Japan
Tokyo

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    • Day 1

      Day 2

      April 29 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      Another long day as out for 12 hours with a lot of walking (23k steps!). Left the hotel at around 10am as slept through an alarm because of jet lag. Had some nice Japanese pattiseries for breakfast although mine had crème cheese and custard mixed which was a bit weird. We then headed into Tokyo centre which is around a 30 min metro ride from our local station! We had booked the open top city bus tour and spent an hour and a half touring Tokyo. Luckily was a nice day so nice to sit out in shorts on the bus and learn some history. After we walked 30 mins or so to the famous Tsujiki fish market to see some of the stalls! As we were on our way we spotted a big queue of locals going into a ramen restaurant (usually a sign for good food) so we stopped for lunch there and had a nice bowl of hearty ramen pictured below! They make it all in front of you as you sit around the kitchen on stools at a bar with all Japanese sitting in silence slurping away! Luckily they give you big apron as as it’s good manners to slurp in Japan the broth from the ramen goes everywhere! We both had a nice Japanese beer and are working through them. After we went to the market and looked over all the crazy things they were serving we walked just over 2 hours to Tokyo tower pictured below. On route Sinéad stopped by Uniqlo (one just opened in Edinburgh too) and bought some clothes. We had pre booked a tour up the tower but it was very busy still! Lift takes you up at 600 metres a minute. Amazing views from the top though which makes you realise just how big the city is (32 million people making it the biggest city on earth) those were the same views all 360 degrees round! After the tower we went back to a restaurant we had passed and had some fried pork cutlets with rice miso soup and pickles, was tasty and cheap! With 2 glasses of wine each it and food it came to £20. After we had to get 2 trains home which took about an hour and Sinead was nodding off every few mins because of our walk and jet lag combo! Now back in the hotel for an early ish night as long day again tomorrow!Read more

    • Day 3

      Day 3

      May 1 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

      Long day again as just back after being out for 13 hours! Left at 9.30ish and had a nice breakfast at a bakery next door with egg, bacon bread and some miso soup! We then set off to see an amazing digital art show called ‘borderless’ which we had booked. It was a massive centre filled with rooms that were covered in mirrors and lights! Each room had art that moved and changed and had different scents, very cool experience.

      After we had toured each room and spent a good hour or so in there we had a browse around the local mall which was very posh and clean. The food there was amazing and had been arranged orderly and perfect. The fruit was some of the biggest juiciest non blemished fruit I’ve seen. I had the strawberries and they were amazing! Sinead got an Apple the size of a small football! Imagine Harvey Nichols on steroids with all the Japanese responsible for a section each and working like a well oiled machine. We can’t get over how well dressed everyone is here. It’s like being in a fashion shoot with all the designer clothes.

      We then walked around an hour or so to the imperial palace and the weather got nice and sunny. We walked the grounds with their weird shaped trees and I took lots of pics of the amazing nature mixed with the temple buildings and office skyscrapers. From my very brief stint in my failed sustainable urban management course I could really tell just how well the Japanese landscape architect. Everything has some sort of immaculately groomed greenery on it!

      After the palace we walked another hour to the stadium of Tokyo giants baseball game where we saw a great but very long derby game with the Tokyo giants against the Swallows! We were right up in the rafters with a great view so happy to see that! Both got hotdogs with mustard and ketchup and got a beer from the poor girls that run up and down the stairs with a keg of beer strapped to their backs! Sinead cheered on the other team and hers sadly won but it was a close game with a few home runs and lasted over 3.5 hours….

      After the game we left with 30,000 people although the Japanese were great and every single person left at the same time orderly all taking with them all of their rubbish to the bins inside before they left in a line down the stairs! We got the metro back to our zone Shinjuku and had what I think was our best meal yet. We shared some dumplings and gyoza with some kimchi, chicken and beef stir fry! I had something called a ginger highball to drink which was really refreshing. Another 20k+ steps done and now 1am with an early start Tommorow!
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    • Day 3

      Découverte de la ville de Tokyo

      April 27 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      Ce matin au programme c'est la visite de Tokyo. Pour commencer nous sommes montés au 45e étage (243m d'altitude) de la mairie de Tokyo, à Shinjuku pour observer la ville à 360°.
      Puis nous sommes allés dans un parc où il y avait le temple Meiji-jingū.Read more

    • Day 3

      Day 4

      May 1 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

      Slight change of plan today as we had originally booked to go to Tokyo Disney Sea but unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse and the rain started early and lasted all day with heavy downpours! Instead we changed our time for Disney and are going tommrow instead. Luckily the rain is only for one day and we are back to mine weather!

