Tokyo - boy

There's never been a place I've been more ready to like than Tokyo. I had been to Japan before and loved it so expectations were high, possibly setting myself up for disappointment but who knows. On arrival the signs were good, for within minutes our passports were checked, visas issued, stamped and we were through the gates. An ideal passport control experience if ever there was one.

 

Many stereotypes seem to apply here; everything seems robust, practical, clean, orderly, sensible and very punctual. I don't know what their 'trains on time' hit rate is but I'm sure it's an unreal unobtainable statistic for those working in UK rail companies. It's almost the perfect city in many respects; everything is 99.9%, including their conviction rate, though how they arrive at this may not be every westerner's cup of green tea. It certainly is the cleanest city I've visited, "cleaner than Disneyland" should be its motto. A couple of areas in Tokyo may have some evidence of litter but on the whole it was spotless (99.9% spotless); we even saw one worker vacuuming the street. Amazing when you think that there aren't any dustbins, only the recycling bins for plastic bottles and cans next to the vending machines - we conclude that everyone must eat their rubbish.

 

We must have used hundreds of automated machines for drink, tickets, change, etc and none of them ever seem to be out of order. How is this possible? No vending machine seems to want to swallow your money without dispensing your desired product first and they don't appear to be battered or scratched either. And why does no one stand two abreast on the escalator thus blocking commuters who want to overtake, do they know nothing of underground etiquette? How come the station toilets don't charge money and why are their floors not covered is piss and shouldn't there be at least one hand dryer covered in masking tape? Japan can indeed be a confusing place.

 

I guess it's all covered by attitudes and high costs; the latter is certainly true. In the extremely expensive category are a couple of noteworthy items; fruit, melons for £35 for example, but there's a good reason for this which I've no doubt C will explain in her blog; and the metro, which is probably double the price of London's (but works twenty times better so it's actually better value).

 

We visited the Miraikan Science and Innovation museum with its cool (but dated) experiments and a mall housing a food theme park containing a shrine to a porcelain cat but we spent much of the time simply wondering around the different areas of Tokyo gawping at the food and searching for weird trinkets or futuristic gadgets. Sadly there wasn't much of the latter (we blame globalisation) so we concentrated our efforts on the former.

 

Our first port of call in this respect was Tsukiji fish market which (apparently) supplies all of Tokyo. Even at 5am on our first visit we skipped gaily around the market like Charley Bucket might have done if Willy Wonker had been a fishmonger, trying not to be run over by the Oompa Loompas zipping about in their fish carts transporting raw goodies. The serious stuff however - the daily tuna auction - was not to be disturbed by tourists and we dutifully kept our distance. The whole experience was a sashimi wonderland (which strangely didn't smell of fish) and by the end we were replete with uncooked delights.

 

On our second visit to the market we made a beeline for Daiwa, the best sushi bar in town housed inside the market. The wait was long (one hour), the bar was small (thirteen people) and the sushi predictably incredible. It was the first time sea urchin had made an appearance on my plate, but unfortunately I've never managed to find any of the same quality since. The mollusc that was served (ark shell I think) also left an impression because it was served ikizukuri style, literally meaning 'prepared alive' and is normally still moving, although ours was stationary. Nevertheless, C was put of the whole idea of eating invertebrates so soon after killing them (as opposed to waiting a more respectable time) which simply meant more sushi for me.

 

When we weren't ploughing our way through raw fish we sampled much of the sweets and ice cream; only me for the former, both of us for the latter. Blue salt, avocado honey and mashed potato flavours - all a hit, while mint and garlic, not so much. Green tea ice cream is always good but then there isn't a product here, sweet or savoury, that doesn't have a green tea variety - and it works, most of the time.