The Latest in Parking

Last week Cindy and I caught a ride to Roppongi Hills with some friends in their minivan. This gave us a chance to see how the parking system operates there.

When you arrive at the parking facility, which is underneath the mall and tower, you are directed into a small, garage-like room. There are two metal belts built into the floor sideways across the room. With the help of an attendant, you park so the front wheels rest on one belt, and the rear wheels on the other. You get out of the car, and lock it up.

You pass into an adjoining room. You can watch the room with your car through a large window. The attendant comes into the other room with you and punches a few buttons on a machine. The side wall of the garage starts to rise, and you realize the whole wall is an overhead door, with another room behind it. Once the door is up, the belts in the floor start up, and your car is carried sideways into the adjacent room. The wall door descends again, and you car disappears.

Your vehicle is now in the clutches of a robotically-controlled containment system. But they are kind, efficient clutches. The computer assigns your car an empty cube--just big enough to fit it--and a series of mechanical belts, tracks, and lifts carries it to its proper place on the rack.

The machine spits out a magnetic card, which the attend hands to you. When you return later to retrieve you car, you simply insert the card and the amount you owe for the parking. The machine directs you to the garage in which your car will appear. A couple of minutes later, the wall opens up, and your car slides back into view.

This kind of parking system is very expensive to set up, as you would expect. But it has a number of advantages. For customers, it's a time-saver. There is no need to search for a parking space. It's also safer; nobody can break into your car, and there is no risk of door dings or fender-benders. Furthermore, you can't forget where you parked.

For the system operator, there are real benefits as well. The parking cubes only have to be big enough to hold the vehicle--there's no need to allow room for doors to open, or to allow for headroom. And no space is wasted in access aisles and ramps. You can fit twice as many vehicles into this type of parking garage. Additionally, you can run it with a smaller staff--no need for valet drivers, tollbooth workers, or security people. It's a real win-win, in my view.

Sign of the week: Watch your butt!

A lot of people smoke here in Tokyo. And even more spend a significant portion of their lives waiting for the light to change so they can cross the street. So, this sign is a polite reminder to smokers to avoid holding their lit cigarettes too close to children's heads (a convenient height at which to dangle one's smoke, apparently). I never even thought about the possibility of this kind of accident before, but in the crowds here, I guess it's a real danger.

Some of the signs around here strike me because they seem funny to me; this one seems genuinely smart.

Edifice of the Week: Gonpachi (Nichi Azabu)

Most Thursdays Cindy and I have lunch at Gonpachi in Nichi (West) Azabu. It's about halfway between work and home, so it makes a convenient meeting spot. But even if it wasn't convenient, we'd probably figure out a way to get here. It's our favorite Japanese restaurant. Gonpachi is part of a small chain--I think they have four other locations in Tokyo--but this is the only one we've been to.

I have heard conflicting stories about the original building that was on this site. One is that it was formerly a castle, another that it was a treasure house. Maybe it was both. It is probably most famous in recent years as the site of a 2002 lunch featuring President Bush and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

You have to duck (actually, C. J. and I do--Cindy doesn't) to get inside Gonpachi. Once you enter, you are met by a hostess, who calls out a greeting, which is echoed by a welcoming shout from all the staff.

There are two main floors, but the bottom one is divided into two levels. On the lowest is an open kitchen, with a large grill, that sends a mouth-watering aroma (and smoke) into the air. Surrounding the kitchen on three sides is a bar where you can sit, and tables on the floor beyond that.

Some of the tables on the bottom floor have a latticework of bamboo overhead. The upper part of the first floor is a row of booths along the eastern wall, elevated a few feet above the lower part.

The upper floor is open in the middle, and consists of rows of booths or rooms along each wall. The booths are like those on the first floor; the rooms are fancier. While still partly open to the balcony-like hall on one side, they are more private, and are treated like separate chambers. You have to remove your shoes and don slippers to eat in one of them.

Beautiful wood is everywhere inside. The tables on the first floor, and the extensive bar, are solid. The booths feature heavy benches. Any seat in the house allows a view of the enormous beams across the ceiling. And above the upper booths are screens of bamboo.

The verdict from our family--C. J. included--is that the food here is delicious. It's very Japanese--yakitori (skeweres of charcoal-grilled chicken) is the specialty, but they make great tempura as well. You can get a really good lunch special, featuring a little bit of everything,
for 2,000 yen (under $20). But this post is really about the building--we'll talk about food another time.

Vehicle of the Week: Lamborghini Murcielago LP640

I came across this little gem while walking home from work the other week. The 2006 update of a model introduced in 2001, it features a 6.5 liter V12 engine that produces 640 hp. I really like the looks and specs of this model, but I don't have a spare $275,000 to buy one. I'd choose a white one, like this, but they also come in red and black at the Lamborghini dealer down the street. Have I mentioned I feel slightly out of place in this neighborhood?

Down it goes...

At work (conference room) watching the sun set over the mountains.

Up it goes...

