Japan

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Saturday. London - Tokyo

Frankly the suburbs of Tokyo looked a bit chaotic and bleak as we sped through them into the city on the Narita Airport express train. Miles and miles of low rise housing were crammed together on a flat plain and covered by a network of wires. We saw very few brick or stone buildings which, to our eyes, gave the vast swathes of housing a rather temporary look. Of course the area is prone to earthquakes so the buildings, or at least the older ones, were not going to be big, heavy structures. There are very few trees to break up the harsh view, I suspect they were removed to fit more houses in. This crowded scene was repeated around Japan because although the population of Japan is twice that of the UK in twice the area, only 20% of the country is habitable. The rest is mountains. Hence this crowded and uninspiring landscape.

We had landed a hour or so earlier and had our fingerprints taken electronically, so dismissing any thoughts of burglary we might of been planning. It was all done politely and quickly and we were soon through the immigration and customs and into Japan.

We were staying in the Ginza region in blossom time which must be the most crowded place on earth at that time. We had to push our way through the huge crowds heading to the parks, if I had not been so tall I think I might have found the crowds claustrophobic and frightening. As we battled through them I felt there was something different to being in say, London, New York or Paris. Then it came to me - the crowds were 99% Japanese. Very few non Japanese faces. I was told that a person born in Japan, with a Japanese name to Korean parents, will not be Japanese and cannot become Japanese. It is a very homogenous society. Multicultural it isn’t.

However there were a few Chinese around. We were staying in hotel next to one of the most important Buddhist Shrines in Tokyo and it is here you will find Chinese pilgrims. We were told they would be the people taking the Shrine seriously - the Japanese generally don’t. So the people kneeling in front of the shrine, throwing money at it and making noises were probably Chinese.

The Chinese and Japanese are not particularly fond of each other. The Chinese think the Japanese smell (very strange given the Japanese cleanliness obsession) and the Japanese think the Chinese have (and I quote) “Slitty eyes”.

To my mind the Japanese have a rather healthy attitude to religion in that they don’t take it too seriously. They have their home grown religion - Shinto, which has a lots of Gods, they have Budhism which has its own set, and they have Christianity which has just the one. As a (Catholic) Japanese guide said, with all the Gods in Shinto and Budhism, adding an extra Christian one was very easy.

Another thing which you don’t see very often anywhere else are the wretched face masks many Japanese people wear. However in this hygiene obsessed country they are mainly worn to stop spreading your own germs, not to protect against the germs of others, although I am sure some use them for that reason. We did see someone take a picture of their partner in a park, posing in front of a beautiful tree wearing a mask! When we were in China we asked our Chinese guide why a group of tourists were wearing face masks and they said “because they are Japanese and they are strange”!

Our first meal in Japan, once we had worked out how to order it, was from a stall inside the Shrine complex and was noodles and a beer and was very tasty. Our evening meal was ramen noodles and another beer. Also tasty.




Sunday
Our hotel was comfortable and offered us a breakfast buffet of mackerel, omelette, tofu and pasta, croquettes, toast, pickles, and fruit cocktail. Not all at once of course but it was all delicious. The coffee was also very good, and in fact throughout Japan the coffee was generally excellent.

We had booked the trip to Japan at this time of year to see the blossom which is a BIG THING in Japan, but how big we had not realised. Ueno park is a the place to go so we joined the multitudes and shuffled from the station to the park. And in the park were acres of trees covered in white blossom. And under the trees, covering every square foot, were blue groundsheets sitting on which would be a family or group of friends or work colleagues. Sometimes there were just 2 people having a romantic picnic or there maybe 20 people having a party. Apparently its good luck when blossom falls on you. The food they consumed varied from home-made to plastic packed shop food. We even saw a pizza delivery arrive for one group. Drinking is an important part of the ritual and it was not unusual to see a reveller staggering around, obviously with too much sake and/or beer inside them.

