I planned on writing sooner, but I was too busy and tired. Today is the third travel day and the first sightseeing day and it is high time to get started.
1: Aug. 31st to Sept. 2nd, Getting to Japan
Everything starts in Uelzen. Since I don't trust the Deutsche Bahn to be willing and able to bring me on time to the airport in Frankfurt on the same day as the flight, I started one day early and stayed Saturday, Aug. 31st in the Best Western Hotel neat the airport,
The room was more like an apart"ment with a kitchen.
And it had a nice view at sunset.
Deutsche Bahn managed to be 20 min late of course, but the driver was on fire and we actually made it almost on time to Frankfurt main station. The reason was hilarious like always "a delayed train before us" It probably jumped very surprisingly on the tracks and immediately got delayed. Then the connecting train had a malfunction and doors could only be opened like 1 min before departure to the airport.
Next morming I made my way to the airport after breakfast and went to the lounge. That was a bit disappointing. The "premium" lounges, aka the one managed by the airport for a plethora of airlines were better in Hamburg and Helsinki. It is especially bad, since you walk by the stylish Emirates lounge directly before...
So I scrapped that and went through the security. But seems that was also changed recently, since after the security there is... ad big fat NOTHING. No shops, no cafes, nothing. But hey, we got some fresh fruit. Business class has its perks.
Boarding went flawless into the large Airbus A350-1000. Everybody was seated and giddy to start when the Airport suddenly decided to postpone our start for and hour. The captain promised to fly faster and he actually did. The delay in Hongkong was only 30 minutes. Unfortunately that was the time I had for the famous Cathay Pacific - The Pier Lounge in their home city. Ah well, maybe on the flight back, thanks Frankfurt Airport authorities, I will include you in the growling list of people I curse before going to sleep.
The flight to Hongkong was great. In Business class you get kind of a single cabin where you are isolated from other passengers and you can make a horizontal bed with a length of 2m out of your seat.
Completely stretched legs and still wiggle room.
The amuse geule - Roastbeef with asparagus and Sauce Hollandaise. The drink is a bloody mary.
The starter was a salad with scampi. Looks a bit weirdly decorated but was pretty good tasting.
Main course was wok fried beef tenderloin with broccoli and peppers which I preordered accompanied by Jasmine rice and a vegetable soup. All pretty tasty, too. One of the alternatives would have been a Chinese soup with dumplings.
A cheese platter and some fresh fruit.
And finally a panna cotta with mango jelly.
Almost forgot the real finale: A praline with golden specks.
But this one took the crown. It's the Chinese breakfast served a couple of ours later, short before arriving in Hongkong. The different lighting is because of the sunrise which was just taking place at that time. It is congee with fresh Ginger, 2 giant scallops (which were the best I ever had and a prawn. The side dish on the left is pan-fried turnip cake which tasted much better than it looks.
First glimpse of the mountains around Hongkong. Radar stations.
High-rises are the standard way of buildings in HK.
The airport has nice graphics in the background.
Very clean halls and those free watering stations are like every 30 meters. It was 9 am local time and the temperature was already 30°C.
The second leg of the flight was with a Boeing 777-300. No single cabins there because of the shorter flight (4 hrs), but comfy seats, enough legroom again and nice staff. The head stewardess almost broke her tongue trying to pronounce my name, but she managed to play it over with a smile. Professionals. So precious.
The last remnants of the Typhoon ShanShan over the open sea south of Nagoya. A bit later were more clouds even but I didn't take another pic.
The first glimpse of Japan main land while steering north to Narita.
There was another breakfast on the 2nd plane but I forgot to take pics. But I remember the freshly baked pasties with raisins, dates ad pistachios.
The whole flight took about 11 hours from Frankfurt to Hongkong (would have been 11.5 hrs normally), 1 hour plane change (would have been 1.5) and 4 hours to Tokio (on time, I wonder how the airport in Hongkong managed that. Plane took off exactly! on time. It's almost as if transportation just magically work in Asia... Couldn't be mismanagement in the EU end especially Germany, naaaahhhh.
Immigration procedures got a bit simpler since 2019, but you still have to fill out 2 completely useless forms. Who would for example actually answer "YES" when asked if he transports illegal weapons or drugs?! Also they only take index finger prints now, not all 10 fingers like 5 years ago.
Grabbed my pocket wifi which was waiting for me at the postal office, got some cash and then took the Skyliner train to Tokyo. The weather was actually pretty good, but hot and humid, like Japanese summers are. Days around 30°C+ with near 100% humidity. You always have a film of sweat everywhere.
It was already 18h when I reached the hotel and I only went out to the next Combini, stocked up on the nectar of the gods (Pocari Sweat mineral drink, nothing better when sweating a lot), some drinks and some food, stuffed myself and went to bed. This concludes Sept. 2nd.
2: Sept. 3rd - Rain, fucking rain.
The breakfast here in the hotel (Dormy Inn, Akihabara) is awesome. At the moment they have a special wher you can get rice gruel with grilled Unagi (Japanese eel). I missed it on this day but had it today (Sept. 4th). Perfect start for the day. Then they have equally perfect freshly made Omelettes and fried eggs sunny side up with either sausage or ham. On the buffet they have of course the obligatory rice, Miso soup, grilled fish, deep-fried chicken pieces (Like chicken nuggets, only in good, juicy and succulent thigh meat). On top of that around 8 different side dishes, like seaweed salad, fried oysters and a lot of things I have no idea what it is, but they taste good. They also have bread rolls and Croissant, but nothing really to eat with them except butter. So....
