Hi there!

I’m sorry I haven’t updated this blog very often lately, but I have been traveling a lot during the 3 last weeks… meeting old friends, new people, eating (a lot!!!) and finishing the final project work for my MBA. I have 10 at least 10 drafts that are waiting for completion… should hit the net soon.

This is the most relaxing place I’ve been to lately. Good food and wine, gorgeous scenery and above all, in great company.

Riomaggiore, part of the Cinque Terre in Liguria, Italy

I was about to publish a serious post on Hiroshima’s A-bomb dome and have a draft guide on Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish market since the beginning of the month, but tonight’s dinner has changed my mood for good so I’ll post about it.

I arrived to Hiroshima today, after a short Shinkansen trip from Osaka. It was raining, as it has been mostly for the last 10 days. I’ve been walking around the city and then checked-in at the hotel and rested a bit. When hunger was taking control of my body I decided it was time for a bite of good, typical, Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki. I trusted my choice on Get Hiroshima and it suggested I should visit AUX Dining (“stylish okonomi and teppan-yaki shop with a great bar selection“), just across the street.

The place was small and had a relaxed atmosphere tainted with reggae. The owner/chef, Jun Kumamoto, speaks English and recommended me to take the “mix” okonomiyaki with soba (it had squid, pork, different mushrooms, chopped cabbage, shrimp, soba noodles plus the typical okonomiyaki ingredients). Beer was just a perfect companion, though I’m on antibiotics and should have avoided it. Kumamoto-san is a music lover and worldwide traveler. He explained the name of the restaurant, AUX, like this:

“it is like in audio/music equipment. Yoy have an AUXiliary input jack to which anything can be plugged, and I transform it and deliver it to you my way”

So great ingredients get in and out comes a tasty okonomiyaki!

After dinner I went to the park for a stroll. The Hon-Dori covered arcade was sparkling with life and I came across two absolutely fantastic street musicians that I had previously encountered under a bridge near to the park. She had a moving velvet voice and his guitar playing was accurate and sweet. Pity they were not selling any record and that I don’t know their names… (fool of me, I didn’t ask!).

The A-Bomb Dome (more on this soon)

check out my flickr page for more pics on Hiroshima.

I had to come to Japan to be immersed completely in the Muji experience, one of my lovemarks. Muji is already a well known global brand and  the typical anecdote is that it’s name comes from “Mujirushi Ryōhin” (無印良品) meaning “No Brand Quality Goods” (check out the Wikipedia article).

From their website: “The Company’s basic principle is to develop new simple products at reasonable prices by making the best use of materials while considering environmental issues.”

So today I was in Osaka, near Namba station, and needed some envelopes for sending a bunch of self-made postcards. I love Muji’s stationery and while walking back home I ran into a big store. Back in Milan we had  at the most two (small) storied shops with a limited selection of products and here I was in front of four huge  stories with all of them. I was tempted to buy more notebooks and pens and other useful travel accessories but I managed to limit myself to the essential.

What positively surprised me was the basement, dedicated to food. There was a relatively big self-service restaurant and shelves with a lot of healthy and curious products, always faithful to the “no brand” policy. Of course I did touch almost everything there but I couldn’t believe it when I found Muji Wine in single glass servings (see pics).

I guess that the quality of this wine is good too! I was tempted to try it but I’m on antibiotics so no alcohol for some time, and in a few days I have to catch a shinkansen to Hiroshima, so it was not practical to carry a glass with me.

Further reading: Kevin Roberts on Muji being a Lovemark.

Japanese Kombinis, from the english “convenience store”, are small everything-you-might-ever-ever-need shops spread all around Japan (more than 40.000 according to Japan Guide) and usually open 24hs. There are many of them, 7 eleven, AM/PM, Sunkus, Family Mart, Heart-in, Lawson (my fav) and often you find several in the same block. I read somewhere (can’t find the source, sorry) that they are a very important player in Japanese retailing with a strong negotiation power against producers.

