In seconds it’s possible to become disoriented in Tokyo’s snakes-and-ladders streets. Sometimes it’s much easier to haphazardly wander than find a specific location. Doorways often aren’t numbered in Arabic numerals. Outside the major tourist hot-spots, signs are primarily in Japanese.
Guidebooks provide instructions that read: Take the east exit and walk 5 minutes. Left? Right? Around in circles? (Believe me, I have. Some of those stories will be coming in future posts.) That’s why locals have GPS on their phones. Not surprising then, that Tokyo, as well as Japan in general, intimidates at first.
Often streets look like alleyways. But frequently that’s where the interesting stuff is—tucked away in back of the major streets or in shotengai (local, covered commercial thoroughfares usually near railway stations).
Every traveller has her own style. Frantic scrambles through multiple attractions day after day are not for me. Much as I wish to, I can’t see it all, which is why I like to settle in one hotel for several days and explore by foot, transit or taxi from there. Since I don’t understand Japanese I must remain hyper-mindful. Keeping track of the sun and counting side streets, memorizing landmarks, maintaining a mental tether to the noise of larger thoroughfares, I build a spatial understanding of my map and the character of the district.
I prefer to be in Japan not buzz around it.
I was going say to “Locals have GPS on their phones?…yeah right” then I remembered that I’ve used Apple’s Location Service coupled with their “Maps” app on my iPhone to help me get around since my arrival here in September. That is essentially a GPS service on a smartphone. It’s a drain on the battery but it’s been a great time saver at least once. On my past sightseeing trips to Japan I did manage to get lost and the results weren’t always entertaining. I did rent a cellular phone on the last trip but I never did check if it had a GPS service on it. I suppose it might have of. It would’ve come in handy in my attempt to visit Tokyo Tower without a pre-planned route. I ended up taking a subway which I thought would take me closer but in fact landed me in the middle of nowhere.