Tokyo or Bust

Our trip started with a night in Seattle… the room our travel agent put us up in was wonderful; it had a full English TV guide, two double beds and smelled like urine. Yes you read correctly, smelled like urine; we are really hoping this has no reflection on the next 2 plus months.

The next day we hopped on a flight to Portland only to fly back over Seattle to Tokyo. The flight was ok; it would have been a lot better if we were sitting beside each other for the 10 hour and 45 min flight. At first Kathy’s sound was broken on her entertainment system and she was told by the stewardess on our Delta flight that they could not do anything with the individual sound systems. This led Kathy, our quiet and generally congenial friend to say “Are you telling me that I’m on a 10 hour flight with no sound?” Miraculously, the stewardess brought cheapy headphones which worked and Kathy used her Bose noise cancellers to cover those so she remained calm and happy for the remainder of the flight….my sound system broke later and no headphones would work and there was nothing they could do…C’est a vie

We arrived into Tokyo around 4 45pm and we priced out our options to get into downtown Tokyo which is 60 km from the airport. Our options were: Taxi = $450 CAD dollars, Train which we could not get a price or route in English so we decided to take a cab… just kidding, we took the bus for $45 CAD dollars per person which took us 60 min and then we had to catch a train to our hotel station. The bus was interesting as no cell phones were allowed as it “annoys” your neighbor and since Lindsay and I were once again across the aisle from each other that was good to know. While on the bus we drove past the biggest Costco ever, The packing garage alone was 5 tiers but Lindsay thinks it was closer to10 tiers so we compromised on 7 ½ tiers. We got off the bus at Shinjuku station and hopped onto the train for 2 stops to get closer to our hotel. Locating our hotel (Hotel City NUTS) was no problem which was a blessing as we were so tired and hungry. Our room turned out to be really nice but really small with little room to move around. The onsite bathroom was multiple shades of pastel colors and was about half the size of our room. We did get a 42’ flat screen TV which took up one whole wall and did have 3 English channels at most depending on the time.

Tired and starving we set out in search for sushi. You would think it would be easy to find however we walked around for 30 + min and was still unable to locate a full sushi restaurant. Even though Lindsay is “fluent” in Japanese she had difficulty reading the menus and translating for me. We would recommend only going to restaurants with food pictures or displays and prices located directly on the menu. Otherwise you will have to learn Lindsay’s impression signals for things like mackerel fish.

Some of the interesting observations and customs we came across are:
- Tokyo is one of the cleanest and most efficient cities we have ever seen
- They drink their beer with ice in it – yummm
- No one crosses the road unless the walk light is on and no one seems to jaywalk even when no cars are coming
- Wedding rings seem to be simple silver bands for everyone
- The fashions are crazy and out there but lack color…the standard seems to be grey, black, blue, and white with a few pastels randomly scattered in
- You pull the lever up to flush
- There is usually no soap or towels in the washrooms
- No one tips in restaurants or otherwise
- Smoking is permitted in restaurants but not on streets yet amazingly if surrounded by smokers in restaurants you will leave not smelling of smoke
- There is an unspoken organization for how to take escalators and/or get around train stations. Such as everyone stands on the left on an escalator leaving room for those to walk up the right.
- People will only take the stairs if the escalator or elevator is broken and then they will ignore the signs and walk on the opposite side.
- While walking, it is very important to do so on the correct side or you run the risk of being taken out by men who will drill you hard without glancing back….ooooh if I knew swear words in Japanese. I’m not kidding we have watched women bounce off men as they pass each other and we personally received a few ignorant elbows which I’m still hurting from
- Starbucks coffee comes in one size and runs about $6.50CAD
- The trains are always packed with 50% of people sleeping, 35% on cell phones, with the remaining 15% reading or staring blankly about. In a city of over 12 million this is quite a sight.
- In our mad dash to get to the world’s largest market early we also noticed that if you try jumping on trains while the door is closing, the door will not reopen as Kathy experienced first hand. Although funny to watch Kathy trying to pry the door open for me, this could have been quite dangerous. Needless to say those 4000 people on that train cart were not amused to be held up for an extra 3 seconds. Tokyo is probably the only place in Asia where everything runs on time and you run with it.
- You are also not able to take out items purchased from a store on the train to show friends as it also disturbs your neighbors.
- The Japanese people are very quiet and everything is based on respecting the people around you. In fact we only witnessed one conversation between passengers on trains.
- They speak very little English and the English that is spoken is poorly translated i.e. soy=rice.
- It was also very interesting to see how tall Japanese people really are. We expected Lindsay to tower over everyone; however, 50% were her height (5’11) or taller.

The fish market is really something else; you will find everything from octopus to 6 plus feet tuna. The tuna is so large it has to be cut with a band saw, 7 foot knife, or an ax (seriously like chopping wood). They use what can only be described as a forklift to lift these massive fish up to the saw. When cut, tuna can actually be mistaken for a side of beef. After the fish market we again set out in search of sushi. Our sushi when found was great but for 7 individual pieces, a tuna roll and 2 miso soups we paid $60 CAD and left a little hungry. In fact during our whole stay in Tokyo we only felt full once and that is when we went to a buffet and stuffed our faces. A few hours after most meals we were once again feeling a bit hungry. The portion sizes are quite small which is why we think only 1 in approx 20 Japanese people are overweight but would be considered average in Canadian standards.

Overall we really enjoyed Japan; however, the general expense is why we left so quickly. We wanted to travel to Kyoto but after researching options to get there we discovered that the 2 day trip would cost us at least $750. For example, if you were to have a car and drive the 3 hours to get there the road tolls would amount to $150 CAD. The train ride back to the airport cost us $25 CAD as we are now Japanese train experts.

Thailand here we come…