• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Lalitha Sridhar

Sombre, punctual, formal and driven — Tokyo is all of these. It is also hospitable, lively, eye-catching and energetic. Like the cherry blossoms that burst soft magic all over the city, Tokyo has a lightness that is truly surprising.

The cherry blossom is a tiny, wispy flower. It's shaded a shy pink. It has no fragrance. But when it blooms, it conquers. It is difficult to remember what its tree looks like other than as something brown that supports millions of pretty petals. In Tokyo, at springtime, the cherry blossom is loved and serenaded by locals and visitors alike. One can't help it; one can't avoid it. From the Imperial Palace Gardens to imposing office complexes, from hotel driveways to pedestrian avenues, from silk kimonos to ink paintings (but not from flower vases, and rightly so), the cherry blossom casts its scentless spell.

Sombre, punctual, formal and driven — Tokyo is expected to be all of these. It is. It is also hospitable, lively, eye-catching and energetic. Like the cherry blossoms that burst soft magic all over the city, Tokyo has a lightness that is truly surprising. The season of spring can never be praised enough. The immense metro of tidy streets and towering high-rises is also home to flowers like no other. And how they are celebrated! Drifting down like a soundless drizzle, shrouding garden paths and collecting as gentle flotsam on the moats around the Imperial Palace, they make Tokyo everything you never thought it would be. Says Keiko Hisa, a National Licensed Guide, with a smile as effervescent as her recommendation, "You must walk under the cherry blossom trees. You are lucky to be here now." How right she is.

But not even the cherry blossoms can make you forget the hunger of being a vegetarian in Tokyo! Between surviving mostly on fruit juice or blowing your entire travel allowance on a single meal in an `exotic' Indian restaurant, one is definitely glad of any and all distraction. The vegetarian (on request) fixed menu lunch at a popular cafe turned out to be a bowl of leaves, a glass of orange juice and a small sesame bun, with no seconds allowed. After a breakfast of fruit and toast, that's simply not just desserts.

But the other calamitous problem turns out to be a pleasant surprise. The Tokyo Metro is a bewildering maze of private and State-run train lines, but hotels provide superb maps and all one needs to do is follow the colour-coded direction instructions (all with English as second language). Cabs are luxuries and one can happily manage without them. The Friendly Limousine Bus is available every half an hour, with tickets counters at both terminals at Narita International, and stops at all major hotels in Tokyo. The two-hour drive in this luxury bus, at 3,000 yen, offers the new visitor a grand and affordable introduction to a country that seems mystical (or is it just our imagination) and modern at the same time.

Tokyo is expensive. And that is an understatement. One poor fellow traveller found himself shelling out 17,500 yen (one yen is about 40 Indian paise) for a meal he could not enjoy, and that was before the bill turned up. Even curios and souvenirs make conversion an exercise in dismay. The `hundred yen shops' (actually 150) that were supposed to provide a respectable bailout had mostly China manufactured imports. The plush Rippongi shopping area is best viewed from outside gorgeous window displays of the world's best labels.

The Japanese Diet is an impeccable quasi-Roman structure near the city's Akasaka Mistsuke business district. It is, however, shrouded by trees on the front and offers a Spartan but splendid view from the security gates to its left. The Imperial Palace, with entry restricted to partial views of gardens, through several gates at different points in the city, is at Tokyo's very heart. Its superbly maintained moat of gentle waters offers painter-like relief in a metropolis marked by the sameness of tall, grey buildings.

The Tokyo Tower, very Eiffel like, offers `a full view of Tokyo' from 333 metres up above, up to 9.30 p.m., but this writer could, regrettably, only imagine what that might have been like.

The short bridge over the moat leading up to the Tayasumon (one of the big wooden gates leading up to the Imperial Palace) is the Kitanomaru Park where the walkways are nice but the boating nicer still — right in the middle of carpets of fallen cherry blossoms that cluster at the corners of the moat.

For those of us who harbour romantic images of fierce samurais and subtle tea ceremonies, Tokyo offers only bland modern images of dark Western suits, albeit wearing warmly Asian courtesies. It leaves the unsettling reflection that the only wearers of traditional attire one encounters are actors at a famous TV studio.

But it is difficult to be anything but exuberant after being serenaded by cherry blossoms as they flip, float, curl and coast down Tokyo in spring. I pick one up and try to decipher its charm. It remains inexplicable. I put it under `C' in the battered phone diary that I carry about in my handbag. I write no name. We are old friends.

Picture by the author

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Love in Tokyo

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line