Tokyo Freespot

[imomus]

I arrive in Tokyo on Thursday morning. I'm not entirely sure whether the place I'm staying has internet access. So I'll be using Freespot to guide me to free wireless hotspots across the city. It's a listing of open wifi signals in Japan, but also China, the UK and the US.

In a city like Tokyo, where safety isn't really a concern, it's fine to go 'prospecting' for signal on streets just about anywhere in the city, at any time of the night or day. Just flip up the lid of your laptop and see what networks are in range. I'm a good prospector; I easily find unpassworded wifi signal wherever I am. I was using one in London over the weekend, for instance. (It's a skill not unrelated to 'hip homing', since signal and hipness tend to go together. What's more, sharing your wifi signal with other citizens makes you extremely cool.)

There are dangers, though. You have to stay street wise. I learned this last summer in New York, when I thought it would be fine to go prospecting for wifi signal up near the top of Central Park at one in the morning. I succeeded, even in crusty Morningside Heights, managed to download my e mail, then had to escape from four marauding, menacing teen hispanics on BMX bikes demanding money. The whole thing was chillingly polite: it started with 'Sir, can you lend us ten bucks?' and ended with 'Sir, we have to talk!' as, running like hell, I escaped to a porch of friendly black kids, a rival gang they didn't want to mess with. Did I mention that I was carrying $500 in cash as well as my laptop?

Comments

[dragonmonkey.livejournal.com]

I left an expensive video camera in a taxi on the way to Ninja (http://www.ninja.tv/) in Akasaka. The driver was a poker-faced ojiisan who gave me an icy scolding after I flagged him down for having walked in front of his car to get his attention - I apologized, and then had an awkward conversation about where I wanted to go. My Japanese was crap and he had never heard of the restaurant. I called Ninja on my cell and let them explain - I think he thought that the whole affair was very tedious. He dropped me off in the vicinity, jerked his finger in the direction of the restaurant, and grufly turned back to his enka.

A girl ninja who claimed her name was superman lead me through narrow hallways, low-ceiling crevices, and calling down a secret bridge with a magic word, over a pit of gurgling dry ice. When I arrived in my dark and serene ninja cubby hole, I realized my video camera was in one of a billion taxis in Tokyo. I didn't know the cab company and I had left no calling card and I had maybe gotten a footnote on the driver's shitlist. It was depressing. I found it hard to enjoy the disappearing coin trick my waiter hoped to entertain me with.

But sure enough, after eating some levitating maguro, a tall lanky grumpy old man comes out of the shadows, craning his neck and back to fit into the entrance to my crevice. Looking out of place flanked by kneeling black-clad ninja waiters, he handed me my camera.

I bowed a lot and said thank you, brightly grateful that I hadn't lost my 700 buck toy. His stony glare broke, and he smiled for real, taken back by my profuse apologies.

It was a warm moment.

But my point was this: Here in Japan, it is often easier to find someone who will go to great lengths to return something valuable to a stranger than to keep it for themselves.

Welcome back. Okairinasai.