Same, same, but different...

Three weeks into our great Japanese adventure and the novelty still hasn't really worn off. Weirdly the big things, like the constant language hurdles we leap (flop over), are beginning to feel more normal. We muddle through and are learning more and more each day. It's the small things, the day-to-day differences, that remind me I'm on the other side of the world and it's not quite the same...

The loos

It won’t come as any surprise that I find these robotic delights utterly fascinating and yes, I have been taking photos of all the different control panels I’ve come across since I’ve been here. I’m wondering when someone’s going to ask my why I’m taking photos inside a public toilet cubicle but so far I seem to have got away with it… My favourite one to date is in the picture below. It was in the Tokyo National Museum and had all the usual spray/soft/bidet functions. However, this one also displays the time (just in case you need to check how long you’ve been being sprayed for) and has what looks like a volume control (I assume this is actually to vary the force with which you are being sprayed). It also has a shower function, which I was more than a little bit tempted to try out, but in the end sense got the better of me, plus the fact that Simon was waiting for me and I assumed he wouldn’t want to drag a soaked-in-loo-water girlfriend round the rest of the museum. 

I think I'm in love!

 

I was evidently not alone in being overwhelmed by the choices afforded by this particular model; on the back of the cubicle door there was a laminated instruction guide. Now everything’s clear.

No idea

The noise

I speak as someone who’s lived and worked in London for the last six years, and someone who absolutely loves big cities. Too long away from a city makes me feel like a fish out of water and I am highly suspicious of silence. But nothing could have prepared me for the constant, ear-bashing noise that surrounds you in Tokyo. It comes from everywhere. Every time you walk into a restaurant all the members of staff welcome you with yells of ‘irashaimasaaaaaaay!’ and when you leave, ‘arigato gozaimaaaaaaas!’ follows you back out into the street. Once in the street, it’s a lively mixture of cars and motorbikes roaring, trains whooshing, pachinko and slot machine amusement arcades jingling and bleeping, hundreds of people walking and talking… Each pedestrian crossing makes a noise too; some chirp like small birds to let you know it’s safe to cross while others play bingy-bongy tunes like the ring-tones on phones ten years ago. On the trains you get messages in Japanese and English about the line on which you’re travelling, what the next station is, which side the doors will open, and other helpful suggestions like ‘please make sure you’re holding onto something in case the train needs to stop suddenly’. Stations are particularly cool – the speakers on the platforms not only announce when the next train will be arriving, but when the train’s there they play catchy tunes to let you know you can embark. I’ve had the one from Yurakuchō stuck in my head since yesterday afternoon!

Groceries and kitchen things

Eggs are bright white and very beautiful. According to the internet these are laid by hens with white feathers and earlobes, as opposed to brown eggs, which are laid by hens with dark feathers and red earlobes. I have never noticed that hens have earlobes but next time I see a hen, I’m going to check it out. It is common practice in shops, if you don’t want a bag for your purchase, for the shop assistant to put a small sticker on it to show that it has been paid for. This applies whether it’s something big like a computer, or something small like a bottle of water. When we got these eggs home we saw that they too have stickers on them and wondered how many people steal individual eggs! Actually it’s not that at all – this is the equivalent of the information that in the UK is stamped on the egg’s shell. It’s just another one of those ‘almost the same but slightly different’ things that make even the minutiae of life here exciting.

Protected against egg-theft

Butter comes in all shapes and sizes but my favourite by far is the stuff I found in the supermarket on my first trip there. It comes in a plastic tube and is squirty. Endless fun to be had at breakfast.

The excitement is palpable

Our kitchen is equipped with a bizarre mix of Japanese and über-ex-pat 'cocktails at six' type objects.  We have cooking chopsticks, eating chopsticks, bamboo spatulas and a rice cooker; we also have heavy-bottomed whisky tumblers and a poncy little ice bucket that comes with tongs and a muddler. The fridge is a gargantuan American creation and we’d have to take out a mortgage to stock it fully. Its most useful function is the ice-maker (we do like to live up to the odd ex-pat stereotype and have a G&T every now and then, especially when Tanqueray comes in at around £12 per 70cl). The thing that intrigues me the most about the kitchen is the ‘stainless jumbox’. Its many symbols and time control dial afford me no clues as to its function and I’m only further confused by an internet search which produces several results that would solve my welly boot storage problems if I had them, but none that belong on the work surface in a kitchen.

