But I figured that there is no better time than now to start again- When I'm ambling through Tokyo.
It's 5 am, and the jetlag just kicked in. I'm exhausted, but I woke up and can easily stay awake. At least it's morning and not 10 at night, which is what I should be doing. I just skipped an entire day of my life and slept 10 hours straight on the plane [which made the flight a thousand times more bearable.]
I arrived last night at 6:30, had a breeze going through customs, and then got to figure out how to use a Japanese pay phone, and simultaneously, yen. What a weird currency. One of the strongest in the world, and yet the exchange rate is 88 to one US dollar? I bought a pack of mentos [which are called chewy dragees on the label, not chewy mints- what IS a dragee?!] for 105 yen... it seems weird to me- when ever the exchange rate is like that, I'm used to paying really low prices for things. In Ethiopia, the exchange rate was 9 birr to a dollar, and I would pay 6 birr for a snickers bar- That was expensive. But 105 yen is really cheap for Japan. It's confusing. My plan is to put a "." in between the "1" and "05" on everything. Then I can grasp about how much I'm paying, and then actually convert it. So the mentos were 1.05, which is about 1.15USD. But 1.05 is more manageable in my head than 105.
Unfortunately, I arrived at night, so though I got to see the beautiful lights of Tokyo as I flew in last night, I did get to see any more of the city- Just headed straight in by train to meet Vika and get settled.
People always say that in Japan, space is the ultimate commodity- and it is! Vika has a good apartment, she has a toilet room and shower room [I'll get to the logistics about that in a second] and a kitchen living room, and bedroom. there is a thin sliding door separating the room from the living room, and it really is all cramped together, but you barely notice once you are here.
So, to explain the bathrooms. There is a toilet room, with a toilet that confused me to no end, and a restroom. The toilet room is a small closet with a toilet- that's it. No sink, though I have a sneaking suspicion that the little faucet on top on the toilet is open to the air for that purpose. If you know about plumbing, you know that a toilet sends a stream of water into the toilet bowl so that it can flush, and then that it can fill up afterwards. And then the tank has to refill. The stream of water for this toilet seat is above the tank in open air, and designed like a faucet to wash your hands. I guess for conservation of water? But before I even noticed that- I noticed two things weirder. There is a panel beside the toilet that has buttons, and what looks like a visual representation of a baday [a baday is a little fountain-like thing used to clean yourself after using the restroom. It sprays water at you]. But this had two options- regular baday and baday with less force for a woman sitting down. I think. I think you can also control the heat of the seat. Because the seat was nice and warm. Really warm. Like someone had just spent an hour sitting on the john before you sat down. Which no one had. In fact, come to think of it, the toilet seat in the airport was like that too. But I had attributed it that to the girl who went before me. Maybe it's to make you more comfortable? Or possibly to make you go faster and therefore speed up the whole process. Quite ingenious if you ask me.
But enough toilet talk! Tokyo is so safe! Last night, Vika and I just left my bags sitting outside the convenience store, and it was fine. Apparently you can do that and no one ever touches your stuff. For the longest time, the vending machines with alcohol and cigarettes were available to everyone, but barely any one abused them. Now they have ID scanners. But they have vending machines for everything! Like umbrellas. They have vending machines for umbrellas.
Well, the sun is coming up, so I can see Japan in the sunlight for the first time!
Mata atode aimashou!
またあとで会いましょう！
The.Ambler.
1 comment:
ahh NurNur how do I follow you
Post a Comment