Next Stop Ueno

Four trips to Tokyo in the last five years, the sprawling city is starting to gain a certain familiarity, which usually happens when one location within it becomes a point of reference, in this case the cool designer Andon Ryokan in Minowa, which we went back again this year to stay.

Funny how cities like Tokyo can become so familiar and yet remain an effort to get to. Anyone who's been there would know what I mean. There's only one hour time difference between Japan and Singapore, but it is a solid 7.5 hours plane ride from Singapore to Tokyo. When you land at Narita, there is a longish train ride into the city that takes at least an hour. Door to door, you are talking about nearly 12 hours of travel time to get there.

One banker that I travelled together with recently commented that the greatest cost of doing business in Asia is the amount of travel time from city to city. Many of the investment banks are trying to figure out how to cut short that time, including using private jets or corporate time sharing of aircrafts. But he says these methods are still prohibitively expensive. Apparently it costs $50,000 to make a private landing at Narita. And somehow, I just don't see the CEOs of Morgan Stanley, Goldman and Merrills all sharing a private plane to go for a competitive beauty parade in any city at the same time.

Last Monday afternoon, while sitting in the subway train going from Tsujiki back to our ryokan in Minowa, and anticipating the long drawn travel route back to Singapore that evening, Agent M quipped, "You know, I am really not looking forward to the plane ride back. How nice it would be if the next stop was Clementi, and then Bishan." Sitting in that now-familiar Tokyo train, it seemed dreamily possible that we could be conveyed to our own doorsteps without further ado. It would be great if travel one day really got that efficient, and we could just take the MRT to eat sashimi uni in Tokyo when we got off.