Day 21: Oodaru Onsen

Our last day in Izu started with Yasu and Angela driving us to Kawazu to spend the day at the Oodaru waterfall onsen.

We stopped off at a pretty beach to grab a bite to eat first. We sat on the sand and watched the surfers catching waves but not until Yasu had built us an impromptu mini bridge over a stream! The wind was very strong and was whipping the sand up against us, pockets and trainers full after 10 minutes!

Kazawu is famous for a hike with 7 stunning waterfalls in a row. The journey there took us high into the mountains and included one of the most bizarre pieces of civil engineering I have ever seen. In order to climb a steep incline the road leaves the mountain side and spirals twice round far above the ground before rejoining the hill. A definite case of function over form but still I found it attractive in a different way.







Once we parked we took a very precarious walk down a looooong set of steep moss covered steps to the first waterfall. OMG! It was stunning. It was quite a long drop, the water was thundering away and a fine mist filled the air.



We slowly worked our way on the challenging path across rope bridges and precarious ledges to the other waterfalls. Each of them were different, some tall, some small and winding but all of them were stunning. We passed a cute shop selling a very random selection of souvenirs and vegetables and also a guy who had spent the last 10 years building his own house and now uses it as a restaurant.

We reached the onsen resort, bid farewell to Angela and Yasu and paid our 1000¥ entry fee. We had to hire special shorts which were in no way flattering, probably the most horrid shorts available, I guess they gotta make sure they get returned!

We entered the resort, again down more steps. At one point we had to cross the public path in our fetching shorts, this happened very quickly! In the resort there were lots of different onsens. One was in a cave with a little Buddha statue, another was very long and lots more were tucked away and hidden in little huts.




The main attractions were the hot springs at the the base of the final waterfall in the line of seven. I can't describe how beautiful the surroundings were, the massive waterfall shining in the sunlight, the cold mist contrasting with the heat of the volcanic water in the pool and stunning greenery surrounding us.




After lounging in the pool and exploring the area for a few hours we changed and made our way to the station for the journey back to Tokyo!

Location:Izu

Day 20: Shimoda

We started the day with a fantastic (western) lunch and then got driven down to a cove where the emperor of Japan has a holiday home. Lots more beautiful scenery and a small walk along the coast and hilltops.




Then, at dusk, went to another onsen, this time right at the top of a hill and outside only. It was a lot smaller and shallow and boy was it off the beaten track! Well worth the effort (of Yasu driving us) to get there.




The water here was noticeably different. Full of minerals and almost oily to the touch and of course it was very hot. The steam was rising up from the water surface into the cooler night air and was lit from behind. The onsen it self although being open had a traditional style roof to protect you from rain which was beautifully carved out of wood.




We relaxed here for a very nice hour then went into town to finish the day off with some more tasty food.

Location:Shimoda,Japan

Day 19: Shimoda

Eager to explore the coastline after last nights experience we woke early(ish) and grabbed a lift to a place lower down the peninsular to start our hike.

En route we grabbed a butty and rice ball each, we decided to eat them on the beach before the hike. I had just opened my rice ball and was starting to eat it when I felt a sharp pain in my hand and was knocked back a little. It took a few seconds to figure out what had happened. A Hawk had flown down from the sky above wanting to steal my rice ball off me. It was now on the pebble beach unopened and spoilt! The bloody bird wouldn't come down again so we stepped back a little and in an instant it came down and grabbed it off the beach and flew away with it tucked up closely to it's body.




Once I manned up and got over the bird attack we set off along the very well signposted hike. We followed the hilly coastline amongst all the interesting flora and fauna and took the spurs off the main route to the sea line or cliff tops where directed.

Throughout the day day the Hawk kept it's eager eye on us to see if we were going to produce more food for it to steal. Bloody bird!

The coastline of Izu is amazing, sharp tree covered cliffs jutting out into the sea, waves crashing up against them next to beautiful sand covered beaches in little coves between the cliffs.




As nice as the walk was we were surprised that there was no one else there, we didn't bump into a single soul on the entire walk. Probably just because the season had started. We were the first customers of the season at the guesthouse.




On the walk back to the guesthouse we stopped off at the cave we went to last night, even seeing our old footprints!




