Japan - Some Sightseeing

Kamakura - Gardens (Seasonal Only)

I stayed over a weekend, so I managed to do some sightseeing. Again, my Japanese colleagues took care of me.

Well, that’s apart from the Saturday, when I’d arranged to go out with Julia, who was over there for a three-month placement from the US (she was one month in). We went to the Emperor’s Gardens – I’d been there at night-time with Sayako to see the cherry blossom a few nights earlier.

It might sound a bit weird to have gone there at night, but the trees are actually lit up in the evening and crowds of people go to see them – you shuffle along in a huge line and gaze at the trees. In fact, every time you see a cherry blossom anywhere, it’s almost obligatory to point it out; if the way you are walking could possibly pass by a cherry blossom tree, that’s the way you go.

They were beautiful and the trees were right by a river or a moat, so you had the water reflecting them as well and some of the trees arched over the water. The emperor’s gardens were on the other side and the hillside was also covered in cherry blossom.

As I went to meet Julia on Saturday, wearing my bright pink rain jacket (as in the photo of me and some of the Japanese team in my earlier blog), it struck me that everyone in the metro, indeed everyone in general, was wearing black or beige. I stuck out like a beacon even without my white skin. The more I started to look, the more this impression was confirmed.

Anyway, from the emperor’s gardens, we went on to Meije temple. Given how little space there is in Tokyo, the temples are in expansive grounds. There are structures that look like open-air mini-temples with a large rectangular trough of fresh water and ladles, where you have to wash your hands and face before entry. The various temples differ from each other but probably have in common a generally square design with sloping roofs as you would expect. We were fortunate in that there appeared to be a wedding or something happening while we were there and we saw a procession walking through the grounds.

After lunch we went to Ueno. Here, again, people clamoured to see the cherry blossom. The area under the trees was cordoned off and the ground was covered with individual plastic sheets where people sat all day eating and drinking. It was obviously the thing to do, but to be honest, it looked uncomfortable and crowded. I was happy just to nudge along in the crowds walking down the avenue of trees.

Ueno was where a lot of the museums were, so I went to the National Museum and a special art exhibition that was on. I had only 1.5 hours before closing, which helped me to focus my mind on the items I found most interesting – which were mostly the art and calligraphy, which have always fascinated me since I was young.

The next day, in a shop, I asked my Japanese colleagues why some books appeared to be read back-to-front (from the Western perspective) and others from front-to-back. To my surprise, this engendered a lot of discussion and it turned out that sometimes Japanese is written up and down and sometimes from left to right and, depending on this, you start the book either at the back or at the front. How confusing! On top of that, I learned that Japanese is interspersed with Chinese characters which are used as punctuation because Japanese doesn’t have any commas or anything. Weird, but interesting!

On Sunday, my colleagues took me to Kamakura, which is a tourist town fairly near Tokyo with a lot of historic buildings; it’s by the sea and set by the mountains. It was full of lovely little roads packed with shops selling what seemed to me to be unusual items. My colleagues kindly bought me a konyakku soap, which is a wobbly soap made out of yam. It’s really great. Sayako had bought me earlier a face towel made out of paper – it looks very decorative and is quite coarse so serves as a scrub as well.

We visited one of the many temples; this one was set in the hillside. Some Samurai warriors were wandering about in their attire; a lady in a fancy kimono and a smart gentleman were posing. We also watched some traditional Japanese dancing (it reminded me of Thai Chi). Apparently the singing was in old Japanese, so even my colleagues couldn’t understand it!

There was, of course, also the obligatory Japanese garden and the cherry blossoms. The garden was only open for maybe 6 weeks a year, so I was lucky to be able to look round. There were beautiful flowers and the cherry blossoms were, of course, also impressive.

After lunch, we progressed on to see the second largest Buddha in Japan. It was stunning because you turned a corner and could then see it there in the backdrop of the hills. After a short queue and a minimal entrance fee, we could enter inside the Buddha via some dark and narrow steps and see him from the inside. I don’t think there are too many people who can say they’ve been inside a Buddha.

Our final stop was to see the sea. The weather wasn’t great, but I was surprised to see a lot of people out surfing.

