the temples and tourist sites you have visited; what you do remember is the feel of a city. This is what stays in the memory. And this was what I wanted to implant in my memory. And what I will remember is a city of great dignity, rather grey like most cities, on a very human scale, not particularly beautiful in its buildings, but neat and orderly and a little old-fashioned in feel. Kyoto is a provincial city, and provincial cities can have their charms.

I think that if I were given a choice of place in Japan to return to, it would be Kyoto rather than the brassier and far more glamorous Tokyo. It is probably a good idea to base yourself in Kyoto and make a day trip into Tokyo rather than do it the other way around, which is the usual and standard thing to do.

Our 5-Day Japan: A Final Impression
What am I left with after a brief 5 days? Japan is a place where people exhibit many social graces – the gentleness of manner, the courtesy, the cleanliness – which make it all possible for people to live cheek by jowl with one another. There is none of that ‘attitude’ encountered in New York. In Tokyo, you are indeed in a huge city but you don’t feel dwarfed. The signals of courtesy (the bows, the smiles, the gentle voices, the giving of way) may strike some as being merely skin-deep, but you realize that in a big city, courtesy is never merely skin-deep. You need such courtesies to feel that you are negotiating your way, and negotiating it daily, in a place that is pleasant.