The Best Sushi Restaurant in Tokyo

I came to Tokyo for the first time in 2005. If at that time you had told me that I would develop a taste for raw fish, large slabs of wet, cold, raw fish, then I would have patted you on the head and told you to keep taking the medication. Being English, there is something which goes against our soul in the act of eating raw meat. this act is far too close to the living beast and the kill for our gentle sensibilities. And here we have a contradiction, for as I have expressed earlier, some of our life style could be interpreted as barbarism by some Japanese but we tend to associate the eating of raw fish with barbaric practice.

Cross cultural experience, the dragons lair of the true traveller's explorations. This is a mythic image and without going all Comparative Mythologist on you (see: http://creativemythology.blogspot.com/ for my site in this connection!) a small explanation of the metaphor is probably useful.

The dragon hoards treasure in the lair and spends most of his life sleeping on the coin, precious metals and jewels so that the thief cannot rob him of his prize. But the treasure should be shared with the community so the hero confronts the dragon, fights the battle to release the treasure to the world at great personal risk and once triumphant, the community benefits.

Hmmm, so eating raw fish is a treasure? Well actually yes, and in that admission you can see how far I have come in four years of journeying to Japan. What truly examples my conversion is that I now actually have developed not just a taste but a discernment for this Japanese cuisine. So much so that when back in London my heart yearns to be able to come back and go to my favourite Sushi restaurant and one I would claim transcends the mere dietary requirements and is elevated to an exposition of the art of this cuisine.

Our local hero displays his raw materials.

Once you actually move on past your own internal revolt against chewing on raw fish and ally that with the realisation that you do not actually have to like everything then things start to become delightful. This point about not having to like everything is actually really important. There is a tendency to try and eat everything because as you approach a different cuisine you have no established experience or mechanism for discernment. In every cultural cuisine there is room for likes and dislikes, that is quite normal so once you find your own normality then any pressure to eat is replaced with a desire to eat. In my case there are two fish that led me to the promised land, tuna and bullie.

Nirvarna

The above picture is what is called au toro (spelling inaccurate but you get the sound I am sure). This is the most expensive cut of the tuna fish rich in white fat. The delicate shade of pink set against the green leaf with a flourish of pickled ginger and a squidge of green wasabi presents as a minimalist design. The fish rests on a pug of rice which has been hand moulded, flavoured and the married to the slice of fish right before your very eyes. A swift but perfectly balanced lift over the counter and an impactless placement on the leaf and you are not so much served as graced with the art of sushi.


Using your hashi, chopsticks, you slip it into your mouth and your seduction is almost complete. As the flavour, taste and texture relieve your senses of all stress and your taste buds convey undiluted sensations of pleasure into your brain it seems as though you have touched a small eternity. This experience is not about any one element, it is about the whole process, the performance of the production, the attention to detail without over elaboration and the sheer quality of the fish, this is the place to learn to know about sushi.

Back in London people tell me that they do or don't like sushi. I ask them if they have been to Japan. I don't know why I ask because if they are talking about sushi in London, like or dislike, then they haven't been to Japan normally. You simply cannot get the quality and cuts of fish for sushi in London. You certainly cannot achieve the ambiance of a place like Kai, the best place for sushi in Tokyo in my own opinion.

All is washed down with some sake. As you can see there is a wonderful custom with sake which is a definition of hospitality. In anywhere that possesses dignity and grace your sake will be served in a glass which stands in a small bowl or lacquered box. This is because sake is the life blood of hospitality and good manners so who would dare risk not filling their guest's glass right to the rim.

Rather than risk any unintended slight, accidental spillage, inadequate measure and in order to prevent any uncertainty whatsoever the bowl allows you to pour a proper generous measure into the glass. Indeed you can completely and enthusiastically overfill the glass and allow the surplus to collect in the bowl or box. This can then be utilised by your guest at leisure.

Dare I say a pragmatic solution to ensure against uncertainty or error with an attention to fine detail. I can already see the approving smiles on three certain faces in Brisbane, Worcestershire and Cambridge at this news.

You will all note that on the right hand side of this blog I have now added the links to other work in progress. Top of the list is the web site I knocked up for the Kai Sushi Restaurant on Christmas night just as a thanks to them for all their efforts. More detail is to be found there.


As you can see we were the last to leave this particular lunchtime. The Redoubtable Takayama is seen questioning your unwarranted intrusion into her pleasures as she cherishes her glass of sake. For the more observant amongst you there is a fragmentary glimpse of HMiL who is very busy attending to a substantial portion of red mullet.

Japanese Humour: Coming out of the closet!

Here is a special something for the New Year. Japanese television is a phenomena that absolutely fascinates me. If you need to be reminded that you are in a different culture where things aren't quite what you expect then sit in front of a television for a couple of hours.

One of the first things that you will notice is how much food and eating dominates this culture. Really, there is just so much food consumption going on in Japanese programming that it is astounding. But the other thing you quickly learn about Japanese people is that they have an amazing and unique sense of humour.

What is strange about the humour is that all manners and codes of behaviour can break down where it is involved. Humour really presents as an important safety valve for the psyche in a society where formal manners are heavily codified and the individual can be a completely submerged identity. Just how far Japanese television producers are prepared to go may seem, well..., actually..., totally insane!

The video clip below is a scene from a Japanese TV show. In the year of the great scandal at the BBC of two half wits, Ross and Brand, thinking it is funny to phone up a grandfather and tell him his grand-daughter is an S&M Dominatrix working in London, could you imagine the uproar if the BBC did this to unsuspecting members of the public!

Just on health and safety grounds alone any television executive proposing this stunt in the UK would probably be visited by a psychiatrist double quick time. In terms of the essential subject matter, the personal private issue of defecation, our English taboos around this subject would probably present an insurmountable barrier.

And yet, if you have watched this clip then I would bet that you were laughing like a drain. You see our taboos will break down when the breach of them is happening to someone not from our own culture. Instead of a letter to the Times from "shocked and upset licence fee payer of Dorking" you would probably see "Those Japanese, they are mad aren't they, did you see...".

The clip below examples another piece of Japanese television humour which whilst it is less taboo challenging still appears to have a particular edge that makes it not exactly comfortable viewing.

And yet for all these observations, the fact of the matter is that the Japanese style of television is actually what is in the ascendant in the UK. Surely making celebrities eat bugs in a fabricated jungle situation, no matter how worthy a concept some of us may feel that to be, is a similar form of humiliation to being dragged out of the toilet and across the bay for all to see. Mind you, on further consideration it could be that Ant and Dec have missed a trick here... no actually, I think I will stop there.

