Adaptation to frequent natural disasters

A while ago, someone asked me what kinds of natural disasters we have in Canada. I had to think about it for a while before tentatively responding "...ice storms?". I know that there are sometimes hurricanes that hit the East coast (and rarely come further inland) and there are tornadoes sometimes too. These things don't tend to have the same impact as giant earthquakes or typhoons and they lack the frequency of the small earthquakes that serve as a reminder of what will happen some time.

Compared to Japan, Canada (especially Southern Ontario) has relatively few issues with nature. As a result, moving here can create all sorts of little worries about the earthquakes, typhoon and so forth early on.
 
However, one thing I've noticed is how easy it is to get used to the natural disasters that happen here. The first time I felt an earthquake here, I was sleeping. It woke me up and I maybe got a bit concerned, even though it was relatively small. It's pretty startling if you've never really experienced an earthquake before and waking up suddenly can result in some general confusion (especially when the room is shaking).

There were a few like that here in the first few months I moved to Japan. I'd wake up and hit daid in the face because I was startled out of a deep sleep. Now, I hardly notice them most of the time and I've slept through a few. I also experienced the largest earthquake here since 2011 without being especially concerned.
 
Similarly, the first time a typhoon came here, I was worried. The city's safety committee made several announcements in addition to their usual daily announcements and daid's work sent him several emails reminding him to take precautions and assuring him that he didn't have to come into work if it was risky. I made sure to close all the windows and took the clothes drying bar down and all this, but by the time the typhoon got here, it didn't even rain in Tokyo.

The last two typhoons were dubbed "super typhoons" at some point in the media (especially in US sources), but nothing really happened here. We got soaked going to the convenience store and the wind rattled our windows most of last night, but not much really happened otherwise. The one last week meant that some places closed because they didn't want to encourage people to go outside, but it wasn't really bad at all.

While Japan is hit by many typhoons and some people die or are injured by them, most of the injuries tend to be in Okinawa, which is really, really far south and tends to be the first place typhoons headed this way make landfall (and even then, many of the injuries and deaths are to people who do stupid things like standing on the beach photographing the waves or going surfing). By the time a typhoon has made its way through the rest of the archipelago and through the west of the country to get here, it's not nearly so impressive.

Yes, a major earthquake like the one in 2011 could happen again and yes, a typhoon could make landfall on the Kantō plain first. Maybe when one of those happens, I'll get worried again. For now, the typhoons that beat themselves up on the other islands and mountains on their way here and the little day-to-day earthquakes are not especially concerning.

Things that Japan does really well: refillable everything!

So I've definitely complained about a lot of the weird package designs or the weather or various day to day things. However, I do think that there are lots of things that Japan does that other places should also do (or do more of) so I thought it would be good to focus on those.

Since I complained about package designs the most, this week, I'm starting with some packaging I really like: the refillable sort.

In which I complain about the weather

Before I moved here, I would chat with daid a fair bit and when he'd complain about the summer in Tokyo, I'd complain about the summer back in Ontario. However, since I hadn't visited Tokyo in the summer before moving here, I had no idea how terrible a comparison that was.

While Ontario can sometimes get pretty hot and is frequently humid, the weather will alternate between something vaguely hellish and something pretty reasonable every week or two (or at least this is how I remember it). Around here, the maximum temperature is at least 5 °C hotter and it's just constantly hellish outside.

I do not think there has been a day this month where the humidity has been less than 60% and this entire week, the humidity has been above 80%. When combined with daytime highs in the low- to mid-30s, even sitting somewhere shaded and not moving around very much results in profuse sweating during the day. I can't even walk to the train station in the morning without being disgusting by the time I get there (and I don't even want to think about what happens when I have to jog a little to catch a train).

That's also just the usual bad weather. There are also typhoons, which fortunately haven't really hit Tokyo at all this year. One was supposed to pass over, but it dissipated first and the other crossed over Honshu to the south of Tokyo into the Sea of Japan so it just rained sideways and sporadically for a day. Granted, at least when a typhoon is nearby, it feels cooler outside because it's at least really windy.

