A Wild George Chase

Last night Rob and I were meant to go and meet our friend George in Shinjuku. George was arriving in Tokyo and staying here for a few days before heading down to his University placement in Kyushu.

He had a late arrival at Narita Airport, so Rob and I left our guesthouse at about 11.30pm, arriving at Shinjuku station at just gone midnight. George didn't have a phone with him, so the only way we could be in contact was if he rang me from a payphone.

Shinjuku station is huge, literally huge, so we weren't at all sure where to go. We asked someone where the buses from the airport arrive, and he told us to go to the West Exit. We headed over to that exit and found ourselves near where I was dropped off on my very first day in Japan. I knew which bus stop I arrived at, and as there was no sign of George (he's very tall) I ran over and got a timetable. His bus should have arrived at the same time as us, but we couldn't see him anywhere.

Then a horrible thought struck. What if we missed the last train home and we stranded in Shinjuku until the first train at 5am, when we both had tests this morning? We ran around the area a few more times, but had no idea where he might have gone.

We went to buy our train tickets back to our station, and there was still no word from him. In the end, we made a snap decision and headed to our platform.

Here's the platform bustling with people trying to get home. Shinjuku is not the best place to get the last train from, it's so busy!

We tried to get on one train, but as you can see from this video, that wasn't going to happen!

The next one pulled in, and we got on. It was busy but thankfully nowhere near as bad as the previous one.

I was really worried about George. I'm usually the person people can rely on, but I just didn't know what to do.

The train had been moving for a few minutes and then my phone rang. I explained to George what had happened, and he wasn't at all happy! Understandable really. I told him to find the Chuo line and see if there were any trains left, even though I didn't think there would be.

And then our train nightmare started. An announcement came from the driver over the speakers that we didn't understand, but there was something to do with "until Nakano station". Rob and I didn't have a clue what was going on, but the train then started to move at an absolute snail's pace towards Nakano. No one seemed to be reacting very much, so we assumed it was okay. We wondered if the train would be terminated at Nakano (I really didn't want that to happen, can you imagine two trainloads of people trying to get on one!?), or if the train was just going to go slowly until Nakano.

The train finally reached Nakano after about fifteen minutes (it normally takes two or three) and stopped. Several people got off, probably fed up! Then George rang again, saying that he couldn't find the Chuo line. There was no chance of there being a train at this time, even with the delay our train would have caused. I felt really awful, but no amount of apologising could change the fact that George was left, tired and confused, in the very centre of Tokyo! He didn't want to take a taxi, and it would have cost around £50, so he said he'd find a hotel somewhere. And then his money ran out and he was cut off mid-sentence. I felt so bad!

The train finally left Nakano then, and continued at normal speed. We thought everything would be fine, but then the emergency brakes slammed on and the train screamed to a halt. A whole group of people flew down the carriage and fell over. Thankfully Rob and I were both holding the handles that hang from the roof of the train and we kept our balance. The train didn't move.

I was really worried that someone had jumped in front of the train to commit suicide. Sadly, that's a very common occurence in Japan. And apparently the Chuo line, the one I live on, is the most often used for that purpose. It has a lot of rapid trains that don't stop at stations, so people can just jump out in front of them. And there are also a lot of level crossings which makes it even easier.

Japan's suicide rate is one of the highest in the world, and ninety people kill themselves every day. A recent survey has said that one in five men and women has seriously considered killing themselves in Japan. It's extremely sad and sometimes disturbing, especially for those in trains or on platforms who witness this easiest way to take one's own life. But when I think about the life many Japanese people lead, hardly seeing their families because work is so stressful, and being constricted by often confining social rules, I kind of understand why the Japanese suicide rate is so high, and still climbing.

But, either the emergency stop wasn't because of a suicide, or the attempt failed, because after a couple of minutes, the train was moving again. This time there weren't any other interruptions and the train went straight through to Musashi Koganei, where Rob and I could finally get off.

The journey that normally takes under 30 minutes took over a hour, and we were both really tired. I fell asleep at about 2.30, but didn't sleep well because I was worried about George, so I don't think I did very well in my test this morning!

The journey also made me think about Japanese suicides. Now, every time I see the English word "Delay" in the train information, I always look at the Japanese, and more often than not it says "Accident of life", which basically means suicide.

Suica Card

I bought a Suica card on Saturday evening, after going to karaoke in Shibuya with Chihoko, and some friends from Leeds University last year, when they were on an exchange. It was a very fun evening, with renditions of MC Hammer, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and the Titanic theme tune.

Suica cards are like credit cards that you can use for trains, buses, and even some vending machines. It stands for "Super Urban Intelligent Card" and you can charge them with money at ticket machines in any station that you can use Suica at, which is nearly all in Tokyo, and lots in other parts of Japan too.

