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Travels to Tokyo and Hokkaido - May 2013

21 May 2013

It has been 12 years since I was last in Tokyo; it was on my Reuters farewell tour. It was more of a handover tour to be honest; passing my work onto others. That is a long time to be away from one of the world's great cities and one that has changed so much, and in some ways so little, in the last decade.

Tokyo is like that interesting woman that you see on the street; you want to know more about her; you don't quite no if you will like her more or less as you get to know her; and you also know that however much time you spend with her you will never either understand her or be a part of her life.

You are admitted; but as a stranger. And you will leave; as a stranger. But you may at least have some interesting experiences while you are there.

So we set off on 21st May about 3am out of Dubai. Arrival at Tokyo's Narita Airport was about 5.15pm on a sunny warm afternoon. We flew in on an Emirates A380. The crew must like this flight. The passengers really are quite well behaved. As you leave the plane it is noticably clean. Leave a Bangkok flight (or a flight to or from India or the USA) and there is food, magazines, newspapers, garbage all over the plane.

The immigration queue at Narita was disappointingly long; for a first world city its airport is distinctly second rate.

A welcoming sign at the immigration counter says "Please show your alien card."

That's Japan in a sentence; there are the Japanese and then there are aliens. Not guests or residents or foreign visitors; but aliens.

We took the Limousine bus into Shinjuku and walked to our hotel. The Ibis at Shinjuku is a renovation of an old Star hotel. The location is fine. The rooms are well soundproofed. But everything is smaller than you are used to; the room; the bed; the desk; the bathtub; the wardrobe; the chair. I feel like Gulliver.

With a five hour time difference to Dubai it was still early - so time to head out for a first evening. Just locally; through Shinjuku and walking around Kabukicho. We were welcomed into a friendly small Yakitori restaurant - the people were nice; the meat sticks variable - some were just too chewy. A beer helped. Honestly if you want pork on a stick the cart at the junction of Silom and Convent in Bangkok is the place to go.

We toured Don Quixote; now this is a store where you can buy anything 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, from flourescent lights to toothpaste to wigs and vibrators. Anything that you need; and plenty that you do not need. And if that sudden urge to dress up in a school uniform overcomes  you this is the place to go.

Enough for the day; there is a 24 hour convenience store and a MacDonalds on the ground floor below the hotel. Useful.

22 May 2013

The time difference makes an early start almost impossible.

Best thing we did - buy a Suico card - everyone in Tokyo seems to have one and it makes using all the trains and subway lines a breeze. Y2,000 buys the card - it has Y1,500 of fares and a Y500 deposit. It can be topped up at any time. The balance is valid for ten years.

The JR Yamanote line circles the city and took us from Shinjuku to Harajuku to start the day. It is a warm day. Sunny.

We walked through the forested grounds to the Meiji Shrine. It is not very busy. Calm. Tai writes a wish and hangs it with others by a tree in the temple grounds. These are read each day by the monks. I hope they can read Thai.

The waiting priests were not for us but for a visiting group of dignatories. Maybe Burmese?

Cross the railway track and you go from the calm of the shrine to the exuberance of Tekeshita-dori - Harajuku's fashion street for goths, lolitas and want to be teens. It probably is not as wild as it used to be and it is relatively quiet early on a Wednesday afternoon.

Lunch (by the time we ate it was more like afternoon tea) was sushi on Otomosante.

A trip on the subway took us to Marunouchi and a view of the Imperial Palace (no half measures with names here!). Not that you can see much and we were too late in the day to explore the East garden which is the one part of the grounds open to the public.

Coffee in the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum square; a walk around and through Tokyo station; a visit to the third cosmetic shop of the day. And a look at the food hall in Mitsukoshi.

A rest at the hotel and out for dinner in Shibuya. Disappointing. This is where you really need someone who knows their way around and knows the better places to eat. Yes the Shibuya junction is incredible busy. No the lights do not look as glamorous as they did in Lost in Translation. Indeed it is a fair bet that the lights of both Times Square and Piccadilly Circus are more impressive.

Ended up eating ramen. Put your money into a machine. Press a ticket for the food that you want. Pictures help when there is no translation. Walk around. Tired.

23 May 2013

Our second day took us over to the Senso-ji Shrine at Asakusa - and the surrounding low town which still retains much of its traditional architecture and way of life. Now this is where everyone is. A few foreign tourists. Many Japanese tourists and many locals. It was busy. Very busy. But it had character. Nakamise-dori is lined with old shops selling food and souvenirs. The side streets are much quieter but are full of interest and characters.

