A trip with the family to the land of the rising sun
Welcome to Japan
Friday 26 April 2024
Greetings to one and all!
Well, folks. Another trip of a lifetime awaits us. I seem to be doing so many trips of a lifetime these days, in I’m starting to feel like a cat.
The last time I visited Japan, for the Rugby World Cup in 2019, I remember thinking how surreal it all was. Twelve months later, we were all banned from going to Tescos and wearing masks to go out in public. And for those of you living in the UK, I understand you developed a habit of banging your saucepans with a wooden spoon at 3pm every Tuesday to celebrate the government, or something like that.
So – Japan. It’s your turn to restore my faith in your ability to be weirder than the rest of the world.
You’ve given the world soup that you can only eat with chopsticks, cat cafes (won’t be going there, with my allergies) and Manga hairstyles. But who knows what you’ve got in store for us in 2024.
Back in 2019 I tried to prepare by learning some Japanese on Duolingo, only for my then 7-year old daughter Oli to think it was a game and get us up to level 35 in about four days. This time, we are doing Duolingo as a team and progress is slower, but more evenly balanced. Oli has finished Japanese by the way, and is now doing Korean. That’s how it works apparently.
Our timing couldn’t have been better. Next week is Golden Week in Japan. When the whole country goes on their one week per year of annual leave. I thought this sounded like quite a cool thing, until I realised that it means people only actually get one week’s holiday from work in Japan. (By the way with a work ethic / dedication to slave labour like that, no wonder they have so many world-leading companies.)
What that means for us is that the normally crowded streets of Kyoto and Tokyo will be abnormally crowded.
Ah well – at least we’ll have the second week to catch up on all the things we miss in Golden Week.
We set off tomorrow with a flight from Prague to Doha. The smart ones among you will have spotted straight away that that’s not in Japan. So we’ll have a 1am flight Friday night / Saturday morning to land us in Osaka just in time to wake up for dinner.
It’s going to be weird folks. It’s going to be fun. Let me know if you want to join my daily blogs for the next two weeks. And wish us luck!
Cheers
Rich
Metropolis: Sapporos by the Sea
Saturday 27 April 2024
Well, that was a long day folks!
If my calculations are correct, since we last went to bed, the girls have been to school, I’ve done a day’s work (hard to believe, I know, but bear with me), we’ve had three lunches and two dinners and popped into Harrods for high tea. Harrods, Doha, that is, as they have a branch at Terminal 2, catering for the traveller who’s been really missing Harrods.
We seemed to be on the bus at Doha airport longer than Wales actually lasted in the Qatar World Cup, by the way. The guy must have got lost! At least I managed to pick up a cool Wales World Cup key ring for about 20 pence. Surprised they weren’t a better seller at the time of the World Cup to be honest…
The flight was long, but at least the entertainment was pretty decent. I played the “Who wants to be a millionaire” game on the flight. Still get a buzz out of the fact that my Oxford buddy wrote most of the questions for the first series of that show. He clearly didn’t write the questions on the Qatar airlines version: The first ten questions are things like: What is 3 x 8? Which English writer wrote Macbeth? Tom Cruise is a famous what? Twat wasn’t an option, so I went for actor.
Anyway, three meals later, we landed in Osaka: the craziest city on the planet by a country mile. During our short walk around the city this evening, we’ve bumped into a man live blogging whilst dressed as an orange, had dinner in a Thai restaurant where the top tip was ramen. And I’ve just walked past a café where grown men are playing Pac-Man at 11pm on a Saturday night.
And that’s just touching the surface. This place has so many wild sides, it’s hard to keep track. It’s also a culinary heaven, and I’ll come back to that later in the trip. I was just happy to find a quiet bar this evening where I could write my blog, whilst sipping a Sapporo or two.
There is one thing about Osaka which I still find surprising: This used to be the second biggest city in the world, back in the seventies. It still stands in eighth place. It’s a great achievement for a city which I will bet not many of you would claim to know much about. Try and think of three interesting facts about Osaka – it’s not easy!
But seriously – put Osaka on your bucket lists, folks. It’s worth it.
