Tips for Visiting Tokyo

This week I hosted my first visitor from the states. Having gotten a bit more settled and acclimatized to Tokyo I had forgotten how overwhelming it can be at first. My first impression can be found here, but I wanted to put down a few tips for those of you planning on coming to visit me out here, or just Tokyo at some other point in the future.

In a lot of ways Tokyo is a difficult city to experience as a Tourist. Tokyo is really several massive cities all stitched to together with the most complex train/subway system in the world (see here). Each one of these places has a different character, and different things to do. I've been here two months and I still haven't gotten around to many of the major city centers, including Tokyo Station! Each of these major hubs are teaming with literally thousands of restaurants, bars, and clubs. It's can be overwhelming just trying to pick a place to go eat.

In no particular order here is my list of tips for visiting Tokyo.

1. Visit for at least one weekend. Tokyo is a crazy city with tons of stuff to do, even on the weekdays, but really the most fun cultural stuff happens on the weekends. The nightlife is wild and not to be missed. But even if that's not your scene the best people watching happens on the weekends, with people dressed up in crazy outfits, role playing different anime characters etc. Also in a city this big every weekend there's some festival, concert, or other event going on somewhere. Tokyoites work hard, play hard, if you're coming to visit come for the play bit.
2. Try and book your flight so that you are scheduled to arrive before 9pm. The last buses and trains leave from the airport around 12-12:30 after that you can get stuck and have to take a taxi that can cost well over $100. Really you should be fine landing any time before 10:30, customs is super efficient here, but if your flight is delayed you can get yourself into some trouble. So I would recommend planning in a buffer, if only not to worry about it.
3. Bring lots of cash, and exchange money once. For foreign visitors to Tokyo getting access to your money can be very difficult. No places will accept your debit card, very very few will accept your credit card. You can withdraw cash from Citibank ATMs but the fees are outrageous. Most restaurants, bars, cabs only accept cash. I would advise that you try take out as much cash as you plan on spending in Tokyo out before you get here, plus maybe 20% because it's expensive here, and then exchange it all at the airport.
4. Do research about how to get from point A to point B. Getting to and finding places in Tokyo can be challenging for the uninitiated. There is very little English direction. Most streets don't have names, and sprawl maze like through the buildings in no discernible pattern. The addresses, make sense in a way, but are totally useless for helping you find places. Having an iPhone with google maps helps a ton, but it still doesn't work nearly as well as in the US. Most places websites will have an "access" page which will explain how to get there, study it before you head out.
5. Helpfully in Tokyo there are maps everywhere, but it's important to keep in mind that up is not always north. The maps are oriented to reflect the position from which they are viewed. So if you are facing south looking at a map, up will be south on the map. If you assume that every map is oriented north you will quickly end up lost, confused, and traveling in circles. It took me weeks to figure this out.
6. The trains stop running between 12ish and 5am. Keep this in mind when planning your trips. Cabs are pricy, and explaining where you want to go can be a challenge if you aren't going to a major landmark. If the cab doesn't have GPS knowing the address will be useless.
7. When in Tokyo plan on staying out all night. This logically follows from 1&6, people in Japan love to party, and in true when in Rome style plan on having quite an adventure. Naps before heading out are recommended, as well as an open schedule for sleeping the following day.
8. Nomihodai, see here.
9. Don't freak out when every shop clerk starts saying all this stuff to you in Japanese, it's usually just something like "welcome, good morning/afternoon/evening, it costs this much, you're paying me this much, I'm giving you this much change, thank very much," in polite Japanese all this can be a bit wordy, but you aren't expected to respond. Smile, nod, don't over think it.
10. Don't worry about trying to have "The" Tokyo experience. As far as recommendations for specific things to do or see, I think maybe after two years I'll have seen enough to give a knowledgeable opinion. But there's tons of fun stuff to do and you can't do it all, don't worry about trying to see the right things or eat at the right places, go for convenience, and simplicity and you'll be much happier for it.

