Parking lot guards

I talked briefly about my trip on the shinkansen in my last post. I noticed something on that trip as I was asking for directions to platforms and the likes throughout the little sojourn I took to and from Hiroshima.
When you speak to a Japanese person (or indeed any person that knows precious little of the language you are communicating in) they will latch on to one word like it carries the very essence of whatever you’re saying. It is therefore a good idea to emphasize the word that you want them to latch on to, or indeed only say that word.

Case in point: I asked the teller for a ticket to Tokyo on the Shinkansen. So far so good. She asks me “Reservation?”
This is where I made a dire mistake. From her trained phrases she had been using on me I thought she knew English, and I could speak it freely. This was not the case. Not her fault, my mistake. I blurt out “nah, don’t really need a reservation.”

The woman latches on to the one word she knows in this sentence. “Reservation.”

There were three

This made my ticket go from a lean 11.000 yen to ~18.500 yen. I didn’t argue though. Figured if the train was full I’d be thankful for not having to stand for 4 hours. Yeah, the Shinkansen is going to be full at 14:00 on a weekday. Well, I was never good at thinking.

When I’m riding the trains around Tokyo I use this little word association game with the extremely helpful guards and other assorted staff that you will find every 3 steps at any station. Basically, you dress yourself in a look of confusion and move like you are in a hurry somewhere and just say the name of the station you want to go to and they will tell you what track you should be at in the next 7 minutes (give or take a minute.) And the ones that can’t say the number in English will show you on a calculator.

Also related to this, I find that “Standing Around” is huge in Japan. I’m sure it’s not a job people aspire to, but you see them everywhere. They probably have a whole section on job-sites for Standing Around Looking Busy-people.

Round and round...

I’ve seen men holding a sign, doing nothing else. I came back 2 hours later, he’s still doing the same thing. He is basically doing the job of a large chunk of wood that might be affixed to the bottom of said sign. There are the green clad guys from one of my first posts in asakusa. I said they had rules to govern, but in truth I’ve never seen them talk to anyone. They just sort of assert their presence.

But my favourites are the traffic cops. I took this shot just as one ducked out, but they were seriously three guys on this corner. This means there are three guys here, standing around holding back or letting through cars on this particular T-crossing. Basically they stand there blocking off the road, looking menacingly at the cars in the alley, or just looking around. And after a while they shift, and block the pedestrians instead. That’s right, they are a traffic light. You commonly see them around normal-sized to large T-crossings or at parking house exits.

And I’ve never seen them chit-chatting. They’re total pros about this job.

SO good.

Today I had some sushi from a conveyour belt sushi place again. This is something I could get used to. Seriously best restaurant idea ever. You only pay for what you eat, and there is no pressure. Say you’re late for something, but hungry like the wolf. Run past this place, grab a plate, down two pieces of sushi, throw the girl two dollars and leave. In and out in less than a minute, guaranteed. This is fast food as fast as it gets. And it’s good. Not just good for you, it is delicious.

I tried getting some food yesterday from this place across from my hotel, and of course as always in these ramen/rice-places you have to order it from a machine and get a little slip of paper that you then give to the clerk. This particular machine reminded me of the machine Daniele won a whole load of worthless coins in. I had no idea what was going on and I had to select like 8 times to get my little slip. And every time it just ended with this big happy text plopping up and I got pushed back 2 steps. Like playing Monopoly with my cheating elder brother.

Hold the seaweed...

In the end I asked the school guys behind me. They told me the big happy text said something about okane. Ok, so I had to put the money in at step 7. Thanks guys. Without you I would still be hungry.

I have no idea what I ordered though. The rice in the bottom was really good, and the meat “lid” they had put on top tasted like chicken, so that means it could basically be anything. But what put me off it was whatever it was they had drenched the “chicken” in. At first I couldn’t place it, then I realised it had the exact same consistancy as pussy juices. I still ate most of it. I mean come on, that has never stopped me eating anything before.

Haha, Penis-logo!

