The 100 Yen Stores

There’s something that you could call a Japanese institution: the 100 Yen Stores. These are stores, where, as the names says, everything costs 100 Yen. Well, almost. In some stores, special items can also cost 200 or 300 Yen (100 Yen = 79 Euro Cents = 1.16 CHF today). But in general, the cashier just counts the number of items you bought and multiplies this number times 100 (sometimes plus taxes). Everyone goes there. In fact it was our translator who took us there first, right after the city hall and the bank.

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Things Japanese II

There’s another thing that is very typical: o-furo, the Japanese bath. The Japanese are said to be very cleanly and to take a bath every evening. Traditionally, the water is kept in the bathtub for more than one bath, and the tub is covered with a lid when not in use. In order to do so (without being messy), you obviously want to clean yourself before entering the tub, so the shower is used next to the bathtub in Japanese bathrooms. The bath itself is meant more for relaxation. Soap is not allowed in it, but fragrant bath salts are fine.

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A Telephone Odyssey

Since so far, we have neither a land line nor mobile phones, we thought we should do something to be reachable in some way. We decided to get cell phones. The choices of provider was easy. All our colleagues are with Softbank, and since you can call for free during the day to softbank cell phones, the choice was obvious (phones, as well as cash machines sleep at night in Japan, so you have to pay extra to use them). Our friends even explained us which service plan would be best, so with our best Japanese, we entered the first Softbank Shop.

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Things Japanese

It is true, in Japan they have some things we do not have. I’ll give you an example. Japan is a rainy country. When it starts raining, it keeps on for days. And it rains hard. Of course everyone goes around with an umbrella. But since Japan is also a very tidy country, going around indoors with a dripping umbrella is simply not an option. But they devised ways around this, and devices to make this easy.

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日光 – Sunlight (Nikko)

Last Saturday, we visited Nikko – written with the Chinese characters meaning sunlight – one of the most attractive places that can be reached in a day trip from Tokyo. Not that it is a great idea to go for one day only. It is impossible to see everything worth seeing there in a day. But at this time of the year, Nikko is very busy. The leaves start turning, which means that the Japanese stream into the hills to view the autumn colors. In short, we did not manage to get any accommodation on the weekend.

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Kamakura

Last Sunday we went to Kamakura. Kamakura is a town slightly more than one hour away from Tokyo that used to be Japan’s capital during the 12th and 13th century. As a result one can find there now some of the most impressive Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in the country. We arrived in the morning at Kita (north) Kamakura station, in a train that was already full of tourists (most of them Japanese). The first temple we visited was the Engaku-ji. This is the largest of Kamakura’s five great zen temples as we discovered walking among the 17 subtemples.

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Narita-san

October 13 is a national holiday in Japan: sports day. For us, an opportunity to explore. We decided to visit a place that is relatively close by (but took nonetheless close to 2 hours to get to). Narita. Not the international airport, but the town that lent the airport its name. Its main attraction is Narita-san or Shinsho-ji, one of the three most important Buddhist temples of the Kanto area (which includes Greater Tokyo). It dates back to the 10th century.

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Crossing Tokyo for Mathematics

The Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques is celebrating its 50st anniversary this year. And it decided to do this in Japan, with a conference entitled Perspectives in mathematical sciences. This offered us not only the possibility to hear some of today’s finest mathematical minds, but also deepen our knowledge of this enormous and confusing beast named Tokyo.

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Experiments in Japanese Cuisine

In order to properly adjust to our new environment, we are trying to adapt our menu to the local customs. Apart from going to local restaurants, this also means that we try our hand at cooking.

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Who’s this guy Todai anyway?

Two days after we arrived in Japan, we were sent to register at the city hall and to open a bank account, accompanied by an interpreter. On the way, she was explaining us that this and that had been arranged for us by Todai, and that Todai could do this and that for us. I was already thinking “who exactly is this guy Todai?” (assuming it was one out of the army of administrative staff taking care of us). But then it dawned on me that this Todai was none else than our very employer. Todai is short for Tokyo Daigaku (東京大学), the University of Tokyo. And that it’s good to be with Todai, we figured out very soon.

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