Japan Day 5: Our stay in a ryokan

We took a bus back down the hill to the ryokan, where we'd stopped to leave our overnight bags earlier. We were ushered in by the ryokan staff. The designated shoe-keeper took our shoes from us and gave us slippers. We were also admonished to use the specific bathroom slippers (blue instead of the regular tan or brown slippers) whenever we stepped in to the bathroom.

The inside of the ryokan is an expansive, old wooden building, small gardens within. Our room face out on to a rushing river - very calming and zen-like. You quickly forget that there's a busy road 100 feet away. One of the views from our room:

We were given yakuta (robes for wearing while in the ryokan) and shown how to put them on properly by a Japanese grandmother who spoke to us only in rapid-fire Japanese. We were to communicate mostly with her for the rest of our stay. She seemed a little rushed most of the time, and while she was polite, I'd hardly say she was gracious or welcoming. The staff at the Sheraton in Tokyo had been more gracious and patient (also, they spoke English).

Here's Robin dressed in her yakuta:

Apparently, men are supposed to wear the robe in a slightly different way. I'm not sure if I ever got that part right. In fact, I'm sure we committed a dozen or more faux pas here.


We had some time before dinner, so we went to try out the family onsen, a mineral hot springs bath. The water in these is always piped in from an underground hot spring (volcanic islands do have some unique benefits), then mixed with cold spring water to adjust the temperature. The ryokan has a family onsen that you can use as a family or couple if no one else has grabbed it first, as well as separate onsens for men and women. There are a number of customs associated with the onsen. The most important one by far - wash thoroughly and rinse before you get in. Also, no bathing suits and no tattoos.

You dip your toe in and it melts. I think the water is kept at about 130 degrees F, which is about 20 to 25 degrees warmer than a typical jacuzzi or hot tub. Once you get in to the onsen, your body adjusts and the hot water quickly relaxes you. Although it's not a good idea to sit in the water for more than 10 minutes at a time, we would hop out, rinse with cool water and then hop back in for a few more minutes. I liked this ritual - it reminded me a little of the Finnish sauna, but the onsen bath leaves you feeling squeaky clean.

We retired to our room, and a few minutes later, the Japanese grandmother brought in dinner. It's a multi-course affair of colorful, largely unidentifiable foods - mostly involving fish. Robin had specified in advance that she doesn't eat fish, but this seems like an alien concept here. This was one of our courses:

Robin tried to push some of her plates over to me so I would eat them (she was trying to be polite), but I could only do so much to cover her tracks. Our hostess finally caught on, noticing that Robin wasn't eating. A staff member stopped in who spoke a few words of English, and we were able to communicate what Robin could eat. They brought us a plate of shabu shabu, raw pork strips and vegetables that you place in a bowl of hot broth to cook (like fondue). I'm not sure if this was part of the regular meal or something extra they brought for her. Still, some of the next course had fish, so I don't think there's really a "no fish" option at a typical ryokan. This place is not for vegetarians.

After dinner, I went back to the men's onsen for another bath. Warmed up from that, I slept pretty well, despite the firm futons you sleep on.

Japan Day 5: Your luggage will meet you there

We woke up early so we could catch the train to Hakone, about 100km to the southwest of Tokyo, to spend the night at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. It takes approximately 24 seconds to get there on the Shinkansen bullet train. It might have been 24 minutes, but it was fast.

As it turns out, once we got off the bullet train, we needed to transfer 3 more times to get to the inn. It definitely wasn't going to be fun lugging our bags through all those transfers. Thankfully, we'd read about this service that will forward your bags onwards to your next stop for about $15-$20 per bag. That's less than what most US airlines charge to check one bag and promptly divert it to Wichita (if you're lucky) when you were headed to Honolulu. You may see your luggage 4 days in to your trip, looking like it's been thoroughly tortured by the airline for information on the whereabouts of your other bag that they still can't find. Things work a bit more efficiently in Japan.

