2014-12-16: The Land of Talking Toilets

We are in Japan. The magical land of talking toilets and talking walkways and shiny things.

I should not have flinched when the ROBOT BEER MACHINE moved my glass to pour a nice head. I blame tiredness for my surprise. My years of training kicked in though and I did not over react. Unless you count skipping back to Ewa and giggling "get me a beer, get me a beer" excitedly as an overreaction.

Food And Beverage Review: Ichi Ban:

IchiBan is a Japanese lager. Japanese lagers are usually served super cold and so tend towards little in the way of taste. Mouthfeel is minimal with no malt profile. Approach it with no hopes and you will be not be disappointed. Served by a ROBOT and it is pretty good.

Rating 6/10

The beer is nothing special. the ROBOT got it most of the points. I will have another next time I am nearby.

We had a 5 hour wait in Tokyo. Even I can't drink ROBOT BEER for that long and still be allowed on a plane. I had faint recollections of a new sushi place opening in the airport and people gushing about it. We saw a sushi place and so claim that it must be the one. This is the easiest way to find the things you want to visit - just claim what you found is the thing. The French can go to hell with their damned "Non, monsieur, ce est le Panthéon, le Parthénon est en Grèce".

Cultural Signage: Haiku to cleanliness

Language Skills Engage!

A Shower of rain
Skinny Man, Curvy Lady
Emptiness Within

Food and Beverage Review: Sushi, Narita Airport, Terminal 2 (I think)

Sushi has many rules and traditions. Also many myths. I have been exposed to the Japanese culture for many years now. Mostly this means I know enough Japanese to name the bits of the body I intend to hit and how to apologise when I miss.

Ewa is Polish and so has an upbringing where the first item on a sushi menu can be deep fried spring rolls. I am pretty sure this is wrong.

Fortunately our sushi chef was helpful and pointed out that he had, as a matter of fact, already put wasabi and soy on the sushi in the quantities that he thought were the correct quantities and perhaps we would eschew the soy we had prepared for dunking like donuts.

I believe our "at least they aren't American" accents prevented him jumping the counter when we used chopsticks for all the sushi. Even the ones you are supposed to eat by hand. This was good as he had a very pretty knife. Very pretty and pointy and long.

Rating:8/10

I know nothing about good sushi but this was probably the best I have eaten. The fact that Ewa and I preferred the medium-fatty tuna over the super-fatty probably means this review is by clueless people. The lack of eye rolling (or customer stabbing) by the staff pushes the restaurant way above the benchmark of "6 - I would go there again if nearby". Plus his knife had been sharpened by someone much better than me at sharpening knives.

Disco Style Smoking Lounge

And onto the next plane. Don't worry Japan, we'll be back in 3 months or so.

Zen Garden Style Smoking Lounge

Plans (bonus points level)

1. Learn to sharpen knives better
2. Learn to sushi better