Travelling: Tokyo, Shinkansen, Capsule Hotel

Japan has a lot of national holidays - weeks where the Monday becomes a holiday, effectively giving you a three day weekend - ideal occasions for travelling. As such, I told myself I would go somewhere and travel around Japan on each one of these long weekends, so long as I didn't have so much work I couldn't forestall it till later. This holiday was actually meant to be "Culture Day", so I suppose going to the nation's capital was a suitable way of spending the time.

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.

Shinjuku
Full 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.

Shibuya
Following 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.

Top Signs You're Living In Japan

Sorry for the break in communications - things have been busy here as lessons have now all started and work is starting to trickle in. To mark the "You've Survived A Month!" anniversary I thought I could do some sort of summary of life in Japan, mentioning the main points of difference that have struck me the hardest after staying a month here.


Sun up
The sun rises incredibly early here. On the first few mornings when I had to be up for 8am, opening my eyes to blazing sunshine streaming through the curtains had me leaping out of bed for fear of having slept in till midday, only to find my alarm hadn't yet gone off. Evening comes soon too - the sun starts setting around 5pm-ish.

Cables anyone?
I don't know if it's because they'd be easier to repair after an earthquake or maybe it's because digging up the road might be too expensive, but there are staggering amounts of cables run throughout the streets around here. This is only in the outskirts though - going to the city centre there are almost none at all.

Please take care!
There's a lot of things in Japan that simply talk at you - the most strange are ambulances, large trucks and escalators, which as far as I can make out simply repeat things along the lines of "This is an escalator. Please take care when stepping on". When vehicles start to talk at you it's hard to stop thinking of political rallies. This is especially "fun" because living very close to a hospital hearing ambulances loudly annouce their arrival in the early hours grates a bit.

Birds in Traffic Lights
Traffic lights will either beep at you when they go green, or they also sometimes chirp at you. When the little chirping speaker is high up on a pole somewhere, it's hard to distinguish it from passing birds and you suddenly feel very sorry for any blind people trying to cross the road.

Milk
There is a huge variety of milk in the supermarkets. So, being the adventurous sort I've been working my way through them all - so far I've had milkish milk, thinner milkish milk, and milk that tastes like it's had cereal floating in it for a while (slightly sugary).

Good Ideas
Japan seems to be full of these, at least, at face value. For example, the trains stop exactly at marked places, meaning you know where you'll be getting on. Shops have models of the food you'll be ordering so you know what you'll be getting. There are umbrella stands everywhere where you can leave your soaked umbrella outside without someone stealing it. I even found an open book exchange in the subway - simply put down and pick up books as you read through them on your way somewhere. Convenience stores have warm food, microwaves and boiling water available for you to feed yourself well on the go. At supermarkets you pay for your shopping, then take it yourself to a bagging area and bag it up yourself. All-you-can-eat/drink restaurants :) Mobile phones.

Bad Ideas
ATMs have opening hours. The subway stops at midnight, leaving you stranded for the night unless you want to pay an expensive taxi home. Bread and cereal come in small packets, meaning you go through them faster than Pringles. Cheese and sausages are pretty much unobtainable, as are(/were, ish) bananas since some magazine proposed an "Exclusive Banana Diet" which quiet caught the public imagintion at the time and promoted hysterical bulk buying of the things.

Enormous Insects
Enough said really. The worst thing is the noise - because they're all so staggeringly huge the buzz is about two octaves lower, giving them a much more ominous feeling. I was almost hit by a butterfly about the size of a bat the other day - big, black and flapping in your face certainly makes you jump.

Bins
There are a lot of these (when you find them - public bins are much more a rariety in Japan). This is because of Japan's harsh recycling program, through which you must divide your rubbish first into Plastic, Paper, PET, Aluminium, Glass, TetraPak and Paper Cartons, then sort the remainder into Burnable and Non-burnable. Each has its own way of being prepared, for example with PET you must remove the label and cap (which go to plastic) then wash it out and crush it. It's actually very interesting to see just how much of what I throw out is plastic.