It’s one of the liveliest cities you can imagine on a Saturday evening. And by the looks of a lot of the folks here, it’s not bad during the week, either!
A sprawling metropolis by the sea, with lovely canals like Amsterdam (even down to the tourist boats) and imposing towers like Tokyo. But with much weirder designs. The fact that it’s the karaoke capital of the Far East should not be ignored! At some point this week I am going to have to embarrass the girls with my rendition of Creep!
Given that Golden Week is about to kick off, the Japanese tourists outnumber the western ones by about 99 to one. But it’s so nice to be somewhere that the locals still love, and where you really do stand out.
The biggest hit of the first day, incidentally, and sorry to bring the tone down, was the toilet. With around seventeen different functions and three different temperatures, what’s not to like? There’s never been a more comfortable way to do the Wordle.
I should probably leave it there I guess. Speak soon, folks and have a good Saturday!
Rich
P.S. I’ll be putting some photos on Instagram during the trip. Would be great if you can give them some love. Tomorrow should be a particularly fruitful one, as we hit Dottonbori. I’m richard.b.jones.39 over there, in case you’re not already following.
Osaka: A Foodie’s Fever Dream
Monday 29 April 2024
Good evening (or rather, early morning), all!
Another day in Osaka (pronounced Oh sacker, by the way, for those of you who like me, were in any doubt). And it’s fast becoming one of my favourite cities in the world. And we haven’t even done the karaoke yet!
We started today with a trip to Nara. It’s one of the cutest day trips you can make, involving a park full of dozens of tame deer who eat special cookies from tourists’ hands, before you wander off to see the giant Buddha. It was fabulous, even if we were exhausted by the time we got back. It also involved our first shrine of the tour, and our first botanical garden. The gardens mark one of the few times in my life that I’ve enjoyed Wisteria. The garden itself was lovely, and the aromas were simply sublime. The Japanese really know how to do a proper flashy garden. Exotic butterflies, killer bees (apparently) and gorgeous lily ponds. Monet would have been very much at home here, and it was such a relaxing place to hang out.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the culinary squad have batted it out of the park in Osaka. I was lucky enough to enjoy a plate of takaomaki today: deep fried octopus balls with mayonnaise and number 1 sauce (which I hope isn’t what I think it is). Gorgeous, even if I did burn my tongue on the first bite. The street food is generally exceptional here, and why it hasn’t caught on more in Europe is beyond me!
It rained this evening, so I decided to follow up on the culinary delights of the day by standing in line outside the most popular sushi place in town for half an hour and getting a good soaking. Well it worked up an appetite, anyway. I ended up dining alone tonight, in any case, as the girls were hit worse than me by the jet lag and stayed back in the room eating sandwiches from the 7-11.
We did get into one restaurant before the girls headed back, but a glance at the menu put them off a bit. I mean, it’s been a long time since I saw whale on the menu anywhere. And horse sushi might be a delicacy in some parts of the world but it wasn’t high on my list of priorities.
I did eventually get into the sushi place and it was great. Amazingly fresh fish, wasabi with a bit of bite to it, friendly sushi chefs shouting out their thanks as you paid the bill at the end. Asahi beer on tap (my dry holiday not going quite as well as it should be). I tried the super fatty tuna and the sweet shrimp. And the sea urchin, of course. Can’t resist it whenever I see it on the menu. Hamachi is always a winner for me, as well, but it was all amazing tonight.
I love the way they say thank you before you are through the door of the restaurant, and continue to thank you throughout your meal. Arrigato gozayimaaaaas. The longer the “aaaa” at the end, the more sincere the thanks. Probably. To me it is a bit theatrical, but it’s still brilliant. I’ve been fighting back with longer and longer “gozayimaaaaaaas” to the extent that I’ve had queues building up behind me in the Seven Eleven. But it’s a fight I’m going to win!
Yesterday, we spent the day settling into Osaka, which was a lot of fun in itself. There is a small, busy area of the city called Dotonbori. There’s frankly nothing else like it anywhere else in the world. The restaurants have giant models of the food on their facades. Which in the case of sushi is an amazing achievement. It’s so bizarre, but so entertaining at the same time! And street food on every corner. Toy shops, electronic shops, simply a retail-addict’s paradise!
