It wasn’t a conscious theme, but the Grand Scram is turning out to be a great cities tour. Paris, London, Chicago, Mexico City, San Francisco, and now Tokyo. I need a nature fix from time to time, but it’s cities that give me a thrill. Even though I love the whole crazy, noisy, mixed-up shebang, I was a little concerned about our stays in Mexico City and Tokyo. They’re both mega-cities, and have reputations for being a bit over the top.
We loved our week in CDMX, as Mexico City is called, but it was a cacaphonous mess of everything, all at once. I described it as having the thrilling, but slightly fucked up feeling of New York in the early 80s. Our friend Spark, who met us there with his family, said the place was held together with toothpicks and tape, but it somehow worked.
The sobering downside : Mexico City is out of water. You see tanker trunks out at all hours, refilling cisterns of large apartment buildings. That water is not potable, but then neither was the piped in tap water. For drinking water, you have to go buy 10 liter bottles at one of the ubiquitous corner stores. There’s no plastic recycling either. Now I know that plastic recycling is a sham, but that sham allows me to not see the waste in my day to day life. There’s no avoiding it here, nor is it possible to avoid contributing to the mess. Not to mention that 23 million people without ready access to water, potable or not, is a major and frightening problem.
Mexico City is a place to be on your toes. Not only are you better off not forgetting and brushing your teeth with the tap water, but it’s best to be very mindful in the streets. Cars will not stop in the pedestrian crosswalks and that bus might be blowing that red light. The food is amazing, but you’ll have to assess any restaurant you’re considering with a keen eye as to their hygiene practices. I seriously doubt that the natives are immune to the bacteria here either, judging from all the billboards advertising diarrhea remedies.
And yet, it’s splendid. My new favorite thing is Mesoamerican art. We spent 2 days at the Anthropology museum and another one seeing the pyramids of Teotihuacan.
If it didn’t know better, I’d think these were ancient Japanese pieces and not from the peoples of the Teotihuacan, Aztec, or Olmec civilizations.
Now we’re on the other side of that big pond, we’re in a whole different atmosphere. Tokyo is massive and sometimes frenetic, but surprisingly chill. We walk in the streets in our Kanda neighborhood, which is dotted with older structures that survived the WWII bombing raids, poking our heads into a few of the thousands of ma and pa restaurants. Things work here. It feels good to be able to relax my vigilance. I can cross the street, drink the water, and eat whatever strange delicacy catches my eye. There’s an orderliness here that is a relief after the chaos. If I lived here, I’d probably quickly start chafing at the social restrictions, but for now it’s quite welcome.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the main attraction for us in Tokyo is the food. It’s a big part of why we’re here. Not to mention that Japanese breakfast is one of my seven wonders of the world. It consists of lots of little dishes, like burdock and lotus root, pickled plums, egg cakes, fish, and the ubiquitous miso soup, and on and on. There’s several dozens of things to choose from at our hotel buffet. No Japanese breakfast is complete without my favorite, natto, which is fermented soybeans that some find challenging. I love it.
And don’t get me started on soba and ramen! I would move here for nothing more than this.
Then there’s Okonomiyaki, a classic dish originally from Hiroshima. Think noodles and other delicious bits in a pancake, topped with special sauce.
The Tokyo subway system has a reputation for being intimidating, but is really a cakewalk now that you can get a Suica or Pasmo transit card on your phone. It used to be that you’d have to have the correct ticket for one of the three companies that run the various metro lines. With the card, that’s all automated. If you’ve managed the subway system of any other major city, you’ll figure Tokyo’s out just fine.
Shrines, large and small, are everywhere.
It’s very hot and humid, so we’ve gone crepuscular. After breakfast we head out and wander a new neighborhood, taking in the sights and reveling in the otherness. After lunch we hide out until night when the wandering is good again.
This sums up Tokyo for me: cute and polite. Graffiti, made by cleaning a wall!
Next stop: Busan, South Korea !
Cheers,
Maer
The Let's Get Lost Game 