First Night In Bustling Tokyo City

The metropolitan trains in Tokyo are filled with a sea of black business suits. Japanese salarymen and women surround me like sushi rolls packed tightly in the window of a food stall. Meanwhile I am busy trying to avoid asphyxiation. The train is completely full and I feel somewhat ill – I never considered myself claustrophobic until I arrived to Japan. It is my first time here and I am standing awkwardly with my luggage on a train from Haneda Airport into the city centre.

From my limited view of the train window from where I am standing, I catch a glimpse of the sprawling metropolis outside. Neon lights flash from soaring skyscrapers while crowds of people file through narrow city streets. Tokyo is just how I pictured it would be: breathtakingly bustling.

As the train approaches its next stop, I hear a noise which reminds me of my childhood. It sounds like something from the video game Super Mario Bros but was coming from the train’s PA system: it was the start of the on-board train announcement advising we were approaching the next stop. I soon discovered that all train announcements, whether on-board or at the station, start with these 32-bit sound effects, sometimes lasting for 30 seconds at a time. Each time you hear it cannot help but feel like you have progressed to the next level of a 90’s video game.

Then from the far corner of my eye I see a familiar face. It is Tommy Lee Jones. He is on a billboard endorsing Boss, a coffee beverage that comes in a can.

I take out a folded map from my back pocket and stare at spaghetti thrown across the page in a seemingly unfettered fashion (otherwise known as the Tokyo Metropolitan Subway System). I have never seen a more complex rail network in my life and pray that we do not get lost. Finally after four trains, two different train carriers, and several thousand Yen, I arrive with my travel companion and good friend Chris to our final destination: Bakurocho station.

Exploiting Japanese Culture For Financial Gain

We check into our hotel, and carefully recite our pre-planned speech about how we don’t know what employees’ rates are and we just booked that rate online. In actual fact, prior to our trip we somehow located the URL for a major hotel company’s booking site only available to its employees, and thought we’d tried our luck with heavily discounted accommodation – I have no morals whatsoever, I do realise. The polite and timid Japanese lady standing behind the counter looked visibly uncomfortable when she was trying to inform us we were not entitled to that reservation. The acting skills I acquired through Year 10 Drama class with Mr. Mitchell were put into action as I did my best to pretend to look puzzled and mildly disgruntled. The rest of the desk staff conversed in Japanese. Then, we were handed our receipt, the price of the room at half price the usual rate. We had succeeded.

I walked up the hotel stairs to our room, contemplating how this exchange would have been vastly different had it occurred in a different country. The hotel staff were so polite and obviously wanted to avoid any sort of confrontation. My guilt-tinged conscience attempted to defend our act on the grounds that without it we would not have had such an insight into the culture and customs of Japanese people. But above all else I was glad to have saved ¥20,000.

After swiping my key card into the door, my first impression of the room was: very, very small. I could not help but feel like I was being forced to live under the stairs at 4 Privet Drive.

Bolognese Burger With Grape Flavoured Soda and Di Caprio

Searching for food at 10pm in the surrounding area, we found nothing but residential buildings and corporate offices and Leonardo Di Caprio. He looked defiant on a large billboard, endorsing what appeared to be car tyres. While Tommy Lee Jones is probably a fan of caffeinated beverages, I am not so sure of the Di Caprio association with automotive goods.

Eventually after some persistent wander, we come across what looks like a fast food restaurant. It was called Mos Burger. Neither of us have had heard of this particular chain of restaurants before but upon entry it was clear that it was a distinctively Japanese attempt at a McDonalds type eatery.

“いらっしゃいませ!” yells the person behind the counter. I did not know what he just said but he did exclaim it rather enthusiastically. A picture menu is on display on the counter which we point to like mutes, completely silenced by our inability to speak the language. My selection: what looked like a beef mince Bolognese burger with what I guessed was grape flavoured soda. The man at the counter bowed after taking my money. I bowed back but then realised I would have looked like a fool.

The restaurant was mostly empty. We took our order, and then sat in silence while eating our meals. Despite the unusual flavour it was quite tasty.

Image Credit: jimgris

This entry was written by Kenan Lucas, posted on February 4, 2011 at 2:07 am, filed under Japan, travel tales. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.