There is nothing zen-like about this temple. Cameras, tour groups, loud voices.

Even the Omikuji was not a success. Drop Y100 into the slots by wooden drawers on either side of the approach to the hall. Take out a silver canister. Shake it until a stick falls out. Note the number. Find the paper scroll with a matching number that tells your fortune. If you don't like your fortune tie the paper onto a nearby rack and make a wish for better luck!

We walked along the Sumida river and crossed by foot walking to the Sky Tree. Now this is how you regenerate at old part of town that no one would have previously visited - you build the world's tallest free standing tower and make it a major tourist attraction. Busy.

We had to wait two hours for our admission time to the tower - they probably do that for everyone to encourage use of the many restaurants and shops. It is Y2000 to the lower viewing gallery at 350 metres. Rather less than the Burj Khalifa! You get a full 360 degree walkaround on three floors. There are cafe and souvenir shops. We stayed to see the sunset. It is crowded. But worth a visit and you see just how vast Tokyo is.

The subway took as back to Shibuya where Tai decided that Shibuya 109 was 8 floors of far too girly clothes and was therefore not very interesting.

We walked around the backstreets of Shinjuku looking for dinner. It was late. Up a flight of stairs was a small restaurant and bar where two girls wearing small white tops and little red skirts looked after groups of hard working salary men and a couple of tourists (us!). They smiled and we managed to order. And no one seemed  to think that we were out of place. Though we were.

24 May 2013

More exploring on Friday - starting with a walk from Sendagi through Ueno. This is another walk feels like a trip through a country village of narrow streets and little stores. The area is called Yanaka Ginza. The shops are retro in style and sell tea, basketry and crafts. This is not teen shopping land; almost the opposite. Ueno Park house the Tokyo Zoo a Starbucks cafe and a very busy restaurant. There are fountains and greenery. It is a rare expanse of green in this very big city. The area also houses most of Tokyo's major museums such as the Tokyo National Museum.

I forgot - to get to Sendagi make sure you take the local train and not the express!

We ate in Ueno station - the big junction stations have a near endless collection of different places to eat.

Onto Akihabara. This is electric town. Gadgets. Cameras. Electricals. We were tired and a bit out of sorts so this was not a great place for us to stop and explore.

So we moved onto. Roppongi has changed since I was there in Reuters days. Gentrified. Bar areas replaced by high rise condominiums, offices (Mori Tower) and malls. We had afternoon tea at Almond at Roppongi junction. We explored the local branch of Don Quixote - mainly for their food court.

Tai did a little of her personal shopping.

The night time entertainment was the Robot restaurant. USD50 gets you a front row seat and the world's worst bento box (think low cost airline food but worse). But there is plenty of beer sold and a fun mix of office workers and tourists at the nearly sold out last show of the night at 10pm.

Loud and brash and silly and therefore good fun with a troupe of energetic dancing girls; loud music, larger than life robots and tank like machines illuminated as though they had come from Blackpool.

Ramen afterwards in Kabukicko - where we met the first woman who really made an effort to talk to us all week - she was 70 and ran the ramen restaurant.

Kabukichi is fun to walk around. Completely unthreatening. Plenty of touts around but they are interested (mainly) in local punters. Tourists are largely ignored. And there are plenty of girls walking in high heels and shorts. Too cold for that tonight but they are tough in Japan.

And that is just one of the reasons that Tokyo is strange. Foreigners are tolerated. It is not that we are not welcome it is more that as no one knows how to talk to foreigners it is easier to ignore them. It is amazing that so many Japanese companies have been so successful internationally.

Just one note: noo one reads newspapers in Tokyo now. Maybe news has gone entirely online. On the subway it is not newspapers that are read - it is games being played on mobile phones.

25 May 2013

Shinjuku is much quieter early on a Saturday morning. We checked out and walked to the Shinjuku station west exit bus stop for the Limousine bus to Narita. Arrived in good time for the Jetstar Japan flight up to Sapporo. Narita really was not designed for domestic flights - most use Haneda. But Jetstar and Air Asia both use Narita and they are helping to keep fares low. The trouble is that your bus fare to the airport will be almost as expensive as your domestic air fare.

Out new A320 was full (180 passengers). No airbridges for Jetstar. So a bus to the plane. But flight was easy and professional.

A short shuttle ride to Nissan car rental. Chitose airport in Sapporo is some distance out of town. Our car is a not very exciting Nissan Tilda but it does come with an English speaking GPS. the map is in Japanese. But with the GPS we were set and driving was easy.

