Tokyo, Day 1
I had been warned about jetlag. Really, though, I did not seem to have much of a problem with it, even on my first day in Japan. I got up early, which was nice, but not exceptionally early, and I was not particularly tired. My travelling companion had a similar experience.
Our hotel had a breakfast service, which was interestingly cross-cultural. There was miso and there was scrambled egg, there was cereal and there was rice, there were croissants and there were pickled fluorescent vegetables. I had mostly the Japanese stuff. The buffet was helpfully labelled with little signs near the food, but in one place the signs had gotten mixed around: what was labelled "fish roll" was in fact an amazingly sour vinagery pickled plum! I might have not minded that if I had been expecting it. The "fish roll" was in fact a pressed fish thing with a very firm and consistent texture, unlike anything I would imagine was fish, although the flavour was not unfishlike. It was a good breakfast, if a little weird: but then we figured that were in for a lot more weird food, and might as well start getting used to it!
The hotel also had a garden, with lush greenery and large fish. It was beautiful, peaceful, and smotheringly humid. We were beginning to realise that that would be another thing we needed to get used to. We swam around in the hot morning air for a little while and then headed to the lobby to check out and get the airport shuttle, to meet with the remainder of our group, who would be arriving in the afternoon.
I marvelled again on the ride back to the airport at how green everything was. This was not merely a function of the airport hotel's being 20 minutes away from the airport: everything was covered with lush vegetation. It was also just as hilly as I remembered from the airplane window the day before. Once again, I wondered at being in a place so unlike the one I had left.
We got to the airport and settled in at a row of seats in the Arrivals lobby. We sat and read books, occasionally chatting, and generally not doing much. At one point I decided it would make sense if we got a map, and figured that there might be an information booth somewhere that might give them out. Sure enough, a minimal amount of exploration turned up just such a place, giving out just such items. Oddly, the maps and brochures in the rack by the booth were mostly in French. I had to ask for an English map, and after I was given one I was asked my nationality. The lady behind the counter ticked something off on a clipboard when I told her, so I imagine they were keeping some sort of statistics.
Back at my seat we looked at the map a bit, and my companion decided that it would make sense for her to get one as well. So she got up and came back shortly thereafter, with a different map from mine! She said that they asked her nationality before they gave her her map, and we figured that hers was the Canadian edition. It was actually a bit more helpful than mine, but mine had some details that hers did not, so it was not bad that we had both.
Our seats were near the washrooms. I note this because the washrooms themselves were quite noteworthy. They had big sliding doors that opened only when a large green button next to them was pushed, and closed only when the large red button near that was pushed; inside was a bizarre array of plumbing and hoses, connected to a conventional (for the Japanese!) toilet, along with (in the men's room anyway) two other appliances that I have no words for. One was sort of like a urinal, but too high, and with what looked like spray nozzles; the other looked like a cross between a urinal and a sink, with a bar in front that almost looked like it was supposed to be sat on. An actual sink was notable in its absence. Outside the sliding doors there were signs explaining how to get into the toilets themselves, but little by way of explanation as to how to use the appliances themselves. My companion noted the people using the toilets: most went in, and then came out very soon afterward looking extremely confused, looked at the signs or asked their companions about them, and then went back in looking rather dubious. So apparently even the Japanese did not know what that stuff was!
The time approached for our friends to arrive, so we went to the causeway from which they were to emerge from Customs. This was split with a large wall panel in the middle, so that people entered from either of two doors and then proceeded through to either of two passages, both leading to the same place. We each took up a position at each of the openings, and waited. I was the lucky winner, spotting our companions first. We hugged and shook hands, and then tried not to get lost amidst the crowds.
After much consultation of maps and some asking of questions, we wound up taking a train to Tokyo. Perhaps the jetlag was catching up with me, but it seemed like a long ride, and I got rather tired. Once we got to Tokyo, we transferred to the city subway, and from there emerged into a rainy, humid, hot city, and tried to locate our ryokan. There was much discussion (which could have been an argument with less amicable people) about how many blocks to walk and where to turn, and even after we agreed on what we should be doing we wound up turning early. It would be an exaggeration to say that we got lost on the way there, but we certainly could have been a little better oriented getting there!
The ryokan was in Asakusa, a pleasant district of the city with a lot of shops and restaurants. The map that we were paying the most attention to noted that there was a liquor store opposite it. This turned out to be a couple of vending machines selling about two dozen varieties of beer, with the words "LIQUOR STORE" in English overhead! The proprietor was a cheerful man who spoke a little English, and showed us up to our rooms. There were three women and two men in our group, and we had arranged rooms by sex. The women's room was a smallish living-room-like affair with an alcove with three low flat mattresses on the floor; the men's room had a smaller living-room thing but a separate bedroom down a short hall. General consensus was that the men had the better deal, but they were both nice rooms, each with a low table with a tea service and tatami mats all around. Both rooms also had hollow metal doors with heavy springs that made a very loud crashing noise if one did not close them carefully: something that we never quite did get used to.
We dropped our stuff off and headed out to dinner. We chose a small restaurant less than a block away from our ryokan. This had typical Japanese food, and we got a number of dishes to share amongst the lot of us, most involving rice and breaded, deep-fried pork. It was very good, and surprisingly, very affordable: we paid less than 1000 yen a head, or about $10 each! We were immensely satisfied, and varying degrees of tired, so we turned in right after that. Tomorrow we would get to the tourism.