It was quite an amazing sight and reminded me of the wildlife films on BBC when 5 million penguins/antelopes/locusts all descend on a water hole or stream. There were many, many people in the park, probably the biggest number of people I had seen outside a major sporting event. TV cameras, maybe from the BBC wildlife department, were there to capture the event which only happens for a few days each year.

We escaped from the park and made our way by train to the Palace gardens in the very centre of Tokyo. The gardens were a vast, open space with many spaced evenly around. I think we missed the more formal area but we did see the star attraction: the “Bridge at the Gate”. Which was just what it was. And no more.

A sight I had not seen for a long time was a traffic policeman but there , in the centre of Tokyo was where they survived and thrived. However they must be endangered, (unless they are part of a job creation scheme), because all the road junctions had perfectly functioning traffic lights and pedestrian crossings. They policemen strutted and waved their batons and blew their whistles but no one seemed to take a blind bit of notice. When the traffic light turned green they went, when it turned red they stopped.

Because of the Blossom pilgrimage the many restaurants were full and mostly had long queues outside their doors. In fact if a restaurant didn’t have a queue you wondered what was wrong with it. So we gave up looking for one and had a snack at the shrine again. This time it was a cabbage pancake with egg, bacon and bonito (tuna) flakes. It was OKish and very filling.

Our first group meal, chosen by our guide was in a semi private room on the 2nd floor of a building. But first we had to negotiate the shoe removing riyual. There was a boundary, just inside the door, where you removed your shoes before entering. You had to be very careful not to step on the “indoor” area in your shoes nor the “outdoor” area in your socks. This was not as easy as it may seem especially in a group of over 50 year olds. Shoes were deposited in lockers and we made our way to the table. The table was set about 1 foot above the floor but thankfully there was a well under the table for your legs to fit in so it wasn’t too uncomfortable. Later in the trip we experienced a table without a well, ie just 1ft above the floor and that must be the most uncomfortable dining position devised by man. Anyway, our meal was a succession of interesting, tasty and sometimes challenging food. We also learnt:
-Ginger slices are there to cleanse your palate, not eat with your meal.
-Soy sauce is only used to dip sushi (unless fish already has sauce on it)
-The brown sauce is used to dip tempura in, not pour on your rice.
-Soup is drunk from the bowl.
-Never, ever stick your chopsticks vertically in rice.
-Its perfectly OK to drink beer until you can’t stand up.
So briefly we ate (or not in some cases)
Sashimi, which is raw meat, and this meal included raw horse (which was quite nice).
Sushi, which is raw fish, sometimes veg, with rice and designed to be eaten in one mouthful.
Tempura, fish or vegetables in deep fried in batter
Noodles of many types - Udon, Ramen etc.

If you don’t know the name in japanese you simply take the waiter outside to the display of plastic replica food and point.



Monday
The Senso-ji temple lay just behind our hotel so was our first stop of the day. It is a Buddhist temple and founded where some fisherman found a statue in their nets. They threw it back but, lo, it reappeared (ie floated to the surface). This seemed a good a reason as any to start a temple so 1400 years ago the first shrine was built. The present buildings are much more recent, in fact it was rebuilt after being bombed during world war 2.

Lining the approaches to the shrine are lanterns with writing on. Surely some religious messages? No, we were told they are advertisements for local businesses, and this is an example of the relaxed view the Japanese have of religion and worship. In fact Japan is one of the least religious countries in the world.

Now imagine this in your local church: you drop 100 yen in a tin and take a stick out of a box. The stick has a number corresponding to a drawer and in this drawer, on a piece of paper, is your future. The predictions can be optimistic and you will succeed in everything you do, or, as one of our group found out, everything will go wrong and you might as well give up now. In fact we do have this at home - its called astrology and as far as I know its not sanctioned by the Church of England.

From the shrine we walked to the river and boarded a boat for a short trip on the Sumida river. I have to say that, apart from the blossom, this part of the river is not very inspiring to the tourist. In fact Tokyo seems to resent the river and all the space it takes up, and has turned its back on it. Not very pretty but interesting nonetheless.