We packed small overnight bags and handed over our larger suitcases to the concierge along with the address of our hotel in Hiroshima where we'd arrive the following evening. She filled out forms and we paid her about 3,000 yen in cash. This made us a little nervous because in a lot of places (most definitely my hometown of Brooklyn), you'd never see your bags again. But we waved to our bags, reasonably confident we'd see them again.

We gave our helpful concierge - who had also organized the tea ceremony, kabuki and a few other things - some of the dried apricots, then took a taxi to the nearby Shinagawa JR station. It was actually surprisingly difficult to get there by subway. After a quick buffet breakfast at the station, we picked up our JR rail passes and booked tickets for both Hakone and then onwards to Hiroshima. Then we were off to Hakone (more on trains in a later post).

We got off at Odawara station to transfer for Hakone and bought 2-day "free passes" (they're definitely not free) that provided unlimited rides on all transportation in the district. The local passes seem to be common and are ultimately convenient, but still quite expensive at about $30 per person. The JR rail pass doesn't actually cover these local (non-JR) train and bus lines. You also typically have to pay cash for these. The local train took us to Hakone station, where with a little inquiry we were able to find the bus to our Ryokan.

This was the first day of the trip that it was actually raining quite a lot - we'd been blessed with mild, clear weather during our stay in Tokyo. It's too bad, because Hakone is very beautiful, but we made the best of it anyway. We dropped off our bags at the Ryokan - an unassuming wooden building on the main road - and walked up a long staircase to reach a nearby railway station. It was raining, but it was also a major holiday weekend, so the train was packed to the point that the windows had completely fogged up. This local train just runs from Hakone, climbing up about 1,500 feet into the mountains, and literally switchbacks up the steep hills - pulling off at a switchback to pass a train going the other way  a few times.

We took the train to the Hakone Open Air Museum, an interesting and good rainy day activity, even though parts of it are (as the name implies) outside. Other than the large Picasso exhibit, there's a maze, activities for kids, and unusual modern art sculptures, like this one of a fried egg:

Strange. Despite - or maybe because of - the rain, the fall foliage also really stood out. We climbed a tower that was lined with stained glass and were able to look down on the brilliant trees around us:

Those are probably my favorite fall foliage photos from the whole trip - mostly because it's a completely different perspective, and the colors just pop.

We wrapped up our visit to the museum by visiting the "foot" onsen (the term for a hot springs bath), where you can dip your feet in the warm water from a nearby hot spring - which feels great after walking around for 2 or 3 hours on a damp fall day. Back to the ryokan for a traditional Japanese experience.

Japan Day 4: People going in all directions

Our next stop was Shibuya Crossing, a short subway ride from the Meiju shrine. If you saw "Lost in Translation" you may remember Shibuya as the crazy intersection where people cross in every direction at once. It's a massive intersection where there is an all-pedestrian traffic signal and many hundreds or maybe even thousands of people cross the street:

Keep in mind this is Sunday afternoon, not rush hour, though maybe it's to be expected in a city with 8.5 million people. We watched this happen twice, then waded in to the crowd to cross. It looks like mayhem when you're watching it, but feels very organized when you're in the crowd.

From there, we headed to Akihabara, the "Electronics Town" of Tokyo, a geek's delight. If you think Fry's Electronics is a slice of heaven, you need to go here. There aren't too many superstores, but there plenty of smaller shops that seem to specialize in one type of electronics. We saw at least one store that sold only electronic cables, and another that mostly sold boom boxes. There were also comic book stores - possibly, a lot of Japanese anime originated here.

The stores also variously employed salesgirls dressed in what Robin described as a "cross between a Disney character and a Playboy bunny" (or maybe think anime) to stand on the sidewalk and hand out fliers or encourage people to stop in. I found another photo of one on Flickr that gives you a better idea of how they dress. Many are dressed as maids.