Once we got back Angela and her husband Yasu wanted to take us to the west side of the peninsular to watch the sunset, we picked up a beer from the shop and drove the 25 minute journey. Unfortunately when we got there the fog was obscuring the horizon so we couldn't see the sun but it certainly created some interesting colours across the rest of the sky. Beautiful!




After dusk we went into Shimoda town centre to a traditional Japanese seafood restaurant and ate a selection of fine food including tempura, sashimi, crab and broths. The meal was plentiful and delicious, enjoyed every second of it.

Once the meal had settled we moved on to a traditional volcanic spring bath house called an onsen. This onsen was set in an old style wooden building dotted with decorative statutes and dimly lit. There was a large deep very hot pool, a few shallower hot pools all fed directly by the spring in the corner and then a cooler pool for dipping into between boiling yourself! There was also an outside area which I found disappointing compared to my memory of the onsen I went to on my last Japan visit. Nonetheless it was a very nice experience and relaxed me greatly!

Following the heat and relaxing experience of the onsen we went to a local Shimoda bar for some excellent homemade ice-cream and beers. A great end to the night!

Location:Shimoda,Japan

Day 18: Journey to Shimoda

Up early today for our trip down to the Izu peninsular. We packed our bags, grabbed some lunch and jumped on a train for the journey out of Tokyo.

We changed train on a few occasions, each time boarding a slower 'more local' service. We stopped off en route at Ito for a coffee and butty and made it to the guesthouse in Shimoda at about 7:30 in the evening.

As we are in the country side when we went for an evening walk to orientate ourselves, the stars in the night sky were so bright. Prof Brian Cox would say there were billions and billions!

After grabbing some convenience store food and a few Chu-Hi's Angela, Neils friend and guest house owner where we ware staying, took us for a night time walk to the beach. Wow!

The dark was very dark, the blackest black. You could only mark the horizon out by the light coming from the fishing boats in the far distance. The lighthouse cast it's beam briefly across the beach every 20 seconds. The sea was roaring away in the dark without us knowing where it was. The very feint silhouette of large lava rocks could be seen pointing out of light from the beach.

Angela took us to a cave in one of the lava rocks. We had to crawl along the sand under the jagged rocks for a few meters until it opened up into a massive open cave with the sea roaring in at the front. Amazing! A very memorable moment!

Really looking forward to the hike down the peninsular tomorrow!

Location:Izu

Day 17: Kylie

Today was all about a little Ozzy woman who goes by the name of Kylie! We were slightly later than planned at waking up but still made it to meet friends near the venue at 2.

The arena is situated about half way round Tokyo bay in a prefecture called Chiba. A lot of Chiba is made from reclaimed land and suffered quite badly from liquefaction during the main quake and aftershocks. This is evident in abundance when walking around the streets as lots of pavements are different heights and hasty repairs have been made with tarmac.







We grabbed some lunch and joined the queue outside the stadium. As fair as the Japanese seem to be they were calling out entry to the standing area in ticket number block, so the people who bought their tickets first had the choice of running to the front and claiming some space. Despite the fact that our ticket number wasn't too low we managed to grab a decent plot about 5 people from the front. Result!

The venue wasn't as big as the O2 so seemed a little more intimate than I'm used to and it was great to be so close to the stage.

The support acts were a couple of exceptionally rubbish DJs, a stupid woman who never smiled but wore a rubbish outfit and an over the top guy who aspired to be a Hip Hop DJ but failed miserably. We named him 'DJ Technical Trouble' as the music stopped a couple of times and he blamed it on technical trouble!

Not long after 6 the temperature was soaring, the rubbish DJs had left and the technical crew had set the stage, the lights dimmed and it was time for the main show!

After the usual build up from the on screen visuals, building of the music and the dancers entering and twirling round a bit, two angels entered the stage to introduce Kylie as she rose up on a giant gold shell to the title track 'Aphrodite'




I can't remember the exact running order or exactly what she played but she did a well balanced mix of older and newer songs. Spinning around, confide in me, on a night like this, two hearts, can't get you out of my head, get outa my way, wow, i believe in you, what do i have to do, slow, better the devil you know etc. The girl has a good back catalogue to choose from and she also sang the Eurthmics classic, There must be and Angel!



