Ludwig's Odyssey: Japan

For as long as I can remember, Japan has been on the top of my list of countries to visit.

I don’t really know why that is, perhaps my love of Anime and watching lots of French dubbed Japanese cartoons when i was a kid or maybe the fascinating way of life they lead during the Shogun/Samurai years that always intrigued me had something to do with it. Whatever it was, when Wend and I looked at the prices of flying from Kuala Lumpur and saw how cheap they were, it was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed. Of course it wash;t just about me, Wend was keen to go as well.

We’d booked our flights a good month or so in advance so we were committed to flying out on the 8th September.

The other thing we had done is bought our JR (Japanese Rail) passes, this would enable us to travel on all JR trains up and down the country for 21 days which would give us vast savings and would also allow us travel on the famed Bullet Trains, ‘Shinkhansen’ as named in Japan.

Looking at the weather reports on the day we were flying out and subsequent couple of days after made us think, “oh great what have we got ourselves into”. They day we arrived it had rained quite a bit but on our first full day in Tokyo, it absolutely poured down all day, so much so that there was flash flooding in towns just outside Tokyo and houses floated away in the torrent. Luckily for us, Tokyo is very well built so we were absolutely fine, if a little drenched. Our plans to see the mass sprawl that is the Japanese capital had to be changed to visiting some museums as most of the top things to do are outside.

If you have never been, there really isn’t a city centre as such. Tokyo is made up of lots of different districts which all offer quite different divertisements, so whatever you’re interested in there something for you.

So our first full day was spent making our way from the hotel near the airport that we stayed in the night before (as we arrived late at night), dropping our bags off at our hotel in a more central part of Tokyo, having a tasty Beefbowl at Yoshinoya next door before heading off to the Tokyo National Museum which had loads of really interesting Edo Period artefacts such as Old statues, Kimonos, Katana Swords, writing desks, Kabuki masks etc..

We enjoyed our few hours in there and the staying dry too! When the museum closed its doors we had to move on and decided to visit the Akihabara neighbourhood which is famed for Manga (Japanese Anime, books, films, etc..) and the Manga Geeks! or as they say in Japan ‘Otaku’.

A fun place full of neon lights and big posters of Anime girls in lightly clad clothes with oversize eyes and oversize breasts! where you can go into a multitude of shops and buy all the Manga paraphernalia you can think off as well as all the J-Pop music form the myriad of Idol groups that are in Japan and where you can also go to Maid restaurants where you get served by giggling Japanese girls dressed in French Maids outfits. We didn’t go to the Maid restaurants as the food is usually poor fast food and overpriced but we did see plenty of foreigners going for it. With hindsight I suppose it would have been fun to do, well maybe next time! We wanted to walk around the neighbourhood but it was still raining hard so decided to call it a day and head home.

The next day, it was still raining in the morning although not as heavy so we decided to go another museum, the Edo-Tokyo Museum which had cool reconstructions of what life looked like back in the Edo period all the way up to present day. I think we preferred this museum as It was more interactive. This museum was right next to the Sumo arena, sadly for me, we were just a little to early, the next tournament wasn’t due to start until another 5 days after we had left Tokyo. I really wanted to see some Sumo so that’s another reason to come back ;-) The train back took us in the Akihabara direction so we decided to get off and walk around the place as we had intended the night before now that the rain had stopped. The neon lights were still there but they looked better. After a while we then decided to visit another popular neighbourhood called Shinjuku which is where lots of the big night life in Tokyo happens. Walking around for something to eat and drink was to our surprise full of European type fayre so we decided to go to The Hub, a ‘English Pub’ where we had a few pints and some chips whilst listening to classic old English music from the 80s and 90s. Not really the quintessential Japanese experience but then again, the place was full of Japanese, maybe only two English guys were in there with us so i guess it is a Japanese experience of sorts.

Finally on our third day, it was a lovely sunny day, We headed to Ueno district and walked around there via some old streets that still retained the old Edo period style a midsts all the modernity which Tokyo offers and also many Shrines and Temples. It was a really pleasant morning and we had a little sushi for lunch before we headed off to Shinjuku again. There isn’t much to do in this area in the day unless you like shopping but what it does offer is a free view over the city from 45 floors up at the Tokyo Metropoltan Government Offices. Wow what a view it was, we could nearly see Fuji but for a few clouds.

After taking the views in, we continued on to another famous district, this one more so with Teenagers, called Shibuya. Some good music came out of this area in the 90s and 2000s (well i like it anyway) and you could hear some in places but mostly we went there to have a coffee (at Starbucks which has the best vantage point) and watch the world go by at the very busy crossing just outside the station. Amazing amount of people, quite fascinating to watch as some are dressed up in all sorts of weird fashions, it is the Teenagers quarter after all! We went back after dark to Tokyo station where we had started in the morning, so we had completed a full circle of the Yamanote line that day.

I’ve mentioned Edo a couple of times, this was the old name for Tokyo during the Tokugawa Shogunate era (1600-1868) when they decided to relocate state affairs rom Kyoto (Kyoto remained the capital but Edo was the largest city). This was when Japan was closed to the world to trade and christians were persecuted.

Tokyo was so named when the Tokugawa were overthrown and the new Meiji government changed it and then claimed Tokyo as the new capital.

On our last morning, we had to get up relatively early to make our way to Shinjuku (the busiest train station in the world apparently) and board a train towards the Mount Fuji area, but our alarm call was a little earlier than we anticipated. Around 5.45am, we were shook awake quite violently by a 5.3 Earthquake. We were on the 9th floor and everything in the room shook. Having read the earthquake precautions in our previous hotel, Wend wanted to get under a table but there wasn’t one! I just sat on the bed grinning and thinking ‘it was cool’, probably not the best attitude but i was confident that all would be well, Japan is used to this and the buildings have to meet certain regulations to withstand Earthquakes. Obviously all was well as i’m typing this now and so it was ‘cool’ to experience an Earthquake without any consequences.

We checked online almost immediately and amazingly facts were available from the Japan Meteorological Agency.

With that, we quickly made our way to Shinjuku!