Hope that doesn't put people off too much, come visit it's definitely worth it!

Three Outfits on the Keio Line

Tokyo is known for being a fashionable city. I thought these three people were a great illustration of the diversity you'll see just walking around. The woman in front is wearing some very stylish dress thing. Behind her to the right a girl is wearing a Spongebob t-shirt. To the left you see a construction worker wearing the super baggy pants that are very common among laborers, and which apparently serve no function besides looking cool at least according to this article.

IYI - Mrs. Watanabe - Japan's Housewife Currency Traders

As I was plugging along at work one day I looked up from my computer to see a group of 30 or so middle aged Japanese women standing around looking at me. I'm not entirely sure what they were saying but I imagine it was something along the lines of "one of these is not like the others," and they found it amusing.

The group of women were being given a tour of our office, and were followed by another equally large group of women a few minutes later. A bit confused as to what was going on I turned to a coworker to ask who they were.

"Agents" he said, meaning our primary insurance and financial planning sales force

"They're all women?" I asked, a bit surprised as in the US this was a traditionally male dominated position.

As it turns out financial planners in Japan are overwhelmingly female, because househbold finances are usually managed by women. The typical サラリーマン (sarariiman or salaryman) is only trusted with a small monthly allowance.

Even more surprising is how many of these housewives mange their money, by becoming day traders in currency markets. These so called "Mrs. Watanabe," try and earn a little (or a lot) extra on the side by betting on the movements of exchange rates. See this Reuters report for background.

Unfortunately the etymology of this term has evaded my furious googling efforts.

Mrs. Watanabes are a big deal in currency markets. It's been a bit difficult to track down exact estimates but most sources I've seen attribute 30% of the volume of daily currency trades to individual Japanese traders, the majority of which is done by women.

The major factor driving Mrs. Watanabe to the FX markets has been the persistent low interest rate environment in Japan over the past two decades, combined with low equity (stock) returns, which means there aren't a lot of options for domestic Japanese investment with decent safe returns.

The so called "carry trade" is an investment strategy where you borrow money in a currency where interest rates are low, and invest it in a currency where interest rates are high. It's generally viewed as a high risk strategy because exchange rates are notoriously volatile. But the strategy was and is popular with the financial cowboys running hedge funds in the US and Europe. It turns out that this strategy is widely employed by your average investor in Japan, with Mrs. Watanabes leading the way. Even my company offers consumer financial products denominated in foreign currencies to take advantage of this trend.

I find it fairly amusing that the exchange rate movements caused by the massive amounts of money sent around the globe by these amateur housewives has routinely confounded professional analysts and has led a lot of the "master of the universe" types in NYC and London to lose lots of money. This happened notoriously in the mid 2000s when the Yen refused to appreciate despite improving economic output in Japan, and most recently after the 3/11 earthquake.

After the earthquake almost all the professional analysts expected the Yen to fall in value relative to other currencies. Japan after all was experiencing a major economic catastrophe. But what they didn't count on was the horde of Mrs. Watanabe's suddenly needing the cash they had invested overseas to deal with the emergency, this actually triggered a "flash crash" or spike in the yen when the news out of Fukushima worsened. This was investigated by the WSJ here.

Basically as everyone was going to sleep in NYC and London, all these people woke up in Japan and suddenly electronic markets were flooded with Yen buy orders, 90% of them for values less then $100,000 - a much lower value then a bank or professional traders would put in- and the value of the Yen shot up to a 16yr high against the U.S. dollar. Now in off hours a lot of traders employ stop loss orders to try and limit their losses automatically when they aren't around to trade. This sudden move in Japan caused many of those limits to be hit which further compounded the trend.

I haven't been able to find any statistics on how well these housewife currency traders have performed on average. It's easy to find reports like the one above on some people who have done very well for themselves, but I'm sure there are just as many stories of people who have ruined themselves as well. It you get enough people all flipping coins, someone gets heads 100 times in a row, and someone tails. I wouldn't advise it as an investment strategy, even if you think you know what you're doing there's likely some other force on the far side of the globe influencing things in ways you don't understand - like Mrs. Watanabe.

