We’re in Japan!
September 27th, 2007
I started writing this big ol’ lengthy post talking about our travels here and just decided to throw it all away. Who wants to hear a boring story about traveling to Tokyo? Instead I’ll share with everyone some of our first impressions before I give the link to pictures.
This country is efficient and things work as planned. It’s pretty amazing.
People everywhere seem interested in helping out the tourists even if they’re not making a buck off of you. The concierge here at our hotel, the Sheraton Miyako, was absolutely amazing and seemed genuinely interested in helping us. She had maps of almost everything and printed out color maps of the things she didn’t have. Thanks to Ben Hartwell (a friend from IronPort) we knew the things we wanted to see but thanks to our concierge we could actually get there!
There is the latest and greatest technology everywhere. Unlike every other country I’ve ever been to it seems that everyone is constantly upgrading everything. Our taxi cab had not only some advanced vehicle monitoring system installed but it also had an automatic door opener (this is what you’re imagining, a piston that pushes open the door) and a fancy GPS. The trains have fancy LCD TVs that cycle through all sorts of screens telling you where you are, where you’ll be next, which door is going to open, which trains you can connect to, etc. It was really cool and incredibly helpful.
The internet is the fastest I’ve ever used. Ever. Period. Latency to the US is a mere 100ms. Bangalore offers 340ms (the lower the number the better). But the throughput is absolutely amazing. I’m here in a hotel getting over 15Mb/s.
The sushi tastes just like good sushi in the US. The ginger seems to taste a little bit better and the wasabi, well I can’t tell the difference. We had lunch at some little hole in the wall-type place outside of Tokyo. I don’t know what this type of food would be called. It was basically breaded pork cutlet, but it wasn’t tempura. It was yummy. Dinner we ate at a tiny little sushi restaurant. We sat at the bar and communicated with the sushi chef via a coffee cup that had pictures of fish on it and a picture-menu he had with 3 pictures in it. It was good, but no better than anything I’ve had in the US. The beer was Asahi and it reminded me of Kingfisher beer from India. Ask me what I think of Kingfisher sometime.
That was our day. On to the pictures. As is becoming the norm I’ve written a bit about each picture in the caption.
Pictures from our first full day in Japan
Entry Filed under: Japan
4 Comments Add your own
1. Matt | September 28th, 2007 at 12:03 am
1 day of walking around and all you could manage were 5 photos. We need more pictures here.
What’s wrong with Asahi beer, that’s pretty good stuff. Saparo is quite good as well. How’s the sake over there?
2. Bob Van Zant Sr. | September 30th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Those were some nice shots. Japan; last time I checked it is a long way from Bangalore to Tokyo; about the same as SF to Costa Rica; are you two on a vacation; what prompted Japan. Nice. I have only seen the airport; not the city.
Dad
3. Bob | October 1st, 2007 at 6:41 am
We originally bought plane tickets and booked a hotel in Tokyo to see the Japan F1 race. Longer story made short: we didn’t go to the race. But we got out and about and saw many parts of Tokyo and overall had a great trip. We’re hanging out at the lounge in Narita airport right now.
4. trinette | October 4th, 2007 at 5:23 am
NO RACE!!! Mike will be so disappointed he can’t live through you! Haha! The food you ate is katsu. It’s my absolute favorite! I get chicken katsu because I’m not a huge pork fan, but I’m not sure how chicken in Japan is. Iffy I would assume. You guys are so lucky to be seeing all these wonderful places! And I love hearing about it :0)