After charging the card, you just swipe it over the reader as you go through the ticket gate. You don't have to take the card out of your wallet for it to read it. I've even seen people in a hurry just slide over the ticket gate, and the machine read it through their clothes.

After swiping it, the remaining balance on the card will appear on the screen, and when you leave your destination station, you swipe it again, the money is automatically deducted, and the screen displays the cost of your journey, and the remaining balance.

You can buy Suica cards at major stations that support them for Y2000. Included in this price is a deposit of Y500 (which you can get back if you take the card back to a station office), and the other Y1,500 becomes the first balance on the card.

Suica cards are completely interchangeable with Pasmo cards (I used to have one but I forgot to bring it back with me), but with Suica you can also get special types of card where you pay a set fee for unlimited travel between certain stations (定期, teiki). This is really good for people who travel to work or school by train every day, but I wouldn't use trains often enough to make it worthwhile. Students can even get a discount by showing their school ID when they purchase it from a station office.

Suica cards make train travel much more convenient, so even if you're in Tokyo for a short time, it's definitely worth getting one. As you can get the deposit back, it's basically free!

Return to Shinjuku

We went into Shinjuku (新宿) today to buy some textbooks we need for self-study. It was so amazing to go back there! I remember saying goodbye to it with my Thai housemate over a year ago really clearly!

Shinjuku is the centre of Tokyo, where all the government buildings are. The station is the busiest in the world, with over 60 exits, and 3 million people passing through each day. It's such an amazing place to walk around, there's such an exciting buzz.

From where I'm living now, it takes about 25 minutes by rapid (快速, kaisoku) train, which is about the same as from my previous house, just from the opposite direction.

We came out of the New South Exit, and wanted to find Kinokuniya bookstore (紀伊國屋書店) to get our books. I'd been to Shinjuku more times than the others, so they said they'd follow me. I wasn't sure, but I went with my instinct, and I found it straight away! I was really surprised I could remember where it was, as I'd only been there once to buy a book as a birthday present for a housemate two Aprils ago.

We got the books we needed, had a late lunch and then headed back in the early evening. Because it was a Sunday, it wasn't very busy and the train back wasn't at all crowded. I'm sure we'll be getting some crammed ones home from Shinjuku soon!

Here are some photos I took around the area. Sorry about the grey sky - it was umbrella weather as a typhoon is heading towards Tokyo. It's due to hit the coast and then move north tomorrow, so we're preparing for downpours!

Guesthouse

My guesthouse for this trip is situated west of Central Tokyo, in one of the cities that make up Tokyo Prefecture. It's called 小金井市 (Koganei-shi) and my closest station is 武蔵小金井駅 (Musashi Koganei eki), which is about 20 minutes from Shinjuku on the JR Chuo line (中央線).

The guesthouse is about 10 or 15 minutes walk from the station, down quite a steep hill. It's about 2km/1.5 miles from my University, ICU, which isn't bad as we might be able to walk that. I know some people who go to Uni in Tokyo but live in Yokohama and have to get three trains, taking over two hours twice a day!

The guesthouse is one of many belonging to the company "Tokyo Artistic Guesthouse", which has lots of different locations in the Western suburbs, whereas Sakura House, who I stayed with last time, have houses in the centre.

Here's the front of my guesthouse:

This is the front entrance, where we leave our shoes.

This is one of the colourful vans that we were picked up in on our first day.

My room is smaller than the one I had last time, although that was surprisingly big. This room has plenty of room for me and my stuff, so it'll be fine. It's on the third floor (that's Japanese third, British second floor), which is the boys' floor. The girls' and couples' floor is the second, and then mixed on the first floor.

Each room has internet (you need your own ethernet/LAN cable), TV (terrestrial channels only), fridge and freezer, bed, air conditioner (Y100 for 3 hours, although you can pause it and use the rest of the money later). I'm not sure if all the rooms have these things, but my room also has a chest of drawers, a desk, a shelving unit, balcony (shared with four other rooms) and a wardrobe.

A couple of things worried me when we checked in and signed the contract. They told us that sometimes the internet gets very slow when lots of people are using it. Because of this, it automatically reboots every hour, rendering the tenants internet-less for a few minutes at a time. This has been fine so far, nothing bad has happened! But they did warn us that Skype Video chat might be too much for the over-crowded line, and it might not work. This would be awful because that's how I used to stay in contact with my family! They're on holiday at the moment so I haven't had the chance to check it, but my fingers are tightly crossed!

Something else they told us was that each room is limited to the use of 20 amps at a time, which means that if too many appliances are running at a time, the fuse could blow, and then a manager has to come and sort out the electricity. I'll have to watch what I use!

