A refined dining experience

There is a beauty to Tokyo that reminds me a little bit of Paris.  It isn't the same as Paris, but its like an echo.  It's an oriental Paris and certainly much cleaner, but there's definitely something about the way everything is set up that hints at it.  Every now and again as you walk, you'll even come across some buildings that look like they've been lifted out of one of the Arrondissements, cleaned, then dropped into Paris.  I don't think any of this was a mere coincidence either.  There's clearly an attempt to recreate some of the image of Paris within Tokyo.  From the buildings to the general style of the streets, the architects and designers in Tokyo have definitely got a city they are trying to emulate.  Hamish and I were walking around a bit before dinner and we found ourselves in a very posh suburb.  We were walking to the Tokyo Tower when I walked past a Dior flagship store.  It looked like a glass jewellery box, with lights shining out.  We stopped to admire the building and also asked how it was possible that such a building could ever pay for itself in sales of handbags?  Clearly things were going exceptionally well for Dior! 

We kept walking further up the hill until we reached Tokyo Tower.  The similarities to Paris were definitely growing!  We looked up at this Eiffel Tower lookalike and laughed a little bit.  It was much smaller, but all lit up and with the surrounding trees, it still looked beautiful.

From the top of the tower, we were able to walk around and see the Tokyo skyline.  It was a good view and vantage spot to look around, but the Park Hyatt probably still had a better view of everything (along with cocktails).

We walked down and started heading towards dinner.  We were meeting with the others at a restaurant called "Sushi Yuu".  We would be having a full omakase dinner, something I was very excited about.  I had never had an omakase dinner before and to be able to do one in Tokyo felt like a particularly special treat.  This restaurant has an impressive reputation as one of the top sushi restaurants in Japan.  Whilst it doesn't sit at the very top echelon of places like Jiro or Taku, Sushi Yuu is in the next level and still considered one of the great restaurants in Tokyo.  We were exceptionally lucky to be able to dine at this place as getting a booking is an incredibly difficult task.  Alvise had somehow managed to track down someone who had the contact details and who was able to make the booking on our behalf.

Inside the small and immaculately kept restaurant, we sat at the counter facing the chef with a small handful of other people.  He prepared everything in front of us and presented the food to us dish by dish.  We bowed to him and thanked him for every dish, asking his thoughts and opinions on how we should eat everything and his recommendations on what was best to drink and to accompany the food.  The chef started out formally with us, but as the meal went on he soon he smiled more.  He seemed to enjoy the interaction with us as well as the respect we were giving to him and his craft.  We gladly deferred to him in every aspect.  I asked him to decide exactly what to drink and when to drink with each course and he obliged my request, instructing me to start on beer, before telling me to stop completely halfway through one beer as it was time to move to the sake for the next courses.  I listened obediently and his instructions were completely correct.  The food did taste better as I changed my drinks.

One sequence of dishes was particularly memorable.  The chef presented us with four tuna nigiri, starting from the leanest cut of tuna and then with each proceeding piece given to us getting fattier until we reached the fattiest otoro.  I had never been able to compare these different cuts side by side, and when combined with the rice, I was able to appreciate all of the flavour to a degree I had never previously been able to.  It helped me to appreciate each piece all the more and I felt like my palette was being sharpened by each course that was being made for us.  We looked around at each other and I quipped to Hamish that I thought this was the best meal I had ever had the good fortune of eating.  He smiled and nodded his head in the laconic way that he does.  With more than half the meal to go, we were able to really lean into what we were being presented with.  We embraced all the more this experience we had been gifted knowing just how special it was.

