Sayonara Tokyo

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Ian...

We’ve only been lost the once since we’ve been here and neither of us have figured out exactly how it happened - something to do with turning right instead of left at some point. We were trying to be clever and take a shortcut from our place of dinner to our intended drinking hole using nothing but a tiny map that we’d got from the hotel. It happened quite late at night, so alcohol may have been involved in the decision to take this ambitious route. We ended up walking down a very dark, virtually deserted road (a rarity here). Fortunately, we came across an area map showing where we were and where everything else was, unfortunately, it was entirely in kanji characters and so was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. My watch has a built in compass, so I could tell exactly which direction we were travelling in, but alas, we had no idea in which direction our hotel lay. We studied the map for a good ten minutes before realising that north was not actually at the top of the map, but roughly 75 degrees to the left as clearly indicated by the microdot showing the compass that was hidden under a sticker advertising something to do with a boy band. This did not really help us to establish where we were, but did provide a wonderful excuse to issue an impressive stream of expletives. Eventually, defeated by our inability to understand what a squiggly box under a sort-of snake that was doing something unspeakable to a large blob actually means, we managed to retrace our steps until we knew where we were again.

Our original plan for that evening had been to go to a restaurant that had been recommended by a website called bentobox.com and indeed when we got there, the place ticked all the boxes for us; all the boxes that is except for the crucial one labelled “English or picture menus available”. We sat and stared at the kanji filled menu for a couple of minutes trying to see if there was any way at all of being able to figure out what cuisine was on offer before hesitantly asking the waitress for “Eigo menus?”. “Iye” came the response, so with a little gesturing and an explanation of “Nihongo hanasemasen” (a useful phrase meaning I do not speak Japanese) we had to retreat and go hunting for an alternative restaurant. This can be a little harder to do than you might think as a lot of the restaurants are not at ground level, or are behind opaque wooden sliding doors, and climbing up or down the stairs, or opening the sliding door kind of commits you to the place you have entered (unless it is really horrible) as the staff always shout out a greeting as soon as they see you, and from there it can be awkward to escape, so we were always wary of going into places that we couldn’t see into from ground level unless we had a recommendation from somewhere. Anyway, the evening turned out fine in the end as we finished up getting very merry in a Belgian beer bar!

Most evenings have been far more successful than that one though! We have been to some exquisite restaurants and the cuisine has been fantastic (other than the grilled chicken testicles I think I ate at one point). We have usually managed to find the places we wanted to get to without too much trouble (a compass is really useful here!) and without fail, the staff have bent over backwards to try to communicate with us and have been wonderfully friendly and welcoming and we have shared many an amusing moment trying to figure out the international symbol for such things as “please don’t put so much wasabi on the next piece of sushi as I no longer have any skin left on my sinuses”, or “where are the toilets?”, or “were they chicken testicles that I just ate? I thought they were just funny coloured peas!” (think flapping arms, clucking, swing low sweet chariot and pointing at your mouth and you have some idea of the “give us a clue” pantomime that is required for this particular communiqué). We have tried all sorts of Japanese cuisine - yakitori (chicken barbecue), sushi (raw fish - we’ve eaten so much of this that it is coming out of our ears!), kaiseki (a type of posh nosh) you name it, we’ve probably eaten it.

One place I should give a special mention to was a place called Gesshinkyo which specialised in a something called shojin-ryori. This is basically a Buddhist cuisine that is based purely on vegetables, grains and fruits. I have to admit I was not looking forward to it at all, but Rach insisted. I’m glad she did as it was a memorable meal that started with a sort of sesame tofu in soy sauce that was so soft it was almost impossible to pick up with chopsticks, and ended with a dessert made from seaweed covered with a grapefruit sauce, and was packed throughout with many interesting tasting dishes that contained 40 different vegetables. My personal favourite was the pineapple and curry powder deep fried wontons. On the surface, this cooking seems to be just about presenting vegan dishes, but in reality, it involves the chef having a completely Buddhist lifestyle involving cold baths, chanting, thorough cleaning of the house every day and lots of grinding of sesame seeds. Toshio Tanahashi, the chap who prepares the food, was a really nice guy, full of happiness and warmth. As we were leaving, he gave us a bag of tea that we had really enjoyed during our meal, and then showed us to the door. It looked like it had been rained, but when we mentioned this, he said that in fact, he had been out to clean the path for the departing guests and that it was something that happened at really good restaurants in Japan. I thought he was joking at first, but he really had been out and washed half the street between making courses!

