Epilogue
Japan is an incredible place to visit. It makes such a change to be somewhere without the same stores, selling the same things as everywhere else.
It’s a fascinating country, the Japanese people are delightful. They are extremely friendly, inquisitive, helpful and respectful to us, each other and nature. Everywhere is so clean, perhaps because it is frowned upon to eat in the street in most places.
We have really only scraped the surface by visiting the tourist areas to get a taste of Japan (the name of our tour package) so I can understand why people come back time and time again. If the tourist areas are so interesting and different, then, once you get off the tourist trail and go further afield it must be an extraordinary experience but one we might not be able to cope with due to the language barrier.
Pretty much everything went smoothly and according to plan so thanks to Jacquie of Bakewell Travel for organising everything so well. For the mobile Internet, without which I couldn’t have written this blog, for all the train and transport passes and for the event tickets. It would have been impossible to organise such a complicated trip in such a very foreign land ourselves.
Everyone who’s been to Japan had said the country runs like clockwork. It doesn’t, it’s better than that. It runs like an atomic clock. Absolutely everything, everywhere ran on time to the minute (and the bullet trains all eight of them, to the second). If a store has a sign saying ‘opens 10.00’, it opens at exactly 10.00 (with a friendly bow) and we didn’t have one single delay, hitch or disappointment in the entire two weeks.
…. Then we arrive at the airport – flight delayed due to late departure from London. 🤣🤣🤣. Our flight, just short of fifteen hours, arrived in London one hour and forty minutes late plus the plane ran out of water for the last few hours ‘due to the long flight’. Has BA had never flown a plane back from Japan? Did it really not know how long it would take? Perhaps they do it on purpose to give us a reality check. 😩
We flew back the other way – east to west – over Alaska and the Artic circle, so we actually completed a circumnavigation!
As we disembarked I found myself bowing to the flight attendants! New habits…
I haven’t mentioned this before but one of the things we will miss about Japan are the sounds. Like everything else in Japan, they are aesthetically pleasing. When the lights change at a road crossing, instead of a harsh beeping to hurry you along, little birds chirp to invite you to cross, sometimes it’s a cuckoo*
Each train station has its own jingle that sounds like fairground organ music. We can only think that perhaps it’s for people with impaired vision so they know which station they have arrived in?
When you’re on a train, prior to each announcement a xylophone will play the first five notes of ‘I’m sticking with by you’ by the Velvet Underground. At least that’s what it sounds like to me, which explains why it’s become my constant earworm.
Even airport trolleys do away with irritating beeping to warn you of their presence..,
…and replace it with irritating video gaming music. 😀
*The Japanese would NEVER cross a road unless the green man is showing. They will wait and wait and wait, even if the road is only two metres wide and you can see for miles that there is nothing coming, they still wait.
Second hand shops-
We were wondering why there were so many second-hand shops in Osaka selling what looked like brand new, very high-quality goods. Usually ladies goods, like handbags, dresses and watches. We’re talking Hermes handbags, Piaget watches, Versace dresses for example.
It turns out that there is a certain type of lady who befriends wealthy gentlemen and, shall we say, ‘entertains’ them. It also turns out that it is not the done thing to accept money for providing this ‘entertainment’ so they ask their gentlemen friends for ‘gifts’.
The gentleman buys them something expensive to express their appreciation, and the lady immediately legs it, as fast as her restrictive kimono will let her, down to the second hand shop, sells it for cash and presumably goes out and buys herself a slap-up fish and chip supper, with all the trimmings, to celebrate.
Hence all the second-hand shops.
We’re really happy we saw Fuji-san as it’s respectfully called. They also call it the shy mountain as it so often hides behind the clouds. We were told we would see it yesterday from the train but it was hidden in the mist, so we were really lucky to see it when we visited Hakone.
As you may have gathered, we weren’t especially keen on the traditional Japanese breakfasts, but that’s purely because it could not be more different from what we are accustomed to. We have, however, discovered a whole different world of flavours and food textures that we have never experienced in Europe. Some, such as umenoshi (pickled plums), that turned our faces inside out, but many of which were really enjoyable.
The other thing we won’t miss is the Tokyo subway system. It highlights just how good the London underground system and its map are.
I don’t know how Brigitte will cope with being back. She has had no wine for over two weeks! That is surely a record for her and all because of sake. Such an interesting drink and probably as complex as wine to get to grips with and understand.
In Europe you just order ‘sake’ and drink what you’re given. The word ‘Sake’ actually just means alcohol. There are so many variations that we (I) just had no idea about. I’m sure I’ll bore some of you about it when we’re back but one interesting fact that we both agreed on is that that, unlike wine, we didn’t find a single sake we didn’t like (and we probably tasted over 25 varieties) They all tasted good in their own way, whereas often you’ll try a wine that you don’t personally like. I have no idea why this should be but I have a theory about acidity.
Regrets
The Japanese love vending machines, you can get almost anything from a vending machine. Especially in Tokyo where you can put money in a vending machine and out pop meals, umbrellas, ice-cream, cake, there’s even a car vending machine – yes, really.
But the one I never saw, although I know it does exist, my holy grail of vending machines, was the one that dispenses – bananas. It was a bitter disappointment to nit have found it. 😂
And finally….Toilet talk
I couldn’t end the blog without talking toilets. For me, this is the game changer. I know they’ve been around for years and we do have a few around the place and people coming back from Japan talk about them but why aren’t they shouting from the rooftops??
And why is it only the Japanese that have them everywhere? (or are they?) and why did they invent them? (or did they?). Do they have particularly dirty derrières or are they just a particularly clean race in the botty department?
All know is that they are amazing, my bottom has never felt so clean and refreshed – I’m going to become a Japanese toilet ambassador and lobby Parliament to have them installed in all public buildings. It’s the future!
So that’s it, our Japanese adventure, like all good things has come to an end. we’ll miss everything about Japan except the breakfast and we both feel like we now need a long holiday to recover!
…and if you’ve made it all the way to the end of our journey with us… Arigatō, mata ne.
Andrew and Brigitte’s Japanese Adventure 