Ben Taylor: Phone

Showing posts with label Phone. Show all posts

Saturday, the third of April, a striking day.

Approximately 12:30 I was had just started pacing around in the kitchen, trying to decide what I would eat for lunch. Right on cue, Blair Thomson called, asking if I was free. "Yes... why?" I responded. "Come to a hanami party!"

"No worries."

My lunch died this day well before its time, and for this, I mourn. I walked to the nearby Shinagawa station, carrying a jacket for myself, as well as one for Blair, as he predicted a cold afternoon, despite the warm ambient temperature at the time of his call. Taking the familiar Yamanote line to Shibuya, I met Blair. Together we jumped the next train to Harajuku, another station along 'my' Yamanote line. 'Jumped' may not be a good word to use there, as the train was incredibly full; a more accurate verb would be 'pushed' or 'shoved.'

Arriving at Harajuku, one thing was immediately apparent; everyone in this city had decided that today was the best day for a hanami party. There was a line simply to start climbing the stairs from the platform, and this line continued throughout the entire train station, and only began to dissipate around 100 metres after the station itself finished. You may consider this 'bad,' but the mass of arrivals had forced the line going onto the platform to be single file, and it moved far slower than the 'exit' line ever could.

Our goal was to meet some friends of Blair's, and some friends of theirs, et cetera. Accordingly, we resolutely marched towards Yoyogi Park, amidst the masses. As we exited the station proper, I heard a strange sound. I shall attempt to describe it to you: "BEN."

This was strange, because we were in the middle of a veritable army of Japanese, sure my hair looks funny, but I did not think I stuck out that much. To exasperate my surprise, I really do not know that many people in this country, so what the heck? Soon enough an answer appeared, a customer of Leafcup, an English communication cafe I worked for, had noticed me. At the time, it was nice, and talking to him was fun, but later on I was even more grateful for this chance encounter.

Together we marched towards Yoyogi Park. As we walked, I was interested to find that Harajuku was the closest station to this park, not the more logical 'Yoyogi station.' Whilst we walked, Hiroshi and his friend invited us to join them at their hanami party, which unfortunately Blair and I had to decline, due to our impending meeting with his associates.

Walking through the park, the sheer number of people shocked me. On both sides of the path we tread, were groups of people seated on blue tarps, eating and enjoying the beautiful day. Nevertheless, this did not even compare with the wall of people marching with us along the path. I remember almost daring myself to jump on top of the nearest person and see if they would help me crowd surf all the way there. I have photos of this event, but until I either get my website working, or decipher a photo blog website, they shall remain displayed only on Facebook. In fact, they are not even on there... yet.

Our march ceased at what appeared to be a toilet block, located close to a pond, approximately the park's centre. Hiroshi greeted some more of his compatriots here, who again offered us a seat at their upcoming celebration. We repeated our, now quite practised, declination speech, but said we would wait with them to see which party would find its remaining members first. Blair attempted to hasten this process with a myriad of phone calls to his friend, attempting to locate their group. Unfortunately, our success was far from assured.

Whilst we waited, there was a group of five or seven Japanese young people, I cannot recall the exact number, practising a dance right there in the middle of the park. I was so impressed, not only that they were quite good, but also they were brave enough to, so shamelessly, practise this dance in such a public place. Whilst I attempted to sneak photos of them, I was informed by my companions that, not only was this common, but that they would be overjoyed to notice their momentary stardom, and would laugh at my surreptitious paparazzi behaviour.

Soon enough Hiroshi and his friends decided to go for quick turn about the 'immediate' vicinity, in a visual search of their remaining companions. I say 'immediate' here, as this seemed to imply quite a decent walk, as we were surrounded on every side by beautiful cherry blossoms, innumerable Japanese people, and blue tarpaulin as far as the eye could see.

Farewelling them for the time being, Blair and I found a seat on the edge of a nearby fountain, deciding to at least sit and have something to drink whilst we waited for his friends. Unfortunately, Softbank, the company with whom we both had mobile phones, allowed very little reception in the area, and we had issues with communication. Pondering our options, Hiroshi and his friends arrived and gave us the answer. They had not found their friends, and accordingly we all waited together on the edge of this fountain, eating a little and drinking a little more.

Soon enough more friends of Hiroshi arrived, one of which had a bag in which was situated the cutest dog I have ever seen. Please see photos.

