Halesworth, Suffolk

Not quite Cadiz - no sign of a tapas bar - but an alternative outing from Southwold where we retired to console ourselves for the lack of a short break in the sun.   No sun in Southwold though, just high winds and rain at regular intervals.   Hence the outing to Halesworth, which we decided, when we got there, we had never been to before.

Plenty of eating places, a smattering of interesting shops, a large church in need of repair, a pedestrianised high road and many interesting and attractive buildings.

We stopped at Focus Organics for coffee and a browse round their well stocked foodie shelves and alternative therapies.   Then on round the town and up to the church which was announcing a free concert at 12.30 with the possibility of buying a picnic lunch from 12.00.  We thought we'd give it a try and filled in the time before 12.00 with a tour of an antique shop.  The lunch on offer was home made sandwiches, sausage rolls and cake.  We had sandwiches (excellently fresh), a sausage roll each (warm) and two teas.   The concert started at 12.30.  Baroque music played by an enthusiastic but amateur group.  Proceeds of the retiring collection going to repair and adapt the church for more community use.  They have grand plans to which we made a contribution.   The experience was very enjoyable, even if the playing wasn't always great. 

Interesting carved shop front.  Menu looked good too!

High street

Coffee stop

Off to browse

Tuning up

Market Square

The church

Off to Cadiz....and back again in one day!

Doing the crossword in the airport lounge...

Today started at 4.00am.

Still jet lagged from Tokyo we struggled into a taxi first thing this morning and set off for the airport in Norwich to catch the 6.15am flight.   It didn't go until about 7.30 which meant that we missed our flight to Madrid!   We went to the lounge and got into a 2hr long queue (yes, TWO HOURS!) to talk to an assistant about re-booking.   High winds had caused disruption at Amsterdam and a great many people had their plans disrupted.   There were no seats on any flight to Madrid until the following afternoon and that would mean that we had to stay the night in Amsterdam and then stay another night in Madrid as we would miss the last train from Madrid to Cadiz!    A chapter of accidents.

After much research by laptop and discussion we decided to abandon the trip entirely and have standby tickets to return to Norwich on the afternoon flight and are booked on to the evening flight if that doesn't work.   Amazingly it looks as though they will be able to prevent our luggage going to Madrid and it may arrive back in Norwich before us!

Fortunately, our host in Cadiz has accepted a rebooking, so now we are going in September!   Perhaps we will be luckier! 😎😎

Tokyo Reflections

Toilet options

I suppose everyone knows about the toilets in Japan, but they took me by surprise.  This one provided front washing, back washing with options for water pressure, and drying.  Many have music options or flushing sounds to cover your embarassment.  Almost all have heated seats!  There's a button to call for help.  And everywhere, even the public toilets in stations, was spotless. And there are loos everywhere.

Streets are clean and people use the pavements in an orderly fashion, mainly walking on the left.   There is strict discipline at crossing with no-one making a move until the green man shows. Parks were also clean. 

Cars stop for anyone on an uncontrolled pedestrian crossing.  The metro is well signposted in English and there is information in English inside the carriages announcing the next stop. Platforms are well signposted with maps indicating exits.  Again, no litter.   They have the equivalent of the Oyster card called Pasmo.  No one gave up their seat to us on the metro despite our white hair.

Shops are awash with assistants, particularly department stores.  You are bowed at and greeted at every turn.  I thought of John Lewis where it takes a long time to track down an assitant these days.

People in shops and restaurants are polite and friendly.  Many do their best to speak English or go and fetch someone who can.

There's a huge variety of types of Japanese cooking, but not always easy to tell which restaurants are doing what.   Many don't have menus on display in English or plastic replicas.  English versions of the menu tend to show less than what's actually on offer - you don't find out what the specials are for example.    Japanese restaurants don't provide napkins.  Sometimes there are wrapped wet wipes for cleaning up before the meal, which can be used at the end.

On the two days it rained we noticed the huge number of umbrellas moving in tides up and down the streets.  Outside shops and restaurants were stands with plastic bags (long for standard brollies and smaller and squarer for folding umbrellas) and you got a very dusty reception if you failed to wrap your umbrellas before taking it in with you or leaving it on the rack.  Outside museums were large umbrella 'lockers'...rows of holders into which you locked your umbrella, taking the key inside with you.

