Shinkansen
First though, to get there. There were three main options:
- Nightbuses run from Nagoya every evening to Tokyo, dropping you off tired and grouchy (so I've heard) at a bus depot in the early hours of the morning. This is the cheapest option, and would have given me the most time in Tokyo, but I wasn't in a hurry and didn't fancy the overnight bit.
- JR (Japanese Rail) operate easy enough trains to Tokyo, which are reasonably priced, and would get you there in maybe a few hours. But of course...
- I chose the Shinkansen, or Bullet Train. The tickets were expensive, 24,000 yen for a return (just over £120), but it's the fastest way of getting to and from any point in Japan, and I wanted to experience the fastest train on earth for myself at least once. When buying the tickets I discovered that foreign students, not being the "real" flavour of students, can't get student discounts. Hm. There was also the strange feeling looking at the train schedules that, actually, this time, there would be no scope for lateness - the trains would turn up at exactly the times shown, which, the following morning, unsuprisingly, it did.
On the train itself it doesn't actually feel that fast - it's very smooth, very comfortable and that's about it - you arrive at your destination a very short while (an hour and a half) later, no questions or complications. Of course, on the route I was taking was the famous view of Japan: the shinkansen in front of Mount Fuji surrounded by fields. However, being on the train I only managed to get the Mount Fuji bit, which was always nice to see I guess. From arriving in Tokyo station I had to find my way to Shinjuku to meet up with Woody who'd show me around for the day, and that was made more interesting by how train maps' lines aren't labelled. Stations fine, line names not. You have an interesting experience matching the shades of colour to the signposts in the ceiling to find your way, though I cheated and asked at the station office.
ShinjukuFull of tall buildings, loud signposts, and big neon everything - a very Tokyo place to come to first in all accounts. Met up with Woody, and we had some Okonomiyaki (cabbage and whatever, cooked on a hot top) for lunch, although I failed marvellously at cooking the runnier version, Monjayaki, which instead decided to see how much of the table it could spread to while I wasn't paying attention.
Wondering around the area between all the enormous skyscrapers, we came across the Government Towers, two towers with free viewing decks on the 42nd floors. From up there you get a very good idea of just how big the whole place is.
For the evening's entertainment, we met up in Shinjuku for a trip to an Izakaya and Bar. Awesome to see everyone again - it's hard to realise we're all still on the same course somewhere. Apart from much drinking and swapping of adventures, it was back to the station before the last train.
Akihabara
The next day I ended up looking around here, dumping bags into a railway locker for the day. It's a great place... if you're looking to buy something. Otherwise, it's good for a couple of hours browsing. However, any more than that and you're likely to start going a bit mad - the whole !!we L0Ve An!mE1!! movement is very much in your face, and you end up thinking about bombing the place. But not before buying some sort of technological gizmo or other in one of the countless twenty-storey warehouses of the things.
From here I walked to Ueno, upon which was born the theory of "train station accumulation", detailed in the "Tokyo vs Nagoya" bit below. The reason being was that there's actually very little between the stations, or at least seemingly. There was a fun market like place where I sussed out some "magical" street magicians selling hopping cardboard men, and then I found myself at..
Ueno..home of the unescapable park. Goodness knows how I did that - I got in easy enough, but to get out I had to walk down the side of a road and into a train station. True gaijin style.
Anyway, Ueno Park was great. Full of small temples, statues of this and the other, street performers, people and boys and girls on their 3/5/7 kimono visits. There was an old man playing a sombre melody with a reed sitting by one of the temples - I wanted to record him, but he managed to escape before I could try. It was also here that I had a very Japanese moment. I passed a Mum&Dad-esque couple taking turns at taking pictures of their little girl wearing a beautiful kimono. Were I in England, I wouldn't have hestiated in offering to take pictures of them all together, but some odd sense of intrusion kept me from bringing myself to ask. I didn't know these people, I told myself, and I wasn't entirely comfortable with the feeling that they were no concern of mine, but that's how Japan works. Their moment was working, and while it could be improved, it could also be dashed to pieces by a clumsy gaijin offering to take pictures for them. Doing nothing was the best way of leaving things "unrippled" as it were.
Sensoji
A short train ride away, in a place called Asakusa, you can find a temple called Sensoji. A large complex, very popular with tourists and Japanese people alike, with it's very distinctive huge red latern, is also the oldest temple in Tokyo. Not much to say here really, though the enormous shopping district in the street running up to the temple was very interesting, especially considering that people have been doing exactly what I did at Sensoji for centuries, perhaps even stopping at the same shops.
