Japan

I’m now ashamed about how long it’s taken me to visit, and that I only spent a long weekend in Tokyo.  So it may have been the first time, but it absolutely, positively, definitely won’t be the last.

I mean, what’s not to love about a country that puts the visa sticker neatly in the top left hand corner of the first available page in your passport? The food is exceptional, the hospitality warmhearted, the trains run on time, the people are polite, helpful and friendly (and really know how to queue properly), the streets are clean and the service is unpretentious and uniformally excellent.  I fell in love before I’d even got out of the airport.

I was staying at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, and while I could bore you with a million photos of how this was far and away the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in, I was too busy playing with all the gadgets, the shelf of books, the amenities and gifts, the Japanese toilet, and the specially commissioned Ryuichi Sakamoto CD to actually take any photos.  And there was actual ice in the room’s ice bucket.  At. All. Times.

But Tokyo was brilliantly bonkers as well.  Watching the Yomiuri Giants v Hiroshima Carp baseball game at Tokyo Dome was an absolute blast with the towel waving and organised singing.  And everything about Akihabara was quite mad; I can’t even begin to explain the concept of the Maid Cafe (google it), and (note to self when shopping with a 14 year old boy), not all comics and graphic novels are for children!

There was a lot of super fresh seafood and perfectly cooked beef, plenty of Japanese beer and, of course, a decent number of cheeky gins (the Roku and the Ki No Bi were particularly special).  But not many photos, as there was also too much marvelling at the brilliant and the barmy to actually take any snaps.

I can’t wait till my next trip to Japan.

The featured image in this post is from the free photo library.