Day 1 in Tokyo: Rain Delay

By Lucas Marquardt

I was thinking about titling this blog “Americans are barbarians for not embracing the bidet.” But really, what else is there to say other than that? 

I was also thinking about calling it “Cab drivers: humanity’s dark secret,” or more to the point: “Cab drivers the world over want to scare and maybe kill you.” 

Then there was, “Shortly after taking pill #3, I realized I do not, in fact, have a unique tolerance to Tylenol PM,” though that’s wordy. 

In the end I went with the above just because, while I’ve pondered the other sentiments since arriving in Japan late Tuesday afternoon (local time), I’ve had time to contemplate them in considerable depth only because of the foul weather here. 

Anyway, an explanation: the TDN, after a generous invitation from the JRA, has kindly agreed to send me to Tokyo to cover Sunday’s $5.2-million G1 Japan Cup, featuring the indomitable mare Gentildonna (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), who last year became the first two-time winner of race. Facing Japan’s 2012 Horse of the Year is Canada’s 2013 winner, Up With the Birds (Stormy Atlantic), as well as last year’s G1 Irish Derby hero Trading Leather (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}). 
In addition to filing race reports, I’ll also be doing a blog on my impressions of Tokyo, the people, the food, the sights, etc. It probably won’t be for everybody, but for those of you who haven’t been to this part of the world, hopefully it will offer some color commentary. Mostly it will just be stories about what I’ve been up to. 

Things all started well enough Monday morning. A 6 a.m. flight from Lexington to O’Hare, then a 13-hour flight to Tokyo. 

I got to sit next to an offbeat but terrific septuagenarian named Geneva (first name) who had some interesting ideas on everything from global politics to those wooden spoons that used to come with single-serve ice cream tubs. I was taking it easy on the complimentary wine since I’d already popped, to no effect, a couple Tylenol PM. But Geneva was picking up the slack. She was heading to Burma for a river cruise of the Irrawaddy. “I’ve been to 69 countries,” she said. 
Later, as we began our descent, she lifted the window shade and, seeing nothing but a cumulus field below, exclaimed, “Look how fluffy Japan is!” I had been in and out of consciousness, as about halfway through the flight the sleep aids hit at once, but I was able to give her a thumbs-up. I was plenty spacey. Remember that scene in Trainspotting where Mark Renton sinks down into the floor and views everything with a weird earthly tunnel vision? Just like that. 

We landed at Narita International around 3:30 p.m. The airport is 35 miles east of Tokyo, but a reasonably priced ticket on the Narita Express–about $12 for those with a foreign passport–gets you to Tokyo Station in under an hour. 
Tokyo sits a little bit south of Lexington–it’s on the same parallel as Raleigh, North Carolina–so I was surprised when we emerged from the train tunnel and it was already completely dark at 4:30 p.m.–a half-hour before the sun sets in Raleigh. Axial tilt? Don’t know. 

Unfortunately, the weather in Tokyo was exactly the same as the weather I’d left in Chicago: cold and rainy. I was hoping for a let-up overnight, but I woke up early Wednesday morning to rain pelting my hotel window. The press isn’t invited to Tokyo Racecourse until Thursday, so I had a day to burn. I drew up an itinerary over coffee: the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya, the nearby Ota and Nezu museums, both the namesakes of private art collectors, and something called the Parasite Museum, which claimed to feature a 29-ft tapeworm removed from a 40-year-old man. Culture! 

Sadly, I only made it as far as the Meiji Shrine. But that still was an experience. The site, in a 175-acre park made up mostly of evergreens, is dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken. In the late 19th century and early 20th, Meiji turned Japan from an isolated feudal state into an industrialized world power. Pass through a massive Torii, or the traditional Japanese gate, and the shrine is comprised of two or three structures that feature those big, sweeping, curved roofs typical of Shinto architecture (a style called nagare-zukuri, says Google). They overlook a large stone square that on this day was decidedly uncrowded. Only a tour of Japanese tourists and a few stragglers like myself were around. 

Before you enter, it’s a sign of respect to perform Temizu, a Shinto hand-washing ceremony. At a stone water basin, you take a long-handled dipper with your right hand, and pour some water into your left. Then you switch hands and pour a little into your right hand. Then, pouring more water into your cupped left hand, you take some into your mouth, swish it around, and quietly spit it back into your left hand, before completing the ceremony but lifting the dipper vertically and letting water wash down the handle. I was in the process of getting this wrong when a sweet elderly Japanese lady showed me how it was done. Tree-line pebble paths bring to and from the shrine, and even in the rain, the birds stirred up an impressive cacophony. 

By this time I was soaked to the bone, so when, after warming up a bit with a steaming bowl of wantanmen, I found that the Ota Museum closed for renovations, I decided to head back to the hotel. (This by a somewhat harrowing cab ride that seemed to find the driver more confused by the left-handed driving than I was.) 

A good day, but tons more to do and see. Tomorrow we head out to Tokyo Racecourse for the first time, and with a forecast of clear skies and temperatures in the 60s, I should have lots of photos and some video, too.