So finally, the long-awaited departure date for our trip to Japan was here. For once, we had planned a rather detailed itinerary for our trip, assisted by our dear friends we were meeting up with in the land of the rising sun.
I had even planned out a brilliant strategy for minimising the impact of jet lag, which involved sleeping as little as possible before the flight (so that we would sleep towards the end of the flight, and hence wake up fresh and rested upon arriving in Japan in the morning.
Things didn’t start very well, as we found out our flight to Frankfurt (from where we had a connecting flight to Tokyo) was cancelled (due to the snowfall that seems to have brought most of Europe to a standstill). Well, at least that let us sleep for a couple of hours more (hmm, just what we wanted to avoid, right?). We eventually got under way, and arrived in Frankfurt not too much delayed. Still, thankfully our connecting flight was also delayed, otherwise we’d have missed it for sure. The flight itself was all right, although of course my “minimise jet lag strategy” failed miserably due to the fact that hardly got any sleep on the flight. In the end, we arrived at Narita airport about 2 hours late. And found out our luggage was not on the flight, unfortunately… (thankfully we got it later that evening though)
Filled with excitement, we jumped on the fast train from the airport to Ueno station in Tokyo, from where a short walk took us to our hotel. Finding ones way in Tokyo is not that straight forward, since only the main street names are written in Latin letters (and in spite of my Japanese lessons before the trip, I have to admit my Japanese reading skills still left rather a lot to be desired…). Anyway, we eventually made it, and checked into our small but very functional (and surprisingly reasonably priced) room.
After a quick shower we decided to hit the road and do a bit of sightseeing. After a nourishing bowl of noodles for lunch, we walked down to nearby Asakusa, which is what could be considered “the old part of Tokyo”, apparently. It is a sort of calm place, with no skyscrapers in sight, so a “soft start” to a Tokyo tour, I suppose. We immediately headed for the main sight in Asakusa; which is the Senso-ji temple. Our walk took us up the Nakamise-dori, which is apparently a street which houses plenty of traditional artisans (we must’ve missed those amongst all the tourist shops…). Senso-ji itself was pretty interesting, even though it has quite a modern feel to it (it has been reconstructed several times in its history, the last time being in 1950).
From there, we headed back past our hotel to Ueno park, one of the most well-known places in Tokyo for experiencing Hanami (the Cherry blossom season), and also sadly known for its homeless people (which have recently become a reality in Japan, also). We did have a nice walk around the park, in spite of the fact that it got dark pretty quickly.
We then headed back to Ueno station for our rendez-vous with Matsuoka-san, who was our designated guide for the evening. Matsuoka is a good friend who worked for a few months with me in Southwood; whom we also met up with a couple of years ago in the French Alps. He took us down to central Tokyo and and showed us the Imperial Palace (which actually cannot be visited) as well as an impressive ligtht show of lanterns (perhaps in the honour of the emperor’s birthday, which was two days later?).
After this quick bit of sightseeing, we sped back to Asakusa where we were supposed to meet a friend of his in a traditional Yakitori bar. Yakitori means “grilled chicken” in Japanese, it’s basically a bar where they serve various forms of meats on skewers. It was a very nice place, traditionally Japanese in a non-fussy way (we had to take our shoes off, and were dining sat on a tatami mat). Plenty of sake and beer was had during the very pleasant evening. A great start to our Japan trip, all in all, then!
The next morning we got up bright ‘n early (after a good night’s sleep – so perhaps my cunning strategy did help after all?), in order to be able to visit the famous Tsukiji fish market (need to get there early, the action is all finished by about 9 AM). Unfortunately we missed the famous tuna market (which is now closed to tourists), but the place was still very fascinating. I must say I’ve never seen so many different types of fish in one place before (not surprising considering it’s the biggest fish market in the world), and the pace of the place is rather impressive as well. We finished off our visit with a sushi breakfast just outside the market, an absolute culinary delight (although I was a bit sceptical about having raw fish for brekkie).
From Tsukiji, we headed onwards to nearby Ginza, a part of Tokyo known for its big depatos (department stores). Visiting a Japanese department store is quite an experience, expecially the food departments were most impressive (I suppose Harrods’s puts up a good fight, but sorry Stockmann, there’s a bit of catching up to do). The constant declarations of ”irasshaimase” (a phrase used by all employees to welcome customers) are almost overwhelming in the beginning, but one gets used to it quickly.