I'm settling into life here now I think. After three nights I've started to adjust to the different way of living. The showers and kitchen are on the bottom floor so it's much further to go than in Sakura House, where everything was on the same small floor. But I do have a TV and my own fridge!

At first I found the bed really uncomfortable, despite having two futon covers under me, so I went to a department store near the station, Ito Yokado, and bought a rug for Y2,900 to fold under the covers, which has made it much better now, although I'm still considering taking it back and swapping it for a proper futon matress. I need good sleep to function!

Hopefully this place will be a nice home for me over the next year. It's quite empty at the moment, but I'm sure that the rooms will fill up soon!

Shinkansen Tickets

I went to Tokyo station the weekend before last to buy my Shinkansen (新幹線), or bullet train, tickets from Tokyo to the southernmost main island of Kyushu.

This time it was very simple, not like the two hours it took last time. The not so easy part was handing over the money though. It cost me Y23,000, which is over £100!

My plan was to reserve this trip, and then buy separate tickets each time I wanted to use the Shinkansen during the holiday.

But the day before I left, Sunday, I was speaking to my Chinese housemate, and I asked him if I could buy a ticket that would get me from Kyushu to Tokyo, but allow me to get off at stations along the way for a couple of days at a time.

He didn't know, but he came with me to Tokyo station and was a brilliant translator. He helped me buy a ticket that allowed me to travel from Kyushu to Tokyo on normal trains, and then I just pay the superexpress fare on top of that at each station to use the Shinkansen trains.

That ticket cost just Y10,000 and was valid for 14 days. I really recommend buying that because it was so useful to just walk up to the ticket office in various cities and say:

"Kono kippu o motte imasu kedo kyou wa destination e ikitai desu." (I have this ticket but today I want to go to destination.)

Then they ask you the usual questions like, do you want reserved or non-reserved ticket. I generally chose non-reserved (juuseki) because it's cheaper, and usually easy to find a seat.

It made my trip much cheaper and simpler so consider it if you go travelling around Japan by train!

Last Private Lesson

Today I had my final lesson with my private student. We've had 33 lessons since the second week of February. She is the only private student who stuck with me for any sustained period of time. She knows how old I am (19) so I am very grateful she trusted me and gave me the chance to prove that I can teach English.

We would usually meet 3 times a week, at Monday, Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes. But she was learning so she could communicate well on a holiday to America, and she achieved that, so we have finished lessons now.

For our last lesson, she treated me to a lunch in a nice restaurant in Shinagawa. It was actually really sad to say goodbye. I enjoyed speaking with her so much, and I think we had a good time. She was so hard-working, her study went far beyond our lessons. She made word cards with all the vocabulary she got from me and made example sentences using the words, and carried them with her everywhere. She would watch and read English-language news, and had a great attitude to learning. She helped make the last four months enjoyable, and I will miss her.

After our final lesson, I went for a walk around Shinagawa. These pictures aren't thrilling, but they show Shinagawa station, and the area around it.

We sometimes met for lessons in this Starbucks in Shinagawa station. It's also where our first meeting was.

This building (Shinagawa Intercity) and its neighbours are very impressive, and especially nice in good weather (which today wasn't!).

This is a cafe where we sometimes met for lessons inside Shinagawa Intercity.

I walked back to the subway station and decided to visit Sengaku-ji (泉岳寺), which I'd passed at least fourty times, but never been to.

The blue building in the background makes me think of a Transformer or something, although it's actually just an NTT DoCoMo building.

I left Sengaku-ji and saw this randomly European building.

Then I headed back to Sengakuji station (泉岳寺駅) and headed home. These photos will only be interesting if you want to see what a Japanese subway station looks like. If you live in Japan, then stop looking now or you might fall asleep!

This is a pretty standard subway sign. It has the current station name in kanji, hiragana and romaji in the centre, and kanji and romaji for the previous and next station in the bottom corners. The previous station is usually greyed out slightly. The coloured circle has a letter and number. The letter 'A' stands for Toei Asakusa line (都営浅草線) and it's the seventh station from the start of the line.

Unless it was raining, or I was tired or late, I would get off at Sengaku-ji station and walk the 15-20 minutes down the road to Shinagawa station (it only takes 2 minutes by train) because after Sengaku-ji it changes from the Toei Asakusa line to the Keikyu line (京急線). This means it charges me the fare from my station to Sengaku-ji, plus the lowest fare on the Keikyu line, making it Y340 each way, which severely lowers my pay from the lesson!

Well, I will definitely miss the private lessons, and my student, but we will keep in touch, and it does mean that my day times are much freer now. Slowly my work is wrapping up. At the end of May now, my private lessons have ended, and I finish at Gaba on Sunday 29th June, and I've started telling my students that I'm leaving. It's so nice that they seem sad when I tell them. This working holiday will be over before I know it!