Tokyo: 00:30 on Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Location Notes:


I’m in Tokyo today – truly one of the great cities of the world. For some reason, however, I just do not warm that much to this city. I am perfectly at home in 50-60 large cities around the world. The list of cities where I am comfortable includes super-metropolises like Sao Paulo, Cairo and Shanghai, but I just don’t feel that comfortable in Tokyo. I am not concerned about security because Tokyo is one on the safest and most liveable cities in the world. None the less, I just don’t “get” Tokyo. In today’s Location Notes, I’m going to investigate why I feel faintly uncomfortable in Tokyo.

The first reason why I am uncomfortable in Tokyo is the most obvious – I don’t speak Japanese. A great many professional Japanese speak English (or a form that is affectionately known as “Engrish”) but taxi drivers, store clerks, hotel maintenance personnel and similar workers simply don’t speak English. So, I can never easily ask directions or even give instructions. Tokyo is not the only place in the world where this is the case but it is probably the wealthiest place in the world where English is not widely spoken. This is obviously not the fault of the workers – this is my fault because I don’t speak Japanese, but this fact does not make more comfortable.

Typical Example of Engrish

The second reason why I am uncomfortable in Tokyo is because I can never find my bearings. Rosa is perfectly comfortable not knowing the cardinal directions. She was raised in London where the sun rarely shines and the streets are not set out in a handy grid so directions for Rosa consist entirely of “turn right” or “turn left”. I was born and raised in Kansas, however, where it is so flat that if your dog runs away, you can see him for three days. It is always easy to tell the cardinal directions in Kansas … The sun rises in the east and sets in the west and the wind blows from the south in the summer and from the north in the winter. By the way, it is super windy in Kansas. Back there we had a meteorological device known as a “Kansas Wind-o-meter”. This is a heavy log chain attached to a telephone pole. On normal days the chain stands straight out from the pole and it is easy to tell the direction of the wind. On windy days, however, the chain rattles and links snap off. Tokyo is a mystery because there are so many waterways, islands, tunnels and bridges. Because of the structure of the land, the streets cannot be laid out in a grid but they seem to be – and this is where the problem lies. On a normal grid of streets a car headed south can take two consecutive right turns and be headed north. In Tokyo, a car headed south can take two consecutive right turns and be completely lost!

As a test, I used the compass on my iPhone to take periodic bearings as I travelled by taxi from Narita Airport to Tokyo Shinagawa yesterday. As a rule, the compass indicated that we were headed west-south-west … at least as far as Tokyo Disney but then the compass began to flip around into more gyrations than experienced by a lost aircraft in the Bermuda triangle.

I guess Tokyo Disney is part of the magic kingdom so the laws of physics may not apply. Tokyo must be protected from invasion by some sort of magnetic anomaly. I’m not the only person who cannot find my way around Tokyo, however. Every taxi and nearly every car has a GPS device. Today, I was at an office building that can be no more than 4 kms (2.5 miles) from my hotel. A colleague that speaks Japanese kindly agreed to assist me in obtaining a taxi back to the hotel. This is when we encountered a problem, however. The taxi driver had no idea about the location of the hotel. My colleague had to ride along and give instructions to the taxi driver before returning with the taxi back to the office building.

I admire the Japanese culture, but I simply cannot fathom its intricacies. Almost all American fast-food outlets are represented in Tokyo including MacDonald’s, Burger King, etc. Each of these outlets, however, will have some localisation dish that is basically inedible. MacDonald’s will have something like the McSquid or the McPigstrotter! Burger King will have “flame grilled bean curd” or some such inedible “meat-based snack”. One of the most famous soft drinks in Japan is “Pocari Sweat”. Now, I have no idea what type of animal a “Pocari” is, but I’m not anxious to drink its underarm secretions. Dried squid is just yucky and mixing it with saliva causes it to grow in size by 6000%.

You Thought I was Joking about the McSquid!

By the way, Japanese convenience stores are the hardest to fathom. The 7-11 is ubiquitous in Tokyo but it sells a LOT more than chips, sandwiches, drinks and a “big bite”. Beyond the strange assortment of purely Japanese snack foods (seaweed flavoured potato chips, anyone?), there are also a bewildering array of “personal” products. The 7-11 on the lower floor of this building also sells a “Hello Kitty” vibrator! I don’t get the whole concept of a “Hello Kitty” vibrator!


I am in Tokyo at least 7-8 times per year and I always have a good time here but I have given up hope that I will ever be as comfortable here as I am in places like … I don’t know, Kabul, maybe!


Where to Stay: I’m staying in the InterContinental Strings in Shinagawa which is an average-to-good business hotel. It is certainly comfortable and the service is great. I also frequently stay at the Sofitel – which a lot of my friends like. The Four Seasons is probably the very best in the city but it is also astronomically expensive.

