Blogs from Minato, Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 3

We're sorry we couldn’t get to you (more on that later), so we're giving you the whole of our time in Kyoto in one big blog entry. Yesterday, but there was no internet connection in the Ryokan. No photos today either as not enough time to load them. We'll put them up tomorrow. We went to Tokyo Station and took the Shinkansen (the bullet train) to Kyoto covering 500 kilometres in two and a quarter hours. We wanted to see Mount Fuji from the train, but thick fog meant we couldn’t see anything. Just before I tell you anything else I just want to say the bullet train is incredibly fast (and cool). We checked into our Ryokan (a traditional Japanese guest house-google it) and then we went to have some noodles for lunch. Compared to ... read more

The Tokyo metro area by most measures clocks in at around 12 million people who's main protein source is fish (although this has been changing as McDonalds etc. has been colonizing the world). It makes for the biggest fish market in the world, called the Tsukiji Wholesale Market, a 40 minute train ride from my house. This is the market responsible with providing ALL of Tokyo either directly or indirectly with its fish. From the top restaurants who go directly, to major supermarket chains who take deliveries from a middleman, to the little neighborhood fishmonger, if you eat fresh fish in Tokyo, it comes from here. Everyday with very few exceptions fishing boats from the waters around Japan come in and unload everything you can imagine that lives in the ocean, starting around 3am in the ... read more

I am constantly having to do math. Getting used to the money is hard in itself. Stephen taught me to think of 1,000 yen as being $10, but 100 yen (which would be a $1 if you are keeping up) is a coin. I have several times offered to buy my grande vanilla latte at Starbucks for 4,000 yen which would be $40. Thank goodness the Japanese are such honest people. They also show the temperature in celsius, not that I am reading to many papers here. I just look up on weather.com and it shows me what the temperature is going to be in good old fashion fahrenheit. They also show time in military time. I am having to do math again to figure out what time my workout class is when it is at ... read more