This used to be a grungy little curry shop

Planted in the center of an underground corridor in Ginza subway station, at the bottom of a flight of stairs from the street, and one flight up from the Marunouchi Line train platform, there used to be a grungy little curry shop where the customers sat elbow to elbow on tall stools and hunched over plates of curry teetering on the edge of a very narrow counter that separated them from the nearly-as-narrow kitchen.

I always meant to eat there one day. I never actually got around to doing so, but I loved that little shop nonetheless.

The Japanese curry they served was of an especially odorous type, and the entire west end of the station was often filled with its earthy perfume. I don’t know how old the shop was, but it looked as if it had been around for decades, and whenever I got a whiff of it as I hurried to change trains, I always felt a gratifying connection to history, imagining that I was inhaling the very same aroma that millions of other people from all walks of life had smelled over the decades since back around the middle of the Showa era.

I didn’t even have to step off the train to enjoy such a moment. On at least one occasion, I was riding the Marunouchi Line with my nose in a book when the train paused at Ginza en route to somewhere else. As the doors opened and closed, an invisible cloud of curry vapor flowed into the car. Without even needing to look up, I said to myself, “Ah. Ginza.”

Becoming a person who knew that smell was a minor accomplishment. Inhaling deeply, I could puff myself up and think, “What a seasoned Tokyoite I am! I can find my way around by smell!”

That may have been silly, but it is true that accumulating the experience to recognize the tiny and unique details of a place, especially the odd bits of reliable coziness hidden away in a big concrete city, really does help turn that place into home.

One day, perhaps about two years ago, the grungy little curry shop was dark. The doors were closed. The smell had dissipated. A paper on the wall announced that the shop had reached the end of the line, and thanked its customers.

I had never been one of them.

Shortly thereafter, a floor-to-ceiling plywood barrier went up all the way around the shop, and also around a little sushi place that had been its close-quarters neighbor. I passed through Ginza Station countless times after that, but I never saw or smelled the grungy little curry shop again.

Then, yesterday afternoon I did a double take at the sight – one flight of stairs down from the street, and one up from the Marunouchi Line platform – of a brand-new, brightly lit, boutiquey gift and clothing store right in the spot where the curry shop had once stood. (It’s in the photo at the top of this entry.)

It’s part of the latest Echika underground shopping mall, following the ones that already exist in Ikebukuro and Omotesando subway stations. Not only is there a boutique where the curry shop used to be, but there are other new stores where nothing used to be, stretching up and down a long underground corridor. It’s all very shiny and new and brand-name, and nothing like the grungy little curry shop.

There are a couple of places that serve food in the new mall, including a nice-looking gourmet deli I’m sure I’ll try before long, and an outlet of the Auntie Annie’s soft pretzel chain where I already bought a snack on the way home last night.

But I wish I had eaten some of that aromatic curry.

Railway safety in Tokyo (a lesson for New York)

A great thing about living in Tokyo is that trains can take you anywhere, quickly and conveniently.

A bad thing about living in Tokyo is that if you fall off the station platform, a train can kill you.

Those two statements may sound like a pair of eternal truths, but the second one is gradually becoming less true as safety barriers are installed along platforms in more and more stations.

Earlier this year, a good friend of mine was hit by a train in New York. Fortunately, he survived. When I went to visit him, I read in the New York Daily News that the Big Apple was considering installing its own safety barriers. But there was some resistance to the idea, not the least of which came from the Daily News itself.

Resistance to the idea of safety barriers seems unfounded. It reminds me of the resistance that once existed to the idea of wearing seatbelts in cars, and I’m sure that in the future people will look back on it as being just as silly.

I made the video at the top of this post in an effort to shed some light on the issue. I start by visiting the sites of a few notable accidents in Tokyo, and then demonstrate how the safety barriers operate.

Production note: A couple of scenes shot at train stations include background noise, so I added subtitles. In future efforts, I’ll either look for quieter spots or buy a quality microphone.

Everyday artifact: Train delay certificate

“Sorry I’m late, boss. My train got stuck in a tunnel.”
“A likely story, Tanaka. Prove it.”
“Sure thing: Here’s my train delay certificate.”

Tokyo trains are so punctual that you can set your watch by them. Literally. On the infrequent occasions when they are not, the railroad will give you documentary proof to show anyone you’ve let down by turning up late.

The proof is called a chien shoumeisho (delay certificate). You can ask for one at the ticket gate at the station where you get off your delayed train.

I received the one in the photo after my subway train was delayed by 10 minutes on July 28. You can see where the man at the ticket gate punched “28” to indicate the date and “10” to indicate the length of the delay. The text in the center of the paper is headed “Chien Shoumeisho” in large print, followed by a message of apology from the Tokyo Metro company and the stationmaster of Kourakuen Station. Other rail lines may issue certificates with slightly different formats, but they all operate on the same basic concept.

