We finally touched down in the Land of the Rising Sun, ready to start our whirlwind 9 day Japan taster trip. Our travel agent in the UK had arranged for a local rep to meet us at Narita airport, to hand over our various rail tickets and passes and explain how to use everything. Good job too, because it’s an awful lot of information and nothing is in English. Thank God for Google translate! We had opted for the lowest level of support – they give you the tickets, explain what they do, then wave goodbye as they shove you onto a bus bound for central Tokyo. A lot of people might choose a more “thorough” Japan guide service, whereby you are met and guided every step of the way, but we figured we didn’t need that level of support, how hard can it be, right? I guess we were about to find out.
We managed to locate our hotel at the other end with the help of an offline google map hastily downloaded on the bus. You can’t really get a local SIM card in Japan, they prefer to rent you a mobile router which you carry with you during your stay and then return at the airport when you leave. So we picked that up at the hotel reception, dumped our bags in the rooms, and headed into Ginza to find a bite to eat before turning in for the night. There is no shortage of food outlets in Tokyo, and it didn’t take long to find a quality, local ramen joint to fill us up.
The next morning we all woke nice and early as we adjusted from Hawaii time, and took advantage of the included buffet breakfast (oh, how I’ve missed you!) before heading into town to explore. Where do you start in a city like Tokyo? If you include the whole metropolitan area, this is the largest city in the world with a population slightly north of 37 million. You could never do justice to a city like this, with its sprawling suburbs offering everything from its traditional and historic roots, to its neon-lit ultra modern beating heart. We didn’t really start with a plan, we figured we’d just jump on a subway and have a wander, rather than trying to stick rigidly to a schedule.
There are a few things you notice about Tokyo when arriving as a tourist from Europe, or anywhere else for that matter I’d imagine. The first is how peaceful this city is. Despite being extremely busy, and very crowded, the streets are quiet. And I mean eerily quiet. Nobody talks loudly, nobody shouts, nobody plays loud music, even the cars seem to be quieter. It is quite bizarre, and it turned out be fairly difficult to explain to the kids the need to keep their voices down and be mindful of other people’s space and tranquility. Especially our two. The other thing that strikes you is how clean everything is. There is no mess, anywhere! The Japanese hate mess – everything has a place, and everything is kept neat and clean. The streets don’t smell, there is no litter, no smelly back streets, no pavement gum, it’s amazing. The whole city is an example of perfectly organised chaos. People are hurriedly going about their daily business, but in perfect silence and while diligently observing the rules.
Our first stop was the busy and fashionable district of Shibuya. As soon as you exit Shibuya station you are faced with one of the more recognisable landmarks of modern Tokyo, the absolutely bonkers Shibuya Scramble crossing. Tokyo, as I said, is a frenetic and busy city, yet extremely ordered and rigid. And this simple road crossing, made famous by the movie “Lost In Translation” embodies that description of Tokyo perfectly. Every day, thousands of people wait patiently on all sides of this crossing, ready for the green light to initiate 30 seconds of chaos as the intersection becomes a sea of people going about their daily business. Up to half a million people use this crossing every day, and from the second floor Starbucks overlooking the square you can enjoy an iced matcha latte while watching the mayhem play out every 2 minutes.
From the Scramble, we simply ambled through the streets of central Tokyo, diving in and out of huge department stores, kitsch stationary shops and perfectly curated vintage clothing stores. Who knew you could lose an entire hour browsing stationary of all things, but it’s all just so different and cute. This is a country where a perfectly crafted image is everything, and it really shows in the shops of Tokyo as the thousands of image conscious shoppers frantically scour the shelves for that perfect lifestyle accessory.
Eventually we found ourselves in the crowded Takeshita Street in Harajuku, where the local hipster kids meet and hang out while indulging in rainbow coloured snacks and capsule toy arcades. They love a capsule toy machine in Japan, it’s not uncommon to find several of them on every busy street. And it’s not just kids in there either, it’s fully grown adults pumping their money into these ball vending money makers – all desperate to complete their collection of sushi shaped keyrings, or comical cat-themed face cloths. Some of the machines are SO random, at least to my western eyes, but they all seem to have a punter. It’s a great business model, just stack a shop to the rafters with machines, fill them full of weird items in capsules, and watch the money roll in. I wonder if it’d work back home, maybe that could be my next venture. I’m not sure Brits would go for this kitsch stuff though, might have to fill the balls with single roll-up ciggies and miniatures of jack Daniels instead!