      As it was rainy we decided to go to a Japanese shopping outlet to get some designer clothes cheap! We took the metro early and were right in amongst the Japanese work craze! The metro was rammed and we were crammed on like sardines. I tried to capture what it was like but everyone in Japanese metro looks at the floor on silence as no one dares make eye contact and you could hear a pin drop! Not one person chats.

      We took the metro then train for 30
      Mins and both did some shopping. Normally it’s something I hate but I braved going to Levi’s store and got chatting with a young Japanese worker there who had studied a year in Ireland. He told me about their promotion and I ended buying 3 pairs of Levi’s jeans (light blue, navy and black jeans) all for a combined 13,000 yen which is just £70! got a nice shirt from banana republic cheap too and without tax due to the passport! Sinéad got a great Michael Kors bag 75% off! After a long day of shoping we had coffee and food in the mall and headed back as we were a bit wet from getting caught in the rain! Luckily I’m Japan get package your paper bags with plastic covers!

      More rain and we dropped our bags off at the hotel then set out to go to the famous pokemon cafe in Tokyo centre! (Japan created pokemon) unfortunately when we arrived we found out you needed to book in advance and the next 30 days were sold out! However there was a queue for cancellations so we waited in that and we’re lucky to be told we had sometime drop out so come back in an hour! We came back and both had a Gengar (a ghost Pokémon) themed smoothie and enjoyed the pokemon cafe! Was a big nuts but cool too relive some of my childhood playing Pokémon!

      After the cafe we tried to get into a few places (still need to have some sushi and Sinéad wants udon noodles) everything in Tokyo was packed so we were forced to go to a burger place ! Was decent burger and I love the drink I keep ordering (ginger highball ) it’s basically ginger ale and whiskey with lime! Sinead says it’s a copy Jameson ginger ale lime! But delicious! Sinead found a small metal thing on her burger so they have us the drinks on the house!

      After the burger and getting caught in more rain we went to an underground sherry bar in Shinjuku! I went for Japanese whiskey mixed with Pedro Ximenez and bitters! It had a huge Diamond piece ice cube which they carved up with knifes and was delicious! Up very early tomorrow so an early night (12.30am has become early night for us!)
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    • Day 5

      Day 5

      May 3 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

      Day 5 started with an early rise! Up at 6.15am as we had to get into Disneyland early as we had heard the queues were crazy! We had a mad rush across Tokyo metro to get to our train on time! Tokyo metro is like a whole city underground, in the morning it’s jam packed and you have to weave in and out of people coming from every direction!

      When we got to our stop (45 mins away) we had to get the Disney Monorail! We had tickets to the sea world rather than the main park as didn’t want to deal with the queues! Despite this there was already thousands of people queuing before it opened at 9am so we queued for an hour or so (luckily in the sun) to get in! Thank god we went today and not yesterday!

      Each ride took about 45-hour of queuing which I was told was not bad to my amazement! The feet are in absolute bits today after 4 days straight of 20k steps and standing on my feet all day! Each section of the park had a different rollercoaster theme and country theme! We went to Italy, USA, morroco which I’ve included above! Also the Japanese are great for not inflating prices at tourist spots! Lunch was about £3/4 which would be £50 in the UK!

      We left after getting tired at 4pm! Train back to Tokyo central and then headed across to Shibiyu to see the famous crossing and go to the sky bar we had booked! We nipped into pick up our JR rail pass before so (we’d be travelling on bullet trains next week) Crossing was amazing with people coming from 8 different ways! We tried it ourselves. After this we went up to the skybar to see the view, it involved another queue so the feet were done at this point. More great views from the top and then search for dinner.

