Traci and I (neither speak Japanese) are visiting Tokyo (my first, Traci’s second) and wanted to pass along our thoughts and experiences to anyone interested – so here’s our Great Tokyo Adventure Blog from our March 2005 Trip.
Sat/Sun – Day 1 Traci and I flew on United’s 777 non-stop service to Tokyo, leaving Seattle on Saturday at 12:40pm. Although leg room is somewhat cramped, we fortunately got to sit alone on the right side (United has 2-5-2 seating in coach). The flight took 9 ½ hours and was very smooth – the service was excellent, the crew spent the whole flight providing food and drinks even in economy. They served a roast beef meal followed by snacks (chips and cookies) followed by another meal including a hot ham and cheese sandwich. The 777 has individual TV screens and show 6 different movies/TV programs over and over. United didn’t even charge for the headsets! The roast beef was good, fortunately, because it’s the last beef to be had for a while….We landed 9 ½ hours later – 4pm Tokyo time the next day (Sunday) – we lost our Saturday! I give United a big thumbs up on the voyage.
Getting thru Japan Immigration was fairly smooth, just as we finished and walked to the baggage claim, our luggage appeared on the carousel. We got our luggage at 4:20pm but couldn’t get on the 4:30 airport bus so we ended up leaving on the 5:30 pm bus. While waiting, I made my first Japanese purchase – 300 yen for a bottle of coke. For some reason the coke in Japan doesn’t seem as sweet as in the US ?different corn syrup? At the airport I first realized how much of Japan uses both Japanese and English – on everything from LCD signs indicating which bus or train leaves for where, to directions around the airport and even on billboard ads. Sometimes ads are all Japanese text until the middle somewhere where you start seeing English – such as company names and web addresses. I’m thinking more than anything else, the world wide web which is based on the Roman Alphabet will make English the dominant language over the next generation. We got on the 5:30pm bus and traffic to Tokyo wasn’t too bad – it took about 2 ¼ hours to get to our hotel. We were the last stop of 5 hotels. The streets were narrow with many sharp curves. It was also weird trying to understand the traffic patterns with everybody driving on the left side of roads (although many of the streets were very narrow and we traveled in the center). We finally arrived at the Westin around 7:30 pm. Fortunately the Westin Tokyo is a wonderful hotel. It is located in Ebisu, the site of one of Japan’s new superdevelopments (housing, big shopping, train station) and is the home of Sapporo beer’s headquarters and beer museum. We plugged in our depleted electronics – Japan is on 100 volt power vs 120 in the US but as long as you can deal with 2 prong outlets electronics don’t seem to know the difference. I brought a power converter which we didn’t use the whole trip – you need it if you have motorized electronics like hair dryers or electric razors – but anything with rechargeable batteries doesn’t. The Westin had adapters in the room 3 prong --> 2 prong, but I brought one along with a 3 outlet mini-power strip so we could charge our iPods, Palms and laptop. Everything charged fine except the ipods which strangely charge for a while then think they’re full when they are not, so you had to start the charging process again – eventually they get full. I’m not sure why that is…The Westin room is large, certainly at least the size of any Westin around the country – the bathroom is gorgeous. I’ve been told Japanese hotels tend to have mini rooms and even smaller bathrooms – that doesn’t seem to apply to the Westin.
We met Traci’s friend Curtis and wandered around the top two floors of Ebisu place which has about a dozen restaurants. We first found a convenience store that sold “throw away” (prepaid) cell phones – for 78,000 yen – about $75 (48,000 for the phone / 30,000 for the prepaid service) we now had full cell service. Unfortunately the phone is all Japanese so we can’t figure out voice mail or e-mail service, but we can make and send calls. Even at a place with many foreign tourists (because of the Westin) most of the restaurants have no English menus. However almost all have plastic food models in the window so you can figure out what you want. Curtis speaks Japanese well (he used to work in Tokyo) so he could order off Japanese menus. We chose to eat a soba noodle dinner with Tempura. The views from the 32nd/33rd top floors of the city are spectacular and it was a clear night. Most of the restaurants at the top of Ebisu place charged a quite reasonable 800-2000 yen for entrees (about $7.50 - $18 US) but there weren’t many beef dishes available (more on this later). Considering this is a tall brand new skyscraper connected to a foreign hotel it was a pleasant surprise. After a tasty dinner we went back the the Westin and quickly fell asleep around 10pm Sunday night (5 AM Sunday in Seattle)
