Sabbatikos

When I used to travel to Japan for business, I had a personal ritual for beating jet lag. I would land, get settled, and then force myself into Tokyo, taking the JR Yamanote Line to Harajuku to experience one of Japan’s dualities: the serenity of Meiji Jingu set against the energy, fashion, and modernity of Harajuku.

I wanted to share that ritual with my family. We were awake ridiculously early, not because we wanted to, but because our biological clocks weren’t yet calibrated to Japan time. So we embraced it, hopped on an train, and headed toward Harajuku early in the morning.

There are few places where the contrast between the future and the past feels as pronounced as it does in Japan. Tokyo can feel ultra-modern, with trains across the city running with astonishing precision, vending machines everywhere seemingly capable of dispensing anything you want, endless lighted signs clinging to the sides of buildings, and high tech woven into everything, everywhere. And then, a few short steps away, you step into Meiji Jingu, the modernity seems to disappear, and you step into the past.

The walk toward the shrine remains one of the most peaceful and introspective walks I know. A broad gravel path stretches beneath an enormous and lush canopy of trees, and within minutes, as you pass through the torii gates, the noise and density of Tokyo fall away. It is hard to reconcile this level of quiet and solitude with being in the largest city on Earth. Along the path, old attendants rhythmically sweep fallen leaves before you with simple tree bough rakes, their rhythm a hypnotic, steady scrape of branches against gravel, endlessly clearing the leaves and bringing order to nature, before she drops more leaves with the next breeze.

At the shrine, we cleansed ourselves with water by washing our hands and rinsing our mouths before stepping into the shrine proper. Once there, we bought small wooden ema plaques and wrote down our hopes and wishes before hanging them among hundreds of others surrounding the sacred tree. Some wishes were practical, some sentimental, some selfish, and some sad and beautiful, and perhaps painfully impossible. People bare their souls publicly by writing their hopes down, manifesting them into physical form so they can hang them beside the hopes and dreams of strangers, and for a moment believe in something bigger than themselves.

Eventually, we made our way back through the forest and, almost instantly, emerged into the heart of Harajuku. The transition could hardly be more dramatic. One moment, you are walking solemnly beneath towering trees toward an ancient shrine, and the next, you are surrounded by Takeshita Street, kawaii (cute) overload, capsule machines, fashion boutiques, and people selling things you had no idea existed, some of which perhaps shouldn’t.

Almost by accident, we stumbled into our first gachapon shop, with rows and rows of capsule machines lining the walls and promising tiny treasures we absolutely did not need and yet desperately wanted. We laughed at the strange little toys and characters inside, fed in some yen, twisted the dials, and waited for the capsules to drop. The prizes were ridiculous, of course, which is what made them perfect. A few would eventually end up on desks back home, tiny plastic reminders of that particular morning in Tokyo.

Continuing down Takeshita Street, we also discovered that Harajuku’s animal cafe ecosystem appears to have evolved. Cat cafes, once seemingly everywhere, had apparently lost some ground to capybara cafes, miniature pig cafes, and Asian small clawed otter cafes. But we had our sights set on another kind of cat cafe, one that did not even require an actual cat, just a photo instead. You provide a photograph of your pet, and the staff recreate it as a three dimensional portrait sculpted into the milk foam of your drink. Obviously, we had to do this. Soon Tucker, our fat orange tabby, was staring back at us from the top of a latte, along with Puff, Clara and Ian’s three toothed calico. It was absurd, adorable, and exactly what we needed: cute and caffeinated.

Outside, a light rain had begun to fall, but it barely mattered. We wandered deeper into Harajuku, ducking into stores, peering into boutiques that had not yet opened, grabbing an egg salad sandwich at Lawson, and watching the neighborhood slowly come alive around us. Eventually, we reached Kiddy Land, five floors of toys, characters, collectibles, and dangerously concentrated cuteness, where we filled our baskets with plush absurdities.

Years ago, I would come here during business trips looking for gifts for Clara. Now, Clara was standing beside me, shopping for collectibles of her own. We emerged carrying bags filled with cute overload and continued toward Oriental Bazaar, where the souvenirs became slightly more traditional and respectable: ceramics, wind-chimes, a sake set, and some tea towels.

By the time we finished, it was not even noon, yet somehow we felt as though we had already lived an entire day. We had walked through a sacred forest, made wishes at a Shinto shrine, fed coins into capsule machines for pooping dogs and Godzilla cats, drunk portrait lattes of our cats, wandered through Harajuku fashion stores, and survived five floors of Japanese toys. The rain continued to fall lightly over Tokyo, our vacation had barely begun, and, realizing the value of the strong dollar combined with Japan’s tax-free shopping, our day of bargain hunting was just getting started…