Before all the action to day, yesterday was a day of settling in. We walked up to Osaka Castle If you’ve ever seen a Kurosawa film you’ll know what it looks like. If you haven’t, think Caernarfon, but a bit more Japanese. It was first established in the 15th century when Yamadori decided to unite Osaka. Well, one side of it, as 200m to the north west of Osaka castle is another obscure village called Kyoto. Which didn’t want to unite, of course! Lots of fighting ensued, and the samurai tradition developed. It’s still very much alive today, and they still have Samurai umbrellas and Samurai dustmen up at the castle.
The girls were photographed within 30 seconds of leaving Starbucks at the castle. I swear that next time I come to Japan there’s going to be a huge poster with Oli and Lali on it advertising Starbucks. The Japanese are incredibly attractive people themselves, by the way, and the kimono is a fashion statement they put everything into. It has been an amazing experience to explore the lovely temples and shrines of Osaka, in the presence of such sartorial elegance.
Once we got back to our local area, we visited a ramen place, which involved pressing a random button on a machine to choose your food and drink and hoping that when it arrived, the girls would eat it. To be honest I think the staff ignored what we pressed and just brought us whatever they thought the girls would like.
One weird thing for such a futuristic country is that they don’t take credit cards in that many places. I could understand that before 2020 but I thought Covid might have changed habits a bit. To be fair they wear gloves for everything and still wear masks (as they did well before Covid) on public transport. But you’d have thought that cash would have taken a back seat by now. Apparently not.
The girls keep nagging me to take them into the maid cafes, by the way. I’m frankly not sure it’s meant for kids. But who knows – maybe it is? I’ve promised to take them in for a matcha tea tomorrow. Goodness knows what I’m going to get.
On that point – thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!
Cheers,
Rich
P.S. I did manage to cause a bit of a scene earlier today, when I dropped my phone on the stairs from reception, and it ended up in the garden exhibit in the front window of the hotel. The only way to retrieve it was for me to crawl on all fours into the window display myself, which I think may have traumatised a couple of Japanese kids walking past at that point in time!
Breakfast in Kyoto
Wednesday 1 May 2024
Good morning, or afternoon, folks. Whatever time it is is over there!
We find ourselves this evening in Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital, a position it held from its inception in 794 until 1869, when the oligarchs of Japan decided to build themselves a new capital city full of modern robot restaurants and manga.
Kyoto itself is a world heritage treasure, boasting as it does of 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites. Which is almost as many as France. Well, nearly. It’s one of the most culturally rich cities in the world, and from the evidence of our first day, it’s a rich heritage which has been well-earned.
Before we arrived in Kyoto, we had one more morning in Osaka, kicking off with another bizarre breakfast at the hotel. It was a bit random, I don’t mind saying. Scrambled eggs, cereals and croissants were all fine and sensible, and instantly recognisable breakfast stalwarts to most of us. But chicken curry, Caesar salad and onion rings? Surely not. But yep – there they were in their unbreakfast-like way. How they got there, one can only speculate – did the management accidentally translate a European breakfast, lunch and dinner menu all into one, and go along with it, thinking “well, they’re all a bit odd in Europe, you know”?
After breakfast, we enjoyed the video-game / karaoke bar atmosphere of daytime Osaka once again, before taking our first trip on the wonderful Shinkansen. The bullet train is a marvel, such a sleek-looking creature as it glides into the station, singing its sweet song. The doors open, and you find your seats, where the legroom would be generous for Chewbacca from Star Wars. Right on time, the train sets off from the station, quickly getting up to 320 km per hour. And thirteen minutes later, you are in Kyoto. We’d hardly had time to relax, but it was such a smooth short ride, and thankfully we have another two Shinkansen trips still to come on this tour.
Japan is so easy to get around, if our first experiences have been anything to go by. Our Japanese language skills are level 2 on Duolingo (i.e. we know what sushi and ramen are, and how to say “good evening”, but we might struggle to ask the way to the bank). However, there is so much logic to the system here, and the pictorial guidance is so helpful, that you rarely feel lost. Thanks to the weak Yen, there are not many excuses for not visiting Japan these days. Maybe the British weather we’ve been experiencing today (light drizzle for the whole day) is the only thing to put people off.
