Random Things

This is just a random little post. I just saw this video and liked it. And this, because it's just good. Very random I know!

Oooh, this is a good opportunity to say some random things I've noticed that haven't really fitted in with any other posts...

The trees in Tokyo are mummified!! I assume to restrict unwanted growth, but it's really weird to see every tree wrapped tightly in gauze. Maybe I'll try to take a picture.

Manhole covers aren't just a circle of metal in the pavement, they actually match the ground surface, whether it's concrete or patterned slabs.

In the corners of some stations you see a little whirlwind of dust and dirt dancing in the air conditioner's flow.

There are signs on the front of some buildings saying 'elevator is the back-side'.

The oddest shops are open all day. There's the usual McDonalds (shortened to Maku in Kanto, and Makudo in Kansai) but also 24-hour Jeans Mates.

Every day at 16.30, near my guesthouse, an electronic-sounding clock chimes 3 o'clock. That's the only time it ever does that. My question is... ... why?

Sometimes, they play Pokemon-style music before announcements on trains and stations. It brings a smile to my face. There's also a really annoying jingle advertising something that plays every 5 minutes or so in convenience stores.

Every day, at dusk, a man on a bike rides up and down my road ringing a bell and honking a horn. I assume he's letting people know that a certain shop is selling something, not doing it for the fun of it.

Occassionally, but always at 14.10, a car with a loudspeaker on the roof drives slowly up the road chanting something. I guess that it's a political slogan but I don't know.



When trucks reverse, they beep intermittently exactly the same as in the UK, but they also have a female voice warning people to watch out.

In the UK, you make and buy your Subway sandwiches from right to left, here it's left to right. Crazy!

All the pets, bar two dogs, I've seen are tiny! I assume it's because people don't have room in their homes for large animals, but I keep seeing people walking these minature dogs!

There are electronic road maps above major intersections that show traffic or roadblocks. How clever is that!

There are no roundabouts. All crossings or intersections have traffic lights.

All doors lock the wrong way. It's taken a lot of getting used to. I keep unlocking my unlocked door.

All the rumours are true... grown men read manga comics as they walk around, people become nodding dogs as soon as they get a seat on the subway, and ill people wear white surgical masks.

Every employee you meet in a shop has to cry 'Irasshaimaseeeeeeee' (welcome), no matter how long you've been in the shop.

If you ask someone if they speak English and they say no, they will speak to you in English anyway, even if you speak to them in Japanese.

Despite being told that it's very rude to blow your nose in public before I came, I have seen several people of all ages do it. But they all do it very carefully, there's no mess. They blow discreetly and then shove the tissue/ handkerchief into their nostrils slightly (sounds lovely I know) to make sure they are clean.

U-turns that would be very illegal in the UK seem perfectly commonplace here, it's really quite dangerous!

No one understands the concept of "crossing your fingers". I've had to explain to quite a few people that I'm hoping I'll get the job, not that I'm lying about getting the job.

Even the most unapproachable-looking people turn out to be very kind and helpful if you ask them something.

I've found that I do a double-take when I see foreigners on the street or on the subway. It's just such a rarity here! More so than I expected. Today was the most gaijin-rific day I've had. I must have seen 6 in the space of 20 minutes or so.

Even the shortest train/ subway ride can seem like it takes hours, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because they travel very fast but they have a lot of ground to cover between each station?

Despite the general rule being to walk on the left of the pavement, street or road, people deviate and I always seem to get in the way. Actually, there's a very interesting (at least I found it interesting) website about why people walk and drive on the left or right in different countries. I found it on Kayo's Osaka Life blog, which I've found very interesting.

Although I haven't seen a morning rush hour (I have seen the start of several evening ones), Tokyo is not as busy as I expected it to be. I spent hours worrying that I wouldn't be able to turn around without hitting someone here, but many places are very calm and quiet. Claustrophobia is not such an issue, having said that, my room is very spacious so maybe I'm a bit biased there.

You have to pay to get into some public parks. What's that all about!?

The fruit here is very expensive, and huge! I bought a pack of 4 apples for about Y400 (£2) and they are these massive red Braeburn-style apples, which are very juicy and succulent. Maybe they are so big because of all the chemicals sprayed onto them!

Noisy teenagers on bikes quieten down as you walk past them, rather than sucking their teeth and looking you up and down menacingly. For example, I was walking through my local park and I saw a group of boys messing around, but they were grafittiing or vandalising anything, they were practising t'ai chi!

It's so clean!! Not in terms of air quality, although I haven't noticed the pollution much, just the occassional Continental Europe sewer smell or a faceful of fumes. But the streets are almost completely free of litter, despite the fact that bins are few and far between.

In my guesthouse, you have to leave your shoes in a shelving unit by the heavy metal outer door and then step up into the kitchen. There is a sliding (and folding) paper door that covers the shower area (it's magnetic too), then a sliding plastic door that actually seals you into the shower-room. The whole room is waterproof, and airtight, so it gets quite stuffy in there! I also have to duck in almost all doorways, I've banged my head once too many times already! I even have to duck in some public areas, like tunnels connecting subway platforms, or in train doors.

Some things that are relatively simple and easy in the UK are very difficult in Japan, like buying a pre-paid mobile phone for example!

English is absolutely EVERYWHERE! Considering less than 1% of its population of over 127,000,000 is foreign, and most of those are Korean or Chinese, Japan caters for English-speakers like almost no other country (in the East, obviously). There are 'one-minute English lessons' on the screens in the subway that teach phrases like 'Face-to-face' or 'First thing in the morning'. It's rare to have a train station that doesn't have the names of the last, current and next stations in both Japanese (kanji and hiragana) and English. Most trains have announcements in English and Japanese. Maps are usually bilingual too, as are road-signs. Most people either speak English, or speak enough. There are English language newspapers, magazines, films, TV programmes... you name it. You could kid yourself into thinking you never left home - eat at McDonald's (I haven't succumbed so far!), live in a Western-style apartment, meet with English-speaking friends...

Well, if I think of other random things then I can add them, but that's quite enough random-ness for one night I think.