Christeph: On the Lam

Let’s just get it out there: I love trains. Not in the nerd-x-treme way of knowing the model numbers of specific engines and things like that; but I just like being around trains and riding on them.

So it goes without saying that I was excited to ride the famous Japanese bullet trains, the shinkansen. Our new home town Noshiro is near the north tip of the main island of Japan, on the western coast. The nearest big city is Akita, the capital of the prefecture (state) of the same name. One of the shinkansen lines terminates in Akita, taking about four hours from Tokyo. From there it’s another hour on the slow train to Noshiro. Lucky for us, our house is only a kilometer or so from the Noshiro train station so we’ll be able to walk there when need be.

The shinkansen is not cheap, costing about $150 for a regular seat from Tokyo to Akita, a trip of maybe 350 miles. In fact, flying is a bit cheaper and faster, but you can’t beat the scenery and convenience of walking into a downtown train station, buying a ticket from a vending machine (the first vending machine I’ve seen that takes the equivalent of $100 bills), and getting on the train. You can even pay with your cell phone – the newer cell phones can be linked to a bank account and can communicate with various payment machines by some magical method.

I had an hour or so to wait in the station, so I stopped in a noodle shop where I selected my meal on a vending machine (tempura udon for about $3!) and got a ticket, which I took to the counter. Within about 10 seconds my food was ready – they had shelves and shelves of pre-made balls of various things in tempura behind the counter, and all they had to do was drop it in a bowl of udon noodles and pour broth over the whole thing. This is what fast food should be.

I went down lots of escalators and sat by the track with about half an hour to spare. This is where I got to see the wonder that is the Japanese rail system. One bullet train pulled through the station each way every four minutes on the dot. Amtrak this is not.

And that brings us to right now. I’m sitting on the Akita shinkansen, travelling at 170mph and watching the eastern towns countryside go by at a startling rate. I splurged and got a “green car” (first class) seat for about 15% extra fare, which basically means nicer seats and more food and drink options (observation: beer costs less than coffee according to the train menu). The main reason I did this was that the green cars were the only ones with non-smoking seats available (smoking is allowed in most indoor settings in Japan, but not on the street!) for the next several hours, and I didn’t feel like choosing between sitting in a smoking car and waiting in Ueno station in Tokyo for the next four hours.

Two hours later, we’re now approaching Akita city, the end of this shinkansen line. The second half of the trip is not as exciting as the first (the hilly interior of the country means more curves and slower speeds), but very beautiful. I just got another taste of delicious efficiency when we pulled to a stop in the middle of nowhere and the conductor came on saying, “we’ll be waiting here for three minutes.” (I only understood the words for “three minutes” but I assume that’s what he said.) Precisely three minutes later, another train whipped by going the other way and we were off again.

At Akita station I switched gears entirely and transferred to a local ghetto train. Buying this ticket made me exercise the “train talk” I learned in Japanese class. An hour later I was in Noshiro, and it was much hotter than I had expected – warmer than but not quite as muggy as Tokyo. I walked to our new house (only about a 10 minute walk from the train station) with the help of a great Akita Prefecture map book I bought the other day, and found it by luck since there are very few visible house numbers in Japan. I met the current resident, Steph’s JET predecessor, Nate-sensei. Steph hadn’t arrived yet so I took a walk around the neighborhood. It turns out we live one block from a giant forest park full of trails and running/biking paths. On the other side of the forest is the Sea of Japan. Nice.

The house itself is two stories and is tucked into a dense little neighborhood of some nice, some pretty crummy little homes. It turns out all the falling-apart tin shacks are owned by our crazy landlady, and all the other houses are nice. But more on that in a future post.

The bloom is definitely off the rose today. For some reason, I was less lucky regarding content in my orientation sessions. We attended some team teaching seminars, but they just didn’t strike home or utilize time well. In the afternoon, I attended seminars on motivating your students and the logistics of one’s first month in Japan, but they contain mostly redundant information from other lectures.

