1.11.2016 – 1.11.2016  14 °C

Arrived in Tokyo to plenty of rain and a chill in the air. First thing firsts, a trip to the ladies. All of you reading this who have been to Japan, Korea and parts of China will relate…. The toilets are something else in this part of the world in fact, it sings to you to help you pee! Only in Japan (I’m sure this isn’t going to be the last time I make that comment).. Second job, much more mundane, off to pickup our rental mobile wi-fi! Yep, here in Japan you can rent yourself a mobile dongle that you can connect four devices to at one time!! Handy! Also organised to have a shower! After spending 14hrs in the same clothing a hot shower was super welcome. Finally got ourselves to the bus stop and made our way into downtown Tokyo (well Shinjuku at any rate).

Dumped our stuff at the hotel and headed out into the craziness of Shinjuku for some shopping + some super duper yummy udon. At this point in the narrative, it is important for me to explain the purpose of our visit to Tokyo… Yes I’m here to see sky scrapers, neon + maybe do a museum tour…  but the real reason I’m here in Tokyo is food! I’m a long lover of Japanese food, so don’t be surprised when you read a focused account of something or other that we’ve eaten. Our first day is certainly no exception!

So, Shinjuku… Skyscrapers, neon, placard bearing sales people, department stores + hundreds of little stalls/ shops selling some sort of food. And at 10am in the morning, not a heck of a lot happening! Mental note to self, Tokyo is a night city so don’t expect much open in the morning!!

Anyway, after navigating our way around the little area we are going to call home (buying my desperately needed jammies along the way), we sat down to some pretty yummy udon. We had googled “best udon in Shinjuku” and this place we discovered didn’t let us down. You go in, point to the thing you want to order. The chef quickly scoops your udon thru boiling water a few times, adds some meat (in my case) and kimchi (in Kel’s) to the noodles and you move down the production line. Next stop, semi cold tempura… I’m sure you should be getting it heated but we couldn’t work out how to get this done, so gave up and ate a few pieces luke warm. Finally to check out… but no soup! Kellie asks “soup” and the check out dude points us to a beer tap!!! No beer on tap here, just some sort of soup! Without thinking about it i beer tap away our soup into our bowls…. Ooops! Kellie’s a non, red meat-eater, so we sincerely hoped that the broth was chicken!! Tasted amazing, so here’s hoping!!

During lunch we decided to head out and discover the Tokyo Subway! Two stops away and some sore feet later and we arrived at the Meiji Jingu shrine. A beautiful green oasis in the middle of crazy Tokyo. At the heart of the shrine there was some sort of Shinto/ come business ritual going on– half dressed in traditional outfits, half in business suits. We watched for a minute or two before finding that we could get our fortune (from one of the many sayings that the Emperor Meiji and his wife were supposedly to have said).. My fortune- “Amidst the raging storms of life, Never flinch, o heart of man- No more than the wind tossed pine, so deep rooted in rock”. I’m guessing it is saying for me to stand fast against the issues that happen in life! Arigato, Emperor Meiji for your words of wisdom!

All jokes aside, the shrine is a really beautiful part of the city- big huge pines and oaks with the light filtering through (it’s now mid afternoon and the sun is heading down rapidly)… Really pretty!

Our day ended as every day will probably end in Tokyo, out admiring the neon-ness that is Tokyo! Our first stop was a well deserved foot massage (my feet aren’t in the mode yet of walking all day).. Second stop, photo opps of the night life + third stop some sort of Japanese seafood BBQ place. Sashimi was promptly ordered, as was Miso ladened crabs + clam skewers (both of which were bbq-d) + crab ladened Japanese fried rice!! YUMMY!!! We ordered the usual YellowTail + some other type of Sashimi (that i haven’t seen before in AU) that was large, red and more chewy than i’m used to– still very tasty! Kellie tested out the Shochu (I’ve got some poor memories of Shochu from my sojourn in Korea so I went for plain old coke)- which I have to agree was much better than my memory… Clearly, at 20 your shochu intake is a lot cheaper and probably more, than your intake almost 20yrs on! May have to join the Japanese and get into the Shochu.

Last stop of the day was an accident on the way back. Pachinko! One thing I’ve always wanted to test out is the nutsoid-ness of Pachinko. Honestly, absolutely no idea what was going on. I put in my $10 to the machine (minimum bet), got a heap of little metal balls and started firing them thru this pinball like machine… All the time, some scantily clad cartoon character was talking to me from the machine- and no idea what she was saying. Pachinko is something to see— unbelievably loud (nightclub loud, but without the slight fog of alcohol to dampen your senses), rows and rows of these neon blazing, cartoon character filled “slot” machines, with cigarette wielding blokes hunched over them tying to win. Win what?!? I’ve got no idea, although based on others telling me, it’s some sort of gambling. All that happened for me is the cartoon lady kept screaming at me, the lights kept lighting up and half way thru I worked out I needed to get my little ball bearings into this tiny slot at the bottom and then the scantily clad woman got super excited!!! As did I, cause I only got a total of about 4 in the slot!!! Needless to say in less than a minute my $10 had gone down the drain along with my little ball bearings. Phew!!

Pachinko 10: Di 0!