Spirituality

I am 0 for 2 when it comes to spiritual enlightenment in Japan.

Last weekend on New Years Eve, we took a trip to Meijijingu which is a huge shrine nestled within Yoyogi Park in the middle of Tokyo.  My intention was to have a peaceful and spiritual experience to ring in the new year.  I instead was assaulted by equal parts beautiful scenery and selfie-sticks and more white people than I’ve seen since I’ve been here.  I told Jan that I wanted to redeem myself by visiting a shrine on an off day, when I could truly reflect and pay my respects to the universe. 

My first chosen place of worship for this weekend was Kappabashi, which is Tokyo’s Kitchen District.  It’s where you go to buy any and all kitchen supplies you could ever want – I was there less than five minutes and quickly acquired a fine mesh strainer, a bamboo spoon with a smiley face, and a bulk package of restaurant-style chopsticks.  Jan had to physically restrain me from buying an industrial-sized wok and a package of 6 taiyaki pans.  We will likely divorce because of this.

After leaving Kappabashi weeping for all of the rice cookers and pans and hand-made knives that I didn’t buy, we headed to Sensoji Temple.  Sensoji Temple is the oldest temple in Tokyo, which was established by two fishermen in the year 628.  That was 1386 years ago.  Let that sink in.  Entire dynasties and dozens of generations have come and gone since then.  Just think of how many people lived and died without cell phones or Miley Cyrus, and take a moment to mourn the hell that must have been their existence.

Sensoji Temple is beautiful.  It is also spiritually depressing.  

There were people with lit-up wands guiding us through a line like they were guiding planes on a tarmac, and zillions of flash bulbs going off.  I felt like I was walking a red carpet in Hollywood.  We got out of there, promptly purchased French fries, and left amidst a lingering cloud of sacrilege.

From our disappointing spiritual journey, we decided to head to the Sky Tree, which is literally the tallest tower in the WORLD.  We were quite excited to go to the top and take all the pictures, until we were informed it was a 90 minute wait in line.  We are entirely too impatient for that and we both like 50% had to pee, so by 90 minutes we’d be piddling in our pantsies.  One of the benefits of living here as opposed to visiting here is we reserve the right to say “fuck that” and try again later.

Another fail.

I don’t know if it was hormonal or what, but I had a craving for pizza that inspired a bloodlust which sent me on a war path of hunger and desperation.  Jan, while trying desperately to keep me from devolving into a howler monkey and doing summersaults on the ceiling, Googled pizza near our location.

NOTHING. 

While we were walking towards a train station to ANYWHERE THAT HAS PIZZA,  I saw a beacon of wonder.  An Italian restaurant.  A pizzeria!!

We settled in, picked out two pizzas on the menu and I sopped up my salivation with a napkin while the waitress took our order.  Then that nice Japanese girl ruined my entire godforsaken life.

“No pizza yet.  Pasta.”

Get the fuck out of here.

Through tears, I begrudgingly ordered quatro fomaggi gnocchi and resolved to hate it for inherently not being pizza.  When it arrived at our table, Jan and I quickly both decided we would need to engage in a polyamorous relationship with it.  Have you ever eaten clouds, tossed in a cheesy cream sauce that men have fought and died over?  I closed my eyes while I ate every bite.  I bowed my head in silence when the bowl was licked clean.  I’ve never eaten something that tasted so good in my entire life, except for possibly my mother-in-law’s kapustnica.  

I left my house on Saturday looking for a spiritual experience.  Having been raised a religious blank slate, I’ve found that I crave a sense of belonging and togetherness which I figured Japan would solve for me.  Turns out my holy experience was not spent in front of a shrine or a temple, but mowing down potato dumplings and swigging wine with the love of my life.  As I closed my eyes and enjoyed every bite, the running dialogue that has been playing in my head for the last three months throbbed in my temples.

“I live in Japan.  Japan is my home.”

I suppose what I learned this weekend is that when you seek a spiritual experience, it will elude you.   

When I was mad and disappointed, I was served a dish and I closed my eyes and I... felt completely at peace.  Much like the fishermen who established Sensoji Temple hundreds of years ago, there was no cell phone, no TV, no anything.  There was peace.  There was my husband.  There was a plate full of delicious food.

It might be different than what most of you would assume a moment of divinity looks like, but I found my spirituality in Japan.  All I had to do was stop looking for it.