There was a section which just seemed to be about the male form, lots of stunning visuals and the dancers almost performing a gymnastics routine! All I can say is she knows her target market well!




We were treated to some of the very old Kylie tracks including 'I should be so lucky' which went down very well!




The gig ended in a massive crescendo with Kylie disappearing into the stage surrounded by all her semi naked dancers to All The Lovers after the glitters cannons had exploded all over the stage and audience! Perfect! Loved it, massive emotional high!




All of our group were amazed with the show and we went to the pub to break it down and comment, plus the fact we were parched and needed a nice cold beer :)

Location:Tokyo

Day 13-16: Carnage

So you may have noticed the blog went a bit quiet. Not cus I wasn't doing anything but more the fact that this was definitely a party hard time!

One night we went to Artys, it filled up very quickly so we went to a nearby snack bar. If you're not familiar with the snack bar concept imagine someone's lounge, then imagine they put a massive bar down the middle leaving room for about 10 people at the bar and maybe 6-8 on the seats at the end. Then imagine some cheesy disco lights a laser and a Karaoke machine! Job done. Because they are so small you can get to talk to other easily.

There was no-one else when we went in so we ordered drinks (which as the names suggest you get snacks with) and brought out the Karaoke machines.










You soon figure out the screens to select to search by artist or song in English! The usual tracks came out, Tinie Tempha, Meatloaf, Gaga, Kylie. Then because there was no one else there and were getting progressively more drunk I went off default, Katy Perry, hot and cold rocked it, Justin Timberlake was a disaster, then a few Fergie songs which were surprisingly good. Some dance tunes came out, everything by Cascada I think and some Black Eyed Peas, Queen, INXS and even Sam Sparro. More people came in so we were tag teaming the machine with a couple of kids heavily into K-Pop and some salary men at the end of the bar. I peaked at Rihanna, Only Girl in the World. When I say peaked (as my classes know) I mean belted out and sounding loads better than I thought it was)

This was a fantastic night, I loved getting to practice new songs and making new friends!

Another night was a friend of Neils was having a Nomihodai party in a basement in Evisu. This is a drink all you want party, the deal was 3 hours for 3000¥ which considering a normal drink is about 500¥ isn't great value. The break even point was 6 drinks, working had I got 7 but I'm sure I could have got another in! Grrrrrrrr.

We were chatting to a Japanese girl at this party and got the typical Japanese over reaction when telling here we were all gay, but it was just for show. We had a good bit of banter for a few hours but when it came to leaving I got slightly miss handled by her as she groped up my arms, chest, abs and other parts. I couldn't leave quickly enough!

Another night was down to the 'should be illegal' Long Island Ice Teas from the Hub. Lots of fun and mega headaches to deal with the next morning.

I love Tokyo :)

Neil was working for an afternoon on one of these days so I attempted to navigate Ikebukuro for shopping. I did OK picking up a few random things like LAN cable (don't ask, it's cool) and some clothes and trainers. I got lost a thousand times, if anyone were watching my route they would have had a good old laugh, and navigating the station on my own took an exceptionally long time. But it was fun and I made it back in one piece!

There continues to be noticeable quakes during my stay, about 1 or 2 a day, but they haven't been as strong as the one I felt in the morning last week and I guess I'm getting used to them. There have been about 600 so far this month. Last month there were 890!

Location:Tokyo

Day 12: Ushiku

Today we wanted to do some more sightseeing and thought it would be a good idea to include a Daibutsu (large Buddha statue) for some culture. Last time I was on holiday here we spent a day at Nokogiriyama which included an interesting mountain walk and a beautiful Diabutsu so it would have been pointless going there again. Kamakura is a popular tourist destination in Tokyo with a 20m high Diabutsu but last week when we were googling the sky tree we also found a Diabutsu at Ushiku that was listed as one of the tallest structures in Japan at 120m. And because size does matter we made the decision to go to Ushiku!

On a normal journey Ushiku is about an hour and a half from Tokyo but we made a mistake 'forgetting' to get off a train on a certain line that magically changes into another line. We only found this out about half an hour of travelling down the wrong line so that added another hour to the journey, but we had a adventure.

