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Asia » Japan
October 8th 2018
Published: October 10th 2018
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Konichiwa!

Tokyo. Its organized chaos. That was apparent the minute we arrived at the airport. We had been told that the Japanese are extremely willing to help and, thankfully, that turned out to be true. With the help of information centres and random people we conquered the train and subway system and managed to see a reasonable chunk of Tokyo.


We visited a couple of temples and shrines, a cat cafe, had a drink at New York Bar on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt Hotel (if you've seen Lost In Translation you may remember this bar), navigated the Shibuya Crossing more than once and had some memorable meals.

By far our best meal was as a restaurant called Teppan Baby. We sat right at the teppen grill and watched as 3 chefs prepared meals for the entire restaurant. This was not the "Teppenyaki show" we see in western Japanese restaurants but serious cooking. Fascinating and fun to watch.


Japan has vending machines on every corner. Mostly containing drinks ( soft drinks, juices, cold coffee and some with beer). Lots for cigarettes and even some that dispensed ice cream ( a highlight for Andra)
Even one of the restaurants where we ate lunch had you put money in a
a vending machine that was in front, you pressed the buttons for the items you wanted to order, it dispensed cards that you gave to a worker inside who delivered them to your table as they were ready. Efficient and delicious to boot.

The Japanese seem to have an affection for gambling. We walked through one of the hundreds of gambling places we saw. It was noisy, smokey and filled with endless button pushing. It wasn'tt our scene, but the lineups to these places in the morning seem to say we're in the minority.

Our Japanese ports that followed Tokyo were quieter in comparison but beautiful and interesting. We especially liked Kochi Castle and the surrounding town.

These ports welcomed and sent our ship off in style with dancers, dummers and fireworks.

We're giving the Japanese leg of this holiday 2 thumbs ups.

Domo Arigato, Japan. You've been superb!


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