I arrived into the land of the Rising Sun ironically enough just as the sun was setting. I found the entire airport experience to be quite pleasant despite all the warnings I have read about the Japanese folk not being very friendly to foreigners and not speaking any English. In contrast my experience with Japanese people has been that they are willing to go out of their way to help me and attempt to understand what I am saying despite any cultural and language barriers.
I left for my AirBnB spot near Shinjuku after snagging two of the most important items in my life at the airport: a 4G LTE 3 Gigabyte SIM card from DoCoMo, and a 21-day JRail pass for unlimited travel on any JRail systems nationwide.
As I approached my apartment I realized that my 11 hour plane comfort food diet of peanut butter cups, peanut butter pops, Nutella To-Go, Hersheys and potato chips needed something more substantial if I was going to sleep that night. So after a cursory search on Yelp and cross-referencing with Google I found a Ramen spot right on my walk to home. They say you never forget your first time. And although I have worked hard to repress my first time in bed, my first experience with Ramen will remain unforgettable.
Much of my experience here has been defined through food. It is something that truly means a lot to me and I go through great lengths to always find the best. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of picking a place with me to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner can attest to.
With my ramen experience out of the way it was time to take away my sushi virginity. After all everyone has that pretentious friend who has been to Japan and lauded the sushi there. But as fate would have it you will all now sadly be subjugated to my own pretentious claims about how I had like totally the best sushi eva’ (use your valley-girl voice for full effect).
I won’t disclose the precise location of this sushi place because it is definitely under the radar. Hidden underneath a railroad and train station Ueno is this gem of a sushi place. I found it by googling the word ‘sushi’ on Google Maps and then finding a top reviewed sushi restaurants with only Japanese reviews. I figured if the reviews were only in Japanese then it meant it hadn’t been discovered yet and was safe from annoying American tourists (more on those next time).
On my first visit to this location it was only my second day in Japan. I was afraid to even speak any Japanese — of which I know almost none. To make things worse I had never been to a conveyor belt type of place before where the sushi just comes around. The staff spoke no English of course as they’re not used to any tourists coming in, and I got a full room look of stares of Oh no what is he doing here. But I persevered and by the end of it I had figured out how to get hot water for my tea (there’s a button and a faucet right next to you built into the table), where to find the actual tea (it’s a green powder in a small glass cup next to the soy sauce), where the chopsticks are (hidden behind the menus).
On my second trip to the same spot I was seated next to an old Japanese man who greeted me in very broken English. With his broken English and my handy-dandy 4G LTE iPhone with Google Translate we spent two hours discussing sushi and our life stories. He is a retired accountant from Hitachi and lives in Yokohama and was just visiting Tokyo for the kicks. He introduced me to a lot of new sushi I would have never tried before or known to order.
In between
On my walks between Japanese restaurants I had a few opportunities to experience a bit of Japanese life and culture.
Most famous example of it being Meiji Jingu, a revered Shinto shrine built in honor of the Japanese emperor that transformed Japan into the modern technological powerhouse we know today. My only advice is if you get a chance to modernize an entire nation and usher in a new era of a civilization you should do it because you’ll get a kickass shrine out of it like this:
These sake barrels are commonly offered up in shrines and although they are physically empty (no sake inside) they are full of spiritual connotations:
They are called kazaridaru in Japanese and are a decorative display. Sake traditionally has been a connection between the gods and people in Japan. These sake barrels are offered every year to the enshrined deities at Meiji Jingu Shrine. They have been donated by sake brewers from around Japan to the shrine with the sake being used for shrine ceremonies and festivals.
Japan Travel Advice
Back to food
Learning stuff makes me hungry so with that it was time for me to discover the beauty of another Japanese specialty (adopted from the Chinese), and it’s called Gyoza.
I don’t like to choose when it comes to food so my Japanese friend and I ordered all three kinds of gyoza: fried, soup and steamed. The fried and steamed gyoza are both made using the same process.
Here we have master chef carefully lay down each dumpling into a tray doused with sesame oil.
Once they’re layered in they fry, the lid comes down and the last few seconds they are steamed.
When they’re done frying they’re removed out of the pan and the entire pan is filled with water from the faucet. The basin is scraped off, the tray lifted by the handle at the front and the dirty water pours out the back. Pretty seamless design.
Wrapping it up
No more food porn sadly. It rains a lot here and I’m not used to that anymore coming from the beautiful arid Palo Alto. But it means I’m able to capture some fantastic photos. I won’t comment much on these as they’re more there just for the visual appeal.
Oh and I lied, there are always more photos of food! It’s very common to see life-like replicas of food. Helps with ordering and you know exactly what you’re getting, quite ingenious.
After I was done eating all the Gyoza and Sushi today I had to take a break from the eating and rest with some coffee and cake.
Until next time, arigato!