Days 14 and 15, in which we fly to Tokyo and eat sushi

My birthday! We headed immediately to Heathrow for a slap up breakfast, followed by a flight to Tokyo. I was a bit disappointed to realise that not only was I spending most of my birthday sitting on an plane, but thanks to the time difference My Special Day was also eight hours shorter than most. I plan to celebrate for eight more hours when I get them back at the end of the holiday.

People had warned me that landing in Tokyo is like landing on an alien planet, but in truth it felt pretty much like anywhere else we'd ever flown to. I speak Japanese about as well as I speak Portuguese Brazilian or Swahili and I never felt alienated or lost in Rio or Nairobi, and in fact apart from the language barrier everything was precisely as you might expect it to be (only with more bowing and whispering of 'sumimasen').

We took the train into town and checked into our hotel, the Chisun Inn Asakusa. Our room is possibly the smallest I have ever stayed in (outside of a caravan) and we immediately entered into serious negotiations with each other about how to store our luggage, which takes up a quarter of the usable floor space. The bathroom is similarly cramped, but has the advantage that you can brush your teeth, shave or pee while standing in the bath tub, and you can even use the hairdryer in the shower (although a sign does state that exposing the hairdryer to water may 'result in trouble').

We wandered up the street for sushi lunch at Maguro Bito, which was apparently voted the best kaiten-zushi shop in the whole of Japan. There was only a short queue outside so we didn't mind waiting, but then upon getting inside we discovered that the queue continued on banquettes stretching the full length of two walls. Still, it moved fairly quickly and our appetites were plenty whetted by the time we were actually called to the counter. Behind the counter was chaos, as three sushi chefs rapidly assembled plate after plate of sushi taking time out only to bellow into microphones, the waiting staff chanting set catchphrases in a call-and-response game which didn't appear to be remotely functional. Right in the middle of the room was a fish tank housing mackerel, eels and sea urchins.

The sushi travelling on the conveyor belt was fresher than any I'd seen in England. It was visibly brighter and more colourful, a merry carnival far removed from the sad funeral procession of the fish you get in Yo Sushi. This was also reflected in the flavours. I hadn't realised before that mackerel can taste sweet and fresh, while tuna was succulent and flavoursome. There was also an interesting variety on offer, although not all of the offerings were to our tastes (some sort of egg sac like organ served peeking out of a nori roll divided opinion, while the cuttlefish was tough as old boots).

The condiments didn't much resemble the ones proffered in London sushi bars, and I ate my first three plates with a mix of soy sauce and powdered green tea (thinking it was dried wasabi), but this wasn't especially unpleasant. When we finished, a waiter waved an electronic scanner over our towering pile of plates and it automatically read the colours and relayed the information back to the till. Japan really is the land of technology - albeit they use tricorders to run restaurants, not take over the world.

After popping into a supermarket for water and pocky, we returned to the hotel room for a quick nap with promises to wake again at 7pm to head into Tokyo proper. We paid no attention when the alarm went off, and I write this fully refreshed at 2:44am and ready to head down to the docks for more sushi.