Finally, it was back to Roppongi in search of dinner. We were trying to find a place listed in the guidebook. We wandered in to a place we thought was it, but discovered the place in the book was closed on Sundays, so we sat down there at what turned out to be a truly local establishment run by an energetic and funny older Japanese woman who spoke absolutely no English.

Fortunately, we sat down at a table next to a a man who spoke excellent English who was also apparently the reigning champion bridge player in Japan. He was sitting with his daughter who was visiting from San Francisco. She was very nice to us and would speak to us very animatedly in half-English and half-Japanese, so it was a little hard to follow her. The man introduced himself as what I heard as "Akiho" ("It's easy to remember," he said, "Just think 'Ace-King-Ten") - but I think it may have been Akihiko Yamada, who actually is a champion bridge player in Japan. He said he taught bridge regularly on around-the-world cruises and went to tournaments, which had taken him to 85 countries. Japan was number 23 for me and 22 for Robin, so we have some catching up to do...

Our friends began ordering food for us, and shared some of their food. Thankfully, we could explain in advance that Robin didn't eat fish. They also poured me a glass of warm sochu (that Japanese malt liquor). Robin tried a sip from my glass, which elicited much laughter from our friends. It may be that sochu is not a lady-like drink - Akihiko's daughter was drinking beer. Here we are with our new friends:

All in all, I think we provided ample entertainment for the locals who we're pretty sure were laughing (politely) at the clumsy Westerners trying to eat Japanese food. Eventually, after we were full from the meal and warm from all the beer and sochu, we (meaning everyone in the small restaurant) took a few pictures. It was time to leave our new friends and go to bed - especially since they were continuing to order drinks, and it didn't look like that was going to end any time soon. We were probably one of the rare encounters with tourists at that place.

When we told the owner we were ready for the bill, she pulled out an actual abacus and began calculating the total. The led to discussion about the abacus and ultimately, a short lesson in how to use it. I remember learning in elementary school, but that was a long time ago. Here, the owner and Akihiko's daughter explain how to use the abacus:

This was a particularly memorable day in Tokyo because of the locals we met - the 3 friendly college students and the locals at the restaurant.

Japan Day 4: Parlez vous francais? Oui, c'est tres cher!

We broke with Eastern tradition this morning and headed to a creperie in Harajuku for breakfast. We wanted to see the area, so breakfast there was a logical choice. Upon arriving at Cafe Creperie Le Bretagne, we were greeted by a Japanese waiter who spoke flawless French. So we dusted off our high school and college French and just went with it. Our slightly rusty French came in handy since the menus were in Kanji and French. We were hungry and filled out bellies with sweet crepes, savory crepes and excellent but expensive espresso (first coffee in Japan, actually - we'd been drinking tea).

After breakfast, we set out for a walking tour of Harajuku, a popular shopping and fashion district in Tokyo. This is the place to see trendy people. We saw more trendy, upscale stores in one place than we think we've ever seen anywhere, including a Prada store that was several floors and the size of a small US department store. It was in a very modern-looking building:

What's more, many of these high-end stores had actual shoppers in them. Walk by a Prada, Gucci or similar store here in California and there will be expensive purses or shoes in elegant lighting with lots of white space around them and a well-dressed salesperson trying his or her best not to look bored. In Harajuku, there were people actually buying things in these stores.

We didn't need to go in to a "common" luxury brand store, but thought we should stop in a randomly selected boutique store that looked like it had clothes the fashionable Japanese people on the subway might wear:

Again with the crazy glass architecture. We had to browse just out of curiosity. I found pants that I am positive I would never wear:

Well, those are pretty crazy. How much could they possibly be? $100? $200? I look at the price tag. 75,000 yen. Nine hundred dollars. Are you kidding me? I can buy a good suit - probably even an Armani if there's a sale - for that much. If I owned those pants, I'd put them in a glass case and say they were designed by a famous artist. Anyway, there must be someone willing to pay for them.

