We have had a wonderful week in Japan but I do have to admit that for an English speaking person - Japan is hard work. Also as someone who can't walk for long periods it is also a bit of a strain. The people and the food are brilliant not being able to read signs or communicate easily does get quite tiring. The train system is unbelievably efficient but the train stations are cities by themselves and sometimes you feel you could be born, live and die there there without ever seeing daylight.
We spent only one day in Tokyo as we have been before and were keen to visit some other cities and were rewarded as they were quieter and not so frantic as Tokyo.
Above is one of the beautiful manhole covers which are just one example of the beauty that the Japanese are famous for.
First thing we did was to collect our Japan Rail pass which we needed to get to Osaka and Kyoto - I loved the sign.
As you probably know by now - we are obsessive foodies and spend lots of time looking in food stores and eating in all types of restaurants. As Japan gets more westernised (not sure if that is a good thing) common foods (to us) get more available in Japan. There are an amazing variety of cake and pastry shops but bread is still a bit of an oddity I think. Here is some in a store - packed in half loaf sizes only.
These are coated paper (I think) lampshades in our hotel foyer.
Our room was so small that the one double bed was pushed against the wall on one side and just enough room to walk down the other side. There was no room for the suitcases. But of course we loved the heated, musical toilet seats which Japan is famous for.
Packed inside this glossy bag was a box
Inside the box was a mini ice brick, wet cloth and inside the paper wrap was one chocolate eclair. Packaging overkill but delicious
and yes - it was a very very yummy eclair.
Our main plan in Tokyo was to do the 24 hours in Tokyo day as recently listed in the paper. The only problem was that we were there on Monday and after trekking to the third closed museum we gave up and just went and found some more food.
3 comments:
Oh this post just abour perfectly sums up my experience of Tokyo! (Except we could walk around our beds!) Look forweard to seeing if you show me bits of Kyoto we went to.
The Japanese must have an awful landfill/recyclin problem with all that packaging!
And where's the pic of the singing toilet seat :-)
Thanks for sharing your Japanese experience. It's one place I've never been to.... Maybe one day...
Hi Lisa
I had some very funny experence with the toilets in Japan. One was on the second day when l pushed some buttons when l was sitting on the toilet and l got some water squirted up you know where and then l couldnt get the water to stop, I was laughing that hard l nearly fell of. My friend that l went to Japn was in the next one was also laughing. I was than told l wasnt to touch any buttons again (the writing was all in Japanese)
We had the best time in Japan
Marlene
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