Ep 8 Sightseeing in Tokyo

Eric-the-guide-Blog ushered our group on to a coach with 30 seats for our whistle-stop tour of Tokyo. Nothing strange there...except that there were only four us. (It turned out 10 other folks changed their mind at the last minute and decided not to join us)

Mr and Mrs Blog began a game of "not sitting in the same seat twice every time we got on the coach" that day.

Here is what we learned...

• Emperor Meiji died in 1912 having lived in Tokyo
• They took his body to rest in Kyoto the old capital of Japan (450 km away)
• It was decided that 450 km was a long way away, too far to visit if you lived in Tokyo
• 170 acres of Tokyo were planted with trees to create a shrine to Emperor Meiji to save on the travelling
• With invasive species added to the mix there are over 100,000 different plants in the shrine
• Emperor Meiji would have got on with Mr Blog because he really enjoyed Sake and fine French wine. To remind visitors of this, there are hundreds of sake casks and wine barrels at the shrine
• Shinto shrines have a big wooden gate at the entrance (12m by 9m in this case) which you musn't walk through*
• Big wooden gates attract lightning
• The Japanese know a thing or two about lightning
• Next to the gate was a lightning conductor disguised as a piece of bamboo**
• The Japanese like the Meiji shrine***

Photos will follow :-)

*The gate is for the gods to walk through, not mere mortals

**The Japanese take great care to make sure there are no jarring sights or sounds in what they build (Even nail heads in a wooden house will be covered with a decorative piece of iron)

***The shrine attracts 10 million visitors a year. 3 million of them visit between 1st and 3rd January queuing for up to three hours to get in)

Blog Adventure Ep 7

Japan has long had a reputation for technological innovation. Bullet trains, robots and Atari Space-Invader machines for pubs.  

Very early on on the blog adventure it became clear the PR machine of Japanese tech has failed to adequately promote its best invention yet. 

The "Beer-pouring-machine"!

Quicker, better, more fun and easier to talk to than a barman.

(Video make take a while to load)

Blog Adventure Ep 6

With a population of 130 million people the Japanese government must have its hands full even on a good day. Food, defence, economic issues, international trade, law and order...

It was a surprise to find out that one of the pressing problems facing Prime Minister Ishiba and his government is that of surnames. Japan doesn't have enough of them! 

Guardian readers will already know what Mr and Mrs Blog found out on their recent adventure. By 2531 everyone in Japan will have the same surname, Sato. It seems that this is a genuine problem, (although more than a few Japanese thought it was an April Fools prank). 

Concerns have been raised that, without radical change, people will have to be known by their first names and/or a number. There are apparently a handful of dominant surnames in Japan including Tanaka (which means someone who lives by a field), Suzuki (Bell, tree) and Watanabe (Boundary) and Mr Blog's favourite Sato, (Village, home, wisteria or help)

With this dominance set to increase until the Sato's take over the country, the government is considering allowing women to retain their maiden names on passports and driving licences. 

Blog Adventure Ep 5

There were no diet programmes on the flight to Japan so 2-stone-heavier Mr Blog led Mrs Blog slowly through Narita airport.

Having read up a bit we were looking forward to new and strange foods, cultural differences, ancient traditions, a new alphabet and much, much more.

Food in Japan is a bit different to the food in Scotland. 

Mr Blog has always been a fussy eater. The late Nana-Blog found this out when she poisoned a perfectly good apple pie by putting blackberries in it. A battle of wills ensued with Nana-Blog insisting that (the then five year old) Master-Blog would eat the uneaten slice of pie for his breakfast or his lunch or his next dinner. She lost. 

The first Blog meal in Japan was in a restaurant on the 44th floor of an office block looking over the skyline. Beers and wines were brought and all looked good for our "Hokkaido style meal". The first plate arrived and our guide told us we were looking at raw shredded octopus, raw scallop, raw salmon and raw tuna. Mr Blog wondered if he would be threatened by a sumo-sized chef if he refused to eat it. Forced to starve or give in. With my extra two stone I figured I could hold out a couple of weeks.

Be it the charm of the people, the volume of the beer or the thought of the cost of the holiday... Mr Blog picked up his chopsticks. 

It seems that if you dab a tiny amount of wasabi on raw fish then dip it in soy sauce it does something...quite amazing.

Mr Blog has joined the Japanese Food Culture Association as their UK representative.

(Nana-Blog never ate raw fish)

Blog Adventure 4 (Photos 1)

 

Webpage from "Ho Lee Fook" 

Man Mo Temple

Former HK Police (Parade Ground and Offices)

Former HK Police Barracks

Hong Kong Harbour from Kowloon

Blogs Adventure Ep3

The flight from Hong Kong to Japan was 9.15 am and we needed to be at the airport 3 hours early (to make sure we didn't miss the flight).