By the end of the meal, I was completely full.  The sheer number of courses we had been given had left me satisfied, but I in no way regretted any of this overindulgence.  The chef was now in a jovial mood and laughing and joking with us.  He seemed to like our group a lot, chatting with us about our thoughts and what we liked about the dish.  Our active engagement was something he liked and clearly helped to stoke the pride he had in his craft (which was well deserved).  He told us to wait as he disappeared out back and then returned with a plate of orange jellies which had been set in some sliced orange peels and a large plastic jar.  The orange jellies were made by his mother and he wanted us to try some (no one else in the restaurant was given any) and then he started to pour us glasses of what turned out to be his home made umeshu from the plastic tub.  The orange jellies were intensely orange.  The citrus flavour stronger than any I've ever eaten.  It was sweet, but naturally so.  The umeshu was exceptionally tasty.  It tasted homemade.  It didn't have the clean and machined flavour of something which had been mass produced, but had more flavours floating around than I could have anticipated.  All of it was delicious and we thanked him for giving us this extra treat beyond the already otherworldly meal we had just experienced.

Seafood and imperial beauty

Alvise had convinced us all to wake up at a truly ungodly hour.  We all gathered at an agreed upon subway stop bleary eyed.  I grasped at my cup of coffee, trying to keep my eyes open.  Hamish looked tired, but Bene looked as cheerful as always.  Morning people are just the worst....

We had good reason to be up so early though.  Alvise had convinced us all to go and visit the famous Tsukiji markets.  These were world famous fish market that operated everyday in Tokyo.  This market wasn't a simple tourist market, but it was an actual working wholesale fish market.  The size of the place had turned it into a bit of a tourist attraction and people gathered from all around the world to look at its inner workings.  Given the intense interest in this place, there was a need for us to line up so that we could get in as the authorities had set it up so that tourists would only be allowed in after a certain time.

When we were able to get into the market itself, a lot of the most intense action had clearly already happened.  Many store owners were in the process of cleaning or tidying up for the rush of tourists who would be walking around their stalls.  Apparently those who want to see the real auctions happening have to start lining up for about 1am in the morning.  I wanted to see the market, but I definitely didn't want to be lining up to watch an auction from 1am in the morning.  It all made sense though.  This was a working market and there was business that needed to be done.  It seemed like a fair compromise for the gawkers like us to be kept at a distance until all the serious work was finished.

I was still glad to be in amongst the throng of tourists and stall owners.  It was a unique experience to see this market.  Even though I had seen plenty of markets over the years, including many within Asia, this market felt a bit unique.  It's size alone made it something different, but there was more to it than that.  Even with all of the activity and the people around, the market was quite clean.  The vendors kept their wares in order and most surprisingly of all, even though this was a gigantic seafood market there was no smell or odour to the place.

Outside of the wholesale market, there are retail markets where you can buy seafood, knickknacks and other random goods.  Alvise and Hamish admired the Japanese knives on offer.  I randomly started ordering seafood from the different grilling stores (all of it delicious), but we all wanted a bit more.  We were all cold from the early morning exploration, so we found the busiest looking ramen store.  There were huge lines and the ramen chefs had a long production line ready to prepare bowl after bowl of hot ramen.  We gathered up the bowls with our numb fingers and slurped them up at the benches to the side.

After our morning exploration of Tsukiji, we went our separate ways for the afternoon.  Alvise, Jackie and Bene were heading to Akihabara.  Hamish and I had already been there earlier, so we wanted to go to the Meiji Jingu.  We arranged to meet up again in the evening.  Hamish and I made our way over to the other side of town to the enormous park that is Meiji Jingu.

The park and the shrine inside are dedicated to Emperor Meiji, the great reformer who moved Japan out of the feudal age and into the modern era.  Like the other parks we had visited, this park was beautiful, but it had a different feel and style.  The colours were darker and more muted and it all felt much more elegant in its style.

Like the other parks, Meiji Jingu felt incredibly serene and peaceful.  Yet the darker atmosphere seemed to make everything feel much more serious.  There were no sakura here, and instead there just evergreens and dark canopies along with immaculately maintained gardens.  There was a reverent feeling to the whole place.  It made sense.  This was a place that was meant to honour and to an extent worship.  It wasn't a place for lighthearted fun with the family.