What really interests me is the willingness for such a private, mannered society with ritualised rules of behaviour to invest heavily in public humiliation for the sake of laughs. When we add to that the willingness
to see contestants physically abused as well, and watch them accept it willingly, then you do have to admit, whatever you think of the format, the Japanese people have a very robust sense of humour.

And finally, just to show exactly how robust that humour is a clip which should leave you in no doubt whatsoever. Humiliation of innocent member of the public: 10 out of 10. Immediate risk of physical harm to innocent member of the public: 10 out of 10. Immediate risk of physical harm to innocent members of the public not involved in the "prank": 10 out of 10. Humour level, well see if you laugh at this!

The wrong snow and nowhere to go!

Bet you don't know what this is!

source: http://www.seikatubunka.metro.tokyo.jp/window/index.html

The news from the UK is grim at the moment, apparently there has been a nasty case of the wrong sort of snow and inclement weather. Obviously no-one expected bad weather in December and absolutely no manager can be expected to take responsibility for what looks like a complete freak of nature.

Complete surprise as snow falls in December.

In addition it is going to be truly difficult to get away this year. Even more so if you need to organise a passport. The single passport office in Petty France, London, has announced on its web site that there will be delays in just trying to get through to make an appointment to get into the queue at the passport office.

Clearly no manager can be held responsible for the unexpected desire of people to want passports. There never was this problem in the 1880's and the single office coped really well between 1939 and 1945 when a lot of people traveled abroad. So everyone in management and politics is at a complete loss as to why the wrong sort of queue has now unexpectedly appeared in Petty France.

Passport interviews in the South East

Due to increased work volumes, we currently do not have enough appointments available in London and the South East to meet current demand. Consequently our appointment booking line is very busy, especially early in the morning. If you wish to make an appointment for other areas we suggest you call after 10 am, if possible. We are monitoring the situation and will endeavour to fulfil our service to you. We will continue to provide regular updates on the website.

source: http://www.ips.gov.uk/cps/rde/xchg/ips_live/hs.xsl/index.htm

So there you have it, its official, no-one is to blame and the management systems work perfectly. No reason to complain as nobody will take any notice anyway. Oh yes, and the graphic at the top of the page! Well that is from the Japanese passport issuing authority in Tokyo. What it represents is the FOUR passport issuing offices in Tokyo and is colour coded to show when they are busy and when they are not so busy.

If you go when it shows red then you will have to queue and have a bit of a wait. Yellow shows when it is reasonably busy but not packed. Blue shows you when it is relatively empty and you can get your passport quickly. This system works, we know because HMiL went to get a passport yesterday, NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY, and was in and out within 10 minutes.

As you can see from the image the Japanese management have also come up with an amazing and revolutionary idea; opening until 19.00hrs on some days. How is this all done, is it magic? No, they just have enough offices to serve the customer need and then publish the data from the previous year regarding how many people visit the relevant office each hour, each day of the week. I bet the bloke who worked that out is an absolute genius.

Oh yeah, and did I tell you, the trains run on time, company directors don't get massive salaries and bonus payments with many of them eating in the same canteen as any other worker. Of course this wouldn't work in the UK because you simply can't attract the right calibre of people unless they are paid like Emperors and have an expense account the size of the Romanian Gross National Product. No to get the sort of people who run Eurostar for example you have to reward them appropriately.

"Already, anyone holding a Eurostar ticket to travel to France today will not be able to go before Christmas Eve, as the company struggles to process the backlog of passengers after the three-day suspension of service caused by the wrong sort of snow in northern France."

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/22/christmas-travel-eurostar-air-flights-transport

One Passport Office

The population measure given for the Larger Urban Zone
centred around London is 11,917,000 million.

Four Passport Offices

As on October 1st, 2003 the population of the
city of Tokyo stood at 12.369 million.

Fuji, the culture of a volcano.

Christmas week is with us and back in London the weather has turned a bit sharp and chaos reigns:

More than 2,000 people have been evacuated from four Eurostar trains that were trapped in the Channel Tunnel after breaking down due to the cold weather.

and

Heavy snow hits UK Christmas getaway: Airports closed, flights cancelled, trains delayed and roads hazardous as eastern parts of England see up to 12cm of snow

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/18/snow-christmas-getaway-travel

Well, well, well, 12 centimetres of snow and absolute, unconditional chaos. Regular readers will of course remember that in the winter of 2007-8 Japan had the worst snow fall for 60 years and that resulted in the man in charge of the Shinkansen (known as Japanese bullet trains, the same as Eurostar bought to run) going on national television to apologise because the service was running 25 minutes late.

Shinkansen, a source of national pride

Yes, one of my favourites, the Shinkansen. One every ten minutes in all directions, expansive leg room, large seats, regular, polite and edible refreshment service at your seat as you go. The real joy of travel, fast, efficient, reliable and comfortable, if you ever come to Japan then have a treat and travel by Shinkansen.

For certain, you will never find four of them stuck in a tunnel because of the cold. The service to the northern island, Hokkaido, a place neck deep in snow during the winter, is connected by a tunnel that makes the channel tunnel (built with Japanese tunneling technology by the way) a much younger baby.

"The Seikan Submarine Tunnel was opened in March 1988 and runs beneath the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates the southern edge of Hokkaido from Aomori Prefecture on the northern edge of the mainland. This tunnel is a part of a railway that runs between Aomori City and Hakodate City in just two and a half hours, and was named by combining the two characters and pronunciations of Aomori City's "Ao (Sei)" and Hakodate City's "Hako (Kan)". The length of 53.85 kilometers (33.5 miles) makes it world's longest..."

source: http://web-japan.org/atlas/architecture/arc02.html

Hokkaido: Sapporo Snow Festival

One of the real sights from the Shinkansen service is that of passing Mount Fuji. You really have to see this volcano for real to appreciate its size and impact on the human consciousness. I will try and describe the enormity of this geographical icon of Japan and whilst my words will only ever be a pale reflection of the reality, I believe at the end of this article you will see for yourself something of what I mean.

I have been talking about the tributaries of Japanese culture and pointed out the importance of hot water in the forming of Japanese identity. This water is the consequence of the unstable geography on which the islands and people of Japan rest. Volcanic landscapes prone to earthquakes, not the most ideal landscape for millions of people to crowd into but a plentiful supply of boiling hot water does offer some compensation.