Monday – Day 2 After enjoying an all you can eat American buffet breakfast included in our Westin room rate, we ventured on the Tokyo Subway for the first time and went to popular neighborhoods at Akibahara, Shibuya, Shinjuku. The JR Yamanote line is a big circle with subway trains going each direction around the circle and brings you to most of the big neighborhoods. And of course we don’t have to pay thanks to JR Rail passes. The subways are clean, no graffiti or trash anywhere! There are little tunes which seem to be unique to each station signifying arrival of trains – kind of like the little electronic music made by video games each time you complete a task. The trains are surprisingly quiet and many of the people inside are dozing in and out of sleep – very little talking. Talking on cell phones is not allowed on the subways – I guess you don’t have to worry about it in New York since the subway makes too much noise to talk anyway. Every square inch of the subway car is covered with ads and you see many American celebrities endorsing products (Randy Johnson, Sandra Bullock) – I guess this is where the Simpson’s writers got the idea for the Mr. Sparkle episode. The stations are huge but the signs are in English as well as Japanese and are easy to navigate except for their large size (it would be just as hard to navigate the stations in a US city as a Japanese one). The ones with many connections especially with the bullet trains (Shinkansens) are especially confusing. Not only are there many shops like in US airports, but there are whole shopping malls built into the stations selling everything from furniture to clothing. My strategy to avoid having natives assume I spoke Japanese was to wear a Seattle Mariners jacket to indicate my origin – unfortunately, on our first subway journey there was one native wearing a New York Yankees jacket and another wearing a Seattle Mariners jersey. Oh well…
It was a cold rainy day in Tokyo so we try to stay indoors as much as possible – fortunately most of the big stores are connected directly with the main train stations. When we ventured outside we found neon signs and many people, kind of like a Times Square in every neighborhood. We start in Akibahara, Tokyo’s electric city. There are many electronic stores (kind of like Times square) but they are narrow and high – many different stores 6-8 floors high with a small showroom of different electronic goods on each floor. The tiny size of some of the new video cameras and laptops are impressive, but we don’t find many earthshaking new products, and most of the stores sell the same goods. I am especially outraged at one floor of one store that sells BB guns which are replicas of “famous” war weapons (AK-47s, Uzis, etc…) They sell police style riot gear and have posters of kids dressed up in war gear firing these guns – some are even automatic BB guns. Crazy! The same store had a floor devoted to X-rated cartoon DVDs which are popular in Japan. The multifloor shops highlight a big weakness in Japan – access for the handicapped. While the Americans with disability act remains a big challenge for American developers, you can really feel for the handicapped who have a big problem reaching many of the smaller train station platforms and many of the stores! Besides the stores, we found a Sega World video game parlor – uniquely Japanese games were mixed in with a multiplayer Bingo and multiplayer Horse Racing game were found. I played a game patterned on Dance Revolution where the player beats on a drum in synch with the music. After Akibahara, we went to Shibuya which is another neighborhood with a huge train station and many stores. There is an area called the “Food Show” which is a large bazaar of various take out foods from $1.00 rice balls and $50 cantaloupes (no kidding). This was also are first experience with butchers selling miniature cuts of steak by the gram! 150 grams which is 5 oz sells for $80-100….and we aren’t talking about filet mignon or choice New York steaks! It’s pretty incredible how much beef costs. We haven’t eaten at McDonald’s but I do wonder how they can charge reasonable prices $5-6 for our much loved value meals and still have beef? For the most part you can find any food you want but its all to go. The Japanese spend an extraordinary amount of time packaging your to go meals in nice little boxes, packed to avoid getting squashed and even with a cold chemical pack! Almost all the department stores have food courts in their basements where it is easy to find food (you just point or pick it out and pay for them) without speaking any Japanese. Its kind of funny walking down the very long corridors with small food stands on each side with merchants (usually young females) quietly but constantly speaking in Japanese I guess to stimulate business – their sales pitches are louder than a mumble but much quieter than the Pike Place Market fish sellers. Figuring out what is in some of the packages is a challenge when you don’t read Japanese. If you stay away from the $100 steak the food is quite reasonably priced. Some additional observations about the department stores: Like Nordstrom there are some good values and some ridiculous designer prices like $280 T-shirts. It is funny to hear music in English, everything from relatively new songs like Train, to old 80s classics from Lionel Ritchie to rap music artists also sorts of language which would get you thrown off the air in the US by the Federal Communications Commission. We ventured into a restaurant (one that had an English menu at the door) solo and I had a caesar’s salad with fried chicken for a reasonable $16. There’s no tipping in Japan so although the prices for most common foods (beef excluded, obviously) may run a little higher, without the need for a tip the prices aren’t much different than you’d expect in the US. Also, restaurants in obviously expensive buildings on high floors with great views don’t necessarily charge tons of money like in the US – I think its because there are so many restaurants in tall skyscrapers (and usually bunched together) so its not such a exclusive perk.
We finished the day in by spending the evening Shinjuku, a very busy area with many stores – think of 4 or 5 downtown Seattle Bon Marche’s lined up – all with food courts in their basements. You would think all the Japanese do is shop – I don’t think even New York has the retail space to compare with Tokyo. There are soooo many big stores in so many neighborhoods. It was raining pretty hard and was fairly chilly (in the low 40s) so we returned back to the Westin.