Near the outside of Meiji Jingu were huge rows of sake barrels.  The barrels are apparently donated every year to be used in the various ceremonies and events that occur here at the park and the shrine.  It seems to be one of the iconic images of Tokyo and everyone took their turns to take some photos.

The mixture of new and old in Tokyo is lovely.  It doesn't feel forced, but both complement the other and add to the Japanese style and culture which captivates so many.  I was quite sold on it all.  I definitely wanted to throw myself further into the depths of this country, to understand more about how it worked and what it had to offer. 

Tokyo

Tokyo isn't as "high" as I expected it to be.  I always thought that Tokyo was a bustling metropolis full of sky scrappers and intensely crowded.  The crowds are definitely in this city, but rather than being a tightly enclosed city of tall buildings, I found it to be a far more sprawling city.  It was more mid rises that dominated that landscape and it was actually much more open and spread out.  The streets were generally quite wide and there was plenty of sidewalk space for everyone.  All of this made the parks and the streets ideal for walking.  Hamish and I found various spots on the maps we wanted to go and off we wandered.  

All the parks were buzzing with people and activity.  We had come to Tokyo at an opportune time.  The weather was starting to turn, so it wasn't too cold anymore.  More importantly, the sakura (cherry blossoms) had started to blossom.  The whole city had seemingly transformed itself for the sakura viewing season, with outdoor food stands and small festival stalls throughout all of the parks.

Visually, it was a stunning time to be in Tokyo.  There sakura were beautiful and created an almost storybook or "magical" feeling in all of the parks.  With the lack of leaves and the sakura on all the trees, everything seemed so much brighter and more colourful.  I thought of many of the anime I had watched over the years and the style made much more sense now that I was here.  They often tried to capture a fairytale like image of Japan which seemed a bit ridiculous, but now that I was seeing it for myself it made a lot more sense and far less fantastical.

I got the same feeling walking around in the parks as I did around Christmas time back home.  This was the mood in the air and with all the people.  There were smiles everywhere and a mood of happiness abounded.  On all the of the grassy areas, there were sectioned off areas for people to do their picnics.  Groups of people sat around with their food and drinks, talking and laughing as they admired the incredible loveliness of the surroundings.

As it got darker, we decided to meet Bene for some drinks up at the New York Bar at the top of the Park Hyatt.  This bar was made famous by the movie "Lost in Translation" so we thought we would geek out a bit and embrace our inner tourists.  From the top, we got a truly stunning view of Tokyo, which showed us again that this city spreads out far into the distance but is actually relatively short.  We listened to some jazz and had some cocktails, before heading off again for some dinner.

Our next stop was dinner in Shibuya.  The busy streets were a far cry from the serene parks where we had spent our day.  The bright lights and the dense crowds were the complete opposite to the morning we had experienced.  This was the Tokyo that I had anticipated and expected before I had arrived.  The complete flurry of activity was exciting and exhilarating.  The lights and noise gave me a sensory overload and I couldn't stop looking around, trying to soak in as much as possible.

Not too far from here, we decided to end our evening with a few more drinks in the area known as Golden Gai.  Hundreds of tiny little bars and restaurants are jammed into a tiny little area, with each of them only holding a handful of people.  There was an incredible charm to the place, with each place having its own unique theme and giving an intensely intimate experience to both patrons and staff alike.  The narrow streets made the whole place feel like a miniature village, or a scaled down recreation of a larger bustling town.

Tokyo has so much to offer as a city.  It is an incredible place to visit and I never expected to see such a wide variety of things all in a single place, let alone in a single day!

Sports conducted in an orderly fashion

By sheer coincidence, I was in Japan for the opening weekend of their baseball season.

I'm not sure how I found out, but I wanted to go to a game.  This had long been on my "to do" list, and it helped that I like baseball.

