How to get around

[maxiewawa]

I'm visiting Tokyo at the moment (i'm right here in jpod101 international headquarters at the moment; i can see the back of marky's head right now!) and there a few things that i have found difficult. they aren't language related, but i just thought maybe we could get some info in a podcast.

Trains/metro: there are two different mass transit systems, train and metro. This wasn't immediately apparent to me when I first looked at a map of tokyo. if you want to change from a train line to a metro line, you need to exit the station, and buy a new ticket. I guess that it's something that you get used to, but as first time visitor to japan, and particularly someone coming from a place that has an integrated metro system, and no trains (shanghai) i found it really difficult. Add the fact that there are several train/metro lines, and it gets really confusing really quickly, and unless someone explains it to you you can get very lost.

Addresses: when someone first gave me a japanese address I thought that they had misunderstood what I had asked for. There were only 5 kanji, and three numbers. No street names. I still don't understand japanese addresses, I just input the address into google maps and let them work it out. but i am curious to know how addresses work in japan.

Arigatou marky-sensei!

[markystar]

actually, i'll show you tonight. but there is a universal IC Card (two as a matter of fact) that allow you to transfer between train systems with a single card. you can also use them to shop with.
if i'm not mistaken, miki's blog touched on this a few weeks ago.
but maybe a culture class... hmmmm

as for addresses...

i seem to remember a lesson about phone numbers and another about addresses (i think addresses came up again in a lower intermediate lesson last spring... i'll have to dig around the old stuff to find it, unless of course somebody else remembers before i do!) but it can always be covered again.

as for street names...
yeah, the streets don't run in grids and don't have names.
that's by design, actually.
in feudal times, the city would be a maze encircling the castle of the local lord.
this was to protect the castle.
the castles themselves would have a labyrinth of buildings and moats wrapped around the main fortification and living quarters.

so when giving directions, people tend to use landmarks since it's hard to describe nameless streets. lol.
i tried to give a sense of this when i wrote "party in the 'burbs" - i hope it came across well. (fingers crossed - lol)