Want to see what’s going on in Tokyo right this very minute? Here’s a selection of some of the best live webcams. All of the cameras are running in real time (none of that “updates every ten seconds” nonsense), and you can control them yourself. Just click on the images below and away you go.
Shibuya (Hachiko):
Shibuya (outside Tower Records):
Shibuya (Parco):
Shinjuku Station:
Roppongi Hills & Tokyo Tower:
Ueno:
Now, you may think that people only use umbrellas when it’s raining. You would be wrong. In Tokyo it is now perfectly acceptable to use them at the merest whiff of the wet stuff. This has lead to the phenomenon of Mass Umbrellaism, where large groups of people open umbrellas before exiting train stations, supermarkets and shopping centres.
Scientists believe that many Tokyoites – sucked in to the alternate realities that mobile phones and Nintendo DSs provide – are so distrustful of their real-life surroundings that they cannot rely on their own senses: they may be drier than a Martini in the Gobi desert but if the weather forecast says it’s raining, then it must be raining.
Tokyo’s top three Mass Umbrella hotspots:
1. Shinjuku Station’s South Exit
2. Ichigaya Station, Chiyoda
3. Hankyu/Seibu department stores, Ginza
It’s been a couple of years since my last Tokyo rush-hour post, but something happened recently that I have to moan about:
I was on a fairly busy train to work yesterday morning. As usual the seats were all taken so I stood towards the middle of the carriage. At one stop a woman boarded the train and stood next to me. Despite the fact that she was obviously heavily pregnant not a single person offered to give up their seat for her. It was only when a few people got off the train at Shinjuku that I was able to offer her the now-vacated seat in front of me, which she gladly accepted.
This kind of behaviour absolutely infuriates me. Surely any physically fit adult with a smidgeon of human decency would give up their seat for a pregnant woman?
Is the UK more expensive than Japan these days? Over the next few posts I’ll be exploring just how much things cost in both countries. Let’s start with travel:
Travel by car:
First off, we’ll need to buy a car to get around in. I’ve chosen two examples here: the VW Golf R32, which is a beast of a machine; and a Honda Civic, which is your general pootling-about vehicle.
Japanese road tax varies from ¥10-50,000 (approx. £50-250) depending on engine size; in the UK road tax can be anything from £35 to £400. Our sample cars would probably fall into the higher and medium-range tax brackets, respectively:
Golf R32 (Same model in both countries – 3-door MT)
Honda Civic (Japan – 1.8G, 5-door MT; UK – Civic 1.4S, 3-door MT. Both were the cheapest possible models I could find)
So for a simple purchase, Japan wins on both counts. Of course, Japan’s motorways are tolled, whereas the UK is – with one or two exceptions – free, which is something to take into account when thinking about travelling long distances. And there’s the added cost of a parking space, which would probably cost somewhere in the region of ¥30,000 (approx. £150) per month around where I live (western Tokyo).
Fuel prices are easy to compare. I’ve chosen a representative suburb of London and Tokyo from which to work on: Southgate in North London and Kichijoji in Western Tokyo. Both are around the same distance from the political and financial centres of their respective cities:
Petrol (regular unleaded, per litre):
Blimey, that’s quite a huge difference!
Commuting:
First off, I should point out that most (95%+) Japanese companies pay for the cost of their employees’ commute to work, which is usually by train. This may happen with some companies in the UK, but is far less common.
For our sample journey, I’m again going to use Southgate (London) and Kichijoji (Tokyo) as our representative suburbs. I’ve picked Southgate to Westminster and Kichijoji to Ichigaya as our routes (the latter because that’s my route to work, and therefore have a pass handy!). Both take approximately the same length of time and cover the same distance, travelling from the outer suburbs to the centre of their respective cities. Let’s start with a monthly rail pass:
The big difference with both of these passes, apart from the huge gulf in price, is that with a pass in London you would be able to travel anywhere within Zones 1-4. With the Tokyo pass you would be able to travel anywhere between Kichijoji and Ichigaya for free, provided you use the same train line (in this case the JR Chuo-Sobu line). That’s good if you want to travel to, say, Shinjuku, but for the other “centres” of Tokyo you’d have to pay a little bit extra each time.
To make it a bit fairer, let’s compare the price of a one-way journey along the same routes:
Tokyo still comes out on top, but the price difference isn’t quite as enormous.
Long-distance rail travel:
Japan is famous for their shinkansen (bullet trains), so I couldn’t write a post about travel without mentioning them at some point, could I? I’ve personally never had that much trouble with high-speed trains in the UK, but I’m sure there are millions who have, and who would be more than happy to recount their horror stories.
