Perfection - Why Not Settle For Less?

Wednesday 4th February 1998

Perfection | Suck | Rock | Competition | Japlish

Well kids, we all know that no-one's perfect. Sure, it may have seemed that way when we were growing up - a footballer we idolised, a television character who never stopped fighting evil - but eventually we all realise that there's no such thing as the perfect person. Football players take bribes and, as for Captain Scarlet, well, just think of how much junk mail he must receive - being indestructable has its price, boys and girls.

And so it is with places, too. I'm not going to pretend that Tokyo is perfect. Pretty damn good, certainly; even excellent on a number of fronts. But there are still a few things that simply piss me off, some of which are more of a problem than others. I guess it boils down to things which ROCK and things which SUCK:

SUCK

* ATMs are shut after about 8pm, and are rarely open for long at all on Sundays. It's true that the easiest way around this is simply to carry lots of cash, but cash gets spent in a hurry that way. I thought I'd found a 24-hr one, but it turned out only to be open until 24-hundred hours, i.e. midnight - big wow. Plus it was actually shut last time I walked past it on a Sunday evening, at about 8pm. What does the 24 actually mean, then? There's a 24% chance its opening hours will be no use to you? And it wouldn't work with my card, anyway. Sulk.

* Washing machines only use cold water. I have to pick my freezing cold, very wet clothes out of my washer, wring them out by hand (let me say again - cold! Cold, d'you hear me!?) and transfer them in small portions to the spin dryer (Hmmm. Spin, yes; dryer, not noticeably.) and then hang them to dry properly somewhere. I want a box I can put things in and than be able to take htem out of, clean, an hour or so later. Still no sign of a coin-op laundromat. Arse.

* Gomi - Japanese for rubbish, and I'm not talking about the crap they have on TV here, either. I'm all for recycling; I've got no problem with saving my cans and taking them to a recycling bin once in a while. What I do have a problem with is sorting my everyday trash into "Burnable" and Non-burnable", making sure everything goes in the right sort of bag (transparent or just semi-transparent, folks) and then putting it out on the right day of the month. Burnable on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month, recyclable cans on the 3rd Tuesday, newspapers on the fourth or seventeenth day of the equinocturnal cycle....

* American-English language newspapers. I'd even settle for a copy of The Times as long as I could guarentee it wouldn't mention the bloody NBA or the latest in the Clinton / Jones / Lewinsky / Lop-sided penis fiasco.

* Not having natural light in my flat

* Not knowing how to buy envelopes (there are complications, honestly)

* Not knowing how to ask for a timetable at the station

* Knowing that I wouldn't know how to read one anyway...

But it's not all bad;

ROCK

* I have my own flat, with a 24-hr convenience store only twenty metres away.

* Walking down the street, in the sunshine, with plenty of time to get where I'm going, listening to "Somewhere in My Heart" by Aztec Camera on permanent mental loop.

* Sitting at this Cybercafe with a good coffee and just keeping in touch with people (that's right, you guys).

* Eating the sugarcubes that come with the coffee.

* Getting letters from people; this goes for emails too, although only hardcopy can be taken to work with you and re-read.

* The 8th floor of Seibu has something like 50 restaurants on it, and still they've got room for the sportswear department.

* A friend and I *could* *not* *find* an exit (any exit) at Shibuya station last week. We did a complete lap of part of the concourse without realising it, and had to ask for directions. Twice. This was much funnier than it sounds.

* Toast and orange juice in the morning, ham sandwiches and coke in the evening - apparently I can cook, after all.

* Sunsets. A bit boring of me, but the atmosphere is very clear at the moment, so there are some great colours to be seen as the sun sinks over Korea and the rest of Asia - probably something to do with the current financial crisis.

* Sitting in a coffee shop at one in the morning, enjoying a "final" hot chocolate, with just a diary and some postcards for company.

Competition result

Thank you for your responses to last week's competition (how much like Blue Peter does that sound?) which numbered literally nearly dozens. One dozen, actually.

The correct answer was 29 floors; apparently the last nine were added in 1992 because they decided they just couldn't cope with the twenty they already had...

And the winner is.... Polly Smith of Durham. Hurrah. Polly wins a backstage pass to see Boyzone at their forthcoming concert in Dublin. Or possibly just some cheap Japanese tat as soon as I can be arsed to post it to her. Congratulations Polly.

Watch this space for more thrilling competitions in weeks to come.

Japlish du Jour

(as seen on the outside of a yoof-wear shop called Octopus Army in Shibuya:)

Yo! Casual Street Freeks
Are Suck enough so
just get out of there!

OCTOPUS ARMY

Now it's our turn to show
we can distribute
original print tees cool!
Just check 'em out!

(You may draw your own conclusions...)

That's all for now; be good, y'all;

Sayonara

Chris

(Hey, you Casual Street Freeks! You are Suck enough, you are! What? What does it mean? Er...well..um... just get out of there! Yeah, get out of there! What? Er, well, just out of *there*, you know... Well, no, I admit you're not actually inside anywhere at the moment, but... well maybe you could just leave the, um , general area, you know? Why? Look, we covered this already, it's because you're "Suck enough", okay? (Pause) Oh, go on... please? Hello? Hello...?)

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