Strawberries & Skyscrapers

Before I went to Japan, I had so many ideas and images of the place in my head. I had wanted to go there for so long, but I was a bit worried that it wouldn't live up to what I had imagined. When I was in high school, my next-door neighbour moved to Japan to teach English and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Over recent years, my imaginings of Japan grew bigger and more varied. Classical paintings of Mount Fuji or of majestic blue ocean waves juxtaposed with Tokyo's bright lights and skyscrapers from Lost in Translation. When I read Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood in the first (cold, snowy) days of January 2006, I couldn't put it down for many reasons, but I especially liked when the main character(s) would take long walks around Tokyo. That city seemed like somewhere I desperately needed to visit.

Before leaving Berkeley four years ago, I was loading up on supplies at (my favourite store) Avant Card, and came across this really striking card of a Japanese woman with long black hair and a peace sign necklace. For me, this woman, in ways I couldn't and still can't quite express, represented another facet of why I wanted to go to Japan so badly. She seemed so confident, and alluring, and the peace sign necklace came across as totally genuine - and added another layer to her 'personality' - instead of being cheesy or tacky. As much as you can say/know this about a picture, she was someone I wanted to be friends with.

Sometimes we anticipate something for so long or build something up so high that it almost seems inevitable it won't be what we hoped; that reality will be much less cheerful than what we expected. Fortunately this time for me, Japan in general, and Tokyo in particular, surpassed all my expectations. The country has gorgeous (green at this time of year) scenery, and genuinely cheerful, friendly, and helpful people. I was so happy to be in Tokyo. It is a city I would definitely live in, and a city I could see myself being very happy in. I loved the skyscrapers and bright lights I expected, but also the things I hadn't expected: the smaller streets with their little shops, the parks, the way the trains run right next to parks with tall trees whose branches and leaves lean over the tracks, the stationery stores that had better collections than I could have ever imagined, the outfits (both men's and women's), the French patisseries whose selection of cakes and tarts in the windows would give any Parisian patisserie a run for its money, and the preponderance of strawberries. I have long loved berries (raspberries the most, but strawberries are second) and the Japanese love strawberries. I found (and of course bought) some very sweet strawberry stationery, and I indulged in quite a few pieces of strawberry shortcake while there. If I really did live in Tokyo, I think I'd want to spend an hour (or more) each week, staring out the window at the city and the skyscrapers before me, while writing letters on my strawberry patterned paper and eating some strawberry shortcake.