Not got a clue

Women’s fashions

Japanese women are impeccably dressed. Whether they’re sporting a yukata, a full kimono or modern clothes you can guarantee they’re un-flustered by the heat, un-soaked by the rain and generally beautifully turned out. There are some slightly strange things about the fashions here though – it would appear that neither your skirt nor your shorts can ever be too short. It makes me feel very old fashioned but there have been some outfits (or lack thereof) that have turned both mine and Simon’s heads (for different reasons, I think!) Conversely though, no matter what may be acceptable on the lower half, the upper half remains conservatively covered at all times. Even when temperatures were soaring into the 30s when we arrived, there were few bare arms to be seen, and even fewer tops cut lower than the collarbones. Being a larger-chested lady, I tend to look a little like a barrel on legs if I wear anything that doesn’t have a v-neck or similar. So barrel on legs has been the fashion du jour for the last three weeks! Don’t worry though, despite some clothing-conservatism Tokyo still lives up to its reputation for being a hotspot for some remarkable creations. I have seen several young women dressed not dissimilarly to Lady Gaga just out for a walk; I’ve seen others that look like a Hello Kitty shop has vomited its wares all over them. On Sunday we went to the Tokyo Dome, where it would appear that the trend is to hang out with your friend, wearing identical outfits. And lots of girls wear glasses with no lenses in them…

Pets don’t miss out either – there are loads of grooming parlours for tiny dogs all over the city. And there are also lots of shops that sell all sorts of clothing and accessories for your yappy friend. I snapped an example while we were out on Saturday.

The ultimate fashion accessory?

Bowing

If in doubt, bow. Smiling and head nodding will suffice, but bowing is best. Here are my tips: when you go into a restaurant, bow. When you hand over money for anything, bow. When a car lets you cross a road instead of running you over, bow. When a builder waves you past a building site, bow. When a policeman blows his whistle at you, either to say you can cross the road now, or to say don’t cross the road now, bow. When you meet a friend, bow. When you say goodbye to your friend, bow. If you’re saying goodbye to multiple people, bow multiple times. When you’re in front of a Shintō shrine, bow twice, clap your hands twice, say your prayer, and bow again. Yes, if in doubt, bow.

Us!

The main distinguishing feature between us and most of the other people around, and I admit that it’s a whopper, is that we’re not Japanese. That may sound like an obvious, and rather strange thing to say but what I mean is that I don’t think we look or act particularly like tourists; we take public transport, we eat in local restaurants, we attempt to speak the language. I realise that none of this makes us locals, but as I said at the beginning, it’s all starting to feel a little more familiar. So it’s a source of interest, amusement and occasionally sadness to me that everywhere we go we get stared at and made to feel very, very different. Sometimes this actually takes the form of someone getting up to move away from the foreigner. Most of the time however, it’s bafflement at what on earth a gaijin could be doing on the tube, or in that particular backstreet restaurant. People have literally done a double take when they’ve got on a train, lost in their own thoughts, and have looked up to see me standing there. Generally they’ve realised that I’ve clocked this, and we’ve both had a little laugh about it. I totally caught out one old gent eyeing me suspiciously in Ueno Park and smiled at him, at which point he gave me a charming smile back and a deeply respectful bow!        

Just so you don't forget what we look like!

So that’s my not-so-brief summary of everything so far that’s causing amusement, interest, and reinforcing that we really are a very long way from home. It’s fascinating, enjoyable, weird, wonderful and brilliant!