Of course, our time here in Tokyo did not consist entirely of eating out at restaurants; we also did a bit of shopping too! Oh, and one or two cultural things such as going on what was touted as the highest Ferris wheel in the world (in 1999) at 115 metres, and attending the Tokyo National Museum where we saw lots of swords and armour and ukiyo-e paintings. We did a few sight-seeing things too like popping over to Harajuku to see the youths who dress up as their favourite characters from cartoons, visited a few temples, strolled round some parks, rode the monorail and generally walked the length and breadth of the city. One thing I noticed in Tokyo compared to Hong Kong is that there are very few escalators in the subway stations or on overhead road crossings, whereas Hong Kong was riddled with them. It’s no wonder the Japanese look so fit and healthy with all the stair climbing that they are doing on a daily basis. I was usually quite knackered after a few hours of walking about in the city centre and quite glad to stop off to buy a Bento box (a mixed lunchbox of fish and salad) and take it to a park to eat with a bottle of cold green tea or drop into a sushi bar and to have some fish and hot green tea. Fish appears to play a large part in the typical diet of the Japanese!

Rachael and I have been judging all the places we’ve been to with the hypothetical question of ‘If you got a contract here, would you take it?’ For Tokyo, I would have to say no as the constant, almost impenetrable crowds really get on your nerves after a while. If you had to rush anywhere, you might as well accept the fact that you are going to be late, as the only way to get above granny step pace there is to play amongst the traffic rather than try to use the path, and while the food is fantastic, after a few days of eating noodles and other exotic things, you just end up longing for a chip butty smothered in vinegar and a cup of hot sweet milky tea.

Overall, the trip to Tokyo has been a fantastic, if somewhat challenging experience. I’d love to go back and visit again and to go to other places in Japan too, but I think I need to learn a bit more Japanese first though!


And now a final word from Rach (of course)

After wrestling with the decision for the last week my (personal) verdict is that Tokyo beats everywhere else we have been on this trip. Ian is entirely correct that our cultural investigations are more epicurial-slash-retail than high-brow, but in our defence, the hours whiled away at the Tokyo National Museum yielded wonderful experiences, such as seeing the bizarre, alien ‘Jumon’ stone figures from thousands of years B.C. (And besides, they had a great gift shop.) On one weekend of our stay in the city, we took a trip out to the gardens of the Meiji shrine where weekend strollers, including many older ladies in marvellous kimonos, were admiring the irises and an ornamental pond full of fat carp and turtles. But best of all, at the shrine I had the chance to see a couple getting married in incredible, traditional costumes. The priest lead the parade through the courtyard, and the bridal pair and their families followed in procession. I imagine weddings have happened like this for hundreds of years. What a wonderful sight!

We got a buzz out of using our few, hesitating phrases of Japanese, and wherever we tried them out, I felt we connected warmly with our hosts. I expected the locals to be cold and standoffish; in fact quite the reverse was true.

Ian has already described our extraordinary experience of Buddhist Shojin Ryori cuisine. I never would have thought that some tofu and an elegantly placed snow pea would go down well with Ian, but it did. And with me. I felt myself nudged one level higher up the seven levels of wisdom that evening. But how can one become vegetarian in Japan?! Every beast in its entirety seems to be used in their cooking. The most extreme example of this was from one indelicately translated menu offering a dish of “diaphragm of the cow”. Not content with consuming just the animal, nourishment is also sought in her contraceptive device, it seems!! It’s a strange, strange place.

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Photos

Rachy in a graveyard
Not a cross in sight

Rachy sniffs dubiously at some sochyu
Japanese vodka - about 40% alcohol

Comments

[Robin]

Ow' do
Nice to see you back. Pint of beer at the Sun tomorrow? Thorougly enjoyed all the blogs + foties. I've visited so many places, whilst not leaving York. Thank you very much. Fancy a glass of sochyu?

[Ian n Rach]

A beer at the Sun...
That sounds like an excellent plan to me!