Quirky stuff in Tokyo

I’ve been documenting my eating more than anything else, so i’d like to take a moment to talk about other things that make me look twice:

1. Silence in the trains. There are signs to tell you no ringing is allowed. no matter how packed the carriage is, no one talks. They read, play with their mobile phones on silent mode or tune into their mp3 players.

2. Having said that, a lot of “inanimate” objects “talk” to you in public spaces. For example, escalators, car parks, elevators and even traffic lights – though this one is not as common. Not all traffic lights have announcements. So far the one in front of the national theatre has its own monologue. i jumped in fright as I jogged past one night.

3. Bicycles are a point of contention for some. Apparently the police spot check on people who ride bicycles to make sure that is indeed yours – there is a special licence you need to have. The root of this vigorous exercise is because many bikes get stolen. In fact, there’s an urban legend that a gaijin borrowed a friend’s bike and got booted out of the country as he wasn’t able to prove the said machine was not stolen – probably due to his inability to speak any nihongo and he didn’t have a mobile phone to contact his friend.

4. Apples that cost SGD5 each. An Indian lady in my class finds this even more appalling than me. Her currency is rupees and she said she used to buy a huge fruit basket for the price of two apples here.

5. Chew har – this is obviously the incorrect spelling. But let me introduce this alcoholic drink – a citrus liquor topped with soda water. It looks like sparkling h2o but incredibly lethal because it’s so yummy, refreshing and goes down as easily as fruit juice.

6. Extremely old folk who can sleep on the train and hobble out of the station on their own. Usually such peeps in Singapore are either accompanied by someone or you just don’t see them tottering around. Reinforces the power of ocha (green tea).

7. Broccoli on pizza. I just had a pork meatball and broccoli pizza in an Italian restaurant – bizarre but scrumptious. Bastardised western food here is delish. Wait till you try the ones with seaweed. Oops, i’m talking about food again.

8. Adult bookshops that have salarymen browsing in them. There are posters with women and their watermelon boobs screaming at you displayed all over the shop but at the same time you see these suits flipping through porn openly and relaxed like they’re in kinokuniya.

I can’t remember anything else right now but the beauty of being a foreigner here is you feel like the city spins around you and tosses juicy nuggets of life at you. It may be a hard place to live in but it’s got its fabulous points, too.

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