Gaijin
Being foreign in Japan is certainly an experience. A quote I heard in my second week pretty much summarises it: "But I don't want to be a minority!" It's not so much the fact that you're different, more that Japanese people (in general) think that they 'should' treat you differently, leading to some odd situations. You don't know what to do/how to behave because it's all new, and they don't know what to do differently because you're foreign and treating you normally is discounted for some reason. This isn't helped when you don't understand what they're saying (shop attendants in Japan speak in honorific language, or Keigo, which is the equivalent of a very wordy roundabout Jeeves style of English). It's taken me up to this point to work out when the till people are asking if I want a bag or not. This will almost certainly improve, but it's certainly a defining characteristic of life here initially.


More later...

Nagoya Festival

This last weekend happened to not only be a long one (Monday was a national holiday) but also hosted Nagoya's Annual City Festival, an opportunity to put up dozens of food stalls, erect the occasional stage and to put on quite a show through a city-wide parade. Being an annual event (although not very famous as I was told by my Japanese friends) and never having been to a Japanese festival before I was keen to attend and see what sort of things might be on offer.

Arriving at the opening, I was surprised that even though Nagoya was a big and bustling city there weren't crowds and crowds of people. The festival was a two-day 8-hours/day affair, so perhaps more people attended the second day, but I had imagined it would be a lot busier. Nevertheless, it was certainly more bustly and a noticable increase in police and "traffic-light keepers" when I arrived at the city centre and found the festival spread out around the base of the TV Tower.

Browsing around the stalls, and being close enough to lunchtime, I picked up some takoyaki (balls of cooked batter with octopus and other fillings) and perched myself in the greener bit of the Sakae to eat. Compared to the takoyaki I'd eaten in the UK, these were certainly more undercooked and gooey, but I'm not dead yet so it must have been ok.

There were two main stages - one that hosted various entertainers and band acts, and the other that was similar but had a slightly more traditional bend, hosting also traditional costumes and martial art demonstrations. These were all fun to watch, though the large majority of the language-based entertainment passed me by.

Next of course was the parade, the highlight of the festival. For this the streets were closed off, and the rush of small children and grandmas was a mini stampede to try and get a good position in the crowd. Being tall is a definite plus in these situations, however a definite disadvantage is that most of my pictures feature someone's hair.

With all of these pictures and descriptions, if I have missed something or have made a mistake and you know better, please let me know ;) The commentary was from a far away loudspeaker and was vaguely incomprehensible.

First up was Mr Toyota himself, presumably the sponsor, with either daughters, escorts or competition winners in the boot.


Plenty of marching bands and dancers in between various bits, playing various bits and bobs of music to try and keep the crowd happy. Interestingly a few were approached by a Festival Organiser-looking person and told presumably to take a hike, cutting short whatever symphony they had going and shooing them away for the next lot.

It wouldn't be a festival without floats, and there were plenty to choose from here, many holding celebrities such as the Koala here (mascot of the local baseball team) or some giant duck of sorts (???).

Towards the end there were plenty of medieval reenactment teams, some going as far as setting fire to the street and charging at each other with sharp things. Nothing like traditional slaughter in the name of a Festival.

At the end, before heading home, there was enough time to watch the Tossing of the Heavy Thing, this year's entry being big, shoulder-mounted and golden, and this year's team is Team Blue.

More soon!

PS. If anyone anywhere could tell me the significance or indeed history of these two, it would be much appreciated. The first is a bird-like creature who proceeded to touch all the kids in the audience with its feather fan thing, while the other seems like a sacred dog (of Nagoya?). Any and all suggestions welcome.

PPS. There was another result of the festival ^_^ One has already popped its clogs, but the others are living happily on in a murky plastic 100 yen breadbin.

The Room

Just some more pictures to show you what the room is like. It's worked out pretty well so far, there's enough space for everything, even though I do tend to get home and throw things wherever there's space then go out again. The rice cooker is a hand-me-down from an old student, which came to me in a slight state of neglect. I decided to clean it, which filled it with enough water and elbow grease to break it somehow. Stripping it, laying it out to dry on the balcony and then reassembling it seemed to have done the trick and now I can have rice in 30 minutes.

The balcony is only small but a good area for things (like washing in this case). I'm hoping to get some plants and things for it or maybe the room but that depends on the winter.

