Tokyo

Hiya, long time no see.

Well, I've all but dropped off the face of the internet the past few months due to living in a dormitory with no internet access. This does of course mean if I want to use the internet I need to pay for unreliable WiMAX or go to Starbucks for their wifi or something, which is a pain in the ass.

Well anyway, I'm living in Oita city, Oita prefecture, Japan. My dorm closes down on Summer holidays and I've received host families in Saitama prefecture, which is a half hour train ride out of Tokyo proper. Oita is a fairly country prefecture so I'm looking forward to hitting the city.

Which brings me to my point: does anyone here have any experiences in Tokyo? Any places to recommend? I'm looking forward to exploring around the Yamanote train loop and going to places like Shinjuku and Akihabara and I want to go to Tokyo Disneyland, but I'm wondering what other people think is worthwhile too.

Also, if you're curious as to my stay in Japan thus far feel free to ask any questions, though I'm not sure when I'll be able to write any replies due to my frequent lack of internet.

Cheers!

 

Hey Swan,

You're going to be relatively close to Shibuya. It is more of an ideal place for people our age. There are a lot more things to do such as shopping, a few clubs and restaurants.

You'll also be very close to Shimokitazawa and Harajuku which, if interested will provide you with more of a night life due to the fact most of the society is within your own generation.

 

oooh so you're finally in japan? nice.

tell me about the culture? in comparison to australia?

 

Akihabara for sure! Otaku central, soooo want to go there and do some shopping ;A; and sorry I wouldn't have a clue haven't been to tokyo myself but dad flies to japan frequently and goes to sapporo apparently its quite nice there might be worth checking out if you're able to? other than that I'm super jealous haha

 

nice o.o

 

The difficult part for clubs and restaurants for me is the drinking age in Japan is 20, and I'd assume that means the majority of nightlife is out of bounds for me at the moment. I do know from experience that the Japanese don't regularly card foreigners but if I am caught I risk getting sent home to Australia and that's not something I want to happen with another 5 months remaining of my student exchange, haha.

Still, Shibuya, Akihabara, Nagoya, Shinjuku etc. are all easily accessible by the Yamanote train line, which is the loop around central Tokyo, so I'll be sure to visit all these places if I can keep a hold of all my money, haha. Harajuku seems interesting as well, the fashion there is pretty wild, and in Japan that's something big given the conformist nature of their society.

First and foremost the thing I noticed was that there are adult magazines and alcohol in every convenience store, which you don't see in Australian 7/11s or anything too much at all as far as I know. Sometimes you might see a trashy magazine in an Australian store but Japan takes it to a whole new level, haha. Not to mention the amount of cigarette vending machines around the place.

Secondly, the Japanese seem to be addicted to a form of gambling called Pachinko. It's a sort of pinball like setup that you can look up on youtube, and even though gambling is illegal in Japan they get around it by trading the Pachinko balls for little gold slips that they sell to another store for cash, so they don't break any gambling laws because they didn't get it from the actual pachinko parlour, haha. There's literally a Pachinko parlour every other block in the station area where I live, it's kind of ridiculous.

As far as the people are concerned, everyone is much politer. The juniors in school treat their seniors with respect (if the same were true in Australia I get the feeling I would have enjoyed school a bit more in Aus, haha). In my dorm I sometimes can't walk from one end to the other without a greeting of a dozen "kon nichi wa"s thrown at me from my Juniors. You need to properly address your elders even if you don't intend to talk to them to show respect here.

Japan is also rather conformist. I've only seen a very small minority of people in flagrant outfits or strange hairstyles, which is the thing Harajuku is famous for. I've seen a couple of Goth Lolitas and a bunch of people sometimes have very light blonde hair or orange hair or something, but you don't really see unconformist nature in Japanese society. It's very rigid and structured.

Traditionally the Japanese have, for hundreds of years, seen absolutely nothing wrong with drinking yourself in to oblivion. The drinking establishments are mostly all compacted in to one area of the city (in Oita it's called Miyakomachi) and it's literally just all tall buildings packed full of tiny ass pubs, clubs, host clubs and so on. It's one of the seediest things you'll ever see.

The schooling system revolves mostly around rote-learning, so the students are never involved in the classes. It's all lectures and incredibly boring, and there are no assignments - only exams. Thankfully as I've already graduated from a high school in Australia I wouldn't get any credit for doing so here and as such I'm not given any exams, which is good because it gives me a bit of free time to relax every now and then. I have a half school day on Saturday though which is a pain in the ass.

Vending machines here are on every other corner and they sell all different varieties of drinks, from canned coffee to milk to juice to cider to cola really. They're also far cheaper than the machines in Australia. You'd be lucky to pay $4 for a bottle of coke at a vending machine in Aus, but you can get a 500ml can of coke for 110 yen in a machine here (that's like $1.30).

Last thing I can really think of to mention is, authentic ramen is THE shit. You need to try it some time in your life.

Hah, I'd like to go to Sapporo sometime but unfortunately for me that's in Hokkaido, which is the far northern island and I'm not allowed to travel under the terms of my exchange (the only reason I'm headed to Tokyo is my summer host family is situated there, so yeah). Not to mention, I don't have all the money in the world. I've heard it's a lovely city and the weather is nice and cold. I may go there in the future though.

 

heyhey good to hear from ya, how are you liking it over there? and how about the living conditions? (with the family that is.)

Also, just recently found out about the Tokyo Disneyland, er, atleast, i think we are on the same page. It's deserted is it not? Almost like it was started but never finished ? Kind of gave me the creeps checking out the pictures!

Hope to hear from you soon

 

Oh, nice. What's the biggest thing you've had to adapt to over there?

 

I don't live with a family unless it's on holidays (i.e., from tomorrow I'll be in Saitama with a family though). I normally live in a dormitory with other students. The living conditions are okay. At first I had a room mate, however I was offered to have my own room which I naturally took up because I hate having no privacy and while I don't have to partake in it every other student has set study times (around 4 hours every night until midnight) so it became a bit annoying finding things to do while my room mate required quiet.

And really, I don't know what you're saying about Tokyo Disneyland. Care to elaborate and/or provide sources?

Eating rice with every meal. Every. Goddamn. Day. The chopsticks I can handle, I've always been good with them so I adapted to it rather easily. It's just I'm still not used to rice as a staple food so after eating it 3 times a day for four months it gets bland, haha.

 

How well do you know the local langauge? I've always been intrigued by the idea of traveling to Japan.

 

I can usually get my points across but my actual speech can consist of fairly fluent for simple concepts to very broken for more complex ones. That's more due to unknown grammar points and unknown words though.