Japan Day 1 - Tokyo
Day 1 began at Tokyo Narita airport. The 12 hour flight went ok and I actually managed to grab about four hours sleep. More importantly, though, the raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes that Mo had given me to take for Mark were still intact (and I hadn't eaten any)!
I met up with Mark and we took an hour's train to central Tokyo, where we then found our accommodation for the night. Our first stop after that was for lunch (see photo 1). We ate Tonkatsu - breaded pork with cabbage, miso soup, rice and mayonnaise dip. Very tasty indeed. We wandered around for a while after that, before I had to go for a nap as I was feeling really quite jet lagged. After a couple of hours rest, we went back out. First stop - the largest electrical store in Tokyo (see photo 2). Nine floors of electrical goods as far as the eye can see - very impressive. If you need a computer mouse, this is the place to come - check out photo 3: an entire aisle dedicated to the little (non-fluffy) hand-held vermin device. Last stop of the day was for food at a 24 hour Sushi restaurant at Sushizanmai. As we walked in, all the staff gave a big cheerful Japanese welcome from behind the huge bar - I felt like some kind of movie star - someone must have told them I was coming. My feeling of self-importance lasted only a minute, however, as it became obvious that they gave the same greeting to everyone who came in to eat. For dinner we consumed various types of tuna (photo 4), red snapper, flounder's fin, scallop, eel and tamagoyaki (a kind of sweetened egg roll). Part way through the meal, the staff all stopped what they were doing and one of them held up a huge crab (still moving). He announced that they were going to sell the legs for 1000 yen (about £6.50) each (yes, the crab quickly became legless). We didn't partake but I did get a photo (see photo 5). I will finish on a final thought. Whilst walking around Tokyo today, I have noticed that a lot of the Japanese ladies seem very bow legged. I had an idea - if they were to strap coconut shells to their knees and pin a couple of maracas to their arms, they could provide percussion entertainment as they walk along.