Kabukicho - A proper red light district.

Kabukicho is the red district residing on the northeast side of Shinjuku station. If wikipedia is to be believed, and having been to the area myself I'm inclined to believe, there are over 3,000 bars, nightclubs, love hotels, massage parlors, and hostess bars. This is all in an area geographically no larger then say Faneuil Hall back in Boston.

The night of my first trip to Kabukicho started out innocently enough. Drinks at the local Hub Pub, a British style pub located in Tokyo Opera city, a giant skyscraper and pinnacle of high culture.

Conveniently located a five minute walk from my apartment and about thirty feet from the giant statue Opera man.

I hadn't counted on the Hub Pub showing an Australian rugby match and the rowdy pair of New Zealanders and a Brit I met watching it. After the match they invited me along to the Dubliners pub in Shinjuku down the street. A few beers later, 1am or maybe 2am was rolling around and one of the guys was inspired to head out to Champions, a dive bar tucked away in a small alley in the middle of Kabukicho.

Once you enter Kabukicho, the streets get narrow and every inch of each building is covered with neon signs.

Each building has at least 5 or 6 different establishments.

Unlike say Las Vegas, Kabukicho doesn't have the feel of some over commercialized caricature of a red light district, it feels like the real deal. The government seems to allow these places to operate unobstructed. There are simply so many establishments I don't know if it's possible that they could all be regularly monitored. No single place seems big enough to draw attention to itself. Despite all this, like everywhere else in Tokyo it's perfectly safe, no one gets robbed. There are no fights.

The density of these bars/clubs/message parlors means that there's fierce competition to get people in the door. There's all manner of specialization on display.

This place seems to cater to the um, "I like the size of your gun" crowd. Maybe American soldiers stationed in Tokyo perhaps?

The clubs also hire armies of pushers to make sure no male, particularly fair skinned gaijin males, walks through Kabukicho un-accosted. Some are dressed in slick cut suits and just casually ask you if you're looking for a girl tonight. Others, often other foreigners, come at you with a full court press and will persistently follow you for blocks trying to get you into a club.

This particular evening I had a Jamaican guy in an LA dodgers cap come up to me. The interaction went something as follows, recreated based on my hazy, overstimulated recollection, as I'm walking to the bar.

Guy: Heyyyyyyy mon, you look like a rich mon, looking for sexy time.

Me: Sorry not interested

Guy: Hey mon where you from, mon

Me: Boston,

Guy: Ohhh Boston mon, I'm from Jamaica I've been to New York, LA

Me: That where you got your hat?

Guy: Of course mon, I love Americans, what you looking for tonight mon, anything you want we got it, you want massages, girls, clubs, dancing, anything you want mon.

Me: Sorry man I'm just heading to Champions with some friends

Guy: Oh mon, that place is nothing, you tell me what you want.

Finally we made it to the bar and he gave up.

Ah champions, a bar where the beer is cheap, and the karaoke is cheaper. Many of the details are a bit hazy, but I distinctly remember at one point a couple attempting the duet "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. To be fair I think world may be the most difficult english word for native Japanese speakers to say, all the characters in the Japanese alphabet consist of either a vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel, save one. World ends with three consonants, and r next to an l (which doesn't exist in Japanese and is approximated in borrowed words with r) to boot.

Despite the lyrical challenges of the performers, it seemed an appropriate theme.

A whole new world...

First movie theater experience in Japan - emphasis on experience

I went and saw the final Harry Potter last weekend here in Tokyo. First off, several things to note about this movie theater in Japan

• You choose your seat when you purchase the ticket. Actually, I thought this was pretty smart. There was no pressure to get to the theater early, and this prevents the inefficient practice of small groups all sitting one seat apart from each other so bigger groups can't find seats.
• Ticket prices are higher, But they don't gouge you on the food. I'm getting the sense that there is less "cross-subsidization" in consumer pricing in Japan.
• The food is also pretty good
• Booze is available at the cafe, which you can hang out in because you don't have to save your seat.

