Summer 2022
This year my summer time featured a trip to Canada. I travelled to Canada from Friday, July 15-to-Friday, August 5. It was the longest trip I’ve ever taken back home since coming to Japan. That’s because it was my first trip since March 2020. The coronavirus pandemic caused delay and disruption, and during the pandemic the number of things I wanted/needed to do in Canada increased tremendously. The pandemic was/is still going on, of course, but like most other people, after two years I just couldn’t take it anymore. I could not continue postponing my chores in Canada, and I had to get on with it. So I did.
This was also my first summertime visit to Canada since 2017. In recent years I made it a habit to travel in March, for convenience and cost. Summer time is certainly a lot prettier! Japanese who have seen my hometown in the summer habitually remark about how “green” it is, and they’re right. When I was there the first thing that struck me were the trees, the parks, the local river, the green space. Magnificent!
During my time, I accomplished everything that I planned and even some of what I only imagined. It was three weeks of accomplishments. The only way to accomplish anything is to actually do it. Ignore the (well-intentioned) interference of family, hurdle the obstacles and move forward. So, I arrived eager to get to work. My major task since 2017 was the redistribution of my library and the disposition of my material things in storage in my hometown - stored at my mother’s house as well as in a rented storage facility. Starting in 2015 my family in Canada began complaining more and more about the disposition of my things in the event of my mother’s death, or my death overseas. It took a long time, but I eventually came around to their way of thinking and the decision to downsize. But I always felt that I had to downsize my things myself, first because they are mine, and second, because my brothers don’t understand what I have in storage and what the value of them are.
The only way to accomplish anything is to actually do it.
The biggest challenge was books. I don’t know how many books I had. I can only estimate, and I estimate that by 2017 my library peaked at about 10,000 print books. By this year I had reduced that number to about 100 books that I consider my “legacy” collection. The chore also included the disposition of furniture, home goods, school notes, diaries, storage boxes, vinyl records, some framed pictures, and a wide collection of nicknacks. I destroyed hundreds of handwritten pages of high school and college poetry. I tried not to re-read any of it. It was angst-ridden, exploratory crap. The poetic crap I write today is much better than the poetic crap I wrote long ago. (In the old days I tried to write poetry the way I was taught, by following metric and rhyming forms to tell a story. But now, influenced by Japanese esthetics, I disregard the story and instead try to briefly capture fleeting moments on paper.)
The poetic crap I write today is much better than the poetic crap I wrote long ago.
Downsizing is hard physical work, but mostly hard psychologically because you are annihilating the person that you thought you were, and the person that you thought you would become. But I strictly applied a few rules to myself. 1) When was the last time I used an item, opened it, looked at it, held it in my hands, etc.? 2) If I died tomorrow, what would my family do with an item? Does anyone want it? Or, would it quickly find its way either to the garbage or to the thrift store. I guess it’s true that most of a person’s possessions are ultimately garbage. 3) How do I feel when I hold an item in my hand? Am I still excited by it as I was when I first collected it? Does it still give me joy? One of the tricky things about book collecting is that a printed codex book by itself is a beautiful thing, regardless of whether you read it or not. The printed codex book is one of a short list of near-perfectly engineered things. Function and form come together in such perfect harmony that they are admirable just by themselves, as works of art, or achievements of engineering.
My elderly mother is also (slowly) downsizing her life and her house. I’ve noticed a generational difference. My generation is uninterested in many of the things that my parents and their peers accumulated. Maybe it’s just that we earn less money than our parents that leads us to value and collect different things. But I suppose there is a generational difference in our values. For example, my generation is largely uninterested in silver - silver silverware and tableware, etc. My generation is largely uninterested in heirloom books. My generation is largely uninterested in commemorative plates and in fine ceramic tableware. My generation is largely uninterested in jewellery, fine art, antique furniture and furs.
I still have a storage locker in Canada for my few remaining items. But before departing for Tokyo I asked for a smaller, cheaper unit and was put on a waiting list. Finally, within days of returning home, I learned that I was successful and was being assigned a smaller unit - the final accomplishment.
My return trip on August 15-16, Toronto-Vancouver-Tokyo, went smoothly, although it was filled with anxiety. I left my mother’s home by airport limousine car at 4:30 a.m. for a 9:15 a.m. flight. My family in Canada has habitually counseled a ‘just on time’ approach to airport arrival. There is no such thing as “early,” only on time and late.
I arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport around 5:15/5:20 a.m. At that time the airport was already crawling like a beehive. Long, long lines because the self-check in machines didn’t work. So there was a long line to check in face-to-face, and another long line to go through security. But the lines were so long that people were confused about what line they were standing in, which made for more delay and frustration. I mean, passengers would stand in one line for 30 minutes before learning they were in the wrong line. And not enough airline or airport staff to help people. A person has to have patience like steel, and maybe a bit of a morbid sense of humour to endure it.
There is no such thing as “early,” only on time and late.
I got through okay, though. Checked in and security done with plenty of time to spare. It was just frustratingly slow. I was checked in at Toronto for the entire trip, so in Vancouver I didn’t need to worry about baggage. I just walked from one gate to another. Toronto airport was crowded and filthy. The toilets were disgusting. The garbage receptacles were overflowing. Vancouver airport was much cleaner, quieter, brighter and less frenzied.
My two flights were almost full. Toronto-Vancouver about 95% full, then Vancouver to Tokyo 100% full.
