Departing London; little bit moist.

[x31andy@mastodon.green]

@hugh Have a safe flight

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

Time for plane no. 2.

I enjoyed the 10 minutes spent landside at Shanghai.

Culturally, even though this is a fairly major international airport, it felt very different to the West.

The sheer number of staff milling around! The immigration agents had a sort of parade with their stamps.

Security felt rather dated in comparison, although certainly effective. My bag was dissected several times!

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

The local currency here.

[andrew@fedi.aeracode.org]

@hugh TAP EVERY VENDING MACHINE YOU CAN FIND

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

Salted herring and tuna broccoli salad is the ideal breakfast Japan has already won me over.

Other Western tourists are eyeing the options with great suspicion!

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

My Suica has been vandalised!

It transpires this has a leuco rewritable coating, so special products (like this 1 day season) are literally lasered onto the front (including a map!) and overwritten/removed once used.

Extremely extra but very cool. I've never seen one of these in the wild before.

Rewritable Laser System | Global | Ricoh

[Ricoh Global Official Website] Ricoh has established a technology that can rewrite physical distribution labels pasted on tote containers with no contact and at high speed about 1,000 times. The labels can be used repeatedly for five years or more under severe outdoor conditions; this contributes greatly to reduced environmental impact and cost. (The rewritable laser system is available only in Japan at the moment.)

Ricoh Global Website (www.ricoh.com)

[domi@donotsta.re]

@hugh@social.crablab.uk w00000t that's possible? super cool

[jeder@miau.jeder.pl]

@hugh i want oneeeeee

[eta@gotosocial.i.eta.st]

@hugh woah, that's insane!

[antonia@estrogen.network]

@hugh The Humboldt University of Berlin used to have that too, they printed the current ticket information onto your student ID card

[aetios@sns.minovsky.space]

@hugh You got one of the last suica with the penguin!

[szkodnix@sk.szkod.ovh]

@jeder@miau.jeder.pl @hugh@social.crablab.uk We all do!

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

@mametsuko thank you Mame!!!

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

@aetios Huh, I did not realise the penguins was going away. Imagine erasing Linus like that!

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

@domi exactly my reaction! I was originally really confused

[hattom@mastodon.social]

@hugh Cool!
It reminds me of my uni card in Germany. Every 6 months I'd have to put it in a machine on campus, and a laser would rewrite the expiry date/update the course info.

[hugh@social.crablab.uk]

Other important infrastructure in Tokyo:

The ubiquitous NTT phone, in very well kept and working phone booths (cc. @eloy I've definitely seen these on eBay)

CYBER, whilst grabbing sushi with @ripper

[ozzelot@mstdn.social]

@hugh
I want phone booths back...
@eloy @ripper

[m@martinh.net]

@hugh @eloy @ripper TIL: Japanese payphone gacha... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/376895405092

[eefi@icosahedron.website]

@hugh
Did you manage to take enough trips within Tokyo to make it worth it?