After looking at clothes we couldn't afford, our feet were sore and our wallets hurt just thinking about all the expensive clothes. So we stopped at a multi-story mall and found some sake we could afford. We're on vacation, it's a weekend, and at the time, it was about 5pm in Hawaii. The sake also helped brace us for Takeshita Dori.

This is a pedestrian street in Harajuku which on a Sunday was jammed with every teenager and young adult in Tokyo looking for fashionable bargains. The narrow street was Times-Square-on-New-Year's-packed at times. All you could do was shuffle along with the crowd. If you wanted any kind of look for your wardrobe, you could probably find it here. I took a series of candids as we walked and I'll try and post of a few of them in a separate entry.

At the other end of Takeshita Dori, we came to the Meiju Jingu shrine - another one of the major shrines our guidebook recommended. As we walked past the gate, we were approached by 3 Japanese college students who asked us if they could take us on a free tour in exchange for practicing their English with us. Being American, we both had the same shamefully sad thought at first - "this is probably a scam." But it quickly occurred to us that they were genuine. This was not the sort of country where locals would scam you. It would be hugely shameful and dishonorable to do so.

They showed us around the shrine and told us a little about both the shrine and Japanese culture. Among other things, we learned the proper way to pray at a shrine, and also learned that it's ok to put 1 yen or 5 yen in the donation box when you pray (I think I'd dropped a 100 yen coin in previously).  There were several weddings at the shrine that day, so we also talked a bit about different wedding customs. The women traditionally wear tall hats on their wedding day rather than a veil. Apparently, the hat is supposed to hide their horns. I'm not going to try and analyze this one.

Our student friends were also very curious about our life and American culture as well, so we spent an hour as international ambassadors. As a thank you for their time, we have them a small gift of chocolate-covered apricots we had brought with us from California. Everyone (probably including passer-bys) took pictures of the gift being opened:

I hope we were good ambassadors! And I hope those apricots were good!

Next: People everywhere, Electronics Town and dinner in a family restaurant.

Japan Day 3: Imperial dreams and a night at the theater

After our tea ceremony and luxurious lunch, we headed over to the Imperial Palace to tour the grounds. You can go inside, but only if you sign up for the guided tours that only run Monday through Friday. The palace was destroyed in 1945 when Tokyo was bombed, but was rebuilt in exacting detail 23 years later. We toured the palace grounds and visited the Higashi Garden. The garden isn't much, but it has the remains of Edo Castle, a 17th century massive castle. The walk from there down to the Nijubashi bridge was more interesting. The area next to the palace is buzzing with activity - locals enjoying a fall weekend - and had the best views of the palace.

We also thought this pristine urban "forest" of fully-grown bonzai pines was unique and interesting. People weren't walking through the trees or sitting on the grass - it seemed only to exist as natural art.

After seeing the palace, we headed to the kabuki theater for a 4:30pm show. Our pamphlet said there were 3 plays on the schedule that didn't wrap up until after 9:30. That's a whole lot of kabuki, so we're thinking we'll have to leave at one of the intermissions to go eat. Also, Americans can't sit still for 5 hours of anything, even if George Lucas and Peter Jackson teamed up on the special effects.

We got an audio translation since it might be hard to follow the story otherwise. The actors - one of the kabuki legend, we were told - are very expressive, so you can at least get the general sentiment without translation. What was funny about the translation is how it would remain silent for several minutes at a time. For example:

"He is asking if she saw the boy that night..." 5 minutes pass in silence on the translation while the actors go on.

"She says she had carried him away from the samurai, then lost him in the confusion." 5 more minutes.

"She tells him she found the boy's body, but it was too late." 5 more minutes pass.

"They are very sad and distraught." Which by this time you've figured out. It has the extended drama that you might expect with opera where it takes 5 or 10 minutes to say anything, but they're talking rather than singing. The costumes and the expressiveness seem to be what make it special. Kabuki was one of Robin's favorite experiences. With the elaborate costumes, make-up and highly choreographed dramatic action, it's a cross between ballet, opera and a classic drama.

