Konnichiwa

So, after a long and annoying flight, I arrived in Tokyo. I was grumpy, tired, confused and not in the mood to deal with yet another country. That was my downfall, I think. I was overtired, and I was ready to be at home, and I was not wanting to deal with language and transport I wasn't familiar with and money which I couldn't get my head around. But, I came up with a mantra for the last few days - fake it til you make it. I didn't want to just sit in my hotel room and read and sleep and watch TV, I wanted to attempt to appreciate where I was. So, I started faking it. And I think I really started to let go of my angst and truly enjoy myself about 2 hours before I headed to the airport to return to Australia... but have been left with the strong will to return to Japan and do it properly!

When you get off the plane at Tokyo Airport (Narita), you need to catch a tram to the main terminal. It is weird, and the first place you start to see that the cartoons are really based on reality. There are little musical noises that accompany everything and reassuring female voices giving messages in Japanese and English. The tram/bus thing is on a track, but it doesn't have a driver, so the carriage fills up and then it trots along to the terminal. From there, I grabbed my bags and found tourist information to figure out how to get to the hotel I had booked. I love the way the tourist information works here - they have either colour brochures or colour computer printouts of maps and the draw arrows for where you need to walk and circle where you need to go.

The train into Tokyo took quite a while - perhaps an hour or so, (although I just looked at Wikipedia and it says two hours) and this is when I started to nod off. It was not the more luxury airport train I caught, but the standard rail train thingy, although I have a feeling I paid for the more expensive one. Annoying. The scenery was quite varied on the way in - lots of small towns sparsely spread out in the mountains, then getting more suburban to finally the city. Throughout my time in Japan, I loved seeing all of the standard suburban buildings then suddenly a random temple!

Once at Nippori station, I made the change to the Odakyu line, with the confusing help of several of the transport worked. Annoyingly, at Nippori there are kind of two stations, Nippori and Nishi-Nappori, and I found it extremely difficult on several occasions to negotiate my way between the two. Note - I did see the men in the uniforms with the white gloves that is typical on YouTube, but I have not experienced them pushing large crowds onto the train. In fact, almost everywhere in Japan was very quiet. It must have been the time of the year and the lack of tourists, or perhaps just the areas I went to, but Japan seemed empty. I liked it.

I eventually made it to Akasaka and followed the directions to my hotel. I was a bit concerned, because it gave distances in time travelled (walk for 5 minutes) rather than distance, but before I needed to ask anyone, I found my hotel. Sure enough, I couldn't check in, but thank goodness, I could leave my massive bag. I asked the concierge where I could go to fill in a few hours - she seemed very confused. Eventually, I suggested perhaps there was a park nearby (the sun was shining, and after lots of very cold weather, I was looking forward to any outdoors warmth). She gave me a little coloured map and showed me where there was a local park which was directly next door to a massive shopping mall. I thanked her and wandered around to the park. It was very nice - one section had a beautiful Japanese garden with little water falls and bamboo sculptures, I sat there listening to some podcasts and watching the water for quite some time. There was also some modern art - I think there was a gallery also in the park, but I was too tired to cope with investigating that. I sat outside and watched a lot of people with their very small dogs and felt a bit homesick for my own small dog. My favourite moment, which my nephews loved hearing about, was when I saw a woman crouching by her dog and I thought she must just be getting a bag up for its business. Then, she pulled out a tissue and a little spray bottle, sprayed the tissue and wiped the dog's rear end - yuk! I wished I had been closer to get a photo. I soon found out why there were so many well groomed dogs in the area - inside the shopping centre there was an exclusive dog shop with grooming facilities. I nearly bought some crazy dog treats and toys but was unsure of the exchange rate and didn't want to spend $75 on a dog chew or something equally ridiculous. I spent quite a bit of time just sitting on the bench listening to podcasts (in Japan i got through almost an entire year of Radiotherapy and Einstein-a-go-go) and watching people. A lot of people walk through the gardens, and a lot of people sit and eat their lunch and read books. And why wouldn't you? It was lovely. I was in a t-shirt, with the sun on my face and arms. I eventually decided to check out the shopping mall, which seemed like a very exclusive place - lots of open space, shiny floors and felt like everything would be expensive. Upstairs was the Suntory Museum of Art, so I decided to go in. This was where I discovered more of the wonderful quirkiness of Japan - there were free lockers for your bags and jackets, and free umbrella lockers. I'm not sure if I can explain these. Like a wine rack (for very small bottles) on its side so the the umbrella could be placed in an individual hole, which would lock around it so that your umbrella was safe. Funny! The exhibit which was on at this time was Export Lacquer: Reflection of the West in Black and Gold Makie, which was the history of Makie work, which I had never heard of. It was beautiful, but I was not really in the mood to study this master craft work in detail. Quite frankly, I was falling asleep. I decided to see if the hotel would mind if I just sat on the couches in the foyer, and luckily for me, they were happy to let me up to my room early. I went to my overheated room, had a quick shower and jumped into bed. For about 14 hours. Can't say it was the most satisfying sleep, but at least there was lots of it!