Tokyo`s Special Place

[written on my phone - monday morning 4th May]

After a few broken sleep sessions I headed out of Pat's lovely but empty house to meet my friend's girlfriend for the first time. She'd offered to show me round Tokyo while Pat set the reactor going. At the station barrier I got out my Passmo. This is a great example of a modern Japanese word. Take an English one and add 'o' or 'mo'. (See 'hotto' and 'milko'.) It's a fun game to make up your own, half the time they seem to understand - but that's probably because they speak English, rather than me being a linguistic pioneer. Anyway, at the barrier I did the equivalent of putting my oyster card (my Passmo) into the paper ticket slot and jammed the machine with a satisfying clunk. Now any Londoners would agree that in London, that would have caused a big que, elicited quite a few tuts and probably resulted in the semi-closure of the northern line for a full lunar cycle. But here? 'excuse me sur' said the barrier attendant - before i'd even asked for help. He began swiftly dismantling the machine to free my ticket and said 'you just put it here and touch it on the special Passmo place'. He bowed politely and smiled and I instinctively bowed back. I have to say I quite like all this bowing. It beats the sarcastic patronising smiles I'm quite sure any tube worker(or even myself would) quite freely dole out to any Japanese person on the tube making a similar mistake. So off I went, remembering to always touch my Passo on the special passo place.
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I saw so much of Tokyo today. It's really really big. Clean and friendly. But no one understands the underground system, never mind a tourist with no grasp of Japanese! Even Makiko (Pat's girlfriend who was showing me round) admitted it was hard and had to consult her directions on several occasions. She said 'don't even ask me to go to Tokyo central -it's a nightmare!'. So we passed the day visiting sites like the Imperial Palace (just a big wall really, as you're not allowed in) and had some udon and sushi.

We parted and i'm wondering the streets of Harajuku. Found some free wifi so here I am blogging! Bye for now!