Weekend in Tokyo

Saturday was Yom Kippur, so, like a good Jew, I went to services. Not surprisingly, there aren’t many Jews in Japan – but there are a few. So, some of the major cities have Jewish community centers. So, on Yom Kippur, I found myself at the Tokyo JCC. I went with a guy who’s known as LBJ (Long Bearded Josh) – the only other Jew in my prefecture.

The Tokyo JCC is in a nice, quiet neighborhood in Tokyo – on a small residential street. We were greeted at the door by two guys. One I think was Israeli, but he spoke nearly unaccented English (if anything it seemed to be an Australian accent). The other was a Japanese man who said “shalom” to us. Bizarre – first time I’ve heard Hebrew come out of a Japanese person. Inside, the JCC is a small, three story building. Reform/Conservative services were held in the chapel on the third floor. The services proceeded like any other (they were much more conservative than they were reform). There were moments when I’d forget that I was in Japan. I had to consistently look out the window to remind myself – although, the congregation was a bit of a tip-off. While the vast majority of the congregants were ethnically Jewish, there were a handful of men with Japanese wives (and very cute Jewsian children). I assume that some of them had converted, because there were a few who seemed to be singing along to the prayers. There was one elderly woman (with her Jewish husband) who was apparently the first-ever (or first recorded) Japanese convert to Judaism.

I had been really interested to see the crowd, but it turned out to be fairly unremarkable. (I had, for some reason, expected to see more Japanese people.) It was mostly families with young children – which stinks because I couldn’t just go up to a family and start a conversation (their being busy with their kids and all). There were, however, a fair amount of young adults that I had conversations with. The cool thing was that they were from all over the world. I met a British guy (the first British Jew I’ve met), a French guy (also the first), some Israelis, and (of course) a lot of Americans. One guy actually grew up in Voorhees and was a counselor at the JCC Camp in Medford (I apparently made him feel really old when I told him that, when he was a counselor, I wasn’t yet old enough to be one of his campers.).

After having the break-fast meal at the JCC, I went to meet up with some friends on the other side of town. This weekend was the big Tokyo Game Show (a huge videogame convention) and some of the other JETs had come into the city on Saturday to see it. That night, we all stayed in a capsule hotel. For some reason, I had expected capsule hotels to be kind of like giant morgues, with people sleeping in drawers stacked ten high. It turned out to be fairly pleasant. The capsules are much roomier than I expected (though I had expected something the size of a coffin). The hotel was ten floors, with a bathroom and a room with about thirty capsules (stacked only two high) on each floor. The top three floors are for women (which is rare – this is one of the few capsule hotels in the city that accept women guests).

The next day, we tooled around Akihabara – a neighborhood known for electronics and otaku (huge nerds). We spent most of our time in this enormous electronics store – eight stories high and about the size of a city block. Each floor is devoted to a specific thing (the third floor is all computer stuff, the fourth has camera stuff and watches, the sixth is all videogames and other types of toys – even non-electronics, like LEGOs). We spent a lot of time losing people and then having to relocate them…

After that, we went to Harajuku – a neighborhood that’s famous for the freaks that hang out there. There were some weird outfits… One old man (who I didn’t get a picture of) was wearing a rice-hat that had small fishbowls hanging from either side. The best though, were the Elvis/greaser crazy people. I’ve never seen such big hair. They just put on music and dance around, and people watch and take pictures. I think most of the ‘freaks’ in Harajuku are just out to get attention, and I think most of the other people in Harajuku are there to take pictures of the freaks. So, the system works well. There’s also a famous temple in Harajuku that we checked out. We even got to see a traditional style wedding procession (apparently that temple is a popular place to have traditional weddings). The temple is a good ten minute walk from where the freaks hang out, but somehow, a group of freaks managed to wander over there. It’s strange to see old Japan and new Japan in the same place at the same time.

Then, we went to a baseball game. We couldn’t get tickets to a Yomouri Giant’s game (they’re the biggest team in Tokyo – like Japan’s Yankees), so we to a Yakkult Swallow’s game. They were playing the Hanshen Tigers (from Osaka/Kobe – the teams here aren’t named after the city they play in, rather the company that owns them). The game felt very much like an American minor league game, not only because of the level of play, but also the size of the stadium. The Japanese are very organized when it comes to cheering on their team. For the most part, the fans from each team sit on opposite sides of the stadium. When their team bats, they all stand up and do a series of organized cheers. So there’ll be cheering, and, as soon as you’ve caught on and started to cheer too, the cheer will be over. They have a few different cheers for each player on the team that they cycle through whenever he comes up to bat. Meanwhile, the fans of the fielding team sit quietly. It’s bizarre. There’s no free cheering or shouting obscenities. It’s more like:

A’s Fans: We will cheer now! Here is our cheer! [relative silence] Here’s another cheer!
[switch sides]
B’s Fans: Now’s our turn to cheer! Here is said cheer!

They have a big TV screen (you know, the thing that you mostly look at when you go to American sporting events), but they rarely use it. The only things they use it for are advertisements, showing people in the crowd, and replays when a batter gets a hit (but only of the batter hitting the ball – never of the fielders) – that’s it. If the pitcher burns the batter on a full count, the screen remains black. If something crazy happens (like when the pitcher tried to pick off the runner leading off first, but he overthrew the first baseman, and the runner stole second) the screen remains black. If there was a close call (like when I could have sworn the runner slid past home plate before the catcher tagged him) the screen remains black. I understand not wanting to distract fans with a live feed of the game (the way the screen does in America), but please, show a replay when something interesting happens. Sheesh…

That night, we stayed at a manga café (see the previous post), but I had to leave on the early side, or they would have charged me extra. So, I left before 8 in the morning and wandered around. You expect Tokyo to have throngs of people, and flashing lights, and loud, in-your-face advertisements, but at 8 o’clock in the morning, the city is dead – like that scene from Vanilla Sky. It was really cool wandering around the (seemingly) abandoned city. It felt like a totally different place. Of course, there was still a half-hour wait outside the Krispy Kreme (the only location in Japan, I think). That place is always busy.

[1. my capsule 2. part of the huge electronics store 3. elvis-type dudes in Harajuku - that's really his hair 4. wedding procession 5. Harajuku people at the temple]