The Bloggart 1: Konbinis, Commuting and Vending Machines

The Bloggart 1: Konbinis, Commuting and Vending Machines

Dear All,

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get started on the blog; it turns out trying to write about Japan is like trying to see a rain-forest while inside a tree. I’ve been giving the blog’s format a lot of thought and I think that its best for me to write once or twice a week about specific topics. Since it’s possible for people to leave comments on the blog site, you are all welcome to weigh in and tell me what you’d like me to discuss next. There’s a little list of possible topics located somewhere around here – anything either on or off the list is fine by me! So, without further ado, here is this week’s three-part, dealer’s choice special: Convenience stores, commuting and vending machines!

Convenience stores

 

The Japanese convenience store (konbini) is a thing of beauty. Mostly I go to the Family Mart or My Basket in the main street nearest the dorm, since it’s directly on my route home from the station; sometimes I get wild and go to the 7Eleven around the corner from the university. I buy pretty much all my food there, as well as toiletries and stationary. 

Konbinis always have a whole bunch of pre-made meals that are amazingly delicious and quite cheap. For breakfast you could get a rice ball; plain (if you’re boring), filled with salmon and wrapped in crispy seaweed (if you’re a fan of delicious awesomeness), or with any other fish and pickle related filling (if you don’t get so caught up by how delicious the salmon one is that you forget to try anything else). For lunch and dinner I often get a bento box, which is a ‘bit of everything’ box, usually containing some rice, vegetables, fish, meat, pickles and salad. There are also a wide variety of rice and soupy noodle dishes, that are usually delicious, but sometimes have Japanese-only chili warning labels that it would be nice to be able to read. At least I’ve figured out that black and red instant noodle packets are the super spicy ones, which is a lesson you only need to learn once.

In Japan tea and coffee aren’t just sold hot; you can also buy bottles of cold coffee and five kinds of tea at the store. Since the bottles are clear plastic it’s easy enough to see what coffee is black, but sugar or no sugar is still mostly a guessing game. The cold coffee is actually really refreshing and makes sense now that I’ve caught even a whiff of how hot and humid summers are here. As for vegetables, I’ve gotten to know lotus root and edamame beans quite well, but there are a lot of types I don’t recognize on the themes of spring onion and radishes. There’s not much variety in fruit, other than naartjies and bananas. 

The smallest Yen note is a thousand, which is about R120, which means working with a lot of coins. I’ve actually taken to carrying a separate coin purse with me, since the number of coins bulge out my purse so badly that my subway pass won’t scan. So at the store I always need a moment to think whether I’ll need to take out both purses or just the one, and how silly that must make me look.

 

 Commuting

Tokyo is a big place. My dormitory and university are about fifty minutes apart, which means in the four months I’ll be here I should spend something like five and a half days’ worth of time commuting. The first ten minutes of the morning always start well: I leave the dorm at eight and walk past two konbinis (breakfast) and three vending machines (the drinkable part of breakfast) on my way to the station. Jaywalking is just not a thing here, so you stand and wait in a big crowd of commuters for the walk signal to turn green even if there isn’t a car in sight. This is a good time to drink the coffee portion of the breakfast. The pavements are always significantly busier than the roads, both with pedestrians and bikes. It’s so full that etiquette becomes really important: pedestrians walk on the left, bikes pass in the center. 

By the time I reach the station, it starts getting really full. Escalators are available at all stations where the platform is more than two stories down; there are signs up encouraging people to get exercise and take the stairs, but since my final stop is maybe four flights underground the escalator is good too. Most everyone who isn’t a tourist has a passmo card (same as a Oyster card if you know London) which you load money onto and just touch to a scanner as you enter and leave the metro, or when you switch lines. Students get their entire university commute free, which is really nice, so I can ride for free from Kasai (stop T18 on the Kasai line) to Idabashi (stop T06 on the Kasai line/stop N10 on the Nambuko line) and then to Yotsuya (stop N08 on the Nambuko line). However, since the stations are so full, the turnstiles are often permanently open, so the only thing stopping someone from taking a free ride is themselves. And yet it works, because “Tokyo, we’re not in Cape Town anymore”.*

The stations themselves are like a cross between a mini mall and a set of hamster tubes made from concrete. It can be quite a distance between different lines, but it’s very clearly marked; each line has a name and colour that appears on all the signs. The most important thing is to make sure you’re at the platform heading in the right direction, as opposed to only focusing on the line and then being confused when your stop doesn’t appear (… this has not happened to me). Unlike other public transport systems (not pointing fingers, South Africa, but giving you a significant look) the trains are always on time, there’s no graffiti anywhere and there are no distressing smells. There are posters everywhere warning you to stay behind the yellow line, not push and not talk too loudly. 

Thing is, Japanese really full and South African really full are two completely different things. Those videos on the internet of Japanese people getting onto a train ARE NOT EXAGGERATIONS. My typical commute involves physically squishing against four to seven strangers while keeping my arms pinned to my sides. I don’t need to hold onto anything, since there’s nowhere to fall onto. This is where Japanese politeness really shines. It’s considered rude to answer your phone on the train, or to turn your headphones’ volume too high, or to have loud conversations. No one eats or drinks on a train, and there are little plastic bags available for wet umbrellas. Most people spend the commute asleep on their feet, playing bejeweled on their phones or reading. I always spend my morning commute reading Pratchett on my phone.** It is pretty uncomfortable, but it’s do-able, especially in comparison to what it would be like in other countries. If we tried to survive with that many people in South Africa, we would die. It also mean that rush-hour or no, your commute’s time is fixed; you don’t need to get up at five to make it into the city.

Vending Machines

There is one vending machine for every twenty-three people in Tokyo. I could do the maths, but I’m pretty sure that’s a ton of vending machines. Vending machines are everywhere, on every street and in every building. There’s one in my dorm, and only twenty-two people live here. There’s usually the basic coke, water and apple juice you’d expect, plus a few brands of green tea. The bottom row is usually taken up by cans of coffee – black can equals black coffee, blue/yellow/red/gold can equals milk. There are also products with names such as pocari sweat (which is a sport’s drink) and calpis soda (which is… milk? but sort of bubbly?) and that are not as bad as they sound. Many of the brands have several products in the same machine, but I can’t really tell what makes them different from each other.

I really like the vending machines; they seem friendly, if that’s the right word. The weather might be humid and you might be tired after a long commute, but dang it if you can’t hydrate. Next to vending machine is also the only place you can reasonably expect to find a bin; for a city so clean, there aren’t that many bins. It also points to a city where it’s possible to travel from university to street to station, restocking vending machines. And considering the number of vending machines, that’s a big deal. 

* I'm sorry. It's bad.

** Thank you, Zandri, for the electronic copies!