Sumimasen

Sumimasen means roughly "excuse me", in both the "get out of my way!" and "can I be of help?" senses. It's a word you should take note of, even if you're unlikely to ever use it yourself. As you walk around one of the many large department stores in Tokyo you'll be followed by a polite chorus of simimasens from the many attentive sales persons as you wander into the area of floor for which they are responsible.

Ginza, in all its neon magnificence

A final set of random thoughts:

• I was struck by the number of staff employed seemingly everywhere. Sales staff seemed more prevalent on the floors of department stores; each Metro platform was permanently manned; wherever you went, the number of people on hand to server seemed greater than I'm used to in the UK. How this related to the widespread use of technology was also interesting. For instance, many museums and other attractions used vending machines to sell their entrance tickets, but there would typically be three or four members of staff on hand to welcome you, point you in the direction of the machines, and show you how to use them. Technology is employed in addition to — rather than as a replacement for — human staff.
• They drive on the correct (left) side of the road, but stand on the wrong (left) side of escalators.
• There are lots of bicycles, most of them being ridden on the pavements. And I don't think I saw one helmet the whole time. Tut-tut, Tokyo.
• When you pay for something, I think that you're meant to place the money in the little tray on the counter, rather than handing it over to the salesperson. At least, that's the impression I got the first time I tried paying in the normal way and was corrected. Of course, sometimes there isn't a little tray, so I guess in that case it's okay to thrust cash at them.
• There was surprisingly little sushi on offer, the preferred food being ramen-style noodle bowls. The sushi I did try wasn't a patch on the stuff from the Rice Wine Shop in Brewer Street.
• Restaurants go in for displaying pictures of the food they serve, at least out on the shop front. (But not on the menus. Oh no, that would make things too easy...) Some even go so far as to display plastic replicas of the dishes they offer. Unfortunately, plastic being rather shiny, this has the effect of making them glisten rather unappetisingly.
• There is a really nice small sized paperback format, which is used for both prose books as well as manga. It's about 3" by 4" and is surprisingly nice and light to hold. I wonder if this format only works because kanji text is more dense than languages written in roman characters. And slip-on covers for your books seem popular, too.
• You wouldn't think it was possible to make Santa any more exciting than he already is, but somehow they've found a way:

"Captain Santa: For the Future"