Japan 03-11 Dec

With every new trip that I make, I make a promise to myself to write down the travel facts – for documentation. This time finally, I sit down to write – thanks to the long haul return flight and a cold New Year eve. 
My trip plan to Japan materialized in less than two week's time. In no time, I was on a Japan rail on my way to my guest house at Takashimadaira.

My first photo in Japan

At first sight, Japan was the vast stretch of rice fields and I was already in love with the place. I stood near the window and all my senses were heightened – including smell, thanks to the sweet cologne radiating from someone nearby. I changed three stations in total to reach my guest house from Narita Airport – Ikebukuro – Sugamo – Takashimadaira. Needless to say, all the while dragging my trolley while carrying my conference poster and my laptop bag. Somehow, it was not difficult. The first thing that I could not help but notice was how disciplined Japanese people are. They act orderly everywhere; there were exactly two lines at the Metro entrance for people to enter, two for the escalator – one for people who may want to rush and the other for those who simply wanted to stand all along. It took a time or two for me to get used to that pattern. My Indianess - chaotic by nature - was severly bruised.

My guesthouse was named Pallete Takashimadaira.

My bunker

I was led into my room with a total of six beds in bunk style. I had mine as an upper bunk. When I entered the room, there was nobody but the strewn clothes elsewhere, food packets (and I think human fragrance) indicated that someone or maybe more than one was already occupying the room. (I was to find out later that I would be staying with one wonderful Japanese roomie, whose name I never asked). After satisfying myself with standard queries like Wifi password, any specific house-rules etc with the receptionist, I fell asleep without even bothering to change. I had not slept for one bit during my last night flight since I never manage to find a comfortable position to sleep in flight (or even buses). I guess my feet falls just short of touching the floor and it is impossible to sleep with feet dangling. I should mention here that the whole flight journey was made pleasant by a very hospitable flight attendant – damn! I never looked at his name plate. He was unlike any other flight attendant – chivalrous but very warm. Time and again he would specifically check on me and also invited me for a midnight tea in the flight cabin along with the other attendants. Of course, one should rightaway refuse if asked by a good looking and that sweet a guy with a husky voice. I did just that and evidently regretted the rest of my time.

"Taipo" at display

Okay, where was I? Yes, so I dozed off that afternoon and woke up just in time for tea. It was around 4:00 pm local time. I looked up for a supermarket nearby and bought some packaged food and what I thought was tea-leaves for a strong cup of tea. The shelves also were adorned with some very familiar Darjeeling-ay foods like momos and taipos!
It was only next morning that I discovered that the tea bags I actually brought was some very weird Japanese tea which to me smelt like shrimp!

The next day was usual. I walked around 6 km to reach my conference venue at RIKEN. It was a conscious decision since I wanted to see places around on foot. I reached the institute with ease – thanks to Google maps. The difficult thing was now finding the right hall. With 15 min in hand for the conference to start in which time, I had to put up mine as well as my friend's poster that I had been carrying along, I struggled with the boards and their directions. Finally, a Korean student managed to understand what I was looking for and dropped me till the conference venue just in time. It was called Suzuki Umetaro Hall. I made it a point to pin down my location in Google Maps so that I can come there easily the next day. It was intended well. Alas, I was oblivious to the error radius in location that this pinning can have. Consequently, next day I reached Suzuki Umetaro Hall on the backside with no gate to enter and again 10 min in hand for the conference to start. I was mentally planning to climb up a wall (yes, I am fully capable of doing that) when I spotted a back entrance and entered it through some random student's pass. I think it was illegal.

I will not write down the details of the three day conference. It was like any other conference – talks, discussions, collaborations.

During the last day of the conference, one of my friends attending the conference and I made a plan to visit some place nearby. His friend suggested that we go to some Renkoji temple where the remains of S.C Bose was kept. I did not (do not) have very special interest in visiting it but nonethesless agreed. By the time we reached the venue, it was already dark and of course closed. We are even not sure if we actually reached the temple as the signs outside the gate were written in Japanese. We peeped through and managed to see nothing since it was not lighted inside. The guy whose idea it was to visit the temple looked devastated for that. My friend - his name is Gaurav – and myself somehow convinced him that perhaps we had reached the temple. No questions were asked further.

The next day we had our entire day planned. The same three of us visited Ueno Park where we had planned to see Panda, penguins, seals etc. On mid-day, the three of us split. Gaurav and I decided to visit Kamakura and Enoshima islands, suggested by my Ph.D supervisor.   We took a train – I think two – and reached Kamakura. We googled our way to reach the Great Buddha and on our way also witnessed a Japanese marriage in a temple. The bride was carrying a sword like thing around her – much similar to Tibetan marriages in Darjeeling where the bride carries a long wrap of clothes slung around her shoulders. It was during this visit that I finally managed to get a good cup of tea through Gaurav's choice of restaurant. I bless him till eternity for that.