Anyway, back to Kyoto. Last night, on arrival, I left the girls to chill out at the hotel and took a stroll around the streets nearby. Somehow I ended up at Nishiki market, a delightful part of Kyoto, where they sell everything from sea urchins to octopus lollipops to conger eel. It seems that some travel websites consider it a tourist trap these days, but we’re in Kyoto for goodness sake. You have to give them some leeway for trying to trap the tourists. Nishiki was a lot of fun, dominated by a bustling avenue resplendent with gorgeous aromas and even more wonderful flavours.
These emails are slowly going to start seeming more like a restaurant guide than a travel blog, by the way, but when in Japan, I guess that’s only to be expected. It’s been a great start, and we’ve yet to even get onto gyoza, katsu, yakatori, wagyu, Kobe beef, izakaya or kaiseki. So our taste buds are still in for a heck of a treat yet.
On the subject of Japanese food (sort of), on recent trips to London, I’ve noticed that the sushi in places like Yo Sushi and Itsu is not so much sushi these days as “salmon”. They seem to have done away with tuna completely. I was wondering whether the reason for this is ecological (overfishing), economical (too expensive) or Fukushima (nuclear accidents). If anyone knows, I’d be glad to hear about it (or probably not, if the reason really is Fukushima).
On our first morning in Kyoto, we decided to try breakfast outside the hotel. It was something of a complicated affair. First, you had to wait to be seated. That was fine, but then you had to put something on your chairs to keep the spot you’d been allocated, in case the staff forgot you were there.
You then had to go to the bar to order, and they got out a special menu, which I expected might have English translations on it. But no. Just some pictures which they seemed to think I should understand.
Going by the pictures, I decided to order an oat latte for myself and a matcha tea for Oli:
“One oat latte please.”
“One hot latte?”
“No – an oat latte.”
“Aha – oat latte. Hot or cold?”
“Hot please.”
“One hot latte.”
“One hot oat latte, yes.”
“Ah – hot latte with oat milk.”
“And one matcha tea, please. Small.”
“Oat?”
“What?”
“Hot?”
“No, cold.”
“Oat milk?”
“Ah – sorry – is there milk in matcha?”
“Milky matcha. Ok.”
“Wait – what did I just order???”
I then had to collect our pastries from the pastry section, take them to the desk to get plates, and we were finally ready to breakfast. It was more challenging that getting train tickets, and I felt like I’d been through the full tea ceremony by the end!
After breakfast, we visited our first UNESCO site of Kyoto – the Nijo-Jo castle, stronghold of the Shogun of Kyoto until the 18th century, and the base from which the Satsuma warriors terrified everyone with their citrus-based weapons back in the day. It is a fine bit of Shogunate architecture, if ever I’ve seen one. Even in the rain, it was beautiful, and the carefully cultivated gardens are a joy to behold. Oh, and there was a heron! A Japanese heron. How good is that?
Marta thought it funny that they used to make all the palaces from wood, but the signs which tell you the type of tree you’re looking at are lovely little concrete structures. You can just imagine the conversation with the Shogun back in the day:
“Shouldn’t we make the palace out of brick, sir?”
“Why would we want to do that?”
“Well, it has burnt down three times. And what happens if the second little pig decides to come along again?”
“Ah – don’t worry about it. Wood is fine.”
“Oh, and you said you wanted something simple to put the names of the trees on?”
“Yep.”
“Well how about a six foot tall gravestone which says ‘cherry blossom?’”
“Yeah that’ll do.”
A fascinating place, folks. A fascinating place.
See you soon,
Rich
Rugby Reunion in Tokyo
Tuesday 7 May 2024
So here it is at last. The largest city in the world, with a population of between 14 and 40 million, depending on how you count it (obviously) and whom you ask. It seems that the consensus is that it’s around the 30 million mark. Just as importantly, this finally marks our arrival in the capital city of this amazing country.
