Who knows where we are?

Strange Tokyo - First time in Japan

We arrived to Tokyo early in the morning. After 40 degrees in Bangkok, 7 degrees felt really cold... Because of by far the most turbulent flight we have been on (impossible to sleep) and flight ban of the Dreamliner (instead of which we had to fly JAL 767 with absolutely terrible and uncomfortable "business class" seats) we felt little bit "jetlagged". Fortunately time difference to Bangkok is only 2 hours so "jetlag" was more tiredness and therefore easy to handle compared to earlier jetlags during this trip.

First impression of Japan was wonder, we had come to a strange country. Lots of queuing people everywhere, bowing to each others, hi-tech toilet seat with seat heater (what a wise invention!) and water sprays, all kinds of vending machines with cold and hot beverages and food. And what kind of well functioning railway system they had! Finnish railway company VR should go to Japan to learn how a good railway system works... The first look at the railway / subway maps felt hard but it was actually very easy to use and they have excellent signs and announcements also in english.

Olli trying to understand a railway map.

Maija is waiting for NEX (Narita Express train) to Shinagawa.

There are all kind of vending machines. Maija is buying hot cafe latte this time.

There is a Manneken Pis on some random train platform. 

Maija is looking for the right station. btw. This only shows the metro. The trains, which are as useful as metro in Tokyo, are on a separate map that looks even more complex.

Sometimes you have to look carefully to find the english version of these...

Food!

Food in Japan was even better than we expected. We have eaten great sushi and sashimi in many Japanese restaurants in the States and other countries but every restaurant we went in Tokyo the food was even better. We went to some recommended restaurants and some random ones and got super delicious food everywhere. The sashimi was high quality everywhere and surprisingly cheap.

Yakitori (bbq sticks) and horse sashimi (raw). 

The conveyor belt type sushi is very convenient, cheap and fast. They also have free instant green tea on offer. Probably the best tea we have ever tasted!

Sashimi platter with who knows what.

Philip, you remember these bad boys?! =) Asparagus wrapped in bacon (Our favorite yakitori!)

Some weird soup or pudding kind of thingie

There was an excellent yakitori place right next door to our hotel. Think of Aki Kaurismaki movies and you get the picture what the decor was in this restaurant =)

Tuna sushi platter with medium and very fatty tuna as well as some rolls. The best ever! This place, Sushi No Midori, was really popular. But we had to wait for about 20 min to get in.

California roll.

Kushiyaki. A kind of deep fried yakitori.

Lunch at a random restaurant in Fish market area. The food was so good and we were so hungry that we ate most of it before we took this picture.

Moo-moo and oink-oink for sale on the streets of Tokyo

Sometimes you can't tell from the picture what the food is but luckily they have english explanation. =) 

Cherry blossom

We planned to go to Japan March/April so that we would be there at the time of the cherry blossom. The Japanese do their hanami thing then which just means going to picknick and drink a lot of booze under blossoming Cherry trees. This year the cherry blossom in Tokio was very early (earliest in last 50 years), so we were little bit late but we still saw some great flowery trees. We went to Ueno park which is the best place in Tokyo to see the cherry trees and Hanami. It was nice spring day when we visited Ueno park. What a great feeling to get experience spring after all the time spend in tropical weather!

Rose, not a cherry blossom.

Japanese doing their Hanami thing at Ueno park.

Sights in Tokyo

We walked quite a lot in Tokyo. There is no real city center in Tokyo, but just different kind of areas like parks or electronic towns, Yakitori alleys, love hotel hill, crazy anime/manga porn store areas with loads of stores selling not only the cartoon porn but accessories, games and costumes (schoolgirl outfits everywhere). Japanese also seem to like to play games. And not only children but actually the majority we saw were business men wearing boss suit playing videogames =) The annoying thing about these places was that you could smoke inside and even a short visit to them made your clothes smell like cigarrettes.

Hachiko the famous faithful dog.

Punk dogs.

Love hotel.

Games and anime/manga side by side...

... or across the street from another.

Japanese like Moomin (finnish fairy tail figures). 

Japanese queuing to Moomin cafe.

Some palace near Tokyo station. Looked cool, but you could not get in. 

Here you see the Tokyo sky tree on the left and on the right the giant golden turd. Well, what do you expect from a french architect. 

Tokyo sky tree is really tall, they say.

This is the Tokyo tower. Looks like eiffel tower but is a bit taller. 

Tokyo tower.

The famous Shibuya crossing.

Views from our hotel window.

Our hotel (Shinagawa Prince hotel) was about 200 m away from Shinagawa station which has excellent connections everywhere. We had a very small, clean room with great views. We could see Mount Fuji from our window but only on one day when the weather was clear enough ;) We also saw dolphins and sealion from the window (dolphin pool of the adjacent aquarium). 

We saw the Dolphin pool of the aquarium from our window...

...and mt. Fuji (but only during a clear day)

Maija in complimentary gi. We actually saw some western dude on the streets wearing same kind of "dress" and taking pictures of sights.

Some thoughts

We will definitely go to Japan again at some time. We spent six days in Tokyo and there are many things we would have liked to do still, but time just ran out. For example the baths should have been pretty cool to experience. Maybe next time.

The people are really friendly and polite. Many asked us if we needed help with directions. Some chatted with us just for fun. A chef in one izakaya (japanese bar) taught us japanese essentials and gave good tips about where, when and how to order different foods. With only few exceptions they didn't speak english almost at all. However they spoke a lot of japanese to us which was weird and funny. The less we understood the more they spoke to us in japanese =) And unlike the rest of Asia the Japanese never barge anywhere but queue calmly.

So, Japan was great but now we are, you guessed it, back in Singapore... Only for few nights after which we will leave Asia and fly to Melbourne, Australia. We plan to stay in Oceania for around one or two months before coming back to Finland. But plans change all the time so let's see what happens =)

-Olli & Maija