In Ushiku the Diabutsu is a fair old journey from the station, there is a bus that runs but we just missed one and the next one wasn't for another hour and 20, luckily we found a very nice Indian curry place and managed to fill our faces for 1000¥ with some of the best curry I've had in a while.

We made it to the bus in time and were starting to wonder wether all this hassle was worth it. After about 20 minutes or so we saw the Buddha on the horizon, it was bloody massive!




Instantly we could see the journey was definitely worth the hassle! It took another 10 minutes or so to get there, when we did we found out that the last bus back was in 23 minutes which makes no sense as the site was open for another 90!

After paying our admission and picking up a taxi number we entered the beautifully crafted gardens that the Diabutsu sits in. The figure of Buddha was enormous and and awe inspiring, it's difficult to describe the size of the figure ands it's difficult to gauge because it's in open surrounds but it is chuffing massive!








After admiring the the statue from the outside we made our way to visit the inside, just as well as the heavens opened! There were prayer areas and lots of information about the Daibutsu all through the inside, including a massive room full of little golden Buddha's.




We then took the lift all the way to the top of the statue to get some great views of the surrounding countryside.




Once we'd taken in all the Buddha sites and info we called our cab back to the station and went back to Tokyo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushiku_Daibutsu

Location:Tokyo

Day 10: Narita

Today we got up early to head to the Taiko festival in Narita.

The weather was very kind to us today and we had bright sunshine all day. The festival was located all along a snake like road winding down towards the temple. There were plenty of food stands along the way with all sorts of food, Chinese dumplings, Indian, and typical Japanese food including a cucumber on a stick! Lol

There were plenty of different styles on show today, some low in the legs, some on the floor, some with chanting or a light melodic pipe sound accompaniment.



I instantly fell in love with Taiko. I loved the really tight choreography and watching everyone spinning their sticks, raising them up, turning and stepping out in absolute synchronisation. The beat feels very primal and gets deep down into your feelings, the change in tempo are well controlled and really bring you up.




The fitness instructor inside of me could see what an amazing workout it was for the entire body. Some styles people were really low down, working glutes, hamstrings, quads etc and of course arms, shoulders and back get a really good hammering. The calories these guys (and girls) must burn in a session and practice must be huge. I was watching the sweat drip off one guy and thinking about how much more I would sweat. Just like my combat class where I always inadvertently sweat on the front row, if I practised Taiko I would cover more than the front row and would definitely loose a few drum sticks through slippy hands!

I picked myself up a best of Taiko CD to listen to back home. I might even crank it up in the stripy boy racer car :) It would be interesting to see if it still has the same same affect out of context but I'm looking forward to finding out!



Another highlight of the day was a little side show involving Hiroshi the Monkey. A very very cute act indeed, I got to shake his hand and he even groomed my hairy forearm, awwwww! Love the Monkey!




Narita although being the location of the main international airport in Tokyo is actually a very pretty place. Lots of quaint typical Japanese buildings lining the road leading down to a very well presented beautiful Temple at the end of it.




The weather had turned considerably colder so we joined everyone else in the bar near the train station. It was a good chance to catch up with Neils friends and get to know them a bit better, as well as drink at happy hour prices and grab food!

We all jumped on the train back to Tokyo and stocked up with a few Chu-Hi's and chocolate for the long journey. A very lively journey indeed but again good banter going on!

Myself and Neil were the only ones that made it into Nichome to spend a few hours in Arty's. It was very different to the other nite, very quiet indeed. Normally they have an all you can drink for 1000¥ 7-9 but due to energy saving they opened late so it didn't attract everyone in.

We kind of had our own dance floor all nite and put in lots of requests for the usual songs. People came and left but we mainly chatted to the bar staff and left at closing time 3am.

Walked down to Sukiya to pick up a burger and rice curry meal, then walked back in the daylight, after 5 we decided to catch a cab on cheap rates. Then our amazing and very full day was over. Awesomeness all round :)))

Location:Narita

Day 9: Odaiba

Whoa! A big shake woke me up with a start at 11:30 ish. It was pretty short but certainly the most violent I have experienced out here. I am staying in the corner room of the flat so I had two sets of windows that were rattling away. It was fairly scary but before I had chance to think about it too much it had finished. Why is it that I'm nearly always in bed when quakes hit. Nothing to do with spending the mornings in bed due to jet lag / late nights! Promise!

