Night out in Nihon - Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo, Japan
Day 4
Alistair: House mate, friend and Anime enthusiast, with three prior visits to Japan under his belt, his sound understanding of Nihongo (Japanese Language) made him the Japanese Master.
David: My other friend and house mate who was far too tall for Japan, David was destined to hit his head on every low doorway. Dave's love of Shinkansen (bullet trains) had him quickly rise to become the Train Master.
Paul (Me): Along for the ride and cultural experience, with paper based instructions to get to all our accommodations, I was the Hostel Directions master, guiding us safely to our temporary homes.
Derek: Data Analyst and Programmer from Melbourne, Alistair and David quickly became friends with Derek at the hostel.
Grace: Also from the East Coast, Alistair and David also met her at the hostel while I was with my host family.
Kaz: Japanese local who I met earlier in the year at a backpackers in L.A., just happened to live in Ueno, a few stations down from Asakusa station (closest to our hostel). Helpful and multilingual (English, French, Japanese) he was great fun to chill out with.
Chau: Friend of Kaz from Vietnam, Chau spoke English fairly well and Japanese fluently. She had a friend who lives in Perth that she thought I might know (she must have thought Perth was a small town!).
Petter & Petter: Friends of friends of Kaz, the Swedish similarly clothed duo had great banter and were big fans of man hugs.
Being Social in Tokyo
After a lovely two nights staying with Andrew & Nobuku, it was time to head back to K’s Tokyo Oasis to continue my journey through Japan with my housemates. While I was gone, Alistair and David had made a couple of new friends (Grace and Derek) who joined us to meander around Tokyo on day 4.
First item to cross of the must do list in Tokyo was to visit a Cat Café. Situated on the 6th floor a few blocks away, it was an easy attraction to cross of the list. After a lazy morning all five of us set of to the Cat Café own the road. Derek led the way, with his pocket wifi enabling him to be connected to the internet at all times for directions. Pocket Wifis were available to hire for Japan and could be posted back to Japan after. I’d personally just to have data on my phone, rather than lugging around yet another digital device, as I already had my kindle, phone, laptop and camera with me. at We were shortly at the foot of the building, where we had to split up to take the tiny elevator to the sixth floor and entered the Cat Café.
I don’t think I would use the word café to describe this particular Cat Cafe – it was more of a small room filled with cats and toys that just happened to sell some refreshments. The café had a pay as you stay business model – charging in 30 minutes allotments, with the option to buy drinks and treats for the cats. With the amount of apartments in Tokyo, most not allowing pets, it was easy to see how this cat café niche can be made into a viable business.
Most of the cats didn’t really respond much to the toys (at least relative to our kitten Chase back at home, who chases toys until he starts hyperventilating) with the exception of the young kittens. One cat had took unusual enjoyment out of being patted like a dog; especially enjoying being patted down (not stroked) on his back.
Having already started showing some symptoms of hay fever allergies walking through Rikuigen garden yesterday, it didn’t take long for me to feel uncomfortable. I’m not allergic to cats, but 15-20 in a small space is enough to set anyone off who is already having issues with hayfever. David was also having some issues, with lump quickly appearing in his throat. After an hour or so, we headed off to our next destination, the Imperial Palace Gardens.
The Imperial Palace is located in the heart of Tokyo in the government district. Emerging from the underground train station, the area felt much more sanitised, quiet and controlled than other parts of Tokyo. This was a nice change from other parts of Tokyo, which are much more crowded and chaotic. We quietly strolled through the streets until we reached the palace gates.
As we entered the gates, we were given an admission token which we would hand back as we left. I’ve heard of this mechanism being used to control the number of guests of popular parks; however it seemed unnecessary given the palace was quite empty. Admission was free too, which was a bonus. We wondered through the garden for a couple of hours, nothing was particularly exciting. A lot of the palace was closed off at the time and was later advised by a local to give it a miss. In retrospect it would have been better to go some place else.
I had previously arranged to meet up with Kaz in Euno, where he kindly offered to help buy me a SIM card to access data in Japan. After some communication issues at the station, we eventually located each other outside Euno train station. David joined us as we eventually walked down to Ikihabara (known as Electronic Town) to find an electronics store. Kaz led us into a 7 floor electronic store (luckily SIM cards were on the first floor) and did all the talking to acquire a 1GB 1 month plan for me and David.
Phones and plans are a lot more complicated in Japan than other countries. While the market is slowly becoming more open, with changing laws opening up the market to unlocked phones, for now almost all phones are locked to a carrier and will not work outside of Japan. Alas, there is incentive for the carriers to offer SIM cards with talk, text and data packages since phones locks you to a carrier. The only viable option for travellers is to get a data SIM card, like you might do for a tablet of wifi internet dongle. We found a 'foreign traveller’ SIM card that came with English instructions but our hopes were quickly dashed – the card only lasted for 14 days, which would not cover the remaining duration of our trip. We would have to get a data SIM card from a local carrier.
