In Troy, MI

After we got checked in to the hotel yesterday we headed out to the mall for some things that Debra wanted to get, and also to get some food because we hadn’t eaten since early morning.  We drove by a White Castle store and, as neither of us had ever been to one before, decided to give it a try.  On the positive side, the service was friendly and reasonably quick.  The store was dirty, though, and the food was terrible.  That thin slice of grey mystery meat tasted as bad as it looked.  I cannot in good conscience recommend White Castle to anybody.  People tell me that they used to be very good.  I’ll take their word, but I don’t think I’ll be back to try it again.

World Market in Troy, MI has a great beer selection.  While Debra was wandering around finding stuff for Jill’s gift basket, I wandered the beer aisle.  I finally created two custom six packs of mostly local brews–stuff that I’d never seen, or that I had heard of but never had the opportunity to try.  If I can’t bring homebrew to a party, I like to bring something a little out of the ordinary.  There’s always at least one other person who appreciates good beer.

Michigan traffic engineers apparently have something against left turns.  At most major intersections you can’t make a left turn.  Instead, you go through the intersection, make a U-turn, and then turn right.  This maneuver is called a Michigan left.  I haven’t seen this in action during rush hour, but I can’t imagine it being any better for traffic flow than a normal left turn.  Nor do I see it being any safer.  On the contrary, I’d think that making those uncontrolled U-turns would cause even more accidents.

Getting ready to leave

I’m getting ready to pack up and leave.  I’ve been going through my pictures and making notes, trying to decide how much of my notes to post here.  Last year I let a lot of experiences fade before I tried to write them down, and as a result I’ve forgotten some things.  I’m trying to do a better job of it this time.

Last year I was fascinated by the way the Japanese had adapted by making smaller versions of things that we take for granted at home.  I posted a few pictures last year in my May 11 entry.

Here’s a little collage of a few little things I snapped pictures of.  All three of the trucks are about the same size–comparable to a Chevy Suburban.  The electric car, a Nissan Hypermini, is about as long as a big motorcycle–say a Honda Aspencade.  Maybe a bit longer.  The motorcycle is quite practical for Tokyo, but not so much in the U.S.  At least, not in Austin.  110 cc engines in the U.S. are reserved for scooters and child’s toys.  Which is too bad.  This little bike could probably do 50 MPH with a college student carrying his books in a backpack.  But instead we go for huge cars and 1,000 cc motorbikes.

Click on any picture for a larger view.

It’s a 9 hour trip across the Pacific to San Francisco.  I leave at 5:00 PM on Sunday and arrive at 9:00 AM on Sunday.  This time change stuff really messes with my head.  We have a meeting scheduled with the other programmer in Oakland on Monday.  Depending on my schedule and how badly the jet lag hits me, it might be a couple of days before I post again.  I’ll be back at home on Tuesday.

Tsukiji fish market

I got up very early this morning to visit Tsukiji Fish Market.  The idea was to see where the fish for many of Tokyo’s restaurants is purchased.  I got there about 6:15 AM and the place was almost deserted.  I wandered around for a while and finally gave up.  Sorry to disappoint.  Please accept this picture of live eels as a consolation.

But since I was down there I thought I’d have sushi for breakfast.  One would think you could get some of the best sushi in the world around there, and not have to pay much.  Seven pieces of sushi cost me a total of $6.00 U.S.  That’s incredibly inexpensive, and the fish was good.

I found out later that the reason the fish market was so quiet is that today is National Foundation Day–a Japanese national holiday.  According to the history books, it was on this day in the year 660 BC (by Western reckoning) that the first Japanese emporer was crowned.

I didn’t have anything planned until noon, so rather than take the subway back to the hotel, I went for a walk.  I started out planning to walk just a couple of kilometers back to Hibya station, where I could catch the subway back to Jimbōchō without having to change trains.  But the weather was nice and I was feeling good, so I kept going.  I ended up walking the entire way back from Tsukiji to Jimbōchō–probably four to five miles.  It was great fun, and I saw lots of things that I never would have even known about had I taken the subway.

For example, I never would have considered visiting the Wadakura Water Fountain Park, but since I walked right by it I went ahead and snapped a few shots.

I also walked past and briefly visited Kokyo, the Japanese Imperial Palace grounds.  The area is huge, and I suspect that I could spend a whole day or more there.  I’ll hold off and visit it with Debra when she and I are here together.

I got back to my hotel about 10:00 and had a couple of hours to rest before heading out on a sightseeing trip with our host and a couple of the guys I went drinking with on Wednesday night.  But I’ll post about that later.

