Tokyo

I have no idea how to start this. I just returned from my first trip to Japan and there are so many impressions I brought home. Not souvenirs, impressions ;o)
But all started with my bad influence on electronic devices. Maybe I have the wrong job. But first of all my digital SLR camera died and I was no longer able to switch it on. And then, after I finally found out that I can't send it to a service center in Europe, but have to ship it to the US, my iPod had the same problem. And I can tell you, an 11 hours flight without music or audio book ....NO I DIDN'T WANT TO GO THERE.
But then the nice guy at the BA counter at London Heathrow looked at me and my printed out boarding pass and shredded it. My luck. I still had to go to Tokyo, but since the economy and economy plus classes were fully booked and maybe because my iPod was broken he re-booked me to business class with my own entertainment center and video on demand and a real bed. Wow.
After a very short flight I arrived in Narita airport Tokyo and took a shuttle bus to the hotel. It was only 13:00 but I decided to take a nap before meeting with my colleagues from Finland at 16:00. I went to my room and there it was: my first contact with Japanes high tech. I looked at the toilet and there were much too many features on the control panel. Yes it really had a control panel. You don't believe me? I can show it to you:

But I figured out how to use it. I did the same with the chop sticks (well, I used them before) and I somehow managed to use the underground and train system to get to places of interest. You think the last one is easy? Well, maybe at bigger stations where all the stops are also labeled in English, but at smaller stations you can only find signs in Japanese. So it is not so simple to find out where you want to go and how much to pay for the ticket (and use the ticket machine which is also only available in a Japanes version). Or how easy do you think it is to find all this from the following sign:

As you know the whole trip was mainly for business reasons. I met with my manager colleagues from Canada, Finland, Tokyo and England. This also means that most of the time I spent in our office there. But it has a nice view to enjoy with Mt. Fuji at the horizon:

By the way, I will post most of the pictures to my flickr page. Make sure you check this as well to get some more impressions.
But even with all the work I had one extra day there and so I explored the city for one day. These are the things I found out:


Tokyo is of course very big, buildings and lights everywhere. And it has my shopping paradise: Akihabara with all kind of camera and electronic stores. Especially after dark it is very impressive to go there and see all the lights.

I did some shopping there too, it was too tempting to buy a camera flash and battery grip after I compared the priced to the lowest internet rates in Germany.

The next day I took my little guide book and some geocaching printouts ( You still don't know what it is? Check out www.geocaching.com ) and decided to go to the Meiji shrine located in Yoyoga Park. It was mentioned as a place of serenity in the hectic city and yes, this was exactly what I wanted. The shrine itself was build in 1920, destroyed in 1945 and rebuilt in 1958. Meiji was a emperor who lived from 1852 until 1912. For me it was a little bit strange to see people going there and pray. Well, it was just an emperor, not a god, but this is one of the big cultural differences. But the whole thing is located in a beautiful park. The even clean of the trails from leaves! Before you come to the shrine itself there are special places to clean hands and mouth before going in to say a prayer. And in the shrine's yard is a wall with a lot of little wooden plates people write down their wishes. These plates will then be collected and used as prayers. Almost everybody bought a plate for 500 yen, not only Japanese people.
This place is also very famous for getting married there. And I was lucky enough to see part of a Japanese wedding ceremony.

This park was kind of quite.
I also went to a Ueno Park, which was the complete opposite. In Ueno park there are many different museums and also the Tokyo zoo (which I didn't visit). And they have many many cherry trees there.

So now, during the blossoming of the cherry trees, it seems that everybody goes there to spend the spare time sitting under the trees.
Everywhere are large, blue plastic covers on the ground where families, students, friends with kids or whatever group is sitting and having a picnic. Very amazing to see, but to many people for me.

I sat down somewhere and read again in my tour book to decide where to go. Somebody stopped by and talked to me in English. Yes, I mention this because even the younger people in Tokyo barely speak any English. Which surprised me, I expected this to be like a second language in a high tech country. So I was even more surprised to hear English words and I looked up. There was this bum talking to me in fluent English! He lived somewhere in the park in a tent and this is exactly how he looked like. I asked him where he learned the language and he talked about his travels to Europe where he also learned some words of German. But, he said, this only happens because he stayed in hostels or at private houses. "Never stay in expensive hotels like most western tourists do". Well, he also talked about which places I should visit and where better not to go after midnight. Not that I even planned to go somewhere all by myself that late. It was a very interesting experience for me.
After visiting some more places I finally took the subway home, stopped at a Sushi bar and took the shuttel bus from the station to the hotel where I met Cristian, my colleague from Vancouver. We shared our experiences of the day at the hotel bar (yes, it was a very expencive hotel) and talked about Japanese culture. There are so many other things I could share with you. Things like having dinner with my colleagues at a Japanes restaurant where nobody understood any English and we didn't get what we ordered. Or how all the little dogs in Tokyo are dressed for example in Jeans and T-Shirt. Or the way the people try to create their own little private space listening to music from an mp3-player or cell phone everywhere. Or that they play a different melody at every railway station.....or...or...or. But this will take much too long. All in all, it was a very interesting place to see and I would like to go back again. But then visit the countryside a little bit more of the traditional Japan.

P.S. Nobody shredded my ticket on the way home so I had to take my place in normal economy plus class ;o)