Turning Corners Into History

My plans to walk the longest road in Japan were sidelined by a turn in the weather. What had been sunny and mild became cloudy, wet and cold and the meteorological shifts in climate once again postpone my exploration. The first time was two Sundays ago when I wished to take in more of Kyoto then what was a few blocks away from the station. In this case it is just as well. I have decided that a good hike deserved good foliage and right now the trees are still quite barren. Soon the sakura will bloom and the droves will flock and on the less popular tree green will sprout on branches vacated in Autumn. Spring is nearly upon us and not only would my camera appreciate more green in my landscapes but I would as well. So, the hiking aspect of my wanderings will kick into gear in a few weeks.

Still, not wanting to allow the weather to be a total deterrent and hoping the gray clouds wouldn’t become gray clouds showering rain, I ventured out this dismal morn to discover the area around Yagi. Fearing the impending rain I did not take my camera with me. The rational for omitting what has become an extra limb to me on this particular walk is because I live here and there will be ample time to return to whatever it is I might find engaging to both my eyes and the camera lens. Today I wanted to just have a brief stroll to see what there was to see without having to worry about framing, metering and depth of field.

At the outset it appeared as though I wasn’t missing anything. One direction lead to a dead end and the direction towards the station, the one I walk nearly everyday, was punctuated by shopping malls and little Japanese restaurants, a cell phone store and some place selling erotic fiction. The Kitetsu shopping mall, the largest in my area, is not exactly the place you want to shoot off a roll of film but it was a place to pass the time with 8 floors of merchandise to browse. The basement is my grocery store and tempting smells from the bakery down there always flirt with my nostrils when I walk by. The other floors contain smelly perfume displays, a tone of stylish clothing, if that’s your thing, and some traditional Japanese merchandise. On this floor you can find kimonos, tea sets and even a Buddha or two. The top floor offers a nice view of the area and the surrounding hills and also contains a slew of Japanese restaurants. Prices seem to go up the higher off street level you are. Seeing as how I could slurp down these exact same noodle dishes at the shops by the station for nearly half the price I don’t think I will be eating up here. There is, however, a nice beer garden on the roof that opens in the summer. Now, if they serve coffee we may just have a date.


There was only so much time I could spend glancing over things I probably would never purchase (save for maybe one of those kimonos and, come to think of it, those tea sets were really nice as well) and so I headed out towards the station passing the gold statue and the buildings with nice carvings detailing what I can assume to be the travels of Jimmu.


I did find a small shrine by the entrance to the subway station I have missed and there was a movie theatre behind the shopping mall. I walked through the automatic doors and asked if Letters From Iwo Jima had English subtitles. The bemused ticket clerk did not understand me and I had forgotten my Japanese phrase book. I doubt the translation for “English subtitles” would be in there anyway. I drew her a picture of a cinema screen and jotted in some subtitles and she grasped what I was trying to communicate but the effort was all for naught as the flick was only in Japanese. Damn you, Eastwood. Somehow I blame you for this!


So it was back towards the station again walking passed the pachinko parlors that don’t look as good in the daylight. You need the neon Vegas feel for these things to really be seductive. Still, the gambling addicts were popping their hard earned yen into the machines. I’ve never actually played a game and honestly don’t know what all the hoopla is about but I will get around to at least one game of pachinko before I leave. There were no merchants in the square outside the station today. Just a few homeless people occupying benches.

Through the station now, ignoring the tempting smells coming from the Mr. Donut, and walking off towards a center that offers free Japanese lessons Tuesday mornings. In my welcome package when I first moved in there was a section devoted to some noteworthy things in the area, this center being one of them. The map is pretty shoddy, though, and again I didn’t find the place. You walk down the main drag, though, to get to wherever it is passing by the police station (koben) and all the taxies waiting for fares outside the station. There is a nice kimono shop near the police station. Further down the road you find the 7-11, a lot of restaurants and a toy store with some modern day Transformers toys. The place is tiny inside and it looks like half of their merchandise has been placed in the displays outside the store. Near the toy store is the darts bar where all the foreigners are said to frequent. Do they ever leave the place? I still haven’t seen one. Yagi-Lovely is the other grocery store here and the prices are slightly lower then the one in Kitetsu but not significant enough to merit the longer walk. There is a Y100 shop there as well (the Japanese version of the dollar store) and these places, like the ones back home, are always a mixed bag but fun for the ‘you-never-know-what-you-might-find’ experience. Near the Yagi-Lovely is this store advertising American products but it seems like they are only catering to the elderly as it is mainly a shop of tacky knickknacks. A block away is the post office and my bank and this is as far as I had walked until today.

The map directing me to the center told me to go straight and turn but I must have veered off track somewhere and I wound up in the Yedo period. I had discovered the town of Imicho which is more of a neighborhood of preserved buildings dating back as far as the 1600s. It really is a quantum leap in history when you stumble upon this place as you step away from the trendy shops and restaurants and onto narrow streets with these old wooden houses that have been extremely well preserved over time. One of the buildings was open and after ensuring it wasn’t just someone’s home I walked in to be greeted by a joy filled Japanese man waving a long stick with a finger on it. I told him I did not know Japanese but that did not stop him from giving me a tour after forking over an English map of the area into my hands. The man with the finger stick lead me into a room that displayed the entire area in miniature on a table affixed to three television monitors offering informational sessions about the area. He pointed his finger stick to various houses going over a routine I am sure he has done a million times before. He worked in the English map when he say the puzzlement overcome me. I didn’t understand a word he was saying but he didn’t let that stop him from reaching the end of his monologue. I somewhat got the gist of his speech as he was outlining the more noteworthy stops on the tour of the area. Thankfully he had given me the map because I couldn’t pay attention to anything with that silly stick with a finger on it waving about. The entire display was extremely comical. I kept a straight face, though, ooohing and ahhhing and offering my “hi” when I understood. He bowed and I returned it and he was off to wave his finger stick at somebody else. I walked around the displays in the house which acted, from what the map told me, as the starting point to discovering Imaicho. The house doubled as an area museum which displayed artifacts from the period and photographs of the other places on the walk. Without my camera I did not linger long and after a very quick tour of the area I headed back with my map. I will come back on a sunnier day with the camera and devote an entire post to Imaicho. The best part of moving somewhere new is that every turn, for the first little while anyway, is a mystery. Sometimes you find a quaint little shop and sometimes you find a relaxing park. Today I walked into the past and found a little history.