Welcome to the most populated city in the world, Tokyo.
Population: 37 million.
Essentially the population of Canada in ONE city. Think about that for a second.
Here’s another thing to think about: there are 3,234 restaurants in San Francisco. In Tokyo? 60,000, according to several respected sources.
If I reviewed one restaurant a day, it would take 164 years to visit all of them once. Pass the Tums, please….
But I will try to do justice over the next 11 days and identify some really great restaurants, places to bookmark in the event you make it to Tokyo.
We were supposed to have spent today at the Hakone outdoor art museum but it has been raining “Neko to inu” (that’s “cats and dogs,” in Japanese) for two days and there was no point in standing in the rain to admire a Picasso, or Henry Moore, sculpture.
So we hightailed it straight to Tokyo… look up, young man, look up!
Everything’s Coming up Pink!
We aimed to visit Japan at the height of cherry blossom season… usually late March/early April… and we hit the jackpot big time ….. tons of trees in every city we’ve visited, showing off their white/pink blossoms.
Here are a few shots that I have not previously presented…
Of no particular consequence… I caught this road warrior humming down the main drag of Kyoto….
Here’s a photo “out” from our visit to Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto… had to cut it due to Substack length restrictions.. but I liked my b/w approach to this shot…
At the Yamazaki whisky distillery, in the town of Shimamoto, we took a self-guided tour and then tasted samples of Yamazaki whisky, aged 5-, 12- and 18-years of age. These are some of Japan’s best Scotch-like whiskies.
In one of the rooms with dioramas explaining the origins of Yamazaki, I noted a small, stained glass window high up on one wall.. and I loved the colors and the copper pot still…. so I captured it…
The Yamazaki tasting room…
They didn’t give us a taste of the 50-year-old whiskey.. and here’s why…..
That’s the price of a single bottle of the 50-year-old!
In each city we’ve visited, I noted colorful, whimsical, manhole and electrical covers in the street or sidewalk….
There should be some good food stories … and the first of my 60,000 restaurant reviews ….. in the next 24 hours… stay tuned.
Jim
Manhole cover art!— you need to create a coffee table book (I know, derivative of Kramer on Seinfeld, but it’s gold, Jerry, gold!)
The more cherry blossoms, the merrier! And I loved the manhole covers, too! The less than a litre bottle of whisky at more than 300,000 US a pop? Could possibly pass. Truck on, my friend. This is some epic journey you are taking!! Shelley