I love a good train trip. One of my most exciting childhood memories was taking an overnight train from London to Stranraer in Scotland. Since then I've taken some amazing train journeys to the far flung corners of Europe, India, Thailand and more.
The one country I've always wanted to 'do', and do properly, was Japan - primarily because of its legendary railway.
When I was younger, Japan always seemed to be an unattainable dream. Too expensive, too far, too 'foreign'. But over the last few years I've taken more and more long-haul trips - Cuba, Brazil, Thailand, Ghana, India, South America - and Japan was coming closer and closer to my travelling radar.
Last summer, on a sunny afternoon spent lounging by the pool under the Tuscan sun, Mark and I started talking about where in the world we'd most like to visit. Mark said 'Japan', I said 'Japan', and that was that. We were going to Japan.
Some nine months later, and having roped in two more friends (Jacob and Paul/Badger) to join us on this trip into the unknown, we were meeting in Heathrow to kick off an amazing three-week holiday.
Badger had gone out the previous day, via Rome with Alitalia, but Mark, Jake and I were going with the Korean airline Asiana - via Seoul.
After waiting an eternity to pick up my money at Travelex, where the woman behind the counter was about as enthused by her job as a vegetarian butcher, we went to board our plane.
The journey was a good one, particularly considering how tedious some long haul flights can be. The film selection was slightly limited but the rest of our first Asiana experience was impressive. We decided on a Korean meal over a western one, and got our first taste of things to come: hot sauce, pak choi, green noodles and more.
After a fitful sleep we landed in Seoul for a short stopover before moving on to Tokyo. Seoul airport gave us a useful introduction to what this part of the world was about: immaculate cleanliness, friendly staff, strange shop names...
We pootled around on the travelators, watched a local classical music group and met some tourist-friendly 'welcomers':
Note the victory/peace fingers there. You'll be seeing a lot more of those in this blog.
After a couple of hours we were on the move again, flying off to the Land Of The Rising Sun on the last leg of our 17-hour journey.
We eventually landed at Narita Airport at 9pm - 24 hours after leaving Heathrow (factoring in the time difference) and had a race to get through customs, passport control and to the final Narita Express train of the night - our route to central Tokyo.
Mark and I made it through passport control without a problem, but looked back to see Jacob being led off into a windowless room by the Japanese border guards.
It soon transpired that the thumb-print machine wasn't agreeing with Jake's thumbs, but it was easy to imagine him being interrogated / tortured / traumatised by a bunch of sadistic, corrupt guards.
So yes, it was the thumbs. Phew. And we were soon pegging it through customs and down to the train station. We made the train with a couple of minutes to spare and sat back for our first Japanese train trip of many:
We'd booked a hostel (K's House) on the recommendation of my friend Suze, in the Asakusa area of the city. The first thing we noticed after emerging from the subway was how quiet it was. Granted, we had arrived on a Sunday night - which is never going to be the busiest time of the week - but the large dual carriageway that we walked down to reach the hostel was free of people, of cars, of noise.
In fact, apart from a couple of throbbing tourist hot-spots, I found Tokyo to be much quieter and more peaceful than London. In London there's a constant hum of noise - car horns, police sirens, people talking loudly on phones, music playing out of open windows. In Tokyo it felt as though there was a permanent Noise Reduction setting at volume 5 or 6.
We got to K's House after a brisk 15 minute walk and were soon checked in (after removing and leaving our shoes on the front porch). Because of the jet lag none of us were ready for bed, so we headed out to try and find a bar.
We took a meandering walk through the back streets near our hostel - passing the HQ of an animation company on the way....
After a long walk, being frustrated by several closed bars on the way, we finally stumbled across one that was open.
It didn't come as a huge surprise when we looked at the menu and saw that a beer was about £6 or £7, and not even a pint-size. But hey - we'd factored those sort of prices into our budget, and the trip wasn't going to be about constant penny-pinching. If that's your mindset, Japan isn't for you.
After a bad night's sleep (which was to become a theme during the first week) we were up and at it: our first full day in sunny Tokyo.
We met up with Badger and headed to the ferry port nearby. We had some noodles in the strangely-titled Ringer Hut...
...and took a couple of snaps of some notable landmarks, namely the new Tokyo Skytree tower (which I thought was a fairly ugly, nondescript and soulless building to erect at a cost of millions)...
...and a giant golden turd:
No comment.
After that we decided, without any grand plan in mind, to hop on a ferry and head down river. The sightseeing en route was fairly limited - lots of standard 1960s tower blocks and warehouses - but you'd have to be a particularly grouchy sod not to enjoy heading down a river in a foreign land on a boat with your mates:
The ferry dropped us at a small inner-city park next to the famous Tsukiji fish market (more of which later). We had a pleasant stroll in the park, taking in the bonsai-like trees, perfectly-manicured lawns and little wooden bridges over streams. Just how I imagined a Japanese park would be.
