a Rainy arrival

I blog out of order, so I probably repeat myself a lot, but the beginning of my Tokyo journey was a stroke of out-of-my-control “unfortunate” timing. On the night of Wednesday October 9th, 2019, I stood in my room in El Monte, CA with an open closet, an empty suitcase, and about 12 hours until I would board my flight to Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It was at this moment, I thought it would be a good idea to check the weather for the next 7 days in Tokyo, Japan. Upon googling, “weather Tokyo,” I was met with many news headlines reporting of a typhoon to hit Japan in the next few days, aka, my first few days there. Oh boy.

It was the 9th of the season and it’s name was Hagibis. Well, what can you do? I had booked my ticket back in March. In hindsight, I might have been one month early because the plan was to catch some great fall colors, and typhoon season does technically last until October. At this moment, with hotel booked, yen and passport in hand, the only reason I would have cancelled all is if the airlines had cancelled the flight. My next web stop was to Japan Airlines who confirmed that the flight was on. So I took a deep breath, and put my big boy pants on. Let’s go to Tokyo. When life hands you lemons, get on the plane anyway and be ready to shoot something. I rather enjoyed my first few rainy nights in Tokyo.

October 11 - Asakusa wet downs

There is a common practice in big budget film making known as a “wet down.” It’s name is pretty self explanatory and usually happens when filming a night scene. The crew intentionally sprays water on a street or sidewalk so that there will be reflections of the scene’s light coming off of the surfaces below. If done right, it really does enhance the scene and cinematography.

In my humble opinion, I think the technique is overused and crosses the boundaries of believably or suspension of reality in some cases. For example, you could be watching a film that is taking place in Los Angeles during the summer, where ne’er a drop of rain can be found, yet you have wet and glistening streets. Hmm.

On this first night in Tokyo, with the rain and approaching typhoon, I walked through a real life wet down. No film crew needed. I really enjoyed discovering the streets and shops of Asakusa. Light was reflecting abunandtly it was glorious. As you’ll see, I just shot the sidewalk a couple of times to capture the colors.

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Shout out to Dan da Dan Sabaka

My first official meal in Tokyo was in Asakusa. It was a close your eyes and spin around while pointing kind of choice. There are so many great restaurants to choose from and my roulette wheel of hunger landed on a little spot named Dan Da Dan Sabaka. The menu also said “The Juicy Dumpling Manufactory” underneath it’s official name. Quaint. Awesome. They have multiple locations. Again, I was in Taito City/Asakusa. Here are a couple of links: Google images to get a feel | Their menu online.

I had some salted squid with baked potato, pickled cod and a good dose of sake (but no dumplings actually). More, please. After the meal, I had to get a shot of some of the great crew who served me. Be sure to check them out:

Sensō-ji temple

After a little more aimless strolling around Asakusa, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the glowing gate of the grounds of the Sensō-ji Temple. I really did luck into it. It was only my list of to-dos, but to catch it lit up at night was a welcomed surprised. I shuffled in and started photographing it from an alley to its west.

Eventually I would approach the Temple’s Hozomon Gate to the south, which feels like where you should officially begin or be introduced as it features chochin and toro lanterns and two 18’ tall Nio guardians. The guardians were not at all terrifying lit up at night like that. That’s sarcasm. When you see the images…Drizzling rain or not, I was wowed and wanted to stay all night capturing its light. It was my first encounter with traditional Japanese Buddhist Architecture after having seen it in books and movies forever. What a gift:

walking back

After a few circles and many snaps of the Temple, I decided to head back to my hotel and along the way enjoyed a little more wet down ambiance and artistic store fronts:

October 12 - to the rescue…

I did not mention it earlier, but while in Tokyo I stayed at the APA Hotel Asakusa Tawaramachi Ekimae. It’s in a great location: Taito City, with subway access just a few paces away, and quick access to Asakusa (1 stop). I highly recommend it if you’re traveling solo and are just looking for a decent place to crash. Great value, very clean, breakfast included (I booked with Travelocity.) From my room on the 11th floor, I kept looking out the window to gauge the weather and typhoon. Very late into the night, I looked down and noticed flashing lights from a truck below. “Oh no, what’s happening now?” I expected anything considering the craziness of the storm. After using my camera to zoom in and take a look, the flashing lights belonged to a service truck with a crew of 7 men in yellow jumpsuits. “Jesus, what happened?” I was really fearing the worst, after seeing news reports of people injured or sadly deceased due to the damage of the typhoon. To my surprise, relief and amusement, all these 7 men were doing was fixing a damaged awning. That’s all. An awning. I keep looking for a stretcher or other people, but no, it was simply a very safe and focused effort to remove and straighten the damaged awning of a building across the street. I really wonder how common this is in Japan. Overall there was something endearing about it.

I would later go to street level and get a few snaps of them. I’ll explain why in a moment…

Streets

I ended up leaving my hotel room in the middle of the night. Why? I was hungry.

Maybe I’m becoming a more comfortable international traveler, maybe it was intuition, but something inside of me decided it was perfectly okay to walk the streets of Tokyo, Japan, having been there for a total of about 36 hours…during a typhoon that was closing the city down…in search of food, an open convenience store, anything. Also, as shown above, I was interested in photographing those servicemen working. So, camera in hand I walked for a little while.

During my small stroll, a few more little moments caught my eye including a sad sailor teddy bear and friends clutching each other to brave the storm. Most beloved from the bunch was a very colorful, reflection laden street view of the Tokyo Skytree from the corner of the Tsukuba Express and Kaminarimon-dori St. Wouldn’t you know it, after capturing that photo, I turned around and there was a “Family Mart” open right behind me. A few snacks later, and I was a happy man.

It was a cool first couple of nights all things considered.

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