After we arrived at Haneda we breezed through customs and immigration after being seen by what we presumed was a trainee immigration guard. Well he had a supervisor lurking over him and a supervisor lurking over the supervisor so someone was being monitored. They were polite and didn't ask more than the minimum of questions about how long and the purpose of the trip.
Once through I called the owner of the AirBnB we were staying at who said they'd meet us at the apartment in about 45 minutes. So, it's time to play navigate the foreign city transportation network.
Actually it was simple enough. It took us only a minute or so to figure out how to buy tickets on the Tokyo Monorail from Haneda to Hamamatsuchou station in Minato. This offered us our first ground level (well slightly elevated) view of Tokyo. Not always the most pleasant areas, mostly industrial and old tenement blocks, but some decent views our over the bay to the east.
Upon arrival at Hamamatsuchou we made our way, after a couple of false starts, downstairs to the taxi ranks. I gave the taxi driver the card I had prepared with the address on it, but unfortunately he seemed unsure as to exactly where it was. After a minute or so I managed to convince him it was near Akasaka Sacas (more on that in another post) and we were off.
The drive through Minato was relatively nice. Zoe was amazed that we drove right past some shrines and by the Tokyo Tower. Despite only covering a couple of miles we got to see some sights.
Unfortunately things went wrong from there. The driver managed to get us to Akasaka Sacas but couldn't get us to our destination. My Japanese apparently wasn't sufficient to direct him the route I was sure we needed to take to get to the apartment, so we ended up paying and walking.
Walking in Tokyo at night is perfectly safe, and the Akasaka area of Minato is as safe as any, so performing the walk wasn't an issue from a safety perspective. However we'd been up for seven and a half days at this point (I'm not sure, maybe 27 hours?) and were tired. True the walk was only about 700m, but with luggage that seems further. So off we went, trailing suitcases for a minor walk.
Oh, and did I mention the hills? Well it turns out that Tokyo is actually, like most of Japan, extremely hilly. As luck would turn out, Akasaka is one of the hillier areas of downtown. And yes, you guessed it, our apartment was up one of these hills.
This is the hill. Imagine this while tired, at night, trailing luggage.
So yes, it was an interesting walk. But we did eventually make it.
Finally we reached the apartment and only had to wait a couple of minutes for our host to turn up and show us in. Great guy that he is he had just been to a konbini moments before to get us some supplies to get us through the night. Noodles, snacks, milk, butter, bread and of course beer.
After saying goodnight to our host we unpacked and prepared for our first night.
But first, we made our own trip to the local 7-11.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Are Spiders Combustible Waste?
The title above was a genuine question asked on the first night in the apartment when we were looking to dispose of a rather large spider that had been located in the bedroom. And yes, the answer is very important. First, some background.
One of the first things we did when we reached our apartment, as we were unpacking, was to dispose of our boarding cards that were in our pockets. A simple enough proposition, you just put them in the recycling bin and you're done with it.
Only one problem. This is Japan, home of reuse and recycle, there is no "recycling" bin. There are many and it's up to you to manage them. Japan is one of the highest recyclers in the world with up to 77% of all plastics recycled every year.
For illustration, this is the poster on the wall of the kitchen in the apartment that helpfully tells us what goes where.
This was the start of a month long trend of standing in the kitchen trying to determine which of the five different bags we needed to put something in. Recyclable plastics, plastic bottles, glass bottles, combustible waste and incombustible waste. I'm sure we missed one somewhere.
For reference, we decided the spider counted as Kitchen Waste, but the tissue was unrecyclable paper.
One of the first things we did when we reached our apartment, as we were unpacking, was to dispose of our boarding cards that were in our pockets. A simple enough proposition, you just put them in the recycling bin and you're done with it.
Only one problem. This is Japan, home of reuse and recycle, there is no "recycling" bin. There are many and it's up to you to manage them. Japan is one of the highest recyclers in the world with up to 77% of all plastics recycled every year.
For illustration, this is the poster on the wall of the kitchen in the apartment that helpfully tells us what goes where.
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| Well, at least it's in English. |
For reference, we decided the spider counted as Kitchen Waste, but the tissue was unrecyclable paper.