Until the next time…

Rain then sun, then more sun, and more rain

Yokohama waterfront

On Friday night I was a super-cool, non-gaijin, Tokyo local. I met up with a friend of a friend who's been living in Japan on and off for over ten years. I'd asked him to take me to somewhere that your average tourist would never find so we arranged to meet at Ebisu Station at an appointed spot and go to a bar owned by a friend of his. It was only when I got there that I realised I had no idea what he looked like - the only thing I had to go on was a name and a facebook profile photo that's very, very small! I did know that he wasn't Japanese, but it turned out that there were rather a lot of us foreigners hanging around Ebisu Station at 9pm on a Friday evening. I was just about to start going up to random men and asking their names when a guy approached me asking if I was Abi. We had found each other. We quickly spotted his boyfriend too, and the three of us wound our way through the little streets round the station until we found the place we were looking for - a tiny bar on the fifth floor of a building. It could have been somebody's lounge and I would never have found it on my own. It's decked out with a motley assortment of furniture, small table lamps and dark, Persian-style carpets. Brilliant. I spent the next couple of hours picking the brains of my companions about anything and everything that sprang to mind. It was very interesting to have the perspective of both a Japanese person and a non-Japanese person on life in this country. And we drank many beers, which was excellent. While we were in the bar there was a torrential rainstorm outside. It stopped before we left though, and we emerged back into the street to be greeted by warm, steaming air and the mélange of lights, sounds and smells that is central Tokyo on a Friday night.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, without a trace of the typhoon that had been forewarned by the downpour the previous evening. Simon had been looking at the map of the city and decided he wanted to check out the feat of engineering that is the Rainbow Bridge so we pottered off into the humid hotness of the day, heading east towards the water. After walking for a while we started getting close to the bridge and tried to work out how to get up onto it and indeed, if this were possible at all. It starts with a huge loop that rises up into a triple-decker monster that spans the gap between the mainland and a small island that has been entirely reclaimed from the water in Tokyo Bay. It's really quite amazing. In the end we couldn't see how to get onto the bridge on foot, so caught the train across to Daiba Station. From the train it’s much easier to see how to get onto the bridge walkway so that’s something for another day. When we got to Daiba we were greeted by a huge shopping centre. Starving, we headed for the food court and, hidden round a corner away from the MacDonalds, we found a small Japanese restaurant that looked interesting. We decided to play Russian Roulette with the menu and went for two dishes written entirely in kanji so we had no idea what would turn up. Both were delicious: Simon got sashimi on a large bed of rice while I got fried chicken with lettuce and rice and an amazing sweet vinegar/soy sauce with loads of spring onions. After lunch we wandered along the promenade outside. There was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was around 33 degrees. We saw Tokyo’s own Statue of Liberty, some large anchors, and a very sweaty-looking beach volleyball tournament. The afternoon then took us onwards to Akihabara, which is known for its proliferation of electronics stores. It was heaving and you appear to be able to buy anything from transistors and parts of old desk fans to top-of-the-range computers and mobile phones. Threading our way through the mass of people, we carried on along the huge Chuo-Dori Avenue to Ueno Park. We cooled off in the shade outside a lovely café with ice-cream and iced coffee, listening to the relaxing sounds of ukulele music wafting from the speakers.

Sunday brought even hotter, even sunnier weather. It also brought a lovely lie-in – the jetlag appears finally to have worn off and we’re no longer waking up at 5am! We caught the train south to Yokohama. It’s only 30 minutes away and costs about £3, which is a complete bargain. Once there we headed straight for Chinatown to find some lunch. This area is amazing. It’s the biggest Chinatown in Japan, and is completely rammed with restaurants, shops and, on a beautiful hot Sunday, people. Hundreds and thousands of people. After lunch and a spot of shopping we waded through the people-sea to the waterfront and spent the rest of the afternoon strolling along, taking in the sights and sounds. Yokohama was generally pretty busy as Monday was a public holiday so people were making the most of the long weekend. In town that day were a huge punk rock gig, a triathlon along the waterfront, a street performance festival and a beer festival. And it was the grand opening weekend of the Cup Noodle Museum. Oh yes, Cup Noodle has been going for 40 years this year and hordes of people were lining up to get their free sample, and to buy their hermetically sealed cup-noodle-cup-in-a-bag. Some of you lucky people may receive one of these for Christmas…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that wherever you are in the world, when there is a public holiday on a Monday, it will rain. I had been looking forward to catching some rays on another blazing hot day but this was not to be the case. The morning started sunnily enough, but as the day wore on it became more and more overcast and muggy. Simon had to work so I went to meet him for lunch near his office in Tsurumi. By this time you could feel the moisture in the air sitting on your skin: leaving an air conditioned apartment in this weather is like walking into a warm, wet blanket. It’s wonderful for the complexion! Lunch was excellent – delicious tempura, rice and miso soup.

