Tuesday was our last full day in Japan. We visited the Tokyo National Museum, and the exhibits we enjoyed the most were the ancient games, calligraphy examples, and wood block prints. It was really hot that day, and Amy was pleased to find that the museum offered parasols for use on the museum grounds. She quickly became a fan of this Japanese custom and considered buying one to take home!
We spent the rest of the afternoon resting and getting our things ready for our return home. Our big dilemma of the day was figuring out how to get our walking sticks from Mt. Fuji home. We first tried shipping them from a local post office. We walked in and explained the dimensions of the package, and after much conferring behind the desk, the workers told us that it would be over $100 to send home. Then we tried without luck to buy a shipping tube or box they would fit in. We finally talked to the front desk at our hotel. After (again) much conferring behind the desk, the staff gave us a small cardboard box, some bubble wrap, scissors, and a roll of tape. With limited English and hand gestures, we were able to come up with a plan of cutting one side of the box, laying it flat, then rolling it around the sticks to create our own cylinder. We took our supplies up to our room and were able to construct something we thought would work well enough to make it through bag check at the airport!
For our last night, we decided to splurge on a nice dinner. We found a place (Daidaiya) in our book that sounded good and had a modern take on traditional Japanese atmosphere that sounded perfect. They were offering an 8 course dinner, and we went for it. We started out with an appetizer of tofu, squid, marinated pork, and egg pancake…
We spent the rest of the afternoon resting and getting our things ready for our return home. Our big dilemma of the day was figuring out how to get our walking sticks from Mt. Fuji home. We first tried shipping them from a local post office. We walked in and explained the dimensions of the package, and after much conferring behind the desk, the workers told us that it would be over $100 to send home. Then we tried without luck to buy a shipping tube or box they would fit in. We finally talked to the front desk at our hotel. After (again) much conferring behind the desk, the staff gave us a small cardboard box, some bubble wrap, scissors, and a roll of tape. With limited English and hand gestures, we were able to come up with a plan of cutting one side of the box, laying it flat, then rolling it around the sticks to create our own cylinder. We took our supplies up to our room and were able to construct something we thought would work well enough to make it through bag check at the airport!
For our last night, we decided to splurge on a nice dinner. We found a place (Daidaiya) in our book that sounded good and had a modern take on traditional Japanese atmosphere that sounded perfect. They were offering an 8 course dinner, and we went for it. We started out with an appetizer of tofu, squid, marinated pork, and egg pancake…
After that, we felt a mixture of anticipation and dread of each following course. We had soup with shrimp dumplings, white fish & tuna sashimi (one of the better courses),
Grilled clam with green onion and beans,
Tomato sorbet,
Grilled chicken meatball and beef with salad (best course),
Sushi – salmon, tuna, sea bream, sea urchin, and okra with miso soup.
Final course was dessert of fruit and Jello. Although we didn’t enjoy the cuisine, it was one of the more entertaining meals we’ve had, from enjoying the presentation to anticipating what our next “culinary delight” would be.
On Wednesday, Amy couldn’t leave without one more trip to Choco Cro for a chocolate and banana croissant.
We stopped by the department store basement market to grab lunch to go and ate on the train back to Narita. Flying back, we had to stop at Newark to go through customs and then take a flight back to Dallas. We experienced a bit of culture shock – after getting used to how polite and helpful everyone was in Japan, the grumpy customs officer and apathetic bag check people were a jarring reminder of the typical service you find in US airports. We were somewhat surprised on our arrival in Dallas that all of our bags (and walking sticks!) actually made it back.
Overall, we really enjoyed our vacation to Japan. Our favorite parts of the trip were experiencing the Japanese culture and the hospitality of the people. Tokyo was like most big cities, but we would like to have the opportunity to go back to Kyoto someday and maybe spend more time in some of the smaller cities.
Sayonara!
Overall, we really enjoyed our vacation to Japan. Our favorite parts of the trip were experiencing the Japanese culture and the hospitality of the people. Tokyo was like most big cities, but we would like to have the opportunity to go back to Kyoto someday and maybe spend more time in some of the smaller cities.
Sayonara!
No comments:
Post a Comment