Learning The Tokyo Way!

I left Kyoto on Friday morning for Tokyo via the bullet train and arrived Friday afternoon. Pro tip for the Shinkansen bullet train, if you're coming from Kyoto to Tokyo, seats A (window) and B gets you the view of Mount Fuji. If you're coming from Tokyo to Kyoto, seats E (window) and D (middle). I made my way from Tokyo station to Shinjuku station and after walking in circles for about 20 minutes, found my first hotel of stay in Tokyo. It's usually how I get to know my temporary neighborhood, walk in circles.  

Tokyo, at first glance, is just full of people. The Tokyo and even Kyoto I had in my mind was of narrow streets and tiny everything. The real Tokyo is actually large everything, except food! The crowds are pretty non-stop around the train stations and it amazes me how the street corners of  Shibuya Crossing constantly refills itself with bodies. It's been five full days here in Tokyo with each getting better as I better understood its customs and way of life. Japan overall is a very polite and respectful country and it's more apparent in the big cities when you witness it before your eyes in masses. Everyone here waits in line for their turn on everything. In the metro and bus stations, one line of twos and people move over in their line to let folks off the train before they even attempt to get on. Want to take the stairs to get over the freeway bridge and overpass, there's a line for that. I once backtracked for half a block to get in line for the overpass stairs. Folks walking on the street stay left. Folks getting up and down the steps for the subway stations, stay left. For a city of 13 million, this is one well ran, respectful, orderly and clean city. I can count the pieces of trash I've seen on the streets here in Japan. It's pretty amazing and I'm jealous that the US isn't more like this. My most often thought during this trip was that, I wish the country I live in had more respect for it. Aside from the landscape, I noticed that people in Japan take their work very honorably and respectfully. The people dutiful own the roles they play in their uniforms. The staff from the train stations to the police stations are here to openly and communicatively help their people. It's made finding my way in Japan so easy! When trying to communicate and ask questions, key words work much better than complete sentences. 

Moving on to food! Steve (who met me in Tokyo for two days of adventure) and I will probably never think of food the same way again. Everything in Japan is so fresh and is often presented nicely. There is such a tradition, flow and systematic way of doing things here that I really dig. The sushi is probably the freshest you'll ever put in your mouth if you have it for breakfast by the Tsujiki market. In an area of Tokyo called, Akihabara, we randomly walked into a tonkatsu place called Marugo where it was the most fun to watch how much the locals enjoy their food.  The Hitochino Brewin Lab is our holy grail of beers. There's just too much delicious goodness here!

I didn't come to Tokyo, let alone, Japan with a whole lot of preplanning. Prior to the trip, I was in New York for a 9 day work trip followed by a very busy work week. I had a very successful trip considering how little planning I did, which consisted of booking my hotels, a handful of restaurant recommendations from friends, read a handful pages of the Lonely Planet guide which I do not recommend at all- terrible Japan guide, renting a pocket wifi to send to my first hotel, read a few travel advisor articles and four places on the list I had to visit: The Path of Bamboo and the Inari Shrine in Kyoto and the Hitochino Brewing Lab and the Tsujiki Fish Market in Tokyo.  I found Tokyo pretty easy to get around once you get a handle of their transit connections and maps. At first glance, all the colors, lines and dots are enough to send you cross eyed but if you only focus on the dots of your destination and the color lines that go with them, it gets a lot less overwhelming. Having said that, it's a very walkable city. For this trip, in 10 days, I logged over 100 miles on foot. Bring good walking sneakers!

If I were to be honest, I wasn't overly excited to come to Japan. It's one of those destinations that I felt like I should check out vs having a huge want to check out. The currency exchange was good so why not?! My usual Asia trips have me living in harem pants for the duration. I knew Japan wasn't going to be that but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it in totality. Everything in Japan are such arts of work, from the shrines and temples to their warm toilet seats. Oh, how I will miss those warm toilet seats! For our next trip to Japan, we will probably skip the large cities and head to the countryside! Arigato Japan!