The Hamarikyu gardens were originally the Shogun’s private garden but since 1946 have been public. They are large and quite open with views of the city and river. The most interesting bits were the channels running off the lake where ducks were chased into a dead end and where they were caught and eaten. We had been given a notepad to record ink stamps which appear to be at every tourist sight and railway station. The garden had these stamps at the ticket office so a few of the group became very excited to be able to stamp their little books. So sweet.

There was an amazing clock amongst the office towers, it is brown and lots of things happen. I think the word “steam punk” best describes it, if you don’t know what that means then I can’t really explain, but it was used in the closing ceremony of the London Olympics. Think Victorian/Jules Verne.

We took another train and then walked past the street known for the girls who adopt the “Loletta” look. I didn’t see many but I did see one who looked more like Little Bo Peep.

At the Meji shrine were 100s, perhaps 800, of extremely well behaved children, aged 16, 17ish who were attending some sort of ceremony, I think it was a welcome to something. I have to say this was more interesting than the shrine which looked very similar to the last one. We didn’t stay long.

We fancied tempura in the evening so we ventured out to a restaurant we liked the look of but it was 8 o’clock which was the time many places closed up. We eventually found a place to eat which happened to be the oldest “pub” in Tokyo, not that you would know in this continually re-built town. There was no English whatsoever, so we just pointed at the plastic food we liked the look of, and at the size of beer we required and sat at a “normal” table. Quite a relief, on many levels. The food arrived and no doubt the staff were enjoying the sight of the “foreigners” eating with no etiquette or knowledge whatsoever. We were probably doing the equivalent of putting custard on our kippers, but we enjoyed it. At these times it is useful to watch how the locals eat, but initially there was no one else in the room. We had tempura prawns, fish and vegetables, a big bowl of rice and a dipping sauce which was all very nice.

We left at about 9.30 and saw a common sight in Japan: a salaryman (office worker) around 60 ish (probably the chairman) being supported by his colleagues as they hailed a taxi. After a hard days work there is nothing a salaryman likes to do than drink lots of beer, eat, perhaps do karaoke, and drink more beer. I heard from a number of sources that genetically the Japanese cannot cope as well with beer as their western counterparts, and we certainly saw the result.

Tuesday
The Japanese eat an awful lot of fish. Tokyo is an awfully large city. So Tokyo fish market is huge. We had foregone the option of arriving to see the auction of Tuna at 4.30am so bowled up at a more civilised hour. The building where the fish are sold to restaurants and the general public is huge. There are 100s of stalls each selling fish just off the boat. They will have bought the fish at the earlier auctions and now prepare and present them for public sale.
It is noisy, appears to be chaotic but it’s not particularly smelly. Electric trolleys constantly threaten to run you down, for daring to set foot in their domain. We escaped, un-injured and went to our guide’s favourite cafe for breakfast. It had seats for about 12 people and we sat facing the two “chefs” (though they don’t do much cooking, just slicing) who created pretty sushi dishes of many types of fish, the majority raw. Some sushi arrived in rice rolls but most was a thumb-sized lump of rice with a bit of fish balanced on top. We had lovely soft eel, tuna, salmon, prawn, scallop and miso soup and green tea. The breakfast was about £18 each but the food was sublime, if you like raw fish, and it couldn’t be much fresher than at a cafe in Tokyo market.

If you go to Tokyo you have to go the the museum of Western Art. Well, you don’t really but we did because the art gallery has some famous paintings.The impressive collection arose from man who had a very large fortune 100 or so years ago and bought lots of western art for the benefit of Japan artists. Most of the collection was in Europe when he unfortunately lost his fortune. Some pieces were burnt in a fire in London in 1939. Some more were requisitioned by France after the war however in the spirit of peace France gave them back and the museum was created. It holds many great artists including a whole room of Monets. Other artists included Rubens, Bruegel, Picasso, Renoir, Manet, Corot, Miro.