Taking in the night life — Shibuya

This evening was perhaps the most fun I’ve had in Japan, both trips included.  After a reception hosted by one of our Japanese suppliers, we had dinner at a little Chinese restaurant somewhere near our hosts office.  He then dropped us off at our hotel.  David and Matt decided to call it a night, and I thought I might, too.  But then I decided to get a feel for Tokyo at night.  What a blast!

Leaving my camera and any excess baggage in my room, I headed for Shibuya station.  Yes, it’s one of the city’s night life hotspots, but I didn’t go there looking for drinks and women who like foreigners.  I had heard that Shibuya is one of the night life spots for the locals, and I thought I’d get an interesting feel for the people if I just wandered around the station a bit.  I didn’t take the camera because I didn’t want to be viewed as too much of a tourist.  But now I don’t have any pictures.  Next time I’ll just look like a tourist.

Stepping out of Shibuya station, the first thing I noticed was lights.  Everywhere.  I’ve never lived in a big city, so the whole concept of a subway is a little foreign to me.  Add to that the thousands of people skittering hither and yon, and the lights … a poor old country boy like me is captivated.  And confused.

There were performers set up just oustide the train station, kindly taking turns entertaining the crowd and trying to sell their CDs.  For the most part it’s young men (hardly more than boys) with guitars or a music box that plays a popular tune while the boy sings.  It was 35 degrees tonight with a good wind blowing, and there were pleny of girls out there admiring the singers.  A couple of the singers were pretty good, although they lacked the raw voice that characterizes so many Western pop singers.  I wonder if it’s a cultural thing–they never really learn to scream, so they can’t scream into the microphone.

I bought one CD by a group called モズキング, which is Katakana for “Mozuking”.  I don’t know what it means, but when you think about it “Deep Purple” isn’t all that meaningful, either.  It’s reasonably good music.  A couple of guys playing their guitars and singing.  One of them also plays the harmonica.

The group Glide Age was giving out samples of their latest demo CD called “My Life”.  Only three of the five members were out performing last night, and I think the girl was there under duress.  She was bundled up with a heavy coat and scarf, her hands freezing as she played the keyboards.  Their demo CD is much more polished than what I had expected after hearing them perform at the station.  I prefer them without all the fancy production stuff that they used on their demo.

Somebody gave me a flyer for the group High-style while I was watching them.  These two young men had quite a crowd of girls gathered around.  I don’t know if it’s their almost feminine good looks or their singing, but it was obvious that the girls liked them.  These two don’t play any instruments but rather put on a recorded backup track (drums and keyboards, mostly) and sing along with it.  Think karoake done right (i.e. by people who can actually sing), and you’ll get the idea.  They really are quite good.

During one intermission (time between groups performing), two guys sitting near the smoking area pulled out their drums–they looked like traditional Japanese drums–and beat out a tune for about five minutes.  That was the best performance of the night, and I was very disappointed that they didn’t have CDs for sale and I hadn’t recorded any of it.  It really was something.

I caught the train bound for my hotel a little too late, and ended up at Nagatachō station with no train to take me the rest of the way.  So I walked upstairs and got a taxi.  It cost me almost 1,500 yen ($15 U.S.) for a taxi from Nagatachō to Jimbōchō.  The same trip on the subway costs 190 yen.  Don’t miss your train.

To Osaka

Osaka is about 320 miles (512 kilometers) east of Tokyo.  The quickest and easiest way to get there is to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo station.  I don’t know if Tokyo station is the largest train station in the world, but it is huge.  It took us about 15 minutes to get from our hotel to Otemachi station, which is connected by walking tunnel to Tokyo station.  It took over 30 minutes to walk from Otemachi station to the platform where we boarded the Shinkansen.

We had some time to kill in Tokyo Station, so I entertained the crowd with my juggling.

Actually, the money on the ground is mine, and the guy throwing the coin is Mr. Shoji–one of our host’s employees.  The Japanese are rather more reserved than Americans, and it’s quite possible that many didn’t even see me juggling there simply because it’s so out of the ordinary that their brains wouldn’t accept it.  I did get a few looks as the crowds rushed by.  It was great fun.

We rode the “Nozomi Super Express,” which made only three or four stops along the way.  Traveling at 200 or 250 kilometers per hour much of the way, the trip to Osaka took a little over two hours.  Once again, due to the weather, I was unable to see Mt. Fuji.  I guess I’ll have to keep coming back to Japan until I get a view of the mountain.