We managed to fit in a lot over the weekend, so I came away from Japan feeling that I had at least made the most of my time. I would definitely like to return some day.

Japan - The Food

Starter - Japanese Style

I had worried a bit about the food before going to Japan. I’m not a big sushi fan and nor am I too fond of noodles in soup.

When I arrived, I was a bit baffled by the restaurants. There were loads and they all showed pictures of the food they offered. However, I still couldn’t really work out what the pictures were (the food was mostly fairly unfamiliar) and everything was in Japanese. Every now and then I’d spot a restaurant with an English name – there was a lovely place advertising organic food, but then there were no pictures and the entire menu was in Japanese. I ended up going for an Indian curry in a place where everything was in English.

I had to get used to the currency as well – I’m just not used to dealing with money where the denominations are in the 1000s and it all seems quite scary (even though work was paying!).

Breakfast – with the obligatory hand towel as with every meal – was very Japanese. There were boiled vegetables, fish, miso soup or something similar… fortunately, they also offered bread rolls and jam, plus warm croissant, so I just kept to that and the coffee and orange juice!

After that, I was pretty much looked after. On my first day at work, we had sandwiches for lunch, so that was safe; subsequently we went to the work canteen each day. There were forks available, but mostly people ate with chopsticks. I played safe with a curry again on the first day (fortunately they had a curry on the menu each day, so there was always a fail-safe!); after that I was more adventurous, although I can’t really say what I ate.

I had tempura and noodles in a soup (this has a special name); I think another day I ate something that looked like spaghetti, but it was actually noodles, and then there was a bowl with liquid (miso soup?). I struggled with the chopsticks for the noodles (I was trying to twist the noodles round the chopsticks, but I’m not sure that was the right technique). In the end, my colleagues brought me a fork and watched with fascination as I twirled the noodles on the fork and laughed that I was treating it like spaghetti.

At the weekend I ended up in an Italian restaurant and ordered Japanese beef (yes, weird, I know). In my head this was going to be how I imagine Teriaki beef to be – little slithers of beef in a sauce. However, it turned out to be an almost-raw steak. To my surprise, since I normally eat my steak medium-well done, it was actually delicious and very tender. The starter salad was exquisitely presented (see photo).

One night Sayako took me out to a chicken place (I’d told her that I love chicken). It only sits around 20 people and you all sit round the counter by the kitchen and you are served directly from the kitchen. It’s not anywhere I could possibly have gone on my own. To my befuddlement, I was handed a picture of a chicken with about 20 different cuts shown on it (eg, the bit just above the tail was the option that drew my attention as I wondered if we [Westerners] ever even ate this part) and you were supposed to choose which bit of the chicken you would like to eat. This was totally beyond me! I asked for skin-on and moist meat in the end and was served with something a bit weird that was verging on gristly. It’s probably best that I don’t know!

My welcome meal was at a lovely restaurant where we had our own section of the restaurant and they brought in meats for us to cook directly at the grill in front of us. There was as much to drink as you liked (introducing me to the concept that the Japanese like to drink). Again, the meat wasn’t quite what I was expecting – not sure what some of it was, but the first serving was tongue. Although I don’t eat tongue (in the UK, it’s a common filling for sandwiches; not sure we really eat it as a main course meat much), it was actually delicious.

Weirdly, the restaurants don’t really do Diet Coke (or Cola Light, depending on which country you come from!); only full-sugar Coke. I thought I’d try a Japanese alcoholic drink (they all drink beer, so I wasn’t actually being very Japanese!) which I thought would be saki. Instead it turned out to be more like a schnapps or grappa (you can get them in different flavours apparently), but instead of being served in a small schnapps glass, it was served like a glass of orange juice. It took me the whole evening to get through it.

I had been scared of starving while I was away, but actually I did pretty well – in fact, I ate way too much in the end!

Tokyo - Getting There

Cherry Blossom, Temple (Ueno), Crowds

[Apologies - very busy so a bit late this week!]

