Revelations in food
Day three. Breakfast was an adventure as is most food related events over here. Just as I was about to tuck in I realized the “Ricies” we had bought as a substitute for cereal were actually prawn flavoured rice snacks. Revelations indeed. Still they tasted delicious with yoghurt, mandarins, banana and some orange juice, so no harm done. Prawn to be wild.
We took the Marunouichi line to Tokyo Central today.
Wandering around Marunouichi and I noted it was not very busy – there were hardly any people around – but there were a few underground entrances dotted here and there. “There’s an underground city around here somewhere Han – I can tell” – and there was. It was huge and made navigating the city easier in some respects – but trickier in others.
We wanted to see the Imperial Palace gardens. What we thought were the gardens turned out to be the palace plaza (kind of like a regal parking lot) area. As we missioned off up north we realized we’d been miles away from the real beauty of the place within the palace walls (east garden). We wandered around amongst some of the blossoming trees. Really beautiful place – huge palace walls and epic moat. Very peaceful – strangely ominous though as the palace has a large population of ravens to give it that stereotypical grimness of a haunted house.
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| Ginger Shogun |
A few notes we’ve made about Tokyo. There are no bins – which would be an issue if there were any litter. Apparently it is unseemly to eat food or drink in public so the demand for rubbish bins is therefore down. This didn’t stop me however from having to wander around for 2 hours with a banana skin in my pocket. Also there are very few park benches which is hell on a travellers legs – but hey it could be worse.
When asking for our bill after dinner last night, the waitress dutifully went and got me a beer.
Word of the day for next time:
Okanjo – Bill
Use of: Okanjo onegai shimasu – “May I have the bill please?”
Tomorrow we'll be a meeting a Japanese friend called Izumi. I'm looking forward to getting some input from a local! We have a barrage of questions.
Hannah will be posting on here I promise!
Love Bren and Han
Ginger Shogun; got any sweet ninja moves?
ReplyDeleteYour palace gardens story reminds me of when Arthur and I were looking for the Circus Maximus in Rome - up and down the street we walked, continually past this large piece of 'grassy wasteland' - eventually we figured out it WAS the Circus Maximus! Travelling is so cool!! Your trip is bringing back my own memories. :o)
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