Happy New Year

New Years is an excuse to party in America.  To indulge in all of the things that you will totally NOT do next year because Resolutions and fitting into those jeans again.  By some stroke of luck, I celebrated the ushering in of 2017 in Mo-Fo TOKYO.  The biggest city in the world.  Obviously, that city would offer the biggest NYE parties in the world, right?

Yeah, I thought so too.

I don’t have a strong academic understanding of the history of Buddhism and New Years in Japan.  I can pretend to, because my only living grandparent, Nadine, has practiced Buddhism for several decades and what I’ve gleaned from her is harmony, peace, and a whole mess of wonderful things which I’ve experienced while living here.  But truth be told, I ain’t know shit and she is not wont to party.  But my understanding is that the New Year in Japan is a deeply spiritual holiday, which warrants the closing of many businesses even in a country full of tireless workers and business owners.

My husband and I don’t argue often, but when we do – we dig those heels in until we’re both waist-deep.  I mentioned that I had read that in Japan, New Years was more of a family holiday where people travel home (much like we do in America for Thanksgiving or Christmas) and that it wasn’t a party atmosphere in Tokyo like you might expect.  He countered that Tokyo is Tokyo and we would be assaulted by huge parties because Tokyo and stubborn. 

We both threw in the towel and agreed to be wrong (him) and right (me).  On New Year’s Eve, we decided we’d head to Meijijingu (Meiji Shrine) in central Tokyo.  It happens to be located between Shinjuku and Shibuya which are two of our favorite high-paced Tokyo neighborhoods, but I felt it would be appropriate to visit a shrine and pay my respects.  If for no other reason than to honor my grandmother, who would certainly relish in the opportunity to celebrate the new year at a shrine in Tokyo.

I’m not and have never been a religious person.  But Jesus Christ, Meijijingu on New Years Eve was like the Disneyland of Buddhism.  I went there hoping to experience some solitude, self-reflection, and peace.  Instead I experienced an onslaught of tourists, hourds of selfie-sticks, and a bastion of food carts including one that purported to be Mexican food but actually sold hot dogs wrapped in tortillas and deep fried, served with mustard.  I mean, don’t get me wrong… I obviously ate one.  But I was pissed off about it the whole time.  I was there for spiritual awakening, god damn it, and instead I got not-Mexican Mexican food and a bunch of gaijin doing pouty-faces in front of the Torii gate.

So my New Years spiritual journey was a bust.  I resolved to visit a completely obscure shrine on a completely obscure day, and we moved on with our New Years Eve as the godless heathens we are.

We’ve been to Shinjuku several times, and it can best be summarized by taking a handful of Legos and some glitter and eighteen million people and putting them in a blender and then dumping it all in your face.  On New Years Eve, we wandered through the back-alleys that are typically filled with tons of people and young girls in outrageously short skirts tempting you into whatever nightclub employs them.  On New Years Eve, it was… quiet.  There were grates over many of the doors.  The girls were nowhere to be found.  There were so many white people!  What is this sorcery?!

While I had hoped to experience solitude at a Buddhist shrine, I inexplicably experienced solitude in the heart of Tokyo.  It was eerily quiet, quizzically peaceful, and just… nice.

Tucked away in a back alley, Jan was smoking a cigarette.  Out of nowhere, he laughed.  

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“We live here.”

Funny how the hustle and bustle had helped distract us.  On the most unlikely of quiet days, the noise 

disappeared.  It started to sink in.  

We journeyed back home on the Express train which requires a transfer at Machida Station to the local line which takes us home, but we decided to why-not just bum around Machida.  

At this point, the fact that it was a complete ghost town was a running joke.  Goddamn, I love being right.  I mean, it felt almost deserted.  We stopped in at a bar and it was almost entirely Westerners, clearly trying to figure out why everyone wasn’t out here partying.  For the first time since we’ve moved to Japan, I felt equal parts alone and accepted.  Especially when a white dude dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow showed up. 

Tokyo.  A city that never sleeps, populated by people who never take a day off.  But to celebrate the New Year, they migrate away from the Big City and spend the transition with the people who mean the most to them.  That’s a great way to usher in a new year, and a fresh start.

We’re thousands of miles away from everyone we love, but please know that you were in our hearts while we were taking shots of rum with Jack Sparrow at 1am in a random alleyway bar outside Tokyo.  When you can’t be with family, you make the most of what you’ve got at hand.  2017 is looikng good.