So finally almost 1 month ago I moved to Amsterdam to work in a very cool international event, PICNIC (more on my work in PICNIC on my blog dedicated to Conference Basics), that will take place next September 23 to 25.

The office is in the beautiful area of Jordaan, on the Herengracht canal. I also found a nice apartment near to Vondelpark and it takes me hardly 10 minutes on my beautifully decadent dutch bike to go from home to the office.

I’m loving Amsterdam so far. The city is a mix of a cosy fable town with a strong cosmopolitan attitude, framed by canals and a merchant atmosphere… all in a human scale that makes it easy to live in. The fact that the default transport is the bicycle adds to it’s peculiar mood. The temperature is just right during this summer season, not too warm but enough to wear a T-shirt (I’m not sure if I’d enjoy the city so much during winter but I might not be here anyway as this project lasts till mid-October). Rain is not yet an issue, though a light rain is a comon visitor.

Amsterdam looks like the right background for portrait photography, and I hope I’ll do enough of it in my scarce free time (want to model for me? send me an email!).

During the following weeks I’ll try to compile a short “weekend short” guide to Amsterdam, with the places I experience…  my moleskine and iPhone are crowded with notes from my moves here

I get this question very often, and that is: which guidebooks do I use during my sabbatical in Japan? (I also get a lot of inquiries about the online resources, but I’ll talk about that in a future post).

I have so far used several books, but the main ones are:

• Lonely Planet Japan (ed. October 2007)
  
• Time Out Shortlist Tokyo (ed. October 2007)
  
• Wallpaper* City Guide Tokyo 2008

These guides have different uses and reach. They are far from perfect but if used wisely can be a good source of information. In 2008 it is unthinkable to use just paper books with all the rich contents that are available online. What follows is a comment on the use I’ve made of them, pros and cons and recommendations. If you want to buy any of them on Amazon.com and you do so through the links in this post (see below), Amazon will give me a bonus equal to a small % of your total purchase, which is something nice for buying more stuff 

Lonely Planet Japan (ed. October 2007)

I have mixed feelings about this HUGE guidebook (868 pages, at least 500 grams to carry around). Walking  all day with such a big and heavy item is not a pleasant thing, specially if you’ve already filled up your bag with a heavy digital SLR camera and other goodies.  It has a lot of information on the whole of Japan, but at the same time it has little of everything. The Tokyo and Kyoto chapters are the more complete, but they cannot compete with smaller dedicated guides (also published by Lonely Planet). If you are on a short trip to Japan, say to Tokyo, Kyoto and maybe one or two other small places, DON’T use it. Better get 2 smaller ones and complete them with info you find online. It is good for doing a general research though and in my case, that I’ve been visiting and day-tripping to some less frequented places like Asahikawa and Shirahama and day planning trips during the rest of the year, it has been useful. Most of the times it is better to wright down the interesting spots and then grab a map at the local Tourist Center, which you can usually find at the main train stations. Most “famous” attractions around Japan will give you an English leaflet describing the main features of the place. Some times, to avoid the extra weight, I took digital photos of the pages I was interested and used them for reference during the day. Otherwise I just jotted down on my moleskine what I wanted to see and the authors suggestions and tips.

Pros:

1. Covers the whole country and many less-frequented places
2. Useful information on the main attractions
3. Includes brief essays on the local culture, food, history, literature, etc
4. Good for general research

Cons:

1. Big and heavy
2. Having a lot of information on many places means that you get less content for each one. If you are traveling only to Tokyo and Kyoto you will be using less than 10% of the guide but carrying 100% of the weight
3. Once you have chosen a hotel you don’t need all the other ones listed on the book

Time Out Shortlist Tokyo (ed. October 2007)

This small and practical book (192 pages) has given me many insights of typical places in Tokyo. As any shortlist, it has to sacrifice information to stay small and some people might not like this… but hey, there are bigger guides you can get! It is organized according to the main neighborhoods (Asakusa, Roppongi, Shibuya, Shinjuku, etc) a tourist might visit in, say, 7 to 10 days. Each neighborhood section provides a map of the area which proved particularly often each time I got lost (and in Tokyo it happens often the first time I visit an area). Has some interesting short essays too and the restaurants and bars suggested are mostly ok. Beware though: if you like to live like an insider and not resemble a tourist (difficult task for a European looking guy amongst all the Japanese) or visit those difficult to find small tiny posts that only locals know then…. this won’t be your best travel partner . I used to put it in a pocket and take it out if necessary. A different experience compared to the ever-present Lonely Planet I talked about before.