When I left, I came across a shop with a large scale version of the old English game Bagatelle (you fire marbles up and past pins to land in holes worth points) and had a chat with the owner, who was friendly enough for me to have a go. She says it is the origin of the Japanese phenomenon Pachinko, although there is only hers and another shop in Osaka left. Needless to say, I didn't win anything.
ShibuyaFollowing dusk, the Sheffielders met up at Shibuya again, where I've never seen so many people crossing the same road at the same time before; almost mesmerising. This was followed by a curry house where you could buy "extra hot" and "extra spice" separately. Following this, a trip to Karaoke, with a mix of feeling sorry for the bartenders for keeping them busy and feeling sorry for the company for having to put up with our singing. Karaoke with (nearly) all English peeps though was most enlightening - all the good songs came out of course, and everyone could join in.
The Capsule Hotel
Here's a bit without pictures - it didn't seem very polite to go around taking them.
I decided the best bet for staying overnight in Tokyo would be to find either a DVD-Cabin (rent a seat overnight with a film or two) or to find one of the magical and mystical "Capsule Hotels", where you're given a comfortable coffin for the night. I chose the latter, a) because I wanted a proper bed and b) because then you can tell everyone about it later.
So, I found myself a 4000-yen Capsule Hotel and checked in by removing my shoes, locking them in a small compartment and handing the key into Reception. They ask me to fill out a small form, whereupon I'm given another key and directed upstairs, where my small cupboard is waiting for me with a dressing gown (woefully short but never mind), towels, toothpaste and toothbrush and a shaving kit. You get changed into your dressing gown (ok, so it wasn't THAT short) and then go off in search of your cabin. According to my brochure, my cabin was 1mx1mx2m, though for some reason I was still a couple of inches off fitting into it. Ah well. If you don't feel like sleeping, you can wonder downstairs to use the internet, have a shower, use the beer vending machines or even stay in your capsule and watch TV. In all honestly I thought it was a brilliant experience, and had I not had a rubbish night due to a small head cold it would have been ideal. Turfed out at 10am, then wondered to the nearest bit of civilisation, Akihabara.
The website to see where I stayed is http://www.capsuleinn.com/index.html
Akihabara (again)
Waited for the others to turn up for an hour or so - like I said before, probably a bad decision, since now I feel like avoiding it for the foreseeable future lest I start thinking dark thoughts again. Anyway, we found a okonomiyaki restaurant, had something to eat, then went to a "Maid Cafe". I found the appeal of this hard to grasp - it's a cafe, where all the staff are dressed as maids, and who serve you your order with a small side-order of supposedly cute haplessness. I didn't really have time to order anything, since I had to get back to Tokyo Station and catch the Shinkansen back to Nagoya, but I wasn't sold on the cafe. I guess I'd have to give it another fairer chance before I condemn it to the murky depths of Akihabara, as hereby it shall be known (like 'being sent to Coventry' I suppose, only much worse).
Shinkansen Home
Slept. How Japanese. It was all dark anyway and since the train didn't really move a lot save forwards it was very easy. Oddly I woke up at the right time - still don't know how I managed that.
So...
Tokyo vs Nagoya
While in Tokyo, I was always drawn by the bright colours, narrow, often pedestrianised streets, and the large amount of people everywhere. Nagoya is meant to be the most "developed" city in Japan, but its much more obtuse: the streets all seem to be four lane roads with wide pavements next to tall faceless company department stores, making the city seem much much bigger than Tokyo, regardless of actual land-mass occupied. To that end as well, it is much easier to think of Tokyo as a collection of train stations, each with a mini-city spread out around it. Nagoya is just one, enormous, spread out mass of concrete, without even half the interesting places to go and keep your attention away from the spready-outness.
That said, I still wouldn't want to live there. The costs are ridiculous - student rent is five times Nagoya's, along with higher food prices and the general cost of things. Also, I heard that in the 5 odd weeks of Woody's commuting to and from University by train, it had been stopped because of train-jumping suicides no less than 4 times already. A lovely way to start (or even at least for one person, end) the day, I just wouldn't want the same degree of desensitisation. Tokyo has its plus sides of course. If there's nothing going on in your particular neck of the woods it's very easy just to hop on a train and find something else. There are a lot more foreigners around, if you see that as good or bad. There is a place for everything and anything you might want to do, and so long as you can put up with a city sprawling on all sides and half your life spent on trains then Tokyo will give you no problems.
Will I go back? Of course, perhaps in the Spring. And hopefully I'll meet up with all the peeps again for some more Karaoke and general Pub-going.
No comments:
Post a Comment