Kamakura

From Kamaura, we took a local electric train to Enoshima. 

Fuji mountain

 This whole region fell under Old Japan which was entirely unaffected by World War 2. During our train journey we met an old couple who offered us with excellent chocolates and juicy oranges. I am not very fond of oranges but I still accepted it as a part of courtesy and instead tried to eat the chocolates (again I am not very fond of them either). To my surprise, the old lady corrected me for the order of eating and asked me to eat the orange first. I was left with absolute no choice. However, like it happens in every trip, my idea of food dislike get transformed (Last it happened was in Sweden where the bakery items I tasted were so incredible and fresh that I relished them there what I never eat elsewhere). The orange was the tastiest I have ever eaten with not a single seed inside it to poison the taste. We chatted in broken English for sometime and oh! I had forgotten to mention that by this time, the old lady had offered me her window seat to facilitate me seeing the famous Fuji mountain among the vast water. 
One of the picterisque sights I have ever seen which is forever etched in my mind. 
Needless to explain how Enoshima island must have seen. It almost felt like we have reached the end part of the world. By the time we returned, it was very late – perhaps near midnight.

Enoshima Island

I will again fast forward the academic part of my trip which comprised of talks at various universities. I will however give an account of what happened in between. After my talk at Nihon University I was rushing towards Saitama University which meant an hour long journey and two/three metro exchanges. I got down in between at a station called Akihabara and planned to lunch. I managed to find a few places to eat but most of them were sweet eateries (again, I dislike sweets). The only place I found proper food to my taste was a self-service joint with every damn menu in Japanese. I hesitated for a while and decided to skip eating there. But the food at display was so appealing that I came back to the same place after making a whole round of the station. I need to explicitly make clear what my real problem was. I am forbidden from eating beef and pork and for some personal but foolish reasons, I abide by it. Hence, all I could eat was chicken rice but how do I get that from mere display!

Pork in display

The only way I could get what I want was to Google translate what I needed and show it to some random lady who had come to eat. She told me the dish number (in Japanese, hence not much help) and in totality helped me out with getting a token for food. Later, I realized that the food item that I had actually eyed there was pork rice. Ironical. I felt relived that I asked someone for help but this relief did not last for long. As if destiny had in mind to break these silly restrictions that day. That very night at Okinava dinner near Saitama University, I was offered pork and beef and every possible meat in the world. Again, for courtesy sake, I ate everything on the plate except the meat part of beef and pork (Don't ask me how it is different. It is not). It is here that I tried Japanese Saki (rice wine) for the first time but did not enjoy it very much. Maybe one needs to acquire that taste.

The next day was a visit to holy Asakusa shrine in the morning.
In the evening was again another talk at Rikkotto University. Gaurav and I were taken to a Sushi joint for dinner that night. Again, here I should thank Gaurav for suggesting this idea to the host given that it was my last night in Japan and I wanted to try good Sushi.

Sushi bar

In Ikebukuro, came rounds and rounds of Sushi of different types – Salmon eggs, Tuna, Octopus, squid and I gobbled them with green tea (sounds a wierd combination but I think the tea also neutralises the strong flavour some sushis have). After dinner, we visited inside the Tokyo Skytree upto the top to have a view of whole Tokyo at night. Something amazing happened that night. After Gaurav and I parted (his guest house was at a different part of the city), I was running around to get my train. In the middle of the night I was standing face to face with a giant tower – the same Tokyo Skytree but this time in full length and from a correct distance. It was when I was heading towards the Asakusa station I remember. Needless to say, I did not care about the next train then and there at midnight on the streets of Tokyo I stood all alone, admiring this lit structure in all it's glory. When I was over, I realized that I was cold and hence rushed back to my guest house stupefied. 

Tokyo Skytree

The next morning we had to leave. Gaurav and I reached the airport at slightly different times and wandered around the airport. I had to grab some stuffs from Duty Free and so did he. In the process we lost track of time. The last part of our adventure in Tokyo was the calling out of our names with “The last and final call for..”.

After I reached Delhi, I had my share of stories again. I had to reschedule my flight for some reasons and given the demonetization, I did not have much cash in hand. The Airport ATMs did not have money and the card machine in the counter was not functional. It took me three long hours to get rescheduled my flight, over IVR, after which I gate crashed into my dear friend's house. (Imagine my surprise at the chaos at Metro station at Rajiv Chauk). The next day I had a talk at Delhi University and just an hour before my talk, I get a mail about having to write a scientific proposal whose deadline was the next day. It was perhaps nature's way of waking me up to my everyday life. I spent the whole night at Bidisha's place writing and correcting. It felt normal now.

Finally, the day after that, I landed in Bagdogra with a plethora of memories that I have immortalized by jotting them here and oh, it is already 2017.

Happy New Year.