All of the Lights

Hey Everyone!

Several people have asked me to start a blog, as a way to keep in touch or just hear about my time in Tokyo. I really don't have a fixed idea about how I want to go about this so I would love to hear feedback and suggestions about what people want to read about. Any crazy rumors you've heard about Tokyo you want me to investigate? Language, culture? Long exposition about international economics and finance?

As I'm just getting started I'm not even sure who my audience will be. Also a little friendly prodding will probably be the best way to keep me on the ball with this.

So anyway,

Honest first reaction to Tokyo

"Holy shit what did I get myself into"

Luckily I've moved passed that a bit to simply overwhelmed. There is simply so much going on around you wherever you are. Every street corner seems to have hundreds of small bars, restaurants, and shops. I've even seen bars with literally 4 seats in the entire place. Oh and people are evvveeerrrywhere!

The architecture alone in Tokyo gives the city a very distinct feel from any other major city I've been to in North America, Europe, or South America. Virtually all of the buildings have been built since the war. Many buildings look like they were designed to look futuristic back in the 60s, 70s, and maybe 80s. While that style usually just looks tacky in the US, here it comes off as retro and adds to the character of the place. I think the difference might be in the way the buildings are maintained, everything is so clean and well kept.

I had expected Tokyo to be fairly flat, there don't seem to be any major hills dominating the cityscape, but walking around at ground level it doesn't seem like any of the terrain's natural features have been smoothed over. Alleyways and side streets will descend downwards and bend around behind some complex of buildings. These features, combined with the tall buildings, overpasses, and massive subterranean complexes that are the subway stations (more on these later) give parts of the city the feel of some crazy urban jungle gym with stuff going on not only around you but above and below as well.

Most streets don't have names, they aren't numbered in any way, or follow any kind of systematic pattern all the roads seem to just sprawl organically through the maze of buildings. The way addresses work here is a topic for another blog post in and of itself.

For my birthday I went out to meet up with some couch surfers at a bar in Shibuya (pictured above) along with a co-worker from Boston. I didn't have a phone yet but I figured after looking at a map that showed the bar right next to the station I should be fine. Turns out that was a big mistake, it ended up taking me an hour and a half to find the place, looking for a particular bar in Shibuya without a gps phone is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, there must be thousands of them in Shibuya alone some buildings will have 4 or 5 alone on multiple floors.

Luckily we found a Russian guy who was able to look up the address on his phone, who then had his Japanese friend right down the address.

Of course not even the Japanese who lived and worked in the area could tell you where something is based on the address. After several people very apologetically informed us they had no idea where the address was, we found a policeman watching a road work crew.

We showed the address to the policeman who then called over the a couple of the workers, three of them proceeded to have an animated discussion. Eventually one them comes over and draws us a map (we're saved!).

We follow the map, which does not lead us to the bar but a small police station - by small I mean the place was like 6 x 12 feet. We showed the address to the policeman on duty who took us inside to a giant map where he was able to locate the bar based on the address, and our current location (Saved for real this time!).

We finally made it to the bar and luckily the people I was meeting were endowed with heroic levels of patience and were still there, my birthday was saved and my first night out in Tokyo was a blast.

Here are some topics I hope to have posts up about soon

Roppongi (where I live now)
Shinjuku Station
Money and Banking in Japan
Borrowed English Words and Katakana
Yamagaaru

Again let me know if there is anything you would like to hear about!