Inside you’ll find any kind of things that you might need (and I mean it), from food to hygiene products, from emergency clothes to toys. An example of the things you can buy there:

• tooth brush and toothpaste
• disposable underwear (made of paper cloth)
• drinks of any kind (cold & hot)
• potato chips, sweets, chocolates
• soups, sushi, sandwiches and other food (healthy too)
• copier and fax machine
• ATM
• ice creams
• pencils, ball pens and stationary
• insecticides
• washing soap and detergent
• car parts
• magazines and newspapers

As any good retailer knows, unless you’re selling online like Amazon where Long Tail dynamics tend to apply, shelf space is very important. If two competing products have the same category of space available (considering also the product accessibility, visibility, etc) then the battle switches to other fronts like the price or brand. If these are even, then you go to the “attraction” power of packaging. And here is where the real war is taking place in Japan. Packaging is striking: flashy, dynamic, exuberant, or just plain crazy. Even international brands adapt to match its shelf competitors. Products must shout “look at me, grab me, it’s me that you want!”.

So the story goes that this morning I went to a Kombini to buy something for breakfast (iced coffee, chocolate cookies…) and while moving to the cashier my sight was caught… actually captured, judged and imprisoned, by this pack of… err… at the time I only new it was near to the potato chips.

If you’re a psychologist you must be thinking I have a weird personality for taking it. I was curious to see what kind of product could have such a disturbing image: a naked baby cyclops with a typical Japanese cook headband.

How healthy can this be?

Well, more than 12 hours have passed and I’m still alive. They seemed to be some kind of corn balls or “chizitos” (argentinians will understand).

These are other products I bought once I needed something sweet.

More info on Japan’s Kombinis. Kombini Life shows pictures and stories about food found in this places.

Two weeks ago I was (photo)walking around Aoyama, Tokyo, when I encountered a strange pile of garbage on the sidewalk. It was probably a Mac Performa’s box that first called my attention (I later found that the box was not empty!) and as I rapidly glanced through the stuff I saw some odd things for a garbage mound. First of all, there was no “waste” but used things that someone had decided to dispose of. With my curiosity on alert, these were the first identified items: a motorbike helmet, a desktop fan, a workout machine, old coins, several music CD’s, a digicam’s manual, a vertical stapler… and a couple of photographs. Everything was very clean and had been ordered with caution, not just disposed of. This seemed a very Japanese attitude.

I’m a fan of everything photographic, so the pics automatically drew my attention. Amongst them, I decided to keep this one of a mysterious woman (to me) and started fantasizing about who she was, what happened to her, to the one that took the photo and why was this print thrown away. An old lover? The nostalgia barrier broken by the practical view that in the end one had to get rid off all the superfluous and become lighter? (a point of view I might know something about due to my nomadic present).

Here she is:

I often read Rob Brezny’s horoscope in L’Internazionale, a great italian magazine covering the most important news and articles from media of all the world.

Each Friday, L’Internazionale publishes Rob’s horoscope for each sign of the zodiac plus the “task of the week” for all. This is the one for this week:

Compiti per tutti: “Trova un modo non per tornare nel posto a cui appartenevi, ma per raggiungere quello a cui un giorno apparterrai”.

my translation: “find a way not to go back to the place you belonged but to reach that one to which one day you will belong to”

I find it more than appropriate for this sabbatical time of mine, thanks Rob!

Don’t expect some serious philosophical or sociological analysis here! This is just a brief report of the first impressions I have after being for a bit more than two weeks in Tokyo and a similar time spent in Shanghai some years ago. I know that chinese and japanese cultures and societies are very different. I just wanted to post some interesting points of contact and difference between both cities. For short, in the text I will use T for Tokyo and S for Shanghai.

