Tokyo, Japan

July 18-23 my mom and I had the pleasure of having an extended layover in Tokyo. There were many things that stuck out to us about Tokyo and the Japanese. One is the feeling of safety. For example, while at a food court in the center of town we noticed two women who left their purses unattended at their table while they went to go by their food. The Japanese are also incredibly polite, on the train we saw a man covering his mouth while talking on his cell phone very quietly.  Apparently it is against the rules to talk on your cell phone while on the train. If people are sick, they will wear a facemask to prevent the spread of illness.

Trying Japanese food was as expected--wonderful. I had few problems finding vegetarian food. On the first day, I had someone write down "I'm vegetarian, no meat or fish, thank you" and I would just show this whenever we were at a restaurant and it usually worked, with one exception.

Had many great sushi meals

Delicious lunch while couchsurfing. Yakisoba, salad and eggplant

There are many, many bicycles in the Tokyo area. Since there didn't seem to be many hills, most of the bikes had a single gear. They appeared to not usually be locked. We rarely saw helmets worn, and in the busy areas people rode on the sidewalks. Many bikes had one or two seats for children.


We spent our time couchsurfing with two different local families. The first family we stayed with was a young woman named Chie, her husband and two young daughters, ages six months and two and a half years.

Chie with her husband and older daughter

So welcoming!

While staying with them we had a wonderful lunch with a friend of Chie's and her 11 year old son, Yuta. He was very curious to talk to us and had some questions to ask us for a school project. The questions included: What were your first impressions of Japan?  What is inconvenient about Japan? What is your favorite thing about the US? What is your favorite anime?

In turn we asked Yuta a question: What is your impression of the US? He answered with no hesitation: "Guns."

Us with Yuta, his mom and sister, and Chie's younger daughter

We stayed there for three nights and then moved to our second family. Our hosts were Mick, her husband and two sons, aged 4 and 9. Mick was extremely well traveled and we enjoyed talking with her and her husband about Japan and the US.

Me with Mick and her family

Stayed in a traditional Japanese room at Mick's

Spent the daytime hours exploring. We had a lot of pictures on a camera, but it decided to mysteriously delete them so now we only have the ones taken from my mom's phone.

Bon Festival

Park

At 7-11 we found a Japanese coffee that looked suspiciously like Starbucks, but apparently has been around in Japan for significantly longer than Starbucks.

Very interesting

Five days in Tokyo was short, but intense (being the largest city in the world).


Next up: Bali, Indonesia, and a much slower pace