6 November 2015
Suburban Tokyo
The Aeon lake mall at Koshigaya
Everyone knows Tokyo is big. But people rarely go outside the Yamanote line. The Yamanote line has a radius of about 5km, it seems like a long way as it goes around in a circle, but I have in the past walked from the eastern edge to the western edge of that circle. No problem.
Tokyo extends much much further in every direction, at least 50km. No one knows whats there, cause trains going through it force the locals to pull the blinds down so you cant see out.
I was determined to find out whats there.
I changed trains 3 times to end up at a place called Koshigaya, about 20km North of the city centre, but still a long way from the edge of the city, a place without trees.
At first the station area seems similar, but most of the shops are empty. Theres a huge number of busses lined up out the front to take people further away, I decided to go on foot.
The map told me this was through a park, it was colored green on google, but it was an industrial park.
Lots of factories and parked trucks, but no people. What struck me most of all was the absolute lack of retail, no family mart, no corner lunch spots for workers, I guess they all eat at a canteen on site whilst singing the company song.
Most factories had a sea of bicycles parked out the front with a row of vending machines and not much else. The occasional open drain criss crossed my path. Generally hidden pipes were pouring metallic looking liquid into the drain.
There are no pedestrian crossings out here either, and turning trucks will not give way to you, they will just lean on the horn, I had no business wandering about their area of work and they knew it.
Eventually I hit an open drain barrier, with nowhere to cross, this marked the edge of the industrial area, the other side was a badly over grown field and then new looking identical housing for working families.
45 minutes later, I found a way across the other side.
This is how most people in Tokyo probably live. No parks anywhere, mid rise apartment, and a family mart on every other corner.
Lots of parking spots everywhere too, I guess most people are at work, presumably they all drive.
This is an actual run down suburban looking supermarket, the kind you might find in the outer suburbs of an Australian city, with some kids hanging around on a bmx smoking.
One of the open drains in the industrial area, except theres guys fishing down there. The water is very shiny! I hope they arent planning to eat anything they catch.
A rubbish bin with a bike wheel for a lid.
The local park, possibly for inter company football games, is a vast sea of dirt.
I was surprised to see rice planted here, the soil all looks badly contaminated.
Eventually I made it out of the industrial zone and into a new housing development, complete with 'lake' and giant shopping centre.
There is a huge amount of open space here which I found unusual.
Enjoy your lake.
The shopping centre was large, and actually 3 different multi storey theme zones joined together by sky bridges, including an outdoor outlet mall thing with zero people in it and many sleeping shop keepers. Just like China!
The Aeon part of the mall with 100 places to eat was doing much better, and by 12 noon it was starting to get hard to find somewhere to eat that wasnt already full.
A xmas tree made out of plastic bottles fished out of the lake.
I was amazed at this. Its a Perth based drive through coffee chain. They are inside a mall but still calling themselves Australian drive through coffee.
I googled it when I got back to my hotel, this is their first and only franchise in Japan. They generally only have stores in industrial areas in Perth, and also one in Tokyo.
Bored house wives can go to cooking classes at the mall instead of working. Once you get married in Japan, as a woman, your life is over. Accept it and get yourself to cooking class.
There was a lot of smiling and clapping going on.
My lunch was bad, and looks nothing like the picture. I was convinced to purchase due to the all you can eat salad bar.
The salad bar had various forms of cold mash potato you could serve yourself wih an ice scream scoop.
The experience was also more expensive than it had any right to be.
My lunch was somewhat rescued by all you can eat jelly!