And yes, the winter is pretty mild here, which is more than I can say for the winter in Ontario. In principle, this should make up for the terrible, terrible summer. Except that our apartment lacks central heating and any insulation to speak of, which is unpleasant in its own way... but I still look forward to it because it's much better than this.

I'm back!

...not that I really went anywhere, but I had a nice, little vacation from deadlines (even the self-imposed kind).

I'll do a more proper post on Thursday, but for now, I'll leave you with this lovely ad from the train.
 

Tokyo Imperial Palace: East Garden

Last Wednesday, I had another free afternoon and since it was neither Monday nor Friday, I took another trip to the Imperial Palace to visit the East Gardens. It was rainy, but open so I finally got to see it (unlike last time). In addition, the rain meant that instead of being crowded, it was pretty sparsely populated, which made it especially nice.

Excessive packaging is excessive

If I bought a bottle of ketchup in Canada, I would expect just that: a bottle. It would have a little seal under the cap, but that's about all the extra packaging it would have.

Not so in Japan. Here, when you buy a bottle of ketchup, it comes in a bag.

Useful phrases in Japanese #2

I was originally going to write a post on the intricacies of sorting one's household trash here, but Blogger decided that it doesn't want to let me upload photos today (or my internet is being crappy and won't let me upload photos to Blogger) so I have to postpone that post. Instead, I thought it might be good to actually make a series of my earlier Useful phrases in Japanese #1 post since the "#1" did suggest that there was going to be more than one such post. If you recall, last time I described the words "sumimasen" and "gomenasai" and suggested when each was appropriate to use.

I thought it might be good to continue on the theme of being generally polite so this time I'll discuss the "pleases" and "thank yous".

My local park is awesome

So I might not have brought this up before, but I live in a city called Wakō (和光) which is in Saitama prefecture, just outside of Tokyo. Typically, I'll tell people outside of Japan that I live in Tokyo which, while it isn't strictly true is true enough (it's like a 20 minute walk to Tokyo).

There are a lot of things I like around here, but there's one place that I've been getting a lot of use out of: the local park.

The questionable art of nekoyoke

Nekoyoke (猫よけ) literally means "scare cat" where neko (猫 or ねこ) means "cat" and I suppose yoke (よけ) means "to scare" (at least in this context). You may wonder why anyone would want to scare cats as they are not only adorable, but they are also majestic and wonderful creatures.

Exhibit A: Look at that belly!

However, in Japan (or at least around Tokyo), there are a lot of stray cats and people consider this a problem. Well, I consider it a problem in the sense where all cats deserve loving homes, but there are other issues with stray cats in principle. As a result, people put up various nekoyoke to keep them away from their homes and gardens.

Subtle strip club is subtle

I'm going to wrap up this week by being a little lazy. Here's a picture I took back in March of a strip club I saw wandering around Ikebukuro one day. Someone seemed to think that calling a place "Men's Private Theater" would class up the look, though the blacked out windows just scream "this is a strip club".

Worst egg cartons, ever.

While I generally like Japan and don't have too many complaints, there is one thing that is really terrible here: the design of the egg cartons.

Now, you may be asking "But Sarah, how can an egg carton be terrible?" this is perhaps because you're used to the egg cartons in North America¹ that are made out of fairly rigid, easily recycled or composted cardboard that maintain their shape. The kind of egg cartons that can be easily opened and closed again and again. The kind of egg cartons that are unlikely to spill all of your eggs out all over the place if you aren't careful. These are not those kinds of egg cartons.

A nice view of the city, for free!

The week before last, I visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, which has a pair of observing decks on the 45th floor. While these aren't super high, all things considered, they do offer a pretty good view of Tokyo and some surroundings. This is probably because despite being the biggest city in the world (or biggest metropolitan area in the world, depending on your definition of "city"), Tokyo doesn't actually have a lot of really tall skyscrapers.

The observing deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is also totally free to visit. So if you have some time to kill and you're in Shinjuku and like going to the tops of tall buildings, I definitely recommend visiting it.

