Japan the 7th
Dec 3rd, 2008 | 06:42 PM
#25
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,781
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My flight from LAX to Narita airport was scheduled to arrive at 3:55 PM. It was on-time, if not early.
About 20 minutes after stepping off of the plane I had claimed my checked bag and was through immigration and into the arrival hall.
I found the baggage delivery service counters easily and chose ANA. This was Friday afternoon and they charged me 1950 yen to ship my bag to Kirishima Onsen, Kagoshima-ken on Kyushu for arrival on Sunday. What a sweet deal.
I travelled with two bags. A 26-inch spinner that I shipped and a small rollaboard backpack. I put a couple of shirts, a pair of trousers, etc. – enough for a couple of days – in the backpack. Also in the backpack I was able to stuff a hoody sweatshirt and a fleece jacket. I wore running shoes (good for Tokyo) but in the big bag had some waterproof shoes (to wear in the country).
After sending the bag on its way, I went to find an ATM. Had some trouble doing that but found it and withdrew 120,000 JPY. Didn’t get anymore cash for the rest of the trip.
Bought a bus ticket and had to wait a good 10 minutes for the next bus to the YCAT (Yokohama City Air Terminal). At 4:45, the bus made an on-time departure.
Note that less than an hour had elapsed from the time I was in my seat upstairs on that plane to the time when I was in my seat on that bus.
After going out to the Yokohama HRC, I stopped at the concierge desk at the Yokohama Bay Sheraton and spoke to the assistant manager. He looked up a place where I could buy some good cigars, got out a map of the area around the hotel, and marked the spot for the tobacco shop – across from a Starbucks.
Next morning I stopped at the desk again. The same asst manager was (still/again) there. Got him to call the shop to find out that the place was already open – at 7:30 AM or so. It was only a couple of blocks away but I had trouble finding it until I backtracked and a woman came up to me on the sidewalk and spoke to me. I didn’t understand her but did notice that we were in front of the shop. We then managed to communicate that, yes, I was the person coming from the Sheraton. About 11,200 JPY for four Cohibas and a Montecristo.
Went to the Starbucks and ordered a couple of pastries and a coffee from the cheerful girls at the counter. I was given a choice and selected the kurisumasu brend.
Headed over to JR Yokohama station and looked but did not find an English language train/subway map so I asked a guy if a spot on the map was Asakusa station. I made the choice based on what I thought must have been (but was not, I think) the Yamanote line. He did not understand but tried to help. A young couple also stopped to help. Then a woman came by and spoke English very well. She said she would find me the best train, went over to the JR gate and spoke to the attendant, and then pointed at track number 5 and told me that was the one to take. Then we went over to buy my ticket.
What I really need to learn how to say in Japanese is: “Please say this in Japanese”. If I simply was able to have someone pronounce the station name that I was pointing at then I would have been able to figure out the entire map, by comparing it to the English language one I was holding.
I got my bearings after getting on the train and then realized that she had put me on the perfect train, one that went thru to Ueno. Transferred there to a subway and got off at the Asakusa stop.
Up on the street I could go left or right to get to the shrine. I chose right, the wrong way, but was happy to find a Mr Donut and, across the street, a Starbucks. At the sbux, I ordered another kurisumasu brend. Sat down next to a young western woman who left a minute or two before me.
I went over to the shrine area, through the main gate and down the street which was lined with shops. It was busy but not jam-packed. It is a very nice temple, to say the least. More info here: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3001.html
The boat ride was pretty good, definitely worthwhile though not particularly scenic (unless you like sterile modern urban landscape). I got off at the park and explored it a bit. It was very green. I couldn’t figure out the paths quite right so I missed the ochaya. The park is Hama Rikyu garden http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3025.html and I would love to go back there when their peony garden is in flowers.
The garden is a short distance from Tsukiji Market, so I headed over in that direction. It was about noon.
About 20 minutes after stepping off of the plane I had claimed my checked bag and was through immigration and into the arrival hall.
I found the baggage delivery service counters easily and chose ANA. This was Friday afternoon and they charged me 1950 yen to ship my bag to Kirishima Onsen, Kagoshima-ken on Kyushu for arrival on Sunday. What a sweet deal.
