My MTM moment

The Narita Express train from the airport to Tokyo station is a really nice train. Really nice. Nicer than a lot of planes I’ve flown long distances on. There were even cleaners cleaning it before they let anyone on. Admittedly it was at a terminal station but I don t think that I ve ever actually seen anyone cleaning a public train before.

I’m beginning to really like Japan.

I had bought my ticket for Tokyo station and as part of a deal had gotten a stored value card that I could use on the metro line once I hit downtown as part of a discounted package. I like these stored value cards because if you don’t know the money or the appropriate fare it makes it much easier to simply be able to swipe the card when you get on and off a train and not have to worry. Anything that makes life easier is good for me.

Ticket in hand I got onto the proper carriage and found my reserved seat. Like I said, better than some planes. The seat had masses of legroom, a tray table, power for my laptop and wifi, had I bothered to bring the laptop. The seat even reclined to such a degree I thought for a second that I was going to somersault backwards out of it when I first started playing with the buttons.

The trip itself was less exciting than playing with the seat.

Basically the same route as the day before and very much the same view. The train only stopped at a couple of stations but you could have set your watch by them. Even the drink trolley came past at perfectly regular intervals.

Arriving at Tokyo station I was determined not to have a repeat of the previous day. I spent a little time wandering casually around and making sure that I had all of the major landmarks in the station memorised so that I could find my way back later that evening. I even went to the bother of getting my return ticket from one of the many automatic ticket machines. I had read before I got here that travelling in Japan could be confusing, the trains especially so, but I really didn t have any problems that couldn’t have been solved by turning up on time. The machines all had an  English  button and easy to follow steps and even the mass of coloured lines on the subway map started to make sense once I spent a little time studying them.

I had already had a look at a Tokyo map while I was on the train and had an idea that a good place to start would be the Imperial Palace since it was virtually next door to the station. A little orienting of the map once I figured out which exit I was at and I set off. That s when I began to worry.

I knew that it was New Years Eve but I had hoped that there would still be life in the city. The impression I have always had of Tokyo is of crowds. Lots and lots of people all bustling their way somewhere important in one of the biggest cities in the world. That clich d shot in so many movies and TV shows of masses of people crossing an intersection under huge towering buildings with huge neon signs and TV screens is the image I wanted. I wanted to cross that intersection, standing out above the rest of the crowd, turning a slow pirouette in the middle and taking photos. Unfortunately I was virtually the only person on the street as I stepped out of the train station.

There were no people and even fewer cars. Now I was worried. It was a long way to come just to stare into closed shops while dodging the tumble weeds in the streets.

A little walking and I found a small mall on the ground floor of what looked like an office building that had an open coffee shop and chemists. The coffees were prohibitively expensive but at least there were people sitting and drinking so the threat of zombies seemed to be only in my mind.

I did wander into the chemist in search of some odour eaters though. I have been living in the same pair of shoes for a number of months now in some conditions that would try the toughest of boots so I doubt I need to go into details of why I needed the odour eaters. A bit of miming to the guy behind the counter that brought a smile to both of our faces and he pointed me to the appropriate place. But scale reared its ugly head once more. Having big feet may impress the ladies but it s no good when it comes to buying foot products in Japan. The largest pair they had still came nowhere near the end of my shoes.

Walking on air now (yes I bought them, which may show the extent of the problem) I walked on towards what I hoped was the Palace. Getting there just reconfirmed all my worries. It was closed. There were a few tourists wandering around the open areas in front of the massive stone walls and some polite but cold looking guards standing at barriers across the gates. There were no signs in English to explain but it was pretty obvious that if it was not going to be open today. I took a few photos of the walls and the guards, consulted my map again, and turned my comfortable feet towards the Ginza and the fading hope of a bit more life.

Passing a statue I learnt a lesson in making assumption. The assumption is that everyone who doesn t look Japanese can speak English. I was stopped by a couple of westerners and we had to go through a whole mime routine before I figured out that they wanted me to take their photo. There is probably another lesson in here as well.

Just because someone is carrying a big camera it doesn t mean that they know how to take a photo. I use myself as an example of that one.

Wending my way through a number of joggers, who were out in outfits that in Australia would have brought on a gale of laughter at best and a hail of rocks at worst, I headed to the area marked Ginza on my map.

The streets were still pretty much deserted…until I turned a corner and there everyone was.

I had managed to find the heart of the Ginza and it looked just like it should have. Tall buildings and big crowds and neon signs and fashion label shops and colour and movement. I wandered up and down the road taking photos. I even managed to find the crossing that seems to feature in just about any movie or TV ad about Japan. It s quite a famous crossing and I wasn t the only person taking photos and looking like a complete tourist.