Our hotel had a breakfast service, which was interestingly cross-cultural. There was miso and there was scrambled egg, there was cereal and there was rice, there were croissants and there were pickled fluorescent vegetables. I had mostly the Japanese stuff. The buffet was helpfully labelled with little signs near the food, but in one place the signs had gotten mixed around: what was labelled "fish roll" was in fact an amazingly sour vinagery pickled plum! I might have not minded that if I had been expecting it. The "fish roll" was in fact a pressed fish thing with a very firm and consistent texture, unlike anything I would imagine was fish, although the flavour was not unfishlike. It was a good breakfast, if a little weird: but then we figured that were in for a lot more weird food, and might as well start getting used to it!
The hotel also had a garden, with lush greenery and large fish. It was beautiful, peaceful, and smotheringly humid. We were beginning to realise that that would be another thing we needed to get used to. We swam around in the hot morning air for a little while and then headed to the lobby to check out and get the airport shuttle, to meet with the remainder of our group, who would be arriving in the afternoon.
I marvelled again on the ride back to the airport at how green everything was. This was not merely a function of the airport hotel's being 20 minutes away from the airport: everything was covered with lush vegetation. It was also just as hilly as I remembered from the airplane window the day before. Once again, I wondered at being in a place so unlike the one I had left.
We got to the airport and settled in at a row of seats in the Arrivals lobby. We sat and read books, occasionally chatting, and generally not doing much. At one point I decided it would make sense if we got a map, and figured that there might be an information booth somewhere that might give them out. Sure enough, a minimal amount of exploration turned up just such a place, giving out just such items. Oddly, the maps and brochures in the rack by the booth were mostly in French. I had to ask for an English map, and after I was given one I was asked my nationality. The lady behind the counter ticked something off on a clipboard when I told her, so I imagine they were keeping some sort of statistics.
Back at my seat we looked at the map a bit, and my companion decided that it would make sense for her to get one as well. So she got up and came back shortly thereafter, with a different map from mine! She said that they asked her nationality before they gave her her map, and we figured that hers was the Canadian edition. It was actually a bit more helpful than mine, but mine had some details that hers did not, so it was not bad that we had both.
Our seats were near the washrooms. I note this because the washrooms themselves were quite noteworthy. They had big sliding doors that opened only when a large green button next to them was pushed, and closed only when the large red button near that was pushed; inside was a bizarre array of plumbing and hoses, connected to a conventional (for the Japanese!) toilet, along with (in the men's room anyway) two other appliances that I have no words for. One was sort of like a urinal, but too high, and with what looked like spray nozzles; the other looked like a cross between a urinal and a sink, with a bar in front that almost looked like it was supposed to be sat on. An actual sink was notable in its absence. Outside the sliding doors there were signs explaining how to get into the toilets themselves, but little by way of explanation as to how to use the appliances themselves. My companion noted the people using the toilets: most went in, and then came out very soon afterward looking extremely confused, looked at the signs or asked their companions about them, and then went back in looking rather dubious. So apparently even the Japanese did not know what that stuff was!
The time approached for our friends to arrive, so we went to the causeway from which they were to emerge from Customs. This was split with a large wall panel in the middle, so that people entered from either of two doors and then proceeded through to either of two passages, both leading to the same place. We each took up a position at each of the openings, and waited. I was the lucky winner, spotting our companions first. We hugged and shook hands, and then tried not to get lost amidst the crowds.
After much consultation of maps and some asking of questions, we wound up taking a train to Tokyo. Perhaps the jetlag was catching up with me, but it seemed like a long ride, and I got rather tired. Once we got to Tokyo, we transferred to the city subway, and from there emerged into a rainy, humid, hot city, and tried to locate our ryokan. There was much discussion (which could have been an argument with less amicable people) about how many blocks to walk and where to turn, and even after we agreed on what we should be doing we wound up turning early. It would be an exaggeration to say that we got lost on the way there, but we certainly could have been a little better oriented getting there!
The ryokan was in Asakusa, a pleasant district of the city with a lot of shops and restaurants. The map that we were paying the most attention to noted that there was a liquor store opposite it. This turned out to be a couple of vending machines selling about two dozen varieties of beer, with the words "LIQUOR STORE" in English overhead! The proprietor was a cheerful man who spoke a little English, and showed us up to our rooms. There were three women and two men in our group, and we had arranged rooms by sex. The women's room was a smallish living-room-like affair with an alcove with three low flat mattresses on the floor; the men's room had a smaller living-room thing but a separate bedroom down a short hall. General consensus was that the men had the better deal, but they were both nice rooms, each with a low table with a tea service and tatami mats all around. Both rooms also had hollow metal doors with heavy springs that made a very loud crashing noise if one did not close them carefully: something that we never quite did get used to.
We dropped our stuff off and headed out to dinner. We chose a small restaurant less than a block away from our ryokan. This had typical Japanese food, and we got a number of dishes to share amongst the lot of us, most involving rice and breaded, deep-fried pork. It was very good, and surprisingly, very affordable: we paid less than 1000 yen a head, or about $10 each! We were immensely satisfied, and varying degrees of tired, so we turned in right after that. Tomorrow we would get to the tourism.