A month in Japan

Recently I completed a month in Japan, so thought of sharing some of my experiences and observations with you all. These experiences couldn’t be new to you but were definitely new to me or excited me in some manner.

• Apartment: The first strange experience was when I reached B-Site (my accommodation) in Tokyo. I expected that atleast a guard or front desk person would be there; but to my surprise no one was present in the building for supervision. Everything was self managed from collecting the keys to finding the room, etc. The apartment was compact but nice studio type apartment; it had almost all the necessary items required by an individual. In fact, till date I haven’t seen any guard standing outside any residential building.

• Toilet: Just to inform my readers, after experimenting for few days and watching 3 videos on YouTube, I came to know, how to use Japanese Toilets (commode) properly. So all those, who are planning to come, my suggestion is kindly watch those videos online, it would be of great help.

• People: First day in the city and lost my way from station to my apartment. I was trying to confirm the correct route from people, who didn’t understand a single word of mine. And vice versa, I too didn’t understand a single direction from them. Finally managed to reach the apartment in an hour, which was hardly at a distance of 10 minute walk. But Japanese people are really very helpful, even they don’t understand your language, they’ll try to help you as much as they can. Once I went to a bookstore and wasn’t able to find the English books section, so asked at the counter. The lady at the counter went with me, almost to the other corner of the store to show me the book section. Unlike India, people here aren’t required to know English language in order to succeed in their respective career.

• Juices: Another strange thing which I experienced is that a small bottle of mineral water is costlier than 1 liter tetra-pack of fruit juices. Even 1.5 liter bottle of cold drink is costlier than juice packs.

• Sewage Bill: Recently came to know that we need to pay sewage bill also with water bill. The authorities calculate the amount of wastage done by every household and then bill accordingly. Just imagine, if someone has loose motion then he’ll not increase his medical expenses but also his sewage bill; so please take care.

• Travelling: According to me, the most common mode of communication is Tokyo would be trains followed by bicycle. The local train network here is very different from what we have in Mumbai. In Mumbai all trains move from North to South or vice-versa; but here there is no. of different train routes and that cover almost the entire Tokyo.

Like others, I too drove a cycle for going to a friend’s place; it was amazing as I was riding a bicycle atleast after a decade. Although here there are rules for a cycle driver; rules like: driver should carry the registration papers for that cycle, the cycle should have a headlight, and you can’t park a cycle in No Parking zone else they’ll tow it.

Here people walking on foot get preference over the car owners; policeman will stop the cars and let the people walk. First time in my life, I saw the proper use of the Zebra Crossings; unlike India, here they’re very effective and convenient too.

• Shopping: On my way back from my friend’s place, I shopped for groceries (mainly vegetable & fruits) at 3:00 am in the morning; and believe me, I wasn’t the only customer at that shop. In India, I couldn’t have imagined buying potatoes or onions at 3 in the morning.

• Garbage: Few days ago, I went to the basement of my building for dumping the garbage. The garbage room was so huge that I can’t even describe, it was definitely 4-5 times bigger than our flat. Here normally people throw garbage in 2 different containers, one for combustible items and other one for non-combustible items.

I’ll keep adding more items to the above list, as and when I find something interesting enough…