In the gardens were 3 sculptures by Rodin: The Thinker, the Burghers of Calais (which is also outside the Houses of Parliament), and the Gates of Hell. The building itself was by the great architect Courbusier. So not really Japanese (and not part of the tour we were on) but well worth the trip.

Yakitori is the Japanese art of putting meat on skewers. We had not tried this cuisine yet so we found a restaurant specialising in it. The restaurant was of the no-shoes variety. We grappled with the menu and finally went for the chef’s recommendation, but specifed we would rather not have the item named "gristle". We suspected it was cartilage again and no one in our group was keen to repeat the experience of our meal 2 nights before. Still, there was plenty left to interest us. For me the scallops, salmon, meatballs and chicken was delicious. The soggy chicken skin and something we didn't dare ask about were a bit more challenging. All in all it was another excellent meal.

Wednesday Tokyo - Matsumoto
We left Tokyo on a train, which was boringly dead on time. We travelled for 2 and half hours through flat bottomed valleys surrounded by hills and mountains. Every bit of land which is not too steep is used by humans, covered by houses or small plots of agricultural land. The houses were very close to each other with either a very small or no gardens. Wires were strung everywhere and there were very few trees. In fact the countryside was actually just an extension of the urban sprawl. It was not a particularly attractive landscape.

Matsumoto castle dates from the 16th century but had been extensively rebuilt since that time. The keep is made of wood, which surely limited its defensive capabilities. Inside the staircases were very steep and the wooden rooms were beautiful but I wouldn’t like to be inside it with a big siege cannon pointing at me. It was not particularly impressive but interesting nonetheless (have I used that phrase before?). An adjacent museum gave us a bigger picture of Japanese history.

The old town of Matsumoto was very pleasant to wander through. Restaurants were hidden behind closed doors, or just shut. We eventually found a place about to shut and had noodle soup with tempura and beer. The Tempura was actually in the soup and dissolved quite quickly leaving a gloop. Not my favourite meal. And a mouse ran across the floor.

It was still quite early so we went into a British pub. It actually had quite a nice atmosphere, more so than some of the bland Japanese bars, though probably not as exciting as the bar with school girl waitresses we had passed earlier. The walls were covered in pub mirrors, lots of wood and some British beers including Guinness which is, of course, Irish. Small groups of Japanese people chatted and laughed over their beer and a large group of salarymen smoked and knocked back their beer as they, presumably, unwound from their hard day in the office. So just like home, apart from the smoke.

Thursday Matsumoto - Takayama
Japanese food is fresh and often fishy but there comes a time when you need a change so we succumbed and had an “American” breakfast which was basically eggs and bacon. And very nice it was too.

We left Matsumoto on a bus and headed up and up into the mountains. Thick snow still lay to either side of the road at the top and ski runs, now unused, covered the steep mountain side. It was probably the “prettiest” natural scene we had seen so far in Japan. We descended into Takayama to stay in in a traditional inn called a Ryokan.

The first thing about a Ryokan is that you have to take off your shoes before you get to the reception. The reception is just a sock area but as soon as you head off to your room you have to wear the supplied slippers which come in 2 colours, blue (larger), green (smaller). If you need the toilet in the reception area you have to put on general slippers to the toilet 20ft away, take them off and put on toilet slippers. And when you finish, off with the toilet slippers and on with general slippers shuffle to reception then off with general slippers. General slippers in the reception is a no-no.

Our room was made of beautiful woods. There was a dining area and a sitting (on the floor) area but no bed. A maid would make the bed up in the sitting area when you are eating. The drawback of course is that there is nowhere to take a nap after a hard morning sitting on a bus. The wall and door dividing the dining room and the sitting/sleeping were made of paper and it looked as though someone had said “is this paper?” and poked it, and so we had a little hole in our wall.