This wonderful resource has permeated the culture with a deep belief in cleanliness. Not a recent development but a cultural condition hundreds of years old. Our western minds do not readily understand the extent to which this idea of cleanliness persists and our own concept of "clean" is actually woefully short of the Japanese standard. I am sure that the first time visitor to England from Japan is shocked by our general lack of hygiene but, of course, would never be so rude as to mention it.

An everyday example would be the provision of hand towels to wipe your hands before eating. The closest we get to this in the UK is in a curry house where we are given hot towels after eating!!! In Japan,most food outlets will provide a warm towel before you start to eat, all will provide a hand towel before food is served, even Moss Burger, the Japanese fast food franchise.

Moss Burger, small but perfectly formed.

You see, as with most things about Japanese culture, when you actually think about it then it makes perfect sense. Ask yourself, do you really want to wander around a city all day, drift in and out of stores, maybe work at a desk for hours, whatever you do you are touching this, feeling that and picking up some of those, and then you go and eat without washing your hands first. Yes, yes, yes, I know, we are all meant to wash our hands before we eat, we all know that, but when you pop into MacDonalds or such do you actually wash your hands before you pick that burger up? Are you provided with a hand cleaning towel anyway?

Next time you are in town and you see some Japanese people watch carefully when they get their MacDonalds or whatever. You will know they are Japanese because they will sit at a table, put their tray down and then reach inside their bag for a wet wipe to clean their hands with.

This is only the tip of the cleanliness iceberg the ultimate expression of which is something I call Japanese bath culture. On the every day level the domestic bath scene is supported by local bath houses. Remember that unlike like us filthy barbarians who like to wallow in our own dirt, the Japanese insist on showering and cleaning thoroughly before sitting in a bath of hot water. You see the bath of hot water is a soothing, relaxing social occupation not a method of cleaning, for that you use a shower.

The onsen, volcanic hot springs, is the epitome of this cleaning culture. Can you imagine English people going away to a hotel just so they can spend two days washing themselves thoroughly before luxuriating in mineral rich hot volcanic water. In Japan there is a national industry, a vibrant commercial sector dedicated just to this delight in hot water.

Jack in Onsen, Dawn 14.12.2009 Ryokan Terrace, Hakone Mountains

So I said I was going to talk about Fuji-san and whilst it may appear that i have strayed (how unlike me) actually the issue of hot water and Japanese culture is relevant to understanding the place of volcano god in the national psyche. The hot water comes from volcanic vents and bubbles forth in clouds of steam from the mountainsides. I have long argued that culture is the human interface with environment, the inevitable consequence of cognitive thought as a chosen vehicle for species evolution, and therefore the found structures in the environment are the driving forces of cultural development.

In early times, as witnessed in indigenous Australian culture, the landscape and all within it is the manifestation of the spirit world. For the human society lightening had to be the work of spirits, thunder was their voice... what else could these natural phenomena be. So too were the great mountains the manifestation of the nature spirits, huge demonstrations of power and strength, sacred places of the spirits or even a god in their own right. In totemic landscape mythologies of pre-city cultures life revolved around the beneficence or malignancy of these spirits.

So when we come to look at Fuji-san we have to understand the root of its history in the psyche and development of Japanese culture. And when we get our first glimpse of this volcano then you start to loose your breath at the sheer size of it. Fuji is absolutely enormous. In fact, when you land at Narita Airport, an hour and a half drive north of Tokyo, before you descend through the clouds you can often see Mount Fuji, a two hour drive south of Tokyo, majestically rising above the cloud base to the starboard.

But size is not the whole story, it is only when you get close enough to see the shape as well that you can begin to envisage the effect this icon has on the mind. From horizon edge to horizon edge a smooth arc slides up from each side to raise the chalice of the caldera to the sky. The form itself is a meditation in its own right. Even today your first view of Fuji should take your breath away, that is if your mind reacts to anything other than Playstations and Strictly Come Dancing. The existence of this gigantic, poetic natural form within the developing landscape of Japanese culture and its continuing, reliable presence within the history of the land and the people conveys the sacred in a way our cathedrals can only ever dream about achieving.

If you are going to have a sacred space at the heart of a culture then
no-one can deny the presence, physical and spiritual, of Fuji-san!

The Chinese Medicine Doctor, rain and umbrellas

1923 Earthquake in Tokyo.
The big ones like this come around every 70 years or so.
(currently outstanding)

I will have to hurry and get this entry done because the speed and frequency of earth tremours here doesn't bode well at all. We have had three big tremours today and one Richter scale 5 earthquake about 200 kilometres south of Tokyo. Maybe I am just odd but I get kinda excited when the building starts shaking and wobbling from side to side. When the big quake of the day hit off near Atami at about 07.30 am I was lying on the tatami mat in the Japanese room gently coming to consciousness. Then the sway began and I could feel the whole movement backwards and forwards through my spine. The idea that an event 200 kilometers away can shake me on the fourth floor of a building is an awesome display of the power of natural forces.

Since we have been here we have been experiencing about two tremours a day. That is well up on the norm which is usually three or four over the four week period we stay. Takayama is a bit concerned because Tokyo is due a major quake which comes around once every 70 years or so. This is preceded by an increase in activity. The suggestion is not that we are about to have "the big one" imminently but that Takayama's concern level about leaving her mum here alone when a big one could be coming. Needless to say, mother-in-law, a survivor of the Tokyo fire storm when the Americans carpet incendiary bombed the wooden houses and buildings of Tokyo, isn't overly concerned. She keeps a stock of fresh water in bottles around the house and has enough food squirreled away to see out a nuclear winter. Pragmatism and a dislike of uncertainty you see!

So now on to matters less ground breaking, the fascinating case of the Chinese Medicine Doctor.

Fujisawa is about 50 kilometres south of Tokyo though to the stranger it would be very hard to tell exactly when you left the big city because urban housing, golf driving ranges, industry and commerce are wall to wall until you reach the mountains. We drive down there once every time we come to Tokyo to have a check up with the Chinese Medicine Doctor.

The first point to note is that this man is not Chinese he just uses traditional Chinese Medicine. The next thing to note is that his career was in brain surgery. This revelation will raise a medical eyebrow somewhere in Worcestershire, of that I am certain. The other eyebrow of our dear friend and advisor in all matters psychiatric, Dr N. Swift, will also jump up when I say that this doctor has the look of Dorian Grey about him, a fact he attributes to the prolonged use of Chinese Medicine. Whatever the cause, our noble medic is definitely well over 60 years of age but has the look and vitality of a 40 year old albeit one who had a damn good night out the previous evening.

