Hmmm... since JJ (www.chenjj.blogspot.com) is already doing a detailed rundown of our Tokyo trip, I'll proceed to blog about interesting things I noticed when I was there.
1) Schoolkids - They seem to be everywhere at any time of the day. In shops, game arcades (nobody stops them)... everywhere! Even on weekends! It makes me wonder whether they ever attend school in the first place. On weekends, they probably wear their school uniforms for the fun of it! Can't blame them though, they have really nice uniforms... and yes, their skirts can get dangerously short too. Some even sport dyed long hair and painted nails. Perhaps they have much lax school rules than here?
2) Vending Machines - They have drink vending machines all over the place so you'll never get thristy. Unfortunately, drink prices start at about S$1.70. Expensive! They also have vending machines for beer and cigarettes. Talk about easy access.
3) UFO Catcher Machines - Unlike the Singapore ones where they make sure that you never ever get any of the prizes, the ones in Japan are much easier to win stuff. I even saw some people ask the arcade attendants to place the prizes nearer the prize deposit "hole." Naturally, they make the smaller prizes easier to get than the large ones. I have no idea how people get the large prizes but it IS possible.
4) People flood - People are just everywhere in Tokyo, during lunch or dinner time there's an almost neverending stream of people entering the various eateries. Streets are still crowded at 9pm and department stores and shops are somehow always crowded even on weekdays.
5) Expensive Japan - Things in Japan are generally expensive. A cheap meal would cost about 500 YEN which is about S$7.00 But after awhile your brain starts telling you that 500 YEN is pretty cheap for a meal and 120 YEN is a reasonable price for a Coke. I have a feeling that to the Japanese, 100 YEN is equivalent to $1... I saw someone at a store piling 1000 YEN t-shirts into his shopping basket. I guess that's cheap considering the average t-shirt goes for about 3000 YEN.
6) Kinky Cosplay - Nobody bats an eyelid at flier distributers dressed in French Maid outfits. Pachinko (The Japanese gambling game which is kind of the equivalent of pinball) parlor attendants sometimes wear French Maid outfits or School Uniforms and it's perfectly OK. It's time Singapore should stop being so conservative...
7) Adult Products - Adult stores can consist of 7 floors stocking adult DVDs of any genre you can imagine. If you're not looking for adult products they'd find you... they're everywhere!
8) Carrefour Japan - The Japanese equivalent of Carrefour sells French Maid outfits, school uniforms, adult DVDs and adult products. Way cool! :D
9) Anime Attack - Anime is really really really big in Japan... Akihabara is full of stores selling nothing but anime related products and comics.
10) The More Workers The Merrier - It takes two eldery traffic cops with light sticks and loud hailers to guide pedestrain traffic across a one lane street! And they were really enthusiastic about their job too!
What takes the cake was when I saw 6 traffic cops put in charge of directing cars out of a car park. 1 would wave the car out of the carpark, 4 would stop pedestrains from walking into the path of the car (there weren't any pedestrains around at that time!) and 1 would make sure the coast would be clear before allowing the car to join the main road.
I guess when they've got nothing to do... they find something to do!
11) Teach Your Kids Gambling - Arcades have certain sections dedicated to pachinko, slot machines and black jack machines. The only catch is that you can only use game tokens to play and there's no way of exchanging any tokens you've won into cash or prizes. So what's the point of playing? I have no idea... Parents are welcome to bring their kids in to play though.
12) Remove Your Shoes Please - You have to remove your shoes before entering a fitting room. We also had to remove our shoes before entering our hotel. Perhaps this is only practised in more traditional Japanese hotels?
13) Cutesy Is In - Japanese are the king of cute, go into a Japanese toy store and they'll have all these extremely cute and cuddly soft toys begging you to buy them. You can't help but feel all mushy inside when you stare at them too much.
Japanese girls almost always have cutesy voices. Is it their natural voice or are they speaking like that on purpose? Cute is nice....
14) Birds of a Feather Flock Together - People of the same fashion style hang out together. The hip-hoppers hang out with similarly dressed people. The hippies hang out with the hippies and so on and so forth...
15) Forever Silent Mode - Come to think of it, I have not heard a single handphone ringtone in Japan. People are always glued to their phones but I've never heard them ring. Perhaps it's because the announcer over the train is constantly reminding people to keep their phones on silent and to refrain from talking on their phones.
16) Irrashaimase and Arigato Gozaimasu - Enter any shop (Even and adult shop) and the shop attendants will greet you with a loud "IRRASHAIMASE" (Welcome!) I felt pretty strange at first but somehow got used to it. In fact, once we went to someplace for dinner and we weren't greeted it felt strange. I don't think it was just us as the cooks didn't greet anybody else that came in after us either.
Make a purchase from anyplace and you're thanked with a small nod and "Arigato Gozaimasu!" (Thank You).
17) Valet Parking - Valet parking means that you leave your car in an elevator and it'd somehow park your car for you.
18) It's Raining - We were at Harajuku when it started raining and people started buying 500 YEN (S$7) umbrellas from this store as fast as the store attendant could restock the shelves. Madness...
Hmmmm that's all I can think of for now... will upload the pictures later...