There’s a stark contrast between the sweeping modernity of downtown Tokyo and the simple elegance of Kyoto and its glorious palaces. Altogether, it gives you quite an architectural palate to play with. Tokyo oozes with modern style and slick geometric forms stretching to the heavens in a competition to provide the best view of the city’s skyline.
On Sunday, the girls went to enjoy one of these views – from the Tokyo Tower, which is basically a red version of the Eiffel Tower, however, Japan being Japan, it comes complete with a shopping centre in the first floor gallery. There’s a Suntory whisky bar at the base of the tower, too. Presumably for people coming out rather than those planning to go in, as otherwise it must be something of a safety hazard!
You’ve got to be careful with place names in this city, by the way. This was the Tokyo Tower. If we’d have set off for somewhere called the Suntory Tokyo Tower, we’d have gotten somewhere else completely. Not that we’d have known, as Tokyo seems to be a lot more challenging to find your way around than Kyoto. There’s more sparing use of the Roman alphabet, especially off the beaten tracks, and the Starbucks staff aren’t half as forgiving as they were in Kyoto!
While the girls enjoyed the views from the top of the tower, they rewarded me for my navigation efforts so far by allowing me to spend a day at the rugby with two friends of mine, Keigo and Yumi. This wasn’t planned before we came (honestly!), but came about from a slightly tipsy conversation we’d had last night when they had kindly taken us out for dinner.
After checking in to our refreshingly large hotel room, we headed to the Hub, one of Tokyo’s famous British pubs. It was in various branches of the Hub that Wayne and I had spent many an afternoon or evening back in 2019 watching the rugby matches for which we either hadn’t bought tickets or hadn’t decided to go into one of the Fan Zones. The atmosphere at the Hub back in 2019 was amazing, especially when the Japanese team, the Brave Blossoms, caused one of their many upsets. We’d met Keigo and Yumi there, as they supported both the home team and the All Blacks, and we spent many fun nights drinking Kirin beer and a few unwise shots of sake with them.
So it was, that on this Saturday night just gone, I’d arranged to meet up with them again after four and a half years. It was a lovely evening and they took us to a Japanese Izakaya restaurant where we gorged ourselves on sublime sashimi and yummy yakatori (I did warn you it was going to get a bit culinary on these blogs). Keigo and Yumi were kind enough to turn up laden with gifts for me and the girls, whilst we turned up empty handed, embarrassingly. So I offered to cover dinner instead. This seemed fair. And it probably would have been fair, if my bank hadn’t picked that precise moment to block both my cards, following some smart ass in their fraud department spotting some weird transactions on the other side of the world (i.e. Japan, where I’d actually told my bank I was going to be – thanks Erste for being bloody useless!). So Keigo and Yumi ended up buying us dinner as well.
So it was to the rugby on Sunday afternoon I went, as the Tokyo Black Rams took on Toyota. A lot of the teams in Japan are named after companies, however in Toyota’s case, to be fair, it’s also the name of the city. I thought that sounded a bit weird at first, till Marta pointed out that there’s a city in the Czech Republic which is named after Pilsener beer!
Toyota have quite the chequebook (old fashioned credit cards, for those of you under 50), and have attracted some huge names to their squad. So we were lucky enough to see Beauden Barrett and Aaron Smith link up at 9 and 10 for the visitors, while recent world-cup winner Peter Steph du Toit was also in their starting line-up. The Black Rams (the chant is pretty easy – “Go, Go Rammas”) fought bravely till about the 60th minute, when former Welsh centre Hadleigh Parkes came on, and the visitors ran in three unanswered tries to tie up the match. To be fair, it wasn’t down to his performance, Toyota were just much better.
It was the last match of the regular season in any case, and neither team made the semi finals. For those of you who are vaguely interested, the semi finals themselves will be contested in two weeks by the Saitama Wild Knights (from Oita, which will be familiar to my Welsh friends, I am sure, being one of our bases for the 2019 World Cup), Canon Yokohama (another corporate team), and two Tokyo teams, the intriguingly-named Sungoliath and the curiously-styled Toshiba Brave Lupus (wasn’t that some kind of serious skin disease?). Whatever the experts are predicting, a team with a name like Sungoliath can’t be beaten, surely??
