One of the more interesting places I’ve been over the last few years was Tokyo. I had a week there for Unisys on behalf of one of my clients Novartis. We were trying to extend our services into that region, so needed to meet the local team to put together our final bid.
As anyone who knows Unisys will realize without me having to mention it; they only fly economy, and so the trip didn’t start terribly well as I had a 12 hour flight in crappy seats. I managed to get an ‘extra legroom’ seat by paying €50 myself which helped, but it’s still very cramped and boring on those flights.
Arriving at the airport, although ostensibly like any other around the world, there were a few subtle differences. The immigration was fast and efficient, and involved bar-coding my passport so that they could check when I left too. Security was high, and I was stopped various times for document checks.
The drive from the airport to the centre of Tokyo took about an hour, and the taxi driver, clearly used to tourist, drove at high speed towards the toll barriers, knowing that they would raise very quickly and at the last minute – scaring me half to death, which he found hilarious.
We stayed in the Cerulean Tower Hotel in the centre, in the Shibuya district. It was close to the client’s office and well located for accessing the public transport system. The hotel was vast – more than 40 floors, and it swayed slightly in the wind, making me feel slightly motion sick at times. The staff were excruciatingly polite – almost to the point that I wanted to avoid them so that they wouldn’t feel the need to bow so often.

Flying that way was new to me – I’d been to the US many times, and so I was used to the jetlag of being awake early in the mornings for the first few days and feeling like total crap for a few days after returning. Flying to the Far East, however, is a totally different situation; you feel like crap for the first few days there, because your body tells you that you’ve missed sleep. Consequently, going to the meeting with the client the next day felt like I’d been sent to hell.
The client did, however, respond very well to our meeting and took us out for lunch to a wonderful restaurant where I had the most incredible bowl of noodles in a soupy broth – I can’t remember what it was called, but the flavor was so amazing that I didn’t want to stop eating, despite the portion being way too much.
Going out into Tokyo in the evening it became apparent just how different it was from Western destinations. For one thing everything is signposted in Japanese – I know this shouldn’t be a surprise, but for someone from England where we are totally sure of our world dominance and the Empire ensured that our language was universally recognized and used, it was a bit of a shock. Not only is nothing in English, but the symbols in the Japanese language are indecipherable, meaning that the sounds don’t match the signs you’re seeing, and even if you have the sign written down it’s pretty much impossible to match that against the signposts – just take a look at the underground map;

The underground is spectacular. In its size and complexity it rivals anything I’ve ever seen. What makes is difficult to navigate (apart from the impossible names) is that there seem to be three distinct systems running in parallel with each other, plus access is granted by small cardboard chips which are purchased from touch-screen terminals (also all in Japanese of course) on a zoned system. The zonings are, of course, totally unfathomable too. Once you get the right ticket and the right train (in the right direction), however, things go very well, with the system operating efficiently and quickly.
Shopping
I went shopping a few times in Tokyo during the visit, and universally I found that it’s extremely expensive. Coming from Europe and spending time in the USA, I was totally convinced that I was from the world leading economic region, and our economy was robust. Japan dissolved that pretty quickly – their economy is stronger by far, and the retail environment showed me exactly why the stereotype of Japanese businessmen spending lots of money in Europe exists – it’s because everything is incredibly cheap for them when they visit Europe.
There are lots of shopping districts, but the one I liked the best was Harajuku – a delightful set of rambling streets, I guess they’re the Japanese version of Carnaby Street in London or Soho in NYC. Although prices were still astronomical here, it was lovely to walk around the shops.

My expectations about Japan were that they would have very cool and advanced electronics. I expected to find phones that were half the size of ours, at a fraction of the cost and with great additional features. Consequently I went shopping in the electronics district, and what I found were lots of extremely brightly lit shops filled with assistants who (for some unknown reason) felt that the best sales technique would be to wear wooden sandwich boards plastered with details of what was on sale, and walk around the store with megaphones screaming at the customers. It was like sensory bombardment, and very very odd. What I found when I got into the stores (and negotiated my way past the sales teams) was that their technology was actually a couple of years behind ours and twice the cost – it was all rather disappointing.

Tourist stuff
There were surprisingly few tourist locations to visit in Tokyo – the number one destination for tourists is the Hindu Senso-Ji temple. It was beautiful, and exactly as you’d imagine it, but really not worth more than an hour or so. After that, there’s pretty much nothing to do.

I also went to the Tokyo institute of future technology, expecting it to be full of really cool stuff, but it wasn’t much better than a few hours on the Discovery Channel. They did have a fantastic 3D cinema showing the entire universe, however. That alone made the trip to the institute worthwhile.
Tokyo is incredibly densely populated, with over 35 million people living in the urban district, making it the most populous city in the world. At intersections in the centre; when the light changes to green, literally several thousand people cross. It also rains pretty much every day, and as the Japanese tend to be short (I’m 6’1” / 185cm) I spent the time feeling like I was wading through a chest-high sea of umbrellas.
Overall I’m glad I saw Tokyo, but I certainly wouldn’t rush to go back again.