Advertisement
Published: September 29th 2010
We flew home via Tokyo and faced our most hideous time difference challenge yet. For the day that Caleb was with me, we spent the time eating and sleeping (I know it's not like us). A helpful Japanese man quickly realised we were hopeless when he saw me struggling to write my name in Katakana (I should really have brushed up) outside a restaurant and then later informed Caleb that he was not eating his Tonkatsu properly and that he wasn't supposed to put the sauce directly onto the rice, but have the sauce on the pork and eat the rice separately - he then insisted that the waitress bring a new rice for Caleb. Shino later informed me that this is the difference between Tonkatsu and Katsudon.
I then began to live off the custard-filled breads and was extremely excited to find a Wittamer cake shop in the bottom of one of the department stores in Ikebukuro - this had been one of my 'must visit' places in Belgium that was unsatisfied after the food poisoning incident.
After Caleb left Shino flew up from Fukuoka, to assist with my deteriorating Japanese language skills and faux pas. We took
a trip on a water taxi admiring the city view from inside a boat in the rain - the guide spoke very quickly in Japanese and had to stop for constant rests and to re-twirl her hair. We got off at Hama Rikyu Garden, passing by the decoy ducks and having a tasty flower-shaped cake with traditional green tea at the tea house. We headed over the Rainbow Bridge to Odaiba for dinner and went in a clear glass capsule on the giant ferris wheel there.
The next day we set off to Nikko - where we strolled around all of the temples and shrines (to get maximum value out of our day pass!). Shino sweet-talked some locals into giving us treats and showing us the way to see the many jizo statues along the river. Nikko was a nice escape from the city - lots of moss and trees and no skyscrapers. Unfortunately, the serenity came at a price - our cheap ticket included our ticket on the slow train (3 hours) to Tokyo and there were no bento boxes left for dinner!
On my last day, before heading to the airport, Shino and I visited the
Metropolitan Art Centre (to see the really long escalator!) and took to Ueno, where we looked (unsuccessfully) for buskers in Ueno Park and went to Ameyoko market. We were the 2nd oldest people (after an elderly couple) to take a cycle boat for a spin on the boat lake at Ueno Park... It was good of Shino to take me on this adventure (which is apparently popular for dates, particularly the boats shaped like swans) because it certainly wouldn't have suited Caleb - unbelievably, it seemed that I was a little too tall and had to double myself over in order to cycle on the boat. I'm still not entirely sure it wasn't just meant for kids (even though Shino kept insisting that it wasn't and pointing to the elderly couple)...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.05s; cc: 10; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0299s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
deleted_49612
deleted_49612
What a great photo! :)