POSTSCRIPT

KLM postcard

When we boarded the KLM flight from Narita Airport to return to Amsterdam we found a post card on the seat addressed to us both.  This was followed by effusive greetings from 2 of the cabin staff, two glasses of champagne, our meals served before other people's and a posh bag of travel items presented by the Chief Purser!   We were mystified!  Turns out the KLM system said it was my birthday!

Tokyo: Day 5

Today Peter went to his meeting as the respresentative of the Royal Society - the one that paid for the trip!  It was called Science 20 and was attended by delegates from scientific instutions around the world.   They agreed a statement on plastic waste in the oceans.   Peter was amused to find himself seated behind a Union Jack.  In the afternoon the key participants were taken to the residence of Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, where they were rehearsed three times before Mr. Abe appeared and received the statement.  Here they are (left) lined up behind him.  Peter is giving his arm to a German colleague who had difficulty standing for any length of time and, despite requests from Peter, no one from the organising group felt empowered to fetch a chair.  It wasn't in the programme.   There was also a photo of everyone seated and they received instructions about putting clenched fists on their knees.   You can see from the shot that many could not keep up this conformity.

Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister and Peter (right)

Delegates in a row

The delegate from Saudi Arabia

 

In the evening there was a reception at the Paul Baucuse restaurant in the Art Gallery we had visited on our first day.   The buffet food was western and included roast potatoes.   Peter was in seventh heaven!

Rather blurred line up at the reception

Making spoons - sent this to Abe the Whittler!

There were several speeches and the delegate from Saudi Arabia, which will host the next meeting, told everyone what a young and forward looking country it now is.  ??

While Peter was representing his country, I went to explore an exhibition of Japanese artifacts which turned out to be very near our hotel.   Unfortunately they had changed their opening time to accommodate a group of young men filming and I was an hour early.   Rather than go off somewhere else, I whiled away some time in a nearby coffee shop and then returned.   There were some fine things on display, ceramics, laquer ware, carving, wood work etc but all quite expensive and not quite the large ramen bowls I was looking for.   I was in two minds about going back to the Ginza shopping area and going to a couple of department stores or exploring another area of the city which was described as off-beat, full of small boutiques etc.  It was two stops away on the metro and turned out to be a bit disappointing.   Not quite the boutiques I had in mind.  It turned out that the department stores were the best place to buy bowls, but I discovered this too late.

My solo lunch stop

I was looking at a restaurant menu (or rather peering at the plastic replicas in the window) when a Japanese looking woman with long grey hair and an impeccable English/American accent advised me not to go to that restaurant!   She told me about somewhere much better just nearby and took me there.   She would have ushered me across the road, but I felt that if I didn't fancy it when I got there she might be disappointed.  The restaurant she pointed out was open but there was no menu outside and no indication of what type of food they were offering but it looked like an interesting building (albeit under a flyover) and I went in.  Turned out to be very traditional with middle aged waitresses in kimonos and was basically a noodle restaurant.   I had soba noodles in soup with chicken on top and a tray of things to add to the soup - onion, sesame, and a couple of unidentifiable things.  It was very good! 

I did a little more wandering around after lunch and was taken by photos in a window and the sight of men rounding up bikes parked on the pavement and hurling them into the back of a lorry.   At least two had child seats on the back! 

Bike round up

Mom and Pop and Twins

And that was the end of the trip. 

Tokyo: Day 4

The old fish market

A warm sunny day!  No umbrellas required.  Our first stop was the old fish market.  Not much fish being traded now but a maze of little stalls selling every conceivable kind of fish product, fresh and dried and seaweeds etc.   From there we navigated our way to the Hama Rikyu Gardens.  I say navigated because the roads were in turmoil with building work and barriers on all sides.

Fish stall with crabs

We assume there is little unemployment in Japan.  We have noticed the number of staff on duty and attentive in stores, especially department stores where you are greeted by everyone.  This level of staffing also seems to apply to road works.  There were three people on duty by an exit from a building site to control pedestrians and lorries going in and out and even two impeccably turned out people beside a minor coned deviation for pedestrians bowing us on and off the pavement.