Monday evening brought with it rain and it’s been drizzling on and off all day today. Coming from the UK, this is more like the weather I’m used to! But it’s all set to be sunny at the weekend. It’s another long one, although this time the holiday is on Friday so fingers crossed universal truths do not also apply under these circumstances.

Until the next time…

The sky's the limit

View from the top of the Roppongi Hills Sky Tower

I can't believe we've been here for over a week now. It feels like five minutes and forever all at the same time! I hope I'm starting to get my head around the very basics of the language (I can now order two beers and say thank you so that's that pretty much sorted) and I've been looking into intensive Japanese courses in order to work on all the other important stuff.


So since the last time I wrote I've been exploring Tokyo as seen from the observatories of very tall buildings. It's really quite amazing. From ground level I haven't felt that it's a particularly densely built up place. Certainly no more so than parts of London, despite its reputation for being so crammed together. But get a few floors up and it's a totally different story. All the buildings jostle for space, sitting on top of each other like row upon row of wonky teeth. There are brand new glass and steel-clad giants poking out here and there, surrounded by hundreds of smaller, mainly white or cream towers and shopping centres built in the 1980s, and in the gaps (where there are any gaps) there are tiny wooden structures. Every so often a huge, aerial expressway cuts through the sprawl, creating a gap through which you can see...more buildings. And it goes on and on and on. As far as the mountains in one direction, and the sea in the other. 


The first observatory I went up to was the Sky Tower in the Roppongi Hills complex on Sunday afternoon. Simon and I had been drinking for a while with some of his colleagues and decided (a little bit squiffy) to go up to the 52nd floor of the tower. The view was something else. It was getting dark so all the lights were starting to come on. All the tall buildings have red lights that flash very slowly so that planes can avoid them and it's a surreal experience looking down on these pulsating red dots from so high up - like looking into a very deep sea with strange jellyfish swimming around underneath you. We stayed up there for a long time, trying to make everything out. Before the daylight went completely we could even see Mount Fuji in the distance. Stunning. The photo I've included with this post doesn't do justice to the magnificence of the view but it goes some way towards showing the density of the city.


A couple of days later, I discovered that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (the place where I went to the tourist information office last week) also affords the opportunity of an aerial view of the city. This time not one, but two observatories - one in the north tower and one in the south. These are both on the 45th floor but the view is no less stupendous than from the 52nd floor of the Sky Tower. As I got to the top of the north tower, the sun was pouring through the huge windows and the view was literally breathtaking. It was a real 'I can't believe I live in this amazing place', lump in the throat, eyes welling moment. This reaction provoked some very strange looks from the group of Japanese tourists with whom I had shared the lift... 


The next 'sky' place I went to was somewhat different. This time it wasn't a big tall building, but a small converted bathhouse called Scai The Bathhouse (see what I did there...sky...scai...) I've been looking up cool free things to do in Tokyo and (thank you Time Out, you're legendary) discovered Scai The Bathhouse, which is a contemporary art gallery in Yanaka. To get there I had to walk through a large cemetery, Yanaka Reien. It appears that family members are often buried together so some of the plots are really quite big, and very intricately decorated. The whole place was also beautifully cared for and the pervading sense was one of great peace rather than eeriness. On reaching the far side of the cemetery I found myself on a small and winding street , which I followed round a couple of corners until I spotted the gallery. It's an unassuming white, wooden building with the original water tank still at the front. Inside, it's been stripped out and painted in light colours, to provide a calm, airy space in which to put on small contemporary art exhibitions. The one I saw is called Naoki Ishikawa 8848 and it's a photographic diary of the artist's (Naoki Ishikawa) ascent of Mount Everest. It was wonderful. I have a feeling that Scai The Bathhouse will become a regular haunt of mine over the next year.


The final 'sky' place I've been to is the best, and that's because it's potentially our new home. I'm not going to say too much about it here for fear of jinxing the ongoing contractual negotiations. Suffice to say it's on the 32nd floor of a very beautiful and shiny building in the centre of town, and affords the dweller superb views of the Imperial Palace gardens, the Tokyo Tower, and much more of the general wonderfulness that is this great city. More details to follow soon I hope!


Until the next time...

Lost and found...

