Japan

Well, pre-flight nerves or not, 3 weeks ago we got on a plane and set off on my birthday holiday to the beautiful country of Japan. Exciting though the prospect was, I had spent the last 3 months worrying about it. I'm not one of nature's natural travellers and, if you had asked me the day before departure if I wanted to stay at home, I would have jumped at the chance. 3 weeks on, I am SO glad that we went. Japan turned out to be brilliant: stunning scenery; beautiful, calm, polite, helpful people; yummy food (although vegan and gluten free was something of an issue); and public baths and toilet seats to die for! 

The following series of posts are here as part of my diary. Feel free to read and comment if you would like to, but they are here mainly for my own benefit, so there is absolutely no pressure to do so. :O)

With the neighbours all set up for house, greenhouse and houseplant sitting, we set off for Heathrow airport on Wednesday 26th March. We parked the car in the long stay carpark at Terminal 2 and headed for departures. Problem number 1 arose when we scanned the departure board and realised that our flight wasn't on it. I asked R if he was sure that it was Terminal 2 that we needed, and a quick check revealed that our plane departed from Terminal 4! No problem, we had left in plenty of time (another of my anxieties is missing the plane - it actually happened once in Barcelona, when R decided that we didn't need the necessary 2 hours for check in, security checks etc. It turns out that you do!), and a quick hop on the Elizabeth line later, we were where we needed to be.

Our China Eastern flight was split into 2 parts: Heathrow to Shanghai, then, after a 3 hour wait, Shanghai to Tokyo. Flight number one passed without incident. The inflight entertainment was undeniably a tad dull, with a poor selection of films, but I was prepared with library books, sock knitting and an Audible book on my phone. The food provided was actually rather nice. I had been given the choice of vegan or gluten free meal (the combination of the 2 wasn't an option), and I went with vegan on the basis that GF may well have been meat/fish based. The curry and rice for dinner was fine, as was the breakfast/lunch, although I did have to pick around the pasta for that one!

As we were coming into land at Shanghai, we were struck by an announcement informing us to reveal to the airport staff if we were suffering from any symptoms, ranging from a runny nose to diarrhoea. We even had our temperature scanned when we disembarked. After the events of the last few years, it seemed a tad hypocritical! 

R spent the 3 hour stopover napping at our departure gate, whilst I worked on my sock knitting. After waiting for over 2 hours, our gate suddenly changed and we all dutifully headed to an alternative at the other end of the airport. It was while we were sitting here that we checked our boarding cards and realised that they hadn't seated us together. We had paid extra to be sure of adjacent seats, and the thought of flying whilst sitting next to a stranger was spiking my levels of adrenaline. Luckily, once on board our little airbus, we explained the situation and a very kind man swapped with me so that R and I were together.

Panic over, it seemed almost an irrelevance when it turned out that they didn't have our requested meal on board. I wasn't particularly hungry anyway, and the staff managed to cobble together some rice and vegetables for us, and that, together with a couple of packets of peanuts for protein, tided us over nicely. With the number of people suffering from nut allergies, however, it still surprises me when they hand out peanuts on a plane. As it turned out, the lack of ordered food was the least of my problems, as the flight suddenly hit a patch of turbulence. It was quite bad; the flight attendants stopped serving the food and sat down on the floor. As I was burying my head in R's shoulder, I forgot to hold onto my tray and it went flying across the aisle, scattering what little food we had. At least scrabbling to pick it all up distracted me from the plane bouncing around! I was very glad when we finally landed at Tokyo Narita airport. Security cleared and baggage collected, our man with a van drove us into central Tokyo and to our destination - the Ginza Creston Hotel.

Here, problem number 2 soon reared its head. We checked in and headed wearily for our booked room. R opened the door ......... and the smell of cigarette smoke hit us like a sledgehammer. He entered the room to turn on the aircon, whilst I sat on the landing, refusing to enter. We headed back down to reception. Here R turned decidedly sheepish when it became apparent that he had accidentally booked a smoking room. According to the chap at reception, a non-smoking room would be available from noon the following day, but there was nothing to be had before that. R suggested that perhaps the aircon had managed to clear the worst of it and we took the lift back to our floor. The door opened and the smell still hit us like a wall. It was the first night of our holiday, anything that entered that room - us, our suitcase, coats, clothing etc. would smell like an ashtray for the remaining 2 weeks. I was exhausted from the travel and weeks of anxiety, and hungry from the lack of food, so I did what any sensible woman in that situation would do - I sat in the corridor outside the room and burst into tears! R consoled me as best he could, but it was late and our options were limited. I ate one of my emergency GF sandwiches and headed back down to Reception. Here, I informed the man that, whilst I knew that the blame lay squarely on us, there was no way that I was going to spend the night in that room, and I intended to sleep on one of the comfy looking armchairs in the foyer. R had joined me at this point, but I don't think that either he or the hotel staff believed me until I had unzipped my case and headed to the foyer toilets, clutching my little toiletry bag. Miraculously, when I emerged 10 minutes later, an alternative room had been found and we were soon heading up in the lift to our 38th floor non-smoking room. It was clean, it had a nice view and, more importantly, it was smoke-free. I was soon in the Japanese nightwear provided (I actually packed 2 pairs of PJs for the trip and didn't have to wear either of them) and went out like a light.