The bed I can actually fit into, and there's cupboards underneath it as well. The red pillow and the bowl are also hand-me-downs, while little thing next to my bag is the magical all-powerful mobile phone, which I'll probably write about later.

Looking towards the door, you can see the cupboards and some shoes, nothing particularly special. Hope to get some sort of posters or something just to spice the walls up a bit eventually.

The last picture is of the little bathroom-ette. The bath is surprisingly deep, it sinks into the floor quite a bit so feels pretty good. The little white box on the wall is a thermometer of sorts which allows precise control of the hot water - 36 for a shower and 40 for a bath suits me fine.

More later...

First Thoughts

Having never been to Japan before, it was hard to work out what to expect. There were many stories and sharing of experiences, but because no two experiences are alike I was very keen to keep an open mind and go out and make my own adventure through living in an entirely different country and attending one of its universities. As such I found myself at Nagoya, one of Japan's major cities and a hub of transportation and industry. Most people I asked before coming told me that it was very nice but nothing exciting, so I was curious as to how far this opinion could stretch after I'd actually lived there. It's been a week - a hectic, manic week of rushing around with forms, fees and general franticness - but I've survived a week. Only 46 more to go then.

So, for a while I'll be posting some descriptions/observations/general things worth noting:

The Room
My room is on the 6th floor of one of Nagoya University's residences, the Ohmeikan (名古屋大学国際嚶鳴館 for all you kanji lovers). It's an ensuite with a bath/shower combo whatsit, with a balcony with laundry line, a large desk, a bed I can fit in, and a spacious wardrobe. The bed deserves special mention as it came fit with a Japanese-style pillow, which is essentially a small bean-bag. At first I scoffed at it, but it's actually really comfortable.
The room shares a smallish kitchen (couple of hobs, fridge/freezer, sinks, microwave, no oven) with around 16 people on the same floor, which is okay, except mostly things don't get cleaned. Every Wednesday at 10pm we have the Block Meeting, where so far (with my limited language) the other students babble for a bit then we clean up a bit of kitchen, so it's slowly getting back to some reasonable state. There are two other foreign students on the floor, so there's always someone to shrug at when things fly a bit too far over my head.
In total there are around 20 foreign students living here, so it's always easy to get together a group of people to head out and explore the city.

The University

Nagoya University is divided over three campuses, the main one being a short 10-minute walk from the Ohmeikan. I've yet to explore the majority, but so far within the campus I've discovered a Post Office, a subway station, various cafeterias, the occasional shop, and a Student Co-op. The building I'll be spending most of my time in will be the Education Centre for International Students (留学生センター) which has classrooms, a free computer room and a lobby for sitting around and chatting to anyone who happens to drop by. There's also a gym and a library, but library orientation isn't for a while yet.
In terms of study program, I'm taking part in the NUPACE (Nagoya University Program for ACadamic Exchange), with around 50 other students. According to Dr. Wikipedia, it's a fairly prestigious university, so it looks like I'm going to be worked hard. Good job lessons haven't really started yet - when they do I have to be up every morning to attend language classes from 8:45am to 12.

The Food
Ohmeikan is self-catered, but still it is fairly cheap to eat out if you're not so sure what the weird tentacle things in the supermarket are. There are literally loads of restaurants in Nagoya, and they are mostly all a very good deal, with a main meal costing around 800 Yen, or £4. For that you'd likely get a bowl of rice, some miso soup, as much green tea and water as you can manage, and whatever you ordered. Some dishes ("don" or　丼) are already served with rice. Nagoya is famous for its thick, dark miso, and it's therefore served with pretty much everything, so it's lucky its quite tasty. There're many variations with the miso, and as such there's always plenty of choice of Japanese food, espcially at lunchtime at one of the many cafeterias on campus. There are plenty of foreign style restaurants as well if that's not really your thing though, although these might be more expensive.
In terms of cooking for myself, the supermarkets of course stock different foods, so not everything is available/as cheap. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up one or two useful recipes as I go through the year, if not there isn't a huge difference in overall cost between eating out all the time and actually buying ingredients. There is news in the pipeline of some of the foreign students cooking together at some point, so I'll try and bring something tally-ho spit-spot British to the table. Any suggestions welcome...

More in a bit!