Tuesday – Day 3. The most adventurous part of our trip started very early – we caught the train at 5:30AM to go to the main Tokyo station – Japan’s Grand Central Station. From there we took the 6:36 AM Bullet train (Shinkansen) to Osaka, and then transferred to a different Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The 537 mile journey took 5 hours including stops and the transfer. Japan’s Shinkansens now go as fast as 180 miles per hour….its amazing! The seats are very comfortable and I think travel via Shinkansen is much better than by airplanes, at least if your not traveling thousands of miles. Both the conductor who checks tickets and the hostesses who go up and down aisles selling snacks and drinks stop to bow as they enter and exit each car even if they are just passing thru. Most of the riders on our trains were businessmen in their uniformly navy blue suits who mostly used the time to sleep. Its fairly easy to get around in stations, trains and the city as long as you know English – I’d go as far to say the vast majority of confusion (and there was lots) trying to find the right train and stops isn’t a language problem – we’d probably have much the same problem if the huge stations were in Atlanta – they are just so big and there are so many trains. Half of the Shinkansen audio stations that you can listen to on the train are either American popular music or lessons in conversational English. The biggest language barrier for us seems to be in the restaurants and we had to find places we could point to the food/pictures or places with English menus. Before traveling to Japan, we bought JR Rail passes for about $350 each – they were the Green Car (first class passes) although there really isn’t much different between Green Car and regular cars (Green car 2 – 2 seating vs regular car 2 – 3 seating). In fact there was no Green car between Osaka and Hiroshima so the only Green cars we rode in were between Tokyo to Osaka and then Kyoto to Tokyo).
After the 537 mile journey we took a street car to the Peace Park. We started out by finding a restaurant at the museum complex and I had a Chicken karaage meal while Traci had a chicken katsudon lunch which together cost around $25. After lunch we entered the Peace museum which went over the history of the city and its experience with the A-bomb. Some of the exhibits were fairly graphic, but milder than the Holocaust museum in Washington DC. There are authentic photographs along with multimedia presentations. In general it was well done and a fitting tribute to the victims. The Peace park is a rather large complex that includes the museum as well as a perpetual flame for victims. There are several areas where people bring origami Cranes in honor of a young leukemia victim who folded 1000 cranes in hopes of reversing the disease caused by radiation exposure. We then crossed the peace bridge to visit Hiroshima castle. While I was initially impressed by the structure, we quickly figured out the castle was destroyed by the A-bomb and the whole project was a replica. Disappointed that we don’t see Tom Cruise working on his samurai techniques we leave this “Hollywood” castle. We then hopped back on the Shinkansen and got off in Osaka which is basically the half way point between Hiroshima and Tokyo.
Osaka is a very large city with many large department stores of its own. We found a restaurant in the middle of one of the many department stores that had models of food in the window – I had a Udon / Shrimp tempura dinner for around $15. Afterwards we wandered around Osaka at night, and found a long covered street with shops lining each side. There are many video game parlors, Pachinko parlors, shops of every description, karaoke bars and hole in the wall restaurants. Toward the outer edge of the street from downtown there were more adult oriented entertainment venues so we headed back. We found a very impressive shopping mall in the heart of downtown with a gigantic Ferris Wheel on it. We paid $5 each and had a great view of the expansive city from the Ferris wheel and immediately after leaving found a Gelato place at the exit. Traci and I sampled the Gelato and I liked the strawberry one so much I had to order a second serving. The Gelato in Japan had been recommended to me, but I couldn’t understand why Japan would be a place with good Gelato. I know now it does. We then went to the train station and found the area with the subways. Its confusing in Japan because many of the largest stations have Shinkansen areas, regular trains (or as Seattle thinks of them – the dreaded light rail), and subways all with their own ticket counters, ticket machines, ticket gates and tracks. Further adding to the confusion is the fact that several different companies run the different modalities so you need different tickets, and our JR rail passes don’t work at other companies rail systems. Fortunately the JR rail passes do work on most of the Shinkansens (just not the real high speed Nozomi trains), and the Yamanote circle train line in Tokyo which is where we spend the bulk of our travel time Once we found the Osaka subway, we followed directions to Traci’s family home in Osaka – They maintain a house in Osaka which Traci’s cousin Miye currently lives in as she continues her education. While we don’t have any problems getting to the right culdesac, we can’t figure out what house it is especially since its 10pm at night. The addresses in Japan are difficult – there isn’t a consistent grid system like in the US – addresses are based on the neighborhood not street and house numbers are often in the order they were built. Fortunately we have the cell phone and figure out which house to enter. Japanese houses are smaller and don’t have central heating, something that can be a problem on 40 degree nights – but with enough blankets we have a pleasant sleep on the grass mat floor, still not quite the same as the Westin’s Heavenly beds…
Continued