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Day 0 - Oct 10 - Flight to Tokyo
Our flight from Toronto to Tokyo was quite pleasant. Air Canada made us feel comfortable and despite being stuck in a middle seat for just over 12 and a half hours it was a good flight.
I happened to sit beside a working holiday resident from Osaka who was currently studying in Toronto. We had some conversations, such as how bad the instant noodles were and how they should have tried better since it's a flight to Japan. Apparently he'd never been to Tokyo in his life, and had no desire to visit. There's no love lost between Osaka and Tokyo and they're rivals at everything.
For entertainment purposes I barely managed to contain my laughter while watching Inside Out, Pixar's latest animated outing. Highly recommended. Terminator Genisys, not so great, but fine for getting rid of a couple of hours on a flight.
We flew up across northern Canada, over Alaska and then spent a reasonable amount of time over the mountainous wastes of north eastern Russia. While the view through through the clouds was spectacular, the thought often went through your mind of "if we go down here, no one will ever find our bodies."
This route had the great advantage of our flight to Tokyo taking us down over the length of Japan. When the cloud parted you could get good views of Hokkaido, the northernmost island, and it's peninsula that points towards Honshu, the main island of Japan.
Flying down the length of Honshu you could see the tall mountains with towns and cities crowded in wherever there was flat space. Large rivers denoted collections of civilization and the urbanization of everywhere you could see was apparent.
Once we got to Tokyo we had to circle a couple of times before we got our landing clearance. This was not a particular hardship as it meant a good view of Tokyo itself and the harbour. Tokyo sprawls. It really sprawls. It is urban and buildings as far as the eye can see. When they run our of space, they simply demolish a mountain somewhere and put the contents into Tokyo bay creating new land for construction. Much of the bay by the city has been taken over by these artificial islands, and surprisingly they're not unpleasant, but more on them later.
Finally though we arrived at Haneda airport. If you've never been to Haneda it's a slightly smaller airport than the huge Narita that is the main port of call for overseas flights and is mainly used by internal and east Asian carriers. While it is international, it's not its primary focus.
Landing at Haneda seems to result in an extremely long taxi to the International Terminal which is conveniently located as far from the runways as possible. And of course we landed on the runway furthest from it. This meant that just getting to the terminal took almost an additional 20 minutes after we touched down.
One good thing from the long taxi, we saw ANA's R2D2 painted plane in celebration of the new Star Wars movie coming out later that year. Which as a huge Star Wars fan and plane nut, was cool. Well for me anyway. No? Okay, moving along.
I happened to sit beside a working holiday resident from Osaka who was currently studying in Toronto. We had some conversations, such as how bad the instant noodles were and how they should have tried better since it's a flight to Japan. Apparently he'd never been to Tokyo in his life, and had no desire to visit. There's no love lost between Osaka and Tokyo and they're rivals at everything.
For entertainment purposes I barely managed to contain my laughter while watching Inside Out, Pixar's latest animated outing. Highly recommended. Terminator Genisys, not so great, but fine for getting rid of a couple of hours on a flight.
We flew up across northern Canada, over Alaska and then spent a reasonable amount of time over the mountainous wastes of north eastern Russia. While the view through through the clouds was spectacular, the thought often went through your mind of "if we go down here, no one will ever find our bodies."
This route had the great advantage of our flight to Tokyo taking us down over the length of Japan. When the cloud parted you could get good views of Hokkaido, the northernmost island, and it's peninsula that points towards Honshu, the main island of Japan.
Flying down the length of Honshu you could see the tall mountains with towns and cities crowded in wherever there was flat space. Large rivers denoted collections of civilization and the urbanization of everywhere you could see was apparent.
Once we got to Tokyo we had to circle a couple of times before we got our landing clearance. This was not a particular hardship as it meant a good view of Tokyo itself and the harbour. Tokyo sprawls. It really sprawls. It is urban and buildings as far as the eye can see. When they run our of space, they simply demolish a mountain somewhere and put the contents into Tokyo bay creating new land for construction. Much of the bay by the city has been taken over by these artificial islands, and surprisingly they're not unpleasant, but more on them later.
Finally though we arrived at Haneda airport. If you've never been to Haneda it's a slightly smaller airport than the huge Narita that is the main port of call for overseas flights and is mainly used by internal and east Asian carriers. While it is international, it's not its primary focus.
