Thursday 6th November
This morning I overslept, badly. xD Apparently my alarm was not working so I woke up around 11:00h. Felt great though. 🙂
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Quicky: you know how everything is backwards (reversed, I mean) in Japan. Well, in Tōkyō they like to yet again reverse things. That is, they still drive on the left side of the road, but escalators and walking paths along stairways are “on the right” oriented. So, the opposite direction will pass you on the left. It will be indicated clearly.
Quicky: also on chikatetsu (subway trains) and such, station names will be displayed in both kanji / kana and romaji / English. There are electronic signs on the densha (trains).
Quicky: am I the only one here wearing sunglasses on this sunny day? It looks like Japanese don’t use sunglasses…
Quicky: when you keep your pocket WiFi in one of your pockets, where you also keep a wallet full of coins, this will hurt the cell reception. Lots.
Quicky: cashiers have it easy at the supā (supermarket). They just throw all the cash you hand them into the cash register and it will automatically return the correct amount of change. Convenient!
Quicky: a proper ōkonomiyaki waves at you. Like so:
Quicky: over here in Kanda, a surprising lot of girls are trying to lure people into something. But they are not alone: sharply dressed guys over here as well. I suspect they may be proppers. Unsuccessful ones, from what I gather.
Bonus: here’s one advantage to not many Japanese speaking English. I’m obviously the gaijin (foreign) tourist who is not supposed to understand any Japanese. So far I’m relatively unbothered.
Quicky: there are train lines that run in a loop in Ōsaka and in Tōkyō. Although the subway network appears more useful in the latter, you cannot travel with that for free with a JR pass.
Quicky: if people are not using an iPhone or some other kind of smart phone (preferably Japanese brand, I suspect), they use a flip phone. You hardly see that kind of phones anymore in the Netherlands (where everybody and their mother have a Samsung smartphone).