I actually managed to get back to sleep and we had a very lazy afternoon chilling and generally recovering from last nite.

In the evening we went to Odaiba a part of the city built on reclaimed land. It has a beach and great views over Tokyo bay.




Basically we had a laid back evening. We played on the amusements, had a lovely Thai meal then walked along the beach taking in the stunning views. Just what the doctor ordered.

Location:Tokyo

Day 8: Ueno, Akihabara & More

Today involved a lot of walking, with hindsight the pair of converses I had on were not up to the job!

We started by heading to Yasukuni to visit one of the most important and politically controversial shrines in Tokyo. The issue is remembrance area has all the names of the fallen solders from the wars but over time some of the named have been convicted of war crimes so other affected countries want the names removed.

On the way to the shrine we found a beautiful little park called Kitanomaru Park which we explored and typically found Japanese celebrating (the very last bits) of himanmi. We stumbled across a massive line of people being controlled by men with megaphones. The temptation, being British, was to join the queue but we resisted and explored the source of the line. There was a concert being held at a music venue next to the park for someone called "Yukari Tamura" who as best as we could figure out from asking round and checking Karaoke songs is a very famous Anime singer who geeks like! The queue was 99.5% guys and none of them looked cool in the slightest way. They seemed to get great delight in picking up pink hoodies and fluffy hand puppets, and to be honest we don't think she's a gay icon in any way




The shrine we visited was actually quite plain so we didn't spend long there. We made our way to the site of the Tokyo Sky Tree after stopping off for a very tasty meal of miso, katsu, pumpkin, salad and a lush iced coffee :)

The Tokyo Sky Tree isn't a tree, it's actually a rather large TV mast. It's a replacement to to the Tokyo Tower which I went up last time and serves analogue TV signals to the population of the city. In order to broadcast digital TV to Tokyo they needed a much larger tower. The tower is still being constructed, we thought that we may be able to get up to the observation deck but the tower isn't open until next year, even then it's booked out for 6 months. Oh well, not the worlds greatest fan of hights so not too bothered but I'm sure we would have gotten great pics! It's 643 meters tall and will be the second largest thing in the world (I think)




After the tower we arranged to meet Neils friend Dusty in Akihabara and we walked around all the geeky tech shops and some of the slightly more smutty retail outlets in the area!

Yoko joined us and we walked through to Ueno. This had a more more Market style feeling, similar to Camden. We grabbed a quick kebab and explored the shops.




After that we went to Shinjuku and met up with Kenji. With it now being Friday night in central Tokyo we tried a few restaurants before we came across one which had space for us. It was a western izakaya aufuu style restaurant similar to eating tapas we ordered lots of small yummy dishes and washed them down with a few cold beers :)

After food we headed to Golden Gai, to our favourite little Karaoke bar again, Champions. Lisa and Jules joined us and the bar got very busy. A much more lively atmosphere than the other nite as the small place was always crowded. We made friends with a few salary men again and made use of the 500¥ strong black russians!

Once we'd sung our hearts out the three gays moved on to Arty's club for more drinking and dancing. The place was pretty busy and had a great atmosphere. It was Kenji's first time in a gay bar, he seemed to have a great time! No matter where you are in the world whenever a Lady Gaga track comes on the atmosphere will go mental, and it went berserk! Even more so than when Kylie, Madonna, or Rhiana were on!

Had a fantastic day / night and it ended with eating beef curry from Matsuya :)

Result!

Location:Tokyo

Day 6: Yoyogi Park

Woken up by another quake, nothing major.

The plan today was to head to Yoyogi park to enjoy the sun and get drunk under the Sakura. We picked up supplies, a box of red wine and many sandwiches, snacks and rice sets, made our way to the park and eventually located Donna and Lisa sat next to a bunch of guys playing football.

Japanese kids are so cute, a couple of women with their kids were next to us having a picnic and messing around. Adorable!




There appeared to be a bizarre random sex cult practicing some form of yoga / capoera type thing next to us. It was slightly freaky, it looked like there was a cult leader who was an aged and slightly portly American hippy looking guy directing people into locking poses with each other.




We had fun chatting and getting drunk, Donna had to leave late afternoon but was then replaced with Lisas partner Jules and hour later.