Anyway, it was a wonderful day out, and I was sad to say goodbye to Keigo and Yumi at the end. On my way back from the match, I passed the world-famous Tokyo Budokan, which used to be the premier venue for international rock stars to play in Tokyo (I think Queen were there back in 1975), but which has now been overtaken by the Tokyo Dome, which you can see from our hotel window.
It all reminded me of what an amazing job Japan did in 2019 of putting on the Rugby World Cup. France did a good job of following it up, to be fair, and the Ozzies are going to have a lot to live up to in three years’ time!
Anyway, that’s enough reminiscing for now, folks. Off to bed for me, as we have a couple of busy days ahead of us.
Goodnight all, and sweet dreams!
Rich
Sunshine City
Thursday 9 May 2024
In 1983, Walt Disney opened his first theme park outside of the United States. The slightly surprising venue for the new park was Tokyo, Japan. When I say surprising, i mean that on a number of levels. First: Disney’s parks had previously all been English language affairs, which ties in quite nicely with the fact that all of the films back then were made in English, with some translation into foreign languages. And Tokyo was not then a city particularly well known for its surfeit of English speakers. Indeed not much has changed in that respect (though fair play to the Japanese, they make a better effort with English than we Brits normally do with other languages!).
The second reason it was quite surprising is that Walt Disney primarily made animated movies at that time. And Japan already had a thriving animation culture, specifically that of manga (the printed form) or anime (the video version). So it was quite a bold move for an American animation studio to open a theme park in Tokyo.
The result provided us with a thoroughly enjoyable day on Tuesday, but the whole park is about the size of the Star Wars section in Disney LA and the experience is not quite up to the same level. It was still a fantastic day out. And the girls loved it. It was also fantastic value for money at only around £25 a head.
One thing Tokyo does lead the world in is the overfishing of tuna. So it was with that in mind that we decided it was time for some sushi on Tuesday evening. And I think I’ve now spoiled sushi for Marta, by introducing her to proper Tokyo sushi. To say it was sublime is an understatement.
On Wednesday, we tried to squeeze in about 14 days of Tokyo fun into 12 hours. For those of you who are not familiar with super-hero achievements, this involved:
1) Shibuya: the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing with no fewer than 7 lines crossing each other on a single junction. To be honest it seems these days like half of them are tourists checking out the busiest junction in the world. But most of them are shoppers, getting their burst of retail therapy from the shoppers’ paradise in that part of town. It was great to shop at Tower Records, bringing back all those memories of visiting the Piccadilly Circus branch back in the 80s with my parents to pick up the odd elusive New Order, Pet Shop Boys or Depeche Mode 12 inch. The girls were overwhelmed by the choice. There simply isn’t anything like it in Prague, and even London and Cardiff are tame compared to this. The hustle and bustle is relentless. Locals dressed in what looks like cosplay half the time strolling oblivious to the crowds with their EarPods in and their cool tunes driving them forward. And the neon signs and extra loud advertising create a unique atmosphere as you stroll through the crowds. We sheltered in the odd oasis of a coffee shop to get some respite from the action.
2) Shinjuku, where we recreated the title sequence of Midnight Diner. If you haven’t seen that, you might as well not have a telly. It’s phenomenal. The best tasting and most aromatic TV show there’s ever been, and it’s where I personally developed my love for Nekko Manma (Nekko = cat, Manma = rice) – sushi rice with tuna mayo and bonito flakes. What’s not to love? We walked under the rail bridge, the neon signs and billboards of Shinjuku floated magically into view and the crowds surrounded us. It’s here that you really know you are in Tokyo.
3) The Imperial Palace – home of the Shoguns (why not the Emperor?? ) where we were only allowed to take photos from the street, so didn’t really get the feel for it. It was beautiful, but it sounds like it was all rebuilt after 45 in any case.
4) Tokyo Electric City – where I managed to get us lost on the same day we were supposed to catch the train to Osaka – so you can imaging how chilled out that trip was!