Time for a quick hit of conveyor belt sushi to refuel, before heading back past The Scramble for a slice of evening fun in the Taito arcade. Bam and Hunter took a few comical turns on various drumming and dancing machines, before stumbling upon a token gambling machine that had been abandoned before paying out hundreds of tokens. Jackpot! Now, these coins have zero monetary value, you buy some and play the machines, winning gradually less and less tokens before they are eventually all swallowed up by the games. But these 300 or so free tokens amounted to a full hour of token pusher machine fun – and we STILL had hundreds left. Now we know why somebody abandoned them in the first place, you just keep winning them back again, it’s actually hard to get rid of them. It was time to head back to the hotel, but the kids couldn’t bear leaving the tokens, but you’re not allowed to remove them from the arcade. Cue a very subtle token-stuffed plastic bucket smuggling mission. That would mean we could head back tomorrow and have another hour of arcade fun for free, winning.
The following morning, before breakfast, we had an errand to run. We had to find a laundry. A Tokyo laundry (boom). Luckily there was one nearby, just a 10 minute walk from the hotel, so we dropped our dirty smalls in for a quick wash-dry and headed back to base for some brekkie. Unfortunately, half of our clothes can’t be machine dried, and we no longer had access to a spacious campsite pitch to hang our delicates out to dry – what to do? No worries, we had packed a line, and in no time at all managed to string a makeshift washing line from the front door, around the wall, over the bed head and all the way to the window. We had our interconnecting rooms looking like a true Chinese launderette in no time at all. Not sure how the cleaning staff would react though, we hung up the “Do Not Disturb” signs before leaving, lest our hotel shanty town were to be discovered.
Today we had made our way towards another buzzing Tokyo suburb, famous for its tech, manga and anime culture – Akihabara. After a visit to the colossal Yodobashi Camera, the largest electronics store in the world – with 8 whole floors stuffed to the rafters with everything and anything that plugs in or takes batteries – we headed off for a proper Japanese lunch in a nearby food court. Omurice is rice with a perfectly cooked, fluffy omelette draped over the top, and covered with whichever flavour combo you desire. Kate had beef, while I opted for scallops and cheese, which was inexplicably served in a huge wooden prep bowl. Maybe they thought i looked like a particularly messy eater? How did they guess?
2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan market was our next stop, nestled below the railway tracks, housing 50 upmarket vendors selling hand crafted premium Japanese products to well-heeled punters. High end couture is not really our thing though to be honest, and we instead hot-footed it over to the Mandarake Manga emporium for a more grass roots experience. This is a true Mecca for all the manga fans and toy collectors who live in and visit Tokyo. I mean, this is also not my thing, but it is quite a sight, and a truly weird and wonderful place to look around. There are 8 floors of people geeking out at the thousands of glass cabinets full of rare and perfectly boxed toys from the last 5 decades. Two full floors of comics, millions of collectible trading cards, thousands of autographed figurines and even a whole floor full of super-creepy Japanese dolls with massive eyes and lifelike “anatomical features”. Why on earth would a toy sized doll, which you dress to your own liking, need anatomically correct features? They’re definitely not for kids, I know that much!
We had time to check out one more bizarre Tokyo institution, and one that actually originated in Akihabara – the Maid Cafe. These bizarre places are like normal cafes in so far as they serve food and drink, but there’s one fundamental difference – you are waited on hand and foot by Japanese girls dressed in manga inspired french maids outfits. Supposedly, the desire for this type of service originated from a distinct lack of intimacy experienced in modern Japanese society. Emotionally repressed youngsters are encouraged from an early age to suppress outward displays of emotion, sometimes resulting in an inability to organically form relationships with others later in life. These cafes were thought to bridge that gap, and provide artificial forms of intimacy. Despite the obvious connotations, these cafes are not intended to be in any way sexual or sensual, they are supposed to fill the emotional void with the power of Moe-Moe, or feelings of adoration towards their Manga hostesses. It also allows the patron to feel like a “Lord”, thereby also indulging that ancient Japanese desire to be at the head of a societal hierarchy, harking back to the feudal system of old Japan. That said, it was definitely a weird vibe in the cafe. There were plenty of us willing to suffer the half hour queue in the name of tourism and curiosity – that’s the reason for the sheer volume of these cafes that exist these days. But there were also plenty of single men, and women for that matter, who were willing to pay the cover charge and three times the going rate for a cup of coffee, in order to sit at a table and work on their laptops while simultaneously grabbing a quick Moe-Moe fix at lunchtime.
