British wizards, Tokyo streets, and chopsticks

One of the primary reasons why I wanted to go to Japan was because I wanted to experience, even for just a week, a new culture. While books, websites and movies can give one some understanding of such things, it’s different to actually go to these places yourself. So naturally, to completely immerse ourselves, we decided to go to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo - The Making of Harry Potter on our first full day of the vacation, the most British thing available in Nerima City.

Jokes aside, it was a really cool experience. For someone who has a great interest in the filmmaking process and also the world of Harry Potter, there were plenty of interesting bits of information along the extensive tour in which you were able to see plenty of costumes, props and even some set pieces used across the movies. Recreations of the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, and an actual train used as the Hogwarts Express in the movies were cool to see up close and areas dedicated to how the numerous creature effects were achieved and the sound design of the films were some of my favorites. I also got to confirm that I should probably never act in anything, thanks to a section where you get to ride a broom and rewatch your terrible reactions as you are green screened into a scene of the Goblet of Fire.

The tour took up a good portion of our day (my fault probably, as I have a penchant to stop at almost every information plaque to read it), but afterwards we decided to head to downtown Shibuya.

This was closer to the Tokyo experience I was expecting. Unlike the quiet streets of the neighborhood where our hotel was located, Shibuya was a mess of constant activity. Skyscrapers tower above and navigating the narrow streets between them is like walking at the bottom of a concrete canyon. Loud, bright lights and signs advertising businesses or products flash everywhere, all desperate to somehow catch your attention in the cacophony of information. Space is at a premium here as stores and restaurants are crammed right on top of each other, all fighting to maintain the modicum of area they have managed to claim. The only truly big city I’d been in before was Chicago, but this part of Tokyo was a completely different beast altogether. Because while there were some larger streets that were more akin to those in Chicago’s downtown, there were infinitely more extremely tight passages that apparently cars could somehow try to navigate, but were often clogged with pedestrians. The cramped, tight corridors could have felt claustrophobic, but it was also screaming with life and excitement, that there was always something going on and that you were, in some small way, a part of that excitement. I don’t know if I would like living like that for an extended period of time, I feel as if it would get overwhelming, but in the moment it was invigorating.

Eventually, we found ourselves in a sukiyaki restaurant on the 18th floor of some megastructure overlooking one of the neighborhoods. The sukiyaki we got was thinly sliced beef cooked in sugar in a hot pot along with a variety of green vegetables, mushrooms, and tofu at your own table. You then dip the cooked meat and other ingredients into raw eggs. I tried the tofu and found I still did not like the consistency (my dislike of certain food textures was a consistent butt of jokes on the trip), but the rest was exceedingly good. A few of the restaurants had this element where you cook the food yourself, which was interesting, and most of the meat there was thinly sliced, likely to make it easier to grasp with chopsticks.

Learning how to eat with chopsticks was pretty much a necessity, unless one wanted to subsist on chips bought from a convenience store or something. While some dishes like ramen came with spoons, those were more for the broth, and I don’t think I saw a single fork the entire time we were there. That being said, I did not have as much difficulty with it as I had feared. Like the thinly sliced meats, a lot of the food is obviously prepared with the idea that one is using chopsticks to eat it, so even a novice like myself rarely had issues. Still, it did take a bit more concentration and between that and the delicious food, I don’t know if I talked a whole lot during our meals on the trip. By the end though, I feel like I had gained a bit of proficiency with the utensils, and honestly, going back to a fork on the inflight meal on my trip back felt weirdly unnatural.

Tune in next time for more adventures!

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW

BY

NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER