‘Konichiwa’ Chaps, Spongebob here, I’m back! So, make yourselves a cup of tea, sit down, relax and be ready to have a long read because I am going to tell you about Japan ๐.
Japan is not a country that I have had any aspirations to ever visit, after all I have read many biographies of ex-WW2 POWs retelling their horrific and tortuous experiences under the hands of the Japs, and in particular I’ve read one book more than once called ‘One Fourteenth of an Elephant’ (Ian Denys Peek) which is deeply engrained in my mind. On the otherhand I’ve also read ‘Shogun’ and I remember watching that as a series on TV starring Dr Kildaire (Richard Chamberlain), this gave a fascinating insight into Japan’s past. Anyway, son no 2, aka Tokyo Joe is over there on a University Study year, so me and Mrs Spongebob decided to break the bank to go and visit him.
The first inkling of a different land hit me when I boarded the ANA plane on meeting the stewardesses who were so polite and friendly. Indeed, I ventured my first ‘arigato’ (thank you) which was greeted with gracious deep bows and the broadest, friendliest smiles I have seen in a long while. This was in deep contrast to the experience of being rudely booted through the security system at Heathrow where we all treated like naughty seven year old schoolboys wearing shorts and daring to contemplate bring a bag of marbles to school in our pockets.
After landing at Haneda airport in Tokyo after a 14 hour flight we were efficiently processed through immigration to collecting our bags in a matter of minutes, again being greeted throughout with bowing and smiling airport staff. Then on leaving the airport and using the Jap transport system for the first time some differences are immediately apparent. I noticed that the place was spotless, no litter, no graffiti and no-one sleeping rough on the streets. And yet there are no bins with people seemingly used to taking their own rubbish home with them. On the trains, a level of common decency and consideration to your fellow travellers is expected so no-one speaks and no talking on mobile phones. People form orderly queues to get on the trains and buses, and to go cross the roads, there is no ‘me first – stuff you’ attitude.
You see, in Japan the place is packed. There are millions of people living on top of everyone with 32 million in Tokyo on it’s own. It makes sense therefore for common decency and consideration for your fellow man to be prevalent. Then there are the toilets! There are public toilets everywhere, almost on every street corner. They are spotlessly clean, many are ‘space age’ toilets with heated seats. The Japanese obviously place a very high priority on their people’s personal comfort and hygiene. In one place I visited there were three guys cleaning the loos, with one guy on his knees scrubbing out a urinal deep up to his armpit. Indeed, on one of our outings I was stricken suddenly with the ‘squits’. In fact, we’d just got off a highland train and got on a cable car when I felt that familiar sudden movement deep down in the back passage area that left me urgently reaching into the depths of my backpack for the Imodium’s. I feared not though, because as soon as the cable car stopped, I was able to reach the nearest public convenience with ease and get sudden relief on a heated toilet seat. Thereafter on that day I had urgent need to visit five more conveniently placed loos before the Imodium’s succeeded.
Contrast that with the UKs public loos and the UK attitude to a basic commonly bodily function! On our return journey home after approx. 30 hours ‘on the hoof’ we found ourselves at Leeds train station at midnight where I was suddenly in desperate need of a dump. So, I searched out the toilets in the station to be greeted by the most disgraceful sight. The floor was a lake of piss and the seat of the pan was covered in piss. I obviously did not want to risk wetting my arse on that and I fortunately with great personal relief. I managed to do a ‘Fench drop’ (remember the old French hole in the ground toilets.) It was grim! What do we pay our taxes for, surely, we should get better public convenience service than that? Our ‘powers that be’ who we vote in, obviously think that no-one is this country should venture away from the comfort of their own bog if they are in danger of wanting to pee or dump whilst out. It’s barbaric!
Japan is a very cheap place for us Brits to visit. Public transport is cheap, we got IC cards which are equivalent I guess to Oyster cards, and we put the equivalent of £75 on them. This then got us all around the cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka,Nagano) for 3 weeks and included a few day trips out (same as going London to Brighton for example). IC cards can also be used to pay for stuff in convenience stores etc. The bullet trains (Shinkanzen) are about the same cost as our inter city trains but a lot more pleasant and spacious, in fact very akin to good air travel. Public transport is also very efficient, everything on time and very frequent. Again, lets contrast that with the UK. On our return journey back home, we reached Kings Cross in good time, however, I did allow a good 3-hour window in case of mishap for our train up to Leeds. That’s a journey I used to take frequently when I worked in London, I had a routine of meeting up with a mate also on a London weekly commute, in the Parcel Yard bar in the station. We would sink a few pints of ‘London Pride’ at the relief of surviving yet another week of toil in our respective troublesome working roles before getting on First Class (we’d worked out how to fridge the expenses to allow us a First Class seat – naughty!).
