Japan

Fish Market Sashimi

The influence of Japanese food on American cuisine is huge – and we were excited to experience the real deal while we were in Tokyo.  We weren’t disappointed!  The food was definitely reminiscent of the things we’d find in the States, but much more emphasis was placed on the non-sushi items available.  Of course, sushi was to be had:

Chirashi Sushi

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We had a really nice flight from Singapore to Tokyo.  And that’s coming from the girl with the deathly phobia of flying.  Really smooth, beautiful views and the food was good too.  It was a daytime flight, unusual for such a long flight, but I loved seeing some of the tropical islands and other scenery from the air.

We arrived in Tokyo just around sunset and began the adventure of getting to our hotel.  Since we only had a week in Japan we decided to book one hotel for the whole time and just focus on seeing the city.  It wasn’t enough time to see much else without having to race around like crazy and Tokyo is such a huge city we figured there would be plenty to see and do.

Tokyo is a very expensive place.  Our first encounter with this was just getting from the airport to our hotel.  The airport is about 80 kilometers from the city, and the convenient travel options are extremely costly.  We opted to take the local trains instead, an adventurous move for people who speak zero Japanese.  The subways in Japan take a little figuring out and although the main lines have signs in English, the smaller stations and trains rarely used by tourists do not always.  Fortunately, before we left the airport we grabbed a “Tokyo Handy Guide” (free at a ton of different tourist locations) which was a lifesaver in finding our way around.  Seriously, if you are going to Tokyo try to get one of these!

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