We wandered down a street of preserved wooden houses, which were much more attractive than the modern equivalents. Not many of the original 18th century houses survive, but the reconstructions are done well and the it gave us a bit of a “feel” of old Japan. The area was famed for its beef which can attract very high prices. We tried some on a stick which had been cooked over coals. It had a smooth buttery texture and a lovely unsurprisingly beefy flavour. We particularly enjoyed it because 1. It was not fish. 2. It was not raw.

Sake is probably the drink most associated with Japan so we had to have a taste and learn more about it so we entered a Sake maker’s shop, paid a nominal fee for the first drink and then we were at liberty to take as many refills as we liked. Well I think that was the rule. We had a few different types and learnt that they taste different and they are made of rice. Thats all that I can remember. And that I had a doughy bun with curried mince meat in it.

The Ryokan had public baths for its guests, who traditionally would probably have walked for days over the mountains to get there and therefore needed to recuperate. These traditional baths have quite a few rules though. To walk to the bath you wear your yukata which is a wrap around gown with sleeves. This gown must be wrapped right over left, or left over right, I forget which. The wrong way means death and is a social faux pas of the highest order. The baths were single sex and you MUST be naked. You can’t go in with a tattoo, which is to keep the gangsters out. However if a gangster decided he wanted a bath, I can’t see him being put of by the rules.
You must wash at the floor level taps sitting on little stools. This is the rule I fell foul of because, with my dodgy back, I chose to stand. I got away with it. Finally you lie naked in the hot bath which would take about 6 people before it got embarrassing. Actually it was very pleasant.

In the traditional Ryokan we were treated to a free (well, we paid for it in our holiday price of course) traditional feast. In Japan traditional mean shoes off and sitting on the floor which for me, over 6ft, dodgy back, flexibility of a steel girder, is Hell. After much shifting and shuffling I got into a position which was, at least, not excruciating, and from which I could survey the food. There were probably 20 different foods from recognisable meat to unrecognisable something. The feast was overseen by 2 rather stern matrons who were going to ensure we were going to get the authentic experience. For example there was a pot of bubbling curry sauce into which you put pieces of meat and I had put a nice lump of something in and let it cook for a minute or 2 then took it out and into my rice bowl, at which point one of the matrons moved, surprisingly quickly, to me, told me off and put the meat back to cook some more. How odd, and a little ironic. I had thought it was impossible in Japan for meat or fish to be underdone, given that they eat it raw much of the time. We ate all sorts of meat and fish, most raw of course. There were a few challenging bits: baby raw octopus and a giant chewy mollusc which I couldn’t swallow without washing it down with a bucketful of beer. I saw this mollusc in a market later on - it was huge - a “turban” whelk or something like that.
Everything was presented beautifully and there were enough highlights to make the meal one of my most memorable. Ever.

Friday

The market near the hotel was quite diverting for a while and all I can remember is we ate a marshmallow on a stick but the highlight was Don’s cafe which did wonderful coffee.

A short bus ride out is a museum of old houses which have been rebuilt. All are wooden and all have shiny wooden floors. Shoes were not allowed even in olden times which seems quite civilised really. The museum didn’t seem to cover a large span of time, which I suppose in a land where up to quite recently all houses were wooden, is not surprising.



Saturday Takayama - Kanazawa

The train (which was boringly on time again, of course) took us through a fertile, flat bottomed valley, covered in brown and grey square houses with metal roofs. You know you are travelling through a town because the houses are VERY close together and when you are in the “countryside” they are not quite so close together and have small gardens. Small-holdings growing vegetables fill the spaces between the houses.

We left the valley and wound up into the hills and snow and then eventually arrived in Kanazawa.

When we prepared for this trip we understood that getting money could be problematical but ATMs at post offices would always work. Well, after 3 different Post Offices I can say they don’t. So no cash for us, in a land which looks on credit cards with suspicion.

Kenrokuen Garden is apparently one of the top three gardens in Japan and possibly even the best. To get to it we walked through Kanazawa castle park which was predominantly brown grass and cherry trees in full white blossom. Black kites, which are very impressive birds of prey, sat in the trees and soared above, eyeing us with disdain.