I will forensic the doctor and his 'practice' a little later for rather than rush to Fujisawa there are a few observations on the journey itself that I believe are worthy of your attention.

My honourable mother-in-law and the noble Takayama are keen enthusiasts when it comes to Chinese medicine. This is not so odd as this approach to health and well being has been the traditional basis for Japanese medical practice for a very, very long time. This is their cultural reference point when it comes to tackling both sickness but most importantly ensuring a long life.

Takayama: (in Japanese naturally) "He doesn't like the taste of the Chinese medicine tea and tries to avoid taking it"

HMiL: "Then he is driving himself to an early grave!"

This of course is very hard to argue against when HMiL is a senior person who goes ballroom dancing three times a week, rides around on a bicycle and has two part-time jobs at a time in life when her English counterpart is probably sat in front of a television set in some dreadful residential home. And HMiL is not an exception, Japan is world famous for the health and longevity of their Silvers (as senior citizens are referred to respectfully).

Only this time last year I was watching a programme on Japanese television about a doctor who was 100 years old and still working as a General Practitioner. There was a distinct client group he appeared to be serving, a group of very advanced Silvers! They all had confidence in him and why not, if the doctor is fit healthy and working at 100 then that would have to be a good advert for his services surely! If you wanted further proof all you needed was to hear the recommendation from one of his patients:

"My wife and I have been with him for over sixty years now and both of our children, who are 78 and 81, have all of their family with him also."

Don't ask!

So, despite my own cultural reticence (for example I haven't a clue what is in that strange grey powder my wife makes me drink three times a day) I find it very hard to refute the possibility that a trip to the Chinese Doctor can actually do me anything but good.

For this journey my brother-in-law drives us all down to Fujisawa. Now this journey has several peculiarities about it. Myself, when I drive I tend to prefer slow gentle pressure on the accelerator to produce smooth movements forward and gentle slowing down. This, I find, is good for both the stomach and the nerves. My brother-in-law comes from an entirely different school of motoring, one with a much more casual slouch behind the wheel, a tendency to believe there is no real need to look straight forward or pay any particular attention to other vehicles on the road and more of a stamping motion on the accelerator, the sort of control more suited to playing the foot pedal of a bass drum in a rock band than driving in heavy traffic. This all lends a certain "excitement" to the drive to Fujisawa.

Added to this roller coaster of an experience my honourable brother-in-law, let's call him Bil, has the television on for the length of the drive. This is not so odd as most Japanese cars have a television screen set in the dashboard just to the left of the steering wheel. As a safety feature, the picture only displays when the automatic gearstick is in the "Park" position but the audio is always playing. When there is no television picture then the sat nav displays.

Whatever next?

This may seem very reasonable but then the likelihood is that you have never seen Japanese early morning/daytime television on the commercial channels. Now it may be that all the screeching and shouting is actually a debate by the panel celebrities concerning greenhouse gas emissions or some such other pressing problem but then we stop at a set of lights, Bil hits the park and a man in a pork pie hat and a bow tie appears on the screen sucking up an unfeasable amount of noodles. My stomach is just catching up with the lurching stop and the whiplash in my neck isn't aching too bad when the lights change, the sat nav appears and the G forces kick in as we surge forward.

As we rock and roll towards the next set of lights the dialogue from the programme changes to odd short jingles, more people shouting and at a rough guess we are in a commercial break. Stamping to a halt at the next set of red lights, Bil slams her into park once more, I pull my head off the dashboard just in time to get a momentary glimpse of a large puffer fish, wide eyed and blowing bubbles as it rests on a table then suddenly down comes the knife and off comes its head. The sat nav and the G forces kick in once again and I think that I am in a greater state of shock than the puffer fish.

Any moment now!

In the meantime Takayama, HMiL and Bil are chattering away quite happily and discussing where to go for lunch after the doctor's appointment. I suspect puffer fish is fresh this week! By the time we arrive in Fujisawa I am probably ready for my visit to the Chinese Doctor.

It is raining in Fujisawa when we get out of the people carrier. Everyone but me gets out their umbrella, every Japanese person has an umbrella. If it rains all Japanese get out umbrellas, even the kids going to school, even the coolest of cool teenagers, even the hottest of celebrities, if it rains everyone gets out an umbrella. I don't, I'm an Englishman and I was born in the rain. As we walk up the road towards the surgery I attract those special Japanese stares.

There is no safer investment than
a Japanese Umbrella Manufacturer

You see in Japan it is considered very rude to stare at people, very rude indeed. This is difficult when you first arrive as a foreigner because, believe me, there is so much to stare at. So when the Japanese notice that someone is behaving differently and in very strange circumstances, for example walking in the rain without an umbrella, they quickly look at you and ever so quickly look away, a sort of snap stare.

No doubt their first thought is that this is a person with a mental illness but after a quick snap stare they realise that it is just a foreigner, those strange people that do strange things like walk in the rain without an umbrella or have a bath without showering first.

HMiL: "Why doesn't he use an umbrella, doesn't he know that he is getting wet?"
Takayama: "He doesn't care about getting wet."
HMil: "How strange and yet he only has one bath a day!"

So, a trifle moist but completely vindicated by my own defiance, I arrive at the Chinese Doctor's Clinic. This is set on the first floor of a smart block on the main shopping street. On entering you remove your shoes and take a pair of plastic slippers. Once correctly attired you enter the waiting room which is set just off from the counter behind which there is usually two women in smart nurse type uniforms. Everything is very professional, everything spotlessly clean, everything very modern looking.

Before I continue there is one point of order I would like to address. One of our regular readers commented on the fact that I referred to a view of us English as "barbarians" and queeried this label. Needless to say an e-mail was dispatched with the appropriate response. However, I would like to take this issue of removing the shoes and putting on slippers when entering a home, or in this unusual case a medical practice, and discuss it further.

Recently I heard a radio show in England in which a panel of suitably pompous professional opinion rich 'celebrities' were asked what they did when visiting somewhere and people asked them to take their shoes off. Needless to say the performing halfwits all got high and mighty, damned such a practice as affectation and insisted that they would refuse to remove their shoes and march straight in.

The reason why people remove their shoes and put on slippers when entering the Japanese home is that they believe it is not right to bring the dirt and germs of the street into the home in which you live. Quite sensible and dare I say it, even pragmatic. Why on earth would you want to spend all day walking around in god knows what and then tread it all into the carpets of your house? Common sense in Japan, where the streets are spotless, but in London, where bubblegum peppers the floor, people spit on the pavement, rubbish ebbs and flows with the fumes emitted from the exhaust of every passing bus and dogs are allowed to defecate in large mounds at will? Oh yes, when panel heads start their priggish prattle about refusing to take their shoes off when asked to as a guest in someone else's house then is it any wonder we can be seen as barbarians?

Sorry, just had to let that one out.

Meanwhile in the Chinese Doctor's Practice I will digress a little towards the basis of his medicine. As previously stated the eminent doctor worked as a brain surgeon for many years before "retiring" to take up Chinese medicine. The starting point of all of his consultations is with a blood sample drained from the arm by vampiric nurses who are the epitome of cruelty and evil (I have a dreadful needle phobia). This is then passed through a device that is a series of very thin plates with very small spaces in between. The flow of blood through these plates is seen on a computer screen and snap images are taken.

As the good doctor pointed out, I didn't have something like blood flowing through my veins but a substance with the same consistency as clotted cream. The plates were clogged and blocked and this, so the doctor said, was very, very bad. Blood, it appears is the fundamental of Chinese medicine, if the blood is not right then the body is not right, get the blood right and the body becomes healthy. I can see the approach, after all without oxygen in the blood you die.

So having identified my shocking state of ill health he sent me for an MRI scan. Now this clinic is a small private practice, there is the doctor, four nurses and two receptionists. The waiting room will seat eight to ten people in confined comfort. The consulting room is about the same size as the waiting room and sits adjacent to it. A door from the waiting room, mirrored by a similar door from the consulting room, leads into the 'clinical area' where the nurses perform all of the analytics.

Most impressive is the fact that this clinic area is possessed of a range of hi-tech equipment of a type and modernity that you wouldn't associate with your high street Chinese herbalist in London. Besides a full blood analytics department resplendent with machines that whir and spin, there is an x-ray machine, some large kit I do not recognise and a Magnetic Image Resonance Scanner.

A retired brain surgeon's favourite toy?

Such items of medical kit are not what we would call cheap. My research says that starting prices for such things are $1,000,000 and that would mean that you would have to be selling a lot of grey powder to pay for that baby!

On my return to the doctor I find him shaking his head as he looks at my MRI image. Apparently, not only do I have clotted blood but my brain is shrinking at a rate much quicker than it should for a man of my age. This cheered me up no end.

The doctor put this down to the excess of sugar in the foreign diet.

Doctor: "I have many foreigners come her and they all have the same problem."

That was a relief, I thought it was because I drank too much beer but no sugar, who would have believed it?

Still you can't argue with a man who looks so young without a trace of a face lift or the hint of the tambourine surface of botox. In addition, I had to be impressed by the fact that his clinic waiting room was filled with ladies of a certain age, all appearing startlingly healthy, We returned to sit and wait for our prescription to be made out.

I looked around at the other patients of the esteemed doctor. Obviously I did this discretely, one doesn't like to stare. Yes, ladies of a certain age, ladies with a certain cut about their jib, the sort of ladies that have buried and burnt the husband, realised the life insurance and after years of looking after the man and his needs now find they have the health, fitness and means, leveraged with a life times worth of savings (the Japanese have the most savings per head of population of any country on earth; fiscally pragmatic women drive this trend) so that they now can indulge, sensibly, those little purchases that are so necessary to make life comfortable.

Bargain Predators
Photo is the work of Damon Coulter

Our name was called out and the receptionists handed us two carrier bags of Chinese medicine sachets. The honourable Takayama proceded to pay and my eyes popped. If I were to disclose the amount paid I would be accused of breaching some sort of personal data, Japanese ladies do not like discussing money or any amounts of it, and they certainly consider it a breach of etiquette and manners to discuss personal finances in any way. All I will say here is Magnetic Image Resonance Scanner.

Note on Tokyo Fire Raid

The purpose of this blog is a sideways humourous look at Japan and its society. This should never be taken as meant in any way disrespectfully. There is always a problem in translation and never more so when humour is involved, humour is a cultural construct and what is funny in one culture is not necessarily funny in another. A lot of what I write here is exaggerated, as if you didn't realise, but the more you know about Japan and its people the more you respect them.

"...mother-in-law, a survivor of the Tokyo fire storm when the Americans carpet incendiary bombed the wooden houses and buildings of Tokyo..."

Changing their tactics to expand the coverage and increase the damage, 335 B-29s took off to raid on the night of 9–10 March, with 279 of them dropping around 1,700 tons of bombs. Fourteen B-29s were lost. Approximately 16 square miles (41 km²) of the city were destroyed and some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate deaths of either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombs.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo

Link of interest: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm

In the face of such a national experience, surviving as a young girl as many she knew burnt alive around her, emerging from the catastrophe of war and a landscape burnt to the ground, is it any wonder that people like Honourable Mother-in-Law are pragmatic and dislike uncertainty. She stores water in bottles around the house and she stores food in places around the house because she knows what disaster looks like. When the earthquake comes, the big one, Japan will be ready.

Tokyo after the American Blitz

Japanese virtues, cow dung and politics

I was just getting ready to write about the Chinese Medicine Doctors, showers of rain and the value of investing in Japanese umbrella manufacturers but that photo of the Japanese Prime Minister in the last entry really distracted me. So I decide that I was going to write more on Japanese politics, an enormously rich vein for any humourist let alone an old scratcher like myself. But then, just as I was thinking about the ins and outs of politics here, an old favourite reared its welcome head above the pack and my mind was changed once more.

You see, we had been shopping in the local department store for a new coat, some gifts to take home, a hat and some bags of cow dung. Yes, Japanese department stores, more than an article, too much for an essay, there is a doctoral thesis in that particular subject! Anyway, one thing led to another, via a pint in the department store bar, and the next morning whilst gardening I found that I had mislaid the cow dung. For a moment, imagine your response to this if you had mislaid your two bags of cow dung on a shopping trip in England! The honourable Takayama however, immediately responds to the situation by phoning the department store's customer service.

"Yes, they have the cow dung and we can go in and collect it from the customer service counter." she announces without a hint of mirth. But this is just the start of my wonder in this land where the customer is king.

So off we set at five o clock on Thursday evening to walk to the local department store. Whilst I am not going to write the thesis here maybe a few research notes would be in order. One of the most endearing qualities of Japanese society is its stout and steadfast resistance to AngloAmerican supermarket culture. I am sure you know the sort of thing, where Tescos build huge hyper markets on the edge of a town thus destroying the local traders overnight, creating environmental chaos as huge queues of cars are needed to get the shopping in and reduce local workers to drone mentality for bare minimum wages whilst profits swell the purses of such as Dame Shirley Porter.

Dame Shirely Porter, the butcher of Westminster

The Japanese feel that this sort of business model would erode the fabric of their society and so they absolutely will not have it. Besides, the Japanese do not have an "out of town" area, everything is either urban/suburban or mountains, there is no such thing as re-designating green belt land for a massive consumer slaughterhouse.

"Jack, Japan, Japan, Japan, no more of your consumer farming theories. And my mother says you are to take your Chinese medicine." Takayama shouts as she leaves with mother in search of fresh fish for the evening meal.

So Japan still has local traders, street markets and viable social communities wholly unconnected to the fact it has turned down all of Tesco's bids to enter such a valuable market place. However, what the Japanese love is a department store. Every local borough has a department store or two. These provide floor after floor of bargains, goods and services, you can even get gardening supplies and, if you are lucky, the odd bag of cow dung.

Daiei Department Store, Meguro, Tokyo

So off we head to Daiei which is about a twenty minute walk from the Takayama residence. This walk is actually very pleasant, up narrow back streets, past houses, schools, shops, small engineering works and a meat packing factory. As I have mentioned previously the Japanese society is a mixed economy where no district is designated as residential or industrial, everything sits quietly and contentedly side by side. Such an idea in England would be inconceivable but then clean spotless streets without rubbish are equally inconceivable in England but not Japan.

This is the clue to why such a "mixed economy" works at street level. As an example, and one Takayama and I will go out to photograph on this trip, there is a cement factory on the main Meguro Road and it backs its huge form into the streets behind. In those quiet residential streets there is a parking space for the cement mixers. Each one of those hefty trucks is spotlessly clean, gleaming in fact.

When you next see an English cement mixer take a good look at it. Is it covered in dirt and grime? Is it battered and rusting in parts? Would you want a fleet of those parked up near your home?

As I said, we intend to photograph the cement works and trucks but in the meantime you will have to take my word for it, where they are parked up it looks like a showroom set of brand new condition trucks.

The small engineering works are the same, these sit in between domestic houses but is there any waste or rubbish out front of them, hell no! They have flowers in pots and a boy sweeping the forecourt clean on a regular basis. So you can imagine that the walk to Daiei produces a whole host of treats to my investigating eye. However, last Thusday I also enjoyed one of those special moments when as a foreigner you get to interact with local people.

These Tokyo back streets are phenomenally quiet peaceful places. Traffic is of an absolute minimum and scaled down buses traverse the lanes and byways providing public transport in every backwater. As we were walking along we came to a traffic junction maintained by traffic lights. This is not a big affair, perhaps the roads are not more than twelve paces wide. As we waited to cross we were joined by two very excitable ladies, about 30 to 35 years old, who were babbling away in the local dialect (Japanese!). The cause of their anxiety was plain, there was a bus at the bus stop on the other side of the junction.

What a dilemma. Imagine this in England. You are one side of the road waiting for the traffic light to change and thereby display a green man so you can cross. However, that will only happen when the traffic light changes at which point the bus across the junction will then move off and carry on its way. What do you do?

Maybe you dodge the traffic and try and get across the road and catch the bus? Well do you consider that?

OK, let's now add another key factor into this little scene, there is absolutely no traffic anywhere except the car waiting at the traffic light opposite and the bus waiting behind it at the bus stop.

Yes, our two Japanese ladies are standing waiting for the green man to show even though there is no traffic in either direction and you can see down the road each way for at least a quarter of a mile. You see, in Japan you obey the rules, the man is red so you can't cross.

Admittedly in these times standards even in Japan are eroding but I would still say that 95% of people will not cross a road until the green man appears even if there is no traffic whatsover. I even have to admonish Takayama when she crosses against the red man. I feel dreadfully ashamed that my wife is letting down social values and feel that everyone is looking at her and then me and nodding:

"Ah, she married a foreigner!"

Anyway, having said that, I realised that I had to take decisive action to get these ladies on their bus. I stepped quickly onto the crossing, took a couple of paces and shouted, "Go, go, go!"

You see by stepping into the road, after all I was happy to wait for the green man because I wasn't after the bus, I had broken the taboo and then in shouting in the imperative I had activated another Japanese trait, the need to respond to authoritative command without question. The ladies charged across the road and got to their bus.

Footnote: Obviously the bus driver had closed the doors and was waiting for the lights to change but was still besides the bus stop. On seeing the ladies approach the bus he immediately, without question, opens the doors. After all, he is providing a customer service.

As the bus pulls away I wave to the two ladies who appear to be giggling like schoolgirls and give me a big smile, then quickly put a hand over their mouth whilst waving to me with the other hand. They had benefited from a chance meeting with a foreigner, no doubt they would tell their friends over coffee and cakes once they had finished shopping.

We continued on our way to Daiei and in due course we collected the cow dung from the customer service desk and made our way to the bar on the top floor where I enjoy a pint of Kirin whilst looking at the Tokyo skyline from this seventh floor vantage point.

In matters of cross cultural research proper attention
should be paid to all details and customs of the society.

As I looked across the skyline at the battalions of tall buildings sparkling with lights in the black night I thought about the prime qualities I attribute to the Japanese character, pragmatism and a dislike of uncertainty. The light is either red or green, if it is red you don't cross, if it is green you cross, simple, everyone knows exactly where they stand, everyone understands the rules.

This was the problem for Japanese politics this year. Over recent years there have been a succession of Prime Ministers who simply were not up to the job of being a Japanese Prime Minister. But to become the Prime Minister you have to had worked your way up the honours and favours system of Japanese political society. The truth was that the men in the job and those in line were simply not men of the times and this is always a problem in deeply conservative societies with conservative values, how do you manage change?

I am using the word Conservative Party because that will make sense to the English reader, of course the name is different in Japan but it is only a white label on a well known conservative political position. So, for the Japanese Conservative Party who had been in power since the end of the Second World War, the problem was how to bring in a fresher, younger face, jumping the succession line and recreating the party in the eyes of an electorate who had started to loose faith. In other words, how to change everything without anything changing.

Step forward the grandson of one of the party founders and watch him create a new party, with new politics and new agendas. Key members of the ruling party defect to the new set up thus giving it credibility in terms of governmental experience. A populist campaign is launched which is dynamic against the tired old men and their dated rhetoric. During the campaign every indicator predicted a landslide majority for the new party and the establishment of new politics in Japan.

I remember Merryn Somerset-Webb of MoneyWeek writing sometime earlier in the year about how she had asked an old Japan trader what he thought the difference would be when the new party was elected. She said that he scoffed at her question and replied, "This is Japan, nothing will change."

And so it seems to be. The electorate have accepted that politics is politics and despite the election pledges being rescinded now the new party is in power life will carry on as normal. There is no uncertainty, everything is as it was and pragmatism has set in once more. As I said previously, well done sir!

Well done indeed

Part Two: Going Home

The honourable Takayama sat with her mother behind her, nodding often but gently. Cha Han was on the table, tea was in the mug and the sun was brilliant in a cloudless blue sky.

"People don't want to hear your rantings about consumer society." Takayama admonished, "They want to hear about Japan and all things Japanese not talk of slaughter yards and credit cards."

Mother nodded in agreement however, with what exactly I remain unsure, you see she doesn't speak English. But then she is a mother and always proud to see that her daughter has the foreigner firmly under her tongue.

"And my mum says that you are to drink your Chinese tea in one hours time so hurry up and eat your Cha Han." Mother nodded.

"But I am just contextualising the journey into the Japanese culture, I have to show the juxtaposition, reveal the differences..." I was interrupted,

"You have to write about what people want to hear about not go off spouting this that and the other and don't go trying your 'duty of the historian is to understand context' speech." Mother nodded vigourously and pushed the plate of Cha Han towards me indicating that I should eat. I knew I was beaten, this wasn't about being Japanese this was about a man knowing not to go up against his wife and a fully grown mother-in-law at anytime. Still, they would be going out shortly, scavanging for bargains in the market, negotiating the thumbs off of a street trader and then sharing the spoils of victory (in a non consumer way) in a coffee shop with cakes....

As they left the house I set about writing. Hmmm, I so wanted to talk about Terminal 3 and the re-branding of the bar but maybe that is not what people want to hear about. Personally, I was both fascinated and appalled by the insincerity of this re-branding excercise. What was a perfectly feasible "Irish Pub" (well maybe not so feasible) with beer and food had been turned into a trendy "Bar". All of the furniture was the same, all of the internal structure was identical but on every shelf and wall, in every nook and cranny, there were now odd bits of metal, presumably sculpture, strange incongruous items such as wicker baskets and odd shaped vases and a whole host of other "changes" which completely escape my memory right now.

Lost Pleasures of Irish Pub

The menu hadn't changed except that it had. I mean that the colour and layout of the menu had changed but the food hadn't. On the drinks side this new version of "Bar" had catered to customer needs by deciding not to serve any real English ale, always previously a feature, strangely, of the Irish pub. Corporate commercial lager and chips with a breezy new decor referring the weary traveler to no precise identity whatsoever, perfect, and I bet that this whole re-branding exercise only cost £40 or £50,000 in total. Still, no-one will want to hear me going on about this sort of thing so I will skip straight to Japan.

Lovely, Clean, Narita Airport Restaurant

Japan, lovely place, Narita airport, clean, tidy, re-assuredly consistent. Japanese people, strange and quirky but completely charming, lovely warm and friendly people..........

Sorry about that, Takayama just popped back to check that I wasn't writing about consumer slaughter yards or wandering off moaning about Terminal 3.

"Just make sure you write about Japan, that's what people want to hear about. My mother says that you have to take your Chinese medicine" and then she was gone, back out with her honourable mum in search of indisputable bargains.

Shopping is one of the main social activities of Japanese culture as far as I can see. Strange that isn't it, I moan like mad about corporate slaughter yards but then wax lyrical about Japan and if there is a more consumerist culture on the planet then that would be something to see and write about for sure!!! Here I am sitting in Tokyo, wide eyed and mouth catching flies as I take in all around me, and all about there is the most ravenous buying spree burning like a forest fire.

The Japanese economy is huge, I think it has the second largest Gross National Product in the world:- for the economically illiterate that basically means that they make a lot of things, buy a lot of things and sell a lot of things. This is no mean feat but it is also no surprise because you only have to stroll around the streets to see that everywhere, everyone is economically very active. You are either buying or selling one way or another.

Actually, there are other issues, there is unemployment, there are social problems and there is an economic crisis...of sorts....of Japanese sorts. I will try and highlight some of these issues during the course of this trip and provide some sort of insight into the pain as well as the pleasure of being Japanese today.

I will leave you all with the result of this summer's Japanese General Election:

After 45 years of Conservative government a radical new party was formed by the grandson of one of the founders of the Conservative party. With promises to abolish motorway service tolls and to provide every Japanese family with children a monthly cash benefit which amounted to £450 if you had two kids, the new party swept to power with a landslide victory.

Once in power, sadly it seemed that the economy couldn't stand the loss of motorway toll revenues and the monthly benefit to families also had to be scrapped as fiscally imprudent. However, it transpires that the mother of the new prime minister is giving both him and his brother 6 billion yen a year each, each year, to shift the family fortune away from the older members and thus avoid inheritance tax.

Well done Sir!

Japanese Election Result: Landslide Victory, No Change Whatsoever.

Don't laugh, it's our turn to play General Election in 2010.

The Stench of the Consumer Slaughteryard

Terminal 3

The Stench of the Consumer Slaughteryard: The journey over to Tokyo always produces a week of stress in our household. Takayama's blood pressure rises like mercury in hot weather as the idea of 11 hours on a plane is translated by passing days from a travel plan into a reality. It is not that she hates flying it is just that she is intensely security minded and really doesn't respond well to being told what to do in any situation. This last position, not being told what to do, really raises her hackles when the people doing the telling are covered in make up, wear tight uniform dresses topped off with ridiculous bows that even eighteenth century dandy would think twice about wearing. Personally I don't mind the transvestite porters at Heathrow Airport Terminal 3...

The week before departure had run relatively smoothly except for a sudden last intrusion of what Takayama describes as 'Customer Nuisance' and what UK corporate institutions style as 'Customer Service'. Regular readers to this blog will already have a vague idea about the topic of this first postcard, relative consumer practices, even if the title hadn't given the game away.

When we returned from Japan in September we found that our mobile phones weren't working. This is actually the very worst thing to happen to you after flying for 11 hours and then been regurgitated by Heathrow's arrivals procedures. I say the worst because, being under Japanese management supervision, we had of course booked a mini cab and told the driver to phone us when he gets to Heathrow. I wont go into this much further but you can imagine for yourselves the stress this caused at the time.