The driving lecture was definately useful. Chris and I are thinking about getting a car in Noshiro so that we have more freedom to explore the area. Cars here are crazy cheap to buy, and crazy expensive to maintain. Cars are separated into white plate (deluxe) and yellow plate (economy), which affects insurance and shaken rates.

Behold the Shaken. This is a car maintenance tax that must be paid every two years, and constitutes the major expense for your car. One may buy a used car for $400, and find a hefty $2,000 shaken to pay later. Country wide tolls are also particularly fierce… I think the cost for us to drive to Tokyo is $70 in tolls alone. AND… I was told yesterday that there is no such thing as 0% liability, so if someone comes out of nowhere and hits you, you will still be responsible for paying something like 30% of the accident costs. Yikes. You will also be fined for talking on your cell phone while driving (huzzah! I totally get behind this one). The Japanese also back into all of their parking spots. One returning JET told me that she just pulls in straight when parking to watch everyone around her freak out in incredulity.

My final meeting of the day was with other people going to my prefecture. The presenters said something about being famous for their “unintelligible dialect” (ha ha… what?) and I started to freak out again… I am super nervous about the impending trip to my new home tomorrow. Chris and I will part ways again, as I take the plane and he tries to make it there by bullet train. I think Chris and I will be the only foreigners in town for awhile, as my predecessor is leaving immediately, and the returning JET from England who’s going to show us the ropes is on holiday for the next two weeks. There’s one other newbie, but I think he shows up in a week or so.

Breathe.

I have to admit, I wasn’t really looking forward to Tokyo. Its size and general craziness level scared me a bit, not to mention its gargantuan subway system with multiple overlapping train companies and signage in 漢字. The first thing I had to do on landing (right at midnight by my body’s clock) was get to my host’s apartment in downtown Tokyo on the train during rush hour.

But Tokyo has surprised me. Within hours of arriving I already loved it. Perhaps this is because our host (fellow Mudder Andrew Hughes, who is now a lawyer at the Tokyo office of a New York firm) lives in the “embassy district” of Roppongi, a rather upscale part of town.

Many of the common perceptions of Tokyo and Japan I have already found to be true, but it’s surprised me in some ways too:

• Everything is illuminated and/or automated. Sleek, silent sliding doors grace the entrances of almost every building. Escalators stop when no one is on them and rumble to life again as you approach. Even the luggage delivery ramp at the Narita baggage claim would pause when it sensed there was luggage in the way on carousel. Small signs above subway doors illuminate to indicate which set of doors is going to open at the next stop. The list goes on.
• Spotless society. There is almost no litter anywhere. The sidewalks and subways are both impeccably clean. Part of the reason for this is that it’s considered rude to eat or drink while walking, a fact I remembered this morning as I sipped my coffee. An annoying side-effect of this is that it’s really difficult to find a trash can anywhere. However a pleasant result is Tokyo actually smells nice, something I haven’t generally experienced in large cities.
• Obsequious service. Shopkeepers, waiters, and barristas do an excellent job of making it seem like you are the most important person in the world. I will definitely miss this when I return home.
• Restaurant impugnity. I’m sure there is bad food in Tokyo, but I haven’t found it yet. Just about any establishment you stumble into will serve you delicious and mostly healthy food. Case in point: I was aiming for a tonkatsu place yesterday but walked in the wrong entrance to the building. I ended up in a small one-room establishment run by a bunch of old ladies who spoke no English. I couldn’t read the menu, so I just pointed to the plate of the guy next to me. I ended up with a slab of fish with rice and soup, and the best sesame-garlic noodles I’ve ever tasted. I have never loved fish, but I thouroughly enjoyed this meal and so I am much relieved and looking forward to the Japanese diet more than I thought I would.

We have one remaining day in Tokyo; on Wednesday we travel to Noshiro and will see our house for the first time. I can’t wait!