Ueno, Tokyo

Probably one of the lesser known districts of Tokyo, Ueno is best known for its huge park with museums, art centres and even a zoo!

What I've found is that a lot of parks in Tokyo are not your everyday parks. I'm expecting grassy areas, children's play areas, and maybe even a basketball ring. However many parks here is like walking through an outdoor museum in which the trees are on display. There are concrete paths to follow, and the flora is barricaded off from the path. Only places to sit are steel benches, in which many of them are taken up by middle aged men having a snooze in the midday sun. But I guess it just a different style of park. Ueno Park does have an impressive fountain in the middle though, and there are plenty of vans selling snacks and street performers showing off their skills. There was a guy (who I presume was French) playing the accordion who was really popular with the crowd, it looked like he got enough tips to get food for a month.

Anyway, the main purpose of our visit to Ueno was to check out the Tokyo National Museum, which is the oldest and largest in Japan. It contained the usual things you'd expect - ancient pottery, weapons, clothing and religious artifacts. To be honest I didn't really enjoy this museum as much as I have others, and it was because I had no idea was I was looking at. Most of the item plaques had no translation, so all I had to go off was the year, and the introductory plaque at the front of the exhibition. I'm sure each item had some significance, unfortunately missed by us.

Something I remembered that was quite funny was the way the door man ripped our tickets. He took them one in each hand, and held them up in front between two fingers. It looked like he was trying to compare them or something. We were wondering what the hell was going on, but then he snapped his fingers which perfectly ripped off the stubs. We were like woooaah!! The guy was looking at us as if we were nuts.

Afterwards we wandered over to the main city of Ueno where the main bulk of the shops were. It had a working class feel - not glamourous, busy and bustling. The laneways had many food shops selling all types of spices, dried seafood, and other weird stuff that smelt as weird as it looked. There was an interesting shop that drew a large crowd, although I didn't really understand, the shopkeeper holds a big bag and proceeds to put items in it one by one. The price for the bag was 1000 yen and whoever yells out first gets it. The items were little knick knacks - chips, tissue boxes, soy sauce...Yep we definitely weren't in Shibuya anymore!

After passing the 10000th arcade shop we decided to go in and have a crack at the UFO 'claw' games. Gerald needed a new key ring and she liked one that had a little old school converse shoe attached to it. On my 3rd attempt to snare one up I caught one! The claw was slowly moving back to the ramp that led to the open chute, and by then I was already doing my victory dance. The claw opens up, down drops the shoe, and FFS it just sits on the ramp! Damn those grippy soles! Luckily I showed one of the workers who was kind enough to fetch it out for us. Not cool though!

Ueno Park

Front of Tokyo National museum

Samurai armor

Nikko (north of Tokyo)

Our first real getaway from Tokyo was to Nikko, a leafy town about 3 hours north of Tokyo by train. During the sweltering Tokyo heat it was real nice to get some cool air up near the mountains. The town is about half a kilometre above sea level and covered in natural greenery and old temples, some of which are world heritage sites. Also naturally, it is really popular with tourists!

The train ride was actually a lot more grinding than I thought it would be. It takes almost the same time to get from Tokyo to Kyoto on a bullet train, except the seats are way less comfy. With no music, and all our snack food consumed within the first five minutes, a lot of that time was spent dozing off. Well, for Gerald anyway, I was too worried we'd sleep through our stop so I was awake for most of the trip.

Our plan for the day was to just stroll around and enjoy the sights and visit a few temples along the way. There wasn't much to see in terms of a grand and spectacular attraction, but it is perfect for a relaxing day out. That's right, we opted not to stay over night, for one, accommodation prices were through the roof, and there wasn't a lot to do or see. There was a bus that you catch from the station that takes you to a temple, and from there you can see everything by foot pretty easily in a day.

In all I'd say we visited about 5 temples, and although temples start looking the same after a while, this was a bit different than the cloned temple feeling of Kyoto. The long stretching walkways, stone pebble paths and long stair cases along with the natural surroundings makes any visitor stop every now and again to take it all in. As always, I got sucked into buying a good luck charm from one of vendors, which I keep safely with me at all times in my wallet.

There isn't much more to say about this place, it's something you just have to see and experience. Or maybe my English isn't good enough to find words for it. If you get the chance, definitely try to go there for a day if you feel clogged up in busy Tokyo. Oh and I almost forgot that the surround areas of Nikko are famous for hot springs, we didn't even consider going as we were getting the same effect for free by just standing outside in the ridiculous summer humidity.

