The 2010 Adventure - Japan

The 2010 Adventure started in Tokyo. Like all big cities Tokyo is busy, noisy and has poor air quality, but if you can get past that it is ok.

The streets are busy with short (to me) people weaving their way between each other to reach their destinations. The buildings are covered with advertisements in ever increasing multitudes of colors which have a garish and childlike look to them.

The pavements are tidy and litter free, save for the businessmen in black or gray suits chain smoking their way through their lunch breaks.


We visited Ueno Park and enjoyed walking around for an hour looking at the trees, monuments, lake, shrines, fountains, views and locals.

There were few homeless people visible during the day but many locals out for a stroll or mediation....


We stayed in Narita, a small town outside Tokyo, which is about an hour and a half closer to the airport than Tokyo. It has two train stations about 300m apart which made travel into Tokyo very convenient and lots of restaurants, including Macdonalds.

On the night we arrived we were too exhausted to look for food so stopped in at McDees for dinner. The polite young girl behind the counter seemed surprised at the amount of cheeseburgers we were buying. Her numerous confirmations about our order made more sense when we opened the burgers to discover that we had accidentally ordered double cheeseburgers.

Would I go back to Tokyo? No.
Why? It just didn't really appeal to me. Smoking is permitted everywhere and that made most places smell bad and made me sneeze. And it had a really busy feel to it and I found that stressful.