      We settled on a Japanese place and had some Korean noodles and a funny frittata like thing! There’s no English on the menus and no body speaks a word so it’s just pot luck half the time! Was delicious though, and got some Japanese beer with it. Metro stop back and it was an early night. Off to Kyoto in the morning via bullet train.
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    • Day 18

      Yakiniku: tabehoudai / nomihoudai

      May 31, 2022 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

      🇨🇵
      Post surprise, car j'avais un peu de temps libre aujourd'hui après les cours !

      On va uniquement parler bouffe, et plus précisément de Yakiniku 🥓🥩🥲

      Le mot Yakiniku est composé de deux mots japonais: yaku (焼く) qui signifie cuire et niku (肉) qui signifie viande.

      Avec ça je pense que vous avez compris: on cuit de la viande sur une grille, un peu à la manière d'un barbecue, même si ici on a tendance à cuire des petites portions ou de fines tranches.

      Avec des élèves de ma classe nous avons choisi un restaurant de Yakiniku à Shinjuku pour fêter la réussite de notre examen. Et oui, après seulement une semaine de cours, j'ai eu droit à l'examen de 4 heures de fin de cycle ! 😱 Heureusement j'avais déjà en tête une partie du programme, mais j'ai bossé la veille jusqu'à 4h30 AM pour mettre toutes les chances de mon côté.

      Nous avons choisi un restaurant proposant des formules tabehoudai (食べ放題) et nomihoudai (飲み放題) qui signifient respectivement manger et boire à volonté, en général durant un temps imparti. Je peux vous dire qu'on a bien profité 😁

      Le choix de ce que l'on peut cuire dans un Yakiniku est très vaste: de nombreux morceaux de boeuf, porc, poulet, des abats, mais également quelques à côté (oignons, champignons, carottes). On y trouve par contre rarement du poisson (je n'en ai pas vu dans notre restaurant)

      En sauce, on a généralement de la sauce soja, ou bien une sauce qui utilise la sauce soja comme base.

      La partie nomihoudai est pratique pour tester des soda ou boissons alcoolisées mais sachez qu'en général la qualité n'est pas au rendez-vous.

      Si vous avez l'occasion de (re)venir au Japon, je vous recommande vivement le Yakiniku. En plus d'être délicieux, c'est une manière de manger très conviviale qui permet de discuter tout en cuisinant, à condition de surveiller la grille lorsqu'elle prend feu (comme sur la dernière photo 🔥👹)

      Bye bye !

      🇬🇧
      Surprise post, as I had some free time today after school !

      We will talk exclusively about food, and more precisely about Yakiniku 🥓🥩🥲

      The word Yakiniku is made up of two japanese words: yaku (焼く) to cook and niku (肉) meat.

      With that in mind you can figure it out by yourself: you cook meat on a grill, similar to barbecue but with much smaller portions or thin slices of meat.

      With some students of my class, we aimed at a Yakiniku restaurant in Shinjuku to celebrate the success at the exam. Believe it or not, I went through a 4h final exam for this cycle after only one week of school! 😱 Fortunately I already had some knowledge about the program, but I studied the day before the exam until 4:30AM in order to be ready.

      We chose a restaurant with tabehoudai (食べ放題) and nomihoudai formulas, which respectively means "all you can eat" / "all you can drink", usually during a certain amount of time. Indeed, we ate a lot 😁

      You can choose from a wide range of porc, beef, and chicken meats as well as offals and side dishes (onions, mushrooms, carots). But it is quite rare to find any fish (I didn't see any here)

      As sauce, you usually use soy sauce alone, or a sauce that uses soy sauce as a base.

      The nomihoudai is convenient to test sodas and alcoholic drinks, but be aware that in general this kind of formula include only low quality drinks.

