A little over two weeks we have been in Japan and what a crazy manic time we have had. Since being here I have had a few ideas that I thought I would share with you, my dear readers, about Japan.
1. Why Japanese are so fit and healthy
Australia, as we know, is the second most obese country in the world, following only the great US, a perfect role model for our. Japan on the other hand, apart from the few Sumos here and there, is far from the top of the list. There have been many speculations as to why this is the case. Some people say it's due to the fact that Japan is the largest consumer of Fish in the world, others say it's because of the lack of Junk food they have (although Mr Donut is spreading throughout Japan like a crazy), others believe that there is a stronger emphasis on exercise and physical wellbeing. All of these suggestions have a small amount of merit, but ultimately that are all wrong. The one and only reason that Japanese people are slimmer then their western counterparts it due solely to the use of the Japanese Metro system. The Metro, or as I prefer to call it The Burning Hell Whole, is a complexes labyrinth of stairs, long walkways, money eating machines and sardine crammed carriages and a million exits.
The first thing that is to be noted, is the extra ordinarily abundance on stairs, not just a few steps, but gigantic stairwells leading to hell, comparable only to the stairs leading to a great Buddhist temple perched somewhere at the top of the Himalayas. You can fell it getting hotter, the further you go down. Of course there are escalators at almost every exit, but these are inevitable travelling in the opposite direction. And there are even cases of completely unnecessary use of stairs. For example, when getting off the train to go to work at Temeki Sanno, as I do every morning, I need to walk up the first flight of stairs, onto the platform above me, walk across that platform, go down a flight of stairs to the ticket gate, up another flight of stairs to return to the same height as I was a moment ago before having to go up another flight of stairs to reach street level, and catch an elevator down two floors to go to work. Are you starting to see a slimmer person?
The second thing to be noted is that if a station is a transit station, that doesn't always mean swapping from platform one to platform two. It usually involves a long walk, usually of about 500m (and up to 800m in some instances) to reach the other side of the station. This walk will inevitably involve some amount of stairs thought the labyrinth of passageways and corridors.
The only way to get onto a train, if you make it this far, is shier brute force. They have 10 carriages compared to our measly 6 and trains come on an average of about 2min apart, yet every train is packed in like sardines. The only way to get onto a train is turn backwards, place one hand inside the carriage door and use that as a leaver to push yourself and everybody behind you backwards so you can get in far enough so the door won't close on anything valuable. When inside, the concentration of people is so high the body heat acts as a sauna and you sweat out most of your body weight,
Then there is the ticket gate. It's always a good thing if you manage to get through the gates most days. Tickets are only valid from the station of issue at the time of issue and are valid for single use only. So when I intended to purchase four tickets in the morning, one to go to work, one to return and two for the following day's journey, I ended up with one working tickets, and three lumps of very expensive rubbish. When changing trains, sometimes the tickets work and others, don't. You see the Tokyo Metro is run by a number of different operators, most of which don't really like each other and involve purchasing a completely new ticket for their line, even if the ticket you bought gets you to the station, it's not via this line, it's via the other line, two stops back and a 500m walk away. So either you can buy a new ticket for the new line or waist half your day getting back to the station you were meant to change at and ultimately end up using you ticket to get back there, waiting your ticket and ultimately having to fork out money again. Then there is of course the rapid trains that whoosh past your station forcing you to buy a new ticket back. Or the transfer station where you leave the gate to get to the other platform, and the machine eats your ticket, because, unknown to you there was a way of getting to that platform without having to go outside the gate. And of course a plethora of other ticket consuming activities.
And lastly, the exits. Unless someone tells you specifically where you should go, you are screwed. We were going to meet someone at Starbucks in Ikeburuko a few days ago. “Simply go out the East Exit, turn right and in about 300m the Starbucks in on your right”. Sound east? We got off at Ikeburuko and there was a sign that said, EAST. We walked in it's direction. At the east side of the station there were over 20 exits (60 exits in the whole station) and had no idea which way to turn. We thought it's okay, just look at the map, there must be a road at the east exit that we can turn right at. There were not only one main road, but three and of these, there were exits at every corner and possible direction so that the term “right” had no meaning to us. Right at one exit, was left at another. Scrambling to find our way out of the stair filled nightmare we saw a Starbucks inside the station, sanctuary at last, only we hadn't walked 300m. “Is there another Starbucks near here?” we said “Yes, there are 4 in Ikeburuku”. Now running out of time we ran through every exit, scanning all of the streets to see if we could see a Starbucks 300m away anywhere. Finally, after 1/2 h of running and panting, we finally realised the flaw in our instructions, the East Exit of the Overground JR line, not the Tokyo Underground.
All in all, a normal day on the Metro will have you going up and down more stars that you though possible, walking about half way to your original destination at transfer stations and scrambling at all entrances and exits trying to find out where the bloody hell you are. Tired, exhausted and dehydrated because of the sauna of a carriage you are finally where you want to be. A nice cold, refreshing drink at this point in time would be beautiful, and thanks to the complete abundance of them in Japan, relatively cheap too, only ¥110 for a 500ml can of coke, you walk over to the closest one. Mouth watering, you decide between ice tea or Coke, and then plunge your hand into your pocket, only to revile ¥7. You had ¥1000 when you left, but somehow the ticket machines seamed to gobble it all up.
Tired, exhausted, dehydrated and unable to replenish your energy, this my dear friend is how the Metro is keeping Japanese a fit country,
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