Life in Japan

Just got some documents from an organisation naming itself the "Ministry of Justice" claiming I have "won" a 3 year visa to Japan which I can take to a dodgy-sounding location down in the Shinagawa docks a short walk away from the Minato Ward Garbage Factory to exchange for an actual visa against the payment of an upfront "fee"

Sounds like an unbeatable deal (though if you don't hear back from me in a day or two it means I am probably having some special shoes fitted beneath the waters of Tokyo Bay).

Apologies for the hiatus, it's been an unexpectedly busy month and all this international jetsetting has been wearing me down. Particularly as the air in parts of the Great East Asian Prospero-Sphere is not all it could be, which knocked me out for a couple of weeks with a nasty throat-based respiratory ailment.

Anyway, I have more-or-less returned to my dynamic, forward-looking and synergestic self and intend to resume my incisive, authoritative and informed commentary on all matters Japanese, especially if it involves badly written English, with immediate effect.

So, last night I was engaged in a bout of light sleep when the building started moving of its own accord. Nothing particularly unusual about that, but normally I sleep through such events, and this one was not only the first I've experienced in this building (only moved in a couple of weeks ago) but it seemed to go on for a fairly long time. Not sure whether to be alarmed (the building is very new and might have just ridden out a dramatic seismic event) I put the TV on, and sure enough it seemed to have been quite a biggy: within 60 - 120 seconds of a significant earth-moving event, information on the affected areas pops up on the screen, and here we see that northern Miyagi, parts of Yamagata and northern Ibaraki prefectures have just felt a "3":

On several occasions over the last few weeks while travelling by train I've encountered the term "振替運転" (furikae unten, literally transfer operation), and been slightly mystified by it. The reason being I've spent a lot of time in Japan over the last 12 years or so and never recalled seeing this concept before. It pops up when the trains suddenly fail to come for some reason, and there's some announcement to the effect that "we're really really sorry for the inconvenience and heads will be rolling soon, and also furikae unten is now in operation". So yesterday, when en route from Sendagaya Station to Shinjuku some minor catastrophe (points problems I think) meant no Chuo-Sobu line trains would be coming from Akihabara for quite a while, I decided in the spirit of adventure and wild living to give furikae unten a whirl.

Basically the procedure is to show your ticket to the person in the office at the ticket gates, and you get a plain white ticket like this:

(振替乗車票, furikae jôshahyô) which entitles you to use a reasonable alternative train route, even if with a completely different operating company. Here I am descending into the depths of the Ôedo Line's Kokuritsu Kyôgijô station, which is fortunately just opposite the JR Sendagaya station and equally fortuitously goes to Shinjuku (although by the time you've made your way down and back up from the Ôedo Line's stations, which lie deep beneath the Earth's crust, it takes about twice as long).

On exiting the "other" company's station, hand over the white ticket at the ticket gate and be on your merry way.

What I'm not yet clear about is how far furikae unten is "valid", i.e. if only the Chuo-Sobu line was affected, but it's possible and more convenient to reach your ultimate destination using the alternative line, rather than changing back to JR part way through; and what happens if you were intending to pay excess fare at the JR destination station, but the alternative route doesn't give you any chance to change back to the company who issued the furikae unten ticket - will the alternative company try and extract the balance?

Typical view from the train window.

Wrong kind of wind. Also, those exotic characters above the word "accident" actually spell "車両点検", which translates as "rolling stock inspection", which is usually an euphemism for "whoops, the train broke down. Something "lost in translation" there, methinks.

Changing trains. The big red characters say "THIS IS NOT AN EXIT". On the other side of the automatic ticket gates is the Keikyu Line, a private and completely separate entity to JR (the former state railway), from whose "territory" this photo was taken.

Through the barrier, the consequences of the above-mentioned "accident" become painfully visible. Note the discrepancy between departure times displayed on the board and the actual time displayed on the clock. Yes, Japanese trains can be up to 10 minutes late!

Calamity struck the other day as my precious supply of teabags finally ran out. Now, one thing Japan is not short of is tea - in an emergency (and we're talking about natural disaster send-in-the-troops type emergency here) it's even available in pre-warmed cans from your local neighbourhood vending machine. However, probably due to my British genes I prefer to brew my own tea using teabags of the kind sold in packs of 960, with each individual bag packing enough punch to inject the teaine or whatever they contain directly into the bloodstream, no mucking about with blending or aroma or other poncy stuff, thankyou very much.

Unfortunately, as with many things in Japan, while teabags are widely available, the price gives one the impression they are individually hand-crafted by artisans on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Consequently it is my mission to find a source which will help me maintain my chronic drinking habit without too-disastrous financial repercussions. So it was with some excitement I learnt that a British grocery shop called "Tesco", as part of its drive for world domination, has opened a chain of stores across Tokyo. Unfortunately none near Provisional Penguin HQ, but there is one near Meidaimae Station (明大前駅), where I was headed anyway to scout out a more permanent location for Penguin HQ, so yesterday I popped in for a sniff around and maybe to take one or two surreptitious bloggery photos.

