Japanese and Efficiency

They weren't kidding when they said the Japanese are an efficient culture. I think being efficient is something they are just born with and it permiates their entire society. Where to get started....

Trains. Trains, and subways, apparently run to-the-minute and are virtually never later and the system virtually never breaks down (unlike London). In fact, the other night the train I caught was actually early, which one could argue means they need to fix the discrepency :) Everyone relies on the subway to get around... 2 million people commute through Shinjuku station (the Grand Central of Tokyo) every day. And apparently everyone goes to work at exactly the same time: 8:20am-8:40am. The only time trains are really ever late is when there has been a suicide on the line, sadly.

Vending Machines. First of all, these things are _everywhere_ in Tokyo. The entire experience is super fast compared to back home. It accepts your money quickly (ie shows the readout), and immediately the drinks which you can afford light up to make it easy for selection. The lights under each beverage are all also buttons, so there is no messing around with B2 or H7 either. Oh, and the lights/buttons themselves don't become lit until you've entered enough money to afford that particular drink. Crazy cool. Oh, and when you select your drink it is shot down to the bottom area super fast too.

ATMs. The vast majority of ATMs here don't take international bank cards... fortunately I had an internation ATM in my hotel, but before I figured that out I put my card in a bank machine near work just to give it a go. The machine literally took less than a second to spit my card back out and flash invalid onto the screen. North American machines take several seconds just to respond to an inserted card.

Subway turnstyles. These are really neat and beat the snot outta the way London works (which I thought was pretty efficient itself). The gates themselves assume you will pay, so they are actually open all the time. If you don't pay as you walk through, it detects you and closes some padded doors and the turnstyle goes red.... James' card didnt work one time (though it was valid) so he just tried going through to find this security measure. If you card is valid, it says thank you straight away, and you fly through the gates. Pretty neat considering London itself is fast and the only delay really is the second or two it takes for the gates to open and close again.

Subway schedule. Most subways operate pretty frequently -- usually every couple minutes during busy times. Better subways like London tell you when you enter the station or platform how many minutes until the next train arrives. Apparently Barcelona counts down the seconds until the train arrives (i havent been). In Tokyo, the trains are all on a schedule... _always_. During rush hour when they run every 2 minutes, the schedule is something like:

8:05, 8:08, 8:011, 8:14, 8:16, 8:18, 8:20, 8:22, etc etc

For all lines, for all days the subway has an exact schedule. Imagine how this would impact your commute if you no longer just 'went to the tube' and got on the next train, but you knew exact trains. You could say to your friends 'i'm generally take the 8:18 train in the morning'... crazy.

As an aside, apparently everyone in Tokyo commutes to work at exactly the same time, so for like 25 mins the system is packed. The guys working on the platforms wear white gloves and are apparently professional 'pushers' who help squeeze people in to max space in the train. Seems weird to intentionally be pushed into the train, but it means there is no wasted space and therefore can move more people through. Apparently in Tokyo you don't wait on the platform for 'the next train' since the first one is full.... that would be inefficient, and we wouldn't want that.

Syd.