Thursday (29/05/03)
I started off a bit tired and annoyed due to the Champions League game and non-result. I got a call from home and managed to find out the result before we all went to training so at training I was just tired.
I managed to persuade most people of the virtues of Akihabara and, as I had done a bit of research about where to go, I was confident I could find what I was after. Akihabara is pretty near a place called Ueno which is meant to be a pretty major place so it was decided that we should go down there too. It was a bit odd because I acted as a bit of a guide but I could see everyone's eyes open a little when we came out of the station to be greeted by a cornucopia of electronics.
Unsurprisingly, most were interested in checking the phones out and a bit impressed. Thing is, in my opinion, they all looked pretty similar - clamshell design, two colour screens, small and camera. Well, we walked around and I asked at a load of places about my camcorder until we were ready to go at which point I found somewhere that'd do it for me at JPY 80 000 (probably cos I was gonna be the last customer) which was as much as I wanted to pay. Once I got that sorted, we moved onto Ueno. To be honest, I wanted to walk about but the others just wanted a bar really. As it turned out, I "won" as a result of not knowing what was going on.
The bars and stuff are hidden away on different floors of what appear to be office blocks so you have to get into lifts and find them. Not quite as simple as London…or anywhere else. We found a few bars that were a bit intimidating due to the genuine jap-style of them - no shoes! We found a few bars but we kept getting all the staff coming to the door and telling us to go away. In Japan they say no and, instead of shaking their heads, they form an X with their forearms which looks really weird at first, and a bit like a dance move[B]. I expect I'll be doing it soon though. Eventually we just found a noodle place (after being rejected from one and rejecting another due to lack of vegetarian options - Japan is really tricky for veggies, (HA HA) and ate. Some of the guys got some beers in aswell so everyone was pleased. My food was good and everyone else seemed pleased.
The weird thing was the payment. In Japan, they love having plastic models of the food in windows or on display, which makes it a lot easier for the non-Japanese to choose food. This place also had a vending machine so you paid at the machine, got a ticket and gave it to the bar where they gave you your food (after having made it)[C]. It was all very simple apart from the distinct lack of English. But the people are so very helpful - one of the staff came out to help with our orders and pressed the right button when we pointed. A customer who was also choosing at the time recommended me something and I was not disappointed. People are so helpful here.
After that, I returned to the hotel because I was knackered and we were meant to be out on Saturday on the Shane expense account and had organised something for Friday too. Obviously I didn't go to sleep but played about with my new toy, which had no English instructions…
Friday (30/05/03)
I was feeling really tired in the morning due to my lack of sleep (playing with camcorder) and was in dire need of some caffeine. The vending machines all have some form of caffeine drink, usually iced coffee but some of them have hot coffee too. I was feeling a bit more adventurous so I got some random iced mocha drink from the convenience store near the head office where we were training. Andy had had one the day before and said it was pretty decent so I thought I would have something similar. I went for the "less English on packaging is better" philosophy and got some random drink, which was gorgeous[D]! It really did perk me up and I felt good for a while but by the time it was our next break I was feeling a bit weird. Obviously I went and bought another one and I felt really odd again - it's a bit like when I have tangfastics (and some people know that I go mental on that) so I think this may turn out to be my new haribo. This resulted in me saying loads of random crap in training and generally being "funny" which means that all of my jokes were rubbish and nobody laughed. But I didn't care. Our training guy also kept asking me specifically all the time (maybe I was paranoid though?) and we seemed to build some kind of rapport which is worrying as I thought he tried too hard before and I still do.
Anyway, when training had finished (and my head was still all over the place at this point) we all decided to meet at Shinjuku station so we could have a look around it. I wanted to go back to Akihabara as I wanted some more bits for my camcorder that I didn't get (cables for PC connection). So I went off and bought those (and a new 40 Gb hard drive for my laptop) and then went to Shinjuku station. I was meant to meet the others at 830 but I wanted to go there a bit earlier to try and find these places that sell entertainment tickets because I really want to go to the SummerSonic Music Festival in Tokyo[E]. The station is huge - absolutely massive and I walked out and got instantly confused. I was told to go to the West exit, which I did and I walked out, and I saw the skyscrapers and the business and the lights and the people and the cars and I knew I was at the right place. I had no idea where to go or what was going on but I walked around for about twenty minutes very slowly with my mouth open. I got back to the station to meet up with Allan and his mate, (Walid) who he met only a while back. I found the others aswell before they got too confused. Apparently Shinjuku has twice the population of Belgium through it every day! I have not checked the facts (hence "apparently") but there are 2million people through it each day and I can totally believe it.
Eventually we all found each other and I did the intros for Allan/Walid to everyone else and then told them to lead us to "a good place". This involved lifts and stairs until we found a garlic restaurant - can you guess what they did? Shinjuku on a Friday night is not the quietest place in the world so we were lucky to find somewhere but we did have to be split up. I ended up with Walid and Allan while the others were together and indulged in some sangria action. It was a shame we got split up but I did end up having an interesting set of chats with Allan and Walid about Tokyo and politics.
Once we had finished there, a drinking hole was desired. This is actually a difficult task in Shinjuku for us but eventually we find this place that looks OK. Allan and Walid have got other/better things to do so they head off (arcades I think, before "out") so the Andy, Elin, Craig, Becky and Saif party enter. We are aware the trains stop running fairly early so we are ready to leave at the right time. The bar itself is quite nifty and we are sorted out with a table and waiter. Drinks are ordered and enjoyed. The service is really friendly but a bit slow so only one round is got in before we go to the station for the train to our respective "homes".