Fresh fruit confections

Back to the gardens.  They were laid out in the Edo era and contain many old and elegant trees of various kinds, including cherry, tonsured shrubs, camellias and roses.  There was a lot of work going on here too, with paths roped off and digging and sweeping.   There were no flower beds, except for one area labelled flower garden which, to our amusement, contained a field of rape in flower.  People were taking photographs and getting quite excited.   The gardens are surrounded by skyscrapers creating interesting contrasts.

Cherry blossom

View across the river from Hama Rikyu Gardens

In Hama Rikyu Gardens

A little bit of cherry blossom

Contrasts

Wisteria bridge

More contrasts

Assemble pottery project

From the gardens we made our way to the Ginza shopping district to track down a craft shop that might be a source of ramen bowls.  Sadly there was nothing there we liked but on the way we passed an intriguing advert on the side of a building advertising a group of architects...We investigated and took some elegant wooden stairs down to a pottery project set up by Assemble, a group of architects from Liverpool!   They were interested in the pottery that could be made from different soils by the slip casting method - producing simple everyday objects with simple glazes.

Tokyo Rail Station

Peter then wanted to see the main railway station as they are often interesting architecturally, but this one was quite disappointing.

After a breather at the hotel we set off for a restaurant Peter had identified.   A tiny 'mom and pop' outfit with 18 seats doing grilled Wagu beef.  We had to have help finding it from a young woman - my use of Google maps sometimes lets me down - and when we finally did we found that there were no seats until 2 hours later.   We gave up and as Peter's appetite immediately faltered and he didn't feel like eating we compromised and had a very ordinary meal in, of all places, an 'Italian' restaurant and came home disappointed!

Tokyo Day 3

A bad night.  Awake at 2.00am and only fitful sleep after that.  Peter the same.  Jet lag!   For breakfast I threw caution to the wind and had scrambled eggs with noodles followed by salad and miso soup with seaweed.  Peter stuck to cereal, scrambled eggs and sausages and toast.

Asakusa district

Shopping arcades near the shrine

Brush shop

Outside it was raining even harder than the day before.   We scurried to the metro and took the Ginza line to Asakusa and explored the district.  Full of little shops and alley ways and, thankfully, some covered arcades.  We glimpsed the pagoda and the shrine but it was really too wet to do anything other that hurry along.  We found a building housing crafts and enjoyed looking at the wares.   In a kitchen shop we bought a very interesting apron.  I thought I might copy the design and make some.  There was a great array of regional foods for sale, but few of them labelled in English so we refrained.   We were amused by the shops selling plastic food.  I took a photograph of a mammoth hamburger stack and a pile of pancakes.

Any sauce with that? 

Plastic pancakes

Then we slopped our way towards Kappabashi Street which is lined with kitchen ware shops catering to the restaurant trade.  I bought a kitchen knife and a pair of kitchen tongs.  We also discovered the tax rebate shop which actually returns the tax you have paid in cash.

Lunch stop with paraffin heater

My lunch

Then it was time to find some lunch and we chanced on this little restaurant run by two little old ladies in aprons and head scarves.   The menu in Japanese was on the walls and we had to point to the plastic replicas outside.   I had a bowl of rice with sweet onions topped with fried pork, served with green tea and kimchi.   Peter had two little fried fish with their tails sticking out.  No English was spoken in acquiring and paying for this meal, just a lot of smiling.

The rickshaw men were getting very wet

Still raining hard after lunch so we headed back to the metro and got off at a large and very expensive department store.  Masses of interesting things in the food hall, and entire hall of sweets and eye-waveringly expensive men's wear.  Peter did not buy anything.  We found a nice presentation bag for a gift we have for our Japanese friends and eventually found our way back to the start and a coffee shop.    Then back to the hotel for a well-earned rest.

It's a shame the weather is preventing us from enjoying some of the parks and gardens we can see on the maps.