Our drive was almost four hours - mostly on a simple four lane highway up to Sounkyo hot springs near Mount Taisetsu - in mountains in the centre of the island. Driving is on the left. Speed limits are low. As soon as we were away from Sapporo there really was very little traffic. Easy.

Our hotel in Sounkyo was the Sounkyo Choyotei. A mixed Japanese and Western style room. Dinner and breakfast were both buffets. The place was packed with a mixture of tour groups and families. Probably as many Chinese tourists as there were Japanese. And (this was a theme for the next few days) the Japanese tourists were mainly older retirees.

The dinner buffet was good. Plenty of food. Plenty of variety. And lots of washing up. Yen 17,000 for the night including both meals. Very decent.

There are also three separate onsen for anyone wanting a traditional bath. Male and female segregation obligatory.

26 May 2013

A long but easy drive today. The main problem is that some of the roads are so slow that staying awake was hard. The first part of the drive is through the mountains; then through farmland in northern Hokkaido until we got to Abashiri on the coast. Crab-farming is a big industry here and we arrived in the latter stages of a one day crab cookery and beer driking festival by the harbour. Very local but everyone seemed content.

We followed the coast road through Shari and down the Shiretoko peninsular to the little town of Utoro. This is a small fishing port that serves also as the gateway to the national park and the base for a number of tour boats.

Our Shiretoko Noble hotel was just across the road from the harbour and was the nicest place we stayed in. Friendly people. Not busy.

We drove into the park and visited the Five Lakes site. Here you can take a walk along a raised board walk with some fine views of the park and the mountains and the first of five small lakes.

There is enough snow that the pass across to the east side of the park is still closed.

We had a very pleasant Japanese set meal in the restaurant with a view of the harbour and sunset. A 500ml bottle of Hokkaido made red wine helped. Meanwhile the staff changed our room from a living area to a bedroom by laying out the futon and bedding.

Incidentally you can always tell a hotel that has no cabin crew staying there by the big bottles of toiletries and the fact that they have not all been tied down or under lock and key!

The local nightlife is no more than a couple of convenience stores including a 7-11. Nothing more.

27 May 2013

Happy birthday to me. Not quite so much driving today.

We were up early for breakfast - Japanese again - I am beginning to long for a bowl of cereal and some toast. Then we took the Aurora boat cruise from Utoro along the coast. The operators reckon there is an 80% chance of sighting brown bears. Not today. Though we did briefly see a couple of dolphins. Again this was a trip mainly for coach loads of ageing Japanese visitors.

Its a nice little boat trip. It must be amazing when there is still broken ice on the Sea of Okhotsk.

Our drive then took us back through Shari and inland to the Akan Lake national park.

The first stop was Lake Mashu. Regarded as one of the most scenic spots in Japan and visible only from three viewing platforms. You cannot get to the water's edge. This is after all an old, old volcano. Noisy Chinese tourists rather spoiled the atmosphere. It is pretty. But I dont think it is as scenic as Lake Louise and Lake Moraine in Canada.

We drove on to Lake Akan where the New Akan Hotel is everything but new. The middle aged Akan Hotel would be more appropriate. But it is on the lake and the room has a very fine Lake View. We walked around the local town. Pleasant. But again rather dated. The local convenience store provide a Chilean Cab Sav for our dinner. Quite pleasant sitting on the dock eating Japanese chips and watching the world go by.

Dinner was unusual - it was a set Japanese meal served in our room by a very hard working lady who after dinner made up our futon.

Tai, bless her, had the hotel arrange a birthday cake - strawberries ad cream. Very nice.

The Watford v Crystal Palace Championship playoff kicked off at 11pm local time. With internet access only in the lobby I did not stay up. Good job too as the match went to extra time and Watford lost 1-0 to a penalty. We finished the season 7 points ahead of Palace. It was not to be.

28 May 2013.

We left the hotel at 10am for a long day driving back to Sapporo. The DoTo expressway is not what it says. It is a two lane highway with the centre lane blocked so that there is no over-taking except in designated 4 lane areas. Dull! And the toll was some US$45. Similar to the outbound trip a few days earlier. We actually spent more on tolls than we did on petrol.

We had the car back at Nissan for 3pm. Bus into the airport. Some tempura for lunch. And then a 36 minute train ride into Sapporo and a short taxi ride to the Mercure Hotel.

The Mercure was good. Not a large room but well appointed; comfortable bed; good location; good internet access.

Sapporo is nice; a small city centre. Easy to walk around. Feels very North American; built on a grid system; roads to north/south and east/west. Easy. The local nightlife area, Susukino, is close to the hotel. Bit windy. Which meant that taking the local roof-top ferris wheel was not a great idea. It was no surprise that there was no one else onboard.