At the front of Nikko Station

Long path that linked the temples

Pretty cool!

I think see no evil hear no evil originated from here

Asakusa, Tokyo

As soon as we finally got some time to ourselves to do a little exploring, we hoarded our butts to a busy little town called Asakusa (pronounced A-suck-sa) just off the north east outskirts of the metro area.

It was our first time ever to Asakusa, and I have no idea why we never visited when we here before. A lot of travel books about Tokyo have this place as a must see of any short itinerary, and its easy to understand why.

When I first told my colleague of our plan to visit Asakusa he raised an eye brow and told us to expect it to be crowded. I thought to myself, it is the middle of summer and it is stinking hot, and it isn't a holiday period, so how crowded can it get really?? Well, it turned out to be PACKED and I have no idea where these people are coming from!

Front gate - Senso-ji

Asakusa is Tokyo's reminder of what it used to be like when it was called Edo. It used to be a place where the travellers would stop over to catch Kabuki plays or relax at an izakaya. It still retains a lot of its olden day charm with terraces of old shops and lots of locals walking around in their yuukata (traditional robe). It is also home to the oldest temple in Tokyo, Senso-ji (goddess of mercy).

Lantern at the entrance of Senso-ji

Unfortunately Senso-ji was undergoing a major reconstruction which is due to finish at the end of November, with the surrounding scaffold, it kinda took a bit away from what is an impressive temple. However that didn't stop the horde of locals and tour groups from lighting the incense, saying a prayer at the main temple, and taking snaps next to the big red latern at the gate. I know a lot of people who visit Japan, especially around Kyoto say that 'when you've seen one temple you've seen them all', but what makes this temple special is its sheer popularity. After you pay your respects inside and go about your formal ways, when you step outside you're back again in the chaos of what is Tokyo.

We spent most of our timing wandering the laneways surrounding Senso-ji. What we saw over and over again were Osenbei (rice cracker) shops. I thought, right, sa-ka-ta crackers, what is so special? But this is like going to Italy to have pizza. Sure it is different, but this is the real stuff! Many of the shops make the stuff right in front of your eyes and package individual rice crackers from tiny to the size of your head. Even though they are made primarily from just rice, a big cracker costs anywhere in the vicinity of $12 which seems quite insane.

There are many great looking traditional restaurants with the paper sliding doors and tatami mats, and we've noticed that it is these type of places that are the most expensive. We wanted to give it a try, but we hadn't gotten paid from work yet and weren't keen on burning all the money we had on a meal. Instead we tried a busy kaiten-sushi bar (conveyer belt sushi). Back home we call this a sushi train, because the sushi is actually moved around by a toy train? I don't know because I've never been to one in Australia since they're never busy, and the last thing you want is to eat raw fish that has travelled the equivalent of Melbourne to Sydney on a plastic train.

Taking a happy snap outside the temple

Me and one of the locals

To top off a great day, we treated ourselves to a back massage at a traditional styled inn. And no matter what language they speak, anyone who massages my back pretty much finds a way to tell me that my back is cactus.

See you later!

Gerald and Richard

Oshigoto!

Konichiwa all! We thought we'd write up a little piece on how we're going work wise, and what the working culture in Tokyo is like. Oshigoto! (Work!)

Gerald's work:

As many of you know, I'm working as, of course, an English Instructor. I work at Gaba providing as they call it "man-to-man" lessons (very Japanese! just means 1 on 1 lesson) in 40 minute blocks "lessons". I work in Shinjuku, great for me as it is one of the shopping mecca, bad for my atm card!

On my first day, I had an interesting line-up of students. My very first lesson was with a girl, who I shall not name, nearly made me pee my pants laughing. Me: "So tell me about your boss?", Student: "He is a pussy." Me: "ehhhhh? (laughing)" Unfortunately I couldn't get her to elaborate on what she meant b/c my boss was sitting opposite me!

This lesson was shortly followed by the next lesson where the student insisted on spending her 40 mins by reading aloud a really high level text book about the "Hispanic and other minorities in USA", where words like "stratification", "idiosyncratic" etc were commonplace. I'm sure I made up a couple of definitions when she asked what certain words meant... hehe, don't tell!

But overall, the majority of my students make me laugh and keep me entertained. It seems like they really just want to come in and have a chat.

