big in japan: christmas in tokyo

it's HERE. sorry for the delay. here's an abbreviated synopsis/review of our holidays in tokyo, conveniently laid out in categorized bullets.

the good:

• the hotel: we originally thought we'd been bunking with the son of a friend of klara's (which had the potential to be very small and imposing) and when that fell through we were upgraded to two rooms at the shinagawa prince hotel, in which we had our own room and access to 8 in-house restaurants.
  
• being within walking distance to tokyo tower; being able to see it lit up at night from our hotel room window.
• our day tours: we signed up to do a city tour of tokyo on boxing day + a tour of mt fuji the day following and both were really informative, well-organized, and highly recommended. if you're heading to tokyo on a time limit, let me suggest checking out viator's sightseeing options
• seeing the top of mt fuji from breakfast at our hotel on the 38th floor - the sky was clear enough to see it, more than 95kms away.
• to go from seeing mt fuji from breakfast in downtown tokyo, to visiting the fourth station in the trek up its slope - 2020m high.
• exploring meiji shinto shrine, asakusa kannon temple, and the imperial palace's east garden.
• visiting nakamise shopping street, a colourful shopping arcade crammed with tiny food vendors and souvenir shops: perfect for purchasing kimonos and t-shirts and phone charms and fans
• a cruise of tokyo bay: awesome for photo ops of the tokyo skyline and the iconic rainbow bridge
• later taking the rainbow bridge to man-made island, odaiba.
• vending machines. everywhere. literally, at least one on every block. selling only beverages, of course. snacks aren't necessary to maintain svelte-ness.
• driving on the other side of the road. yes, that's right. the japanese join the ranks of the british and kiwis with left-lane right-of-ways.
  
• the weather! we escaped the cold and snow of winter in korea and embraced the mid-fall temperatures of japan. i even got away without a coat one day, it was wonderful.
• free admission to the aquarium housed within our hotel.
  
• high speed bullet train! we took the shinkansen back to tokyo from mt fuji, and it turns an 1.5 hour bus ride into 30 minutes, at 300km/hour. futuristic-ly fast.
  
  
  

the bad:

• the traffic, both vehicular and human. people, people everywhere. (that being said, this is highly similar to seoul ...)
• we never got to take the subway! i really wanted to see if those "pusher" people are for real.
  
• the prices. tokyo lives up to its reputation in the expensive department. our christmas day dinner was a delicious though minimal spread of nine sushi and sashimi rolls, an order of tempura, mysterious meat skewers, and two asahi draft beers and equaled almost $100 CDN. outlandish.
• a minor food poisoning experience. i blame the raw tuna, but i was a tad unwell our last day in tokyo.
  
• time constraints. as with any vacation, you can't see it all. and while we did well for our 72 hours in japan, i wish we had had more time to explore. driving through harajuku and ginza shopping district just didn't cut it!

the weird/unique/wish-i-lived-in-japan stuff:

• the overall aesthetic of the city. organized urban planning, numerous tall and extremely slim buildings, structures built into unique situations (ie, coffee shops built into underpasses), creative ways to fit a massive population into a minimal space.
• cleanliness. i saw barely any litter and every bathroom i visited was spotless. and had soap and jet-powered hand dryers.
• architecture. (slim buildings included.) the fuji television headquarters for instance.
• everyone in tokyo runs. maybe it's a maintaining-thinness-in-the-city thing. we saw a lot of runners.
  
• the christmas decorations. gorgeous trees and tinsel the day we arrived, all quickly vanished come december 26th. xmas isn't a big deal for the japanese, and with oshogatsu (or new year's) ranking significantly more important, they ditch the trees ASAP and begin decorating the town with kadomatsu, or bamboo wreath displays, that are supposed to bring good luck for the new year.
  

all in all, a christmas/holiday success. a massive thank you to klara for her generosity, curiosity and enthusiasm for asian culture, for being a mom (and a surrogate mom to me) during the i-miss-my-family festive season, and of course, for putting up with mark and me for 10 days.