Imagine how the above dialogue would play out in a country where everyone commuted by car.

“Sorry I’m late, boss. I hit every single red light on the way in.”
“Sure, Jack. Prove it.”
“Uhh…”

Straphangin’ in style

I went to the Edo Tokyo Museum the other day and learned a new Japanese word: “tsurikawa.”

It means “strap” – specifically, the kind of strap that bus and subway riders hold onto when they can’t get a seat. It’s an item so ordinary as to be practically invisible, which makes it an excellent blank slate for artists and designers to try their ideas on. More than 30 creative people recently tried to reimagine or reinvent the tsurikawa, and their results are on display as part of the museum’s special exhibition on the history of Tokyo mass transit.

Here are my five favorites from the show:

The most humorous design was Hiroki Shinmen’s “Napolitan Tsurikawa,” which draws on Japan’s unrivalled prowess in the field of plastic “sample” food. Although it’s a delight to look at, I imagine it might be difficult to clean if it were adopted in practice. But this could easily be dealt with by encasing the spaghetti inside a clear Lucite ring to give it a smooth, wipeable surface.

Osamu Gunji’s design shocked me at first – it looks like a hangman’s noose. But if the form is alarming, it’s function is admirable. As explained on an accompanying sign, this is a tsurikawa that you can carry with you and install anywhere. It might be handy to use when the train is crowded – or if you are worried about picking up germs from straps that strangers have handled.

Miki Kobayashi’s design is also an interesting piece of engineering, but I give it higher points for thinking outside of the box than for practicality of application. An accompanying diagram shows this double-ended tsurikawa on a pulley being used by an adult and a child together. The adult holds his or her end high, allowing the other end to drop low enough for the child to reach. So far, so good. But if the train braked quickly and the tsurikawa suddenly had to support the adult’s full weight, the child would be catapulted into the ceiling. This could be adapted as a piece of playground equipment, but doesn’t appear safe for use aboard a moving vehicle.

Ayako Natsume was one of several designers who created tsurikawa that could be used by several people at once. Of those, her design was the most visually appealing and probably the most practical. She describes it as being jewel-shaped, and suggests that it could be installed in several different colors. I like its compactness and the fact that it includes firm, straight bars divided into clear single-handhold lengths. Other multi-person designs included hula-hoop shapes hung parallel to the ceiling (which has the advantage of easily allowing several riders to hold on at once, but would be an annoyance to tall riders who would have to duck again and again as they walked down the aisle) and a cotton-string fishnet hung just below the ceiling (which has the advantage of being within easy reach no matter where one happened to be standing, but would present even greater cleaning challenges than the spaghetti tsurikawa).

The most revolutionary design was this one by Shinsuke Sakamoto. It takes a whole new approach to the concept of “grip” by replacing the ring or handle of an ordinary tsurikawa with a small segment of a rock-climbing wall. Sakamoto suggests that using this item could be considered a form of “brain training,” but it seems clear that his own brain gets plenty of exercise.

Practical details

The tsurikawa exhibition is part of a special show on the history of Tokyo mass transit through Sept. 10 at the Edo Tokyo Museum. Admission is 1,300 yen. You can find the show described in English at the museum’s website here, but there is no English signage at the show itself. In addition to the tsurikawa section, the show includes several substantial artefacts (including a vintage trolley car), but most of the items on display are signs, ticket stubs, and other documentary items that are likely to be of interest only to serious specialists.

Antinuclear march in Ginza

A few minutes before 8:00 this evening, I was walking through Ginza when I stumbled across an antinuclear protest march.

To say that the meltdowns and ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant have been a major source of public worry would be putting it mildly. I have heard about quite a few protests against nuclear power in the past few weeks (like this one), but tonight’s was the first I’d seen in person.

I am a lukewarm supporter of nuclear power (and yes, I know I’ll have to explain that at some point), so this is not a protest that I was tempted to join. Nonetheless, it did my heart good to see it.

Japan is a democracy, but for a long time it was a very passive one. When I see people who are motivated to take their opinions to the street (peacefully), I see it as a healthy sign of political energy.

The police who escort big protests in Tokyo tend to divide them into segments to avoid impeding ordinary street traffic. I saw two segments tonight. The first segment engaged in a lot of cacophonous shouting, but the second, larger group were repeating a catchy chant of “Stop nuclear power; decomission the Hamaoka plant.”

You don’t think that sounds catchy? Then try this: Translate it into Japanese, have the marchers repeat after a leader, and add drums:

Gem-patsu yame-ro!
           Gem-patsu yame-ro!
Hama-oka hairo!
           Hama-oka hairo!

