Japan

We visited Japan (not so long ago in the scheme of things) and we liked it very much.

We really liked being looked after by Mrs Sumiyoshi on our first night in Japan after we had been travelling for nearly 30 hours.  She welcomed us in to her lovely ryokan, wrapped us up in kimonos, fed us and then fluffed up our futons, amid much clip-clopping around in her tiny wooden sandals and sliding of paper doors.

We liked the fast shinkansen trains.  Even if they did look a bit sinister.

We liked being edgy in Tokyo. 

Going to edgy people’s places

and eating in edgy looking restaurants.

We enjoyed being confused by menus and even more confused by the dishes once they arrived.  So complicated and delicious.

We really liked Ninja Wonderland where we spent a very fun day running around a ninja village. 

Romain was adopted into the ninja brotherhood

and chased out of town by these mop wielding ladies, like the no-good ninja he was.

We liked these cute Japanese pikininis.

We liked these groovy veggies.

We liked looking out over Tokyo while drinking Suntory beer (we couldn’t afford the whisky) at the Park Hyatt Hotel (the one from Lost in Translation) feeling a bit posh, if not a little out of place in our grotty sneakers

We spent many happy hours exploring interesting side streets. 

We especially enjoyed wending our way through the still, silent laneways in Kyoto at night-time.

We liked geisha-spotting in Kyoto, especially when our efforts were rewarded with a real one (lots of them turned out to be tourists dressed-up for the day)

We liked taking intriguing photos

We liked the temples, which was lucky really because there were hundreds of them.

We liked taking cheesy photos in front of the hundreds of temples we visited.

We liked these Buddhist monks who rubbed their prayer beads in our hair.

We liked the thousands of paper cranes sent from all over the world to the memorial park in Hiroshima.

We liked steaming away for hours in the onsens.  Very deep and very hot.  Sometimes even the yakuza (or the yakuza girlfriends) joined us for a dip.

We liked the autumnal leaves that had swept across the whole of Japan while we were there.  But I don’t think we could possibly like them as much as Japanese oldies did.  Everywhere we went they were taking up our bus seats and our hotel beds, just to catch a glimpse of the red leaves.  Cherry blossom season must be madness.

We liked the fact that Mt Fuji was as spectacular as it was supposed to be. 

We climbed three-quarters of the way to the summit until we were above the clouds and quite short of breath.

We liked staying in the capsule hotel.  It was as weird and Japanesey as we had hoped.  And surprisingly quiet and comfortable.

We were constantly in awe of the kindness and generosity of Japanese people who would repeatedly go out of their way to help us.  And we were often in need of help.  Like Mr Harada, who took us on a free guided tour of his home town Nara, capped off with a trip to a sake brewery.

Incidentally, we really liked sake.

We liked trekking through the Japanese Alps.

And we really really really liked the snow monkeys.

There were also things we didn’t like.

We did not like being harassed by these pesky deers in Nara.  Their persistence was unnerving. 

 

And it turns out we had good reason to be afraid.

We did not like being overwhelmed by flushing options every time we went to the toilet. 

What did the signs mean??  Sometimes we would be brave and press something, but we often regretted our boldness.

We did not like being bamboozled by sign boards in railway stations, especially when we were lugging 20 kilo backpacks and being jostled by commuters who clearly knew exactly which train to be on.

We were not so keen on octopus lolly-pops.

We did not like the idea of a pancake drink in a can.  But we admired the determination of Japanese people to make everything available from a vending machine.

We certainly did not like it when we travelled to Matsumoto to view “the most beautiful castle in all of Japan” only to find it under restoration and completely covered by construction towers. 

We did appreciate their effort to make us all feel better by organising a group of samurais to pose for photos with us, though.

We did not like the creepy carps and their gaping mouths that infested every pond.  

But we did like eating some of their relatives freshly sashimi-ed at the largest fish market in the world – Tsukiji!

We would like to thank our good friends Yayoi and Yutaka for taking such good care of us and helping us to make sense of some of the little mysteries.