a director of a residential conference centre

Our last evening in Japanis quite an experience; we head to Zipangu (which was the first name given to Japanby the Europeans) on the 48th Floor of theCarettaBuilding in the Shiodome (pronounced Shi-oh-dome-ay, rather than Shiodome, which was my first try). The floor below us houses Gordon Ramsay’sTokyo restaurant which, frankly, didn’t look that impressive.

  We enjoy superb service, amazing food (the best pork belly I have ever had) and drink in a building that has an almost unbelievably astonishing night view of the city. The food is beautifully cooked and even more beautifully presented. The raw fish that I try is superb and I really enjoy it as it melts in my mouth.  

The following morning, it is time to leave… our Japanese adventure is almost over. At the airport, the check in is as dazzlingly efficient as ever and I am assisted into the check-in queue, out of the queue, and up to the desk by a team of four staff. I quickly make my way to the ANA lounge and start helping myself to snacks and drinks and yes, even though it is only10.00am, I do have a beer – well, why not? One does need to relax when flying and I know it’s very important to keep your fluids up!

The flight has been called… she really did say “thank you for frying with All Nippon Airways, we hope you have a good fright.”    I do hope not.

When we arrived back at Tokyo Train Station, there was a man helping to call up the taxis and load our bags into the boot, such as you would get at a first class hotel rather than a busy train station. It was a welcome assistance and no tip was necessary. In fact, no tipping is necessary anywhere, despite the skilled and helpful service.

There are homeless people of course, as there are in any large cosmopolitan city, but the homeless people in Japan still have that inherent desire to abide by the rules despite the situation that they find themselves in; the few cardboard box “houses” that I saw were all tidy and well kept and they often still leave their shoes tidily by the “front door.” 

Shopping inJapanis a delight; there is no sight of any surly or off hand assistants and nor is there anyone offering to help you when you clearly don’t need any. I never once heard the equivalent of, “you alright there mate, need any ‘elp?” shouted at me from afar. No, the assistance is subtle and brilliantly responsive and as soon as you decide that you do need some help and glance up, someone is already moving towards you, unable to stop themselves bowing even if they wanted to.

Once you decide on a purchase it is wrapped up beautifully as though it is worth 5 times as much. I bought my wife a wind chime in a shop and, because they could not immediately locate the one I wanted, 3 staff were instantly on hand to assist – checking boxes and finding the one I wanted after just a few moments. I’ll leave it to your imagination to consider what might have happened in the UK.

We enjoyed Ryoanji Seven Herb Tofu for Sunday lunch; served in a restful Japanese style room overlooking a moss covered rock garden with Koi Carp in a nearby pond. The sign said that “whilst enjoying the smooth tasting ‘momen tofu’, topped with aromatic seven herbs, the indications of the beautiful four seasons of Kyoto can be seen and felt in the atmosphere.” I’m not so sure; but it was very tasty and very peaceful and, with a beer to accompany the meal, it certainly was delightful.

It is also difficult to soak up the atmosphere when you are being route-marched from temple to temple but time was limited and there was a lot to see, so we kept up a steady pace over the 2 days we were there, skipping lunches, hopping on and off buses and walking a half marathon each day.

My favourite temple was Kiyomizudera which seemed to combine everything in one really heavenly place. Set on a hill overlooking the city to the West, this huge Buddhist Temple is quite incredibly stunning. We shopped in the little touristy boutique shops leading up to the gate of the temple and then climbed the steep steps to enter. The people visiting this temple seemed somehow edgier and more stylized than most of the people I had seen thus far. Girls in gaudy purple tights and hot pants and men in shades were very much the norm whilst the few more traditional, kimono-wearing, Japanese ladies looked out of place somehow.

The hotel was amazing, of course, with restaurants everywhere – we chose a Chinese restaurant for the second evening. Again, the service was just a touch less dazzling than it had been inTokyoand the Chinese Head Waiter was brisk and efficient but lacked the style and innate sense of customer-respect that we had been experiencing thus far. The food was exceptional but not quite enough so we decamped for dessert in the coffee lounge downstairs.

The previous evening we had enjoyed a marvelous buffet dinner - I had a small taste of most of the items on the incredibly extensive buffet, but was surprised when a delightful looking dish turned out to be “Raw Horse” which I then declined. We were joined by an old acquaintance, Haruo, a Japanese thatcher by trade who apparently has no concept of taking weekends off. He told us that if the weather is fine, he works; sometimes for 50 days in a row.

During our stay inKyotowe visited 7 of the more than 1,500 shrines and temples, each one with its own gardens… some were stunning massive buildings and huge parks with many temples in and some were tiny little oases of calm. All were stunning and, of course, immaculate. In one temple garden we came across some women who were literally on their hands and knees and sweeping the grass of the twigs and other debris from the previous night’s heavy winds.

I found the ancient and famous Zen rock gardens of Ryoanji and Ryogen-in fascinating. A shaft of light slanted in and touched the leaves of a small bamboo; the beautiful effect brought colour to an otherwise somewhat somber and subdued landscape in one of the gardens. We shuffled quietly round the gardens en-masse, stopping occasionally to contemplate the meanings and decipher the various truths that they represent.      

Of course it doesn’t help to be contemplating the cores of universes and the balances of positive and negative forces of male and female whilst shoals of tourists ebb and flow around you, photographing everything in sight. What is probably needed is a good hour all alone to soak up the full meaning and atmosphere of each garden. Sadly the peace and tranquility of these gardens is now forever lost in the waves of tourists, myself included, who come to see the very peace and tranquility that they unwittingly negate. One of the monks, his brain clearly addled by too much Zen contemplation, asked my colleague and  & me if we were on our honeymoon. Perhaps even Buddhist monks have a sense of humour.

The following day, Friday 29th February, we left Tokyo on the Bullet Train, the Shinkansen, which is quite an experience – it’s not just the speed and the per-second timetable preciseness of the train that’s so impressive, it’s also the efficiency of the cleaning of it, the professional seriousness of what looked exactly like a flight crew – a team of 3 pilots in uniform, hats and white gloves, the bowing and deferential ticket collector who must have nodded at me 35 times during my ticket inspection, and the uber-efficient superintendent who wandered through the train at regular intervals, eyes darting from side to side, seeing everything and, more importantly, acting on it. An empty cup? Gone in a flash. A seat left not quite upright? Zing, done. Like some kind of robot she was there instantly. Fascinatingly, every time she entered the cabin, she bowed deeply and respectfully down the aisle – even though no one, except for me perhaps, seemed to be watching her. So impressed was I that I was tempted to stand and bow to her but decided against it as she would probably have been deeply offended.

Kyotowas quite different fromTokyoin many ways; it felt slightly more touristy and, if one were to be a harsh critic, one could say that it was marginally less the better for that. A taxi driver was just a teensy bit less respectful, one or two shopkeepers and assistants were somehow just a fraction more jaded, and the waitress in the hotel coffee bar was an iota less willing and helpful. There was still no chit chat of course, and the service levels were still in a different league from this country’s, but it was still there, a slight sense of the tourist-weariness that affects every popular destination.

Here in Tokyo, the underground is clean and safe although it does seem amazingly complicated to me, jet-lagged as I am. I guess I’ll get the hang of it soon but in the meantime it is also half empty (where are the heaving crowds of rushing commuters?) and it is also way too hot. Out in the air it is really freezing with a bitter wind - but down in the underground it’s almost a sauna, especially as I’m wearing about 6 layers in an effort to stay warm above ground. Tired as I am, the minute I get on a gently rocking, clean, quiet, warm train, I start to feel dozy. And, looking around, so do most of my fellow passengers – many are in various states of doziness and one or two look set to miss their stop! At many stations there’s the vaguely familiar pock-marked face of Tommy Lee Jones advertising some kind of coffee. Incidentally, coffee is available hot or cold from most vending machines.

The subway feels very safe though; several times strangers have wandered up to us and helpfully offered advice and directions in good English without being asked. So far, in fact, the most startling thing about Japan is the gentle consideration of the people to each other and strangers.

The city roads are, of course, fairly busy with lots of taxis (all precisely the same size and looking somehow rather square and dated), but it is nowhere near as busy and congested as London. Interestingly, and again contrary to what I had anticipated, like us, the Japanese drive on the left.

At various times, I have been observing the staff going about their business in the hotels that we have been staying in; it’s quite an eye opening experience. Business men approaching an exit or the reception desk are greeted by a bobbing and helpful young lady who takes their briefcases and bags and leads them, still bowing to the exit where, with a quick gesture to the taxi rank, they summon a cab. The taxi drivers are all immaculate; they wear suits and ties and white gloves. The rear passenger door opens and closes automatically and you have to remember not to bother to shut it. When the taxi departs from the hotel, the hotel staff member who escorted you to it, bows respectfully at the car as you depart. “We’re only off to the fish market,” I think to myself.

