Fish, fish and more fish ...

The contrast between Japan and Mongolia couldn't be starker.

Perhaps not more so than in the toilet department. Whereas in Mongolia "where the toilet?" was greeted by no more than an arms wave across the surrounding landscape - in Japan they have surely the most technically advanced toilets on the planet.

Most of the toilets we encountered had at least 3 different bidet functions, heated seats, blow dryer & all with user adjustable digital temperature controls.

Our base for the week was Shiodome - like the Canary Wharf of Tokyo - a futuristic world of skyscrapers, underground plaza's all perfectly connected together by a network of pedestrian walkways and elavators - with bullet trains, monorails, metro's gliding above, below and around you.

Mostly we spent our time just soaking up the atmosphere of this incredible city, and enjoying top-notch food prepared with an enthusiasm and passion I've experienced nowhere else in the world. The seafood in particular was superb and the Japanese have no qualms about serving up raw fish with most meals. Even breakfast.

While the star of the show was undoubtedly the food, other highlights included Tsujki Fish Market (above) - the world's largest where you can see the ingredients for your evening meal being traded at frenetic pace & the Ginza Lion Beer Hall - a genuine 1930's German beer hall in the heart of Tokyo's glitzy shopping district.

We ended the week with a traditional English weekend.

Friday night we hooked up with fellow brit Ed who writes Slow Travel and his pal Joe who lives and works in Tokyo. Joe shared some fascinating insights into Japanese culture, not least the expression "lets persevere together" - words that would come to mean a lot to me and Mel in the coming days ...

Then on Saturday, my first soccer game of the trip, Kawasaki Frontale versus Kashiwa Reysol at the Todoroki stadium. The standard wasn't exactly great, but the atmosphere had all the enthusiasm of a Buenos Aires derby match so I had a really enjoyable afternoon.

Finally on Sunday we left Tokyo, planning for a nice walk en route to Kyoto ...

Japan is reputed to be one of the most expensive tourist destinations in the world. What we found in Tokyo was a city considerably cheaper than New York or Paris, with better food, better transport & surely the most polite and helpful people you could wish to meet anywhere. Against my expectations of an overcrowed, overpriced urban jungle - I think we've discovered a new favourite.

Just a brief footnote for those of you expecting to see all my photos from Tokyo. I hadn't managed to name and organise them before leaving Japan - now sat here in China I find that flickr images are censored (as is my blog ... clearly I am a dangerous subversive).

It will probably be 2/3 weeks before I can rectify the problem and bring you all the photos from Tokyo and Mt. Fuji. The photos from Kyoto onward will be fine, as I can work around it if the images are still on my camera ... I just need to catch up with the writing first.

Welcome to the Amazon ...

No, we haven't suddenly skipped across the pacific to South America (not yet anyhow). I've added a few new elements to the site, so you can see what I'm reading or listening to - and if you want to you can link to the reviews (or even buy it) on Amazon. I plan on keeping the affiliate stuff pretty low key - but this offer looked quite good so I thought I'd share it. We did a similar thing before leaving the UK with Love Film and it worked well - although it wouldn't really suit us right now! Anyway hope you like the new stuff - feel free to comment.


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Route to the Rising Sun ...

Not wishing for a repeat of the Pot-Pasta incident, this time we'd come prepared for our 30 hour train journey to Beijing ...

We hit Chinese immigration at midnight, where the only holdup was changing the bogey's - otherwise known as the wheels - as China runs on a different gauge to Russia & Mongolia. Well it would, wouldn't it. At we sat in our compartments the whole train was literally uncoupled, and each carriage simultaneously lifted up while the wheel units were replaced - quite a sight.

As we progressed through China we began dropping through a series of dramatic gorges before reaching Beijing in the early afternoon - after just a couple of hours exploration we headed to the airport where we'd spend the evening before our flight to Japan.

We'd had only had the briefest taste of China - but the cheap delicious food and the incredibly amusing signs in Chinglish everywhere (more on that later) all filled us with enthusiasm for a more lengthy visit in a couple of weeks time.

The road back to civilisation ...

The snowstorm delay meant we faced a choice - either extend the trip by another day, or drive late into the night to get back on schedule. The lure of unlimited hot showers and decent grub was simply too much for us, so we decided on the first option.

I think we must have forgotten about the state of what passes for roads in Mongolia, and pretty soon we were being thrown around the back of the Jeep even more violently than usual as we hit several times the number of ruts and bumps full on. Then about 11pm in pitch black darkness, disaster struck. The jeep lights went out. Permanently.

Eventually we came up with the solution - the Petzl headlight - we fixed a humble LED headtorch onto the bonnet to provide just enough light to get us to the next building some 15km away.

After a deeply uncomfortable 5 hours spent sleeping on the floor of mud-track side cafeteria, we made an early start for our final destination, Ambersaygalant Monastery - where we sat drinking Mongolian vodka "Russian style" (shots, with coke chasers) well into the small hours to celebrate the end of our trip ....

So as the first leg of our adventure comes to a close, it just remains for me to say a big well done to Mel - as of last week officially Mel Starrs MBA (as well as all the other ones I can't remember)

And finally here's a link to the homepage of Mel's friend Georgia, who, along with her friend Yasmin will be driving a 1.0 litre Nissan Micra to Mongolia in the Mongol Rally this July. If anyone is interested in sponsoring her they are supporting some good causes ... I look forward to hearing how the Micra fares on these god-awful roads !

The real Mongolian BBQ ...

As we sat watching the snow start to fall, wondering just how long we'd be snowed in for we we're treated to a genuine Mongolian BBQ.

Baiscally the ingredients are hot water, meat, potatoes, carrot - hot stones are added to the wok, then it's sealed with wet tea towels and left to cook on the ubiqitous burner found in all Mongolian countryside homes (thankfully we were in wood, rather than dung burning country now). After 30 minutes it emerges with a strong smoky flavour - certainly one of the better countryside meals we had.

This is what it ends up looking like

I don't think I can give an accurate account of our visit to Mongolia without some further comment on the food.

There were some nice restaurants in Ulan Bator, however outside the capital the food was at best uninspired, at worst bloody awful or unsanitary. Our experiences seems to hit both extremes in equal measure.

In the countryside dried meat (mainly unchewable), home made noodles, carrot & potato form the basis of 99% of meals - with 2 choices, either wok fried or in soup form. Whichever you go for it will have far too much salt. Guaranteed.

In Central Mongolia we were offered putrified sheeps head - apparently the pinnacle of this delicacy is the roof of the mouth. I think we managed to decline without causing too much offence ... but it also became apparent that our disgust at unusual foodstuffs cuts both ways.

On being asked what we wanted for dinner one evening I jokingly said "lobster" (as if we had a real choice anyway). Being completely landlocked most Mongolians have never seen a shrimp, much less know what a lobster is, so out came Mel's very useful Point It: Traveller's Language Kit book and we explained.

It was just after the part where you drop them alive into boiling water that our driver, Ochiro, turned green and had to leave the Ger for a breath of fresh air. Also in the point it book we're frogs - "do you eat those too?" our guide asked incredulously. "No, only the French eat those" we explained. At least there was one thing we all agreed on.

A few days after this our guide unearthed an unexpected can of seafood cocktail as we stopped in an aimag (regional) capital for fresh supplies. Excited at the prospect of a decent meal I provided simple instructions on how to make a simple seafood spaghetti (garlic, onion, tomato sauce). It arrived back with beef in it. Enough said.