My first start into Tokyo was delayed by the fact that I had to wash some clothes. All the sweating used up much more things than I thought. Most business hotels have coin washers and dryers. Here it is on the 9th floor near the public hot spring bath. Also there they have vending machines for cold soft drinks and milk drinks. They have a large Manga library and you get free ice cubes and Popsicle there, too.
The washing machine and detergent were free, too, only the dryer cost 100 yen (62 cent) per 30 minutes. It was a bit slow going and I had to dry for an hour.
Anyways, after that I went out. It rained.
That's the street in front of my hotel.
I walked to the Akihabara (short Akiba) station with my umbrella (got wet anyays and was sweating anyways, so it didn't matter) to get my JR rail pass for the voucher I bought in Germany. After that I want to go to Electric Town. Like all plans it died with the first shot. In this case it was the fact that you cannot exchange that voucher in every station, but only in Ueno or Tokyo. So I had to go to Ueno. There the pass was exchanged and the next surprise. No booklet anymore, but a thing like a normal small ticket which you have to feed into the gates in every station to enter and exit. If you forget to retrieve it from the output or lose the small thing you are fucked. A couple hundred Euros gone and a reissue is not possible. I really wonder what tourists and YouTube idiots did in the last couple of years and especially around the Olympic games to earn such loathing and repulse.
OK i know of some things:
- One YouTuber found it funny to film himself licking vegetables in supermarkets in corona times. American.
- Another found it funny to drive with public transport and never pay and steal things while filming himself. Also American and afaik in jail for a longer time. Jail in Japan is not funny btw. They believe in punishment for correction.
- In Kyoto some parts of the Geisha district are banned for tourists. They stalked and photographed the Geisha without asking and even grabbed them and pulled their hair to see if it is a wig (usually it is not). Many nationalities. Mostly European and American.
All those cases (and probably a lot more) made big waves in Japan and certainly did not contribute to a positive outlook on tourists in general.
But really: What the fuck is wrong with people in western "civilization"?
I digress. Now that I was Ueno I was looking for a pharmacy. And couldn't find one. After some time I gave up and grabbed something to eat. Food is actually very affordable at the moment because of the weak Yen.
I had something similar but not identical to the top set. 2580 Yen is around 16 EUR
The sea urchin innards (2nd from right in the middle row) are my favorite. They have a sweet and distinctive taste when fresh.
There is also this in Ueno station:
They have some nice looking burgers but the portions are far too large for the weather. They are probably even to large for cold winter days. Also they have a jacket of Shakira on display. Just wanted to mention it...
In a bit of a better mood I went back to Akiba (my Suica card was acting up but a nice clert reset it and now it works again) and continued my quest for a pharmacy... I was starting to get insane since Google maps told me I am directly in front of it. But there was inly fucking washing powder on display. My inner Tourette got really nasty. After asking a couple of people and one pointing me to the exact same store I went in and it really was a washing powder shop. And cosmetics, and protein bars, and also a kind of a pharmacy. It seems that in Japan there are two kinds of pharmacies.
A) The one that I know from 2019 which looks, smells and works like a pharmacy in Germany. Very comparable.
A) The one that I know from 2019 which looks, smells and works like a pharmacy in Germany. Very comparable.
B) The mixed bags with washing powder on display.
I deducted that A) only sells prescription drugs (and 2019 I had a prescription) and the other one sells the prescription free medication, like painkillers, cold medicine etc. I only needed something against my runny nose, caused by the constant change between air conditioned rooms and the hot humid outside. It was pretty bad and I was running out of handkerchiefs (thatswhy the persistence) and finally got some tables. They work. I had something similar in Egypt once and the pills looked pretty similar. And worked. I never found anything like that in Germany. No idea why. They are not like the sprays which dry out your nose and if used to much destroy your nose even. The running and sneezing just stops and that's that. No dry nose.
I decided to go back to the hotel, offload and hit the town again. But alas... After getting my bearings with Google map I walked out into the rain again. And walked, and walked, and nothing looked familiar. I didn't check my mobile, since it was raining really hard. Then I found a bar, went in, ordered a beer and looked at Google Maps. And froze.
All this time I had walked south where I should have gone north. But because of the rain the sun was not visible and there were no shadows. Otherwise I would have realized much earlier.
The inner Tourette went into overdrive mode. Even I blushed at the curses I came up with.
I was fed up, wet and had no will anymore to walk back.
After another irritating episode of trying to install a Tokyo Taxi app I finally managed and took a cab back to the hotel.
I got rid of the wet clothes and rested for an hour or so. After that my mood was a bit better, my wish to devastate and destroy the world with a nuclear Armageddon had shrunk back into manageable proportions and I went out to get some food. I perused the Izakaya 2 houses away
I had 2 liver skewers, 1 thigh meat, 1 gizzard, I chicken meatball and Shishito peppers. Heart was unfortunately sold out and they also had no beef tongue 😞 Liver was best. If you like medium-rare liver. I do, lucky me!
From this page I had the "addictive salt cabbage salad", the french fries and the Gyoza (fried dumplings). Best were the Gyoza. Proper pork meat, juicy and flavorful. I also had a nice Shochu (Japanese spirit with ~25% alc.) made of potatoes and a really good Sake,
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