Another odd occurrence - during the performance, audience members would occasionally shout out words of encouragement to the performers. I don't know what they were saying, but imagine during an opera if audience members shouted things like, "Great voice!" or "You're so expressive! Keep it up!" or "You died exquisitely well!" 

At the first intermission, we noticed people were breaking out their bento boxes they'd brought with them and were eating dinner in the theater. We also discovered you could go to a restaurant right in the theater, or simply buy a bento box to go and take it back to your seat. There were vending machines offering water, soda, ice tea and hot tea (in a metal bottle!). Just imagine if at intermission at Lincoln Center people took out sandwiches and started eating. We were a little hungry and tired, and weren't sure we could make it another 2 1/2 hours, so we left after the second play, though we probably could have eaten there.

Robin bravely went with me to a no-frills sushi restaurant. She even tried just a little bit of the fish. There were a handful of vegetarian items on the menu. The sushi was good, but by no means the best sushi I've ever had. I'm going to need to go back to Tokyo to the fish market for breakfast.

After dinner, we ended the night at Bar Lupin in the fashionable Ginza neighborhood for a drink. It's a prohibition era bar that was popular with famous Japanese writers. The reviews said it was reasonably priced, so maybe our mistake was trying the Japanese whiskey. It was excellent and very smooth whiskey, but apparently not easy on the American wallet! 2 small glasses of whiskey each set us back over 7000 yen! So, stick with the Sapporo and Kirin beer or the sake.

Japan Day 3: Drinking tea while seated uncomfortably

This was the day to sleep off the jet lag. We rolled out of the hotel at 10:30 to make an 11:00am tea ceremony at the Hotel Okura that our concierge had organized. We passed by the American embassy on the way there, a decidedly paranoid place. You couldn't even walk on the same side of the street as the embassy - guards bowed politely as you approached and asked you to cross the street. I wasn't going to try and take pictures since that might lead to an interrogation. Besides, it was an ugly cement building.

Thanks to the reliable Tokyo subway (and our somehow miraculous ability to understand the street signs that morning), we got to the tea ceremony on time. Although it's in a hotel, the tea ceremony is held by a small patio garden (which is probably nicer in the spring and summer), and once you walk in you've forgotten that there's a generic hotel hallway behind you. You're immediately looking a small rock garden and fountain:

 We were instructed on how to wash your hands properly for the ceremony. You scoop the water up with the ladle and importantly, when you rinse you hands, don't get any of the water back in to the small pool. That's so the water stays pure for the next guest.

We were served by a woman who was probably in her 60s (it's sometimes just hard to tell - she looked younger, but could have been 70 for all I know), and told us she had been doing tea ceremonies for 10 years. After we washed our hands, we sat on a low bench while she prepared a concentrated green tea drink that was very strong and bitter, but surprisingly refreshing. As she worked, it was clear that every movement was exactly choreographed - the stirring spoon, for example, could only be put down in a specific way and handled just so.

The next part of the tea ceremony was in the small tea house that was part of the room. We sat on tatami mats and thin cushions, and you're supposed to sit on your feet, legs folded back, like our hostess is:

I don't know about you, but I'm not a master yogi. Robin is more practiced than I am, but I can't sit like this comfortably for very long. She made it look natural - and we actually saw a number of people sitting down like this at restaurants. But I think you're supposed to sit like that while you enjoy your tea. Our hostess explained the origins of the tea ceremony - it was originally started and conducted by samurai. It's only in more recent history that women serve tea. She poured us regular green tea and it was over. The ceremony was somehow a little less elaborate than we imagined, but did last about 30 or 40 minutes.