We entered the gardens which were a maze of paths between carefully shaped trees and lakes. Downward pointing leaves had been removed and any branch which had the temerity to sag towards the ground was propped up into the acceptable horizontal position. There was very little grass, which was brown of course, so the ground was covered in moss, but of different varieties which made geographical patterns. The overall effect was quite pleasant and calming but didn’t have the “wow” factor.

In the evening we went to a sushi restaurant in the market hall. The market was full of fish and vegetables (strange - we haven't eaten many). We saw some of the animals we had eaten previously; the chewy, unidentifiable lump of meat the size of a gob-stopper lived in a large conical shell and as far as I am concerned, that is where he should stay.

The sushi restaurant had a continuous conveyor belt which wound around the restaurant carrying mouthfuls of sushi on coloured plates for customers choose and grab. In addition each table had a touch-screen for you to order particular dishes. These arrived quickly by a boat shaped carriage, direct to your table on a separate track. The food, all raw fish, was delicious, of course. The final bit of technical wizardry was the calculation of the bill; the waitress scanned the pile of empty plates with an electronic “wand” (there must be electronic chips in each plate) and the bill was printed immediately. So much impressive technology yet they didn't take credit cards!

Sunday Kanazawa - Kyoto
Another train to Kyoto and we came to the conclusion that the landscape in Japan, certainly from the train, is not very inspiring, unless you have a thing about telegraph poles and wires.

However Kyoto station more than made up for the boring journey to get there. It is such a huge, impressive, covered space. It contains a shopping mall, hotel, cinema, department store and government buildings under one 15 story roof. A walkway runs along the inside of the magnificent roof and provides wonderful views over the town.

We finally managed to get cash from an ATM in the post office so felt like fully functioning members of the human race.

To Western eyes, Geisha girls symbolise Japan, but they have a rather suspect reputation, so we looked forward to learning all about these mysterious women. A lovely guide, in traditional kimono dress and hair, met us in the city and started by saying that there are no Geishas in Kyoto. Kyoto apparently thinks of itself as superior to the rest of Japan so their girls are called Geiko. Or Meiko if they are training. To spot a true Geiko in Kyoto is like spotting a celebrity (in fact they are celebrities) and people will run after a car if they think there could be a Geiko inside.
A number of “houses” train Geikos, although numbers are less than they used to be because the strict training does not attract the modern teenagers.
When fully trained a Geiko will entertain business men in the “Geiko house”. Apparently they sing, tells jokes and funny stories and get their well-heeled guests to play what can be only described as party games. It was a fascinating tour and gave us a glimpse into the strange world of the Geiko and also into the stranger world of Japanese male culture.



Monday

We walked up a road lined with all types of shops to a temple which the guide had described as a “fun” shrine. It was easy to see why. To be honest, it was more like a fairground, and it was certainly as noisy. For example there was a dark tunnel which you paid an attendant to walk through. This apparently symbolised rebirth. Further on there were some heavy weights to lift which tested your righteousness or something like that. At every shrine there were sticks you could shake, throw and get your fortune told. Even the donation box had wooden bars to make your coins dance as they made their way into the shrines's coffers. You could take a drink from one of three bowls each signifying health, wealth or happiness. Your choice was significant. Our guide told us that previously you could choose 2 bowls but weight of numbers reduced the choice to just one bowl. Tough.

The wooden streets outside were really quite charming and the shops were exquisite, quite the nicest and most tasteful shops I have seen anywhere in the world. The only aspect which spoilt the street views were the cat’s cradle of wires strung just above your head. I am not sure that the reason this ugly mess exists because of the earthquakes is 100% true.

Just walking through the parks was interesting and amusing . We walked to the most viewed cherry tree in Japan, possibly, and saw a lovely sign which banned you from selling things in the park, starting a fire or using a megaphone to make a loud noise. Presumably you could make a loud noise with something else.