Landing at Haneda seems to result in an extremely long taxi to the International Terminal which is conveniently located as far from the runways as possible. And of course we landed on the runway furthest from it. This meant that just getting to the terminal took almost an additional 20 minutes after we touched down.
One good thing from the long taxi, we saw ANA's R2D2 painted plane in celebration of the new Star Wars movie coming out later that year. Which as a huge Star Wars fan and plane nut, was cool. Well for me anyway. No? Okay, moving along.
Monday, February 8, 2016
So Which Exit Do I Want?
So, you think the road system where you live can be confusing? This is a road sign that we spotted while taking in the sights in Odaiba, a large artificial island in Tokyo bay.
Friday, February 5, 2016
Joy of 7- Eleven
People living in North America may be rather confused at that post title. The chain of convenience stores known as 7-Eleven aren't exactly renowned for bringing any kind of joy, and are definitely not able to deliver you with anything that passes for food. The best food that a North American 7-Eleven can muster is something cylindrical that has been going up and down on rollers for an indeterminate amount of time, and probably picked it's flavouring from said rollers.
7-Eleven's in Japan are different. Very different.
In Japan, you can have a very good meal in a 7-Eleven. Or in fact any of the other convenience stores, known as konbini (コンビニ) in Japanese. In fact the konbini such as 7-Eleven, Lawson, Family Mart, Daily Yamazaki and others are held in such high regard it is one of the things that ex-pats from Japan miss the most.
Imagine this. A convenience store where freshly prepared food is delivered multiple times a day. Where the fresh microwavable items, sealed in heavy duty plastic, are actually delicious rather than just something that can fill you up without gagging. Where the prices are genuinely cheap and there is on on, seemingly, every street. Seriously, where we stayed there were at least five that I discovered within a 5 minute walk from the apartment.
The staff are friendly and come fully trained with an extensive library of hand gestures for communicating with foreign visitors (well maybe not specifically trained, but all the Japanese we met were exceedingly helpful, more on that another time.)
Sometime's though not everything is good. Take the below as exhibit A.
7-Eleven's in Japan are different. Very different.
In Japan, you can have a very good meal in a 7-Eleven. Or in fact any of the other convenience stores, known as konbini (コンビニ) in Japanese. In fact the konbini such as 7-Eleven, Lawson, Family Mart, Daily Yamazaki and others are held in such high regard it is one of the things that ex-pats from Japan miss the most.
Imagine this. A convenience store where freshly prepared food is delivered multiple times a day. Where the fresh microwavable items, sealed in heavy duty plastic, are actually delicious rather than just something that can fill you up without gagging. Where the prices are genuinely cheap and there is on on, seemingly, every street. Seriously, where we stayed there were at least five that I discovered within a 5 minute walk from the apartment.
The staff are friendly and come fully trained with an extensive library of hand gestures for communicating with foreign visitors (well maybe not specifically trained, but all the Japanese we met were exceedingly helpful, more on that another time.)
Sometime's though not everything is good. Take the below as exhibit A.
So what is it? Well it looks like a juicebox that most people are familiar with. It's about a cup in capacity (the Japanese cup is 180 ml rather than 250 ml.
This is in fact a juicebox sized portion of sake, the Japanese rice wine. It was purchased from our local 7-Eleven on our first full day there. They cost 100 yen (¥) each, which was approximately $1 Canadian and there's enough there to make you slightly happy if you're not used to it.
So how did it taste?
How do you think $1 sake tasted? It was vile.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
How to scare a Japanese sarariman
Question of the day: What's the best way to scare a Japanese businessman at 4:30 in the morning? Got it yet? Apparently the best answer is to have a gaijin suddenly stumble out of the bushes in front of him. In the dark. With a camera.
So the next question is why was a gaijin hanging around in the bushes, in the dark, with a camera? Well it's a combination of events really.
Normally when I travel I don't get hit by jet lag much. Last time I went to Japan I got over the jet lag in a single day and it was a simple thing to do. For that trip it was a 9 hour difference forward, and I was going east. This time around, while it's a 13 hour difference forward I figured I'm going west this will be easy enough. At this point you're probably pointing and saying "wrong", and in fact you would be right.
The jet lag kicked my ass (for about the first 4 days) and consequently on the second day there I was up at 4 am (along with 11:30pm, 1:00 am, 2:30 am, you get the idea.)
