Tokyo highlights

Wednesday, February 11th 2009

Keith: After five fabulous days in Tokyo, Courtney has gone to Beijing and I've stopped off in Hong Kong, awaiting her arrival on Friday. Here are the highlights of our trip so far:

1. Courtney ate whale in a Tokyo sushi bar. Apparently, it was fairly tasteless - the food, I mean, rather than the act of eating an endangered species. I guess we should be thankful she didn't choke on the harpoon.

2. I discovered - and please ensure you're seated before you read on - that I like sushi. We were taken to two great local sushi bars, first by Courtney's friend Jon and then on Monday night by one of her colleagues, Yoshi. The first was at the local fish market and served food on a conveyor belt - you just grab what you want as it goes by. Somewhat surreally, amid the raw fish and vegetables, a plate of strawberries and cream circulated the entire time we were there... I ate raw mackerel, salmon, herring, sardine, and fatty tuna. I was even a fan of the seaweed soup. It's all just wrong, frankly.

3. We visited the Imperial Gardens. They were shut.

4. Our hotel toilet has a built in bidet, butt/bottom spray, seat warmer - and an artificial noise machine to disguise indiscreet sounds. Intriguingly, the noise machine only works for the first two seconds after you sit on the seat, which does somewhat put the pressure on you to perform. Either that or end you end up trying to do the business between star jumps. Regardless, it was a delightful experience. Had they piped in Premiership football, delivered the New York Times and served tea on the hour I'd happily have sat in there for the entire five days.

5. We found a whole district of small hotels offering short-term rest breaks, a few hours at a time. My first assumption about their purpose proved to be entirely wrong.

6. We successfully navigated the metro system, even though everything's in Japanese. We were helped by the fact that they number the stations consecutively and have an electronic map on the train telling you exactly where you are. And we only went one stop. But still, it's an achievement.

7. Despite the fact that I can't sing, we went to a karaoke bar and sang the Kells anthem 'Wonderwall', and our wedding anthem 'The first, my last, my everything'. The picture shows Courtney and Linda - an Aussie fluent in Japanese - in full flow. I'd excused myself by this time and was busy douching myself on a piping hot toilet seat.

8. Face masks are de rigeur for anyone with a cold: it's a very selfless way of trying to stop spreading your own germs. As one of Courtney's colleagues pointed out, if Americans wore face masks they'd do it for exactly the opposite reason i.e. to avoid picking anything up. It makes me even more embarrassed about the time in the Singapore shopping mall when I got a twitch in my nose, turned away from Courtney and promptly sneezed all over a little old Chinese lady. I tried to tell her it was a sign of good luck in the year of the ox, but I'm not sure she understood me.

9. We saw the most expensive real estate in the world (Ginza shopping street) and the world's busiest 'scramble' crossing, a huge junction where all the traffic stops simultaneously and several thousand Japanese pedestrians fight it out to get across the street. Hours of entertainment for the idle passer-by. Coming from Britain, I was amazed and somewhat disappointed to see that no-one threw a punch.

10. The highlight of the trip was definitely the food - not least because people here have been incredibly hospitable in showing us around. Given that my wife has a slightly more refined palate than mine, I shall leave her to explain the finer points.