For high-speed trains, I’ve chosen London-Newcastle (270 miles) for the UK, and Tokyo-Osaka (343 miles) for Japan. Despite the extra 130 miles covered by our Japanese train it still manages to reach its destination more than 20 minutes ahead of its British counterpart (2hrs 36mins for Tokyo-Osaka and 2hrs 59mins for London-Newcastle).
Pricing is a bit different for both countries. In the UK it’s possible to get hugely discounted high-speed train tickets provided you book well in advance; in Japan shinkansen tickets are – in general – the same no matter how far in advance you book. To make it fair, I’ve compared the price for an open-single ticket for both (travel at any time of the day, on any train):
The shinkansen looks much cheaper here, but bearing in mind the booking-in-advance rule in the UK, it really isn’t: I could get a return ticket from London to Newcastle for £66 provided I sorted it out a week or two in advance.
That’s all for this post. Look out for “Part 2: Household Goods”, where I’ll be comparing the price of TVs, sofas and other assorted gubbins!
(Prices based on 11th June 2008 exchange rates: 1GBP = 209.55JPY)
…is quite impressive, especially on a clear, sunny day. The Mori Art Museum, located on the fiftysomething floor of the Mori Tower, is currently staging an exhibition called “Art is for the Spirit“, with works from the likes of Damien Hirst, Andreas Gorsky and Julian Opie on display (and is, I might add, well worth a visit). While I couldn’t get any shots of the exhibition itself thanks to the extreme number of security staff dotted around, I did manage to take quite a few of the Tokyo skyline for your general perusal:
At around 3am this morning I witnessed the biggest thunderstorm I have ever seen in my life. Without any warning whatsoever the heavens opened, lightning struck surrounding buildings disturbingly frequently, and the thunder was loud enough to violently shake the windows.
And I didn’t get any of this on camera. Bugger.
Kichijoji Matsuri was held this weekend, meaning lots of people walking around in blue pyjamas getting drunk, carrying mikoshi around the local area (portable shrines used to carry gods. God taxis – cool!). Apparently the gods quite enjoy being shaken around a bit to wake them from their slumber, although I’m not sure if anyone has ever actually asked the gods for their opinion on this matter.
There were many different mikoshi, carried by different teams. Some of the more active (i.e. one sake too many) groups can get pretty vocal, like this set of individuals here:
There’s also loads of food stalls to have a wander around (and yes, the ubiqitous kebab trucks are here as well. There’s just no escaping them). I’m especially fond of the fried baby crabs. They’re soft enough to be eaten whole, legs and all, and they’re fantastic. I’m quite aware they look like something out of The Thing, but really, they’re great!
In other news, we attended a residents group meeting for our apartment, which was about as interesting as it sounds. Most of the people living in our place are retired so we were the youngest people there by a good thirty years. Luckily they’re all really nice, and had some particulary amusing ideas on what should be done in case of The Big Earthquake (ten years overdue, apparently). Nakada-san – the group leader and ex-university professor – suggested climbing the stairs to the roof and waiting for a fire service helicopter to pick them up. His wife kindly pointed out that the fire service might have a few more important matters to attend to in a city of 30 million people.
One exeptionally good point to come out of the meeting was that we were given the key to the rooftop. Apparently we should have been given it when we moved in last year but Nakada-san forgot. The views from the rooftop are supoib, you can see Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, even Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Tower (yes, I know you can’t see very much in the photo, but trust me, you can see it). We’re also allowed to have parties and stuff up there any time we like which is great during summer. Apparently the old folks are having a full moon party next month, which I absolutely must attend at all costs.
I’ve foolisly decided to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in December, although recently I’ve put in absolutely no effort in when it comes to studying. Methinks I should stop writing this and get some revision done!
The weather throughout the latter half of August had been amazing, perfect beach weather in fact. Last Friday seemed like an excellent day to go to Enoshima, the weather forecast was good – occasional clouds, not too hot – and so the previous evening Mike and I decided to meet at 9.30am, Shinjuku station.
Friday morning, 8.30am – The weather’s looking a bit… grim, but no rain and besides, Enoshima’s a good 50km from Tokyo, so it’ll probably be nicer there.
Probably.
Mike arrives at Shinjuku, and we board the train for Enoshima. At some point between my arriving and leaving Shinjuku, the Gods clearly decided that no-one was going to be enjoying any kind of outside activities for the rest of the day, “Today is a day for watering the garden, pool parties and tramp cleaning”, they declared to each other. “But what about all those people who decided to go to the beach today?”, asked Faiyah Laitah, God of Barbequeues. “Oh yes, forgot about them.” replied the others, “We’ll send them a memo or something…”
However, as everyone knows, the gods are not too great at paperwork, and the memo was never sent. Meanwhile, we arrive at Enoshima in a blaze of… rain. Quite a few others seemed to have had the same idea of heading to the beach today, and look just as disappointed as us as they get off the train. Not to be deterred, we buy a pair of umbrellas and set off into the unknown.