Once seated the lights went down, and this very loud, intense, short movie was shown involving the movie theater...

No seriously it was really intense, full on sensory assault, like white knuckles holding on to the chair.

My advice would be to go mildly inebriated to help take the edge off.

I couldn't find the exact version I saw, but here's one along the same lines. Imagine you are watching this this on a giant screen filling up your entire range of vision, in a dark theater, and with a sound system turned up to 11.

I know I saw a different version, because I distinctly remember a rocket propelled toilet being fired from the jumbo jet robot.

As far as I can tell what's going on here is... well... actually... I've got nothing

I've noticed some page views coming from Japan, can someone here help me out here?

A lot of Japanese visual media seems, at least to this gaijin, to be really intense. Anime in particular. This seizure inducing media exists in sharp contrast to the general culture of civility and politeness. It's an interesting dichotomy that I don't understand.

Following this, um service announcement? commercial?, we were treated to previews.

Here's one involving a bunch of ninja's in training

Any guesses as to what the main plot arch here is?

WTF is this? Part 1 Answer! Pachinko Parlor

Sorry for the long delay in getting back to this I know the suspense has been killing everyone.

The building above houses a Japanese pachinko parlor.

Walking around Tokyo you'll quickly become familiar with pachinko parlors. These are mini casinos that house gambling devices a bit like slot machines.
Officially gambling is illegal in Japan, so it's a bit surprising how ubiquitous they are. By some accounts the annual turn over in the pachinko parlor business is about $300 Billion. Which according to Wikipedia anyway, is about the size of the estimated global narcotics business. So what gives, how can these supposedly illegal gambling institutions operate so openly and so profitably?

Pachinko parlors manage to avoid infringing on the anti gambling laws but not paying out any cash prizes on the premises of the pachinko parlor. Lucky patrons are paid in tokens which must be brought to a separate establishment where they can be exchanged for cash. This "separate" establishment could be located directly adjacent to the parlor. However, parlor staff are prohibited from telling customers where they can go to exchange their tokens.

There seem to be several areas of Japanese society where they seem to be very concerned with whether or not the letter of the law is being carried out, without any regard for whether the actual consequences of the implementation are meeting the goal which was the reason for it's existence. Prostitution would fall into this category as well.

Apparently over 90% of the pachinko parlors in Japan are owned by ethnic Koreans. It's also rumored that many of the token exchange locations have connections to the Yakuza, or Japanese mob.

Also, I believe I promised a prize to the correct guess. So congratulations Brian Pierce! You're now the owner (proud I'm sure) of the hip shaped pillow pictured below.
Let me know your address and I'll have it sent to you, in the slowest, cheapest possible method. So be patient.

If you need a haircut the Dude abides

In a rather strange scene I found myself getting a haircut for the first time by a barber sporting dreadlocks. An older Japanese man who goes by the name Kaz, he runs a salon in Harajuku called "Dude."

Having lived in London for several years and married a British woman he spoke excellent English. In fact, it was this trait that first led me to seek out the Dude in the first place. Haircuts didn't run cheap, but then again nothing does in Tokyo, and fortunately you don't have to worry about tip. While I may have balked at the price a bit, I was sold with the "dude quote" found on the "who's dude" page of his website.

If everyone in the world was a dude

The world would be more peaceful...!!

Stay chilled, stay dude

Really how could you turn down that pitch.

An avowed fan of "dude culture" we were quickly debating the finer differences between surfer dudes and snowboarder dudes, slacker dudes. He lamented that his fellow Japanese compatriots just don't seem to get it, and that Harajuku which was once considered bohemian had become more upscale and commercial.

He's actually moving his shop to Shimokitazawa a place so hip the cats sit in chairs.

Which would actually be more convenient for me, the haircut was great.