Afterwards, again with little plan in mind, we wandered into the adjacent Ginza district - famous for being Japan's high-end commercial shopping district. More of your Pradas, less of your Poundlands.
The sun was out, we had a three week journey ahead of us with no deadlines, no pressures, no worries. What could be better?
Here's a couple of pics from Ginza:
That night we got the subway (efficient and quick, of course) to Shinjuku in the west of the city. We visited a few watering holes, first in Shinjuku itself, then in Golden Gai.
Golden Gai is a small area of three or four criss-crossing streets housing some of the world's smallest bars. We found one with no people in - and just as well, as with four of us there would be no room for anyone else.
The barman had a quirky collection of mechanical toys, plastic fruit and art. He was also reading the Japanese translation of Steve Jobs' autobiography, in between serving us lagers in mini pint glasses.
We moved on from there to another similarly tiny place, this one found at the top of a small steep staircase. My camera managed to capture the experience in a strange red hue:
Note Badger's monster claw there.
Afterwards we were keen to find somewhere livelier: a club maybe, or at least a bar with a dancefloor and some music. Unfortunately a couple of things were conspiring against us: a) it was a Monday and b) we soon learned that Japan doesn't really do clubs.
We got a cab to the Roppongi area, chosen because of its reputation as Tokyo's party centre. Following the directions in our guide book we wandered for what seemed like miles along a dual carriageway in search of a specific 'discotheque', as the book called it.
When we finally got there, a bit worn out and irritable, we discovered a soulless downstairs bar with a solitary customer propping up the bar.
Fail.
We walked all the way back from where we'd arrived in Roppongi and decided to take a punt on a bar at the top of an office block. We'd been stopped in the street by a tout and directed upstairs.
He took us up in the lift and opened the door to a fairly seedy establishment. It was that or nothing, so we hung around long enough to neck a 'kamikaze' cocktail (90% spirits, 10% mixer) and headed off.
The next place wasn't much of a step up in quality, but at least we managed a quick stint on the dancefloor.
By this time it was about 4am and, following a dirty McDonald's and a chat with some fellow partying stragglers, we got in a cab and asked the driver to take us across town to the Tsukiji fish market.
The market had been one of our must-do activities in Tokyo, but I'm not sure any of us thought we'd be visiting it three-sheets-to-the-wind after a mammoth night out.
But we had been told the best time to visit was literally at the crack of dawn, so the timing was perfect. The trawlers had just arrived back from sea and the fishmongers on land were ready to start bidding for a share of the catch.
Knowing the famous tuna auction was about to begin, we jumped out the cab and ran in a headless-chicken style towards the direction of the river. The place was huge: vast warehouse buildings with lorries, trucks and forklifts zooming everywhere.
We eventually found the warehouse where the tunas were being auctioned, but found some officious guards trying to shoo tourists away.
In recent years the fishmongers had began to tire of their place of work turning into a tourist trap. If I had a team of camera-hugging Japanese blokes standing behind me at work and taking pictures of my computer screen, I'd probably feel the same.
So we only got a fleeting glimpse of the auction room before being ushered away, but never mind. We were soon enjoying the whirlwind of the working market, with fishmongers setting up their stalls, fish being ferried around on carts and the pungent smell of the sea wafting into our noses.
We were all in silly mood and ended up chatting to various randoms, hitching rides on small motorised carts and balancing polystyrene lids on our heads:
When we'd exhausted our energy levels we decided to do what any visitor to Tsukiji is urged to do: go and eat the freshest sushi in Japan.
We queued up outside one of the two restaurants located in the market and were soon being ushered inside, and to some great seats propping up the counter. We got a perfect view of the chefs at work and ordered stacks of amazing, fresh, tasty sushi which they prepared to order:
Definitely in my top 3 meals of Japan. Yum.
We eventually made it home, after a quick coffee at Starbucks, at about 6am.
After a short sleep, interrupted by a certain room-mate's snoring, I got up and headed out. I visited the first temple of the trip, including lighting an incense stick of peace - as all good Buddhists do. Ahem.
It was pouring with rain at this point. And in Japan, when it rains it really really rains - and for hours and hours and hours.
I jumped on the subway and headed to Shibuya in the west of the city. I'd gone there to see the famous pedestrian crossing(s) but the rain was torrential, so I didn't hang around for long and decided to revisit it another time.
Instead I walked to the stadium nearby to get a pic...
...before drying off in a cafe and heading back to the hostel.
That night we went and found a good noodle/tempura restaurant and had a quiet evening meal:
After the previous night's shenanigans we all had heavy heads so we took it easy and got an early night.