I pass a certain construction site in Azabu Juban on my way to work. I'm not a builder, so I don't really know, but it seems to me that the work has gone unusually quickly. Maybe this is partly because the site is so tiny, footprint-wise. Anyway, I took a picture just before the building wrap went up (December 19th) and another one just after they took it down (March 3). So, that makes less than two and a half months from "hole in the ground" to "windows installed." I could only fit the bottom of the structure in the picture--there are three more stories atop these.

A Day in Odaiba

In 1853, the last Shogun of the Tokugawa era was distressed by the arrival of the "Black Ships," a group of American ships under Commodore Matthew Perry. To protect Tokyo from this fleet, he had a series of forts built on reclaimed land out in the bay. These cannon batteries ("daiba") made little difference in the long run, because Perry simply landed a little way down the coast at Yokohama, and the days of Japan's isolation were soon ended.

Over the years, the island forts were neglegted and deteriorated. One was made into a park in the 1920s, but it wasn't until the success of Expo '85 World's Fair in Tsukuba that things began to change in a big way.

Tsukuba, about 40 miles from Tokyo, was built specifically to host the Expo. The plan was that after the fair closed, it would be turned into a new city dedicated to science. This plan actually worked, and the late 80s saw Tsukuba thrive.

Those were flush years in Japan, and the government began to look around for opportunities repeat the success of the Tsukuba experiment. They decided to build another planned city, and decided on Odaiba as the location. According to Wikipedia, it would have self-sufficient population of 100,000 and would focus on the world of the future.

Unfortunately, before the city was completed, the economic "bubble" burst. Amazing buildings with striking features soon stood empty, next to vacant lots and construction projects halted in process. The future looked bleak. But re-zoning in the latter part of the 90s brought businesses in, and with them came renewed economic activity. Today, while Odiaba is noticeably less crowded than most parts of Tokyo I've been to, there are some interesting attractions. So Cindy and I took a Saturday to have a look.

To get to Odaiba, you have to cross the water. You can walk, drive, or take the bus across Rainbow Bridge. You can also take the Yurikamome line, a sort of elevated tram-train, which also uses the bridge. There are also a couple of ferries, and the Rinkai subway line (which would have to be the most boring way to get there). We bought day pass tickets that gave us unlimited use the ferries or the train. Since it was a beautiful, sunny day, we decided to cross on the ferry. Here is the view from the boat, looking back toward Tokyo.

After crossing the bay, we entered a large canal, and made our way into the heart of Odaiba. Other boats passed by. We went under low bridges. We saw some of the high-tech buildings and attractions of the city, some of them still (or once again) under construction. The needle-looking thing is the support for a footbridge; the ferris wheel is the second-largest in the world (behind the Eye of London).

My favorite buiding was the place our ferry docked: "Tokyo Big Sight." It's a convention center; it reminds me of something out of Star Wars.

Tokyo is really hoping for the chance to host the 2016 Olympics; however, it's not close to being a front-runner (since the Beijing games in 2008 give Asia recent representation) hosting. But optimism runs high here, because if the games did come, Odaiba would play a strong role. This banner at Big Sight boldy predicts the XXXI Olympics will be here.

Big Sight also contains restaurants; we ate lunch at a cafeteria (we had A Especially Nice Taste).

After we ate, we walked over to the station to pick up the Yurikamome line. The train isn't really a train. There are no tracks, and the cars run on rubber wheels on an elevated concrete path with side barriers. The line runs through Odaiba, and you can use it to get from place to place.

We stopped at Toyota MegaWeb, next to Venus Fort shopping mall. MegaWeb is like nothing we'd seen before. It's a big, multi-story complex that combines self-serve showroom (you can explore all the new model Toyotas and Lexuses with no salespeople "helping"), concept cars, car museum, and even an experimental track with cars (tiny Toyota E-Coms) that drive themselves, using sensors build into the road. We took a "drive"--twice around the track with the car operating itself.

Also right next to the Toyota place is the ferris wheel. Unfortunately, it was closed due to high winds. We took the Yurikamome line home, crossing rainbow bridge. We'll be back another day for more.

Sign of the Week: Be a Fireman! Impress Girls!

This seems to be a recruitment effort for the local fire department, or maybe for careers in firefighting. My Japanese is so limited that I can't read this sign, but I think the picture tells the story. I don't know which I like more--the impassive, stern demeanor of the dashing (check out the eyelashes) hero fireman, or the heart-shaped eyes on the impressed beauty in the background (is she swooning?).

P.S. If any of you single guys are heading for the phone, the country code for Japan is +81

Vehicle of the Week: Toyota PM

This week's winner is a concept car by Toyota: the PM (I think it stands for "Personal Mobility"). Cindy and I found this while on a trip to Odaiba, at the Toyota City Showcase.





The Toyota website has this to say about the PM:

"The PM is a personal mobility vehicle that 'fits like a glove' to create a feeling of unity between the driver and the vehicle. Cutting-edge vehicle-to-vehicle communications technologies are employed under the concept of "meeting, linking and hanging out together".

I'm sorry I can't provide a better look at the interior, but we were not aloud in the vehicle.





The wheel concept is very different--as you can see, there are no axles.





You have to wonder how practical it would be to own one of these. Still, you have to admit, it looks very cool. And the Toyota emblem on front, it seems somehow legitimate. Who knows? Maybe someday...