Japan at a Glance

Sep 9-13
I’m still jetlagged. I think it might have something to do with the fact that Samar & I got wasted within 24 hours of me arriving in Tokyo, and so I spent my first full day in the country with an almighty hangover. But Samar says I have to get used to it – randoms (& Shane) are going to buy me lots of alcohol while in Tokyo – oh well, what’s a girl to do? I was so hungover though I haven’t been able to face another night out – yet :).

Anyway – I spent my first 3 days in Tokyo lying on the sofa, trying to adjust to the new time zone, and dog sitting. Sunday I went to visit Meiji shrine & Yoyogi park where I stumbled onto a Sri Lanken festival, had some delicious roti & samosas and saw the Rockabilly dancers in action.

It’s Monday and I’m on my second train of the day – on my way to Hokkaido, the northern bit of Japan, attached to what I’m calling the “mainland” (now I know it's Honshu) by an underwater tunnel which you can tour. I’m going to see if I can organise that for later in the week on my way back to Tokyo. The first train I took today was the Shinkansen – the super fast one – it is everything I have heard & claims to be. Super fast, super smooth, I slept for most of the 3 hours I was on it. All of the Japanese announcements are followed by English translations & in the train stations the electronic boards show the destinations in both Japanese characters and romaji (the roman phonetic equivalent). Even my train tickets come with the seat & car numbers indicated in English – easy peasy. This second train is the next class down from the shinkansen – called a limited express. It’s not quite as fast or smooth but it still barrels along faster than your average Amtrak. It’s probably doing an equivalent speed to the Swiss trains. It is slightly older & narrower than the Shinkansen as well. The Shinkansen carriages have 5 seats in a row (2, the aisle, 3) but the limited express has only 2 either side of the aisle. The limited express also does not have any announcements in English – good thing I’m getting off at the last stop!

The food is amazing here – so much for hoping to lose weight in Japan! I had sea urchin for the first time – absolutely delicious and the best & freshest eel I’ve ever tasted. And I cant wait to try everything else: ramen & shabu shabu are top of my list atm. Ramen because everyone keeps telling me to try it and shabu shabu because I read about it over the weekend and it sounds delicious! Even the food on the trains is great. The train stations all have little shops where you can buy various types of bento boxes, sandwiches, pastries, other sweet stuff and drinks for the train journey. And there is a vending cart that travels through the train as well with drinks & bento boxes. I bought enough for 3 meals before I got on the shinkansen today. One of which was a real surprise – the picture in the shop looked like it was an egg pancake type thing stuffed with rice but the picture must have faded – for when I opened it; it was slices of beef wrapped around rice – absolutely delicious :) and put me right to sleep after such a heavy breakfast. The man sitting next to me just bought a bento box from the vending cart and it also looked really really good – it looked like sea urchin, roe, squid & tuna – and all for approx EUR 9 – not too shabby I reckon.

I caught my first glimpse of the sea while salivating over my neighbour’s lunch. It was grey & stormy looking, as we have moved further north the weather has mercifully cooled and its quite misty & rainy looking outside the train right now. The heat in Tokyo is cruel – and apparently its not even as hot as it was. A typhoon came through last week just before I arrived to mark the end of a heat wave. Maybe its because I’m carrying my backpack around a lot more now, but the heat in the US (not even in Georgia) has nothing on Tokyo heat. The last 2 days my clothes have just been stuck to me I’ve sweated so much – today sweat was running down my forearms and dripping off my hands while just standing waiting to get onto the train. Its a good thing ion replacement drinks are so popular in Japan that you can buy them on the train.