This is a very expensive part of the city and a place you could have a lot of fun with someone else s credit card. All of the major designers and labels are on that street and there doesn t seem to be a shortage of well dressed Japanese shopping.

After a couple of hours I was starting to get a little hungry and my research had informed me that most of the department stores had food courts that were of a quality to leave the average Australian food court in the dust. However, the lines were as bad as DisneySea. Even a Wendy s (an American fast food chain like McDonalds) had a line that must have been close to 100 people long, and that was just to get in the door. I was about to put my hunger on hold when I started exploring a little further off the main strip.

I found a small noodle place that only had a few people in it but in the window were many testimonials, in English, from tourists. It had a really nice Japanese feel to it and the people inside actually made me feel welcome. I had to take the waitress outside to point at one of the plastic dishes because the totally Japanese menu she gave me was no use at all but I got what I wanted. A bowl of seafood noodles and a constantly refilled cup of Japanese tea later I exited the restaurant to a flurry of bowing. It was a surprisingly good meal for something so deceptively simple and I don t think I felt the cold quite as much after it.

In the limited amount of research I did on Tokyo before I left I decided on 3 places that I really wanted to visit, after Disneyland.

One was the Ginza and I could tick that one off. Another was the Isukiji Fish Market, but it was closed for the time I was there. And the third was Shibuya, which has a reputation for being a gathering spot for the young and trendy and I was keen to see if the clich s were true.

Luckily for me the Ginza line of the underground is the one that goes to Shibuya, so it was just a matter of heading into a station, getting on the orange line and waiting for the train to go as far as it could.

Another of those clich s of Tokyo is the crowds on the trains but I managed to easily get a seat and rode until the Shibuya station.

Yep, the stories of Shibuya are true. This was a young and trendy spot. I would walk into a shopping mall, realise that I was at least 20 years older than anyone else there, and walk out again. The streets were full of the young and trendy out and about and being seen. The buildings were just as tall as Ginza and there were even more neon signs but these ones weren t advertising French designers but names that I didn t recognise and seemed to all use odd cartoon characters as mascots. The funny thing was the number of people walking around dressed exactly the same as those cartoon characters.

There were many, many electronic stores and mobile phone stores. I am not a mobile phone person but I can say with some confidence that you will have never seen so many different models available in one place.

The words kaleidoscope and rainbow come to mind. It reminded me very much of the shopping parts of Hong Kong and Singapore with the lights and noise and crowds. It was just much more expensive and I had to give most of the restaurants a miss for more reasons than just the queues.

I did have a look in a Pachinko parlour though. I ve seen these places on TV and never understood how it worked. I ve been in one now and still have no idea. It was cramped and smoky and the noise was unbelievable. All of the machines, and there were hundreds, seemed to have someone sitting on them. One hand on some mystery knob and the other clutching a cigarette people were completely engrossed in the flashing lights, animated screens and bouncing silver balls.

Attendants seemed to be dashing around with little plastic baskets that people would fill with the little silver balls and then stack on the floor next to their chairs. The purpose of it all I really don t know.

By now it was dark and getting even colder. I knew I wasn t going to make it to midnight no matter how much I might have wanted to. Having to add on another couple of hours to get back to my hotel after that was not so appealing so I got back on the underground and headed back to Ginza.

I walked slowly from the Ginza station to Tokyo station, enjoying the now much quieter streets and taking my time looking in the lighted shop fronts. After my Disneyland experience I was willing to spend a little time finding my way back to the right platform once I got to the station but I ended up finding it so easily that I hunted down a restaurant.

I found another nice little typically Japanese place and had a deep fried platter and a beer. It came with a warm cabbage and sesame salad to start, which may sound strange but is a dish I m going to try when I get home simply because it s so easy yet so tasty. The platter was a series of skewers. Deep fried prawn, cheese, spring onion, fish and eel. A nice meal.

At the station I explored an AM/PM. This is a 7/11 type store but obviously full of strange food items with Japanese writing on them. I ended up getting some mystery bottles of soft drink and a take away sushi box.

The ride back to Narita on the Express was pretty uneventful because in the dark there is even less to see once you get out into the industrial areas. One thing that did amuse me while I was waiting for the train was the music that preceded all of the platform announcements. The first time I heard it I almost looked around for the carousel. It really did sound like there was a carnival in town.

Another example maybe of the Japanese love of all things cute.

I was back at the hotel about 10pm and ushered in 2010 by having a bath and then watching truly freaky Japanese TV. Did I mention that I could fit in the bath? Trust me when I say that is significant because it hasn t happened for years.

Did I miss a lot of Tokyo? Undoubtedly. It s a huge place and I barely sampled it. I was also a little limited by the time of year I was there because so much was closed but I did manage to taste it and it is certainly going onto my list of places to return to. Maybe one of those cheap airfares that come up every so often.