Activating a SIM card is not an easy process – all instructions are in Japanese. It is pretty much impossible to figure out what to do unless you are a native Japanese speaker. Luckily, we had Kaz to help us out and pick the appropriate SIM. Kaz purchased two data SIM cards for David and I with 1 GB data over 1 month.
SIM card registration could be completed online (no phone call activation required – which makes sense for a purely data SIM card). While this may sound simple enough, the online form needed to be completed in Japanese, which was near impossible to do on a Western laptop. I gave my phone and SIM card details to reception and ran upstairs for a quick shower. When I came back, the hostel reception was still nutting away at the registration process. Half an hour later, he printed out my registration details with Docomo, a popular carrier in Japan. His part of the setup was done and my phone should now be able to register on a 3g network. Unfortunately, I still could not get it to work. It would not register on any available network. I’d have to try again tomorrow – we were late for dinner. Kaz invited me out for Thai with some of his friends. We left the hostel and jumped on a train bound for the other side Tokyo.
After a lovely and somewhat rushed Thai dinner with Kaz’s friends Chau and another Japanese girl, we left to meet some other friends at their apartment for "pre-drinks". Navigating in foreign countries can be quite difficult at the best of times. Tokyo has a numbering system that he explained was very different to Australia, and in his words ‘Illogical’ and ‘stupid’. Addresses are not based off street names; they are instead three sets of numbers – the Province, the Block, and the Building number. It is hard to match up block numbers with buildings – it is generally a lot easier to look for streets that are generally clearly signed. When you’re in a metropolitan jungle such as Tokyo another dimension of complication is added – height. Most buildings are apartments, so you have got to find the correct level too. Kaz’s friends were locals and it took us a while before we found the apartment. When we eventually found the correct building, we wondered into the local corner store to buy some alcohol.
Japanese apartments redefine what small means. The apartment only had two rooms – the bathroom/shower and everything else. A tiny kitchen, a bed, a table and two chairs was contained within. There were 8 of us crammed in the tiny apartment, using every piece of furniture we could as seating. I was worried that the spaces issues tied with the language barrier could make this an awkward meeting but I soon felt very relaxed.
In Australia you don’t often get the chance to enjoy a multi-lingual gathering. It adds extra depth to conversations that is really hard to explain. Some languages have simple words that have more vulgar meanings in others; some languages have words that simply don’t have one to one translations. In our group, everyone spoke English fluently except for one Japanese girl. Everyone spoke Japanese fluently except for me. Most people new English as a first/second language so that was predominantly used. Two blokes from Sweden (confusingly both called Petter) spoke a few other languages as well. Occasionally a joke was told in English, then told in Japanese. It’s amusing two watch a joke being told twice and having two different groups of people laugh each time. It is just something you don’t really see in the mostly mono lingual Australia. After an hour or so, we grabbed a taxi and headed out for some drinks.
Kaz’s friends flagged down a taxi and spoke to him in Japanese. All of his friends were very good Japanese speakers. After chatting in English for 5-10 minutes, the driver surprises us all by turning around and joining our conversation with strong English. One of the girls from the U.S. was talking about her home town, which the taxi driver had travelled too. He had apparently traveled all over America and seem quite well educated. The only reason he was ‘behind the wheel’, was so he could go and travel whenever he wanted. He seemed like a champ.
Now – I was saying the apartment was small. The bar – that was something else. The establishment must have only been 2 metres wide and 5 metres long. Realistically, it only had capacity for 6 people. Street drinking is legal in Japan (in fact, some vending machines sell beer), so we spilled out on to the streets. The owner came out and told us to be quiet quite a few times, as we were in a residential area. I couldn’t help but notice that all the Japanese people sitting outside were talking in a very quiet tone. There is no chance that people would show that level of respect in Australia, especially when alcohol is involved. With great power comes great responsibility – and the Japanese seem more than capable of exerting this responsibility.
I was talking to the girls about me and my friends travel plans for Japan. We were off to Matsumoto and Nagano next. As I told them this, they crossed their hands and said dame (not good), explaining that Matsumoto only had a castle and Nagano had nothing. They suggested for me to stay in Tokyo and do day trips to Nikko (World Heritage) or Kamakura (Buddha statue and shrines). It all sounded like a good idea. Maybe next time! I looked at the time and it was 11.30 – time to head off or I’d miss the last train. As I left, the Swedish felt compelled to hug it out in a man-sandwich kind of arrangement. It was a fun night out on the town.
On the way back to the hostel, I took a wonder through the Sensoji Buddhist temple. The hostel staff recommended taking a look at night while it was all lit up. It was very quiet and peaceful; a nice time for reflection and getting lost in the atmosphere. I soon found myself lost – literally – as the area, now void of markets, looked very different. Identically looking malls added to my confusion. Luckily, I had already downloaded a local map of the area and was able to use GPS to work my way back home.