Off to Japan

Off to Japan, the land of the rising sun—and rising prices. It was another early (for me) start—the flight left at 9:50 AM. The flight from Singapore to Tokyo took 6 hours, and there was a 2-hour time difference, so I arrived in Tokyo in the evening, local time. The temperature upon arrival was 24 degrees, pleasantly cooler than Singapore.

I still had a dose of the runs, from Indonesia. As we walked through the baggage hall a loudspeaker kept repeating the announcement: "If you have any illness, if you have fever or diarrhoea, please report to the health officer." Well, I had both of those, but no way was I going to jeopardize this trip by admitting it!

As it was, I had enough problems with the immigration officer, who gave me a very frosty reception because I had failed to specify my address in Japan upon the immigration form.
"Go home," he shouted. "We don't want you in Japan!"
Here I was, obviously due to travel around the country to see various matches, and he gets upset on this point. He asked how much money I had with me, then demanded to see it, along with credit cards, etc. However, he wasn't able to prevent me from entering the country. As soon as I got into the Arrivals hall I looked for and found a suggestions/complaints box, where I wrote a detailed description of the immigration officer's behaviour and dropped it into the box.

Getting around Tokyo

Although I had some yen with me from Dublin, I changed some more. The exchange rate was 1 Japanese Yen = 0.008604 Euro, 1 Euro = 116.230 Japanese Yen. I usually got 108 yen for my Euro. To calculate from Yen to Euro, I just knocked off the final two digits.

I then went directly to the hotel reservation service to check out the hotel situation. The lady asked me what price bracket I had in mind, and (thinking in rupiahs, rather than yen) I replied
"Under 100,000 yen per night" (ie, under 1,000 Euros).
When she simply smiled and replied, "Well, that shouldn't be a problem," I realized I had made a boo-boo and corrected my mistake. From several suggested hotels I chose the Green Capital hotel, near the cultural centre of Ueno Park, for about 5,700 yen. I was able to pay on the spot using my credit card.

The airport is some distance from Tokyo, but before I could make use of my JR Railcard I had to have it validated. The was done quickly at the JR office, and I took the train to Tokyo station. On the train I met Richard and Frank, from Galway, who filled me in on the latest gossip from home.

Finding my way around the maze of halls in Tokyo station was difficult, as there seem to be several different rail networks—JR, metro, subway—running all over the place. With the assistance of several ticket-collectors—invariably polite, though they hadn't a word of English—managed to arrive in Ueno station, one of the major stations in Tokyo.

The next maze to be negotiated was outside the station, consisting of steps, walkways, underpasses, etc., leading in all directions, so it took me about twenty minutes to get my bearings for the hotel. Unlike back home, I stopped at every red light until the traffic lights played a little tune to signal "Go" (I heard this tune so often I couldn't get it out of my head, and later found myself humming it!).

Very humid, so I bought a can of coke from a vending machine. There are vending machines everywhere selling Coke, other sodas, and about a dozen variations of tea and coffee in cans, and of course cigarettes (and, in the red-light district, even womens' used panties, if you're into that kind of thing!). Some even give you a choice of hot or cold tea or coffee (in cans, so I hope they don't heat it too much!), all for around 140 yen. I didn't find any beer in the machines, but someone told me that they had it removed from many public places on account of the World Cup (however, there was was no shortage of beer in vending machines inside hotels!).

The Green Capital hotel is a "business" hotel, catering primarily, I should imagine, for businessmen on short business trips. Its small campact rooms are modern and clean, bed, toilet and shower all western style, with little touches like an electric ring with small kettle, cups, tea bags, hair-dryer, and pyjamas. However, I noticed that the walls and partitions were wooden, which accounts for the "No Smoking" signs all over the place (badly needed in this nation of smokers!).

Early to bed—tomorrow might be a big day.

Downers

My mobile phone doesn't work—Japan obviously uses a different system.

My radio can't pick up any stations, neither short-wave, AM or FM. It might be due to the power lines in Tokyo, I'll just have to see whether it will work elsewhere in Japan.

When unpacking, I found that I had forgotten to take my "Save the Whales" t-shirt.

The Beautiful Game

The 2002 World Cup is the biggest sporting event to occur in Japan's—and Korea's—history. There are 32 teams competing in 20 state-of-the-art stadia stretched across the two countries, with a cumulative television audience of several billion, and it is being billed as the world's biggest-ever sporting show. The first World Cup to be held in Asia is also the first to be co-hosted, giving these two neighbors with a prickly past the chance to share the spotlight. At least 5,000 Irish fans are expected. Could the host country win the World Cup? According to Joe Banerjee, an Englishman and long-time resident of Kyoto, "The country would go nuts, Japan would pull out of its recession, the Empress to-be would give birth to a son and Japan would be invited onto the Security Council of the UN!"