robbieinjapan.com

It’s Wednesday which means I just finished up the hardest day of the week in terms of classes. I have classes during periods 1, 2, 4 and 5 which means that I have to get to Keio University by 9:00am for my first class and stay there until the end of my last class which is at 6:00pm. Add dinner and then the commute back and I don’t get to my room until around 8:00pm or so.

Luckily though, we don’t have any homework tonight so I have time to put up another entry. In the mornings, the first train I have to take is particularly crowded but I think I’ve discovered a secret. If I walk all the way to the very end and take one of the last cars, it is sometimes not as crowded and people aren’t shoved up against me as hard as in the other cars. Actually, I can’t take the very last car because it is a women only car. Sometime ago they made the women only car available during the morning rush hour because of the growing “chikan problem”. “Chikan” meaning pervert in Japanese. When I was in one of these cars (not during rush hour), I took a photo of one of the numerous signs that are all over the car on the inside, outside and in the station. You’ll see that photo down below.

Recently I bought a new digital camera which is much smaller than my old one so it will be easier for me to carry it around and take photos. I bought it in Shibuya one night and it cost me about 8,800 yen (about $76) for the camera and 2,980 yen for a 256MB memory card (about $25) which means I can take about 160 photos at one time. I figured 160 photos at one time was good enough for me. I’m quite pleased with the camera since it wasn’t as expensive as I expected it to be and it’s much lighter and smaller (as I said before) than my older one.

Anyway, here are some photos I took using my new camera.

Sangenjaya is the name of the place where I live in Tokyo. Everytime I go to class or pretty much anywhere else in Tokyo, I walk about 8 to 10 minutes to the station to catch a train. Here is one of my station’s signs from inside.

While waiting for the train, I took this photograph inside the station. The trains here are loooong. I’m not even standing at the end of the platform, either.

Here is the photo of the “Women Only” sign that I was talking about before, taken from inside the car.

From my last entry, I mentioned eating chuukasoba (Chinese style soba) and gyoza. I ate at the same place for lunch a few days ago and took photographs of the dishes. So if you had no idea what I was talking about before, here’s your chance to see a photograph of that food right here in Tokyo, Japan!

Chuukasoba…

And the gyoza…

Another place I often eat at is called “Yayoiken” and it is part of a chain I believe. There’s one nearby my dorm and I often walk 8 minutes or so to get there. I almost always eat katsudon there. If you don’t know what katsudon is, I’ll explain it sometime when I have photographs. It’s basically a bowl of rice with pork cutlet, egg and sometimes some vegetables on top. To get to Yayoiken, I have to walk down a small street which is lined with many “restaurants”. They are not restaurants in the same sense as restaurants in America since there are no real waiters or waitresses and many of these places are simply ramen shops or sushi shops which are their own categories in themselves. Here’s a picture of part of that street I walk down.

One of the common things for small restaurants in Japan which does not occur at all in the United States is the use of machines outside or just inside the door where one buys tickets for the food that one wants. Once one has purchased a ticket, one walks in, hands the ticket over and then waits for the food. If you want beer or some other drink, you also buy a ticket for it at these machines. However, at most restaurants, iced Japanese tea is served for free. And if not that, there is usually a pitcher of water. Here is a picture of the machine while I was sitting inside Yayoiken. The machine is actually outside the doors to the restaurant.

Here is a photograph of the machine while I was standing in front of it buying my ticket for katsudon. Actually this is a photograph of a different machine from the one pictured above. There are two machines for this particular restaurant that stand about 10 feet opposite of each other. I guess they don’t want costumers waiting. According to the sign in red near the bottom, apparently you can pay with 10,000 yen bills (almost $100) here. The machine works by simply putting in coins or bills and then pressing the button for what you want. Once you purchase something, your ticket and change both appear at the bottom together in that silver looking bin.

An odd thing happened to me at this very machine a few weeks ago. I was reading this book on my computer and it was talking about how we often overlook physical things in our lives because our brains are trained to only recognize certain things. Perhaps it’s something similar to how when you’re thinking of buying a particular car, you start to see them everywhere when prior to your thinking about the car, you never really noticed them. Anyway, one of the exercises in the book said to envision finding money and you would find money. I had read on the Internet messages from people actually doing this and finding money when they had never before, so having nothing better to do during the 10 minute walk or so to this Yayoiken restaurant and also having it on my mind since I had just read the chapter before walking over, I envisioned finding money. When I finally got to the Yayoiken, I started putting my money into the machine and went to press the button for “katsudon” when I looked down and noticed 350 yen (about $3) sitting right there in the silver bin. I was kind of surprised because the change comes out in the same bin right next to the ticket when you order something, so it’s impossible to miss it. This was also the first time I had found money unattended in many, many years. Since then, I haven’t done the exercise again and I also haven’t seen any money anywhere except my own when paying for things. Japanese people seem to be very careful with their bills and coins (I suppose since the coins are worth a lot here, they even have a $5 coin). Anyway, thinking about it now, perhaps I should continue doing this exercise so I can start generating some real revenue!

Here is an upclose shot of the machine where I found the 350 yen.

Lastly, I took a shot of Shibuya, one of the major places to go for restaurants, shopping and various other stores. Shibuya is only two stops away from my station, so I go there often. Also, on my way to Keio University everyday, I have to change trains here. I took this photo while waiting for the light to change in order to cross the street. At all times, Shibuya is absolutely packed with people. If you look closely, you can sort of see the mobs of people waiting on the other side of the street to the left and walking on the sidewalk even further back. Many people call Shibuya the “Times Square” of Japan. It’s not hard to imagine why with the huge screens and crowds of people.

Although I don’t have any specific homework tonight, I should probably read the next paragraph in our reading in order to prepare for tomorrow’s class since we’ll be asked to repeat these same sentences over and over again then. I suppose I’ll write about the class format in my next entry since it seems very Japanese-like to me.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 9:29 am and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.