Anyway, social analyses aside, it was a fairly hilarious experience which the kids enjoyed due to their free Prince and Princess cards, and the over-the-top theatre of the table service. Unfortunately, the cardinal rule in these establishments is you are not allowed to take any pictures of the maids themselves. In fact, even if you try to to take a picture of the maids touting for business on the streets outside, they cover their faces and turn away, almost in shame. We did, however, pay for a souvenir Polaroid on the stage with a maid of our choice, as well as sneaking in a few cheeky snaps while standing in the queue.
Japan is a foodie heaven, there is food available on every corner of every street, and it’s hard to fit in proper meals when you spend all day sampling the delights of the many snacks on offer. Hunter had been desperate to try some proper Kobe beef while we were here, and he had his first chance with a Kobe skewer from a street stall on our way back to the subway station. He’s got expensive tastes this boy, I think it’ll be Wagyu all the way for him from now on. In search of snack Nirvana, we made it to Nanaya Aoyama in Shibuya just before closing time to sample their extremely well reviewed matcha ice creams. You can buy everything in matcha flavour in Japan, but ice cream works particularly well. This shop sells matcha ice cream in varying levels of potency all the way up to their “number 7” pure matcha – a bitter but refreshing hit of green loveliness.
We took one last trip across the Shibuya Scramble on our way home for the evening. It was dark by this point, and it had been drizzling for hours, so the crossing looked very different lit up by the surrounding neon and studded with a sea of umbrellas. That was it for Tokyo, the following day we were leaving the city lights behind and heading off to see a very different side of Japan.
Japan has an excellent luggage forwarding system in place, and if you are organised enough there is no need to travel with your suitcases – they can simply magically appear in your hotel room at the next stop. We were about to spend one night in the town of Hakone before heading for Kyoto in the south. So, rather than lugging our bags to Hakone for one night, we sent them ahead to Kyoto to meet us the following day. What a brilliant idea, it makes rail travel much simpler, and is an absolute bargain at around a tenner per suitcase.
Today we were going to experience the great Japanese bullet train for the first time. Guess what, it is every bit as efficient as you think it will be. The trains run on time, are comfortable and clean, and fast. My downloaded speedometer was nudging 180mph for most of the journey, but the ride was as smooth as any train travelling at a third of that speed.
Before we knew it, we had reached the thermal town of Hakone. We stowed our overnight bags in one of the station’s lockers, and boarded the scenic Hakone-Tozan railway line to start our journey around the so called Hakone Loop. This round trip journey takes around 4 or 5 hours and showcases the scenery of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu national park, utilising 5 different forms of transport. The initial railway section winds you up the side of the mountain to Gora via a series of switchbacks and an 8% gradient, making it the second steepest railway incline in the world. From Gora you switch to the Cable Car to gain a further 700 feet in altitude towards Sounzan. When I hear “cable car” I think of an overhead ski gondola kinda deal, but this is not that. This is actually a funicular railway, but because it’s pulled up and down the hill by a steel cable, it has been labelled as a cable car. Bizarrely, the next two sections are in actual cable cars, by my definition anyway, but these are called “ropeways” here. Don’t let the name fool you, there are no ropes involved, this is a bonafide modern ski-lift style gondola.
Now, one of the reasons that thousands of people visit this area every year is to witness one of the truly iconic views that Japan in famous for – the majestic snow covered peak of Mount Fuji. And by this point in the journey, your efforts SHOULD be rewarded with soaring vistas of the surrounding hills with Fuji rising in the near distance. That is assuming, of course, that there isn’t 100% cloud coverage – because that would really spoil the view. Well whaddaya know, we had indeed picked a day with 100% cloud coverage. There was so much cloud that we could barely see the next cable car 100 metres in front of us, let alone Mount Fuji. Nevermind, we still got a great view of the steaming sulphurous geothermal area of Owakudani as we sailed over it.
