Post-colonial times in Yokohama or how you can end up in Ikea if you're not careful

If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

On Sunday I went to Yokohama after hearing Bill Granger’s Sydney based eponymous restaurant opened a branch and is serving delicious pancakes. Since returning to Japan I have been on a regimen of long walks and raw fish and figured I could do with a little beefing up for the winter.

The ways of reaching Yokohama from Tokyo are too many to mention, between the total of 303 Tokyo subway stations you need not change trains more than once regardless of where you’re departing from.
And if you aren’t coming to Tokyo any time in the foreseeable future but wish to get the vibe. - ‘Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction’

Lewis Carroll was genius and Japanese reality goes like the first pages of Alice in Wonderland.

It took me 40 min. to reach Yokohama Bay but when the first foreigner Commodore Matthew Perry sailed to Japan in 1853, it took him 7 months at sea. He was 50 years old and troubled by arthritis; the voyage was financed by a small brokerage house Lehman Brothers (charming historical side note) and the Shogun ruled Japan with an iron fist.

Main purpose of Perry’s mission was to establish a coal station so that American steamships could travel the great Asian trade route and move ahead of their European rivals. He hoped to convince Shogun allowing trade would be beneficial to his rule. Also, it would be nice if the Japanese stopped killing foreigners on general principle.

Perry arrived in Yokohama Bay days after his 50^th birthday with a crew inexperienced in battle and not a word of Japanese spoken by anyone. The first words exchanged between his crew and the Japanese were shouted in French ‘Departez’ (leave!), language which neither Perry nor the Japanese understood well but the message was clear.

After a long and tedious game of cat and mouse, Japan allowed Perry ashore (alive). He  offered them soap and milk and even ceremoniously slaughtered a cow to promote the benefits of American beef! Yokohamans (Yokohamese, Yokohamians, Yokoh-amish, Yokohammsters, there is a lively debate on this…) offered seafood and showed how women and men bathe together, nude, in public baths. That is how Japan opened to the West and how West fell in love with Japan hook line and sinker.

I digress, remember I set out to have brunch at Bills ….and to find the restaurant I got off the train somewhere along the discontinued rail line close to the spot where Perry signed the Treaty of Kanagawa  (trade, cooperation and all good things) some 150 years ago.

Picture Yokohama- European style houses in all their colonial splendor next to Sumitomo Mitsui Bank branch offices and electro music blasting from cars at the light. In Tokyo you never really notice cars and you most certainly don’t ever forget you are very far from home. In Yokohama, after a few beers, you could easily be fooled (it was in fact the day of Octoberfest- sponsored by either a German brewery or the German Embassy? Same difference). The Germans had put up stalls all along the waterfront and proceeded to sell hotdogs inside the historical warehouses. Terrible yodeling could be heard from a marquee outside the Odabashi Pier (where you can board a ship to Borneo if you feel so inclined) and every 5 minutes it was ‘Danke Schoen’ from the loudspeaker! Until 1949 the US Navy had jurisdiction of the Odabashi Pier, the Pier was renovated by an Iranian- Spanish team of architects in 1992 but on Saturday it felt very much like Bavaria!

Colonization! Globalization! Pros and Cons! Pick your side now but the most shocking part of the day is yet to come.

I was desperate to avoid the drunken masses, it was a beautiful sunny day and looking at Japanese failed attempts to out do the expats in downing beer is a pointless activity. In the beer drinking competition- white man always wins!

There is a pretty hill in Yokohama with a large French settlement (France-yama) but it is up hill and I was already feeling rather worn out from traipsing across town. The Chinatown is at sea level and not far, so I quickly ventured in but was even more quick to get out! Being accosted by frauds in fake Buddhist robes selling ‘stones for happiness’ and being shouted at by an aggressive palm reader (no photos!) – not for me.

Ciao Chinatown Yokohama, I’m headed back to Tokyo on the first (fast) train.....

...or so I thought…..

For the story to continue to make sense (as much as my writing skill allow) I should mention I’ve been meaning to buy a new reading lamp, so when judging my moronic decisions of the afternoon keep in mind my bedside reading lamp gives poor light.