Points of contact:

• Both are the most international cities of the country, home of the strongest stock exchange and usual business destination.
• The international airports (Narita for T and Pudong for S) look the same, with good signage in english and clean broad spaces.
• Starbucks coffee shops are present all over the city and products & quality are mostly the same you find everywhere. It’s always a point of reference if you’re a bit disoriented. Actually, during my last trip to NY I confirmed that the quality of Starbucks in the US is falling rapidly while in other places I’ve visited (Madrid, Berlin, Edimburgh, Lausanne, Shanghai, Tokyo, etc) quality of products and service is definitely higher.
• You see very few westerners and they are concentrated in particular neighborhoods or venues (Roppongi area in T, the Bund in S).
• You can lunch and dine for little money (if you want). Eating is not necessarily expensive (of course you have very high class and money sucker places in both).
• Either in T or S english is not widely (and well) spoken, except for touristic places and some hotels… and even in this cases the kind of english they use is not what you’d call “received pronunciation“.
• Both cities are huge and full of people!

But the real motivation to this post were the main differences I’ve experienced between T and S.

Shanghai, Nanjing Lu area

Differences:

• Well, first of all Tokyo is Japan’s capital city while Shanghai is not China’s.
• Shibuya area (T) vs Nanjing lu area (S): both are very touristic. Shibuya is chaotic and crowded but at the same time ordered. Cars do not honk endlessly and there’s no “selling harassment” to tourists/westerners. In S there were hordes (er.. ok, let’s say many) street-vendors that jumped on you to sell fake stuff (I remember they starting with “shoes, watches, dvd” and after some time “…massage? ah… sexy massage!” while they grabbed my arm and tried to pull me into some place of dubious aspect). In T they don’t care, ignore or just aren’t aware of your presence. Nobody notices you until you ask for directions or something. In this situation japanese citizens are very polite and try to help by indicating the way or even walking you somewhere near your destination. In S people talked to me very often, asking in english “Hello, where are you from?”. In many occassions they just wanted to practice their english. In others it was just the begining of a selling scam: first we talk and then you offer me a drink or buy some of my *fake* artwork.
• In T cars don’t try to kill pedestrians as they cross the street. Bicycles are not so present as in S and they behave “well”. In S the first threat while crossing the street were cars and buses. After that, bikes!
• In T women take a lot of care of their image. Clothes, style, makeup, shoes and the combination of them all are very important. This is probably the reflection of a strong middle class and many years of consumistic/capitalist lifestyle. Japanese women are very pretty and probably this is enhanced by how they dress up. I didn’t have such a positive image in S (except in places full of expats).
• Shanghai’s metro is ok, seemed efficient and was easy to navigate. Tokyo’s metro is spectacular with more than 15 lines and a highly efficient, clean and ordered service. The only con is that the service ends shortly after midnight, making this a “cinderella” city… at midnight you have to rush to catch the last train or pay for an (expensive) taxi. The other alternative is to party until 5am so as to then catch the first train back home.
• In T almost everybody has an iPod! In the subway they are all kind of alienated, listening to their music players (many with HUGE headphones), playing with a Sony PSP or Nintendo DS and messaging on the mobile phone. Each person is immersed in his own universe, eons away from the other passengers.

Tokyo, Shibuya area

…nothing so far from reality!

I cannot claim to be an expert already in Tokyo’s metro, as I’ve been here for just a couple of days. But I remember some comments about how difficult it was to use. Maybe because I have used metro subways in more than a dozen countries (including Shanghai, Beijing, New York, Warsaw, Buenos Aires, Madrid, London, Lisbon, Milan, Rome), some things that could be a novelty are usual now.

First of all, the metro map (see below) can seem intimidating. Tokyo has more than 12 subway lines and if you come from a city like Milan, with a mere 3, you might feel a bit lost. But if you been to London or Madrid it won’t seem such an adventure.

Make sure you find a map in English or your own language here (at the moment in english, spanish, french, german, russian, corean, simplified and traditional chinese).

Each route is identified with a color and a letter and stations have a progressive number inside the line they belong to. For example Asakusa station is served by two lines, Asakusa line and Ginza line, being station number 18 (A18) in the former and 19 (G19) in the latter.