My bags did not get lost. I arrived in Tokyo with everything I checked in with. There were a total of 5 check points at Narita Airport. 3 were COVID vaccination and COVID test result checks - (“Show me your QR code!”) - and the last two were the usual passport control, customs and immigration check points.
While I was in Canada the Japanese government introduced a new, purely digital and MANDATORY smart phone COVID app that all travelers had to complete online before being allowed to board a plane to Japan. That was really frustrating, too. I arrived in Canada having completed everything I needed to leave and then re-enter the country. But in mid-trip I was informed by the Japanese Consulate in Toronto about this new thing called the SOS app. The re-entry rules changed mid-game.
When I returned to Tokyo from the airport I immediately holed up in a hotel for three days because my family all got COVID during my trip and they were still isolating at home. I couldn’t go home right away. That’s more money on my credit card! It’s blazing hot here every day, but my hotel was cool. I kept my room chilly. It was glorious!
A Canadian friend of mine who lives in suburban Tokyo was visiting BC at the same time I was in Ontario. He returned to Tokyo three days before I did and he forgot to buy his Japanese wife’s favorite Okanagan Valley wine, Cabernet Sauvignon. He messaged me about it, and I picked up a bottle for him in the Vancouver terminal building. It was the first time in my life that I ever bought alcohol! It was one more heavy thing to carry back. I could hand it over to him in central Tokyo on Sunday 17th.
When I got home, I almost immediately had to go out and buy a new supply of dish washing detergent, shampoo and body soap and hand sanitizing alcohol, all of which had practically been used up and not replaced while I was in Canada.
I got my fourth coronavirus vaccination shot on Tuesday, August 9th at a clinic near my apartment. My four shots have been Pfizer, Moderna, Pfizer and Pfizer. I think.
Every day in Tokyo was sunny and hot with temperatures in the mid-30s. It cooled down a bit to 28 degrees Celsius on Saturday, August 13th with the approach of Typhoon #8 that brought a little bit of rain. It was a weak typhoon. More a tropical storm than a full-blown hurricane.
Thursday, August 11th was the Mountain Day national public holiday, and for many people it was the start of a 4-day holiday weekend, the annual summer festival called O-bon. This year, many parts of Japan are resuming their annual Summer Festival celebrations after a two-year hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic. With the cancellation of festivals during the last two years, many children have been missing out on an integral part of Japanese culture.
On Friday, August 12th I walked around the Imperial Palace North Garden, called the Kitanomaru, which is the only part of the Imperial Palace complex I haven’t visited and strolled through yet. The Imperial Palace consists of 1) the West Garden, called the Nishinomaru (where the Emperor’s Residence is found), 2) the East Garden consisting of two parts, the Ninomaru and the Honmaru. The Honmaru was the location of the Shogun’s palace and the heart of the old Edo Castle. 3) The Outer Garden, 4) Hibiya Park, and finally, 5) the North Garden. All of these parks and gardens are publicly accessible except for the West Garden. The Public is admitted to the West Garden, the inner sanctum, only twice a year, on New Year’s Day and on the Emperor’s birthday, when the Imperial Family appear to make speeches and greet the public.
The North Garden is famous for the Nippon Budokan found there. It is a large, indoor martial arts arena that was built for the judo events of the 1964 Summer Olympic Games. It is also used as a concert venue.
Also, the North Garden is across the street from Yasukuni Shrine, the controversial national shrine. Yasukuni is controversial because it enshrines all the war dead, including convicted war criminals. No human remains are interred at Yasukuni. Yasukuni is not a cemetery. The souls of the dead are “enshrined” there, not “interred” there. Koreans and Chinese regularly complain when conservative Prime Ministers visit Yasukuni to pay their respects to the war dead on August 15th, the anniversary of Japan’s 1945 surrender to the Allies.
On Sunday, August 14th I visited the Shinjuku National Garden again and took many pictures.
On Friday, August 19th I went to Shibuya to take some pictures. While I was there, I went up the 45-storey Shibuya Sky Tower, which opened in 2019. That tower has a rooftop observation deck, with clear panels installed to prevent people falling off the edge (or throwing things off) while allowing us clear views of everything. The weather was good and the view over the city was fantastic. I got many good pictures that day. The Shibuya Sky Tower is part of a redevelopment of the Shibuya Station area that began in 2014 and will finish in 2027. The station itself is being greatly expanded and reorganized. They are working on the station at the same time that it is being used, which means the station has looked like a messy construction site for the last eight years. But the finished arrangement is starting to appear. The tower is on the east side of the station, and a sister tower is under construction on the west side of the station.
Then on Saturday, August 20th I went up to JR Ikebukuro Station in Toshima Ward, where I used to live and work, to take some pictures around the neighborhood. I also went up to the 60th floor (indoor) observation deck of the Sunshine 60 building. The weather wasn’t as good as it was the day before, so while the views were good, they weren’t as good as the views from the Shibuya Sky Tower. I also wanted to go to the aquarium at the Sunshine 60 building, but it turned out that I needed to make a reservation online to get in. So, I couldn’t go. When the Sunshine 60 building opened in 1978 it was the tallest building in Japan as well as the tallest building in Asia. Not any more, though. Sunshine 60 sits on the site of the old Sugamo Prison, which is where the Class A war criminals were hanged. There is a park adjacent to the building with a commemorate boulder hidden by trees in one corner, inscribed with the words “Pray for peace” in Japanese. The prison was built in 1895 and was demolished in 1971.
Finally, unexpectedly, I was hospitalized in late-August for some unanticipated major surgery and eight days of supervised recovery.