Why Travel

Finding Our Way in Tokyo

People, and most guidebooks, warned that Tokyo is hard to find addresses in, and left it at that.  Luckily, Time Out Tokyo (which I highly recommend) actually went on to explain that there is a system, and how it actually works.  Locations have addresses, even written out in Roman letters and numbers, but they don't look like--or mean like--a New York street address.  First there is a named neighborhood.  This is like a Borough in London, geographically.  I don't know what if any significance it has politically.  But perhaps geographically and culturally more distinct, like a town within the metropolis.  Then there is the Chome, which is like a sub-neighborhood, or a Parish within some Boston neighborhoods.  Then there is a Block Number, I don't know how block numbers are ordered or assigned.  And within the Block there are building numbers, assigned by order of construction (not in a sequence along the street or anything like that). 

So knowing this, here is how you find your way: you take the subway to the stop indicated ahead of time, you head for the correct exit number indicated ahead of time, and before you exit to the street you find a Local Area Map.  You look for the name of the establishment, shrine or museum on there, or failing that the appropriate block number, and then head for that when you get above ground.  Another key piece of information: maps in Japan are oriented the way you are actually physically facing, not to North like in America.  This bit will be hard to adjust back from, because it makes a lot more sense or is more useful.  Once up on the street you keep your eyes peeled for an even more local Area Map, which will be much more detailed, with shapes of building footprints and building numbers.  Find the block and building numbers you are looking for, and remeber nearby ones to use as landmarks.  When given an address or directions in Tokyo, there is also some attention to big cross streets, which is nice because local Area Maps are usually located there.  I have heard that Taxis have trouble finding things, but that makes sense because the system is geered to subway and pedestrians.  I would love to learn when or how this system was developed, but for now I remain in awe.  I have been to other Asian countries and always been told only locals can find things, just ask or take a taxi.  But now I'm curious.

    This is an interesting time to explore, because it looks like soon, or already (as Al Gore said about photovoltaic cells in his new book, "in the next half year"), all of the maps will be electronic, taxis will have guidance systems and the google directions on everyones iphone will work seemlessly.  It is already there on google maps, but looked complicated in the current iteration, and expensive to use on roam.  In Tokyo Hipster places actually give out google coordinates.

    This sort of system falls into the category of "wayfinding" and I have enough Geography geek friends who will probably enjoy it that I'll write about the intersection of wayfinding and technology again soon.

The Many Deaths of Print Media

With such a pile after traveling for three weeks, and getting some additional subscriptions for Christmas gifts, I was contemplating canceling all of our subscriptions.  So I started reading through the magazines to see what I would miss and discovered something interesting: they were contemplating canceling me too, or at least the physical print version I was tripping over.

As one of the chumps who actually *paid* for TimesSelect when the New York Times flirted with charging for online content, I never understood why they canceled instead of expanding that experiment.  But they did, and now all of (print) publishing is supposedly on the brink.  The free online content, supported by advertising is going into the red thanks to plunging ad revenues, thanks to the recession.  Another "problem" is that all English language publications online are now competing, so that the UK Guardian newspaper is now a major news source in the US.

What if we no longer what all the crap that is advertised?  Not just at the moment, but what if our appetite for consumer crap stays way down?  Aparently we couldn't afford it all along, and our appetite could reset at a much lower level.

But what we do seem to want is content: news, analysis, creative words, music, comedy, UTube, Hulu, blogs of all kinds. 

So the new idea is e-readers like the Kindle, which the New York Times is rumored to possibly offer for free with annual subscriptions, or micropayments charging for each article or click. 

How do they work this problem in smaller, more technically advanced places, like Finland? Or Japan?

Telectroscope

I first heard about this "giant telescope" that is connecting the waterfront in Brooklyn, NY and London, UK http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/arts/design/21tele.html on NPR last week, unfortunately I didn't think of going to see it while in New York last weekend, I forgot it was there for such a short time. On NPR they remarked that in the age of email, cell phones, and web 2.0 it is fascinating that people will line up to wave at strangers and friends far away via a fictional (though actualized) device, and write messages to them on whiteboards (since there is no sound).  This is a new form of travel, and a new form of imagination (taking an idea from a work of fiction, and making it appear in real life).

