1.27.2010

Hatakeda Station

Hatakeda Station is part of the Japanese rail system, and here's what's really exciting: I've been there! Okay, I may have been there. I've been to Tokyo, but I wasn't there long enough to differentiate between all the 13-letter words comprised completely of Hs, Ks, Ms and Ts. Sorry, Japan.

I went to Tokyo in September as part of this sort of Asian immersion trip through school (I'm getting a Master's of Science in Integrated Marketing Communications from the Medill School of Journalism and Northwestern University. See how I made it sound so pretentious? In reality, I go to a random classroom in downtown Chicago twice a week and g-chat with my friends about how much smarter we are than the teachers. Sometimes we do group projects where we do the same thing, but in person...while drinking Miller High Life.)

So this trip lasted roughly 17 days. We went from the crowded chaos of Mumbai to the crowded snobbery of Shanghai to the crowded silence of Tokyo. And of all the sites and company visits we managed to cram in over the course of a couple weeks, I was definitely most preemptively advised about Tokyo.

This is, of course, because of my affinity for g-chat. It just so happens that two of my friends who bear the brunt of my g-chat addiction due to their willingness to respond to my blabbing and my constant need for humorous stimulation, Jessica & Charlie, both lived in Japan at one time and obliged when I asked for tips, recos, et al. (Incidentally, they're probably two of the few people who will ever read this. Tx, guys.)

In any event, Jess was more or less OBSESSED with the fact that I was going to visit her former home. She'd IM me something new every few hours in the weeks before my trip. Five days before I left, she sent a three-page email titled "important j. things." It had useful phrases, must-see phenomena and important dos & don'ts. It was overwhelming to say the least.

And sadly, I got to do very little of what she suggested. We were basically ushered around the city every day by NU alumni who took us on the Metro from company to company all day, where we learned how much better Japan is at using cell phones and making normal shit look crazy. In all, we were probably in about 674 different metro stations. One of them could've been Hatakeda Station, right? In the little time we had left, though, I got to revel in the following "j. things":
  • "Doa ga shimarimasu" which means "doors are closing." Every train, elevator and even taxi told me this many times a day. Japanese machines are very polite.
  • "Kawaiiiiiiii desu" which means "that's sooooooo cute." I said this as much as possible so the Js in the crazy Shibuya stores would think I was badass. Turns out they already thought I was badass. I'm American.
  • 100 Yen store. Jess talked these places up soooooo much because this is where she got all the hilarious poorly translated postcards she'd send us all the time. A group of us spent nearly all of our free time trying to FIND one...but when we finally did, the bad translation flourished.
  • Hachiko, the dog at Shibuya station, which Jess billed as "the best and worst meeting spot ever." This is because it's easy to find...and because EVERYONE meets there.
That's it. Okay, that's not it, but it's almost it. This means I REALLY need to go back. Mostly to check whether or not I've ever been to Hatakeda Station (I haven't, because I just realized it's not anywhere near Tokyo). Oh well. Doa ga shimarimasu and it's time to go to bed.

NOTE: I could probs write like a few more pages about Japan. I made it sound sort of stupid. It was badass. Hopefully, in the future, I'll get another Wikroll that will lead me back to Tokyo...maybe it'll be a metro station I've actually been to.

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