My lifesaver!

And promptly lost once more...and found...but no doubt lost again soon.

My top tip for anyone coming to Tokyo is to buy a decent map before you leave home. I've no idea what planet I was on before we left (short-notice planet I think) but this is not one of the items I put in my three suitcases and two carry-on bags. I'm not a complete idiot...I do have with me the Japan Rough Guide. This is, however, about 1.5 inches thick and weighs a good half kilo so really isn't what you want to be lugging around in 30 degree heat and 90% humidity.

Readers of my previous post will perhaps remember I mentioned a long walk almost to Shibuya, on which my quest was not aided by the rubbishness of the map I was using. It's very prettily done, it's just not an accurate representation of where the streets actually are. To be fair, it's not entirely the map's fault - the fact that most of the streets in Tokyo, with the exception of the really big ones (I mean really big - think four or six lane A road running through the middle of a city, sometimes suspended several metres overhead), aren't named, doesn't really help matters.

In the light of Wednesday's adventures, yesterday I decided to do some online research into the location of a really big bookshop, hoping that there I might be able to purchase a good street map of the city. I found one in Shinjuku, wrote down directions, circled where I thought it might be on the map that isn't a map, and trotted off to Shinagawa station to buy my Suica card, which I can use on all trains, metros and buses in the city and in a large area around it too. Very convenient. Simon had warned me that there were many machines in the station and only one specific kind that actually sells new cards as opposed to topping up existing ones, or selling paper tickets. Accordingly, I found a spot from which I could observe all the machines, decided I knew which one to go for, marched up (my 'I am not a tourist' walk is getting quite good already. Shame I don't have the knowledge to back it up), and realised pretty quickly it was the wrong machine. I walked to the other side of the concourse, tried another machine, but this too was wrong. So I walked back to near the first machine (think human pinball in very busy station full of commuters) and eventually spotted the one I wanted. Equipped with my card, I caught the Yamanote line to Shinjuku and felt very proud of my achievement.

Then I emerged at Shinjuku and was immediately lost. No street names again, and a combination of small back streets and towering skyscrapers and pounding, boiling sunshine. Very exciting. But where was the bookshop? It was then that I realised the circular nature of my problem: I needed a bookshop to find a decent map but...I needed a decent map to find the bookshop. So I picked a street and started walking down it. I knew from the beginning it wasn't the right direction, but it's all a learning experience! At one point I did stop to consult the map that isn't a map (now in tatters in my handbag) and a very kind lady asked whether I needed any help. She eventually phoned a friend to find out where this elusive bookshop was, and set me back on the right path. It was, apparently, round the other side of the station. It may indeed be there, but after another 45 minutes of looking I couldn't find it, so cut my losses and went for lunch.

On the way home I had a brainwave: Tokyo must have a tourist information bureau. And it only took me three days to think of this! So I looked it up online and found out that the main office is...in Shinjuku, about five minutes from where I had been that morning. I laughed and then had a large gin and tonic.

I returned to Shinjuku today to find the Toyko Metropolitan Government Building, in which is situated the tourist information office. It's really well signposted from the station if you know that's what you're looking for, and even has an underpass leading all the way to it. The underpass, by the way, looks like it could be part of the set of Bladerunner, so it was fantastic to see a group of elderly ladies pottering along it in full traditional dress. I love the incongruities of this city. Anyway, the tourist information office was very easy to find and the helpful staff gave me a pile of maps and information leaflets. On the way back to the station I passed a big bookshop (not, incidentally, the one I was looking for yesterday!) and I thought I would just pop in to have a look. I was greeted by a section called 'About Japan' and, right in front of me was the golden fleece itself - a highly detailed Tokyo Street Atlas. Needless to say I bought one. In fact I bought two - one for each of us. I think they will prove to be the most valuable items we possess over the next year.

I don't for a second think that I will never get lost in Tokyo again, but hopefully with the aid of my trusty street atlas, when I do get lost I might be able to find myself a little more quickly in future.

Until the next time...

I am gaijin!

The control panel next to one of the loos in our apartment

I've never written a blog before so this is all rather exciting. It's now Thursday 8th September at 10am Japan-time and it's my second full day in this marvelous and strange country. Here's how it all began...