In the afternoon we went to have tea and watch a Meiko and Geiko show. The tea ceremony was a bit rushed but we were allowed to keep the plate the sticky cake was served on. After a wait we were herded into a big theatre and the show started. The “music” clattered and 20 or so Meikos appeared in colourful kimonos and shuffled their way to the stage. I have to say the music was decidedly not foot tapping. To me it was random noises with occasional shrieks from the musicians. The guitar like instruments sounded like they were picking their way through their first guitar lesson. Not understanding the words was a disadvantage but the singing/wailing was not to my taste. It was very colourful though.

Tuesday
To give the guide a break, we were on our own so we decided to brave the transport system and visit a garden and, what else, but another temple. We had rail passes so didn’t need tickets but just identifying the correct train, platform and station to alight was difficult enough. But we did it, and even managed buy some chewing gum which was endearingly named “watering kissmint”.

The temple was like lots of others but its USP (unique selling point) was a long walk (many kilometers up and down a mountain) enclosed by closely spaced wooden orange pillars. There were thousands of the them. How those ancient monks must have toiled erecting such a monument! But no, they are nothing more than advertising posts. How commercial and religious worlds are entwined in Japan.

On the walk signs warned us not to feed the monkeys or look them in the eyes!

Back onto the train and to a garden in a temple complex. Very pleasant, particularly the raked gravel. There is nothing liked raked gravel to sooth the mind.

I like Sushi, tempura, sashimi etc but it was nice to have a change and we found a lovely restaurant doing very good French food. Not hideously expensive but very welcome.

Wednesday
Finally a ride on the famous bullet train! It was smooth and fast and not unlike the Eurostar. It doesn’t go much faster than the Eurostar because of the effect on trackside houses, and in Japan that appears to cover every kilometre of track!

A large sculpture park was mildly diverting in the afternoon. There were many Henry Moores plus the usual unfathomable constructions.

The evening meal was taken in a family restaurant (i.e. run by a family). It was a tempura restaurant so everything was in batter. Mostly it was tasty, and there is always plenty of beer in Japanese restaurants. I think I had had enough battered food then, though.

After the meal we found a bar, or more precisely a couple of rooms up a flight of stairs in which you could sit uncomfortably on old carpets which covered the floor. We had a small room to ourselves and I think there may have been one other customer. We could see the living quarters of the landlady and her family through an open door. Our room was full of old “stuff” and was a million miles away from the shiny bars of the cities.

Thursday
Our guide announced we would be going on an all day circular tour on many different modes of transport. We caught a local train to a funicular which hauled us up into the hills. A cable car took us across a valley of steaming sulphur mines, and up to a volcano. From there we descended to a lake a took a pirate ship (really!) to a town where we caught a bus, stopping at an ancient roadside tea house. From there a bus and train took us back to our hotel.

After a swim in the hotel pool, which needed a bit of attention, we ate in a Korean restaurant. This was a nice change from Japanese because Korean food tends to have more spice and garlic. In fact the Japanese call Koreans “garlic eaters”, in the same way we call the French “frogs” and they call us “rosbifs”.

Friday.
We took the train to Tokyo and booked into a large modern hotel in the centre of the city. Right outside were the lights and people and madness that is Tokyo. We went to a huge electronics store where the many store assistants/sales people literally shouted at us as we wandered around. I assumed they were telling us about the latest phone/television/gadget but who knows. But a giant Tokyo electronics store has to a experienced to be believed.

In the evening we pushed our way through the crowds of office workers old and young, along the brightly lit streets to our final meal. The restaurant was high up in an office block which is normal in this crowded city. We had a comfortable little room (without windows) to ourselves and ate a very pleasant meal of different Japanese delicacies. It was probably made extra special because

1. We drank lots of beer with it.

2. It was our last Japanese meal.

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Photos

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Comments

[Nigel Priest]

A complete and realistic record of what was a memorable, if pleasantly confounding trip. In Japan life appears at first similar in so many ways to life in the West. A day or two in you realise that it is so different - the food, juxtaposition of religion & commerce, culture and recreation to mention just a few.