Tokyo

got to see a lot of the city…had a great time. can’t believe how clean and orderly the place is for being so overly crowded. I stayed off of the JR or subways during rush hour, but had a great time during other moments. Go!!

I’m going here in May! :)

Off on Wednesday and really excited!!! have wanted to go for a while and finally have got round to organising it. looking forward to sushi!

I want to go to Tokyo and Japan in general so badly. It’s almost ridiculous. I’ve had a fascination with their culture for the longest time. Just being able to stand in the middle of Tokyo and look up and all you see are bright neon lights. Awesome. I need to go. GIANT ROBOTS! WOO!

sushi and the cultural aspects of it as well

It’s not really just tokyo… I want to go to japan period. I love the calture, everything about japan. It’s the place I want to go to more than any other place. I love thw festivals, the traditions, the street fasion, I might sound like some little kid torist, but to me Japan is like a paradise. Well that’s all I can think of to write

I previously posted this entry on 43Things, but I thought it would be a good fit on this site as well, so here goes…

My first trip to Tokyo was in November 2006. In and around Tokyo, we visited several shopping districts (as shopping is a favorite pastime there), visited a couple of temples where one time we even got to see a traditional Japanese wedding, observed teenaged hipsters in outrageous outfits in a city park, ate at many interesting restaurants sampling a wide range of Japanese cuisine, went out to a couple of bars, witnessed a chaotic morning at a famous wholesale fish market and basically tried to soak up as much of the culture as we could.

It wasn’t so bad getting by without much knowledge of the Japanese language. One thing that really helped was that most restaurants had pictures on their menus that we could simply point to when we ordered. Hardly anyone spoke really good English, but it wasn’t too hard finding someone who could understand at least a little when we needed help with something. We did pick up a few Japanese phrases, and who knows, I may now be inspired to pursue further study of the language.

The most convenient, yet frustrating aspect of Tokyo is the subway and rail system. It is unbelievably complex, and it was very easy to get lost or go onto the wrong train. What’s more is that sometimes the route maps were in Japanese only without the corresponding roman characters. During rush hour, the trains are under siege by a homogeneous army of black-suited men heading to or from a long day at the office. While the subways and trains are packed, interestingly hardly anyone speaks. People are reading books or magazines, playing with electronic gadgets, are lost in thought or snoozing. Our hotel was near Shinjuku station, which our guidebook said was the busiest station in the world with over two million people passing through everyday. I had never been in such a hectic and congested place as that station, yet like every other aspect of Japanese life I had witnessed, it was very clean and highly efficient.

Here are just some other random observations of Japanese culture from my (perhaps flawed) perspective… When eating udon (a Japanese soup with thick noodles), slurp loudly as eating this dish silently is like saying you don’t think it’s delicious. When you make a purchase in any type of store, you present your cash is a small tray only for the cashier to place your change directly in your hand (go figure). Tipping is not part of Japanese culture, so don’t leave one (I can get used to that!). If you’re a woman over 25, it is difficult to get into a professional career or even get married as this is still a male-dominated society where young women are expected to quit their jobs after the wedding and stay home with the kids. Men, younger ones in particular, are overall more feminine than in America. Fashion, hair-styling and accessories (including handbags that often look like women’s purses but are intended for men) are not just a female preoccupation! Short skirts with long black boots seem to be in style with younger women, who apparently wear outfits like this even to work. This is a society where appearance matters.

Needless to say, I would definitely go back!

I had a romantic idea of cherry blossom time from reading Japanese novels set in long ago times. What surprised me were the families lining the sidewalks of the gardens where the cherry trees were in bloom. They brought blankets and sat out on them like it was a concert, pink petals floating around them.

I can’t stress enough how great an experience it is to stay in a ryokan – even in Tokyo. We split our stay between a modern hotel in Shinjuku and a ryokan in Asakusa. The ryokan was not wholly traditional, but kind of modern. The place had a really amazing crowd – everyone sat together for breakfast in the common room – travellers there were from all over the world. We met a couple from Israel, Australians, Brits, Swedes, and a few Americans. Breakfast was delicious – cooked and served up right in front of us by the young, hip & multi-talented workers there…all while listening to Portishead & Massive Attack! So funny. It was a blast. So get off the beaten track and away from the Otani! Want the name of the ryokan? Ask me…:)

While visiting Tokyo I had some of the best Italian food I have ever eaten. Give it a try