Rich's work:

I'm now what the locals call a 'salary man' and work in the UBS Securities office in Otemachi. Otemachi is a pure business district, nothing but offices and food! Working at UBS so far has been pretty good. What's most amazing is the cultural diversity of the company.

In my Equity Derivatives IT team there is a Romanian (my boss), Englishman, Frenchman, Indian, American, Russian, and two Japanese locals. A subsidiary of the United Nations! Working conditions are pretty good, not too much different from home. Seriously, the office is like my office back in Melbourne, the only difference is when you walk outside. Everyone speaks English, there is an internal chat client that everyone is on, regular meetings, and a social club that organises events and services such as massages and shoe polishing. The corporate world it seems is a common global culture.

Regarding working hours, Japan is considered one of the hardest working countries in the world, and doubled by the fact that UBS is an investment bank, I wasn't looking forward to amount of time I had to put in! When I first met up with my recruiter here, I asked him what my working hours were going to be like, to which his immediate response was "welcome to japan!" with a grin on his face. My throat pretty much went dry as I signed the contract.

But luckily it isn't that bad, it could be a LOT worse. So far on average I work on average over 10 hours a day (including break). Sometimes I see people on the train going home even after 9PM! Man the Aussies have it sweet with our 9 to 5! I remember one day one of my colleagues announced that he had to leave early, and I look at the clock and it was 6:30PM!!

A huge highlight of my (and probably everyone else's) working day is lunch time, because the lunch food in Tokyo is something that makes my mouth water at around about 11AM everyday. Not to say Melbourne doesn't have good food, but the o-bento (boxed lunch) culture in Japan is sooo good! For example, since it's a business district, all the eateries 'specialise' in lunch food for the office workers. Most restaurants have tables set up outside with a heap of boxed lunch sets that you can just pick up on the go. There is so much variety and everything just tastes really good! Each set usually has rice, a serving of meat, vegetables, salad, pickles and sometimes even miso soup. Average price being $6-$8, what a bargain!

Now I know everyone must be dying to know what I actually do at work, and because you asked nicely I'll explain. Currently I'm developing a new component for a pre-trading email pricing system. This is when clients to the company are interested in buying a product, they would sent a email with the figures and terms they want. Instead of traders having to manually make up a quote for them, we want to automate this process. So hopefully by the end a client would be able to send an email request and get back a quote within minutes! I'm actually really enjoying this project, it is bare bones Java and data manipulation (what a geek!).

Unfortunately work is on the other side of the city, 30 minutes by subway. So Gerald is the lucky one who gets to decide if she wants to ride her bike to work or not, I have to squash myself into the peak hour train. But it's not so bad, because unlike in Melbourne, people like the trains here. The trains are always clean, all stations are manned, we have never seen a machine out of order, heck we haven't seen a single piece of graffiti. No one speaks loudly on the train either so it's peaceful cruising all the way. 5 minutes is probably the most time we had to wait for a train.

Anyway that's enough from us about work...no photos either, I'm sure you've seen plenty of glass windowed buildings before!

Take care!

Gerald and Richard

First impressions of Nippon!

Here's some of our first impressions of the land of the rising sun....

1. Vending machines

if you've got a spare 100 yen ($1.30AUD), you can buy any drink of your imagination. From jelly shots to 'vitamin' water. In winter, you can enjoy warm drinks such as my personal favourite, Royal Milk Tea! It will also always give you the good kind of change, not 10 x 10 yen coins. However I do hate the 1 yen coins here...absolutely useless.

On my way to work, I pass about 100 vending machines and 20 convenience shops. And after all these, I have yet to see even one overweight person! I realise that as a tourist I'm amazed by the machines at first, everybody is, but the novelty wears off after you find out you can buy a big bottle from the super market for the same price. Then it's us who are laughing at the tourists who are taking pictures of the vending machines.

2. Orderliness and politeness

Look at these people lining up for the train! Beijing, China, can learn a thing of two here! Unlike in Melbourne, people like the trains here, including us. The trains are always clean, all stations are manned, we have never seen a machine out of order, and we haven't seen a single piece of graffiti. No one speaks loudly on the train either so it's peaceful cruising all the way. 5 minutes is probably the most time we had to wait for a train.