The building activity in Tokyo is frantic; ever taller, ever more impressive skyscrapers continue to go up all over the city and cranes bob and bow on the rooftops in a kind of gentle mimic of the people here. We are told that there are plans to build another Tokyo Tower – 2 or even 3 times the size of the existing one, which already dwarfs the French version. No doubt that will then be superseded by an even higher building a few years later. Up until recently there were no very tall skyscrapers in Tokyo since the country lies right on an active fault line and earthquakes and tremors are common-place; however, recent improvements in building technology and steel strengths have allowed high rise buildings to start mushrooming up almost everywhere one looks. Ironically enough, and probably just as I was lying awake at night worrying about how I might survive an earthquake trapped in my 18th floor bedroom as the entire building concertinas down on me, England was actually hit by a (small) earthquake.

Smoking is permitted in most restaurants, although some are segregated, and this, particularly in light of the fact that the rest of the country is so incredibly clean, is quite a noticeable thing. This can be a little discomforting, especially as we are now used to a complete lack of smoke in the UK when we are eating out.

Smoking is not allowed on the underground though and I suspect that one day the inevitable will happen and the law will eventually change. I saw a number of office workers outside buildings smoking much as you might see in this country, however, the streets are not strewn with plastic wrappers, discarded boxes and cigarette butts as you might expect. I only saw one fag butt lying on the ground outside and even that, I half suspect, was probably dropped there by a gaijin, a foreigner.

The primary raison d’être for our trip, apart from observing the impeccable service standards, was the 35th Anniversary of our language school business. The party to honour this impressive achievement was held at the British Ambassador to Japan’s Official Residence which is in the grounds of the British Embassy in Tokyo. The embassy address is probably the equivalent of Number 1, Pall Mall, London and it is, without doubt, the most impressive of all the embassies in Tokyo. In the heart of one of the largest and most built up and fabulously modern cities is a little piece of England. The garden, which the ambassador’s wife kindly showed us before the party began, is an oasis of calm and quiet, hidden from the view of the skyscrapers by shrubs and trees even in the winter; indeed, both Prince Charles & the Queen herself had planted trees in the garden on official visits. In the spring and summer it must be a delight and we were told that they would shortly be using it in April to host the annual party to commemorate the Queen’s Birthday.

Dinner was at a truly amazing restaurant where the chefs knelt at the grill at the same table as us and we pointed out what we liked the look of from the fresh fish, meat and vegetables in front of us. Each time anyone entered the restaurant, or ordered something, or even went to the toilet, they were greeted or accompanied with a shout of appreciation and an announcement of what was happening… I imagine a loose translation might have been, “the bloke with the glasses has just ordered another beer and now he’s off to the toilet too!” It was pure theatre, especially the changeover of chefs which was accompanied with a ritual of clapping and shouting. Like all good food and theatre though, it was quite pricey and, in fact, it was apparently too pricey for one of the other patrons that evening who, in a very un-Japanese way, complained loudly and at great length about the cost of his oysters. One of our party was just about to leap up and help escort him off the premises, when he finally decided, after banging the table near us, that he was not going to get a refund and left. Needless to say, we asked for the bill with not a little trepidation.

Thursday began early with a visit to the famous fish market at 5.00am followed by a trek to the tallest building in Tokyo and a look at some big department stores in the renowned Ginza district. The fish market, the world’s largest, was busy with both the normal business of buying and selling fish going on as well as hundreds of camera toting tourists snapping away at the proceedings all the while – it must infuriate the workers and we did get gently and respectfully moved on a few times. The market apparently handles up to a third of the fish sold in the world… remarkable when you consider that the Japanese make up only 2% of the world’s population.  

Sadly there was a big queue outside the sushi and sashimi houses and so we headed back to the hotel after an hour or so of hiking around this vast & busy, but incredibly quiet and non-smelly market. Every kind of fish and crustacean seems to be on sale here; the tuna are the most famous and awe inspiring and some of them fetch up to £20,000 each, but there are all sorts of other things available here – mountains of plastic cold boxes are piled everywhere each of them filled at some stage with fish, shellfish, squid, eels, eggs, etc.

Huge crabs, still moving, peer out of their polystyrene boxes and massive barnacles of various types bubble away in wet tanks. Here and there the market traders hack away at the massive tuna reducing them from recognizable shapes down to loins and steaks of various sizes. Some of the traders have electric saws and these can be seen slicing the tunas into halves and more manageable chunks. One trader, waving me on as I stare at him, has a cigarette dangling from his lips as he leans over the tuna and pushes it roughly through the saw. No health & safety audit here then. In fact the whole place is so busy with people rushing around on motorized trolleys, bicycles and mopeds, that it is a miracle that people aren’t regularly maimed or killed. Then again, perhaps they are.