Anyway, so here we are back from Japan after 3 weeks having a few drinks in the Parcel Yard, me for old times sake. The wife found that she had to pay a 5 quid service charge for the unsmiling waitress to bring her a drink, whilst every time I went to the bar, I felt like I was inconveniencing them for daring to ask for a drink. Then when it was time to go get on our train, we find that it is delayed by 40 minutes and then when we finally arrive in Leeds it is over one and a half hours late meaning that we missed our last connecting train home as it was after 11:30pm. The LNER train staff had scarpered leaving us to our own devices. I was in the process of ordering an Uber that would cost £50 when we saw a group of other passengers by the taxi rank where they had managed to collar some poor unfortunate sod who was grumpily trying to arrange for taxis home. There were people wanting to go everywhere in Yorkshire, taxis to Harrogate, Halifax etc. And so it was that we were squeezed into a taxi and driven home by Mohammed. I thought that Mohammed would be happy at this unexpected taxi bonanza but no, he was upset because he had to drive all the way back to Leeds empty. Whereas, back in Japan there are train staff everywhere all immaculately dressed in smart uniforms. We only got in a taxi once, just to get to a place that looked difficult to navigate to. The taxi was cheap, clean and the driver was friendly and courteous.
In that taxi journey back home from Leeds, we saw groups of feral looking hoody wearing teenagers lurking in the shadows. I certainly wouldn’t have liked to have been walking around on the streets there at that time. In Japan, there are small police stations everywhere, most seemed to have a policeman or two standing outside keeping an eye on things giving a reassuring presence. We felt, comfortable and safe everywhere we went no matter what time of day it was. The Japanese were always all courteous and very friendly. There was never a worry about inadvertently catching some one’s eye or anything like that. They have a national identity in Japan and from what I can see there is no-one trying to change that.
Food is also very cheap; I’d say that eating out is roughly 50% what we pay here in the UK and it is very varied. Anyone who likes seafood would be in their element. However, my favourite meal was on our first night in a Tokyo backstreet restaurant. It turned out to be a Nepalese curry house and the chicken tikka starter was sublime, and it will last forever in my memory. After eating a meal out, so long as it was good you must say ‘Oishee katta’, meaning ‘that was delicious’ and you will get the most amazing reaction. I said it to the Nepalese guys, and the cooks, waiter, owner all came out wearing the biggest smiles, they were absolutely delighted. It was a fabulous experience.
Being a sightseeing tourist on this kind of trip is hard work. Tokyo is full of steps, up and down the subways. I found it very hard and my feet were killing me. But it was very rewarding to see all the sights and experience the smells and sounds of the busy markets, busy streets, temples, castles, shrines, snow monkeys, friendly deer that you can hand feed, the views over the mass urban sprawl of Tokyo etc. I mentioned the food above, but yes every meal was an experience and even eating with chop sticks all the time was great. Me and Mrs Spongebob particularly enjoyed the odd sake (rice drink) or two or three on an afternoon, which helped to relieve the pain in my feet.
At most of the sights, temples etc the Japanese girls would dress up in traditional kimonos, seemingly for the sole purpose of posing in front of the sight for a photograph. Which I assume they would post on their social media profiles. All a bit false, but for me it added to the attraction for most of these girls are absolutely, stunningly attractive. And it was great to see them celebrating their culture, something that they are obviously very proud of. I guess it would be similar to a Scot dressing up in a kilt and posing for a photo standing outside Stirling castle then posting it on Facebook as it still seems acceptable in this country for the Scottish at least to still celebrate their culture.
And so, we are back. When we landed back in Blighty at Heathrow, we were marshalled through the Arrivals channels by unfriendly and mostly foreign airport staff. We might be forgiven for not knowing which country we’d landed at. Now back to the old routine – PSA testing up next!
Never in a million years did I ever think we could afford to go on a trip like this. After all it was a trip of a lifetime. But somehow, we found the funds to do it and whilst in Japan I reflected on this a lot. Given how hard I found it ‘sightseeing’ at my time of life and Prostap afflicted, I am convinced that if anyone has aspirations to see places then they need to do it now and don’t put it off because in 10 years’ time, if I am still around the chances are that I will be sitting in my chair and any unused surplus dosh that I might still have will be wasted because one thing is certain once I pop my clogs I can’t take it with me! I have been trying to encourage the same sentiment to my friends – so get travelling, NOW!
Sayonara
Spongebob