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Published: September 20th 2012
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We can sum up Tokyo in three simple words - must come back! An amazing city and the countryside is beautiful. The people are courteous and gracious, gentle mannered and kind. The city is vibrant and pulsating, the countryside is a complete contrast with forested mountains and rice fields. A whirlwind stop cannot do justice to this place!
On Sunday we found our way around on the many railway networks and visited our first destination of the day, Meiji Shrine. The shrine is located in the centre of Tokyo nestled amongst a forest, tucked away like a sanctuary from the noise pollution of a sprawling metropolis. At the weekends the guide book said you may be fortunate to see a wedding taking place, but we saw four! The brides all wore a variety of traditional wedding kimonos, with two priests and shrine maidens in attendance. The wedding party all followed behind looking glamorous through the grounds of the shrine. They would then have their professional photos taken looking stiff and wooden, fastidious attendants fussing over them to ensure they look 'just right' for the picture. This could be a long winded process!
Following a quick ice cream in the grounds to try and cool down in the intense heat and humidity, we walked down the one of the high end fashion streets towards Shibuya. We passed the amazing Prada building and ventured towards the Shibuya intersection crossing. I lost count how many times we went back and forth with the heaving masses at each green light across the intersection, in order to film this crazy crossing! For a quick pick me up, we sat in Starbucks above the intersection with a tasty frap and viewed the crossings from our vantage point through the window.
Monday saw us up early for our trip to Mt Fuji. We managed to find the bus terminal without any problems and picked our seats at the back of the bus. My lens skirt worked a treat for pictures being taken through the bus window with no reflections! The drive to Mt Fuji took 90 minutes. The weather wasn't that brilliant, we had spells of showers and consequently Mt Fuji was shrouded in clouds. We saw the base, but that was about it. The coach took us up to station 5 at 2300 meters. With our heads in the clouds, we walked around the shops and the little temple before heading back down towards Hakone where we took a gondola up to a stinking sulphuric place and then back down for a cruise across Lake Ashinoko. It was a great trip topped off by a ride on the infamous bullet train back to Tokyo.
With a sore blistered feet, Monday was centred nearer Tokyo Station. Our first point of call was an eerie Buddhist temple called Toyokawa Inari. It was worth a visit, but we found it rather a strange place, not helped by the rhythmic beating of a drum and chanting. After taking our pictures we visited the Imperial Palace and onto the International Forum before heading back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our morning flight to Singapore. Too quickly our short stay ends, but we will go away with fond memories of this spellbinding place!
Random thoughts on Japan. Gotta love those good train manners guides of what you should or shouldn't do whilst on the train. Wish we had those back home (as well as A/C on all trains/subways)! Organised, orderly and patient queuing is great, no antisocial behaviour, no smoking on streets, rarely people eating on the trains, punctuality and one of the things I love most is no talking on mobile phones on the trains! What a blessing. Everything is fastidiously clean (public toilets which are everywhere no exception) but I do miss my Andrex toilet paper as here it's like tracing paper. I'd say it's even thinner than our one ply paper!
Random thoughts on dress. False eyelashes have taken Japan by storm! As for dress, you either have the women stuck in school uniform days or the dolly look or the 'let's throw anything together regardless of whether it matches or not look, the women smartly turned out in their traditional kimonos and then finally the average joe look. Comically, high heeled shoes featured heavily, despite majority of people not being able to walk in them! As for the men, seems like high waisted trousers either never went out of fashion or they are so cutting edge with a new look thats yet to take Europe by storm! Office attire rarely departs from the black pants and white shirt with tie. Every bloke carries a briefcase of some description and some even carry women's handbags! All workers look and dress smart, even down to the taxi drivers sporting suits and ties. Not one hoodie or pants with a bottom hanging out was ever spotted! City workers such as cleaners, gardeners and construction workers are also smartly turned out in nice colourful uniforms. Every train at the end of its destination had a crew of cleaners attack each carriage and mop the floors thoroughly before passengers are let on for it's next trip!
Random thoughts on food. Being a vegetarian on a low travel budget proved to be rather difficult, mainly due to no English guidance on menus and that fish sauce ends up in most things. So a complimentary breakfast was our main meal of the day - Japanese style! Salad with macaroni salad and potato salad, hard boiled egg, bread with jam and orange juice. Gail would have rice with seaweed too. Afternoon meal was a pizza one day and a bean burger another! Iced coffee was a refreshing was too cool down until we discovered something in it was not agreeing very well with us and we'd end up feeling nauseous!
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David
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Hot and Humid in Tokyo!
Sounds an interesting city - pity about Mt Fuji though. And people with good manners to boot.