The Metropolitan Government Building is also pretty easy to find from Shinjuku station. If you can find your way to the area of the station with the taxi and bus stops, there are moving sidewalks from the station which will take you most of the way there underground and signage exists in English as well as Japanese indicating the path there.

Going to the local farmer's market

On Saturdays and Wednesdays around the corner from our house, there's a nice farmer's market that starts in the afternoon and continues into the evening. This makes it much more convenient than farmer's markets we've seen in North America which tend to start at terribly early times and close early in the afternoon, so we end up going there a lot.

Learning kanji

Since January, I have been studying kanji using Anki (a flash card program). Before I started studying in earnest, I only knew maybe a dozen or so of them, but now I know many more (I've recently started learning the kanji that students learn in grade four so that probably means I know somewhere around 400 of them).

Well, at least for the definition of know where I can understand roughly what the character means in English, I know them. Not so much for the definition of knowing the kanji where I know all the ways the character is read (some of them have way too many readings for that). I also know how to write them for the most part because I actually bothered learning the rules for stroke order, but it's definitely harder to think of the kanji I'd want to draw than it is to see it and recognize it.

One thing that I've really enjoyed about learning kanji while living here is that a lot of the time, it means that I go somewhere and I see one of them that I've just learned. To me, this is pretty exciting because I can pass by the same sign and suddenly understand it (or at least more of it) when I couldn't the day or week before. It's like I'm suddenly able to see the sign in an entirely different way, if that makes sense.

I wonder if this is the sort of experience that other people have when they move to a place before learning the local language. I haven't really asked anyone else about their experiences with this, mostly because I don't think about it unless I've just seen a new kanji and if I tell anyone, it's probably daid who hasn't been studying kanji. It would be interesting to know if this is a common experience though. If anyone wants to share their experiences in comments, I would definitely be interested in reading them.

More of outside the palace

On Friday, I shared some pictures I took wandering around the area near the Imperial Palace and in the park just north of it. I thought it fitting to show the other pictures I took once I got onto the main grounds today. I warn you that they're much less exciting though.

To start, there's a big gate called Sakurada-mon.

Some guy kindly walked through it as I was taking a picture for scale.

A walk of contrasts: wandering outside the Imperial Palace

Today, I had a free afternoon and was near Tokyo station so I thought I'd drop by the Imperial Palace. Since this was a little impromptu, I wasn't expecting to get super close (past a certain point, you need to have reserved a spot in a tour group), but I figured there are gardens and the like that should be nice.

Anyway, I managed to make my way there without too much trouble despite only having a general sense of where it was, and I got to observe the contrast between the moat, old walls, old bridge and traditional-looking buildings...

...and the very modern city just across the street. 

Personally, I thought this was an interesting contrast. I got to spend much time thinking about this contrast too since the first gate I approached was closed. Since it was a nice day, I didn't really mind and figured I'd walk to the next gate hoping it would be open.

Random

This post is late and it will be both short and sweet with a more proper one to follow on Thursday (possibly Friday). Granted, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words and I think that this picture that I took at daid's bank says just so much about this part of Japan:

It's an umbrella stand. Umbrella stands are pretty ubiquitous around here, you'll find them near the entry ways to many (perhaps most) stores. This one is somewhat odd though because it is equipped with locks so you can store your umbrella and nobody else will accidentally take it because they look roughly the same (or steal it because they forgot theirs).

Opening a bank account in Japan

I have variously heard that opening a bank account in Japan can be tricky if one does not know how to speak Japanese especially well. I've heard that this is even true of some of the more foreigner-friendly banks here like City Bank. For instance, when daid went to open a bank account on his own he ended up with someone using Google translate on individual words, despite trying to go to a branch that was supposed to have English speakers. The other bank accounts that he's opened were both done with assistance.

I'd heard of a new-ish bank called Shinsei, which actually has a fairly good English website (a rarity in Japan). The website indicates locations where there are supposed to be employees who speak English, though it also warns that if one is concerned about communication, one might want to bring someone to translate anyway.

Despite the warning, I went to the location in Roppongi Hills (which seems to be a ridiculously fancy place) on my own hoping to muddle through. It turns out that I had absolutely no reason to be concerned at all because of the four employees I saw there, three of them seemed to speak pretty much perfect English (the fourth was working with a Japanese woman so English was not necessary).