The final part of the loop sees you take a 40 minute cruise across Lake Ashi in a replica pirate ship, before boarding the bus home. It’s a fairly scenic boat ride, with what should (again) be great views of Mount Fuji on a fine day. But on a day like that, it’s really just a pleasant boat ride in the fog, with some decent views of the red Torii gates of the Hakone Shrine on the far banks. We should really have taken a walk to explore the Shrine itself, but we were running short on time by this point as we needed to check into our hotel by 6pm, or we would miss the evening dinner, so we caught the bus back to Hakone and found our hotel just in time.
We were spending the night in a traditional Japanese Ryokan, in a tatami matted room with paper walls. The Japanese ethos concerning most things is “less is more”, and this style of hotel room is a perfect embodiment of that principle. The only furniture in the room is a low table topped with tea making supplies and four legless chairs. Luckily, there were two more chairs WITH legs hiding behind the sliding paper doors in the balcony area – I left my cross legged floor-sitting skills far behind me in my primary school days I’m afraid.
Ryokans often promote themselves on the quality of the food they serve, normally offering dinner and breakfast included in the room rate. Food is served punctually at set times, and they don’t like it if you’re late – hence needing to make check-in by 6pm. Like I said, they love following strict rules in Japan. But our prompt 6:30 arrival for dinner was rewarded with an incredible multi course dinner called a Kaiseki. We were treated to a non-stop barrage of perfectly cooked delicacies, including small bites, soups, sashimi, steak, fish and various unrecognisable yet delicious parcels of loveliness. Even the dessert had 8 separate elements, just to really finish us off before retiring to our room to prepare for the next part of our Ryokan experience. During dinner, the staff take the opportunity to sneakily enter your room, move the table to one side, and lay out the futons ready for a good nights sleep. On the floor. I love a bit of tradition, but to be honest I’m glad it was only for one night – sleeping and sitting on the floor is just not my bag. AND, the pillows aren’t stuffed with lovely fluffy feathers – oh no! They’re stuffed with beans, or rice, or something else which makes a delightful crunching noise with every tiny movement. What luxury.
These establishments almost always include communal bathing areas fed by local hot springs, or Onsen. They are split by gender, and the real kicker is that bathing suits are not allowed. Yep, you read that right, it’s starkers all the way at these places. So consider that before booking to attend an Onsen, because not only will you be baring all to the various other patrons, but your travelling companions and you will also be skinny dipping together. BUT, if you have any tattoos that you can’t cover up with a plaster, then you’re bang out of luck I’m afraid. Traditionally, the Japanese hate tattoos because of their connection with organised crime. Once upon a time, the only people to sport skin decor in Japan were the infamous Yakuza gangsters. Obviously this is no longer true, and many younger Japanese have tattoos nowadays, but the old traditions still ring true. If you’re not as God created you, then you ain’t getting in. So, that was us buggered! Luckily, there were private Onsens available on the rooftop for a small fee, and with the added bonus that you don’t have to share your dangly bits with random strangers! So we donned our Yukata, headed to the roof and got ready for a family bath. What a view. There’s something fairly liberating about standing stark bollock naked on a rooftop in the dark. You’d probably get arrested for that in the UK. The problem, however, was the temperature of the water. It was so bloody hot I couldn’t get past my knees. It’s a good job I’ve had kids already, cos I’m not sure I’d be able to if I spent any time in that water! Kate managed to submerge herself for all of 90 seconds, while the rest of us just spent 45 minutes lounging by the side and splashing about.
After a full luxurious (!) night of beanbag pillows and futon floors, we were faced with another gastronomic blow-out meal for breakfast. Unfortunately, another pesky tummy bug had found its way into poor old Hunter, and he had to bow out of breakfast early without trying the various tasty morsels that adorned the table. Hopefully it wasn’t going to be another full blown 5 day barf-fest like that last one in Vegas!
After brekkie we packed our bags, and took a slow amble back through the pretty (downhill) streets of this town, to catch our second bullet train and see yet another side of this country – next stop Kyoto…