We’ll be in Osaka for two full days for meetings with the users.  These meetings are interesting because they involve programmers and artists trying to communicate and come to an understanding–a process that is difficult even when both parties speak the same native language.  Things take a little more time, but we are able to reach an understanding.

I have a few pictures to post, but that’ll have to wait for another time.  I don’t have Internet access here in Osaka except briefly from my client’s office.  I’ll have to write my updates in the hotel tonight or tomorrow and then upload them before or after our meetings.  I’ll be back in Tokyo with high speed access on Thursday evening.

Japan again

A 15 hour time change really messes with the mind.  I got up at 4:30 Saturday morning in Austin to catch my flight to San Francisco.  I arrived at my hotel in Tokyo at 6:30 Sunday evening–about 3:30 Sunday morning, Austin time.  It’s 10:000 PM now and my body thinks it’s 7:00 AM.

The trip from Austin to San Francisco was uneventful except for a particularly odious person sitting near me.  I’ll just say that I found his conversation offensive and I was happy to have ear plugs.  Saying, “these things really take the edge off,” while stuffing an ear plug in your ear is an effective way to avoid conversation without giving offense.

My seat mates for the 10-1/2 hour trip from San Francisco to Narita were a very pleasant older couple from Houston who were headed for Manila to attend two reunions:  her 45th high school reunion and his family reunion.  He was asleep most of the way, so she and I shared a friendly conversation when I wasn’t up roaming the aisles.

I hate sitting in one place for that long, especially when I’m trapped against the bulkhead next to a window out of which I can see only cloud cover or, if the clouds clear, the Pacific Ocean.  The ocean might be teeming with life, but from 35,000 feet it might as well be a barren wasteland.  Even large ships are hardly noticeable at that altitude.  I usually pass a large amount of the time by wandering the aisles.

I brought my bean bags this time and stood at the back of the plane, juggling.  This is a great way to strike up a conversation, and I got to meet a number of different people:  a Korean woman whose husband works for the U.S. State Department, a games programmer from Tokyo, and several people whose homes and destinations were unknown to me but with whom I shared a few words.  Boredom is contagious on those flights, so people often are more than willing to talk about almost anything.

The fastest and easiest way to get from Narita airport to most places in Tokyo is the Narita Express.  Board the train at the airport and in under an hour you’re stepping onto the platform at Tokyo Station.  From there you can catch a subway train to anywhere in Tokyo.  The problem is the cost–about $30 U.S.  There is a much less expensive way, but it takes longer and can be confusing for the uninitiated.

Take the Keisei Limited Express from the airport bound for Ueno, but get off at Aoto Station and transfer to the train bound for Oshiage.  From Oshiage you can catch the subway to anywhere in the Tokyo metro area.  You also can go all the way to Ueno and catch a subway there, but it’s much easier to get to the station by my hotel from Oshiage than from Ueno.  Total cost for the trip was about $12.  The drawback is time.  The Limited Express makes a dozen or so stops.  This route takes about 30 minutes longer than the Narita Express and carrying luggage through the subway stations isn’t a whole lot of fun, but it’s not $20 inconvenient.

If you decide on the less expensive route, you should get a map of the stations in the outlying areas.  Although the Tokyo Subway Map shows all of the stations that are on the Metro network, it only shows the major stations between here and the airport.  If you don’t have a map of the stations outside of the Metro area, you’re going to be a bit confused.  The people in Japan, however, are incredibly friendly and willing to help a bewildered foreigner find his way.  Often I didn’t even have to ask:  somebody would see me looking confused and offer assistance.

Voice chat, by the way, is a great way to stay in touch when you’re overseas.  I installed Yahoo Messenger with Voice on my machine and on Debra’s, and we agreed on times to attempt conversations.  10:00 PM in Tokyo is 7:00 AM in Austin, so it works out well.  I should have thought of this the last time rather than relying solely on email for communication.  I know that there are other, and perhaps better, VOIP solutions, but Yahoo Messenger works well enough for our purposes.

Postings will undoubtedly be spotty later in the week, as I might be without Internet connection Tuesday through Thursday.  Time for bed.

Jet lag

I’ve often heard people talk about jet lag, how flying halfway around the world throws the body’s clock out of sync.  Flying east, I heard, was worse than flying west.  Having made the trip from California to Boston a few times and not noticing any ill effects, I mostly discounted the tales of insomnia and keeping weird hours for a few days after coming back from Asia.

Boy, was I wrong.

I got home about midnight on Monday.  My body was convinced that the time was 2:00 pm, and it took me three or four hours to calm down and get to sleep.  Even then I kept waking every couple of hours.  I slept most of Tuesday, was actually functional on Tuesday evening, and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning Wednesday.  Today was a repeat of Tuesday, except that I’m going to crawl into bed at 11:00 pm (immediately after I write this) so that I can get back on a normal schedule tomorrow in preparation for a trip on Friday.

