Acoustic habitat

A phrase from my friend, Kim Smith, which she taught me after a facebook post about the nightly sound of warnings to take care for fire, which we listened to for several weeks at year's end.

I've been turning it over in my head since then, thinking about how the concept catches so much of what is making our year interesting.  So this long overdue post from me will list a few of the regular sounds we hear here in our Nishi Ikebukuro apartment, that make living here distinct from our Northfield home.  As part of the setting, you should know that we live on the fourth and fifth floors of a small condo building, at the corner of two narrow streets, with one of Tokyo's major thoroughfares just one very short block away.  The neighborhood is mostly residential, but like most of Tokyo, there are little shops and businesses scattered here and there.  This picture above is from our fourth floor balcony, looking down at the corner (also shows our fabulous neighborhood patisserie, which sends tantalizing smells of butter and chocolate wafting through the air every day):

• Beeping of trucks - even though we live on narrow streets, there are many small trucks making commercial deliveries, moving people, transporting construction equipment, and picking up garbage.  Each one has it's own special beep, it seems, put into service when it backs up, makes turns, stops.
• Rattle of delivery carts - Japan enjoys several highly efficient, relatively inexpensive private delivery services - much more reasonable than FedEx or UPS.  In Tokyo, these companies have small centers scattered all over.  Packages come in by truck and then are taken to their destination by hand-pushed or bicycle-powered carts.  The carts make a lovely racket from all the packages jostling around.  Really.
  
• Construction noise - the major road, Yamate Dori, is undergoing all kinds of projects that we can only guess at.  Cement trucks, shouting workers, pneumatic drills all feature in our acoustic habitat.  The noise picks up at night, but we're far enough away, with enough other buildings around that the harshness of the noise is muffled.
• Emergency vehicles -sirens of all sorts, of course, but also loudspeaker announcements from the drivers as they go through the intersections.  Tokyo's emergency workers will call out to cars telling them to get out of the way, and thanking them when they do, on every run, so far as I can tell.
  
• Tofu seller's hand-held horn - another small pushcart that goes through the neighborhood at least once a week.
• "Big garbage" collectors - a kind of used-goods dealers, they go down the street all day long, playing really loud, and to my ears obnoxious, recorded announcements letting residents know that they will gather their used goods - tvs, computers, old appliances, furniture - anything you don't want! let us know!  we'll help you clean out your house!!  Ay ay aye.  These guys I could do with out.
• Rattle of the neighboring patisserie's shutters going up (about 9:40 every morning) and down (7:00 every night).  The morning rattle reminds us that tasty brioche are being set up on the corner, only 220 yen apiece... we respond to this as often as once a week (hey, I mentioned that it smells good too!)
• Yappy little dogs - another less than favorite.  So popular here right now, they parade up and down the street in their spiffy little coats, barking at everyone they pass.
  
• Crows.... brrrrrrr.  These freak me out with their nasty cawing.
• Cat fights - stray cats and well loved pets prowl the streets incessantly.  Fights arise a few times a week, that I can hear.
• Little kids laughing happily - Monday through Saturday, as they play on the rooftop playground at the nearby public nursery school.  I can watch them from my balcony, scampering around, jumping rope, going down the little slide.
• Mystery skateboard guy.  Maybe once or twice a week, a guy who looks to be in his late 20s goes racing down the street below my balcony on his large board.  I wonder what his story is.
• Futon beating - it's good hygiene to hang futon out to air on sunny, dry days.  If you do it properly, you'll smack the dust out of them, too, and even turn them midday.  I manage the first two steps, but only very rarely do I think of the third.
• Happy people coming home late at night - from 11pm onward, the streets get busiest.  I'm guessing that many of my neighbors are young singles, who work and play 'til the last train worries start.
• Electronic chimes at 5 and 6 pm.  I think these come from nearby Rikkyo University, but I'm not entirely sure.

With all these loud noises, it's a lively place.  But what amazes me, even though it doesn't surprise me, really, is how often it's quiet.   You don't hear people playing loud music at all, for example, and I haven't ever heard anyone arguing or yelling in anger around here. For all that we're right in the middle of the world's largest city, it can be pretty slow and still in the neighborhoods - though you can't ever count on the quiet lasting very long.