Holiday week

Well it has been a relatively busy holiday week here in Tokyo as we have rushed to keep up with the rest of Tokyo. Having been warned in advance by people at the office that most of the residents of Tokyo depart the city, we felt it was incumbent upon us to follow them. We searched carefully and decided on a couple of places where we felt it was most likely that we'd find them, and then set off on our way.

Sure enough, we'd correctly guessed that everyone in Tokyo would be at the big shrine/temple in Asakusa on Tuesday 1st January. We arrived about midday (45-minute trip on the subway to the end of the line), and the queue to get into the shrine was out to the roadway. Discretion being the better part, we hived off along the road, through small streets of shops and stalls, eventually coming to the shrine through a back entrance. Which conveniently led through all of the Japanese junk food stalls that had sprung into being on the grounds of the temple. After watching the crowds of people (resembling farm animals being herded into the shrine) for a few minutes, we sampled some of the food. Being the adventurous one, I chose a pancake that is grilled/fried with a big handful of shredded cabbage, an egg, and sauce. Sonia chose a plain baked potato with butter. We found a small area to one side of one of the pathways and joined a number of other groups that had stopped to "savour" the food. By the time we'd finished and made our way back through the streets and round to the main entrance of the shrine, we found that the queue had grown and now stretched all of the way down the road (conveniently closed to traffic) and almost to the main road (about 100 metres?). We took this as a good sign, because we now know where Tokyo goes on the first day of the new year.

Wednesday was shopping day - trying to find a winter coat at the sales. However, it turns out that all of Tokyo congregated in one of 3 or four shops. One attraction of the sales is what is called fukubukuro, which is sometimes translated into English as a "Happy Bag". This is a big shopping bag into which the company puts some stuff, seals it, and sticks a price on it. You take your luck with what you get. So if you are wondering where everyone is, they are at the department stores on Wednesday.

Sushi for lunch - there are a few places in Tokyo with the sushi "trains". This one was good, and we got through about 14 plates between us (each plate has two pieces of sushi).

Thursday, we went to an outlet village in Gotemba. This required a train trip of about 1 and 3/4 hours, with a change of lines after an hour. At the changeover point, we had about 30 minutes between trains and decided to have breakfast. The only places in site were a small noodle shop and a 7-11. Since we are now seasoned travellers, we decided on the noodle place, which conveniently had pictures of some of the dishes on the wall outside. When we got in the door, we found the vending machine where you purchase the tickets for the food you want. Which only had Japanese writing, and no pictures. I ended up with my head out the door trying to match the pictures to the writing. In the end we got two tickets for what we expected would be noodles with some pieces of meat. While I waited for the food, Sonia went off the find a table. Which was difficult since there were only four tables in the place, all within one foot of each other. When I saw them dishing the noodles I noticed the guy scoop a big spoon of gloop and put it into the bowls. Turns out we'd ordered noodles with curry sauce. Which turned out to be very nice.

At the outlet village, we were reminded of Cheshire Oaks in UK. Basically the same, but some of the brands were different. And full of everyone who was living in Tokyo. Did I mention it was freezing? This area is close to the foot of Mt Fuji, and I managed to get a few pictures that I'll load in soon.

The following day (Friday) we went to Kamakura - a place outside of Tokyo that one of my colleagues had introduced me to previously. It was apparently the capital at one point? Getting off the train at the station we ended up standing to one side as this stream of people from the train tried to exit the station at the same time. We must have waited almost five minutes as they filed past. Then we got out and walked our way towards the main shrine. Again, loads of people - I guess the people who went to Asakusa on Tuesday must have decided that they needed to hedge their bets and go pray at the Kamakura shrine as well. A number of people were dressed up in very nice looking kimonos.

After standing in line to get into the temple grounds for a look we made our way through and back out to the streets. Since it was past time for lunch we decided on Soba noodles - a place we had passed earlier. I am now at the point where I can manage to get food in Japanese, so we were not too worried about the menu that only had Japanese and no pictures. When you're in a Soba restaurant there is not much choice (would you like hot soba or cold soba?), so we ordered soba with tempura. When it arrived it was a big bowl of noodles in clear soup with a huge tempura prawn on top (maybe 15cm long). Not bad for JPY1300 each, although it is more expensive in this touristy part compared to the soba place around the corner from the office where I normally pay about JPY 1000 for noodles with more tempura (prawn, pumpkin, mushroom, and something else that I cannot identify).

Saturday has been out looking through a suburb called Hiroo for a supermarket that Sonia had read about. We found it, but I think the one I usually go to is bigger and has a better selection of stuff. Expecting to catch up with a couple of friends from UK for dinner tonight, although I am not sure if this will happen because they are not answering their phones. We will have to see...