Taking in Tokyo

Our arrival in Tokyo and the usual trek through immigration and customs, search for ATM and train tickets to the city, navigation of taxi stand and journey to hotel went so smoothly I barely felt that we were in another country. Tokyo is so modern and cosmopolitan (and even “Western” feeling) that I, at least, feel right at home. Anna has noticed there are a lot of Asians here. 

We’ve also noticed that the Japanese are the nicest people on earth. Americans may have a reputation as being friendly, but the Japanese must be known as the nicest. The slight head bow, the unwavering effort to help no matter the language barrier, the sing-song/melodic sound of the language: the entire atmosphere is one of kindness, helpfulness, and safety.

One other observation: The taxi stand outside the Tokyo train station is a wonder — a symphony of organization and unspoken rules that both taxis and passengers follow. There wasn’t even a conductor pointing to people to tell them where to stand or move. Everyone just follows the leader, even the clueless tourists. The taxis queue up in what looks like a parking lot, but each “aisle” of seemingly parked taxis pulls out in precise order as they reach the front and then follows the loop around to pick up passengers, who have queued up patiently in one of those mazes. And the taxi driver has a button that opens the back door facing the incoming passengers, who then hop in. And so it goes, one taxi and one group of passengers, then the next and the next, in orderly fashion. It’s brilliant. 

Our hotel is in a bustling part of Tokyo (though so far, I’m not sure there is a non-bustling part of Tokyo), near a posh shopping street, with the Apple store and Tiffanys, the famous Matsuya department store, and Ferraris and Mazaratis driving by. We wandered our first night in search of a ramen noodle place and ended up in an order-by-number restaurant that we muddled through: there are kiosks as you walk in, where you input your money, push the picture of what you want, it spits out a ticket and your change, and then you sit down and they bring your food and drink. So orderly (and perfect if you don’t speak the language; we didn’t have to talk at all!). Tonight we did find an amazing ramen restaurant. Yelp describes it as “life changing,” and I have to say it was not wrong.