Tokyo
The gardens are so serene and calming. If you can come during the cherry blossom season you will never see anything with such beauty! Everywhere you look takes your breath away.
I was not prepared for how beautiful Japan would be during cherry blossom time. I was not prepared for how kind the Japanese people would be. I was not prepared to fall in love with this country.
Japan was never really on my bucket list till now. We never really liked Japanese food yet we eat shashime or raw fish for breakfast. Not really something I want at 8 am but you can find something to tolerate, sometimes it was french fries and fruit and white miso soup. I was also surprised by how much I like chrysanthemums tempura and their pickles. I fell in love with dried seaweed on my rice and really like sake or plum wine.
I was surprised at the lack of smokers. Non of our hotels smelled like smoke. Very rarely did we even see a smoker. Occasionally you might see someone smoking in restaurant. Smoking was very rare!
All hotels offer you toothpaste, toothbrush, hair brush, shavers, Q tips and small scrunchies. Plus the normal soap ,shampoo, conditioner, face cream and more. I never used my toothbrush from home.
First impressions of Japan
HEATED TOILETS,
The Japanese love to heat their butts! Some of the trains even have heated seats. Not only that but you can have the spray hit your bum area or use the bidet for women’s area. There is a computer on the sides of all toilets. after 14 hours on the plane to Tokyo we land and I use the toilet in airport. Quite a surprise when you sit down. Very nice though.
There are so many controls that they have to actually write in English the word Flush because I have no idea what all the buttons are used for. One is for sounds of chirping birds or music. That is in case you are going to make any noise. One button is for a bidet effect, one button is for a bidet effect on the bum area, and one button adjusts the heat on the seat.
There are signs all over like below:
This was in a public restroom.
2. NO TRASH at all and no trash cans. Japanese people take their trash home. We never even saw a cigarette butt on the street. Mark watched a street cleaner try to pick up a crumb of the street. They removed all public trash cans for fear of terrorized.
3. SURGICAL MASK. 1 out of every 8 people is wearing a face mask. They a do this for several reasons. Some have allergy, some because they are afraid of getting sick, and some because they are shy. This would have been great if you were a teenager and you had a pimple on your nose.
4. CHERRY BLOSSOMS!
Unbelievably beautiful! Nature’s heaven on earth.
5. KINDNESS!
Ask a Japanese person for directions and they will stop and walk with you to your location. We could not find our Korean Barbeque restaurant. So we stopped at a restaurant near where we though our restaurant was located and the owner walked us over to our little restaurant.
6. THE SOUNDS
The voices, the accents the bells, flutes and drums. The high pitch of the voice on the elevator. All the instructions from police on loud speakers, usually just telling you to watch out for cars.
7. THE FOOD
Really most of the time I have no idea what I am eating. I found I like the hot pots which is where you get a bowl on a heater and they mix chicken and cabbage and onions and other vegetables and cook it for about 5 min.
Later we meet up with a friend of the family and she orders all kinds of things off the menu. One dish something kept moving. It sort of looks like a thin wide potato chip and it waves at you. Supposedly it is dehydrated seaweed?
I found out I really like eating lotus flowers and white miso soup. I also liked all of their pickles. Loved them- even the pink ones.
8. The bullet trains and how to use them– see my other post on how to use the trains.
9. THE LACK OF BANKS! I have never been to a country where you do not see big banks. all banking seems to be done in 7-11 atms? very odd for such a huge country.
10. THE STATUES ARE MASSIVE, and look so frightening! This is a poet?
