I walk a (not so) lonely road........
Disappointment was inevitable when Hokkaido trip was cancelled due to numerous insignificant reasons. The determination to use the summer holidays in a productive and fun way became the much debated agenda. Ideas started popping from all corners; temporary plans were suggested, agreed only to be disagreed couple of minutes later. Hiking, beach-ing (don't know if such a word exists), excursions, all possible options were explored. But, alas! Nothing even remotely close to a materialized plan came out of it.
Ultimately it was decided to take it easy and take it day by day. And it was decided to plant our perpetually wandering focus to Tokyo and surrounding areas.
Toyosu, Odaiba, Shinjuku were explored and conquered in the next couple of days. Every effort was made to capture the memories for forever through our cameras. In short, it was all going according to the plan (the plan being 'no plan').
But something was missing somewhere. Our curious and exploratory selves were starving and finally one evening they decided to say enough to the stale diet of predictable fun.
That evening was the evening of August 14th.
A walking tour of Tokyo was hastily planned for the next day. No maps were procured, no routes planned, and no goals set. Everything was entrusted on our 'at the moment decision making abilities'.
Challenges were immense. One partner opted out of the plan and the prospect of waking early after retiring late wasn't very tempting either.
My alarm clock proved it loyalty once again. I was surprised to see the intensity of the sun at 6:00 am. The weather was fabulous as if the nature has been conspiring to help us achieve our goals.
Quick shower, application of sun block and other basic preparations were done while listening to some patriotic songs (It was Aug 15th i.e. Independence Day of India and Surrender day for Japan).
Couple of train changes and 40 minutes was what it took us to be transported to one of Tokyo's oldest neighborhoods i.e. Asakusa.
Located on the banks of Sumidagawa,( the biggest river of Tokyo)Asakusa boasts of great cultural heritage from Edo era(1600-1868 AD). The first thing that caught our attention was the presence of couple of hand-pulled rickshaws. For a moment, we thought we were in Kolkata. However, the dress up of the rickshaw pullers and their good health was ample proof of the fact that they were doing much better than their Kolkatian counterparts. They were not shy and readily agreed to pose for some snaps.
Gradually, we made our way towards Sensoji, the most important attraction of that area. Our camera battery deserted us at the first gate of sensoji. Disappointment was obvious but we decided to take positives out of it. We slowly made our way through the closed souvenir shops and crawled towards the main Pagoda only to find the roof covered by a huge vinyl bag from outside. Some quick investigation revealed that construction work was being carried out to revamp the ancient structure in order to prolong its life. Hmm, whatever! We offered silent prayers, burnt some incense and took a walk around the temple premise and discovered a huge hanging straw sandal. The message below it claimed that it weighed 2500 kilograms and people who touch it go on to be good walkers. There you go, I told you earlier also, the whole universe was backing us in our walking mission. We took a leap of faith and managed to somehow lay our hands on the giant peace of straw footwear.
We were soon on our way out. The sight of souvenir sellers opening their shops gave us a great sense of achievement as we had started our day at right time. Tsukiji was next in our agenda. Tsukiji literally means reclaimed land and is allegedly the largest fish market in the world. It's predominantly a morning market where local seller's auction tuna as early as 5. The morning tuna auction draws a considerable number of foreign and domestic tourists. We were never going to make it to the morning auction and only wanted to experience the overall environment of a fish market of such a magnitude and especially in Japan where fish comes net to God.
Since we had no maps, I headed to the police box outside the temple and asked a cop about the route to Tsukiji. He had pulled out a subway map even before I had finished my sentence and was amused when I told him that I am planning to walk all the way up to there. However, he explained us the route and in no time we were walking down the Highway 6 which runs parallel to Sumidagawa and cuts through a significantly important area of Chuo ward of Tokyo. The sun was strong but we walked in the shades of the buildings occasionally briefly stopping to look at something interesting. (We could not take pictures as our camera battery was dead). We walked past empty alleyways, some 50 Lawson, crossed some vintage looking café's (closed because it was still early) on our way. We walked past the plush neighborhoods; we walked past ghetto. Places that we had only been by train before were conquered one by one. I have to say that it really helped our Geography knowledge about Tokyo which is mostly limited to remembering which exit to come out from a subway station.
Well it took us an hour and a half to make it to Tsukiji. We were delighted to be there and felt a great sense of achievement. However, it was dampened a bit after we learnt from an English speaking security guard that the major part of the market was closed for the Obon holidays.
What's really surprising here is that we did not feel the disappointment at all. The reason was simple, we never walked with the sole aim of making it to our final destination. The idea was to have fun and enjoy the journey and we were thoroughly successful in that. It was a practical lesson for us that if you start to enjoy your efforts/your journey, you will not be worried by final outcome or result. We as humans make the mistake of attaching excess importance to the goal and forget to enjoy the journey.
Indeed walking teaches us so many things!! I can't wait for my next walking trip.
May the straw sandal give power to my legs! Amen!!
Comments