Chasing a feeling, finding a memory.
I sometimes say that, if I were to have a totally free day, unencumbered by any worldly engagement and unburdened by constraints such as travel time or costs, I’d make it a cycling day in Tokyo.
There are many reasons to explain what, at the end of the day, is a rather extravagant wish - would I really be cycling instead of, say, enjoying vintage champagne on an island? - but the main one is that I’d be using that day to chase a specific feeling, a sensation.
You see, Japanese cities of a certain size - and they don’t get any bigger than the Kanto megalopolis afterall - have a specific characteristic that makes them unique to my eyes. You can have the busiest places on Earth, clogged with skyscrapers, trains, people, loud adverts and then three blocks away there’ll be peace, quiet, narrow lanes where you’ll see only children on bikes and elderly ladies walking tiny dogs.
My dream day would see me crossing this invisible dichotomy astride some high-end, expensive bicycle I’d never be able to purchase. I’d be cycling effortlessly on the silky-smooth tarmac on my shiny Colnago C68 with no map or direction, suspended in the man-made alpenglow of an endless Tokyo sunset.
I never listen to music when riding, but this time I’d be making an exception and, obviously, the soundtrack would be in synch with which half of Tokyo I’d be finding myself in that moment: quick, synchopated beats for the hustle and bustle of the big town - think of DJ Krush’s Kemuri, or the mix that Cut Killer put together for La Haine - and then, as soon as I turn onto the other half, everything will change.
This is no longer Coruscant, this is the Japanese cityscape of Studio Ghibli and the mangas: neat homes descending towards the glistening sea, tidy train stations and a white-gloved postman going for his rounds. This isn’t the place where to jockey for positions with Nissan GTRs: everything, here, invites you to take things slowly, savour each pedalstroke, and even the music needs to change: gone are the broken beats of the city rappers, this is the place fo Maki Nomiya and Mariya Takeuchi.
Rinse and repeat, this is what I’d do if I had one free day in Tokyo.
Then, it happened. One afternoon in May, I found myself alone in town and with a blank space on the agenda. The weather wasn’t what I dreamt of - no views of a snowcapped Fuji at sunset for me - and the briefest check at a couple of shops clarified that I wouldn’t be able to rent a high-end bike for neither love nor money, but that didn’t matter. Walking was still an option.
And so it was that I set off, strolling along the banks of the Sumida river. Joggers hopped past granddads teaching their nephews the basics of fishing, and a boat that looked like a 1950s sci-fi prop cruised past while trains crossed the bridges above us. Here on the river, the megalopolis was shaking hands with the village vibe.
When the waterside promenade ended, I dove back into the city, delving deeper and deeper into the grid-like maze that constitutes the fabric of Tokyo. Every now and then I’d cross some large boulevard flanked by tall buildings and lush gingko trees, and I briefly felt the pull of the big city life, but for the most I’d stick to the side roads. It was almost sunset by the time I reached Akibahara.
Akibahara: I had memories of a hectic place, a labyrinth dubbed ‘electric city’, where superstores selling gizmos stood wall-to-wall with loud pachinko game halls and clubs. Neon lights, flashes, crowds and the omnipresent roar of thousands of adverts, songs and jingles. That had been my first visit, and there hadn’t been any others.
Still, Tokyo’s urban dichotomy held true here too. Somewhere to my right, I sensed the action and bustle of the city but, here, there was none of that. I walked without checking for vehicles, for there were none, and shared the road only with other pedestrians or the odd mum carrying her kids on an e-bike.
I walked past the back entrance of shops, workers on breaks, neighbourhood coffee shops, small statues whose meaning and purpose I didn’t understand. Everything was quiet, everything was calm.
I turned left, then right, then straight for a bit and, then, I stumbled into a place I hadn’t seen in almost twenty years: Ameyayokocho.
Yokochos are the tangle of alleys one can find immediately beneath a large train station: a warren of restaurants, izakayas, watering holes and everything inbetween. Ameyayokocho - Ameyoko if you’re in a hurry - was the first such place I visited back in 2008. We bumped into it almost straight off the plane, walking all the way from our hostel on the other side of the river, and wasted no time in getting absolutely plastered. Now, perhaps wiser but certainly 16 years older, I contented myself with a beer and a bowl of ramen. ‘Twas even vegetarian.
Night had by now fallen, and my bed in Oshiage loomed. And that’s when it hit me.
The sensation I was chasing, the idea that spurred the whole afternoon, wasn’t just an abstract concept concocted by my mind during a boring meeting: it was a memory. It was on a cheap bike rented for free from the hostel - one that was way too small for me, by the way - but we’d done it already, and on these very streets.
Here was Asakusa-dori, where we used to race the traffic; there the junction with Kappabashi, the kitchenware street, with the statue of the guy in a chef’s hat that looked suspiciously like a young Saddam Hussein; and here, at last, were the narrow roads of Asakusa’s very own Yokocho district, where we’d slow down and chance upon a temple, or a bar, or a temple facing a bar. This is where it all was: the cheap eats, the indie shops blasting Japanese rap we couldn’t understand but loved. And now I was back.
There was only one thing to do. I grabbed a beer at one of the omnipresent Lawsons, found my headphones, put on a Youtube mix of 1990s Japanese beatmakers - Tojin Battle Royal, Buddha brand, Muro, Microphone Pager, The Gas Boys - and vibed all the way home.
The fact that I wasn’t on a bike didn’t, at the end, feel all too important.
