Tokyo

We landed at 6:40 on the red-eye express after about 2 hours sleep and arrived to a completely different world to any that we've experienced before. It's honestly the first time we've arrived and failed to get anywhere unassisted. We were just stuck. The tube map(s) are quite daunting at first and there are 2 separate line networks, and a train network. It was all very confusing to start with, not to mention the japanese only ticket machines.
However, that was only a temporary problem and we checked into our very nice hostel and caught up on a little sleep. On going for a stroll that afternoon it became apparant very quickly how amazing a place both Japan and Tokyo are. The first thing is that it is so clean and tidy. I think we each saw one piece of graffitti in 3 days, and next to no rubbish anywhere. On top of that you have friendly, helpful humble people everywhere who never seem to break any rules, wonderful public infrastructure and amazing food, traditions and culture. As far as cities go it is utopia.


I think I speak for both of us when I say that we have both really fallen for Japan and Tokyo was a special introduction.

The surprises have been many too: we expected big lights, big crowds, unhappy denizens trudging to work, and a rather normal, expensive, dirty capital city, but the truth was far from that. Sure there are busy places, but certainly no worse than London, there were also some rather impressive streets of Neon but apart from that our expectaions were exceeded in every way.

One thing I have to mention is our trip to the Tsukiji fish market. After much deliberation, we decided to go to the Tuna auction which takes place before 6am. We got up at 4:30 but it was a very special experience and we are glad we did it. We also decided to queue up for 80 minutes to have breakfast in the market area at Sushi-Dai, reportedly the best Sushi place in Tokyo (which would probably make it high in the world list too!). It was AMAZING. I didn't really fancy it if truth be told but once we got settled into our very small space at the counter it became apparant it was worth the wait. After some lovely salmon rolls, I mistakenly ordered Shashimi (sliced raw fish) but were glad I did as it's the best bit of Tuna I have ever eaten. You honestlty would not have known it was fish unless you'd been told. Just a unique texture and taste and the red snapper wasn't bad either. A once in a life time experience.
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Bullet train to Kyoto next...

MandB