After checking out the Alsatian Christmas market at the Tokyo International Forum, we headed towards the Imperial Palace district again. Only the gardens can be visited, and I suppose they aren’t at their best this time of the year, but the stroll amongst the greenery made a nice change from the urban jungle the rest of Tokyo can feel like. We ended up at the Yasukuni-jinja, a somewhat controversial memorial to the 2.4 million Japanese dead in combat since 1853. The controversy apparently comes from the fact that the monument honours certain Japanese commanders known for various atrocities and war crimes. It’s also a popular place with Japanese ultra-nationalists – I think we even saw a mini-bus load of them.
We had a rendez-vous with my friend Andy and his girlfriend Satoko in Shibyua in the evening, so we decided to head back towards the hotel to freshen up at this point (after a very reasonably priced lunch – or how does 3 euros for a generous bowl of noodle soup sound?); with a short stop at Akihabara first. Akihabara is the place in Tokyo to go for electronics – a place any self-respecting geek/nerd (such as myself) simply must visit. I had a purpose for the visit as well – I wanted to purchase a new camera. A bit of shopping, comparisons, internet browsing, I came away with a Cannon DS450 SLR camera (not the latest model, but should do the trick for an aspiring amateur photographer such as myself).
We made it to Shibuya nearly on time, for our rendez-vous by the Hachiko dog statue (the story of which pretty much matches that of Greyfriar’s Bobby in Edinburgh, funnily enough). Shibyua is mostly known for its famous pedestrian crossing, where an ocean of humanity crosses the 4-lane road when the traffic lights turn green. A nearly overwhelming experience, honest.
Andy is an old friend I used to share a flat with during my studies in Edinburgh, who relocated to Japan a couple of years ago with his Japanese girlfriend Satoko. Great to see him again, must’ve been 7 or 8 years since the last time we met? Anyways, we struggled a bit to find a place to dine, so ended up in a karaoke bar in the end. Oh well, another Japanese experience ticked off the list, then ;-) It was great fun, and at least I only had to humiliate myself in front of three other people (in Japan, Karaoke is done in private rooms, typically, unlike in Europe).
It was then time to head back to catch some well-needed sleep before our trip to Nikko the next day.
I had even planned out a brilliant strategy for minimising the impact of jet lag, which involved sleeping as little as possible before the flight (so that we would sleep towards the end of the flight, and hence wake up fresh and rested upon arriving in Japan in the morning.
Things didn’t start very well, as we found out our flight to Frankfurt (from where we had a connecting flight to Tokyo) was cancelled (due to the snowfall that seems to have brought most of Europe to a standstill). Well, at least that let us sleep for a couple of hours more (hmm, just what we wanted to avoid, right?). We eventually got under way, and arrived in Frankfurt not too much delayed. Still, thankfully our connecting flight was also delayed, otherwise we’d have missed it for sure. The flight itself was all right, although of course my “minimise jet lag strategy” failed miserably due to the fact that hardly got any sleep on the flight. In the end, we arrived at Narita airport about 2 hours late. And found out our luggage was not on the flight, unfortunately… (thankfully we got it later that evening though)
Filled with excitement, we jumped on the fast train from the airport to Ueno station in Tokyo, from where a short walk took us to our hotel. Finding ones way in Tokyo is not that straight forward, since only the main street names are written in Latin letters (and in spite of my Japanese lessons before the trip, I have to admit my Japanese reading skills still left rather a lot to be desired…). Anyway, we eventually made it, and checked into our small but very functional (and surprisingly reasonably priced) room.
After a quick shower we decided to hit the road and do a bit of sightseeing. After a nourishing bowl of noodles for lunch, we walked down to nearby Asakusa, which is what could be considered “the old part of Tokyo”, apparently. It is a sort of calm place, with no skyscrapers in sight, so a “soft start” to a Tokyo tour, I suppose. We immediately headed for the main sight in Asakusa; which is the Senso-ji temple. Our walk took us up the Nakamise-dori, which is apparently a street which houses plenty of traditional artisans (we must’ve missed those amongst all the tourist shops…). Senso-ji itself was pretty interesting, even though it has quite a modern feel to it (it has been reconstructed several times in its history, the last time being in 1950).From there, we headed back past our hotel to Ueno park, one of the most well-known places in Tokyo for experiencing Hanami (the Cherry blossom season), and also sadly known for its homeless people (which have recently become a reality in Japan, also). We did have a nice walk around the park, in spite of the fact that it got dark pretty quickly.