I tried to buy some tickets online, but all the systems were completely unhelpful.  Instead I went directly to the stadium on game day and tried to find some tickets.  Even that was a exercise in patience as all I found was ticket booth after ticket booth that was closed.  It didn't seem like it would be happening.  Finally, I got to the very last ticket booth and found that it was indeed open.  All that was left were some standing room tickets.

They were cheap, so that was fine by me.

I was lucky.  I was watching opening day between the Yomiuri Giants (the Yankees of Japanese baseball) and the Yakult Swallows.  It was a completely full stadium, but I still found myself a nice spot to stand along the 3rd base line.

The cleanliness of the stadium was nothing I had ever seen before.  I had been to a hockey game in Switzerland, but this was even cleaner.  The convenience of everything was also incredible as the stadium had girls with beer kegs on their backs who would bring the beers directly to you.  I thought about whether this was something which could be done in Australia, but then thought the better of it.  This would be a terrible idea in Australia!

The best part of whole experience was the fans.

The Japanese fans are the classiest fans I have ever had the pleasure of attending any sporting event with.  Standing in my spot watching the game, I was surrounded by others who also clearly only had standing room tickets.  After a while, there were probably a few rows deep of people watching the game.  Around the 7th inning, I needed to go to the bathroom so I politely moved away from my perfect spot at the front to go to use the facilities.  Too bad I've lost the spot I thought.  After finishing my business, I made my way back to the general area to keep watching the game and I was confronted by something truly shocking.... the other fans had saved my spot.  As they saw me coming, they even all opened up a path so that I could walk back to the exact same spot I had been standing in!

The Giants got ahead quickly.  As home runs were hit, the crowd roared and began to do seemingly choreographed chants and dances (in their seats of course).  Scarves waved in the air at the precise moment of the chants.  It was a special thing to see, this crowd all moving and cheering in unison.  On the other side of the stadium, the fans for the Yakult Swallows danced and played their musical instruments.  I've been lucky to go to a few sporting events around the world, but for the atmosphere this was definitely one of the best places I had been.

Classical Japan

After a restful night in the capsule hotel, I went next door to have a look at Hie Temple.  It was a short walk over and I was surprised by how clean everything was.  It really was all just so... clean.  This went beyond the lack of clutter and garbage on the streets as well.  Up at the temple itself, the best way to describe the style of everything was also "clean".  There was polished concrete everywhere and the temple itself (it looked like a recreation) was built flawlessly.

It was all lovely to look at, and I felt like this was a good place to be as a tourist to soak in some traditional style Japanese architecture.  It reminded me a bit of Nan Lian gardens, which made sense given the close connection between traditional Japanese style and the Tang dynasty in China.  I walked around a bit and admired the gardens and the manicured little plants before deciding it was time to go.

I went back to the capsule hotel to grab my things before I went to the airbnb I had booked.  The place was on the other side of the city, and so I caught the subway over.  The trains and the stations were a bit older than I expected, but still all immaculately maintained.  There was still a strong "90s" feel to everything though and it was clear that a lot of the infrastructure probably needed a bit of an upgrade.  When I arrived at the airbnb, the host kindly showed me up to my room.  I asked him whether there was anywhere nearby where I could get lunch.  He looked down in contemplation for a moment and then exclaimed yes!  There was a local restaurant that had just featured on a TV show recently and it was just around the corner.  He took me down and then said his goodbyes.  I wasn't expecting too much from this simple little neighbourhood restaurant, but what I got was one of the tastiest chicken dishes I have ever had.  When I was seated, a kind looking man came and gave me an English menu.  I chose the dish which everyone around me had.  After a short wait, a tray was brought to me with a simply, but carefully arranged meal.  The bowl was filled with rice, egg and grilled chicken.  The egg and chicken was separately cooked, does that mean it's not an Oyakodon?  Or does it mean that it's just a different type of Oyakodon?  Whatever the actual name, it was delicious.  The eggs were smooth and intensely eggy in flavour.  The chicken has been grilled to the boundary between being just charred and still being only just cooked.  The balance of the smokey flavour with the sweet and juicy chicken was ideal.