Fueled by several cups of green tea and the power bars we'd had for breakfast (we were running late that morning), we were starving and headed directly to lunch at daidaiya, a modern Japanese restaurant on the 12th floor of a high rise. We sat in a tatami room again, but this one helpfully had a space under the table for our inflexible Western legs. We ordered set lunches of tempura and other interesting (and usually identifiable) more modern interpretations of Japanese food. Mine had various sashimi and fish, too. These upscale restaurants have more "reasonable" lunch menus, so it will only set you back about $40 or $50/person with drinks. And we're on vacation, so we sampled the sake to balance out all the tea before striking out for the rest of the day.

Next up: The Imperial Palace, endless hours of kabuki, and some no frills sushi.

Interlude: I'm not sure I want to order that...

Lots of things are lost in translation. It's always a treat when a restaurant in Japan has an English menu - mostly because you have a much better idea of what you're ordering. But menus can also be a huge source of amusement. I'm sure the same thing would happen if non-native Japanese speakers tried to translate Japanese to English, but it's good for a laugh. Some examples that we found:

Popcone? What's that?

French and Japanese, but no English. We ate at a French crepe place in Tokyo where they spoke French to us.

Mmmm... guts!!!!

I don't even know what the first one is supposed to be. All I know is I'm definitely not ordering it.

Ok, so under the Fried food section, we have "fried food." I was tempted just to see what it was, but I'll skip the "fried gristle."

Clown royal. Entertaining drunks since 1870.

Japan Day 2: Shopping crowds, fortunes, museums and sake

After lunch, we walked to the impressive Kamirarimon Gate, with large gold Buddha statues and a giant paper lantern. Past that is a major shopping street where they seem to specialize in random tourist trinkets. It was impressive not just for the variety of stuff, but for the sheer number of people there early on a Friday afternoon. Our one find was a stand that was making fish-shaped cream-filled pastries, a nice after lunch treat.

Sensoji Shrine stands at the end of the long street. It's very common for the streets leading up to shrines to be lined with shops, creating a kind of festive, commercial atmosphere. Don't expect to see brand-name stores or a Starbucks on these streets - it's all smaller shops, and usually lots of snack stands and restaurants mixed in.

The shrine was impressive in scale, with beautiful architecture and a large incense burner in front.

There were plenty of locals visiting. It seems like religious life is integrated in to their day-to-day activities. People stop routinely to say a prayer at a shrine - I think they may go to a specific shrine depending on what they are praying for. At one point on the trip, we saw a group of teenage boys dressed in their baseball uniforms praying for success in the game.

At Sensoji, as at many shrines, you can also purchase a fortune for 100 yen. We both purchased fortunes. Robin's was terrible, but thankfully, you can conveniently negate it by tying the fortune to a metal rod nearby - and it doesn't even cost extra :-)

The large incense burner is also interesting. The smoke is supposed to be curative and ward off colds, so people step up to it and wave the smoke in to their face.

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Edo Tokyo Museum. We were here for an hour-and-a-half and could easily have spent much more time here. It provides a very detailed look at the complete history of the city, and much of the interesting modern history is of course at the end. The link to the museum site gives you a sense of both the incredible architecture (long escalators take you up the equivalent of 7 stories!) and the exhibits.

We got back on the subway to head to the Roppongi neighborhood for dinner. Another interesting cultural observation - the Japanese routinely sleep on the subway at any time of day. If you look around the train, at least 10% of the people who are sitting down are dozing, and sometimes they look sound asleep.

We found a great yakatori restaurant in Roppongi, though we never did learn its name. We were looking for a specific restaurant in the guidebook, but couldn't locate it (directions are often vague - "go to the bottom of the hill and look for a red lantern"). We stepped in to a completely different restaurant to see if they could help. When we told the host at the door we were looking for a yakatori restaurant, he walked us half a block to point out a nondescript wooden door. Talk about service.

Yakatori is meat and veggies grilled on skewers. This place was small, with a traditional Japanese wooden bar and low seats. We took off our shoes at the door and were guided to seats right in front of the grill. They had an English menu, but we could just as easily have pointed to what was in the case. There were a number of ex-pats here for dinner, and the place was fairly buzzing with conversation, beer, sake and the aroma of grilled food.