A few weeks ago I got a text message from Simon early one morning, which read "If I got sent to Japan for a year, could you come with me?" Didn't have to think too hard about the answer. I've been fascinated by Japan for many years now and have even been trying to teach myself the language (thus far with limited success, but there's nothing like a year's total immersion to speed up the learning process...). It was a dream come true to be offered the opportunity to live here and of course we both jumped at the chance. There followed several weeks of prevarication by Simon's company over various administrative points, meaning that our flights weren't actually booked until Thursday 1st September to fly out on Monday 5th...our challenge (which we chose to accept) was to pack up the flat and say goodbye to everyone, ready to move to the other side of the world, in 4 days. We did it, and arrived here bleary-eyed at 9.30 on Tuesday morning.

The fun really started after passing through immigration when I stopped to go to the loo. I was very excited to see my cubicle of choice was equipped with one of Japan's legendary robotic toilets so I started to press buttons on the control panel. Even though I had read about the many functions of these fascinating appliances, there's nothing quite like the actual experience of an impromptu colonic irrigation while sitting on the loo. I had also managed to get the control panel to conjure up electronic flushing noises, just in case I was doing something I didn't want anyone else to hear. I wasn't, unless you count trying to stifle a violent fit of the giggles. So violent in fact that I that I was unable to find the stop button for the squirter. A vicious circle (ring?!) indeed. Of course I couldn't just get off the loo because I had horrible images of the water jet hitting the ceiling, so just had to writhe around there for a while until I eventually managed to turn it off. I emerged somewhat red and breathless. Imagine therefore my delight when we got to our apartment and I discovered that our loos here also have many settings for squirting and rinsing, front and back directionality, powerful deodoriser, as well as an oscillating option and heated seats. The mind boggles, and exciting possibilities abound!

Our apartment is fantastic. It's on the main road in Shinagawa, about 5 minutes' walk from the station, from which it appears you can get a train to most of Japan. For some reason we've been put in a giant and beautiful palace. Sadly it's only temporary while Simon's company waits for someone very much more important to come out here. I'm going to be flat-hunting very soon to find us something a bit less pricey so we'll probably end up further away from Tokyo centre and nearer Yokohama. A harbour view would be nice... In the meantime, I think I've managed to use the space here rather well - there's a suitcase of mine in pretty much every room!

The rest of day one was taken up with finding lunch, and then a supermarket for essentials such as beer, coffee and gyoza. By the time 5pm came around we couldn't stay awake any longer so gave in to the jetlag and turned in. Of course this meant wide-awakeness at 2am so we had dinner and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Yesterday was my first proper day of ex-pat WAGgery. And it was fun. In the morning I mastered the supermarket where I bought, among other things, poccy chocolate, poccari sweat, giant tiger prawns, sake, and squirty butter from a tube! Very successful. Super-tasty ramen in a station-side restaurant for lunch, and then I set off to walk to Shibuya and have an explore in the afternoon. I'm not sure I'd really taken in the fact that Shibuya is about 6km from Shinagawa and, once I'd walked there (or thereabouts), I would have to walk back again. Added to this, the map I was using turned out to be less of a map and more of a very rough approximation of where the streets may or (as it turned out) may not be. And north on my map was in fact actually east in real life. I got somewhere near Shibuya...at least there were road signs for Shibuya at the point where I decided to turn around and come home again. In my 3.5 hour round trip I saw some amazing things - lots of lovely looking bars and restaurants, some scaffolding decorated with lanterns, a dog pushchair housing a very large bulldog who looked not at all in need of the mobility assistance he was being afforded. My favourite thing of the day was the t-shirt sported by an elderly gentleman outside a grocery shop that announced to the world "It's a kitten hittin' day". I haven't seen any cats since I've been here.

I love this country. It's hot, sunny, humid, smells wonderful, and is full of friendly people. My faltering attempts to speak Japanese have been greeted with interest, amusement, and general receptiveness. I think I've managed to navigate the etiquette chasms in an orderly fashion, so far at least. I've done a lot of smiling, nodding and bowing (all of which are also greeted with interest, amusement and general receptiveness).

Now it's time to get out in the sunshine and equip myself with the Tokyo equivalent of an oyster card. Once I have card, I will travel. Frequently and far.

Until the next time.....