Tokyo: Consumerist Heck

We headed out again to see some of the sights of Tokyo as well as investigate what a Manga kissa had to offer. We had been told that these have the blisteringly fast internet speeds I had been expecting in Japan, and it is also possible to sleep there for much less money than a hostel. I thought we could maybe sleep there one night to see if it would make a suitable substitute for Couchsurfing in Japan since that didn't seem like that would work out, and also take the opportunity to back up all of our photos taken so far to online storage, just in case something happens to the camera memory cards, the laptop, and DVDs we've been backing up to. The final thing we had to accomplish was to book seats on the train to Nagasaki, which we had decided to leave for the following day.

At our local train station I deployed the one Japanese sentence I had learned: eigo ga hanasemas ka, which means “Do you speak English?”. Thankfully the woman behind the desk said that she spoke a bit and we tried to reserve seats to Shibuya in the centre of Tokyo, however she told us, in pretty good English, that it wasn't possible to reserve seats on the local train, we just had to show our passes and walk through.

The "iconic" Shibuya Crossing view

At Shibuya station we went into the ticket office, having decided to get the Nagasaki booking out of the way, and I tried my sentence again. This time the woman shook her head. Oh-oh! We tried just saying Nagasaki but she wanted to know which train and what time and who knows what else. We scurried away to look for some information, since we weren't going to get it from behind the desk. Everything in the ticket office was in Japanese only, not even any romanji, including all of the time-table books, so we were none the wiser. Instead we decided we would just find the information online while we were at the Manga kissa, then return with the train number and times written down. We were a bit put out by the experience though. Our passes are only for tourists, after all you cannot get them inside the country and they're not available to Japanese residents, but nobody in the ticket office at a major train station could speak English and none of the important information is in English. You can get timetable information online, but you can't book seats online, so you have to come to one of the ticket offices to make a booking, yet they seem totally unprepared for tourists. Odd since the woman at our little local station could speak English. It also seemed strange since I imagine Tokyo must be quite a major tourist destination, but there is almost no English.

We set out for the Manga kissa quite nearby on the Lonely Planet map of the Shibuya. Quite quickly we ran into a problem: even the major streets did not seem to have signs indicating what they were called. We weren't totally sure, after all some of the Japanese sign may have been street names, but there wasn't anything where you would expect a street name. We walked about for a while not knowing if we were heading in the right direction, then we walked back and tried another anonymous street. We didn't find the Manga kissa we were looking for, but found another one and went in. At the desk it was all a bit confusing, but we managed to indicate that the two of us would just share one booth. The price was very high per hour, but the night rate which was for eight hours, looked very reasonable if you saw it as a substitute for a hostel as well as an internet place. As promised I was finally rewarded with some fast internet, although it didn't seem anything more than I'd expect at a good day at a workplace or in a university in Britain. The cubicle was just big enough for two people to sleep in, although it would be quite tight with both big rucksacks. It definitely seemed like a reasonable option. When we had finished online we went to the desk to pay and got quite a shock: even though we had shared a cubicle, we were charged double! Suddenly it didn't seem like such a cheap sleeping option after all, although it did mean we might as well take a cubicle each and spread out a bit.

Shibuya Crossing, ready to go

We walked about a bit, remembering that we were supposed to be enjoying the city, not just getting lost and frustrated, so we returned to train station where we had read in the guide book Shibuya Crossing is one of the most famous crossings in the world. It did look kind of familiar, although it reminded me a lot of New York on TV. I decided that Japan didn't seem European to me, but Anglo-Saxon: it reminded me of the UK and the USA. We saw some trendy young Japanese people in unusual clothes, took some photos and moved on. Another must-see area is Harajuku, we had read. It was quite nearby, so we decided to walk and take in more of the city. On the way I really started to dislike Tokyo. It wasn't just the fact that there are no street names (most of the streets genuinely have no names, we discovered later), but it all just seems about consumerism. I hate it at home and what I see of America on the telly, and I don't like it any more in Asia. It's just all about shopping. How shallow!

We were still suffering a bit of culture shock from India I think. In many ways Japan and India are opposites and some of the change was very nice: the food is light and clean-tasting instead of the heavy greasy food in India; as far as cleanliness goes they are opposite; as far as manners goes they are opposite. But then they are also opposite in cost, which is bad, and also as far as rules are concerned. In India if something is closed, it isn't really closed; someone will be there to open up, but closed really is closed in Japan. Trains and buses don't run on time in India, but that means there is always some kind of backup allowing you to be quite slack, but it seems in Japan if you are late for things that it tough, because that's it. You just aren't late in Japan. It wasn't as easy to adjust as I had expected. India tolerates total slackness and you never need to be organised in advance; you can just make it all up as you go along, but Japan is just too complicated to do that.

Takeshita dori, Harajuku

We got to Harajuku and saw a few more unusually dressed young people just like we were supposed to, including one dressed as Bo Peep and several girls with wings. Most of them seemed to be dressed in some kind of goth style variation. I have since read that the favourite style there is known as gothic lolita. I can't say I really enjoyed walking about Tokyo much; other than constantly getting lost due to the lack of street names, all of the high-rise buildings everywhere make the city very oppressive, and for the most part they're just not as modern-looking as I expected. Everything looks like the 70s or 80s.

Busy on Takeshita Street in Harajuku

I was still so tired that I nearly lost my wallet drawing money. I came out of the air-conditioned room full of ATMs and started walking up the road to rejoin Joanne. After a couple of hundred metres I realised the “wallet pocket” in my rucksack was still open, which usually means I have my wallet in my hand. Sure enough there was no wallet there, so we rushed back to the ATM room. There is was sitting next to the ATM I had used and all around Japanese people were studiously ignoring it. Thank goodness! That was the second time I've got away with stupidly losing my wallet; I don't think I want to a third time.

Back at our own train station we tried again to get a ticket for Nagasaki. It was becoming much more urgent since we were supposed to be leaving the following day. Unfortunately the English-speaking girl was no longer on shift and we totally failed to communicate with the guy who had taken her place. At the hostel we asked if the owner's wife would write out our ticket request in Japanese for us, which she did, but when we asked about the cheap sushi restaurant she had said she'd take us to she told us we were too late. Odd that she hadn't mentioned to us that there was an ending time before, but we made the best of it and bought our dinner from the supermarket again. At least we were saving money. After quickly eating I returned to the station ticket office which the owner's wife had told us would still be open. It wasn't. Apparently she had neglected to say that it was closing in just ten minutes so you had better hurry. I think there must be something in Japanese culture about leaving things unsaid. First the sushi restaurant and now this. I suspect this is partly what was making Tokyo so difficult: why have street signs up when everyone knows where they are?

That evening the Canadians were noisy and kept us up late and I didn't sleep well at all, even after they went to bed. Rather than recovering from our overnight flight we were getting more and more worn out. I really hated this hostel and our tiny little room and wanted to get out of it and Tokyo as soon as possible.

written by  The Happy Couple on July 5, 2009 from Tokyo, Japan
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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