June 28th (Day 2)
Arrival
It was hot and very humid when we arrived, a trend that continued throughout our visit. Here are some handy conversions I worked out soon after we arrived:
Distance
1 mile = 1.609344 kilometers
Money:
1 U.S. dollar = 115 Japanese yen.
It was handy to think of a single yen as equivalent to a penny and do all our calculations that way. Strangely, even though most merchandise had prices with way too many digits, I found it difficult to glance at a price and make the quick judgement of 'this is expensive' or 'this is reasonably priced'. This seems to suggest that my internal mechanism for judging the price of goods is based more on a hard coded rule of thumb or emotional autoreflex rather than some sort of rational calculation.
Temperature:
| Celsius | Fahrenheit |
| 0 | 32 |
| 20 | 68 |
| 25 | 77 |
| 30 | 88 |
| 35 | 95 |
| 40 | 103 |
The temperature in Japan typically hovered around 30 deg Celsius with no less than 60% humidity. Just walking around I would quickly produce a heavy sweat and because I'm used to Monterey's temperate climate, I had difficulty getting used to feeling sticky. Any physical activity quickly produced torrents that could obstruct vision, drown small animals or insects and, in the worst cases (like after a sudden rain shower when the heat seemed to spike), it allowed you to surf around on a layer of gushing sweat like a disgusting version of the iceman.
This weather seemed to be typical for this time of the year (they supposedly get snow in the winter) and M presented us with our own bamboo fans and handkerchiefs. We saw fans used everywhere to help circulate the still air and handkerchiefs were used to smear the sheen of sweat on your face as well as doubling as towels (many public bathrooms didn't have any means of drying your hands).
We were delayed slightly by customs after disembarking and were walking alone when the turned the corner towards the exit. So it was a great shock when we walked into a crowded room filled with people waiting for people to arrive. There were at least 100 people waiting in expectant silence - staring as we walked around the corner. It was an interesting and surreal introduction to the country. Mieko was in the crowd and waved as we walked in.
The speed limit in japan is especially slow - I think the highest speed sign I saw was 50 km/hour. This works out to about 31mph. Mieko drove well over this limit and it made me nervous when she didn't seem to be paying attention to oncoming traffic. Many roads were so narrow they didn't bother painting guiding lines for both lanes. Most of the streets (including the one where M's house was) are as narrow as alleys and several times while driving we had to stop and back up because there was another vehicle coming the other way. There isn't room for sidewalks; typically the asphalt extends up to the front of the houses on either side and pedestrians and bikers just have to walk in the street. Most of the population in the Tokyo area seemed to walk or ride a bike to get around. For longer distances they use the train system. The trains, I've mentioned before, are very efficient - I don't think we ever waited more than 10min to get on a train and with only a few exceptions (mentioned later) everything seemed to work smoothly.
The areas of Japan we saw were severely overgrown with vegetation. Almost rainforest-like kudzu and other ground plants grew over everything and any cleared spot had bamboo shoots rising up out of the ground like weeds. The abandoned or empty lots we saw were typically so overgrown as to be impenetrable and any signs posted there were nearly completely hidden.
Small scale farming
The other thing we saw a lot of during our stay was small scale farming. It seemed to be a common passion to till a small piece of land for flowers or food. We saw rental neighborhood gardens where you could rent some space and grow your vegetables in someone else's backyard. Where M lived the huddled neighborhoods were surrounded by intermittent farmland. It seemed a very healthy active past time and I wish there was more of that behavior here.
Perhaps as a byproduct of this farming culture we saw obscenely pampered and expensive fruits and vegetables. Akira told stories about a $10,000 watermelon and I heard rumors that they use MRI imaging to test the ripeness of the high end melons. Cantaloupe could be bought in boxes for $90 with the stems still attached and cut in a prescribed way. Peaches were wrapped individually in foam packing and we saw stuff like individually wrapped bananas and eggs.
An individually wrapped smoked egg, three slices of bread in a loaf, and a $95 cantaloupe!
In fact most things came in small portions and were over packed. I was wondering about where all this trash went and A explained recycling is required by law. Japan is one of the most effective nations in the world when it comes to recycling. The recycling process we went through at the house was especially complex with items separated into plastics, bottles, milk cartons, paper or combustibles, metal, and dangerous metal. Akira carefully dissected the spent fireworks separating the plastic components from the paper. There were some things I had no idea how to classify; I had to ask M how to sort an aluminum coated cardboard fruit juice box with a plastic outer coating.
Akira mentioned the bag you use to recycle your paper and combustibles has to be plastic. If you try to recycle your paper products in a paper bag they won't accept it. Trash and recyclables were placed on the ground in small turnouts reserved for this purpose. There were no trashcans or trashbags and things were just set out in their small plastic bags under a green netting to keep animals from picking them apart.
Uniforms
Apart from how everything is smaller and the mania for gardening, another thing that becomes immediately evident when you spend any time in japan is how much the people like uniforms. Each profession has their own color-coded uniform from business men's suits (about 90% of men in Tokyo were wearing business dress clothing or suits), gas station jumpsuits, traffic directors pseudo-military dress, or construction worker clothing. Any physical work required a hardhat; this included construction workers, people painting lines on the street, men cleaning the bullet trains, electrical workers, and hotel porters. The only problem I had was some of the costumes were particularity silly and I wanted pictures but couldn't take a good ones without their knowledge.
Bowing to the car before entering or leaving
On the way to the house from the airport M stopped at a grocery store/mall to buy food for dinner. The place was an indoor market of sorts with a collection of individual sellers standing in booths. The food workers all had matching costumes with handkerchiefs on their heads. All the cooking and steaming food made the heat inside seem unbearable. Whenever you passed by a booth the workers would shout out 'irasshaimaseeee!' meaning 'welcome!'. There wasn't much room between booths and it was crowded and hot. Mieko ordered a series of individually packaged items and we walked to a travel agency room that shared the building to get train tickets. Mieko spent $50 on train cards for each of us that could be used on the local line.
The Train System
The train system is completely confusing to foreigners and I typically didn't know where I was or where I was going whenever we were on it. The train lines go every which way and it's complicated in that there are two competing services that cover different areas. We got prepaid tickets for the local service but this wasn't good for travelling to Tokyo because all the train lines there are government owned (the JR line). Furthermore, because these are competing services, looking at a map for one service won't necessarily show how to connect with a train on the other service - even if they share the same station. After trying to figure out the labyrinth of multi-colored train lines (there isn't room for english names of most of the stations) I asked A where we were going he would point out a small, untranslated station somewhere in the middle of the map. I asked why and he explained that's where we have to go to transfer from the JR system to the local station line. Apparently you just need to know these things - it was very confusing.