We awoke the following morning, confused as to what day it was. I expected it to be Thursday but we had actually spent that travelling, and it was in fact Friday 28th. A quick shower freshened us up nicely and it was then that we had our first experience with a Japanese toilet! R went first, so he was prepared when it was my turn. He is now the proud possessor of a recording on his phone of me squealing and then laughing hysterically as the toilet squirted water where no toilet had squirted water before. He has even threatened to make the recording his ring tone! After the initial shock, both the water jet and the heated seat were surprisingly pleasant, and throughout the holiday, when given a choice between a Japanese style toilet and a Western one, we invariably opted for the Japanese one. R has now expressed a desire to have one fitted at home!

Breakfast at the hotel was a set menu of American or Japanese. American was eggs, sausages and a bread roll (I suppose I could have eaten the plate!) and the Japanese was a selection of seaweed salads, pickled fruit and vegetables, congee (a type of rice porridge), miso soup and fish stew. We opted for the Japanese and asked for the fish stew to be excluded. When the waiter brought the food, he explained that he had replaced the fish stew with some omelette cubes instead. Not wanting to appear rude, we ate them. We also ate the fishy tasting miso. I feel that we inadvertently consumed rather a lot of this during the holiday; the ubiquitous dashi sauce often containing fish. I also consumed more gluten in the form of soy sauce than was good for my poor old gut.

After breakfast, we had to effectively check out of our room, whilst they transferred us to the original alternative room that was going to become available at noon. We left all our cases in situ and the staff transferred them across whilst we were out for the day.

We headed for the nearest Metro station, stopping en route to get some cash (there was a slight problem with finding a card which worked and we're still not sure what the issue was) and a local SIM for R's phone, so that we wouldn't get hit with roaming charges whilst away. Problems solved and cash in hand, we bought metro tickets to take us to Senso-Ji, Tokyo's ancient Buddhist temple. We had a slight issue on the metro, where we got thoroughly distracted booking tickets for the bullet train to Kyoto and watching videos of a local micro-pig cafe - yes, you read that right. We have visited a cat cafe in Cambodia, but this one had actual mini pigs mingling with the customers! We missed our stop several times, micro-pigging backwards and forwards along the same length of track. Finally concentrating, we emerged triumphant into the Tokyo sunshine.

The Senso-Ji temple complex boast magnificent gates, a hall and a 5 story pagoda. It is the most widely visited religious site in the world, with over 30m visitors annually. I had been prepared for crowds in Tokyo, especially as it was the beginning of the cherry blossom season. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised; I've been in far busier places in India and even sometimes in London!

Having wasted most of the morning arranging SIMs, ready cash, and getting distracted on the metro, we were more than a little peckish. The Happy Cow App led us to a cafe near the waterfront and here we struck gold food-wise. Miracle of miracles, we had stumbled upon a completely vegan and gluten free restaurant! 2 lunch plates of fava bean/pea nuggets with curry, tempura, rice and salad, followed by a chocolate waffle and doughnut to share and we were ready to explore

As we were near the waterfront, we walked along, admiring the cherry trees and marvelling at the girls dressed in kimonos posing for selfies by the cherry blossom. Renting kimonos and having your hair and makeup done to match seemed to be a very big thing. Girls of all nationalities clicked along in ninja socks and flip flop type shoes, dressed to the nines and having their photos taken. I couldn't see the attraction myself, but each to their own.

We also saw the Tokyo Skytree - the World's tallest tower at 634m - and the Asahi Beer Hall and Asahi Flame,  colloquially referred to as 'Poo Building' and 'The Golden Turd'!

Heading to the temple, we had our fortune told. For 100 Yen (about 50p), you shake a wooden box until a stick appears bearing a number. You then match the number to a drawer containing paper fortunes. If your fortune is good, you keep it, if bad, you can dispel the bad luck by folding the fortune and tying it to the adjacent rails. Ours wasn't bad and we kept it.

As well as admiring the gates, the pagoda, a man dressed as a Samurai warrior with natty shoes, more kimono clad girls and mass incense burning, we also stopped to watch a man throwing bread into the air for some starlings to catch mid flight, and admired a statue of an old 'social worker' - reading the plaque, it actually sounded like she had worked as a midwife. I took her photo as she had such a lovely face. 

Wanting to hang around until the evening to see the pagoda lit up, we decided to take a quick, touristy rickshaw ride around the Old Quarter, pulled by our intrepid guide, Anton. It was great fun; he was very knowledgeable and allowed us to take photos of his ninja footwear!

Once dark, we bought a matcha latte and walked the streets of the Old Quarter, admiring the Temple lit up. After a large lunch, we made do with a drink and a few snacks for dinner - edamame beans, pea shoots and smashed pickled cucumber hit the spot nicely. R had a beer and I enjoyed a yuzu sour.

Then it was back to the hotel where we bumped into an obvious prostitute and her sheepish-looking client in the hotel lift - we got chatting on the way up to our floor and she was very nice - and then spent the rest of the evening watching the zombie film 'Resident Evil' on our hotel room TV, merely because it was the only programme that we could find that was in English!

That's all for today. More posts will follow on soon, as I put our holiday highs (and lows!) down whilst they are fresh in my memory.

Toodle pip for now. x