We stayed on the park way past sundown until all the booze had been drunken then we headed into an area of Shinjuku called Golden Gai (golden area) which is a very old part of the city mainly constructed of two storey wooden buildings. They all appear to be bars / restaurants, this area is in danger from developers as they want to pull it all down and build high rise apartments and offices.

We went to Champions bar, a quaint little Karaoke Bar. Drinks were cheap and for it's size there were a good mix of people in there, Japanese business men, tourists and us lot. It was only 100¥ to sing a track Lisa and Jules did plenty of Oasis and Stereophonics style tunes, I did some meatloaf and of course Tinnie Tempah whilst Neil started camp with Barbara Streisand and Kylie but then moved onto famous Japanese pop songs. This made him an instant hero with the Japanese business men.

Location:Tokyo

Day 5: Oji & Namjatown

A few more shakes during the night! Got woken up at 8:00 by a strong M4. We also had another slightly less strong quake whilst eating lunch ironically enough whilst talking about them. It seems that the poor folks at Fukushima are getting a lot of strong ones (M6's) on land right now relentlessly hitting them all day. That's gotta be tough.

We had lunch at a Yaki Niku place. A meal set menu where you grill your own raw meat at the table and create ur own sauces to go with it. I love this way of eating as much as I like tapas. It's so laid back and you can order the meats you want and cook them exactly to your taste. It was all excellent value (considering the rubbish exchange rate) of about a tenner!















After lunch we set out to Oji park to meet up with Yoko who I met on Sundays lunch. There were two beautiful areas of Sakura, one set around a river and another on an nice high piece of parkland.















Namjatown is a bizarre little place, it seems to be centred around different types of food and computer games. It's like all the rubbish bits of Alton Towers before you reach the good rides all conveniently stored under one roof and charged an admission for.

Our first stop in here was ice-cream city, famous from the recent JLC documentary of Japan it's an area where many different types of ice-cream are brought together in one place, some genius and the rest pure disgusting. Examples like, seaweed, chilli, sweet potato, squid ink, soy bean, tomato etc
There were three of us so we each chose a flavour that had the potential to be either disgusting or brilliant. The choices in order of best tasting were:
Double cheese: Very nice, more of the taste of cream cheese than the one of mature cheddar I was expecting but obviously with it being another fairly product it worked really well.
Chicken: The initial taste was good and the first few spoons tasted OK, it was the little chances of actual chicken getting lodged in-between my teeth that was off-putting.
Garlic: The worse by a long way, nothing good to report here. Garlic after taste but actual tasting experience of socks or as Neil 'bad socks'







After that we sauntered round more Namjatown weirdness and stumbled on the Gyoza city, similar concept to the ice-cream city but based on Gyoza. We only chose nice ones here and were suitably impressed!

On the way back myself and Neil decided to grab a quick drink at the 'Hub'. It turns out the quick drink didn't happen. So its official, my limit of Long Island Iced Teas server from pint glasses (on an empty stomach) is 3!







These are beautiful drinks with an immense amount of alcohol in them. The bar was quiet but we managed to befriend the couple next to us on their first date who despite the interruption bought us a round of drinks. Even if the drink was to get rid of us we continued chatting but becoming more raucous.

To shorten the story we both got absolutely ratted and had an elongated journey home via every road in Ikebukuro, a few falling down in bushes, and a long hunt for a lost glasses lens!

Location:Tokyo

Day 4: Hanami Tokyo

So today stated with my first earthquake at about 6:30, it was about a magnitude 4 where we were, it wasn't very big but was an interesting way to be woken from a zopilcone induced sleep. I'll reserve judgment until the next one happens when I'll be more alert.

Today we went on the hunt for Sakura, cherry blossom. We found a beautiful street along the river backs, plenty of opportunities for photos and a good reason to stroll around Tokyo.

We stumbled across a children's football game. It seems the preferred method of playing football at this age is to all bunch around the ball and follow it round the pitch! All very cute :)







The heavens opened and we sought cover in a local restaurant. The second noticeable quake of the day happened at about 17:30, a magnitude 6 on land at Fukushima. It was longer than this mornings a much stronger, probably a M4 where we were. We were in a restaurant, it was at the point where some people were heading under tables for cover but it soon calmed down. It took a while to settle tho and small shakes were felt for a while afterwards.