I'm also not sure, but I think it was easier to open a bank account there than it generally is in North America. I just passed the clerk my residency card, typed my name on a computer a few times (it had to be put into katakana as well as romanji) as well as my postal code (which filled in most of my address). Then she got me to choose a PIN and give an example of my signature (giving a hanko was an option, but I don't have one) and she explained a few features of the bank and how their online banking works, gave me a card and sent me on my way. 

It was a very pleasant experience and I definitely recommend Shinsei to anyone who needs to open a bank account in Japan. Not only because of the relative ease when it comes to opening an account in English, but also because they don't have monthly fees or service fees on a lot of ATMs, including the ones in all major convenience stores.

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Note: I'll put up another post on Saturday-ish. I was going to post something on Monday, but it's been hard to write and I didn't want to leave you guys hanging. 

Noise pollution

In Canada, the typical street noises usually involve traffic, neighbours doing something outside, the occasional siren, maybe a car alarm or some construction. In Japan, these sounds exist, but they are joined with another: voice announcements.

I can't be sure, but I think the only time I heard someone using a microphone just out on the street in Canada (not at a concert or some event) was one time back when I was living in Hamilton. Some guy was standing on top of an upturned milk crate preaching while his kid sold bibles next to him at the corner in front of Jackson Square.

Then it struck me as odd: microphones or megaphones really don't belong out on the streets unless you're at a parade (or some other event which has been cleared with the city). One lone guy with a megaphone selling his beliefs is just strange.

Here though, there are frequent voice announcements. Not only does our city have daily announcements at 3 in the afternoon and again at sunset to tell children to go home (or something), but there will be someone announcing something within earshot of our apartment a few times a week.

Usually, it's someone with a truck and a pre-recorded announcement driving by, but the other day, I heard one that was especially clear and seemed nearby. So I looked out the window and saw a woman with a megaphone in the parking lot for the neighbouring building. She finished her announcement and moved to the parking lot for our building to repeat the same announcement.  Then she moved to the next parking lot to repeat the same message.

If we go downtown, it's pretty common to see people with megaphones standing near tables outside train stations selling something (or trying to get votes, it's not clear) or for people to stand on boxes or ladders outside shops encouraging potential customers to come in.

It's not just the people advertising that do this either. The firetrucks include voice announcements asking people to move out of the way and thanking them for doing so. This is in addition to the sirens which should be pretty clear indications that one should get out of the way.  There are some trucks with turn signals that indicate their turning direction audibly as well, but not all of them. 

This is all still pretty strange to me. I'm used to cities that don't care to let children know when it's time to go home. I'm used to laws that tell people they can't use megaphones without a permit to just run around and advertise whatever.

Happoshu: the not-beer "beer"

Beer is a drink we all know and love (though perhaps love can be a strong word for all of its various incarnations) made of fermented malts. Japan has a tax on malt and beverages made with it. The result is that actual beer (the kind that gets labeled ビール here) can cost a fair bit more than other alcoholic beverages with a similar percentage of alcohol.

In response, companies began making products that taste similar to beer, but with less malts or none at all called happoshu. These will cost much less than beer, but they are typically designed to taste very similar to beer. They are also much better than some of the popular beers in Japan (e.g. Asahi Super Dry) although they are nowhere near as good as some of the nice beers here (e.g. Yona Yona).

Happoshu seems to get an unnecessarily bad reputation in English-language sources for some reason though. Personally, if I'm at a store with a limited beer selection, where all the beers are this light kind of beer that's supposed to have a broad appeal, I'll generally go for the happoshu because it's similar enough and a lot cheaper. Unless I'm in the mood for a fruity drink, then it's chuhai time.

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Sorry for the sporadic posting this month. Our internet has been a little fishy and sometimes decides it doesn't want to load Blogger at times when I want to write and post things. I'll aim for more frequent posts for the next couple of weeks, but I can't promise a super regular schedule because I don't know if I'll actually be able to post when I want to.