      If you have the opportunity to come (back) to Japan, I highly recommand testing a Yakiniku restaurant. It is very tasty and this way of eating is really good to enjoy conversations while cooking and sharing dishes. Just keep an eye on the grill to avoid burnt meat or fire (as in the last picture🔥👹)

      Bye bye !
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    • Day 43

      Golden gai night out

      January 10, 2023 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 4 °C

      I wasn't going to head out as was still a little tired and hungover from the night before but I popped down for a hair of the dog and there was another Pakistani Kiwi Eman with an American brother and sister team Matt and Molly, who wanted to see golden gai so we headed out for a quick dinner and drink.
      We went through the red light district first and everyone felt a little hungry so I tried to find a place. Google said there was one down a dark alley which they were all apprehensive about but I figured why not and was glad once we found the place. It was a kishiage place which had everything fried on a stick. I got an omakase option which gave me shrimp, octopus, baby corn, rice, cheese and pork.
      I ordered myself a large beer and that was a little larger than I expected but went down well.
      We then continued on to golden gai and popped into the first one that looked interesting. It was tiny with very little room to move but we sat at the bar with chandeliers and ordered a few drinks. They had a chilli gin which we shoted but it wasn't that hot.
      We then went onto another bar around the corner who originally said there was no room but allowed us the above bar room. It had very little headspace but we crammed in there for a few more drinks.
      It was funny when someone needed to go to the toilet though as that was behind all the finnish people.
      Some indian Canadian people showed up and joined for a few drinks.
      We then had to taxi back towards the cabin hotel as the trains had stopped at that time and they all felt a little hungry so we grabbed some ramen from ichiramen. Was a cool experience that you didn't really see the kitchen or wait staff and they just lifted the curtains to pass you food.
      Another 3am night so I went home and crashed.
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    • Day 3

      Das erste Mal Ramen

      August 9, 2023 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 30 °C

      Heute Mittag waren wir das erste Mal Ramen essen bei der bekannten Kette „Ichiran“. Man wählt erst auf dem Automaten, was man haben möchte, bezahlt mit Bargeld (Cash is king in Japan) und bekommt ein kleines Ticket pro Gericht. Dann geht man in einen Raum mit vielen kleinen „Bar- Kammern“, bei denen auf der anderen Seite die Mitarbeiter stehen und füllt das Formular auf dem zweiten Bild aus. Das wird von einem Mitarbeiter genommen (und wir hätten noch die Karten auf dem dritten Foto nutzen können 😅) und wenige Minuten später stehen dann die super leckeren Ramen vor einem🍜Read more

    • Day 57

      Walking around Tokyo in the rain

      March 26 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

      Visiting temples. gardens and Tokyo Museum today. Including Meiji-jingu temple. Rained all day 😂. A bit different from New Zealand weatherwise. Cherry blossom beginning to appear. Beautiful. Also visited ‘piss alley’ a very narrow street renowned for its bars and street food.Read more

    • Day 6

      4. Tag in Tokyo

      May 4 in Japan ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

      Heute haben wir lernen durch Schmerzen auf eine neue Spitze getrieben und sind 22km durch Tokyo marschiert.
      Einmal quer durch den kaiserlichen Palastgarten, dann durch den Hibiya Park, die Takeshita Straße, zum Meiji Schrein und dann Verschnaufpause im Yoyogi Park.

      Kann ich alles uneingeschränkt empfehlen, vor allem der Palastgarten ist ein Muss für Hobbybotaniker, da dort hunderte Arten hin verpflanzt wurden. Auch die speziell gezüchteten Karpfen sind einen Blick wert.

      Der Meiji Schrein weiß allein schon mit dem größten Torii Japans aus taiwanesischer Zypresse zu beeindrucken und es gibt dort immer mal wieder Aufführungen in traditioneller Kleidung.
      Es gibt am Meiji Schrein auch zwei hundertjährige Kampferbäume welche mit einem Band verknüpft sind um eine glückliche Heirat und ein harmonisches Leben zu symbolisieren.

      Zuletzt waren wir dann, auf Wunsch einer einzelnen Person, in Shibuya um uns eine vielbegangene Kreuzung und eine Hundestatue anzuschauen.

      Such busy
      Wow

      Abends sind wir dann einmal durch die Akihabara flaniert um etwas essbares zufinden und haben die guten Ramenbedingungen genutzt.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Tokyo, Tokio, طوكيو, ܛܘܟܝܘ, Токио, Tòquio, Τόκιο, Tōkyō, توکیو, Toquio - 東京, טוקיו, टोक्यो, Tokió, Տոկիո, TYO, Tókýó, 東京, ტოკიო, 도쿄, Tocio, Tokijas, Tokija, Tóquio, Tochiu, டோக்கியோ, โตเกียว, توكيو, Токіо, 东京

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