(no subject)

[pm215]

Yesterday I went to Meiji Jingu, a large shrine in the middle of Tokyo. (The wikipedia article has the usual tourist-style pictures; the torii [gates] are quite impressively large). The shrine is only a few minutes from Harajuku station but it almost succeeds in making you forget where you are. (You can see from the photo that it can't quite manage it...) It was fairly uncrowded (as I suppose you'd expect on a weekday) so it was a pleasant hour. Unfortunately I arrived a bit late so didn't have time to wander around in the gardens. Still I wandered through the shrine and along the large tree lined avenues and pondered weighty questions about the meaning of life and whether it makes any sense to write down your wishes on a little bit of wood in the hope that the departed spirits of a 19th century Emperor and Empress might do something about them. (Meiji was one of the Good Guys in my opinion but I don't think he was particularly divine...)

After that I wandered around the rest of Harajuku, which is about as big a contrast as you can get, since it's a very popular shopping district for young Japanese. Finally in the evening I found out that a friend (who was in the same class as me when I was studying at Yamasa) was in Tokyo, so we hung out at a cafe in Tokyo station for an hour or two before he had to go and catch a night bus to Nagoya and his flight home.

On the way back home a guy in Tokyo station hit me with the classic line about "needing 200 yen to get his train home", which I think is a first for me. (Full marks to him for equal opportunity panhandling.) I haven't really seen homelessness and begging of the typical UK town centre kind (although perhaps I haven't been wandering around in the right places and times). On the other hand you do get a phenomenon here where homeless people congregate in parks and set up semi-permanent structures with blue tarpaulins and bits of scrap wood and so on (presumably these are tolerated by the police).

Comments

semi-permanent structures

[mtbc100.livejournal.com]

What a great idea. Good for them.

Re: semi-permanent structures

[pm215]

That's more or less what I thought. I haven't taken any photos (it seems a bit rude) but google turned up this BBC news in pictures story anyway, which gives you a good idea (and some information on what their lives are like, which is also interesting).

Re: semi-permanent structures

[mtbc100.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for the link. How interesting. I wish more of that sort of thing went on here in the west.

Homelessness

[sabers4.livejournal.com]

Was he using exactly the same line as the beggers outside Reading station or just asking for general money? At least you can get somewhere on Tokyo trains for 200 yen!

I know the structures you're talking about quite well after walking for Shibuya to Harajuku (around the time we went there to cosplay[1]) and getting dramatically lost for an hour for no apparent reason. I met an American bloke there as well and he said he was amazed at it as apparently in the states it's nearly illegal to be homeless. Can't see the logic myself. But homeless structures is quite a mark up than what the homeless in England get (i.e. a doorway and sleeping bag if you're lucky.)

Re: Homelessness

[pm215]

Yes, he said that he needed the money for a train (can't remember the phrasing but he mentioned needed to change train somewhere).

Re: Homelessness

[sabers4.livejournal.com]

My god, he might have actually needed the money for the train and not booze! :D

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

a guy in Tokyo station hit me with the classic line about "needing 200 yen to get his train home"

In English, or do you now officially look like the kind of person who speaks Japanese?

[pm215]

In Japanese...