22,000 Steps

Day 2 : Tuesday, 13 July 2010

By Alan Yeo

 

What a difference a left turn made as we took to the road to explore our neighbourhood from our hotel. Unlike the glittering electronic lights and bustle of Akihabara, the left brought us to the more tranquil academic world of Kenda.

 

 

There’s nothing much to complain of except for the occasional drizzle and rain that accompanies the Summer. The sky is overcast so you don’t get to see much sunshine and one often wrestles with whether to use the umbrella on the narrow lanes so as to avoid collision with a passer-by. Also, the umbrella really gets in your view of the place. In fact, it is an odd summer, as there were times when it gets really chilly like being in an air-conditioned room and my body clock is topsy-turvy, as I tend to wake up to first light at 5am (which is 4am in the morning).

 

We did lots of walking today to discover signs of hope in our neighbourhood and the sub-cities we were exploring. Hence, we kept our eyes open to see if we could spot a church or anything that gives us a clue to its spirituality.

 

It was not too long before we stumbled upon Tokyo Holy Resurrection Cathedral, the main cathedral of the Orthodox Church in Japan. The design of the cathedral was based on the Russian style. Some of us had a peek at its interior and it was like stepping into another century with awesome display of ancient spiritual artefacts. It was a pity that photography was disallowed. As we were not Orthodox believers, we could not go beyond the main sanctuary and we speculated that we were probably prohibited from entering the Holy of Holies.

 

We also chanced upon a quirky art sculpture of a “Queen Ant,” that was supposed to be a “god” that took on a human form of a queen ant and if you were to observe the sculpture carefully, you would have noticed that the queen ant is wearing high heels. We were also pleased to discover a Christian Centre amidst the academic universities and they even had a Christian Bookstore that we visited. 

 

Lunch was a happy occasion for everyone, especially if the food is cheap and good. We made a stop at a building that houses several restaurants and as they did not have an English menu, they actually displayed their food outside for you to place your order. Hence, we all took photos of the food that we wanted and that made our day. Someone had brought a pedometer and in this first part of the journey, we had already walked some 10,000 steps…

 

After a hearty meal, it was time to set off to explore Shibuya and Shinjuku. If you do not like crowd, Shibuya can be quite intimidating but this is the place where trendy youths hang out in their loud, colourful and outrageous street fashion. The gals looked as if they had just stepped out of some fashion magazine.  The POR were divided into two teams to comb the streets of Shibuya. Surprisingly, we had not seen children or families out in Shibuya or Shinjuku and people seemed to be always busy on the move with little time to pay attention to the person trying to peddle his products. My team walked quite a distance beyond the busy areas to the quieter part of Shibuya. Initially, we were excited as we thought we had discovered a church in the city. The Chinese characters were that of a church but it turn out to be some other religious organisation instead. We met up with the other team and stop over at Starbucks for coffee that overlooked this busy cross-junction which was quite a sight as you could just criss-crossed to any which way you want.

 

Shinjuku is much shadier in character. You could be harassed by pimps, just walking on the busy streets, as they are constantly looking out for foreigners to prey on. We took a short walk around the place and decided to break for dinner before returning to the hotel early for a time of prayers and reflections. At the end of the day, the pedometer reads 22,000 steps and this was just the second day of our Peacemakers on the Road in Japan.