Once we'd finished our food the weather had cleared so we picked up the Sakura trail again. This soon finished so time to head back to Ikuburo

My first experience of rush our train traffic. Not to different to rush hour central line but the reversing onto the train manoeuvre was my favourite and not one I shall be taking back to London.

We ended up in Sunshine City, a typical retail / shopping complex on the lower levels and some nice restaurants on the 59/69th floor. We popped up for cocktails and nibbles

I also encounter 'Donkey Haughty' a manic and truly bizarre retail experience. There is no order, things just exist in a shop. Trainers next to tinned sweetcorn, next to adult material, next to instant mash.. Go figure!

Sign of the day:

Location:Tokyo

Day 3: Sunday roast welcome party

Woke a about 15:30 with a stonking headache. No time to moan though as we were woken by the first hose guest to arrive, Yoko. She arrived with meatball sandwiches which became our breakfast helping to fule The re-arranging of the flat.

A quick shower and a trip to the supermarket later and everyone was ready, more people started to arrive and the party got into swing.

It was a good way to meet everyone and Neil severed up a cracking Sunday lunch :)

Can't remember much else, but had a good laugh!

Location:Tokyo

Day 2: Ikebukuro & Karaoke

So it turns out my lovely phone doesn't work in Japan, just displays no service. No calls, no texts and no data. This is probably for the best to avoid massive data charges but means I won't be able to upload the blog too often. Unless I find a local wireless hotspot.

Luckily Neil was waiting for me at the re-arranged time of 15:30 at Narita arrivals so after saying our hellos we caught up on the train journey back into Tokyo.

Neil has moved since I was here last from Shinjuku to Ikebukuro so I was shown the best way from the station to his flat in case I got lost at some point (highly likely) then we met Neils boyfriend Kenji and hung out at Neils flat for while.

Food that evening was Okonomiyake, you decide what you want and presented with the ingredients in a big bowl for you to cook on the hotplate in front of you. The food is almost like an omelette but more ingredients, less egg. Very tasty stuff, and a great way to eat.

There is an English themed pub (I know) called The Hub which sells gorgeous long island iced teas from pint glasses. Very strong and very tasty :)

After failing price negotiations at one of the upper market karaoke venues we popped into the offy to pick up some vodka to smuggle into one of the less salubrious ones.

Once in our room Neil kicked things off with a bit of Kylie. Luckily for everyone else my search for 'Adele' failed so I went straight in for the kill searching for Meatloaf, 'it's all coming back to me now'. I was gutted when that returned no results :( but on the song search I found a version by Celine Deon that I managed to belt out :) just like the combat cool down in Wycombe!

Funnily enough we were getting very drunk! I excitedly put some 'written in the stars' on and got a little carried away in the moment, I created a mini stage and ripped my t-shirt off!

Don't remember too much else. I was drunk!

Location:Tokyo

Day 1: The Journey

So, not off to a great start!

Yesterdays magnitude 7 earthquake in Japan has meant Virgin saw fit to cancel today's flight. Faced with the choice of waiting 5 hours to jump on a different airline (and in economy) or waiting for the equivalent virgin flight tomorrow I decided to wait the few hours.

Good news is I got a £10 food voucher! A toasted sandwich, 2 muffins and a very large latte, these were my company as I trawled through all the Olympic events deciding which ones I want to go see. It turned out to be a very productive 90 mins, but I hope to god I'm not successful in all my applications as it came to £600.

Bored with the pre-security side of T3 I treated myself to a visit to the new T5 for a change of scenery :) It's all very nice, got a little freaked out by all the EMC advertising but wasn't really able to see much of the terminal or go shopping until passing security so reverted back.




Back to T3 and I was first in line to check in for the Nippon Airways flight, good news as it meant I got an exit seat!




To be fair, the flight was OK, I had my extra leg room and handily there was a USB socket so I could at least charge my iPhone. The food was OK, I didn't enjoy it as much as I normally do because I was on the exit seats the stupid mega fold away table wasn't all that secure so peeling back all the exciting parcels of food didn't carry the same 'christmas' feeling when you're worried about sending ur fruits flying down the aisle.

Location:LHR