With the ice-covered trees and city rooftops glittering in the cold, clear air, winter is a magical time to visit Lviv, Ukraine’s cultural capital. We marvelled at the city’s elegant architecture as we wandered through its narrow medieval streets, and enjoyed its cosy coffee shops and trendy restaurants. Wherever we went around the centre of the city, we found something of interest – a church, an architectural monument, a quirky shop, a small museum. Traces of the city’s chequered past can be seen all around the Old Town – the Armenian Quarter, the Latin Cathedral, the ruins of the old Jewish Quarter – so there was plenty to keep us occupied, and with over 700 coffee shops to choose from, we were never far from delicious coffee and cake for sustenance.
Driving back towards Jasper, Canada, my wife and I were pretty buoyed up by the beauty of Lake Maligne’s clear blue water and the towering peaks surrounding it. But the icing on the cake was yet to come. Suddenly there was movement by the side of the road. I slowed down to get a better view and there it was. A black bear cub was minding its own business as it munched on shrubs. Then, as if on cue, Mother Bear came storming out of the trees and began to rub her back on a nearby tree.  What a sight – scary yet elemental at the same time. We had seen elk, moose, chipmunks, birds of prey and even a lone coyote during our trip through the Rockies but this was the closest we would likely ever get to a bear and her cub, and it was magnificent.
Tokyo is full of surprises. A charming little one-car tram trundling down the middle of the street was the last thing I was expecting in this vast, bustling metropolis. But as I was wandering in the downtown Shitamachi area of Japan’s capital, there it was – Tokyo’s sole surviving tram, the Arakawa Toden (Tokyo Sakura Tram).Â
With time to spare, I jumped on the next tram to arrive, grabbed a seat and enjoyed a fascinating ride off the beaten track. The Arakawa Toden is a ride into the past, into parts of old Tokyo that have managed to resist the changes of the city’s modern urban development. And as the tram slowly wends its way along quiet back streets of the Shitamachi downtown area, this frequent service from Minowabashi to Waseda is a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the shopping and entertainment districts of Ginza, Shinjuku and Shibuya.
Shitamachi is the clustered commercial district of the city where small-scale merchants and artisans made their homes in feudal Japan. Nowadays the people here are the shopkeepers, artisans, wholesalers and small industrial subcontractors of the old middle class, and the area has a particular air of informality about it. Rather different from the more genteel residential areas and Tokyo suburbs where the new middle class white-collar company employees prefer to make their homes.
At times the track passes so close to the small two-storey houses so typical of the area that you feel you could almost reach out and knock on the windows or grab a persimmon from the branches above the tracks. A few of these two-storey homes still preserve the look of a bygone Tokyo, with rice shops, tofu shops, small grocery stores, tatami mat makers and small craftsmen’s workshops at ground level and the family’s living quarters above. Although convenience stores and fast food outlets have replaced many of these small shops along the route of the Arakawa Toden, you can still get a glimpse of old Tokyo.
The tram also runs close to temples, shrines, museums and parks, and I stopped off en route at a couple of well-known sights – Oji Inari Shrine, with its beautiful painted ceiling, and Asukayama Park with its attractive cherry blossoms, both welcome refuges from Tokyo’s concrete jungle and its crowds of people. With the tram’s one-day pass, available on the tram for 400 yen, you can hop on and off at will.
As the tram approached its final stop at Waseda and the view became more like the typical Tokyo city-scape of tall buildings and busy streets, I realised my leisurely adventure into some of Tokyo’s quaintest and quietest neighborhoods was coming to an end.  Now it was back to the hustle and bustle of this fascinating city which never fails to surprise …. and delight. Â
Autumn-Leaf Fields, Nightingale Valley, Five Acres, Highfield Stables, Wild Duck’s Nest – perhaps not quite the typical image that springs to mind when we think of Tokyo. But these are just a few of the stations on the most heavily used train line of this huge metropolis – the Yamanote Line.
The quaint names hark back to a more sedate time when Tokyo – Edo as it was then – was the political centre of a largely agrarian nation, quite different from the hustle and bustle of the modern city it is now.
And Shinkuku Station at 8 o’clock on a weekday morning is when this hustle and bustle is at its peak. This is rush hour: when children in their school uniforms, middle managers in almost identical dark suits, white shirts and boring ties, smartly dressed office ladies in the latest fashions, and occasionally, a kimono-clad grandmother, all arrive en masse to catch their train.
The scene on platforms 12 and 13, where the Yamanote Line trains come and go, is almost surreal. Here, orderly lines, four abreast, gather in front of the marks on the platform which indicate where the train doors will be as an army of East Japan Railway Company employees, clad in their customary white gloves, prepares to pack as many arms and legs as possible into the approaching trains.
More than 3.5 million people scurry through this busy station every day, and during the morning and evening rush hours, an 11-car Yamanote Line train carrying about 3000 people, pulls in every 90 seconds or so. This circular route around Tokyo is busy all day long, from the first train out at 4.40am to the last run just after 1.00am. With some 670 trains making a 60-minute lap of the Yamanote circuit every day, this is undoubtedly one of the busiest lines in the world.
The line connects the various hub stations of metropolitan Tokyo as well as the major downtown residential, commercial and entertainment districts through the 29 stations along its tracks. Shinjuku Station is a major hub for trains coming from the west of Tokyo and from the adjoining prefecture of Saitama, and the area around the station is popular for shopping and entertainment. The dizzying array of shopping malls, office blocks, bars, pubs and noodle shops are a far cry from the district’s origins as a refuge for foot-weary samurai in feudal times when Shinjuku housed many inns and taverns for them to stay.
Tokyo Station is another of the city’s largest stations and the departure point for the bullet trains heading to north and west Japan. Many regional lines also leave from Tokyo Station and rush hour here is not for the faint-hearted!
And then there is Akihabara. Now Akihabara Station – Autumn Leaf Fields – is a real misnomer if ever there was one. Perhaps it was once a quiet and peaceful rural area but nowadays it is more famous for its Electric Town than its trees. Residents and visitors alike flock to Akihabara to check out the latest bargains in the many discount electronic shops based here and whether it’s the latest digital camera, computer, I-pad or whatever, if it ain’t available in Akihabara, it ain’t available anywhere.
A few stops down the line is Ueno – Upper Field – and here there really are still plenty of trees! Ueno Park is one of the most popular places in Tokyo to view the cherry blossom in the spring. Mind you, this being Tokyo, crowds are never far away and when the cherry trees are in bloom, up to a quarter of a million visitors descend on the park every day. The park is huge; it is one of the city’s largest, with two national museums, a zoo and a concert hall within its grounds. So, despite the crowds, there is usually enough room for everyone!
The Yamanote Line is Tokyo, and although it’s often impossible to get a seat, the city simply couldn’t function without it. It is the easiest way to get around the city, and with trains running so frequently, waiting time is minimal. Stations names are in English and Japanese so overseas visitors shouldn’t be put off using it, and even the largest stations are relatively straightforward to use.
As is customary in Japan, the conductor announces the name of the next station as the train approaches it. This is much appreciated when you are sharing the tiniest of spaces with half of the city, you can hardly see out of the window – let alone get a glimpse of the station names – and you can’t quite remember whether Shibuya Station is two or three stops from Shinjuku!