We then headed back to Ueno station for our rendez-vous with Matsuoka-san, who was our designated guide for the evening. Matsuoka is a good friend who worked for a few months with me in Southwood; whom we also met up with a couple of years ago in the French Alps. He took us down to central Tokyo and and showed us the Imperial Palace (which actually cannot be visited) as well as an impressive ligtht show of lanterns (perhaps in the honour of the emperor’s birthday, which was two days later?).
After this quick bit of sightseeing, we sped back to Asakusa where we were supposed to meet a friend of his in a traditional Yakitori bar. Yakitori means “grilled chicken” in Japanese, it’s basically a bar where they serve various forms of meats on skewers. It was a very nice place, traditionally Japanese in a non-fussy way (we had to take our shoes off, and were dining sat on a tatami mat). Plenty of sake and beer was had during the very pleasant evening. A great start to our Japan trip, all in all, then!
The next morning we got up bright ‘n early (after a good night’s sleep – so perhaps my cunning strategy did help after all?), in order to be able to visit the famous Tsukiji fish market (need to get there early, the action is all finished by about 9 AM). Unfortunately we missed the famous tuna market (which is now closed to tourists), but the place was still very fascinating. I must say I’ve never seen so many different types of fish in one place before (not surprising considering it’s the biggest fish market in the world), and the pace of the place is rather impressive as well. We finished off our visit with a sushi breakfast just outside the market, an absolute culinary delight (although I was a bit sceptical about having raw fish for brekkie). From Tsukiji, we headed onwards to nearby Ginza, a part of Tokyo known for its big depatos (department stores). Visiting a Japanese department store is quite an experience, expecially the food departments were most impressive (I suppose Harrods’s puts up a good fight, but sorry Stockmann, there’s a bit of catching up to do). The constant declarations of ”irasshaimase” (a phrase used by all employees to welcome customers) are almost overwhelming in the beginning, but one gets used to it quickly.
After checking out the Alsatian Christmas market at the Tokyo International Forum, we headed towards the Imperial Palace district again. Only the gardens can be visited, and I suppose they aren’t at their best this time of the year, but the stroll amongst the greenery made a nice change from the urban jungle the rest of Tokyo can feel like. We ended up at the Yasukuni-jinja, a somewhat controversial memorial to the 2.4 million Japanese dead in combat since 1853. The controversy apparently comes from the fact that the monument honours certain Japanese commanders known for various atrocities and war crimes. It’s also a popular place with Japanese ultra-nationalists – I think we even saw a mini-bus load of them.We had a rendez-vous with my friend Andy and his girlfriend Satoko in Shibyua in the evening, so we decided to head back towards the hotel to freshen up at this point (after a very reasonably priced lunch – or how does 3 euros for a generous bowl of noodle soup sound?); with a short stop at Akihabara first. Akihabara is the place in Tokyo to go for electronics – a place any self-respecting geek/nerd (such as myself) simply must visit. I had a purpose for the visit as well – I wanted to purchase a new camera. A bit of shopping, comparisons, internet browsing, I came away with a Cannon DS450 SLR camera (not the latest model, but should do the trick for an aspiring amateur photographer such as myself).
We made it to Shibuya nearly on time, for our rendez-vous by the Hachiko dog statue (the story of which pretty much matches that of Greyfriar’s Bobby in Edinburgh, funnily enough). Shibyua is mostly known for its famous pedestrian crossing, where an ocean of humanity crosses the 4-lane road when the traffic lights turn green. A nearly overwhelming experience, honest. Andy is an old friend I used to share a flat with during my studies in Edinburgh, who relocated to Japan a couple of years ago with his Japanese girlfriend Satoko. Great to see him again, must’ve been 7 or 8 years since the last time we met? Anyways, we struggled a bit to find a place to dine, so ended up in a karaoke bar in the end. Oh well, another Japanese experience ticked off the list, then ;-) It was great fun, and at least I only had to humiliate myself in front of three other people (in Japan, Karaoke is done in private rooms, typically, unlike in Europe).
It was then time to head back to catch some well-needed sleep before our trip to Nikko the next day.
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