The airport was 28 mins away meaning a taxi could pick us up at 5.45 and get us there in time. So the holiday company booked one for us at 5.00 am. (to make sure we didn't miss the flight). 

We had a private transfer organised because relying on the local fellas would mean I'd have been writing this blog from the hotel foyer a month after we started flagging one down.

The hotel were very concerned that we might starve to death in the 28 mins it took to get to the airport so they gave us a "Breakfast Box" filled with all sorts of things Brits don't eat until lunchtime. (And one or two things Brits wouldn't eat any time of the day).

Given our experience with taxis so far we did wonder if the taxi would actually turn up. He did. At 4.30 in the morning. (to make sure we didn't miss the flight). It was a good job that Mrs Blog set the alarm 45 mins earlier than I would have done or we might have kept him waiting.

We nodded our farewell to the place, filled with memories of taxis, the Harbour, Man Mo Temple thick with heady incense, HK Police parade ground where Grandpa-blog would have paraded and the old streets filled with stalls selling lucky red charms. (Photos in next post)

When we arrived at the airport we had a nice long wait for the check-in desk to open. Checked in, we headed to the airline lounge where we grabbed a second breakfast (in case we starved in the few hours before boarding) 

Flight called, we duly boarded. Given the timing of the flight, landing early afternoon in Japan, I hoped for a light lunch. However it seems there is more than a little hobbit DNA in our far eastern cousins because we got another breakfast five minutes after take off.

Mr Blog spent the journey looking for lifestyle progammes on how to lose 2 stone in 3 hours. 

Blog's Adventure Ep 2

Hong Kong food/drink can be a bit strange.

Having sat in a coffee shop that ranked No1 in the WHO "dirtiest coffee shops in the world" we discovered a shop in Kowloon proudly promoting...

"Meat Floss Croissant"

In Cantonese it is known as Sum Yuk.

The Blogs passed up the opportunity. 

Later in the Botanical Gardens we stopped for a snack. The cafe folks said they could do a ham and cheese sandwich, just the sort of food we felt we could trust! Mr Blog waited for the order and watched bemused as the chef made the sandwich and then stir-fried it in a wok until it was luke warm. The chef looked very happy so we just ate it without further comment.

According to Tripadvisor one of the top restaurants to visit is Ho Lee Fook. Given our food experiences so far we decided to check out the website first. The landing page boasts...

"Cantonese and proud of it, the tone is an opulent night out, faint memories of wild nights out in Hong Kong, the smell is just as familiar as Mom's dumplings"

The Blogs passed up the opportunity.

Dinner found the Blogs retreating to western food (in our defence it was the nearest place to the hotel and we were flagging). 

"Pizza Express" in Kowloon needs to change its name to "Pizza sometime before we close". It also needs to get the Michelin inspectors round because anywhere that charges £78 for two ham and cheese pizzas ought to be thinking about how many stars they're aiming for.

Thankfully the food, like the taxis, got better when we made it to Japan 

PS Pizza Express Kowloon doesn't have any Michelin stars

The Blogs adventure Ep1

It's been a while since Mr Blog put finger to keyboard, but following a public outpouring (i.e. a suggestion from one nephew blog) it returns for a limited period.

The suggestion was made because Mr and Mrs Blog took a trip to Hong Kong and Japan. (It was a slightly delayed honeymoon which should have happened 36 years earlier). Nephew-blog thought such a trip might be full of classic "blog material". He was correct.

The plan is for a series of posts to cover the Blog-Adventure. Here goes...

Hong Kong has taxis in three colours - Red for urban, Green for New Territories and Blue for Lantau (although there aren't many of them because there isnt much in Lanrau that isn't an airport).

Usually when you think of taking a taxi in a foreign country you have three main concerns,

1. Will the taxi driver take cards or just cash?
2. Will the taxi driver speak English?
3. Will I be able to use Google translate if the driver doesn't speak English?

Not in Hong Kong. There, you face a new and unexpected addition

      4. Will the taxi driver want to have me in his taxi?

In fact, this should be your primary concern because the other three are largely irrevelant if you don't resolve it. Mr and Mrs Blog, on one occasion, standing at a recognised taxi stand, took six goes to convince a taxi driver to take us. The first five were pretty grumpy, and it seems that asking them to take you on a journey to where you want to go is quite offensive. 

On another occasion we flagged a taxi down and got in. After a few minutes of asking to be taken to a restaurant (for which we showed the address in Cantonese) we discovered that this is truly unacceptable to a taxi driver in Kowloon. So not wanting to cause a diplomatic incident we walked the two miles to the restaurant.

You might think this was a specific problem only faced by the Blogs. After all Mr Blog has a history of victimisation from authorities, random strangers and inanimate objects. Not so. Tripadvisor users regularly post reviews of taxis around the world. Hong Kong taxis score 2 stars!

Thankfully the adventure got better!!