3 posts tagged “travel”
TOKYO -- I had an eleven hour layover in Narita airport, so I decided to take the train to Tokyo and check out the city. I've passed through Japan countless times since I was child, but have never had the opportunity to see Tokyo.
But first, one note on the airport. For the first time, I found an ATM. And a Citibank one at that. That probably doesn't sound like a big deal to most of you, but Tokyo airport is famous for its lack of ATMs. And you need to get cash, because you need Yen, because credit cards are not used widely in Japan.
Going down to the get the express train to Tokyo, I made the mistake of following the crowd and ended up back giving up my $37 train ticket and going back into the airport. My first sign that something was wrong was when I got asked for my passport. I thought "mmmh, that's strange, they ask for a passport when you enter a train station?!" Well, no one objected when I went backwards through all the security checks and gates, and when I explained my problem, they gave me my ticket back and pointed me in the right direction. Very nice.
The train ride was about an hour long. It was not as interesting as the Heathrow Express into Paddington station. But it was pleasant and gave me a good view of the countryside and secondary cities leading up to Tokyo. No wifi. There is a surprising amount of pretty countryside in Japan. It was a beautiful day, with clear skies, a warm sun balancing a slightly crisp temperature (I believe about 10C in the forecasts).
Someone in a suit came up to the train station riding a bicycle. He quickly hopped off at a section of other bikes just like his. With a quick turn on a key, he left his bike, presumably for the day, with little more than a spoke lock. The bike wasn't attached to anything. None of the bikes were attached to anything. And none of the bikes I saw anywhere were. Even in the quiet suburbs of Canada thirty years ago, a bike would never have lasted the day with so little protection. But apparently there was no need for concern here.
My first big surprise was when I arrived in Tokyo. It was quiet. The streets were almost empty. The traffic was mild. Everything was very peaceful. If this had been Manhattan, there would have been an intense wall of people, traffic, horns, and noise of all kinds. Today was like Manhattan on Christmas morning, not a regular Tuesday. Maybe today was a national holidy in Japan?! Most of the people on the streets were wearing the same generic dark suit, white shirt and tie. Maybe these were just the few incredibly dedicated employees coming in on a holiday. That would explain the feel.
There is such uniformity and conformity among businessmen here. That is to be expected. But after the chaos of Ho Chi Minh City just a few hours ago, it was an especially stark contrast. I was particularly impressed by one businessman in his standard dark suit. He was standing at attention, legs and arms straight, heels lined up next to each other, waiting alone at a do not walk sign. This sign was at a little alley street about ten feet wide, and there was absolutely no traffic. I just walked past him, dragging my luggage across the little street. No experience in my life, either San Francisco, Manhattan, or Saigon, would allow me to do such a thing. What strict, oppressed, obsessive compulsive, orderly, fearful or other mind would stand like that at a light? But clearly, I was the deviant here. I felt bad walking past the guy at the intersection, almost feeling I was snubbing him in that act; but I just could not join him. Folks here were kind enough to ignore my behaviour.
Women seemed to have escaped from some of the conformity. They had far more varied and individual clothing. And some were really quite funky and outrageous. I understand that, within groups, there is quite a rigid style. But those I saw together seemed quite unique. I started to notice some diversity among the businessmen. For example, sometimes they wore different types of shoes, such as black shoes with buckles rather than laces, or slip ons. But in groups waiting for the train together, I noticed that everyone wore buckles, or everyone wore slip ons. So even among diversity, there was conformity.
Having walked around a bit, my next focus was coffee and Internet. Actually, neither left my mind after having been offline for several hours, and after having had only two hours or so of sleep on the flight to Narita. I found a couple coffee shops. But none of them, even the Starbucks, offered any kind of Internet access. There was plenty of wifi, but all of it was locked (with passwords I couldn't guess in a couple tries). I've been a bit disappointed with the lack of wifi so far; I expected better from Japan. I do not really understand the logic for this situation. There is excellent 3G phone service, so Internet on the train should have been easy to set up. Internet is supposedly 100mbps quite regularly here, so it should not be a problem to share some of that or provide it to customers. They do not even sell wifi, but that makes sense due to the economy still being quite cash based. Perhaps the 3G phone remains so dominant here, that there is no demand for wifi?