As I left the restaurant, still amazed by what I had eaten, the old man (who I'm assuming was the owner) came over quickly to me and asked me in his broken English if I enjoyed my meal.  He wasn't being just polite, he clearly wanted to know what I thought.  I tried to explain back in a combination of terrible Japanese and English just how much I enjoyed the meal and how delicious I thought it was.  The man smiled broadly and gave me a deep bow, clearly pleased that I was pleased.  It was all very impressive.  This was just a neighbourhood restaurant, but the level of care and attention to detail was something I would never have expected.  To this man, getting his dish right for his customers was so important.  It was something sorely lacking from the local places I had been in Hong Kong.

Flaming dinner

I was excited about this trip!  This was the first real trip out of Hong Kong (which wasn't just a quick trip back home to visit family).  Early one morning, I headed out to the airport, dashed through immigration and before long I was on the plane.  The process of getting through the airport in Hong Kong is incredibly efficient and there were almost no delays at any stage.  Sitting on the plane and looking out, it felt like I was finally achieving some of the goals I had set myself.

I arrived at Narita airport and made my way into the city.  Sitting on the long bus ride into the city, I pressed my face up to the glass of the windows and gawked at the growing skyline.  I switched over to the subway and eventually found myself at the capsule hotel I was staying at for the night.  I didn't stay long as I was hungry.  I dropped off my things and headed straight for a restaurant which had been recommended to me by a friend.  I walked in not expecting too much, but found myself confronted by an incredible open grill.  The specialties of the restaurant were all cooked on an open hay fed fire which gave all the food a smokey "hay" flavour.

This was Japan and all the stories about the meticulous nature of their culture was stuff of legend.  Yet clearly it was not without truth.  The plates that were brought out to me were all plated with care and thought.  There was no haphazard or rushed job involved and everything was beautiful to look at.

Feeling satisfied, but tired, I went back to the hotel.  It was a capsule hotel, a type of accommodation I had wanted to try for a long time.  The halls inside were silent, even though it seemed like the hotel was relatively full.  Each of the rooms were filled with bags and shoes, but no noise.  Occasionally there was a cough or a shuffle, but that was it.  Being inside the capsule itself was a strange feeling.  It was bigger than I expected, but rather than being the cosy affair I had expected I was instead surprised by how echoey it was.  Every shuffle, every movement I made, I could hear the sound magnified.  Even my breathing sounded louder.

I slept well through the night, tired from the trip, but looking forward to exploring this new country.

Contrasting religions

I've been to Nan Lian Gardens several times before when I visited Hong Kong in the past.  It's a beautiful part of Hong Kong and worth the trip out from island.  Since I had now moved to Hong Kong, it seemed like a good time to visit again.

My friend Bene was new to Hong Kong and she also wanted to see more sights around the city as well.  On a cloudy day, we took the MTR out to visit.  As always, it was calm and peaceful.  There were definitely more people than I remembered from past visits, but it was still a tranquil oasis in an otherwise busy city.

We were only one MTR stop away from Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, so we decided to stop there to have a look on our way back.  The contrast couldn't have been more dramatic.  Whereas Nan Lian is a quiet place for personal contemplating, Wong Tai Sin is a chaotic place full of noise and people.  Everywhere you turn, your senses are confronted.  People talk loudly, there is the constant rattle of the fortune telling kau chim sticks and incense wafts through the air. 

Even the colours of the place are a dramatic change.  There are bright yellows and reds everywhere in comparison to the muted greys of Nan Lian.  The atmosphere of the two places could be a world apart even though they are only separated by a single MTR stop.

I don't think many people get to see such a huge contrast in what traditional Chinese culture can be.  Personally, I prefer the understated elegance of Nan Lian far more than the bright colours of Wong Tai Sin, but I guess it's all just a matter of taste.