A couple of last things from Japan.
Yeah, I know, it’s May (and likely June by the time I post this) and it’s just a tiny little while since we were on holidays in Japan (and already waaaay too long until our next overseas trip. Now that sounds like we’re actually planning, one, but other than the fact that Thomas finished year 12 in about 18 months time we really haven’t. There are all those loyalty points that we earned with Air Canada to consider though. Apparently there’s enough of them for six of us to end up on a tropical island somewhere. What do you reckon Jason and Bel?
But I digress. I have for sometime been meaning to write about the last couple of days that we spent in Japan.
It’s so long now that I struggle to remember the specifics of what and when we did a couple of things that are worth talking about, but that’s no reason not to preserve the memory.
Our flight out of Tokyo was late in the day which meant that we had sufficient time to do something around Tokyo and still manage our train out to Narita. In our travels through Akihabara over our two trips to Japan, one of the things that you couldn’t miss being advertised was the maid cafés. Now if you’re not familiar with the concept, check THIS out.
During our first trip there were a couple of jokes about going to a maid café. We never did it though. During our second trip there were even more jokes. The fact that some of the kids seemed a little more interested meant that they persisted longer than they had the first time around. And because we spent more time than perhaps we should have around Akihabara there were more and more reminders. When Caroline, Michael and Emily wen to the cat café, Sam, Thomas and I talked about how we should go back and tell them that we’d decided to go to a maid café instead. We didn’t of course, we perused shops full of weird anime memorabilia instead. Anyway, after much discussion and decisions not to, we eventually decided that we would add maid café to the list of things we’d done whilst visiting Tokyo.
To say it was odd would be an understatement. I mean, there’s a big part of me that thinks these things are set up to appeal to dirty old men, but then again, Japan is so different that perhaps that’s more of an outsider’s perception than it’s meant to be. And most of the customers that we saw were either tourists or younger rather than what I might have guessed.
We caught the lift up to the appropriate floor of the building where the café was and entered something of another world. It was very Japanese in a way that screamed of anime and weird TV shows. The menu of course was somewhat over-priced and items such as photos with the waitresses weren’t even considered. We were there for the experience though, so we each ordered a drink or ice cream or in Sam’s case, a small bowl of nuts. An odd choice, but it was the cheapest thing on the menu and I think that was really his only consideration.
It was as interesting to watch the people that came through as customers as any of the rest of it, particularly in relation to how they chose to embrace (or not) the experience. After all, you have to go along with the fun in order to cross over into the magical land that is the maid café – I’m not quite sure we all managed to quite hit the expected level of enthusiasm, but we got our food, so we couldn’t have been too far off.
You’re not supposed to take photos in there, but I did manage to snap these before the kids pointed out that fact to me.
For the last couple of days that we were in Tokyo, I was on a hunt for some Japanese Whiskey. Well, when I say hunt, I wasn’t really going out of my way, I was more keeping an eye out for a decent bottle shop (or even a not so decent one) where I could buy some. Expecting perhaps something like Australia, I was thinking that there would likely be a store that we’d walk past in our travels. The only place that we saw any though had been at a discount store – Don Quixote and they didn’t really have was I was looking for because I wanted something a little higher end that what they had on offer. Mind you, the vodka that they had for $9 a bottle wasn’t a bad deal at all! In the end I resigned myself to perhaps picking something up duty free and suffering the price so that I could take a nice bottle of Japanese Whiskey home.
We left in plenty of time to catch the train to Narita and had a bit of time to spare. That was the first trap, because there’s all sorts of shops around the Tokyo metro station. It's a virtual labyrinth of opportunity. There was sure to be a bottle shop. I googled and found that there was indeed supposed to be one not far away. So Michael and I set off on a time-restrained quest to find a bottle shop. First we went up above ground to where there was a large department store only to find that it wasn’t there. Then we descended back below ground and after a bit of hunting, found one only to discover that they didn’t sell Whisky, Plenty of sake of course, but, no whiskey. We tried one more time before the pressure of time became unbearable. Trying to fast-walk through the crowds of the Tokyo metro station is no easy feat but we eventually made it back to the rest of the family with just enough time to relax everyone’s nerves before boarding the train. Whiskey-less though damnit.
The train ride was as uneventful and painless as most of our trips and we arrived at the airport. We found the right check-in line and joined it. It was strangely short given that we weren’t really that early. We were about half way to the front when Caroline pointed out that it said that the flight had been cancelled. That was a bit of a shock, let me tell you. I’d received an email from Qantas confirm got our itinerary the day before, but hadn’t checked it because well, I get those all the time. I assumed it was confirming what I already knew. We didn’t have roaming on our phones and were a bit surprised that there didn’t seem to have been any attempt to contact us. There was free wi-fi in the airport though, so I was able to re-check my email and sure enough, the itinerary confirmation that we’d been sent wasn’t for our Jetstar flight that day, but for a Qantas flight 24 hours later! That caused some mixed emotions. On the one hand it was pretty bloody inconvenient and I wanted to vehemently protest the fact that we’d made it all the way to the airport before we found out .