Another material world/e-world hybrid that I was able to participate in (without leaving my couch), was to order "mini cards" from a website called moo.com to promote this blog.  For $20 I ordered 100 cards with a variety of photos from my trip on one side, cropped in interesting ways, and this blogs address on the other.  So far they're a big hit.  Why are people ordering little pieces of paper over the internet to promote a website? 

Trains

For Earth Day, I will blog about trains. Trains are obviously better than planes for the environment and, they are in themselves a reason to travel. In India I took several overnight trains some short (cutting the night short at 4am) others longer (22 hours) and I found them so much better than American trains. I usually traveled in "3 AC" which means 3 Tier Air Conditioned. There are many sets sets of three bunks per train car, not divided into compartments, the middle one folds up during the day allowing the bottom bunks to function as seats, and sheets, blankets and pillows are provided. Some travelers I met were traveling in Sleeper Class, which is the same physical set up, but you need to bring your own sleeping bag and pillow or bedding. America doesn't have any class like this, either in relative cost, or set up. If you want to lay down, you have to be in a compartment, and you have to pay a lot for that. Otherwise you have to sit up! In a large country, like the USA, or India, letting people bunk down for the night makes sense. But rebuilding America's train system will presumably be one of the last items we get to when we finally wake up at the last minute (which may already have arrived) and try to adapt our economy to a lower carbon and lower energy global situation.

Trains in India were one of my reasons for going all that way. I also wanted to ride the Toy Train in Darjeeling. I am a huge fan of tea, English style, and among the many who feel that Darjeeling tea is the best. It was a no brainer that I would go to Darjeeling and, get there by train on the Darjeeling Mail. When I read about the Toy Train up to Darjeeling from its terminus, it sounded amazing. However, everything I read recomended skipping that 7 hour journey and just taking a shared jeep up, then taking the joyride with the real steam engine version to an even higher point the next day. This would have been the best option, if the Toy Train, and then the whole day a few days later, hadn't gone on strike as soon as we arrived. We could have taken the train up, but we didn't know that would be the last train for a long time.

Darjeeling was also extra cold, and nothing is heading. The hotels are famous for giving you a hot water bottle at bedtime, even the two most expensive and most glamorous hotels (Wyndamere and Elgin). And you really need it for heat. My friend and I elected to stay in one of the cheapest places we found, because it instead had a very rustic feel and a woodstove in the room. It was probably so cheap because they made extra money selling you firewood, which was fine with us.

We did rise before sunrise and take a shared jeep to Tiger Hill despite the town being fogged in all the time, and the fog did clear just in time for the sun to rise and everyone to get a glimpse of all the peaks. This was the most well organized sunrise (or sunset) experience I've ever participated in, there were tickets, and a pavilion with different levels at different prices to watch from. We went for the cheapest option that had an indoor waiting area and it also came with chai.

Tea at Wyndamere was disappointing, "high tea" was just tea with cookies and cost as much as my hotel room. Tea at Elgin was great, only 50 rupees for better tea, cookies and cake. Plus, they didn't look down their noses at us, and offered for us to proceed to the bar after tea. Pink Gin was interesting, but I much preferred regular Gin and Tonics.

It was hard to tell what was closed because of a student festival and what was closed due to the strike. But by the time we left, the strike was pervasive. We took a private jeep taxi down to the Darjeeling Mail to make a stop at a tea plantation along the way, and when we arrived at the station several hours early, the train was already delayed and the rumor was canceled. However, it actually departed only a few hours late. This was only a problem for us, because of a mixup with an airline, we had flights to Mumbai leaving a little to early for our new ETA. We happened to share a set of bunks on the train with some officials for the local state government who knew all about the strikes, and informed us that if we hadn't taken a jeep down that morning we would have been stuck in Darjeeling.

They also turned out to be very helpful in guiding us where to get off the train when it stopped not at a station, and follow the locals along the tracks for a few meters to a suburb that was closer to the airport. We found a taxi, and I offered extra money to take us to the airport more quickly. This really seemed to work, since he drove all the way there down back alleys where there were no other cars. And then something happened that really scared me. The driver suddenly put on his seat belt. I was worried he was going to make a crazy maneuver to get us across a highway or something. But, it turned out he was just preparing to talk to the police officer at the edge of the highway, probably to explain why he was entering from an illegal location. (I don't speak Hindi but it was probably something like, these crazy foreigners got down from the train at wherever it was, and they will miss their flight otherwise!)

Within seconds we were at the airport, and recieving a text that our flight was delayed.