Tips for surviving Tokyo part 2
Tip number three: Never drop your guard.
If you walk the pavements of Tokyo frequently enough - you will be hit by a bike. The Kamikaze spirit of the Japanese lives on with these two wheeled moving accidents.
No matter if you are on a pedestrian crossing or the pavement, always remember that bikes have right of way and they will often be ridden by somebody with absolutely no spacial awareness. This combined with a dangerously high centre of gravity due to a shopping basket overloaded with shopping, children and dogs - piloted by a cyclist engrossed in coversation on a mobile phone - is your recipe for spending the rest of the week with rubber burns up the back of your legs.
Unhindered by the fact that the cyclist is riding a fully laden womens shopping bike (men and women) these maniacs can reach impressive speeds ensuring that in your time in Tokyo - you will be hit by a bike. And it will be your fault.
Tip number four: Avoid Shinjuku station.
No matter how unavoidable the situation might seem. Never, ever try and and navigate your way around Shinjuku station. That way madness lies. It would take an award winning feat of signage to help even the most ardent traveller direct their way around this hell hole and they didn’t even come close.
There are around 15 different train lines that operate out of what must be the biggest station in the world - and trying to follow the signs is nigh on impossible since they are intermittant at best and more probably just random. The style of the signs completely changes depending on which part of the station you are in and I am almost certain that in the few hours that the station closes at night - mischevious employees alleviate the bordom by switching them all around.
Tip number five: Always wear good socks.
In the UK can afford to be blase about the standard of your hosiery. As laundry day approaches you can, quite rightly, assume that wearing some tatty hole ridden socks will go unnoticed as you can wear your shoes from the second you leave home until the moment of your return. Not so in Japan. In Japan wearing substandard sock wear is like playing a clothing based game of Russian Roulette, with opportunities for humiliation scattered throughout the day.
At any given point in time an uplanned trip to somebodys house, a trip to a restaurant and even a visit to an office can result in the discomfort of trying to walk around whilst gripping the front of your sock with your toes, in order to hide what everyone else in the room is painfully aware of. We all know that everyone in Japan takes their shoes off indoors, of course we do. But as a westerner you will do it with rubbish socks on. And you will only do it the once.