I travelled with two bags. A 26-inch spinner that I shipped and a small rollaboard backpack. I put a couple of shirts, a pair of trousers, etc. – enough for a couple of days – in the backpack. Also in the backpack I was able to stuff a hoody sweatshirt and a fleece jacket. I wore running shoes (good for Tokyo) but in the big bag had some waterproof shoes (to wear in the country).
After sending the bag on its way, I went to find an ATM. Had some trouble doing that but found it and withdrew 120,000 JPY. Didn’t get anymore cash for the rest of the trip.
Bought a bus ticket and had to wait a good 10 minutes for the next bus to the YCAT (Yokohama City Air Terminal). At 4:45, the bus made an on-time departure.
Note that less than an hour had elapsed from the time I was in my seat upstairs on that plane to the time when I was in my seat on that bus.
After going out to the Yokohama HRC, I stopped at the concierge desk at the Yokohama Bay Sheraton and spoke to the assistant manager. He looked up a place where I could buy some good cigars, got out a map of the area around the hotel, and marked the spot for the tobacco shop – across from a Starbucks.
Next morning I stopped at the desk again. The same asst manager was (still/again) there. Got him to call the shop to find out that the place was already open – at 7:30 AM or so. It was only a couple of blocks away but I had trouble finding it until I backtracked and a woman came up to me on the sidewalk and spoke to me. I didn’t understand her but did notice that we were in front of the shop. We then managed to communicate that, yes, I was the person coming from the Sheraton. About 11,200 JPY for four Cohibas and a Montecristo.
Went to the Starbucks and ordered a couple of pastries and a coffee from the cheerful girls at the counter. I was given a choice and selected the kurisumasu brend.
Headed over to JR Yokohama station and looked but did not find an English language train/subway map so I asked a guy if a spot on the map was Asakusa station. I made the choice based on what I thought must have been (but was not, I think) the Yamanote line. He did not understand but tried to help. A young couple also stopped to help. Then a woman came by and spoke English very well. She said she would find me the best train, went over to the JR gate and spoke to the attendant, and then pointed at track number 5 and told me that was the one to take. Then we went over to buy my ticket.
What I really need to learn how to say in Japanese is: “Please say this in Japanese”. If I simply was able to have someone pronounce the station name that I was pointing at then I would have been able to figure out the entire map, by comparing it to the English language one I was holding.
I got my bearings after getting on the train and then realized that she had put me on the perfect train, one that went thru to Ueno. Transferred there to a subway and got off at the Asakusa stop.
Up on the street I could go left or right to get to the shrine. I chose right, the wrong way, but was happy to find a Mr Donut and, across the street, a Starbucks. At the sbux, I ordered another kurisumasu brend. Sat down next to a young western woman who left a minute or two before me.
I went over to the shrine area, through the main gate and down the street which was lined with shops. It was busy but not jam-packed. It is a very nice temple, to say the least. More info here: http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3001.html
The boat ride was pretty good, definitely worthwhile though not particularly scenic (unless you like sterile modern urban landscape). I got off at the park and explored it a bit. It was very green. I couldn’t figure out the paths quite right so I missed the ochaya. The park is Hama Rikyu garden http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3025.html and I would love to go back there when their peony garden is in flowers.
The garden is a short distance from Tsukiji Market, so I headed over in that direction. It was about noon.
Dec 5th, 2008 | 07:26 PM
#31
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,781
Likes: 0
Thanks, I will use that. I have learned a little Nihongo, just a little.
Getting from Hana Rikyu to Tsukiji was easy (follow the sign) and quick, maybe five minutes.
It is quite obvious when you have arrived, at least from this end (the south). There is a big structure that the trucks drive into to load/unload. At the end of it are the warehouses where apparently the auctions take place.
The area in Tsukiji where all the shops and restaurants are located is only about two blocks long and a couple of blocks wide.
I walked past a few caskets of bluefin on ice to the street facing the market. There were a few dozen people in lines to get into a few restaurants. The first one I came to had about 30 pictures of chirashi bowls (edomae chirashizushi, I think) that were absolutely gorgeous.
I walked around the block and looked at a few other places but none looked better than the first place. I went there and got in line on the sidewalk. After a minute a person tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out how I was not at the end of the line: it started out on the street and turned back onto the sidewalk.
There were 20 or 30 people in line, mostly Japanese but some Western. After about 10 minutes the woman that I saw at the Starbucks in Asakusa came around the corner and walked down the sidewalk to the next street. She looked down there but then turned around and walked back into the street, about two feet away, so I stopped her.