In the first evening in Tokyo, we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find a specific sushi restaurant I’d found on Google food (or whatever the hell it is that has all the Google reviews) and failed badly. Suddenly, we came across a cellar bar that had sushi. It was here that I think I destroyed sushi for Marticka. Now, she finally understood why I was being such a pain in the ass about sushi for the last two weeks. This was sublime. Maki with huge chunks of tuna, perfectly seasoned rice, miso soup to die for (clam soup in my case). OMG it was amazing. Sadly, even Katsura in Prague is now going to have a hill to climb to win us back. Probably going to need about a year to get back into the taste of it.
Anyway folks, we are nearly there. It would be nice to know I’m not shouting into the void. So please let me know if you’ve enjoyed these missives. They are not meant to inspire envy or any other negative emotions. I would love to repeat our trip with any of you, if our normal living arrangements allow for it. But the main aim is to inspire you to try it yourselves! I know I’m a crap friend, being in touch more by email than in person, but if that is the case, drop me a line and we can catch up and enjoy Prague together!
Cheers,
Rich
Singing in the Rain
Saturday 11 May 2024
After the Sunshine City in Toyko, we’ve had a few days of less clement weather. The rain has chased us all along the Shinkansen line from Tokyo back to Osaka, where our journey sadly has to come to an end.
Japan – you rocked! We’ll be back, for sure – you’ve been a phenomenal host, and given us so many memories to cherish. I sit here now in the lounge at Doha Airport, and by the end of today, we will be back in Prague. The girls are trying to get some rest, as it’s 3am (as the KLF used to sing) and our bodies are telling us it’s 9am and breakfast time. We land in Prague just after lunch, which will no doubt feel like bed time.
Our last day in Japan was spent back in Osaka, that crazy city by the sea.
They do the social dining thing wonderfully in Osaka. Whilst it’s impolite to eat on the hoof in some parts of Japan, here, the Takomasa (the guy who makes the octopus balls) would struggle to run his business if they didn’t encourage dining on the streets.
The sushi chef last night was a fine example of how social dining is encouraged. He was very chatty, even if the only common words we understood were the names of the various types of fish (maguro for tuna, samon for salmon and ebi for prawns, should give you a good start). Sitting in a row as the chef prepares everything in front of you makes for a really interacttve meal, and everyone was raising their glasses to say “Kanpai!” as we washed the sushi down with Asahi beer. The chef even made some baby sushi for the kids – tiny 1/3 sized nigiri which they could scoff down in one bite. Kawaii (cute), as they say!
Osaka does the social karaoke thing even better, and I took a solo stroll to Murphy’s Irish pub on our last night, for a quick drink and a bout of karaoke on their free machine. They have a tradition in Murphy’s that if someone rings the bell at the end of the bar, they have to buy drinks for the whole bar. I think Wayne and I may have benefitted from this back in 2019. There was a drunken Aussie there last night, who couldn’t resist the temptation to ring it every fifteen minutes or so. Thankfully, the drinks rule didn’t extend to the upstairs lounge where the karaoke was. But they were having quite the party in the bar!
I sang about four songs, sharing the mike with a group of lads from Leeds and what seemed to be a Japanese works’ outing. They were all proper singers, mind you, and it was all very civilised.
And it’s all been extremely civilised. I was curious how Japan would shape up, without a global rugby festival to keep the tourists happy. It has surpassed expectations on so many levels.
We did manage to save the best for last, with a round of Kobe beef and one of Wagyu beef in one of the yakiniku (self-barbecue) places. It was worth paying 3 x the rate for fillet. Melt-in-your-mouth stuff.
A few of you have asked to see more photos – these are all on Instagram – richard.b.jones.39 for those of you not there already. I don’t think you need to be a member.
Anyway, as I sign off for the last time on the tour, I’d like to say thanks for joining us on the tour and sending your comments, support and suggestions, folks. Arrigato gozeiemaaaaaaaaaas!!
Sayonara Nihon.
And good night to one and all.
Or good morning.
Or whatever this time is supposed to be…
Ah well, this sofa looks comfortable. Think I’ll catch a couple of hours snooze before Europe beckons.
R.