I can tell you from experience that jet lag is real.  Flying back through a 14 hour time difference will throw you off, and you’ll most likely be worthless for at least two days.  Build that assumption into your schedule if you’re planning a long trip.

Sightseeing in Tokyo

My first four days in Japan, I just followed along behind our host, not paying particular attention to where we were going or how we were getting there.  In the subway, for example, he’d go buy the tickets while we waited, and then we’d just follow him to whichever platform the train was supposed to arrive at.

Work over for the week, David and I decided to spend yesterday seeing the sights.  There’s a lot to see in Tokyo, of course, certainly more than one could see in a day or even a week.  But we each had a couple of things we wanted to check out, and David wanted to show me a few of the tourist spots.  My job was to figure out how to get us there on the subway.

The first stop was the Kitanomaru National Garden, a very large botanical garden on the sight of what once was (or perhaps still is) one of the Emporer’s residences, complete with surrounding moat.  It was only two kilometers from the hotel, so we decided to walk.  I was surprised to see this much garden space in the middle of the world’s largest city, and it was surprisingly quiet and peaceful there despite all the people and hustle and bustle around us.  The gardens were beautiful, but not much was in bloom this time of year.  The picture at left gives some idea of the garden’s lushness, but it really doesn’t do justice to the hard work and care given to maintaining it.

The many people wandering around the garden were quiet, children well behaved.  All seemed to understand that this is a place where people go to relax and get away from the noise of the city.  How I wish people at home would behave so well.

David is an avid Go player, so after leaving the gardens and having lunch we made a stop at the Japan Go association hall of fame and museum.  I know enough about the game of Go to understand the rules, but that’s about it.  Still, I enjoyed viewing some of the old boards and other displays.  David told me a story about a samurai who was attacked while he slept, and used a Go board (a very large and heavy block of wood) to defend himself.  He managed to kill several of his attackers before being overcome.  It’s a favorite story of Go players and of the Japanese in general, because it illustrates the fighting spirit that the people hold so dear.

People I’d talked to before leaving for Tokyo told me that the subway system was very difficult to navigate, and warned me to stay away from it at all costs.  But tens of millions of people use the Tokyo subway every day, so I figured that it couldn’t be too terribly difficult to find my way around.  The map I got, with directions in English, certainly seemed approachable.  My only problem was trying to figure out how to buy a ticket.  I wanted to figure this out without help because I was going to be wandering around by myself the next day.  David stood there patiently while I tried to puzzle things out.  While I stood there looking bewildered, a Japanese man came by and asked if I needed help.  I thanked him and explained that I was trying to learn myself, but I appreciated his concern.  My problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to tell the ticket machine where I wanted to go.  I finally gave up, and David showed me that the machine doesn’t care too much where I’m going, just that I put in enough money to buy a ticket for my stop.  The prices for each stop are shown on a map above the bank of machines.  I might have figured that out if the map had the names written in Latin characters.  I couldn’t read the Kanji.

We had a good old time wandering around and taking pictures in the Ginza shopping district, which has every kind of high end shop imaginable.  I think every major retailer in the world has a store here.  It’s a dozen blocks of highrise buildings, with people everywhere.  The few places I walked into had some very expensive merchandise.  I’m not much of a shopper, so I spent most of the time just watching people and taking pictures.  I’ll post some of those tomorrow.

Things are small here

The conventional wisdom is that Asian people are short compared to Americans.  I can’t say about the rest of Asia, but that’s certainly not true of the Japanese.  I’m 5’9″, about average height for an American man.  Most of the Japanese men my age and younger are almost as tall, and I regularly saw men who were taller than I.  The women seem to be between 5’3″ and 5’6″.  Older generations are shorter, sure.  My understanding is that I would have to duck my head to pass through doors in some of the older buildings.

One thing I did notice is that there are few Japanese who are grossly overweight.  There are some, but not nearly as many as I see waddling around if I take a walk in downtown Austin.  Unfortunately, it appears that the Japanese are catching up with us in that regard.  I saw many children walking to school during my morning explorations, and noticed that some of the kids (especially the junior high or high school girls) were packing quite a few extra pounds.  I hope the Japanese figure out how to reverse that trend before their population starts to look like ours.

