Advertisement
Published: November 5th 2006
We've just arrived in NZ after spending a lovely 7 days in Japan. It is a crazy city - absolutely massive!! but nice and easy to find your way about (if you speak japanese and don't need to use street signs). The language barrier really was the hardest part of the holiday, but we got round it just fine - its amazing what random guidebook phrases and pointing at pictures can get you! We did all the classical Japanesey things, such as eating sushi (it really tasted just as it looked...raw) eating oads of fish and noodles (by the end we went out of our way to look for none fishy things and ended up accidentally eating liver, 2 types of animal fat, chicken and some unknown organ on scewers).
On the 1st morning we went and visited the fish market (the largest in the world) - it contained some of the ugliest creatures i have ever seen! amazing to see though, so many different types of fish, some really huge ones to some midget fish. the tubes at rushhour were also a unique experience - London will seem really quiet in comparison! basically, on the platform everyone queues up in lines at points that the train doors open, you then all pack on with station workers literally pushing you all in as tight as you can get and then trying really hard to shut the doors (at this point still pushing more people in until people are squeezed right up against the windows) - crazy sight, and very scary to be in!
The city is very organised and has different areas selling different things, eg, theres electiric city, a musical instruments area, 2nd handbook area, etc. We visited many shrines and temples in the city (they're everywhere) and stayed in some lovely japanese style rooms (Ryokans). Here we had to wear slippers indoors, they had futons to sleep on, paper walls and low tables - all very sweet! The buildings were all amazing. We stayed near the Asahi Beer HQ (which is built to look like beer), but the rest of the area was old-Edo style (more tradional Japense). the buildings in other parts were just amazing, especially at night. so many lights!! We went up to the top of the Roppongi Hills building for a view of the city which was pretty spectacular, especially as the smog is clearly visible!
We spent a night in Nikko which is a town 2 hours outside Tokyo where we saw more shrines, temples and Pogodas (I won't bore you with all their names) and stayed with a very sweet lady in her hostel (again a nice Japanese style room). Nikko was very much country-ish, and at some points you could almost think you were back in the UK!
We had a really good week in Tokyo wandering around and visiting the sites, but have now arrived in Aukland and are quite appreciating the fact that they speak English here! (although so far most restaurants we've seen have been Japanese). We're having a few days acclimatising before we set about trying to get work stuff sorted out so will update this again when we've got something to say!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 12; qc: 60; dbt: 0.0527s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
crystal=hotti2
non-member comment
great
hi what a great trip u had c ya soon