Our Japanese friends collected us by taxi at 6.00 and we went to a restaurant called Gonpachi Nishiazabu.  Apparently, a set for the Quentin Tarantino film 'Kill Bill' was modelled on the inside of the restaurant.   President George Bush ate there with the Japanese prime minister of the day.   It all adds up to quite a tourist attraction and the restaurant was full of non-Japanese.  Our friends had never been there before.   The meal was a succession of small plates, some of them not very interesting and, for the price, it was rather disappointing.   We only drank beer and a small cup of sake and the bill came to £60 a head.  We had to take our shoes off before we sat down at the table which had a well underneath for our feet.  Although the pictures look as though we are seated on chairs, we were perched on hard benches.  It was a devil to get in and out of.  I was give wooden flip flops to wear to go to the toilet and nearly fell off them twice!  Strangely the toilet floor was covered in bumpy stones which didn't help!   Mits and Haru went off for their metro and we walked home from the restaurant and were back in the hotel before 9.00pm.  Mits and Haru are lovely people and we enjoyed our evening with them, if not the food.   Peter is about to do some research for supper tomorrow night.  

Mits and Haru

The four of us

The restaurant from the balcony

Tokyo Day 2

Our first night's sleep was disrupted but reasonably long.   Crawling over each other to get out of the bed in the middle of the night was not ideal, but we managed!    We sampled the buffet breakfast in the hotel which was fine.  Scrambled egg is universal.  There was soup, rice, noodles etc on offer but we were rather conservative!  Maybe tomorrow!

Wet park

Outside it was raining and the forecast was for it to last all day.   We took our umbrellas and found the entrance to the metro and hopped on the train to Ueno and followed the crowds of bobbing umbrellas to Ueno Park which no doubt looks great in the sunshine and with the trees in blossom.

Coffee stop

We attempted to stop at Starbucks for coffee (the breakfast coffee having been rather poor) but it was too crowded, so we walked across the wide pathway to a Japanese cafe where we had 'cafe au lait' - a large pot with a small amount of strong coffee and a jug of hot milk.  Enough for 2 cups each. The taste was OK but not great.  However, the restaurant was attractive and the staff very efficient and friendly.

Tokyo National Museum

Next stop the Tokyo National Museum and a dip into the history of Japanese art and artefacts.  We learnt a lot we didn't realise about the differences between Japanese and western art.   I was particularly pleased to see that irregular ceramics were not looked down on, as all the pots I turn out are rather wonky!

My lunch! 

Next stop lunch and as it was still raining we got as far as the cafe where we had stopped for coffee.  Peter had a modest cheese on toast and I had the special 15 vegetable soup/salad/desert option.  It was delicious.  We followed our food with herb tea - an infusion of mint, lemon grass, rosemary and verbena - guaranteed to do all sorts of good things to your stomach, your circulation and your bowels.

Next stop the Museum of Western Art to see a special exhibition about Le Corbusier and Purism - actually being shown in a Le Corbusier designed building.   The exhibition was confined to Purism and was very interesting, despite the fact that we didn't see his later architectural work.   One of the guide books asks why one would go all the way to Tokyo to see second rate western art and we think we were not being unduly influenced by this put-down when we say that some of the paintings were not the artists' best work!

From the sword display

Bowl - interesting carved relief

Wonky tea bowl

Dolls

Coat

Part of a screen

Early figures placed on tombs

Netsuke

Le Corbusier building
Western Art Museum

Plastic menu outside restaurant at metro station

Back to the hotel for a rest before dinner...and then a 10 minute walk to a restaurant we had spotted the day before.  It looked old and busy.  Our research was a little faulty because I had confused it with a Ramen restaurant further up the road.  Anyway it was full of happy, laughing customers and very friendly and helpful staff.   There was a token menu in English from which it was difficult to tell how big the portion sizes were and what to eat with what.   In the end we had a succession of dishes, some more successful that others:  aubergine with meat miso (delicious but very difficult to eat with chopsticks), grilled squid,  a special sushi plate with crab, tuna and salmon eggs, fried chicken and a bowl of rice and two beers.  A rather odd mixture, but a great atmosphere and we were so busy soaking it up that I forgot to photograph the food!