The train home is absolutely mental. I have never been on a busier train in my life and never even seen one either. I had heard before coming to Japan that the subway has people employed to push the trains full but I have not seen that yet. I also read a while back that the Tokyo subway runs at 186% capacity at rush periods. Not eighty-six but one hundred and eighty-six! This train was so busy that I was basically levitating and still more people got on. And more. I kind of respect the attitude of the passengers getting on as they basically just try to ram on at full pelt to break through the "skin" of people at the doors. When the train moved, the whole carriage basically "fell" over onto each other but could not fall. We were travelling whilst standing at about 45 degrees! When the tra[A]in stopped at a station the force made people go vertical again but then, when moving, it was back to leaning. You couldn't put a leg out to balance either as there was nowhere for that leg to go. Really bizarre experience but it felt very friendly. I assume that a lot of the passengers are used to the journey so they were unfazed.
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. I wonder if this was a vision of the future. I have, since I can remember, been distinctly unimpressed with mobile phones and I am not sure why. I had quite an interest in consumer electronics in general but these have never grabbed me. Bearing in mind that this was 2003, the phones were undoubtedly quite advanced for British eyes. In a time before pure homogenisation of the market, Japanese phones were different - but similar to each other usually. The cameras were better, in specification terms, than any phones in the UK and internet on phones was the standard at the time. I-mode was a brand for NTT docomo and it was effectively a network portal but it did not give access to the world wide web (as far as I was aware). There was a lot of information that was readily available though and you could send e-mail (rather than texts) to each other and there were places to get train times and weather etc. It was perfectly serviceable. This may explain my antipathy - it was perfectly serviceable. I did not see why you needed to spend more and more on things when you did not get an improved service - and I still kind of think this. I did like those phones though, the clamshell flick to open was always fun and I liked being able to write Japanese and English with lots of emoji. Not that I used the emoji much - it just wasn't, and isn't, my style.↩
B. In hindsight, I am not sure whether they were full or that they did not want a large group like ours. Some places did not like serving foreign customers much as they were harder to deal with (which is true - and some of the foreign groups were irritating - I liken it to not allowing stag/hen groups in) and could be annoying to others. Once you know that bars can be on any floor of a building, it is much easier to find them and the ground floor is just the beginning.↩
C. This is a very common system and one that I really like. It means the staff do not have to handle money - they can concentrate on food and service. It means that you have paid before eating so you can leave at any time - it is ideal for quick service.↩
D. The drink was not actually mocha of any sort - it was just very sweet. As a drink, it is called "Kohii gyunyu" translating to coffee milk (milk is often called "milk" in Japanese rather than the Japanese term "gyunyu") and is ridiculously sweet. As the name suggests, it is not placing itself in the coffee market, the milk is strong and it is almost like a coffee milkshake - a coffee version of a strawberry milk... Japanese vending machine coffee is very popular and instant coffee was quite popular in Japan. As these drinks were more like coffee drinks, I wasn't a huge fan but they were very easy to drink and ice coffee was quite common too.↩
E. I did go to the festival and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. The music scene in Japan is quite strange and there seems to be a split in those that like domestic music and those that like international music. Summer Sonic was a generally international festival with a few Japanese acts thrown in. 2003 had Radiohead and Blur headlining each night though I could only go to the Radiohead night. Only(!).↩
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. I wonder if this was a vision of the future. I have, since I can remember, been distinctly unimpressed with mobile phones and I am not sure why. I had quite an interest in consumer electronics in general but these have never grabbed me. Bearing in mind that this was 2003, the phones were undoubtedly quite advanced for British eyes. In a time before pure homogenisation of the market, Japanese phones were different - but similar to each other usually. The cameras were better, in specification terms, than any phones in the UK and internet on phones was the standard at the time. I-mode was a brand for NTT docomo and it was effectively a network portal but it did not give access to the world wide web (as far as I was aware). There was a lot of information that was readily available though and you could send e-mail (rather than texts) to each other and there were places to get train times and weather etc. It was perfectly serviceable. This may explain my antipathy - it was perfectly serviceable. I did not see why you needed to spend more and more on things when you did not get an improved service - and I still kind of think this. I did like those phones though, the clamshell flick to open was always fun and I liked being able to write Japanese and English with lots of emoji. Not that I used the emoji much - it just wasn't, and isn't, my style.↩
B. In hindsight, I am not sure whether they were full or that they did not want a large group like ours. Some places did not like serving foreign customers much as they were harder to deal with (which is true - and some of the foreign groups were irritating - I liken it to not allowing stag/hen groups in) and could be annoying to others. Once you know that bars can be on any floor of a building, it is much easier to find them and the ground floor is just the beginning.↩
C. This is a very common system and one that I really like. It means the staff do not have to handle money - they can concentrate on food and service. It means that you have paid before eating so you can leave at any time - it is ideal for quick service.↩
D. The drink was not actually mocha of any sort - it was just very sweet. As a drink, it is called "Kohii gyunyu" translating to coffee milk (milk is often called "milk" in Japanese rather than the Japanese term "gyunyu") and is ridiculously sweet. As the name suggests, it is not placing itself in the coffee market, the milk is strong and it is almost like a coffee milkshake - a coffee version of a strawberry milk... Japanese vending machine coffee is very popular and instant coffee was quite popular in Japan. As these drinks were more like coffee drinks, I wasn't a huge fan but they were very easy to drink and ice coffee was quite common too.↩
E. I did go to the festival and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. The music scene in Japan is quite strange and there seems to be a split in those that like domestic music and those that like international music. Summer Sonic was a generally international festival with a few Japanese acts thrown in. 2003 had Radiohead and Blur headlining each night though I could only go to the Radiohead night. Only(!).↩
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