One of our favorites - grilled asparagus wrapped in bacon. We also had sake with our meal - the first time on the trip we ordered it. The cold, crisp, dry sake went well with the food, though I'd say a light Japanese beer would have done nicely as well.

It had been a very full day for two completely jet-lagged travelers, so we just about crawled up the hill to the subway and rode one stop to our hotel.

* All photos here have been linked from Flickr. You can find the full set here.

Japan Day 2: Breakfast, a boat and not getting lost

We had heard that the "combini" - the convenience store, most likely 7-11 or an am-pm store - were great for cheap breakfast. We tried a 7-11, but in our sleepy state couldn't identify what exactly was in those packages. With nothing labeled in English or even Romanji, we gave up and wandered down the street. We found a place near our hotel called Jonathans that had a picture menu. Picture menus are an important find for Robin since it makes it easier to avoid fish (though it's hardly foolproof). I, on the other hand, eat anything, so in a pinch, I'll just point at something on the menu. In this case, we found a mix of Asian and Western breakfasts, including savory curries with rice, and a good selection of Japanese teas.

After a shower to try and wash some of the jet-lag off, we went to see the concierge to get some help with planning our stay - tickets to a kabuki show, a tea ceremony, possibly a acupressure massage (never did get that last one). She was extremely helpful and called us several times with updates or questions. She arranged a tea ceremony for us, and got us information about the kabuki show so we could buy tickets, printed out directions, and labeled everything carefully. You got the sense she'd spend hours to solve an insignificant request, and you don't even tip here in Japan.

With plans for the day, we headed back to the subway to go sightseeing. The Tokyo subway is a destination just on its own. There are hundreds and thousands of people of all ages and all types - businessmen in suits, women in highly impractical shoes for commuting, schoolgirls and schoolboys in uniforms, teens and young adults in wildly colorful outfits where it looks like they may simply have reached in to their closet blindfolded (but it works for them somehow). People who are sick with a cold or flu also commonly wear masks (not because they're afraid of getting sick - so they don't get you sick!), so you see that a lot.

We made it to our destination without even getting all that lost. There are some street signs in Tokyo, but with the exception of major streets, most signs were hard to find, and often in Kanji, meaning we couldn't read them. With some guessing, we found Hama Rikyu Gardens - where we wanted to find the river cruise boat. The only way to catch the boat was to pay the entrance fee to the garden first, which seemed like a good money-making scheme for the garden. The garden itself wasn't very elaborate, but it sported:

• Feral cats living the high life in a huge garden
• Great views of Tokyo
• The boat cruise up the Sumida River to the Asakusa neighborhood

A view from the garden towards Tokyo Bay:

The cruise on the Sumida took us past many of the city's bridges. Most of the architecture was very modern, the city having been largely rebuilt after World War II, but there was one interesting building at the end:

It looks like a giant gold turnip. I have no idea why it's there.

We got off the boat at Asakusa and ate at Sansado, a great tempura place where we sat upstairs in a room with tatami mats, on cushions at a low table. A lot of restaurants have both regular seating and tatami seating, where you always take off your shoes and sit on a cushion. The servers are often dressed in kimonos, so it has a very traditional feel. It looks like this:

You may (or may not, as the case was at Sansado) have an indentation under the table for your feet. Most people in the restaurant seem perfectly comfortable sitting on the cushions rather than on a chair. After filling up on some tasty tempura, we were ready to see more sights...

Japan Day 2: Something's fishy about this place

Still on California time (17 hours behind Tokyo), we were predictably awake before 5:00am, so we got dressed and took the metro to the Tokyo Fish Market. It's a little confusing to tackle to Tokyo subway for the first time at 5:30am in a jet lagged, decaffeinated state, but we had directions from the concierge and everything is very clearly marked. All the stations are numbered so it's easy to figure out which direction to go. Announcements are usually in both Japanese and English. The only thing that confused us is that there are two separate subway systems - the Metro and the Toei lines. We bought a day card for one, then on the way back realized we couldn't get back on because it was a different line. So we ended up with a separate day card for each line today (700 yen each) instead of the combo card (1000 yen).