Time, it seemed, was intent on marching on, and far too soon, division struck our group a decisive blow.

I have debated that title for a while, it was either that or 'mediocrity,' and whilst this post is about the more mundane parts of a week, I consider it in no way pedestrian by any standards in comparison to my life only a month ago.

Yesterday, Tuesday the 16th of March, was what one may call an 'average day in Tokyo.' Currently Blair Thomson and his wife Sachiko are away, Blair in New Zealand for 2 weeks, and Sachi staying with her parents for the same length of time. Accordingly, Taro Miyaji (a mutual friend of Blair's as you may recall) is staying here, to keep me company and teach me Japanese.

This story starts at 11:15am. The previous evening another friend of Taro's, Saori, also stayed over, and left at around 9:30am on this Tuesday morning, but that is a completely different story.

I woke up with a start, attempting in vain to look at my watch. After rubbing my eyes I tried again, and realising the time I quickly went to wake Taro, since, as of last night, he was supposed to be leaving for work in 30 minutes. Disoriented, he informed me that he had called work, and was now starting later. Accordingly, I bade him return to sleep, a request he had already started to comply with.

I then went about my average morning ritual of reading my bible, a little exercise and a shower, after which Taro woke. We enjoyed our breakfast at 11:45am this morning, both glad for the extra sleep. After which we set out on our first of 2 missions.

The first was to find a different supermarket. Up until this point, we had been visiting 2 'supermarkets,' both located in Shinagawa train station, and both quite small by Australian metropolitan standards, as many things are in Tokyo. This one was supposed to be slightly larger, and so with vague directions, we journeyed on.

Shinagawa station is about 7 minutes walk from the place I am staying in Takanawa, Minato-ku (an area of Tokyo). Today we walked a different direction, and sure enough, about 8 minutes into our journey we passed another subway station. This is standard across the board in Tokyo, as a Google of Tokyo subway stations will show you plainly. The city is covered in train stations, if you want to go any real distance, most people take the subway. At any time during the day from about 10am to 9pm or even later, most trains you get on will be standing room only, a fascinating experience for someone from the Gold Coast, where trains can only come close to this capacity at peak hour.

We walked on, crossing different roads, where no one jaywalked, no vehicles queued through intersections or ran lights and people drove calmly across the board. Alien for some people, but standard for Japan. Eventually we came to the supermarket, which was the largest I had seen yet. Inside, the aisles were set up similar to an average Australian store, the most interesting part of this shopping experience happened as you made your purchases at the checkout.

In many supermarkets there are 2 people working each checkout point, one 'ringing up' your purchases, the other packing your food into bags. If you have purchased meat, the person packing the bags will offer to pack the meat in ice, so it doesn't go bad on your return journey. In the odd cases where there is only one person working the counter, there will be ice machines provided, free of charge.

Since this supermarket was larger, it also had incentives for people to purchase 2 litre bottles of water: right next to the ice machines there were others provided for your convenience. Some would wash your water bottle whilst others would fill it up again with fresh, pure water. There also were several other machines, the function of which I can only guess at. Apparently, this too is relatively unexceptional.

We walked home via a different route, where people would passing on the side walk would be patient in passing, bike riders would be careful and respectful, and not a child was seen running amok, despite many children from the local school out and about. All very ordinary.

We dropped off our purchases at the apartment and walked off again towards Shinagawa station, on the other side of which was a mobile phone store that we wanted to visit. As we arrived, we picked up a ticket, so that we would be served in order of arrival, and waited patiently. After talking quietly, we were served quickly, and were again on our way. Glancing at my watch I noticed it was 4:30pm, Taro took the train from Shinagawa to his work, though any station would have been fine, and I made my way home.

I cooked a simple dinner of spaghetti. Almost all kitchens use gas for heating, and are quite small by Australian standards, as most things are in Tokyo, space is a premium. I saved some dinner in a second bowl, and used some cling wrap to cover it. Japan is remarkable in that in everything it sets its mind to, the country and its people strive for perfection. This cling wrap was slightly thicker than any I had used in Australia, the cutting edge was a good width and it cut very well.

Doing the dishes with very little bench space was interesting, and the rack on which to dry my dishes was housed in the sink itself, as there was no room anywhere else. I am told this is conventional across Tokyo.

Forgive me if this post was boring for you, but this set of 'insignificant' experiences are, in many ways, so far removed from any in Australia, that I felt it necessary to write about them.