The people aren’t any smaller, but most things in Japan are smaller.  The reason is simple:  space.  Japan is about the size of California, but has less usable land.  Only about 33% of Japan’s total land area is fit for habitation.  California’s population is about 34 million people.  There are almost 127 million people in Japan.  The Tokyo metropolitan area has 28 million people.  Pack the entire population of California into Los Angeles/Orange County, and you’ll get an idea of how crowded things are here.  This tight packing of people puts space at a premium.  At one point, land in Tokyo was going for something like $25,000 per square meter.  That works out to $100 million per acre.  Not that you’d be able to buy an acre in Tokyo at any price.

I knew that the average car here is smaller than in the U.S.  A Dodge PT Cruiser looks huge next to most of the cars you’ll see in Tokyo.  I didn’t realize that almost everything is smaller.  The towtruck above is smaller than my little pickup.  The truck at left is about the length and width of a Ford Expedition.  It’s hauling a backhoe that’s about the size of a Bobcat.  I saw a construction site where all of the equipment was miniature sized.  It would be very difficult to move large equipment and trucks through downtown areas.  Trash trucks look just like the familiar trucks in the U.S., but they’re about 1/3 the size.  I couldn’t get over the Expedition-sized cement truck.  I wanted to get a picture, but I never had my camera at hand when one came rolling by.

Some things, like the itty bitty car at right, are just too small.  This thing is smaller than a golf cart.  David caught it on the streets of Tokyo one night.

My hotel room is very small.  It consists of a “bedroom” that is just big enough for a double bed, writing desk/TV stand, a short hallway, and a small bathroom.  The bedroom part is about 8′ by 8′, and the hallway is about 8′ long.  It’s small, but comfortable.  I didn’t really need a large space anyway.  About all I used the room for was sleeping, showering, and a bit of writing.

Streets and hallways are narrower, bathrooms are smaller, there aren’t any garages that I saw, lots of people ride bicycles or take the subway, the streets are crowded, and there are people everywhere.  It’s hard to describe the surprise of finding a smaller version of something familiar, and then wondering “Why don’t we do that?”  I’ve seen delivery vans that aren’t any larger than my little pickup truck, and I wonder how many companies in the U.S. would rather have one of those tiny things rather than the big trucks that are so common.  I know many delivery drivers who say that they never have a full load.

The lack of space in Japan is, I think, one of the primary motivating factors behind many of its customs.  I hope to expand on that thought later in the week.

First thoughts on Japan

Being illiterate is very frightening.  It’s one thing to wander around in Mexico or on one of the Caribbean islands where the language is different but the writing system is similar to English.  I’m bright enough to puzzle out the meanings of many French or Spanish words because they resemble English words with which I’m familiar.  And I can pick up some conversation because words and inflections are similar, too.  My ability to communicate with the people in Mexico is limited, but I can make myself understood if I have to.

In Tokyo I’m illiterate.  I’m also unable to understand any of the spoken language or make myself understood if the person I’m trying to communicate with doesn’t know English.  The place looks hauntingly familiar due to the abundance of American companies that have a presence (Starbucks Coffee, McDonald’s, 7-11, Denny’s, etc.), but most of the writing is indecipherable to me.  Place names very often are written in Romaji (the Japanese term for the Latin alphabet) as well as in Kanji, so at least I can give names to places, even if I don’t pronounce them quite right.  But menus and descriptions aren’t often written in English.  I have to rely on pictures in order to figure out what something is.  I can’t imagine how frightening it would be if there were no familiar signs and no familiar-looking writing at all.


One of the things that will surprise you in Tokyo is how trusting people are.  The most evident for me was bicycles parked on the sidewalk, unlocked.  People dismount and park their bikes without locks, leaving them unattended for hours at a time.  Rarely is a bicycle stolen.  The first morning I was in Tokyo, I woke up and took my walk at 5:00 am.  Bicycles that had been left parked overnight were still there, unmolested.  The mountain bike with the flat tire shown on the left is a good example.  I can pretty much guarantee that a bicycle left overnight anywhere in downtown Austin would be gone long before 5:00 am.

Here’s another example.  I took the picture on the right at 10:00 pm.  The display case is outside a shop on a side street just down from my hotel.  It’s probably been there for years, unharmed.

This kind of thing is pervasive in the culture.  In the U.S., if you want to send a check or cash in the mail, you wrap it up in paper or make sure to send it in an opaque envelope.  You don’t want anybody to know that there is cash in there.  In Japan, they have a special envelope that says, in effect, “Please Mr. Postman, be very careful with this letter because it contains something valuable.”  That’s difficult to imagine back home, huh?  I doubt the postman would take it, but you can bet there’d be people rifling through mailboxes on a regular basis.