Enoshima is actually the name of a small island a stone’s throw from the beach (and means “Island of the Bay”. How original…), and there’s a causeway linking it to the mainland on which we stood. Seeing as hitting the beach was a definite no-no, we decided to walk over there and see what it had to offer.
The first thing we encountered on Enoshima was this rather tatty-looking object on the left. At first I thought it was some bizarre attempt at making a space-themed ice cream stall. But no ladies and gents, this was in fact a real spacecraft used by NASA for Skylab missions during the 1970’s. How it came to be standing in a hotel courtyard on a random Japanese island is anyone’s guess, although I imagine the hotel owner had been out with mates, downed way too many beers, stumbled home and decided to have quick browse on eBay. The rest is history.
There are many temples and shrines on Enoshima, and I really didn’t care much to look around any of them. Yes, I know they’re pretty, and ooze zen, karma, chi and Orange Fanta from every orifice, but I’ve had it up to the eyeballs with them. Word on the street is that Benzaiten, godess of music and entertainment, is enshrined on the island, therefore I decided to try and communicate with this mighty being, and have her explain why Japanese TV is so absolutely appauling.
Before I could attempt my meeting with Benzaiten, I had to climb to the top of the island. This meant either climbing lots and lots of steps or… taking the escalator! I shit you not, someone had built a series of escalators all over the island. The best thing about this was that each escalator had it’s own ticket booth (manned by a random old hag), despite being only twenty metres long. AND they charged ¥150 for a one-way journey. That’s 75p for a ten second trip!
Unsurprisingly, we opted to take the stairs, and my, what wonderfully slippy stairs they were, and so many too! The streets were absolutely deserted, with the exception of the stalls and restaurants, who naturally had approximately 17,000 staff each (this is Japan, you know, that’s how they do things. Don’t argue). I’m sure this place must be heaving with tourists come the weekend, but it must be absolutely suicide-inducing to work here on a day like today. I contributed to the local tourist economy by purchasing a bottle of Coke from a nearby vending machine. Enoshima is ¥150 better off thanks to me. I hope it’s grateful.
Occasionally, i.e. when someone had opted not to build a restaurant or gift stall in place of what would have been a really nice view, Enoshima was a really beautiful sight to behold. Very much like the rest of the Japanese coastline, vegetation clings to sheer cliffs for dear life. In fact, once you make it out of the major urban centres and into the mountains, everything seems to be clinging on for dear life. It’s no wonder Japanese tend to live crammed together; there’s simply nowhere else to go.
After around an hour of walking up endless amounts of stairs, and being confronted by a hideous toothless granny who was trying to cadge a cigarette (there was a cigarette machine round the corner), we made it to the top of Enoshima. Here, at the shrine dedicated to Benzaiten, I would feel the full spiritual force of this sacred space. Carefully placing my footsteps, so as not to disturb the mighty power that lay before me, I approached the entrance. As I grew closer I could see that there appeared to be some kind of guardian barring the way, protecting the higher powers from us mere mortals. It seemed to have taken the form of an animal, but I couldn’t make out which one exactly. I stepped further forward to take a closer look and…
…yes, there was a scabby eared, flea bitten cat, casually licking its bollocks. He had the pose and demeanor of the fat, couch-ridden father Jim from The Royale Family. I attemped to communicate with Scabby-chan, as he became affectionately known, but he simply looked up to face me, eyes burning with a mixture of feline rage and cataracts, and said “Temples? My arse!”
After the failure of attempting to communicate with a higher realm, we attemped to get the hell off this place. A wrong turn led us to the sea, on entirely the opposite side end of island. Around here there seemed to be absoutely nothing going on, with the exeption of a few brave souls attempting to fish off the rocks. I used to go fishing for hours when I was a kid, and caught absoutely nothing for all my time and effort. It gave me some satisfaction then, to see that these guys seemed to fairing just as well.
We had no option to return the way we came. As we walked along one particular footpath on the way back I made the mistake of looking at the sheer cliff-face to my right-hand side. My God, it was like being in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The cliff was covered in thousands upon thousands of brown, cockroach-like insects. I made an all too sudden arm movement, and they parted from the area of wall nearest to me with a swiftness that made me feel like jumping into the sea.
The remaining part of our journey back to the mainland was entirely uneventful, although not once did the rain even look like stopping. As soon as we stepped off the train at Shinjuku, the rain stopped, and every day since then has been absolutely glorious. I don’t know how to say “taking the piss” in Japanese but if anyone finds out, please let me know.
Welcome to Andy in Tokyo. Here you'll find posts about living, working and enjoying life in one of the world's biggest cities. You can contact me at andyintokyo[at]gmail.com
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