In all lines I used during the past few days I found that the station’s name is written in Japanese and English, and the numbers and colors are pretty visible. The numbers are helpful when you need to decide which direction you should take. Be sure to know the number of the destination and then check on what side of the tracks you should stand. You’ll see that, if you’re in Asakusa station on the Asakusa line (A18), one side will show it goes from A01 to A17 and the other one from A19 to A20.

Connecting lines are well indicated too with clear signage describing line name (name, letter, color), direction and average distance.

A novelty, at least for me, is that Tokyo subway lines are managed by different operators (I counted 3) and each have their own fares, separate ticketing and an “interchange” or “connection” charge when you combine lines from two different ones. What tourist guides suggest is to buy the cheapest ticket and then adjust the fare before getting out in the “fare adjustment” machines. You just put in the ticket and it tells you how much you owe. There is no penalty for doing this.

In order to save time and headaches I simplified my life by getting the magnetic PASMO card (another version is the SUICA card). Fill it up with money (don’t worry about losing it, you can have it reissued if you’ve registered it under your name) and just hold it against the cart reader at the ticket gate. The fare adjustment is done automatically when you change lines at the end of your trip (as paper tickets, you have to use it when you get in AND when you get out of the metro). You can even use the PASMO card in selected stores and vending machines (look for the PASMO logo).

The average cost of an average single ride is much cheaper than in London, being 160 yen which at today’s exchange rate is less than 1 euro.

Recently, “only women” carts have been implemented during rush hours.

Hope this post is useful to dissolve your fear in the Japanese subway ^_^

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More photos of Tokyo’s subway

This should be no surprise as we are in the rainy season. Tons of water have been poured in little time. I got soaked while wandering around Shibuya. People didn’t seem to care about the rain, I guess I’ll get used to it soon. As zen monks say: It’s raining. How wonderful!

Check out some other pics from my stroll through Tokyo here.

… sayonara Milan!

It was not easy though. First of all I had to leave my apartment. For this I decided to sell, throw and give away a lot of stuff and store the remaining things in a 3 m2 deposit.

The rest was rather simpler to program. An open ticket to Japan and a 2 night reservation in Tokyo hotel.

Flying from Milan’s Linate airport to Heathrow T5 turned out rather complicated. First of all, due to a failure on the air conditioning and a further failure on some unidentified system, the plane did not take off and we were kept closed inside for more than an hour (temperature quickly rose above 33 °C!). After getting down from the plane so that it could be serviced, we finally re-boarded and departed with a 3 hour delay. This made me lose my connection flight.

I really can’t blame British Airways as this kind of things happen from time to time. What I do miss is that I didn’t have the opportunity to appropriately visit the new Heathrow Terminal 5, which I was curious to explore after all the fanfare about it on the media. BA people quickly and effectively booked me on an ANA flight 4 hours later but from T3, a much less exciting place. I got no seat upgrade, which I would have appreciated and would have guaranteed my future faithfulness to BA (there were plenty of free seats in business and first class). The failure of the air conditioning system and the excessive heat that built up inside the cabin made that the flight’s catering resources got spoiled, so we had nothing to chew. Once at Heathrow I did EAT.

The ANA flight was ok, not too crowded and with good service (hungarian goulash for dinner and two movies to make the 11 hour trip lighter: Vantage Point and Jumper).

Once arrived at Narita Airport, the whole passport & customs experience was no frills. I also managed to change some Euro to Yen and then take a Limousine bus (don’t let the name trick you, it’s just a normal shuttle service) to the Hyatt in Roppongi, from where I took a taxi to my final destination: the b Akasaka hotel. BTW: this is not an expensive hotel, specially if you book and pay online. It also has a SPA that I might try before leaving for a more practical lodging for a several week stay. I forgot to rent a cell phone, and it seems I won’t find a shop for that in the city.

So the adventure begins…