Travelfood

Despite quite quick and cheap flights to Japan it took several years before I gathered courage to visit the exotic country. Culture chock, expensive travel and complicated travel arrangements discouraged me too long, but nothing of this seemed to be a problem in the end. It was easy to eat local food and plenty for as little as 500 yen/day. Lots of practical difficulties turned up during the trip, but everything was sorted out easily, and with a polite Japanese bow. Guide books write a lot about Japanese customs and how easy it is to unintentionally make impolite gestures, but in fact Japanese seldom look at each other or at foreigners, gaijins. Not even if you wear startling individual clothes, such as anime or manga looks. Which many do.

We travelled to Tokyo in September and immediately at the city train from the airport you can see rice fields and dark forests before they turn to skyscrapers. Later on we took a superfast train (shinkansen) to Osaka, and sat at the right hand side in order to see Mount Fuji, but a typhoon heavy rain prevented us from seeing the sacred mountain! Among the Tokyo highlights I would not mention the numerous Shinto temples, but the futuristic manmade island Odaibo and the Akihabara city part with electronics and manga for mainly young men. During the weekend the area was restricted from traffic and everyone was shopping to the sound of electronic music from seven lane empty streets. And in the west you think that trade is hurt if car bans are implemented!

Tokyo metro turned out to be a nightmare! Public transport includes several different train and subway companies that compete with one another. If you buy a one-day ticket or a value ticket with transfers, there is a high probability that you will use a line that is not valid for your particular ticket, and it turns up worthless. There are, however, tickets that comply with all lines, but they are costly, and it feels quite complicated. Walking on the streets you find lots of area maps, but they are often upside down, so check where north is pointing on the map! Despite all this, there is lots of information in English, and you will manage. Even with the several buttons and functions on the toilet seat! And also if everyone is in a hurry, NO-ONE talks in their cellphone in the subway. That if something marks a civilized culture.

Japanese food is ALWAYS good, so you cannot choose your restaurant wrong (provided that you are not allergic to anything). The windows display the portions as miniature plastic models, so you know better what you order. Everything we have tasted in Japanese restaurants in our home countries is available also in Japan, but with much more intensive flavors. This concerns well-known dishes such as sushi, nigiri, sashimi, deep-fried tempura, sukiyaki casseroles, yakitori barbeque sticks, udon noodles, ramen soup, miso soup, wasabi spices, Kobe beef, sake alcohol and all imaginable seafood. The food is not ordered as “chicken escalope” or “half a chicken”, but as chicken neck, or chicken skin or chicken liver and so on, and those are then grilled on yakitori sticks. I also had a local dish called unagi, smoked or barbequed eel, with rice and that was tasty. The chestnut pastries were my favorite sweets. There is a lot of raw and barbequed seafood, and do taste without any prejudices. Everything is fresh. Nevertheless, I did not taste the notorious, poisonous fugu fish.

Asia, food, Japan, travel, travel experiences