tour of Shinagawa
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Today I took a free tour of Shinagawa, the city within the Tokyo district in which we live. The day started with a 10:00 assembly at the Shinagawa International Friendship Association building, where I've been taking Japanese classes.
Those of us who managed to show up on time piled onto a bus and we motored off for our first destination, a museum. But along the street leading away from the SIFA building, my classmate Christophe spotted another of our classmates on the sidewalk. She'd signed up for the tour, but had missed the bus. The two of us shouted for attention and pointed to our missing classmate. I then cracked open a window and began to holler at the woman on the sidewalk.
In response, she waved back at me then ran out into the road. Right in front of a large truck. With a blast on the horns and a squeal of the brakes, the driver tried to avoid hitting her. She was apparently attempting to board the bus from where it was station in the turn lane! She managed to duck in front of the bus and not get turned into a fine spray of gaijin. But then the bus had a green light and was supposed to go, and the driver still couldn't let her on the bus with more traffic in the lane adjacent.
So she ran back across the traffic to the sidewalk. Right in front of another bus. By this point I had my heart in my throat, but she survived the attempt and then boarded at a place where it was safe.
After that, the museum proved an interesting destination, with not only an (extremely) rare tea house of the authentic style from the pre-Edo days (not just a gussied up modern interpretation) on the premises but also some replicas of the region during its Edo hay-day.
an ancient tea-house at the Shinagawa Museum(Also featured in the photo above, as it turns out, is the girl who risked life and limb to catch the tour!)
It turns out that the long shotengai (shopping street) near us was formerly a big deal. It was one of the five major highways that served the capital as the principle access points before the advent of rail or steamship, and served as a toll-collecting area as well as a fun-and-relaxation neighbourhood that offered many services not otherwise possible in the severely-controlled country. It still has an echo of that original glory, in that it is dotted with major shrines and temples. But all of the original fun-houses have long since given way to far more mundane everyday shops and the odd pachinko.
After the museum we went to a local school that serves kids in grade school and middle school. I have to say I've never seen such a well-funded school in my life.
Schools have changed since my day!At lunchtime I ventured outside of the visitors' room to meet with some of the kids. They apparently take it in turns to dress up in white smock and hat to server one another, with a handful of kids from every class dolling out the food on any given day. My visit seems to have been a bit disruptive because I was asked to return to our lunch room.
After that we went on a tour of a recycling centre. As I'd expected, it was a very efficient place, with a mix of automation and hand-labour that kept up a frantic pace. This was supplemented by some useful guidelines on how a household can help the city with pre-sorting of disposables etc. An interesting visit, and a fine example of what can be done in the recycling business these days: despite the investment that had clearly gone into the centre, the place was turning over a two million dollar profit every year. Not bad for a city of 350,000.
Sorting the plastics out of the aluminum cans.