Wire star criticises UK TV drama

If you thought TVNZ's handling of The Wire was bad (the fifth and final series is finally screening here - at 12.25 in the morning!), spare a thought for UK TV viewers. The Wire is only just making its debut on terrestrial TV in the UK. We're talking season one here, which premiered in the US in 2002. To mark the occasion, Dominic West, who plays police officer Jimmy McNulty, criticises UK TV drama. The most shocking thing in the article is the revelation that West is a Brit. I had no idea.

Distance walked today: 3km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 129.4km
Days left until departure: 47

Nihonbashi

The stone version of the Nihonbashi bridge which is obscured by an ugly expressway today (there's a better picture of it here) was built in 1911. Before this a wooden bridge spanned the river in the same spot. It's this wooden bridge that features in the first print of the series The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido. Hiroshige depicted the bridge numerous times over the course of his career. The snow scene above is from the series Miscellaneous Views of Edo.


There's a full-sized replica of the original Nihonbashi bridge inside the excellent Edo-Tokyo Museum, which is a must see for anyone interested in the history of Tokyo. Unfortunately they only had room to include half the bridge. Still, it's a truly impressive sight. And yes, you can walk over it.

Distance walked today: 3km
Distance walked yesterday: 4.1km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 126.4km
Days left until departure: 48

Return of the colossal squid

A colossal squid stamp! Details here.

Distance walked today: 10.1km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 119.3km
Days left until departure: 50

Normal transmission resuming

I hope you enjoyed those (at times politically incorrect) journeys back to the Japan of the swinging sixties. Well before my time, I hasten to add (my first trip to Japan wasn't until 1985). I found that guide at a secondhand book shop and thought it might be an interesting read. Most of it turned out to be pretty mundane. Nearly fifty years ago, tourists were going to pretty much the same places they go to today and seeing the same things; it just took them a little more time and effort to get there. Having said that, much of the modern transport infrastructure we see today (including the shinkansen, or "bullet trains", and the ugly elevated expressways that crisscross the nation's capital) was already in place by the mid-1960s, having been built as part of the rush to "modernize" Japan in time for the 1964 Olympics, which were seized on as an opportunity to show to the world just how much "progress" Japan had made since the war, just as the Seoul (1988) and Beijing (2008) Olympics were used by their respective host nations for their own political purposes.

Nihonbashi (below) and expressway (above)

Speaking of those ugly elevated expressways, there has been talk in recent years of burying them in an effort to "improve the urban environment." One section that has come under particular scrutiny is the section that runs over the top (yes, over the top) of Nihonbashi, the old bridge that marks the starting point (or finishing point if you start in Kyoto) of both the Nakasendo and the Tokaido. In 2006 a government panel came up with a proposal to bury this 2-km section and build a park and promenade near the bridge. However, the project has stalled mainly due to the cost, estimated at between 400 billion and 500 billion yen!

Distance walked today: 3km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 109.2km
Days left until departure: 51

Some extra-special $1 restaurants

What could be more unusual… than a place that serves nothing but sardines? That's the rare claim of Iwashi, which is to be found one block further west (i.e., nearer to the Palace) than Ginza, and one block further south (i.e., nearer to Shimbashi Station) than the Dentsu Building. The Sardine House, as is calls itself on its cards in English, is owned by Naito Naoshige, who offers sardines in 50 different ways, including sardine hamburgers, sardine soup, sardine curry, and pickled sardine stomachs (which taste like anchovies).
Naito, who doesn't speak English, is a big devotee of this humble fish. "I admire sardines. Seagulls, tuna, whales, dozens of creatures prey on them. Yet they survive; they keep right on multiplying." His clippings and books are filled with sardine sagas; how Hideyoshi filled the lunch boxes of his soldiers with sardines when they went to capture Korea…the poem Lady Murasaki composed for her husband when he scolded her for eating sardines. The walls are covered with paintings of sardines. Naito is a soft touch for sardine pictures, as many an artist knows.

From Japan and Hong Kong on Five Dollars a Day (1965-66 Edition)

Distance walked today: 3km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 106.2km
Days left until departure: 52

A whalemeat spot

During the war, in England, we all got used to eating whalemeat, so it didn’t come as any surprise to me to learn that Tokyo sports a whalemeat restaurant. The classic way to remove most of the fishy taste (if that's absolutely necessary to you) is to soak the meat/fish in vinegar for a while before frying with lots of onions. Then you can't tell that you're not eating beefsteak, unless you've been tipped off in advance.
At any rate, Tokyo's whalemeat restaurant is in Shibuya and is called the Kujiraya. It's very good and very cheap. As you walk out of Shibuya Station, turn left and cross the street to start walking up Dogenzaka. Take the first road that forks off diagonally to your right, and you'll find Kujiraya only a few yards up on your left. The name's in English outside, along with the words: "Whale cooked splendidly." There's also a glass case containing miniatures carved out of whalebone.

From Japan and Hong Kong on Five Dollars a Day (1965-66 Edition)

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 103.2km
Days left until departure: 53

Shinjuku's jazz coffee shops (cont.)

Most coffee shops close at 11 p.m. but the Village Gate stays open until 4 a.m., with coffee costing 200 yen after midnight. More informal than some of the others, with both an upstairs and downstairs, the Village Gate actually shelters some talkers as well as listeners and denotes a trend to take jazz without the same kind of reverence that exists in some of the earlier places. There's also a small food menu: roast beef sandwich, beef curry, toast or onigiri (a rice dish), each for 200 yen.
Village Gate has pretty chicks in polo sweaters, guys with their feet up, and others sprawled around. Also has big photomurals, including one of Jack Kennedy, in shorts and open knecked shirt sitting by an admiring Jackie beside the sea.

From Japan and Hong Kong on Five Dollars a Day (1965-66 Edition)

Distance walked today: 0km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 103.2km
Days left until departure: 55