Her name is Dascha, from Moscow, and she was making a whirlwind visit to Tokyo after a week or so in Nagoya learning the Toyota Way. It was about 12:30 PM. We spent the next hour and a half talking and waiting in line for our turn at the restaurant. It was a perfectly sunny day and the sun was quite warm while in the shadow it was cool.
At the front of the line, the man steps out, takes your order, and goes back in to get it started. It was an assembly line. The place only has a dozen or so stools in a line in front of the counter. The place was about 7 feet wide, so it was a squeeze for people to get down the line of stools.
The menu is in pictures on a signboard outside and it is glorius: chu-toro, chu-toro with ikura, chu-toro with uni, uni with ikura, ikura only, chu toro with ikura with uni with crab with shrimp. Various combos, in other words.
A small handwritten sign gave instructions:
Would you like to order now ?
1. <u>Order is call the number. please</u>
2. My house is no salmon.
3. No credit card. No receipt.
No doggie bag. No take it out.
4. One seat aperson. One order a guest and all menu is no sharing
5. Sorry - no baby. No baby carrige.
<font color="red">No photograph!</font>
We decided we could live with all of those rules.
She ordered the big assortment, 1800 yen, and an order of oysters, 600 yen I think, and I ordered the chu toro bowl at 1600 yen. The lowest priced dish 1000 looked to be some nice tuna. The dishes came with miso soup and a small dish with what the guy identified to be squid, and I think there was an itty bit of pickled stuff.
After lunch, we walked around the edge of Tsukiji to the Toei Oedo line Tsukijishijo station (probably the most convenient to Tsukiji) but we decided it was not for us and we headed for the Tsukiji subway stop.
This walk involved walking past several little restaurants and food shops. Past alleyways where I could see more little restaurants.
She had Omotesando and Roppongi on her list and I had a four hour performance of music and kagura dance to attend. And I just could not just walk on by all of those shops. I pointed her in the right direction and headed down one of the alleyways.
Saw a line in front of a shop in an alley and then saw it was Sushizanmai. But it was a kaiten sushi place, not the regular restaurant on the street that I had visited before. The kaiten place was good but not great.
The non-kaiten place was on the street around the corner from the kaiten place. They had flyers out front that showed that there are four Sushizanmai locations in Tsukiji with a fifth place across the main road that is in front of Tsukiji.
If you find Tsukiji and can't find a Sushizanmai then you aren't trying.
I couldn't walk away from Tsukiji with just that one fish-rice bowl, and this second stop meant that I would be too late for any the 1-5PM performances that I had planned. But there was a later show at 6PM that I decided to attend.
I took the subway and decided to change at Roppongi when I realized I was changing to the Oedo line that I could have taken from Tsukiji to Kokuritsu-Kyogijo stop. This is the national stadium area.
Looking at the map in front of the train station I finally realized why the maps are not north-up. On my first day on my first visit to Japan I was frustrated because I couldn't match my north-up paper map with the one posted at Shinjuku station.
The reason, it is now obvious to me, is because the maps are oriented to the view of the reader. Up on the map is the area in front of you. Your left is left on the map, etc.
Getting from Hana Rikyu to Tsukiji was easy (follow the sign) and quick, maybe five minutes.
It is quite obvious when you have arrived, at least from this end (the south). There is a big structure that the trucks drive into to load/unload. At the end of it are the warehouses where apparently the auctions take place.
The area in Tsukiji where all the shops and restaurants are located is only about two blocks long and a couple of blocks wide.
I walked past a few caskets of bluefin on ice to the street facing the market. There were a few dozen people in lines to get into a few restaurants. The first one I came to had about 30 pictures of chirashi bowls (edomae chirashizushi, I think) that were absolutely gorgeous.
I walked around the block and looked at a few other places but none looked better than the first place. I went there and got in line on the sidewalk. After a minute a person tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out how I was not at the end of the line: it started out on the street and turned back onto the sidewalk.
There were 20 or 30 people in line, mostly Japanese but some Western. After about 10 minutes the woman that I saw at the Starbucks in Asakusa came around the corner and walked down the sidewalk to the next street. She looked down there but then turned around and walked back into the street, about two feet away, so I stopped her.
