Interesting Tidbits: Tokyo in General

Having been in Tokyo for almost one week, a number of things have jumped out to me as being fairly different than what I'm accustomed to back home. Here's a list of 5 random things in point form that have surprised or interested me in some way.

1: Engrish

I try to imagine someone saying this with a serious face.

 
Man, it's staggering, and it's everywhere. Ads like the one on the left are a dime a dozen, and this one is borderline grammatically correct (just...weird?) Once in a while you'll catch someone with a t-shirt with English captions so skewed they may damage your brain. One that stuck to me was a girl with a shirt saying:

"I am what
I SHOULD HAVE BEEN

to be."

It's hilarious. I'm amazed.



2: The Metro System

It is I, the slayer of Gaijins.

 It took me a while to figure this one out. This metro map, to the right, is one of the few English ones that appear in the bigger stations. You don't get this kind of saving grace everywhere. Can you imagine looking at this map and figuring out where to go when all the names are written in Japanese character?
Several of the lines also pass through the same stations, but don't make all the stops. It's up to you to figure out which train stops where.
Additionally, in Tokyo, your ticket's price depends on the distance you travel.
The strawberry on the shortcake? This is only one of the metro systems: there's another one owned by another company. Imagine I overlay this map with ten more lines.

3: The Weather!

 It's a godsend. It really is. It still feels like summer here; the temperatures range between 15 and 23 degrees. From what I've gathered, it rarely ever goes below zero in January. I've nothing else to say on this. Here was this week's weather billboard in our hotel! Try not to shit yourself crying, Montreal.



4: Shrines

It doesn't take much searching to find these tiny little caches under the biggest trees, offering a calm place of rest to anyone who wants to sit down for a while. These Shinto shrines (Shinto being an old Japanese religion) are dedicated to many different things ranging from protection to wealth. They're lovely little pearls that can be found scattered throughout the city. The one portrayed here is in dedication to the fox (kitsune in Japanese), a sacred animal in the Shinto religion. (Foxboy Anton regularly stops here and offers a prayer.)




5: Vending Machines

They're on every corner everywhere, indoor and out, and they sell everything. The subway trains have them. In addition to selling cold beverages, they also have warm beverages such as canned coffee, cigarettes, and, apparently, though I haven't seen one yet, used women's panties. It kind of sits weirdly with me that a child could go up to a vending machine a pop out a pack of cigs, the legal age here for smoking (and I do mean smoking, not buying cigarettes) being 20.
Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black) also notably gave his face to the BOSS brand of coffee. The ads, which you can see on Youtube, are quite funny too.