First Day in Japan

Posted on 2011/09/23 03:49:25 (September 2011).

[Sunday 18th September 2011]
Landed at Narita airport in the morning, and got the Narita Express to Tokyo, which, amazingly, was delayed by 45 minutes owing to some problem on the tracks. Not the usual perfect Japanese train service I'm used to.

We got to our hotel in Shinjuku around 1pm, but unfortunately were told we couldn't check in until 2. Having spent all that time on the plane, and having arrived in a rather hot and sticky Japan, I was really keen to have a shower and change clothes, but in the end decided to just slum it a bit longer, as we were already a bit late and our plans for the day would be thrown off if we hung around any longer.

From there, we both headed in the direction of Yokohama. I had planned to meet up with my friend Tanaka-san, who had arranged for us to go to a beer festival, and Chie was going to meet her friend Kayo-chan. Given that by this point I was in a kind of sleep deprived trance I'm not sure I was really best prepared to enjoy the beer festival to its' full, but I tried a lot of different Japanese beers (in tiny 50ml measures) and it was kind of fun. Probably the most memorable was a miso flavoured beer from Nagoya. As always it was a delight to spend time with Tanaka-san, even if I was half asleep.

In the evening we went for dinner at a macrobiotic izakaya in Omtesando with Miyuki-san. The highlight here had to be the vegetarian version of "kaki furai" - normally fried oysters, but in this instance they'd simulated the oysters using ofu (wheat gluten). That was quite interesting.

Was very glad to get back to the hotel and go to sleep after that - and quite pleased with myself that I'd (more or less) managed to stay awake all day!

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