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No offense to the great city of Kawasaki, but we didn't want to have to come here. Had Yokohama had a room for us at short notice, we would have stayed there. But, as it turns out, the room we are staying in was the last Twin room available in any Tokoyo Inn in the Kanagawa prefecture (which covers quite a large area). We packed our bags this morning, and since we will be returning there tomorrow night, the hotel at Yokohama kindly allowed us to leave our main bags there, which allowed us to travel only with our day pack and a toiletries bag. So we caught the train to Kawasaki. Higashi-Kanagawa station was our first train change on our way to Kawasaki. This station is what I always imagined Japanese train stations were going to be like. Wall to wall people. We have been pretty lucky so far. Even at Tokyo there has been enough room to walk without stepping on other peoples feet, and to breathe fresh air. Higashi-Kanagawa station was different. A huge, pushing and shoving sea of people worked its way through the station. If you drop a bag, bad luck, it would be gone. If a shoe came off, unlucky. Buy another pair. We eventually elbowed our way through this solid mass of humans, and found our next train. We got onto the train that was equally crowded. Veronica and myself had one poor Japanese guy in a brown bowler hat sandwiched in the corner of the train. I have never before seen a more uncomfortable looking Japanese guy in my life. Not sure if he missed his stop, but for our entire journey he didn't look up and didn't move. I'm pretty sure he was breathing. I think. We got off at Kawasaki station, and again we were able to breathe. We still had a long time before we were able to check into our room, so we decided to have a walk through the Lazona Kawasaki Plaza (http://www.mitsuifudosan.co.jp/english /project/lazona_kawasaki/plaza/index.ht ml), which was outside of the doors to the train station. This was a very expensive looking shopping centre, and contained an entire floor dedicated solely to expensive fashion shops. We also looked through the 4th floor, which was dedicated entirely to restaurants, but they either didn't appeal, or were completely full, with lines at the doors waiting for tables. There was a fantastic looking Western style grill restaurant (which looked similar to the Australian Lone Star steakhouse restaurants), but there was a queue 20 people long waiting for a table in there. Disheartened, we wandered through the rest of the restaurant. A massive Toys-R-Us style store kept the girls amused for quite a while, but we really needed to find somewhere to sit down. I came very close to buying a very cool model Shinkansen, which was an exact replica of the train we have done most of our Shinkansen trips on (the Hikari 700), but the logistics of having to carry this around for the rest of the trip, plus the fact that the novelty would have worn off pretty quick, stopped me from buying it. We ventured down to the ground floor, which as it turns out is the supermarket level, but it contained a massive food court. Kawasaki, I've decided, is a city where the inhabitants like things big. The shopping centre was big, the toy store was big, the food court was big, and as a result, the food that was served there was big. It was very encouraging to walk in and to see a guy carrying a hot dog on a lunch tray, where the hot dog was in no exageration as long as the tray. A 18" hot dog is a fantastic sight to see when you are hungry. The problem was though, that this food court was ridiculously popular. There were people wandering around aimlessly looking for tables, groups of people in circles facing outwards so that they could scan the full 360 degrees for a table which looked to be freeing up. And when a table did become free, it was an insane take-no-prisoners scramble where the person who gets any part of their body, a bag or a child in contact with the table first wins the right to sit there. It was fun to watch. We had no hope, because I wasn't in the mood to go barreling through a crowded food court to claim ownership of a table. Luckily though, Veronica found a Chinese girl sitting by herself at a table for 4. Veronica (assuming she was a local) asked her in Japanese whether she would mind if we sat with her, and she replied that it was fine, in perfect English. It wasn't until later that Veronica found out she was Chinese, not Japanese. So we had a table. Veronica got herself some curry noodles, and on my 47th lap of the food court looking for a table I had noticed a nice looking hamburger place "Zats Burger Cafe", which was very popular (Zats Burger Cafe Lazona). They were cooking the hamburgers fresh to order, and they looked very nice. And believe me when I say that it was the best hamburger I have ever had, or will be likely to have in my entire life. I got the Jumbo Sasebo burger, which was huge, and very expensive $13, but god was it good. I found it ironic that they named it the Sasebo burger, and yet through all of my time in Sasebo a few weeks ago I did not even come close to finding a burger to match the Zats burger. If you are in Japan, and have the opportunity to try a Zats burger, do not pass it up. Trust me on this. So, completely full we decided to go for a walk to work off our lunch. Out into the main outdoor centre court of the plaza, where a stage had been set up ready for some famous Japanese singer to give a special live performance at 2pm. The crowds were massing, and it was easier to simply find a seat at a nearby starbucks and have a coffee to let things settle down outside. Everyone was clambering for the best view, we were trying our best to get out of their damn way. After the circus subsided, we walked back down through the courtyard to the hotel. Some centre-court designer was either having an off day, or was completely bananas when this centre court was put together. It was all very nice, with strangely artistic sculptured steps, and a triangle themed pond with fog machines running constantly creating mist, but there were also trenches running across the ground, covered over by glass, and these are what puzzled me. One of them was completely filled with silver cutlery. Yep, knives, forks and spoons had been piled into this trench before it was covered with glass. Another trench contained red roses, with the occasional white rose. The next trench? Bricks. Yep, plain old rectangular bricks had been carefully placed into the trench in random fashion, before being glassed in and preserved forever. Very peculiar. Thorougly confused we went on to the train station, and found our way to the hotel. The hotel info said that our hotel was 1 minute walk from the station. I think that was a very pesimistic estimate. I would say it is 1 minute walk from the actual train, and that includes getting out through the turnstiles. The train platform is quite literally straight below our window. We went back across to the underground mall at the station for dinner, and it is a gourmet food lovers paradise, which from what I saw was like Osaka but on a smaller scale. Every food imaginable was on display in this multi level complex. We ended up setting for the safety of pork snitzel meals, known as Katsudon, from a very popular restaurant on the 1st floor. Very very nice meals. The crumbed king prawns I ordered were the best I've had while in Japan, and Veronica's meal was served in a cast iron pot, which was sitting on a cast iron stand to raise it up off the tray, and it was still sizzling when it arrived. It was also excellent. With that done, Veronica and Angela returned to the room and I took Charlotte for a 2 minute walk down the road to find a convenience store. At the first cross street I came to, I found 4, one on each corner. There was a "99", a 7-11, a Family Mart and a Lawsons each on a corner, all competing for business. Reminded me of Yokohama. So with the compulsory coffee milks purchased (for my morning wake-up) we headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow we are going to Hakone for a preliminary look around, before heading back to Yokohama tomorrow night to sleep. At this stage I'm not exactly sure whether we will be doing anything in Hakone tomorrow, or just having a look around. It depends on what we find there, what the weather is like and how tired we all are. We have another couple of days to see Hakone before we go onto Takayama, so if we use tomorrow as a day to get our bearings and have a look around the city it might be worthwhile.
- comments
maikeru Great Blog Thanks for posting your Japan travel blog. Great narrative and writing style - very amusing!
Andrew Paterson Re: Great Blog Thanks Maikeru, We miss Japan so much. We are already planning our next trip. 5 weeks and we didn't even scratch the surface of this magnificent country.