Trip to Japan, 2 — Condensed!

Tokyo’s main international hub, Narita International Airport, is located not in Tokyo, but in the neighboring prefecture called Chiba. Before the national railroad and a private rail provided alternatives, the only public mean to get there was to take an express bus. The ride took more than 2 hours from central Tokyo. Taxi was out of the question, for it would cost $200 to $300. But now you can take express trains, which reduced the travel time by 45 minutes.

The airport is surrounded by farms, mainly rice paddies. During the winter they look similar to wheat fields, with hey-colored rice stems and dry ground. In the early evening light, the evergreen trees and bushes looked very dark green, the color of overcooked seaweed. They floated in the midst of hey-colored field and bamboo groves. Oh, miso soup!

I saw many beautiful, traditional Japanese farmhouses during that train ride to Tokyo. In the countryside, it seemed, households were still quite large. Extended family live in a big lot surrounded by bamboo fences and beautiful plantings, sometimes in separate small houses, but often in a big main house together. Those main houses can be very large for the Japanese standard, with magnificent dark gray tile roofs and all the traditional trimmings of Japanese architecture. I had never noticed how beautiful those houses were.

As the train traveled closer to Tokyo, the houses became smaller and smaller, and the space between the houses became almost nonexistent. It looked absolutely possible for neighbors to shake hands from the second floor windows. Among contemporary aluminum-sided smaller homes, traditional tile-roofed homes dotted neighborhoods, until they vanished at about half way to Tokyo. It looked rather strange; the older, traditional Japanese homes were bigger and more splendid, but they were all located closest to the train tracks. It looked as if the trackside was the prime location for better homes, as the waterfront is along Lake Michigan. But then I realized; those were really old houses, most likely much older than the train tracks, and the space between them that are filled with tiny homes now must have been their yards and farmlands. The train tracks must have come to villages where the houses were, then more houses were built along the tracks and the farmlands were sold to build even more houses. Before long those big traditional homes might disappear completely. They can build 2 little energy efficient homes in the plot for one old house. And since the Japanese families are decidedly more nuclear now, there is scarcely any need for bigger homes.

The train smoothly carried us toward Tokyo, and after the traditional houses disappeared from sight completely, some gigantic apartment buildings started to dot the landscape. They often come in groups of five to eight massive identical buildings. They always make me wonder; how in the world do people who live there find the right apartment in the right building? Especially when they come home after a couple of drinks too many? I wonder if the residents get a lot of banging on their doors late at night by disoriented neighbors who can’t figure out why their keys don’t work.

Later, when my brother-in-law drove us and also when we walked around Tokyo, I felt the narrowness of the road and homes firsthand. I completely forgot how narrow they were. Most of the back streets are one way because they are just barely wide enough for one passenger car to drive through. And the parking… each spot is so narrow that every car needs to be backed in; otherwise you can’t get out. I’m terrible at backing a car, and was glad I didn’t have to drive in Tokyo. Well, I could have driven, I just would have needed to keep on driving forever.

My sister’s apartment has a very cool parking system. It’s like those puzzles that has one piece missing and you slide them around to make the complete picture. It is about 5 cars across, 3 cars up, except one of those rows is below ground level. There is one spot that is always empty, and when you insert your key to the control panel, it rotates the whole thing, up and down and sideways, and brings your car to the ground level. There are also a few double-decker parking devices at the site. The building has roughly 100 apartment units, and only 20 parking spots, but that seems to be working just fine.

The cars themselves were narrow, too. There is a separate vehicle category for “Light Cars.” They get yellow number plates rather than standard white, and get discount on taxes, highway tolls, and parking. They come in variety of sizes within their smaller size, but their narrow bodies were something that caught my eyes. They rather looked like toy cars for Barbie or Polly Pockets, the feeling of which was enhanced by some very unusual body colors, such as metallic pink or pearlescent mauve. While driving to my hometown and back, I studied the cars on the highway because I was fascinated, and noticed another odd thing, not with the Light Cars, but with Toyota cars. They all had the Toyota emblem on the rear, but on the front they carried different emblems. Different model had different emblem. It was as if they all suffered from identity crisis. Why would they do that?

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