Tokyo Haneda Airport was rather simple, but a bit unnerving with the detail of their face recognition software that had my face outlined with a green rectangle, flagging me as “allowed to proceed” through customs. The guy walking next to me with the red rectangle framing his head on the screen wasn’t as lucky and he was directed back to the immigration lines.
The taxi was a gleaming black Toyota with automatic sliding doors. Inside, a rather large screen was mounted on the back of the front passenger’s seat that cycled through local advertisements like a brand of bottled green tea. The syncopated colors were a synesthetic, like a staccato of sapphire and crimson potentially dangerous to photosensitive riders.
While checking into a hotel I was told that there weren’t any nearby restaurants open at that time. There was at least a nearby FamilyMart with a giant array of sandwiches and instant noodles that they could warm up for you at the counter. The egg salad sandwich was surprisingly good, and I devoured it while washing it down with a Kirin beer and quickly slept after the 16-and-a-half-hour trip from Zurich.
The room was small and there was little space for my suitcase, or my long legs on the bed. I banged my arms on the ceiling of the bathroom while trying to dry my hair, but at least the place was clean and good enough for a short stay until I figured out where I was next headed.
Before 9 the next morning, I was already out exploring the spotless streets and oddities while looking for my first taste of Japanese eats in the throngs of people and restaurants in nearby Tokyo Station. I was told that the good restaurants would likely have lines to get in. So, despite my hunger, I passed by the relatively empty places and queued up at what looked like a popular ramen spot. As I got closer to the entrance, a man came out and directed me to place my order at the “menu machine”, which was cash only. Lucky to have some yen, I ordered ramen with roasted pork and a hard-boiled egg, before finally being shown to my seat. Ramen and a cold beer felt strangely delicious at 10 am.
A metro ride to one of the must-see tourist locations brought me to the packed district of Shibuya. The controlled chaos of Shibuya Crossing where hundreds of people zig-zag past each other without friction, woke my rusty New York City senses. Everyone moved in flows that felt random, yet still impossibly organized at the same time. Standing at the edge of the crossing, right outside of the train station, I watched the repeating pattern of crowd surge, swarms of hundreds playing their parts in choreography that only a mega city could muster. What struck me most was the order within it all and how everything flowed so effortlessly. I had read that the Starbucks was a great place to photograph the crossing from above, but resisted, staying true to my boycott of that place decades ago.
The controlled chaos of Shibuya Crossing where hundreds of people zig-zag past each other without friction, woke my rusty New York City senses.
Tokyo is a study in contradictions that somehow resolve into harmony. Ancient shrines neighbor neon-lit skyscrapers. Centuries-old traditions operate alongside technology that feels like something I read in a Ray Kurzweil article. I stood in a subway station watching a kimono-clad woman consult her smartphone. Then I used a toilet where the seat opened automatically when I entered the stall, complete with water cleaning jets and butt-drying options, while it played classical music to mask the sound. Afterward, I found myself near a shrine so old that its wooden gates were worn smooth by generations of hands passing by. In Togo Shrine, I walked through a quiet pocket of trees, gravel paths, and hushed prayers, only to emerge moments later into Harajuku’s pop-culture frenzy. Same city, same overcast afternoon, yet different centuries, or different dimensions entirely. The contrast, despite its intensity, wasn’t unnerving. To the contrary, it felt complete.
Tokyo’s natives are their own kind of landscape. I had heard of the politeness and reserve and now there I was on the metro in a still quiet that was almost eerie. Rows of people in overflowing carriages without a single phone conversation heard. Hushed voices and packed people swaying together in unison to the train’s jostling rhythm like participants in a silent rave. Standing there, I felt really tall, seeing over the masses and all the way through to the end of the carriage. At 190 cm, I had to dodge the hanging straps and hand bars that hung from the ceiling. I found it best to try to wedge myself into a corner until my stop drew near.
All the Sounds Around Town
I’ve always noticed how sound imprints itself on memory. Tokyo did so at many turns. The men pushing supply carts in Tokyo Station had a digital tune playing from their cart, alerting people to clear a path. On the metro platforms, elaborate melodies play when trains are set to depart. They’re not the typical metro tones—these are somewhat wild music clips that sound as if they were performed on a portable Casio keyboard. While each line has its own feel, many individual stations have their own specific jingle, meant to make each stop feel like a destination rather than just another place to pass through. Standing on the platform in Shibuya, hearing that music swell just as the doors slid open, I felt like I was being welcomed into a utopian disco that I wanted to enter despite its bad taste in music.