I arrived in Japan for my work trip at around 8am after a 12-hour flight. I was a little alarmed that you had to walk through a temperature check barrier to ensure that you weren’t ill (I assume). I could feel myself starting to sweat, but no alarms went off. The airport was well-organised though and you were directed to the right queues for passport control. I felt secure.

Before I left, I’d been a bit freaked out by the recommendation from the Japanese team that I get a train to Tokyo from the airport – I had visions of my face being squashed against a window, my arm stuck in between the doors, and my luggage hanging out and getting whacked out of my hand by an oncoming train. I got agreement from management that I could get a taxi instead.

However, when I arrived, the counters for the train at the airport were very prominent. I was feeling brave (and suggestible due to my tiredness) and decided to go for it. I queued in the wrong place for a little while, but really it wasn’t too bad and I was served fairly quickly.

I’d forgotten that platforms in Japan are a bit tricky. I was told that the train departed from Platform 1, which sounded simple enough, but they forgot to tell me that there were two platform 1s. There were two different train companies, each with their own Platform 1. Needless to say, I ended up on the wrong one, but did notice that the destination was not the one I desired and so got someone to help me.

The Narita Express train is actually very civilized with reserved seats only and comfortable ones at that with plenty of room. The platform is marked out so that you know where your carriage will be. The train arrives and all doors are blocked while you wait for the train to be cleaned. The seats swiveled, so the cleaners also swiveled all the seats round so that they were now facing the direction of travel rather than having their backs to it. That’s what I mean by organized!

There were big notices up saying that if you locked your baggage in the luggage racks and forgot your code, you could collect it at the terminal station. That was enough to scare me off even trying to lock my baggage, but it was still all just fine.

Arriving at Tokyo was confusing. Tokyo station is huge and there were also loads of shops. I was almost tempted to buy something to eat because some of the stalls smelled so good. Somehow, I got to the main exit. I stared at the local map for probably an hour trying to work out if I could walk to my hotel from the station. In the end, I couldn’t even find the taxi rank when it was just behind me. I guess I was tired.

I’d been warned that the taxi drivers don’t speak English, but unfortunately, I’d got the Japanese instructions too late to be able to print them out. I tried providing the address in English, but after the driver drove round for a while and dropped me off at the ASA hotel (which looked as if it housed rats) instead of the APA hotel, I decided that only Japanese would do. I yanked out my laptop and found the Japanese file. This seemed to enlighten him and after a bit of a detour, I was deposited at the correct place.

I spent the rest of the day trying to fathom out where the work building was but to no avail. I never did find out how to walk there. Fortunately, Sayako picked me up in the morning and showed me how to get there using the metro. I was petrified, but actually it was pretty similar to London (we were probably a bit late – around 8.45am). She seemed to think I’d know how to do it after that and, much to my surprise, I did indeed manage. I had finally become a proper Japanese commuter!

Japan - Working Trip

 

Me and some of the Japanese Team in front of cherry blossom, Kumakura

 

 

Well, I’m busy here in Japan and don’t really have time to write my blog, but I’ll just jot down the things that surprise me about Japan, or at least things I’d forgotten about Japan:

1. Lots of people wear masks
2. The toilets are sophisticated – seats are heated, you can play music (on some), there’s a bidet function and a splash function; however, they still also have the crouch toilets (you don’t see these at all in the UK, Switzerland, or Germany, as far as I know).
3. The Japanese like to drink! I thought that because they are so rule-driven, they would not ever drink more than the number of recommended units. However, they are a party people!
4. You get a hand towel with every meal, even on a visit to Starbucks.
5. The air in Tokyo was much cleaner than I was expecting it to be.
6. They all eat with chopsticks (yes, I’d forgotten!)
7. They laugh a lot and are extremely hospitable
8. Linked to the above, they watch your reactions and react accordingly – I’ve realized that my face gives more away than I realise!
9. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but the metro hasn’t been as busy as I expected. Maybe it’s because I’m a little late by Japanese standards and so miss the worst
10. Despite hierarchy, the entire office was open plan; it all looked a bit crowded to me!
11. Gift-giving is part of the culture and I had forgotten, much to my embarrassment.

Hopefully a more extensive blog next week!