Hai!

Hai just means yes, but its how you get energetically greeted, said quickly and with emphasis. We had our first Hai as we bought our Tokyo Free tickets for roaming the metro and urban rail system. Its looks fearsomely complex but with great signage, colour coding of lines, numbering of stations and announcements in English on the train we have only made some minor errors.

Its the small things you notice (Tess will no doubt report on some of the fashion) but most of what we hear about Japan may be fairly accurate, its a well ordered, efficient and extremely polite society. Yes, everyone under our age enters the metro with their flip open mobiles and earphones firmly in place, there is a signal everwhere underground evidently, only the elderly are excused mobiles in constant use.

Getting back from our evening out in Shinjuku last night the metro was still crowded at 9.30pm with returning (mostly male) commuters and the very distinct smell of alchohol showed that most of them had been attending those urgent evening business meetings!

But its the politeness I love. Waiting for a metro I noticed the stationman, smartly dressed in cap and uniform and white gloves come to attention and bow to the approaching train. I could not see how the driver responded, I hope with just a nod. And as we explored the suburb where Junku and her husband Morimichi live with two year old Michiru we came across some pavement works which necesitated using a coned off section of the road. At one end a smartly dressed flag man flagged us to wait for a cyclist to come through before waving us on. Half way along a further smartly dressed man in hard hat bowed us through. Now when was the last time you were made to feel like royalty at some road works?

And I have yet to tell you about the wonders of electronic Japanese toilets and large screen HD television! Hai!

Brian

Yes Japan seems, quiet, blessedly cool. We had a lovely day yesterday, breakfast with Junko and Michiru and then after they had gone off to work and nursery we set off to the centre of Tokyo, first to get our Japan rail pass activated and book our train tickets and then to look at the Imeperial Palace and on to the National Museum.

The Imperial Palace is in the finacial district and we had a coffee at a very smart cafe (at the sort of price that made you feel you ought to be working for a merchant bank) and watched smartly dressed workers having their lunch. Women wear high heels, tights, very neat skirts in dark colours some sraight some quite full and a bit flirty, a neat blouse and a little fitted jacket or a fitted cardigan, all the young women carry nice bag some of which are quite colourful and the smartly suited men carry briefcases.

The museum is set in a large park, in an area a bit like the south bank with several museums, an art gallery, concert hall and the Tokyo Zoo. We had a curiously insubsantial sandwich at the cafe of the concert hall and watched loads of Tokyo OAPs out for a cultural day and also having sandwiches and tea. The typical Japanese elder is really quite tiny and fantasticly neatly dressed, no Nora Batty stockings for them! Many wear hats (men and women), the women can be in trousers, skirts or traditional Kimono ( we saw several kimono wearers) but they all wear very sensible shoes and walk briskly in pairs or small groups, chatting ernestly together. Older men take every opportunity to have a short sleep, we saw several streched out on the museum sofas , fast asleep.

The young are of course not such conservative dressers, wild hair, jeans so tight you think they must have been born in them, hats and tshirts with slogans and winkle picker shoes so long and pointed that it makes walking difficult. Lots of the girls wear silver shoes and so far we havent seen any outrageously dressed girls, though having seen a lot of teenagers in very formal school uniform you can imagine that both boys and girls must long for the time when they can express themselves with what they wear.

Tess