Final Hours in Japan
29 August 2012
I'm writing this in our spacious cabin on the Xin Jian Zhen ferry to China (more about that later) as Japan sinks below the horizon behind us. Having left Kyoto early on Monday morning, we took a local train to nearby Osaka (from where the boat departed) and spent the afternoon and evening exploring another new Japanese city. The hotel was ideally placed a few blocks from Dotombori, an area along the canal which promised plenty of places to eat, drink and (window) shop. We both loved Osaka instantly. Amazing shops and a kind of old world seaside resort charm that Tokyo and Kyoto could not emulate. The area was filled with Japanese kitsch; all kinds of large illuminated sculptures and adverts attached to the fronts of buildings (think Piccadilly circus meets Camden high street). Below these, bizarre shops sold things that in many cases we could not identify, yet provided plenty of photo opportunities.
We had a fantastic final evening in Japan, helped, in part, by a gentleman who approached us in the street, thrusting a food menu and a promotional leaflet for a nearby eatery into our hands. After trying to explain that we could not read the leaflet, and he then attempting to explain what it was, we both agreed that the food on the menu looked lovely (again, menus with photos = big help!) and the prices reasonable. We stood umm'ing and ahh'ing as he tried to persuade us to follow him to the restaurant. In Japan, many bars and restaurants are above ground level, with just a list and maybe a few menus at street level describing what can be found on each floor above. It is therefore somewhat of a risk committing to an establishment one cannot see from the outside. Just as we were about to move on to consider other options, he turned the menu over to show a large price, "999 Yen" (£7.90) and something else written in Japanese. 'Unlimited drink!' he said, motioning the internationally recognised hand signal for drink. We looked at him puzzled. 'Two hours, unlimited drink, beer, wine, sake...' he continued. Now, when you consider that we hadn't really had a night 'out' in Japan, as a single pint of regular draft beer costs between 500 and 800 Yen (£4 to £6.35), we now feel that he should have led with this! After checking the 'fine print' of his offer with more hand signals and a few basic Japanese and English words, we duly allowed him to lead us to the seventh floor of a nondescript building behind us.
What followed was two hours of 'order whatever you like' drinking fun (and oh, how we'd missed that!), accompanied by various small delicious Japanese dishes at, again, very reasonable prices, knowing that the drinks bill would never exceed £16. We ended our 120 minutes with Sake (rice wine) and Shochu (potato wine), although we must admit to buying a couple more drinks from the shop opposite the hotel on our way home. We just wish we'd found that place sooner. Having bumped into a few groups of Americans and Europeans on our explorations, it seems we are all searching Japan for just one thing – affordable beer!
A brief synopsis of Japan as we bob our way towards the second country of the tour:
Loves:
Japanese people – so polite, so dignified and immensely proud of their country. I think this was summed up in our final visit to Seven Eleven (a ubiquitous chain of convenience stores) last night. As the cashier handed us our change with both hands, thanking us in the longest most formal fashion the language can offer, and bowing graciously, so too did every member of staff in the shop. This is common, when entering and leaving an establishment, and one never senses that it is done begrudgingly, as a manager hovers behind them waving a stick, maybe. Their thanks and gratitude appears 100% genuine and oozes with pride for their employer and themselves as individuals. I noted at the time that in a comparable shop in London, you would be lucky if the person serving you even looked you in the eye.
Vending machines – on every street corner, tucked away in small alleyways and hotel lobbies and always able to serve a tasty variety of cold drinks. (I think in the winter, they even dispense hot drinks). In the summer months, it is almost impossible to get through a day without using one. They always work and are never found defaced or tampered with. In certain cases, one can purchase a variety of beers, lagers and other alcoholic drinks from these 'pavement pubs' (my term, not theirs), no ID required. Rosie and I wondered how many minutes such a machine would last in England before it was emptied by teenagers (or simply tipped over and loaded onto the back of a waiting scooter). I think this says a lot about the Japanese attitude to alcohol which seems to promote it as an addition to having a good time, not as a necessity.
Dislikes:
Lack of English menus – although many people speak English and most signs, maps and public announcements are also provided and English, finding somewhere to eat which can offer English or picture menus can become tiresome. I think most Westerners in Japan long for that traditional Japanese restaurant experience without having to master the language both written and spoken. We felt that if, like the man in Osaka, more restaurants targeted foreigners and made themselves that tiny bit more accessible, finding that idyll would be so much easier and take the stress out of finding somewhere to eat that isn't McDonald's. I do not think for a moment that it is intentional. I think the Japanese are far too proud and polite to start assaulting tourists in the street in order to fill seats, but I do think there is the room to offer tourists something more than is currently available, but on the other hand, maybe this would start a gradual erosion of the very thing the tourists come to see – tradition, history and character.
Expense – If and when the Yen ever returns to where it was in 2007/08 (ie. 210 to 230 Yen to the pound instead of the current 120 to 130) we shall be buying a brick of cash and returning to this amazing country to buy, eat and see all of the things we wanted to on this trip. That is not to say that we didn't thoroughly enjoy our time in Japan, we just had to watch the pennies so closely and often found ourselves gasping at the price of things.
Favourites:
Favourite meal: Mai & Yukio's home – edamame, sushi, chicken and yaki soba.
Favourite beer: Kirin's Original Brew (a can of which is sat open beside the laptop as I type)
Favourite day: Exploring the forest temples of Kyoto
Moving on to the present - As the boat rolls and pitches, the portable elasticated washing line strung across the room with underwear bobs and sways in the empty bunk bed above me. I should point out that Rosie is of course still here, and is actually in the bunk beside me – the boat is so empty that they have given us a 4 bed cabin to ourselves. Ironically, it's the largest of the four rooms we have stayed in so far, with a small sofa and TV area, plenty of luggage space and our own sink. The ship is reasonably comfortable, with all one could need for two nights at sea. There is a games room, a dancing and karaoke bar (which seems to be frequented mainly by the crew who love to sing a rousing Chinese ballad or two when their shift ends), a gift shop (open for just two hours a day and with mostly empty shelves, it is does not quite match the nautical retail splendour of a P&O duty-free outlet), a cafeteria (serving mainly cold bones spattered with a small amount of meat and a large amount of oil) and a handful of vending machines (dispensing cans of Japanese lager at prices which allow us to enjoy beers in the plural sense.
A typhoon is currently creeping along the Chinese coastline, and within an hour of departing the port of Osaka, the captain told us we would spend another 24 hours at sea in order to avoid it. This meant three nights aboard the boat! The crew kindly telephoned our hostel in Shanghai to inform them that we would arrive late and we hoped that friends and family back home would not worry too much over not hearing from us on Thursday as I had promised in my previous blog entry. As the prospect of three cold dinners loomed, plus two more strange breakfasts, which consist of two lumps of doughy bread/cake/dough, tepid noodles and a foamy broth we could barely look at let alone consider casting into our quivering mouths, the voyage threatened to draw on our stamina rather more than we had hoped – add to that the fact that an underlying nausea has been lurking in our stomachs since we reached the undulating open sea, and the next few days did not look good.
We were therefore extremely delighted to hear the PA system tell us this afternoon that the typhoon was moving slower than expected, allowing the boat to continue full steam ahead and arrive in Shanghai at 8.30am tomorrow – 6 hours ahead of the original schedule and almost thirty hours ahead of what we had subsequently been told. Although the boat is like a mini holiday camp, it is also a bit like a prison... a prison which doesn't stop swaying from side to side, so setting foot on dry land is going to feel so good!
I will sign off now as dinner time looms and the pot noodle vending machine hums reassuringly in the corridor outside.
Coming next, Shanghai...
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