My good buddy Paul visited me for a week from the United States about two weeks ago. We decided to take a trip into the big city and went to Ginza, Tokyo’s most expensive shopping area, a must-see for anyone travelling this way. It was hot…Not hot. It was beyond hot, and as we walked through Ginza we were sweating profusely and dying to rehydrate…
Now, for the most part, finding a drink in Japan is easy. There are vending machines all over the place, very convenient most of the time, but we were at Ginza, and I hadn’t planned for such a thing. There are no vending machines at Ginza. It is an upscale, expensive area, mainly for those that are able and/or willing to pull out their credit cards and spend away…Ginza is clean of vending machines and such that might visibly “pollute” the district.
After walking for what seemed like an eternity, looking for a vending machine, I finally realized that this area was Ginza, and Ginza isn’t gonna stoop so low as to allow anyone to install a vending machine on it’s streets. So Paul and I went into a coffee shop – one of the cheaper ones…And Paul did a good job of ruining my day in there (just kidding, sort of)…
I ordered a large glass of iced tea, went to a table, took a sip and decided to be polite and wait for him while he ordered a freshly squeezed glass of orange juice. What a mistake on my part! As soon as he came to the table he accidentally knocked my iced tea off the table and it crashed, shattered all over the floor in front of about ten customers standing in line. To say that was embarrassing is an understatement. We were both dripping in sweat, he was apologizing to me, I was more worried about cleaning it up, and finally one of the workers began cleaning our mess up. So we moved upstairs, where I should have gone in the first place, Paul drank his orange juice, and I drank about 4 glasses of the free water that was available….Thanks Paul, my life will never be the same…
So the moral of this story is that if you are headed for Ginza, don’t expect the conveniences of having a vending machine within five minutes ( or 15 minutes for that matter), which is quite usual if you are anywhere else in the suburbs or other parts of Tokyo. Go to Ginza by all means, but be prepared to spend a bit more if your purpose is shopping, and be real careful in those coffee shops!
Jim
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