Tokyo: where everyone is a super fashion icon

When we booked our flight to Taiwan, the travel agent suggested a layover in Tokyo which would last as long as we wanted, in return we only had to pay an airport tax. Obviously we took it, and booked ourselves 4 days in Tokyo.

We stayed at the Kimi Ryoken, famous as the best budget hotel in Tokyo. The room worked out to a little over $60 a night for two people, of course budget is relative. The hotel was fantastically Zen. Instrumental Japanese music was piped out on every floor. The room was absolutely Japanese; bamboo screen, mats on the floor for sleeping. A machine in the lounge dispensed green tea 24/7 another one was equipped with every product ever made by Sapporo.

In Canada I loved nothing more than going out for Japanese food, miso soup, veggie sushi, noodles, salad, so I absolutely couldn’t wait to get to Japan and eat until I burst. Apparently vegetarian Japanese is a North American creation. We told the hotel clerk that we’re vegetarian and her words were “Oh, I’m sorry!”. They don’t even have a word for vegetarian in the Japanese language. Our first night there we couldn’t even be bothered to go find food so by 6:00 am we were just starved. We headed out in search for some breakfast, breakfast in Asia is remarkably similar to lunch and dinner. After wandering around for a while, we finally found a noodle shack that served noodles in miso broth, no pork or fish. Immensely proud of ourselves we handed the vendor a wad of cash. Sighing at the ignorance of tourists he walked over to the entrance put the money in a machine which printed food tickets for us, he handed us the tickets to us, we gave them back to him and then he made our noodles. Noodle shops in Japan are deafening, as slurping is the way of complimenting the chef. (Brad complemented those chefs to near death)

The majority of our time in Tokyo was spent figuring out where we were going to eat next. What can I say, we like food. We did find one really great veg place, a Nuevo Japanese concept restaurant. I can’t remember what we ate but I do remember it being very tasty. I also remember that the restaurant seemed to be in the theme of a midget treefort.... but we love treeforts!! We also made it to a Buddhist temple in a park, featuring a gigantic ginseng tree, a temple, another alter with an ornamental path to get to it, and a statue of a dog which was in a cage, I guess in case it came to life and escaped? At the temple there was a big gong which people would ring after tossing a couple coins towards it. We found another, more deserted temple just across the street with a bigger bell and thought we’d give it a ring ourselves. GONG!!! we we're so pleased with ourselves as that bell rang loudly through a nearby cemetary!!.... then a Buddhist monk came out of the temple to tell us to stop, probably broke a vow of silence or something to do it. Oops.
Sometimes we are just an awful sore thumb.

Japanese kids are about the coolest cats we’ve ever seen, cooler than any European or North American, they all look like rock stars. We thought we’d see how these hipsters partied, but jet lag hit hard, Japan is 13 hours ahead of Ontario. Ever seen Lost in Translation? Our time in Tokyo was just a tiny taste, 3 days is hardly enough time to explore a city. I can’t think of an easier way to ease ourselves into Asian life though, Tokyo, although I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily westernized, is very metropolitan and sane; easy to navigate, nice metro, etc. Taiwan on the other hand is a madhouse.