In the morning it is PACKED. A lot more packed than a 1 hour delayed Melbourne train! During peak hours they don't even show the train times on the display, because the trains just come one after the other. Everyone is used to getting squashed, so getting bumped or pushed is perfectly normal. The technique the locals use to enter the trains is similar to the basketball 'post' move. They just keep backing straight into the pack, and roll when they see a free seat!

Amazingly, the Metro company handle it very well by ensuring that the train still runs on time! During these packed periods there are staff running around like crazy. At busy stations there is a staff member per train door! Service! The staff form the commuters into ranks (yes just like in Lord of the Rings) and send them in the train one by one. The science of public transport! We haven't seen any of the staff having to physically pack the trains yet, but we definitely don't want to experience that!

So hats off to Tokyo transport. It really does make our transport system back home look ridiculously hopeless.

There's a complex bin policy going on here! Apparently there's 4 types of rubbish: bottles, combustibles, incombustibles and cartons... so lazy, we just want to chuck everything in one bag apart from the bottles! shhh, don't tell...

3. Gaijins (foreigners)

In a sea of Japanese ppl, unlike melbourne, Caucasians stand out a mile away. It's like playing 'where's Wally?' With our dark hair and dark eyes, we can easily camouflage with the crowd. They often assume I'm Japanese, but I have to interrupt by saying "wakarimasen" (I don't understand)! But this is often followed by more Japanese b/c they think I can speak it because I've managed to utter one sentence in Japanese! hehe

Richard on the other hand gets around with the limited Japanese he remembers from high school. I (*tags Richard*) can usually pick up only a few words in a complicated sentence. And then from that I hope to infer what was actually said! It's been working so far, but I'm still giving one or two word answers so I must try to brush up more on my Japanese.

4. Space

Space is premium here and rent is exxy! It makes our Carnegie unit seem like a Mac-mansion!

We have moved out from our roach infested, couple cursed first Japanese apartment to a clean and wonderful apartment in what is known as a "concrete mansion". lol, I love how the Japanese classify everything. We have 1 bedroom/separate kitchen/bathroom setup (a very standard Japanese apartment).

View from the top floor of the apartment building

We live in an awesome area close to the train station, grocery store and even the police headquarters (ahhhh, nothing makes you feel safer than living next to the coppers!) Rich dared me to 'borrow' one of the cop bicycles, but I don't think that's going to go down well!

5. Sales!

The service in shops is impeccable, you are guaranteed to get this greeting as soon as you step foot in the door: "Welcome! Please take your time to browse"

At the register, they are always extremely careful not to make any mistakes by counting your payment in front of you, placing it to the side (to avoid people claiming they gave $20 not $10, we all know we've been in that situation before), then giving you your carefully counted change, and then sincerely thanking you. It IS good service, but I find it is too robotic at times. I'm still used to getting a more personalised service, even if it is attitude.

We checked out the sales at Harajuku and it was absolute mayhem - teenage girls everywhere, sales staff with megaphones shouting, pop music blaring. The lines to pay for items stretched 30 metres and even up the stairs at times. Was this normal? It was when we realised everything was at least 70% off we joined in on the festivities and spent the entire day surfing the crowds and feeding our credit cards. Running out of money!

6. Manga cafe!

I've only heard of these things from people as little havens in the big city. If you've never heard of them before, think of your regular internet cafe, however on top of that, there are private booths with small single/double flat lounges, equipped with TV, your own PC, and PS2. There are free drinks, hot food, massage chairs, lots of comics and magazines, and shower facilities. You can pay by the hour, which is about $5 an hour, or you can pay for overnight stays. It is definitely a possible cheap option for accommodation. Sounds like a pretty cool place to relax yeah?

We stumbled across one in Shinjuku and decided to try it out for an hour. Gerald dumped all her stuff in the booth and ran off to the massage chairs, and pretty much never came back. I sit in the booth and realised that I couldn't really do much, all the comics and magazines were in Japanese, the TV channels were in Japanese, and I didn't really want to play any online games. So I surfed the net for a while and then joined Gerald for a massage. It is definitely cool if you needed a siesta in the arvo to catch a few Z's for $5. But as soon as I realised there was a porn channel on the TV I started questioning the cleanliness of the everything in the cafe. Hmmmmm.

7. Food!

Wow I love the food here, I don't think I could live in a country where I could only eat to live. They all live to eat here! Many people associate Japanese food with raw fish, but there is so much more to Japanese food than sliced salmon/tuna!