Where to Eat: One very cool attribute of Tokyo is that each neighbourhood has a great local restaurant. Sushi and Sashimi taste different in Tokyo compared to anywhere else in the world. I asked a Japanese friend why this is the case, “Logistics” was his one word answer, “In Tokyo food distribution is incredibly efficient so each restaurant has the freshest produce and the freshest fish”. Given the size of this city (a population of more than 20 Million) those logistics are nothing less than miraculous. There are other world-class restaurants here as well, however. Any type of food is available in Tokyo as you would expect from one of the most affluent countries in the world.


Where to Party: Rappongi is universally known as the party area of Tokyo and literally any type of entertainment is available. I enjoy Le Connaisseur [sic] Cigar Bar in Rappongi; it is expensive, but less expensive than having laundry washed in a hotel here (more below). Rappongi is really cool to walk through at night especially if you avoid the Nigerian run girly bars.

Where to Shop: I find Tokyo to be outrageously expensive so I rarely shop here at all. If I do shop, it is usually duty free at the airport but prices need to be carefully checked. Interestingly enough, stores like Tiffany’s, Choppard and Bulgari bring out designs that are only available in Tokyo – so I do occasionally check these stores. My most recent purchase was for a friend: it was a USB attached “humping dog”. I bought it for a friend who has a very odd sense of humour. The “humping dog” did as advertised and absolutely nothing else … As I stated above, I really don’t “get” Tokyo.







Travel Plans:


My travel continues to morph with more mutations than irradiated DNA:



* Monday, 6 September 2010: Tokyo at the Strings “Intercon”
* Tuesday, 7 September 2010: Tokyo at the Strings “Intercon”
* Wednesday, 8 September 2010: Tokyo - Sydney
* Thursday, 9 September 2010: Arrive in Sydney and check into the Holiday Inn at the Airport leave in the evening for Dubai
* Friday, 10 September 2010: Dubai – Larnaca arrive during the day on Eid Al Fitr
* Saturday, 11 September 2010 Home in Tseri
* Sunday, 12 September 2010: Home in Tseri
* Monday, 13 September 2010: Working from Home in Tseri and meeting the arriving teams in the evening for the EMEA Sales meeting
* Tuesday, 14 September 2010: Larnaca, Cyprus for the EMEA Sales meetin
* Wednesday, 15 September 2010: Larnaca, Cyprus for the EMEA Sales meeting then leaving in the evening for Dubai in route to Sydney.
* Thursday, 16 September 2010: Dubai – Sydney
* Friday, 17 September 2010: Sydney
* Saturday, 18 September 2010: I don’t really know at this time … I could be in the Far East or I could head back for Europe
* Sunday, 19 September 2010: Just as much of a mystery as Saturday … I don’t know where I will be

As usual, these plans are subject to change …




Rant:

I am forced to use hotel laundry often because I simply cannot pack enough clothes to last me for weeks on the road. I really hate hotel laundry, however. Besides the inconvenience of having to plan ahead to wash laundry (more below), there is no control over the detergents used or the way that the washing or pressing is performed, my clothes invariably come back damaged or fail to come back at all and having laundry done in a hotel is way too expensive.


Many readers will think, “Hey, I wouldn’t mind someone doing my laundry for me because the ‘laundry elves’ have been on an extended holiday and the pile of dirty clothes is now suitable for mountain-biking.” I understand that from the outside it may seem very convenient to leave laundry in the morning and pick it up in the evening. The problem is; delivering laundry to a hotel isn’t quite that simple. Most days, I am in a hotel for less than 24 hours. Most of the time, I arrive at a hotel in the morning and leave the same night and really feel “lucky” when I am able to sleep a few hours in the bed. On days when I am not going to stay overnight at a hotel, I cannot submit the laundry because it won’t be back in time before I depart. This is also the case if I arrive in the afternoon or early evening at a hotel and am leaving the next morning. Therefore, I have to plan ahead in order to find a location where I will be on the ground for more than 24 hours in order to wash my laundry. The alternative, which I have been known to implement, is to simply buy fresh clothes in duty free at the airport when I haven’t sufficient time to leave laundry.

