the stupid things that shu-en does when she travels

i shall attempt to document my trip, by category rather than chronologically... and first i will start of with: the stupid things that shu-en does when she travels.

well, first of all, i did remember to pack in my phone charger but forgot to bring my phone with me. i don't wear watches, so the only source of time i had was my iPod. but, i didn't bring my iPod charger. yay.

*

day one, i touched down slightly later than we were scheduled to as the flight out of hongkong was delayed. after collecting my suitcase and figuring out where the train station was, i stood in line to purchase my n'ex and suica passes. the time was 9:30pm, there were about 5 people ahead of me, and the next trains were due to come at 9:45 or 10:15. this reminded me of the time i stood in line at the greyhound station trying to buy a ticket for a bus that was leaving in 5 minutes.

anyhow, i successfully purchased my ticket and made it to the platform by about, 9:35pm. there is a sign board that indicates that there are 2 trains approaching, one at 9:45 and the other at 10:15. shortly after, a train pulls in and i hurry to get on the train. one leg in the train and one leg still on the platform, i noticed that there was no one else getting on the train with me. i hesistate for a few moments trying to decide what was wrong with this situation, but decided that i would get on the train anyway (don't follow the crowd right!).

it was only then that i noticed on the sign board that there was a 9:42 train, which was the one that i was on and which wasn't going where i wanted to go. but before i could get off the train, the door closed on me. the train pulls in to the narita terminal 1 station and sits on the track for almost half an hour.

rewind just a bit. when the train pulled into the terminal 1 station, there was another train on the opposite tracks. 2 minutes later, there was an announcement for "ikebukuro", which was where i wanted to go. that other train was the one that i was supposed to take!! i ran towards it and the doors closed on me 2 seconds before i could get to them. thanks.

i take the local train all the way to tokyo station, drag my suitcase up a flight of steps, change trains to ikebukuro, and ultimately get in at 12:30am when if i had taken the correct train, i would have reached at 11pm. and all this while, bj and oishi-san were waiting and worrying for me at the hostel. yay again.

*

weijian comes in tuesday night. he takes the same flight schedule as me, and catches the correct train, and gets into the hostel at 11:30pm. he suggested going to the tsukiji fish market the next morning, and i said sure but we need to camp out overnight if we want to catch all the action since the trains don't start running as early as the fish market starts operating. somehow somehow, we managed to persuade 3 other people in the room to come along with us as well. we dash to the train station and made it to the platform 1 minute before the last train departed.

happy and jolly, we roamed the deserted streets of tokyo while waiting for the fish to swim to tokyo shores, hung out in a park and got to know each other better (since we really had only met each other for about an hour prior to this spontaneous random act) and drank coffee at jonathan's. we joked about how hilarious it would be if it was international fish day that day and they decided not to sell any fish.

4:30am comes, and we trot off to the fish market but noticed that there was hardly a sound. we poked our noses around and a guard came out and handed us a calendar which marked out dates that the fish market was closed. and yes, that day was one of those days. yippee yay.

*

after the fish market, we waited around for the trains to start running again so we could go back and catch some sleep. weijian and i had booked ourselves on a tour of the imperial palace at 10, which meant we had about 2 hours to sleep before we had to head out. but because i drank coffee at jonathan's at 4am, i couldn't get to sleep. yayyyyyy.

and, it took us longer to get to the imperial palace than we had expected, so we missed the tour. woohoooo!

*

perhaps, i shouldn't go on anymore.

tokyo

i'd hate to admit this but i didn't enjoy myself in tokyo as much as i wish i did. it was fun, no doubt, but it wasn't enjoyable. tokyo was or is, in fact and unfortunately, rather depressing.

sure, the food was glorious, the shrines were enigmatic and the streets were buzzing with activity. i can't speak for all of japan but tokyo is at the fore front of technology, modernity and trends, yet somehow manages to retain its past and its culture, all in perfect harmony with each other. just a stone's throw away from harajuku, where teenagers hang out when dressed up in their cosplay or lolita outfits, is the austere meiji-jingu shrine. the toilets are extremely high-tech if you haven't heard already, and people are so polite and courteous that going into a department store makes you feel like queen.

the sad part is that, underneath it all is a sad, sad society. the akihabara mass killing pretty much encapsulates the state of society (and just on the news today, the grandfather who killed his entire immediate family). but also, tokyodites smoke alot and drink alot. in fact, they go to bars everyday after work. that, to me, is rather unhealthy. they hang out at pachinko parlours, slipping in 1000yen bills every 5minutes. they drink themselves silly all night until the trains start running again in the morning. there are streets and buildings dedicated to porn and various sexual fetishes. people read porn openly on trains. host clubs and hostess clubs are rampant. bums seek shelter in the subway stations and in cardboard boxes along the road at night, and lurk in the corners, abashed of their stench and unkempt looks among the young and trendy crowd, during the day.

i had a conversation with a colleague from the tokyo office, who said that tokyodites work long hours (testimony to this, i was on the train at around 11pm the first night and the trains were chokablock full of salarymen) and hardly earn enough to bring the bacon home. the traditional japanese culture of loyalty to employers and employees seem to have been thrown out of the window and there is hardly any job security since companies hire and fire without any qualms whatsoever.

every city has its fair share of problems. but the situation in tokyo seems more dire to me than in say, new york city, partly because i had held japan in such high regard in terms of social development. and walking around the streets, i was more overwhelmed by consumerism and commercialisation than culture. and i felt that all the bright lights and loud noises were merely a cover up.

faded

was just looking through my old photos. such happy, youthful faces. i feel quite the opposite now. i wonder if things haven't changed much and the photos captured plastic, insincere emotions; or if i really have grown older, more jaded, in a matter of a few years.

mind your language

a couple of months back, i commented on the train announcements.

they changed it again!

now the lady says "the train that is approaching platform A will terminate its service at yishun"

i think they got it right this time around =)