See? It has a nice beat, and you can march to it.

How tall is Tokyo Sky Tree, again?

Tall enough that most of it was hidden in the clouds yesterday, even while nearby skyscrapers remained clearly visible well below the cloud ceiling. To put a number on it, the Sky Tree is 634 meters tall, which is four-tenths of a mile.
To see how tall that is when viewed from the middle of Tokyo Bay (on a clear day) go here.

Happy Japan

Since the March 11 disasters, the two words in the title of this post – Happy and Japan – haven’t been seen next to each other very often. But I think they are a good pair.

There’s a stereotype of the Japanese as hard-working people. Over the years I’ve lived here I’ve found this stereotype to be basically true. But it’s also true that most of the Japanese people I know or have met are cheerful folks who know how to have a good time. And that combination makes this a great country to live in.

As evidence, I point to the above video. (Watch it on full screen.)

Earlier this year, before the earthquake struck northern Japan, people in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, were preparing for the completion of a Shinkansen bullet train line between Fukuoka (the home of Hiyoko chicks) at the northern end of the island and Kagoshima at the southern end.

During a pre-opening test run, the public was invited to stand alongside the tracks to greet the train as it went by – and possibly appear in a TV commercial.

I’m told the resulting ad ran for only a couple of days before the quake hit and a virtual advertising blackout descended on the airwaves. The gleeful exuberance with which the the Kyushu people greeted the passing train seemed at odds with a national mood of mourning and calls for “self-restraint.”

But the ad remained viewable online, where many people enjoyed watching it because it cheered them up. Some even report being moved nearly to tears.

I understand the feeling. This video reflects an important facet of my view of Japan. Part of that is an ineffable feeling, and part is an easily explained admiration for how well people here understand the link between hard work and good times, which I think is one key to a happy life. Many of the people in this video clearly put a lot of planning and effort into their brief appearances – and don’t they look like they’re having a blast?

Take the stairs. Save a life.

Escalator closed to save electricity at Higashi Jujo Station in Tokyo, April 1, 2011

The title of this post may sound like hyberbole, but if you’ll bear with me you may see that it could be literally true for people living in eastern Japan.

As a result of damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the region is suffering a serious electricity shortage. It will not be quickly or easily fixed. Consequently, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has instituted a system of rolling blackouts (see video here) to ration power.

Meanwhile, many other organizations have been doing what they can to save electricity. Train service has been reduced on some lines, and stores and other public places are operating with reduced lighting (see photo here) or have turned off some of their escalators (see photo above). Individuals have helped, too, such as by turning off unneeded lights at home.

These widespread efforts have reduced electricity demand so much that on many recent days TEPCO has called off its planned blackouts.

So far, then, we’re muddling through quite nicely.

But this summer, when millions of people turn on their air conditioners, demand is going to soar. Any blackouts to happen then will leave a lot of people baking.

To me, this sounded uncomfortable. To Charles Stross, it sounded deadly. He recently wrote on his blog:

Summer in Tokyo is savage…
Greater Tokyo also has 30-million-odd people, of whom a large proportion — maybe 20% — are 75 years or older.
Elderly folks do not handle heat waves well; they get dehydrated easily and if they don’t have air conditioning they die in droves. Normally it’s not a problem in Tokyo because 80% of households have air conditioning, but with rolling blackouts and insufficient power it’s another matter…
If TEPCO can’t get some of those 15 reactors back on stream by June, and if Tokyo experiences a heat wave this summer (as happens every few of years), then going by previous incidents (like the heat emergency in Paris in 2003 that killed 3000 people), the deaths from heat stroke, among the over-75s may rival the direct fatalities from the earthquake and tsunami combined.

With this dire but not unrealistic prediction in mind, we should all be looking for ways to save even more electricity. We probably can’t prevent every blackout or heat-related death, but we can at least minimize them.

As one realistically doable way to lower my own electricity consumption, I decided to stop using elevators.

Join me in the elevator game…

Since I live on the 8th floor of one building and work on the 5th floor of another, staying out of elevators should be doable for me. And if regular stair-climbing helps me shed some weight, making the eventual loss of air conditioning a little more bearable, then so much the better.

I was thinking along these lines for several days – and using elevators all the while – until 11:00 yesterday morning. Less than half an hour later, I gave myself some additional incentive by sending the following tweet:

Tokyo_Tom_Baker Tom Baker

To save electricity, I’m making a game out of seeing how long I can go without using an elevator. It’s been 27 minutes so far.

