From New to Old: Going from Tokyo to Kyoto (Part 1)

Mar18

Nothing quite shows you the scope of a modern metropolis like going up to a high vantage point and looking out over it, so that’s what we did my second day in Tokyo. But first I got the treat of spending a little more time in the countryside near Chiba. My friend and his parents have a nursery, and we took the truck up some bumpy roads to a lovely area filled with flowering trees…or rather, mostly with trees about to flower. Sadly, I’m just a week or two too early for most of the cherry blossoms, though I did get to see a couple of the trees at Ueno Park before heading into the National Museum. (It must have been my “best fortune” coming into play that I got to see any at all this time of year.) We walked around, and I saw local rice paddies, including one that grew the rice that I had just eaten at the breakfast table. It sounds strange, and it’s probably just the city girl in me, but it reminded me of the time I spent some time with my family in Cabanne in France: the roads so narrow, one car needs to pull over to let another car pass, irrigation ditches at the side; the quiet. Probably hallmarks of small farms in many places, but new and refreshing to me.

Then it was goodbye to my friend’s parents. Their kindness and hospitality had been great – they gave me the chopsticks I had used so clumsily at breakfast, taken me out for dinner, mimed with me to make ourselves understood by each other with only a handful of words in common. I was sad to say good-bye but grateful that I had been able to start my journey with people taking care of me as I got used to a new language and culture.

T and I headed into the city to drop off my luggage. All I can say about my bags – worst packing job ever! That night, I repacked and pruned, but I admit that I will be extremely happy when I can mail my boots home in a month! I am also planning on sending home or ditching guidebooks as I finish them, so that should help. Backpackers, believe the travel books when they tell you not to bring too many books. Books have always been my downfall, but I’m hoping to avoid the literal here. (On a brighter note, I have no need for a stairmaster here with all the stairs in the Tokyo subway and the Kyoto temples!)

Once in Tokyo and having parked my baggage for a time, T and I explored the Tsukiji fish market and then hunted for lunch. It was early afternoon by then, so stalls were just ready to close up, but I still got to see an amazing variety of fish. It’s especially fun to see fresh octopus and squid!

For lunch, we went to a street lined by monja restaurants. Honestly, I’m not sure how to describe monja, so I googled it. The best I came up with was that it is a Japanese pancake filled with cabbage and whatever you choose (in our case, tuna), which you cook on a griddle that is set in the middle of the table similarly to Korean bbq griddles. You then use metal scrapers to scrape up parts of the “pancake” onto your plate. It was an interesting culinary experience. It did not have a very strong taste and so I don’t have very strong feelings about it, but I did very much enjoy getting to taste it.

Then off to that view I was talking about!

Flowers from my stay near Chiba

Shitake mushroom being cultivated

Kabuki-za Theater in Ginza, near my hotel

Tsukiji Market

I love the contrast of this traditional-style building next to modern apartments

Tsukiji Market close up

Close-up of the traditional building, Tokyo

View of Tokyo from bridge

Mounja street

Cheese curry

Mar17

Any time you travel, if you really want to absorb the local culture, you need to eat the way the locals do. This may require a leap of faith at times, but it’s usually worth it, even if it may take some getting used to.

Some snapshots from the trip so far:

– Indian lunch with a Japanese twist: ketchup on the samosas

– full Japanese breakfast with miso soup, apples and yogurt, a rice dish with sticky rice grown in their own paddy a few hundred yards away, mackerel with chopsticks

– dinner of eel (delicious!) with fried eel bone appetizer (crunchy and salty and easy to choke on)

– Cheese curry: curry sauce with some grated cheese and sticky rice. That’s what I get for just pointing at the menu without pictures. Definitely not something I’d order again.

-Wonderful red bean paste desserts

Early Days or What Did I Hit to Switch My Keyboard to Japanese Characters?!

Mar17

I made it! After staying up till 4am packing and cleaning, catching a cab to the airport at 5, having a 5 hour layover in Detroit, a 13 hour trans-Pacific flight – wait, make that 16 or 17 hour flight due to a sandstorm and subsequent diversion/refuelling stop in Nagoya – and a run-on blog intro later, I am safely in Japan.

I was met at Narita airport by my friend T. and his parents. They proceeded to be the most gracious hosts one could imagine (starting with waiting for me despite the lengthy delay). They took me out for dinner, where I started my quest to relearn how to use chopsticks. I swear that by the end of my 12 days in Japan and Korea, I will have mastered them. In the meanwhile, I am (mostly) refusing the kind offers of western cutlery.

We headed to their home in rural Japan, somewhat near the city of Chiba. It is a lovely traditional home, complete with sliding paper doors between the rooms. I slept on a traditional Japanese bed, which is a futon mattress on the tatami mats laid on the floor, under several duvets, and is amazingly comfortable. And then I woke up at 6am. Curse you, jet lag!

Oh well, an early rising meant, if not an early start in to Tokyo, at least a chance to hop on my friend’s computer and feel connected with home. It was a very strange feeling to arrive in Japan and see “no service” on my phone, even though everything I’ve read indicates that I should be able to get (very expensive) calls. I haven’t generally suffered from homesickness early in a trip, even when I’m an ocean away, but I have to say I felt it when I had no wifi to use my phone for internet and no service to use my phone at all. It’s amazing how much more plugged in we all are than even a few years ago. No doubt the lack of Internet will be a good thing for me in the long run…after I get over withdrawal.

Once we were in Tokyo, we headed to a neighborhood called Asakusa, where we walked to the Sensoji Temple. In front of many of the temples, there is something that looks almost like a well where burning sticks make smoke that you wave over yourself to purify yourself. I purified myself and decided to see my fortune, which I did to the left of the temple. You shake a box full of sticks, pull one out, and see what number you chose. It was my lucky day. Apparently I got the “best fortune”, which is auspicious for pretty much everything, including traveling. Off to a good start!