Welcome to Tokyo!
I’m just back from Japan – the only country with its own emoji silhouette – after a short but productive work trip. As such, I didn’t have much time to do touristy things or take touristy photos, but I did manage to squeeze in visits to Yoyogi Park and the Shibuya crossing. I guess the stereotypes about Japan are obvious, but worth repeating anyway: people were wonderful and friendly, the trains and the subway are unsurprisingly fantastic, and bowing is woven into all social interactions. I liked it.
As a bonus, Robert and Julie – most notable for their Smoking Adapters travel blog – were kind enough to take me out in the evenings, and together we sampled lots of Japanese food (excluding anything with tentacles) from their favourite Tokyo spots.
One thing I wasn’t quite so thrilled about were the earthquakes. Over lunch with Vivek on Tuesday I experienced my first ever earthquake – nobody around us batted an eyelid – and then the next morning I was lying in bed when terra firma became noticeably less firm again. That’s not cool. We use the expression “on solid ground” for a reason. Although it is reassuring to see animated videos on the subway explaining how earthquake-proof it is.
With Kenji, Robert, Julie and Kosuke
There was a lot of this
A pretty accurate depiction of Tokyo’s wonderful subway system
Outside the Imperial Palace grounds
Side note: flying with United is usually a ‘perfectly adequate’ type of experience, but on the way back home they served up a katsu curry like they had actually read my mind and extracted its deepest wishes. Much appreciated. I also did my usual catching up on recent PIXAR films by watching The Good Dinosaur, but thought it was… well, ‘perfectly adequate’, but nothing great.
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Tokyo