Actually, having not found much to do in Tokyo, the draw of the 100mbps Internet in the Japan Airlines business class lounge (and a bit of a nap) is starting to draw me. I had hoped to send a quick email to friends and acquaintances in Tokyo, on the off chance I might get to meet up with them. But without any Internet, that already remote chance had faded. Being in Japan is always like being in darkest Africa: no phones work, no Internet, no credit cards, few english speakers. I am so much more connected when in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Lao.
For as long as I can remember, starting with flights around the world when I was three years old, I have received airline food with a mixture of joy and trepidation. When I enter a foreign carrier, the food I receive is often my first experience with that country's cuisine. With the meal comes excitement at trying something entirely random and new. Will I enjoy it? Will I discover new flavours? Or will I be unable to eat all of it? Given the choice, I always roll the dice and take the local meal.
(left to right: Air Kazakhstan, Japanese Airlines, Air Arabia. Source: airlinemeals.net)
I had my first sushi and sake flying business class on a Japanese airlines flight to Narita when I was nineteen. Unfortunately, neither was very good. And I got spooked by biting unexpectedly into a huge chunk of ginger. I did not really learn to appreciate sushi until I was in San Francisco several years later, and sake until I had some great ones in the meat packing district of Manhattan in the last couple years. But I always remember that meal because it was such an exotic and exciting experience.
Recently, I have found I can get a virtual recreation of this experience by using the site AirlineMeal.net. Which contains passenger supplied pictures of airline food from a vast array of exotic airlines (as well as the ones we know all too well). Want to know what your local meal might look like on Air Arabia? Look no further. I am not sure I really want to use this site before boarding a strange and exotic carrier -- it would spoil the surprise. But it might help me make a choice. And it certainly might be useful for those less adventurous airline diners.
Oh, and by the way, I just flew Japanese Airlines business class a few weeks ago, and I am happy to report that the food was amazing. They now have superb sushi. I was really shocked by how good it was. And I tasted all sorts of random Japanese flavours I had still yet to try. I am looking forward to the return leg of the flight to try it again.
O'Reilly has digitized their entire content and, along with some from a number of other publishers, has made it available online and rentable, with a monthly allocation of downloadable chapters in pdf format. As a recent addition, online video on technical subjects has also become available. The service is called Safari. The really amazing thing is that O'Reilly has managed to get other publishers (such as SAS) to participate in a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme.
The fee is about $34/month, with higher and lower price points around that. This sounds like a lot, but makes sense for people like me who spend hundreds of dollars a year on tech books, mostly because they want them available on short notice if they need them for work on a special project.
And of course, it is great if you want books available when you travel. You simply can not buy programming and other english language technical books like O'Reilly's in Vietnam and many other parts of Asia.
So, without this online service, I had to anticipate needs and bring a few select (light and important) books with me. I still ended up needing a few more. I spent hundreds of dollars this year alone shipping books to Vietnam, giving some away because of their weight, and carrying and paying excess baggage fees for those and others as I traveled. I expect O'Reilly to save me the need to buy and carry 90% of the books I might have otherwise.
The big downsides to using Safari are the slower I/O speeds of online information (a book still has far higher resolution and can be read far faster). And of course, I am all the more dependent on having a fast and reliable Internet connection. A fast Internet connection is not always easy to find when traveling, and always costs more. In my upcoming trip to Vietnam, I may end up paying $1000 a month more than I would otherwise for a hotel with a better Internet connection. But I need this for other reasons than just Safari; and Safari looks like it would work in a rather low bandwidth (Internet cafe type) environment.
