Week 5
Each week that I am here I keep finding new differences between Canada and Japan. The thing is that as I understand more about Japan, the differences have to be more subtle else I would have noticed them earlier. One example came to me when I bought some gum and found a little post-it notepad inside. I was confused at first but a coworker explained that each page of the notepad was used to go around the gum so the gum wouldn't stick to anything when thrown out. I found this simple and ingenious plus I got some handy post-it notes between gum chewing.
Another subtle difference is in supermarkets. When I go to a supermarket, if I have a lot of items when I am checking out, I feel very awkward if the cashier doesn't put my groceries into a bag because I then have all of this crap that isn't in bags and there are people behind me waiting for me to quickly get out of the way and I don't get that cool bagging contraption that the cashiers have. Now don't get me wrong, I can put a thing in a bag but I don't want it to be a race against social anxiety cause thats not what Tetris is about. Japan's answer to this is maybe the best of both worlds: to have a bag table after the cashier where one can bag their groceries at their own pace.
Anyway, usually on Saturdays I have at least an idea about a plan of what to do but that wasn't the case this time. Since I was inside until 1pm on a really nice day I forced myself outside and walked down the street. On a whim, I went to Tokyo station with the vague plan in mind to go see anything with a name that I recognized because that'd make it tourist friendly. I got off at Tokyo station and saw a map pointing to the Imperial Palace. Committed to this obvious tourist destination, I walked in the underground tunnels towards the palace. Along the way I found a large photo gallery of famous places around the world, which was nice to look at as I meandered down the tunnels.
Exiting the tunnel, I was met with a large pool of water, a large field of trees , and a building with suspecting architecture, indicating that I was at the palace.
At first I didn't even see the guard in the building. He looked very uncomfortable. Probably because it was +26 out and he was in all black with 2 layers.
There was no shade in the area and I was getting pretty thirsty so I started leaving when I saw a large group of people gathered at the far side of the palace. It turned out to be a marathon where runners would run 5 laps around the palace which is (5x 5.3 km) 26.5 km. Apparently, its really popular to job around the palace because it is one of Tokyo's few running places that doesn't interfere with traffic. In fact there are multiple shower locations around the palace to give the many runners a place to wash after a run. I'll definitely have to try this in the future.
I also saw this statue of some dude on a horse but I didn't know who he was because I couldn't understand the guide of the Romanian tour group that I happened to awkwardly join.
I then left the palace and the Romanian tour group and headed in some random direction which happened to be south. To the south was Hibiya park which, although not as large as the palace, had more to offer in terms of shade, turtles, and beer festivals.
Beer and food from the UK, Germany, France, Ireland, and many others was being showcased. It smelled great and everyone was having a good time or most people were as some people had had a good time about an hour ago and were now regretting having too much of a good time as they slept it off at a table.
I was about as surprised as this guy.
Needless to say, my "on a whim" expedition was pretty fruitful and gave me a new place to go jogging. It just goes to show that although its good to go out with a plan, if you don't have one to begin with, you can't be delayed, rushed, or detoured and there is a chance that you can find photo galleries, turtles, and beer festivals.