At the Sakuragiacho Station Yokohama tourist information booth they gave me an elaborate map of the ten trillion subway, metro and rail lines connecting Yokohama, Kawasaki and Tokyo with all their sprawling suburbs that form the biggest urban conglomeration in the world!

I asked for the quickest route back to Tokyo and in response the kind woman at the Information counter scribbled ten different solutions to the problem and sent me off.

One change at the Yokohama Station.

Second change at the Shin Yokohama Station.

And whilst looking for the right platform and corresponding gate I saw a poster that said IKEA KOHOKU free shuttle bus!

The lamp, the lamp, the lamp!

I decide it is marvelous to profit from the free shuttle bus option and I leave the safety of the sign-posted train station and exit the Shin Yokohama station somewhere in Shin Yokohama. Today I know Shin Yokohama is somewhere north west of Yokohama, but this information was unavailable to me on Sunday.

Once outside the station the neat signs for Ikea Kohoku shuttle were nowhere to be seen. I asked taxi drivers, they spoke no English. I asked a US military guy who was clueless. I asked two Japanese ladies, they seemed to be going in a different direction but knew where it was! Bless the kindest nation, not speaking a word of English they walked me straight to the bus stop. A good 10 min walk!

Sunday nights are an eerie time everywhere in the world, and even with all big stores open daily, 7 days a week, I was trying to gauge the magnitude of my mistake. Was I just being silly or was I a complete moron looking for Ikea between Yokohama and Tokyo on a Sunday night.

As the first clue- the bus stop was empty.

At last a man in a light green uniform and cap shows up and starts talking to me. I have no idea what uniform that is ( military? sanitation? park ranger?) and even less what he is trying to communicate?  Luckily another person enters this surrealist nightmarish parking lot/bus stop scene; he speaks English and is also waiting for the Ikea shuttle bus which should be arriving in 5 minutes he says.

And it does.

The man in uniform climbs in to drive, the previous driver gets off and thank God this is all going well.

Or so I think until we take a long narrow road going parallel to a bigger broader road which turns to be a major ‘Expressway’ and soon we are speeding towards Ikea (wherever it may be) and I see Mt Fuji majestic in the distance.

This is a really bad sign.

Last time I saw Mt Fuji was from a Kyoto bound train! Two possibilities here, you can either see Fuji from all over Japan (Earth is round, so probably not the case) or we are headed South in the opposite direction of Tokyo! Does Ikea have an Ikea style hotel where lost people can sleep until morning when visibility and conditions are more favorable for finding the way back?

It now becomes very clear, it was not silly getting off at Shin Yokohama looking for Ikea, it was idiotic.

But eventually we do get to Ikea.

I buy a lamp 10 minutes before closing time.

The same damned shuttle takes me back to Shin Yokohama very late on Sunday night and even I know trains run on a different schedule Sunday nights. Some run every 20 min instead of every 5, some only go to big hubs and some don’t run at all. Especially confusing are the commuter trains and I was deep in the commuter land!

Back at the informations counter my suspicions are confirmed, I can not go back the same way I arrived.

Alice : I simply must go through!

Doorknob: Sorry, you are much too big, simply impassible.

Alice: You mean impossible.

Doorknob: No. Impassible. Nothing’s impossible.

And so I am told I must head back in direction of Yokohama, get off at Higashi Kanagawa and from there onwards to Naka Nobu (think I can remember that) and through to Ookayama to catch the rapid train on the Shonan Shinjuku line to Gotanda- home.

However I’ve now got the bulky Ikea lamp to deal with….

At Higashi Kanagawa station I get off as told but discover the last train to Naka Nobu has departed, the next train is the express and wont make the Naka Nobu stop. Typically, at Higashi Kanagawa I can not find the tourist info booth and none of the locals speak foreign languages. It is no longer Higashi Whatever Station it is a Monty Pythons special.

Hating myself, hating Ikea even more, lamp may give decent light but if I am going  to charter a plane to get back home it would’ve been more economical to get a little something crystal from Baccarat!

What started as a day of luxury, brunch and stroll by the sea, is now a disaster with Ikea furniture to be assembled at midnight.

Colonization, globalization, lost in translation and now Ikea!

Tomorrow I am going to Milkfed, boutique and clothing line designed by Sophia Coppola. That’s the program and I’m sticking to it!