The cause of this stress was Barclays Bank and a hopeless incompetence in providing customer service. Months before we left for Japan last summer Takayama was approached b a telephone salesperson who informed her that her credit card was being upgraded to one of these new fangled data collecting devices. Takayama boldly resisted and told the person in no uncertain terms that she was happy with her existing card and didn't want it changed. She knew that all that would change would be a massive increase in junk mail coming through her letterbox and the facility of the bank, and their special friends with whom they share information, to trace her every movement by linking her Oyster card and other travel purchases to her consumer purchases. She was adamant, she did not want this upgrade.

The telephone salesperson told her that she had to have the upgrade. Takayama, incensed, demanded to go up the reptilian scales of direct sales responsibilities until a managing supervisor was able to confirm that, "Yes, the advisor was incorrect, you do not have to have this upgrade." Hmmm, the use of the word advisor here could be linguistically flawed methinks! This all being done and dusted Takayama retired from battle to gnaw on the flesh of victory. But all too soon.

Three weeks later, in through the post pops her new upgraded Barclays OnePulse card. Back on the phone she goes and does battle for many weary hours until the bank's customer service agree that they will let her have her old type card back. One problem though, her old one was cancelled when they replaced it with the new data collecting robot card so they would have to issue a new old one (if you see what I mean).

Not a problem, so you would think. Wrong, all monthly debit payments made with this card were now obselete and Takayama had to go through to all concerned and inform them of the problem. This was a bit strange because when they had upgraded her card to the one she didn't want they had managed to transfer all of her monthly payments but now they had to give her back the facility she did want they couldn't transfer her payments without endless phone calls and forms being filled out. This led to new agreements being set up with everyone, all this hassle the result of one unrequested customer service call from Barclays.

Ahhh, perhaps you are beginning to see the train coming down this long dark tunnel now!

The problem then became compounded when Vodafone customer services got involved. "No, no, no." I hear you scream, "Not more customer services!" but yes sadly we were now nicely placed as the innocent ping pong ball of fate between the two heavily dimpled bats that were the instruments of the customer service industry. The end result was that when we got back from Japan we found our mobiles weren't working because whilst we were away our contracts had not been renewed on their monthly agreement. This despite the fact that Takayama had filled in all the forms, made all the phone calls and guaranteed everything was all in place before we left!

As you can imagine, Takayama did her best to roast the 'advisors' over an open hot coal pit but even then the net result was that after hours and hours on a telephone, two sets of the same forms being made out and sent to Vodafone and Barclays, it took ages to get stability back and no end of hassle and problems sorted. All because a customer service dimpled bat in the UK phoned to tell a customer that she had to have something she didn't want and when she fought for the right not to have what she didn't want they issued the change anyway.

16 hours before our flight to Tokyo on 8th December 2009 my mobile registers an incoming message from Vodafone: "Your monthly contract has not been renewed, please would you arrange renewal in the next three days."

Oh yes, now we have almost two hours on the phone to Vodafone and Barclays customers service dimpled bats trying to get them to sort out the problem Barclays caused, Vodafone compounded, Takayama managed extensively and now they had managed to repeat yet again because, as Takayama puts it, "This is not Customer Service this is Customer Nuisance."

Japanese Customer Service

Nuisance, I feel, is too light a word for this shambles but then we arrive for our flight to Tokyo at the All Nippon Airlines Desk and sanity returns in abundance to our lives. We are going home once again.

We arrived at Terminal 3 to find absolutely no queues whatsoever at any one of the six manned desks of customer check in. A young trainee was being supervised by a more experienced Japanese customer service agent, resplendent in uniform with enormous bow, who very quietly and efficiently checked her young charge's every action. As our bags disappeared off on the conveyor belt the trainee gave us our tickets and explained them thoroughly, she then turned the boarding cards over to reveal a map of the Departures Lounge. Writing the departure time and gate number she then traced the path from the lounge to the gate on the map.

I was gob smacked right there and then. So soon on the journey and straight away the customer service mentality of the Japanese had kicked into gear with the utmost splendour.

UK Customer Service

We have all traveled from Heathrow I am sure. Therefore we all know that feeling of sitting in the departure lounge and looking up at that board waiting to see exactly what gate number we should be at. It can take ages for the gate number to come up and in that wait is a stress, the uncertainty, the unknown interfering with our smooth onward journey. As regular readers will know, it is uncertainty that the Japanese really do not like. When you have an ordered structured society then uncertainty is a destructive element and not to be tolerated. The trains run on time because of this basic matter of Japanese physics; The Uncertainty Principle. The theory and practice of this Japanese science is that they allow for no uncertainty.

In that simple map with the revelation of the gate number (an act that all scheduled airlines could perform because they know the planes leave everyday from the same gate number) meant that from the moment we left check in we had been relieved of all uncertainty, the Japanese style of customer service in action.

But wait dear friends, there was more. We were about to leave when the trainee was advised by her trainer of something in a discreet whisper.

"Oh, I am sorry, may I just check, it says here that you have ordered an Asian Vegetarian Meal Ms Takayama. May I ask if that is correct?"

Can you see the beauty? Can you see the light streaming forth from that customer service desk in Terminal 3? No uncertainty and any chance of uncertainty occurring has to be dealt with before it is a problem. Perhaps the computer record was wrong, perhaps Ms Takayama made an unfortunate error but let's check and make sure, let's be certain that we know what we are doing, let's be Japanese.

Regular readers will of course remember how this contrasts with the British Airways experience when an unordered meal was delivered to Ms Takayama's seat, she said she hadn't ordered it, the cabin crew insisted that she must have, Takayama was adamant, the crew went away and then came back and all but insisted that she had to have the meal she hadn't ordered. Sound familiar?

Barclaycard OnePulse

Barclaycard OnePulse is the only card to offer Oyster card,
Credit and Contactless all in one card.

You do not have a choice, there is no such thing as customer service, in the UK we are all just the cattle gathering in the consumer slaughteryard but at least in Japan you are a treasured prize heffer, treated with respect and even get to have sake massaged into your tired flesh as you fly back to the land of the rising sun.

Next: The Stench of the Consumer Slaughteryard, Part Two, Going Home

Coming Very Soon:

The Japanese Bath Culture,
Malls, Shops and Coffee Shops in Meguro,
Mother's Fried Rice
and of course,
The Continuing Adventures of Onsen.

Image from the Onsen Takayama booked for us this trip.