Well, it was more like any other Japanese supermarket than Tesco as I remember it. There were a couple of shelves of original Tesco products, including Red Label (own brand) tea in Japan-sized 40-packs, but at a tad under 300 yen (1.50 pounds or 2 Euros) they weren't really worth the extra expense and time of the train journey.

Looks like I'll be dependent on Don Quijote's bargain basement for a while (100 normal bags for about 400 yen) - unless anyone has any hot teabag tips for me, in which case feel free to post them here.

Well, it's just about a week since I touched down on the sacred Japanese soil (much of it covered in protective layers of concrete), and as it's been well over a year since I was last in Tokyo, the changes which have occurred stand out much more than they would if I'd been here all the time. It won't be long before they merge into the background, so I'll note them here before I forget.

Inevitably many buildings have disappeared, and new ones have appeared, though quite often it's difficult to remember what was on the empty plot before, or whether the new-looking building is really that new, even in places I know well. However, I can definitively say that Meat Shop Bambi has tragically vanished, while the Shinjuku skyline has sprouted a new, innovatively shaped skyscraper (the first of its sort in Tokyo, where rounded corners have been the most radical advances in tall building architecture until now). Being of an adventurous mindset I toddled along to have a look, fearing it might be yet another Richard Rogers effort, but it turns out the 50-story structure in question - the Tokyo Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower (東京モード学園コクーンタワー, some details from Tokyo Construction News) - is by Tange Associates, founded by Kenzo Tange (the architect behind some of Tokyo's other notable large buildings such as the nearby Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building).

Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi (right) is this year's fashionable new retail complex in which to go and stand in a queue. Meanwhile, over in Harajuku, the site of the former Palais de France (パレフランス, location of popular café Aux Baccanales and demolished in 2004), is still a dormant building site - apparently some sort of strife is preventing the involved parties from agreeing on what to replace it with.

No major changes on the transport network, although the Chuo Line has suddenly got nice shiny new trains (mind you I preferred the old ones with their uniform orange sides and late Showa atmosphere). It seems paper-based tickets are slowly being phased out, with more and more automatic ticket gates becoming electronic ticket only. Bi-lingual station announcements on trains are becoming more widespread (though they impinge severely on My Japan ;), and I wish they'd make up their minds whether to pronounce the station names in either the Japanese way or the slightly cringeworthy Japanese-American accent prevalent in most announcements).

Lotteria, purveyor of my favourite Japanese junk food the ebi burger (shrimp burger) has renovated most of its branches with a new design. A chain of standing-only sushi bars has made its appearance, accelerating sushi to true fast food status (standing-only eateries were previously the preserve of noodle places and the odd hole-in-the-wall bar).

The environment, particularly global warming (温暖化 / ondanka) is becoming a much-talked about subject, no doubt soon there will be an Ondanka-kun mascot character made of plastic in factories in China being widely distributed to raise awareness of the issue. Shop assistants seem far more likely to ask me if I would like a bag with an individual purchase, rather than try and give me one anyway, which I then have to gently but firmly refuse, and the concept of the "eco bag" (エコバッグ, i.e. a shopping bag you take with you to put your shopping in and use again and again) is making its debut.

Prices seem to have remained largely stable, though some foodstuffs are creeping up, and no doubt energy is not getting any cheaper. The Post Office has been privatized (I think), at least its component parts are marketing themselves more aggressively than they used to. TV-capable mobile phones are suddenly all the rage. The former Vodafone network has finally been rebranded as SoftBank. Tokyo is actively campaigning to host the 2016 Massive Construction Boondoggle Summer Olympics. There seems to have been a sudden profusion of pet shops (the kind with shelves of glass boxes about as big as a decent-sized hamster cage, each containing a rather pitiful puppy or kitten).

Finally, there's been a creeping hardening in the political attitude towards foreigners, most visible in the compulsory fingerprinting at immigration. I won't go into that - except to say it's one important factor in deciding whether I want to spend the next few years in Japan - but here's an interesting opinion piece on general policy direction towards foreigners by Terrie Lloyd of Japan Inc.

For anyone labouring under the impression that being at the same latitude as northern Africa means it's nice and warm (or at least nowhere near as cold as northern Germany) here: the weather forecast for tomorrow, showing the highest predicted temperatures.

At least Tokyo won't be getting any of the 30 - 60cm of snow which will be dumped on the Siberia-facing side of the archipelago overnight, but it's still very much warm woolly jumper weather.