We missed the auction at the fish market, but got to see the market in full swing. There was a frenzy of activity - motorized carts racing around the market delivering fish, people carrying boxes - seemingly with no rules. You had to stay on your toes to keep out of their way! This seemed very different from our introduction. For one, no one bowed at us. I was pretty sure that most of the time one of these carts was going to take someone's shins out:

But it was fascinating. Huge slabs of tuna lay on boards, defrosting or being cut up. It was very colorful with plenty of things that we couldn't easily identify. It looks like there are at least two types of octopi here:

The fish market was both clean and smelled reasonably non-fishy, despite the tons of fish everywhere. I have a feeling they wash and scrub everything regularly to keep it that way. I should have sought out fresh sushi at the market, but I was too jet-lagged and hadn't even had tea or coffee, so my brain never made the leap - "hey, there's amazingly fresh fish here! I bet I could buy some sushi!" Nope. Never thought of it.

We got back on the subway to head back to the hotel and dodged about a hundred schoolgirls who were entering the station when we were leaving. The school kids travel in huge packs during the week, and I think they go to school on the weekend, too - all of them in neatly pressed uniforms.

Next up, breakfast...

* I've split Day 2 up in to 3 parts. We did so much that first full day in Tokyo that it was a lot to put in one blog entry.

First impressions of Japan

I decided to start this blog so I could share my experiences from our recent trip to Japan with a few friends. I'll definitely write about more than travel, but since I love travel and have been to 23 countries and 49 states, what better theme than travel? Neither Robin nor I had been to Japan before, and while the dollar-yen exchange rate was distinctly not in our favor, we decided this would be another trip-of-a-lifetime for us. So I'll write about the Japan trip in the next dozen or so blog entries (11 days, and there was a lot to see!).

November 18, about 3:20pm (local Tokyo time, still November 17 back home). Wheels down on United 837 from San Francisco. Despite the 10 1/2 hour flight from SFO, Robin and I weren't all that tired. Business class seats help, of course, though we still had to suffer the surly service that is United. Add in a 2 hour bus ride to the Sheraton Miyako in Tokyo and the jet lag begins to show. Still, you could do a lot worse for bus service. The friendly porters greet you politely and quick organize everyone's bags - sorted by the stops the bus is making - while you wait for the bus. As other buses go by, one of the porters always makes sure to bow courteously to the drivers.

When we got to the Sheraton, every staff member we saw bowed to us and welcomed us. It wasn't just because we were checking in - they did this every time they saw us. There was no refusing the porter's help with bags. Whether you had just a few shopping bags or a truck full of luggage, they were there to eagerly assist you - and amazingly, there's no tipping at all in Japan. The porter showed us to our room and gave us a quick tour, explaining everything including the toilet with many buttons, then bowed his way out. We bowed back, which led to more bowing before he left.

We were fading quickly, so we went to the concierge for a dinner recommendation nearby and she directed us to a well-known noodle shop nearby. Upon entering, we realized this was going to be an interesting experience - everything was in Kanji script - no English or even Romanji (Japanese in Latin characters). Fortunately for us, a Japanese businessman sitting at the next table spoke excellent English and helped us order, which meant Robin could avoid fish. With a belly full of noodles and a bit of beer, we made it back to the hotel for an 8pm bedtime.

Our first impressions of Japan - we could learn a few things from them. No surprise there, really. Everyone is extremely polite and goes out of their way to be helpful. The service staff everywhere is typically well-dressed, too. The bus driver from the airport had on a dress shirt, vest and tie. The porters at the airport were in pressed slacks and shirts, and handled all the luggage carefully. The hotel staff, the businessman at the restaurant and even the restaurant staff who didn't speak English were immediately helpful.