Vendoland and Care Bears

When in Rome do as the Romans do and when in Tokyo take the train, eat the real and local, discover the district of “seconds” and see the real people live their lives before you, like a reality TV show. Then talk to your Japanese hosts about “Voltes V” — “Shintaro the Samurai” and “Shogun” and watch their internal memories go on a spin. 

After several very corporate trips to Japan, I’ve finally experienced Tokyo above and underground. Unlike previous trips, where I found myself holed up in hotels eating hotel food and watching Japanese TV while waiting in between events then shuttled directly to venues and back to the hotel, my latest trip was a serious departure from the corporate way and I’m so glad that our friends from Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. decided to host this trip differently.

If you watch Tokyo from a hotel room or coffee shop chances are it would seem so sterile, silent and sad. The usually overcast weather and the double glazed window have a tendency to isolate you and cut you off from Tokyo’s buzz. Since many hotels seem to start from the 4th floor or the 24th floor like ours, you also see very few locals most of whom are hotel staff or hotel guests. On this trip I realized that Tokyo is very much like an anthill. Watching it from a distance you see very little human activity even at street level except if you go to the high traffic areas. But once you go below where people traverse between buildings, train stations and offices you come face to face with what you only get to see on TV and the movies.

Instead of hosting the first night or welcome dinner in a hotel or putting us in a shuttle bus, our hosts walked us through buildings, interconnecting mini malls and passage ways lined by small shops of various products and services predominantly convenience stores, food stalls, and massage parlors of the formal no hanky panky type. I surmise that the hardworking employees in Tokyo treat themselves to a quick and easy meal after work, have a few drinks of Sake, Scotch or beer and then relax or maybe sober themselves up with a short massage. Short because such a service is quite expensive. A high class high end spa charges about P9,000 for an hour of Balinese massage. Considering Tokyo rentals and salary scales plus the very high cost of living nine grand is to be expected at a Tokyo spa. I’m sure the average ordinary massage places charge cheaper but asking out of curiosity did not seem to be a polite thing to do.

Interestingly enough, Japanese food in Tokyo is generally nothing like what we find in the Philippines except maybe in the high-end hotels or authentic Japanese restaurants operated by true Japanese Chefs. We always had noodles, beef, veggies, pickles, chicken but hardly any, if not none of the typical sushi and sashimi we gorge on in Manila. The closest I saw was Tonkatsu with rice. I didn’t get to ask but I suspect that stuff like tuna and fish is quite expensive and their high standards for freshness would limit fish on the plate late in the day. The Fish Auction begins at around 3 a.m. and it’s a race to get the fish to the licensed Sashimi chefs.

As is common knowledge, drinking water in a pitcher is not common in Tokyo nor is bottled water provided in the average hotel room. In the hotel you can drink from the faucet because it’s safe or buy from a vending machine on every floor. In the restaurant they have pre-chilled drinking water in glasses stacked in chillers. So they simply take them out and serve them cold. Beer on the other hand is ALWAYS served 3 times faster than water so the fast eaters always end up drinking more beer than water!

During this trip, I had a first time opportunity to try the Tokyo subway trains and the first comment I heard from a Pinoy editor while waiting for the “Green Line” was: “Watch how many “wagons” or caboose there are. In Manila, we only have about six in a link, here they must have 20.” Yes, they have 2 to 4 times the number of cabins in each train and they all looked new. Because it was not the rush hour there were no people pushers who would herd or push people into packed trains. With so many train lines and so many stations, it seemed like everything was within short walking distance. Given that I was walking around in a back brace and a cane, I still managed to spend a whole day go around on foot.

Aside from being the home of the Bullet trains, Anime, robots and sports cars, Japan is certainly the Vendo Land of the world. Vending machines are literally everywhere for comfort and convenience. They sell just about every product particularly for refreshments and they even have hot products coming out of the same space for cold products. How they do it I don’t know. On our last evening, I had the chance to try out an authentic Japanese diner where everything is typical except that you go to a “Vendo” machine similar to an ATM that presents you the menu, takes your order, takes your payment, gives you your change and your meal stub. On the other side of the room, a one-woman show is busy whipping up the orders as they come and then neatly brings your hot tasty food in a food tray Japanese style all under 10 minutes.

There were so many other discoveries for me such as “used electronics” and “used cameras” and “used high end bags” that even had quality ratings etc. There were also buildings covered in different Anime billboards in contrast with the yellow tree lined streets that signaled winter’s presence. But none of these would have been enjoyable without the Care Bears from Mitsubishi Motors’ Froilan, Arlan, Rosemary and Nishi. Thanks also to Gemma, Lia, Joann, Ricky and Karl all of whom paid special attention to their PWD Lolo Cito. Thank You MMPC.

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