Intro to Japan...

Though we travel through big cities in Asia, our usual destinations are less populous and more laid back.  Travel planning for those kinds of trips is fairly straightforward – we look up the city name on TripAdvisor, see what hotels and attractions are highly rated and go from there.

Going to Japan was a bit different.  First, it was the first trip where we were traveling exclusively in populous, sprawling cities – Tokyo with 13 million people and Kyoto with 1.5 million people (though that doesn’t seem big compared to 13 million, I still classify it as a big city!).  Second, it was cherry blossom season – we weren’t the only ones thinking that it was a good time to see Japan.  This didn’t seem like it was going to be a very R&R oriented trip.

We looked on TripAdvisor and got input from friends on where to stay.  Tokyo in particular was a bit mind boggling.   There are 23 different special wards with names like Adachi, Itabashi, Katsushika, Kita, Koto, Shinagawa and 26 separate cities (Tokyo is actually a ‘prefecture’, which is short of like a state) with names like Higashikurume, Musashimurayama, Tachikawa.  See why our heads were spinning??

As we narrowed our hotel choices, availability became a real issue.  We began to get a little anxious as we attempted to book rooms only, “not available during those days” pop up time and again as we input our data.  This made us make an interesting choice for Kyoto – but more on that later.

As for Tokyo, the Shibuya ward moved up on our list when we learned that it’s the location of a statue of Hachiko, a dog that was featured in the movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale.  Lydia saw the movie at Christmas time and really liked.  So getting close to Hachi became a focal point (clearly, we needed something…even a dog statue).  That Shibuya has street that is to be one of the busiest in the world wasn’t a deterrent.  We’ve survived Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay on a Sunday - I dare anyone to find a place that’s more overwhelming!

Fortunately, we got really lucky and found a well rated hotel that was located adjacent to the train station, across the street from Hachi, and overlooked the famously busy intersection.

Here’s Lydia with Hachi:

 The big intersection (I’ve heard that it’s in the movie Lost in Translation) – the Starbucks on it is said to be one of the busiest in the world:

And just a few people milling about:

While the scene looks a bit chaotic, in real life it was not.  Unlike Hong Kong (and lots of other places), people respected others’ personal space, took care to move out of the way when appropriate, and waited their turns;  remarkably, no one crossed the street when the signal was red – even when there was no traffic.  Even more stunning, the city was exceptionally quiet.  Either people did not talk or kept their voices really low.  People certainly weren’t yakking loudly on their cell phones. Mid-day at “the intersection: there were some jumbotron-like TVs blaring, but the people didn’t contribute to the noise pollution.  For the first time, maybe ever, I was in a huge crowd and didn’t really mind it. 

I could tell we were onto something good!