Once I stay in a hotel long enough to have laundry performed, then I must first fill out the laundry form in which each sock and each boxer short must be counted and then duly noted on the form. When was the last time that any of my readers counted their laundry before they put it in the wash? Once the laundry leaves the room, it enters a strange world of exquisite tortures beyond our fathoming. I have occasionally walked down a street and seen a lone sock on the sidewalk or in the gutter. I think of these socks as the “ones that escaped hotel laundry and didn’t quite make it to sock heaven.” I have no idea what industrial brand of supposedly “eco-friendly” detergent is used to wash my clothes but I know that it is strong enough to fade white shirts! Seriously, how does someone fade a white shirt?! I suspect that the detergents have a lower ph than sulphuric acid and the temperature of the laundry is hot enough to melt lead! I have a beautiful flower-patterned silk shirt that went into a hotel laundry just once – it came back snow white!

There is nothing more aggravating than to put a shirt on in the morning and have a button break when I am in a hurry. Buttons break constantly when my laundry is washed at a hotel because the heat of the pressing machine either cracks the buttons or welds them to the shirt. I wish this were the only damage, however, to which my clothes are subjected. My suits are expensive because they are a “tool of my trade”. A hotel laundry can make a $5000 suit look like a Shamwow in 30 minutes or less (or your money back!). Collars are pressed into Mobius strips, buttons magically disappear, creases appear on the side of trousers and in the exact middle of the back of the suit.

My Collar Twisted into a Geometric Impossibility

Ties come back with more stains than when they left the room – and this is saying a lot because my ties record just about my entire diet! Finally, the socks are never matched properly. Rosa finally broke down and bought me fifty pairs of all black socks exactly the same brand. I once was embarrassingly “complimented” on the fact that I had on one black sock and one navy blue sock on during a meeting. I replied, “I’m glad you like this pair, I have another pair just like them!” Clearly, a stranger is not going to take the personal interest in my laundry that my dear wife does (or at least instructs the cleaning lady to do).


The worst thing about having laundry performed in a hotel, however, is that it is a necessity and the hotel knows this is the case. Therefore, hotels extort outrageous fees for washing guest’s clothes. Now personally, I can understand how a perfect stranger might not be excited about handling my dirty socks or boxer shorts, but that does not mean that washing should be more expensive than cocaine! Pound for pound, I am convinced that hotel laundry is more expensive than any possible vice. While hotel laundry is not the only vice that will give me a rash, I can categorically say that it is the less fun than it costs!


There is only one thing I actually like about hotel laundry … That is the cloth laundry bags that high-end hotels provide. I always take the cloth laundry bags from Shangri-La, Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton. The laundry bags are meant to be taken, obviously, but somehow it feels that I am obtaining a little more value when I take one with me. We probably have 100 of these laundry bags at the house but I still take the laundry bag each time.



Humour Section:

I’m struggling today to come up with a joke that is acceptable for a “general audience”. Those of you who are familiar with my normal humour will know how hard it is for me to “keep it clean”. I am wracking my brain but I cannot remember a single joke that involves Japan and still satisfies the criteria of not being blue or mean-spirited.

Therefore, I will revert to a Kansas joke:

A drunk walkwed down Main Street in the little town in Western Kansas. As he staggered down the street he noticed a prim spinster walking in the opposite direction with a duck under her arm. When the two were within hailing distance and the spinster was showing an expression of disgust, the drunk called out, “Hey there sister, where’d you get the pig?!” The spinster replied back, “You drunk idiot, this is a duck!” The drunk promptly replied, “I was talking to the duck!”







Last Blast (so to speak):

One very admirable characteristic of the Japanese is that they are very fastidious about personal hygiene. Bathrooms in Tokyo are a wonderland of convenience and automation! The Japanese really give a huge amount of thought to the layouts of their bathrooms. Now, American bathrooms are larger – especially in fairly new houses – but they lack the efficiency and convenience of Japanese bathrooms.

First even small bathrooms will have a super deep tub and a separate shower. The bathroom here at the Intercontinental Strings has a separate shower and tub room. This room includes a waterproof television flush-mounted in the wall and speaker system so that I can watch Larry King while I shower (Hey Larry, what do you make of the size of this??!!). The sink area in the bathroom has a built-in hairdryer (which I obviously never use), a bewildering array of plugs for various types of personal grooming devices and, surprisingly, a USB port (maybe I’m supposed to plug in my “humping dog”?).


My favourite device in the bathroom, however, is the high-tech toilet. In the recent past, Japanese toilets would simply clean my bum then dry it while I sat contentedly enjoying this interesting experience. Now, however, Japanese toilets take the user’s weight, blood pressure and temperature, measure volume of output and analyze urine! Handy readouts mounted in the mirror provide vital signs that I’m really not interested in viewing but the technology is admirable. Some Japanese toilets play music to mask “bathroom noises” (I wonder if they have a deep-bass sub-woofer!). Now, call me paranoid, but I’m not sure that I want an electrical device that close to water and my ass.

Rosa will want one now!

Take care and hug your loved ones until we meet again …

I know you thought I was joking about this!