And then there was the song I still can’t escape. Eager to try some Japanese whisky, I was told any of the Don Quijote stores had a giant selection at greatly discounted prices. My first “Donki” experience was in Shibuya. Even though I was warned about the chaos that awaited me there, I was still somehow unprepared. The store was impossible to miss, adorned with a giant penguin perched on a neon-sign with garish yellow-and-black facades screaming like a carnival entrance. Stepping inside, I found a temple of crowded disarray. The store was a disheveled labyrinth fitted with rainbow-lined escalators. It felt like I crossed through a vortex, leaving the modern efficiency and technology of Japan behind as I was transported into an indoor circus bazaar. Merchandise crammed rafter-high, with arrows on the aisle floors pointing to unknown destinations, and no apparent organization as to how things were arranged, at least at first glance. Snacks and odd flavored candies, TAG Heuer and Seikos in fingerprint-covered cases, anime figurines, cosplay costumes and adult entertainment, sections of suitcases, and tons of cosmetics and hygiene products. Some items had laminated, A4-sized price tags covered in exclamation points and enthusiastic Japanese describing the features.
Slightly dizzy, I pushed onward as the store’s own personal theme song spun in my head. “Don Don Don Don Que, Don Qui-jote…” I later learned it was called the “Miracle Shopping” song and was recorded by an actual Don Quijote employee back in 1999. It’s annoyingly catchy—so much so that I caught myself wanting to sing along while it echoed through the aisles. Why name the store after the famous Spanish novel, I wondered to myself. Turns out, the store’s founder, Takao Yasuda, wanted a name that evoked the idea of a store that takes on “quixotic” challenges by offering an impossibly wide and unconventional range of products. I’d say he succeeded.
I only realized my mistake when they sealed the bottle in a plastic, duty-free bag, and explained that I wasn’t allowed to open it until after I had left Japan. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to do that,” I said, as I walked away from the counter.
I finally found the whisky and was surprised by prices that were almost half as much as they were back in Switzerland. When the cashier asked for my passport, I just assumed it was because of the booze. I only realized my mistake when they sealed the bottle in a plastic, duty-free bag, and explained that I wasn’t allowed to open it until after I had left Japan. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to do that,” I said, as I walked away from the counter.
Between the Wasabi KitKats and soy sauce caramels I found the way out and was back into the crowded streets, vortex crossed again as I descended the staircase, wishing I had recorded the song for a laugh back home.
Bullet Trains and the Places Between
The Tokaido Shinkansen train from Tokyo to Kyoto takes about two hours and covers 515 kilometers! Buying the correct ticket from the machine with space for luggage wasn’t as easy. The ticket machine at Tokyo Station assumed I read and spoke Japanese until I finally found the English button. Even then, I was offered too many times and options, many of which I was unsure of the reason for. Then there were stipulations on the size of my suitcase and where I could reserve a seat with a large suitcase. How large was too large? I persevered, picking up some clues from the English speakers next to me who seemed to live in town. Credit card scanned and ticket printed, I now had to find out where I needed to board.
As I finally walked away from the machine, the woman behind me said something in Japanese in a rather annoyed tone. I chose to believe she congratulated me on my success. “Arigatou gozaimasu,” I replied with a smile.
The ticket listed the section number where I needed to board the correct carriage. Similar to European trains when you reserved seats, but here, there were actually queues at each section to facilitate boarding and reduce the amount of time a train needed at each station. I secured a few interesting looking sandwiches and waited in the line at my section. The Nozomi Shinkansen slid in almost silently, with its long aerodynamic nose stretched far in front, ready to cut through the Japanese countryside at 300 kilometers per hour. Inside it was quiet and cool. The seats were large and we were moving within a minute of boarding. People ate bento boxes and read books or played with their phones. The time passed quickly as I viewed the scenery whizzing by at a blurry speed.
An older man across the aisle pointed at my bag with a grimace and said something angrily in Japanese…
As I neared Kyoto, I thought it best to get my heavy suitcase down off the storage shelf and put it closer to the door to speed my departure. The train had left so quickly upon arrival so I wanted to be sure I had enough time to get off. When I rolled my suitcase into an empty, seemingly strategic position, an older man across the aisle pointed at my bag with a grimace and said something angrily in Japanese. I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong, but my bag’s new location certainly upset him. I moved it back to my seat two rows up and had it next to me until I departed the train a few minutes later.
Welcome to Kyoto The Ancient Imperial Capital
Kyoto was difficult to describe. It was a city of contrasts balancing modern and traditional and touristy all at the same time. After walking the town snapping photos, I found a small restaurant. Like many of the buildings in the area the façade was all wood and there was little to recognize it as a restaurant. The sliding door was lit and I entered, removing my shoes and placing them in the shoe stands at the entrance. The owner, a woman maybe in her seventies, welcomed me. She smiled wide and escorted me past traditional, low-set tables, filled with people sitting around them on mats on the floor. I was given a spot at the counter, overlooking the open kitchen area.
