Trip to Japan
Published:
I have just returned from a 10-day trip to Japan. During this short stay, I went to the Ikaho hot spring, did some sightseeing in Tokyo with my family, and gave talks at Waseda University and University of Tokyo.
The last time I visited Japan was in 2019, so I felt as if I were the Japanese forklore figure Taro Urashima. Unfortunately, my driver’s license has expired, so I need to apply for an international license if I want to drive. I visited some banks to update my accounts. Many things have changed, for example:
- a large fraction of people wear masks in public,
- there are far more foreigners, either tourists or residents,
- the English announcements in trains have become more natural (spoken faster),
- credit cards and cashless transactions are more widely accepted,
- many buildings and train stations in Tokyo have become nicer,
- everything is so cheap,
- many things are automated.
Regarding how cheap things are, a one-day unlimited subway ticket costs 600 yen or less than 4 dollars. I brought my family of four to a reasonably good sushi restaurant and paid 27,000 yen, which is expensive for Japanese standard, but it’s only 172 dollars. When I gave a talk at University of Tokyo, my host brought me to lunch, which cost only 9 dollars per person (which was also U Tokyo’s budget :-). Regarding automation, what struck me was a hot spring. This is just one sample and I am not sure how general it is, but upon entering the building you put your shoes in the shoe locker and receive the key; you use this key (which has an IC chip inside) to go through an electric gate; after using the hot spring, you tap the key to a machine to pay (where credit cards and other options are accepted, in addition to cash), which prints out a receipt; finally, you scan the receipt to the electronic gate to exit. This is amazing. I didn’t need to use any cash and I didn’t need to talk to anybody, though an employee (who thought I was a foreigner) taught me how to use these gadgets even though I didn’t ask.
However, there are also many things that remain the same that I failed to appreciate when I lived in Japan, for example:
- public transportation is amazingly efficent,
- streets and train stations are extremely clean,
- people are polite and civilized.
When I moved to the United States in 2008, I was quite pessimistic about the Japanese economy (with large public debt, government regulations, population aging, and declining electronic and automobile industries), but maybe it can flourish as a popular tourist destination.