It wasn’t long before a few of my coworkers noticed what I was up to, which provided them some amusement. But as I added minutes and hours to my time count, even after going downstairs for lunch, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

And then, at 10:04 this morning, I smacked my palm against my forehead and loudly uttered a rude word because I suddenly realized that I was in an elevator.

Barely conscious of what I was doing, I had simply stepped aboard out of blind habit. I hadn’t even made it 24 hours. My outburst startled my fellow passengers, but they gracefully accepted my apology.

Oh, well. It wouldn’t be much of a game without the occasional setback.

At the time of this post, it has now been 7 hours and 30 minutes since I was last in an elevator. By summer, I think I should be pretty good at this. Follow me on Twitter to see how far I make it this time.

If you live in eastern Japan, I urge you to consider giving the elevators in your own buildings a rest. I happen to be playing the elevator game against myself, but you could save even more electricity – and perhaps some elderly people’s lives – by getting some friends together, putting some money on the table, and making a Seinfeldian contest of it.

Update (April 29, 2011)

My first round of the elevator game may have lasted less than 24 hours, but my second round was much more successful: I didn’t use elevators at all for a period of 13 days, 6 hours and 43 minutes. That was a pretty good run, if I do so myself.

What broke my streak? I bought a new bicycle. There is no good place to park a bike at ground level near by building, so I had to take it up to the eighth floor, where I live. I made a good faith effort by carrying my bike all way up the stairs – once – but that experience was enough to tell me that I was going to have to use the elevator if I had the bike with me. So, now I do sometimes use the elevator in the building where I live.

So the elevator game failed, right?

Actually not. It continues to be a tremendous success. I use the elevator at home much less than I used to, and I still haven’t used the elevator at work – where my office is on the 5^th floor – even once in the four weeks since April 2. Considering that I used to take the elevator every day when I arrived in the morning, and then when I went out to lunch, and then when I came back from lunch, and then when I left in the evening, and also at other miscellaneous times during the day, I estimate that I have avoided at least 30 elevator trips every week – or about 120 so far.

So, though I no longer have the fun of watching my time total get longer and longer, I am consuming less electricity than I used to. And that’s the whole point.

Kawaguchi in the dark

The city of Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, just outside of Tokyo was dark for several hours this evening as part of the rolling blackouts that Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has implemented in response to a power shortage following last Friday’s major earthquake.

The damage to a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture has been the focus of much media attention, but according to a recent article in The Daily Yomiuri (which you can read here), the quake and tsunami also shut down the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture, and damaged some conventional thermal power plants as well. Moreover, a rundown of damaged factories (which you can read here) includes one belonging to Hitachi in Ibaraki Prefecture that is “a major production base of equipment for thermal and nuclear power plants. If the suspension of production stretches on for weeks or months, it could hurt the company’s performance and hamper its construction and repair of power plants at home and abroad.”

So, it looks like these blackouts may be part of life in the Tokyo area for quite some time.

A sense of scale for 600-meter Tokyo Sky Tree

The height of the Tokyo Sky Tree, a communications tower under construction in Taito Ward, recently passed the 600-meter mark. It will be 634 meters tall when completed, and it is already one of the tallest structures in the world.

But what does 600 meters tall really mean?

The above photo (click on it for a larger view) is a panorama of the Tokyo skyline I shot last month that shows just how enormous the Sky Tree is when compared to everything else in the city.

I hardly need to mention that the Sky Tree is the tower at the far right-hand side of the photo. But if you look at the far left-hand side, you will see a needle-like structure sticking up above the surrounding skyscrapers. This is Tokyo Tower, a 333-meter tall communications tower with a basic design resembling that of the 324-meter Eiffel Tower in Paris. For a long time, this was the tallest structure in Japan. But now the still-unfinished Sky Tree makes it look puny.

Two other noteworthy pieces of Tokyo infrastructure related to this photo are the Tokyo Gate Bridge and the Aqualine highway.

The Tokyo Gate Bridge, also still under construction, can be seen to the left of the Sky Tree. It will be 87.8 meters tall, with 54.6 meters of clearance above the water, and a total length of 1,618 meters. (That’s just over a mile.) Ironically, it will probably not become a major Tokyo landmark, because very few parts of the city have a good view of it from ground level. Then again, visitors to the Sky Tree will be able to see this bridge just fine.

The final piece of infrastructure connected to this photo is the Aqualine highway, which cuts across Tokyo Bay between Kawasaki and Kisarazu. The road goes over a long bridge and through an even longer tunnel, with the transition made on an artificial island called Umihotaru, which has a rest area with shops and restaurants. When I took this photo last month, I was standing on an observation deck there.

By the way, you can see an earlier Sky Tree photo I took, next to the smoke from a burning building, at this earlier post.