Japan: Tokyo

So excited to be in Japan.  We intended to come last September but Chris broke his ankle in high-octane sporting activity (fell out of a taxi) and we had to cancel.  So, 6 months later we landed in Tokyo all the more excited to be here at the start of Sakura (cherry blossom season). 

First thoughts on Tokyo – where is everyone? It’s got 13m people yet is beautifully organised so it never feels that busy.  We travelled through Tokyo central station at rush hour with our back packs and it felt like off-peak London.  The infrastructure is so well designed and easy to use that the whole city just works.  Like any super-city is has to be divided into districts which in effect become their own towns with their own identities but it’s incredibly easy to move between them.  

We stayed in Shinjuku – the busy bar/shopping area in the smallest hotel room ever.  We’d opted out of staying in a capsule hotel due to my claustrophobia (and because most of them are men only affairs as they’re really targeted at business travellers doing one over-night stay) but in retrospect sleeping in a capsule might have given us more room.   We couldn’t unpack as there was only space to put our packs on the floor and then pivot around them to reach the bathroom or bed.   Thankfully there’s a lot to see in Tokyo so we didn’t spend much time there.

We headed out to our local park and got our first view of Sakura mania.  The cherry trees were only just starting to blossom (plum trees had just finished) but people were running around the park to reach them, as though they’d only got 10 mins of viewing time before it all ended.  Hundreds of photos were taken – babies thrust into the air to get a good blossom back-drop, wedding pictures a plenty and of course – us.   It was a great introduction to the country and well-timed as the next day it rained and carried on raining for 24 hours. 

Being stoic we put on coats and went out anyway and for the most of the time got away with it. We visited Meiji-jingu and were amazed by the size and rural feel of the place given it’s bang in the middle of the city.  Once we’d got past the famous shrines and temple, the crowds thinned and we felt like we were in countryside. Couldn’t even hear the main roads around.  As we’d come to learn – this is typical of Japanese design.   We then moved onto Ueno Park but by this stage it was torrential and we had to take shelter in the Shitamachi museum – a tiny building housing a few original courtyard dwellings, filled with original stuff. Like a very tiny Black Country Museum for pre-earthquake Japan.  We were politely adopted by a very old volunteer who took us around explaining every detail, in great detail. Made it a lot more interesting to be honest and by the time we’d finished (including having our fortunes calculated by some spurious numerology) the rain had stopped. Bonus. 

Stopped, just long enough to get back to tiny room, change into dry stuff and head out again to eat Okonomiyaki (cabbage pancakes really) which are chopped and cooked flamboyantly in-front of you by a knife wielding ninja-chef.   

Tokyo has a tiny road called Golden Gai  full of tiny bars that you’d easily miss if you weren’t searching for them.  We picked one which was already packed (6 people) but thankfully 2 of them left soon after so we were able to wedge ourselves between the bar and the bannister wall.  At full capacity we got chatting with the people next to us (unavoidable given we were stood so close we were touching) who were 2 honeymooning Aussies and turned out to be huge fun and (as befits the nationality on both our parts) fond of a tipple. 7 hours later the bar surrendered, pretended they’d run out of gin and pointed us down the tiny stairs into the street.   Even at 4am in a rainy backstreet Tokyo is ace. 

The only aspect of Japanese culture we’ve been surprised by is their approach to smoking.  Outdoors, it’s prohibited but indoors is OK provided you’re in the smoking area.  Trains have smoking rooms (well sealed off so you can’t smell them until you’re right outside), café’s having smoking tables but as they’re separated only by air from the non-smoking tables it doesn’t really work. 

Our lovely little bar was full of smokers (only 6 people but 4 of them smoking), and being upstairs had no ventilation until an optimistic drinker opened the door to see if there was room for a little one.   Man Alive our clothes stank.  Hangover, stinky fag clothes/hair and a tiny hotel room do not make for a happy morning.

Bleary eyed we made our way to Akihabara - the district best known for its love of manga, anime’s and old things typically associated with kooky Japan.  

A lot less people in cosplay outfits than we hoped for but the shops were fascinating.  Mostly teenage boys but enough grown men to make me frown, were buying tiny models of animated characters out of vending machines with a frenzied level of excitement. Less noisy were the men buying body parts for their self-assembly dolls. So odd.  Baby heads on pneumatic bodies dressed in childrens clothes. Each body part is bought separately (pointy boobs, droopy boobs, skinny legs, toned legs, bubble-butts, tiny bums, eyes of all sizes and shapes of iris) so you can create you’re very own thing.  Not sure what really. These are doll size so they’re not in the blow-up sex doll market and they cost a lot of money.  Once you’ve built your ideal doll-woman-child you have to cloth her.  A pair of well-made T-bar shoes were around $70 while wigs went up to $200.   It’s good to have a hobby I suppose. 

Off to catch the first of many bullet trains - next stop Kyoto