Her name is Dascha, from Moscow, and she was making a whirlwind visit to Tokyo after a week or so in Nagoya learning the Toyota Way. It was about 12:30 PM. We spent the next hour and a half talking and waiting in line for our turn at the restaurant. It was a perfectly sunny day and the sun was quite warm while in the shadow it was cool.
At the front of the line, the man steps out, takes your order, and goes back in to get it started. It was an assembly line. The place only has a dozen or so stools in a line in front of the counter. The place was about 7 feet wide, so it was a squeeze for people to get down the line of stools.
The menu is in pictures on a signboard outside and it is glorius: chu-toro, chu-toro with ikura, chu-toro with uni, uni with ikura, ikura only, chu toro with ikura with uni with crab with shrimp. Various combos, in other words.
A small handwritten sign gave instructions:
Would you like to order now ?
1. <u>Order is call the number. please</u>
2. My house is no salmon.
3. No credit card. No receipt.
No doggie bag. No take it out.
4. One seat aperson. One order a guest and all menu is no sharing
5. Sorry - no baby. No baby carrige.
<font color="red">No photograph!</font>
We decided we could live with all of those rules.
She ordered the big assortment, 1800 yen, and an order of oysters, 600 yen I think, and I ordered the chu toro bowl at 1600 yen. The lowest priced dish 1000 looked to be some nice tuna. The dishes came with miso soup and a small dish with what the guy identified to be squid, and I think there was an itty bit of pickled stuff.
After lunch, we walked around the edge of Tsukiji to the Toei Oedo line Tsukijishijo station (probably the most convenient to Tsukiji) but we decided it was not for us and we headed for the Tsukiji subway stop.
This walk involved walking past several little restaurants and food shops. Past alleyways where I could see more little restaurants.
She had Omotesando and Roppongi on her list and I had a four hour performance of music and kagura dance to attend. And I just could not just walk on by all of those shops. I pointed her in the right direction and headed down one of the alleyways.
Saw a line in front of a shop in an alley and then saw it was Sushizanmai. But it was a kaiten sushi place, not the regular restaurant on the street that I had visited before. The kaiten place was good but not great.
The non-kaiten place was on the street around the corner from the kaiten place. They had flyers out front that showed that there are four Sushizanmai locations in Tsukiji with a fifth place across the main road that is in front of Tsukiji.
If you find Tsukiji and can't find a Sushizanmai then you aren't trying.
I couldn't walk away from Tsukiji with just that one fish-rice bowl, and this second stop meant that I would be too late for any the 1-5PM performances that I had planned. But there was a later show at 6PM that I decided to attend.
I took the subway and decided to change at Roppongi when I realized I was changing to the Oedo line that I could have taken from Tsukiji to Kokuritsu-Kyogijo stop. This is the national stadium area.
Looking at the map in front of the train station I finally realized why the maps are not north-up. On my first day on my first visit to Japan I was frustrated because I couldn't match my north-up paper map with the one posted at Shinjuku station.
The reason, it is now obvious to me, is because the maps are oriented to the view of the reader. Up on the map is the area in front of you. Your left is left on the map, etc.
Dec 5th, 2008 | 07:51 PM
#32
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 6,412
Likes: 0
A little conversation, a little sushi, a little international romance......
What do you mean you didn't want to walk by some shops!!!!! lol
This trip report is starting to get real interesting. You sure the dogster isn't ghostwriting??lol
Aloha!
What do you mean you didn't want to walk by some shops!!!!! lol
This trip report is starting to get real interesting. You sure the dogster isn't ghostwriting??lol
Aloha!
Dec 6th, 2008 | 11:52 PM
#34
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,781
Likes: 0
Hmm, now that I think about it, I had a choice between maybe spending some time exploring Tokyo with a sweet lady (half my age) or sending her on her way and me heading back into Tsukiji for sushi. I chose the sushi.
Dec 7th, 2008 | 12:37 AM
#35
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,027
Likes: 0
mrwunrfl, be glad you passed on Shikoku. We were there the first week in December a few years ago and went to see Naruto. The skies were dreary and the whirlpool wasn't very dramatic, somewhat weak. The locals told us that the best time to see the whirlpool was in the spring. We stayed at the Tokushima Prince and had a lovely view of the boat harbor which was especially pretty in the evenings...but that was about it.
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