We had the usual problem of where to eat dinner. Ended up in a pleasant enough Japanese place. Decent food. Quiet.

29 May 2013.

We took the train west to the small town of Otaru....about 30 minutes from Sapporo. On the ocean. The town is known for its canal with a number of old buildings and warehouses. The city attracts a large number of Japanese tourists as well as Russian visitors.

Sakaimachi street has coffee shops, restaurants, arts and crafts, such as glass and musical boxes. It was overcast today and a bit cooler.

We walked a lot; saw some nice cherry blossom and stayed for lunch. More ramen.

Then back to Sapporo where Tai could do her cosmetic shopping and I could wander around and take some pictures.

The train to Otaro runs in part along the seafront. On a nice day it must look spectacular.

Another cool evening - which makes some of the short shorts and short skirts worn by the girls in Susukino quite distracting. the usual battle to find somewhere to eat and the usual pointing at what we wanted as there is no English translation of the menu - just pictures.

30 May 2013.

It was cold grey and drizzling in the morning. Not a bad day to be leaving. Train back to the not so new anymore Chitose airport in good time for the Jetstar Japan flight down to Narita. Arriving in Narita around 12.30pm we had about 8 hours to kill before checking in for our flight to Dubai.

Quick note here. Jetstar's planes are as clean at the end of the flight as they are at the start. The Japanese are scrupulously tidy and garbage is disposed of and recycled. It is not left lieing around for someone else to clean up. It is a discipline that they all seem to have. And maybe also a pride that many other people and countries could learn from.

We took the local train into Narita town. A walk through town for some lunch and a visit to the large temple complex. There are more foreigners in this small town that we saw in the whole of Hokkaido. Many like us just passing time between flights.

Lunch was selected by pointing at the plastic models at the front of the restaurant. Friendly people. But we were the only people eating there.

A bus took us to the local Aeon Mall. Useful place to pass some time. We were entertained by trying to take pictures in one of the Japanese picture booths. Two local schoolgirls gave up some 30 minutes to help us and to take a few pictures with us. They seemed to be having fun and so were we. But it is slightly boggling that they spoke no English at all. They seemed to be bright girls. But I guess English is neither taught or considered useful/necessary.

The mall also has a supermarket. The first real supermarket (rather than posh food shop) that we had been in. Prices are very reasonable. And that was true of most of Japan. It is a myth that Japan is expensive. Or maybe the reality is simply that Dubai is very expensive by comparison.

Back to the airport; check in and an ontime 11 hour flight back to Dubai.

Notes from Japan

Most things are small! Especially the bathrooms in your hotel.
Something that is described as New was new once; it is not now! Examples the New Chitose Airport (1974!) and the New Akan Hotel.
Hokkaido looks like a mix of Devon and Scotland - some small farming communities; mountains and fishing villages. Very nice. Very quiet. Rather dated. Silver tourism rather than Club 18-30.
The ageing Japanese population is very noticeable as soon as you leave the cities.
And domestic tourism is predominantly for retirees.
Chinese tourists are coming in large numbers and if they ever had any manners they have left them behind - loud and rude.
I like Sapporo. It feels like a smaller version of a North American Great Lakes city centre but Japanese.
You can over-dose on Japanese food. I was actually pleased to see an Emirates Airline omelette. How sad is that!
The Japanese drive small cars very slowly. With great respect and caution. It is a very easy place to drive - outside of the main cities!
Roadworks are hugely overstaffed with people waving signs!
The DoTo expressway is everything but. Two lanes. No passing for extended kms. Get stuck behind a slow truck and it is a misery.
No one in Japan appears to read newspapers anymore. On the subways I saw just one newspaper reader. Everyone else is playing on their mobile.
Roppongi is new malls and condominiums. Not what it used to be.
Shinjuku. Surprisingly easy to navigate.
Prices - very reasonable with the Yen at 100/USD. Japan is not an expensive destination to visit - unless you want the best hotels and the most expensive restaurants and nightlife.
Don Quixote is the place to shop 24/7. Anything you want anytime of day any ay of the week.
The Japanese invented convenience stores. Use them.
If you do want to understand Japan; if you want to know where and what to eat; if you want somewhere fun to go at night you really do need a local guide or local friends; and you need at least a few words of Japanese.
Japan is incredibly clean. It can be a real struggle to find a garbage bin but there is no garbage left anywhere. The Japanese simply take it away with them to dispose of. ANd they make a great effort to recycle. It is discipline and training. It is ingrained in how they behave. And it shames so many other countries and much of Asia.