Pros:

1. Small and user friendly
2. Has basic info about sights and leisure places of the main touristic neighborhoods
3. Includes good neighborhood color maps
4. Practical transport maps, although the subway map needs to be updated as in June 2008 the new Fukutoshin line was added to the 15+ lines that cross Tokyo
5. Includes basic Japanese phrases and other useful tips

Cons:

1. Very touristic (but that is what it was made for)
2. Being small means it leaves out a lot of info
3. Includes just the most famous neighborhoods
4. Some important attractions like the Tsukiji Fish market are not described (and I can imagine why)

Wallpaper* City Guide: Tokyo 2008

This is a different product compared to the other ones. Published by Phaidon and edited by the same people of Wallpaper*, it was created for the design (sometimes luxury) oriented traveler which wants to have a handful of well researched and useful recommendations for a short visit (from one to a few days), specially for people on a business trip that leaves little time for massive sightseeing. It has a discrete design that does not cry “tourist guide!” and is small enough to carry in your pocket (128 pages). It is not a replacement of the above mentioned guides if you want to know everything about the city (specially in the case of a humongous metropolis like Tokyo), but is a good complement. It has a relatively fast obsolescence as the trendy spots of 2008 might not be the same in 2009, but I think that is ok for what it aims. It costs almost as one issue of the Wallpaper* Magazine, even less that a single issue of Monocle (my fav print mag with lots of interesting travel info and more). An overall refreshing approach to a product that has remained the same for decades… and btw it has superb photography and print quality!

Conclusion: all have their strong points and flaws and if I had to go back in time I would get them all again (actually the Wallpaper one was lended to me by my friend Tunde) but I would leave the Lonely Planet one at home (in Japan) and carry around my self made guide only (more on this soon!).

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.

It has been long since I last had a good airport experience, apart from the shiatsu massage (I paid for) in JFK last January.

Airports in western countries have become hostile territory for travelers. I can understand strict rules and thorough controls due to a tense international situation (although I think they wouldn’t be too useful in preventing an “intelligent” terrorist attack) but impoliteness, lack of courtesy and even some abuses are not justified by this!

My worst experiences have been in several US airports…

Japan has been telling me a different story so far: Arrive to Narita International Airport and you’ll be received with a smile and a warm “welcome!”. What about Haneda, Tokyo’s main international airport until Narita opened in 1978 and now dedicated mostly to domestic flights, charters and routes to China, handling about 60 million passengers per year?

I had bought my ticket online (actually the transaction was concluded on the phone as I couldn’t fully understand the payment instructions… in Japanese!) from Tokyo Haneda to Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport (JAL 533). I had a numeric code that had to be used on the automatic check-in machines and well… these had only Lapanese language menus (which is strange here). After randomly playing with the touchscreen for a while, I asked for help to a JAL (Japan Air Lines) employee that was passing by (the word “sumimasen“, meaning “excuse me” can work miracles in Japan). She smiled and I inquired in my rudimentary Japanese if the machine had an English language option. The answer was negative and she got interested about my needs (always in Japanese). I said: “I have a reception number” while showing her the code on my phone. She graciously dialed on the screen and my boarding pass and receipt were printed in a few seconds. I then asked what should I do with my luggage and was sent to counter number 72, which I missed by taking the wrong way. A security guy gently indicated me the right place, always with a smile.

Check-in was fast, no dangerous substances packed. Then came security, where they invited me to the control area and, always with extreme courtesy, made me take my laptop out of the backpack and deposit it on the x-ray belt. Zooooom through the metal detector and my stuff was given back… actually I was thanked by the security officer for having controlled my things.

6 people were involved in all my check-in/security experience. They spoke almost no English, nor did the machine. All of them smiled at me and treated me like a human being and thanked me for being at their service… It seems to be it was quite the opposite!!

No English, a lot of smiles and courtesy. Fast, good, by humans to humans. Oh, btw I was flying economic class.

When was the last time you were treated like this in an airport?

Another lovely shocking experience? I was waiting to embark in my flight while another one landed. All passengers came out and then did the captain and his crew. At least 7 kids with their parents were waiting for him to take some photos. He posed with each of them, even offered his hat to the kids, and after the pic he have them a card, I guess it was his business card or something like it. I would also call this “from humans to humans” and a great fidelity marketing campaign!

…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 ^_^

– — – –
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…

a great idea, with huge potential for hard-core travellers as myself (in particular now that I’m on a travel sabbatical)… hope to see it arround the world soon and with lots of other features!

Official site (in private beta): Offbeat Guides
I found this through Joi Ito’s blog

some of the suggestions (actually want-to-see features) I left on their blog

- While I think that simplicity is one of the key points, for hard travellers it could be useful to add some other optional questions to taylor the guide more to their interests. eg: you like martial arts? go to this school to practice your Aikido. You like photography? check out these exhibitions. Are you vegan? these are the right places….

- Some other cool features could be adding a “blank” area where the user can paste some stuff found online related to the trip and then have it printed (I know, copyright sensitive). But it would be pretty helpful…

- Similar to the above, scan my address book (gmail, facebook, whatever) and list the contacts that live in that city with their phone/address, etc

- Photos: add some CC or something like this photos of keypoints from the places I’ll be visiting (schmap guides makes something like this)