When you first come to Tokyo you might actually think that it has been taken over by fast food, and who wouldn't? There's plenty of Maccas, KFC, Burger King, and even localised versions of them called Lotteria, Mos Burger, and Freshness Burger. Although they always seem to have the best locations in the built up areas, don't get sucked into thinking that this is all there is. The best Japanese restaurants are usually hidden away in the upper floors of the buildings or tucked away down an alley. Many of them have pictured menu's and plastic dish replicas that show you exactly what you are getting. Otherwise you will just have to try your luck!

I've fallen in love with ramen over here, and for those don't know what it is, it's a Japanese egg noodle dish that originated in China. The signature version has pork broth served with sliced pork. The local one just downstairs from our apartment makes it really nice, the pork is so tender, I always consider popping in for a bowl as I pass it on my way home!

Our pick of the cuisine so far is actually a French infused vegetarian restaurant on the 8th floor of the Isetan Department Store in Shinjuku. Lots of flavours and I felt a lot more energetic after the meal. Maybe an effect of no meat? I definitely plan to go back there whenever I need a bit of a kick!

8. Last of all...the odd spot

This has fascinated me now for a couple of weeks. Japanese men pluck their eyebrows; it's very bizarre. They've managed to get that perfect arch shape and neat brows, maybe I should get some tips from them! Everyone seems to keep themselves in pretty good shape in this country!

I love Japan, it's a fascinating country with many complex contradictions and this city provides endless hours of entertainment.

Welcome to Japan!

Hi all...yep we have decided to start our own blog! Not only for everyone else's enjoyment, it will also help us remember what we got up to. We promise to keep these short (but interesting of course)!

What was supposed to be our glorious entrance into Tokyo was swindled by Jetstar, our choice air line carrier, who had to land in Kansai airport (Osaka) because it did not make the Tokyo curfew. It was about midnight when we landed at Kansai, only for the crew to take hours to organise hotels and buses for everyone. We were SO annoyed, not to mention starving, we just wanted to eat, shower and sleep! All of this was subsidised by Jetstar of course, including the next day's bullet train tickets to Tokyo. However we screwed

up by missing our bullet train for which we had reserved seating. We were able to catch the next one but we had to stand in the passage way for the 3 hour trip! Gerald was not so happy that day!

Disembarking in Tokyo, the city was just how we remembered it - tall buildings, winding roads, lots of Japanese people, but not a blade of grass in sight. Carrying all our luggage onto the subway trains was a back breaker, all the way to what would be our new home - Shin Nakano.

Aiming to save a bit of money, and because we've never lived in Tokyo before, we decided to rent a relatively cheap apartment called Hongo House. This one definitely goes down in the books as a 'fail'.

Studio apartment, the room is 16 square metres, which is pretty darn small already. But to make matters worse, a big chunk of that space is taken up by a wardrobe, a small desk, and the fridge...that's right - the refrigerator is in the room! 'Being able to grab a midnight snack while lying down in bed'...check! The kitchen stank...and whenever the lights when out we were invaded by a small army of cockroaches. Using my (richi) experience in war strategies, massing cockroach traps seemed to work. However Gerald managed to cook a real yummy meal (pictured inset). A week hadn't even passed before we started going crazy, so we got the hell out of there into a bigger, better, brighter apartment!

Pictured - A cockroach house. Nice, spacious, warm, with a meal in the middle...fools! mwahaha!

Shin Nakano is great, it's just on the outskirts of the main cities. Rent is quite high, but we figured we are on a working holiday so we wanna be in a good area. Lots of supermarkets, eateries and convenience stores! On our first day there we almost got done for jay walking, we actually jay walked right in front of the Nakano police station! So we quickly learned that in Japan, just follow the rules!

So yeah, we haven't had much of a chance to travel yet. Far too busy getting accommodation, phones, bank accounts and fighting cockroaches. However we did get a chance to visit Richi's cousin (Calvin Lay), his wife Aya, and two kids Rion and Kairi for a few nights who lives in Tokushima, which is an island just off the coast of Osaka. The kids are SO cute, especially with Rion speaking a spaghetti mix of English and Japanese.

On the job front, we both have received our contracts, Gerald at Gaba, and Richi at UBS. So we're set to start work! Unfortunately we both have to start soon, but I guess the rent isn't gonna pay for itself!

We definitely want to check out the Studio Ghibli museum and Gerald is drooling over Tokyo Disneyland, so stay tuned, and look after yourselves!

Gerald and Richard