"Well I'm up", I thought, "I may as well do something useful. I know, I'll take my camera for a walk."
Just before the trip I'd made a new purchase of a nice prime focus 1.8f 50mm Canon lens for my camera. For those that don't speak photography what this basically means is I've got a lens that, while it doesn't zoom and is fixed, is very good in low light conditions due to its speed.
So armed with my camera and my nighttime shooting lense, I went out for a walk.
This leads me rapidly to the bushes incident. It's not really as exciting as it sounds. I like taking semi-abstract images and I'd found a good set of lit balconies that from the side made a nice shot. Due to the fact my camera lense was of a fixed length, I had to move myself to frame the subject as I wanted, hence the ending up moving into the bushes in order to get the shot. This lead directly to my emerging from the bushes in front of a, probably drunk, Japanese businessman and a cry of "ohayou gozaimasu (good morning)." The reaction was a startled yell followed rapidly by the loca moving away from the foreigner at a much higher rate of movement that they had previously been doing.
In all fairness, a Japanese policeman on a bicycle had seen me moving around in there only 30 seconds earlier and didn't bat an eyelid.
Incidentally, this is the photo I was trying to get. I just liked the pattern of the balcony lighting on the building.
So the next question is why was a gaijin hanging around in the bushes, in the dark, with a camera? Well it's a combination of events really.
Normally when I travel I don't get hit by jet lag much. Last time I went to Japan I got over the jet lag in a single day and it was a simple thing to do. For that trip it was a 9 hour difference forward, and I was going east. This time around, while it's a 13 hour difference forward I figured I'm going west this will be easy enough. At this point you're probably pointing and saying "wrong", and in fact you would be right.
The jet lag kicked my ass (for about the first 4 days) and consequently on the second day there I was up at 4 am (along with 11:30pm, 1:00 am, 2:30 am, you get the idea.)
"Well I'm up", I thought, "I may as well do something useful. I know, I'll take my camera for a walk."
Just before the trip I'd made a new purchase of a nice prime focus 1.8f 50mm Canon lens for my camera. For those that don't speak photography what this basically means is I've got a lens that, while it doesn't zoom and is fixed, is very good in low light conditions due to its speed.
So armed with my camera and my nighttime shooting lense, I went out for a walk.
This leads me rapidly to the bushes incident. It's not really as exciting as it sounds. I like taking semi-abstract images and I'd found a good set of lit balconies that from the side made a nice shot. Due to the fact my camera lense was of a fixed length, I had to move myself to frame the subject as I wanted, hence the ending up moving into the bushes in order to get the shot. This lead directly to my emerging from the bushes in front of a, probably drunk, Japanese businessman and a cry of "ohayou gozaimasu (good morning)." The reaction was a startled yell followed rapidly by the loca moving away from the foreigner at a much higher rate of movement that they had previously been doing.
In all fairness, a Japanese policeman on a bicycle had seen me moving around in there only 30 seconds earlier and didn't bat an eyelid.
Incidentally, this is the photo I was trying to get. I just liked the pattern of the balcony lighting on the building.
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| Light patterned balconies |
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Day 0 – Oct 9/10 – Outbound Flight
So here we are. It's 10:37 EST on Friday 9th October 2015 and I'm sat at the gate in Toronto Pearson airport waiting for our flight to Tokyo Haneda. The realization is only just coming to light for us. This is the longest vacation I've ever taken and the longest deliberate time I've ever taken off work.
Despite it being the Friday of the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, the trip up was ridiculously painless. Our neighbours kindly offered to drop us at the airport and as a result of leaving home at 9 am, by 9:45 we were through security and ready to settle in the lounge. So here I am, drinking my Starbucks tea (don't know when I'll next get to drink my black tea) and writing while waiting for our flight.
3 hours until flight. 2 and a bit until boarding. It's getting real.
Despite it being the Friday of the Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, the trip up was ridiculously painless. Our neighbours kindly offered to drop us at the airport and as a result of leaving home at 9 am, by 9:45 we were through security and ready to settle in the lounge. So here I am, drinking my Starbucks tea (don't know when I'll next get to drink my black tea) and writing while waiting for our flight.
3 hours until flight. 2 and a bit until boarding. It's getting real.
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| Our chariot awaits |
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