And just as well, because the following morning we were on the move: headed south to Kyushu on the bullet train.
The one country I've always wanted to 'do', and do properly, was Japan - primarily because of its legendary railway.
When I was younger, Japan always seemed to be an unattainable dream. Too expensive, too far, too 'foreign'. But over the last few years I've taken more and more long-haul trips - Cuba, Brazil, Thailand, Ghana, India, South America - and Japan was coming closer and closer to my travelling radar.
Last summer, on a sunny afternoon spent lounging by the pool under the Tuscan sun, Mark and I started talking about where in the world we'd most like to visit. Mark said 'Japan', I said 'Japan', and that was that. We were going to Japan.
Some nine months later, and having roped in two more friends (Jacob and Paul/Badger) to join us on this trip into the unknown, we were meeting in Heathrow to kick off an amazing three-week holiday.
Badger had gone out the previous day, via Rome with Alitalia, but Mark, Jake and I were going with the Korean airline Asiana - via Seoul.
After waiting an eternity to pick up my money at Travelex, where the woman behind the counter was about as enthused by her job as a vegetarian butcher, we went to board our plane.
The journey was a good one, particularly considering how tedious some long haul flights can be. The film selection was slightly limited but the rest of our first Asiana experience was impressive. We decided on a Korean meal over a western one, and got our first taste of things to come: hot sauce, pak choi, green noodles and more.
After a fitful sleep we landed in Seoul for a short stopover before moving on to Tokyo. Seoul airport gave us a useful introduction to what this part of the world was about: immaculate cleanliness, friendly staff, strange shop names...
 |
| (a shop for those notoriously tall east Asian men...) |
Note the victory/peace fingers there. You'll be seeing a lot more of those in this blog.
After a couple of hours we were on the move again, flying off to the Land Of The Rising Sun on the last leg of our 17-hour journey.
We eventually landed at Narita Airport at 9pm - 24 hours after leaving Heathrow (factoring in the time difference) and had a race to get through customs, passport control and to the final Narita Express train of the night - our route to central Tokyo.
Mark and I made it through passport control without a problem, but looked back to see Jacob being led off into a windowless room by the Japanese border guards.
It soon transpired that the thumb-print machine wasn't agreeing with Jake's thumbs, but it was easy to imagine him being interrogated / tortured / traumatised by a bunch of sadistic, corrupt guards.
'クソコカインに何かあったのでしょう？!'
(translation: 'what's up with the fucking cocaine, huh?')
So yes, it was the thumbs. Phew. And we were soon pegging it through customs and down to the train station. We made the train with a couple of minutes to spare and sat back for our first Japanese train trip of many:
We'd booked a hostel (K's House) on the recommendation of my friend Suze, in the Asakusa area of the city. The first thing we noticed after emerging from the subway was how quiet it was. Granted, we had arrived on a Sunday night - which is never going to be the busiest time of the week - but the large dual carriageway that we walked down to reach the hostel was free of people, of cars, of noise.
In fact, apart from a couple of throbbing tourist hot-spots, I found Tokyo to be much quieter and more peaceful than London. In London there's a constant hum of noise - car horns, police sirens, people talking loudly on phones, music playing out of open windows. In Tokyo it felt as though there was a permanent Noise Reduction setting at volume 5 or 6.
We got to K's House after a brisk 15 minute walk and were soon checked in (after removing and leaving our shoes on the front porch). Because of the jet lag none of us were ready for bed, so we headed out to try and find a bar.
We took a meandering walk through the back streets near our hostel - passing the HQ of an animation company on the way....
After a long walk, being frustrated by several closed bars on the way, we finally stumbled across one that was open.
It didn't come as a huge surprise when we looked at the menu and saw that a beer was about £6 or £7, and not even a pint-size. But hey - we'd factored those sort of prices into our budget, and the trip wasn't going to be about constant penny-pinching. If that's your mindset, Japan isn't for you.
After a bad night's sleep (which was to become a theme during the first week) we were up and at it: our first full day in sunny Tokyo.
We met up with Badger and headed to the ferry port nearby. We had some noodles in the strangely-titled Ringer Hut...
...and took a couple of snaps of some notable landmarks, namely the new Tokyo Skytree tower (which I thought was a fairly ugly, nondescript and soulless building to erect at a cost of millions)...
...and a giant golden turd:
No comment.
After that we decided, without any grand plan in mind, to hop on a ferry and head down river. The sightseeing en route was fairly limited - lots of standard 1960s tower blocks and warehouses - but you'd have to be a particularly grouchy sod not to enjoy heading down a river in a foreign land on a boat with your mates:
The ferry dropped us at a small inner-city park next to the famous Tsukiji fish market (more of which later). We had a pleasant stroll in the park, taking in the bonsai-like trees, perfectly-manicured lawns and little wooden bridges over streams. Just how I imagined a Japanese park would be.
