Alex's travel blog

Mumbai, India

At the baggage claim at Tokyo airport, I saw a bald man who looked very familiar. No...it can't be, I thought. I then saw the woman he was with and my suspicions were confirmed - randomly I instantly recognised the shape of her body from behind . It was the Master of Jesus College and his wife! I've had lots of coincidental meetings with people, but this one is my favourite so far. I discovered he'd been lecturing in Sydney, was going to do a lecture in Japan, then was hosting a Jesus event in Hong Kong. What a great job. (He didn't invite me to the Hong Kong event though).

For the first time in 2 months, I was in a non English speaking country. At first it seemed so strange to see all these funny symbols where writing should be. A sign in the train looked like this. But all the staion names were also written out in Roman characters. Getting to the hotel was surprisingly trouble-free and easy. After so many generic backpacker dorms, I loved my hotel room. It was in traditional Japanese style: the floor was covered in straw mats and the bed was just a matress on the floor - during the day you roll this up to get extra space. I was provided with a cotton gown and slippers. Out in the coridor was a vending machine where I could get unlimited green tea. On the top floor was a traditional Japanese bath. To use this, you have to take off all your clothes in the changing room, go inside, sit on a stool and wash yourself, then lie in the communal hot bath. I was pretty relieved that there was no one else there while I was using it.

I had two full days in Tokyo. I hadn't bothered learning any Japanese. Well, I bought a phrase book and learnt 'thank you', 'do you speak English', etc. on the plane, but that's about it. I had persuaded myself that most people would be able to speak English, and I'd be able to get by using that. It didn't really work out like that. On the first morning, I tried to ask the hotel reception for information about how to use the underground system, but the didn't understand me. I headed to the station to try on my own. The people in the information windows didn't speak English, and couldn't even provide me with a map. There was a bewildering away of ticketing machines, covered with that horrible confusing squiggly writing. You could make them use English, but that wasn't much help - I didn't know what sort of ticket I should be buying. The station was in two parts and I didn't even know which side I should be going in to. I had a couple of attempts and got nowhere. I felt like crying. Finally, I bought a single ticket, got to the tourist information centre, and they explained everything for me. During the remainder of the day, I saw some very nice shrines and temples and had a quick look at Tokyo tower (looks a bit like the Eiffel Tower, but red and white).

On the second day I headed to the modern business district, Shinjiku. I had been thinking about getting to Shinjiku station for rush hour: apparantly they employ 'people-pushers' who use big pads on poles to cram as many people as possible onto the trains. Unfortunately, I got up too late. On the right is what it looked like. This is what I'd expected Tokyo to look like, but most of the city is grey, low rise and quite drab. I went up to the top floor of one of the Meteropolitan Government Offices. The view was amazing. It wasn't that there was anything in particular that was nice to look at - more that it gave me an idea of just how big Tokyo is. The land was flat for as far as I could see in every direction. And in every direction the city extended, grey and unchanging, until it disappeared into the haze at the horizon.

Later, I went to the Sony Centre. For some reason I was assuming it would be like an electronic theme park, but it was just a big show room, so not that exciting.

One thing I found cool about Tokyo was the vending machines on the streets, like this one. On it's own, it wouldn't be THAT exciting. But there were machines, no exageration, about every 50 metres on every road. They sold loads of stuff I didn't recognise, which was quite exciting. A popular item was ice-cold coffee in a can, with or without milk. I tried one expecting it to be disgusting...but actualy it wasn't too bad - tasted a bit like chocolate milkshake.

The next day (6th June) I took the bullet-train to Kyoto. This was really fast! Looking at the landscape whizzing by was absolutely bizzare...it was like my brain had speeded up. We sped past cars on motorways as if they were parked. The journey also gave me a chance to see what Japan looked like outside of the cities. My conclusion - it looks just the same as it does inside the cities. I didn't really get into countryside at all. The largest open space we came across was about 200 metres of rice fields. I didn't see any parks or gardens either - any green was provided by scrubby grass on patches of wasteland. Even the rivers were unattractive - they were confined to concrete channels. The track was above the ground for 90 percent of the journey - I guess there was just no space to build it along the ground. It seems that you don't go to Japan for natural beauty...although to be fair I was travelling through the most densely populated part of a densely populated country.