The idea all along was to travel around Japan and see some of the sights, so I took the tip of a german backpacker I met in the capsule hotel and took an overnight bus all the way down to Hiroshima.

Talk about information being sparse in English.Nothing was announced in any language but Japanese. I got a little flier with the ground rules in English (no smoking on board etc etc) and that was it. But it was a bus ride. What can go wrong, right? Ok, I made that sound ominous on purpose, but it’s actually true. Nothing went wrong. Just sit back and enjoy the cheapest way of getting to Hiroshima.

Maybe “enjoy” is a bit of a strong word, but I actually managed to sleep through most of it. It just wasn’t nice sleep. It was the kind of sleep you have when you’re homeless and people spit on you. But sleep none the less. he bus stopped every 2-3 hours at rest stops that looked like carbon copies of eachother. I thought we had gone back when we got to the second one.

A-bomb dome

In Hiroshima I spent the first day attempting to talk to the locals, and watching these two girls confer on how to put the sentence “I can’t speak English” together for a good minute. It was adorable. I knew what they were trying to say after 4 seconds, of course, but who am I to interrupt something so cute.

So the talking was a big fat failure. So I ventured out to the A-bomb dome. Beautiful day, really nice place and fucked up insects. Everything that came near me had some kind of warning colour. Mosquitoes were black with white stripes (or vice versa) and the spider that almost ate my book was black with yellow stripes (or vice versa).

I also listened to the chants from the baseball stadium and wished I had tickets to whatever game that was. Fuck yeah, baseball!

Also checked out the castle. The court yard is insanely quiet. Really tranquil. If I were a Hiroshimaian, that is totally where I would choose as the perfect make-out spot.

The Castle

And then the place was pretty much out of stuff. It has about four thousand memorials to people that died in the bombing, and I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but most of the memorials look horrible.  The dome is an amazing legacy though. I can’t believe it didn’t get that “never allowed to tear it down” stamp until the nineties.

I got tired of lugging my baggage around though and decided to just head back to Tokyo. Took the Shinkansen back. Talk about precision, speed and legroom!

Shinkansen+babe

Odd thing. I felt like I got home when I got off at Shinjuku station. How fucked up is that.

…is pretty much all that’s kept me going since I got here.

Shibuya crossing

I’m not made out for traveling alone, atleast not for this long. It’s a fucking fantastic experience, but next time I’m gonna bring someone that can take care of me, because I’m obviously not managing myself.

On the first day, with the other swedes, I had 4 pieces of sushi from a conveyor belt sushi-place. Really good sushi, absolutely fantastic. Since then I haven’t eaten anything. Just getting myself a few apples took 2 days. I still wasn’t hungry, I just figured I’d die if I kept not eating.

Last night I met up with a Japanese girl I had talked to before on the web and she showed me around shibuya though, and our first stop was a ramen-shop. We got some really nice ramen, and we looked around the famous 109 mall in Shibuya.

¥850 ramen

couldn't stand straight

We also headed off to “Hub – the English pub,” yeah, the English pub that plays Avril Lavigne as loud as a club. Still good times though. I got caught up in a drinking game with the table next to us in naming macdonalds items until someone (me) couldn’t think of another and then that person had to drink.

Hub also had what must be the smallest toilet I have ever been to.

All of a sudden you’re walking down the bustling streets of Shinjuku and you see this road where you supposed there was going to be another backstreet full of vending machines. It’s slightly surreal. It’s like you only have to look in that direction for all the noise from cars and the people yelling at the stores to just go away. Tranquility in madness.

Aahh~

The fashion around here is great. Loads of the guys look like host club members, but what’s great is the female fashion. Everyone wearing knee high socks and short skirts or tight jeans shorts. Some girls even have that teasing thing that holds the socks at the waist running up their leg.

I saw a few gothic lolitas in Shibuya too, but they seem to be a dying breed.

widdle kitty

Also: cats. There were probably a good 50 Japanese clustered around these things, taking pictures and making “kawaii~!” exclamations. To be fair, it was incredibly cute.

~like I’m something to eat