Afterwards, again with little plan in mind, we wandered into the adjacent Ginza district - famous for being Japan's high-end commercial shopping district. More of your Pradas, less of your Poundlands.
The sun was out, we had a three week journey ahead of us with no deadlines, no pressures, no worries. What could be better?
Here's a couple of pics from Ginza:
That night we got the subway (efficient and quick, of course) to Shinjuku in the west of the city. We visited a few watering holes, first in Shinjuku itself, then in Golden Gai.
Golden Gai is a small area of three or four criss-crossing streets housing some of the world's smallest bars. We found one with no people in - and just as well, as with four of us there would be no room for anyone else.
The barman had a quirky collection of mechanical toys, plastic fruit and art. He was also reading the Japanese translation of Steve Jobs' autobiography, in between serving us lagers in mini pint glasses.
We moved on from there to another similarly tiny place, this one found at the top of a small steep staircase. My camera managed to capture the experience in a strange red hue:
Note Badger's monster claw there.
Afterwards we were keen to find somewhere livelier: a club maybe, or at least a bar with a dancefloor and some music. Unfortunately a couple of things were conspiring against us: a) it was a Monday and b) we soon learned that Japan doesn't really do clubs.
We got a cab to the Roppongi area, chosen because of its reputation as Tokyo's party centre. Following the directions in our guide book we wandered for what seemed like miles along a dual carriageway in search of a specific 'discotheque', as the book called it.
When we finally got there, a bit worn out and irritable, we discovered a soulless downstairs bar with a solitary customer propping up the bar.
Fail.
We walked all the way back from where we'd arrived in Roppongi and decided to take a punt on a bar at the top of an office block. We'd been stopped in the street by a tout and directed upstairs.
He took us up in the lift and opened the door to a fairly seedy establishment. It was that or nothing, so we hung around long enough to neck a 'kamikaze' cocktail (90% spirits, 10% mixer) and headed off.
The next place wasn't much of a step up in quality, but at least we managed a quick stint on the dancefloor.
By this time it was about 4am and, following a dirty McDonald's and a chat with some fellow partying stragglers, we got in a cab and asked the driver to take us across town to the Tsukiji fish market.
The market had been one of our must-do activities in Tokyo, but I'm not sure any of us thought we'd be visiting it three-sheets-to-the-wind after a mammoth night out.
But we had been told the best time to visit was literally at the crack of dawn, so the timing was perfect. The trawlers had just arrived back from sea and the fishmongers on land were ready to start bidding for a share of the catch.
Knowing the famous tuna auction was about to begin, we jumped out the cab and ran in a headless-chicken style towards the direction of the river. The place was huge: vast warehouse buildings with lorries, trucks and forklifts zooming everywhere.
We eventually found the warehouse where the tunas were being auctioned, but found some officious guards trying to shoo tourists away.
In recent years the fishmongers had began to tire of their place of work turning into a tourist trap. If I had a team of camera-hugging Japanese blokes standing behind me at work and taking pictures of my computer screen, I'd probably feel the same.
So we only got a fleeting glimpse of the auction room before being ushered away, but never mind. We were soon enjoying the whirlwind of the working market, with fishmongers setting up their stalls, fish being ferried around on carts and the pungent smell of the sea wafting into our noses.
We were all in silly mood and ended up chatting to various randoms, hitching rides on small motorised carts and balancing polystyrene lids on our heads:
When we'd exhausted our energy levels we decided to do what any visitor to Tsukiji is urged to do: go and eat the freshest sushi in Japan.
We queued up outside one of the two restaurants located in the market and were soon being ushered inside, and to some great seats propping up the counter. We got a perfect view of the chefs at work and ordered stacks of amazing, fresh, tasty sushi which they prepared to order:
Definitely in my top 3 meals of Japan. Yum.
We eventually made it home, after a quick coffee at Starbucks, at about 6am.
After a short sleep, interrupted by a certain room-mate's snoring, I got up and headed out. I visited the first temple of the trip, including lighting an incense stick of peace - as all good Buddhists do. Ahem.
It was pouring with rain at this point. And in Japan, when it rains it really really rains - and for hours and hours and hours.
I jumped on the subway and headed to Shibuya in the west of the city. I'd gone there to see the famous pedestrian crossing(s) but the rain was torrential, so I didn't hang around for long and decided to revisit it another time.
Instead I walked to the stadium nearby to get a pic...
...before drying off in a cafe and heading back to the hostel.
That night we went and found a good noodle/tempura restaurant and had a quiet evening meal:
After the previous night's shenanigans we all had heavy heads so we took it easy and got an early night.
And just as well, because the following morning we were on the move: headed south to Kyushu on the bullet train.