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Published: January 22nd 2010
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Exploring Tokyo in 24 hours seemed like it might be a crazy idea when we realised how vast the second largest city in the world was and the fact that Narita airport was over an hour away from the centre. It was crazy, that much was true, but it was fun as well. Well, once the jet-lag wore off anyway…
Our task of getting to our first destination was not helped by Loz’s false start at the train station. Rather than checking which train to get on for the subway connection from Shinjuku to Shibuya (of which there were more than any London tube station…) she decided to drag us on to the first that arrived. Needless to say it was going in the wrong direction and took us ten minutes off track. The feat was then nearly repeated in the next station.
Thanks for mentioning that Daz! Apart from this minor error my careful (and those of you who know Loz know this was very careful…) planning meant that we somehow managed to fit in many of the sights in the top 10 guidebook. Not bad for two jet-lagged zombies who know none of the language. Anyway these
were our own top 10 highlights…we couldn’t decide on our order of preference (indecisive as ever) so they are in order of when we did them:
1.
Stepping out of Shibuya station onto the infinitely busy Lost in Translation crossing then wandering up Centre Gai (and no this is not the gay area) fascinated by the dozens of weird fast food joints and cafes with picture boards outside before settling for a delicious pork noodle soup set. This was once we had worked out the meal ticket machine outside where you order your food and then entered to cries of “whoo-hoo Engleesh!” from the chefs in the centre of the cafe. We had thought this was special for us but from sitting in there for half an hour we soon realised that the chefs and waitresses shouted out whenever anyone entered or left. Must get very annoying after a while but it was at least different.
2.
Japanese bean-curd sweets - our first and favourite sampling of these were from a busy little specialist shop in Ginza, the modern shopping area, and we subsequently tried a few varieties all over the city and spent all our left over
yen on them at the airport. Sweet, delicious and might also be good for you...but don't take that as a dietitian's advice!
3.
The parks - we strolled around the Imperial Palace gardens on our first afternoon and then the enormous Ueno park on day two. Ueno was far more interesting with lots of little shrines and statues to find, and when the sun came out we sat at a lovely café and tried a variety of soft drinks that we couldn’t identify (including white water that tasted like orange squash!).
4.
Denki Bran - on arrival in Asakusa (where we were staying) late afternoon we spotted the Kamiya Bar - rated no 1 in the top ten book and famous for it’s old fashioned cocktail Denki Bran - a combination of cognac, gin and wine. May have been great except Loz accidentally ordered the shot version without the wine so we were glad of Daz’s Asahi beer to wash it down with! Still, worthy of a highlight anyway if only for our faces when we took the first sip.
5.
Senso Ji and the Namikase - To get to the Senso Ji temple (most popular temple
in Tokyo) you enter along a walkway of stalls selling souvenirs and Japanese snacks. We really got the best of both worlds here as we arrived along the Namikase at night when it was all lit up and buzzing and did the Senso Ji itself the next morning in the sunshine. Fantastic.
6.
Ryokan Kamagawa - our little authentic bed and breakfast fantastically positioned just off the Namikase. Amazingly hot communal bath - don’t worry you can lock the door and have it to yourself - that was just what we needed after the flight and day in Tokyo. Problem was it brought on the jetlag more and meant we went to bed at 7.30 which was something like 10.30 in the morning UK time. We slept for twelve hours straight (something Loz never does) only waking once in the night at 11.30pm thinking we had already slept for twelve hours and not believing the clock when it told us we hadn’t. Jetlag is one screwy concept. The breakfast was great too - English toast and jam with a side dish selection of colourful Japanese fishy tasting shapes…and bizarrely some Pringles to go with them. Somehow it worked!!
7.
Kappabashi restaurant district - not actually a restaurant district but where the restaurant owners go to but everything you can possibly imagine to kit out a restaurant and equip a kitchen. The highlight of this was the shops selling plastic foods and dishes - most restaurants present these at their entrance so that you can see what you are ordering. Loz felt she had to buy a souvenir from Japan so she settled on a plastic sushi keyring, and she love it! Daz thinks she is crazy and wasn’t too happy about being dragged up and down several blocks of shrine shops and drum shops trying to find plastic food!
8.
Mitsukoshi food hall - essentially Harrod’s for the Japanese. Absolutely amazing gourmet food. Rows and rows of sweets, chocolates, sushi, gyoza, tempura…After much deliberation and sampling we selected some yakatori (sweet chicken kebabs), sushi rolls, prawn and noodle salad and more Japanese sweets. We sat to eat our last meal in Tokyo on a decorative bridge that would have been lovely if it was not for the expressway that had been built right over the top (only in Japan!)
9.
Mandarin Lounge Cocktails - When Daz
spotted the grand Mandarin Oriental 6 Star Hotel with it’s 4 Michelin Star restaurants (Japanese, Chinese, French and Italian for the record) Loz remembered reading something about it in the trusty top 10 guide - it says we should go up to the 37th floor and have a drink in the bar. So we did. Do you think they will let us in in hoodies and trainers we asked ourselves - well let’s give it a go, and thankfully they never batted an eyelid and treated us like royalty. The view over the city from our cushioned sofa in the mandarin bar was breathtaking and our cocktails were worth the 1900Yen (£14!) each for the experience. What a great way to finish up our visit to Tokyo.
10.
The subway - a bit of an odd highlight perhaps but despite this being the bit we were dreading. There's always something lacking on undergrounds for us and mostly it's air. We had already missed half a wedding on Saturday when Daz had to escape the London tube at Oxford circus as he couldn't hold his breath any more. However by the end of our short stay we felt we had
pretty much mastered the Tokyo version and it really is simple and incredibly well organised. It is not as far down as the Tube so you don’t get the airless overheating effect and the trains are so regular that you don’t need to rush down the stairs (and onto the wrong train in Loz's case) as the next one comes along a minute later. Our Suica and N’Ex cards were our most useful purchase avoiding the need to think about money and fares the whole time. And incredibly we got a seat on every journey!
Our one regret was that we missed going to the Tsujiki fish market, which we're sure would have been an incredible experience as the size of a tuna's head (as big as our heads put together) in Mitsukoshi showed us. You have to get there really early to catch the action and whilst we were suddenly wide awake with jet lag at 4.30am and contemplated getting up to go the thought didn’t last long and the next thing we knew it was 8am!
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hazel bennett
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Hello! wow- tokyo sounds amazing, so great to hear everything that you have been up to. I can't get over how much you squeezed in in such little time. Hope you are pretty much over the jet lag now and are having a fab time in NZ. Looking forward to the next blog! Lots of love, look after each other and have fun, xxxxxxx