On the other hand, the reason we hadn’t found out was because we didn’t have international roaming on any of our phones and because I hadn’t checked the email that Qantas had sent me. Also, despite the hassles, it gave us an extra 24 hours in Japan and suddenly we were flying Qantas which meant lounge access and not having to pay for everything over and above the supplied air like we would have had to on the Jetstar flight.
So we patiently waited to find out what was in store for us and wondered if we were going to have to navigate the joys of claiming on travel insurance. When we eventually reached the front of the line we were advised that we’d be bussed to a local hotel in Narita, put up for the night and fed. Given how much worse it could have been we went along with it. The worst of it was probably the fact that we’d picked up our skis ready to board the plane and so had to lug them around with us again.
Arrangements at the hotel seemed good enough, three room. Three rooms meant less cramped conditions than we’d had for any other part f our travels, though there was still something of a hissy fit over who was sharing with who amongst the younger members of the family.
As things had been explained to us at check-in, we would each receive a voucher for dinner and breakfast, so that seemed perfectly reasonable, especially given that there was a buffet arrangement. Unfortunately when we went down to eat said dinner, the offerings were a little different to what had been promised. Sure there was a buffet, but that was going to cost us two of our vouchers each. There were some less appetising options for one voucher (only three of them) so we were left with a dilemma. We could have the dinner we wanted and go without breakfast, we could pay for the dinner we wanted and have breakfast, or some combination of those options. In the end. The fact that there was beef steak and queen crab on the buffet kind of loaned itself to the more favourable option, at least for some of us. WE ended up with four of us going with the buffet and two with an a-la-carte option. That meant that some of us were going to go without breakfast. I personally planned on eating enough dinner that it wouldn’t matter, especially with steak on offer, something that had been too expensive most nights of the journey to warrant ending up on my plate.
There seemed to be an endless supply of crab, which was great, but apparently even a steak buffet is somewhat limited in Japan. The would slice about 5 little pieces onto a plate and put it out for you to take. At any given time early in the meal there were perhaps 3 plates available. Needless to say they didn't go far. Then the steak station was seemingly abandoned, the steak tantalisingly close to touch behind a servers screen, but un-carved. The temptation to slip behind and carve it for myself, or to simply take the whole piece of beef was large, but well, I wasn’t quite that desperate. Eventually I gave up on. Server reappearing and asked for more. Barely sated, eventually I gave up and settled for what I’d managed to scrounge from them.
We had a good night’s sleep and sent those with breakfast vouchers down to eat while we worked out what we might do for a day in Narita. There were a couple of shuttle busses that left from the hotel and took you into town either to see the local temple complex or shops. We opted to go to the temple.
From where we were dropped off we walked down a street full of old shop houses, mostly selling the sort of food stuffs that would qualify as a cultural experience, or possibly even a life challenge. We smiled, looked and passed on by. When we reached the temple, we were surprised to find that it was a lot larger than we had expected, and quite spectacular to boot. We took our time, walked around and then decided to head for the local shopping centre by which there was a local Don Quixote. If nothing else it was an opportunity to stock up on some Japanese candy for the trip home and some cheap grog to boot.
As we’d strolled around Narita, I once again I kept an eye out for a liquor store selling Japanese Whiskey, but everything we saw was all about the sake. And when it’s all written in Japanese, there’s no way for me to tell good sake from bad sake, so I wasn’t about to invest.
Stock up was exactly what we did and then grog and snacks in hand, we made our way through the local shops toward where the bus would take us back to the hotel so that we could catch our belated flight home. With bathroom room breaks thrown in things were a bit tight getting on the bus, but in the end we all found something to eat and managed to get back on the bus in time to make it to the airport.
We made it to the airport, managed to get Thomas’ souvenir katana through security and checked all our luggage in. We headed straight for the lounge where for the first time on our travels no leniency was shown and I was only allowed to take one adult and two children into the lounge with me. Michael and Sam were good enough to agree to wait outside while the rest of us enjoyed the privilege of free food and drinks and somewhere comfortable to sit.
I did manage to wander through the duty free and buy a bottle of better (as well as ‘dearer than Japan but cheaper than Australia’) Japanese whiskey to complement those that I bought at Don Quixote.
While we were sitting in the lounge Caroline tapped me on the shoulder to alert me to the fact that my name had just been called and that they wanted me at the service desk. I assumed that Michael or Sam must have wanted something, but when I got there it turned out that something in one of our bags had leaked. Not quite the call I’d been hoping for. All they told me to do though was to see the staff at the gate when we checked in. There was a very good chance it was some of the alcohol that we’d packed at the last minute.
When we did eventually get the call to board and reached the gate, it was indeed a bottle of alcohol. The only good thing that could be said about it was that it was only one bottle and that it was the cheapest bottle that we’d bought. The clothes in the bag were of course drenched, but would wash out and fortunately the game that we’d bought hadn’t been doused and so we considered ourselves lucky.
With the bag wrapped in plastic, it was sent back to the hold and we boarded the plane.
It may seem like a simple thing, but the differences between board an international al Jetstar flight and the Qantas flight were immediately apparent. There was a blanket and pillow on each seat and we didn’t have to pay for them! Even better than that there was a menu and a drinks list! I set about taking full advantage at the first opportunity and throughly enjoyed the flight home.
And that was Japan ... Well, apart from one small thing that I was going to mention ... which I'll write about shortly.
