Japan Travels

Nagoya began with a struggle. Combine heat and heavy bags and a rubbish map and you get a mess! Thankfully people in Japan always seem happy to help lost foreigners and we were saved by lovely people who had lived in Brighton!

We were staying in a hostel with tatami rooms (bamboo mat flooring) and futons which was quite exciting but first we had the sights of Nagoya at our disposal. It seemed like a less hectic Tokyo, with wider streets, more parks and a lot less neon, which was nice. We went for a wander round, which has become our usual start in a new place now, and found fun t-shirts and a wonderful little cafe full of Japanese cartoons by a famous artist whose name I`ve forgotten.

Our plan to see the sights soon changed to seeing a sight as time wore on but we headed to the Orchid House to see some flowers, and flowers they have! It wasn`t a big place but there were all kinds of different orchids everywhere, and even a little veggie patch! The range of flowers was stunning, and they were in so many different backgrounds and arrangements the place felt far bigger than it was. There`s a great pond and little waterfall which was beautiful, but they also had a lot of hungry bugs!

When the bugs got full, we got hungry so we hunted down a tasty veggie Chinese restaurant for dinner, where we also found a great Vegan guide to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka which as since come in very useful!

After all the shopping and whatnot we were craving a bit of culture, so we headed to the Museum of Modern Art. It was however, closed to prepare a new exhibition so we headed across the road to the Imperial Palace Gardens instead.

The gardens are fantastic and truly beautiful. Full of shady forest glades, littles streams running through, collections of trees from all over Japan and a bamboo forest. We had a stroll round, slowly melting and getting scared by large hornet type things, and enjoying the peaceful nature of it. It is not quiet though! It was fairly devoid of people but there are these things like a cross between a cricket and a beetle which constantly make clicking, buzzing sounds and really are loud. They can get a little intimidating at times, but we`ve been getting used to them.

After the gardens we made a wonderful discovery in the form of lunch. The place we were heading to turned out to not exist so we decided to see what the supermarket had for us. There we found what has become a common lunch on the move, rice balls filled with plum, wrapped in seeweed. Very tasty and cheap!

Filled with exciting new food we headed to Disk Union, an awesome record shop that has a whole floor dedicated to punk rock. An incredible selection, including stuff by small bands from the UK whose records I haven`t seen in shops there! Nuts. We were tired out after this excitement so our nect port of call was an internet cafe, or so it claimed to be. You could stay the night in this one in a reclining chair or sofa-bed thing, browse the manga library, watch dvds, play consoles and far more besides!

The following day was the hottest day of the year in Tokyo and we spent a lot of it wandering about getting sweaty! More culture came in the form of very impotant artworks like Buddhist statues and a special exhibition of some of the Japanese great painters and sculptors. We did not have time to see it all though as we were off to Hachioji to meet some punks.

We had a night out in Hachioji with Yoichi who runs Snuffy Smile, and mebers of Blotto, Browntrout, Your Pest Band and friends (whose names I can`t remember properly cos I`m rubbish at that). It was an awesome night and we exchanged some good lists of Japanese and UK punk bands for each other to check out. At the end of the night Murakami (I think!) took us back to his flat for us to sleep and him and his girlfriend made us deleicious food and sent us off on the right train and everything! They were so wonderful and we really are indebted to them, even if I can`t remember their names properly.

That was the end of Tokyo for us...

After three flights and some panicking in Rome airport we made it to Narita airport and began... an hour and a half train journey! After the initial bafflement by the train map we made it to Ebisu where Mark came to rescue us from jet lag and general confusion. We dumped our bags and headed round the corner to a delicious macrobiotic restaurant for some lunch (or breakfast? dinner? we weren`t really sure). Mark gave us a guided tour of the area to give us our bearings, and we went up the Ebisu Plaza Tower fro a view over Tokyo. Mark also made us very happy by figuring out how to work　the machine at Lawsons to buy our Ghibli Museum tickets! Exciting!

We had a kip back at the hotel before we went down to　the izakaya with Mark and some friends and even though we were knackered it was a really ace night and we can`t thank Mark enough.

Day two was spent walking round Tokyo exploring, which wasn`t the best idea really since it was bright sunshine and over 30 degrees! He headed to Harijuku, the crazy shopping district which is like and insane neon version of Camden, with everything piled on top of eveything else. We decided against a massive spree since we`d just have to lug everything we got all over Japan with us, but we did find some fun, and weird stuff.

We went for lunch in an amazing place called Pure Cafe with delicious soups, salads, a sandwich and vegan cheesecake and tiramesu! It was soooooooo good and we`ll definitely be going back on our return to Tokyo.
On our wanders after lunch we found what could be the most fun place ever; a massive toyshop called Kiddyland! It is huge, and filled with loads of crazy Japanese toys, and even an entire floor dedicated to Snoopy! Vix got some really cool Moomin bags but we were still limiting ourselves on the shopping front.

Dinner matched lunch in terms of delights at Brown Rice Cafe, where we sat in the courtyard and ate tasty miso soup, tofu pockets and tempeh and had a very relaxing time. After dinner we headed to Shibuya, which is to Piccadilly Circus what Harijuku is to Camden. We were still a bit too jetlagged to really enjoy it though and there was just too much neon for us to take so we called it a night. Our start in Japan was excellent, and we couldn`t wait for more!

(to be continued...)