Encounters with the police

Okay I forgot to mention about our police encounters in my last entry! While scouting the city, it's easy to get lost - especially if you're a 20-year-old western white guy who understands like 4-5 japanese words. From my experience back home, when a police officer walks towards you, seeking eye contact and whatnot, you've probably done something wrong. In the midst of trying to decipher the enormous map of train stations in Shin-Okubo, a police officer drops by. The first vibe I get is something like, "Crap, what have we done now?" but actually, this police officer just wanted to help us getting to the right stations, buying the right tickets (Note: all ticket sales are done by a wall of... touch-screens, and of course, it's all in japanese with a few exceptions).

This has happened a few times now, and some of the officers don't know a word of english - but are really committed to helping us by doing everything they possibly can. This mentality seems to hold true to most japanese people, as well. Our teacher in school actually walked with us to the station and showed us step-by-step how to purchase and manage communer cards, and when our VISAs were rejected by a sales booth, a japanese man handled it manually for us.

So far, I've heard sirens like... once or twice during these two days. And it's strange, because Tokyo is kinda big! And the bigger a city gets, usually the crime goes up with it. The japanese police seems to have more of a helping duty rather than a beat-up-a-robber kind of deal, which is nice.