Tokyo
I may not be the world’s best swimmer or runner, and have more chance of hitting a fly than a tennis ball, but I am champion at one international sport – power sightseeing. You may have tried this but given up after a couple of hours; I can keep going for two days straight. It’s not as easy as it looks. You need stamina, a good sense of direction, a low attention span and comfortable shoes. You must ignore any feelings of waste or a belief that you should be sitting back and enjoying your trip. This is a challenge. Hence my attempt to see all that Tokyo has to offer in 48 hours.
I was surprised that a major airline deliberatly flies in circles rather than getting its passengers to the airport as quickly as possible, but that’s what Qantas does when flying from Sydney to Tokyo. As the plane has to leave before the Sydney curfew at 11pm, and cannot land until after the end of the Tokyo curfew at 6am, the pilots fly slower than usual and still do a couple of circles over the sea to waste time before making their final approach. We landed at 6.01, so guess the pilots were chuffed they’d dawdled so well.
I’m not sure I completely understood Tokyo in the short time I was there. On the surface it seems like many Western cities, just with different looking people and confusing signposting. But I know that deeper down there is a chasm between life in London and Tokyo.
For example, imagine you wanted to take the train from London to Rainham but didn’t know the fare. You’d have to queue at the ticket office, have a frustrating encounter with the ticketperson and probably miss your connection. If you got to the ticket barrier in Rainham and had the wrong fare, you’d be charged a fine.
In Tokyo, you’d have bought the cheapest ticket and gone to the fare adjustment machine at your final destination, paying the difference. In Japan there seems to be an unspoken sense of trust and honesty. Like I say, I didn’t really get much of a feel for Japan as I was busy power sightseeing, a particular challenge in Tokyo as there aren’t really any ’sights’, but it was fascinating nonetheless.
I’ll be honest that, alongside Beijing, Tokyo is probably the most challenging city I’ve been to, because of the language barrier. Although subway signs etc. are in English as well as Japanese, very few people speak much English and my Japanese is sadly lacking. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it, just that it was not as easy as wandering Sydney. Things were made worse when I had a major falling out with the Time Out guidebook, which insisted on providing scant information and rubbish maps. Bearing in mind that addresses read, say, 2-4-13 Shinjuku-ku – which means the fourth building of the second block of the thirteenth chiome of Shinjuku district (or something like that) – rather than a simple number on a road, the book could have been a lot more helpful.
Spent most of Wednesday wandering the streets, checking out the Imperial Palace (except there’s nothing to see as the public are not allowed anywhere near it), browsing the malls and getting confused. I especially liked these giant bonzai trees:
Two interesting places I did stop… firstly the National Museum for the Advancement of Science and Technology which had a brilliant range of interactive exhibits. Definitely the best was one where I got to sit by myself in a motion simulator (but like a flight simulator) with two playstation controllers, which controlled a live ant-like robot outside the room. With 3D glasses, thumping sound effects and the simulator moving at my command it felt like being in something from Star Wars!
Secondly I went to Tokyo Disneyland. It was rubbish, hardly any rides and nothing new, but my geeky side is delighted that I’ve now been to all four… I was struck by how few Western faces I saw in Tokyo as a whole, even at Disneyland. Apart from inside my Ryokan I must have seen no more than a dozen. Indeed, I was a bit of an attraction myself at Disneyland, being asked to appear in photos a couple of times.
Oh yes, the Kimi-Ryokan (or as I like to call it, the Kimi Raikannen). A traditional Japanese guest house with futon and tatami mats, this was fine – and cheap in a very expensive city – but was left stuck by the curfew. Not getting back at night, 1am was a fine deadline, but trying to get out. Although the front desk had said they’d let me out, when trying to leave at 5.30 this morning I spent ten minutes waiting before busting out the fire escape.
And with that, this morning it’s onto my final destination: Hong Kong
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