She didn’t speak English and the menu was only in Japanese. The few phrases I had learned didn’t go far, but we somehow communicated. She pointed at ingredients behind the counter while I nodded. We both smiled and laughed. I ended up with spicy noodles and breaded pork, both deliciousy filled with unique flavors I couldn’t place. She checked on me often, giving me a look that asked ‘everything ok?’ while speaking words I couldn’t understand. I smiled and gave a thumbs up.
At the end of the meal, she brought me my jacket. She then stood next to me, drawing the line on my arm where her head came to, obviously joking about how much taller I was than her. We both laughed as I bent down so she could help me with my jacket. Then she suddenly gave me signal to wait, pushing both of her open palms towards the floor in an up and down motion, and disappeared into the back for what seemed like a long time. Finally returning with two small origami figures she handed them to me with a small pack of coconut cookies. “For you,” she said. So surprised and grateful, I thanked her many times and motioned to a waitress if she could take a photo of us with my phone. At that moment, I thought to myself that I would visit her next time I come back to Japan. By then, I had already decided that I needed to come back to Japan to explore a lot more, whenever that might be.
Before Dawn at the Hōkan-ji Temple
The next morning, I woke long before sunrise, determined to beat the crowds and grab some photos without all the other tourists in the way. Walking the deserted streets in the cold morning air was strangely invigorating. I felt as if I was exploring something completely old, that no one had otherwise seen in hundreds of years. It’s moments like this that I sometimes stop and think about how far away from “home” I am. Switzerland has officially been my home even longer than my birthplace of New York ever was. It’s an odd, almost unsettling feeling that I’ve become accustomed to, and now serves as a reminder of how far I have come in my journey over the years.
Snapping back to the present, I made a detour down some narrow, lantern-lit streets, along the Kamo River, before making my way back around towards a pagoda, up a path lined with shops that frames the lower side of the Hokan-ji Temple. The tower rises 46 meters above the Higashiyama district, five stories of wooden history. Legend says it was founded by Prince Shotoku in 589, which would make it almost 1,500 years old, though the current structure dates to a 1440 reconstruction, having survived fires, wars and earthquakes. Standing beneath it in the pre-dawn chill, I snapped a few shots before the sun came up. It seemed to fit so perfectly there on this street that wound its way around it.
Kyoto best reveals itself while walking. The path from Yasaka Pagoda to Kiyomizu-dera threads through preserved streets where traditional townhouses called machiya have been reborn as cafes, craft shops, and guesthouses. I stopped at one for tea and an amazing, personal-sized cheesecake. It was so good I had a second and enjoyed the spotless and zen-like interior of the small shop before heading back out to discover more hidden treasures. Rather than attempting to see specific places, I wandered around and instead let the temples and architecture find me.
Back on the Bustling Tokyo Streets
Back in Tokyo, I decided to explore a temple in a forest on the outskirts of Shibuya. Meiji Jingu does not merely sit in the middle of Tokyo, it breathes against it, with deep, evergreen exhales that muffle and calm Shibuya’s frantic pulse. Walking beneath the towering torii gates, I wandered through cool air and staccato shadows coming to a wall of high-piled sake barrels, wrapped in straw and painted with the bold, calligraphic flourishes of a hundred different breweries. They stand in proud, colorful rows, meant as an offering to the spirits, entirely removed from the high-definition screens and steel towers just a few hundred meters away.
Passing through the Higashi-shinmon, the East Shrine Gate, I coincidentally stumbled upon a wedding procession. A smiling bride in her shiromuku, a vision of pure, stark white beneath a heavy hood, and the groom in black silk, both shielded by the vibrant red umbrella, meant to keep away bad spirits. Led by Shinto priests and shrine maidens in scarlet and white, this living line of cultural history slowly cut through the courtyard as I snapped some quick frames as they flowed by.
That evening, I was determined to find the place I had passed in a taxi at the start of my trip. I managed to narrow down the potential path that the taxi might have taken on the way to the hotel. I was sure it would make an interesting photo and I searched as night settled in. Around a bend there it was, a brightly lit restaurant tucked away in a highway underpass that just seemed to call to me. I must have spent at least twenty minutes trying out different angles and shots before my growling stomach finally peeled me away in search of some ramen—something I wanted to experience one final time before flying off to Sydney the next morning. While walking the streets a train melody was playing somewhere in the distance. I’ll be back, Japan, I promise.
Inside the Atelier The Backstories and Details behind the Canvas
Subscribe to the ArtLetter and receive invitations to private showings and exhibition openings, field archive updates about the journey, and backstories behind the paintings.
