Japan Musings - Issue #1
I'm in Tokyo for the next couple of weeks to attend meetings, answer questions, and otherwise be the in-county face.
The flight was fine if one was a contortionist. I travel well, so it was merely annoying. United believes that only short people should be able to travel in comfort without paying extra. Pay no attention to their legroom add - I think it must be self-satire. My knees were at the back of the seat in front of me. Wait, it gets better. In a perverse Procrustean maneuver, the person in front of me leans the seat back, and pile-drives the back of the seat into my knees. Ho ho ho, that United, what a bunch of comedians.
The Narita airport was easy to navigate. Don’t forget to declare your illegal swords. It does make me wonder how much of a ninja and samurai problem they have.
Take the hotel airport limousine bus. Cheaper, and it takes you right to your hotel. The train works too, but you’ll need to do a bit more walking.
A word on hotels. You can find ones for less than $200 per night in Tokyo, but you’ll be sorry. A colleague of mine reports the rooms are small (exhale to enter), and any rumored internet at these places are worse than dialup.
In many of the local restaurants, at least one waiter speaks enough English that one can order successfully. What you get may not be what you expect.
Success. I have stayed up until 9:30pm. Hopefully, I can cut short any jet lag. Supposedly there was an earthquake last night at 11:04pm. Not that I would have felt it.
Other than the name of the hotel, I really don’t have the address memorized for anything. To get to work, I walk from the hotel south to the Shinbashi station. I buy my ticket for 160 yen, and take the train headed toward the Tokyo station - I call it the light green line :-). At the fourth stop, Akihabara, I change trains to the #6 Sobu line (the yellow line), and take it three stops to Kinshicho. Then I walk about 15 minutes to work.
Japan is really big on the stored value cards. I can’t actually use cash at the office canteen - I must use a Nanaco card.
Here’s a fun one. In the office building is a Starbucks and a 7-Eleven. Yes, that 7-Eleven.
The canteen has excellent food. The descriptions are all in Japanese, but at least I can see the food and determine my palate risk level. The minestrone-appearing soup was good, but I suspect some of the noodles were small calamari rings. The safest looking salad had seaweed in it - fairly innocuous tasting. The meatballs were very good. At least I think they were meatballs.
Payment geekery. The dishware has small embedded ID tags. You load up the food, and weigh it on a special scale. This associates the weight of the food to the ID tag. Once done, you eat your food, and place the now empty tray at the payment station. It tells you how much you owe, and you wave your Nanaco card. Done.
Other random things of note:
- There are no water fountains. Wait, I've discovered this not to be true, sort of. There are free hot and cold tea dispensers. Green tea, red tea, and plain water.
- All Japanese men wear suits to work. Yes, I wore my suit. Most common shirt color is white, although 15% are radicals and wear other colors or stripes. Maybe 5% wears their jacket. And only 5% are currently wearing ties.
- I’m in a 40 x 120 foot room filled with tables. There are about 200 engineers here. Only 5% are female.
All for now.
The flight was fine if one was a contortionist. I travel well, so it was merely annoying. United believes that only short people should be able to travel in comfort without paying extra. Pay no attention to their legroom add - I think it must be self-satire. My knees were at the back of the seat in front of me. Wait, it gets better. In a perverse Procrustean maneuver, the person in front of me leans the seat back, and pile-drives the back of the seat into my knees. Ho ho ho, that United, what a bunch of comedians.
The Narita airport was easy to navigate. Don’t forget to declare your illegal swords. It does make me wonder how much of a ninja and samurai problem they have.
Take the hotel airport limousine bus. Cheaper, and it takes you right to your hotel. The train works too, but you’ll need to do a bit more walking.
A word on hotels. You can find ones for less than $200 per night in Tokyo, but you’ll be sorry. A colleague of mine reports the rooms are small (exhale to enter), and any rumored internet at these places are worse than dialup.
In many of the local restaurants, at least one waiter speaks enough English that one can order successfully. What you get may not be what you expect.
Success. I have stayed up until 9:30pm. Hopefully, I can cut short any jet lag. Supposedly there was an earthquake last night at 11:04pm. Not that I would have felt it.
Other than the name of the hotel, I really don’t have the address memorized for anything. To get to work, I walk from the hotel south to the Shinbashi station. I buy my ticket for 160 yen, and take the train headed toward the Tokyo station - I call it the light green line :-). At the fourth stop, Akihabara, I change trains to the #6 Sobu line (the yellow line), and take it three stops to Kinshicho. Then I walk about 15 minutes to work.
Japan is really big on the stored value cards. I can’t actually use cash at the office canteen - I must use a Nanaco card.
Here’s a fun one. In the office building is a Starbucks and a 7-Eleven. Yes, that 7-Eleven.
The canteen has excellent food. The descriptions are all in Japanese, but at least I can see the food and determine my palate risk level. The minestrone-appearing soup was good, but I suspect some of the noodles were small calamari rings. The safest looking salad had seaweed in it - fairly innocuous tasting. The meatballs were very good. At least I think they were meatballs.
Payment geekery. The dishware has small embedded ID tags. You load up the food, and weigh it on a special scale. This associates the weight of the food to the ID tag. Once done, you eat your food, and place the now empty tray at the payment station. It tells you how much you owe, and you wave your Nanaco card. Done.
Other random things of note:
- There are no water fountains. Wait, I've discovered this not to be true, sort of. There are free hot and cold tea dispensers. Green tea, red tea, and plain water.
- All Japanese men wear suits to work. Yes, I wore my suit. Most common shirt color is white, although 15% are radicals and wear other colors or stripes. Maybe 5% wears their jacket. And only 5% are currently wearing ties.
- I’m in a 40 x 120 foot room filled with tables. There are about 200 engineers here. Only 5% are female.
All for now.